Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Down. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to this board of education meeting for Jeffco. Uh for those of you who don't know, we are or these fabulous
students are the improv team from Dakota Rich High School. Uh if you'd like to take a moment to introduce yourselves. >> Hi, my name is Kai. I'm a senior and I'm the like leader of this troop. >> I'm Violet and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Lo and I'm a sophomore.
>> Hi, I'm Griff. I'm a junior. >> I'm Loen and I'm also a junior. >> I'm Hayden and I'm also a junior. And this is Improv TBD. And today we're going to be playing Thank you. Today we're going to be playing four improv games for you or four improv structures. The first one is what are you doing?
Here's how this game works. Kai is going to step forward and start miming some type of activity. And then Hayden is going to step forward and ask Kai, "What are you doing?" Kai has to say something completely different from what she is
actually doing. >> I'm wrestling an alligator. >> Kai then moves to the back of her line. Hayden steps forward and starts doing what Kai said she was doing. So wrestle that alligator.
The Florida man really taught me how to do this, but I don't think I paid very little attention. >> Hayden, what are you doing? I am building the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks. >> Okay, this is going to be very tedious, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to get it done and I'm going to do it. I just need a lot more to do it
here. Building a platform. Okay, >> Violet, what are you doing? >> I am eating octopus on top of a building. >> Wow, I've never eat an octopus before.
I'm going to try to cut this. Wow, it's rubbery. >> What are you doing? >> I am building a car. >> Okay, I just Googled this. I think I got a good idea.
>> This is the screwdriver that goes like inside the window. >> Oh no. What are you doing? Trying to find a needle in a hay stack. >> Dang it. This is impossible. I've never hit it.
>> I can't I can't do this anymore. >> Griff, what are you up to? >> Um, I'm jumping out of the plane with monkeys. >> Oh, wow. >> Okay, that is our first round of What are you doing? Give yourselves a round of applause. are are performers. Your parents either
one, mom or dad, their first name, what was their initial for their first name? >> H >> H. You, sir, your parents, either one, first name initial. >> A. All of their responses to what what
are you doing now must include words that begin with H and A in that order. Get us started. >> Kai, what are you doing? >> I'm hinging apples.
Halfing. >> Yeah, that's a good half. That's a good half. This one isn't so centered, but it's still cut in half. >> What are you doing? >> I'm happily assisting people out of the old's hotel. >> That's just great. Okay, here you go, Mrs. Whatever your
name is. I forgot. We're going to take you out here so you can look at the garden. Oh, look at the beautiful trees. Oh, isn't it just amazing out here? >> What are you doing? >> I'm hopping around on a pogo stick on a trampoline. >> Wow, that shot off. Hold on, let me grab
it real quick. Okay, I don't know. I don't know how to ride a poker. Let me let me try this again. Loen, what are you doing? >> I'm hooking an apple on a piece of rope. >> Wait a minute, Loen. I believe we heard apple already, right? >> Yes. >> Take a seat.
>> Yes, sit down. >> Mono, what are you doing? >> I'm representing Homo sapiens in an alien board meeting. Griffin, what are you doing? >> I'm just heaving up a lung. >> Yeah, just sit down. I'll get out of
here. >> Okay. You tried to sneak that past. Okay. Nice try. Okay, let's go one more round and we're going to make it more challenging. So to match your favorite
letter >> L is our first letter. Your favorite movie start >> G. So minus >> L. Oh, h G.
>> All of your responses >> must start with the letters H. >> Oh, I'm sorry. L TG LTG in that order. Go ahead, Kai. Get started. >> Hey, Kai. What are you doing?
>> Uh, I'm uh locking turtles in garages. All right, guys. Come on. Just Just a little bit more. I know you're really slow. Come on. I'll just like pick up. All right. Now, they're all in there. And >> what are you doing?
>> I'm lightly tickling gorillas. >> Okay. Hello, Mr. Gorilla. >> Oh, he's coming after me. >> What are you doing, Violet? have anything? >> Oh man.
>> Hayden, take us home. >> Hayden, what are you doing? >> I am lighting. >> Sit down. >> And there are two winners. What are you doing next? We're going to play a game called twoline vocabulary.
and um this game. Kai, who would you like in this game? >> Um I would like Lono and Violet to play this with me. >> Okay, so Kai, Lono, and Violet are going to be playing a game called two line vocabulary.
And how this game works is we're going to get a situation for them to be um or yeah, a situation for them to create a scene. Kai can say whatever she would like in this scene. However, we're going
to limit Lono and Violet to just two lines. They can only say two lines. So, you please, if I could get a strong declarative statement from you, like, I
love pizza. Something along those lines. >> Uh, we need snow. >> We need snow is what you're going to say. Okay. Um, and you if I could please give a strong declare statement. >> Broncos will win this weekend.
>> The Broncos will win this weekend. >> Okay. And now I need a question from you. >> Will the Bears? >> Will the Bears win? Is you Violet?
And um you What was your name? >> Corbin. >> Corbin. Uh, could I get a question from you? >> What time is it? >> What time is it? That's for you, Lo. Hey, and now just anybody please. What is one thing that you look forward to
every year? >> The budget. >> Okay, >> we now section. So your um the the subject for your scene is the budget. >> Okay.
>> Hey, now remember it doesn't have to be like it could be like a whole budget like trying to figure something out. Okay, >> kids. Kids, gather around. >> Nice and loud. Nice and loud. >> Sit down. I I have something I have some news to share with you. >> We need snow.
Yes, it's about that. >> We can't afford to go skiing in Aspen this year. >> What time is it? >> It's only midocctober, but it you know, you got to plan ahead, sweetie. Adultting is about planning ahead.
>> Will the Bears win? >> I I can't plan that far ahead, but I hope they will. >> The Broncos will win this weekend. Will the Bears win this weekend? >> The Broncos will win this weekend. We
>> Ladies, please. I can't take this fighting right now. Look, I'm telling you, Mommy's lost her job. And we just can't We can't do a lot of the things we've been doing. And I'm very sorry. I just Oh. Oh, please. I'm
I'm so sorry. It's just next year, I promise. I'll I'll work super hard. I'll get three jobs at Old Navies, different ones. And >> yes, >> when will we get snow? >> Snow's coming.
>> It's It's going to come. It's going to come. I promise. I can promise you that. I'll promise you there's snow, but we will not be skiing on it. >> What time is it? >> It's It's time for you two to step up. You are both 18 years old and living
under my roof. Do you wonder why I pay so many bills? This is a four bedroomedroom house. Three bathrooms. This is insanity. My mortgage is through the roof. You two need to get out, get jobs, go to college. I don't know, maybe find a boyfriend.
>> Oh, no. >> Yeah. >> Who's going to win this week? >> Yeah. Bears win this weekend. >> I don't know. Will you win this weekend? >> We need snow. >> We need you to get out of this house.
You know what? What time is it? >> It's time for me to leave and show show you guys what real adulthood is like. >> We need snow and Okay, Payeyton, Griff, Logan, come on up. We're going to play a quick game.
One quick round. One quick round of What's My Gibberish? Okay, so for this game, who'd like to step outside? The buster. >> I'm sorry. >> The buster. >> Yes, I'll go step out. >> Okay. Hayden is going to step outside. Hey, this also gives us a chance to talk
about what he's wearing tonight. Okay. But this game is called What's My Gibberish. How this is going to work is we're going to get an active activity for Hayden to be doing when he comes back into the room. We're also going to put a special condition on that
activity. These two are going to get seem to know what he is doing, but they can only communicate through mime and gibberish. So, what is a dangerous activity that you've always wanted to try, but you've
been too scared to do? >> Ghostbusting. >> Ghostbusting. Hey, how about something in the real world? Skydiving. Okay, you didn't get him to know that he is skydiving.
Okay. Um, but he is not wearing or using a traditional parachute. Instead, his parachute is what type of fruit? >> A banana. Okay? So, you have to get him to know that he is skydiving
and he is using a banana for a parachute. To make it even more challenging, we're going to give you 45 seconds to do this. Okay? If you could have Hayden come back in for me, please. That would be great.
>> Let's welcome Hayden on. >> Hey Siri, set a timer for 45 seconds. All right, Aiden, what are you doing? >> I am skydiving, but my parachute is a banana. >> 19 seconds to spare. Good job. All right, let's play one more game. Okay.
Uh, Kai, since you are the captain of this team, what game would you like to end with? >> Um, I think I would like to end with a game called press conference. >> Fantastic. >> And if we could ask one of you guys to come help us out and join us, that would
be so fantastic. >> I think we should nominate you. >> What is your name? Brianna. >> Briana. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you so much for helping us out. >> All right. >> Hey, here's what's going to happen, Brandon. We're going to ask you to step outside >> for just not not quite yet. Let me first
explain the game. Okay. We're going to ask you to step outside when and while you are gone, we are going to give you a character and a special event that your character has um participated in. When you come back in, you are going to be
holding a press conference. Mhm. >> We have three reporters who are going to be giving you questions about who you are and what that event is. >> You have to do your best to answer your questions.
>> And then after two rounds of questions, we're going to have you guess as to who you are. >> Got it. >> And what event that person has participated in. to help you out with this. Kai is going to be your publicist and will help you out in uh any way that
you might need it. >> Okay. So, if you please step outside for us. >> Okay. a recent popular movie character. >> Spider-Man. >> Spider-Man.
>> Hey, she's going to be Spider-Man. And what crazy event did Spider-Man participate in? >> A baking contest. >> Okay. Spider-Man has recently won the Great British
Bake Off. Okay. Spider-Man has won the Great British Bake Off. Okay. Got it. All right. If you could please have her come back in, that would be great. >> Yes, please. And here we go. We've got your press
conference area all right here. >> Excellent. >> Drew, is this live? >> Okay. >> Welcome to today's press conference. My client has limited time, so can we keep things a little snappy? Thank you.
>> Here, uh Sam, uh Sam Charles from Sam's Club. Um I would like to ask you a question. Uh, did you travel that way by car or by your other means of travel? >> Um, I traveled via a bus >> right here. Uh, Kyle Clark, 9 News. So,
>> a bus that seems highly unlikely given the long distance of water. Uh, just >> just asking how how did that happen? >> Oh, yeah. So, the bus got on a ferry. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Mhm. >> Right here. Uh Michael Woods with ABC
News. Uh I was wondering, so after all, I mean, you're British, so like don't like is that not part of your hometown? Like >> you're from >> there. Mhm. >> What What are you doing in America?
>> What? Oh, America. Okay. Um am I on tour? I uh we can't really uh disclose that kind of information right now. >> Okay. >> Legal issues. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Same here again. >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, while you were at this said event, uh while you were cracking the eggs, there was a crash and they said that you were mysteriously gone while the crash was happening. Would you like to explain why that was? >> There were some eggs. Yes. Mhm.
>> It was outside the building. There was like this, you know, huge >> huge. Yeah. >> You said there was like webs everywhere afterwards. Would you like to explain on that? >> Oh, webs every Oh, and eggs hatchings. Yes. Some things hatched. >> I think I recall that.
>> Right. Yes. >> Out of the web. >> Yes, sure did. Yep. I was not there. >> Kyle here again. Um I believe uh my fellow colleague um has got some wrong information. Um you know you're American
as many people would say from Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. Um and we just wanted we were wondering why or why were you all the way across the pond over there just doing something you just wouldn't normally do.
>> Again, we cannot disclose we have a NDA with uh Mr. Stark. Uh, >> okay. Okay. Okay. >> Um, we're we're running a little short on time. >> Excuse me. >> I'm listening. >> We're running a little short on time. >> Okay.
>> Uh, final question right here. Um, so at this event, um, you happen to win. Are you sure it wasn't because like your letters had like Sabi Bottoms or >> Were they in a band?
>> Are you sure? Okay. >> Like he didn't remember with their timers or anything. >> Does this >> Okay. >> Oh, I I'm sorry. Robbie Robertson from the Daily Bugle. >> I think I I think I >> I may have it. >> Um
>> it was surprising that you were the winner of this big contest, right? And what I found really interesting was when you had to decorate the cookies at the end, you did you purposely use your webs slingers as the lace >> ready to win?
>> Hey, I sure did. >> What was the the judges immediate reaction to that? >> Anger and frustration. Um, am I Spider-Man at the Great British Bakeoff? Yay. >> Talking about >> Is that right? Very, very good job.
Yeah. Great job. >> Once again, we are improving TVD from Dartidge High School. Introduce yourselves one last time. >> My name is Kai. >> My name's Aiden. I'm Bri. I'm Loan. >> My name's Lo. I'm Violet.
>> And thank you very much for having me. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Down. Hey. Hey.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Down down down down down down. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. N. Down. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Down down down down down. Heat. Heat. N.
Hey, hey, hey. in the town. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N. Down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down down
down down down down Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. down. Hey Heat. Hey, Heat.
Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. down. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Good evening everyone. I would like to
call this meeting of January 15th, 2026 to order. Roll call please. Miss Harper. >> Miss Applegate here. Dr. Etcharia here. Mr. Gibbons >> here, >> Miss Kenworthy >> here, Miss Moian >> here.
>> Welcome to everyone 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 welcome you. I'd also like to thank the theater students from Dakota Ridge High School who performed for the in the boardroom before the meeting began. Also, a
special thank you to our live simultaneous Spanish interpreters for joining us. And please note, we are also live streaming this meeting. As we begin, I'd like to take a moment and explain a new format of our board meetings starting tonight. We will begin with the board meeting with honors and
recognitions, followed by proclamations. Next, the board will listen to public comment and following public comment, the board will proceed with the consent agenda and then action items if needed. After action items, the board will hear and share leadership reports followed by the study portion of the meeting. The
decision to realign the order of the meeting is to foster greater visibility of the consent agenda for the listening public and those who are curious and would like to stay after public comment. Um, and it also allows more folks to listen to our leadership reports. With that, we'll move forward with tonight's
meeting. Please stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance. Is there a motion to approve today's meeting agenda as presented in board docs? >> I motion to approve today's meeting agenda as presented in board docs. >> Is there a second? I second. Any
discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda for today's meeting of January 15, 2026 as presented in board docs. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. >> Miss Applegate. >> Yes. >> Dr. Etchia, >> here. >> Mr. Gibbons. >> Yes. >> Miss Kenworthy. >> Yes.
>> Miss Moanian. >> Yes. Please note that we will take a 15-minute break at approximately 6:45 this evening. Up next, we have honors and recognitions. And every month the board of education has the pleasure of recognizing students, staff, schools, and community members for their
achievements and contributions to our community. This month, our recognitions are centered on the priority one of Jeffco thrives, our learners and our future. In Jeffco, our goal is that all Jefco students experience a culture of instructional excellence and that each and every student has an extraordinary
student experience. Tonight, we are celebrating both of these goals and I for one am really, really excited to recognize the students and staff that have joined us tonight. We will begin with our fall sports achievements. So, first the board would like to recognize Lakewood High School's unified
bowling team on winning the bowling state championship. So, could the Lakewood team please make their way to the front of the boardroom? trophy. >> That's awesome. >> That's a great trophy. >> And as they come up, I'd like us to turn our attention to the screen and we're
going to watch a short video. Sorry. >> Many of us don't tend to think of bowling as a team sport, but Lakewood High School's unified bowling team just showed the lifechanging power of being part of a team. >> All right, Evie, where you going? Working together is a great way to
accomplish a goal. >> Good job, Lei and Zay. >> Michael Moriranda shares that lesson with his students at Lakewood High School. >> This is my seventh year teaching unified PE at Lakewood. I've been a severe need special ed teacher for 19 years now. So
unifi is when we grab students with an intellectual disability, partner them up with their typical peers. Without a doubt, the most valuable members of our team besides the athletes are our pair of educators. >> Mr. Sean is the best coach, right? But
you're the best player, right? >> Right. >> Awesome. >> Shawn Win works with Elijah every day. >> Working with the kids is really awesome experience. >> 11th grader Aaliyah helps out her friends Emma and Josh. >> Doing activities in gym. >> Their teamwork is paying off outside of this gym. >> Kids on the bowling team since we won
state championships. >> Yeah, we won state championship bowling. The state sanctioned event pairs kids like Josh, Emma, and Elijah with partners like Aaliyah. One player rolling after another. >> And Aaliyah would get a a spare, the rare occurrence of a spare. We'd have Laser Man come up here and
>> the Tigers knocked down 649 total pins. Bring the title to Lakewood. >> He was locked in, weren't you? >> You locked in. You did good. >> Yes. >> Are you proud of yourself? >> Yes. >> Good. Super proud moment for all of our athletes, all of the staff here at Lakewood. >> That's like what I wanted from the beginning, just like see like how
excited the kids were. like especially when we won. >> It was super exciting. >> A unified effort that goes beyond the lens. >> Good job, buddy. >> For next. >> Good job. Good try. Good try. >> I'm Mike Rey. On behalf of the board of education, we too would like to share how proud we are
of this exceptional group of students, parents, teachers, coaches, and leaders. Congratulations on your well-deserved championship. Next, the board would like to recognize the Dakota Ridge High School football team for winning the class 4A football
state championship. Can the Dakota Ridge team please make their way to the front of the boardroom? It is with immense pride that we celebrate a monumental milestone in Dakota Ridg's athletic history. On Saturday, December 6th, the Dakota Ridge
High School football team secured its first ever state championship title, concluding a flawless, undefeated season. The Eagles 38-14 victory over Palmer Ridge at Colorado State University's Canvas Stadium was more
than just a win on the scoreboard. It was a testament to the dedication, discipline, and sportsmanship of our student athletes, coaches, and staff. Congratulations to each of you. Next, the board is honored to recognize the Pomona Junior Senior High School
football team for winning the Class 3A football state championship. Can the Pomona team please make their way to the front of the boardroom? This remarkable group of athletes, coaches, and leaders are enjoying Pomona's third ever state football championship. An achievement worth
celebrating with a winning 17-4 victory against Windsor. These players left the field as champions and not only champions in their sport, but in their school community as well. Congratulations to each of you for your
hard work and dedication. Next, the board would like to recognize the Rston Valley High School dance team on winning the Game Day Dance State Championship. Will the Rston Valley team please make their way to the front of the boardroom
here? I don't see them. Are >> they not here? Rston Valley and Erie, the top two finishers from a year ago, met once again in the finals of Game Day Dance with Rston Valley winning the title for a second straight year. Head coach Katie
Mink said, "We will continue to work as hard as we can and represent Rston Valley as proudly as we can." From the board of education, you have not only made Rollston Valley proud, but all of Jeffco. Congratulations on your second straight victory.
The next recognition this evening is to the esports team at Bear Creek High School on winning the Rocket League state championship. Will the esports team from Bear Creek please make their way to the front of the boardroom? All right.
The board of education is incredibly proud to announce that the Bear Creek Gold Rocket League team has captured the school's first ever esports state championship. In a thrilling 4 to2 victory over the topseated Legend High
School Titans, the Bears showcased incredible resilience and teamwork, ultimately securing a historic win, making Bear Creek's first state title since 2010. Congratulations to all of you.
