I would like to call this meeting of 12/03/2025 to order. Roll call, please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate? Here. Miss Kenworthy? Here. Miss Parker? Here. Miss Reed? Doctor. Varda? Here. On behalf of the Board of Education, welcome to tonight's meeting. We welcome all attendees, those joining us live in the audience and those continuing excuse me, connecting virtually. We also wish to express our appreciation to the live simultaneous Spanish interpreters for facilitating access this evening. Please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance.
The board's posted agenda calls for a presentation on the approval of updated language in board policy GP o seven. However, in consideration of the newly elected board members needing additional time to study this item, we're going to consider an amendment to the agenda to remove item five point o four, proposed amendments to board policy GP o seven from tonight's study session. Is there a motion regarding tonight's meeting agenda? I move to amend December the 12/03/2025 agenda to remove item 5.04, the proposed amendments to board policy GP o seven from tonight's study session.
Is there a second? I second. Any discussion? It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting, 12/03/2025 as amended. Roll call please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate? Yes. Miss Kenworthy? Yes. Miss Parker? Yes. Miss Reed? Doctor. Varda? Yes. Please note that there will be a ten minute break at approximately ten 06:10PM this evening. For all of those in attendance this evening and watching on live stream, I'd like to preview how this evening's events will proceed as we prepare to transition from the
current board to the newly elected and organized board. First this evening, superintendent Dolan will share brief remarks about the board transition. From there, we will move to the certification of election results. I will call for a motion on the certification of the election results. And once the motion passes, I will call for discussion. During this discussion portion of the motion, outgoing and continuing board members will have the opportunity to make statements related to the transition of the board. After statements are complete, we will call for a roll call to certify the 11/04/2025
election results. After that vote has taken place, superintendent Dorland and all the current members of the board of education, with the exception of myself, will leave the dais. I'll transition to the chair where superintendent Dorland sits for the swearing in ceremony and director Applegate, director Kenworthy, and superintendent Dorland will take a seat at the front of the boardroom. Following the exit from the dais, the new board members will be sworn in by the honorable judge Pilkington from Jefferson County. Once sworn in, our newly elected board members will be seated at the dais and will proceed with electing officer positions including president, first vice president, second vice president, treasurer,
and secretary. All voting will take place by paper ballot. I'll may remain on the dais until the new president is elected at which time I will leave. Then the new president will preside over the election of all other officer positions with the support of the district's chief legal counsel, Julie Tolleson, and executive assistant to the board, Kristen Harper. Once all officers have been elected, the superintendent Dorland will rejoin the board on the dais and the study session will continue. With all that explained, let's begin with a statement by superintendent Dorland.
Thank you, president Parker. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to share a few words during this important moment of transition for our board of education. Tonight, we honor both service and renewal. This is the third board transition I've had the privilege of being part of as GEFCO's superintendent, and each one has reminded me of something profound. The strength of public education relies on the willingness of individuals to step forward, to lead, and to serve their community with a steadfast focus on students.
First, to our outgoing board members, thank you. Public service, particularly in a district as large and as complex as ours, asks a great deal of those who choose it. You have given your time, your care, and your dedication to our more than 70,000 students. You have made difficult decisions, navigated challenging moments, and always kept students at the center. On behalf of our entire district, thank you for your commitment to our mission, our
vision, and our strategic direction. To our newly elected board members, welcome. We are grateful for your willingness to step into this work, and we look forward to partnering with you. You join a district grounded in a clear mission to provide a world class education that prepares every GEFCO student for bright and successful futures. You join a community with a bold vision to be a thriving district where all students achieve their biggest dreams. And you join a system guided by a strong strategic plan, GEFCO Thrives, which brings
our mission, vision, and values to life in classrooms and schools across the district. Our values provide the foundation for everything we do. We believe in belonging, ensuring every student, staff member, and family feels valued and included. We believe in equity, recognizing that learners have different needs and that our responsibility is to meet them where they are. We believe in excellence, holding ourselves to high standards and working together to achieve meaningful outcomes. We believe in a steadfast focus on students, making decisions based on how well we
serve them today and prepare them for tomorrow. And we believe in integrity, committing to honesty, transparency, and doing what is right always for our students and our community. These values have guided GEFCO across board transitions through moments of challenge and moments of progress, and they will continue to guide us as we step into the next chapter together. Tonight is both a moment of appreciation and a moment of renewal As we thank those who have served and welcome those who are stepping forward, we are reminded that
leadership in public education is a relay. Each board carries the baton with care, and each transition represents an opportunity to build on the work that came before. To our outgoing board members, thank you. Thank you. And thank you to Paula as well. To our incoming board members, welcome. To our entire community, our educators, our staff, our leaders, and our families, my commitment to GEFCO students and to the long term strength and success of this district remains unwavering.
Like all of you, I am proud to serve the community where I live and where I raise my own children. I look forward to our work ahead. Thank you. Thank you, superintendent Dorland, for those remarks. We will now move forward with adopting a resolution declaring the results of the 11/04/2025 regular biennial school board coordinated election. Is there a motion for the Board of Education to adopt the resolution declaring the results of the 11/04/2025 regular biannual school board coordinated election? I move to adopt the resolution results of the 11/04/2025 regular biennial school board election
as presented in board docs. Is there a second? I second. Any comments? Yes. I wanna echo superintendent Dolan's words of thanks and words of welcome. It's a it's a unique position, and we are excited and grateful for the work that has been done and excited for the work to come. I do want to tell you all that you have, a few small gifts from us, in front of you that we would love for you to take, including, the opportunity to come back to the middle school art show and select a piece of art, for you to keep and, with that will come a plaque that recognizes your
your service. So, there's no better gift than the gift of our students and, we're really excited to provide that to you all. Director Kenworthy, would you like to add anything? Sure. When I joined the board, I remember being in awe of the folks who were sitting up here that I was getting to join, and work with. And having worked with our three, leading board members, I just can't say how much I've, appreciated learning from you and your perspectives and the dialogue that we've shared.
And in honor of that, I handmade you a bouquet of flowers, to take with you, hoping that it represents the time, and the intention that you've brought to your service and what you've provided to our district. And there's a card that goes with it to explain what all of each of the flowers represents. But for your leadership and your resiliency and for your strength, I hope that you get some rest and some healing and that we continue to hear your voice and
to see you in our community. Thank you for your service. I don't have anything to say except thank you. I wish you all much success going forward, and congratulations to our new board members. I'm sorry, Director Reid is on her way. This weather is pretty bad, She should be here any minute. Maybe she'll be in time to to speak as well. I want to, congratulate the new board members and wish you all the best. We will be around for you to ask questions of and for any other, information
and help that we can give you. I also want to appreciate the two years that I had to work with Director Applegate and, Director Kenworthy. Also telling you I'm I'm here if you ever wanna, give a call. And I want to especially thank, superintendent Dorland. I think that Jefferson County has been extremely lucky to have your leadership in the last four years that I was on the board. We faced some very, very tough decisions, and I think that you were very strong and forceful and, forward looking in in, the actions that have been taken in the
last four years, and I'm I'm happy to have been a part of them. I also wanna say to the, incoming board members and those of you staying on, you've got at least one very, very big, topic that you're dealing with and that's the budget, the need to, find $60,000,000 or more to, shore up our budget. And, I know that we have the right priorities in place to keep the funds as much as possible towards the school in the schools, but I wanna talk to the, cabinet members over there and to everyone who works in the, ed center because,
while it's true that the most important person I believe in an education a child's education is the teacher, that's the that's the barest necessity. That's what we have to have. But Jefferson County has committed itself to, providing a world class education to our students and an extraordinary student experience, And we cannot have that if we only have resources, the bare minimum resources in the classrooms in the schools. We need all the support that the cabinet members in their departments give to this
school. We couldn't prepare our students for life after k 12 if we did not have your support and all the work hard work you do to give our students a world class, education. And I particularly want to thank, miss Harper for all the work she's done since she's been our executive assistant. You you guys, the new board members, are in good hands with, with Kristen. She knows the ins and outs now and she will be a wonderful resource for you as she was for us. So anyway, with that, I do wish you the best and, I am very happy,
and proud that I got a chance to be part of this, the last four years. So, with that, I think we are ready to, go on. It's been moved and seconded that the Board of Education will adopt the resolution declaring the results of the 11/04/2025 regular biennial school board election as presented in BoardDocs. Roll call please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate. Yes. Miss Kenworthy. Yes. Miss Parker. Yes. Miss Reed. Doctor Varda. Yes. At this time, board members and superintendent Dorland will exit the dais.
Superintendent Dorland, director Applegate, and director Kenworthy, please take your seats at the front of the room and I'll remain on the dais presiding over the meeting until the new board president is elected. We will now ask the honorable chief judge of the 1st Judicial District, Jeffrey Pilkington, to administer the oath of office to newly elected board members, Deneen Echevarria, Peter Gibbons, and Tina Moyaniyan. Judge Pilkington and the newly elected board members, please come to the front of the room for the administration of the oath of office.
Honorable judge Pilkington, the time is now yours to administer the oath. Please raise your right hand if you're able to do so and repeat after me. I state your name. Hi, Danina Chavadia. Do solemnly affirm Do solemnly affirm. That I will faithfully perform the duties of That I will faithfully perform the duties of. Director of the Jefferson County School District Director of the Jefferson County School District. Number R one Number r 1. In the county of Jefferson In the county of Jefferson.
As required by law. As required by law. And that I will support the constitution. That I will support the constitution. Of The United States. Of The United States. And the constitution of the state of Colorado. And the laws made thereof. And the laws made thereof. Congratulations. Thank you. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I state your name. I, Peter Gibbons. Do solemnly affirm. Do solemnly affirm. That I will faithfully perform the duties of. That I will faithfully perform the duties of. Director of the Jefferson County School District number R1.
Director of the Jefferson County School District number R1. In the county of Jefferson. In the county of Jefferson. As required by law. As required by law. And that I will support the And that I will support the Constitution of The United States Of The United States Of The United States the Constitution of the State of Colorado the Constitution of the State of Colorado and the laws made thereof and the laws made thereof. And the laws made thereof. Congratulations. Thank you. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name. I, Tina Moenian. Do solemnly affirm Do solemnly affirm.
That I will faithfully perform the duties of That I will faithfully perform the duties of. Director of the Jefferson County School District number r one Director of the Jefferson County School District r one In the county of Jefferson In the county of Jefferson as required by law as required by law and that I will support the Constitution United States Of The United States and the constitution of the state of Colorado and the constitution of the state of Colorado and the laws made therefore thereof and the laws
made thereof. Congratulations. Thank you. We offer our sincere appreciation to the honorable chief judge Pilkington for administering the oath of office this evening, and we warmly welcome GEFCO's newly elected board of education members. At this time, we will allow a brief pause for the new members to sign their documents and for Judge Pilkington to depart. After you have completed signing your documents, please take your seat on the dais. We will now move forward with the board reorganization. I would like to open the floor to nominations for the office of board president.
Please note no seconds are required on these nominations. If no majority is counted, members vote again until there is a majority. No nominee is dropped from the ballot list and new nominees may be accepted. So board members, please share your nominations at this time. I would like to nominate Michelle Applegate for board president. I motion to do so. Are there any other nominations? Hearing no more nominations, the nominations are closed. It doesn't say in the script but I assume we can, proclaim by acclamation.
Yes. You may. You do not need to take it the full secret ballot routine when you have only one nominee. Okay, great. Then congratulations to, Director Applegate, now President Applegate, and, at this point you may take over and I will leave. Thank you, president Barker. Is there a nomination for the first vice president? No second is required for the nomination. Open the floor. I nominate Aaron Kenworthy. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, nominations is closed. Congratulations, director Kenworthy. Is there a nomination for second vice president?
At this moment, I'm I would like to ask our legal counsel, is it appropriate to make a, motion or a nomination that would fill the remainder of the seats, or do we still need to do these one at at a time? There's no magic legal answer to that. I certainly don't have any objection if your fellow board members do not to you doing it as sort of a slate proposal, but if you don't think you're gonna have competing candidates in any category. I'll I'll make the motion and we can move from there. I would like to motion that our second vice president be Peter Givens, that our
secretary be Deneen Echeverria, and that our treasurer be Tina Millenian. It has been motioned. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, congratulations, and welcome to the board. Is there a motion for the appointment of Brenna Copeland to the position of assistant treasurer and appointment of Kristen Harper for the position of assistant secretary? I motion for the appointment of Brenda Copeland to the position of assistant treasurer and appointment of Kristen Harper to the position of assistant secretary as presented in board docs. Is there a second? I second. Are there any comments? Hearing none, it has been moved and seconded to appoint Brenda Copeland to the position
of assistant treasurer and appoint Kristen Harper to the position of assistant secretary. Roll call, please, miss Harper. Miss Applegate? Yes. Doctor Echevarria? Here. Mister Gibbons? Yes. Miss Kenworthy? Yes. Miss Moenian? Yes. This concludes the swearing in segment of our meeting. Before we move on to the study session portion of the evening, we'll take a short break to allow guests and family members to take pictures and say goodbye before departing. Welcome back. Now that we have been seated and organized and superintendent Dolan has rejoined the board on the dais, we will move forward with our study session.
Our first study session agenda item is to receive a presentation from the students of the Team Enough Club from Arvada West High School. Team Enough is a youth led initiative of gun violence prevention organization, Brady, that educates and mobilizes young people to advocate for gun violence prevention legislation. It trains young people to lobby lawmakers, attend events, and participate in other advocacy efforts to push for gun reform measures at the state and national levels. Presenters, we have allotted thirty minutes for this presentation. Please plan for ten minutes, for a time for the board to ask questions following your remarks. And before I turn it over to our students, superintendent Dorland, would you like to
add anything? Thank you, president Applegate. Welcome. First of all, I just wanna say welcome to our amazing students who are here today to talk to the board about an incredibly important topic. And I also wanna congratulate you for your efforts at reaching out to individuals in our community who you believe can make a difference on this topic, including our board of education. But also, know that recently you invited attorney general Weiser to Arvada West. And I was informed by, your principal, that, principal Porter that you had done that,
and that, attorney general Weiser came to your school and that you had time with him to talk about the importance of school safety, and your belief, and what needs to be done to keep our schools safe, and to avoid gun violence, in our communities. So I just wanna commend you for the courage, and the maturity, and the passion that you have, to take these important steps and enjoy I'm looking forward to to enjoying the conversation that you're able to have with our board tonight. So thank you for being here and weathering the weather as well.
Right? You can ask me for a snow day at the end if you really want to. I've had many students email me today asking me for a snow day. So anyway, thanks for being here, guys. Really appreciate it. We'd love to turn it over to you all. Please introduce yourselves, and the floor is yours. Hi. We're team Enough. Hi. We're team enough. We would like to just start with introducing who we are. My name is Kennedy Blosser. I'm a junior at Arvada West, and I am one of the co directors of team enough. And then I'd like to turn it over to our other co director. My name is Kendall. I'm our other co director for Team Enough. Oh, sorry. Hi. My name is Emily.
Hi. My name is Emily. I'm a recruitment lead for Team Enough. Hi. My name is Gianna Oterizio, and I'm communications lead for Team Enough. Hi. And my name is Bella Plonsky. I'm a senior at Arvada West High School, and I'm one of our social media attendants people. I'm Sensor Robuck. Okay. I'm Sensor Robuck, and I'm the marketing lead for Team Enough. Hi. I'm Shauna Kilar. I'm a junior at Vadov West High School, and I'm recently just joined team enough as a new member. Mhmm. We would like to share why we joined team enough. The reason why I joined is because much of my family is teachers in schools,
and my sister is working to be an early education teacher and I don't think I should have to worry about being in a school. I don't think anybody should have to worry about facing violence in a school. And that's one of the reasons why I joined is because this club gives me a voice and it makes me feel like I'm able to get my thoughts heard and make sure I'm able to prevent tragedies like the one in Evergreen. My name is Kendall. I also joined team enough because I really do care about our school's safety and, as we've seen in the recent past, like, there's been a lot of violence and just I want all of our students to have be able to feel safe at
school. Hi. I'm Emily. I joined team enough because I wanna be the change that I want to be the change that I want to see and share a positive environment. And I also joined because of the great opportunities and, like, positive enforcement that we have. Hi. I'm Gianna. I joined Team and Up this year to represent the people that can't access the voice that they have. And my mom's a principal, and every day I just think about her and how we can potentially make it safer for everyone to go to school.
And I'm Isabella Plonsky, and I joined because I heard of this club about late last year. And then the tragedy of Evergreen happened, and I took it as a chance to use my very big voice for something good. Hi. I'm Spencer. Like, Isabella, I joined, after Evergreen because I have a little brother. He's 10 in elementary school over at Stott. And after Evergreen, just the thought that these things can happen, and one day I could come home and my brother wouldn't be there was rough.
