Welcome everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. I would like to call this Tuesday, May 20th board meeting to order at 6:00. If you could please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Okay, thank you. Um Deb, if you could please establish quorum. We have five board members all
logged into board docs, correct? And is everyone's mics on? Yes. I will ask our presenters and our audience that if you're speaking tonight, please come to the microphone. We've had problems not hearing from the audience and board.
If you call out to the audience, um, please ask them to come to the podium to respond to you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Can I get a motion to set the agenda, please? I'll move to set the agenda minus item F
under action items for slows renewal. Okay. Just need a second. Uh can I get a second, please? Second. Okay. Okay. Online voting is now available. So that's remove item F from the action
items. You removed it from the action item. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, moving on to presentations. We have um a presentation from an school designation as an his as a historical
building. Hello. Can you all hear me? Yes. Yes. I'm going to wait for my counterpart to get up here. Um but I am Helen West. I work for the city of Cortez in community and economic development. And I am also the administrative assistant for the historic preservation board. And tonight I have with me our vice chair, Linda
Tol, who has graciously volunteered to help fill out this application for you all. Um, and I know that there's an action item later, but I just want to briefly go over what the application for historic designation means. This is a designation for the local level, which is very important to understand that
this is not for state or national level. So there are three different levels of historic designation and the farther you go up of course the more restricted and con um yeah restricted the the parameters become. I usually don't recommend state or federal unless it's a
public entity that really wants to keep that preserve that building kind of like our Hawkins or Caulkins building um or the funeral home. This is again for the local level of designation. Um, mana is eligible for local designation. And what
local means is that if you basically keep the feel of the facade, and I'll go into the defining features of the Mana school building. Um, you become eligible for state historical fund grants. They are competitive grants, so you do have to apply for those grants, but without
that local designation, you're not eligible for those grants. And then also you're eligible for any I mean you know government red tape but if you go through the government red tape any historic preservation work that is done to the building could be eligible for state
historic tax credits which as a school district you are allowed to sell. Um so again that's kind of what local designation gets you. You have to keep the general feel of the building. If you decide to take yourself off the registry for any reason it that's cool. you just
do the same process backwards of what I'll talk about today and then you're off the registry or if our board notices I know say the building is demolished or if there's huge changes to the building we take you off the registry automatically because you've destroyed those historic features so really there's
no to stay on the registry locally there's restrictions but not very much and it's very easy to remove yourself um so in the app it has several five character defining features that I'd to bring your attention to and they're uh
the addendum that Linda wrote has lovely pictures even from the 1950s um showcasing these five historic kind of features of the building. Number one is the craftsmanship. So the brick work and the brick construction was done in a very historically important way. The
overall massing and plan and form is very showcasing of that time in um in history particularly the onestory horizontal kind of flat building that mana is. The third uh character defining feature are the projecting fins which are both straight and slanted. Then the
windows which I know can be kind of a complicated feature but the windows are very um kind of defining and then finally that projected bay entry for the school are so those five character defining features of the building. The next steps in this process if you as a
board vote to designate the Manoha school building as historic the application would go to the historic preservation board. Um and that is meets every the first Tuesday of every month. So this case it would be June 3rd and the board votes to recommend or not
recommend to city council historic designation and then from there the application would go to city council that would final make that final determination of designation or not. Um we might be able to get if if the historic preservation board saw this application on June 3rd, we might be
able to get that into council on June 10th, but more likely it would wait until after the 4th of July. I would just like to add a little information about the state historical fund. This is managed by History Colorado, but it is not federal money.
And you know, there are some issues right now with how much money is going to come down for various projects. The money that supports the state historical fund comes from gambling revenues in central city um creek
and blackhawk. Back in 1990, the state passed a law that said that the revenues from everybody who just happily throws their money away. The revenue would come back to the state and 10% of that revenue has to be used to fund historic
preservation projects throughout the state of Colorado. And I will tell you here in Monizuma County, we have gotten millions of dollars in grants from this project. The windows and cockans were paid for that way. the renovation of the
building that became KSJD, Mesaverie National Park, uh the preservation of the flume out by the fairgrounds. I mean, it's a very long list. And they love to give money down to Monizuma County because they're supposed to cover the whole state. And so to be able to say that they're reaching out to this
part of the state is important to them. If you chose to list the building on the city register and were eligible for state historic fund grants, the first thing that they would probably recommend is called a historic structures
assessment. And this would mean that you would apply for a grant maximum of $15,000 that you would hire an architect and they would go in and they would go from seller to ceiling to roof and evaluate everything in the building that
might need to be addressed or repaired if you were to repurpose the building. And they would also set a priority with some estimated costs for doing all of that. So, it's really a good place to start if you want to get involved with a state historic fund. That grant would
require a 10% match, $1,500 max. I know many funds around here that would come up with that small amount of money. So, there really would not be any expense to the school district. [Music]
Um Helen mentioned why uh Mano is eligible. It's more than 50 years old. Obviously, the architectural features that she mentioned uh make it unique. Not not completely unique, but make it important. It's now called midcentury
modern if it's a 1950s building. Um Keer School has been listed on the city register back in 2013. So, Keer would also be eligible for these grants and possible tax credits. Um, the other important part about all of your school
buildings from the 50s and 60s is that they reflect the social and economic changes that were going on within Cortez. Not only was it the post World War II baby boom, but oil and gas and later uranium found out in the
anim. So there was a bigger baby boom here in Cortez because you had all these young families and all of a sudden there wasn't enough room for them in the schools. So Downey Mana Keer um were all built during the 50s and all are
potentially eligible for the city register and possible funding. So you have a lot of information in the packet. Um do you have any questions? So, what's the limitations that you can do as far as construction wise? I you mentioned those five items. Those have
to be basically, I would assume, untouched. Is that right? Well, they have to be handled in a way that makes them compatible with the appearance of the building at the moment. Um, windows are always a big issue. roofs can be a problem, but there's lots of expertise
out there that where buildings have been restored, their features have been maintained, and they are repurposed for modern use. The interior of the building would would not be an issue. It's keeping preserving the the feel and the appearance of the building.
And just to reiterate, the local designation is very different than state or national. um because at state and national levels you start taking public money in a different way than at the local level. We don't have a local fund for historic preservation within the city here. So it's really just generated
um again so if you decide to totally change the building the worst that can happen is we say oh we're taking you off the registry. Um when you get into taking state historical fund money for capital improvements so not those planning improvements you have there's
you know public money comes with strings attached. So, if you were to take capital money for capital improvements, there's sometimes clauses depending on how much money you take from the state that say, I'm not going to tear this building down for 20 years or I'm not going to tear this building down ever. But that again, that's only for capital
improvements, not those planning grants. So, if you were to get a planning grant and then decide to totally demolish the building, um we would take you off the local registry, but there would be no repercussions for that. So, if I remember correctly, um, one of
the issues with repurposing that building, if that were ever done, is that, uh, if I remember correctly, the windows are single pane. And so, one of the concerns would be, um, being able to, uh, upgrade those somehow. How uh is
that possible and still keep the historic um nature of the Well, I'm a retired archaeologist, so I'm not the one to talk to about the windows, but there are plenty of experts up at History Colorado
who administer the state historic fund grants. And what the historic structures assessment would do is address how you would keep those windows but modernize them for energy efficiency. And this was done repeatedly. The windows at Caukins
got replaced and they are not single pane windows anymore. So there are experts out there who know how to do that. And this is not an uncommon issue with preserving old buildings. All right. Thank you. Any other
questions? Okay. Well, thank you so much ladies for presenting that. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Okay. Moving on to reports. Um a celebration reports. So, I would like to just start off that I did attend the um middle
school um end of the year band concert and that was phenomenal. That was absolutely amazing. So, I'm sorry for those of you that missed it, but it was amazing. Um, we do have graduation week coming up. That's a big celebration. So,
um, and our baseball and our Yes, we got our baseball team headed to state the Thursday. We have uh golf, I think, at state right now, I believe. Yeah. So, we've got a lot of lot of good things happening. Um I think nine nine track
they got state medals I believe too I think that's what it should yeah a lot of good things happening. So um anybody else have anything that you need to is Robert doing his now or what's that is Robert going to do his now? Are you doing that doing this? Um
yeah um we got a really big celebration huge. Yep. So, [Music] we'll get around. [Music] So this past week I was able to go up to
Denver with Mr. Rice and Mr. Burus and we were able to go up to the CSU Spur campus which if you ever get up there go. That's where Temple Grand, the autistic uh vet is and has her facility.
Phenomenal. So, if any of your kiddos out there want to become vets, go tour that location. It is amazing. Uh we were pretty shocked when we got an email saying, "Hey, uh come on up to Denver." I'm like,
"Why?" And we were awarded the 2024 Centers of Excellent Excellence Award. And we're going to be putting this up and we'll pass this around. We'll start here and you guys can take a look at it. We're going to be putting this up in the entryway to Mesa. This is a banner that
we were able to receive and I couldn't have done this without my wonderful staff from our custodians to our teachers to our paras to the kitchen staff to my AP anyone who was involved
in our children's lives made a difference in 2024. So I just want to thank you guys for all you do and the support of our school board. So He's nervous. He wants to make sure he gets it back. Yes. Yes. Congratulations
to all of you. Thank you for all that hard work, determination, and yeah, if it's okay, I'll I'll put a little bit more to build up Robert's bubble there a little bit from since I was did get to go up there on this. Um, so there's five awards that they gave up there uh th
Friday or Thursday to the state. Um, and the funny part was was the first thing we got there and they hand out this with all the five awards on there. Here's the center of excellent. And the first thing Robert did was pointed at this one. said, "I'm getting that one next." So, that was pretty neat to see. Um, but
just to give you a little bit about the award there and stuff, too. That was I was pretty impressed with. Um, only 27 schools out of the whole state of Colorado got this award that Mesa got. Um, it was a little bit confusing because there was two other Mesa schools up there, too. One from Grand Junction,
one from somewhere else, I don't remember. But, um, but only 27 got this award, which is pretty neat. Um there was 346 different schools represented there at their awards from 74 different districts. So less than half of the
state um got any kind of an award up there at this at this ceremony. So so to get that I think was a huge huge honor. So congratulations Robert. Thank you for coming and sharing all that with us here. Um do we have any other celebration
reports? If not, um we we do have our student representatives reports, but we um do not have any student representative here this evening, so we will pass that up. Um the superintendent report and thank you, Mr. Ramirez, for being up here with us this evening.
Uh thank you for having me uh this evening members of the board. Uh just briefly on Mr. Bur's superintendent report. I'll read to you that he's very appreciative of the support of allowing him to see his girls during the time he has been superintendent. This evening
his youngest daughter has a band banquet and awards. She's a senior and uh he's in attendance is important to both he and his daughter and he thanks you for having always said family first and I appreciate that vision and commitment.
Okay. Do we have any questions on Mr. Bur's report? Okay. All right. Moving along to assistant superintendent report. Mr. Ramirez, uh for the sake of the uh lengthy agenda today, uh we waved having
a assistant superintendent report, but we do have all the director's report. Should the board have any questions in reference to any of those attachments, uh pills, please feel free to ask. And we have our directors here present in the audience.
I have I had a couple of questions on on the surplus uh buses. I assume those prices on there are those going to be minimum bids. Is that what that is? I don't know if Brad is with us this evening or R. I'm sorry, Mr. Rice. Would you repeat
that again? on the bus surplus sale next to the items and stuff. There's some prices listed over there at the far right. Correct. Is that just a minimum bid that's going to be accepted on those? Is that what? Yes, sir. That's a set minimum bid for those items. Okay. And then when can people see all these
items, I guess, too. We'll need to advertise to give the public uh plenty of time to view the items. So, that'll be published as uh tomorrow as we begin that process. So there's a couple pieces of data that
um I'm I need some clarification on. So um the attendance reports are showing that attendance is above 90% if I understand correctly. Yes sir. Um but uh if you
look at the chronic absenteeism report for the district, it's at 31.4%. So um I'm not understanding how the attendance report and the chronic
absenteeism report jive because I'm I'm expecting not understanding the numbers I'm expecting that um one is the complement of the other. So if the attendance is 90% then the absentee should be 10%. Or if the absentee is 31
then the attendance should be 70 or 69 or whatever. So could you explain why those numbers so or how those correlate? So the definition of chronic absenteeism is 10% absences. So, it actually just
works out. Those numbers work out and I'll be happy to go over those numbers with you. It's a little more complex to do right here, but uh the numbers do make sense if you process them. Uh so, uh the the number that we're seeing in
the absentee is more more related to the number of kids who are this 10% um absentee. Correct? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Knox. And just for the benefit of the
audience, uh, President Noise, uh, the district has, uh, attained above a 90% attendance rate for the district. And, uh, when I first came three years ago, Mr. burst began that work and uh we were
in some campuses below 84%. So, uh the community and the parents and the staff have worked to ensure to encourage students to be in school. Uh you can't learn if you're not in school and we thank the parents and the teachers for
all their hard work. Yeah. Okay. Any other comments, questions for any of our directors? Okay. Well, I would just like to say thank you to all of them be, you know, as we're coming to the end of the year.
Some of you are still working even after um school is out, but I appreciate all your hard work all year long and throughout the summer. So, thank you guys. Okay. Executive director of finance report, Miss Bradford. Good evening, board. Um, my
report is brief tonight as I'll be speaking with you later this evening. Um, but if you have any questions, I'm here to answer those. Um, let's see. A couple of things I had. The dollars for Battle Rock are just flow through. Correct. Those are
just flow through dollars. They got them separated out in there or something if I remember right. Yes. So, they ultimately do just flow through for the most part. I mean, and I'll explain as we go into the budget this evening. There are like some administrative fees that we would take
off of that. Um, however, the majority of it is just flow through. Okay. And then under the other education support parah on behalf it's at 9.06%. Can you explain what that one is? That's why that's only at 9.06%.
So if I'm not mistaken, those are two separate categories. Is that right? No, they're listed as one. They're they're on one line. Okay. Um so the parah on behalf that is completely just an audit entry. Um so
that essentially is a wash at the end of the year. We don't we have some money budgeted in there based upon prior year information. Um but it is a complete wash in revenues and expenses. So what you're seeing reflected in that line is truly um this other category and that includes um discretionary pay and time
off that's paid out at the end of the year for our staff um either that hadn't used it or that are retiring. Um there's some money set aside in there if we required residential supports for some of our students. Um it's sort of some some of it is those
what if situations. Um but mainly what's spent out of it would be the end of year um paytime off. So most of it goes at the very end then of the year. Correct. Okay. Okay. That's all I had.
All right. Thank you, Danielle. Okay. Moving on to the executive director of ESS report, Lisa Migle. Okay. And I'll bring my report to you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The whole entire agenda
pack is in my office. I can see it on the screen. And I will briefly review my report. I didn't I was waiting on a couple numbers which is why you didn't have it sooner. So I wanted to make sure you had it in copy um here. Really what
I wanted to do was capture a little bit of what I'm looking at as far as um staffing specific to special education and um what we did in the 202 or the 202425 school year um and kind of how I got there and then what my plans are
going into to this next year. So uh this year we had two licensed virtual virtual special education teachers that were working in the background to help support. we had several new teachers, so they were there to help support. Um, and
it kind of talks about working in the background, writing IEPs, helping attend meetings, making sure that we're following all the laws, and then verifying as the teachers learned that they were doing everything um that they needed to do uh completely and accurately. So, this year we had 19
special education teachers. Uh, six were returning um that were licensed in special education. We brought on four H1B uh uh teachers, nine J1 teachers, and they're all licensed teachers with valid Colorado teaching licenses. We had 13
openings at the end of the 2324 school year, and I thought it was important for you to understand where those openings happened. We had three that just were unfilled positions the year before. We just didn't have anybody that ever filled those positions. We did have one retirement. We had five that were not licensed or were covered by long-term
subs. We had four that actually found higher paying positions in other locations. And then we had one that had taken a different position within the district. So hopefully 2425 we won't have a lot of changes in in our staff
and that will uh going into this next school year. I also included for you just a a brief uh count of the number of students they that we have uh receiving services in each of our buildings and that I in this list I
included charter uh schools as well. What I looked at was the beginning of the school year which was our October count and then a count as of this week um is that second column. So there are some differences there and a lot of things happen in the school year. So it wouldn't be fair to say it's any one
reason. It's multiple reasons that those numbers will change. They go up and down throughout the year. When you turn the page, I have the anticipated numbers going into 2526 based on our current enrollment and what I uh am recommending for my teacher
counts per building. And down below what I have listed is really the the ratio uh recommendations for teacher to students based on their different needs and levels. Of course it is an estimate and it's a recommended amount, but we always
look at what those student needs are. So if we need more staff, we're going to make sure that we're addressing those needs. So that's my quick report in a nutshell. Are there any questions? Yes. Um, I don't see it written, but I I
I'm assuming that the uh openings that you have for this year are none. The all the positions are filled this year. Correct. Correct. As of this moment, they are all all filled. I know there's a position we're taking
over from Boseies. Correct. Here, a coordinator. Is that right? Unknown yet. That has not been decided. There's there's been some talk about something along those lines, but we don't have anything uh confirmed at this moment. Okay. Yes. I I will add to this that uh
this team um although brand new, they did over 330 IEP meetings this year, which is a lot. So, um I'm pretty proud of our team and what we've accomplished this year with with a lot of uh new feet on the ground here. So,
Thank you. All right. Does anybody have any questions, comments for Miss Migle? All right. And we will move on to uh executive director of student academic services report.
