I would like to call this meeting of 10/16/2025 to order. Roll call, please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Here. Miss Kenworthy. Here. Miss Parker. Here. Miss Reed. Here. Here. Doctor Varda? Here. I'd like to welcome everyone for participating in tonight's meeting. Whether you're in our live audience, joining us virtually, or serving as one of our valued presenters or participants, we're glad you're here. A special thank you to our live simultaneous Spanish interpreters for joining us this evening as well. Please note that we are also live streaming this event.
I'd like to point out that, director Reed is dealing with some vertigo right now, and her movements are restricted. So, she will be sitting sitting like this. Would you all please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In consideration of the amount of public comment that will be shared this evening, the
board has the option agenda by requesting that monitoring reports one point three and two point one be moved to a different meeting, and we can discuss whether we want to do that. Is there a motion to amend today's meeting agenda by requesting that monitoring reports one point three and two point one be moved to a different meeting, and we can discuss whether we want to do that. Is there a motion to amend today's meeting agenda by requesting that monitoring reports one point three and two point one be moved to I move to amend today's meeting agenda by requesting that monitoring reports one point three and two point one be moved to a different meeting. Is there a second?
Second. Is there any discussion? I know we discussed this, but I do think we've had a lot of business that's been kind of on hold. And so I would ask us to consider getting these done tonight, so that we can move forward with business for the remainder of the semester. I agree with that also. We need to make sure that we're staying somewhat up to date on the work in front of us. I also, think that, having our presenters present, it won't be too late for them.
We will have additional business after that, so, I'm inclined to leave them those two agenda items in as well. Okay. If there's no more discussion, roll call please. Miss Harper? Miss Applegate? No. Miss Kenworthy? No. Miss Parker? No. Miss Reed? No. Doctor Varda. No. I would make another motion then, President Parker, to approve today's meeting agenda as presented in BoardDocs originally. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to, approve the meeting agenda as presented. Roll call, please, miss Harper.
Miss Applegate? Yes. Miss Kenworthy? Yes. Miss Parker? Yes. Miss Reed? Yes. Doctor Varda? Yes. Okay. The agenda is approved. And also to let you know that we will be taking a ten minute break at approximately 07:10 this evening, but it does depend on how long the, public comments go. On 10/08/2025, the board held a study session that included the following topics: the district unified improvement plan and school priority improvement plan, and an update on the budget reduction
blueprint, and an update on charter schools off cycle district waivers. I encourage you to watch the recording of that session to learn more about these topics. You can also visit our board page on the GEFCO Public Schools website, where you'll find a host of information and links to both board docs and our livestream platforms. Given the anticipated public comment this evening, the honors and recognitions for September and October will be highlighted in a special edition of the next Public GEFCO Public Schools is
recognizing the following. Public GEFCO Public Schools is recognizing the following, National Back to School Month, which was in August, National Arts and Education Week, which was September '13. Alopecia Awareness Month, which was September. International Literacy Day on September 8. National Attendance Awareness Month, which was September. National Suicide Prevention Awareness Week, which was September 2025.
National Hispanic Heritage Month, which was September. National Principles Month, which is October, Dyslexia Awareness Month, also October, National Bullying Prevention Month, October, National Fire Prevention Week, October, Indigenous People's Day, October 13, National School Lunch Week, October '17, National Safe Schools Week, October '25, National School Bus Safety Week, October '24.
These items, two point o one through 2.15, are presented in board docs as proposed proclamations for the month months of oct August, September, and October. Do I have a motion regarding the approval of the proclamations? I move to approve items 2.01 through 2.15 on the proclamation section published in board docs. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the proclamations as presented in board docs. Roll call please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Yes. Miss Kenworthy. Yes. Miss Parker. Yes. Miss Reed.
Yes. Doctor Varda? Yes. Next, we will move to public comment. This evening, we have more than 20 members of that public signed up for public comment. Board policy GP 17 provides that when we have 20 or more speakers signed up, the speaking time is reduced to two minutes per speaker and five minutes per group. As a board, we feel it's important to allow the community to speak and share their concerns. Therefore, I'd like to propose a motion to waive that language in board policy g p 17 and use the time limit set by policy for one to 19 speakers,
which is three minutes per speaker and ten minutes per group. Do I have a motion to waive the two minute and five minute time limits under GP 17 and allow each speaker three minutes and each group ten minutes? I move to waive the public comment time limit in GP 17 and allow each speaker three minutes and each group ten minutes. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve waiving board policy GP 17 and allow each speaker three minutes and each group ten minutes for public comment. Roll call please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate?
Yes. Miss Kenworthy? Yes. Miss Parker? Yes. Miss Reid? Yes. Doctor Varda? Yes. I'd also like to say in GP 17, there are guidelines, about the proper decor here, and it is requested that there be no applause or dissent during the public comments. And before we get into the public comments, we would like to acknowledge that Evergreen High School and the Evergreen community have been through an extraordinarily difficult experience. The feelings of fear, uncertainty, and even frustration that many families have shared are real
and deeply valid. Tonight's public comments may include topics that are personal or may be sensitive, and it could be activating for some members of our community. Please take care of yourself during this portion of the meeting and step out if you need a break. We have mental health support staff available tonight if you need someone to talk to. To access the support staff, please see a staff member positioned by the sign outside the boardroom and our overflow room on the Fourth Floor. We ask everyone to help maintain an environment rooted in respect, kindness, and compassion.
Please understand that people may have different feelings or reactions to the tragedy, and the ways that they need to heal may be different than yours. All are valid and welcome. We kindly ask all speakers, please communicate with consideration for others and their privacy. Avoid personal attacks, raise voices or language that could cause additional harm, allow others the opportunity to share their perspectives without interruption or the need to defend how they are feeling. Our goal this evening is to listen first and to work together toward healing, understanding,
and solutions that support our students, families, and staff. Thank you for helping to make this a space where all voices can be heard safely and respectfully. Each speaker for public comment has been given a number, and the board will invite you to come up in that order. When the person before you completes their comments, you may step up to the podium. For those who are sitting in the overflow space, as your number gets closer plea to being called, please make your way to the boardroom. Please remember that during public comment, the board does not engage in discussion with or respond to individuals.
I'd also like to say, that the board and superintendent are aware that we have several people signed up tonight to comment about SRO and safety supports for our charter schools. We want everyone in GEFCO to know that the board and the superintendent are 100% supportive of our charter schools being part of our safety program, including the SRO program that is run and managed by our municipal and county law enforcement agencies. For any school community who has been told that SROs are no longer supporting their schools, we want you to know that we are actively working with those law enforcement agencies and will be sending a we'll Okay, we are now ready for public comments,
so will, the guest with number one please make your way to the podium. Welcome. Please introduce yourselves, and you have ten minutes. I'm Chris Harrington. I'm donating my time to George. Dusty Harrington donating my time to George. Joe Wagner, and I'm giving my time to George. Butch Luederman, giving my time to George. Good evening, members of Jefferson County Public School Board. My name is George Momma. And for over forty five years, I've served as a law enforcement officer in this very community, patrolling these streets, responding to calls that tested the limits of human resilience,
and, yes, standing shoulder to shoulder with first responders on these unimaginable days in April 1999, Columbine High School, and again on 05/16/2016, Deer Creek Middle School. These weren't just a tragedy. It was a scar on our collective soul, right here in Jefferson County. As a father, a grandfather, and now a retiree who still wakes up thinking about the what ifs, I've come before you tonight not as a critic but as a witness. A witness to the lives lost, the families shattered, and the urgent need to act.
Tonight, I urge you to fortify our schools with a layered defense, dedicated school resource officers, school district security, and strategically armed individuals. Because in the face of rising threats, passivity is not an option. It's a betrayal of our children. Let's confront the harsh reality head on. Since Columbine, where two gunmen murdered 12 students and one teacher wounding 24 others, and Deer Creek, where a mentally ill man armed with a hunting rifle shot two eighth
grade students in our own backyard, school violence has exploded across America. The numbers are staggering. Over 428 school shootings since that day, claiming at least 216 young lives and injuring nearly 500 more. These aren't abstract statistics. They're classrooms turned into crime scenes, playgrounds stained with blood. Just weeks ago in September 2025, Evergreen High School, another Jefferson County gem joined this grim ledger when a school shooter wounded two students in a hallway ambush.
That's our thirteenth school shooting in Colorado since Columbine, a state forever altered by that first echo of gunfire. The timeline is a relentless march of sorrow. 02/2007, Virginia Tech, thirty two dead, deadliest in school history. Sandy Hook, 2012, twenty first graders and six educators gunned down in minutes. Parkland, Florida, 2018, 17 souls lost, including students who begged for a change that too often fell on deaf ears. Uvalde, Texas, 22, 19 children, two teachers barricaded while help hesitated outside.
And this year alone in 2025, we've seen over 50 incidents nationwide. From Michigan's Oxford High to the fresh wounds in Georgia and California. In Jefferson County, Columbine was supposed to be our wake up call. Yet here we are, twenty six years later, with Evergreen reminding us that threats don't retire. They evolve. Our kids aren't safe by accident. They're vulnerable by neglect. And every day and we delay, etches another name into this ledger. Post Columbine, we sat together. I was on those boards and we agreed that we would not allow these events
to happen again. We created a juvenile assessment center to help us determine through threat assessments who our most dangerous students were. We detained students who were in possession of handguns. We worked together, and even though there had been recommendations to put SROs in every school and train qualified individuals to be in our schools armed, Sadly, the assessment center is seldom used. And there are no consequences for bad behavior. And only the rural school districts have engaged the training of armed individuals in their
schools. But we are not powerless. As someone who has faced down armed suspects and coordinated responses that save lives, I know prevention isn't about walls or wishes. It's about people prepared and positioned. First, let's talk school resource officers or SROs. These aren't just badges in the building. They're guardians who deter, detect and deescalate. Studies show SROs slash fights and threats by about 30% and boost firearm detections by 150%.
That's not theory, that's lives preserved. In middle schools, their presence correlates with fewer serious violent incidents, fostering trust through mentoring and education. Sure, the data's mixed. Some reports note that no slam dunk prevention in mass shootings has happened because of it, and risks are over disciplining vulnerable kids. But in Jefferson County, where we've piloted SRO programs, they've built bridges. Officers counseling at risk youth, spotting red flags before they flare. Imagine one at every high school, middle school and elementary school.
A visible shield that says, not on my watch. We've seen it work in districts like ours. Expand it now before the next headline bears our name again. Layer on armed security strategically deployed. I'm not talking militarization or fortresses. I'm talking trained professionals who provide that critical first response. Armed individuals deter 70% of potential attackers through sheer presence. According to security analysis, offering immediate neutralization when seconds count. In schools with them, parents report higher confidence.
Up to 80% feel safer knowing experts stand ready. Critics point to costs and escalation fears. And yes, in 2023, a study found that no drop in fatalities from armed individuals alone. But pair them with SROs, school district security, and amplify the impact. Post Evergreen, communities are clamoring for this hybrid. It's not paranoia, it's prudence. For Jefferson County, start with vetted de escalation trained officers at our largest sites. The investment? Pennies compared to the price of inaction.
And none of this stands without trained staff. Jefferson County is blessed to have many qualified retired military and law enforcement officers who stand ready to answer the call. And many of our houses of worship already have trained security details protecting their congregations. These are trained individuals with concealed carry permits who have attended extensive training and in many instances qualify more often than our local law enforcement. Faster Colorado currently trains many rural school staff for carrying firearms, and other training companies
are doing the same. I know that at least one of you sitting up there on the board has a permit to carry. Why do you have that? To protect your children and your family. Today in Jefferson County, you tell parents that our children are our greatest asset, yet we protect our administration building better than we protect our schools. There are armed officers in this room and at the front door. Board members, I've stared down the evil in the line of duty, but nothing haunts me more like knowing we could have done more. Columbine taught us vigilance.
Evergreen screams action. Tonight, I implore you to authorize an armed individual pilot program at at your mountain schools. This isn't about politics or budgets. It's about promise. The promise that when a child boards a bus in Conifer Evergreen, they return home whole. Jefferson County, we've grieved enough. Let's lead instead. Let's make our schools sanctuaries again, not by chance, but by choice. Be courageous for a change. Less about protecting yourselves, but truly protecting your greatest assets, the children in your care.
Thank you. Thank you. Whoever has number two? Welcome. Please introduce yourself and you have three minutes. Sure. I'm Kim Halligan, and I am a resident of Evergreen, Colorado. I'm speaking on behalf of Parents for School Safety in Evergreen. Good evening. My name is Kim Halligan, and I am a mother of three children. My oldest is a freshman at Evergreen High School. Then my other children will soon follow. I am here tonight representing a growing group of Evergreen parents who feel that our voices are not being heard.
Sorry. As parents, as they said, our most important job is to protect our children and right now what we're doing is not working. The recent tragedy at Evergreen High School has reminded us in the most painful way possible that school shootings are not distant events. They're here. They're in our communities. We cannot undo what what what has happened, but we can and we must decide what happens next. We believe the root cause of school shootings begins ever before the gun is fired. It's isolation, radicalization, and the quiet mental health struggles that so many of our young people face alone.
We must ask ourselves the tough question of what would make a child feel that violence is their only option. Our response must be rooted in connection and in compassion. Every student in our school deserves to be seen, heard, and valued. This means creating safe spaces for difficult conversations and leading those conversations with empathy rather than judgment. Our priority is to strengthen and expand social emotional learning programs across all grade levels. We know that our elementary schools are already using SEL effectively. These programs teach emotional resilience, empathy, and conflict resolution.
These skills save lives. We will work to ensure that the programs are implemented consistently and effectively in ever every evergreen school. Our second goal is equally urgent, to protect our students and restore their sense of safety so that learning can truly happen. We understand that the mill levy will appear on the 2026 ballot to fund school safety across Jefferson County. But the truth is the next tragedy could very well happen tomorrow. Our children cannot wait for 2026. That is why Evergreen in our community or we are working to to towards local
solutions to protect our students now. We must develop plans. We need communication and partnership from forums like this board. Recently, a Jefferson County sheriff's statement about the EHS shooting suggested that the presence of an SRO would not have changed the outcome. We respectfully disagree. The role of an SRO is is not just to respond in crisis. It is to build relationships, connections with students, to notice when something isn't right, and to deter violence through trust and presence. We cannot minimize the importance of having these trained, compassionate SROs in our schools any
longer. This is a movement and a moment that we need to come together as a community to listen, to learn, and lead with empathy because lasting change starts here. It starts in these rooms with our schools and in our communities. The protection of our children is not a partisan issue. I am almost done. It is our shared responsibility as parents, educators, law enforcement, and neighbors. We have to keep our children safe, and it starts now with us choosing action over fear, collaboration over blame, and compassion over division. As a high school evergreen mom for the next eight years, I am committed to
doing everything I can to help see real change. We owe it to the victims, and we owe it to our children. Thank you. Number three. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. My name is Matt Thompson. I'm the resident of Evergreen and the father of a student at the deprioritized Evergreen High School. I speak tonight of my own frustrations with the district's response to the events of 09/10/2025. My hope is that my comments will prompt the district to stop hearing our community and actually listen so that together, we can do better.