Now the board would like to recognize a few individual sports achievements. Will the following students please join us in the front of the boardroom? Will Natash Karapasami from Dev Develin Junior Senior High School. Leila Pets
from Arvvada West High School and Ava Vilchek from Stanley Lake High School. These three students each recently won an individual state championship. Nesh won the class 4A boys tennis number one singles state championship.
Ila won the class 5A girls gymnastics all-around state championship and Ava won the class 4A girls gymnastics uneven bars state championship. Your recent victories serve as a clear and compelling testament to your hard work. It's rewarding to see your
dedication translate into such significant milestones and it's obvious that this is only the beginning of what you'll achieve. Congratulations to these exceptional athletes and their coaches. We will now have a brief pause for those who are here for athletic recognitions
to depart and to welcome our academic recognition recipients into the boardroom. All right. >> It's it's really really wonderful um tonight because we're getting to celebrate all kind of facets of what we do. um to get to celebrate our athletic
leaders and our athletic students is really pretty amazing and then to get to follow it right up with what we're about to talk about um from a board member's perspective is just really really special and so from my point of view this this makes everything else worth
it. So um I'm really honored to talk about this next item. So, moving forward with academic recognitions, the board would like to recognize all of our schools that achieved high growth on the 2025 CAMASS or PSAT SAT tests. In Colorado, we use growth percentiles to
see how our students are progressing against peers with similar academic starting points. A score of 50 is the state baseline for a typical growth. But in Jeffco, we strive for more, consistently setting our targets at 55. Tonight, we are highlighting an elite group of schools. These schools didn't
just meet the mark. They hit 65th percentile or higher, showing extraordinary progress over the last school year. This is truly an accomplishment worth celebrating. School representatives, as I read the name of your school, please make your way to the front of the boardroom where you will be greeted by my fellow board
members and we will pause for a group photo before going to the next section. So, the following schools earned high growth on the 2425 CAMass tests in English language arts. Dennis Elementary School, Fairmont Elementary School, Governor's Ranch Elementary School,
which cannot join us this evening, Kifan Elementary School, which is not able to join us this evening, Mickel John Elementary, Mitchell Elementary, Monasuri Peaks Academy, Rostston Valley Elementary. Can you all please come up and let's give them a massive round of applause.
the the following schools earned high growth on the 2425C mass test in mathematics. Bergen Elementary School, Parmaly Elementary School, Peak Expeditionary School at Pennington, Slater Elementary School, South Lakewood Elementary
School, and Scott Elementary School. Would you all please come up? in the following schools earned high growth on the 2425 CMAS tests in English language arts and mathematics. And I want I want to reemphasize how
impressive that is for both. And that's Red Rocks Elementary School who cannot join us this evening, but we're very proud of you. And my own Stober Stallions. So, Stober Elementary School And the following school earned high growth on the 2024 25 SAT PSAT in
mathematics and that's Devlin Junior Senior High School. Please come up. I just want to take a second to reiterate that none of the work we do happens without our teachers and staff in our schools. So, a tremendous amount of gratitude from this board and this
district to the work that all of our teachers and staff and administrators are doing in these schools every single day. We we simply cannot do it without you. So, thank you so much and congratulations to each of these schools, the teachers and building the leadership for supporting Jeffco schools
in this achievement. This will conclude our recognitions for this evening. We'll now take a brief pause for anyone who would like to exit prior to moving on with our meeting. And now we will turn to our board proclamations. The board publicly recognizes special events and significant issues by issuing
proclamations. In the month of January, we are commemorating World Braille Day, which was January 4th, National Law Enforcement Day, which was January 9th. We thank everyone in law enforcement for their service. Dr. Martin Luther King Day, which is January 20th, International Holocaust Remembrance Day,
which is January 27th, and School Board Recognition Month. We encourage you to read all of the Jeffco board proclamations in board docs. Items 3.01 and 3.05 are presented in board docs as proposed proclamations for the month of January. Do I have a motion regarding
the approval of the proclamations? >> I motion to approve items 3.01 through 3.05 5 on the proclamation section as published in board docs. >> Is there a second? >> I second. >> Is there any discussion? >> It has been moved and seconded to
approve the January proclamations as presented in board docs. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. >> Miss Applegate. >> Yes. >> Dr. Etchavaria. >> Yes. >> Mr. Gibbons. >> Yes. >> Miss Kenworthy. >> Yes. >> Miss Moinian. >> Yes.
>> Thank you. We will now move to public comment. Oh, can I just acknowledge I just Thank you, President Abgate. I'd just like to acknowledge the final proclamation that's in the list of proclamations as um uh school board uh appreciation month um and recognition
month in January. and um want to just highlight uh a small token of appreciation for each of our board members and the plants that are in front of them. And um the work you do in support of our uh district governance, in support of me, my team, the schools
is greatly appreciated and it does not go unrecognized. So happy to be celebrating that uh with and for all of you and our board as a whole this month. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Superintendent. We will now move on to public comment portion of our meeting. The public
comment is an opportunity for the community to share their thoughts with the board. Please note that during public comment, the board does not engage in discussion with or respond to individuals. The board will listen to public comment on any topic for up to one hour. If more time is required, we will have a second public comment
session at the end of this meeting. There is a threeminut time limit per individual speaker and a 10-minute time limit per group. Each speaker or group has been given a number. The board invites you to come up in that number. When the person before you completes their comments, you may step up to the podium. We listen with respect and ask
those who address the board to do the same. With that, guest number one, please join us at the podium. >> Good evening board members. My name is John Dphano. I'm executive director of the Jefferson County Administrators Association.
And I'd like to start by reiterating what Superintendent Dorland said. We want you to know that your administrators are very proud of this board of education. We're excited for the work you're doing and we like the way you reorganized the board meeting. I
think it's good. Um, with me is our president, Deianne Hoffman. And Deianne will begin. Okay. Good evening, president, members of the board, Superintendent Dorland, and staff. Thank you for the opportunity
to be here tonight. You may or may not realize that each year the Jefferson count the Jeffco administrators association plans a winter workshop professional development opportunity for our members. This annual workshop is designed to provide meaningful
high-quality learning for our administrators, including both school-based and department leaders. At JCAA, we deeply value professional learning and leadership development. We believe that when leaders get better, everyone benefits, students, staff,
families, and the broader community. Investing in our administrators is an investment in the strength and stability of the entire system. This year, we're especially pleased to be hosting the winter work workshop right here in Jefferson County. By doing so, we are
able to offer convenient close-to professional development while being mindful of financial stewardship. Hosting locally allows us to deliver strong content without unnecessary travel or added expense and it assures ensures our leaders can focus their time
and energy on learning that directly supports their work in Jeffco public schools. So that being said, we are hosting our um workshop at the Sheridan Hotel on Union Simpson Union um and on January
29th and we invite you if you are available to come and join us for the day or part of the day or a session. Um we're really excited about um our our keynote speaker this year. um the focus will be on happiness and so we are happy
to have you if you want to join. Thank you. I also want to share how encouraged I was by participating in last week's partnership for fiscal sustainability committee meeting. The energy in the
room was positive and collaborative. The conversation reflected a genuine commitment to Jeffco's future. We were especially encouraged by the dynamics of the group and the willingness of community members to engage thoughtfully in this important work. I want to
commend the board of education for your active participation in this communitydriven committee. It was great to see directors Kenworthy and Applegate at the uh partnership meeting. Uh your engagement matters and sends a strong
message about shared responsibility and transparency. The only way we will successfully position Jeepco schools for a strong future is by working together. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
>> Number two. >> Hi. >> Hello. >> I'm representing Stand Evergreen. And I don't know if it's the formal process, but they're giving me their minutes. >> Can everyone please introduce yourself? >> Sure. >> Hi, my name is Brett Whitaker, resident
of Evergreen, and I give my time. >> Emily Whitaker with Stand Evergreen, and I'm giving my time to Kim. >> Dan Halligan from Evergreen, also giving my time. >> And I'm Kim Halligan and I represent Stand Evergreen. Um Emily and I are
founders of Stand Evergreen. The topic tonight will be school safety and we are all Evergreen residents. Good evening members of the board and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I do represent Stand Evergreen, a grassroots community movement dedicated to
rebuilding trust and safety, hope in our schools. Our work is grounded in the voices of students, families, and educators who have been deeply affected by the ES EHS school shooting. We listen, we learn, we take action, and above all, we work to ensure that every
child in our mountain community feels safe, seen, and supported when they walk through the doors of their school. To continue strengthening our work together, we want to acknowledge and thank the board for several meaningful actions that have already taken place. We sincerely appreciate the assignment
of a school resource officer to both Conifer High School and Evergreen High School. The visible presence has helped restore confidence and stability in our school communities. We also want to thank the district for addressing the condition of the doors that were damaged during the incident. By working with a
local vendor and allocating funds to restore these doors, the district removed something that was deeply triggering for many students and staff. It mattered. We noticed. We thank you. We recently have confirmed that an active shooter alert system has also been vetted and is undergoing
implementation. This is a meaningful step toward a layered security protocol. We appreciated Dr. Art's confirmation this morning that this effort was moving forward clarity on scope and timeline. We also recognize that we are being heard. We have had opportunities to meet
with leadership including Tracy Dorland and we appreciate the access and time that has been given to us. With that in mind, we'd like to raise an important question in the spirit of collaboration. That is, how can we ensure that these conversations translate into timely and
meaningful action? We value all of the conversations, but our focus is on measurable improvements in safety. It has now been 127 days since the school shooting that took place at Evergreen High School on
September 10th. While time has passed on the calendar, the urgency has not faded for families, staff, and students. We continue asking ourselves, are we truly moving fast enough? Are we moving far enough to make impactful change?
First, risk assessment transparency. We are requesting confirmation that a comprehensive risk assessment has been completed along with clarity on the identified risks and a clear action plan that includes timelines and accountability for remediation.
We understand that certain security limitations may restrict the level of detail that can be shared publicly, but transparency and acknowledgement acknowledgement of a path forward are critical. For example, it recently came to our attention that the school resource officer's law enforcement radio
does not function within the school. This raises immediate concerns about the effectiveness of emergency response protocols and highlights the importance of assessing priority risk and gaps proactively. Our ask confirm whether the district risk assessment has been
completed. Provide a highle summary of priority risks along with a clear action plan assigned accountability within appropriate security limits. Second, zero tolerance for threats. We believe there must be zero tolerance for students who make credible threats.
Families need clarity around this process. What options do schools have to address students who make credible threats? Who decides if these students can return to the population? What assurances can families be given that their students are no longer at risk?
There must be a clear line that cannot be crossed. When a student threatens school safety, in person in-person learning should no longer be an option. Remote or alternative education should be the path forward until safety can be independently assured. We must protect the rights of these innocent children,
the staff, and uphold every child's right to a safe learning environment. How can we get this level of safety in our schools and to our students? To address the gap, we are pursuing an amendment to CRS18910, Colorado statute on interference with
staff, faculty, and students of educational institutions. This law already makes it illegal to disrupt educational activities through force, coercion, or threats, including bomb threats, weapon related incidences, social media threats, and even violence
that isn't carried out. The proposed amendment under the title school safety and threat accountability act, a bill concerning enhanced penalties for threats of violence against educational institutions and in connection there within establishing a zero tolerance
standard for credible threats. Our ask is that this board formally help support and partner with the community stakeholders in advancing this proposal, the safety and threat accountability act. Furthermore, commitment to the district policies that reflect zero
tolerance for any credible threats. Third, security leadership transition. With Jeff Pearson's departure, we strongly believe the next head of security should bring advanced public safety or high level security credentials. We need leadership that is
proactive rather than reactive. Someone capable of advancing our schools towards the board's vision of truly having a safe learning environment. Equally important, this transition presents an opportunity to strengthen our hiring, our vetting, and our oversight
protocols. Recent concerns have highlighted the need for more consistent and rigorous background screening and accountability measures for anyone working within the roles in our schools. Strong leadership not should not only set the tone, but it should establish a
clear system and safeguards to ensure that preventable lapses do not occur. Our community and our students deserve a process that prioritizes safety, transparency, and trust. Our ask commit to hiring a head of security with
demonstrated proactive public safety or large-scale security leadership and ensure the role has the authority and resources necessary to implement preventative safety measures districtwide. Fourth, stop the bleed and rule responsibility response, excuse me.
Fourth, stop thebleleed and rule response realities. We strongly support stop the stop thebleleed program and emphasize the need for both adequate equipment and consistent training in rural communities like Evergreen and Conifer. Longer emergency response times
make immediate intervention critical and crucial. We encourage the district to establish annual annual training protocols and provide sufficient funding to ensure appropriate quantities of life-saving supplies for large school populations while explicitly accounting for rural realities and safety planning
and funding decisions. Our ask commit to providing stop thebleleed supplies and implementing annual training protocols to ensure readiness in rural schools. Fifth, ballistic film. We previously requested that v ballistic film be
vetted and installed at Evergreen High School and Wilmont. We acknowledge that the district is reviewing current lockdown protocols to ensure best practices are followed. To better understand the board's concern raised regarding window coverings to be open during lockdown drills. We spoke
directly with mult multiple counties including first responders and school safety officials. Each agency we contacted confirmed maintaining window coverings in an open position during a lockdown is not standard. Additionally, we were able to speak with the director of safety and security for Mesa County
Valley District 51. He confirmed that the ballistic film is supported as part of a layered security approach and shared that district 51 is currently and actively working towards installation. We have provided the ballistic film product that Mesa County has selected for their schools to our district along
with Andy Main's information. For this reason, we are asking that the installation of ballistic film at Evergreen High School and Wilmont be moved forward without further delay. We request that the district allocate the necessary resources to also install the film at Conifer High School. Recognizing
they already have the material, our ask, install ballistic film on all interior classroom and entryway doors at Evergreen High School, Conifer High School, and Wilmont Elementary. Finally, defining the vision of school safety. I ask you to consider this. I
ask you to consider if money and bureaucracy were not a barrier, what would a truly safe school look like? and what is one step that we can commit to today to move in that direction to make our schools a little safer. We are grateful for the progress that has been
made, but our community needs the urgency, transparency, and accountability leadership that matches the gravity of this risk. To reiterate once again, we are asking this district for more clarity, more resources, more transparency, more urgency, and most of
all, more authentic and genuine partnerships with our mountain community. These are not abstract ideas. These are foundational to whether students feel safe, seen, and connected at school. Our children and community should be the priority. This is our time to make a difference and show up for our
children. Real change is possible. This is a time for all divisions to be mended and hard work to take place. We owe it to the survivors to make sure change is not an empty promise, but a true reality. Thank you for your time and your commitment to our student and families.
Thank you, Miss Heligan. Number three. >> Welcome. Please state your name. >> Hi, my name is Chris Harrington and this is my group here. >> Destiny Harrington. Saw Harrington,
Tiffany Gfer. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Chris Harrington. I'm here today both as a father of two students in Conifer High School and a first responder of over 20 years. I have serious concerns about the lack of
proactive safety measures in all Jeffco schools, but particularly in our Mountain Area schools. Jeffco Mountain Area Schools have faced significant safety and emergency response disparities compared to other schools in the district due to geographical infrastructure and resource barriers.
When we raise the idea of implementing changes and providing mountain schools with proactive safety measures, the response we often hear is that it would be unequitable for the mountain schools to have safety measures that other schools within the district do not. I want to be clear. In our mountain area
schools, what we are facing is most definitely unequitable. Let me give you some context. Before the Coline incident, first responders had little to no training for active shooter scenarios in schools. Coline revealed major gaps in our preparedness.
After the fact, the nation moved to create protocols, training, and standard operating guidelines for first responders. Post Coline, the national standard for response looked as such. Police would arrive on scene and wait for backup before entering a building.
Fire personnel would only enter once the threat was neutralized and would move slowly throughout the building with a police escort to find and treat victims. Over time, we learned this approach cost lives. Victims with treatable non-life-threatening injuries were bleeding out before anybody could reach
them. Today, the national standard is very different. The first arriving police officer on scene moves immediately to the sound of gunfire to neutralize a threat. Most large metro area fire departments now own and train with ballistic vests and helmets with the intent to enter a building as
quickly as possible to treat victims, even if the threat may still be active in other areas of the building. This matters because victims with arterial bleeding only have minutes to survive. Time is literally the difference between life and death. Now consider our mountain area schools. The only law
enforcement serving this region is the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, which staffs five deputies to the entire Jeffco Mountain area, which is over 500 square miles. So that's roughly one deputy per 100 square miles. And that's
assuming none are sick, injured, at training, or otherwise unavailable that day. In contrast to some of our metro area police departments, Lakewood PD covers 44 square miles and staffs a minimum of 20 officers. Westminster PD covers 30 West Westminster covers 34
square miles and staffs a minimum of 15 officers. Thornton covers 38 square miles and staffs a minimum of 18 officers and so on. Our mountain fire departments are primarily volunteer-based. Elk Creek Fire and Conifer covers 98
square miles with only four paid personnel per shift each day. Evergreen Fire covers 126 square miles with only eight paid personnel on shift each day. Elk Creek Fire shows an
average response time of over 13 minutes, while Evergreen Fire shows an average response time of around 15 minutes. And this is taken into account that there's actually somebody there to respond and they're not on another call or down the hill at a hospital transporting another patient.
In contrast, the average response for most metro area fire departments is 5 to 7 minutes. To make matters worse, Elk Creek Fire, as I'm told, does not have ballistic gear, has no active shooter response plan, and has no training for
these scenarios. In short, no one is positioned to respond quickly and effectively to protect our children. Contrast this with urban areas. Cities have fully staffed police departments with automatic aid agreements, mutual multiple paid fire stations, which
regularly train on active shooter scenarios, and have all the necessary equipment and guidelines to respond to such emergencies. The disparity is clear. It is not equitable. I urge you to consider the unique challenges of each school and geographic area when planning sec
security and safety measures for our mountain area schools. We need layered preventative strategies. We need programs that fill the gaps created by the lack of first responders. As a district that has now faced three school shootings, I implore you to take meaningful, actionable steps. Take them
now. Make our schools safer for our children. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Harrington. Number four. >> My name's Jeremy Garst. >> Heartley Garst. >> Jessica Geeseman.
Kathy Shad. >> Gary Shad. Again, my name is Jeremy Garst. Good evening, board members. I'm here today representing grassroots movement Mountain Area Conservative Alliance. We're a grassroots movement
born out of the Evergreen Conifer areas. And we are here today to advocate for stronger school security and short emergency response time for all of our schools, especially the Foothill Schools. Our community came together on this issue following the tragic events at Evergreen High School last September 10th. And like many of you, we watched
these events unfold with disbelief, frustration, and fear. And like many parents in this county, we sent our kids back to school afterwards, hoping and trusting that everything possible was being done to keep them safe. Since that time, our group has remained focused and committed to strengthening school
security and advocating for common sense measures because nothing has changed since last September. Nothing has been done to improve the safety of our kids at most, if not all, Jeffco schools other than EHS. We have spent countless hours researching, speaking with experts, talking to first responders,
and reviewing what other other school districts across the country are already doing successfully. We feel confident that the items we're going to present to you today when combined with great will greatly increase the safety of our students and provide them with some sense of relief knowing that we have taken action and given them a safe
environment. We do not believe school security is a privilege. We believe it is a right. And while we understand that creating a perfect secure environment is extremely difficult, that should never stop us from striving for perfection. The Jeffco foothills are unique. We are a rural
area. We do not have some act the same access to EMS services and law enforcement resources as other Jeff Jefferson County schools do down the hill. That is not criticism. It's simply a reality of geography and infrastructure. Because of that re reality, we believe our foothill schools
should be prioritized for certain security layers, especially those that reduce our dependency on emergency services. Although we are committed to working with you all and the school district as a whole, you need to address some a concern first. Recently, we we have heard the argument from Jeffco
school district representatives that equity is the reason for certain security that certain security measures cannot be implemented because it is unfair to schools who do not receive the same measures. In other words, we are told it is simply not fair for us to get something that others do not also have.