Madame President, I have the honor to fill in for Mr. Parr who is uh present with his daughter uh celebrating part of the graduation process and some of the programs that are going on and we wish him uh we
congratulate him on on that milestone that he's reached but Mr. The first attachments you'll see the district information regarding reading and math and it has to do with the 2425
uh test with those four categories that lists the movement of students from the urgent intervention to intervention or intervention to onwatch or to the students that uh moved on to the 50th
percentile and above. In the district, uh we had 554 students. Uh in the spring, 622. Uh so you see a change of 68 students or 6% movement in where they're
performing. And other categories, you'll see the percentages that may be moved up one band or two bands. And then it the reading uh comparison from last year the uh 23 24 school year and the 2425 is the
bottom chart on that first page and it also uh gives you a comparison when you compare the two years. Uh on the back of or the second page of Mr. Parr's report for the district, you'll see math because the f front page that I spoke
about was reading and so you'll see the same kind of breakdown. And today we're uh blessed to have our principles here and uh they have an order that Mr. Paul recommended that they go and report to you uh for their campus and we'll begin
with Keer Elementary. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. The handout that you've been given is available on board dogs. Good evening.
I am here um to present our endofear data. The first page highlights our star growth. So this data captures the percentage of students who met the 55th growth percentile per grade
level. And just a clarification in elementary um kindergarten and first grade students take early literacy. um star test and kindergarten does not take math. It's and then first grade they start taking the math assessment.
So you'll see that kindergarten there is not a score for math. Um the second page showcases Keer's achievement scores. So those scores are from the beginning of the year to the
end of year in both ELA and math. Um this data is broken down by grade levels and performance bands. Just want to acknowledge our staff. Um we've have shown tremendous growth this year. We know the work is not done and
we're just going to carry this momentum into next year. I will answer any questions. Anybody have any questions for Miss Neil? Yeah, that first grade math went from 14 to 52. Yeah, we had some really
great areas of growth and achievement. So, a lot to celebrate with our Keer staff and students. Yeah. Okay. I'm I have a question. When we're looking at this and seeing only 50 or
40% uh achieve that student growth, does that mean that the other half is is is not achieving that for that year and then the following year they're not achieving it again and such that you know by fifth grade some could still be at first or second grade level. That
could happen. Yes. Okay. And that's where our teachers do that those data dives to really target those students and that and that data specifically. So that is um activities that they do throughout the school year
and then we'll dive into this as well. So do you have any um feel for how this uh these tests correlate to CAMASS? I I don't I think we've had that conversation before. I think um there is
a we have changed our this is a 50th growth percentile. We have changed our percentage to 55th growth percentile with looking at like Randa and and how we dive into that data. Um so we have decided to increase that metrics within
STAR um to hopefully correlate that better to Camass. I also forgot to mention earlier in Mr. Parr's district report, there's a link on our district uh homepage and you can click that link
that says district data. Um and it'll take you to the Aubry dashboard. That's a new software that we have that we're using to warehouse different uh information whether it be attendance or teacher grades or star
data or CAMASS, PSAT or SAT, but that's available to the public and everyone uh to track and see that. And CAMASS is not on there, but as soon as we receive the raw data and we're allowed to release it, it'll be populated on Aubry. And so
you can see much more drill down information. And that's a added benefit to the principles and to the teachers to use when they look at planning uh in the by the nine weeks and they look at their teacher grades and of course their common based assessments that they'll be
creating next year and also the district interim assessment which is a star which will be at the end of each nine weeks. So that'll be administered four times next year. And so this is all exciting because this is data that informs instruction. And I just want the board
to know that that's some of the technology support that we're trying to provide the teachers and the principles to help do their work. I do have another question. In kindergarten, yeah, are those tests done one- on-one with each student? Uh in
STAR, no, they are not. It is done in a class setting. Teachers can def determine how they do that if it's in a like a table or something, but most of our teachers do it as a whole class setting. Um, unless the student has special accommodations per plan. Thanks.
All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Good evening, board. I believe Deb, my stuff is in board docs, right? Yes, it is. Yes. So, I'd just like to reiterate what Mrs. Nelson was talking about the fact that kindergarten and first grade used the
early literacy test um from Renaissance. Second grade through fifth grade um utilize the reading test. Um historically, we do see some differences in that. The early literacy scores tend to be pop up pretty high because it's not quite the same as the dibbles, which is the other assessment we look at for
pre-ereading skills. So, we are constantly comparing how kids are coming across on dibbles to that early literacy score. Um, and again, you'll notice on mine that it's does not test for math and kindergarten. Um, I structured my report just a little different. I did
the reading column first for students at or above the 50th percentile, which is that benchmark um that we're looking at to hopefully be predictive for CMAS. And then the next column is the reading um growth percentile which was set at the 55th percentile. So you can kind of
compare in kindergarten what growth rates we were seeing compared to kids on on I'll say on grade level or meeting that that benchmark, excuse me. Um and then I did the same for math. So you can compare the percent of kids at the 50th percentile versus the growth for that
class. Very good. And just, you know, as a reminder, because we are so small with a few students being tested, I can't really comment on specific grade levels because it does tend to lead to revealing identity of students or groups of
students, but we can have private conversations if you have questions on that individually. Any questions or comments? No. Look really good. Good job. Yeah. I mean, and it's, you know, we're we are working to try and get those upper grades better. pretty
consistent with those numbers. So, our push is to really, you know, when we look at 78, we realize the kids that aren't meeting that and that's really where our focus is when we do our PLC meetings and stuff. So, what can we change to get those kids as they're as they have those reading skills, but then
when it switches to comprehension and things like that, that's where our focus is for grades three through five. Good. Good. Exciting news. Any questions? No. Looks really good. Exciting. Thank you. Oh, good. We don't have to look at it
sideways. This data is also available. Thank you. Oh, look at you being dancing. Thank you. His will be easier to read since board docs is sideways.
Sideways. Oh, I even took I'm sorry. I'll correct that tomorrow. But the paper's larger. Yeah. Good evening, school board and Mr. Ramirez and support staff. Uh, so what you guys have in front of you is Mesa's data. So,
we're going to start on the far right side with dibbles. Uh, kinder, we had a big drop in urgent intervention students, which is what you want to see. Urgent intervention students scored at benchmark in their phmic awareness. So, those kids that are still red were
showing some growth into the green bands. And this is attributed to Hegerty, and I always say that wrong, but I did get it right tonight. and core 95 instruction. First grade, 60% of our students are at or above grade level in
their composite scores. That's tremendous, tremendous growth. Second grade scores are stagnant with minimal growth and this was deemed not acceptable and changes are being made for the upcoming 2526 school year to address this issue. grades three through
five. Third grade, 40% 47% of our students are at benchmark or above. Fourth grade, 58% of our students are at benchmark or above. And 60% of our fifth grade students are at benchmark or above in composite scores. So what is a
composite score? Composite scores are a combination of dibble scores providing a comprehensive assessment of literacy skills and reading proficiency. This gives us an overall estimate of a student's reading proficiency. Fourth and fifth grades
showed great growth in their fluency scores. This is attributed to a program that we purchased called Flow Fluency. Flow, I'm sorry, Flow Reading Fluency Program that assists students in vocabulary prediction, fluency practice, summary,
and feedback by the program. So in star math overall minimal movement and again not acceptable. We're going to create some intervention groups to address this program in 202526 school year. First grade a 20%
growth and benchmark or above was seen and from beginning of year to end of year. Second grade was stagnant. Third grade showed a modest improvement of 6%. Fourth grade showed an improvement of 12% from beginning of year to end of year. We did see movement across the
bands from urgent intervention to strategic and then to watch which is desired. Fifth grade end of year scores were deemed unacceptable. Once again, this is going to be addressed by our team. We
attribute this testing to waiting at the end of the window for our STAR testing instead of going right after it when we did CAMASS which the kids are already in that testing mode. So that lag cost us and that's what I think was my error in
making that happen. We should have went right away. Um this waiting period was not beneficial to our students best interest and will be rectified in the next school year. reading. Overall, Mesa's ELA scores for K through 5 showed
improvement from 12% to 29% at the beginning of the year to 41% at the end of the year. Kindergarten early literacy scores grew by 44% from 21% at the beginning of the school year to
65% at the end of the year. So, I have some wonderful early literacy teachers. First grade grew by 11% from the beginning of the year from 41% to 52%. Second and third grade show a minimal increase in end of year data.
This is again concerning and will be addressed by us in 2025 2026. Just to let you know we are already in process of addressing these needs with relay school of gradu relay graduate school of education which has
been tremendous. Will Barnes, if he's listening, thank you. Uh he's been assisting us in getting us from red to green. Fourth grade show an increase in star from 13% from 31% to 44% and fifth grade
showed an increase of 8%. So in summary, the data has been broken down to students and teacher and is being addressed on an individual basis. Students that did not score at or above grade level in grades K through two have been invited to attend the
2025 summer school that is focusing on literacy skills. As of today, 91 students will be attending. This is a combination of Mesa, Keer, and Lewis Areola elementary schools. Mesa second grade has been reorganized for the following year with
more experienced staff allowing us to better meet the needs of our students. Fourth grade staff will be looping up with their fifth grade students to continue the success they are seeing today. Our fifth grade staff will be moving to fourth grade and will have an
additional veteran teacher joining them. Mesa will not settle for mediocrity and will continue to strive for 100% of our students at or above grade level. And like Mr. Rice says we're not done. We're going to go hopefully up
next year to see some more awards. And board members, please come to Mesa. We only have a day and a half left. So, we'd like to see it. Quick question. Is that going to be some something in the norm where you're going to have the fourth grade move up to fifth? Like
where they're going to have those kids for two years in a row roughly in a Yeah, they made tremendous growth. They approached uh Miss Croak and I and said, "Hey, this is what we like to do." So they had to kind of justify it to us and fight for it. And we were like, "Okay, let's see this." I mean, they've made
tremendous growth with them. And by doing that, they don't have to start at the beginning of the year, waste a week of let's get the rules, you know, and everything established. They're like right into it. They're ready to go. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. All right. Um, executive director of human resources. Oh, oh, sorry. Oh, no. No. Go right ahead. Oh, Mr. Pearson, I'm so sorry. I don't want to leave you out at all.
Sorry. So many schools. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Well, good evening board. Um, Mr. Far told us that we have five minutes a piece and Robert took nine and a half. So, I have 30 seconds to tell you about
my data and I'm good at that. So, um, what I've shared with you just to give you a little background and context that Mr. asked us to share kind of our student growth percentile in terms of what the actual growth percentile of the average per classes were as well as the
number of students who met the 50th growth percentile. So, just to clarify, because even at our district strategic planning, there was a little bit of debate about what some of these numbers mean, and I just want to be clear. Student growth percentile means if we're looking at the nationwide averages of these numbers, what a student falls in
is going to be if they're in the 43rd, that means that they're higher than 43% of the country in terms of their growth in that year, in that period of time from fall to spring. So, that's what those numbers look like. Obviously, what we're shooting for is above 50th. That
means they're on average at least. Um, Mr. Lynch, I believe, and Katie was referencing this. I believe that we heard a couple years ago, that 55th growth percentile is what they can most closely represent growth average for SEMAS. And so that's kind of what we were told. If we're hitting the 55th
growth percentile, that means they're probably hitting performance growth in CAMASS. Um, so what you can see here for our student growth percentiles is just an average over the past three years. This is the average of our student growth percentile rankings. So, it's kind of looking at across the board of
all the students that tested. Um, and generally speaking, what you can see like in in math in 2022 2023, we're at the 52nd growth percentile on average. This last year, we were at the 47th and this year we were at the 50th percentile on average as a whole school. It's
broken down by individual grades and I won't read those out loud, but then in reading, um, two years ago we were in the 51st. This last year we were in the 52nd and this year we're in the 53rd on average. So that's very encouraging to me because we've made a lot of growth in our seam mass and we've seen our scores
improve as a whole overall. And so when I see those trends continuing to move forward and even after that growth that's that's what we need. Um the conversation a lot has been you know we need to see achievement and I I say repeatedly growth over years like consistent growth over years is how you
get achievement. You got to continue to grow at rates beyond just the norm. And so when we're starting to see these numbers go above that 50th growth percentile for consistent years, that tells me that's what we're doing to close those gaps in achievement as well. And so um in terms of percentages of student above the 50th gross percentile,
I did this a few weeks ago and then Mr. Parr's report that is in the district report actually I think is from yesterday. So there's actually increased numbers um as a whole school. we were in the we had 40% of our students make above the 50th growth percentile for
this year in math and we had 43% of our students make above the 50th growth percentile in reading. So that is kind of the summary of our data. Um all in all when you see that over years it it makes me very excited and I want to see those numbers continue to grow and grow.
Um, but when I see that more than half and the average of our students is making um above the 50th growth percentile, that's really exciting to me. So, I'll stand for any questions. Last year in math was 40%. Um, no, on the on the far right where
it's the percentage of students above Mr. Parr's report was ran yesterday where this was ran like two weeks ago. So, that number is actually increased by 3%. So I turned it in when he told me to, but he took the advantage of being able
to turn stuff in. So Okay, Drew, there seems to be some wide disparities between the grade levels. is is is that just cyclical or is there an ongoing trend there or particular strategy or so if you could see ongoing
trends what you would look at would be like in 2022 6th grade then 2023 7th grade 2024 8ighth grade which there's not a trend those ways um a lot of what you can attribute it to is staffing um consistency in staffing I think is such an important factor in being able to see
a lot of those growth numbers um you know I I will say you know our we there's a number on there that we have some concern about. And so we're addressing and looking at those kind of things. It's particularly low this year. And so that's that's what we're trying to address and and read those things.
It's not always as quick and easy as you'd like it to be, but there's some things that are a little bit more obvious. For example, the reading last year in the growth um in eighth grade compared to this this year in eighth grade and then seventh grade like that. To me, I I've looked at that and tried to put a thumb on why it's like that and
I I don't have an answer for it. But what it does is kind of give us a a place of where we are and where we need to continue to look to support these students. So when we see like the sixth grade and there's 36% correct, does that mean you were understaffed in math
teachers this year? But like the the prior year they were underserved and so um yeah. Yeah, that's what I was alluding to. We were not under staff, but both of those two teachers are um J1 teachers that were new this year. one of them arrived October and so suffice it
to say there was a lot of adapt you know adapting for them as they were learning this curriculum our student population those kind of things as well as teaching math and so I there's some degree that I can attribute it to that um and that's some of the things that we're working on we've met with our leadership team and discuss that one of the things that we
really want to do is as a school we're focusing a lot of our energies to sixth grade to say hey we want to build a foundation and really um support our students to with the culture that we want in our school and what the expectations are. And so one of my teachers who I she was texting me earlier, I believe she might be here. Um
she has graciously gone from 8th grade down to sixth grade this next year to support that exact effort in our math department and say, "Okay, we're going to set that foundation to really get our kids founded in what we want in the middle school and then continue to grow and build on that is there in our because I feel like we've got a a pretty
well established culture, but those sixth graders are coming in new to it." So, and does this now mean that next year they have an even longer runway of potential growth to achieve? Yes. I mean, theoretically, yes. It what I don't have the data for is it could be
because they did a phenomenal job in eighth grade and so that orth grade and that growth could have been a little bit more difficult and I don't I don't have access to that data personally. That could be if we looked at some longitudinal data through elementary, we might be able to see that. Yeah. Okay.
Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? No. Thank you, Mr. Pearson. All right, Dr. Bonaface. stupid. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take me five
minutes. Okay, that's super tall. All right. So, starting off, I just want to say this is not SAT, but I do want to comment that two years ago, we did not hit proficiency and participation and we did not quite hit proficiency on um
achievement. Um but this is really positive um movement in STAR and we also struggled with our STAR scores. But I want to start with our math. The front page is just our average student growth percentile. As a district, we decided to set the goal at 55. And if you notice,
every single grade level went above that. So, in freshman, we have 57, 10th grade 61, 11th grade 57, 12th grade 58. Um, and an overall of 58. So, that's over the 55 we had set as a district.
So, I was proud of those numbers. Um if you want to change the page over one, this is um data on our students above proficiency level level by number. So number of students who tested. Um this is something we've worked really hard on on both SAT and STARS to get more kids
to take the test and to take it seriously. At the high school that can be a challenge because they're pretty over testing. Um they've done STARS since they were a little tiny. Um, so our teachers, our staff, the kids have all worked really hard to get these numbers up and you can see that that
jump in SAT last year and this year we hit almost 100% tested in in PSAT and SAT and then from the fall star test we had only 188 students test and the spring we had 261. So that's a big jump. Um, and you see the numbers also grew.