On Wednesday the tenth, a trust was broken between my daughter and I, an unspoken understanding that had been in place in the first day we dropped her off at kindergarten. You know, the fact that when she went to school, she would be safe. That shattered promise is not easily fixed, and the district's response has not put me in a place where I can look my child in the eye and confidently tell her that she is in a safe place at Evergreen High School. The lack of visible leadership from the district office is a disservice to our community
and the entire Jeffco School District as we try to move forward. Your leadership is underwhelming and disjointed. Children were shot. Lives were changed on the tenth. You cannot lead through a trauma like that with emails and surveys. It is about being present. Good leaders are visible, accessible, and actively engaged. Thus far, we've been offered only platitudes and empty promises. There has been no available engage availability, engagement, or empathy on a personal level from anybody at the district office. In the hours that after the tragic events that changed our lives, I can understand
if the initial response that, you know, felt a little scattered. However, in the days and weeks since the shooting, I expected better. I look for community discussions with district leadership where all the parents and students could participate in rebuilding the trust in a personal way, but instead, we get to check our email boxes. Yes. You've spoken with a subset of our Cougar family, but you've not been available to all of us. Under these circumstances, I think it would be appropriate that each family and student has a voice of their own.
While collectively we are strong, we are all in different places in terms of processing moving forward. My feeling is that the school district is adrift. There's no sense of urgency with attempting to restore confidence, outline a true path to healing for our community, or to get our students and staff back into a constructive learning environment. On the heels of the reported threats of October 6, a good measure of how poorly we are rebuilding trust was that only half of our students attended school that day. Another measure that reflects the broken trust and poor efforts to restore faith are that
nine students have elected not to return to our school. I've also spoken with additional families that are still considering removing their students from the Cougar family. I support every family's individual choice with how they move forward. That decision's not an easy one. I'm thankful for the safety measures that we have put in place to return our kids to school, but that is only a physical aspect of regaining trust. The real path forward is for the district to lean in, be present, listen, answer questions, and truly be transparent.
I want to get to a place where I can look my daughter confidently in the eye and tell her that she will be safe when she walks through the doors of her schools. Help me get there. Thank you. Thank you. Number four. Welcome. Please introduce yourselves, then you have ten minutes. Thank you. My name is Colby Drexel. I'm the group organizer. And with me are my two sons, Owen and Everett. They attend GEFCO Schools. Hi. I'm, Dan Finley. I have two sons at Evergreen High School. Aaron Finley. I have two sons at Evergreen High School. Miss Applegate, these are, copies of the record for you since you're a new board
member. My name is Colby Drexel. I'm a resident of Lakewood, and my two children, Owen and Everett, attend GEFCO Schools. I've made this same request to the school board at five different times regarding school safety since April 2023. Please educate via email all school district employees and parents of children enrolled in GEFCO Schools about Colorado State statute eighteen twelve to 14. Invite those voluntarily willing to lawfully carry a concealed firearm on school property, which includes very rigorous training to protect our children. The school board has used their email distribution lists and social media platforms to circulate
statutes pertaining to an overall firearm disarmament agenda and or those of gun control laws. In the spirit of academics, you have a professional and ethical obligation to share information equally without prejudice. To date, you have only provided a very narrow view of the options to protect our children. State law enables teachers, administrators, administrators, and other school employees to stop school violence quickly and administer medical aid immediately. The law is not intended as a replacement for police, SROs, and EMTs.
And instead, it enables on-site personnel to save lives through prompt action. There is no doubt an armed teacher or administrator at Evergreen High School would have played an integral role in neutralizing that situation much faster than the realized response time with your current protocols which failed. We are falsely told we cannot and should not defend ourselves. Schools are soft and easy targets because poor legislation made it so. Colorado statutes you circulate propagates endless misinformation. Our children are not more safe. To the contrary, this latest event at Evergreen High School sadly emphasizes the need for
voluntary voluntary, and I'll be clear about that, voluntary responsibly armed faculty and administrators. Thank you for the privilege of addressing you this evening. Hi. My name is Dan Finley. And, on September 10, both my sons were present at Evergreen High School. Since then, my son and I have walked the path of the shooting, which is over 445 yards long, and that's over a quarter of a mile. It lasted nine seconds. Nine minutes. Sorry. This is an eternity for the victims involved and should never have lasted for such a distance or time.
Last week while talking to a GEFCO sheriff, I asked him how to stop a suicidal armed person and his response was with a bullet. This is a reality that we have to live with today. Colby has just outlined a current solution that Colorado law already has, in place and everywhere that has implemented it has a 100% success rate. I'm an airline family. Twenty four years ago on 09/11/2001, suicidal terrorists attacked our country. And one year later, the Department of Homeland Security enacted a similar voluntary program for airline flight crew members, to be armed and has had a 100% success rate since
then. These volunteer programs work. There's no denying that. Can you imagine if the height if the Evergreen High School shooting only lasted a couple feet or a couple seconds because an armed staff member stopped the shooter? I know of two young boys that sure would have really appreciated that. School shootings are an unpredictable event, and we have to stop relying on outside help to save staff and students. Colorado law allows us to protect our kids and staff with armed volunteers. The law exists. The training exists. The funding exists.
You guys are our last roadblock to enact this. We need this voluntary program to protect our most valuable assets, which is our staff and kids. Thank you. Thank you. Number five. Welcome. Please tell us your name and you have three minutes. Yeah. Thank you. My name is John Castillo. I'm actually from Douglas County. I'm here to talk about school safety because domestic terror doesn't have borders. We lost our son, Kendra Castillo, in 05/07/2019 in the STEM school shooting when he
rushed and tried to stop the shooter in Room 107 in the STEM school. Fast forward six years to September 10 in Evergreen, And I looked down at my phone when I was eating lunch and I saw that the shooting was taking place. It was eerily familiar to me, But it didn't stop there. And as time went on and I went home and I hugged my wife and
we couldn't believe what we were seeing, the response that came out was also very similar, very disheartening. And here we were again a mere six years later. And I'm here tonight to talk about the things that we can do and how we're failing our kids. I think we've heard a lot of great ideas tonight about having layers of security. I'm not opposed to having armed staff that's well trained, that are trained in things like stop the bleed, that can save lives when these events take place, but also
be a fortress and eliminate these soft targets that our educators and our kids are in. I can't imagine what it's like to be an educator in today's world where you show up to work and when a door slams or a book drops, you're wondering if it's the next shooting. I share that with you because these are realities. Those are the words from the teacher that was in Classroom 107 one year after the shooting where she was taunted by kids playing jokes and things like that.
This is a serious issue. We need to address it. We need to fund it. When I hear things like money is an issue, we need to have mill levies, we need to raise taxes for SROs. You know, we have declining enrollments, we have vacant buildings, and we have assets that we could lease, that we can sell to pay for security. We need to do that. I find it ironic that law enforcement agencies all the way in New Jersey have reached out to my wife and I and they're training dogs that smell guns that are gonna be in New Jersey schools. But here in Colorado, you know, we're so sorry for your loss, John and Maria.
Maybe we can honor your son somehow. But what are we doing for other kids? What are we doing for our educators? We we have to be bold, courageous, do the right thing. We need people who are on this board to show up and go down and legislate for laws and things that are gonna protect kids. I just wanna close with saying this. You know? Those two boys that are in the hospital that did what Kendrick did, I hope that they have a great recovery and they live a full life. But the reality is we know that the struggle for their families in this community
will last for years. Let's do better. Thank you. Thank you. Number six. Welcome. Please introduce yourselves. Good evening, President Parker and members of the board. My name is Diane Hoffman, principal of Hutchinson Elementary and president of Jefferson County Administrators Association. Tonight, we want to speak to you about three things, our support for Evergreen High School, its leadership, staff, and community our belief in the healing work happening at EHS and our appreciation for this Board of Education. First, a word about where healing comes from.
Real healing for students happens at school with their peers and trusted educators, one classroom at a time, one child at a time. It must be facilitated and guided by Evergreen High School staff who know their students and their needs. That work is being orchestrated by principal Skyler Artis and community superintendent Tom Burns with the full support of the district and I hope with the partnership of many in the community who stand ready to help. On behalf of JCAA, we want to applaud Principal Artist and Mr.
Burns. Their steady leadership, clear communication, and care for students and staff are leading the evergreen community toward healing. They have kept the focus where it belongs, on student safety, dignity, and well-being, and we stand with them. We also recognize and appreciate that the district is working earnestly to ensure Evergreen has what it needs what it needs, time, staffing, mental health supports and the operational flexibility that allows educators to do this sensitive work well. As a community, we have a unique responsibility right now to bring people together in
unity and to support the work happening at EHS. We encourage every person and organization that wants to help to partner directly with the school and its leadership rather than creating parallel efforts that, even with good intentions, can undermining undermine the healing process. And let me be clear. We must not allow this tragedy to be weaponized for other ends. The work is about our children, families, and educators, nothing else. I also want to thank our Board of Education members and our superintendent, Tracy Dorland,
for the support, each one of you have shown the Evergreen community in the wake of this tragedy. You have been present, thoughtful, and responsive. Please continue that support in the days and weeks ahead. Good evening, board members. My name is John DeStefano. I'm executive director of the Jefferson County Administrators Association. I wanna say first that it is with deep gratitude, we want to recognize directors Mary Parker, Daniel Varda, and Paula Reid as your four year terms come to a
close. As a former board member of this GEBCO Board of Education, I understand the firsthand the commitment of time, care, and work that it takes to serve as a volunteer board member and the sacrifice each of you have made. Thank you for your service, your time, your dedication, and your commitment to GEFCO students and staff. On a personal note, I remember in 1999 when I was president during Columbine, I
was president of the board of education. And sit where you sit now and heard the voices of our community. And it's hard work and there's no magic wand or prescription that will fix it. But I know that together with our communities, you will all make this better. I'm grateful that Aaron and, Michelle will be back to help lead us through this
and, with our superintendent. God bless all of you and, we are all evergreen. Thank you. Thank you. Number seven. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. You have three minutes. My name is Adam Shore, and I live in Golden. I've got a first grader at the Compass Montessori School in Golden. You've already addressed the fact that you're looking at the SRO issue, but I was informed recently that our campus in particular no longer has an SRO, that visits the
school. And I implore you all to fix that as quickly as you can. I dug through the meeting minutes, and I can find from the June meeting that you all signed a contract, the IGA contract, between Jefferson County r one school district and the city of Arvada on behalf of the Arvada Police Department for the school resource officer program. I did find I had the opportunity to chat with Mary briefly in the elevator. I did find at the top of page three, it says, SROs will not be assigned to charter schools in the district under the terms of this agreement.
Nothing herein will be construed to preclude Arvada from otherwise agreeing to provide SROs to charter schools or other schools located in the city of Arvada as determined by Arvada. So my request is that you all rectify that. I think as justified by a lot of the comments that you've heard already, school safety is imperative. And I had a brief conversation with one of the officers downstairs. I just asked him offhand, you know, how important in your opinion are these SROs? And singular, one word answer, very.
So, again, please fix this, and thank you for your time. Thank you. Number eight. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Good evening, members of the Jefferson County School Board. My name is Jason Ellis, and I'm representing the school accountability committee for Compass Montessori. And I'm here today to express my deep concern about the removal of the SRO at our school, at specifically the Golden Campus. This change was implemented without notice, without consultation, without transparency, undermining the trust between families,
schools, and the district. SROs are more than law enforcement. Trained SORs have the unique ability to identify students in distress, build trust in families, and partner with school staff to address crises with empathy and skill. These deescalation training prevents harm, while in untrained law enforcement responses can have unintentional escalate escalations to situations. Their continuous presence builds trust, detours violence, supports emergency preparedness, and fosters positive relationship between
students and law enforcement. When safety and security issues arise, these trusted relationships guide students and staff to a positive and secure outcome. They don't just respond to incidences. They prevent them building a culture of safety and connection. Recent data from the Colorado attorney general's office shows that the Safe two Tell program received over 23,500 reports last year. That's a 15% increase from the previous year. In March alone, nearly 19% of the reports were about school safety, followed closely by
bullying and mental health concerns. Colorado ranks forty sixth in the nation for safety at schools. As a parent, this is very alarming numbers. During the tragic event at Evergreen High School shooting in September, the school's SRO was off-site. This tragic this tragic timing highlights how critical, consistent, trained, on-site safety personnel are and how gaps in an SOR coverage can have devastating consequences. For a moment, as a parent, I experienced a heart freezing panic of of not
knowing where my child was. As I closed their notifications and the post began to ping on my phone, as the afternoon wore on, I kept thinking about the students of our district, the students of our school, and the lifelong impact this will have on our young people's lives. In the following days, we received heartfelt messages from the Jeff Jefferson County School Board stating their commitment to strengthening commitment we are experiencing.
The removal of the SRO at the Golden Campus is an action that decreases students and school safety and weakens students' trust within law enforcement at a time when we need we need them most. Charter students are public students. Our tax dollars follow our children to our school, and those funds must ensure the same safety standard as any district run school. We recognize the district faces budget pressures, but school safety is not an appropriate area for cost saving measures.
The safety of children should never depend on their school's governance model or funding category. I respectfully urge the board to reinstate the school resource officer to Compass Golden's campus and ensure future decisions are made with transparency and accountability, shared the rationale behind removing the SROs at the Golden Campus and other district school charters as specified in the intergovernmental intergovernmental agreement between Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the r one school district dated
07/01/2025, especially in light of the recent tragedy at Evergreen High School, provide clarification and reasoning on the lack of communication to Compass Montessori on the forthcoming removal of their SRO and the lack of response to multiple inquiries made to Compass by Compass Montessori from September to now that have still gone unanswered, develop a transparent plan for maintaining safety, including mental health and crisis response protocols.
Our students deserve a safe and supportive learning environment. Our community deserves a voice in decisions that affect them. Every child in Jefferson County deserves to feel safe at school, whether they attend a district run or charter campus. Safety should not be a privilege. It should be guaranteed. Thank you for your time and your immediate action on this matter. Thank you. Okay. We are gonna take a brief break at this moment. I know we are we have number nine in a minute, but it's just five minutes. Thank you. Okay. And we are back now, and we are on number nine, I believe.
Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Great. Thank you so much. Good evening, board members. My name is Jamie Joss from Evergreen, Colorado. I'm a long term resident of Jefferson County, a lawyer and policy adviser, and most importantly, a mother of two amazing humans that attend Evergreen High School. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. On 09/10/2025, 900 students and families' lives changed forever. 900 students learned that innocence is no longer a given. 900 students realized that their school is now one of the 53 school shootings in
America this year. And 900 students are now forced to process the shooting, yet be expected to immediately handle a new normal as they continue their education. This new normal has been plagued by a lack of accurate communication from the board and administration or no responsive communication at all when asked the hard questions, as well as the constantly changing directive of STAR students. I understand that you may believe that you're doing the best you can, but you can do better. Our community and students cannot be fixed in a month, and neither can the changes
needed. But what can happen is continued meaningful dialogue, responsiveness to direct asks, and direct planning for future long term changes. While surveys have been circulated and a public forum scheduled, there are real questions that still need to be answered. I put these on you this evening to consider. What will GEFCO and this board actually do with the information received from surveys and the nonparticipant forums? What is the timing on a response from the survey information on metal detectors? What resources already exist in schools that can be utilized to make additional meaningful changes?
Take school counselors, for example. In the one month since the shooting, my student's school counselor has not once reached out to check-in on their well-being or their safety concerns. Counselors should receive training to actually counsel during the aftermath of a shooting. What do you need to make meaningful change to make school safety happen? Do you need money? Ask your legislators and representatives under the dome to go to the state joint budget committee for a line item dedicated to funding your needs. The 2026 legislative session is the most likely time GEFCO would receive funding for any
new safety programs and incentives and initiatives. Do you need education on the issues? Bring in those educators and experts with skills and experience on the aftermath of of school shootings to determine what really works for long term changes. I respectfully request that you answer these hard and very uncomfortable questions in some fashion and continue to focus on Evergreen High School as a priority topic on this board. While new topics and issues may arise and you feel that it's time to move on, please consider the students who will forever have this shooting embedded in their memory,
the parents of the EHS students who will remember exactly where they were when they got the call or text from their child, and for the victims who have sustained life changing injuries. For us, moving on is a very different thing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Number 10. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Hello, all. My name is Jenna Coffin, and I'm a junior at Evergreen High School. I'm here today to voice my frustrations and my concerns about the lack of safety at EHS and other schools in the district. Since Columbine, twenty six years ago, there have been 13 school shootings in Colorado.
Three of those being in Jeffco, and it needs to end now. Why do we keep letting this go on when we can put simple measures in place? This recent tragedy has struck everyone with an unnecessary amount of fear and trauma regarding being at school. For me, school used to be my safe place, a setting where I could grow and thrive, and a place where I was told that I was safe and protected, and sadly, I was lied to. To. That day was just like any other and I had no idea I'd be running for my life that same afternoon. A few days prior, the school was meant to have their mandatory lockdown drill.
This never occurred. Due to medical emergency, the school was placed on hold as EMTs were in the building. The drill was never rescheduled into the student's knowledge, and it created confusion when the lockdown alarm went off. We did not know if this was a surprise drill to make it for the missed one or if this was real. At the time, I was in the cafeteria, and we were all looking each other for further instruction on if we should run or if we should calm down. Think of how many more people that could have gotten out of the school or to a safer place if we truly knew this was not a drill. It should be a mandatory standard.
The drill should have been done directly after the hold was over or the very next morning during the first period. I also want to voice my opinion that metal detectors need to be added to schools in order to increase safety. Schools that have metal detectors are much safer as they completely eliminate the possibility of a firearm or weapon coming into school. The only time this has not been effective has been because of user error, where it was not being monitored, They allowed students come through other doors or it was completely unplugged. There are easy fixes that can be implemented so students are promised a safe school
environment. We have five security guards at EHS that can monitor students coming in and what they are bringing with them. We can put alarms on every doors on all doors except for the front ones, and also make sure no other, doors are unlocked so students can get in. At no point in time, except when all students and faculty leave, so the metal detectors be turned off. People want to argue that it creates a prison like atmosphere, but all sporting events, airports, and event centers have metal detectors. It's funny how we don't consider those places to be like prison.
We have never thought twice about going through them as a as a quick process and creates peace of mind. At the end of the day, it comes down to one simple question. Would you rather walk through a metal detector or run for your life? Thank you. Thank you. Number 11. Welcome. Please introduce yourself and you have three minutes. Thank you. I'm talking about campus safety. My name is Nathan Fennell, resident of Conifer, fellow educator and community member. When we talk about makes what makes the school great, we often think of the dedicated teachers, curious students, and strong academics. But there's another vital ingredient that is often overlooked, and that is campus safety.
A safe and comfortable school is a foundation for every lesson learned and every goal achieved. The undisputed fact is that a student cannot learn if they are hungry, thirsty, in an uncomfortable state, or scared. While there are drinking fountains, free meals, counselors, and HVAC to keep students in a comfortable learning environment, the students don't feel safe. The students are screaming this in your faces with big signs that were published in the front of the newspapers during their walkouts. In the wake of the recent evergreen tragedy, I reached out to Greg Manier, the principal at Conifer High, to try and volunteer to help to keep keep the schools
safer. Manier stated that Jeffco Schools has a policy against safety volunteers, but couldn't tell me the justification behind such such policies. So I'm here to tell you that you should reconsider without making any budget changes or radical reform. I'm not asking to be armed or look intimidating. We can wear tie dye shirts and Mickey Mouse ears, but the fact is that the school needs the community's help. Just like the PTA, we can implement a community safety volunteer program that the students trust and work with together. We happen to be thoroughly vetted past the current parent volunteer requirements of an ID
scan to help at the school. In addition to this, I think that the board should work with Jeffco's school resource officer program to require new SROs to be combat vets. The veterans have a four year minimum before applying to the police academy, whereas somebody could apply to the police academy and just go go do their sixteen to twenty seven weeks. The sheriff's department has enough veterans to support this. Unarguably, the students would feel safer with law enforcement officer with previous confirmed combat experience running towards gunfire. After these school tragedies, it's always the same song and dance.
We need to do something. This needs to change. It's always pointed blame at the other person with zero outcome. Although arming the staff would be the ultimate student protection, I am coming to you with a proposed change that will cost the school district zero out of pocket and create an actual financial net positive for your budget because more attendance more attendance equals more funding, and that's the name of the game. Right? Just in GEFCO alone, there was Columbine, Deer Creek, and now Evergreen. Typically in life, especially in the judicial system, that's a three strike rule and it's clear that GEFCO Public Schools has struck out and failed the community for a third
time. You tell the students, if they see something, say something. I am seeing unsafe schools, and so I'm saying something. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Number 12. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Hi. My name is Leah Saig. I live in Arvada, and I am both a parent and a board member at Compass Montessori Golden. And I'm here tonight to express my disappointment and concern that GEFCO Public Schools has removed school resource officers from all GEFCO charter schools without notice, without collaboration, and without
any opportunity for recourse. Our Compass community only learned in early September when reaching out to our SRO for previously relied upon services, just before the Evergreen tragedy, that our SRO had been pulled from our Golden Campus. We received no formal communication. Our leadership assumed generously that it must be an oversight, as you mentioned earlier, maybe a clerical error or maybe it was something that just needed to be clarified. However, they assumed so because no one imagined that a decision of this magnitude would
be made unilaterally. Compass Montessori and several other charter schools reached out to the district and superintendent Dorland and received no information. But in reviewing public board documents from a meeting between the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and Tracy in June, a meeting where no charter schools were invited, no charter schools were notified, we discovered explicit language in the assignment SRO section of the new SRO intergovernmental agreement. No clerical error. No misunderstanding here. It said SROs will not be assigned to charter schools in the district under the
terms of this agreement. Nothing herein will be construed to preclude the JCSO from otherwise agreeing to provide SROs to charter schools. In plain terms, every district run school remains eligible for SRO protection, while every charter school, including Compass Montessori, has been written out. Let me be clear. Breaking the charter contract without notice, no matter which service it relates to, is unacceptable. The foundation of the charter partnership is mutual accountability and good faith. When the district unilaterally changes the terms of a service that directly affects student safety
and does so without communication, it undermines that foundation entirely. After the Evergreen High School shooting, superintendent Dorland said publicly, no child should ever face this kind of danger, and no community should be asked to absorb this kind of pain. Also, you stated our commitment to safety and security in GEFCO schools is unwavering. And those words are powerful, and we took it seriously. But removing SRO coverage from charter campuses contradicts that commitment. If our students are part of GEFCO, then their safety must be equally valued and protected.
Compass has done everything right. We've upgraded security systems. We've trained our staff. We coordinate with law enforcement, and we prioritize our students' well-being. But even the best procedures can't replace the presence of a trained officer who knows our school, knows our students, and our staff. So tonight, I respectfully ask the board to restore SRO coverage for GEFCO charter schools, including Compass, immediately, to establish a transparent process for future decisions affecting charter schools, and to publicly reaffirm that every GEFCO student truly does mean every GEFCO student, district run
or charter. Safety cannot be selective, and trust cannot be conditional. Please act to make this right. Thank you. Thank you. Number 13. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. Please, tell us your name and you have three minutes. Thank you. My name is Jana Wirtz. I live in Golden. I have a child that attends Compass, but I also work at the middle school in Evergreen. Certain days stay with you forever. Like many Americans sorry. I can recall exactly where I was since 09/11/2001. Now another day has etched itself into my memory.
09/10/2025. A day that changed our community forever. Sorry. I wasn't at Evergreen High School that day. I was in my office at Evergreen Middle School having a typical working lunch with a colleague. Suddenly, a teacher burst in, tears streaming down her face, crying out that there was a shooter at the high school. She was desperately trying to reach her children. My office may off also has two daughters at the high school. The terror on their faces is something I will never forget. It was every parent's first nightmare unfolding before our eyes. I pray this is the closest I ever come to actually experiencing a school shooting.
Ironically, we were in the middle of ordering new radios for our school, essential tools for communication and safety. Our old radios were seven to eight years old with failing batteries and poor sound quality. Thanks to our active and generous PTA, we were able to purchase new ones. These radios are not luxuries, they are lifelines. Were it not for our PTA, we would not have been able to afford them. At a PTA meeting earlier that day, we discussed our gratitude for the radios and our concern over the lack of resource officer this year. Parents were upset. They were told that this year.
Parents were upset. They were told Evergreen Middle School and High School were removed as required schools. But a radicalized student didn't get that memo. Within hours, he opened fire at Evergreen High School. Historically, mass shootings often occur in suburban areas, not inner cities. No one can predict where tragedy will strike. To label any school as low risk is not only inaccurate, it's dangerous. My youngest son attends Compass Montessori, which was recently informed that there would no longer be any any SRO presence on campus. Compass is a small school and doesn't expect a full time officer, but even occasional
law enforcement presence matters. I've seen firsthand how impactful an SRO can be. At Arvada West ice school, our officer was there almost daily, mentoring students, diffusing tensions, and helping guide troubled youth. You can't put a price on that kind of influence. According to the Jeffco Sheriff's Department, the shooting lasted nine minutes. An SRO had been on campus that morning, but had left for Conifer High School. A coincidence? I don't think so. The first student was shot within seconds. The second student, Matthew, was shot much later. He was shot in the chest and head.
His heart had to be restarted twice. Miraculously, he was released from the hospital this week. But what if he had never been shot at all? We understand budgets are tight, but school safety should never be on the chopping block. We are currently voting to fund meals for those who can afford them, and we have a program already for those who can't. Why aren't we voting to protect our children with better security measures? From functional radios to the presence of SROs, it all matters. I urge decision makers to reconsider the removal of SROs from Compass Montessori and other
campuses. Our children deserve to feel safe, Our staff deserves to be supported. And our community deserves action. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Number 14. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. You have three minutes. Okay. My name is Carrie Stever, and I live in Arvada. I'm a mom of two students at Compass Montessori. I recently read a message from GEFCO that said, It's important to emphasize this process does not include cuts to the Department of School Safety. In fact, we have increased our investment this year by covering half of the cost
of the school resource officer program. GEFCO's SRO program and the expertise of our internal safety and security team remained essential. We are committed to strengthening best practice safety measures at every opportunity. When I receive messages like this from my child's school district, I trust it to be true. I believe you are being transparent because you say you are and I trust you. Unfortunately, I now realize that your messaging doesn't always apply to all students in this district because the school my children attend no longer have an SRO assigned.
To me, this means my Jeffco Public School students are less valuable to you than district run school students. I believe all of you are in this role because you genuinely care about students, about protecting their right to learn in a safe environment. I don't think you'd be sitting up there if you didn't care. But we are living in a world in which we are afraid to drop our kids off at school and drive away every day. It's starting to feel like it's just a matter of time before it happens even closer to home than the evergreen shooting was. SROs know a school's staff and often already know some of the students.
They know basic facts about the school, such as what grade levels you teach and where all of your available exits are. This is important information to have swiftly in an emergency. While calling 911 is an option and schools do need to lean on the police department in this way all the time, it is not everything you can offer. At Compass, we have four fifty kids ages three to 18 on that golden campus. Each one of those students are equal to traditional students. I want you to tell me my kids are also worth doing every single thing
you can do. I want to believe your messaging. I am with you, not against you, and I want to trust you. And while I appreciate your message at the beginning of this meeting regarding your support for SROs for charter schools, I want to point out that charter schools have been told otherwise. We are here because of that. Please don't gaslight us with scripted emails. Please provide a signed reinstatement of this basic level of security for our school effective immediately. I hope you can see that charter school students and families are also worthy of
every single thing you can do. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Number 15. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. You have three minutes. Hello, President Parker, board, and superintendent Dorland. My name is Key Ruiz, and I live in Arvada, Colorado. I serve as the GEFCO Be Smart for Kids chapter lead, which works on safe and secure gun storage education. I was last here at the end of the school year for Wear Orange and Gun Violence Awareness Week. I also do transformational gun violence prevention work with Raw Tools and Guns two Gardens. We're the ones that do the safe firearm disposal and offer, catharsis events like hitting
the gun parts and forging them like blacksmiths. I have offered that to Evergreen High School, to the faculty, and to Team Enough. It is a great respect for the students and surrounding community at the center of the events at Evergreen High School, then with how the proximity of gun violence radiates outward in our school district and beyond that I'm speaking. I'm also a gun violence survivor a few times over, including a mass shooting at my elementary school in 198440 Ninth Street in Los Angeles. Nine of my classmates were shot, and my friend Shaula Eubanks was killed. My intention is to speak with great sensitivity with requests for safe and secure gun
storage education and layers of safety messaging. I have worked with GEFCO previously, with trying to get the Be Smart message adopted, by our school district as a partner, collaborator, or just to share the message to our community for several years now. I've worked with your director of the Safe Schools office and your chief of family and community partnerships who did GEFCO be smart a great service by providing their expert feedback to modify the presentation in the 2024 to craft it to be more aligned with your school district. That presentation was only used at a caregiver summit that spring and at the Arvada
Fire Training Center in August 2024 with the community emergency response team. The following school year was very chaotic, we know, with the presidential election and all these other political inferences that came in and including some safety issues for our students with threats that were called in. But I'm here to ask for the GEFCO to consider being a Be Smart for Kids collaborator, such as Denver Public Schools did with their proclamation in August, Boulder Valley School District has done with releasing information for families, and Douglas School District has also done this. It is a nonpartisan message, and it's very simple with an acronym for SMART.