So I decided to join team enough because I wanted to make a difference. Hi. I'm Shauna. I'm the I'm a new member at team enough. And the reason I did join was that a family member of mine was thinking about getting a firearm, and he has experienced mental issues before. And I just really wanted to use this club and as a positive enforcement of just learning about more about gun regulations and, firearm safety and just something I could inform my family members about to prevent future collateral collaterals that would happen.
Thank you. Okay. On this slide, I'm going to share what we do as Timanoff. So, our background is that Timanoff is a youth led violence gun prevention organization with chapters in high schools and colleges all over the country. Timanoff is as whole as a whole has been around since 2018, and our parents' organization, Brady, was established in 1974. How we got it to Arvada West is that Timanoff has been at AOS since 2023 to 2024 school year. We mainly work to bring awareness to the issue of gun violence, especially within schools,
and is a risk slash inch issue impacted all by all students. We focus on spreading awareness for huge focus as Team Enough, and we want to highlight the experiences of students who have experienced gun violence and the need for action and change to address these issues. We focus on preventative measures rather than reactive measures stopping gun violence at its source rather than reacting to the tragedies it creates. This doesn't always mean fighting for legislation this doesn't always mean fighting for legislation to deal with guns. It focuses on leading causes of gun violence, like lack of mental health resources or
lack of information about safe storage. As a school, we try to brainstorm new and improve like, improvements for our buildings, including just thinking about new curriculums in our schools. This brings us to our legislative involvement. The issue of gun violence must also be addressed through legislation. Team members also participate in the political process, lobbying and working with lawmakers in order to prevent the tragedies that we've seen in schools. This involves working to increase restrictions on weapons, especially when it comes to safe space like schools and public areas. Thank you.
I'm gonna share a little bit more about what our involvement has looked like. So especially this year after the tragedy of Evergreen, like, our school definitely we brought a lot more awareness to Team Enough and what we do, because I think not a lot of people knew that Team Enough is a club. And so especially this year, we've been as our membership has grown, we've focused a lot on recruitment. So our recruitment team was able to set up a booth at Choice Enrollment Night, to just kind of get our message out to incoming, I guess, parents and students,
to just let them know, like, here like, show them kinda who we are and what we're about and give them a a club that they can join when they get to Arvada West. And then with our involvement in the whole school, we have we helped participate in the the walkout after the shooting at Evergreen. So we kind of collaborated with, with our what is it? Our student council who also kind of, I guess, we collaborated to host the walkout
which brought a lot of students to come together, and were outraged by the issue and just wanted to be able to do something about it. And then with our legislative involvement, we obviously had the opportunity to have a discussion with the attorney general and kind of bring to light, the discussion around, especially mental health resources, and safe to tell and other things like that, which we'll get into detail later, and just how we can improve its effectiveness for students and teachers. And we also participate in the political process when we go lobby at the capitol
during the spring legislative session. And this is a tangible way where, like, all of our members can really get involved in the legislative process. As a student who was in anatomy in seventh period and found out about the Evergreen shooting, it was really tragic about everything that happened. And, a Stuco member, actually, a friend of mine, really suggested the idea of a walkout. So I did talk to mister Porter about it and our security guards to make sure that it was safe, and they were on board for it. I helped create the posters you would see up there and, really helped hand out
posters and hand out just the walkout process about the overall thing. And I was also just having student involvement. I was one of the kids who heard about the walkout and decided, hey. I think it's a good idea to go. It really showed how many students really cared about what was happening within schools and trying to also spread awareness. I was within the really large crowd that we had lined up in all the fences. And although some students got a little rowdy, we all were kept safe by our
wonderful staff, and they supported us throughout the entire way. And it couldn't have been more of a very don't wanna say welcoming, but a very safe environment to be protesting something that causes so much violence. The image on the bottom left is about the recruitment, for recruitment, at Choice enrollment night. It was a really good opportunity to express, like, what we're doing, what we're here for, and get younger people to join this club at our best and make it a continuously growing club.
It was it was a really good opportunity to do that. Moving forward with a bit of the boring stuff, one of the questions we had was, what does it look like to start, a Team Enough chapter or initiate that in another school? And one of the wonderful things about Team Enough, with it being a national organization, there's a Google Drive in which anybody who's interested can have access to that and make sure that they can follow the steps and the process to initiate a club at their own school. The first step would be writing a letter of intent to make sure that nobody is starting a club for the wrong reasons.
We wanna make sure that people are aligned in our values with this kind of goal because it does take a strong community to make sure that things happen. The second step would be creating a chapter guide to make sure that throughout the year, you're staying on track. You're making sure stuff is actually happening. You're advocating or you're following through with your ideas and that people have a sense of direction and they know where they need to go throughout the year. That third step would be gathering, interest from peers. One of the great ways that we've done that is through social media. Our social media account is followed by our AOS activities. It's followed by our principal.
We get our posts, uploaded on their stories so that we can make sure as many people as possible at our own school can see that. And then we have parents following our social media account. We have other social media accounts across the country following it. So that's a great way to make sure that people just get the word out there and as many people as possible see it. And then that second to last step would be advertising, again, with social media. Or one of the big things that we've talked about is posters throughout the school. That's a little difficult because they have to be approved by our, staff, but a
great idea. And then the last step is just hosting meetings. While the first two may take a while because they need approval from our national people, they are important, and they help make sure that everything stays where it's supposed to throughout the year. And then the rest of it is just fun stuff. Getting to make sure that people show up, getting people involved, brainstorming ideas on how to make things work. Those are really one of the awesome parts of team enough. And being on this board, I think we can all say that we have enjoyed that process and enjoy that making, that process of making things enjoyable. So that was the boring part. And then the other boring part is engaging stakeholders and advocacy strategies.
While I can't speak much about this because I've only been involved at Team and F for about three years, I haven't seen a lot of the behind the scenes process. I do know that we work strongly and in close contact with people like Phil Weiser or other senators, representatives like Lindsey Doherty, his mind. I know that. We met with her, assistant when we went and lobbied last year, and that was an amazing opportunity to just say, hey. We're people in your district, and we would love to see these changes happen. So that's one of the ways we work with people is, just establishing ourselves, making
us feel known, and make sure that we're out there and that our voices do want to be heard. Another thing is we're a part of the gun violence prevention coalition in Colorado. So ourselves, student demand action, moms demand action, groups like that that are focused on the same type of gun violence prevention. We all work together. We put events on together. We communicate with each other. We talk to other legislators together to make sure that things happen. And then a couple other things is anybody interested in wanting to address the problem can join. It's not a specific, political thing. No political party is assigned to this.
Anybody who wants to join and is interested or involved in the topic can participate and make as much a difference as possible. And then Team Enough is special because we provide a youth perspective. Not a lot of that is given these days. A lot of it is adults who have worked their way to the top and make their voice heard, and that's also why it's so important that we are here. It's because we're some of the people most affected by it. And outside of school, suicide is a big thing. And so one of our things with the, making schools better is a curriculum that
will help with that. And that's so important why team enough is here because it gives that perspective of students and why what we want is important. Thank you. One of the great opportunities that, Team Enough received, as mentioned, was we got to sit down and have a discussion with, attorney general Phil Weiser. And that was really, great, let knowing that there was someone there who cared about such a drastic issue and, sorry.
One of the parts from that that I was able to share with, Phil Weiser that I'd like to share with you today on the importance of Team Enough and resources like it, like Safe two Tell. So for context, early on in the year, I was at one of my lowest points. And very much so considering taking my own life. And until that night, I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door to a police officer saying, hey.
I'm from Safe two Tell. One of your friends called. Are you okay? And would you like to go to a hospital? And though I said no to both or, well, I said yes to being okay and no to the hospital, It made me feel a lot better knowing that there was people there, because the hardest part about these struggles is it's hard to it's hard to express it. Like, it's hard to say I need help. So knowing that there were people there for me who cared and, you know, wanted
to make sure I was still here, it was it was great to know. And it's also great knowing that there's I mean, I have people with me who agree that stuff like this shouldn't be happening. So, yeah, with team enough, we also, again, work very closely with mental health resources. And so this is something we'd like to get involved in in the future is just how we can improve that aspect of school safety and just having those resources available for students as Spencer was saying because they're very important. And then the picture on the right is us at our lobby day, in the
spring last semester, where we were able to meet with, I think we were able to one of our past members testified in front of, a board. I don't remember which bill it was, but we were able to kind of tangibly get our voice out as team enough. And then we were also able to meet with, one of the assistants to, I think, representative Lindsay Doherty. And I know most of our members got to share their stories and just really, advocate for why this is important to us. So, yeah. Okay. Some changes we'd like to see is implementing a mental health system within every subject
in school. Maybe not every, But I we all believe that it's very important to spread awareness about mental health because, unfortunately, a lot of the problems we see today are main rooted by having mental health issues and not having a way to help themselves or have anybody help them. And for starters, we would want to implement something in our math, English, science, social studies, and maybe some electives. Although our VADOS oh, it's really loud.
Although our VADOS does have certain electives, like our nutrition and wellness classes, our team choices classes, and a lot of our FCCLA classes talk about it, not everybody picks those electives. So everybody has to take math, although we don't want to. Statistics about mental health would be a great way to sneak that in there and try to get some word out about it while trying to teach around it too. And in English, reading a book from a perspective of someone with a diagnosis of some mental I'm sorry.
Some mental health issue would be really beneficial just to see maybe to see if somebody relates to it or to see how that person got some help or just know that they're not the only person suffering out there. In science classes, learn about chemical imbalances in your brain and medication. A lot of people who do suffer from mental health do take medication, and you have to kinda move around it to see which one fits you best. It's more of like a personalized thing, and that'd be really important to know. And our social studies classes, learning about different history historical or important figures that have
a mental health issue and how they worked around it and how they grew to the top or how they learned how to build their career out of it or just power through it would be really beneficial. Like, for example, Abraham Lincoln had depression, and knowing that kinda realizes that these people are all normal people. They struggle with the same things as we do. And if they could get help, so can I? And a lot of electives should also talk about social media because that affects teens
and a lot of young adults and possibly adults. These days, it's a very big, broad area where it's bullying. So it'd be really important to talk about the safety about social media and see which resources you could have for you implemented within social media and how to get them. And especially, like, our safe to tell, that is a big help. Glad that schools have it out there, but it'd be really important if they could share more about it, like, everywhere.
You could do it even if you're at work maybe. Maybe there's a I don't know. But if maybe work has, like, a safe to tell type of thing where maybe one of your coworkers is struggling and you you really wanna know if they're okay. So, yeah, that's about it. On that note, not only would implementing these curriculums into different subjects, they would help students feel unalone. They would also help end the stigma. That's a really big thing with mental health. A lot of people feel like they can't speak out or they can't get help because it's weird or because they're wrong for having it. And I know a lot of teenagers, especially my age, feel that way.
So not only would talking about this and learning about it and learning about how normal it is help with making people feel less alone or for helping how to cope, it would help end the stigma. Not only would that make us healthier, but it would make our community healthier and happier. Now with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to Kendall. So this almost concludes our presentation. If it's okay with you all, we'd like to ask you a question first before we turn it over to your guys' questions. So I know there's been a lot of discussion around House Bill 20 five-twelve 50, which is, supposed to be going into effect in January, I believe.
So we're just kind of wondering how is the school board or how is GEFCO Schools going to kind of attack this issue and, I guess, put it into effect? And what's that going to look like? We're all up here pulling up the bill. Just a moment. Would you mind summarizing it for our listening audiences? Sorry to catch you off guard. We know that might not have been the nicest thing. House bill twenty five twelve fifty is something that was recently passed this past legislative session, so I believe in January or February. And it basically says that all Colorado schools have to send out notifications to parents
whether online through a website or through email like a school newsletter, about, safe storage for guns and some other stuff like that. So, basically, our question was, do you have a plan for making this happen in January? And if not, how can we help? Superintendent Dorland. Thank you, president Applegate. I just mentioned or motioned to president Applegate that I could start us off and let, you guys know and, the board and and our public know what we're already doing in this space. So and I'm gonna look over at cabinet team to make sure that they make
they keep me honest about all the details I'm about to share. But definitely, I think it was a couple of years ago, we had a conversation as a cabinet team about the importance of, gun safety in schools and doing everything we could to make sure, that we could send a clear message that we take this issue very seriously in GEFCO and in every single one of our schools. And so when, parents go on to enroll their student, they go into Infinite Campus. Are you guys familiar with Infinite Infinite Campus or IC is what we normally call
it? And as part of IC and the process, you have to fill out all kinds of things, like who's the emergency contact if something happens and your child you can't get ahold of the parent, who do you call? You fill out information about medications that a student might need to take at school. You definitely review things like schedules and attendance policies. You review a parent, and school handbook and sign off on that as a parent. As part of that process, we instituted a couple of years ago a notice to
parents about the state laws requiring safe gun storage. And I my recollection is that we asked parents to, acknowledge that they have read that statement and that they understand there is a state law requiring, any firearm that is owned by a citizen to be stored safely. So that acknowledgment exists in our current enrollment process on an annual basis for every student. So it's not just when you first enroll in GEFCO, but it's every year.
You know, I have to go in and tell which school my kid's gonna go to and, do all of the acknowledgments all over again on an annual basis. So that happens annually for every family in GEFCO, and we've been doing that for a couple of years. The second thing that we do in GEFCO is, a partnership with, law enforcement where the SROs, the school resource officers who are law enforcement officials, they actually work for city of Arvada, for example, or Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, City Of Lakewood.
They work for the police departments in those cities and counties. The we partner with them to provide, gun locks for free for any family, in GEFCO or anybody in GEFCO who might want one. And we noticed that on our web on our safety website. But if a family has a firearm and they want a gun lock for that firearm to keep it safe and aligned to the state statute around making sure that firearms are stored safely. They can come into any school, ask to speak to the SRO, and receive a
free gun lock to support keeping that firearm safe. We did that a couple of years ago, obviously. I mean, you citizens in Colorado can actually walk into law enforcement agencies and receive a gun lock, but sometimes walking into a police department and asking for a gun lock might not feel like the safest thing for someone to do. So we thought at least we could partner with them and offer that same kind of opportunity, in our schools. And so we do that, practice as well.
And we're also open to ideas if you have other ideas that you'd like to, share with us related to that house bill. But we've been aligned to that for a while now. You're welcome. Director Kenworthy. Thank you for bringing up, the recent legislation, and I wanna name for our my friends on the dais here that, senator Lisa Cutter and representative Hammock were sponsors of that bill. Lisa Cutter is one of our Jefferson County legislators. And I I can't remember if we supported this from the dias.
I think that we probably did. We need to go back and look. But if we did not, it is something that we would be supportive of or that I would be supportive of. I know that our district has partnered with, organ other organizations to talk about smart gun safety storage. So smart acronym being Secure Model, Ask, Recognize, and Tell, is a framework for preventing gun violence, and securing items in a in a home. And I know that we have parents in our district who are working within their
schools to share that same message. So but I'm grateful that we have students who are also now aware that those resources are available because the more people who have that information and are sharing it amongst peers, amongst family members, the more prevalent the usage and those conversations can become. So I'm really grateful for you asking directly about legislation that is currently, being enacted, and being aware of what's happening in at our state legislature. Thank you. Board members, any other comments?
I just have a question. So I understand, that we every time we are reenrolling our students once a year, we are having this the parents check a box acknowledging that they've received information. I'm just wondering, are there any other places where a parent or a student or anyone who, you know, might need this information come across it, just as a reminder throughout the school year? That that's a good question. I don't know exactly what each school is doing related to notification of this requirement.
I doubt that there's a lot of that going on school by school, like, through newsletters or things like that. But I I do know, that we also have this information on our safety website, but it would be only for people who are going to search for it. And other than that, I'm looking over at the team. If there I don't think there if the answer is no, that's fine. We don't we don't have any other regular, notifications that go out to families. Not related to school, but I do know, every single year when you take your child in for their annual pediatrician visit, the pediatricians are now addressing it as well.
Yep. Are you ready for questions from us? Okay. Board members, I'll open the floor. Director Givens? I'd like to get your thoughts on programs that currently exist. And from a student perspective, what programs do you think are working well, and what programs do you think need to be working better? As aforementioned, I do believe Safe two Tell is working well from my experiences, but I have heard from other students. We've had issues with not enough help or late responses up to two days before
an officer or counselor comes and asks. So we might wanna we're there could be some things to help safe to tell for sure. Another thing we would like to say is we do have a bunch of clubs at A West that have been started solely for mental health, but there are no specific classes that touch on it. There is team choices which an elective that we sign up to take, and we do have a unit, I believe, that focuses on that. But there's nothing else that really hones in on it or lets students know that there's something that will be there to help them.