We want to be very clear. We respectfully but firmly disagree and reject that knowledge or that logic. The standard is not that schools the standard is that no school if this I'm sorry. If the standard is that no school can improve safety unless all schools
improve safety simultaneously, then no school will will improve especially when the district is facing millions in budget cuts. That approach guarantees stagnation. It guarantees delay and it guarantees continued vulnerability. Equity should not mean inaction. It
should mean doing the most good where it is most needed as quickly as possible. Today we are advocating for three specific security measures that will help secure our schools and save the lives of our students and teachers. These security measures are stop the bleed program, ballistic window film,
and electromagnetic detection systems. These are not experimental ideas. They are practical, cost-effective, and implementable solutions that when combined significantly strengthen school security and improve survivability during emergencies.
The stople program should be at the core of every school security and safety program within the Jefferson County School District. This program can be easily funded by charging families an estimated onetime fee of around $12 when parents enroll their child into school.
This cost will vary, of course, depending on the size of the school building and number of classrooms throughout the school. Here's a breakdown of why this program should be a staple at every school throughout the district. The national average response time is 7 to 10 minutes for a standard emergency. This does not include an
active shooter scenario where the response time can be stretched to hours depending on how long it takes for emergency services to reach the victims or um law enforcement to neutralize the suspect and for emergency services to reach the victims. and the time it takes for victims in
these situations to receive life-saving care, they often bleed out and with a zero chance of survival. The stop the bleed program addresses this. It addresses this issue and shortens response time significantly, allowing victims a much greater chance of survival. A successful stop the bleed
program consists of training school staff on how to apply tourniquets and chest seals and distributing these medical supplies throughout the school so they are readily available and easy to find during an active shooter event or an unforeseen emergency. It empowers staff
already in the school to administer life-saving care while waiting on EMS professionals to arrive. For those of you who are not familiar with tourniquets and chest seals, tourniquets are used to stop severe bleeding in arms and legs while chest seals are um prevented prevent lungs from collapsing
due to puncture wounds in the chest cavity of often caused by firearm round or stab wound. Tourniquets and chest seals are not complicated devices. They're extremely easy to apply. Training takes only a few hours and local fire departments are willing to provide this training free of charge.
Alls it takes is some communication and scheduling between the fire department and school leadership to make this happen. Annual refresher courses will also be required to ensure that skills stay sharp and new staff are trained as they come on board. But training alone is not enough. As I mentioned, supplies must be
placed in every classroom and they must be placed in the same location with every within every room so staff can find them instantly during a crisis. We are advocating for two to four tourniquets per classroom and four to eight chest seals per classroom. Supplies cannot be centralized in the
front office or in hallways due to the nature of the school lockdown and danger of leaving the classroom during that lockdown. They also cannot be scattered randomly within the classroom itself as staff will be stressed during an emergency and likely not able to find supplies if they are not consistently
placed from room to room. We recommend placing these medical supplies in a highly visible container such as an orange lockdown bucket used by some schools to house snacks and water for students during lockdown. This is a great place to store these supplies. We assume the argument will be made that
suggests training staff uh school staff is simply outside their comfort level. We understand that staff may not be uh that they may be uncomfortable with the idea of learning how to apply these life-saving devices during a traumatic event. But I would like to offer a different perspective. This program is
not intended for staff to save students lives only, but also to save their own. This program should be embraced within the school Jeffco school district, much like CPR and first aid training has been over the years. We encourage our students to also learn how to apply these life-saving devices so they too
are not helpless. God forbid they find themselves in a life or death situation. This training also transcends into everyday life, provides the skills to save lives outside the classroom. We believe this program could literally change the landscape of our community as a whole and empower all of us to save a
life. We ask that this program be implemented throughout all Jefferson County schools immediately. There's no single reason out there to say no to this. Cost for supplies can be covered by parents. Training can be provided by the fire departments and the program can go
into effect in the very near future. The second layer we're advocating for today is ballistic window film. This film is applied much like window tent, but is bullet resistant. During research, we have found a product made by Safe Haven Defense that can stop multiple rounds up to 762 caliber, which
is a powerful hunting round commonly used for large game. While it is not advertised as bulletproof, it provides several critical benefits. It slows or stops multiple rounds before allowing one through. It keeps glass intact. It prevents windows from becoming secondary entry points. and it significantly
reduces flying glass injuries. Ballistic film buys time, deters asalants, and prevents secondary entry into school and/or classrooms. My daughter has been through several lockdown drills where the classroom she's locked down in has two sets of windows, and it prevents her ability for
her to take cover and hide. Ballistic film can help address weak points like this. This product is affordable, widely available, and can be installed quickly by suppliers and/or local window tinting companies. It can be strategically applied to exterior windows, interior
windows, and glass doors with minimal cost. The third security layer we're talking about today and advocating for is electromagnetic detection systems. It's a fancy fancy name for what's u what's a modern advanced metal detector. Um, these systems are designed to detect
hard and steel only, such as knives and gun barrels, and leaves everyday metal items alone, such as zippers, buttons, and backpack hardware. That means students can move through them quickly and efficiently without needing to dump their packs, have their privacy invaded, while also
bottlenecking foot traffic. If you have ever been to a large sporting event or concert, you have likely passed through one of these detection systems. They're mobile, stored when not they're storeable when not in use. They're battery powered or plug-in and usable for daily entry or special events.
Although they sound expensive, these are pretty low cost appro approximately 16,000 per pair, making them one of the most affordable and effective security layers available. Procedurally, it would require a single point of entry throughout the school day, but especially in the morning when students
arrive to class. Students pass through the system with an SRO nearby and teachers ready to pat down a student if the alarm is sounded. This technology does not replace staff or law enforcement, but it dramatically reduces the likelihood that a weapon will ever make it inside the building in the first place. When all these layers are
combined, a stop thebleleed program, ballistic window film, and electromagnetic detection systems, they will dramatically strengthen school security and safety for our students. We'll be sending you additional information following this meeting, and we have done the extensive research. We're prepared to answer questions,
coordinate demonstrations, and connect you with vendors and manufacturers so you can feel confident moving forward. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you, Mr. Gar. Number five, welcome. Please introduce yourself. >> Good evening. My name is Debbie Ericson.
I'm from Golden. A little background on me. I was born and raised Jeff a Jeffco student and athlete and raised by two longtime Jeffco educators. I've coached three stints in Jeffco amongst two different schools and two different sports. My daughters are current student athletes
within Jeffco as well. And if we keep tradition, they may be raising their ch children in Jeffco also. And that is one of the reasons why I'm here. I would like to help maintain excellence in Jeffco athletics. However, I am here to raise some urgent concerns about the
current state of athletics in Jeffco public schools. Not because athletics are failing, but because they are thriving despite a system that provides insufficient support to coaches who make them possible. While approximately 40% of Jeffco High School students
participate in athletics, a rate consistent with Colorado's strong tradition, Colorado's strong tradition of youth engagement, we have created a paradox. We celebrate the growth of our programs while systematically underinvesting in the people who run
them. Coaches and Jeco are by definition educators. They teach classroom lessons and lead student athletes. Yet they receive compensation far below minimum wage for the time, energy, and liability they assume during the season and offseason.
When we examine the structure of our athletics programs, we face several critical issues. First, governance and oversight. Our athletic programs lack a formal advisory structure comparable to other district committees, finance, curriculum, facilities committees. We
have them. But athletics which touches thousands of students and generates significant revenue through athletics fees operates without a debt without dedicated oversight or transparent governance. Second, financial accountability. Student athletes and families contribute 185 per sport in
athletic fees across Jeffco public schools. However, there's no transparent accounting of how allocation is consistent from school to school and across programs. Consider the fundamental question. Does a student athlete paying 185 at one school receive the same program resource coaching
support equipment allocation as a student athlete paying 180 at another school? We don't know. There's no formal mechanism to track or compare. Third, coach support and HR practices. Coaches work at will with a proced without the procedural protections afforded other
educators. Hiring and non-renewal decisions lack consistency, transparency, or formal appeal processes. This creates legal risk and erodess the morale of educators already working for below market compensation. Fourth, systematic pressures. Our
athletic directors are overloaded, managing schedules across four season facilities, conflict resolution with families that overreach their coaches and go directly to admins, which seemingly seems to be the norm, and onboarding new coaches, which seems to be annually and across all season, where
longevity and coaching staff seemingly are becoming less and less. This overload of responsibility leaves little time to help us guide to help guide, mentor, and build relationship with our coaches in the trenches. I'm recommending that the board consider um
creating an athletics advisory committee that costs little and risks less. It positions us to uncover and address gaps before they come crisises. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Miss Ericson. Number six.
Welcome. Please introduce yourself. Tom Coin, Lakewood. I'm here to say a few words about the rapidly worsening financial crisis facing Jeffco schools. I'd like to begin with a quote from the late Senator John McCain. It's always darkest before it
gets completely black. Both Miss Copelan and the financial advisory committee repeatedly warned previous boards that it was reckless to keep increasing teacher pay by large amounts each year while ESSER grants were running off and revenue from enrollment in district managed schools
was steadily declining. They disregarded those warnings, increased teacher step pay by more than 50% and kept spending reserves to cover the resulting budget deficits. Now those reserves are almost gone and you're going to ask voters for a big tax increase to cover the cost of
reckless governance by previous boards. Good luck with that. Over the past decade, many people lost trust in Jeffco's deeply dysfunctional culture when they realized it was never going to change. For example, a shocking number of sexual abuse cases by trusted adults
keep coming up and be and being grossly mismanaged while boards looked the other way. The nearly billion dollar capital program was also grossly mismanaged with multiple scandals and cost overruns documented by the Moss Adams and other reports and about a hundred million
spent on soontobe closed schools and projects that were never disclosed to voters. Boards didn't care. I won't vote for any mill levy that doesn't direct that isn't directly tied to delivering much better academic results for our children like the performance mill that
Jeffco voters approved in 1999. I'm but I'm sure your union back board won't put that on the ballot and instead will threaten to cut music, arts, and sports if your mill doesn't pass. Let's assume you lose that vote. Then what? There are three things you should
do right now to prepare for that shock. First, address the real reasons why parents are choicing out of district managed schools, including poor academic performance, poor discipline, fear of sexual abuse, and an increasingly woke culture in too many classrooms.
Second, be much more aggressive at cutting operating costs. Between 2016 and 25, Jeff Go's enrollment fell by almost two 12,000 students. Yet, licensed staff fell by only 193. Support staff didn't fall at all, and admin staff grew by 198. Do you understand
what all these staff members do, what value they add, and why we need so many of them? As a turnaround guy, I guarantee that you don't, and that the answers are ugly. It looks like Jeffco is running a jobs program rather than a billion-dollar school district whose primary goal is to
efficiently provide our children with the worldclass education you promised them. Finally, close more schools to reduce costs. District's most recent data showed 24 schools have such low a low level of capacity utilization that they're candidates for closure.
Unfortunately, given that all but one of you was elected with union support, I doubt you have the courage to make these tough decisions, which means that pretty soon Jeffco is going to run out of reserves and then things will get completely black.
>> Thank you, Mr. Coin. Number seven, >> welcome. Please introduce yourself. >> Good evening board members. My name is Tim Krug. I live in Evergreen. Uh it's my first time addressing your board, so I'm a little bit nervous. Uh but luckily my entire family is here to support me. Uh we are here because we have
discovered a dangerous inadequacy in the way your coaches are trained to respond to potential concussions. I'd like to draw your attention to the Jake Snakeenberg Youth Concussion Act. Uh Jake Snakenberg was a 14-year-old freshman football player in Aurora,
Colorado. In 2004, he collapsed after what was described as a mild hit. He fell into a coma and tragically died the very next day. It was later revealed that Jake had likely suffered a concussion the week before uh that went
undiagnosed and he died of something called second impact syndrome. And uh this is a real nasty beast. It has a 50% mortality rate. So once this reaction starts in the brain, 50% of people will die within days. The survivors have a
near 100% rate of permanent and severe brain damage. So this is a monster that we don't want our kids anywhere near. Jake's mom advocated for eight years before a new law was passed. The Jake Snikenberg law does many wonderful things. Among them, uh, it requires
coaches who suspect a player may have a potential concussion to be removed from play until cleared by a medical provider. It's a great idea. Removes the agency from the coaches and gives it to qualified medical professionals. So, on September 29th, uh, my son Eddie Krug
went to lacrosse practice. He suffered a hit that was significant enough that both coaches responded immediately, and one of those coaches performed a concussion test. 10 minutes later, they put Eddie back into practice. When Eddie got into my car after practice, I
immediately knew something was wrong. I recognized signs of a potential concussion without any formal training. I took Eddie to the emergency room that night where he was in fact diagnosed with a concussion. This means that when the coaches put Eddie back into practice, they put him in literal mortal
danger for 20 minutes of a full contact lacrosse scrimmage. My family is here tonight to tell you that we feel very lucky that Eddie did not die on the Conifer practice field. We are very grateful that Eddie is not permanently disabled and we are very worried that
this could happen to another student. Um, as we started asking questions, we found out that the coaches and even the Conifer High School athletic director did not know the Jake Snikenberg Youth Concussion Act. My wife and I couldn't
understand how could a high school athletic director not know a law that is specific only to middle and high school athletes and is designed to protect our kids from permanent disability and death. When we asked the district
director of athletics, he told us he wasn't surprised the athletic director did not know this law. My wife and I asked him to send an email to Jefferson County athletic directors and coaches to remind them of this law because Eddie is
the canary in the coal mine and we wanted to remind coaches how to properly respond to concussions. It took eight days to get a response and it seems that response is no. He's not going to send out that email and we'd like this
board's help to understand why he would not want to send out an email that could potentially save student lives. Thank you very much for your time and we appreciate your commitment to our schools. >> Thank you, Mr. Craig. Number eight.
>> Welcome. Please introduce yourself. >> Good evening. I'm Tara Mininger from Golden and I'm going to talk about student communication devices. Um, I want to thank you for your work. Um, I have appreciate what you do and recognize that the issue I raise is just one of many important topics you face.
On July 1st, the district will be required to implement a policy on student communication devices. As a parent of a fourth and second grader in the school system, I hope the district implements a district-wide bell-to-bell ban on cell phone use in our schools.
Study after study has shown that academic performance improves when kids are not distracted by their phones. While the studies are important, I think many of us who experienced life before smartphones understand in our guts that these devices are addicting even to adults.
Kids with their less developed uh brains and habits have even more risk of addiction during a time when they are meant to be forming social and learning connections that they won't be able to make later in life. It's not that what kids do on cell phones is always harmful. We all know that phones have
many useful and positive functions. It's what kids don't make room for doing because they are distracted by their phones. It is the attention they don't pay to their studies or to their peers, the connections they don't make because they are distracted. A phased timing for a bell-to-bell ban might allow current
high school students to continue enjoying the privileges which they have become accustomed while younger students can be protected from harm. The only way I think appropriate to soften a ban would be for high school students only, allowing them to have flip phones, but
no smartphones or earbuds. The full ban should remain for younger grade levels. I understand that the district has been pulling a limited number of school communities related to the pilot study regarding this policy decision. However, I hope that it will also more widely
poll teachers and parents at all grade levels. I think teachers understand the uphill battles that must be fought to keep kids attention and parents of today's kindergarteners have a better understanding of what policies will benefit their children than today's high school students or their parents would
have. Parents of kindergarteners naturally understand that they can't be in touch with their children at all times and that they must trust the systems the school has set up to keep their kids safe. Um, emergency communication telephones set up in many locations around schools
could be a response to the concern that cell phones are the only devices that can keep kids safe. They are not, and I hope the district has the foresight to see the positive difference it could make in kids' lives with a bell-to-bell ban. Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you. Number nine. Is there anyone else that has a number to speak with us tonight? >> Come on up. >> Welcome. Please state your name. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. Uh, Superintendent Dorland
and members of the board. My name is Robera Ponis and I live in Golden. Uh, my topic is the classification of high school coaches. Um, there seems to be some confusion
among HR and athletics about how to classify athletic coaches. So, a recent memo from HR regarding the non-renewal of a head coach called her role a volunteer plus stipent,
which first of all is an oxymoron. Um, volunteer means no pay. And secondly, HR should know that in the latter of coaching positions, volunteers cannot have contact with athletes or
teams without a registered coach present. So there needs to be a more accurate classification for athletic coaches. It's a job. It's work. Stop calling it an assignment. That term
is a leftover from the early days of Jeffco when school sports got started in the mid 1950s and they got teachers to take on an extra assignment to coach. Youth sports clubs were nearly
non-existent then. But as sports exploded over the years in the number of sports and then in the 70s when girls sports were added, the need for co coaches far exceeded the availability of teachers as coaches,
giving way to hiring coaches from the community. Add the growth of club sports during the 70s, increasing the importance of high school sports. Today, the majority of head coaches uh and assistant coaches are not licensed
teachers. They're from the community. Even though to add to the confusion, the athletes handbook, which all new hires must read under expectations of coaches, states that coaches are teachers and their courts, fields, meet should be
considered a classroom. So, is the district calling athletic coaches unlicensed teachers or volunteers? It's easy to see why there is confusion about what athletic coaches are in the district's eyes. Most people
know what an athletic coach is and what their job is. There both the IRS and labor boards recognize the status of seasonal employees, which fits perfectly with the sports seasons. I suggest that you should label them as
athletic coaches, as seasonal employees, which would put them into the extracurricular category and identify their employment time limit limited to their particular season. So my ask is for Superintendent Dorland to request HR
to review this classification boondoggle and to consider my recommendation. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, Miss Bonus. Does anybody else in the audience have a number? Well, thank you to those who
participated in our public comment session tonight. Next, we will move forward with the consent agenda. Items 5.01 through 5.09 are presented in board docs as proposed consent agenda. As a reminder to our listening public, the board received a
preview of these items in our January 7th study session. Do I have a motion regarding the approval of the consent agenda as presented in board docs? >> Yes. I move to approve items 5.01 through 5.09 on the consent agenda as published in board docs.
>> Is there a second? >> I second. >> Is there any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda items 5.01 through 5.09 as presented in board docs. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. >> Miss Applegate. >> Yes. >> Dr. Mr. Chavaria,
>> yes. >> Mr. Gibbons, >> yes. >> Miss Kenworthy, >> yes. >> Miss Moenian, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> Next, the board will move to the action items of tonight's agenda.