Secure your firearms with the s and model that responsible behavior. The a is the important thing. Ask about the presence of firearms in homes and vehicles. R, recognize the role of firearms in suicides. T, talk to everybody about this. We need to normalize this conversation. And that is something I want going forward here because we need to normalize the conversation. One of my other ask in May was that we talk about the layers of safety with messaging. You have a lot of people here talking about SROs without fully knowing the role of the SRO, and I know it has changed since that agreement in June.
But the layer of safety comes from things like when you were pushing for attendance a couple of years ago. It wasn't for count day. It was because there are better social detriments that show up when students intend. This goes all the way to SEL. It goes to the education schools. It goes to SROs and also goes to the safe school office and where safe to tell goes to to our departments. A lot of families here don't know that information. So when something happens, a lot of people come in being very reactive because doing the stuff that I do at b smart and with the safe firearm disposal, that's boring and being proactive.
People kinda wait till the boogeyman comes out. And I'm actually a little sad right now that the room isn't filled because if this had been in September, you would have people from all over the district. And I really hate to think that people are starting to forget this when we just had a student released from the hospital. So please consider partnering, be smart, and then the layers of safety messaging. Thank you. Thank you. Number 16. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Good evening. My name is Bea Gonzales, and I'm a mother to an incredibly brave and totally awesome eighth grader in Lakewood, Colorado.
It's great to finally share space with the board tonight. I came prepared to to address someone who's been pushing outlandish, albeit harmful, narratives about Colorado schools in prior board meetings. But in light of their absence, I'd like to shift the tone to one of celebration and gratitude for all of you tonight. This week, despite many disparaging headlines, we all saw a massive win for common sense and compassion when the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that sought to wrongfully villainize school districts and educators nationwide while simultaneously limiting the protection on human rights of
our students. This denial to hear the case affirmed a fundamental truth. Our schools are not the enemy. For months, we've all endured the loud, harmful narratives bellowing around us, the fear mongering, the lies, and the attacks designed to sow division by a small but aggressive group of parents. This week, some of that noise finally quieted. In a society that can feel increasingly self serving, our public school system stands as the absolute opposite. It's a foundational pillar of this community built on the principle of service. Our educators and administrators wake up every single day and choose to invest in our
future. They choose to show up for our kids in spite of threats of personal doxing, professional slander, and persistent inflammatory rhetoric from people who are more interested in disruption than dedication. They don't make decisions based on Internet clout. They pursue solutions to help our children. So tonight, I'll close with this. To the incredible teachers and staff of this district, to the board and the district superintendent, and especially to the staff at my kiddo school, if you guys are watching at home tonight. I wanna say thank you.
It's been a challenging couple of months for all of us, and every single one of you has remained committed to showing up with nothing but love and support and a dedication to following the laws that are designed to keep our students safe and healthy. Your work is rooted in profound servingness, and for that, you have my immense gratitude. Thank you. Thank you. Number 17. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak. My name is Jason Parlett. I am a proud stepfather of a GEFCO student who has been through a lot
in the last year. We went through a tough custody battle with the father. The father did not support them, but GEFCO school did support that child. We live in Brighton, Colorado. And after getting 80% custody of that child, we thought very serious about moving them up to Adams County. But the support, the system, every time I go to that school, it is just amazing to watch the t Interact with the children. I can't be up here without giving a huge shout out to miss Mecca.
She's a rock star. Appreciate everything you do. And then I wasn't gonna speak on this, but after tonight hearing everybody, I hear all you guys speaking and and all that. But what I do hear is absolutely you wanna militarize school systems. I hear a lot of more guns, more guns, more police officers. I'm telling you right now, you put strangers in schools with concealed carries, my kid ain't going to your school anymore. And I'm not the I'm not the only parent that feels that way.
I'm sure a lot of these people will tell you that a good guy with a gun will kill a bad guy with a gun. Well, I implore you to look at Arvada, Colorado. Good guy with the gun killed the bad guy. Law enforcement showed up, shot the good guy with the gun. That's one example of many. I'm not saying anybody's wrong, but I'm saying I've heard very little about mental health. Nobody wants to invest in mental health. Nobody's even mentioned comprehensive gun reform in this room. Nobody wants to talk about that. They just wanna add more and more.
I disagree with it. That's not here or there for me. I'm here to thank all of you for the work that you've done and the teachers of GEFCO. Stay strong. You guys are awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Number 18. Welcome. Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Good evening, superintendent Dorland and members of the Jeffco School Board. My name is JC Tramet. I live in Golden, Colorado, and I'm here on behalf of my community, Compass Montessori in Golden, Colorado. Recently, our executive director, doctor Cameron Galen, informed us that our school resource officer was
removed from Compass without any prior communication from the district, not to our administration, not to our staff, and certainly not to our families. When doctor Galen reached out for clarification, for communication, she received no response. I'm not sure what concerns me more, the fact that our SRO was removed or that this decision was made without a conversation, especially in the wake of the shooting at Evergreen High School. I understand you are busy people managing a large and complex district.
And when a decision is made that directly impacts the emergency protocols of a school and the safety of our students, communication is not optional. An SRO is more than just a law enforcement presence. I'm preaching to the choir here. I don't need to educate you about the value of SROs. We want the least traumatizing and least stigmatizing response in our school when law enforcement is needed. This is an SRO. And while we're on the subject of school safety, I want to propose an idea that I've discussed in the past with Mary Parker.
Gun violence is a public health issue. Just like public health issues of vaccines, right, and school wellness. When I want to send Micah to school, I have to watch a video about vaccine safety because it's a public health issue. And I watch it. Where's where's the video for gun safety? Where's the video about extreme risk protection orders? Where is the required for your child to attend school video that educates parents on
responsible gun storage and warning signs that often precede school violence? Where's the required video that helps parents understand that most school shooters are suicidal and that eighty percent of them get their guns from family members and friends? Where's the video that educates parents on the critical role families play in preventing a school shooting? I am here to advocate for the return of our SRO, and I fully understand that an SRO is not going to solve this problem. We need educated parents. Guns are coming from homes.
Please create a mandatory video that educates parents on how to be a part of a prevention team. I'll volunteer my time to help you. The trauma of school shootings last far beyond headlines. I'm also a licensed mental health professional. I I I can't even begin to lean in to the trauma of having your kid shot at school, and I don't want to. Please reinstate our SRO. Compass Montessori is a GEFCO school. Our kids matter.
Thank you for your time and attention and for your service. Thank you. Number 19. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. You have three minutes. Hello. My name is Cori Exline. I live in Arvada. I am the mother of two GEFCO students, and I serve on the board of Compass Montessori. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. In the wake of last month's tragedy in Evergreen, many of us have found comfort in superintendent Tracy Dorlin's words. On the day of the shooting, she said, student safety is not an abstract issue for us in GEFCO. It is the most important responsibility we hold.
Those words mattered. They reminded parents like me that our district would never cut corners when it comes to the safety of our children. But I am here tonight because quietly, without notice, without recourse, charter schools have become the corner that was cut. Without communication, negotiation, or explanation, the school resource officer assigned to Compass Montessori and SRO coverage for all GEFCO charters was removed. At first, we thought it was a clerical error. Surely, GEFCO wouldn't quietly and without community input eliminate a safety support that protects 12%
of GEFCO students. Students whose families pay the same taxes, live in the same neighborhoods, and trust this district to keep them safe. But that's exactly what happened. SROs aren't just there to for active threats. They're trained in child development, de escalation, conflict resolution, and adolescent mental health. Their work prevents crises long before they happen. At Compass, I've seen this firsthand. When my child and several classmates witnessed a pedestrian hit by a car on the
road in front of their school, it was our SRO who guided our leadership through how to help those children process what they'd seen. It isn't a reasonable expectation to expect our teachers and administrators to know exactly how to respond to traumatized children, but our SRO had that expertise. She connected them with victim services and made sure my child's emotional mental health was prioritized. Now that resource is gone. Our leaders have reached out repeatedly for answers and have been met with, we'll look
into it and get back to you. So tonight, I'm asking you to get back to us now. Honor the promise Superintendent Dorland made to every Jeff Kome family. If student safety truly is your most important responsibility, prove it, not just in words, but in action by reinstating SRO support for Compass Montessori and all GEFCO star charter schools. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to keeping all GEFCO students safe. Thank you. Number 20. Welcome. Please give us your name and you have three minutes.
My name is Caitlin Van Sant. I am a resident of Golden. I have two kids in the Jeffco Public Schools, and I'm here to advocate for stronger protection against gun violence in Jeffco Schools. So recently, Evergreen High School endured what no child or teacher should have to experience, a face to face encounter with an active shooter. In a letter from the family of one of the victims, they described how he showed, quote, bravery, strength, and the will to survive that no child should ever be asked to display. His family's message is clear.
The adults responsible for protecting children must take real, meaningful action so that no child or family endures this kind of horror in school or anywhere. Their words remind us that thoughts and prayers are not enough. They ask that, quote, real change will come from it, finally. Superintendent Tracy Dorland's own letter echoed this same urgency. She wrote, no child should ever face this kind of danger and no community should be asked to absorb this kind of pain. She also said what many of us feel, that the nation is tired of statements filled with platitudes and thoughts and prayers.
What we need is courage. What we need is the collective will of our entire community. These two letters, one from a grieving family and one from our own district's leadership, say the same thing. We cannot normalize violence against our children. We cannot wait for the next shooting to act. As we all know, GEFCO was the site of one of the most infamous school shootings in American history. And yet, more than twenty five years later, our students are still being shot at our schools. This is unacceptable. We cannot still be saying, how can this happen? We know how this happens, and we need to enact additional measures to prevent it.
I'm asking that this board demonstrate courage through tangible preventative actions that will protect our students and teachers from future gun violence. We need comprehensive safety measures in every Jeffco school that stop weapons from entering the buildings and stop access to guns before another tragedy occurs. What this means, installing metal detectors and secure entry systems at all GEFCO schools, partnering with local law enforcement and parents to promote and support the use of gun lockers and secure storage laws, ensuring that guns are locked away and inaccessible to minors, increasing
mental health staffing and early intervention programs to prevent gun violence, and finally, ensuring accountability and transparency, regular safety audits, community reporting, and clear communication about how GEFCO is protecting its students. This is not about fear. It is about responsibility. And as the Evergreen family said, and I quote again, these children need more than momentary sympathy and support. They need lasting commitment. I hope to have the opportunity to work with members of the school board, other parents, students, teachers, and members of law enforcement in Jefferson County to figure out how
we can enact these changes. Let's make sure that no child in GEFCO has to face what these students and teachers faced last month at Evergreen High School. Let's make Jefferson County a model for real safety reform, a district that can learn from its past to protect its future. Thank you. Thank you. Number 21. Do we have a number 21? Is there anybody who has signed up and has the number who hasn't spoken yet? Welcome. Please introduce yourself. You have three minutes. Hi. My name is Victoria Hutchen. I am this is gonna be way hard.
Evergreen Colorado resident, and I am speaking, on the topic of safety and security and collaboration with the district. At 12:25PM on Wednesday, September 10, my 15 year old sophomore called. His out of breath voice said, mom. Mom. There were gunshots. We ran. We ran to a house up the road. I took a breath and I asked, sir, are you sure there were gunshots? He replied, yes. There were gunshots. We ran up the road. We're at a house. And I didn't have time to hesitate and just quickly drove down following our evergreen
fire department car that I happened to have turned behind on the parkway. I drove straight up Olive next to the high school and stopped in my tracks as soon as I processed that what I was seeing were backpacks, shoes, water bottles that had been dropped all around the road. That is one of the many moments that haunts me from that day. I am forever grateful for our evergreen neighbors who sheltered our kids that day. I'm forever grateful to our first responders who reacted so quickly. I'm forever grateful to our administrators and staff who moved quickly within the building to
save lives. I had just been in that building roughly eighteen hours before in our PTSA meeting where we discussed the SRO issues as an active Evergreen Middle School PTSA or PTA member as well. I also shared SRO information at that meeting, which was Wednesday morning. And I had accidentally found out in the weeks prior, after a coincidental conversation with the deputy stationed at Conifer High School, what our situation was, which then Skylar Artes spoke to, as well as Tim Fialpando. I had been surprised that there wasn't explicit communication sent to our parents at any
point about not having an SRO. And as many have mentioned today, SROs are so much more than security. They are relationship builders and mental health monitors. I see this firsthand volunteering and subbing in these buildings. In addition to SROs, counseling staff is crucial in supporting our students in countless ways. Due to declining enrollment, I've watched cuts in counseling service over the years, and our counselors are overwhelmed and then expected to be lifelines for our kids from being little snack breaks to bring smiles to conflict resolutions to assessing academic social emotional needs. It goes on and on, and we have to make sure that they are supported
and funded. As a long time educator, I don't simply want to add more armed individuals in schools, and I do question the effectiveness and practicality of metal detectors. So if we have to make those choices, we really know that we need to fund mental health. Slight rewind to that middle school PTA meeting, we had had a small celebration because the radios were purchased, and they were arriving that day, coincidentally. And the communication challenges have been ongoing. I really appreciated that Michelle Applegate and Erin Kenworthy attended our most recent middle school
meeting to hear directly from us. Things like Tim b, our principal, explaining that their lifeline radio that they would need to have communication with other schools and law enforcement does not have reception in the building. So on September 10, they had to use life landline phones to communicate with schools like Wilmot. So thank you to district reps for showing up. From having victim advocates to carefully orchestrating open house, before classes started, all of it. We have trust and faith that these supports will be continued in the coming months and years because we are only starting to learn about these layers of trauma that
our staff and kids have. And I know my peers are looking forward to the upcoming community forum and forum, and we welcome future effort opportunities. Evergreen is a community of collaborators, problem solvers, and love and support. So thank you for joining us in this impossible, situation, this process, but we appreciate it because we know that you all are learning as well. Thank you. Thank you. So are we on number 23? 22. 22. Okay. 22.