I've noticed just from looking around that there's a single poster in our library that says that there's a free, therapy option for students of GEFCO. And that's the only thing I've seen kind of about our school that makes that aware to students. And that could just be an A West problem that needs to be addressed, but it could also be something else. But aside from Safe to Tell, that is the only Colorado wide thing that I know that is out there for students to get the help that they need. Another thing I've noticed is, in our advisement classes, we do have, some, I guess,
assignments and presentations that touch on mental health and other things of that nature, but I don't think like, again, there's a huge stigma around it. I think a lot of people just don't pay attention, don't care. I don't know if it's that it's not communicated in the right way. So I think, again, like, being able to implement more specific mental health resources within within classes and just kind of working to make it less of a stigma, I think, will be very helpful. And for the free therapy option, I don't know, like, exact I this is kinda
one of the first times I'm hearing about the free therapy option. There are some kids who are afraid of their parents finding out about them doing therapy. I don't really know the logistics of the therapy option, so I think that could be better communicated in a way. And and also what that student would do after high school when they no longer have that option. Maybe there could be something about that too. And yet again, with the advisement classes, some students don't go. They don't really pay attention. It's just one of those things like, oh, I'm forced here to forced to be
here for thirty minutes. And the clubs, yet again, I know there's sources of strength. There's Robbie's Hope, but we don't really get a lot of recognition for those clubs. There's I don't believe there's too many members in them. Timonoff just started to get a little bigger this year due to the evergreen, so I think there could be better communication about these things. I think along with mental health resources, part of it is that a lot of students just aren't aware of them. So I think especially with Safe two Tell, I've heard a lot of students and
teachers don't really know how it works, don't really know, like, what happens when I call Safe two Tell or what happens if I were to go to free therapy. And I think, like, a lot of more students could be able to access those resources if it was better communicated, like, what they're intended to do, and just making it a little bit more open so that students are more willing to use them could be helpful. Great. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you so much for coming tonight and sharing everything. I really appreciate it, and thank you for your honesty, Spencer. My question is, are is Arvada West the only school doing this?
And, if not, how, you're creating a wider network with other schools in GEFCO to support this mission? So TNF is, national. We have colleges or colleges that are starting chapters and then for TNF based in Colorado, I know Golden has a chapter. I'm pretty sure Broomfield has a chapter. A West has ours. I'm not sure about other Green Mountain has one. Yes. And then Students' Domain Action is also a similarly similarly aligned, club, and they have chapters throughout Colorado as well.
I believe they have some. Oh, lord. I don't know where they have some, but I know they're there. But, yeah, we work we have monthly Zoom meetings with all of our Denver chapters. And then throughout all of our national chapters, we have a big Zoom meeting. And that's one thing where we can share what's working for us and what's not working for us and maybe align some of our views or plan some events together. I know that's something happening very soon. We are gonna have a lobby training day with all of our team up in Denver. And then when we do go to lobby, we'll be we will be combining some of our groups. I know CU Boulder is starting a chapter next semester, and they're going to be
some of the people that we go and lobby with together. But, yes, we are spread out as far as possible, and we're trying to just keep sprouting up so that people know that we're here. Director Monahan? So I wanna thank you guys for coming out and and giving us this presentation and sharing, you know, your personal reasons for joining this group. The question that I have is with regards to mental health, awareness around mental health, I'm just wondering how significant or within your experience what you see day to day,
how significant of a role does bullying play within that? So I have seen bullying around the school, unfortunately, specifically in some of my classes. Right now, there's a girl I feel really bad for. I've spoken to her a few times about it and asked if she wants help. She said she deals with it on her own, but trying to, like, advocate for her to be, like, reach out to somebody so that this can stop. Bullying happens kind of in the dark corners of the school, not when people these this day and age, a lot of people think that, oh, you're just being funny.
You're not actually being mean. But sometimes it happens too much. So I I believe there should be more resources for bullying because some of these kids are scared of what's gonna happen if this bully knows that it was me. What's gonna happen to me? Am I gonna be in worse trouble? I don't wanna get this person in trouble because, oh, they're a part of my friend group or they're my friend or I think they're my friend. So I think there needs to be more stuff around it and more advocacy for it. Adding on, coming from somebody who did not who didn't spend their whole life growing
up here in America and having to adjust culturally, it was really a big shock of how people were able to kind of really downgrade you just because of how you look and how you sound. And in a way, that really shaped me from what middle school was to now high school where I think coming from being bullied for just the way you were really grew into a person who accepted everybody around you because you kind of know what's going on around there too, and you would know what they're feeling like.
And I think also, bullying just doesn't come from school either. I think it what I've noticed around is that it does come from family members or households who don't really aren't really there to support the kids that they have in school. And I think it could really just bring those kids who go to school. It could really just bring out their frustrations to their peers and to their classmates. And that might also be a reason to why they might act out and to a reason to why they're not having the best time in school and why their
mental health might also not be the greatest. To add on, I definitely agree with Bella that we do see bullying in school, but I personally mainly see it online. We I know Snapchat is a big one where we have a lot of we have, A West year stories, and a lot of people post on them. And sometimes the things that they post are not appropriate. I know that we've reported it in the past, but I also just a lot of my friends deal with bullying from their friends online because of being able to hide behind a screen.
And I know that that's talked about a lot, but I don't think there's enough, like, without, like, the stigma around it, enough, like, being done to, like, unmask the bully behind the screen. So something with social media. We've seen that a lot of shooters in general or people that have committed acts of gun violence, they have large social media presences. And whether that's they are a bully or they were were a bully, social media in general is a way that people can maybe bring out the dark side of
themselves or someone else. And so I don't know about restrictions is the right word, but maybe monitoring, making sure that people are okay or taking care of each other. That could be something really helpful. Thank you. Director Kenworthy? Thank you for your comments. I'm thinking right now I have a middle schooler. I'm thinking about the bullying resources that you've had access to because because I know that it's a conversation that we start in elementary school and it goes all the way through. I mean, bullying, bullying, we talk about it. There's, you know, workshops or modules or things that happen, along the way. But I'm wondering around what sort of tools have you received specifically around responding to
bullying when you see it happening, not to yourself, but to somebody else? And I know that we hear you can call safe to tell. But in the in the moment is what I'm wondering if if we are providing our students with some sort of tools or actions that they could take. I heard checking in with somebody after the fact, but I think that's a it's a huge ask for a student to be willing to do that. And often, a peer interaction can have so much more disruptive positive disruption to somebody's
behavior than if an adult comes in sort of with finger wagging. And so that's what I'm curious about. What sorts of resources are still needed maybe in the bullying training and what have you received? So I know if you tell any teacher, they'll probably try to help you or they'll try to have a talk with the student. Talks are not always effective because the student's either through one year, out the other. So and the student just keeps on will stop for a little bit and then keep on going. I know that we have counselors that if you went to, they have a little
bit more of an upper hand, but I believe you would have to go to one of the main administrators or the SRO to really see a change. I know a few of my friends that I have contact with in the past have, oh, sorry, Have gotten they're not, like, no contact orders towards this person. Although they seem to work, it doesn't always fully stop it. I don't and a lot of the time, the students are more afraid because they are more afraid of things getting worse for them. Although if I were trying to say something, I can't necessarily force it onto them.
I could say something to an administrator, but I wouldn't wanna do it without their permission, without warning them first. I think more students are just afraid of what would happen to them. Maybe their parents wouldn't be the most supportive of something happening like this. Some parents are a little funky with talking to administration and stuff. So yeah. I wanna I wanna follow-up with that. Adult bully. It still happens. And so I think some of our students may see bullying behavior at home, and I I also believe that pain that doesn't get addressed gets transmitted.
And so my hope is that as a community, we start to recognize that our behavior and our modeling has a huge impact on the people around us, what we do, what we don't do, and that it really is with the people that whom we have relationships with, that if we see them doing something that appears harmful to somebody else or questionable, that we have enough relationship with them where we can ask them to reconsider what they're doing. But that is a really hard ask for for anybody, an adult or a student, to do. And I think, it's something that I am trying to do as an adult, and
I hope and I know that our our youth are doing it as well. I wanna lift up because I don't think many people walk around going, I challenged my friend today because they're being mean to somebody. You know what I'm saying? Those are not very public wins for most folks. But I know that it's happening, and I wanna just mention it's those quiet conversations that are rooted in relationship that I think get at some of the bullying issues that we see. And I wanna reiterate how powerful student voice is. I know that my own student responds so much more deeply when he's told something
by a peer than when he's told the same thing by me or by a teacher. And so I just wanna lift up how much power your voice has and the power of the other students who are with you in your group and in your school and in your community, to to make that change. And as adults, I hope that we are here to support you and make sure you have the resources that you need in order to do that. I just wanna Go ahead. Sorry. An interesting connection to that that you were just talking about with relationships, there's something that a couple of us are involved at A West. It's called Link Crew, which is our freshman outreach program that juniors and seniors are
a part of. And something we're trying to implement is, peer mentorship with Drake students. And that would be high school peers going and working with troubled kids at Drake who maybe are, checked out of their classes or they might be a bully to some other people because hurt people hurt other people knowing that they have people on their side that say, hey. We recognize you're struggling. How can we do what can we do to help you? Do you need a friend? Do you need a tutor? Anything. That is easier coming from a student. So that's just a connection I had with Link Crew.
Yeah. So more about the outreach program. Luckily, me and Kennedy are currently working on it with our old his name is mister Haydari. I don't know if y'all know him. He he now works for the districts. He left AOS, but he kinda still works more. He's been our main voice for the mentorship program. And like Kennedy was saying, it's more to help these kids. Maybe just to take them away from the classes that they're less interested in and to take their mind off something. Maybe they had a hard morning that day, and we'd be in contact with them,
maybe sharing a few emails back and forth encouragement and try to get them prepared for, like, how high school could be and that there's good people in high school and that you can separate from these people you're stuck in that could possibly be bullying you or causing you a hard time. And maybe spread more awareness about the resources we have at school for these kids who are struggling and to make their life a little easier and just kinda give their mind a break from thinking about all the bad that was happening or whatever
is going on and give them a friend who's hot like, higher in grades or kind of like a mentor, basically. So yeah. That's great. I wanna reiterate our thanks for coming, especially on a snowy night. Student voice is something that we really, really tremendously value, and so we appreciate that. And, Spencer, thank you for sharing your story. It's people of the courage to share their stories that let other people know that it's okay to reach out. So I'd I really appreciate you sharing that with us. I I love the concept of mental health. Mental health is something that's really important to me and my family and I know
my kids in the district have benefited significantly from mental health resources in the district. Something I would love to share and this is something that we can continue to work with superintendent Dolan and the cabinet on, we recently heard from our our, GEFCO student leadership board, which Arvada West does have a representative. And mental health was the topic we spent almost an hour on with them. And they brought up similar ideas of, hey, mental health communication in, the the times when you have the thirty minutes when a class, a homeroom type class, it's called something different at every school.
How can we think about that across schools to spread that message? Because I do think the more you talk about it, the less stigmatized it becomes, and the more normal it is to say, I am having a really bad day, and I could really use some help. So I would really encourage, and I don't know if we can help with this, but connecting with JSLB, they're thinking about these things too. And they have a platform that reaches across schools, so you can pull more in from what other schools are doing. I know, North Arvada Middle School has a partnership with Arvada High School, where high
school students come and tutor. So it's less about maybe kids who are struggling, but more about just tutoring. But it gets the high school students in, it's building relationships, it's giving them someone that they can talk to and look up to when they move make that move up. So I there's lots of really cool ideas around this. And I I do wanna lift up, we do partner with Hazel Health and we do partner with GEFCO, Jefferson County Public Health mental health. Thank you. So there are options. And if that's something that we can get you all more information about or more
posters or whatever it is, those are ideas we'd love to hear. So please don't make this the last time we hear from you. Our emails, we we get them, we read them, superintendent Dolan as well. The more ways you can help us think of ways that would impact, it it really is. You guys are boots on the ground. You see it and live it. So it's really, truly helpful. We have miss Pena here tonight who I think might once once our, you all leave the e this evening, once this agenda item is over, I'd love, miss Pena,
for you to introduce yourself in the hallway and, make a connection with our students here and see if we can make some of the connections that president Applegate is suggesting and get some further ideas from this group of young adults who've been doing a lot of good thinking about an important topic. Absolutely. Thank you. Well, thank you guys so much. We really appreciate your time tonight and the very informative presentation. Thank you. We appreciate appreciate you guys for having us. Thanks. Okay. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yep. Yes. Thank you for asking.
Alright. Next on the agenda this evening is our district accountability committee. We'll provide the board an update on DAC business, including the DAC subcommittees, and to open discussion regarding any interests or needs the board may have of the DAC for the 2526 school year. Come on up. Yep. Go. Hello. Hello. Welcome and join us. Presenters, we have allotted thirty minutes for the presentation tonight, and please reserve ten minutes for time for the board to ask questions. And before I turn it over to our esteemed presenters, superintendent Dorland, is there anything you'd like to add?
Thank you, president Applegate. I'm happy to just welcome our distinguished guests. Thank you, Therese Rednoor and Evie Hudak for being here and representing, what I would say is a very robust DAC committee. Really proud in GEFCO of the incredible participation we have from the various articulation areas and across our entire, you know, geographic area. I mean, it's a large district, and it's the most robust stack that I've ever experienced in my time in, serving in district leadership roles in three different districts.
So lots to be proud of. And I just wanna thank you for the time you put into the executive committee work you do, the actual DAC meetings, the time you spend with Tara and making sure that we're and, Trace, making sure that we're getting you what you feel like the committee needs. And really wanna, just pass it over to you so you can share, and have a dialogue with the board. Yeah. Thanks for being here tonight. Thank you so much for having us. And welcome to the new board members. Congratulations. My name is Therese Rednor. I am the current chairperson of the district accountability committee also known as DAC.
Lots of acronyms, super exciting. This will be my this is my fourth year as chairperson and will be my last year as chairperson. My student is a senior at We Ridge High School, so I'm aging out of the system. But yes. Yay. Assuming he graduates. No. He's gonna graduate. Well thank you I'm glad to hear that. I think one thing that is to superintendent Dorland's point is that we do have a very active DAC. When I started with DAC six years ago of course it was during the lockdowns, thank goodness for the strength of that DAC and our, district liaison at that time,
Mr. Cohen, for keeping that alive and then for allowing us thankfully to come back and grow and be even more robust. So a full DAC is 59 members, primarily parent led. Right now we're sitting at about 46 members. People come, people go. That is part of what happens with, with, volunteer organizations. And so I am happy to introduce you to the DAC. And before I begin introducing you to the DAC, I would like to, introduce you
to Evie Houdaak. Evie has also been a long time, member of DAC and as well as many other organizations that surround education, and is absolutely somebody that we lean on for, information, historic reference and things of that nature. I'm sure you already know our DAC liaison, Tara Pena, without, Tara's sense making, without her sort of peek behind the curtain, allowing us as parent members and community members
to really understand a little bit district level and the cascading effect of decisions, we would not be as, I think as connected or as, informed of a DAC as we are, so internally grateful for Tara's guidance and leadership. You got it. So here we go. This is our winter update. We welcome you. I think I've okay. So the DAC, like I said, 46 members now, primarily parent led. We have so I'm the chairperson, really just set meetings, heard cats.
Elizabeth, Armstrong, she is our fearless vice chair. I'm passing along a lot of the heavy work to her. Hopefully preparing her for maybe a next step. Who knows? And then we have our, secretary Kate Otto, who's not listed here, unfortunately. We missed her. Sorry. And she has the most important job of keeping all the notes and all the communication. Hardest job on our committee. Crystal Marie and she heads up our budget subcommittee, very robust work this year. Can't tell you enough the robust work that that Crystal's been doing with, keeping us
informed of the budget process, and and really creating engagement from not just DAC members, but then passing down to SAC, School Accountability Committee, or PIE, Partners in Education, or Cafe Cafecitas, many, many different names that I've learned. But Crystal has really led that work just just miraculously. We have Hannah Hoong who, heads up our DUIP subcommittee and really engaged work that happens in very specific times, as you know.