Um, from 9th grade we had 68 in the fall to 95 in the spring. for 10th grade 46 up to 70, 11th grade 46 to 56, and 12th grade 28 to 40. Um, so that's really positive. Um, getting more kids to take it seriously and be more attentive. And
then if you turn the page over to the last page, um, this is the students above proficiency level by percent. And that's what Mr. Pearson was talking about with over the certain percentage. So, in the fall we were at 49%. Um, and
that grew 10 percentage points up to 59 in the spring. Um, every single grade level again showed a big increase in the percentage of growth and above proficiency for our students. So, um, we're really happy for those numbers and we hope those
same the same type of growth can be seen on SAT this year and PSAT. Um, if you look at reading, it's similar. Um the front page tells you that average student growth percentile. Again, we set the aim at 55 and we hit overall 57. Our freshman and sophomores were just a
teeny bit lower at 53. Um juniors hit right at 55 and our seniors stomped it at 66. So that was really good. Um if you turn the page over, you have uh students above proficiency level by number. This one isn't as exciting. Um
we did drop in freshmen. We went from 70 tested to only 46 uh freshman in the in the spring. Um sophomores did a little bit better. We went from 48 to 52. Juniors struggled a bit. Went from 40 down to 29, but seniors did test more.
We had 41 and then 54 tests in the spring. Um our numbers did go down for reading, but we did have um a couple reasons for that. If you remember back to January, um if you turn to the last page, this is
also PO positive movement. So fall we went from 44% of our students who are at uh or above, I'm sorry, above proficiency level and now in the spring we were at 51. So that's again really positive growth and more students
showing at grade level or above. What questions do you have for me? I went fast. No, I don't have any any questions coming. Nope. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Okay. Okay. Okay, now moving on to the executive director of human resources report, Justin Schmidt. Yeah, that that one. So, for my report today, Mr. Bur had
asked me to work with Dr. Bonaface to present to the board uh the plan that the high school has for content advancement and providing opportunities for students who are um on the GT uh
that are in GT who are on an advanced pathway uh through high school. And so Dr. Bonaface is going to give the first uh portion of this and then I'll step in for the second portion and then Dr. Kevin Eightton is here from PCC to give us some information um about what
they're offering and and our partnership there. Thank you board and thank you parents, students for all being here. We do appreciate you coming. Um there are rumors swirling um a lot of things being said and I just wanted this opportunity to clear up some confusion. Um I also
before you change the slides I'll just tell you part of my passion is making sure all students have their needs met. Um I am a mother of four just so you know. Um, I have two older kids. I have a 21-year-old, an 18-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 9-year-old. Um, two
of my kids were on GT, my oldest two. Um, my third is going through the identification stage, and my fourth is a squirrel, and he shows it. Um, so my son graduated from Ignasho High School, my oldest, um, as a sophomore in college,
um, when he graduated. So, he did do this advancement opportunity through a different high school. um and he went his senior year full-time to Fort Lewis. Um my daughter went to Dolores three years of her four and then she transferred last year to MCHS and she
graduated with an associates degree. So I definitely know what it takes and I want people to know this is coming from a place of passion for kids and passion for GT and passion for advancement. It just is a little different look than we've had before. And so with that, you
can go ahead and change a slide. Um, so we want to increase the opportunities and we want to increase the high expectations. We want more rigor in our high school. Um, we want high expectations for all of our students. Um, and we want the content to be on
level or above and to be standardsbased. We have not had curriculum for many years. I don't know how long. Um, or we've had some curriculum here and there. We finally have, thanks to you all, a curriculum coming and this is our opportunity to really do great things.
Um there's been some rumors also about reduction in programming. We're actually increasing the programming um and adding more pathways, more opportunities, more electives, and more career and technical education for students. Um, we do want all students to have access to teachers
and programs if the requirements are met, but we also want to eliminate segregation of students. Tracking is illegal. Um, we never want to have classrooms that are strictly just all G um ESS. It's you're not allowed to have a classroom all ESS students. Students
learn from their peers. We want mixed abilities, but we also want kids to be able to focus on learning without a bunch of behavior. So we don't want segregation of kids and we want to provide true content advancement rather than just calling a course advanced with
a title when the curriculum is exactly the same. Um so with that next slide. Um so students can apply for content advancement in any subject area. Um there's certain requirements that need to be met. um goes through a counselor,
it goes through administration, but to qualify, there's some prerequisite courses. Sometimes we do use student performance data. So, like we just talked about with STAR, with CAMASS, with SAT, PSAT, with teacher recommendations, if a student has the
scores that qualify in the grades that qualify and they're ready for that push, there's no reason we won't approve that plan. Um, we do take recommendations from teachers seriously. they have seen what the student is capable all year and then we'll meet with that student and the parents and
make sure the parents are also on board and make that plan. Um, go ahead. Next slide. So, for example, here's some examples of how this works. Um, math is fairly similar to what it's been in the past, but if you're an eighth grade student and you're already taking algebra 1, you're going to come up to
high school and take geometry. After that, you might go straight into algebra 2. in 10th grade, move on to pre-calc, trigonometry, calculus, or other advanced classes. We also are partnering with PCC, which I'll get to in a little bit, with even more opportunities there.
Um, we did increase our graduation requirements for math for four credits on a standard diploma. Um, higher education requirements in Colorado, but kind of across the US, require four years of math. we were somewhat doing a disservice to our students by only
requiring three, but we want to make sure our students on the career pathway also have the ability to still take business math. So, that is still an opportunity to have on there and they can learn more of the business side of math rather than algebra, too. Um, we can go to the next one. So, for science,
there's advanced advancement opportunities here as well. So, we do want all students in ninth grade to take biology, get a feel for high school, get a science with a lab under your belt. From here, most kids would go into physical science as a 10th grader. This used to be a freshman level class, but
the math was pretty excessive and our failure rate was extremely high. And so, we want to make sure kids have algebra 1 under their belt before they go upward into physical science. But some kids are already ready for that. They took algebra 1 in eighth grade. So, maybe they want to pursue science as a career.
they can get this approval with their grades and their teacher recommendation and jump straight into physics or SC or chemistry and forego physical science completely. Um from there they can take anatomy, physiology, forensics, earth science or they can take concurrent
enrollment college classes in science. Um so again all kids have to have three science credits with a with two having a lab. Um but we do recommend if a student wants that university pathway, you should take four. Um and so you should start off with biology and then jump
ahead and get all four years done. Um but that's an example for science and we can go on for English and this is all new. So in years past we had advanced English one, advanced English 2, regular English one, regular English 2. The curriculum was identical and it was
actually far below grade level. We were reading sixth grade novels, doing a lot of writing that was paragraphs, not in all classes, but it was hit or miss. which teacher you got depend on what curriculum you got. We want to make sure with our new curriculum kids are in difficult rigorous classes but they're
placed appropriately. So if a student feels they're strong in English, maybe they're GT in reading, they can take a jump. So, come into high school, maybe you already took English 9 as an eighth grader, but if you didn't take English 9, if you get the grades, you get the
PSAT scores, you can skip ahead to junior year as a sophomore and then go into college classes early, take literature, take English 1021, English 1022, and come out on top with advancement in English. But it's truly
advanced, and it's not just a title. Next, social studies is another opportunity. So um in years past only three credits were required. We are bumping that up to four. The reason being that economics and um financial literacy is coming down from the state
of Colorado as a requirement to graduate. It's also hugely important for students to learn about finances in high school. I know you've all seen the memes across the world about I wish I would have learned how to do my taxes rather than algebra. They're both important but we want that to be in place. That is
where you learn about that is in economics. So, we are going to start this with our incoming freshmen, but we do want it out there for all students to take advantage of. But let's say you want to advance in social studies. You can come in and you can take world
history, US history, and then decide to take a college class for American government, a college class for economics, and then take a whole another college class for your fourth year. And you have three college classes before you're out the door of high school just in history. Um, so that's how you
advance in social studies. Um, we do have the new curriculum coming in ELA, science and social studies. We are putting a renewed focus on our math curriculum. We do have it is highly rated. We looked into it
very deeply. We purchased it in 2020. Is it the newest? No. But it is highly rated. So, we're just going to make sure we are using that across our grade levels and we're focusing on standards and grade level content being taught. Um, these materials that we're bringing
in have built-in advancement and enrichment activities already and they also have the more differentiated approach for our students who struggle. So, that's a benefit of the curriculum we chose. It's not just a straight across for everybody. It has options for
every kid no matter where you stand. Um, we are going to be providing training and we're doing days over the summer with every one of our departments to work on this curriculum. So, we come out before the fall with pacing guides, lesson plans, and we're ready to go for
students. And you're up. Should I ask questions before I let you go? Let's just let's just go through questions at the end. Yeah. Um, I don't know if I want to go through all of this because after I saw Dr. Eighton's
presentation, some of our stuff was pretty aligned. Um, just briefly, there are a lot of advantages that concurrent enrollment provides over AP courses, and they're listed there. Uh, in the past at the high school, it was a combination of
concurrent enrollment and AP. um it's difficult to offer a robust offering of both of those things, but the value proposition that is offered with concurrent enrollment is substantially more than that of an AP course. Um and I'll let Dr. Eightton get into the
details of that um during his presentation. We do have a partnership with PCC. Uh we are working collaboratively to offer even more opportunities. And so what that looks like is working with teachers, the administration at the high school, administration at PCC to certify more
teachers to provide onampus concurrent enrollment offerings. We feel strongly that the onampus offerings are superior to the online offerings because you have a teacher there to work with you on the content, deliver direct instruction, check for understanding in real time.
students aren't on their own uh you know without someone to ask questions to. They don't have to wait for days to receive feedback. Um we also have the ability to have a more direct impact on the quality of instruction when it's one of our teachers. Um having worked as a
as a high school principal for years working with PCC um when we're talk and it wasn't just PCC instructors this was the Colorado community college uh the collaborative Colorado community colleges or consortium rather. So, we had teachers from all over. Morgan Community College, Pikes Peak, PCC, any community college
that was a member of that consortium. And I will tell you that not all college uh instructors are created equal. I had some students who had very challenging coursework. And I had others that our high school coursework was far superior to. And so having this on campus with the ability to um work exclusively with
PCC and not these other community colleges and also to have a direct impact on the quality of instruction in the classroom is going to improve the offerings for our kids. Um one other thing a couple of other things uh we do want to move more
to having another piece of that is that if we are offering it on site then they have to be taken on site. kids can't avoid taking classes in person with a teacher because they don't like that teacher or um you know they just like the flexibility of being at home. If we
offer it, they'll take it with our teacher on site as opposed to online unless there's an extenduating circumstances approved by the building administration to approve off-site online for that particular student. So concurrent enrollment, it's important to have a plan. Sometimes
concurrent enrollment becomes a little bit of a GPA arms race. And so kids are wanting to take concurrent enrollment classes, as many as they can, but it's not always directed at a goal of completing an associates degree or ensuring that they're getting their
gened requirements taken care of for their, you know, their first two years of college prior to going to their junior year. The classes that they take need to be aligned with state standards. uh we need to make sure we're satisfying state standards and graduation requirements if we're going to be
approving those courses. Um so what is it not? It's I already kind of addressed on these things. It's not just for boosting GPA and it's not to avoid teachers we don't like. Uh one other thing that we need to
address through this process is how credits are weighted. Um, our current methodology for awarding credits is if a student takes a one semester college class and in some cases an eight-week college class, they're awarded one full
high school credit, meaning two semesters of high school credit for one full and we t we touched base on this earlier at a previous board meeting, but Mr. Burus wanted me to get into it with a little bit more detail. A regular high school class is worth a half a credit.
So, a couple of scenarios here. If a student currently, scenario one, takes four high school classes and three concurrent enrollment classes, they're going to earn five credits, whereas their counterpart in high school classes is going to earn three and a half in
that same semester's time. In addition to that, the GPA points that they're awarded are not only already weighted, but they're doubled um for the classes that they took. So they will receive 42 GPA points for one semester and that's
only taking four college three college classes as as compared to somebody taking all high school classes of 28. And that's what sort of creates this arms race because once they get into this mode then anytime then they they're resistant to taking any high school classes for the rest of their time
because it reduces their GPA. That's the fact regardless if we're waiting but when we wait it in the way that we are now it it just exacerbates that problem tremendously. So, what we're what we're moving to is we'll continue to weight those classes. So, students will still receive
a weighted GPA um but they won't get double credit for a class taken in high school. I mean, sorry, at the college or through one of our instructors that's concurrent enrollment. And so in this scenario, they're still earning three and a half credits and they and in all scenarios, they're still getting their college credit as well, but the GPA
points they're earning are three points difference rather than 14 points different. And in a if you're looking at a smaller sample size of courses, it actually boosts their GPA a little bit more, but that's because you're you're counting those classes less. The more classes that factor in, the more that
levels out. And I think one one thing I'd like to say also is there's a there's sort of a false equivalency that some people draw when they're looking at college courses. There's an assumption made that because a kid took a college class, just a class, that that's equivalent to a high
school class for a full year. Well, college classes aren't designed in any way to be an equivalency measure with high school classes. They're they're designed for different reasons. They have different hours of instruction. They have different requirements. You're not Our job is not to say that's a
college class, so therefore we're going to count it as a full year of high school. Our goal is or our job is to make sure that we're ensuring that all of the standards are being met by that college class. And in many in many cases, they're not meeting a full year's worth of high school standards. Um, a
good example is if a student is taking a um a PCC comp 121 class, well, there's not a whole lot of literature in that class, whereas that is a high school standard. And so to pair that with a high school, I mean, sorry, a college literature class the second semester um
would give like a lit 1050 class, that would mean that the students getting all of their high school credits or standards met, but they're also getting the college uh credit both semesters. um just one example in one content area. All right, that brings me to the
end of our piece and I'm going to ask uh Dr. eight to come up here and he's going to talk about PCC for a second. Dr. President Noyas, Assistant Superintendent Ramirez, members of the board, Assistant Ramsey, it's my this distinct honor to be here this evening
to talk to you about all these matters around um higher education and the world that we're in today and and how this fits. The good news is that the the geniuses under the Golden Dome have done one thing right. They have highly incent
people probably think they've done two or three things right, but I'll take this one as a win. They have highly incentivized concurrent enrollment. Why? Well, we're going to see. It's a it's a huge benefit to our students. Not only is like the daughter of Dr. Bonaface and
others. Um, and we saw it Saturday. If you were with us, thank you for letting you us use Monzuma Cortez High School for our graduation. We had five learners graduate with a high school diploma and an associates on Saturday. That's
amazing. And if you think about that just in terms of college, and I have two sons that graduated from CSU, how much money is that? Tens of thousands of dollars in
real benefit. real benefit and they get rigorous curriculum. Um, as many of you know, our flag pole is in Pueblo. We have a Fremont campus, but that we also have a large um, site in Durango and Manus. Um, I want to tell you a little
bit about my story because I think it's salient and we heard Dr. Bonaface give a story or Mr. Schmidt give a story. Um, I've been an educational leader for 28 years. years. I was a large high school principal. 20 We had 1,200 students on the front range. I sent students,
hundreds of students to Front Range. We also had advanced placement. I'm the son. I have two sons. My wife and I have two sons. One would not have a degree from Colorado State University if it hadn't been for an
associate. His path was a different path through community college. My wife is a retired national board certified teacher. Have you guys heard of national board certified? One or two% of educators in America. She taught she started out in AP. She taught
international balorate. She taught four years of international balorate. Fairview High School. Can't say this. She didn't have a a passing score is a five on an IB test. Every student but one in four years got sixes and sevens. Not every kid was even passing at
Fairview. and she will tell you that concurrent enrollment is the best deal. Colorado has made it great. And if we can get a triple dip out of it, in other words, they get a diploma, they get that college credit, and they get a
skill to get them out of my basement is what I told my sons, right? Some of you, you're laughing, but it's true. And it's free. And I think we forget about that. Um, PBLO Community College is 6,000 students right now.
Concurrent enroll, we're about 5,900. Half of our students are concurrent enrollment now across the college. Um, we're lucky of the 13 schools in the system, we're up enrollment. We have lots of good news on our campus. There are seven or eight of
our 13 partners that are not in near as good a place as we are. And part of that is because the work that is happening in high schools and Monzuma Cortez High School, you'll see you're a big customer for us and we appreciate that. Uh we have 1400 plus certificates. And what
many people don't know now is that if you'll look at the bottom line of the slide, we offer bachelor's degrees now. And we had a graduate with a bachelor of science in nursing on Saturday. We offer nine different areas of bachelors of applied science. Another thing that Colorado has got right. This just goes
through all of them and this is a list. It goes on and on forever. If I would have Miss Ramsey, you don't have to hit the click have to click the, you know, click the link. Um, we serve 6,500 miles. We had two nursing students graduate Saturday who are not on this map. They came from Plasterville. Well,
Rico is Plasterville and Rico. They they were driving two hours a day to come to us and now they're nurses. Told you we have sites. All of our instructors have to be cleared from the Higher Learning Commission. Why that's important and you heard Mr. Schmidt and and Dr. Bonaf
speak about this is that I would agree with you. We believe that the best possible scenario is when your high school instructors are certified. Number one, you get a better teacher. She's got a she's got a master's. She's got 18 credits in her area and and and you get
better instruction as Mr. Smith said. That's the best. But if it can't happen, we are here. and and so I've done two stints as an intercampus leader with PCC. What we've needed is is math faculty and we have finally been given
permission. We have posted math faculty. We're going to have a math faculty position in the fall. I heard lots of speaking tonight about concerns about math. I share your concerns, but I'm telling you, we're here to support you. And I think and I I I talked to um Mr.