Welcome. Please introduce yourselves, and you have ten minutes. Good evening, president Mary Parker, superintendent Tracy Dorland, and members of the board. My name is Tammy Jeffrey, and I serve as the assistant director of health services with Jeffcoat Public Schools. I'm also a mom of two boys. I live in Morrison, Colorado and I have a graduate of Conifer High School and my, youngest son went to Evergreen High School. But we're here because our department this year has made a commitment to tell our stories and share the real experiences of our school nurses and our health techs who
serve as an extension of our licensed nurses each and every day. It's been a heavy year for our district as we continue to heal from tragedy and face uncertainty around funding. Yet through it all our nurses and our health techs continue to quietly show up for students ensuring they are safe, healthy and ready to learn. They are advocates, educators and first responders. They manage chronic conditions, prevent emergencies, and build relationships that help students feel seen and cared for. Tonight, three of our nurses will share brief stories that reflect the heart, skill, and
impact of school health in GEFCO. These are stories of advocacy, compassion and courage the everyday heroism that keeps our schools safe. I'll begin with Kelly Smith, one of our site based high school nurses. Thank you, Tammy. I'm Kelly Smith. I'm a Jethco School nurse and I work site based at Wheat Ridge High School. One afternoon, a student came into the health room after being stung by a bee, and with moments it was clear he was having an anaphylactic reaction, and he did
not have an EpiPen or a health plan. Because our district equips every school with stock epinephrine and trains staff to recognize and respond to life threatening allergic reactions, my health tech and I were able to act immediately. We administered the epinephrine according to our district protocol, called 911, and stayed with a student until paramedics arrived. His symptoms eased quickly, and later that day, his father called the school.
Thank you for saving my son's life. That's the power of preparation and training and the reason our nurses and health techs make a difference every day. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Valerie Borwick, and I am the site based school nurse at Golden High School. Part of my role as a site based school nurse is to help students who may be struggling with substance abuse. When a student is suspected of being under the influence, I conduct a safety assessment to determine if further medical attention is needed.
In the past, these students faced multiple days for out of school suspension. Today, with a nurse assigned to each high school, many are referred to me or, nurses like myself to, receive some education instead, which is an alternative to suspension. I meet with these students, not just for education, but to be another adult that students can count on in the building. One of my proudest memories came about five years ago when a student I had
worked with through this program asked me to present her diploma at graduation. It was raining and even snowing at times, but the smile on her face when I handed her that diploma warmed me down to my soul. It was a moment that I will never forget. My name is Annie Nolan. I work as an itinerant GEFCO School nurse who serves several schools, including Wilchester Elementary, a small neighborhood school in unincorporated Golden. As both a nurse assigned to the school and as a parent who lives nearby, I walk there almost every day. My children and I have nearly been hit by cars too many times to count
during student drop off and pick up. It felt like it was a matter of time before someone was seriously injured. Then, when I noticed that other nearby schools had traffic calming infrastructure in place, such as crosswalks, lights, speed bumps, and sidewalks, but while Chester lacked these, I decided to take action. I began researching traffic safety measures and potential grants, took pictures of nearby schools with safer designs, and brought my concerns to the PTA, who strongly agreed. I also met with our principal and then with GEFCO's risk management team, who guided
me to contact Jefferson County. The county responded by conducting a series of studies. And this past summer, they installed six blocks of new sidewalk, a raised crosswalk that doubles as a speed bump, and other sidewalk infrastructure at intersections to slow traffic down. GEFCO Schools also redesigned the parking lot to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety on school grounds. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on October 1, culminating a project that will benefit generations of students and families. It is not just safer, it's more accessible for everyone.
One elderly neighbor told me, with the new sidewalks, I can walk farther and longer, navigating shade on hot days. This is what a school nurse does. We advocate for safety and well-being in in every form. Thank you, Annie, Valerie, and Kelly. These are just a few examples of the countless ways our school nurses and health techs support students every day, advocating for safety, saving lives, and building relationships that last a lifetime. As we face challenges ahead, we hope you'll remember the quiet essential work happening in every health room across GEFCO. Thank you for listening and for supporting the health and well-being of our students.
Thank you. Do we have number 23? She left? Oh, she went. Okay. Do we have any other, people who signed up for public comment who have not spoken yet? Okay. Well, then, that will conclude the public comment. I wanna thank everybody who participated. As a reminder, we do have mental health staff here for anyone who needs support and a special thank you to Matt Cormier, the executive director of student services for organizing the additional support this evening and to the mental health providers here tonight providing
care. The time is now 07:08, and we will take a ten minute break to allow our next presentation to get set up. And we are back now. We are contemplating a change to the agenda. Is there a motion? I would, like to motion that we have our consent agenda next, so that we can celebrate and recognize some of the good things on the consent agenda. So I would motion we do that next prior to our ends presentation. Okay. Is there a second?
I second. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate? Yes. Miss Kenworthy? Yes. Miss Reid? Miss Parker? Yes. Doctor Varda? Yes. Okay. Okay. So that motion has passed. So we will, proceed with the consent agenda. Items five point o one through 5.2 are presented in board docs as a proposed consent agenda. As a reminder to our listening public, the board received a preview of these items at our October 8 study session. Do I have a motion regarding approval of the consent agenda as presented in board
docs? I move to approve items 5.01 through 5.2 on the consent agenda as published in board docs. Is there a second? I second. Any discussion? Yep. I wanna, I just wanna say how excited I am about our, 5.13 board ends four statement adoption related to sustainability. This is honoring the voice, and the, work of our students, in collaboration with community. And I just, this is something to celebrate and to lift up, and I'm really excited that we're doing this.
I didn't have anything planned, but, thank you for being in the room and being really great leaders for our kids, guiding them to to do this work. Sustainability is massive issue for us. And I think as a board, being able to, get to four years into this with a new end like that in place is really exciting. A really great way to end our term here. And I just wanna add, like, we're so proud of this. This is something that is meaningful, I think, to all of us up here and
most meaningful because it came from the voices of our students. And so just a huge tremendous thank you to our kids, to the parents who guided them, and I hope for anyone listening, like, speak up, come talk to us, bring us your ideas, it matters, we care, good and bad, and so well done. And I just want to echo that as well. This is so exciting. This is a big deal. It's not just like a policy resolution, that are pretty common. This is very uncommon.
And I get very excited when I get to talk to the community, when I talk to groups of students, worried about the future and, asking what we're gonna do. And I'm able to say, well, we have done something, and let me tell you about it. And the students are the ones that brought it to us. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, I guess we're ready to vote. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Yes. Miss Kenworthy. Yes. Miss Parker. Yes. Miss Reed. And doctor Barta. Yes.
And the consent agenda passes. We look forward to celebrating in in full time in the very near future. Thank you. Okay. Then we will go back to wherever we were. Yep. Take a while. I know miss Nikathodes is anxiously awaiting us. So, for the study portion of our meeting, the board will hear two presentations from Renee Nikathodes, chief academic officer, on monitoring reports 1.3,
which states that every student will be taught using evidence based instructional materials that reflect the global diversity of the world in which students live, and 2.1 that states educators will receive high quality professional development and engage in planning that directly improves their impact on their students. Miss Nikifotis, we have allotted sixty minutes for the two presentations, and please reserve some time from for questions, although we often just interrupt. And before I turn it over to miss Nikathodes, is there anything you'd like to
say, superintendent Dorland? I'm gonna let miss Nikathodes go for it. Alright. Good evening, members of the board, President Parker, Superintendent Dolan, my name is Renee Nikathodes, and I work as the chief academic officer here in GEFCO. And I am here to provide you with an annual update on progress toward two of your ends. And I will begin with, board ends 1.3. So for the presentation, we'll walk through our interpretation of these board ends, provide you with a little context, highlight some bright spots that are happening across the district, share
with you, initiatives that are on track towards these end statements, as well as current challenges that we are working to mitigate. So board ends 1.3, and the interpretation of this statement, is around the curricular materials that our teachers are provided to use for instruction with students. So the board then states, at 1.3, every student will be taught using evidence based instructional materials that reflect the global diversity of the world in which students live. And we interpret it interpret this to mean that instruction for all GEFCO students is
grounded in high quality instructional materials and practices aligned to research and data. So a year ago, I was here, providing an update on this. And this year, you'll hear a little bit more about how we're working through middle school, secondary classrooms around science and ELA core resources. You'll also find in the report an update on, HMH, structured literacy and foundational skills refresh for K-two literacy for our HMH schools. I'll provide you with a few other curricular implementation updates.
And talk a little bit about intervention resources for math and literacy. I think it's important to highlight, that the use of high quality instructional materials is a foundational component for instructional excellence. It is an anchor that we are grounding all of our work in from professional development to, implementation, to our learning walks, to the all the conversations that we're having around instruction. They are truly grounded in making sure that our teachers have the best materials that
provide alignment to grade level standards and rigorous learning experiences. It's also important to highlight, the importance of providing continuity. I think sometimes this is a struggle for some of our educators to understand it's not about trying to correct what they're not doing right, by providing these kinds of materials. It's really about ensuring continuity for our students. It's really placing our students at the center and saying, what do they need for continuity within their learning from grade to grade and level to level? It provides that consistent scope and sequence, within their learning so that it all builds
from one year to the next. It's also a great way for teachers to find time back in their weekly schedule. We're hearing from many of our teachers that they are finding up to six hours additional each week of time that they can devote to planning for instructional delivery rather than searching for materials. It also makes it easier for us at the central level to provide support to our schools when we don't have 50 different things happening at 50 different schools. We're able to focus as a system. So some bright spots for us from last year was, I'll start with the structured
literacy implementation in K-two classrooms for the schools that are using our HMH literacy resource. When we first adopted this resource, several years ago, it was right before all of the science of reading research had started to come out. We had just purchased and we're working on implementing this new resource and it was built around balanced literacy. And at the same time, all of our teachers were going through the science of reading training. And when they were going through that training, they they suddenly realized we have a brand new resource that's not as well aligned to what we are learning now around
the science of reading. And that that's not unusual for any resource at that time. A lot of our resources that we have in place have now updated their foundational skills component to better align with the science of reading. So this wasn't uncommon. But it was something that we had to make some adjustments to over time. We brought in things like Wharton Gillingham to supplement. We were hearing from our teachers, this isn't aligned. It's not what we need to really focus on those foundational skills. So, there was a lot of supplementing that went on at the time to make sure that we were more aligned to the science of reading. Since then, HMH has revised these materials, and we've been able to purchase just this
component to update all of our resources within our K2 classrooms. And we are currently supporting educators across all of our schools. There's just a handful left that are not yet using structured literacy. It's very well aligned, with Orton Gillingham. There's a multi sensory approach, so it's super high quality and engaging for students, and aligned to the overall core program within HMH. The teachers that are using it are saying great things, are very happy with it overall. I think we talked last time when I was here about the K-twelve math resources and the implementation and how we're really starting to see the data across our system
improve as a result of this implementation. We've also had a preschool curriculum implementation, which I think everyone's pretty excited about. I would say that's probably one of the smoothest implementation processes that I've gone through here. It was really well coordinated and led, by Lee Pilinski, our executive director. And I think our preschool educators are very happy to have a resource, to provide that continuity for across all of our preschool classrooms. And then you would also find in the report how we have, two literacy and
two math intervention resources that we are providing for all of our schools systemically, to use support for that tier two, for students who need a little bit more outside of the core program. So overall, with our plan for curriculum and implementation and alignment with our adoption cycle, we are on track with the structured literacy implementation. We're on track with implementing secondary ELA and, sixth and seventh grade twig science in our middle school classrooms. Our preschool curriculum has been going very well. And we're we have recently, as we were talking about, budget and, constricting resources, we've
recently sent out a survey to our educators to ask them about the different resources we're providing, from intervention materials to supplemental materials to to core and consumable materials. What are you using? What are you not really using? So we can be a little more strategic with what we're providing. And we heard overwhelmingly that our teachers very much appreciate having Lexia as an intervention resource both at the elementary and at the sixth grade level, as well as, Zearn math. That map accelerator was now called Khan Academy learning paths. So we will continue to provide those for our schools.
Some noted challenges across our system. We've had some conversations around this as well, is continuing to focus on engaging our teachers around the process, throughout the implementation. We have, kind of beefed up our instructional leaders for this school year and created, I think, a much better, cycle for feedback loops with these educators as they're implementing resources and anything else that has, that has to do with, curriculum and instruction. So, we are hopeful that, more robust systems for feedback with our teachers are in
place this year, and then we'll find that that just right balance and, can provide those supports that teachers are saying that they need. I think, overall, once teachers have started to use a resource for a little while, after the first year or the second year, they start to really understand the components of it and they start to find their voice. I'm hearing that a lot across our schools, that the second, third, and fourth year, things start to really smooth out, throughout the implementation. But we continue to look for that balance between teacher academic freedom, as well as
making sure that we're providing a guaranteed viable curriculum for our students. We've also noted that there has been inconsistency with elementary literacy and student achievement. Part of that, I do believe, has to do with the revisions to HMH, but there were other factors at play when we originally adopted HMH, like COVID, that disrupted implementation pretty significantly, as well as those questions that teachers had around the resource originally being focused on balanced literacy. And so there was lots of supplementing and supplanting, and it wasn't, an implementation that
I think was done with great fidelity because of those variety of reasons. And I think we're getting back to that. So I do hope to see us have more consistent results across our schools, as well as, more accountability for using the resource with integrity. And I don't say fidelity, I say integrity because we always know that a resource provides much more than a teacher will ever be able to teach. But use the core program, use the components of the program for your primary, instructional material, and supplement as needed. But we do expect teachers to use the resources they've they've been given.
Okay. Do you have any questions about what's happening within our curriculum implementation? Directors? Questions? Comments? I appreciate that you called out that the teacher freedom and ability to kind of especially with HMH, I think math everywhere I go, people are, like, feeling mass. But I know there's still challenges there, so I appreciate you calling that out, and I appreciate you working with our teachers to help them find that freedom to be their authentic teaching selves. I think especially in middle school and high school where that's where I hear it.