And, Evie Hudak, who heads up our FSCP Family School Community Partnerships. Did I get that right? Yeah. Awesome. Really, we're leaning into a lot of work, not just through the Panorama surveys. So just to let you know we do look at those surveys deeply. We look at those surveys. Board members, new board members, we look at those surveys. As well as we just connected last night with, the names. I have my name. Yes, we're really looking at destination graduation and how FSCP can help support that work. Carson Engbretson is, a DAC member who is a past chair who is heading up
the AARs or acronyms. An AAR is an area articulation representative. That is the majority of our members, about 38 of them. As you know, we have 19 articulation areas. Then we also have members of JCEA as part of DAC. We have, administrative members, principals from every bandwidth as well as charter, so middle, high school, elementary school. We have representatives from JESPA. We have our wonderful board liaison, Erin Kenworthy, that, helps us, you know, talk about
ideas and sense make with us. We also have a PTA representative, that is on our is on our deck as well. So I think we're a really broadly represented, group. And we do, we take applications in April. They are brought on board in June and then we also do mid year applications because we're constantly trying to fill those 59 members. So you can see what our purpose here is. We are actually an advisory board to you. We're an advisory committee to the board of education and of course work very closely
with the district. We're state mandated as you can see here. We advise the board but most importantly I think and I was listening to the students' presentation, it's about connection. It's about community. It's about working together, and we are one voice. Albeit fairly large voice, but we are one voice representing perspectives. And what we would always like to remind every board of is that we are a resource to the board of education to gain deeper understanding, maybe from a particular
articulation area's perspective or from a parent's perspective. We have those connections with all, you know, with with individual schools as well from more of a parent perspective where we can get, some of that, input that you might be seeking. So just as a reminder, as you're sitting here with some very big work, that we are a resource for you as well. You can see the statutory foundations and what we do and how what we advise in. Most importantly, I think just to level set, we advise in four areas. So while you're seeking, seeking guidance or seeking voice, we primarily do work on the
DUIP, budget, family school community partnerships, obviously all of our subcommittees, and then also charter renewal and application. And, so we've already gone through the renewal process, so we weigh in and that's a very robust committee so a lot of deep work happens in that committee. And we, you know, work with Doctor. Adecco yeah, Adecco is her last name Doctor. Adecco to also sort of sense make around the charter school conversations. You can see here that we meet formally once a month for no more than
three hours, the third Tuesday of every month. You're certainly welcome to come and join us. We have an executive committee meeting once a month as well and then we have sub committee meetings, every month. So it's about, probably a ten hour, per month time commitment, sometimes a little bit more than that. Theresa, if I may on this slide also, just, for the the board's awareness, DAC also, operates under a a really robust set of bylaws. We've actually spent the last two years updating, our bylaws, and and use that, as
as grounding principle to help, inform the work. And so if you ever have any interest in in bylaw work, we'd love for y'all to to take a peek at that. But there is, you know, a guiding foundation really aligned to state statute that that really does inform the work of the DAC. So hats off to the tremendous work that the DAC has done over the last two years to to bring all of that up to date. And exciting that we're going to be reviewing it coming up here at our executive meeting and next month as well. So she's got all the notes. So you can see what our core responsibilities are. We work primarily or our AARs, articulation area representatives, work primarily as a communication bridge
with their SACs, with, their SACs and their articulation areas. And, I think that's just such the meat of the work to help inform, you know, what we're studying, what questions may come up, how we can bridge those gaps to the district, professionals that can help either respond to a question or help inform more work. We also took on last year a special project, and it was under chronic absenteeism. So we did some sort of deep work and deep thinking around that. Our DAC members are also, informing and part of the cell phone policy conversations, part
of the budget financial sustainability conversations. So that's what's really exciting that I've seen is just how our DAC members are involved in a lot of, additional additional, organizations and groups and and and thinking groups and and, so that we can be better informed and, sort of elevate voices and elevate ideas that we can better advise the board on. Sure. You gotta go right in the middle. Okay. So, earlier, Therese mentioned 19 articulation areas.
Now you may realize that we only have 17. Okay. So you're you in order for you to figure out why we have 19 is that we have the charter schools. We consider them, all of them together as an articulation area, and we have AARs for that. And then we consider the option schools another articulation area, and we have AARs for that. Now I know, the district has the charter schools subcategorized into whatever articulation area they're
physically located in, but, you know, they're not actually part of that articulation area in the sense that they don't articulate. In other words, feed into the high school because some of them are high schools. So we separated them out, the charters and the option schools, as separate articulation areas in order to serve them and their needs, better. That's a good point. Thank you, Evie. And how we partner with with you. So obviously meeting, introducing ourselves, we do the DYP subcommittee does meet, with doctor Eaton,
at least every year. We, we send out a SAC survey every year. So after that information comes back, which it's due tomorrow, so hopefully everybody gets their deadline, after we digest that information, we'll do another, report up and out to the Board of Education. We will do an end of the year, recap of what DAC was working on and and any report out to you as well. And we are also always open to knowing how can we better work with you.
What advice do you have for us or questions that you have for us or guidance that you have for us? We try to meet with the board of education at least four times a year. We can certainly increase that that, schedule as well. One thing that I'd also like to, work on in a more robust way is making sure that we're working more closely and communicating more closely with our DAC liaison. I apologize, Erin. I know we see you at the meetings, but sometimes it's just, you know, life gets busy and we sort of forget. So that is something that I've made a little note of for 2026, the 2026
goals, to work more closely with our with our liaison to the board. We've established, I think, a really strong working relationship with our our district liaison and our facilitator, who is fantastic, by the way. Thank you so much for, bringing that forward to us last year. So I think now our next step is working more closely with our, liaison to the board. But as you all come together as a new board, thinking through how often would you like DACC to meet with you and what sort of topics or or what
work would you like us to to work on in addition to what we already do because it really does help inform our agendas and and the thought and the work that we put into it. Could we Absolutely. Sorry. One more thing. So, in regard to charter school reviews, occasionally, we might want to meet with the board. We we reviewed, three renewals this past, fall, and we issued a written report to
the board. We didn't come and make a statement to you on that because we didn't think it would be controversial. But in past years, especially when our subcommittee and and going forward to the whole DAC, recommends that the board not renew a charter. We would, ask to be able to present to you why. Because in past years, we have made recommendations and you didn't take them.
So, you know, we we're only advisory and we realize that and the board gets to make the decisions, but sometimes the Charter review situation and application, and there may be one coming up soon, so you might want to consider asking for a DAC presentation, about the recommendations on charter schools, because the DAC obviously has a slightly different
perspective on things from district staff. Thank you, Ewe. I wouldn't I did, ask Therese if we could go back a slide. I do wanna spend a little bit of time talking about the role of the SAC, especially we think about as we enter into, January and the roles that principals will engage in with their SAC around their budget reduction process. It's really important to understand the distinct role of of the SAC, which is the school accountability committee. So similar to the function of the DAC, the SAC serves as the advisory committee to the principal at the local site.
And so in each school, each school in Colorado, similar to DAC, is required to have a SAC, and they serve, to offer input on on on those same priorities. So school improvement budget priorities and family engagement strategies. Putting my principal hat on, it leaned into my SAC to to provide me perspective and consult on those big buckets of priority, but also around things like climate and culture, student behavior, you know, weighing in on things like my student staff handbook.
So a lot of ways in which our principals lean really heavily, on their sacks to help inform overall operations and functions of the school. And so just the the role of the SAC is really important, and, again, especially, leaning into conversations, this winter in spring around budget reduction. Our our principals are going to rely really heavily on their SACs to provide, important perspective around their budget reduction process. But just wanted to make certain that, you know, that that, really hats off to this current executive committee in the supports that they've provided, the trainings that they've provided
to ensure that each school has what they need to have a really strong and robust SAC. They've provided opportunities for each SAC to come together with their articulation area representative three times a year. So we're having SAC articulation area alignment conversations to understand, you know, needs and opportunities within an articulation area. They've received so much positive feedback. And then Therese did also mention the SACS survey that we administer every year. And that feedback is used to then also provide, you insight into the priorities, that
our SACs are sharing around the conversations that are happening locally as well. And so that is data that this collected annually, one that we look at really closely around how can we, as a DAC, better support our SACs, but also, what are areas of priority and perspective that they would like to bring to you, the board as well. And so just want you to know that the DAC does a nice job of serving as the liaison to the SACs and bringing every school's perspective, to you all, as the board as they serve in that advisory capacity. We have really strong completion of the SACS survey, and so we have really nice
diverse representation of perspectives, from our schools, and our families on that survey. And so, just have done a nice job over the last, couple of years to really strengthen that practice and wanted to make sure to spend some time there. Thank you. Mhmm. And let's see where we're at. I think we've gone through this. Ah, and we're always so excited that when, superintendent Dolan can join us for a DAC meeting, she provides, such great insight and helps inform our work as well as
just providing great insight that we can then bring back to our communities. Each AAR can bring it back to their, articulation area, SACS, and helps sense make because, right, it's a big district. Many, many miles, many, many people, many, many perspectives, many, many conversations on the soccer field, many, many conversations like a game of telephone that doesn't always connect perfectly. So one thing that I'm really always happy about is when our leadership and our superintendent comes and answers the hard questions because our parent group is certainly not a
shy parent group. Our DAC group is not shy. And that's okay. That's good. We shouldn't be shy. And and to have that, absolute real time answers that we can bring back to our school communities, I think is so vital. So really appreciate, superintendent Dolan and your your engagement with us and, not just engagement personally but how you engage with us through, through Tara. It's just been fantastic. So we will be working with, listening to and learning from superintendent Dolan in January.
So I don't know how how much time we have left for questions. I think I got through that fairly. You did perfect. Did I do alright? You did perfect. I just Right on cue. Thank you so much. Board members, any questions? I don't have a question. I've spent, four four and a half years, almost five years with the DAC in various roles. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time as a liaison, and we'll have conversation later tonight about liaison committee potential committee liaisons. But I do wanna say how valuable it is to have this large of a
committee bringing diverse perspectives from across the county, and in helping folks from one end of the county to the other understand the different perspectives, different issues geographically, and with with the populations that the different schools serve. It's been, I think, a really good experience for folks who've participated, because it gives them a broader view outside of just what's happening at their own school or in
their own articulation area to the level of seeing what's happening across the district. And that's so valuable for our community to have folks who can be out in the community and helping in their articulation area say, yes, that might work here, but it might not work somewhere else, just to have that perspective. I'm grateful for all the folks who volunteer their time. They are long meetings, and especially when you're fighting over bylaws, it can get very tedious. But, it's important work, and I know that I've learned so much from my participation there. And I'm super grateful that Colorado has this structure, and it doesn't exist in every
state. And I think it drives a lot of, parent involvement and engagement in the deeper work of what our schools are doing. And And so I'm just grateful for your leadership and for holding the group together. It is like herding cats. I'm sure it's one of our it it is our largest advisory committee, and, I think it they've had some amazing conversations, especially in the last two years. And I can see the theory behind the accountability structure becoming more of a reality through the work that's happened, particularly in the last four years since I've been really
involved. So grateful for the folks who volunteer, for the leadership that happens there, and for the conversations. I think it's incredibly informative and valuable. So thank you. Thank you. I just wanna echo, we know that this is a group of volunteers, and you noted in here who are also probably parents who are involved in their local schools and doing the soccer games and doing the the carpool rides and all those things. So please take the message back that we appreciate all the time that the entire DAC puts in. And I know when superintendent Doralyn comes to visit you in January, she will talk
a lot about the blueprint, our budget reduction blueprint, and the potential for a mill levy override. And my personal ask of the DAC of you all is to not only bring us feedback, but also to help educate our communities because it's really, an amazing opportunity for our our SACs, our AARs to go to the SACs. And I know you all have been doing a great job meeting with them. The more we can help to share and educate on what our district is facing Mhmm. The stronger we can be. We've seen that through our, our blueprint.
I'm gonna get it wrong. The meetings we held. Thank you. The blueprint, that's what I'm gonna do. Through those meetings, we had community members come. And so that that would be my ask is how do we utilize the DAC in a way that can share information out as much as bringing feedback back? Absolutely. Absolutely. And, I mean, just to on that point, wanting for you guys to know, and maybe we can talk about this more in January when I come. We are preparing materials for all principals to use with their SAC as they begin the budget process. And this this obviously right now and and turning the corner into January will be
a conversation around reductions and a reduction target we're asking each school to to hit. But then in addition to that message and that work we're asking our principals to do with their staff and their SAC leadership, we're also beginning to talk about with our communities. There'll be a video and some other information principals can share around the potential for revenue generation through a mill levy override. So the it will start in January, with our sacks. And I think to the point that's been made, the work we've done to strengthen the sack structure at the school level and the deck structure at the district level,
I think is gonna really serve us well as we support our schools through the budget reductions, and we move into next fall considering a mill levy override. And just so, new board members know, we have time with each of you specifically next week when we're off-site, and you're studying more about budget with both the CASB as well as, our more local context. Brenna Copeland, our chief financial officer, and I have time with all of you, to give you the latest about the budget reduction blueprint for this year and our some
of our most most latest thinking about the mill levy override for next fall, possibility of a mill levy override for next fall. So we're gonna catch you up on all of those things. And then in January, I'll be coming to chat with you all more, which I'm looking forward to. Yeah. Great. And hopefully, it's not the only time next semester. Yeah. Yeah. I'll get you more time. Wonderful. Well, thank you all so much for your time tonight, and thank you for coming on a snowy evening. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. Alright. It is now 06:05, and I'd like to call a ten minute break. So we'll see you back in ten.
And welcome back. Next this evening, the board will engage in its annual dialogue with Jespa's leadership on topics of shared interest. Please come on up. Welcome. Hi, everyone. We have sixty minutes reserved for our discussion tonight, and we would ask that you save ten minutes at the end, although I assume we'll be having dialogue the whole time. So, before I turn it over, superintendent Dolan, is there anything you'd like to start us off with? Yes. Thank you, president Applegate. Hello. Welcome. It's nice to see you all this evening. Thank you for coming out on such a cold and icy evening to have a
conversation with our board of education. I just wanna say welcome, and I look forward to hearing the conversation. I also do wanna mention that I'm just grateful for, the collaboration with Jesspa this school year, especially related to the partnership for fiscal sustainability, your commitment to attending those meetings, sharing your voice, and providing your perspective, and and also at times, bringing additional, colleagues and friends to the table to be part of the conversation has been greatly appreciated. So thank you so much. And with that, I think I'll hand it over to Xander.
Thanks, Tracy. Okay. Good evening. My name is Xander Kasheub. I am a proud food service worker here in GEFCO. I'm also the president of Justfa. Some of you know who we are very well. Some of you all are gonna get to know us pretty quick. So education support professionals are essential to our district. I apologize. I'm a little sick. So I will try to speak up and enunciate as much as I possibly can tonight, but I might be needing to take some breaks. We are the people who feed students. We transport them. We care for them. We keep schools clean and safe. Without us, schools do not function.
Before I go further, I just wanna welcome the new board members, the three of you. Thanks for stepping up to serve our community. The responsibility you've taken on is enormous. We look forward to working with you. The decisions that we both make together strengthen our schools and protect the people that make them run. Now as we all know, Jeffco faces proposed budget reductions. That's what we're here to talk about tonight for the most part. They have a real and widely felt consequences. And us here, ESPs, the support staff in schools will overwhelmingly feel, kind of shoulder
the burden of reductions. We know that. The cuts are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They represent people and services that our students rely on every day. These reductions move forward as proposed. I just want to give a small window snapshot into what will happen, and by no means is this an exhaustive representation. Fewer bus drivers means longer routes, overcrowded buses, and delayed pickups and drop offs. This creates unsafe conditions for students and increases the risk of accidents. Reduced food service staff means slower meal service, longer lines, and less time for students
to eat. For many children, school meal is the most nutritious meals they have. Fewer custodians means classrooms and common areas are not cleaned as thoroughly or as often. This increases health risks and compromises safety during flu season, for instance, and beyond. Cuts to paraeducators means students with special needs lose critical one on one support, teachers will be left without assistance, and students who require supervision may face behavioral crisis, creating
unsafe conditions for everybody in the classroom. Safety can't be an afterthought. Every reduction to ESP positions directly impacts student safety and learning conditions. These are predictable outcomes. It's not hypothetical. This board, I want you all to understand, these decisions will define the future of GEFCO. We will choose to, will will we choose to invest in people where accept the future of scarcity that hurts students and families? We can't balance the budget on the backs of workers or students. We need to increase revenue and protect essential services.
We are very ready to work with you, but we are also very ready to fight for the schools that our students deserve. So tonight, you're gonna hear from my coworkers and fellow leaders of JESPA, the people who live these realities every day. They're gonna share what these cuts mean in real terms for the students they serve, for the safety of our schools, and for the families who depend on these jobs. The stories you're gonna hear matter because behind every budget line item is a person and a child who will feel the impact. So I just ask you to please listen closely.
Thank you. Good evening. Welcome new board members. Good evening, Tracy and our existing board members. My name is Sarah McClintock. I am the first VP of JESPA. I'm also a paraeducator and a mother of two GEFCO students. Everyday paraeducators like me provide educational support, behavioral management, structure, consistency, and so much more. We are the happy faces that greet them on the bus, the reassurance when school, friends, and life get hard. And for my friends in the autism center, it can get hard often.