The board of education adopted a budget and appropriation on June 12th, 2025 for the 2526 fiscal year. Additionally, consistent with CRS22-44-1105, the board of education may review and change the budget with respect to both revenue and expenditures at any time
prior to January 31st of the fiscal year for which the budget was adopted. The board reviewed and discussed financial updates on November 16th, 2025, December 18th, 2025, and January 7th, 2020 6. Board members, before we move forward
with the vote on the adoption and appropriation of the revised budget for 2526, is there discussion? I have some concerns. Um, so when I was at schools this week and talking with um, teachers,
I'm a little concerned about our small schools and pulling from reserves and not having enough to help our schools out when they need them. Um, I I understand that these budget decisions were made before um I came into this
position and I sincerely appreciate the work that's been done on the budget and I appreciate where we're under spending. Um, but after visiting schools, I'm not comfortable voting for a budget where we're spending um
where we're spending increased budget and pulling from reserves again. um seeing how the small schools right now are worried about being underststaffed, I just and also talking a little bit um regarding the reserves
and whether or not they're even enough right now. Um I do have concerns about that. So, uh I personally am not comfortable with the budget as it stands and I appreciate that the work has been done, but I'm not comfortable. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Any other comments? I would just remind um the board that what and the public what we are contemplating right now is the budget that exists. So the the changes that we're facing and if you go back and look at some of our previous meetings are
really attributed to less students than we thought were coming in and some increase in expenses. And so um I appreciate the comments by Dr. Edaria because I do understand that our fund balance is really really important and that's why so many of us
are asking our schools and our central office to take some really hard looks at what we do for the next fiscal year. Um I do believe that it is important to continue the work of the district and so um I just want to put that out there. Director Kenworthy,
>> I'm I'm also concerned about the impact to our schools um if we were not going to pass this tonight uh because they would be immediately impacted in services that they would be able to
provide. And I am interested in not disrupting the services and making sure that our students, our classrooms, and our staff continue the good work that they need to do in the schools tomorrow and the next day. and onward till the end of the school year. So, I um
encourage my fellow board members to support keeping our schools functioning. >> Any other discussion? >> Having the opportunity for discussion and to ask questions, the board will now move forward with the vote. Is there a motion regarding the approval of the
2526 interfund borrowing resolution as presented in board docs? I move to approve the 2526 center fund borrowing resolution as published in board docs. >> Is there a second? >> I second. >> Additional discussion because we follow Robert's rules of order.
>> It has been moved and seconded to approve the 2526 interfund borrowing resolution as published in board docs. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. >> Miss Applicate. >> Yes. >> Dr. Etcheria. >> No. >> Mr. Gibbons. >> Yes. >> Miss Kenworthy.
>> Yes. Miss Moinian. >> Yes. >> Is there a motion regarding the approval of the 2526 revised appropriation resolution as presented in board docs? >> I move to approve the 2526 revised appropriation resolution as published in board docs.
>> Is there a second? >> I second. >> Any additional discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the 2526 revised appropriation resolution as presented in board docks. Roll call, please. Please Miss Harper. >> Miss Applegate. >> Yes. >> Dr. Echaria. >> No.
>> Mr. Gibbons. >> Yes. >> Miss Kenworthy. >> Yes. >> Miss Moinian. >> Yes. >> Is there a motion regarding the approval of the 2526 use of fund balance resolution as presented in board docs? >> I move to approve the 2526 use of fund
balance resolution as published in board docs. >> Is there a second? I second. Any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the 2526 use of fund balance resolution as published in board docs. Roll call, please. Miss Harper. >> Miss Applegate?
>> Yes. >> Dr. Cheria? >> No. >> Mr. Gibbons? >> Yes. >> Miss Kenworthy? >> Yes. >> Miss Moian? >> Yes. >> Thank you. The time is now 6:41 and I would like to call for a 15minute break.
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Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Down. Welcome back. Next on the agenda are leadership reports. First, the board. We're here. We'll hear from Superintendent Dorland followed by reports from the board. Superintendent
Dorland, we have allotted 10 minutes for your report. The time is now yours. >> Great. Thank you, President Applegate. Board members, um, as we begin a new calendar year and a new semester, I'm proud to share some exceptional news about student success across Jeffco
public schools. Our 2024 25 graduation and completion results reflect years of focused intentional work across every level of our system from early literacy to middle school belonging to high school pathways. This year, Jeffco
posted its highest 4-year ontime graduation rate in 16 years. The class of 2025 graduated at 87% outperforming the state for the eighth consecutive year. That's up two
percentage points from last year. At 85% it actually equates into 155 more graduates in the class of 2025 than the class of 2024, which is exciting news. Um, and even more powerfully, our 17
neighborhood high schools averaged a 94% graduation rate, eight points above the state average. So, just very proud of the educators, the school leaders, um, and the incredible work that our schools are doing to support our high school
students and getting to graduation. Of course, all the work that happens in elementary and middle school to prepare them for high school. So, thank you to the amazing employees and folks who work in our schools um and do the hard work with kids every day to help them be successful. These results did not happen
by chance. They reflect a district-wide commitment to making sure every student has a strong academic foundation in elementary school, a middle school experience that builds belonging and identity. We call that the magic of middle school. and high school pathways
that connect learning to purpose, careers, and future plans. Across Jeffco, 20 schools graduated 90% or more of their students, including three schools, Adenburg Classical Academy, Devlin Junior Senior High School, and
Summit Academy at 100% of students graduating. So, congratulations to those three schools for that huge success. 10 additional high schools achieved on-time four-year graduation rates of 95% or higher including Arvvada West High
School 95% Chatfield High School 99% Coline High School 95% Conifer High School 98% Evergreen High School 99% Golden High School 97% Green Mountain High School 97% Jefferson
Academy 98% Rston Valley High School 99% % to Roads Charter School 95%. Even more encouraging is where we saw the greatest growth. Several schools posted significant year-over-year gains,
including Sabeski Academy up 15.4%. Jefferson County Open Secondary School up 12 percentage points. New America School was up 9.5 percentage points. Rocky Mountain Dev School up 8.3
percentage points. and Arvvada High School up 7.5 percentage points. This kind of improvement shows what is possible when schools are deeply focused on relationships, engagement, and highquality instruction. Just as important, these gains are
reaching the students who need them most. We talk often about gaps between different uh student groups in Jeffco. Graduation and completion rates rose across every major student subgroup. Multi- language learners increased
graduation rates by 6.6%. Completion rates by 6.8%. Students with disabilities increased graduation rates by 2 and a.5%. Economically disadvantaged students by three and a half% and students of color
graduation rate went up by 4.2%. These increases represent thousands of individual stories. students who stayed connected, kept going, and crossed the finish line. We also continue to see the strength of our extended pathways.
Jeffco's seven-year completion rate, which provides for students who might be taking a little bit longer to get across the graduation stage, remained at 93%, showing that when students need flexibility, our system is built to support them. Our alternative education
campuses increased their seven-year graduation rate to 45%. Up more than four points. And while we didn't reach our goals in this area, we are proud of the progress which reflects the impact of flexible relationshipdriven models for our students who need it. As we celebrate
these results, we are also cleareyed about what it takes to sustain them. Jeffco is well underway, as you all know, on a multi-year roadmap to close a projected $60 million budget gap. Difficult decisions have already been made in central departments, and
reductions at the school level are ahead. These actions are necessary, difficult, and nobody wants to do this, but it is necessary to put the district on a path toward long-term fiscal sustainability. At the same time as the Partnership for Fiscal Sustainability
begins its work toward a potential November 2026 ballot measure, we are clear that responsible stewardship requires both disciplined cost reductions and thoughtful consideration of future revenue. Both matter and both
are essential. Nearly 80 community members, parents, educators, business partners, um, joined us last week for the partnership's launch, signaling strong interest in ensuring that Jeffco students continue to have access to highquality programs, safe and modern
facilities, and the staff and supports that make success possible. The results we are seeing today, higher graduation rates, closing gaps, and more students completing high school are exactly what responsible stewardship looks like. Our community is not being asked to fund
aspirations. They are being asked to sustain proven outcomes and accelerate momentum that is already being delivered for students. As we move into 2026, our focus remains on two priorities. Protecting what is
working today and building the financial and organizational capacity needed for the next generation of Jeffco students to thrive. Thank you. Thank you.
Board directors. Anyone want to go next? Director Kenworthy. All right. Um, I have a bunch of cards. I had a nice quiet break. I hope other folks did, too. That last time we were together was the end of December.
um and have returned ready to pick up and run on some stuff. Sorry, I'm just organizing. This is why I never used to go first. Um uh let's put this in order. Um I want to
start out by saying that uh JCAA invited us to their winter workshop this evening. And I will tell you, I've been to those before and I've found them to be incredibly informative. Um, it's also helpful to get to know some of the administrators um that I am working with
or even administrators that are outside of my director district. So, if you have the opportunity, I suggest going to that. Um, I also want to appreciate the gentleman who spoke to us raising concerns about concussion protocol um and informing us about the law that's
already in place. Um, I want to encourage our appropriate staff to look into this because student athlete safety is important. I have a sister who's a athletic trainer and I know how important it is to have um up-to-date concussion protocols in place. Um, as
for meetings, I met I went to our first meeting with the EAC and I thought that it went well. It was good conversation and I'm looking forward to working with that group. I'm also going to be attending the DAC meeting next week. So, I'm I'm currently carrying two committee
assignments right now. Um, but I enjoy I enjoy the work because it means that I get to be around the people who are digging into the um issues that are facing our district. And so, um, encourage any of you if you want to attend either the EAC or the DAC, just
check in with me and let me know. Um, coming up, we also have our first legislative check-in at the capital on Thursday, January 22nd. And if you are going to be able to attend that, then I'd like to um hear from you as well, just so I know who to expect and be looking for that day.
I also recently checked in with principles in my articulation areas about their budget process with an interest in attending their SAC meetings or community community meetings as a sense maker. But if that would be helpful, I only want to show up in spaces where it's going to be um a a
value ad for the principal. So, I'm trying to be very um mindful about not overinserting myself into conversations that are being had at the school level. Um but I do want to be there to support um our principles because they're
engaging in some challenging work. I also attended the fiscal partnership meeting and um really appreciated especially the women sitting at my table, the conversation that we had that we had educators, parents, and multiple perspectives. Um, and I thought it was a
rich conversation and there was a lot of good energy in the room from the other participants as well. And I want to I want to end my report just with some additional appreciation
uh to President Applegate for her commitment to collaborative leadership um that we've started working on. um it's a different model than what we've seen before. So, we're forging a path forward, but I appreciate the
honest and um the honest and supportful conversations that we have with one another. They're thoughtful. Um I think we listen to each other well and I hope that we're modeling collaborative leadership um for people in the district and also people in our communities. So, thank you very
much for that and that is where I will end. Thank you. Thank you, Director Kinworthy. Who wants to go next? Dr. Etcha. >> Thank you. Um, so this week I had the opportunity to visit Lucas Elementary
School. The their mascot is the Lucas Skywalkers. Um, very fun. Principal Lori Young. Um, Lucas has a focus on social emotional health, so I was able to walk through the school, see some of the calming rooms. They also have an A
program. Um it was a really calm school. The hallways were calm. Everything was calm there. So that was a a great opportunity. Um Seer Elementary School. I went and visited with principal Marissa Duran. Um they are the Seer
Alpacas. They focus primarily on the early year or primary years IB which includes goals like academic achievement, global mindset, inquiry based learning and being a lifelong learner. Um overall they want to celebrate growth on their MAP scores. Uh
I also was able to visit Wayne Carl Middle School, the Eagles and Principal David Singh. Um they had a focus on leadership pathways for students and they're also excited to celebrate high MAPS growth. Uh
Mandandalay Middle School Wolverines uh the principal there is Andrea Sabadosh focus on they their focus is on the middle year's IB. So, there's a track of IB in my district that goes from elementary to middle to high school, which is Stanley Lake. Um, the middle
school uh centers on the whole child learning. Uh, they have a more heavily impacted um community, but their MAP scores showed great growth this year. And then I went to Weber Elementary uh with
principal uh Cara Panos. Penos. They are the Eagles. Um they really focus on early reading interventions and high academic achievement. Their highlight was the A program which had the Eagle's Nest and the Eagle Soore. Um where kids
who needed a little bit more um intervention stayed kind of in their room and then the kids who were able to go back go out into the classrooms were able to go and participate in their classrooms and then come back as needed. Um and then finally today I visited with
Woodro Wilson which was my son's school. So that was super fun. U principal Mr. Tiguson uh they Mr. Tiguson is a newer principal and he was looking at data this year and realized that his writing data was not where he wanted it. So he's really
focusing on vertically aligning the K through8 writing curriculum. Um, but they did have a super high ELA improvement rate in the district. So, I've got one more school visit tomorrow at Three Creeks K8. I'm excited to see
what's going on at that school. Um, I also responded to several emails this um month, uh, the, you know, the weather related and operational issues, uh, the staffing, scheduling, personnel stuff. But two specifically stood out as
getting a lot of um emails on and the first were the budget cuts. So when I was um the the budget blueprint when I was touring the schools I noticed the impact on small schools
was more heavily impactful than we had originally anticipated. Even though they had lower cuts like a one or two% cut they also were losing SBB. So they were closer to like five or 6% cuts in their schools. So I really want to ask the board to look at other options for the
budget blueprint um that focuses on less cuts at the schools and invest more of that money in in schools which are which are with kids. Um the second thing that came up several times were the student safety and uh sexual misconduct issues
and concerns. So I personally would like to understand this better what our district does for HR uh processes um conducting background checks and references prior to hire. Uh so I would like the board to possibly add something
in our future meetings about maybe just to bring some understanding and clarity because um I don't know what the processes are and I feel like I would like to know more about that. Um that would be great. Thank you. Thank you,
Director Monian. >> All right, so I also visited a few schools last Friday and on Monday, and it was, I want to say, one of my favorite things about this position so far. Um, I was really touched by just
how different school is than when I went to school. Um, there is a lot of uh learning around technology, but uh in a responsible way. and I got to connect with several of the principles on what they're doing in terms of cell phone policies at their schools. So, it was
really um heartening to get some feedback and just kind of what they're doing and how it's working for them. It sounded like it's working well. Um and I look forward as we have to develop a cell phone policy as well to have those discussions. Um I just want to echo what uh Dr.
retrovaria was also saying in terms of I've noticed that there's quite a few emails concerning the budget blueprint for next year and I'm also concerned and I'm worried about what this is going to mean for our smaller schools that might have some declining enrollment if we take away funding
are we in essence saying hey we're just going to take more funds there's going to be less uh interesting uh course options at those schools are we essentially kind of putting them on a path towards it's closure, which is my concern. Um, and I want to echo what Dr.
Etcher was also saying in terms of taking a look at what are some other options to either minimize or um just take a look at what what the options are in terms of minimizing or or alleviating some of those cuts at at the schools, what that might look like, and
just getting a little bit more of an understanding around this decision that we're making. um you know, we have kind of stepped into this role and and I understand that there were conversations that were had before this. Um but that doesn't negate
the fact that we need to understand what we're voting on and to walk into it with our eyes wide open. So, just wanted to to share that. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Gibbons. >> Yes, since our last meeting, well, I did have a nice break that was quiet and um
free of emails. Um, in recent weeks I've had a few meetings um, here at the district that have been very productive. Uh, one I had a meeting where got a briefing and had an opportunity to just learn about our property disposition process, how it's worked well, ways it might work better. Um, that was very informative and I look forward to seeing
further developments in that area. Um, had an opportunity to meet with Superintendent Dorland on on a regular one-on-one meeting to canvas a number of issues this morning. Um, attended the capital asset advisory committee. Um although some people will say I was 10
minutes late, the reality was that I was touring and inspecting the district's capital assets at the Quail Street complex, which is very hard to navigate, and I encourage everybody to get lost in the maze of buses and vehicles. Um as for the committee meeting itself, um it
was excellent. I mean, first off, the committee members are a very impressive group of people. They have a they come from wide and varied backgrounds, but all of them have very impressive and relevant professional experience. And I think it's an immense asset to this district that we have that committee
functioning the way it is. Um, and then I was also um great to just go through the presentations from staff of looking at where different capital projects are. Um, I was particularly impressed by, you know, looking at some projects where there were unforeseen challenges and sort of the creativity that had been
employed to kind of solve problems and still efficiently steward resources and make sure that our buildings were functioning in the ways that they were needed. So, um, very much enjoyed it and look forward to continued work with that committee and with, uh, my colleagues in particular Dr. putting me to shame on
their school visits. I am in the process of scheduling quite a few with Miss Harper that I'm looking forward to, although Denine's track record might might be hard to keep up with my law job. I did also, you know, have been receiving a lot of constituent concerns. I've also had some conversations with
some of our association partners. I think like everybody else here, hearing a lot of concerns about budget cuts, um, and also lots of questions and concerns about background check polit background check issues based off of recent events. and would also echo my colleagues about I think the importance um to continue to
look at all of those things and to see where where we're doing things well and where we need to be doing things better. That's it. >> Thank you. Um well, one welcome back everyone. Happy New Year as our first official board meeting of 2026 and I just want to
start with gratitude for trying some new things. Um we've definitely tried some new things tonight and um we'll recap at you know later as to whether we thought they were successful or not but um I appreciate everyone going along with some of these um crazy ideas. I also
want to appreciate that we um are hearing a lot of public comment and it takes a lot to come stand up in front of a live stream and a board on this dis and so I just really appreciate all those that came and brought their concerns and ideas and know that we hear you um even though we can't respond and
and do appreciate it. Um and similarly um a lot of emails right now around some really hot topics as my board colleagues have already addressed. Um, I do know I' I've had the benefit and pleasure of attending some sack meetings around
schools and I do know that our school leaders are doing an incredible job delivering really heartbreaking hard news and um we are paying attention to that. Right. So I I think the what's really important
is that um Dr. Coleman and our super our area superintendents are working with their principles to look at their budgets and I do know that both superintendent Dorland and Dr. Coleman um are helping to identify where we can find budget assistance if necessary for
some of our small entitled schools and I really appreciate that this board has a really tough and important decision to make when we look at the budget for next year. So, I really value everyone bringing this up and and sharing concerns and sharing concerns that we're hearing as we're out in schools because that's often the boots on the ground
where you you can really um hear how it's impacting our schools. Um, want to reiterate that this process really sucks and I don't think I walked out of any of those sack meetings with completely dry eyes because of what it
means when we do this work. Um, and as someone who will take responsibility for the guidance that was given, I know it's hard work and it's scary work. And so I I appreciate having a board up here like a board before that's willing to dig in and really look at it
and figure out what's best for schools and best for our district. Um, for me, I had the chance to sit in with TDPAC on a preview of the cell phone policy, which I think is going to be super fascinating. Man, it's um we heard some of it tonight, right? We have
we've I appreciated the comment of making sure we're getting a a broad um body of evidence and data when we're collecting it. And so I I really appreciated that and I know TDPAC participated in some of the data gathering process um this week and so I think we have some good tools to gather
more data which I think will be really important. Um I am excited to begin my school visits. I also have not yet. Um, but I did also get to visit with our audit committee who we're going to hear from um shortly, our auditors on the ACUER. Um, and for y'all who haven't
gotten that experience, you are in for a treat. Um, but it's um it's really excellent news and I'm really excited for the the message that you guys are about to hear. Um, and overall um I'm really proud of what we got to start this meeting with. oftentimes we hear
the not so nice things and there are a lot of not so nice things. There's no doubt. Um but what we saw today was schools crushing it in academics. We saw athletes achieving. We saw really proud parents and coaches and community
members and teachers and staff and educators and principles that all make this district run. So that um is something I will take with me and warm my heart for quite a while. And I just really want to reiterate how crucial all of those people are to making Jeff Co
who we are. And I really want to celebrate the graduation rates because I think when we see achievement and we see graduation rates, it's all tied together to the work that we're doing. And with that, we will call leadership reports to a close. So, thank you guys for taking the time to do that. Um, this
will now move us into the study session of our evening. And our first item of study this evening, the board will receive our annual comprehensive financial report or ACER. Um, come on up to our wonderful presenters. This is for the 2425 school year, so the last fiscal
year, as well as engage in a discussion with our external auditors. Presenting this evening, we have Stephanie Noll, executive director of accounting and finance, and guest presenters Lisa Horn and Carmen Jeff, both independent auditor auditors from Forvis Mazars. I
hope I'm saying that right. Um, this is really our chance board to engage with our auditors in a really special way. So, these teams have put tremendous amount of work into looking at all of the details of our books. And so, I um I'm going to turn it over here shortly.