Walker at Dolores. I said, "If we can combine Dolores and MCHS kids, we can have a heck of a math class." And we already know we have faculty coming. So, it it allows us to be that kind of partner and fill in around the
edges. Um, you're a big customer for us. Um, we appreciate that. Um, Miss Bradford, I I got good news for you. The checks in the mail. I know she's looking at me like in finance. She's got that skeptical face.
$9,014 we're writing for you for fall for fees and some of those things. The spring will probably be about the same. That check went in the mail today. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for being a great partner. But that's the difference. There is this transaction of where where
you actually do better if you have your instructor. So we don't you know there's a little we give you money instead of you giving us money if you have your own instructor. Yes, you can criticize me. These are duplicated. They're duplicated enrollments. But there's still a lot,
folks. These aren't just numbers. These are lives changed. These are families changed. Concurrent enrollment is a really good thing. And it's across our region. And this doesn't include like Silver Spruce. We have other people that we're working
with. Um, I know there's a lot of words on here, but it was some of the same slide that Mr. Smith did much better. Guaranteed transfer courses mean they can transfer anywhere in Colorado. Did you know that if you have an associates from us, any state school, minus
Colorado College because they're not a state school, they're private, has to accept you. How many of you knew that? Show of hands. Honestly, how many of you knew that? One, two, three, three of you. Any state school has to accept you
if you have an associates. If you maybe have a different look and how you want to graduate, students can graduate sooner, get that degree, move on, and save tens of thousands of dollars. If you want to go to Harvard, great. It's going to make your application
better. Plus, you might find take a class and find out that's something you don't want to do. You get to explore it and realize that welding I get burned all the time. I'm this I mean, you know, Mr. Ice, I wasn't always a guy with a doctorate. I'm a humble farm boy. FFA
kid. Grew up on a farm outside Durango. Welding son of a certified welder. You get burned welding. Some people don't like that. I didn't mind it, but some people. You're going to get some cool skills. I guarantee it. And we believe the academic rigor is there. And if it's
not, then we work to get there. I told you about free tuition. And you've heard the stories about students who've earned who've earned an associates degree before graduating from high school. What a leap for life. And a little bit of the incentive
these SID dip classes. I just wanted you all to know that there's a way that if it leads to a degree, this is where the state of Colorado real certification areas, they've put money behind it. So you get a bigger check. That's awesome. So, um, this is one that parents don't
understand. I couldn't get it through as a high school principal. I couldn't get it through even as a as a retired superintendent. Ascent is a program that Colorado allows that if your student stays a fifth year. Dr. Bonaface holds the diploma. You walk at graduation. Don't worry, she holds the diploma. She
doesn't officially declare you a graduate. You can attend a fifth year of college. Sleep in your bedroom. Go to PCC. I even put Fort Lewis up there. I'm fair. For free. How many of you knew that? One,
two, three. Absolutely. Doing it right now. Two doing it right. I was going to ask you, how many you have right now? Two. Two. Why don't more? Because they don't because I I think it's because parents are afraid. They don't understand it. We don't believe in something for
nothing. This is something for something. you get a fifth year. You never have to darken your doorstep for her until you go pick up that diploma the next May and say, "Hey, I completed 24 or 28 college credits and I got all
A's." Look into it. You can do that with us. So, what about AP? I told you I sent hundreds of kids to Front Range as a high school principal. I we also offered AP and this
was a district with 15,000 kids. Um if your son or daughter takes an AP test and has a bad day, they don't get to do over. They just 36 weeks of hard work. I hope they
performed well. colleges, higher ed, four-year schools have started playing this game that if I get a four on AP lit at one school, I have to get a four to get college to get actual um 1021 college comp credit. Some
schools are now going to fives even though three is passing. It's not an education decision. It's a business decision. It's ridiculous. Um AP is very rigid. like the curriculum a lot of times has remained unchanged and we're teaching to the test and I heard really hardworking
amazing principles this evening talking about testing just one more way we're testing testing fatigue is real um and again scores and credits are different so why why would he put music theory up here anybody taken AP music
theory year in and year out it's the single hardest AP exam very hard. And you have an amazing band program at Monzuma Cortez High School. We taught the AP music theory for the whole district, 15,000 kids. One year, the questions were about African drum
music. It's hard. It's difficult. You have to write music. It is the most comp. People say, "Well, isn't isn't AP calculus the hardest?" No. AP calc has a good pass rate. Kids who take that know some math. This one's hard. I'm just saying that it's a deep dive. And if you
have an amazing band program and you have 20 kids that want to do it, great. It's not for everybody. And then you saw from Mr. Smith's slide, not only do you have to pay to take the test, but I think they refund 78 n10 bucks back to the school. They're not writing you a
$9,000 14 or $9,14 check back. I promise. So, what's the research say? And I'm sorry I'm taking a little while, but I think you need to hear this. Is this okay? Am I good? Am I good? You're just saying. Yes.
If we have students take even one class, even one, they stand a much better chance graduating from college. Much better. It's a confidence booster. How many of you have taken a PCC class? I see lots of students. Do you feel like you've
been in college? Do you feel like you're more ready? Every Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course you do. And those students also graduate from high school. As a high school principal, that's that's our number one measure. Correct. 10 years. I wanted I wanted
100% graduation. 100%. Plus, those students require less 90 level remedial work in college. They're more likely to obtain a degree in four years. And again, I have two sons that
graduated from CSU. I know what this costs. It's a lot. But also, there is such an, and Mr. Smith said it, such a value proposition of doing that. We had an amazing meeting a few weeks ago with
the staff, all of our staff, making sure just updating our plan, making sure that we were right, our concurrent enrollment, expanding opportunities, and all and and I'm and so I'm going to tattle on you, but all you talked about was expanding opportunities for students. All her counselors talked
about was expanding opportunities for students. I was a chief human resource officer in one of the largest school districts in Colorado. I didn't get invited to many meetings like that. This man was in the meeting because he was concerned about having the personnel necessary to provide opportunities for
students. Mr. lucky you got good people. Trust me. 32 years in education. I know. I know. I want to thank you for taking a little, you know, I took a little personal privilege. I involved the audience a
little bit. I want you to know that I come to you as this humble, almost retired, terrible, failing at retirement educator who cares deeply about providing opportunities for students. And I understand that the work that
you're doing to provide concurrent enrollment, to provide more pathways, to do more work for your students is amazing. and we are more than happy to be a a partner and just one part of a seat at the table. Um, President No, I'm
I will answer any questions that you would like. Okay. Do do we have any questions? I mean, you did a pretty thorough um presentation and yeah, we can um and we and we're thankful for our partnership as well um over the years.
So, um, I don't know if anybody really has any questions that you maybe haven't already answered. Oh, I don't know if it's really a question, more a comment. I guess get your reaction on it, though. I think, as you know, I'm I've always been a lot with concurrent enrollment, correct? Um, my only issue is is how
many careers out there are really ready for a bachelor's degree from a 19 and 20 year old. I think it depends. um you know, we you know, the one that the the the young woman that's graduating um in nursing, I
I think they're ready. I really do. They wouldn't have got to that point. I think it's also hard when you get an associates. I think it's unlikely. So, she she did the two years in high school and two more. So, I think it's highly dependent, but ours are in like construction management. Uh we have ones
in cyber security. Um I think there are 12y olds who are killing us at cyber security all over the world probably, right? much less. So, so the nine that we have, I think I I think the the these are self-leveling, you know, to use a, you know, term or a pair term, I think
they self-level. I think like our our young person that graduated on Saturday with both, she's probably twer. So, but I would see her also as a 20-year-old being absolutely fine in those areas. Also, because they are bachelor of applied science, they allow
for working. So, you can, and I'm I'll use nursing as the example. I get my RN, I can work at at Southwest here, work at the hospital, and I can take then two to three years because like our Bachelor of Applied Science and Nursing, you never have to leave the valley. You're here. So, you spend two or three years, you
get work experience, then you have the bachelors, you're 21, now you're ready, right? You're you're you're ready to do what's next. So, I you know, I'm I'm not I'm one of these that really am not underestimating our millennials and our younger generation. If you look at the
research right now, what it says about this generation of these young people back here, if you look right at the end of the 1800s, they were saying the very same thing about the industrial revolution and these lazy people and they don't understand and this world is changing so fast. Well, we went on to
call those people our greatest generation. They fought in World War I, right? But that was said about them if you look in the research. I'm high on you guys. I'm high on you. I'm serious. I believe it. So, I
think they're ready. I think they're ready. What else? If I can ever be of assistance, it's my distinct honor to be able to serve in any way possible and build community. My family, my mother's family homesteaded
in Mckelmo Canyon. If you went to school with an Elliot or a Bass or a Galloway or a Ryzen Hoover, you went to school with my people. And it's my distinct honor to be here and spend a little time with you this evening and work with such fine people as Mr. Smith and Dr. Bonaface. Thank you so much. Appreciate
it. Thank you, [Applause] President Noise. Both of those presentations are available in board docs publicly. Okay. Okay. All right. We will um move on to our district accountability committee
quarterly report. Okay. Good evening um board and everyone here administration. I'm Laura Dwit. I'm a parent co-chair of the district accountability committee. I'm Laura Blair. I'm a parent co-chair of the district accountability committee
as well. Yeah. So, thanks everybody for coming. Um just a quick thing about what the DAC does. We're a group of um stakeholders. That would be parents, teachers, administrators, community members, and um we work to um promote stakeholder input to the board as they
make their decisions. Um we had a few goals this year. Um mostly what we're going to be talking about is the family engagement survey results, which we'll go over. Um our goals included supporting the school accountability committees um and um supporting teacher and coach
uh retention and recruitment. So a lot of that will come out in the survey and recognizing student achievement and recognizing student achievement. Yes. Um we did have a town hall meeting which um I think a lot of people were aware of last night about the Mace Keer reorg. Um
we're compiling that so we don't have that information to uh to present. Um I just want to say thank you to all the DAC members who came. A lot of them are here. Um it's been a really great work um great working group, really vibrant group to work with and people have been
really constructive and solutionsoriented and I appreciate Mr. Lynch for coming to a lot of our meetings and Mr. Lynch and Mr. Rice for coming to the town hall last night. So thank you. Um you want to start? Yeah. Okay.
All right. So, we'll go ahead and um just do an overview of the family engagement survey results. Our goal was to assess family experiences related to communication, academic support, leadership, trust,
school climate, and barriers to engagement across the Monazuma Cortez RA1 schools. Uh this is our third year implemented the parent survey. And as you can see, um, not our lowest, but our
highest year was 2023 with 323 responses. Last year we had 129 and this year we had 179. We had um a number of questions, quit quantitative responses that um spoke to
academic preparedness, communication about student progress, notification of incidents, and um requested inputs from parents of agreement or disagreement on statements. So you can see for example
in academic preparedness, the school did a great job preparing my student for their next step. We had a very good uh result of 63.5% agreed or strongly agreed. Communication about student progress. I get as much information as I want
regarding my students progress. There was a 62% agreement rate or strong agreement rate for that. And not notification of incidents. Uh the school lets me know right away of incidents involving my child. Again, 59.5 agreed
or strongly agreed. This is just a quantitative graph that shows results from the past three years. Do you want to speak? Oh, yeah. So, we asked roughly the same questions for three years and you can see that there really hasn't
been much change. It's been pretty consistent. Um so um yeah that's yeah that just shows I think 2024 perhaps had dips and highs but
overall it was a pretty linear result pool. Uh the last two questions school environment my child is safe and welcome at their school. 67.4 4 of uh responders agreed or strongly
agreed and district communication tools. The most effective tools were auto text and email or inerson meetings. The least effective ones seem to be district website hovering up and down. And you can see those um results
right there. Like we said, auto text and email and inerson meetings made weight for the two highest uh regarded forms of communication. Unfortunately, the district app didn't seem to quite rise to the um to the needs of the parents,
but um school newsletter seems to be a good form of communication for parents as well. And we have seen all the different schools providing school newsletters individually. So that's a good outcome. Um, two of the questions that
we asked were barrier barriers the family found to family engagement and also preferred ways to be involved. So for barriers, the top challenges and there's a mistake on this graph. I apologize. The last answer under the
barriers should go under the top choices for ways to be involved. So under top challenges we find schedule conflicts, other family obligations or not feeling valued or welcome. Under top choices to be
involved helping with school work at home, understanding how well the school meets academic standards and advocating for your child's needs. So those are across the board top choices for advocating for
or ways to be involved. Um and then we had some open-ended questions. Um and so this is a summary of basically the three years of open-ended comments. So there were some comments around su student support and inclusion. Um a lot of families
mentioned positive mentors. of teachers. Um, emotional social social support for kids at school. Um, there were some examples of comments about bullying not being adequately addressed, special education services not meeting needs and
discipline policies. Um, there was a lot of um, positive feedback. Families expressed strong support for individual teachers and school staff. A lot of um, appreciation for communication from principles and counselors. And then um especially the elementary schools get a
lot of praise for welcoming culture. Um there were a lot of concerns and so that's kind of where we tried to dig in a little bit and um offer some constructive um some constructive recommendations. Um so there was a lot of leadership and
district transparency mistrust um lack of responsiveness um criticism of central office decisions and communication. Um there were some uh comments about inconsistent communication from the middle and high school levels, staff turnovers and
morale issues. Um there was a lot of comments about the superintendent and board trust um with references to the retention of the superintendent. um not valuing input from staff and families. And then that also kind of got
tied in a lot to um teacher loss and community disengagement. Um consistently over the years there was a lot of um just general confusion about communication. Where do we get stuff? Do we go to the website? Do we go to the app? Is it a different
website? Is it a newsletter? So, a lot of people wanted more consistent um just how do we get the basic information we need about what's going on. Um a lot of support for educators um calls for better resources um and to end staff
intimidation and perceived staff intimidation and more inclusive engagement options um and flexible feedback channels and volunteer opportunities. So to um finalize the survey, we came up with
six possible recommendations that we wanted to offer to the school board. Um and we can go through a few of um the items on each one of these uh recommendations. So first recommendation, develop a district-wide
communication plan. Um the main issue is families are overwhelmed by inconsistent and fragmented communications, different emails, apps, Alma, website, social media, etc. Um only 35% of respondents
said the district website works well. Parents called for clear centralized communication and one of the biggest recommended actions was to create a unified district calendar that could
show all um academic dates, school events, sack meetings, and sports schedules for all the schools. For an example, um we had the elementary uh music program at the high school and
we had to rush through it. We had about 30 minutes to rush through it because the middle school had their program and parents had to rush back to the middle school and they did not have that communication. People were leaving and the elementary music teacher was
Russian, Russian, Russian, Russian. And we feel that that if there was that unified calendar, parents could see each event, they could offer suggestions to principles and staff could also see what was kind of interposed events and could
work out better communications among the schools to provide um better events and a better experience for parents and students. um and uh evaluate the feasibility of a district-wide app that consolidates
updates. And we know there is one. However, at this time, it does not seem to because it does, you know, separated by school and it doesn't really show not it doesn't seem like all the information is getting put on there and it's and
it's not unified. I think a unified app just the same as a calendar would be a little bit more useful for parents and caregivers and students as well as they get older and want to do their own activities. Okay. Sure. And so the second recommendation
was uh to designate a family engagement and communications liaison to kind of help with these issues. So that was another um from the comments source of frustration um a consistent advocate or point of contact um for engagement with the district. So um the families who
responded really wanted stronger connections and more involvement opportunities um just beyond like fundraisers or classroom visits. So the recommended action would be to create a family engagement liaison role um to coordinate communication outreach, manage event calendars, promote family
connections and support district transparency initiatives. And um I know there are a lot of resources as far as um already existing job descriptions and um models for how this works in other districts. Uh the third recommendation is improve
two-way communication channels. uh families feel they have no safe or open method to provide feedback to the board or district leaders. Um the open-ended responses express a lot of frustration over lack of input opportunities and
fear of retaliation over those uh responses. So that's why they were anonymous as well. So, we propose establishing a confidential anonymous feedback tool for community members to share concerns or ideas and explore alternative methods for two-way
dialogue, listening sessions, quarterly community forums, lifetime calls, and of course, the DAC is very willing to assist with that as well. Um, and then the recommendation number four is to rebuild trust in the
leadership. So a lot of the comments um really expressed the distrust um and um we do have an appendix in the back so you can look at it and then I think you all have um access to the raw data as well. Um so the recommendation
would be just to acknowledge the feedback publicly and commit to proactive trust building steps. um increase transparency about the decision-making process and reviews publicly review stakeholder input and then consider using neutral facilitators
for future community engagement efforts. Recommendation number five uh support education ed educators I'm sorry more effectively uh families are concerned that teachers are overwhelmed under supported and leaving the
district. There's a strong sentiment across the survey comments that teachers are district greatest strength and need better support to stay. Um, we recommend conducting anonymous teacher climate and support surveys on an annual basis and
partner with Panorama Education to administer annual TLCC sur uh style surveys at the local level to determine if additional questions regarding climate and support can be added and then use existent uh survey data to identify improvement areas and set
goals. And then the last one um is the transportation issue. Um a lot of people are just baffled why you know kids can't get to school on time, why the transportation, the busing is um been so challenging the last couple years um is
the persistent concern. So, we would recommend that the district um that the board direct the district to identify the root problems of the bus driver shortages and to create and implement a proactive plan to address and track progress and then provide regular
updates to the community. And then if there's um community partnerships to support interim solutions, we just need to get the kids to school on time every day and you know get them to stay for the whole day. Um so the concluding notes you can read at the end of
uh the presentation these are all uh notes from all three years of comments and responses. So we feel that um all recommendations are actually probably what parents have been asking for, what
caregivers and students have been asking too as well for um a better environment at the schools. And I just want to thank everyone who's taken the time over the years to answer the survey. I mean I always think taking
a a survey is like a volunteer activity. you're freely giving your time to share your opinion um honestly. So really appreciate that and we hope that a recommendation to get better input is that if um you know people can see that these are being considered and there's actually actions that you can report on
that are making progress and people feel that it's listened to I think that would be promote a better response. Thank you for your time. Any questions? Yeah. getting my throat cleared out. A few
things. Um I guess one of the first things that sort of jumped out at me on some of the numbers and then also there was some stuff on Mr. Par's with the rest of the comments in there too. Um I think it showed like uh the safety thing. My my child is safe and welcome
at their school at 67% and yet later on it says that schools aren't addressing bullying and stuff like that. I guess that sort of to me is sort of conflicting. I don't know. Well, I think 33% of our kids not feeling safe in school is probably not okay. Um, you
know, if you think about 67 sounds pretty good, but if you know, one out of three or four kids isn't safe in school, then we might not feel like we're doing great on that. It would be an area for improvement. Yeah.