I rely on the support of my colleagues to help. I sup this support can come from another para, a secretary, custodian, food service worker, and more. It truly takes a village. I often call on the facilities team to help. When kids are sick and have bloody noses, spills, or even embarrassing accidents in the bathroom. Custodians are always there with empathy and compassion to help. They do this while being responsible for safety in our schools, as a part of the emergency response team at the school, and they work with law enforcement admin on
evacuations, fire drills, and shelter drills. Custardians are also responsible for hazardous materials and after school sports, clubs, and other programs. They are the point person for knowing who's in the building and working with security and safety when safety issues happen, and are still expected to do their jobs, during after school hours. Campus security supports all safety issues in the building while also supporting children, watching security
cameras and cover covering large schools sometimes by themselves. I would also like to acknowledge security or, secretaries today who also, play a vital role in safety in our schools. Starting before the bell rings, fielding calls from parents, students, staff, admin, local law enforcement, supporting elevated students, covering the clinic when the health tech is out or on break, while simultaneously answering calls in Milwaukee, which can happen in a cluster while a child is running through the office.
We are incredibly important to the safety of GEFCO Public Schools. And now I would like you to hear from my colleagues, and please hold your questions until we're done. Andrea, would you like to go? Good evening, Tracy Darling and members. My name is Andrea Hernandez Almanza. I'm a Creighton Middle School vice president, food service, bilingual committee on the board and also a JASPA member board. For food service, we are the first phase that the kids see when they come to school.
We are not just ladies lunch ladies. We are a community. We are a mentor. We are a counselor. We are their advisors. Every morning that they come to have breakfast, we get to hear stories of what's happening in their lives, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, and family issues that they might have. Last year, we had a student that would come in every day to talk about her sister getting pregnant and not telling their mom. She would come to tell us about the progress of her sister's pregnancies every day and how it went till they finally told their parents, and it all turned well.
Me getting invited to a quince because I belong to their committee, to Mass Church, and also she was a student at Creighton Middle School. It was really cool her to come out and say, can you come join us for my birthday? I had another bilingual student come up to me, was getting harassed by another student and wanted to know what he could do about it. So I told him, and he thanked me the next day. I have another student that have was having trouble issues on the bus and wanted
to know what she could do. I also guided her what she needed to get done, and it's still on the works right now. I must assume that everything is going well. She's not come up to me yet to let me know. We also have to stay on top of serving breakfast, prepping our meals for lunch and making sure that we have our special meals for our allergen kids, making sure that students don't pick, fight in line during serving time, which has happened in the
past. At my school, we also prep food for Charter High School, which is an extra step that we have to do. Being short staffed is will and will be much harder to do this. As you can see, ESPs are very essential to all of us. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. As a mom of us, one of GEFCO students has severe food allergies, I can ensure you that, food service people have heard from me and my concerns and worries, and it is very important, that they are staffed in being able to take care
of our kids. Next, John. Good evening. My name is John Duran. I'm the President of the Maintenance Association and also an electrician. I also serve as the Grievance Chair for Jespa. It's not widely known how much our maintenance team handles every day. Gas leaks, sewage backups, power outages, vandalism, heating and cooling issues, and so much more. You don't hear about these situations often because our teams respond quickly, quietly, and effectively, so students and staff can continue their day without disruption. However, as we continue to lose staff, even though we're already stretched thin, we're becoming
increasingly concerned. Fewer hands means slower response times, and slower response times can affect the safe, supportive learning environment we work so hard to protect. On top of that, unexpected but essential costs, things we simply can't avoid, continue to arise. Even with job cuts, we often end up over budget because high priority maintenance failures must be addressed. Safety and functionality can't wait. We're proud of the work we do and we're always we always show up for
our schools. We simply want to ensure we have the staff and resources needed to maintain the fast, reliable service that keeps our students focused on learning and our buildings running smoothly. Thanks. Thank you, John. A lot of the work that we do as ESPs goes unseen, and it feels invisible. And so I know that a lot of people might think they understand what an ESP does, but I've but a lot of what we do is when it's done well, you don't see the problem, right?
Next, I would like, Noah, can you go ahead? Members of the Board, my name is Noah Hyde. I'm a Paraeducator ISP, and the President of the organization INJESPA that represents our office professionals, our secretaries and our paraeducators. I've had the opportunity to speak to the Board before and to in this room about safety and the dignity of our work and of the safety of the students
that we have the honor to serve. I work particularly with students who have multiple disabilities, students who are living with cognitive, intellectual, physical, and neurological disabilities all at the same time. It is our job to keep them safe and have the access to the education that they deserve that without these programs, these special education programs, these medical programs and the whole variety of services that we get to provide would be denied this education.
My coworkers and I must be constantly vigilant to keep these persons safe as me, my coworkers and I, who have the student level relationships and the student level experience, to know these behaviors that these kids behaviors that are unique to each individual student. For some of our students, it must be as subtle as their toes pointing together and a quick pat on the back, hand on the shoulder and some words of
praise turn that from desks flying and biting and kicking in a violent situation to just another moment. Or it's one of our students who I get to work quite closely with picking up their clothes and their head down. And a quick reminder to take a drink of Gatorade, keeping it keeping them safe through a drink prevents what could have been an evacuated classroom. None of the students their, students and their classmates getting any learning done.
Very embarrassing and public medical incident, a ride in an ambulance, a trip to the ER, all with the chip of Gatorade and noticing somebody messing with their clothes just makes this just another moment in the classroom for our students. Thank you. Thank you, Noah. Also, as a paraeducator, I can tell you that these moments happen all day. The moments that we prevent that nobody sees happens all day. The teacher doesn't see it, other students don't see it, but we do.
Next, I would like Sarah go ahead. Hello. What is an ECIP? It's all in the name, Early Childhood Instructional Partner. I just want to acknowledge that pre K rooms cannot open for the year without ECIPs. It's a requirement of the state of Colorado that pre k classrooms follow the licensing ratios. It's one to 10. In order to run a classroom of 20 students, there must be two early learning qualified licensed adults at all times. I'm Sarah Smith, and I am an ECIP. Why am I there? I'm there because I'm trained in CPR to and stop the bleed as well as
universal precautions and medication. I am there because I know what to look for in case of an allergic reaction and what to do in the event of one. I am there because I know the state licensing requirements for pre k rooms and what to look out for as potential licensing violations, such as unlocked cabinets or cleaning products out of reach, medications are stored properly, and signed in and out, to name a few. I'm there to assist with the lesson planning and the classroom management. I'm there for children who may be in distress and to help guide them through big emotions. I'm there for children to celebrate their accomplishments, like the first time they're able to
put on their coat for their first time or the first time they can find their name in the classroom and say, that's me. I'm there to assist at lunch so they can make good choices, and many of them cannot even see over the counter to be able to make a choice. I'm also there to help them open their milks and remind them to take a bite so they actually eat their lunch. They're so little. I'm there when a child is feeling lost or left out. I help them navigate their way back to a sense of self and well-being. I'm there to make sure the helmets are fitting and buckled when they're on their bikes, and I'm there to ensure that the face to name attendance is done correctly
and regularly so we are safe and no child is left behind on a transition or is able or if they're able to avoid being leaving the room, make sure we all go. Most importantly, I'm there to keep children in a space that is safe. It is every child's right to be and feel safe when in our care. I love my job and I love all the family connections I've made over the years, and that's why I've been with GEFCO for twenty eight of them. Over Thanksgiving break recently, I had a reunion with four of my students who are now seniors. We met at Golden Gate Park and we walked the trails before going for pizza.
Recently at the Avs game, I was on the jumbotron, like I am a lot. And shortly after though, I had a mom text me and say, can we meet between periods because my daughter wants to tell you that she's on her, high school mountain biking team. You bet I could meet him. That's the best. Abbas can wait. Paul graduated from Boulder with the bachelor of arts in astrophysical and planetary sciences. When I think back to when this kiddo sorry. When he wanted me to teach him all the names of the moons around Jupiter,
and now he graduated with this. Owen visit me at Christmas when he was in kindergarten because he had a gift for me. He had arranged for his aunt to send him a pair of Schwings, and I'm wearing them, for my shoes that he had purchased with his own money. He just knew I would love them. Of course, I still have them, and he's a senior now. When I changed schools a few years ago, I had a mom tell me that she had requested me to be in my room. I was confused because I didn't have any family connections at this school. I asked her why and how she knew of me.
She said she was on a Facebook mom's group and I was recommended. The fact that so many core memories have been made in pre k and I am in them tells me that I make a difference and I matter. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. I also remember my preschool teacher. She's my favorite. All the things that you do all day long to keep these kids safe while simultaneously being the trusted adult, the favorite human, and always remembered.
Next, I would like, Christine, go ahead. Good evening. My name is Christine Talley. I'm a Jesper leader and I've been a parapro in Gen Ed at Foster Dual Language for four years. Tonight, I'd like to share about PERA's role at recess. It might seem straightforward, watch students enforce rules, address violations. In fact, it is so much more. I dare say recess is one of the most significant responsibilities a GEFCO employee might
hold. To illustrate this, I invite you to walk with me through a typical recess duty. Imagine that for the next two hours, we are solely responsible for roughly 100 students at a time across multiple grades and play areas. We'll monitor student play, prepare to guide and reteach in many separate moments. But for this grade, we must also stay close to a group of frenemies who have had significant problems with bullying. And across the playground, we must also discreetly monitor the kickball game for problematic exchanges
between two particular students. At the next recess, we will use our physical presence to limit proximity between two students who cannot be in contact. But it's not enough to monitor the students. Ours is an urban school surrounded by businesses, empty buildings and roadways ranging from neighborhood cul de sacs to Wadsworth Boulevard. For two hours, we continually scan the far boundaries of our fields for unusual activity at the surrounding businesses, for strangers entering the property or for animals on the field.
We hear and analyze every nearby siren. We observe unusual traffic in the cul de sac alongside the playground. We note cars that linger too long or drive too slowly or too fast. We eye the helicopter flying low over the school, circling repeatedly. We make a million tiny decisions affecting our students' well-being. At this particular recess, we see across the field a man on electric scooter enter the property. He quickly breaches the playground, weaving in and out of students.
People do this several times a month, passing so quickly we cannot possibly respond. But today, the students impede his path, and we seize the opportunity to address him. We're thankful he doesn't rage at us and hopeful that his grunted reply means he's gotten the message that the school is not his thoroughfare. Luckily, this is as exciting as it gets for you all today. You're not with us when an unsettlingly strange man emerges from across the field, drops a large bag near students, and refuses to acknowledge or respond to us, or when
a police cruiser peels onto the playground, officers leaping out in pursuit of a bank robber, leaving a para to clear the students and notify admin to lock down the building or when there's a freak accident on the soccer field, we call for aid then evacuate the playground so students won't witness paramedics working on their classmate for over thirty minutes. Recess duty requires sustained hypervigilance. The responsibility is weighty. Paras are not allowed alone in the classroom, but are tasked with the safety of
many times more students outside in an uncontainable environment. When short staffed, it feels unsafe. When other staff fill in, it is notable how differently they approach the job without the hypervigilance built by experience. At recess, paras must carry all this and still maintain the capacity to joyfully teach students how to jump rope. Thank you. Thank you, Christine. One tiny mistake on recess could have devastating consequences to a child.
And I can't imagine watching a 100 kids with one para or or or just a random person that doesn't have the experience to do this, just walking out there, not knowing what to look out for. Next, I would like Lonnie go ahead. Good evening. I am Lonnie Byrne. I am a bus assistant at our North Terminal and the president of JCTA. I also have two grandchildren in the JESCO area. Every school day before the first bell rings and long after the last one fades,
a group of unsung heroes starts the day for our students. They're the bus drivers and the bus assistants, the education support professionals who quite literally carry our children to opportunity. Think about it. For many students, the school bus is the first classroom of the day. That's where routines begin, where friendships form, where a kind word or a calm presence can turn anxiety into excitement. Bus drivers just don't steer a vehicle. They steer young lives. They memorize hundreds of faces, addresses, allergies, and fears. They navigate icy roads, heavy traffic, and sometimes challenging behavior with patients most of us
can only admire. They are safety experts, counselors, and comforters all before 07:30AM. And let's not forget the bus assistance, the quiet warriors who sit beside our students with the greatest needs. They buckle wheelchairs, they calm meltdowns, communicate with children who don't use words, and celebrate tiny victories like like a successful wave goodbye. They turn what could be a stressful commute into a journey of dignity and care. These professionals are the first and last school staff member a child sees each day. They set the emotional tone for learning before a single lesson begins and provide a
safe passage home that lets parents breathe easier. Study after study shows that when students feel safe and cared for on the way to school, attendance improves, behavior improves, and academic performance follows. Yet too often, we take this daily miracle for granted. We applaud teachers and rightly so, but we forget that without the bus rolling up on time, there is no classroom to teach in. So today, I ask all of us, administrators, teachers, parents, and community members to see the bus driver waving from the wheel and the assistant helping a child down the
steps and recognize them for what they truly are, essential educators, guardians of our children's potential, and the heartbeat of our school community. To every bus driver and bus assistant that's here today, thank you. You don't just drive a bus, you drive our future forward one carrying mile at a time. Thank you. Thank you, Lonnie. I can also attest as a paraeducator having to work very closely with with bus drivers. I can't tell you how many times they've helped me to show me how to put these seatbelts on before I walk out, giving me little tips like they don't
like this color, you know, this or that, so as ESPs we are all very important. We all provide essential safety for GEFCO Public Schools. Thank you. So I hope you all got a good glimpse into the value that we provide for GEFCO the GEFCO community. It's our community. We live here. We have kids here. We've spent our careers here. I don't know about you, but having Sarah say the Avs can wait is ridiculous. So, if you knew Sarah, that's huge.
So we would like to have a conversation with you all. I think we want to hear from you. It's rarely that we get to have a conversation with you all. We often find ourselves at Board meetings speaking at you, and we'd much rather have relationships with you all. I want to, you know, acknowledge something Tracy mentioned in the beginning. I think we're working pretty good together. You know, over my time in GEFCO, there have been a lot of challenges, and we don't have to dig up or dredge the past.
But I think that the only way we can really move forward is by working together. We need to generate revenue. We need to do all the things that continue to support students in GEFCO, not, not take services away from kids. I'm sure all of you are aware of the budget reductions and the plan for all of this. It's going to be devastating, in this first round. And I think we are all aware and acknowledge how much we need to work to bring revenue into GEFCO to support students. Since 2020, wages for ESPs have gone from $12.4
to $19.71 That's the minimum wage for ESPs in GEFCO. That's amazing. That's that's great. It's it's not with that that we we've had to, you know, fight sometimes to get there, but we are doing the things that work for kids. Tracy, you often or have recently talked about students' success in GEFCO, and their achievement going up. We believe that's a direct result of investing in workers.
If you have kids that have paraeducators, support one on one support, pre K teachers, partners who are working with them when they're young, healthy meals for kids, like, that's something that we helped win. We were very, very strong advocates, and we mobilized for the healthy school meals initiatives, and especially with the second round of it with the Prop LL and passing. So I would like to maybe just open it up. You know, we have if you have questions for us or if you want to
engage, you know, we would just like to ask you to are you, what are you gonna do to support workers in Jeffco? What are you doing to, make sure that we are going to generate the revenue, that we need to support our community? So thank you. Board members? Anyone would like to go first? So first and foremost, I wanna thank each and every one of you for coming out here and speaking with us this evening. I know the roads are a little treacherous, but I just wanna let you guys know that I appreciate each and every one of you coming to speak with us.
And you are seen, each and every one of you. And I just want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for everything that you do each and every day in service of our students. And I look forward to working together to figure out how we're going to raise revenue or balance the budget and how we're going to work together in partnership. I look forward to that. Thank you. Anyone else? Well, first, I want to thank you very much for being here. I can also say as a parent, my son, especially last year, had a lot of struggles, and it was the sport professionals that played the biggest role in helping
him through them. So, I appreciate you giving voice to what you do. And in particular, I appreciate noting that when you're doing your job well, we don't notice it, the rest of the community, the students, the teachers, administrators, which is an important thing for everybody to keep in mind. Just because you're dry doesn't mean you need to put away your umbrella is an adage that I like. I have a background in organized labor and I have worked with workers in a variety of settings and states and jurisdictions. And I do have a question for you based off my own experience kind of
in that world where I've seen a variety of different ways where frontline workers and their unions were able to help identify cost savings, efficiencies, better ways of doing things that were not immediately apparent to those at the top. I don't think here is necessarily the place to get into the weeds about this thing that's happening in this kitchen or on this bus at this terminal or whatnot, but I did wanna just put that out there as sort of a a dialogue that may be helpful to begin having about here's things that are happening that could be done in a way that's provides a better, you know, end result in terms
of the public service that the schools provide, that you provide, but also does so in a way that helps us identify ways to operate more efficiently on a cost level. So I'd certainly welcome any thoughts to that end. We're happy to partner with you all and work with you all on that. We are very strong advocates for efficiency and systems. I think that over the years, GEFCO has kind of fell off when it comes to some of those things. And so for us who are on the ground really supporting a lot of this stuff, I know, John, you talk a lot about efficiencies in systems and maintenance, but
happy to work with you all and be able to share our insight or how we're seeing it on the ground for sure. Sometimes I think there's a disconnect between what, for good or bad, whatever it is, but there's a disconnect between what we do in the buildings and at worksites every day and what the people at the top see. So happy to try to bridge that. Yes. And to that end, it could be a lot for a principal or community superintendent or somebody to have a bunch of people coming at them.