We will let them present and then we will definitely dig into questions when they get through their presentation. So, before I turn it over to our esteemed presenters, Superintendent Dorland, is there anything you'd like to add? >> Thank you. I just want to extend a warm welcome to Lisa Horn and Carmen Jeff
from uh Forvis Mazar Mazars. Am I saying it right? Yeah, we always I always have to check in on that one. For Forest Forst Mazars. Um thanks for being here and thank you for your partnership um and and the work that you do with us with the audit. I also want to recognize
Stephanie Noll, our executive director of accounting and finance. This is Stephanie's first audit um that she has participated in and I'm just really grateful for her putting together the Sakur um and uh partnering or
participating in the audit. I also want to um just give a a shout out to her executive director um Tanya Glushko. Did I say that right? Yay, I said that one right too. Um, and I know Tanya works really closely with you in doing this work and so very much appreciate Tanya's
efforts as well. Um, and so really, um, maybe I'm going to also just spoil the headline, but we're really really proud that there are no material or significant weaknesses and therefore no findings. Did I say that right? Yes. So, um, it's it's really a good news audit
and really excited for these guys to present to our board and for you all to engage with them. Thank you so much for the work that you all have done. I just wanted to note before we turn it over to the auditors that we do have the electronic version of the annual report available online attached to tonight's
agenda. We have print copies available which we will make available to all of the board members. And if anyone needs assistance with the annual report, anyone listening to this evening's uh meeting, please reach out to our CFO, Miss Copeland. And with that, I will turn over to our auditors.
>> And just a note that you have to kind of be close to the microphone just for our listening public. We could hear you um Stephanie. So, just so you know, we could hear you, but um Drew likes us to be really close to the microphone.
All right. Oh, that is loud. That's okay. Scared myself a little bit. Perfect. Well, thank you so much. We are so excited to be here tonight. Um as it was mentioned, my name is Lisa Horn. I am a partner at Forvis Mazars. At Forbus Mazars, we actually have a dual
partnership in uh model for each of our engagements. So, Christopher Telly was the lead partner on this engagement. I was the secondary partner that did quality review. Uh Mr. Ty is out of the country at the moment. And so, I am here to present the results of the um 2025
financials to you today. I do want to note that while this presentation will be short, we will not be reading the AER to anyone tonight. Um the culmination of where of getting to this point is over many many months. We start meeting with
the district um in June prior to fiscal year end really gaining an understanding and the audit goes all the way through um really just uh the end of December. And so it is a very long a very long process. It is on top of the normal day
job. Um and so really want to commend everyone who helped and extend our appreciation. It is truly a tone at the top. Um audits are important and if their tone at the top isn't there, then others don't see the value of an audit and an audit is extremely important. Uh we are independent to the district and
so that is uh one of the reasons why this opinion is so important. So with that, I'm going to take you through a very high level. We're going to go through go through some of our required communications to share with the board. We'll go through some of our results. uh look forward to the future but then also
open it up to any questions that the board may have. So with that the um scope of our audit covered the fiscal year 2025. Our responsibility is to provide reasonable assurance over the financial
statements that those are free from any material misstatements. We do provide reasonable asurances. We are not able to audit 100% of the transactions of the district. So we do perform sampling um and making sure that we are getting enough coverage to be able to support
our opinion. In addition um as I mentioned we are independent of the district um all members of our team as well as the firm as a whole is independent. We did perform and review internal controls. That's often a question that I
get is you know did you look at internal controls? What were those doing? You know and how were those looking? And while we don't issue an opinion over internal controls, um, as it was mentioned, there are no internal control findings. So there are no material
weaknesses or significant deficiencies to report over internal controls or the single audit, which we'll talk about on the next slide. So our single audit or uniform go uniform guidance audit covers the district's federal expenditures. So
during the fiscal year 2025, the district expended approximately 55 million of federal funds. In order to test this, we uh were required to look at one major program which was the IDA or the special education cluster. Um and we had no
findings to report, no best practices, nothing. So when the district goes to submit this report to both the Colorado Department of Education as well as the federal department of education, they will see that Jefferson County Public Schools received a clean unmodified
opinion with no findings. I will note that is uh one item of note is that there were significant delays in the release of the 2025 compliance supplement. We are not able to issue our report over the single audit until that
compliance supplement is released. Usually, it's released in March of every year. In the current year though, it was released the day before Thanksgiving. And so, many districts within the state of Colorado elected to push their single audit results and push their issuing of the single audit until a much later
date. Jefferson County Public Schools met with us and we said we are committed to getting your single audit issued and bound within your act really allowing for that financial transparency. Um because we all know that financial information is only relevant when it is
timely. And so we met and as they mentioned the partnership and all parties agreed, hey, we're going to push forward. We're going to go ahead and get that single audit issued at the same time. So you will see that's included. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Carmen Jeff to go through some of the different financial aspects of the
audit. >> Good evening. Good evening. Trying to be as close as I can. Um, so thank you for having us. I want to start here the fact that um, we perform a group audit and what that basically means is is all of the charter schools that are associated
with the district are a part of your audit. So in the current year we did not audit Aiden Brook Classical Academy, Jefferson Academy and New America Charter Schools. Those were all audited by other auditors and we relied on the
information there and um referenced them in our opinion as well. And so the other charter schools that are associated with the district were included within our audit. So that was a part of our testing procedures. We also review significant accounting
policies um and those are uh in note one of the ACT for that you all have. One of the significant accounting policies that was huge this year was the implementation of Gatsby statement 101 compensated absences. And so what that standard has done is it requires the
district now to state the liabilities associated with the vacation and sick leave on the statement of deposition. And so therefore that information now is uh noted. It was not previously noted sick and vacation. Vacation was there
but there was no sick. And so that was a huge lift for management because they not only they had to analyze each person and how much they earned, how much they used to determine what that estimate needed to be. So we appreciate their work with that and that was one of those
things that we started talking about way long time ago so that we would make sure that we were prepared for the audit procedures. Along with our audit, we do a riskbased uh approach. And so with that being said, we review management's judgments
and estimates. And you'll see listed here the specific judgments and estimates that we reviewed. We talk with management, have some discussions, make sure we understand the why behind them so that um we can assure that they are reasonable.
In addition to that, we also review the financial statement disclosures and three of them that we uh want to always make note of is the pension and post liability benefits um disclosure. The district is a part of PARA. And so with that being said, PAR provides
information. The district receives that and that is the information that is included within the act. The district has no control over the assets, liabilities, any of that. it is all strictly parah. So we review that information. We also bring to your
attention the termination of fair values and note two. Um that's really just making sure that you understand the investments of the district, how they're leveled, their fair value, how they're valued. And so we look at that as well. And last but not least, uh in the
current year, there were a couple of accounting changes. These are all geographic accounting type changes that occurred within the acter. The baseline financial numbers, ending numbers did not change. It was just changing the geographics of where things were located
in order for it to be more um understanding and feasible for all those that reviewed. >> I will say for those of you listening or who may be new to reviewing a financial statement, as you can see, it's about 200 pages long. And so we recommend if
you are looking for a highlevel kind of overview definitely look within the very front of the financial section is the management discussion and analysis. This is management's analysis over the year. This is the part of the financials which is written in plain English. Um and so
really easy to understand. Then we would also recommend as Carmen mentioned looking at these footnotes. They do have some valuable information. And so while we would hope that everyone would want to read the financials cover to cover, we know that's just not feasible. And so encourage you um the board as well as
those listening in on the public to uh at least read those few footnotes in the management discussion and analysis section. >> Thank you, Lisa. Additionally, we are required to have a discussion with uh the board about the
adjustments uh identified during the audit. There was one adjustment that was proposed and the district made that adjustment related to prepaid expenses and the insurance reserve fund. In addition, there were a couple of
uncorrected misstatements. Um, specifically one related to the implementation of Gazsby statement 101 for the charter schools. When the district implemented 101, the charters had to adopt 101 as well. And so therefore, there was analysis done
there. And so there was an adjustment um an uncorrected misstatement there. And another one um that has to do with the a discrepancy between the loss of sale of capital assets in the central services fund between the basic financial statements and the capital asset
footnote. Basically what all of that means is there were a couple of things that we found as we were auditing and so we got with management and determined that those things were not material to the basic financial statements as a whole. And so the district went through
and analyzed that and they determined, okay, these are now material. We're going to hold off on making these adjustments sometimes due to timing, sometimes just due to the level of work. And so therefore, we agreed that that was fine and the financial statements would not be misleading.
I've already talked about some of the significant issues that were discussed with management. That would be the implementation of Gatsby Statement 101. um the changes within the financial reporting entity and then um as I've already spoke about the audit of the specific charter schools and then there
was one additional Gazsby statement number 102 that um was implemented in the current year. It did not have a large impact on the district at all. It really has to do with certain risk disclosures specifically related to concentrations and restraints. Um
determining whether there's one entity that you are getting things from that if that entity were to go um dissolve that then you'd not have those in that information again. And so we talked with management and management ascertained
that there were no concentrations or constraints that needed to be disclosed within the financial statements. As you some of you all may be aware but I want to bring to your attention the uh required communication regarding internal controls. There are three
levels of internal controls and as we've stated you had no material weaknesses which is the top level. You had no significant deficiencies which is kind of that middle level and then there's a deficiency um which is the lowest level of comment that can occur. In the
current year, we had a uh deficiency related to the journal entry process. And last year, there was a significant deficiency that the district received specifically related to the review of journal um journal entries. And so, with that being said, we want to make it
known that that deficiency was implemented. The recommendations were implemented. And so, that was fantastic. However, it took a little while for those to get implemented. So, um, our deficiency here is really related to the timing because we tested it and we know
that it works. However, it just took a long time. So, that did not actually occur until June. Um, I will also make note of this district is implementing a new ERP system. So we wanted to make note um that this process that they have
deter discovered make sure that that's included within the ERP system implementation to ensure that the review still occurs on a regular basis. >> And I just want to clarify one thing Carmen said. So in the prior year it was a lack of documentation of review. Not
that the journal entries were not being reviewed there just wasn't a formal signoff because of system limitations. And so um finance worked with it to get a new process in place kind of to bridge until the new ERP system was in place. But do want to reiterate management and
um finance were reviewing journal entries. They just were not formally signed off with like an initial. >> Yes. what she said >> with that. Looking forward, um the district as well as for Mazares have already partnered to look at the two new
accounting standards which will be applicable in fiscal year 2026. You'll see these finan these impacts in your financial statements when we come back this time next year. The first standard is Gazsby statement number 103. This is a uh standard that affects the financial
reporting model. Really, the goal of this standard is to make sure that the financials of all governments are standardized so that you can pick up a financial statement from a district in Colorado compared to a district in Florida and you're able to see the same type of information presented to really
kind of make things more comparable. Gazmi statement number 104 focuses on certain capital asset disclosures. This item will be disclosure only and really focus on the capital asset just footnote to make sure things that again are classified consistently so that you can
pick up a financial statement and you know that what Jefferson County Public Schools considers equipment is the same as another district within the state of Colorado as well as another district within the state uh the United States. With that, Carmen mentioned that the
status of the prior year finding will be fully implemented. And I just want to take a moment to thank again everyone who helped get this audit off the ground and continue it through. Having results like this are something that you all should be proud
of. Having a clean financial opinion, having a clean single audit opinion, no management uh material weaknesses and no significant deficiencies. I always tell people if you have no uh deficiencies or no best practice comments, your auditor probably isn't looking very hard and we
always want to make sure we're providing those comments for continual improvement and continual learning at the district. With that, I'll open it up for any questions or or comments from the board. >> Thank you so much. Board directors, any questions? Dr. Edricia,
>> can you just remind me when our enrollment averaging is ending? Well, it's a bit up in the air. Um, and the state legislature is still considering this. Um, so the conversation right now is related to
four-year versus three-year. Um, the pace at which they want to implement the new school finance formula makes a difference in terms of how they implement this. Um, and it's all kind of wrapped up in the fact that the state is
struggling with the I don't know $875 million deficit that they're dealing with, >> right? >> So, I think that I said that number right. Um but the the uh so so we don't know exactly and on your on your
legislative platform that you um approved this evening um the the board is making a statement to encourage legislators to continue with four-year averaging. So that's where the legislative
priorities landed. And so then what is our projected funding then every year until that four-year period? What is our projected? >> Well, the the four-year averaging or three-year averaging, wherever wherever
it lands, hopefully it's four. Um would define our projected per pupil revenue. Um, and we are not at a place where we have done much projecting into next year quite yet because we've been busy
getting this midyear budget, you know, ready to go. Busy getting the ACT for finalized and busy um getting school budgets out the door and also completing these reductions for next year and the central departments and now schools are
doing the same. So, we we'll be moving into probably February and March sharing with the board some some more projections. It does get a little um tricky in the spring because we're making assumptions about what the state
is going to do. And then we can we run basically various mo models for you guys to look at when it comes to budget. Um basic if this happens then it looks like this. If that happens, it looks like this. Um, and so that'll be coming in the next couple of months to the board.
>> Thank you. Um, the last thing I noticed when I was looking through this um, plan online, which was harder, I wish I had the paper copy. I had to print out by our staffing went up, but our enrollment declined. >> Um, which page are you on?
>> 135. >> Let me look for that. Um, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, show me tell me where you're looking. >> Sure. Um, so there's the categories.
There's the administrative service, licensed services, and support services. And at the bottom, it has our grand total. And, um, >> we are at n 9309 for 2025 >> and then for 2024
it was 9105. So, we went up about 200 staff members. declining enrollment. Is that right? >> Um it's a it's a little more complicated than just because we have fewer kids, we
have fewer employees. Um the state did remove the budget stabilization factor in the last several years which increased our funding which was great and we're very grateful for that. Um in addition, the state often will increase
the amount that they provide uh for school districts by inflation. Um that then gets offset by our declining enrollment. Um so there are multiple variables moving at one time. Um and I am not going to be able to like sit here and analyze this page in the moment for
you um Dr. at Chevaria, but I will I promise I will take a note to go back and look through this report and see where I can try to notice those um 200 FTE might be um and then I think I can get a better answer for you. Yeah,
you're welcome. You're welcome. >> I would ask that that get shared with the whole board, too. >> Thank you, Dr. Varia. Anything else? All right. All right. Perfect. Thank you, Dr. or Director Henworthy. Thanks for your time and being here
tonight. Um, so I want to just restate no material findings, no significant deficiencies. This is good news. Um, and I heard your note about um external auditors looking through Adam Brook JA
and New America because we do the audit every year. If there's a group audit function in that way, do we we rotate through who's being externally audited and who's staying in with us when it comes to charters
specifically? >> So, in the current year, it was a little bit of a unique circumstance. So, all of the charter schools did receive an external audit. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, the auditor of the 11 charter schools, uh we could not
rely upon that report and that's why we had to perform the procedures ourselves. Um I anticipate going forward that it will again be we will be able to rely on the auditor of the charter schools going forward. >> Thank you. That's that's helpful
information. Um, I I wanted to ask because you mentioned the ERP implementation that we're getting ready to do. I don't know if this is a question you will answer or somebody else, but um I want to know if you if you can just lay it out for our
listening public what the impact will be of the new ERP system when it's up and functioning on our ability to provide uh adequate and targeted data for our audit. If some does somebody have an
answer for that? >> We are designing the ERP with our focus on quality reporting. So we want enduser functionality, very exceptional ease of use for
everyone who needs to be in that system and quality data coming out of the system. And every decision we're making, everything we're designing is with an eye on how easily can we get the information out, whether it's a principal, a school secretary,
us pulling financial reports, and then how easily can we present the data to you guys in a format that would be um functional. >> So specific to the audit then, yes, >> that's being held in your mind as you're designing. >> Absolutely. Great.
>> Yes. So my my hope is that um it's a little bit more like more efficient in getting information to the auditing team. >> Absolutely. >> With the ERP in place. >> Yes. >> Yes. We are we are a ways away from seeing test data on what the ERP will
look like as we pull data out of there. But every indication is that it will be far more efficient for us to pull information for the auditors and they should actually have their own access as an auditor um permission level to get their own data out of the ERP as well.
>> That's fantastic. >> It will be a gamecher for ease of use with the audit and data within the system. >> Yeah, thank you. That's um that's incredibly enlightening and I I like that um because there's not a an additional step or filter um for the
information to go through. I think u my last question yeah is going to be I just wanted to ask our auditing friends um in your opinion if the district management and finance were appropriately responsive to suggestions that were made during last year's audit.
>> Absolutely. The number one thing that we always look for is how receptive are management as well as the board to our findings and to our comments. Anytime we see a client who does not take immediate corrective action on a finding and we
see a finding repeat year after year raises that red flag and raises concern. Through our partnership, we were able to actually identify the prior year issue. So 2024's issue early on and management um did have some staffing issues um but
once they were able to get fully staffed really took that um to heart and immediately started testing. And so while Carmen mentioned that it wasn't fully implemented until June, that process did not just start in June. It really started when the audit when it was kind of identified and discussed
early on and then appropriate steps were taken. So, I would say we have no concerns over management's um timeliness or uh attitude and approach to the finding. >> Thanks. I appreciate that and I want to make sure our listening public hears that as well. I'm not surprised. Um I'm
grateful for the work that our management and our finance does in tracking data. It's been a huge push in Jefferson County. Um but I just wanted to get your outside opinions. Thank you for weighing in on that and I will be done with my questions. Other board
directors, any questions? Okay, >> please. Superintendent Dorland. >> Um, so I do have an answer to Dr. Avaria's question. Um, the FTE that are listed on page 134 and 135 of the audit
are um they are uh they're actuals. They are not budgeted FTE. And so the budgeted FTE for this year did go down. Um, but the good news is that we had less
vacancies, right? So, these are actual people in actual positions. And you can kind of see as we've as we've I think become more competitive with pay um we we've actually had and as maybe as we've also gotten further away from the pandemic,
we've had more success filling the budgeted positions. And so that's why we have uh the number looks like it's increasing because we have less vacancy. So that's the answer to your question of why it's going up. But there were fewer budgeted FTE,
just more filled. Thank you. Um thank you for following up on that. Um I I just want to also um express my appreciation and I was able to have a preview of this when I met with the audit committee. So, um I will also add
in addition to the first couple pages, pages 11 and pages 155 are incredibly helpful. It's it's the um if Miss Copeland were here, I think she >> opinion. >> What's that? >> It's the opinion. >> Yes, >> is the first page and then the secondary
page is the summary of findings. So, it's a very very quick visual representation of the yes no checkboxes. So, you can see all nos which is exactly what you want to see. >> Yes. Um, and so I also want to recognize that we had two new staff really take on
an audit. Um, coming in midway through the year even. So that was a huge lift by the staff. Any audit is a huge lift for those of you who um, do this work. And um, so I just really want to impress my gratitude and the gratitude of the board for internal staff and our auditors who come in and do this work
because it really is an important um, piece for us to go to the community and show that we're being responsible. the taxpayer dollars and then I am really proud of the improvement. Um, Director Kenworthy and I were here last year when we had a significant deficiency. That's
kind of scary to be told that by an auditor. Um, so really appreciate the work to get us off of that and address it in one year. So also want to represent that. Um, and thank you for your time. We really appreciate you being here.