Um the all building calendar you're talking about is that are you think like a monthly thing like at the first of each month or what? Well, we're thinking that if um principles have normally would have a calendar of events for their whole year, activities, athletic activities, um
graduations, choir, all of that, all of that can be incorporated prior to the beginning of the year and a unified calendar that can show parents what's happening on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, as they choose to do it.
If there's um items to be added then that will increase the communication among the schools to say hey 530 doesn't work and we do 545 instead. So to allow parents go in from different schools like we have seen that has happened to
have a better opportunity to support every single student in their family. So that's that's what we're talking about for unified schools. Yeah. whether it's an whether it's an app, whether it's a calendar, whether it's um you know some other platform. Some parents had recommended integrating that with
wherever you're going for the child's grades or things like that. And we did not do like a market research on what's available out there. Probably not the best people to do that, but I'm sure there's someone in the district who has those skills to do that.
Okay. Um, and then I guess just to comment on the transportation part and stuff is we talk about this a lot as a board. Um, transportation, I don't know what our magic answer is going to be there. The, uh, you know, bus drivers are required the same
licensing that they can go to work for Candalia construction for for $35 an hour. And that's hard to compete. It's just that's just all there is to it. It's hard to compete. So, I know Brad struggles. He he works his tail off trying to get drivers, but it's hard to get enough problem we could probably
solve though. I I think we have to get kids to school on time. So, and and I would just like to throw out there and I and I do appreciate that we do provide the transportation, but as a district, we do not have to provide that
transportation. Um it's actually not a right. It's actually a a privilege. But I am thankful for our district that we do do that. We do the best we can. And I think Brad has done his amazing job with what he's had to work with. And you know, sometimes we're just have
challenges with weather or um shortage of bus drivers, buses that break down. We just like anybody else in just a a family household, you just do the best you can with what you've got and try to try to try to get the message out there and just let you know what's happening
and what's going on. And I know that I'm getting messages myself every time there's a there's a situation. So, um, so I'm aware of what's going on, too. And sometimes it feels like it's, you know, every every every every other day or something for a while until, um, we
can we can get it fixed. But, um, I do know that it's not anything that's being done maliciously or anything. And we're just trying to stay on top of it. And just um like I said, I appreciate Brad um and all of his his mechanics and his
bus drivers and just trying to make the best of that, you know, each and every day in each and every activity. So I have some questions. Is it possible for a family to take this survey more than once?
Um we the so the first two years I think it was because we would allow it for two different school you know if parents have multiple schools. This year I actually went on to try to take it again to see if it was still open and it was
had said that you've already taken it so you can't. So it might have been set up differently. Mr. Parr would know that. Um, that was a concern that people had before, but I don't think people usually like try to do extra surveys. So, we're just happy if they fill it out once at
least. Yeah. Um, to start off, I want to thank the DAC for doing this um, three years in a row as a as a matter of fact, and for going to the trouble to try and um, get uh, feedback from the families
of our our district. Um, I believe that's important information and um, this is probably one of the most um, uh, successful ways in terms of numbers of responses
um, that I've seen in our district. And I point to last night's meeting as an example of the difficulty in getting um engagement from the community. So this looks like it's really um doing
that better than any of the other ways that we've done so far. Um when I read the responses from this um survey, the communication thing, it it hits you in the face. You can't ignore it. it's
everywhere. And so I I agree that um the district has a lot of work to do there. I don't know about the um solutions to that exactly, but it's surely sticking up as a a red flag problem. So I
I'm I agree with that. Um on the recommendation number two, designate a family engagement and communications liaison. I think that's been a recommendation from the PLA past as well, hasn't it? Yeah, it's been this is the third year that we're recommending Yeah.
Um my uh my response is that in the past two years we were under a deficit budget. So if if I had a choice in those two years um to do this, I would have voted
against it because we're not covering our expenses. we weren't covering our expenses already and just adding to expenses, I would not have been in favor. So, as we get out of a deficit budget and work um and and if we have
more of a surplus, this would then be something that um personally I would be uh willing to to talk about. Um but again this is in competition with the highest uh priority in my point of view
and that's the instructional staff. So there's a lot of um I think there's a lot of information on CDE that family engagement really can improve outcomes. So if you think like even like if onetenth of the parents are given that engagement on how to help their kids at home. We know that maybe not all parents
have that capacity, but you're really, you know, improving everyone. And then also, I mean, I guess the standpoint for me as a parent and a community member is people leave organizations because of poor communication. And so, um, I think that
when you, you know, invest in doing things while you draw people to the school. So, and and the family engagement at one point I kind of went into the rabbit hole of like figuring out like who are these people in other districts and what qualifications and there actually don't need to be high
level um it could be a could be um a high school diploma person could qualify for it in other schools and they just said that what they look for is people who can really engage with all parts of the community. People who are like you know really comfortable going into any situation and like listening to people and communicating well. So, it doesn't
need to be a high salary position. Who knows the community will? Yeah. So, I I believe family engagement is important. I just haven't um figured out how to get there. Maybe this is a workable solution to get there. I don't know. I I guess I
would need to learn more about it because that I'm not exactly sure what the the job would entail. So, um, on the recommendation number three, improve two-way communication. Again, that was communication throughout the survey. I
that needs work. I I agree. Recommendation number four, rebuild trust in district leadership. Um I uh this is one that I had I continue to struggle with because I'm
um wondering if um this is uh not student outcomebased but more adult behaviorbased and I'm I haven't come to
a conclution usion there. But um I also wonder how much of this comes from what has happened in the past and whether or not there might um be
some difficulty letting go with some things that have happened and we're um trying to move forward from. I believe these are actually uh answers to current
leadership. It's been three years of kind of the same answers and um the last ones had to do with this current year. So I believe I believe it's a current it's a current issue that parents are trying to
address and not necessarily something from years past. I think a lot of these things are intertwined. Like when you read the comments and you're trying to like sort it out, it's hard to pull out like you know this there's things that address like communication and teacher support and leadership as like all being
combined. Um and I know that you probably read through the comments and you kind of got that that sense to yourself. So, I mean, really, we're passing on the opinions of sure the families. We can't sure um
fix it or even tell you exactly how to. This is just our recommendations. Um the number five, support educators more effectively. Um uh as a newbie to this, I don't know,
uh how better to do that than by putting our money where our mouth is. And um I wasn't involved in it all. It happened before I got here, but part of the increase in uh teacher salaries happened before I got here. Part of it happened
after I got here. to me, uh, I'm wondering why that doesn't ring like a solid bell victory for support for educators. Why Why is that not Well, I think there's more, right? I
mean, I think anybody who's worked in any job will say that, you know, everyone's motivated differently. Some people do anything, you know, if you pay them well. and then other people would say I you couldn't pay me enough to work there because so I think like you have
to you know consider the fact that job satisfaction isn't just um isn't just what you make and so that was where the recommendation came for the TLCC survey because I know we did present some of that data at our last um report and some
of the comments we got is like well it might have just been a fluke or maybe whatever So if that's the case, you actually do have an option to do that yearly. You would pay for it. I don't know how much it is. We had talked to Mr. Parr about the possibility of customizing some
questions um you know so that you can maybe target these areas that you're hearing about and get some more um robust feedback on it and then um you know believe what people tell you. Um recommend recommendation number six
address transportation. Um this has been really hard. Uh this is a challenge that the district is um struggling with. I and and uh I mean the the district has offered to pay for
the CDL license for somebody to to drive. They have offered a sign on bonus for people who will drive. Um, we could, well, I could use some
help with more ideas on how to find more good bus drivers, please. I I don't know what to do. I haven't heard anything. Probably people have some ideas. So, your emails on the website. So, that sounded like an invitation for Exactly. I I'm I'm kind of at a loss. It seems
like there's shortages in educators and there's shortages in other uh positions in the in the school district and I don't I don't know how to solve that when when people aren't stepping up to do that. What what what do you do? You
know, so I'm I'd like to hear ideas. Um, and then one of the things I saw earlier was um, and I don't I must have skipped it, but it had to do with a recommendation for ways that people could anonymously
um, give uh, their feedback and uh, as I understand we have a uh digital suggestion box on the website. Is that still active on the homepage? And is that anonymous? That I I don't believe
it is anonymous because I think it registers the email that sends it is the only identifier. Okay. All right. See that need. Thank you for putting this together. Thank you for
your time. Thank you. And to take that a little bit more, I would like to see us maybe at our workshop. Can we have a joint meeting for at least a half hour or so and just talk about just those things right
there the transportation the comm I mean bulk is communication so if we can all sit around and come up some ideas Mr. Rice I mean I look I look through the comments that Mr. Par gave too and the same thing I look through all those comments and you got one person says I get lots of communication
you got the next person saying I don't get communication so you know what is that I mean communication means different than it is to you so Mr. Rice, were you referencing the work session on June 3rd? If if that's possible. Yeah. Would that work for you ladies? Because things like this
calendar and stuff, if we could get going on it this summer, that would be a Yeah. So, I can I can send an invitation out to the that group. Yeah. And I I don't know that we can all be there. No, that's fine, too. Whoever is interested, I think probably I'll add
it as an agenda item for discussion. Okay. Thank you. In in regard to the calendar idea, there's two issues going on there. um one is uh fac facility scheduling and use and the other is letting everybody know what's happening
so that they can come attend and the the facility use thing is um in the works. Uh there's some work being done on policy and and how to go about scheduling so that there's no more of this deal
where the the time that one user has is scrunched up against the time that another. So, um, that's in process, but I think the the the other side of that is the communication to everybody of
what's happening and when so that they can attend when they're available. So, okay. I mean, each school could have a color attached to it, something like that for sports or choir or anything like that. I think
it would be good. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you ladies. Do you want to take a break now? Take a bit more. Okay. It has been um requested that we take a break at 8:00. It's now 8:09. So if we can come back
maybe at 8. It's 8:10 now at 8:20 and um continue our meeting then. So take a little short break. Alan. Okay, we're getting close to that um 8:20 mark. So, we will get um started
here with a board discussion. Um it's 8:20, so we will uh continue our meeting and continue on to board reports if anybody has um any reports. Okay, as usual, Bosey's report. Um, we
had a Boseies meeting last week over in Durango. Um, one thing that went on at that meeting, we we accepted a resignation from our board president from Bayfield because she's getting off of her her local board. Um, so she has to uh resign as the Boseis board
president. Our new board president will be Kim Alexander from Dove Creek. Um she'll take over in July at the July meeting I believe it is. Um and our contract is due up for the office space um that Boseies rents from us. Um so
they just sent a reminder out of that that that's coming due for this summer. And we approved or accepted nine resignations from Boseies last Wednesday night. And then we also approved the strategic plan which I give copies to everybody of and I'm not going to go
through that page by page but just real quickly the the five main categories or goal areas. Goal one with San Juan Boseies delivers highquality exceptional student services to students in our member districts. Goal two, the San Juan Boseies maintains exceptional financial
responsibility and fiscal transparency. Goal three, high performance, growth mindset, support and connection. Goal four, school and community partner cohesiveness. And go goal five, the Southwest Colorado East School support
students to succeed in their future. Um, this was a process that was started, I believe, last August to start the strategic plan and this was just the final document of it. Um, and I again, I handed copies out to everybody, so you're welcome to look through that or if you got any questions on stuff, um,
let me know or email me on them or something. And that's it that I've got. Okay. Great. Thank you. Anybody else with any board reports? Okay. All right. We will move on to our citizens address the board. Um
1 hour limit, 3 minutes each. Must turn in a filled out ticket prior to the meeting. And um disrespectfully ask you uh when you approach the um microphone that you do not use any names of staff or students.
Um that's just a procedure that we have uh to refrain from using any any names. So the first one is Sabrina Elliot. All right. U members of the school board, I'm representing concerned parent Nikki Cwley, who couldn't be here as she supports her daughter Amita at
the state golf tournament tonight. Our school district faces troubling challenges that threaten the quality of education provided. First, the alarming staff turnover has created an unstable learning environment when qualified teachers leave or are reassigned to positions that that don't match their
expertise, like moving a calculus teacher to an elementary PE. We disrupt curriculum continuity and destroy valuable student teacher relationships. The new graduation requirements include one year of foreign language. Please explain the rationale behind cancelling
the French program taught by an instructor with the credentials to offer college credit. In my numerous conversations with students in the building, they tell me they are frustrated, angry, and hopeless about their education. Second, the elimination of
advanced classes and the honors program has severely restricted opportunities for our high achieving students. These advanced courses once prepared students for college, allowed gifted learners to progress appropriately and created competitive advantages for college
applications. By reducing these options, we place a ceiling on student achievement and send a clear message that academic excellence is not our priority. Are you intentionally driving away our strongest students and their test scores? Also highly concerning is
the decision to reduce the high school credit value of college courses from one full credit to half credit. This policy change discourages students from pursuing college level work undervalues the additional rigor these courses demand and places our students at a
disadvantage in college and scholarship applications. When our students apply for opportunities, most colleges look at weighted GPA. Why would you deliberately disadvantage our students in a competitive application process? Collectively, these changes suggest a
retreat from educational excellence. We constantly discuss academic growth. Yet, these decisions actively devalue achievement. The consequences are already evident. increased student apathy, talented educators living for
more supportive environments, and parents considering alternative options for their children. According to the CDE, the school district enrollment has already decreased by 232 students in the last three years. 131 of those were just this
school year alone. By driving students away, you are decreasing your per pupil funding when we, the community, hear repeatedly about your budget deficit. For years, many of us have defended this district and assured families there is a path to success for their students.
Today, I can no longer make that claim in good conscience, particularly regarding the high school. I urge this board to take three immediate actions. First, address the root causes of staff turnover. Two, restore advanced class
offerings to challenge our high achieving students. Three, return to full credit valuation for college courses. Our students deserve an educational environment that values academic excellence, provides stability, and prepares them for future success.
The current trajectory fails to meet these essential standards. Our community is ready to work collaboratively towards solutions. But first, we need acknowledgement that these issues require urgent attention. The future of our students and our district depends on
your leadership tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. Catherine, what's up? [Applause] Make sure you're trying to keep it. Okay. Yeah. Was that Are we over? Okay.