So I I know you're working on it. I appreciate you calling it out and leaning into it. Thank you. Yeah. You know, I was just having a conversation earlier today. We had a leadership learning walk at at one of our middle schools. And I I I think a lot of our secondary teachers having that deep content expertise, I think it's it's hard for them. I think I'm in I'm in, you know, I'm guessing. No one's told me this directly, but I think sometimes it's it's felt like an affront to their, what they do as an educator. And and it's almost like we're handing them training wheels because we don't have confidence in their ability to to teach the content well, and that's not it at all.
It's really something that helps us kinda norm on grade level and what that looks like across classrooms. It helps us provide a more more consistent experience for our students and it gives the teacher the time back to think about how am I going to deliver this instruction? How am I gonna monitor to make sure that all kids are learning? How am I going to make this engaging and relevant for my students rather than searching online for things. So it's much more about that, and I do think after you after a few years of use, after even the first year, that most teachers start to see, oh, I see how this can actually be a real benefit to my teaching toolkit.
Yeah. I wanted to just after what you just said, flashback to when I was teaching and the amount of time that I spent looking at, like, primary resource documents for high school social studies, and walking around Walmart trying to find supplemental materials, at 08:00 at night was exhausting. And so I'm really grateful that, this has provided some time back to our teachers for focusing on the on the how instead of the what. My question is, about the pushback that you're or the engagement with teachers, and how
that process is going, whether it's math or HMH. Are we starting to see that sort of calm down, or is it pretty consistent? So far, you know, just being a few months into the school year, it seems to have calmed down. We've gotten some, I think, more systemic, instructional leader groups happening. What I and I just own this in an hour in the teaching and learning division. It was inconsistent between teams. So one team might have their instructional leaders come together four times a year. One team might do it monthly. These are things I kinda uncovered during conversations about how are we engaging our teachers
on a regular basis to ask them how it's going, what do they need, what's working, what's not. And so we've kind of put some things in place this year to make sure it's consistent and there's there's a protocol that they follow for the meetings. And so there's much more consistency across groups. So I think that's helping And they are providing us feedback. I know with our Twix science materials, the digital platform, I think, is a little bit clunky right now. We're starting to hear that. So we're working with the vendor to see what we might be able to do and they've been pretty responsive. So so far so good, I would say. Great. Thank you for the being responsive and honoring the conversation with educators.
I think that's really important. Thank you. You won't be surprised. I wish we had more data and information around, different types of school parts of our district, segmentation of that, even just on the implementation. So I'm I'll just so I'll just ask instead, since I don't I don't think I see it in the report. But, do you see any differences across, anything in the in the schools, Title one schools, different types of kids that folks are, working with or just it's just all
but the highest level, the mean score across the district and things like that. I always wish we could see across the demographics of our student, populations. We could we probably can I can speak to Carol Eaton, see what we can pull up to provide a little more context there, but I I could speak to one school specifically, and it's not just this one? I won't name the school, but, with, resource implementation that we worked with the school on last year, the school did move from priority improvement into improvement this year.
And, just in one year, just kind of aligning the curricular resources, it was a Title I school, dual language school. So I do think that we are seeing when it's implemented well and with supports, we are seeing some benefit there in our Title I schools for sure. We can provide you with more data, I'm sure. Thanks, Sam. I have a couple of questions. How many schools do we have that are not using HMH? Gosh. I just ballpark too. Yeah. It's HMH is 75%. Okay. We've also got we've got, I want to say, two or three schools using a resource.
We've got two or three schools using another one, maybe six or seven using a different one. So we have about we have five in use. And so less than 10 for any other resource, so everyone else is HMH. And is there any, thought of moving them into HMH or okay. We watch that really closely. If part of the reason that we have not tried to make that move for all schools is they're they're getting great results with the resources they have. And so if it's not broken, we're not gonna fix it. It does make it challenging for us to support them centrally, with very small central
teams. So our primary central supports through our teachers on special assignment, our ptosis, are around HMH. So that that's probably the bigger challenge. But, we've got one school right now that we might be talking we've been talking to it for a couple of years that we may need to make a shift there, but we have to work with the school, you know, to do it in a collaborative way and make sure everyone's ready. Okay. And also, how about the usage of high, dosage tutoring in combination with now resources and, you know, standardized curricula.
Are you noticing some schools are using the high dosage tutoring still and and others are not? Like, how's that I know of one, and I haven't probed or asked. But I do know of one school that is still that, found a way in their budget to keep their high dosage tutoring program going, after we kind of sunset that district wide. And and they're getting good results. I think it's a budgetary piece. Yeah. I was interested. I, was visiting a very small elementary school that doesn't have money, you know, discretionary choices there.
But they really, really are putting their, efforts into high dosage tutoring. So and and they're performing very well. There's research to support that it does work. It's just it's a very intensive model. It's very expensive model because groups of three or smaller students requires, a lot of humans Yeah. To pull that off with students who need it. And then the final thing is just, anecdotal. It's just one person, but, was saying they felt there was too much paper, too too many pieces of paper that they were they were expected to use.
And they they felt that it was a waste of resources, like, we don't need all of that for every class. Well, that's what we were trying to, learn more about when we sent that survey out is what are you really using? Because we've just kind of been purchasing the package. And now that people have used it for a little while, you know, they've had a chance to kinda try the different components out. And so we're trying to get a better idea of what people are actually using so we're more strategic with our budget and ordering for those schools. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know that in one of in several of the schools with kindergarten workbooks, teachers were tearing pages out for students, and that became really time consuming.
And so there's other ways you can go about if you get on the digital platforms, you can print out the things that you need as you go rather than having workbooks. So, yeah, we're trying to be more thoughtful about how we do those orders. Yeah. It's, interesting because we know in the, world of a billion dollar budget that, you know, couple reams of paper is nothing. But still, they're just feeling like, hey, we're supposed to be cutting costs. Why why do I have all this extra stuff? But Yep. Okay. Alright. Just to, respond a little bit to director Varda's questions.
On page, seven, there is a link to a study. It's older. It's 2223 that I remember commissioning a study, and our, research team did this work. So it's not current year, but it does if you click that link, it has a lot of information around some more some more data that might be interesting to the board. And then one of the ways we sort of look at how is this working and, you know, the correlation would be something that Carol, I think, could tell us more about. But at the bottom of page eight starting on the bottom of page eight and
going into page nine, there are, CMASS grades three to five, like, mean scale scores, for free and reduced lunch students, students on IEPs, students who are multi multilanguage learners, and students of color or Hispanic students that might be helpful as well just over time. So I just wanted to point that out if the board is interested in digging a little deeper. Thank you. Okay. I think we're ready for the next one. Yeah. I I might I might yeah. And I might have something to say before you do it. So let's see. No. I don't.
Please proceed. Okay. So, curricular materials, are not a magic bullet. They, they are one component, out of an overall instructional framework that will make a difference, for student outcomes. Another component is professional learning for educators to use those materials well. And so, I'm here to provide you with an update around board ends 2.1 that has to do with professional learning. Board ends 2.1 states that educators will receive high quality professional development and engage in planning that directly improves their impact on students.
And we interpret that to mean that administrators, educators, and staff will receive high quality professional learning and engage in planning that impacts student outcomes. There's a lot of research around the importance of professional learning, but it's also important to highlight that this should be aligned with overall district initiatives, to support coherence across the system to truly leverage the impact of professional learning to improve student outcomes. Our professional learning team has spent several years, refining, what they're doing and the kinds
of supports that they're providing. And right now, they're providing supports for these different groups, new educators and administrators going through induction. They support principals in professional learning, or licensed educators, school teams, and ESPs. Overall, we've seen we have received favorable feedback about the professional learning that our team is offering. This is really about that high level, systemic professional learning. So it does not include things like school based learning or other departments that provide
smaller offerings or optional. These are really those overall systemic professional learning opportunities that are aligned to the, Instructional Excellence Initiative. One of the things that we hear frequently is the coherence across the system that the professional learning provides because we're all talking about the same things with all the different groups across groups. So, we have our ELM learning, our executive leadership meetings, where our principals and our coaches are going through professional learning. A week later, we have our assistant principals experiencing that same professional learning.
This year, we've introduced streaming during our executive leadership meetings, so all of our central staff that are supporting schools are viewing the sessions remotely, and then talking in teams and planning about how they will operationalize the learning. And so, we have really, really high quality professional learning opportunities that are being provided, and they are consistent across stakeholder groups. And that's really key at leveraging that learning to make a difference for students. We're talking the same language. Yep. Can I just add on to that, Renee?
I mean, it's when I go visit classrooms, there's evidence of the fact that people are having one conversation, But it does look different in different schools, and it does look different in different classrooms, which is the way it should be. I mean, we talk about the just right balance. Kids are being exposed to the grade level content with high quality instructional materials, but I do think teachers are taking advantage of flexibilities to teach it in the way
that aligns to their style, their approach, and their classroom culture. And I know schools are in different spots and supporting their teachers in different ways. So it feels good to know that, the the professional learning is consistent enough to have an impact, on our system. But at the same time, you know, it doesn't I don't and even talking to the teachers after I visit their classrooms, which I'll talk about in my superintendent update later, the teachers aren't feeling necessarily that it's super top down, that it's being done in a way that allows them to learn from their colleagues who they're teaching next
to, and do the the work in their classroom in a way that aligns to their style and approach and, and the way they wanna show up every day for kids. So I I'm seeing some evidence of that, and I'm gonna we're gonna keep our eye on it over the course of the year. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And we've had coaches and others, teachers classroom teachers talk about how great it's been to to talk to a friend that might be working in a different school, and they talk about something like academic monitoring, which we're focused on as a system.
And they say, oh, we're working on that too. Right? Oh, this is something I figured out in relationship to that. So because we have these common threads across the system, it makes that collaboration much easier, and the opportunities increase for peer observations and learning from each other because we're working on similar things. We didn't have that kind of consistency and coherence across the system just a few years ago. I'm hearing from more and more people, that we've been that we are now more coherent than we've been in a decade in GEFCO, focusing on many of the same things. Year over year.
We're not continuing to introduce new initiatives or new language, we're just going deeper and, deepening our understanding around the practices that we've been talking about. So, we are on track, to create the conditions for improved student outcomes through the professional learning aligned to our instructional excellence work, the support and mentorship of our newest educators, and providing, learning and training for a variety of, employee groups, especially our JESPA employees. I've been really proud of our professional learning team and what they've been able to provide for quality learning for our JESPA employees, working with our operations team.
Our facilities the feedback from our folks in facilities has been just as strong as it has been from some of our classroom teachers and educators. And so I I think it's been great that they've been able to have those opportunities and really talk about their work. And that's not something that existed prior to just a few years ago. So it's been a really nice collaboration with Jesppa, to provide, differentiated and the just right learning that those folks need to continue learning in their roles. We also use consistent feedback loops with the same questions for every professional learning session that we do in the in the system.
We ask, how does this does this, is this meaningful for the work that you do? I can't remember all the different questions. There's about four questions that we ask consistently though. Are you able to immediately apply this to your work? And the feedback that we get has been very positive. We did, this year, adjust our surveys to become anonymous because it's been so positive. It's like, how could it be that positive? So we have made all of our surveys this year anonymous just to see, is the feedback going to change? Is it going to be different because people know they can do it anonymously? And so far, it hasn't.
The first two months of these surveys, we've continued to get very high, positive feedback, from our participants. The challenges in a big system, it's very, very challenging to meet the variety of needs, and the range of experience of our educators. Differentiation is a challenge. We are trying to do professional learning at scale. This year, for the past few years when we've done, our executive leadership meetings and the professional learning for coaches and principals there, the first year that we started doing this, I think it was three years ago, we afterwards gave them a turnkey deck.
You may have heard about this. And it was a synthesized, like, a forty five minute version of the three hour session they just had. And so that we could have consistent messaging across our schools, we made it a requirement to take that turnkey back, that deck, that slide deck, and have this professional learning session at your school. And that felt, that that was harder for our system. We hadn't had that kind of expectation in the past that we were all going to do something together. Oftentimes, we'd be providing professional learning for our system or for our educators or our
principals and they wouldn't bring it back to their buildings. Nothing would happen. It was like, that was great. And then it wouldn't go nowhere. And so we kind of started out with this really tight expectation and we got feedback and it wasn't always positive. Some actually really appreciated having that. And so, last year we lightened up on that a little bit and we said, you know, take some, you know, you have to do this part of it but the rest of it you can customize to your building. And then this year we've released it even more because we continue just to go deeper with some of the same things. And we've said, this is a resource for you now.
Pull parts of it out that are gonna meet your school's needs and meet your educators where they're at, whatever it may be. And then we give them about an hour planning time with the principal and the coach at the end of that session so they can really be thoughtful about what does make sense for our school team. And so I think I think we've struck a really nice balance there and we're getting a lot of positive feedback. Thank you for the freedom to to make make make it make sense for our educators in our school context. So I think that's going well, but it is, challenging for us to be able to differentiate for all those different means and it makes sense for them to be able to do that kind of differentiation on their own.
We're also, of course, in the face of budget reductions, concerned about some of the more intensive but very valuable, opportunities that we've been providing for our folks, our GEFCO's values based leadership for our school leaders and our central leaders. We've gotten so much positive feedback about this opportunity to really just spend time, and go with a group of other leaders and talk about what's your vision, why do you do what you do, how do you help others, know what your vision is and bring them on board to that, or work collaboratively? The experience has been really valuable for our leaders, but it is something that it's
a nice to have. And we're trying to figure out a way to continue to have it, because it's been so well received. I do think it really builds, leadership in a way that, connect creates a human value within leadership, where you're able to connect with those that you're leading, that I I would hate to see go away. So we'll see what we can we can do to, kind of, keep that alive and moving forward. It's been very beneficial. We're also talking a lot about teacher leaders and how we can expand on teacher leaders. We've been doing leadership learning walks and other types of learning walks in the district
for several years. And right now, we're working on a plan about how do we start to engage our teachers in learning walks, the ones that are least able to break away from their classroom and go visit other classrooms. And so right now, we're trying to construct a plan to where more of them can engage in that opportunity, because it's great professional learning experience, that peer to peer observation. Okay. Any questions at Doctor Kenworthy. So this is not directly related to anything in here, but it is just an overall question I think you'll have an answer to.
From looking both at professional development and at curriculum implementation, I'm wondering if somebody in the community were to ask me, where we might be addressing media literacy for students. Like, social media? Social media and also just, you know, watching news and discerning sources that are fact based versus opinion based, and then what kind of supports we're providing for our educators too? Because I'm imagining there might be some professional development opportunity around that as well.