All right. Next up, the board will receive an update from Jeffco's cell phone policy. Um, leading this presentation is Lisa Ru, chief of staff, Becky Shri, manager of educational technologies, and Sean McDermott, director of student tech services. Thank you for joining us. We have
allotted 30 minutes for this meeting to approve that by July 1st. Uh, so hoping for a Juneish time frame uh for a new policy to be put in place. And so this is an opportunity for you to study this issue, understand what we've done to date to try to get um to that policy and
make sure that it's informed by our practitioners, our families, our students, um all of our stakeholders. So um looking forward to you talking about this tonight. This will be one of probably several bites at the apple uh for the board. So you don't have to um
you we'll be coming back to this this spring for sure. So this is not your only chance to sort of have this discussion and dialogue and learn about this project. With that, Miss Ru. >> Great. And I also just want to mention that my colleague um Joel Ibeck, Miss Ibec is up here as well. She's our chief information officer and I just want to
thank her for her partnership. Um both um Miss Shy and Mr. McDermott work for uh Miss Ibeck and have been incredibly helpful to me in this process. So um thank you for having us here tonight. Um I know this is a hot topic um that um
you all have we heard about at public comment tonight and I assume we'll continue to hear about for the over the next couple of months. So I wanted to give a little context and background. Um of course um directors Applegate and Kenworthy were here for our last presentation um this summer. Uh we we
spent um we started this journey in the fall of 2024. Um we um during the 24-25 school year reviewed school-based um policies that are currently in place in our secondary schools um and some of our K8s. So we um had a K8 in the mix as
well, but many of our schools I just want to say and shout out to our schools have their own policies already that they are they have been implementing for a long time or a short time but many of them do have policies. Um and we wanted to study the impact. So in um that was
last year. This year as we started the year we have um been working with representatives of DAC, TDPAC, JSLB and the school leadership principal advisory committee to revise district policy JSA and create a a regulation JSAR to
reflect Jeffco's cell phone policy in accordance with Colorado law by July 1st 2026. So a purpose tonight is to review just do a highle review and encourage you to go back to our presentation from June and do your own in-depth review of a lot
of the data that we presented which is not in here tonight but certainly we're happy to send it to you or give you another presentation if you like. Um so look at our research u we will provide an update on the work that we have done first semester. We'll preview the work that we're doing second semester which
is happening now and we're going to look at a timeline for board approval. So you all know this, you live it um I think in in some in your lives um but the national context for cell phones and young people um the of course there's a book that's very well known called
Anxious Generation um that has really raised the alarm bells on um on what smartphones and screens and such and social media are doing. um what's happening with our students. And I'm really excited. This is like a two-parter presentation tonight because
you're going to hear about our social media uh filters in our schools and the pilot that uh Mr. McDermott and um Miss Shory and uh Miss Ibeck have been leading with our schools. So these things are not the same, but they do go hand inand. So there has been a public
health crisis that was declared around cell phones and how they're impacting students physical and mental well-being. And this is of course influencing our state and um and federal legislators, local legislators around the country um and many of the policies that we have
seen put in place um as these certain um concerns have been raised. And then Angela Duckworth, if you all follow her, she's a really interesting researcher and um you know her she sort of also raised sort of a different kind of alarm um last year when she said like you know
nobody really knows what's working and what isn't yet and we need to make decisions about what to do related to our related to policies because as you know a lot of um some districts some very large districts have put in place um bell-to-bell bans um and um we we it
we're early. There is a ton of research out there and I appreciate what the public commenter said about that and there there is a lot of research and a lot of things related to this work which is also making it very interesting. So right now I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about our research that we did last year with our
schools. We needed to understand the current la landscape the cell phone policies that are in place in many of our schools. Um and I also want to say that we in our as we reviewed these they do vary significantly from school to school. So, um, there, you know, there's
variability. 35 schools shared their cell phone policies with us for our review. Um, we studied intended and unintended outcomes, consistency, and application, p perceptions of student, staff, and families. And we also looked at discipline data. We did at a point in
this study add um a particular thing uh for or I don't know what you would call it a field to our um discipline matrix that would allow the tracking of cell phone infractions that was not previously there and we trained our principles on that too. So our key
project areas we identified 11 pilot schools for deeper investigation. Um, we had six tier one schools and five tier 2. Tier one schools completed two surveys, one in January and one in May. We had six school leader interviews that we interviewed two times during the
study. We um had 17 interviews with te with teachers. We did six uh student focus groups. Uh I was lucky to participate in one of those at Three Creeks K8. Um and then tier 2 just completed the survey. So we didn't do any of the in-depth things we did with
tier one. And you can see the tier one and tier 2 schools there. We also added, as I said, a place to track cell phone infractions in the discipline matrix. Um, I do want to say that there are a lot of fields in the discipline matrix. And there the what we what we're not
understanding right now is when the cell phone might have been the root of the issue, but it turned into a defiance or some other sort of issue. Um, but it started with a cell phone. So, it's a little that's a little bit harder to track. Um and then a code was became available for for schools to start
tracking on December 3rd of 24th. So it's been up about a year. Um overall project themes um from the research teachers strongly support clear enforceable cell phone policies. Both teachers and students emphasize the need
for consistent enforcement across classrooms and and um with and between staff with students. So when they go from one classroom to the the next, they want the enforcement to be um consistent and so do teachers. Sustained communication and alignment throughout
the school year is critical for success of un successful understanding of policies. So one of the things we found is that schools might communicate about this once at the start of the year and never communicated about could communicate about it again and that might not be sufficient and parents want more information about the purpose and
expectations of our policies and students want guidance. not just rules on how to use phones productively for learning. And that if you um will would have attended our cell phone committee meetings were highly attended by by our students. Um in fact, at the last one,
not the one we had this week, but the one we had in person, um I think students outnumbered adults significantly. So, um our students want a voice in this and they are giving us a run for our money. Um which is great. So on the survey number one um stakeholder
alignment and misalignment parents are divided on policies overall. Some believe cell phones need to be restricted while others p the um enforcement was a continued issue. Students and teachers shared that they see earbud earbuds as a growing issue. We didn't have earbuds on the first
survey, but after we talked to teachers and um principles and students, we understood that that um wear wearables, especially earbuds were an issue. And then parents and students agree on safety. Both students and parents express that they feel students are
safer or that they themselves as students are safer when they have their cell phones. So um you know whether that is a perception, it's their perceived reality. The teacher interview themes. Um educators want clear, consistent um
clarity, consistency, and collaboration. Teachers support strong enforceable policies and see value in a district-wide approach. Teachers report having to choose between using their time for instruction versus managing cell phones. Many describe inconsistent enforcement even within buildings as
barriers to effective implementation. So the fir what we learned from the sur first survey was we asked how consistently is the cell phone policy um enforced in your school and we got some varying results. We then asked because began to seem unclear to us whether they
were talking about themselves or the teacher next door. So in the next survey we asked how about their own enforcement and then the colleagues in their building and how they're they're enforcing it. So basically if you looked up that data and from the last presentation it said that they gave
themselves high marks for enforcement and their colleagues less less higher marks. Um parent partnership is seen as critical. Teachers say success improves when families understand the why behind the policies. Educators highlight developmental needs and the importance
of um you know like middle schoolers need clear boundaries. High schoolers need support in building their independence towards when they'll they'll be leaving us and having free reign on their devices. And teachers are increasingly focused on earbuds and wearables which are harder to monitor
than than phones alone. And we're starting to hear and you might be in your conversations as well uh concerns about the glasses. Um student focus group students consistently noted frustration with inconsistent forcement from class to class. So, what are their phones being
confiscated for or not? Um, and that that varies. Many shared that putting phones away doesn't does help them focus and helps with peer interaction, but they say this works best when rules are clear and evenly applied to to everybody. Students want policies that
make room for trust and accountability rather than only punishment. And we heard a lot from our students in our focus in in the past meet two meetings that we've had in person where they these words like banning cell phones or cell you know um b-to-bell ban or
restriction like they they I think they automatically want to rebel against that. Um and so they do like the idea though that they would be provided with guidance or with um they would be they would be um given more instruction on
what is appropriate or not. Um and so it's just we we need we obviously have a lot of audiences we're speaking with in this um and and those audience are audiences I think are not always talking to each other in a way that they're hearing one another. And so that's something we're contending with as well.
um they value guidance on use of technology. Earbuds and smart watches present mixed opinions. Some students find them helpful while others acknowledge misuse. And I think one of the things we're contending with that you may all may be contending with in your own homes is just students um are
see themselves as being able to do two things at once. Their homework or their studying with their music in their ears. and that um and and as you know people of a different generation we might not understand that or believe that and so it's just um it I mean I feel like it's
like the age-old um you know generation gap that we're facing here. Um so our current landscape is we have uh we need to implement a policy by July 1. Um and so what we have the direction we have um as staff recommended that we go is to
revise a current policy which we feel like is better um is always better when you have a current policy you can revise rather than just starting completely over from scratch and lucky for us we have JSA and JSAR and so we're going to be um or JSA and we'd like to add JSAR
so we're going to revise the um the current policy and our goal is to meet regulatory requirements and provide a foundation for schools to build policies um unique to their contexts and communities. And I put the speed limit on up here because it's something I've been using to sort of an analogy, right?
You can set speed limits all day long, but unless you're there to, you know, unless there's someone there to catch you speeding, um they they they are not that effective. And so, um, one of the things that, uh, we will likely do in our next meeting is like I'd love you
for you to hear from, um, Lisa Mahana at Wheatidge High School who has done so much work there to implement the policy. And we just cannot underestimate actually how much work it takes to get a school community rowing in the same
direction. and it re and what it takes to get um to to get consistent enforcement in a school. Um it's really challenging and so and I was actually somebody sent me a lot of people send me stuff on this now since I'm working on it. Um and my colleague Renee sent me um
an article to this week. Phone bands are easy to pass and hard to run, right? And when you look at what's happening in some of the places that where they have passed ba bell-to-bell bans, you see this says students bringing dummy phones to surrender and keep a second device
hidden like there. So the kids I mean I think we we care I what I'm trying to communicate here is we care about passing a policy that isn't just to have words on a page but that we that we can
actually be followed and we have 148 schools in this district who each have different contexts. we need to support them to create something that's going to work for them and um and their communities because they're the ones who are there to enforce the speed limit
basically. So we have JSA which we have now if you take a look at it um you will notice that there are technologies mentioned in there that don't even exist anymore. So the policy needs to be updated whether you choose to update it the way that we are we are going to suggest um but it's student use of
personal devices and then um you know one of the the most important things that came from um the work that we've done previously the work we started to do um last semester was just these guard rails we really need to consider in putting our policy in place. So an emp
emphasis on school-based context um that we just talked about exemptions for medical needs and special needs which are required by law students access to communicate with employers, doctors and law enforcement. So we find this especially with our oldest older students. I know that um we have those
of you who have children who have turned 18 and are still in our schools no longer have access to talk to for example your child's doctor. And so um and of course doctors work during the day and so there are certain logistical things and kids being able to communicate with their employers about
whether they can come in to work or what their schedule is. And um of course we do have some students who are needing to meet probationary requirements with law enforcement. Differentiation for elementary, middle, and high school age students related to use restrictions. And then this really important thing
about balancing digital literacy. Um so helping our kids as part of um educating them through in in their time in K12 about you know how to how to use their their their this technology productively. Um and then the real issue
in our classrooms which is do we want our our teachers spending time um you know monitoring for cell phones or teaching and that's a real tension. Um and then this student accountability versus student engagement. So really also an emphasis especially through our
high school reimagine work that we hope that the content in their classrooms is so is so engaging that they don't want to necessarily be on their phones and that's something we need to continue to work on and as part of our high school reimagine work and then alignment among district teams and initiatives on our
approach to cell phone and dig digital literacy guidance. So, I'll just say for example, um Becky and Sean and I quickly figured out that we weren't coordinating on our pilots um right at the beginning of our work um in 2024, but that we were
um we we needed to to collaborate more and there's obviously we have a lot going on in the district with um our technology side of the house and then and policy side of the house. So, we're working to better coordinate. So, we had a first meeting o of this semester
October 29th. We reviewed the outcomes um at the fuller outcomes from the study we did last year. We received feedback on our current policy JSA. We discussed an outline of content for JSAR. Um you know, there were a lot of concerns about perpetuating inconsistent application
among schools. Um especially if we just don't have like a like a like a something standard like school uh cell phones are just banned belltobell like they there. So there's certainly some some um questions about inconsistent application burden on schools to create
their own policies. They had questions about that and then guidelines versus directives. Um so that's the that is this balance of some people want us to just give directives. Others just want guidelines so they can fit it into their
they their school um community can figure it out. So we went back after that first meet meeting we revised um policy JSA to get it into a tighter spot. We were then reviewed with the group a pol the draft of JSAR which is a
regulation. And just so you guys know like a regulation is just guidance on how to um the how how to execute the policy. Um that help we have it for things like our school closure work and it just provides a little bit more
information. Um it I will say that version of JSA and JSAR it really the at that point that it was pretty complex. We had sort of built this matrix of things and it it was we got a lot of really direct feedback
which was really helpful and our students really pushed on us a lot. Um, you know, so that there was there was feedback about complexity, lack of clarity at that point, resources and questions about the resources the district would provide to schools and then just we had a lot of conversations
about students rights. They want to understand and it really helped me understand we have not done a great job of helping our students understand that when they bring this school thing to school, what rights do they have around it? Um, and so we need to do a better job with that overall. And they really
pushed back. I mean I can see a lot of future lawyers um coming out of that room for sure. Um so our next steps we had a meeting with school leadership uh so we went back we revised the policies uh the policy and the regulation uh we
got it I think to a a much better place um much more clearer much less complex. I met with school leadership principal advisory on January 8th. They gave us some good feedback. you know, they they just one of the things they said is we just cannot monitor watchers watches
like it's just impossible. But earbuds, they really are concerned with phones and earbuds. So, we made that a little bit more clear in the policy right now. Um, we review, we revised our current drafts and shared them with the committee last Friday. We had a committee meeting last night. Thank you,
Director Applegate, for um joining us. We did a virtual so we started talking about how we were going to gather more feedback and specifically on our drafts of JSA and JSAR. So JSA and JSAR will be publicly posted on the website for
comment um starting on January 21st um through well they'll be posted obviously until the board votes on them but we have a public com a form that people can just fill out and say that says just give us your comments. So they can say whatever they'd like about JSA and JSAR.
We also have a Sensemaker to a tool called Sensemaker that we um demoed last night. And I I'm not going to say I'll I'll give a quick overview. I know Director Applegate took it. I I think um and so she she can say a little bit more about it. But you know, I I'm
interested. You know, we're all here. We're interested and we know we need need to by law pass a policy. I am also though more interested in how we implement this in our schools and that they aren't just it's not just words on a page but we actually try to change
behavior and to do that I think we need to have a better understanding of what people's relationship is to this thing and what it means generationally like who you know what of what generation are you in is this thing like like I think
I'm Gen X I think of this thing is super cool. I I didn't grow up with it. Um I didn't I I didn't have a phone until maybe a flip phone until after I graduated from college. But kids these days, it's they see this thing. It's like an extension of their being. And
unless unless we understand how people feel about this thing, we're going to continue to miscommunicate with each other about like shaming kids as screenagers or why are you so addicted to that thing or get you know I think we
we really need to understand how we all feel about this thing. And so the sense maker tool it's not a it's not a survey. it. You share the question that we have or we demoed last night was like you're telling someone from another world that has never seen this technology. How has
it affect like h how has it affected your daily life? And give like an example and um and then it asks a whole bunch of other questions. Was this story about you? Did you this story make you feel um emboldened? Did it make you feel defeated? like it asks you all these
questions that will then help us I think um as we try to implement this in the fall really work with our schools on how to change behavior and not just um enforce rules. So um that's that's the sense maker tool and we um you can learn
I hope you'll take it um when it goes live. Um it's just a new way of collecting information we haven't tried before and so I'm excited to see how it works. So we'll collect feedback. Um we have a a March 18th committee meeting to re review the feedback that we've
received um and have the committee provide um input for revisions. The board right now we're scheduled um I think April 6 will give you a draft um policy and regulation and we'll share with you some of the feedback reports. Although I do imagine we might keep the
Sensemaker tool open for quite a long time because there's no rush since we're doing implementation in the um in the fall that we might be able to continue to collect especially pushing on student feedback. Um and then uh in May or June um the board would would vote on the
policy. So I think that's it. Um, so I'll pause there and I just want to thank u Becky and Sean can provide any color to they've been along the journey um with me uh before we go into the social media work. Thank you.
>> Thank you guys. Board members questions. Mr. Gibbons, >> you have a couple. I first I have a comment. I mean you you know I understand your your comment about you know having a better understanding of of how phones are for students and you know I appreciate that comment extension that they experience these
extension of their beings and from my own observations that's the case but I would I think it's important for all of us to maybe keep in mind that that may not be a good thing. So just because that is their experience we need to respect it but at the same time it doesn't mean it's something we should continue or enable. Um, you talk about
kind of the need to have a policy that's going to work in different contexts. And I'm curious about what you've heard from teachers and administrators in different contexts around either, you know, what policies would be enforcable, what policies make sense, you know, just to give us an idea of what differences
there might be between schools or or other sorts of settings you've looked at. Yeah, I think that what we're hoping to do is is provide some some baseline guidance and then um the I think you know what what we see um varying is like
can kids like is it are they supposed to be stored and put away the whole day? Can they be used during like uh uh you know passing periods or um or resource resource uh sorry re recess that's the
resource recess time um for kids um are they um like some schools have like you they see the phone they take it others have it just needs to be like you see the phone you put it away and so I I think that there there's language
variations from school to school um schools have a lot of different policies. What we are hoping to do is to establish some common language and like a baseline from which our schools can then work and add add context um based on feedback from their own school
communities. So if we if we establish a baseline policy but then leave schools room for context and things like that and I think in many con I think in many situations that is an important thing to to maintain some degree of flexibility across buildings. How do we square that
with other concerns you talked about about inconsistencies including inconsistencies across buildings? >> Yeah, I think the most the the biggest thing that we heard wasn't inconsistent. There are some parents that are definitely concerned um like if they're if they're going to change schools or is
their elementary school policy going to be the same as the middle school policy they go to. But more um more common on in the inconsistency space was like literally in a building it in in a building itself. So the enforcement and application of the policy in a single
building for kids as they move within that building. Some like we heard uh the focus group I was in at three creeks. Some some um teachers see the phone and just say put it away and others lit like immediately confiscate it. Um and like
and then uh I I observed a high school classroom myself um a few right before winter break and I you know there was a note on the on the whiteboard that said put your phone in the pocket. Some kids did, some kids didn't. I didn't hear another like teacher didn't really say
anything about it and there were also kids on their phones. So I think there's um it's mostly within a building itself. >> And then in terms of you know looking at you know there was mention of looking at how cell phones may be
possible resources to education or things like that which is a statement I'm inherently suspicious of. So how how would how might that be? Is there any sort of real world example or is this just something that people are suggesting without much of an application for it?