Okay. Um Katherine Foster. Um yeah, on that screen over there. Sorry, I thought you can see. I'll tell you when it's Thank you. I'm here this evening as the uh president of Southwest Colorado Concerts. Southwest Colorado Concerts is a nonprofit organizations
dedicated to bringing highquality music to Monuma County at a price we all can afford. You don't have to go to Durango to hear good music. Um, I want to thank you and uh Dr. Bonaface for the completion of our
70th season. I was just amazed that it's this organization has been around this long. Um, we use the high school auditorium and we also enjoy the support of the theater arts program and student
students who help unload, set up, do the sound checks, run the lights, and all of that. Um, we're looking forward to working with um the new theater arts teacher and the students who will continue to support us in our
performances. We're planning five performances this year in a fit of optimism. We've been running about four for the past several years. We also plan to have three sessions um where students
can come and meet the performers, talk with them, talk about careers, music, anything that they and the performance wish to talk about. We're planning on three of those and hoping for good weather during the winter. So, I thank you for your continued support. I thank
Dr. Bonaface and I thank all the students that have involved in making this show go forward. Thank you. Oh, no. Thank you. I've actually attended some of those and they are amazing. Uh, Katherine Lean, did I say that
right? L E I N. Yes. Good evening. My name is Katherine Lean and I am a parent of a graduating senior and that of an incoming freshman at Monizuma Cortez High School. I wish to speak in support of retaining an outstanding
educator in the math department at the high school. As a fellow educator, I could speak all day about the tremendous respect and admiration for the skill set this teacher possesses and the determination she has to prepare our students for higher education pathways
beyond high school. I feel that it would serve better though if I share the perspective of a student. With that, I offer this letter written by my son. Dear Monazuma Cortez School Board, I am a graduating senior here at
MCHS. I am writing to strongly urge the board to issue a contract for an instructor who has been my teacher for the PCC concurrent enrollment classes of trigonometry, pre-calculus, and statistics throughout high school. This
teacher is without a doubt one of the most effective, dedicated, and impactful teachers I've ever had the privilege of learning from. Her teaching is clear, structured, and challenging in the best way. She has helped me and many others
gain confidence in subjects that are often intimidating or difficult. She cares about our students deeply, not just academically, but as individuals, taking the time to come cheer us on at our athletic events and show support for our school.
A large part of why I'm graduating this year and moving forward with a strong foundation in mathematics is because of this teacher's instruction and support. Her experience and skill as an educator are irreplaceable and losing her due to a technicality or contract decision
would be a great disservice to future students. I hope this board will recognize the value she brings to our school and take the necessary steps to ensure her continued presence in our schools, even part-time. She deserves it and so do the students who will benefit from her teaching.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. [Applause] McCade Mumbau. Uh I am a junior at Monza Mccortortez High School. I will be going into my senior year next year. And uh
the administration's decision to not renew contracts for certain teachers, especially teachers teaching essential courses is deeply troubling. Uh when the school board and superintendent remain silent or passive to these decisions, they become a complicit they become complicit in a
growing crisis. If this continues, more teachers will leave, not just because of the job insecurity, but because they no longer feel valued. If you are so focused on maintaining control that you've lost sight of the very people who make this education possible, the teachers, uh, as one author said, in trying to
control everything, we often end up controlling nothing and losing the things that matter most. If this cycle continues, the district will find itself rehiring for positions it didn't need to lose in the first place and at a greater financial cost. Uh, by trying to manage everything from the top down, you're
dismantling the trust, stability, and quality that schools need to thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Rebecca Robbendale. I guess I came unprepared because I didn't realize we were going to be able to speak today. Um, something
that's been hit on a lot is communication and I've had problems with higherup people telling me they would call me back on issues um, such as allowing um, students to participate in
athletics when they have failing grades. And I was told that if I wanted to hold my student to a high to a higher um to a to higher ground, I could. But they weren't allowed to let they
couldn't expect that from all students. And I said, when you tell a student a D is a passing grade, that's a problem. It's below average. It's a failure. I've asked to talk to principles and I've spoken to one once. I was told
um my son had some racial slurs and some sexual slurs on his car when we got out of school and he is a smaller child and I would called the school. I was told I could not speak to the principal
um who answered the phone said um what's going on? So I started to tell her can you hold on a second? Sure. Within seconds, I had somebody on the phone. I was told, "We'll watch the cameras. We'll look into it. I'll get with you tomorrow." That was either
right before Thanksgiving or between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm still waiting on a phone call back. That's poor communication and no follow through. I've waited 18 months. It was October 28th of 22, I think. I
think that makes us 23. 23 makes us 18 months on some issues that we were having with the school and again from two higherups. I'm still waiting. This is not acceptable. It's very
poor follow through. So when there's communication and you make a commitment, there's nothing wrong with making yourself a note. Call this person back. But it's really poor and I find that there's no support. There's no support for the house and the parents. We get an
email saying you can't participate with failing grades. I have a student that participates with failing grades. What was the point in the email last year? There was none. I have two students in high school. One of them is a junior and
probably reads maybe an eighth grade level. He has had one teacher in his whole career from Lewis Areola that helped him. He has an IEP. It is not followed. It is not
implemented except by this one teacher. And he did not have an IEP when she had him. But she worked with him and worked with him and worked with him. And I'm out of time, so I will go. But we need there's got to be something. Okay.
Thank you. We will um look into that for you. Sean McAllister, can you repeat that? President Sean McAllister. Hi. So, I am a member of the senior class at MCHS.
Um, and I uh I don't want to focus on what the school board is doing wrong right now because I think a lot of other people have touched on that and probably will. I want to focus on what can be
done better in the future. uh specifically in terms of supporting arts programs um at all the schools but specifically MCHS because that's where I have gone um and they are getting new
teachers in the arts uh choir and theater and they will need all the support that they can get um and I think that support doesn't have to be financial obviously financial support is better,
but I understand the logistical issues with that and I'm sure that there are, you know, lots of things that could prohibit uh extra funding for programs. I think ultimately that would be best, but support could also be just
schoolboard members and administration um talking with the teachers in charge of these arts programs and asking uh what their needs are and listening to those needs and taking those into
consideration. I think communication with these uh program directors is the most important thing in making sure that the programs stay as strong as they can be. And I think they do need to be strong because having
strong arts programs encourages students to come to school and enjoy their learning, you know, uh community really. Uh these programs build such amazing communities uh with theater and choir
and band and you know the visual arts classes that we have. All of it I think I would hate to see it go away because of a lack of support. And so I think in addition to all the tangible benefits
that these arts programs provide, they also provide benefits that maybe you can't directly see, but that you can feel like building communities of students. And I know firsthand that being a part
of these communities can permanently change a student's life for the better. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sean. Okay, Mindy Nelson. Good evening. Well, I'm guess I'm here tonight to uh because I've
heard a lot of rumors and I hear about things that go on and I'm here to defend you guys. I see tons of transparency. I see tons of improvement. Look at that frame over there. It shows what's going on. These teachers are being moved
around for a reason. They need to be put in places to keep moving with improvement. Um I don't, you know, I mean, everybody's get getting knocked down. Um, I don't care if it's right or wrong. It's still going to equal wrong
in these people's eyes because the queens of Cortez have moved in here to change things. So, this all has to do with the agenda and not education. Look at all the improvements the last several years. We all know where the district
ranked before and after Bur showed up. This is about an agenda and flags. Look at the nonsense we saw outside this afternoon. That was uncalled for. This is about education and this is what we need to stand up for. And how about that
ball game? That ball team has done excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Mindy. Dakota Townsend. What was the name again? Dakota Townson. Oh, thank you. Good evening, members of the board. My
name is Dakota Townson and I'm a sophomore returning junior um at Monazuma Cortez High School. I'm here to say something simple as a student of the school. We notice we notice when the big teachers are the first to go. We notice when our voices aren't part of the conversation. You're the teachers you're
cutting are the ones making schools feel safe. You push us to be better and who actually and you're pushing us to be who push us to be better and who actually listen. Taking them away doesn't help students. It hurts us. If this board really wants to improve education, start by listening to the people inside the
classroom, not just above it. This means teachers and that means students. We're asking you to lead with your ears open and your hearts, too. Thank you. Thank you. Alan Mazize. Good evening board. My name is Alan Mays, a community member uh from out at
Lewis. Um I want to first say uh there's some young people that have good voices. I'm glad to hear uh what they have to say and and they can do it um well. So that speaks uh volumes for education I think and and their their willingness to learn. Um my comments are about the
reports. I was not uh actually planning on coming to the board meeting tonight but I lucked out and got to come to the end of the year uh reports of the uh teachers, the schools and uh and the board. Uh but I do want to share that I
think there is positive movement forward and I did like to hear what I was what I did hear uh was they're looking at ways proactively looking at ways to improve uh their schools whether it's through uh changing with teaching u methods new
curriculum that will be uh common that sounds uh pretty good so I I do think that there's u some good movement so I did like the reports uh and and the scores uh seem to be coming up and that's a good thing. I like to hear that
as well. Um I've been attending some things that the school board or the school I shouldn't say school board, school district has been putting out there, the strategic planning um uh meeting that they had that u brought together a good cross-section of of
teachers, staff, and community. And I think uh that was a good conversation. I'd like to see more of those kind kinds of conversations. The thing that I keep saying is there needs to be this kind of a a filled room every board meeting. I think we need to have more more
community here. And so that's uh again I guess maybe I'll be coming to a few more but I will try to invite or just tell people there's a school board meeting tonight. Come come hear what they say. the idea of some of the uh concerns that were offered tonight uh by the committee
uh that has done a a survey. I think offerings of the school board showed um positive u uh thinking as well. Come to our board, our workshop, talk to us about those concerns, let those communications happen a little bit
clearer than just rumor and social media. So, I think the proactive actions by uh the district seem to be coming through to me and I I appreciate it. So, thank you and um I'll thank you that to get through another school year. Thank
you. Thank you, Mr. May. [Applause] Okay, Daryl Grath. Hello board. It's good to see you all tonight. Um, I come here because I feel a little bit disrespected. Uh, about 15 or so years ago, we were told that we
needed to pay $44 million for a new high school. So, we did. We were, one of the things we were sold on was we were going to have a state-of-the-art auditorium that has in the last month been tore up. Um, I will tell you there is damage to the back wall of that that was done.
Don't know who did it, but I'm not real happy about it. But more than that, I'm I'm glad to hear that the superintendent is able to attend uh one of his students uh performances there tonight. I'll bet he wasn't told he had to wait until 10 minutes before it was time to start to
be allowed into that auditorium so that everybody could get set down, set up, lights on, sound system on. All the students warmed up. This was a choir concert, by the way. We were told about uh oh 20 minutes or so before that, yep, we have seven more minutes to wait
before they'll open the doors for us. As parents stood zigzag lined up in the foyer and all the way out into the wind outside. Um, I know that you guys all know this. Um, maybe you can remind some of the administration for whatever reason we
own that. Uh, that means the community, the taxpayers owns that. Being locked out of that doesn't feel real good. And I would put money on the fact that if you had done that in a basketball game, the parents would have rioted. Instead, we stood there. We talked silently
amongst ourselves. Some of us raised our voice so that the whole auditorium could hear us about how disappointed we were in that. But this is the reaction that you're getting from the vast majority of us parents who were there to see our students perform a choir concert. And this isn't the only time this has
happened. It's just the most recent. Um, so I want to leave that with you. Maybe something can be done from there. Thank you. Thank Thank you, Darl. Thank you. Okay. Ka Christensen. [Applause]
Good evening. My name is Ka Christensen and I'm a sophomore MCHS. I appreciate the chance to speak today. I've been a member of the school district for two years and I've noticed a pattern where experienced effective teachers are being let go or leaving. I used to be a student in Dolores and thought that moving over to the Cortez High School
would provide me with more opportunities. Yet, the loss of valuable teachers seemed contrary to my desires for a stronger education. When kind and respectful educators are removed, it leaves lasting harm. I understand the intent behind hiring international teachers, and I
value the cultural exchange the program is designed for. However, the priority should be keeping the teachers who are already here, have ties to the community, and have years of vested interest in the students of our school. Every teacher I've connected with has had has been pushed out and is disappointing and confusing. In one of
my classes with an exchange teacher, I struggle to understand the material because the instruction isn't clear and asking questions isn't easy due to the language barrier. I've been a 4.0 student all my life and I understand the importance of seeking assistance from teachers. So, I'm confident in saying that it's not a failure on my end. I
also question how teacher value is being measured. When star testing data groups all math classes together, how can one teacher be blamed for low scores? I've experienced personal exceptional growth and a newfound love for math because of my advanced algebra 2 teacher who is now being forced to leave. The students
believe that the teachers leaving are not only knowledgeable, but they connect with us, challenge us, and help us grow. I want to be clear that my concern isn't about where a teacher comes from. It's about the exchange program becoming a default solution when the school board removes teachers who are valued by students. How can the school board claim
that they truly care about students when programs like French are being cut and the leaders of theater and choir are vacating due to the current administration? These aren't just extra programs or replaceable staff members. The These are the classes and teachers that make school meaningful for so many of us. I'm here tonight I'm here tonight
not to criticize for the sake of complaining, but to rep represent what students are actually experiencing in the schools. We want strong instruction. We want consistency. We want to feel heard. So, I ask this board sincerely, please consider the consequences of your decisions. Talk to us, involve us, and
above all, prioritize the educators and programs that truly make a difference in our learning and our futures. I came to Cortez seeking opportunity and growth. But instead, I've watched stability disappear, program shrink, and good teachers be pushed out. It feels like our future is being compromised before we even get the chance to fully prepare
for it. Thank you for your time. Emily Christensen. Hi, I'm Emily Christensen. I'm speaking on behalf of my daughter Kaia who just spoke uh because she had another topic to address and the limit um is having me read this. Um so this is
a continuation of her first speech. Another concerning issue is the possible reduction of PBLO Community College dual enrollment credits from one to a half. As a PCC student, I can attest to the rigor of these courses in comparison to
my high school classes. These are real college courses with college expectations and they demand more time, focus, and responsibility from students. Tying back to my first concern about the loss of high school teachers and programs, many students choose dual
enrollment not just for the challenge or college credit, but because MCHS is losing programs and strong instructors in the subjects we're passionate about. Reducing its value doesn't just affect our transcripts. It limits our opportunities to prepare for the future.
Reduced credit might seem like a small adjustment, but it has the power to severely impact students schedules and graduation plans. If credits are based on how hard the administration thinks of classes, then where do we draw the line? Should credits for PE or less academically rigorous courses also be
reduced? What messages are we sending when a full semester of college level work is treated as a lesser credit than a semester of PE? I've also heard the argument that offering full credit for dual enrollment isn't fair to students who aren't in college classes or that our GPA are
getting inflated for a perceived easy option. But I want to reiterate that these classes are not easy. If anyone believes these courses are a shortcut, I would invite them to take one and experience the workload. Students with dual enrollment are voluntarily taking
on harder courses and should not be penalized for succeeding in them. So I have to ask, do we have to fail to prove these classes are challenging? The reality is that many of us are passing these classes because we care about our futures and because we rise to meet the expectations of
PCC. Our success should not be used as evidence that something is less valuable or effective. In fact, it's proof that these courses are doing exactly what they're meant to do, expand our high school experience. And I would add um adlib that the
presentation tonight was good and informative, but perhaps not all of that information is getting passed along to the students in a clear way and also to the parents cuz my husband also called and spoke to the counselor to get clarification and he had to end the
conversation with I'm still not getting it. You know, we'll have to follow up later or you know, talk to somebody else. So there is a disconnect somewhere between the school and the students. Thank you. Thank you.