But I do think that one of the benefits that you can offer organizationally is combining and coalescing kind of those different ideas and communicating them in a way that's a little more contained and easier to respond to as opposed to a principal hearing, hey, if we did this, which might be a great idea, but, of course, then you've got that principal or other person in leadership who's dealing with, you know, 50 other fires and and all kinds of things they're trying to deal with. So I think organized workers in particular that the organization can help bring those ideas together and communicate them in a way that's easier to receive because it's not coming
from thousands of voices, it's coming from one voice? Yeah. I mean, that's what we that's what we do. It's how we function. You know, we we often bring our our issues, our vision, you know, to the table. We wanna work collaboratively and and and make sure it gets done because we often bring common good issues. We are the community. We see what's going on. And I hear you. Yeah. I don't think any of us have time to really during the day to go up to the principal and say this will make Jeffco better. So we definitely use the structures we have to to to to support what you're
talking about. Thanks for taking the time to be here this evening. I just wanna reiterate something that was said earlier, that you you are seen even if people are not saying things. I mean, first and foremost, what you've all proven is that the students see you, from the stories that you shared this evening. And that, I think, is who we're all here to support. Right? And so I want you to know that you are seen and you're appreciated by
your students and also by the parents who hear about you at home when they come home and tell us the stories and the conversations that they've had with you in the lunch line or when they were helping clean up something outside of the bathroom. Those are just some examples from my own household, and so I wanted to to try and reflect that back to you. I'm really glad to hear, the willingness to work alongside us and with us on increasing revenue. Incredibly heartening. It is necessary that our county takes on that work, and it is great to
hear that we're gonna have willing partners to work on that. I also was incredibly glad to hear, that we are we are working together. I think some of the negotiations, the outcomes last year around a three year contract, as requested, are good signs of some good faith, and trust growing between your organization and the district. So I'm glad to hear that we're working well together. That is also very heartening, And I hope that we can just continue with that
momentum, finding something that we're going to work together on, like the the MLO, potentially. I'm I'm thrilled to to be able to work alongside you on something. So thank you. And thanks for coming here and, telling your stories. Appreciate it. I also wanna echo a thank you. As I was listening to your stories, I think I could give you a story from my own kids' experiences from almost every side of the work that you all do, from bus drivers who know my kids by name that make sure literally stopped
and was like, hey. I haven't seen your daughter yet. Is she is she okay? Is she riding the bus today? To custodian team that worked with our Cub Scout group to help them with the service project. And when it got cold, they quickly switched it up so that we could wipe down handrails in the school. To I know we've talked about this before, but I will never I will be forever in debt. I'm gonna get emotional. Forever in debt to the preschool teachers and preschool supports that we have in our district. To our food service workers, to the paras, I co parent with a teacher who has told me time and time again that she could not do what she does
without paras. So truly, thank you. I know it has always, it's not always been easy, but I am proud that we are working with you. And I do agree that it feels like we are working better. Your stories not only tell us and remind us, but remind our public that is listening the value that you all bring. And I also wanna really lift up I appreciate and, superintendent Dorland mentioned it, the attendance at the fiscal partnership meetings. I was there when it was it was, I think, you, Xander, who said these are people, and the whole room changed.
The whole room just shifted to let's drive revenue. Humanizing the work that we do, the invisible forces behind what someone's out there plowing the streets this morning, you know, how many how many workers were out making sure our sidewalks were clear? How many bus drivers had to scrape snow and ice and drive on some probably not lovely roads, especially in some of our mountain towns? You all truly do make our schools run. So thank you. First, I'm also really excited to work with you.
We cannot go through a mill without our partners in JESPA and our partners in JCA. I think you guys are a critical voice. And over my term on the board, you've helped me see things differently. So that's one way I wanna continue to work with you. Your stories are, telling. They are helpful. And you help us see things, to, director Gibbons' point, in in ways we may not see. So I think for us, continued conversation, continued communication, you all do a great job of coming to public comment when you do sometimes speak at us, but but we
listen, and those are effective ways to communicate. So, I think I don't have anything specific beyond that, but I would just echo appreciation for all that you do. Anything else for us? Appreciate that I appreciate what you're all you are you all are saying. Just going to maybe go off on a limb here. I mean, what's a good meeting without a little tension, right? Speaking to the MLO, you know, we ended negotiations this year with a commitment to collaborating on an MOU regarding the MLO.
We have some dates set to work on that, so we're hoping to come together and really do some good work on that. You know, what we're gonna ask y'all is to invest that money in workers, people that are on the ground, teachers, ESPs, because what we were talking about tonight, all the stories that we shared, our value is unmatched in GEFCO and we are going
to be cut. Our positions are going to be cut soon. I think we're gonna hear about departmental budget cuts next week, the end of this week, actually. And for a lot of folks, that's that's terrifying for families, for kids, for students. And the money we generate, the revenue we bring in needs to be invested in these jobs. And so we need we need you all to commit to to supporting that for ESPs, for teachers, because like you all are saying, without us, the schools aren't going
to function. Students are not gonna succeed as much as they have been. It's gonna go backwards. So, I'll leave it there tonight. I hope you all have a good holiday and all of that stuff. Stay healthy. Don't get sick like I've gotten sick, and hope to see you all soon. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Okay. For our next item of study this evening, the board will receive an update on the migration of board docs to Diligent, the board management platform utilized by GEFCO Public Schools. This presentation will be delivered by miss Jill Iback, our chief information officer, and Kristin
Harper, our executive assistant to the Board of Education. Come on down. We have allotted thirty minutes for this presentation. Please plan to reserve ten minutes for board questions. And before as our presenters get set, Superintendent Dolan, is there anything you'd like to share? Thank you, President Applegate. I'm gonna hand this right over to, miss Ibeck and miss Harper, so we can go through this presentation. It is exciting that we're having a new system, and I'm I'm looking forward to the board hearing about what some of the benefits are of the new system and
also what some of the decision points are gonna be as we make the transition over, especially related to the interest of making sure that we have historical records and transparency, related to previous decisions of of the GEFCO board, this version or previous version. So with that, I think I'm handing it to miss Ibech. Absolutely. We are excited alongside president Dolan to introduce to you the New Diligent migration, New Diligent platform. I'll start with introductions.
Once again, I'm July, chief information officer. I'll pass it over to Kristen, and she will kick us off with the presentation. Good evening and welcome to all of you. Excited to work alongside each of you as you are joining the board. We are first just going to talk about what our outcomes of today, what we're hoping to accomplish in giving you this update. First, we're just going to start with an overview of BoardDocs and the purpose of the platform. We're then going to talk about BoardDocs diligent migration, the process and the why.
We're going to highlight the timeline and the phases of the migration that we have outlined. Ms. Ibeg is then going to talk a little bit about the redirect process to diligent community and what that looks like for the broad community, the public, and what that looks like when they want to access, diligent or board docs. And then we're gonna just have a quick few minutes for a user demonstration. This experience demonstration is primarily for the public. For the board, your experience with Diligent looks a little bit different, but this is
for the public so that they can see what that's gonna look like. Okay. An overview of BoardDocs. BoardDocs is a board management tool that is used to organize and track meetings for the Board of Education for Jeffco Public Schools. It's a resource for accessing district and board policies. It's also a safe and secure platform for weekly updates to the Board of Education. The why. Why are we going from BoardDocs to Diligent? BoardDocs was acquired by the Diligent Corporation back in 2016, and it has been kept
operational, as BoardDocs for this entire time. However, BoardDocs is now being phased out, and it will be replaced by Diligent's new platform, which is called Diligent Community. Jeffco started this process in the 2025 with the full completion of the migration anticipated by January 2026. And it's important to know that the transition to this new platform, because it's a mandated migration from BoardDocs to Diligent, carries no additional expense to GEFCO.
That's an important point to highlight that we are not paying anything additional for this service. Our subscription cost of having BoardDocs is the same as it's always been. It's just been internal work on our side converting to a new platform. Okay. Miss Ibeck. So we wanted to show the board how we are going to get from the current platform to the new platform. And what you see here on this slide is a timeline of our migration. So this migration approach, took us, about six months or so, as you can see here. We took this approach alongside the vendor, which we began phase one, or what we
call phase one, focusing on our internal users in August. And so in August, we worked to establish key functionality to be configured in our new platform, and began that configuration effort overall. Moving into September, we completed system administrator training, and of course our main sysadmin, or system administrator, is sitting next to me here. That's Kristen. And Kristen has help and support alongside, our IT team and our communications team. Moving into October, we implemented single sign on or SSO, which means that our internal
users, including the board, will be able to use your existing GEFCO Active Directory credentials to sign in to the new platform, eliminating the need to have to remember a separate login and password. So we are very excited for this functionality. In November, moving into November here, training for our internal users was completed, and we also did a policy review step, which was finalized before we are able to start what we we are calling the manual repoint process. Additionally, in November, we completed the final configuration of the new platform and the new
homepage on the new platform, which Kristen is gonna be demonstrating here in just a few minutes. Bringing us to present day here tonight, in December, Our legacy site is currently editable, so we're still using our old existing BoardDoc site. But we do have our new site that we've been working on. We've been working to configure that, and that is really in read only mode. So we're still in our old system, we're about to get to our new system, that's in read only mode. And so what this means is that we're able to validate the new site functionality
works in parallel with our old site, and we're also able to begin that manual repoint effort, which is quite an effort that we'll talk about here in just a second, pointing to our new homepage. So that manual repoint effort is is pretty labor intensive overall. And what it means is that we're gonna have to manually redirect, a whole slew of existing links that we have to the homepage of the new website. We will then complete a final refresh of content from the old site to the new site.
That's gonna happen in mid December. And at that point, we're gonna put the legacy site in what we call read only mode, so no more edits to the to the legacy site, and we're going to bring the new site online to be editable and usable. So as you can see here, we're going to be in a little bit of a limbo state over the next month or so. Some users may be clicking on links that link us to the old site, Some may be getting linked to the new site that's still in read only mode. So it's, they will get to content and refreshed updated active content one way or
another. But by the time we get to phase two, which you can see here in January, we will have everything repointed, either manually or automatically. And so as you can see here with phase two, we have released to the general public, including our new name here, which is Board Space Stocks. It looks like we have a new logo too as well, which is exciting. And, we will host missing our h there, sorry about that we will host our first official meeting in our new platform in January, Diligent Board Space Docks. So that's exciting.
And then we're going to talk a little bit about how we're going to automatically redirect some of those links that we haven't manually, repointed quite yet. Okay. So, overall we are thankful that we're working with a vendor, that's gonna work with us to install what we call an automatic redirect. This will buy us time to complete the manual repoint of that whole slew of links, that labor intensive effort that we have to do here. And so we're going to install that automatic redirect. It's going to buy us time as we complete this manual repoint.
As you can see here, what that means is that our vendor or diligent community is gonna activate what we call a wild card feature, and that's gonna happen when we go live the January. So we won't be in limbo anymore once we activate the actual wild card redirect. All existing BoardDocs links will automatically redirect users to, our new website, our new home landing page. Users are then gonna be able to use the new features, which are quite robust compared to our existing system, to then search for content, policies, and use other robust
search features through the new platform. We'll continue to verify the accuracy of those redirects throughout the month of December and then into Q1 of next year as well, meaning through March. And to do so, as mentioned, we've got a lot of links to Repoint. So what we're gonna do and what we're recommending is that we purpose purposely, look at a tiered approach of what we tackle first. Prioritizing access to board documents, public facing resources before addressing internal systems.
So what that looks like as we do all of this manual work, that manual or the manual work needs to be done. The automated redirect will be in place for a certain amount of time, but we do need to ensure that we get through the manual redirect through a tiered process. Sorry about that. Knowing that that automated redirect isn't gonna be there forever. So we have to get this work done. We're thankful that we have some time to do it with our vendor. But this is the priority level that we're gonna work on it. And so as you can see here, level one is public facing external content.
That's external GEFCO website links. External GEFCO help articles, that's our knowledge system facing the community. Next is priority level two, that's internal facing staff content, this is our intranet largely. And, courses within our training vector platform is what we call that there. And then moving into priority level three, we'll tackle printed materials, G Suite, Google Suite documents, Microsoft documents as well, published videos, and school websites overall. So we will tackle that that large three point process, in this priority order.
I think now we can do our user experience demonstration. Do you want us to ask questions now on those slides before we get into it? Or do you think it'd be better to see the demo first? I think you can ask questions now before we get into the user experience. Board members, any questions? I just have two quick ones. I know you've been very careful to say we won't have the automatic redirect forever. Do we know about how long we will have it? So so what we do know is, we have mentioned to the vendor that we will take it for as long as we can get it. Okay.
They haven't been forthcoming with an actual date on when they will take it away from us, but we we're gonna take it as long as we can get it. What what we do know is that they will let us know, when it's no longer there. We hope to be completely through all of our content migration by then. They have been pretty easy to work with, quite honestly. I think that they will support us for as long as we would need to to get those links repointed. And kind of along that same line, I think the priority levels are the right levels. Do we have a feel for the amount of time each priority level will take?
Yeah. I think that's a really great question. I I think that, Kristen, I don't know if you have an idea on how long priority one is going to take. I believe it's about a month's worth of of effort part time for one member of our communications team and some IT work sprinkled in there as well. Again, this isn't forty hours a week for one person. We're doing the best we can to to get these types of things done around regular operations. Level two and level three, there are links that we know about that we've scanned on the websites. We've run scripts to say where is go.boarddocs.com,
which is our current host. And we will tick through those as fast as we can, but there are quite a few, I will mention. It's gonna take some time, and we can continue providing updates to the board on how it's going if you're interested in that. Perfect. Yeah. I I think my concern is do we ever reach a point where some of the school websites might have links that just go to nowhere? And it sounds like we may, but we'll know at least when that time's coming. Yeah. And if we do get to that point as a project team, what what we've talked about is, making sure that that we don't have dead ends.
Meaning that if you've reached this page, click here or let's let's have you manually click over here and then have instructions on the new site on how to navigate it as well, which, you know, once again, you'll see in the demo is more robust. Awesome. Thank you so much. If I can just add to that as well, president Applegate, that we have partnered with our comms team. We have a very robust communication plan of how to roll this out. We've already started communicating with those public facing departments, so they already can begin the
process. That communication went out this week, and there's, again, another tiered approach of communication going out to the different various departments when their area is going to be impacted. So they know we're communicating with them. We're also offering support to them if they have questions of how to implement this redirect. Okay. Now it is a user demonstration experience. So I'm just gonna drive from my laptop here. When you log in, now keep in mind, this is going to be our public facing landing page.
When you get here, to begin, if you ever need to go back to our Jeffco Public Schools homepage, this is an actual link. We'll take you back there. Just quickly, when you first get to this landing page, off to the right hand side over here, we just have quick links. We have access to our calendar. You can also hyperlink into all of these that will take you to the actual meetings that are on that date. You can connect to our socials through here. We will highlight the upcoming meetings. Now you'll see that we have a meeting on here for today, but because, again, we're not publishing in this new site, we're still in board docs, that link is
not, clickable at this point. Once we are hosting in here, you'll be able to just automatically click here. If you do scroll down a little bit, though, you can go back to our previous meetings. Because we continue to have, migration updates where they'll take we have our final Delta migration coming after our last board meeting this month. That's where they're taking all the content that's currently sitting in board docs and they push it over. That's where this will populate into the recent meetings. And if you click on any of these, let's see, it will actually open you
up right to an agenda. So that's a really great feature that if you want to go back to a previous meeting, you're able to navigate just from those quick links off to the side. I just want to quickly highlight these four main pages that we have on our new landing page. First we have just our home page. We've tried to highlight how to search for policy and agendas right here. We want our users to be able to log in or to visit this, new landing page and immediately be able to find what they're looking for. So if you're looking for policy or if you're looking maybe for, a slide deck,
something that was presented, we have the features built in right here. So search for policy or search for a presentation. We also feel like it's really important for our community to know that if you get stuck and you're not able to find what you're looking for, please contact our first team. They have been provided communication on how to help navigate this. We have a link for the first team on here. This will take you to Jeffco Public Schools, which will provide contact information for the first team. We don't want anybody to feel lost or frustrated in accessing content, so we've tried
to make that pretty obvious here. So, again, scrolling down on the home page, we now have these what what's the best term? A widget on here? Is that the right term? It's like a pagelet. Lit. A a page lit, a tile. So they can meet their board members. You click on here. This is all going to be updated and refreshed tomorrow along with our, board website. Public comment. This is one of the other main features that our community uses. Click here for public comment. You can scroll down, and it will take you directly to the public comment sign up form. Same form that we've used before.