>> Do you mean how kids might use a phone in a way that would be productive? >> Correct. >> In a classroom. Okay. I mean, our high school students did talk a lot about this and that some of their they are using some apps and other things on their phones to get work done during um
the school day. And that's and they really pushed that actually it should be their classroom teacher um in their high school that gets to decide if they're going to if they have the ability to use the phone in the class for what they're working on. >> Well, what what kind of apps are they
using on their phones that are of of use in their academics? >> I don't know. >> My son is using Dualingo. >> Hi, I'm Becky Sher. I manage the edtech department and so this is kind of our role, right? And so we have a lot of um
students that will use them in a lab environment and so they like in a high school they can actually use their cell phone to record the lab itself and then use that to put into a digital lab report for their findings because the
Chromebooks that we supply the students do not have a world-facing camera. So for them to be able to record while they're using it is a is a lot harder because they can't put it into tablet mode and have that extra camera. And so we also have apps like we video
that you can download onto your phone. They have a district license for that that everybody has purchased. and the app works a little bit different and it also syncs then with the app on the computer and so that way they can edit
their videos and stuff like that. So it's a we there's a lot of push for students to be able to express their learning via alternate modes in in a more um video content and not necessarily just writing which is
absolutely important but also additional creation of content is really important. So, does that help >> a little bit? I'm not still still wrapping my head around that, but >> and and we'll bring some students next time and they can tell you themselves, too, how they're using them.
>> Well, and I I'm curious, you know, it's like, you know, I can understand the value. I mean, I remember doing a school project that involved pictures and video and as old as I am, it was a real pain. It was be way easier to do that now. But I get concerned of like, okay, but is that something that they need to be doing in the classroom? Is that
something a project time they can do outside of the class? And even if it isn't, is it worth the tradeoff of other issues around distractions or social media problems while they're doing it? And I think so even if there's a benefit to it, are we then bringing in lots of
detriments that maybe aren't worth it in terms of the overall net balance of whether or not it's a net positive or a net negative? >> And I don't I don't know if that's something you can answer, but I just think it's a consideration that we really need to look at seriously. I think your perspective I mean this is the how hard this work is right because
you're gonna have this perspective and I maybe someone on the board's going to express a different one and and and it's so important to listen to all these perspectives and the hard work that we're going to have to do collectively we is figure out what what is right for for policy for this district given all
of these factors. So I appreciate um I don't have an answer but I appreciate your sentiment. >> I have some experience with it >> here. Let's >> I was gonna say can we can we get to some other questions and we'll come to that. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Dr. Etch Via.
>> Thank you um Director Gibbons for that. Um I also agree that there might be other solutions. Um I was in a school today with a tech lab that had you know iPads for those video type projects. Um and I appreciate the work you guys are
doing. I in my home lean more towards the strict cell phone policy. I have a charging station in the kitchen and as soon as my kids walk in the door, that's where it goes and it doesn't stay in their pocket at all. So, um my son came from a school last year that had the um
bell-to bell ban and if anybody saw it, it was immediately um confiscated. this year he is not and he's really struggling with um you know basic things lunchtime study periods where just he's not feeling like
there's a lot of interaction between students um so I am wondering if you're leaning more towards prohibiting students like with that bell-to-bell ban um and I understand it's age appropriate
as well but what is what is your current kind of leaning who in this situation >> for um elementary and middle school it's mostly students are phones are stored or wearables maybe not watches are stored
and put away um dur during the day um there's I think um so that would be elementary and then middle and then high school is is more flexible um it's it says something like generally but then it should be dictated by the school and
sometimes the instructor. So, um but we will have the I think um we even uh tomorrow or yeah, tomorrow's Friday since we're publishing these on the website next week, we'll we'll make sure to get you copies and then they'll be
available to the whole public next week online um to just take a look at. So, you'll be able to see more clearly what it is that we're what we're proposing. But that's generally it. There's pretty strict guidelines for elementary and middle and less so for high school. And then I imagine with the high school
since they have open campuses that you really can't do much to control it there. >> Yeah. I mean I I think I I don't know if we can do it much I mean much to control it um anywhere but it would be it's it's
definitely harder what as more kids have them at the high school level and are um and um yeah I think it's it gets more complicated. Do you think you'll see kids leaving school grounds more often to go get on their phones?
>> Well, this is why I think it's important for us to learn from schools and their contexts in terms of we certainly wouldn't want that. We also certainly wouldn't want when you see these um articles. There was one in chalkbeat in in October that said, "Yeah, there's some evidence that um achievement is
going up for students. There's also evidence that there are many more suspensions than there than there were." And so our PBST team, I just talked to them today. They're very interested in how we look
at this together because I don't know that I'm necessarily like you can't suspend a kid for a cell phone a fraction according to our ma our matrix but it could escalate into something else that could be suspend suspended and it's not then we're sending our kids
home to just be on their phones like it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So this is a complicated I I just don't want don't want to um under like say I mean this is so complicated and tricky so
yeah um I certainly look forward to getting perspectives from students in the future. I think it might also be helpful to hear from principles uh just kind of getting a sample size from the various districts as you know principles that
already have a cell phone policy or program that they have in place and how it's working out. I just want to share with my fellow board members. I went to a middle school and a high school. Um, and I got to kind of see their cell phone policy firsthand. And at the high school level, they kind of had a situation where there was like a little
pocket thing at the front of the classroom and students were expected to either keep it in their backpacks or put it in the pocket thing. Um, so that it was not a distraction during class time. The middle school that I went to, the students actually don't carry backpacks. So, the cell phones are in the backpacks
in lockers. Um, so I just think and I and I asked both of these principles, how is this working? How has it been received by the community? And the feedback that I got uh from both of these principles was that uh everyone was on board, you know, and there were a
couple of, you know, certain uh parents that had a couple of concerns and they had a conversation around that and worked through it. But I think there's a lot of evidence um around how distracting the cell phones are in the learning environment and in that context as well as as
director Gibbons was pointing out there's some other trade-offs that we have to take into consideration and I think this is going to be a difficult thing to make decisions around just like many of the other things we are making decisions around. Um, but I think it's very clear that
the students and the teachers are asking for very clear and concise guidance. And I think as leaders, it's our job to make sure that we are providing that context. Not everybody's going to be happy, but we need to do what's best.
Thank you. >> Worthy. >> Thank you for all of the information you're sharing. I have a bunch of questions. The first one is um is there a way since some of us are liaison to various committees and some of those committees are participating in sort of your the oversight committee that you're
working with just so that we can know who it is on the committees where we serve. I'm particularly interested in who what DAC members are participating. You don't have to tell me now but I just think it would be nice so that board members could maybe touch base with those folks when we're at the meetings
as liaison. Um, my next one I will say high student engagement. I had to laugh. I went to a student town hall at Bear Creek High School about a year and a half ago and this is all they wanted to talk about. Um, and I will say that
listening to their perspective, I learned an awful lot. So, I I want to lift up I think student perspective is incredibly valuable because they do use their phones differently than we do. And so it's in thank you for acknowledging that and for leaning in and making sure that student voice is being included in
this. I think it's incredibly important. Um in particular some of the things that I learned from them was about um the use for spat accommodations. Um, also I wanted to to note that, you know, when I was in school doing higher
level math, we had TI 81 graphing calculators, right? And you had to they were cost a bunch of money and you or maybe you just had a classroom set and you use them in the classroom. But now we have a graphing calculator in our pocket. Everybody has one. And so when
we're thinking about using technology in a classroom, when would it be appropriate? We don't make kids buy TI 81s anymore because they have it on their phone. And so I think there could be math level classes. Yeah. Did you buy one? >> You had to buy one.
>> Okay. >> Certain. Yeah. But >> but >> it has a ton of potential and it is usable in some math classes and in some contexts using as a as a support and a structure a scaffolding item. So, I do think that
there are ways that it's useful and it's also good for collective engagement in a room where maybe you're having a conversation about an English a novel and people want to share feedback on something particularly sensitive, but they don't want it
ascribed to themselves. They want to put the idea into the room without it being coming from them specifically. And some teacher there's an app where you can like type in some feedback or an opinion on a poll a poll or whatever where the information just gets gathered and
shared with the classroom without it being attributed to anybody and for confidentiality reasons in in conversations. That's actually a really useful thing. So people can share perspective that they might not be willing to share um
just just saying it out loud. uh because it's it could be sensitive but it's also perspective sharing. Um so I I do think that there are uses for it and even though I'm a part of a generation where I didn't grow up with them, I want to acknowledge that I think
that it's a useful tool. We do need to teach our kids how to use the technology uh wisely. My example for that is my own student um didn't have a cell phone policy when he started middle school and so he would text me um I have a headache. Can you come get me? Right.
This year they implemented a cell phone policy. He texted me, "I have a headache. Can you come get me?" And I went, "Why are you on your phone? You have a cell phone. If I show up at the school to pick you up now and say that you texted me, I'm basically turning you in for a cell phone infraction. Is that
what you want? Is, you know, I talked to him when he got home. We didn't do this over text, but you know, I'm saying you need to think about how you're using it. if you want me to come get you for a headache, now you need to go down to the office and you need to talk to the health aid and make a phone call so that
they know you don't just get to do it on your phone. Um, and and it was a good learning experience for him, right, to think through implications of him using it during the day. Uh, and I I think our students need to learn and a lot of the
learning is through mistakes. Um, and so I wanted to mention that as well. Have you come across anybody in Defco using a specific digital literacy program or deliberately having a conversation about student rights when it comes to phones?
>> Can Can you say more? >> Yeah. I'm wondering if there are there teachers that are doing either workshops or modules about digital literacy in particular or if there's um like is there a teacher or a school that's talking explicitly to students
about what their rights are >> regarding their access to their phone? >> So I don't think so on the rights piece. I would defer to I do think we have digital literacy um going on in our in our schools through our DTLs. Um and so
we why don't we follow up and get um and get you the information but yes there is digital literacy. >> Great. Thank you. Um and the the way I want to finish this is just that um I want us to check as adults I want us to
check our um agist privilege around how we use technology. Um and what we were taught as children was either positive or negative use of technology. um our perspective and experience is not the experience of the students in our schools today and they are going to have
to know how to use technology and platforms with responsible engagement and that's part of I think what we're meant to do in teaching them. I also want to ask this is my last question. Um, I noticed that Evergreen High School was a tier 2 engagement on the list that
you showed us, but given that they had an emergency situation earlier in the year, I'm really curious about perspectives from the Evergreen community, especially about secondary students having access to their phone, having it turned off, but not taking it
physically away from them. Um, and I don't know if you have any. >> I'll say, so obviously our study was over um by the time um the this fall started, but I will I will note and this is what we have this in the policy. Several of our high schools changed
their cell phone policies following the incident at Evergreen due to pressure in their communities. And so we do have a um we do have a bullet in the the guidance to schools that they should be
uh flexible and open to um adjustments based on context of events. And we do know that that has had has affected several of our schools and their cell phone policies this year, >> meaning that they are giving their
students more access to their phones um on the demands of the families u in the community. >> Yeah. I I just want to follow and say I cannot imagine how I would respond if there was an
incident at my child's school and they had a device but they didn't have physical access to it. Um, that's I'm just I'm just really uncomfortable with that. And I understand the research and the use for um you bell-to-bell bans, but I also
think the reality of our country right now is such that I would not be in favor of removing physical access from our students. They can have it off. They can have it out of sight. We can have consequences for use. But in the case of emergency, I want my kid to have access to that
device. I bought it for him specifically for safety reasons. So, I will end there, but thank you for all of the research and work and the information you're sharing with us. I appreciate it. >> I'll go fast um because I want to get to the social media pilot as well. Great
appreciation for this effort. This is no easy task. Um as we've mentioned, everything I feel like we discuss is is not an easy task, but this one is certainly complex. Um, I'm pretty sure I was anomaly on the last board and I think I'm going to be an anomaly on this board, which I think Mr. Luon knew when she mentioned there might be another
board member who feels differently. Um, I believe we have to help kids learn how to use a phone as part of their everyday. Um, similarly, I got a cell phone in college. Um, AOL instant messenger is still a thing for those listening at this late hour and remember
those awesome days. I could almost sing the little jingle. um and then went into a workforce not knowing how to use it, not use it, what to do with it, when to be on it, all those things. Um I think there's an opportunity to use
literacy as a tool recognizing there's distractions and putting things in place. I'm also very very very concerned about asking our principles and administrators to take the brunt of parents like me. Um I'm just going to be
real honest. Um because I think we need to make sure they have something that they can rely on and that we have their back because there are going to be parents who feel I mean we are a small smattering of people in this board and I think we all probably have different experiences and rules in our households
and so I'm I really want to make sure that what we have if we're giving autonomy to the high schools is also something firm enough that principles feel like they know we have their back. Um that's really important to me. I also believe if we set expectations and explain to the students why our students
are incredible, right? I don't want to necessarily set policy for the few that aren't going to follow it, but I think if we can have clear expectations just like adults, they are young adults. Um they will they will rise up to that and surpass it.
Um I had a high schooler who was in high school in a Jeffco school when it was locked down because we thought there was a weapon in the school. I don't think I'm going to get through this without crying. um he had his phone and I knew he was okay. And I will tell you um
there are a lot of parents that day that I know personally that were in the parking lot of that high school thanking God that they knew their kids were okay. So we cannot discard that that is a fact that we live in in this county. Um, so thank you for this work. I do
think bringing students next time would be great. I do think we're not going to make everyone happy on this. And I think this is something that when we do implement, I would really appreciate a regular review cadence to that policy because man, this technology is going to change faster than we are going to be
able to keep up. Miss Ivac knows that better than anyone here. Um, and I know TVAC does a really great job of thinking about and that tool is really good. My only concern is people won't fill it out because again I was like this is a lot
to type at some point. But it is cool when you have the time to put into it and tell the story. Um so I really am excited for us to have some dialogue and I hope that we can find a way for this board to really lean in and have real dialogue um when we get closer because I
think we could have spent another hour on this topic at least. So all right, thank you so much guys. And then are we just rolling right into social media? >> Well, uh, Drew is getting us queued up for our next presentation here. I'll give us a quick overview. Um, so as Miss
Bru said, piggybacking on our previous topic, social media also continues to be a very hot topic for our students and their ability to access social media websites on our internal Jeffco networks. Tonight, we're going to be presenting on a pilot that has been in
place, the brave schools who have opted into that pilot, data from that pilot, and what our next steps are going to be. So, with that, I will turn it over to uh Mr. McDermott and Miss Shy.
>> Oops. >> Hi, my name is Sean McDermott. I'm the director of student technology services underneath Jill. Want to introduce herself? Becky >> Becky Shorey, manager of edtech. >> Okay. So, at the beginning of the um
24-25 school year, we actually we we extended our um social media filters that we have in place for our K8 students in partnership with five of our high schools across the district out to them as well. So, today we have five five schools who have social media
filters in place while the rest of them um do not. Um, we did this really with with the objective of experimenting to see what what would how it would impact our school environments and our students learning experience, the social
experience to put in place what we're calling a digital safe haven. So, it's a it's um it's a it's removing social media distraction from our school, from our classrooms and our schools so that kids can prior prioritize on academic engagement, prioritize on reducing cyber
conflict and really en encouraging face-to-face skills. um when or over the past several years and this this has been going on before I came to Jeffco about three and a half years ago there's a we've heard really loud and clear from our digital teacher
librarians from our school leaderships from our teachers from across the district that access to social media or unfettered access to social media on district devices and networks causes a incredible distraction in our classroom makes classroom management very very difficult and actually contributes to
cyber billing and sometimes we'll call it hallway conflict. Um so it's been believed that it's it has been a contributing factor to those things. Um we actually were fortunate enough to have an opportunity um in I guess
probably the spring of 2024. We had a couple of schools step up and say, "We really want to participate in a pilot to look at what would happen if we filtered social media from our students to see what the impacts on our academic performance would be, what our social
emotional learning or social emotional space would be and how it impacts our classroom discipline." Um, and so like I said, in the in the spring or in the fall of 2024, we put that into place and that gives off to you. >> Yeah. So fall of 24
um we had those five schools. So if you're interested it was Brady, Coline, Conifer, Golden, and Jefferson Junior Senior. Um and we gave them initial surveys to the students and to the teachers about current perceptions and then we created
communication for them to be able to pass out to their community. So everyone was putting forth the same um verbiage, right? and and communicating the same message. So then spring of 25, we implemented this filter and left it on
for a while and gave a bunch of exit surveys to students and teachers um and looked at the data. Some of that was a little bit um funky, I guess, because unbeknownst to us when we started this,
those particular schools also started at the same time some pretty restrictive cell phone policies and so it made it difficult to differentiate between. Um then we presented our findings to the edtech steering committee which meets
several times a year as well as the academic leadership team and we had some followup with that around interviewing principles that were in the schools August of this year. the schools that
were in the pilot um requested for those filters to continue even though we were still kind of working through some of our findings and stuff like that. So we did extend that filter to those five schools gave additional updates to academic leadership team. So then just
recently we did additional surveys with the Jeffco student leadership board and uh as you also have done and yes they really want to know the why and are very um passionate about it and it was
exceptionally helpful. um spring of 26. So that's coming up. We will be presenting our recommendations to the leadership team and working with execut um the executive leaderships and schools along with comms to put out um some
materials. Okay. So with that with our social media surveys um the perceptions of the teachers since we couldn't actually pull hard data since they also did the cell phone thing. So we worked a lot around the perceptions of this
impact looking at academic performance of students um their ability to focus in the classroom emotional well-being by not having access on the district devices. Was there difference in peer-to-peer engagement? Was there any
change in conflicts related to social media? And looking at the classroom management piece. So, we surveyed on all of those. The students perception, we just pulled a few of these for you. Um, but that the effect on focus uh pretty
much stayed the same by whether they did or did not have access to social media. Again, by surveying the students, there was clearly some confusion. Um, some of the comments and perceptions
were really about the cell phones, not the social media. So, even though we were asking about social media to them, they were Yeah. Oh, well. Uh, and then also, what was the effect on their ability to complete work in class? Again, the students said
not really. um much change. Most of them said it stayed the same. Some didn't know. Um a few said it made it better, a few said it made it worse, but overall it it really stayed the same. So, some of the student comments that we got um some were positive, some
were negative, as you can imagine. Uh we can focus I can focus on my work without any distractions and my classmates can focus along with me. Um, my mood was better because I wasn't stressing about social media and everything. So, that was interesting. Um, but then there's
also things that were really important. I mean, schools use social media all the time to put out, you know, snow day cancellation, stuff like that. So, they weren't able to connect with some of that. Um, which is completely valid. And sometimes they like to use Pinterest.