Micah Lewis. Hi. Hi, my name is Micah Lewis and I'm a sophomore at MCHS. My time at the high school has been nothing short of chaotic as the past couple years it has been falling apart on behalf of district administration and their lack of concern for their teachers and staff. During
these last few weeks of school, I have come to find out that several of my teachers have been moved down and will not be allowed to teach their chosen subject at the school any longer. My algebra 2 teacher, who has dedicated a decade to the school, has now been moved down to elementary PE. This teacher is
one of the most hardworking and patient teachers I know. Someone who dedicates themselves to our students education and extracurricular activities and I find it insulting that he is presented with such a position. My French teacher who has not only held these classes for many
many years but has created a community among the students has received news that the French program is being taken away completely. She ensures every child has a place and hosts French and Spanish club meetings at lunch in which many kids attend to make connections. Both of these teachers
have high have high degrees and are sincerely dedicated to their kids and they've stayed strong even among all of the chaos that district administration has put them through. Along with these teachers, I have also gotten the chance to learn from foreign teachers who have been brought in to fill our spots for needed
positions. And while these teachers are sincerely qualified and appreciated, there is a language barrier that cannot be pushed aside. I cannot receive the same one-on-one help from these teachers because they often don't understand what I need and are unable to fully translate my concerns. Students at MCHS often
participate in PCC classes to get college credits or to meet graduation requirements. We have recently learned that there is a discussion that these credits will be further counted as half credits only. Meaning that if the school cannot provide a course because they are removing several teachers at a time, students must take two courses to make
up for one missing class. This is because admin claims that these classes are not rigorous enough. However, in my last semester of PCC class, I was required to write multiple multiple page essays a week along with other assignments. And when you take away these credits, you have to realize that
you're taking them away from everybody. These new PCC terms are also very concerning now that upcoming sophomores are not allowed to take any of these courses aside from one history course because it puts them too far ahead. Because of these issues, many of my peers who are in NHS are considering
making the commute to Durango every day to receive a better education. Not only would this be a drop in your funding, but in your test scores, as many of these students are in the top of your class. It shows now more than ever that you are clearly not making decisions for the betterment of the students and staff
anymore, but instead to keep your power. And I truly wish that administration could show as much care for the students as the teachers you're moving do. Thank you. Thank you. Tory [Applause]
Palmer. Hello board. Thank you for letting me come today. My name is Tori Palmer. I am a parent and I'm a member of the DAC committee and also the Keer PTO president. And so I love being involved. Uh, I just wanted to bring up a couple things. Just reiterate what
we've heard especially from our students tonight. I'm so that's so awesome that they're coming and voicing their concerns. Like that's what we're wanting them to do. Um, and I just think how important some of those things that they have said especially about teachers that
are being moved to different positions not on their wanting is just alarming to me as a parent. I'm going to have a high schooler soon and it makes me question like what do I do with my with my daughter and I think this incoming class coming in are concerned and it'll be
interesting. I think a lot of a lot of students are considering going elsewhere or doing all other alternatives which is really hard for families. We want to stay here. We want to support and be here in our community. And then I just wanted to bring up GT. Um, all of my I
have four kids, two in elementary, one in middle school, and they are all in the GT program. Since CO though or after CO and I know before CO, I know at Keer, we had a part-time GT coordinator in person. And since CO from what I
understand, there is not a full-time district position or part-time district position. And I think it's taking away from the program. I know Miss Sack is doing an amazing job of what she can to coordinate things, but she's also a principal and we have teachers in each
school that are um writing the ALPS and monitoring those. But they're full they're full-time teachers with classes and so it's just really hard for them to put that time into those kids. And I just looked on the Colorado State of Education website and it says we need to advocate for our students, ensure that
the gifted students have access to appropriate programs and services provided within our district. And so I think if it's within the budget or you find money somewhere to try and hire someone to be able to coordinate this program that goes to all the schools and then maybe field trips for GT can
happen, maybe knowledge bowl can happen, spelling bees, none of that is happening. And why is it not? and we need a full-time or a position to help with that. And then also maybe if we could eventually have smaller class sizes to help. We have qualified teachers that are having to leave, but
if we can have smaller class sizes, we have lots of read programs. And then maybe we can have more GT kids. And I did pull some. We have about 150 students with current GT plans at the moment. And that also includes theater and music. Like there's the
extracurricular things can count as that. and um my kids are involved in that and I'm very concerned there. We had the theater teacher of the year and why did he feel like he needed to leave? Did he feel like he was supported? I don't know. He wouldn't give me a lot of information, but I'm worried that he
didn't feel that way and I hope the new people coming in can get 100% support. Thank you. Thank you. MD McAfee. MB McAfee. Is she still here? Oh, yep. There she is. Good evening board.
I'm not here to talk about the teacher situation or other things that you've been hearing about, but what I am here to talk about is the policy AC that you're going to consider tonight on first reading. And I'll tell you, I'm really confused.
But one thing I'm not confused about, this is your legal counsel helping you scrub DEI from your policies. So this policy is confusing on
a couple of of a couple of ways. In the in the first part of it, it says that the protected people are race, color, and national origin. And then when you go to the next part of
the policy that talks about harassment and the the types of folks that harassment Oh, come on. M didn't get your words right. That if if harassment is brought against the these folks, then
it is harassment. and it includes race, creed, color, sex, marital status, natural origin, religion, ancestry, and the need for special ed services. So, it's just confusing to me that in one part of this only sex, color, and
natural origin, national origin are spoken about, and the other part you have this long list. It isn't confusing to me at all why you have taken out reference to sexual orientation, gender
identity, or expression. But I do think I'm not advocating that you do that. But since that is going to be what happens according to the legal counsel, but I do think the rest of this needs to be cleaned up because it's not at all it
isn't at all plain to me. And so maybe you could look at this on your own and ask your legal counsel some questions on your own that you've thought about yourselves. Thank you. Thank you, Andy.
Okay, Sarah Coffee. [Music] Good evening, Madame President, school board members, and school district staff. I have a concern about a rumor that has been going around about a budget surplus that uh is possibly going
to be spent on a baseball stadium. If the current base uh the current baseball field is the nicest outdoor field that the school district has at this time, it is maintained by the city of Cortez parks department. If you do have a true budget
surplus, um I believe that money would be better spent on fixing existing softball or athletic fields. My daughter has played softball for the last four years for the Cortez Panthers. I don't know if you guys know it or not, but there is a
plethora of little girls that are playing Cortez travel softball right now. You're going to have be inundated and your softball field that you have currently is not CHASSA compliant. On a second note, I want to say I second Nikki Crowley's statements
about teachers being reassigned to positions that they are overly qualified for. Highle math teachers should not be teaching elementary PE. I can't imagine that it would be easy to replace this teacher. You already have a severe staff shortage. Why are you penaltizing
dedicated educators? Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Okay. And then last we have Micah Stanbridge. Hello, I'm Micah Stanbridge. Um, I am a junior at MCHS. Um, and I am deeply troubled by the events that are taking
place at our school. Um, multiple teachers are being moved places, um, changed locations, you know, and it's affecting our education. It's affecting our extra extracurriculars. Um, I think that these teachers need to
the the teachers are what build the education of the students. Without the teachers, there's we can't learn. We can't build the skills we need to to survive and and to do well in life. And so, I think that the teachers are the
most important part of this district and they need to they need to be respected. They need to be they need to feel worth in this district. they need to not be moved and I feel like that that it's a big issue. I also I'm a concurrent
enrollment student and um I'm troubled by the fact of the half credit for college um idea I guess. Um a college class is more rigorous, more challenging, more more
expectations than a regular high school credit and it should count as it is now. a semester of a college class should be a semester's worth or a year's worth of high school credit like it is now. And this change being put in effect will
negatively affect the schedules and the graduating of current MCHS students. And so I think that the teachers need to be respected and they need to feel worth and I feel that the concurrent enrollment system needs to stay as it is
now. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Back down to back down to 10. All right. Thank you to everyone, especially especially you students that took the time to come out and um um get up till on the podium because sometimes that can be a little even for I guess
some of you parents and adults as well, it's a little nerve-wracking. But um I appreciate each and every one of you that came and spoke and um we've taken notes and we are going to look at these and um try to delegate you know who and where and when and some of
these things and um hope hopefully put your minds at ease on some of these things. There's some things that you know that we can't dive into deeply with you about but um try to do the best we can to kind of come to a common ground on some of these. So again, thank you
all for coming and um voicing. So we will um move on with our board meeting then. Um president. Yes. Oh, go right ahead. Do you have something to say? I always have something to say. I think perfect. That's a that's perfect. So I too would like to thank um everybody who
made comments tonight. Um, I I want to thank everyone for being very cordial and civil in the in making your points. Um, I appreciate that very much. I want
to commend the students that came tonight to speak to the board. Um I when I was a student I didn't even conceive of doing that and uh it's uh it's nice to ste to see um students come before
the board speak their mind and um do it with clarity and do it well and uh I'm it it's just nice to see and I appreciate that. Um, I guess I'll stop there. Okay. No,
perfect. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, moving on to discussion items. Um, the board discussion. Wait till we clear out, I guess. [Music]
They don't want to hear the important. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, um board, we had a you had 17 people address this tonight, this evening, and some of them had a lot of the same concerns. Um, I do I'm just going to say I do know that just from
looking at some of the administrators that some of the things that there's clearly still some miscommunications or rumors out there that are just snowballing and um I think people are you know the the sky is falling at this
point and um I think we need to um and I don't know where if we need to start with like the admin administration um on some of these things Um, you know, I'm I'm sorry that one of the students wasn't here because we do have data down to the teacher, so we do know um how how
it you know, that's going. Um, one of the other things was um that I had marked was um I guess I'm not aware one way or the other now that it's being brought up. Um I know we do have GT funds, but I
um thought we had somebody we do that takes care of that. So I was like, um, did okay. And the bulk of that goes through Boseies. Yeah. Um, Boseies has a very healthy budget for GT. So So there's just still some misconceptions
out there that um I don't know how we address all of them and since most unless they're going to watch the rest of the meeting tonight, you know, um, we have their names and numbers and maybe we can just reach out to them via email and oh, if you'd like to speak, you can. I have one thing. I could talk for hours
to address all these concerns, but I do want to address one just because Can you go please come to mic? I'm sorry. Um, just because it's a perception I don't want out there that we would ever want people held out of our auditorium, especially to see a choir concert. So, I did want to clear this up. I just asked
what happened. Um, there was a special award, a whole big thing set up by the students. They were not ready yet and they were still getting Miss Sittin's award. I don't know if that's the right word, but her surprise ready. So, they were like, "Don't let them in yet. Don't let them in yet." And it was
the students wanting to get this all set up. It wasn't us trying to be like, "Oh, no one come in yet." And so, I just want to put that out there. That is never the intent to hold people out. And I know my husband was frustrated one night because he's like, "Let us in." Um, but they're
sometimes not ready inside with the sound, the lights, the the special thing for the teacher. Um, so that night that was the case. It was not administration trying to prevent parents from coming in. So, that one I just wanted to clear up. Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah, cuz
that was I was a little kind of baffled by that as well. I don't know that I've ever had to wait to get in to some of those things. So, I wasn't quite sure what was going on there. Okay. What was the damage in the auditorium, too, that Mr. Graph brought up? The scrim. Um, it
was from tearing down a set and one of the boards fell and ripped the scrim. Okay. Certainly was not intentional. Okay. Um and I don't know if there's something that we need to do. Um
apparently somebody was not able to the counselors were not able to give any information on some of this stuff. So I don't know if you want to clear up some of that. So, the counselors were attempting to clear up some of the misconceptions, but I do know Miss Charles came to me and asked, you know,
she said she tried to explain it, but she wasn't quite getting, you know, the full story like she wanted. So, that's when we wanted to put this presentation together. We also were going to put out a letter to parents, but we wanted to do this first. So, we've been trying to
hold meetings with the kids. We held a big big meeting with our our freshman students who are trying to take PCC next year. We gave them all forms about how to advance in English. So, we've been trying to clear up these misconceptions as we go, but these changes happened
pretty recently. So, now we're trying to explain how it does work and there's still a lot of misconceptions. Even hearing some of the students speak tonight and I'm proud of them. That was they were great and that takes a lot of guts to get up here. But I want them to know we are not out to get them. We are
not out to get their teachers. We are trying to do good things for them. And the reason I brought up my my own kids is because my own kids did it and they did it this way. They advanced into the next level of class rather than just having a class titled advance. They went
to a harder class. And then the conversation was never PCC is easy. So let's give them less credit. It's a seat time comparison. And we have some students who are taking AP calculus in person for a year, they get one credit.
We have kids taking a a math class through PCC for a semester and they get a full credit. And you're comparing those like they're apples to apples and they're not. Now, I'm not an advocate for giving a student who's in an extremely hard class, PCC class, less credit, but they are earning the college
credit. There is never going to be a time where we're going to take that away. those are the credits that get you the associates degree, not the high school credits. And so, there's just still some misconceptions and we're going to try to clean those up. I want to improve our communication, but I also
want people to come and talk to us oneon-one instead of just stirring up and stirring up and and not just coming and communicating. Um, there's accusations that we don't answer the phone. We do answer the phone. Um, we do
answer the emails. Do we miss some? Yes, we're human. Um, things are addressed, we don't always say how they were addressed, but if there's a crime committed, we call the police immediately. If there's bullying going on, we address it. We follow our handbook for discipline procedures to a
tea because I believe in fairness for all students. It doesn't matter what your name is or what you did. If you did the con the behavior, you get the same consequence. So, I just want to point those few things out. But, yeah, we do need to have conversations. We want quality teachers, but we also want
progress and we want rigor in our high school so our kids are ready for success. One other point I want to make, we have had students come back to us who have now been in college and they said, "I was not ready." That's reality. So even though
they may feel ready right now, we want them to truly be ready once they get there. And so all of these pieces combine and I'm happy for the students to come talk to me. I'm happy if you're still here. Come talk to me. Um, this is not to hurt kids. This is to help kids.
It's just hard right now. There's a lot of misconceptions. Jennifer, I'd like for you to investigate with those kids. I mean, it was great to hear from all them, but we didn't get to have any dialogue to figure out what their concerns are about the concurrent enrollment. I'd like for you to find out
what that is and come back to us. I definitely will do that with that and how you can improve that communication going forward. Yep. I agree. So, thank you. Um, any other questions since the concurrent enrollment? I actually, Dr. B, I don't know where all this came from, but college credit and high school
credit never were the same. No, they always had this high school credit. And yes, you had one credit for this class. It was a year-long class. You could take four college credits during that same amount of time, right? But that's not what the high school credit was. And I don't know where all this has come around from because it never used to be
this way. So, I'm not sure why. Well, and all high schools do it differently. I've spent a ton of time researching. There's some who do the half credit, some who do the full credit. Um, but we were starting to see a real issue with the GPA inflation and kids who are
equally as as talented and intelligent, who have the same career drive and college drive as others suffering. We used to not even recognize our concurrent enrollment students as a as a option for validictorian. Did you know
that a few years ago they couldn't even qualify? Now they all qualify. They should equally qualify for that honor if they have worked just as hard. And so that was a change that caused the same kind of stir a few years ago because people didn't understand the why. But it
was good for kids. All those concurrent enrollment kids are now here fighting for more. A few years ago, we didn't have these numbers. I stood up at an awards ceremony my first year and I said, "You guys sign up for concurrent enrollment." And people were like, "What? What are you talking about? There weren't very many kids involved in it.
And that's when we started seeing Dolores students come in and Ma students come in because the rumor was out there that it was a good thing and we want it to be a good thing, but we want it to be a fair thing and to be right. Um, yeah.
um postsecary always drives what happens at the secondary level anyway. But but we don't want our kids to be penalized competing with other kids from wherever Denver or something for the same thing. So, right, however that's got to work, it's got to work. But I I don't agree
with the credit thing and stuff, but however it's got to work, it's we can't penalize the kids for that. I agree. So, yep. And we and we are trying to compare different schools to see, you know, I asked Mr. Burus, reach out to the other superintendent, please, and find out what are they doing because we don't
want our school to be so far different from the other schools. We want our kids to have the same opportunities or more. And so, he did do that. Um, so that helped our decision. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm open to conversation. Okay. All right. Thank
you. Thank you, Dr. Bace. Okay. Do we need to just any more discussions on anything that um I just happened to have a conversation with a parent today and this is so minor compared to some of the things that we talked about but I
want to clarify that the city of Cortez does not maintain the baseball field. The parents do it. The dads of those kids that are playing baseball maintain that field. So that's kind of important if you're
talking about baseball. Yeah. Okay. Um and unless I didn't hear it, I don't know where 4.1 million ever came into anything. I never heard that in any discussion, so I don't know. But um Mike, do you have anything?
That's a silly question. So, Lynn wants to go home. I can come up with something. So, I'd like to again um encourage everyone in the district to join the conversation to improve reading proficiency in our district. Begin by
listening to the podcast miniseries sold a story at soldtory.org. Yeah, I think you're going to get tired of me saying that, but I'm hoping that people who watch this will hear that as well. Um, one of the things that I heard in the
comments tonight was uh um about the baseball field and a budget surplus. And um so I want to I know uh this may sound elementary, but
um so I hear people talking about the budget with a surplus or a deficit and confusing it with our reserve with a surplus.
And um the comments by a person this evening um thinking that we were going to have a surplus budget that we were going to spend on the baseball field
uh is not accurate. It's a reserve um surplus that is was the idea. It's not being considered yet. It's being talked about. Um, it's not finalized. There's
no cost estimate. I saw somewhere on uh social media somebody has claimed that we were wanting to spend I think they said $4.4 million on this. There's no estimate. I don't know where they got that number. Maybe it was a number that was thrown out in a discussion or
something. But anyway, the one the thing I need to or I'd like to make clear uh to people listening or watching this is that um the budget is like your checking account. Um the budget is what you spend
for the year. Your income um cannot be less than your expenses because if it is, you're in a deficit budget. That's a bad thing. If you continue to have more expenses coming in than you do revenue, you're going to
draw down the reserve, which is like a savings account. So, you've got your budget, which is like your checking account, and your reserve, which is like your savings account. The baseball field idea was involving the savings account,
not the checking account. And um when people I know I've heard comments about uh well we ought to if there's a surplus then we ought to spend that on um teacher salaries or or getting more teachers so that the student uh teacher
ratio is is lower. Well you can only do that with your checking account. If you do that with your savings account, you're dedicated to paying that salary every year and you're going to run out of money in your reserve and then you're going to have to fire those people that
you hired with that money. You have to hire them based on what you have in your checking account, which is our budget. And so, um, I hope that helps people see the the difference.