You can also subscribe, meaning if you wanna be notified of upcoming board meetings, you can click on subscribe. You select the meetings you'd like to be informed about, provide your email, and we'll notify you whenever there's an upcoming meeting. There's also a quick link to our livestream platform, which is YouTube. If you wanna go back and search for previous meetings, you can click right here on livestream. We have just a quick access to contact the Board of Education office, document library, this feature isn't used very much. It's it's just a built in feature from Diligent, but it takes you to previous,
documents that if you wanna search for they have these into subfolders here. This is generally not, a feature that our community uses, but it is on here if they wanna spend some time looking through there. Let me go back to our home page here. I would just add on that page that you just saw that Kristen demonstrated, that search feature at the top searches that con content in those folders that's indexed as well. And so that feature actually works on the new website really well. Yeah. Kristen, can you, highlight where they might be able to find the weekly update once
we begin using this? Absolutely. So the difference here with BoardDocs and the new diligent BoardDocs, With the old BoardDocs platform, as board members, you only had to log in to BoardDocs, and you had access to all of the information. With this new platform, at the stage that it's still in on the development side from Diligent, as board members, you'll still have to log in to the backside of Diligent to access the weekly update. This is only the public facing site, so you don't see the weekly update from
here. This is just what our public users use. Yours is going to look a little bit different, and I'd be happy to put some tutorial videos together for the board members, specifically of how you're gonna access the weekly update because it does look a little different than this site. In a conversation I had with Diligent just today, they said that they are still rolling out new features. That is one of the features that the the weekly update as well as core reporting will all be, encompassed into this, but at this point, it's not at this point. Okay. Back to just these other features, calendar.
This is also an interactive. You could click on here. It would take you directly to the link for the meetings. Again, these aren't active because we're not hosting in here yet, but once we are, come January, you'll be able to quick access there. I'm gonna go back to our home page. Meetings. This is just a quick recap of the meetings that the Board of Education holds. Over here to the side, again, we'll have archived meetings that you can click on. And search, this is where I wanna spend just a little bit of time. So if you are a community member and you have a particular item that you
are looking for, I'm gonna add in here electric bus. That's something that we just talked about in a recent meeting. You go to the search feature, add this in. Once you search, it pulls up all of the different websites or, excuse me, all of the different, dates that we've discussed this. So if I was to click on this, it's gonna pull right to that presentation. So the search feature is powerful in here. As long as you have a keyword, you could search off of a date. If you wanna search for policy, you're gonna do that from the home page, which
we have right here. Go to policy, and the policies are listed just the way they were back in, BoardDocs. So board policies, district policies. Okay. We encourage the public to spend time in here, navigating around. If, again, you feel like you get stuck, please reach out to the first team. We want this to be a user friendly experience. We feel that this will be a better platform once it's fully operational come January. It's more intuitive. Everything is going to be organized in a way that is easily accessible, and we
feel like this is a good option for GEFCO. Any other questions? Yes, Director Kenworthy. This just occurred to me, because we do, you you know, moving through the community and people are asking us questions, where can we find x, y, and z? And often, you know, I'm I'm going, well, okay. Board docs. And then you have to find board docs through our web page. I'm wondering for a landing page, could we get, this is weird, a QR code maybe that we could put on the back of our business cards, like a sticker
or something so that we could hand that to somebody at a community event to get them here? I love the idea of a QR code, but that's a techie question for this IBAC. We can definitely look into it. QR codes historically have information security concerns, and so I just wanna run it by our information security professionals, ask the question, and and then we can get back to you. Yeah. I I mean, just for the public facing, not for, like, us to access anything on the back end. But just so that we can also be doing a little bit of our own
marketing, right, as we're talking to other elected officials, other board members while we're at CASB or whatever to let them know that we've this is the thing we're working on. I guess we won't mention it at CASB because we won't be live until January. But moving forward, once we're live, to be able to help spread the word so that people are looking for this platform instead of trying to go back into BoardDocs. And perhaps if a QR code does not meet our safety standards that we need, maybe we can just have the website on there. Wonderful.
Well, thank you guys so much. Thank you for the demo. We really appreciate it. Alright. Next up, we will have our monthly consent agenda preview. Superintendent Dortland will provide a preview of the items anticipated to appear on the consent agenda at the upcoming board meeting. Superintendent Dortland, the time is now yours. Thank you very much. Looking forward to just walking through a few quick things with you. So for our new board members, during our study session, which is the first meeting of the month, that's, like, tonight, we do a process where I walk through items
that we know at that point in time will be on the consent agenda, which is in two weeks with your regular meeting. And the consent agenda is a group of topics. It could be anywhere from three to five items to up to 20. Just to kinda depends on how many contracts and personnel matters, reports we have, all kinds of things. And so I kind of will go over some things that I know of at this time so that you can ask me some questions if you need to, or we can just chat through it a little bit. And then you'll see when your regular meeting, consent agenda is posted, there's a lot
more information about each of these items in those in those agenda items, and then you can ask questions, as well. Can I add to that, superintendent Dolan? The other value of this is if there's something that you say, hey, I really am uncomfortable with that being on consent Yes. We can talk about that and have the opportunity to pull it and put it in the regular agenda where it could be a discussed item instead of just voted on as part of consent. So this is a really great opportunity to ask questions, raise concerns, and if there's something anything you're uncomfortable with, now's the time. Yep. And honestly, this process worked already today, when we board members about GP o seven.
Just not not anything negative, just, like, wonderings about that, causing me to feel like it would be beneficial for the board to just have more time to understand the history of what led to the revision of that language, to give us some feedback about what you felt was important, especially given that it's a policy change. We just wanted to give you more time to have conversation with me, with miss Tolleson, and then what we'll do, you'll see you see here that approval of GP o seven is on the list.
It will not be there on the eighteenth because of the agenda decision that you the previous board made at the beginning of tonight, and you didn't study it. So we'll study this in January, and then you'll see it on the consent agenda. That also gives us time when we study it. We take your feedback, and we make revisions based on your feedback and according to the board's direction so that what we bring back for consent agenda aligns with the board's expectations. So that that process will unfold for the GP o seven revisions in January, and thanks to those of you who asked us some questions about that, earlier today.
So you'll see we will have it starting at the top. I'm going back to the top now. Sorry, I jumped into the GPO seven. You'll have the employment, administrative appointments, and resignations terminations report. That's a regular report that you'll get monthly. You'll have a supplemental funds notification. You usually will have that. This is where if we're awarded grants, it's basically the board accepting the supplemental funds that are coming into the district at any given time. So you'll have one of those in December. There'll be the minutes, from the board meetings in October, November, this meeting, and then
December 15. What is the fifteenth? Is that supposed to be the tenth? Okay. Oh oh, it's the vote for the no levy certification, which we're also gonna make sure you're prepared to understand as we meet with you at CASB. So that that will be thank you. DAC appointments, which will be off cycle, just filling positions that have turned over on on the the the, district accountability committee who you heard from the chairs from today. I see one jump in. Sorry. Thank you, superintendent. Did those go through the committee for review, or how do we review the off
cycle appointments? So I asked Kristen, to, provide in this Friday's update some information about how we go about DAC appointments. Both, annual DAC appointments, which happen in the summer ish, and you do, like, a whole slew of people because you have a bunch of people who are termed off and new people coming on. That's the big annual appointment of of committee members, not just to DAC, but to all of your board committees. So she's gonna give you some information about that on Friday.
I also asked her to include how it happens when it's off cycle, where it's just we had somebody resign and somebody else was there wanting to join that committee for you and how we then bring that to you. So is we'll give you that information on Friday. That'll be in your weekly update. And we can talk further about that as you consider these appointments next week. If you wanted to pull it, we could talk about it if if that's of interest. Approval of proposed revisions to the IGAs for school resource officers. So, you you may or may not have heard, but we have received feedback from
our charter school leaders, staff members, and families, some of them, who are in charter schools that are geographically located in unincorporated Jefferson County. Our schools who are in unincorporated Jefferson County receive SRO services from the Jeffco Sheriff's Office. We, had a bit of a miscommunication where SROs stopped serving our charter schools in the way that they had previously been doing prior to this year.
We entered into new IGA language with all law enforcement agencies who provided SROs because we began paying for half of our SROs this year. When we entered into that language, the Jeffco Sheriff's Office, I think, inadvertently changed their practice a bit with charter schools. We very quickly communicated with them, got on the same page that the intent of the new language in the IGA was not to change practice with how our charter schools were served by SROs. And so, miss Tolleson, took, some time and effort to revise the the specific language
around SROs for charter schools to be more accurately representative of what the sheriff's office and the district really wanted to have happen, which is basically that SROs at the closest school, really do serve the charter school when it's in need, just like they would an elementary school in GEFCO. So so so there's gonna be more information for you as well in your weekly update about this topic. If you have questions about any of this, you are more than welcome to call me. I'm available all the time for you guys. I just think it's gonna take you a minute, because so much of this has
been lingering for a couple of months that once you are around for a month or so, you'll feel like you're more in a rhythm. Can I add Tracy? So we're gonna get you more information about that on Friday too. Yeah. Will that include the language? It will include, a little bit of a background as well as the language, just the section related to the SROs. We can attach the full IGA as well, but it's really the revised section we want you to look at. A couple of other things that miss Tolleson will include in there is that we we are still waiting to hear back from the county attorney's office on whether or
not they accept our language revision. And we have, been attempting multiple times to get a response, and to to no avail. And so I have, reached out to the to sheriff Marinelli just today and asked her if she could assist us in encouraging the county attorney's office to respond to miss Tolleson so that we could know possibly by the eighteenth if the the, county will agree with the language that we have proposed.
We may or may not hear back from them by then. I will let you know and keep you apprised. My recommendation to the board and and then the board can decide what to do, but my recommendation is that you go ahead and accept the language as drafted. We can always bring it back to you if we need to change it. I think it sends a message to our community that we take their feedback seriously, that it sets, the expectation that we believe this is what is happening for our charter schools in terms of support for SROs, and I think it doesn't hurt any to go ahead and say we approved this language. That then allows us to move quickly when the county attorney's office gets back to
us, especially if they agree to the language. If they wanna change it, we'd have to come back and talk with you about it. Mhmm. Yep. So this means it's just the language with our county office. We're not changing any of the municipal IGAs, the other municipalities on SRO's language? We'll let miss Tolleson take that question. We just haven't had any any of the confusion around practice in any other jurisdictions. Actually, the language is the same from last year. It's one of those things anytime you when you work in language, you realize, oh,
we had used the phrase about assigned to charter schools and what we really meant was stationed at. Right? And so all of a sudden, folks read it, practice changes. But the only place we've struggled with the change in practice is the sheriff's office. Okay. So we're not anticipating needing to revise any of our other existing IGAs. Alright. Thank you. And I just wanna clarify, IGA's intergovernmental agreement. Thank you. And I did wanna say, you you had mentioned there would be specific languages being revised that were to look at. Although, I will say for for me, I can't speak for the others. I do like to see the complete document that it's gonna be a part of.
So I think you said it'd be included, but I'm just gonna say it with my preference. We will include the full document for you. But just so you're not scrolling through it looking for the red lines, we'll also pull out the red lines for you so it's easy to see. And then you can see the part and the whole together in separate. Okay. Doctor. Gubari, did you have I was gonna ask if you're gonna provide the strikeouts so that we can see the changes. Okay. You'll see the changes. And that's exactly how we, sent it to them as a proposal as well. So, oh, great. Okay. So you you will also have a contract approval on the, on the December 18
consent agenda for Vyvacity Tech. This is the the authorization for us to purchase, Chromebooks mostly, but also Google management licenses. And, we we we approve this we approve this contract almost annually, which then allows us to go ahead and make the investments and refresh, the student devices and many staff devices, and other products that we use, from from Google. The sooner we get this done, the better just given, concerns about some, tariffs that
might be put in place, after the after the first quarter of next year. And then you will just see in addition that's so that's the consent agenda, items. Now there may be more that come that might be showing up that I don't quite have on the list yet, but we'll keep you apprised of that, and it'll be in your board packet. And then you'll just see the preview of agenda items for January. I anticipate this will change a bit. We already know that we're gonna wanna move the GP o seven policy discussion to January, and I would like to just take a minute.
And now that we have new officer positions, I'd like the opportunity to work with, miss Applegate and just say, let's take a look at this. Let's get through December in CASB. Let's get through the eighteenth. Let's also chat with new board members about how are you doing, what of these things is essential. I just am really conscientious of throwing a lot out there all at once. It's a lot of information to take in. So and and I also just wanna give, miss Applegate a chance to work with
her board colleagues and get a sense of what she really wants to do with this agenda. It was created before she was in this position and you all were in your positions. So I just, anticipate that these these items for January may adjust. Thank you, superintendent Dorland. There is something I'd like to add for January. September. I turned myself off. Miss Harper, we talked a little bit about it. We had originally, in September, had the recognition of our schools that hit high growth, high achievement. And we evergreen happened, we skipped a meeting, and we compounded a little bit.
I would love to bring up the opportunity to maybe bring them back and recognize them the way we did last year. And January might be a nice time with the start of the school year, so I would throw that out. Something I can reach out and and talk with you all about. But last year, we came in, and at the beginning of most board meetings, we will have recognitions. That's another thing that if you have strong feelings about someone you'd like to recognize, an organization, we do those. Use that time to recognize our high growth, high achieving schools. So I wanna put that out there. I think that's really important. And I think January could be a nice time to kick off the the semester.
Any any thoughts, questions? Great. Thank you so much. Alright, so this will bring us to our board dialogue. Another tradition, I guess, we'll call it, that we've started, recently is saving thirty minutes at the end of our study sessions to just talk. It can be about just about anything. And so what we will do going forward is in advance of our study sessions, Erin, director Kenworthy, or I will reach out to each of you and say, hey. Do you have a topic you'd like to cover? We'll, miss Harper puts the timer on for thirty minutes. If we use it all, great. But it's just really an opportunity for us to have discussion, which is unique and
rare in so many cases. And since we have our newly elected board with us tonight, one of the things we thought we could talk about was, basically, the the determination of members that serve on various board advisory committees. We had the DAC attend tonight. We will have all of the committees come throughout the year to present to us. I do wanna say this isn't something we have to vote on and it's not something we have to decide tonight, but it's an opportunity for all of us to kind of talk about interests, strengths, where we might see benefit. You'll also note that there are more than five on here.
We do have some committees that have standing liaisons, and then we have some committees that are more ad hoc. And so, that's why you see more than one. And I are we missing one on here, the curriculum committee? That's ad hoc. So we don't have I yeah. We may we may end up changing that as part of the policy revisions in January. I would wait on that until your policy is finalized for that portion. Yeah. Here. I also don't think, given the language that we're gonna be considering, it's not that we need a board liaison. The makeup of that committee would actually have each of us responsible for one appointee
to be on that committee. So it's not necessarily one of us being a board liaison to that committee, if I read the language correctly. So with that, I'd I'd love to just open up. If there's other things you'd like to talk about, we certainly can as well. Miss Harper, will you put 30 on our on our clock to hold us to it? I can start with my interest. My campaign was run mostly on the fact that my neighborhood school was shut down. So the Capital Asset Advisory Committee, when I was reading the different, descriptions and explanations
of each committee, that committee really spoke to me and my purpose and why I'm here. I also, noticed the meeting times and, there in the morning, which is really great for me because I've got some flexible time in the mornings. But primarily, I really ran in my neighborhood with my neighbors. It's like I wanna really ensure that we we really take school closures seriously. And so I would love to throw my name in that committee.