Another one that came up a lot we'll talk about later is LinkedIn. And so there are some things that are categorized as social media that are valid in the classroom. Passing it to Mr. McDermott to talk
about teacher surveys. >> Okay. So not surprisingly, the teachers had a very dis different opinion. Um and actually I thought this was really revealing. If you look across the graph, the it was overwhelming in in response
or overwhelming support for the restriction of social media across the board where teachers really felt like again these are perceptions of not actual quantifiable data. But I think the perceptions of this from our teachers point of view is really really important. Um the teachers really had a
perception of improved academic performance, improved focus on classroom engagement, um perceptions of emotional well-being improvements with their students, peer-to-peer engagement, conflict related to social media, um and even and even classroom management. And
anecdotally with one of our high schools um talking with the principal during the the social media filtering pilot, he re he reported without being able to give me solid numbers, but the number of hallway conflicts in his school was dramatically increased from a
significant number one year to almost none the next year. Again, that was in cohort with the so or the cell phone policy. But I do believe that these two things go hand inand to help improve the classroom experience. my opinion that's
it. Um so again broad broad broad support from our teacher community um on the the positive impacts of this um though when with some of the ane or some of the textbased responses from teachers who
didn't who were kind of more on the line the middle their questions or their responses weren't necessarily about um anything that this or anything negative about social media but just skepticism on the ability ability to enforce some of these um policies both cell phone and
um social media. Um during our two our principal interviews, it was really along kind of along the same line across all the principles. It was very much in support of a filter of our social media channels. Um but again, like we said or like we've all said in the last section, this section, they also think it's
really important that we're teaching our kids how to use our technology responsibly. Um, so that's kind of one of the challenges that we're up against now. If I can get the Oh, too too far. There we go. Um, fascinating. It was it was awesome to be able to to visit with
JSLB and this was just like Lisa with some of her interviews. This was eye opening um for me. Of course, we were expecting the students to be under or to be against the um filter of our social media channels for all the reasons that
we can predict like it's um it's where or where to go to talk to my friends and all those kind of things. But was really fascinating was the depth that they felt this. Um one of the comments I have up here was really really struck me was social media is the place where I go to to be my true self. And so there is a
real deep emotional connection with the social media channels. It's a place where kids can feel safe. They can feel unjudged in a or I should say probably judged in a different way, but they they can feel they can feel safe in a different way than they do in person. And so I think acknowledging that is
actually really really important. Um so just taking that in consideration as we work through this I think is critical. But in the end, it's balancing the students needs or the students emotional connection to it. Um, against our need
to teach our students how to live responsibly with technology against the very real necessities of creating a space in which they can function and learn effectively. I think it's really tough balance to find it between all those three different um things.
>> Hey Sean. >> Yeah. >> Can I just jump in? I just want to say like um >> to this point of helping students understand how to be responsible with social media, be responsible with devices. Um I have a
college freshman and she's, you know, it's hard. I mean, it's it's different than high school. It's so much more independent um that we're not there to push, right? All the things. and she over finals week up at
CU took off all of her social media apps off her phone. Um I mean I didn't suggest that like wish I had. That would have been a good mom move. Um but I think and many of her friends were doing the same thing. So I do think they're the older they get they're starting to
sort of understand how can I manage this myself. Um and so I just appreciate like being able to talk to our students about um why we're doing this. I think this this other this other um quote about talk to us about why we're doing what we're doing
>> was really powerful as well. Um so maybe it's just a little bit of like there is hope once they leave home that they will start to begin and do the right things and figure out ways to help themselves manage it as they become young adults. >> Yeah, that that was another really telling thing um or impactful thing was
the students final message back to us at the end of our session was exactly with yours. It was you guys need to make the decision that needs to be made. Thank you for engaging with us. We want to continue to be engaged but whatever happens please just communicate the why so we can help under so we can
understand. So our next steps in this are to align the findings with ALT and cabinet um to work with schools um to identify if they would like moving forward next year to continue with a social media pilot
because every school does they know the principles know their community better, right? And so if they want to choose to go into the continuing to filter it, they can. And then to work on socializing that change again with the why um with working with the comm's
department to help put put out some of that communication around the why. Um and then the concerns. Um one is we've we've said this students want to know the why. And number two, I don't that's wrong. What I meant to say is uh that
the LinkedIn and the Pinterest came came up as social media that really needed to be relooked at of being available but the rest um pretty overwhelming were was okay to continue to be filtered out.
So questions >> board members Dr. Ache Varia. >> Okay. Um, so thinking around this policy,
would it include future apps or social media that we don't know of right now? >> Um, the way we or from a technology point of view, the way we will set this up um, if we're to move forward with this or what we've set set or what we
have set up for our K8s and for the pilot schools is we're able to block by category. So our internet filters um it's it's to your point it's really impossible for us to do one one at a time. So our internet filters actually
take um internet websites and they categorize them into certain categories. One of those categories being social media. So we've or we've restricted the so the social media channel or the social media category and as new technology or as new social media channels come up they'll be classified
as social media and therefore be blocked underneath that channel >> and if I can just add um Dr. Sorry. Um, we this is not a policy. So, the cell phone policy work we're doing, but this isn't about policy. It's like it's it's how we do anything we do with
technology, which is we we implement what's in the best interests of like, you know, we have cyber screens and like and and those kinds of things. So, um, but I just want to make it clear it's we're not doing a policy related to this. >> Okay. Thank you. So, I'm thinking of
apps that have become more social. Like, I know my student uses Dualingo for his German class, and it's kind of become it was originally a gamified way to learn language, but it has become more of a social way now where they're connecting
connecting with each other through the app. So, like when you consider those things, how are you determining if this is a game or an educational app versus this is social media now? because now they're just sitting in the chat on Duallingingo talking to each other.
Our our filters have different categories as as Mr. McDermad was saying that categorize things as this is social media, this isn't. To your point, there is a blurred line, right? So, we have the ability to override that and add
things in. And so we have a an existing mechanism that people can put in uh a help ticket and request that they a certain thing gets changed the categorization get changed so that gets picked up. And this is always a really
big challenge because you know like you mentioned that even with Google Docs they can be putting chats you know share a Google doc and have you know white text in the background and being a able to message each other. they they're very creative. So it's impossible to keep
that from all avenues, but we do have the mechanism in place through our filters to change as needed. Thank you. And just looking at your slides on slide eight, it does appear that there is an academic performance
component with the social media filter. That's what teachers are saying. Correct. >> Right. And like like I said that was a perceptions of so teachers felt like their students were performing better. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. One more. This goes back to the other one. Um >> in focusing on um Dr. or Director Applegate and Director Kinsworth Kenworthy's statements regarding knowing that your
student is safe in an emergency. Does the district have any type of um text function in like IC or is there another app that they can text their parents from the Chromebooks? Because they will
usually have their Chromebooks on them at all times um in that kind of an emergency. Is there an option for that if they didn't have their phones like if their phones were in their locker? >> Yeah, I don't know. I'll have to I'll have to look into that. >> Thank you. other board directors. Mr.
Gibbons, >> so um I think we all anticipated there would be some interaction and sort of mudding of the waters between this and the cell phone policy and you wanted to know if there's ways kind of moving forward if you could like kind of you know with expecting that kind of sort of
tease out some of the differences or or give us a better idea of ways to get either even if it's just survey responses kind of figure out how much of this change is cell phone versus social media. And then to that end also you know to what extent more permissive
cell phone policies give students sort of an inr runway around the district technology filtering out social media. >> So it's more a comment but but you know your your thoughts would be welcome on that. Yeah, I think or I think that's why I think that these two things really
go hand in hand where um trying to not put my my opinion in here too too much but I think it's really valuable to think that you know during the class time that class time is sacrosanked so students be able to focus on their learning is really really
critical and I think um so whether they're they have access to social media through their Chromebooks or the school networks or on their cell phones I think it's critical that they're able focus on their studies um between class times. That's where things get a little fuzzy for me. Um where there is a legitimate
need for some social interactions and that is a an option for you know well we don't want to well but they won't be able to access social media through their Chromebooks or through the school networks they still have their cell phones. So that allows allows the
schools at the at the school level to make the decision on what's best for their community on whether they want to have their kids again engaged in that way during passing periods um or not during passing periods. I don't know if that answered any
questions or concerns, but I think it's it's it the two the two things are really tightly inter interlocked and it's complicated. Well, and I think too what's complicated at this stage is assessing what's working and how. >> Yeah. >> And I think that's again I don't I don't
have an answer on that, but that's just something to to think about particularly if if other schools try this >> at the same time that we're figuring out a cell phone policy is how to try to tease the two apart in terms of efficacy. >> I think it was it was unexpected for us for there to be um us doing the social
media pilot at the same time that the schools had introduced a cell phone pilot. But honestly, I don't know if things would have been successful or we would have been able to get any useful data out of it if those two things weren't handinand. I know they're
conflicting and conflating data. But because of the other because of the end runs of without the social media or without the cell phones, the kids just would have been accessing cell or social media anyways. So again, I think they're complimentary. other board members. Miss Kenworthy,
>> I'm addicted to social media. I'm just gonna My name is Aaron Kenworthy and I'm addicted to social media. Um I'm I'm saying that, you know, hi. Thank you. Um I'm saying that tongue and cheek a little bit, but you know, um
my parents didn't have social media growing up. They didn't have it. They didn't even know what it was. wasn't a phrase. So, they never helped me navigate through learning how to use it, right? And so, now I'm in a position of parenting and as many other people in
our district are, of trying to figure out how do you navigate somebody through this into this world um in a way that is scaffolded, supported, you know, um responsible, all of those things. cuz I I mean there was a commercial in the
1990s about drug use and the kid says, "I learned it by watching you." Right. And and now that's what we're doing with social media, right? They're they they're watching us interact with it, >> isn't it? Yeah. Well, and I I say that
because on social media, I saw a parent who who was saying um they were like, "Look at this. I found this Wi-Fi extender in my kid's bedroom. And it was just like parents of my parents' age were going, "Look at
this. I found a joint in my kid's bedroom." You know, it was the same response except it's not drugs now. It's access to technology and access to media and information. Um, and so I'm I'm getting to my question. My question is about parental support um
and community resources. how help us help the parents figure out how to navigate this and I don't want to do mission creep for the district. I don't because you're educating our students and not all the primary function is not to educate parents but I parents need I
need help with my eighth grader. I don't right now I'm just doing a don't engage. You don't get to do that. You know, it's a flatout no. But when you put bands on things, you also make them have an increased mystique and mysterious and why can't I? Especially at that
developmental stage. And so, um, I would love to find resources and guidance that that we're using, you know, or directing people to across the district so that we can have shared language and sort of a shared conversation about how we support
students in, you know, scaffolding up in their use of social media and their cell phones. You're right, they go hand in hand. Um, but I just my my perspective really is I don't have a model. I don't have a
parental a parenting model. I don't have a teacher model. We weren't really using this when I was teaching and you know that was 15 years ago. But I need a model. I need I need some guidance. I need some support. And I know that I'm not the only one. And so I'm just I'm just kind of throwing the
parental perspective out there because we we need partnership with our families and our parents um if we're going to enforce any of these policies. Yeah, >> that's that's it. >> Yeah, thank you for that. So I digital
citizenship keeps coming up again and again. We have um you know our team as well as a lot of other teams are that work overlaps. So um whether it's digital teacher librarians the with teachers uh social emotional learning they all kind of overlap and we're
working all together to come up with consistent kind of digital citizenship expectations not just with how to use a cell phone or social media but all of the other things as well. And so that is really important ongoing work um and
we're putting out some resources with that. So, thank you. >> I just want to ask you guys to I think this is a great point and it it um is this piece of partnership with families that we have to be about. We are doing some really intentional work uh across
multiple teams right now related to um intentional transition years, kindergarten, sixth grade, 9th grade. And I do wonder if we can build in some of this to the work that we're doing to give schools resources around how to
intentionally transition students and families. Um, in particular, there's some intensive work going on around sixth grade. Um, because that's if if you look at our student achievement data, it is the grade level where we're seeing the least amount of progress. Um,
almost every other grade level we're seeing great progress with student achievement. And so there's something going on with that transition year. So maybe Lisa, you can just remind me as we work with cabinet going in the next few weeks to make some connections to this work and and that transition year work.
>> Yeah, absolutely. And I just do want to say for people who are out there listening, Children's Hospital has some extraordinary resources for parents. Um and so you know we aren't we aren't the brain surgeons over here um and Jeffco and there are a lot of brain surgeons um
at Children's who study children's brains and have a lot of resources for parents on this and I think we can do a better job of promoting um what's out there to help parents too. >> That's a great idea Missian. So just out of curiosity um you
mentioned LinkedIn and I'm just very curious how are the students using LinkedIn um there are some resources available through LinkedIn for um I forget what topic it was I'm sorry I will get back
to that but there were some resources specifically that uh like the CTE was using around LinkedIn um and then also So schools are working on like how do you apply for a job? How do you put a good resume? How do you do networking
and that sort of thing and so they want the students to under their guidance help set these up so that when they go off to college they have this already set up because that's I mean college students now are like here's my LinkedIn
profile instead of here's my Instagram. Um and so it really helps set them up for success. Thank you. Um, and I understand, and I think this is slide eight, the teachers perspectives, and I understand that this sort of captures the teachers
perspectives of how the filter worked. Um, and I'm just wondering, can we correlate or do we happen to have any information or data that correlates or confirms their perspectives in relation to academic achievement? Like, do we
have any numbers? We haven't compiled the numbers. We could compile the numbers and we're happy to, but we haven't compiled the numbers yet >> because I'm just wondering like if like this is their perception, which is great. Um, but does their perception
also translate into a reality is what I'm curious about. Um, and I I agree with my fellow board members and just some of the things that they've been echoing, right? We're raising the next generation. Um, and we want to just kind of we can only base it off of what we've
experienced. Um, myself personally, I grew up in the era of the internet being a thing, cell phones being a thing. Uh, I had my first cell phone in high school. Um, so, but it is important to have these conversations around the fact that
social media is addictive, right? Your cell phone is designed to keep you on it. um and how do we sort of model as well as share important feedback about you know how to use it responsibly. I think that's a great important thing
that they're asking for and we we should see what we can dig into in regards to that. Um as well as respecting the the space of you know this is a device that I can immediately text or call someone to let them know I'm okay, I'm not okay,
I need help, whatever that might look like. So, um, but also we are preparing our students to essentially enter the work floors, right? And, um, I can't speak to other work environments, but I'm just going to say, right, in some
work environments, the expectation is for the phone to not be on your work workspace or work desk. And so building these great um foundations now I think might be helpful just in as we're having these conversations and digging into
this work. Thank you. >> Great points by everybody. Um thank you all again for this work. I am very excited. Um again just speaking personally, right? We're a board. We make decisions as a board. Personally, I'm really excited
that we've seen positive responses from students and teachers and recognizably some that aren't excited about it. Um, I do think taking social media out of our schools is probably a pretty good idea. Um, I also really want to highlight that
I we get a lot of feedback about collaboration, true collaboration. And I think that's what I've heard like the students have appreciated true collaboration. I want to make sure our educators are experiencing true collaboration because I think in this
like we're really taking them ideas, we're really hearing feedback and getting their ideas and it's really shaping it. This isn't something we have done or made and we're just saying here's what it is. So, I I really want to highlight that and how much I appreciate that because it's a lot of iterations to get
where we're going. Um, I do wonder how this could affect this and the cell phone policy could affect things like choice. And so, when I think about um as parents of kids and or you know, community members, would we choose a
different school for our kids knowing what their policies were or weren't? And I am sure you all have thought about that, but it was something that just kind of hit me. I was like, if I had the option between two high schools and one had the social media ban, I would want a choice into that school as a parent. So,
I just want us I I think it's helpful in the state that we live in and the district we are in to add that to the possibility. And that leads me to think um to ask if we need to think about a policy on this when we get down to that spot. I
know we're not there yet and I know there's a lot of number crunching to do and data crunching to do, but this feels to me almost um handinhand with cell phones and almost kind of the next little sister to the cell phone policy. And so I um I know you mentioned right now it's not that's very clear
distinction, but should it be something we are pondering in the future? >> Yeah, we can definitely look at um where it might I I I I think I'm not sure we would need a new policy. I think we could look at where it might fit in with
some of our other policies. And I think one of the biggest things that I see issues with the policies we have now is how quickly they go out of date, >> especially when it comes to something like this. And so, um, you know, we have a lot of guidance or just like rules rules that we have as a district or
schools have that are not policy per se. So we'd really need to evaluate I think with Miss Talison about whether this is sort of appropriate policy territory and then um why and then think and then look at if there's a policy where we could put it in and what is it exactly we're
trying to achieve and how would we express that. So I think we could look into it for sure. >> Just curious. Yes, Miss Keny. >> I have one more question. When we're talking about self uh social media bans specifically um on district devices,
is that impacting um teachers and staff as well? >> So, anybody on the network, >> right? So, if you have a cell phone, you're in a school. Um correct. Is that Well, no. >> Sorry. You go ahead. >> No, go ahead.
>> Yeah, it's um it is just on our on the student Chromebooks and on uh the student network. I think I said that right. >> That's right. Yeah. So, the teachers and staff still have access to social media channels and such. >> It's interesting. Okay. >> But but students who are on their on a
cell phone on their cell network, it's not blocked. I just want to be clear. It's not like there's some special blocker, >> right? It's not a full ban. And you can't ever do that. And um I just um also wonder about our our staff if staff are getting on
there and kids could see like it's up on a screen even if they can't read what's on there. >> If the staff is on the network, it's blocked. >> No, not for the staff. >> How does this network discern >> different networks? Yeah, go ahead.
>> Yeah. Um so our teachers and employees use what's called an instructional network. So we segment different traffic on different networks and we can put different blocks on one network over another. Students are using a separate network in which we have these blocks in place. >> Okay. I'm just going to say that I get
blocked on the instructional network. >> You're special. >> I'm using the instructional and I'm using the internal and I've tried both of them and my Pinterest is blocked cuz I am a very big fan of Pinterest.
Why are you on Pinterest during work? >> Anyway, I thank you for clarifying. I think there must be a special superintendent network blocking so that they keep me focused on working hours and hours and hours every day. Thanks.
Thank you guys so much. I think um I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments. Um and that brings us to the end of our agenda. Thank you for everyone who's participated this evening. Our next scheduled meeting of the board is the executive session followed by a study session on February 4th, 2026 at the Ed Center. With that,
we stand adjourned. Good night. All right.