I know it is happening. I know it happens in some of our social studies classrooms. It happens in some happens in some of our ELA classrooms. I know our EdTech team provides support around some of those things. As far as we don't have a specific curricular resource necessarily, but that's something that, you know, we can look into and provide some more, potentially, more consistency in how we approach that subject. Okay. But I know a lot of our teachers, just from casual observation in classrooms, do try to adjust those things. Right. But it's not it's not formalized in any kind of specific curriculum is what I'm hearing. That's right. Alright. Great.
Thank you. I have just I'm sorry. I think we might wanna add one thing to this question because, I want I just wanna add. As we think about secondary English language arts, the teachers who I've seen using the HMH resources or other resources, we have several. We have two. We have two in middle school. I've seen both resources being used by teachers and then talk to teachers afterwards. And those kinds of activities are built into those resources. So I think if we have high quality instructional materials that teachers are using, and
I think choice and voice matters in that, I think they will they they have it built in because today's day and age is so critical that you really do critically look at what are you reading and who wrote it and is it true, I mean, or not. In addition to that, I think Lisa wants to add something about the maybe social media stuff that we're working on because this is also so important about how people are consuming information, not just in newspapers or magazines, right, but online and on social. So go ahead, Lisa. You all might remember that last year, we spent a bunch of time.
We were applying for that big grant through the AG's office that, that they were offering on mental health, and we made a big pitch. We went and talked to students. We asked them these questions. We worked with our ed tech team. We actually looked into a bunch of resources. And then, unfortunately, we didn't get any part of the grant at all. So we actually have a pretty but we've done a lot of research on it, involved a lot of people. So as opportunities come up, we're still looking for ways to fund some additional, things. And we have it all written down in terms of, like, the feedback we got
from students. And so in addition to the things that have been said, we we we're still exploring opportunities to fund that too. Yeah. And this is actually what I think one of the best ideas we've had, which is like the growing and changing units that we have. They're not all called growing and changing. The fifth grade unit is and then I don't know. We also do it in seventh grade and ninth grade. Correct? Tenth. Tenth. Seventh and tenth. Like those units that all students have the opportunity to experience, parents can obviously opt out. But this would be a unit at key milestones where we know students are beginning
to be exposed to social media when most parents might be providing a phone, students are having more independence to go home, maybe after school for an hour or two before a parent gets home. Parents feel better about that if they have a phone, but then ironically, having the phone gives kids more access to things like social media sites. And so could you could you could develop a unit of study that every student, say, in fourth grade or sixth grade goes through.
And then it could be created to be more more rigorously aligned to some standards around adolescence in high school. So we have some strong interest in doing this. I think one of the things we've talked about is social media and the information sort of bombardment that happens to all of our kids is not going away. I've had actually great conversations about this with my high school teenager, junior. He's like, I it's coming at me all day long, mom. Like, I don't know what to think about it all the time. That's hard for me as a teenager. It's hard for my friends too.
So they're talking about it. And when we went and talked to JSLB about this idea, they were they were giving, Lisa hugs because they were so happy. Side hugs. But they were so happy that somebody was coming to them and saying to them, if you if we gave you this kind of lesson unit, would it be helpful for you? And they got really jazzed. So, unfortunately, we didn't get that grant, but we're not giving up on it because I think it would be a really cool thing for us to provide for our students. And again, once again, a parent opt out if parents don't want this for their
child. Yeah. I mean, I've I've seen lessons on bias and how do you interpret bias in media. So it's definitely there. Yeah. I'll just add to this because I won't be here when we're talking about the cell phone policy. I have I'm a huge proponent of digital literacy as a part of our curriculum in the schools and along with that, I actually, this is just a personal opinion, strongly believe that at least our seniors should have their cell phones in hand because they are in school right now and we have the opportunity to teach them how to handle it in a professional setting, how to use it for professional captivate them
and capture them for this learning environment. And I I say this a lot. When I when I hire people, I ask if I if someone came to me even out of high school and said, I've never had my phone with me all day, I would be like, darn it. I have to teach you that? Or now you have to learn it in school or or in college. So and that and AI. I ask, potential employees how to use AI. And and they they need to tell me that they are using it in some way. So I think we should be really helping our students understand this and and learn
these kinds of curriculum while we have them as students. So I don't think that's the popular view on phones in school, but I won't be here when you discuss it, so I'll say it now. No. I think I actually can I just say thank you for sharing that? Because I completely agree about the seniors. And this is coming from a mom whose daughter turned 18 in August, right at the beginning of her senior year, and had some health things she was dealing with through her senior year. And her doctor could not get a hold of her because her phone had to be in a shoe pocket on the door of her classroom.
It was patronizing, and a real challenge, like, just logistically for her to be independent enough to manage her day and actually her own health. So I agree completely about the seniors for sure. I think we're all looking for that. What's that just right balance with it all? Right? And I do think there is something to teaching students while we have them as we think about our resume of graduate and durable skills and the high school reimagine work that we're doing. How do we yeah. Yeah. That'd be a great place for that that to live. It's it's been interesting too to see some of the feedback we're getting on on
the budget surveys around devices for elementary students. Yeah. Yeah, I I guess just from what we're seeing in the surveys is that we're hearing from a lot of families that they don't belong in elementary, that that students don't need to be at that level, at that age, having their faces in a device yet, which aligns with my own personal. But, yeah, I mean, there is something of the oral language development and the social emotional learning and the skills that they're developing at those young ages. If they're always in a device, I do think it it can take away from those opportunities. But there's an age and a place where they do need to have some support.
Thank you. I have two questions. The the first one is about the PLCs. I have heard I mentioned this a little bit earlier a couple months ago. I've heard from two different special ed teachers, in two different schools and one felt that they were having more opportunities to have, you know, PLCs with other sped teachers across the district. But then there was another special ed teacher at a school who felt that she had no opportunities. So, I don't know how much she Were you talking about having opportunities to have
that collaboration with other, special education? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I don't know that that's anything that's really coordinated unless the teachers take it upon themselves. I could certainly bring that back to the team to see. But I know some of ours some of our folks like our AMP teachers have PLCs and they engage online because they're the only art teacher at a school. Maybe they're the only learning specialist at a school but we could certainly help them coordinate and and make those connections virtually. Yep. I think that would be nice. And then the other question is a little strange one too. I was wondering, how much principals really push for the, professional development of their teachers
versus the teachers pushing for it? Because I heard an interesting comment by a principal about the two extra days that we gave him, you know, that they had planned. You know, that was a day that their teachers were gonna have some of their professional development activities and then they didn't have it. But so it got me thinking, is it equally appreciated from principals and teachers? I think it it's it's an it's a person by person. I know a lot of principals have been frustrated by the loss of those two
days. They had had they had an external provider that they had paid for to come in and provide some learning for their, So they've had to reschedule some things and they did, but I know that that's been a loss of that having that time. I I think some teachers really enjoy those learning opportunities and and others Would it also be fair to say that the newer teachers are more eager for it than the veterans? Yeah. Typically, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Well, thank you very much for those presentations. Appreciate it. Thank you. So now we can move to leadership reports portion of the agenda.
First, the board will hear from superintendent Dorland on updates of the work of the district and following superintendent Dorland, the board will share their leadership reports. We have allotted ten minutes for each report. I'm not sure what any of us have ever taken ten minutes. So Yeah. I'm not gonna take ten minutes, I don't think, but I do have some things to update the board on. Over the past several weeks, I have spent meaningful time at Evergreen High School. School. I know I talked a little bit about this at your study session last week, but I've been working closely with the school, leadership and the camp community superintendent, Tom
Burns, to provide support and ensure a strong foundation for healing and progress. It is homecoming week for Evergreen High School, so their their, I think their game was tonight. I have not heard an update on the score. Is it tonight? Oh, it's tomorrow night. It's Friday night game. So go Cougars. We're, hoping that they get to that they've enjoyed their celebrations this week leading up to the homecoming game. And I know they have, important and strategic plans in place for the homecoming dance
tomorrow night. I have also, been directly engaged with some teachers where I've been able to check-in and listen, learn, and and seek to understand what they need for support. Members of my team have also been able to spend time at Evergreen High School with the staff, helping to clarify and streamline things like, the process for accessing mental health supports through workers' compensation. Educators and all staff at Evergreen High School are eligible to receive those services even if the paperwork, quote, unquote, isn't done.
Sometimes in the middle of trauma, it's very difficult to sort of navigate through things like paperwork. That can always be done later, and our team is working on ways to streamline that for them. So when it does need to happen, it can be easier for them. We are also, providing more information to the staff right now about the process, that's involved and how we can help them through that process if they need some time for leave, and so working with them on that. We we also have an upcoming meeting with Evergreen High School staff and JCEA leaders
to continue to discuss supports we can offer, Evergreen High School staff. And with those supports then, what portion of our collective bargaining agreement with JCEA do we need to waive out of? Because it might look different in terms of how we operate with Evergreen High School staff than with all the other staff that, are represented with by JCEA. So we're looking forward to that meeting. I think it's I think it's neck early next week. And through Terrapena, who has served as our primary contact for families, from our cabinet team, we know that teachers are gonna have some flexibilities this fall with events like
parent teacher conferences, and that they are being supported regularly if they need to leave their classroom for a moment of reflection, counseling, check-in, just a breath of fresh air, Or if they wake up one morning and they just can't be there, we do have additional staff and substitutes in place. We're also looking to hire additional mental health supports for staff, so that they can be there all year, because we know that the as we heard tonight in much of the public comment that it is it's not over and that we need ongoing care and concern.
So we're adding additional supports for year round staff mental health supports in the school. I will say the resilience and dedication to students from the Evergreen High School staff has been deeply inspiring. I also wanna, just recognize tonight, I think there's been a lot of recognition of the Evergreen High School staff as heroes on the day of of, September 10, and, and they were. I think their actions and their response through the protocols that they've taken very seriously and been trained on saved lives, no doubt. We've expressed much gratitude to our GEFCO safety and security or to our GEFCO sheriff's
office, and I wanna express gratitude to our GEFCO safety and security team. I I think they are often the unsung heroes of the day to day safety work that is done in Jeffco Public Schools. We did have a r one armed patrol officer who was on-site at the scene alongside a GEFCO sheriff's officer, who was a first responder in every sense of the word. And I would just like to make sure that our r one team and our campus supervisors who are in the school taking care of students and staff during the
incident and are still there, taking care of staff, students, and families every day are celebrated and commended. So thank you genuinely, thank you very much to our r one team for everything that they did that day and everything that they do every day to support and keep our kids safe. I've also heard, not just this evening, but what I heard tonight, from many parents and caregiver caregivers who are eager to engage more directly with me and additional district leadership.
I hear that feedback. And so in addition to the conversations that took place immediately following the recent incident, I will be honest. My efforts over the last couple of weeks here have been on the leadership at Evergreen High School as well as the staff. But I hear tonight that the community needs me and needs us as well. And so, we are gonna restart. We did have some conversations right after the incident, but we're gonna restart that important dialogue next week with families at the Evergreen High School PTSA meeting on Thursday evening.
Next week is a a a week of events for families and staff and students at Evergreen High School to receive a series of supports. The, National Center for Mass Violence is helping. Some local Evergreen, mental health professionals are helping. And, we will be there or I will be there, I think, with several board members on Thursday evening. This event is being organized by the GEFCO PTSA. I wanna extend my sincere thanks to the GEFCO PTSA for their leadership in this space. When we are in moments of crisis, it is difficult for me and our cabinet
team to make sure that our ears to the ground and that we are present and serving every aspect of what is needed in a crisis like this. So the PTSA, the larger GEFCO PTSA, I think, took it upon themselves to advocate for the evergreen PTSA. I appreciate that they've done that and that they're hosting this meeting and plan to facilitate us all. And we're getting some clarity for them on the panel approach that they wanna take for this meeting, and just make sure we're ready with whoever needs to be there. And also getting a sense from them kind of what are some of the thoughts
on the minds of the folks who will attend, which I think we got a little bit tonight as well. So we wanna be ready for that meeting so we can make it as productive as possible. And so again, thanks to the GEFCO PTSA for their commitment to supporting, the Evergreen High School community as well. We heard lots of public comments tonight about the SRO support for charters. I wanna be really clear. There has never been a directive or a decision made that SROs are to not support charter lead or charter schools. We do have language as was quoted in tonight's public comment about direct SRO support
to charter schools. My understanding so since I that has been brought to my attention, I have been working directly with, miss Tolleson and, mister Pearson to understand that language. It it is my understanding at this point in time that it has been language that's been in place since 2013 when we had initial IGAs with law enforcement agencies, and I think it just carried forward. My understanding, from talking to our legal team is that the intent of that language is not to say SROs are not to serve charter schools.
It is being interpreted that way by some of our law enforcement partners as well as some of our families at this point in time, and we need to clarify that quickly. So that is not my interpretation of that language. It is not Julie's interpretation of that language, and we're working to clarify that with our law enforcement partners, through Julie's and her team. And so I think the intent really was to say, we they don't contract directly with a charter school, and many of our charter schools are much smaller than our regular schools, like our elementary schools are smaller.
And so they they don't receive necessarily a one to one SRO support, but they will always receive SRO services. And I apologize, and I am sorry that that has been confusing in particular for Compass Montessori. I think there were some miscommunications that occurred, and we are working very closely and collaboratively with GEFCO Sheriff's Office to get that miscommunication corrected. I am also not blaming the Jeffco Sheriff's Office. I I don't and they are not blaming us. We work in partnership, and we're trying really hard to make sure that we get on the same page. So that's happening, and I believe we'll get something out to the Compass Montessori community
next or by tomorrow is my understanding. That's our goal. So that they know going into next week, what that means and that they will they will have SRO support. My understanding is that they will have the same SRO that they had last year, which they have a great relationship with, SRO Candice, who also supports Manning Middle School. This is my understanding at this point in time. So hoping to get that out tomorrow to the communities, there. Sure. Is it possible that we can do a quick change to that language to clarify?
Julie's working on that. I think I think that's a great suggestion, director Varda. And Julie is calling to say, hey. We didn't interpret this language this way, which is why we didn't suggest we take it out. We we understand that now some of you may be interpreting it that way. We'd like to change it so we can make it more clear. So, yes, we're working on that too. Thanks for that suggestion. Beyond Evergreen, I've continued visiting schools across the district to connect with staff and students. These visits are a vital part of my role. They allow me to stay grounded in the daily experiences of our educators and celebrate
the incredible work happening in our classrooms. You all know school visits are the best part of what we do. And I will say one of the questions that I ask folks afterwards is, what's in place that really helps you feel like you are cared for, challenged, and supported in your work. And many of our the teachers and I are having conversations about the curriculum resources. We're having conversations about PLCs. We're having conversations about their teammates. Those are the things that they feel are most supportive right now, especially in places where they feel like they can use the curriculum flexibly, and it's not necessarily, something
where you have to be on page five on day five. That is not the intent. So so those are great conversations, and they're also giving me some really good feedback about things that they feel like are getting in the way or making their jobs harder, things that we could think about stop doing. And so I'll be sharing more about that with the board, when we have time to talk about the superintendent evaluation and our goals going forward for the next year, next Friday. But it's been great, great conversations with the teachers. I visit three classrooms in every school.