I also am very interested in working, with the GEFCO Schools Foundation in some capacity. So those are two that I would really like to express interest in. Thank you. Director Gibbons? I also had some interest in the Capital Asset Advisory Committee in particular as I understand the committee's work, and that's take that with a grain of salt. There are aspects of what that committee deals with where my legal expertise may be helpful in kind of understanding the issues and, then liaising with the board, being the liaison from the board about the different issues it deals with, whether it's property dispositions,
some of the municipal issues that come up, would certainly lean into my my existing skill sets and strengths. And I do share the the morning preference, with my schedule. Director Mon Mon Mon I'm sorry. I will get it better. You'll get it. So as treasurer, I think a a nice fit would be to be on the financial advisory committee. Certainly curious about the equity accountability committee as well, but I think that would be a nice pairing with my position and the times being in the afternoon work well
for me. Director Kenmoretti? Yeah. So I have been, fortunate to be working with the DAC for many years now. And I have thoroughly enjoyed my time there. And I'm open to, possibly letting somebody else have some fun there if they would like to. I'm very interested also in working with the Equity Accountability Committee. It's something I've been interested in for a while. Director Reid was the former liaison to that, and I'm I'm very interested in working as liaison with that committee.
I do wanna mention though that being the liaison to any of these committees does not preclude any of us from attending or participating in any of those meetings just so long as it's, you know, not all five of us showing up at the same time. So we'll be able to, you know, find some flexibility, some leeway, and some opportunities for folks to be able to attend a variety of these meetings even if you're not the primary liaison. Yeah. Can I just add on to that? We did have for the FAC for the CAC for a while There's two of
us. We had I'm trying to think. I think that was those were the two mostly, where we had, two board members, the 10. So I just I do think it gets tricky when there's three because then there's a majority and we have to notice it and it just gets complicated. So I wouldn't recommend more than two. And yeah. But Yeah. Miss Parker and I attended the CAC meetings together for quite a while, and it was it was great. I'm really interested in the technology and data privacy committee, TDPAC.
That's something that's always been kind of fascinating to me. I've been on the CAC for two years and I'm happy to it's a great committee. Love all the people there, but happy to turn it over to some new eyes and and new inputs. I also am kind of interested in the audit committee. I I think that'd be something I would be happy to sit in on. I know it doesn't meet often, but when it does, I'd I'd be happy to join our treasurer in in those meetings as well. So I think what I heard, I I got notes on everything. Perhaps what we do is we'll have some I'll have some ongoing conversations with everyone,
and, I support the idea if there's two board members interested in the committee. I don't think it hurts. So we can go from there. And as long as we get coverage for the committees we need, I think we're in good shape. So this is also something that can be modified. I recognize coming in, it hasn't been so long that I've forgotten what it means to come into this role, and it's a little bit of drinking from a fire hose, and so it could be something that we revisit at the end of the school year as well. I will say I'm I'm willing to also continue, meeting with the deck. It's not a heavy lift for me because I have been with them, and it
can be, it it's a large group, so it can be overwhelming. But I've been there for a while, so I'm willing to continue to do that. But I do think at some point, it would be helpful for other board members to step in and, participate with them because they have such amazing perspectives and conversations. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to just mention is just the importance of cross training the train the team. And if, we have, like, a lot of experience in one area, possibly checking out
a different area. I know for me, I've been on I've been on the school accountability committee as a teacher and as a mom pretty much my whole life. So, I love SAC and I love DAC, and I think it's really important. I I also think it's really important that everybody on our com everybody on this board has some visibility into what they do. And so cross training to strengthen everybody, I think, is super important as well when we make these decisions. Thank you. Miss Applegate, would you like for, miss Harper to maybe type up what a summary
of what we think we heard from this conversation, and then make sure you get that as you head to CASB. I think that could be a good place where we just sort of kinda finalize it and get you guys the schedule of these meetings. And so, like, we I because we'll have all that with us. And that way, you can kinda get, okay. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Or maybe this isn't the right fit for me, and we can kinda have a little bit of back and forth. And that gives you some flexibility where people are together for a couple of days to really work with board members and maybe get it finalized by winter break. No.
I think that's great. That goes into a new year with the assignments identified, and that would be great. Miss Harper, I have my notes, but if I could check them against yours, that would be that would be lovely. Okay. Is there any other topic that the board would like to chat about? Can we talk about, any of the presentations we saw here today? So listening to the the team in a student group, and then listening to superintendent Dorland about how the parents get a yearly notification of, hey. Make sure you're locking up your weapons and things like that.
I'm just wondering if, you know, as a district, we could perhaps do a better job of reminding folks via extra communication, that, hey. This is something you you need to be mindful of, just in support of their efforts and their goals. I'm happy to take that back to our communications team and our cabinet team and chat with different, ways we might be able to get that message out. I also know, sometimes parents read what we send as a district, and sometimes parents
read, more importantly, what their principal sends. And we did do when we started this process, I think we had some content that was specific for, like, school newsletters that principals could send. So I'd like it if I could just take a minute, go back, review what we did when we first started this work, because I think we have some materials that we could resurface and not recreate the wheel, and then we get back to you guys on on that possibility if that's an interest of the board. Happy to Do other well, doctor I'm gonna get it.
Hang on. Doctor Escobaria? Like, etch a sketch. Etch it. Etch a babia. There you go. Disseminating them. Okay. And I know from my perspective, Stanley Lake, the SRO there has sent communications about it. So we're receiving it on our end. Well, that I think I had mentioned that earlier that I believe there are likely schools who are doing their own. I just don't know how widespread that is. So I could take a minute and figure that out as well. It looks like Lisa has maybe some more information than I do. I I was just gonna suggest, I don't know if you all know, but the board also has a monthly communication that it does.
And so you might choose and you're across the board, for example, the topic of the letter for this, this month or January could even be the presentation you receive from the students. And you also have the opportunity on a monthly basis. You could make it a key component, or a reoccurring component of your newsletter that goes out every month. So I just wanna remind you of the vehicle you also have. Thank you, Lisa. That's really helpful. And if I could just expand on that that idea a little bit, you know,
obviously, making sure that the weapons are safe is one component of this. We also heard heard from the students today, you know, that there's stigma around asking for help for mental health, that some of the students didn't even know that there were free therapy services. And so making sure that we are working with our partners, working with the schools, and we are over communicating on this topic, just so students are aware of the services that they can take advantage of, I think, would be helpful. I do know that there are yes.
I totally agree. And I do know that there are communications that go out just because I had an 18 year old that just graduated out of a high school. And he's like, oh, I never read that. So I I think it would be helpful to find out what's actually going out and then maybe how we tailor it differently so that it's better absorbed by our student population. Yeah. You know, we have our GEFCO student leadership board. I think one of the things, director Kenworthy, you said tonight was sometimes students listen to each other more than they listen to us and or their parents or their family members.
And so finding ways for us to get some student voice wrapped around this as well could be really helpful. And I do know, director Moenian, just because you brought it up, this has been a topic of conversation from the JSLP group as well. And, yeah, president Applegate had mentioned that. So I I'm happy to take this back to our JSLB leaders, and I also think, to Lisa's point, having the board think about if you wanna highlight this for families, in your communications, that's a great idea too. So we're happy to give this some thought and come back with some ideas.
Thanks for the suggestions. Director Givens, did you have something to add? Yeah. Similar topic. You know, I had I think director Moni and was present for some of these conversations, conversations with parents about schools that they thought were doing a particularly good job of instilling a culture of mental health and supportive and particularly at younger ages where students are a little more open to listening to adults. But then by instilling that kind of culture at that younger age, it kinda trickles up and, really some of these parents felt it really positively impacted their students as
they moved to the upper grades. So I think that's just something else to look at, you know, through the whole life the lifespan of a student and their Jeffcoat career, and also what what sort of things are happening in different buildings? What sort of best practice is can we identify, especially with the younger kids? I think it's we have to think of that as, you know, this is a long multi year year process with a student and best practices at certain schools that that could be identified and disseminated to the rest of the district to implement in ways that fit the other buildings. And just, to share, our our principles do get together and share best practices, so
this could be a topic of something that maybe is brought up at a leadership meeting. Yeah. I mean, I think mental health has been a topic of conversation for my entire career, number one, but in particular post pandemic. It has been, you know, front and center of what our community is asking us to think about critically and take on for our young people, and we're hearing it from our young adults as well. And often, we try to do we try to do what is being suggested, which
is find where we have promising practices, early adopters, where things are going well. We also have student perception survey data that can help point us in that direction. We have our community superintendents who know what's happening in our schools really well. So I will take as a to do to have a conversation around mental health communications, and mental health practices in particular maybe at elementary and early middle school. I'll I'll I'm also happy to share some more work that we're doing in the magic of middle school work, around creating, environments of safety and positive student cultures and
middle level, as we as the months unfold here. So but thank you. I appreciate the suggestions. And I'll just have at least take note that we're gonna talk about some mental health stuff with our cabinet team, in the coming months. So thank you. Director Eshkabarria. Thank you. I had a two more questions, since it's open right now. Regarding the DAC, and you might know this, Erin or director Kenworthy, do, does the district provide translation services so parents who are multilingual learner can access that form?
Yeah. And I see Tara has left. But, yes, it's possible. And we've not had any requests recently for that to occur. Okay. So I think if we have people who join the deck and require translation services, that that can be provided. But that would also be something that we would, work work through with, Tara Pena, who was here earlier tonight, because she oversees the trans a lot of the translation services. But I have not seen anybody use it at the DAC.
I have seen us use it at, community facing meetings. Mhmm. But I haven't seen it at the DAC. What do you think is the they they said there were, like, 10 schools not represented. Yeah. What do they suspect that might be from? There's lots of different reasons. But I do think that, the fact that there's a three hour meeting on an evening after school can be a challenging time for parents in particular with activities or with transportation. And so there has been some conversation at the DAC about their meeting time sometimes
being an obstacle for some folks who might wanna participate in in that, committee. Is childcare provided? It is not. Okay. Not currently. No. But those are those would be lovely and supportive ideas. The other thought, though, is around cost, and need for the folks who are in the room. Some have young kids. Some have high school age kids. So, it's worth a question for the membership of the city. Put the high school kids in there. Yeah. Yep.
And then my second question, I'm not sure if somebody can maybe walk me through, what CASB looks like next week. That'd be great. Absolutely. I'll start. So CASB, first of all, is our Colorado State Association of School Boards. And so it's, all but one school board in the state of Colorado participate. Not all of them go to the conference, but most of them do. So Wednesday, we will start off with our own meeting, where we will get a chance to do some onboarding with with you all together, and with superintendent Dolan and
I believe miss Copeland and miss Harper? Yes. Miss Harper will be there on Wednesday with us. Yep. Miss Tolleson and miss Copeland will be there with us throughout. And Wednesday is a focus on the budget reduction blueprint, some general budget updates from me and miss Copeland, as well as the CASB session on Budget. Budget school district budgeting from a board member lens. That's the that's the critical day that we felt was important for you to, especially
just what your your the board is up against in terms of approval of this budget in June, and the reductions that were current that are currently underway. So that's that's Wednesday. Yep. And then Thursday rolls into more of kind of a traditional conference. I'd say there is a, there is a there's a keynote speaker. There are sessions. There's a lot of kind of school board one zero one, which are which were really helpful to me my first year. There is an app that how shows the whole agenda. We can get that to you guys. And so it's really a pick which ones you wanna go to, throughout the day.
So go to the keynote, but then it's really, pick the ones that interest you sessions. There are a lot of other board members there from other districts, and I think it is helpful to connect with colleagues and just talk about their experience. But the the the general sessions, I think, are very good. I don't mean general session in in, like, the big room. Those are good. But there's some student performances that are awesome. But I think just the the one on one sessions and anything that looks interesting would probably be very helpful. There's also breakfast in the morning that's served in a large, area for the entire
conference, and there's lunch that's served as well. I'm around. Miss Tolleson's around. Miss Copeland will be around. Miss Harper will be there on Wednesday. So if you need us, you can text us. We'll run into you. We're happy to hang out with you as much as you'd like or as little as you'd like. We may find ourselves in the same sessions. We may not. We will definitely be, trying to look for you at lunch just so we can connect with you and you may have questions. That's kind of our plan. And if the board needs something different than that from us, I'm happy to take that feedback and make sure that we're showing up in a way that's helpful for
you. There's also true to conference form, a vendor area where there are a lot of vendors that provide services to school districts, so it's kind of interesting to walk through that. Mhmm. But it's effectively, the rest of it is a conference. And then is it Friday afternoon, there will be a delegate session for CASB. So CASB is kind of their governing board. Their primary role is advocacy. And so the delegation will come together. I I'm going to be our delegate for this session, although anyone can come to the delegate, session. It switches around. CASB has several meetings throughout the year.
Usually, miss Harper's like, who wants to be the delegate for this session? But effectively, you vote on behalf of the board of whether we agree with different policies or different resolutions that they're putting forward. So that's Friday afternoon. And then Saturday morning is a breakfast and a keynote, I believe. Saturday is pretty late. So do you recommend, to make the most of the experience that all of us attend different sessions and then come back and talk about those sessions? What's the recommendation there? I'll give mine and I would love for director Kenworthy to give hers. I think it is more important to go to where you may not know something
or where you have questions or interest. We will gather shared experiences through our work on the board. So if there's an area that you already I mean, you mentioned you've been on SAC, so you may not wanna go to the school accountability session. However, there might be an area where you aren't familiar, I would encourage you to go to those because I think that's where you get the most benefit. Yeah. I would say the the first day I was all in on going to sessions and at a certain point I felt saturated and I needed to sit down somewhere and do a little processing. So I'm gonna give you a heads up about that. There is also a student part of the CASB thing.
So we have student leaders who go and they participate in sort of a, a I think it's a day and a half of leadership engagement and training and workshops, for leaders. And I did check with, Tara Pena, and we have two students who will be attending this year, which I'm thrilled about. So that is kind of fun. And there is the opportunity at some of the workshops to go and have kind of table talk, table discussions with students who are in leadership from across the state, and those conversations are pretty interesting when that's available.
Yeah. That's it. Sorry. So are is it are we allowed to, after we go to sessions for the day, to sit down and discuss those sessions together openly? Legal maybe? We're gonna we're gonna let miss Tulsa address this one. As with all things open meeting, a lot of the devil is sort of always in the details, right? This is the general idea is when you get together to discuss sort of the business that's either before you or going to come before you, it is a meeting
under statute. So, generally, I'd say reserve most of that for social time. Look. If you say, look, I went to this really great session because I didn't understand how mill levies work and how they generate and how that when property values go up, why why don't district budgets increase? I have no concerns at all about that. So I think it's you're going to have to use sort of your best judgment in that space because we want you to spend time together learning together. We've noticed, I believe, and if we haven't, we can. Sometimes we'll notice to the public, like, they're not going to be conducting any business
and they're not meeting for the purpose of conducting business. But FYI, we're gonna have a majority of our board in this location participating in some shared learning. And so we sort of fulfill our transparency obligation that way. And I think that that's something we'll do. So in general, I'm not particularly concerned, but be smart, which I know you will because you've listened to my training. Well and I do think, you know, we're gonna have dinner together on Wednesday. And I think if you're just sitting there having dinner together and you talk about the session you attended and what you got out of it, that's okay.
I'm looking at Julie. She's saying, yeah. That's okay. That's encouraged. I mean, that's part of the learning experience and why this is a beneficial, conference for our board to go to. And you may also find that you've learned, other things about how other districts are doing something, and you wanna share that with a colleague, over a meal, whether it be lunch that day or or a dinner or whatever. So, I would say soak it up and talk about what you've learned together. To Julie's point, I think, unless it's cited, avoiding conversations around board this board's decision
making, or upcoming issues that you're gonna be addressing that we that you need to be, in public doing business around. Does that help? Okay. Good. One other quick thing. Like like, I would just say dress code, just basics. I'd say dress code is business casual. I don't know. I just wanna make you guys feel welcome and comfortable, and I think that will also help you have a positive learning experience. So if you have any other basic questions, please let me or Kristen know or these guys, and we're happy to also conference schedule?
Okay. Great. Perfect. There's also a few cocktail hours and receptions that are always lovely to go to, and miss Harper, I'm sure, sent you the details around those. I did. I I think I've RSVP'd for most of you for the cocktail reception. I think Tina or director Mawhinney and you RSVP'd for yourself. But in the the update that I sent all of you last Friday, the information for the app was included in that. So if you haven't downloaded that, if you'll go back to that update from last week and, pull that.
Also, I have sent you all the agenda for CASB that's detailed by day, by time, and all of the sessions that are available. And if you need me to resend that, let me know. And if you ever if anyone ever wants to talk about the sessions and suggestions, happy to do that. Alright. We're probably close to our time. Any other topics for the night? Well, congratulations. You all made it through your first study session. That brings us to the end of today's agenda. Thank you to the presenters who participated in the study session. Our next meeting is an orientation session on Wednesday, December 10 at two thousand twenty five at the beginning of the CASB convention, and the next regular meeting of the
board will be held Thursday, 12/18/2025. With that, we stand adjourned. Good night.