Those classrooms are chosen by the academic leadership team in the school, and then I, have twenty minute ish conversations with each of those teachers after the school visits, after the classroom visits. It's been great. Career expo. I had the opportunity to attend the career expo with Jeff Gatlin, Matt Palero, and Drew Coleman. This event showcased that diverse career pathways available to our students, and it highlighted the strong partnerships that we're building with local industries, especially through our high school reimagined, work. And it was really energizing to see students exploring their futures with curiosity and confidence.
We even had one student who said, I really think I wanna be a mortician. Yeah. And I mean I mean, it was really, all the way to students who were talking to advanced manufacturing companies in our community that really thought they wanted to go build, I don't know what they're called. They're things that go on your computer. Chips, microchips with all kinds of different metal in them. Anyway, microchips for satellites was a company that was there. So kids were kids were psyched and it was fun to see.
And then last week, we discussed, or, yeah, we discussed the December that's scheduled in early December with our middle and high school leaders. We're really grateful to the Markel Foundation for their ongoing financial support for this important work. And today, I got to spend time with the steering committee. Both committees, the High School Reimagined and Magic of Middle School. It's a group of principals, central department leaders, teachers, counselors, and content area specialists who've
all come together to talk about what do we wanna do to reimagine high school related to career exploration and making middle school magical where kids begin to see their independence and their possible place in the world. It was a great group of leaders to be in the room with today. They care deeply about this work, and I'm really grateful for the extra that they're putting in to this work on top of their day to day, roles and responsibilities in GEFCO. So quick quick update. I don't know if it was ten minutes. I don't think it was, but I tried to hurry. President Parker.
Thank you, superintendent Dorland. Doctor Oplink. Wow. It's been a it's been a crazy couple months since we've been sitting here together. School visits are one of the best parts of what we do, and I've had the chance to do, quite a few over the last couple months, which has been really great because I typically get a little bit of a slower start. So thank you, miss Harper, for getting my schedule going. Maple Grove, Foster, Everett, Stober, Stevens, Prospect Valley, Arvada West, Norma Anderson, and Wheat Ridge High School. Particularly special for me was attending the Wheat Ridge High School ribbon cutting.
And if you all remember, when we did the bond, we did the really unfun parts of Wheat Ridge High School, which was the cooler, the chiller, the roof, things that really needed to be done but aren't like the fun parts of a high school. And then this board approved putting more money into the school and redid the cafeteria and the auditorium and student spaces and, a particularly gross bathroom in the basement of the building, which they're very excited about. And they actually took me to see the bathroom. It looks so good. It looks so good.
And they actually told me that when they redid those, the walls between the bathrooms crumbled. So it needed it. It was really it was really in need of it. So it was really special to see the community and the kids just be really excited, to see a refresh of their building. So, my gratitude to to this board and to really, to the amazing construction team and the project manager that was at Wheat Ridge because she did a phenomenal, phenomenal job. And to to Barry and Mark and mister Gatlin and all the all the people that made it happen. Also got to attend the great ed luncheon with with quite a few of my
peers up here. The partnership for fiscal responsibility meeting was really eye opening for me as we talk about the budget and those conversations are ongoing. There's been a couple CASB events. We had our board of directors meeting, and then we had a fall delegate assembly. And I've been able to join, director Kenworthy in going to talk to the EHS, PTSA, and the Evergreen Middle School PTA. And I do agree just going up and listening and then seeing and hearing us, I think is a great next step and I'm excited for that. I do wanna say, that I'm very sorry I won't be able to make it Thursday, but I know the board will represent us well and I hope we have
continued opportunities to go up and talk to the community because grief is forever. It evolves and it looks different and I think we heard that tonight. Right? This isn't out. It's back to normal. And I I want the public to hear that I don't think any of us think it's back to normal. We know this is a lifelong process that changed everyone, I think. And with that, I really want to appreciate the comments tonight. It takes a lot to come and stand up in front of the board in a public setting and say the comments, and so I appreciate everyone that spoke up
tonight. I really wanna echo superintendent Dolan's comments on Compass Montessori and all of our charters. I want it to be loud and clear that all kids in GEFCO are our kids, and that includes charters. And so we will work to repair the trust that was inevitably broken, and we will figure that out, but I just want to shot that from the mountain tops. And I do want parents to know that safety is a priority. It's a priority for all of us. A lot of us up here are moms and grandmoms and have been in the
schools, and we have kids in these buildings, and we have friends and people that we care about in these buildings. And so, please know from the bottom of my heart that this matters deeply and I believe it matters to this whole board. So, I believe that's it. Thanks. Okay. I'll just keep going around here. I also want to thank all the people that came and spoke tonight. It was a very heartfelt, it it was obvious that these people were were speaking
from their heart and, and I want to reiterate what, doctor Applegate said that safety is still a high high priority for us and we will keep working. We're not there yet and, we'll keep going. I wanted to say a couple of the things that I've done, in the last two months, I guess it is we didn't have a meeting last time. I I have been going to different SAC meetings now to talk about the budget, blueprint and where we are and where we're going. So I have been to Summit Ridge SAC.
I went to Blue Heron SAC. I went to, Governors Ranch and West Ridge and Columbine Hills. And along those lines too, I had spoken with Tammy Story, representative Story, and, she was very, interested in making sure that we have town hall type, opportunities for our community when we talk about, the budget blueprint. And we do have budget labs coming up, but, after some discussions with, superintendent Dorland
and, miss Harper who's working on the the plans for it too. It it didn't fit in with that format. So I have a suggestion that maybe the school board members could, have some town halls in our own districts, and I've, asked miss Harper to see if she can find a a location and a time, so that we can have an opportunity for for questions in a a larger format. And let's see. Other things that I have done, I went to the marching band festival, which was really fun.
That was on September 13. It was very cold and they had, lightning delays for a while but it was very exciting. Also, have had meetings with TDPAC. They are just an amazing committee. They've got such expertise, industry expertise and plus most of them are parents as well. So, some of the discussion we have on the cell phone usage or social media, so forth, they they have both sides to it, like, the career side and the safety and, educational.
Also had the opportunity to talk to the National Mass Violence Center in preparation for our getting back to to our regular meetings and our public comments and so forth, and they've been very, very helpful on that. I also went to the great ed luncheon and, attended a audit committee and the meeting with the county commissioners just that we just had. Also attended the FAC financial advisory committee and, I also went to the career expo,
form, or this past, was it Wednesday we had it? Just a couple days ago. But I thought it was a great venue for it. It's good that we had good weather because it's always iffy and if it had been snowing or something and cold, it would not have been as exciting as it was, but it was so open and so, easy to see all the options, all the places there so, that's something I think that is excellent and fits right in with our high school reimagined. So, and I'll just throw out one more thing that I just finally completed the
fifth and final candidate forum. So back to business. Yeah. I came and watched the student led forum and it was I love their questions. They ask the best questions. I wanna start off by saying I hope that, director Reed knows that we're thinking of her as she continues to heal from her vertigo, and I'm grateful for the support she received this evening. I also wanted to extend gratitude to Jeff Pearson and our r one team. I think sometimes our community doesn't fully understand or appreciate the ways that our security
shows up, how they collaborate with our community partners, and, the amount of training and thoughtfulness that goes into the way that each one of those campus security officers and r one patrol officers show up in our schools. They are not SROs. SROs are a separate classification, but it doesn't mean that not having an not having an SRO doesn't mean there's no security in the building. I just I I really want our community to hear that. They're when we say multiple layers, SROs are a layer, not the layer, and r
one is many, many of the other layers. And I am so grateful for them and to understand, you know, we've invested in secure vestibules, and we've checked lots of work we work with facilities on safety and security in the buildings. There's just a lot of work that goes into it and fought, and I think often those are things that are unseen and uncelebrated, but very necessary. And so I I, just wanna extend my gratitude to r one. And also to community orgs like Parks and Rec, the GEFCO PTA, the Chamber of
Commerce in Evergreen, and then a bunch of the businesses who have done a lot to support our students immediately following the incident on September 10. I made sure to go and visit some of those businesses that had extended, support to our students, because I want to support the work that's happening in that community to support. They do such a great job of supporting one another, but this is also a long road that we are on, and so our community also will need to show up, because I think the level of effort they've exerted is not sustainable across the
long term. But I'm I'm trying to think ahead about how we continue to be responsive and supportive to that community and not let it pass with the news cycle. For those folks who spoke tonight, I wanna say that I'm also a parent, and I also remember what happened in my own personal life on September 10, when I received a phone call letting me know that there was something going on. It was hard. I am a survivor of, of a shooting, 07/24/1998 at The US Capitol.
I was working in the basement when two officers were shot and killed, and I was locked in that basement for five hours, waiting for them to clear the compound of the of the Capitol. And I know that immediate response to those events can go in all different directions. From feeling like you haven't been impacted at all to feeling like you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring and then everything in between. And I I wanna lift up that we are very much still processing the trauma
of what happened on September 10, and I wanna hold all of the impacted families, in my heart. And I know that they're hurting, and we are hurting with them and with the community. What else did I wanna say? After the incident, some of us walked the school. It was difficult, but I think necessary, and I wanna thank the district staff who walked it with us. They were incredibly professional in a very hard situation, incredibly thoughtful, and also provided, additional mental health supports for us when we were there to walk that building.
And so I was grateful for that, even though it's not anything that I ever wanted to have to do. I appreciate public comment tonight, especially those folks who came, with solutions and ideas and suggestions. But I do I wanna speak just on my personal opinion that more guns in school is not the answer and that schools cannot address violence alone. This is a community problem, and I agree with one of the speakers who said there needs to be community response. If schools could have fixed this particular problem over the last thirty years, they would
have or we would have. I know that I have never felt additionally safe being around somebody who is carrying a firearm, unless I can tell that they have been specifically trained and are wearing a uniform. And even then, it's I still have a very heightened anxiety when I'm around it. And so my concern is for those students for whom additional security measures in a very visible way may not actually be supportive of their mental health, and and their feeling of safety. In response to some of the comments, I want to share my frustration about our
public comment, set up just because we don't respond. And people come and they speak misinformation or misunderstanding into the room and there's no chance for us to counter it until now. And if you look out into the seats that were full earlier, none of those people are here. They're not here to hear our response. Perhaps they will watch the video, but I don't know. So that it that's hard because there are other people who are in the room for whom the issue being spoken about is not the issue that they came here
to talk about, but they will leave this room carrying misinformation and narratives that are incorrect back out into the community. And that is very concerning to me because I think we continue to feed and spin narratives of brokenness, of pointing fingers, and it's not helping us address the things that we actually need to address. For one of the gentlemen I wanted to say, safety is actually a privilege. It is not a right, and it cannot be guaranteed, which is incredibly hard for any parent to say to their child. But it is true in the culture and the time that we live in.
It's not just in schools. It is in movie theaters. It's happening at grocery stores and in public parks and also in schools. And so I wish that I felt that I could walk through this world entitled to safety, but I am not. And there are people in this world who have never experienced a feeling of safety and may not not in their lifetime. And so to expect that we can guarantee safety for ourselves and for our children is an unfortunate untruth.
It's we just cannot guarantee it. We can do everything we can to support it, but I wanted to say that, because safety absolutely is a privilege. Feeling safe is a privilege. And, ultimately, I'm gonna end with, I'm very grateful for those folks who showed up at public comment to share some good news with us tonight. Our, school nurses and health aids are I can't even remember now at this point because this meeting has been long. But, anyway, I'm just grateful for the folks who show up and also share the
ways that their children have been supported, in real time by Jeffco Public Schools because this is there's a more nuanced story about what happens in this district than just, the negative things that get brought to our attention. And we don't ever celebrate or talk as loudly about all of the good things that are happening as much as we do when there's something, uncomfortable or negative that has happened. And I think that our students and our staff are amazing. So I wanted to end on that note. Okay. I wanted to just, add a thank you to our, Saint Anthony's trauma teams.
I can't imagine the experience that they have when they receive students, or anyone who's been through through these kinds of events. And, our two students are home again, so that's in great thanks to their attention. And Saint Anthony's has an excellent trauma team and, I have a a friend who, the day of of the event, when she, connected with me, she she reminded me, of that. And I thought, that's good, you know, like we we have people in place who
are are able to handle these really extreme, impossible tasks and so really grateful, for them. I appreciate all all the public comment. I think people came with diverse and really good ideas. Something I've learned on the school board is that when people come to talk to us, they believe with all their heart the things that they are coming to talk to us about. And I really honor that people believe what they what they are coming to tell us. And I think it's important for us to consider all of their perspectives and then
come back together, in a way to, solve problems honoring that. So, really grateful especially for our students who are coming forward and helping us understand, how they can feel safer in their schools. And then, I just oh, wanted to mention that I got to go to Warren Tech as a chaperone for my eighth grader. So it was super fun. I got to ride the bus. And then when we got there, my junior, who is at Warren Tech, was our
tour guide. So we were a family of three which totally embarrassed my eighth grader, that was mom's older sister and her just trying to get to, her field trip. But it was amazing. Our eighth graders all around the district got to go to these tours at Warren Tech, and the students at Warren Tech are so patient and they make the whole experience fun, like stations, at each of the programs and the kids get to do something in that station. So, that was just a highlight.
And then I've just, been doing my school visits and going to the community meetings I love to go to and, look forward to a few meetings next week, that that we are all some of us are are going to in different times and and days. Thank you to the GEFCO PTSA for putting together an opportunity for us to meet with the community on Thursday. Thanks. I I missed one. Thank you. And director Kenworthy reminded me of it. There was a tremendous team on our facility side that got Evergreen High School back.
And I would be remiss. We we recognized them this morning at the CAC meeting, and I would be remiss if we didn't recognize that a lot of effort and round the clock work went into making our facility able to bring parents and students back into that. And that was hard for those people. And that we did work with the National Mass Violence Center on what trauma informed facilities work looks like, which is something I had never thought about. And so to Jeff Gatlin, to Matt Pleroe, to Mark, to Barry, to all the
facilities team at Evergreen High School, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Okay. That brings us to the end of today's agenda. Thank you to everyone who participated this evening. Our next regularly scheduled meeting of the board is a study session on November 5 here at the Ed Center. With that, we will stand adjourned. Good night.