Thank you for that, Mike. Yep. Yep. Okay. Any other discussion at this point? Okay. All right. We will move on to the I'd like to just real quick addition to this. You know, a lot of these kids too are here. They're advocating and fighting for teachers who
it's clear that we've had some excellent teachers who've made a significant impact in students lives and you know to the point where they're inspired to stand up for them and advocate for them as an ally and I think that's that's commendable both of the teachers and the students who are brave enough to speak
tonight. So yes yeah yeah that's it's worth being said. Um, one thing. Oh, yes. Go, go right ahead. No, go ahead, Dr. Ron, please. I do want to point out that no one is saying Miss Curtis is not an effective teacher. Um,
she is a half-time teacher, part-time teacher. We want her full-time. We really want her full-time. Um, and so it has been hard because we do need four full-time math teachers or we're going to have big class sizes. And so, it's sort of this trade-off. We can have
three and a half or we can have four. Three and a half. We have huge class sizes. Four. We have reasonable class sizes, but we don't have Miss Curtis. Um, it it's like a rocking hard place. And so I just want to say no one is
saying she is a bad teacher. Um, so I know maybe that perception is out there and that is not the case. Um, I've asked Miss Curtis to help coach with me. I mean, she's she's a good person. So I just want to say that. Um, no one's saying our teachers are bad teachers.
Um, we are in a budget crisis. Hard decisions have to be made. Sometimes those decisions are extremely hard and impossible. Um, yes, but we're always looking for solutions. We're just maybe not there yet. Um, but I will say that I
don't want anybody to leave this room thinking that that was the reasoning. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Like I can emphasize that a little bit too, Dr. bon face was when I was at at the high school. I will guarantee you any student that I had that had math problems, I made sure they got into
Shelley Curtis's class. So So, okay. All righty. Okay. Let's move on to the Monzma Cortez School District fiscal year 202526 proposed budget discussion. The moment you've all been you've been waiting
for. I'm watching on YouTube. Thank you, Terry. Good evening again. And you gave me a great introduction to the budget and how it works. So, thank you. Um, so I have a presentation on
where we're at with the budget so far. Um, this presentation, we have not released the budget document yet, but that will be available on our website and in our district office tomorrow morning. we will put out a press release so anyone can review that in entirety.
Um so first things first um the school finance act H bill 251320 was passed. Um there's been a lot of debate about this. Um they've been considering at the state level whether they're going to continue the multi-year student averaging if
they're going to fund based upon actual filled seats. Um, so it's really nice to have a decision at this point. Um, so what they have determined is that we will have a four-year averaging with a 15% difference from House Bill um 1448
which was passed last year. I will say that 1448 was very favorable for our district specifically due to the rural factor um to ESS to low income. All of those factors that um 1448 is supposed
to help with really benefited our district. What the state found is that they cannot fund that. Um so this is the compromise. They are going to leave some averaging and then slowly implement what was written in 1448. Um so total program funding that is
approximately 83% of the funding that the school district receives. Um it's a combination of local and state funding. The local portion is the property taxes from our community as well as specific ownership taxes. So when you go um purchase a vehicle or something like
that, those registration fees um a portion of them come to us. um anything that um our local share does not fund, the state will backfill. So there's this give and a take always. We know, you know, um based upon an estimated student
count, we'll get 26.5 million next year. Um we don't know exactly how that'll be split out between local and state share, but that is the total amount and that is about 83% of our funding. Um, we also received federal funding. Over the last several years, especially
with the COVID pandemic, we had received um much more federal funding than we are now. I think we're getting back to a baseline. Um, we have some funding that comes into the general fund, primarily impact aid. So, that is money in lie of property taxes for individuals living on
federal lands or reservation lands. Um, our school nutrition fund receives mostly federal funds. Um, and then we have our grant funds in 221 through 229. So, in total, we're anticipating about
$4.2 million. And with that being said, I would say about 4 to 500,000 of that um does get passed on to our charters. So, it's not entirely ours. Um we also have some billable services or um s I guess additionally services
that um other districts pass through funding to us. So we have um purchase services for our charter schools. Any of our charter schools have a mandatory GNA um that is calculated based upon our administration costs and then it is
capped at 5%. I will say in many years it has not reached that 5%. Right now we are about at that cap. Um we have optional tech support. We have optional bookkeeping bookkeeping and payroll. And then um a mandatory computer system for
student information, accounting and human resources. And then transportation has been provided in the past. Um right now that's on special situations with pre-approval. It's not a a blanket availability any longer.
Um, we have other agreements with surrounding districts for things like transition programs or programs that some of their students might benefit from. Um, so that's sort of a situation where they will claim the student and then pass the funding on to us. Uh, we have facility rental and leases and then
we have our land dedication fees. I wanted to share an update on the mill levy override. Um, you know, last year based upon the mills certified in December, we're looking at receiving $2,57,000 this year. I will say as of
this week, we've received 89% of that. Um, so the the main payment did come through in May. Um, with that, um, right now we're budgeting the same amount next year because we don't have anything else to go off of until December. Um, so this
year we have the 2 million we're receiving. we are paying out approximately $343,000 to our charter schools and then our teachers will receive about $589,000. So that leaves a restricted fund balance for MLO specifically um in
the amount of $1.1 million. So that'll carry into next year and that restricted um restricted fund work cannot be touched for other expenditures. Um next year we are anticipating like I said we'll just budget the $2 million until we know more. um our charter schools with the
with Battle Rock leaving the district, we anticipate $272,000 going out to charter schools. And then with the raises approved by the board, there $7,000 for teachers, 21,00 um we're anticipating a spend of 1.38
$388 million. Um, so at the end of next year, we should have a restricted fund balance for the MLO in the amount of $ 1.5 million. Um, this is something we've always shown historically with the budget presentation. Um, we are funded
per student and this just shows um, sort of how that has traveled from 2015 until today. So we have seen a slight increase. It's really interesting. Um when we received our first run, it's called the financial run from CDE where they give us our estimates, we were
actually looking at $11,800 um per student and then when we lost um or when one of our charter schools is exiting, it dropped to $1,400. So I don't know if that's an error or if that's how that works. Um so I need to do further investigation
there, but it is certainly increasing slowly. This is another historical trend um of our pupil count. I changed it a little bit this year because I think there's been some confusion on how perhaps I've reported it or it's been reported in
different ways by different people. Um there are many different ways to look at it. We have the actual students that are enrolled. We have the FTEES which accounts for um those students that are part-time or full-time, maybe online.
All of those factors determine how many students were actually paid for. And then we have um the funded count. So CDE, you know, based upon the averaging or other factors will generally fund us higher than the actual count. Um and
then I also included just the RE1 funded um excluding charters just so you can see all four of those different comparisons. You will see though all of them have a downward trend. And if you look back um depending on the time frame, we're looking at about a 2
to 5% decline over the years. And this year, what we had anticipated was about um losing 91 for a charter school and 49 just in our students just to continue that
trend. Um this slide shows total program share and breaks out the local or total program and breaks out state and local share. So in that dark maroon bar you'll see the total program funding. Um we also have the state share in the orange
and the local share in the red just for comparison. And you can see I mean for the most part the total funding does increase. Um this year we do have that slight dip due to a decrease in student enrollment. Um the state and uh local
shares you can see fluctuate yeartoyear and that's based upon our um county's assessed valuation. Um so we have some changes to our budget as we've all been discussing for uh months and couple of years if not more. Um we're trying to rightsize. The
district has seen this ongoing downward trend in student enrollment. Um not necessarily in the expenses. So, we've been working really hard with each department to determine what is necessary to keep things running efficiently um productively, make sure we have that growth still, but um you
know, just trim some of potential waste. Um so, we've been right sizing in all departments. Um as I've mentioned, Battle Rock will become part of CSI as of July 1st. That so that changes the overall funding, though most of it is a pass through. Um, our transportation
services are no longer going to be build um, at least within the district starting July 1. That's just for efficiency. Um, it also helps to there is just some unnecessary transactions within the budget where we would budget for transportation in one just to give
it to our other department and so on. So, we've just adjusted everyone's budgets accordingly. And then we have our fund 140 which is our student athletics not to be confused with the fundraising that is 230. Um but student athletics which would be our coaches and
transportation travel for all of our um activities I have pulled that into fund 100 now. And so that is I don't think I have I do have it on a slide tonight. So I'll show you that too.
Um, so this is just a this is basically a screenshot of our revenue, our local and intermediate revenue. I realize that's small and you can review the whole budget document tomorrow. Um, all in all, most of it's fairly
consistent. You'll see that decline in the local share. Um, I did a slight decline in our investments. We've been doing really great on that, but I anticipate a slight um, decline there. Um you'll see that the addition of date receipts which were once in the
140 now here um pretty consistent with the rentals and facility use um our mineral taxes that's just a three-year average. We've received a little bit more than we had in I guess a little bit less there than we had
anticipated. So I did a three-year average there that's somewhat unpredictable. um public school lands. We had not anticipated any of that this year and we were um we did receive that. So overall a slight increase
there. Um for state and federal revenues um we are seeing a slight decline there primarily because I think the total program share has us with a higher local at this moment. that might adjust in January when we get our actual numbers,
but that would be the largest decrease there for that state equalization. Um, and then impact aid, that one's a little bit tricky, too, because we don't have a direct way to measure that. Um, that is based upon whatever funding the federal government
has and it has available to pass on to us. So, I will say even on those um those times where we receive what we anticipate is the final payment, it states it's the final payment, we'll get more. Other times we wait several years. So, it's just really um it's not real
predictable. What I did for this year is just took a percentage of our students compared to what we had last year. So, it's based upon the application data. All right. So once we have all of our revenue um then we have to also take out our
allocations and transfers. So this is where we um act as the pass through for our charter schools. Um the main difference here would be uh the removal of battle rack and then the transfers to other sources. Um you won't see the transfer
to the 140 any longer. I have had to increase uh transfers to technology as well as the insurance reserve. Um that's just a you know last year what we had talked about is possibly bringing those accounts into the general fund as well. At this time
um we do see some benefit in leaving them in on their own. Um so I'm trying to get a little bit more funding back into those for the time being. Um our capital reserve uh we could always use more there but our policy stakes no more than a million dollars. So that is kept right there until we talk about that
further and see if there's need to revise policy. Um this just drills down a little bit more into the one the general fund expenses the schools and student activities. So um you'll see all of the campuses as well as student activities
which was the 140 in prior years. So that adding that does sort of skew the overall um adjustments to the general fund. Um this just goes into um more expenditures for all of our departments for administration and other
supports. Overall, um we are looking, you know, as I mentioned, there is somewhat of a skew bringing that million dollars in from um the 140, but there we're seeing about a $600,000 decrease in expenditures considering
that and then this is just a summary page. So um after all the work that has been happening with each of the departments um we are at a place where we can confidently say that we have a balanced budget. We are um currently
sitting with um a surplus budget. Um and as mentioned before, you know, kind of our checking account, we're anticipating having about $500,000 more after removing the MLO. So I have those three lines that are in green. Um, we are
anticipating having a $900,000 surplus. However, we have to take out the portion that is MLO for the restricted funds, which leaves us with that $500,000. So, I just trying to find a different way to display that so that we don't, you know,
accidentally make plans or eat into that MLO money. Um, and then down on the bottom, it it does show that again, but I just wanted it um transparent up top as well. So with that, we are anticipating an ending fund balance of
20,433,000. Um unrestricted would be 17.9 million. Wanted to share just a little bit of information about some of our special funds. Our fund 213 is our school nutrition fund. Um currently we qualify for the C or community
eligibility provision um due to our free and um reduced lunch numbers. Um I believe that's good for another 3 to four years. Um obviously we're watching what happens at the federal level to make sure nothing changes, but as of right now we feel pretty stable. Um we
aren't too concerned about what's happening at the state level with the free meals for all and that not being able to be funded. Right now, all of our students do eat for free due to the C program. Um, one thing you will notice this year is um that we did opt out of
the summer feeding. So, we're not feeding the entire community as we had done last year. Um, instead, what we are doing is increasing our school year um to feed the the students in summer school and that may change next year. There's some transitions there and I
think just trying to get everyone on board and feeling comfortable and we'll reassess next year. um fund 310, the bond redemption fund. Um just some notes on there. We have about $10 million remaining on those two bonds. Um both of those will be paid off
in 2030 um 2032, I believe. Yes, 2032. Was that first one a part of that middle number that 19 million? So that was for the high school and the second part was for the
stadium. That's yeah um capital reserve fund fund 430. This just shows some of the projects that are being discussed for um some project needs this year. Um, as you can see, I think we're we're going to be going over the million dollars and therefore
dipping into that reserve and the fund 430. So, Beach Street roof, Keer flooring, um, Beach Street Mesa asphalt, warehouse cooling, manat abatement, um, maintenance service truck, custodial custodial equipment. We have an issue
with our our Lewis irrigation pipeline right now or just the irrigation itself. May need to do a pipeline and then track and field painting. So, that's kind of what's on our radar at this moment. Are we replacing any buses? Not this year. Yes, sir.
Um, our self- insurance fund that's running pretty well. We do put a lot of money into that fund. Um, but right now the district is able to offer really affordable if um and sometimes no cost insurance to our staff. So, any employee is eligible for free insurance um for
that plan. A and then they can pay for a plan B or C at um nominal costs really for themselves and their families if they chose to. Um we also have dental vision and so on. But that um fund balance we're anticipating will be about
$1.7 million by the end of next year and that's about where it's sitting right now as well. who determines the uh price matrix here in this uh monthly employee cost for the insurance. Yes. So that um really came
at the mostly at the recommendation of our brokerage at USI. Um they did a market study to see what um surrounding school districts or even other businesses were offering at what costs. Um they looked at the richness of our
plans. They looked at the cost. Um they looked at our trends. Go ahead. Daniel. Um one of the other things is um because the plan had been doing well for for the last couple of years um we we're
required not to make essentially make a profit on that plan. So if if we have too much of a fund balance or too much uh savings, then we're required to make reductions in what we're charging. That's right. For the And so we had we did not we had to,
but we did reduce what we were charging for family premiums cuz we were really competitive, in fact, ahead of the market with of our of our like employers for the employee side, but we were a little uncompetitive on the family side. So we dropped those substantially. Um,
but that that goes into it as well is we have we have this we have these limits that we have to stay within. And I might add that it's a very healthy uh fund balance and we were down as low as 300,000 at one point and at the point where we were dipping into the general
fund and emergency situations several years ago. So, we're in a good spot thanks to uh the movement of finance and HR in reference to uh the rates to build the fund balance up again for the self- insurance fund. Also, remember that in
Mr. Burrus's uh superintendent report, we'll be putting out an RFP for a health insurance broker and our present broke broker will be included in this process. But it's a healthy uh initiative to go out every so often just to keep
everything in check and see what the market will bear. Also, our claim history is very healthy. We're in a different place than we were several years ago. Thank you. Thanks, Danielle. How is the
forecast column calculated? Um, so that is looking at year-to- date expenditures plus any incumbrances. I will say it's not 100% accurate because even today I'm seeing things come in that we thought had already been completed. So it's not 100% accurate,
but it's pretty close. We did that purchasing cut off and fortunately I just don't think that was adhered to very well all across the board where we get invoices that we weren't anticipating. more is the situation. Yeah. And so um I also have another
question on the fund 100 summary um slide if you want to look at that. I'm seeing the 2024 ending balance is 18 uh 468 but then our beginning balance is 19286 289. So, um, something's not
rolling forward there with a $820,000 discrepancy in the 2526 column. Mhm. So, the way that's calculated up top, it's the 19 million beginning fund balance. Um, we have we do have the
increase. So, we really have a fund balance of 20.4 million, which is like four or five lines up. And then we have to account might be easier if you just look at the numbers I've circled here. [Music]
Oh, 23. Okay, I will get into that. Great. [Music] Yeah, I will have to look into that, make sure it's accurate, and I will do that before I post the document tomorrow.
And um what additional questions do you have or information you would like to see in the next month before we present it for approval? I'd like to throw a party. We've got a balanced budget. I mean, a party that doesn't cost anything, you know, right before
you look, huh? I'm I'm uh I'm very very happy with the work that uh you and the rest of the administration has done to bring us back into a balanced budget. Um I just learned uh in the past month um
reading the some of the statutes that it's a uh state law that you have to have a balanced budget. You don't have a choice. It's state law. and and we have been out of compliance with state law for however long we had a deficit
budget, right? And we I think that's if I'm not mistaken, those resolutions, those first three pages of the budget allow you to go into a deficit budget, but you need to have a planned, you know, you need to know why you're doing that and have a planned way to get it back to being balanced. So maybe, you
know, in our case, when we have a $20 million um fund balance and want to spend it on some special projects, that's okay to do as a onetime thing, but we should not be um year after year having our reoccurring expenses coming from that fund balance. Correct. Yeah.
So, this is a this is a big day for for our district, I think. Yeah. It's exciting. And it took uh you know, the work of everybody to get here. So, I put the numbers on the paper, but I can't make those programming decisions. So, I appreciate everyone's involvement in doing that. It's a huge
milestone. Okay. Well, that's what I have for right now. Um, please review the budget tomorrow when it comes up. Um, we'll have a discussion item at the board work session and then again at our next board
meeting for approval. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Danielle. Thank you. Danielle, can you just talk about the last slide going forward about the different meetings unless I missed it when you spoke? Sure. So, we'll have um
this as an agenda item on the June 3rd work session and we will also have it for um listed as an action item. We need to have it approved by June 30th. So, please give me your feedback prior to then so that when we present on the 24th, if the moving meeting is moved to
the 24th, um that everything's good to go at that point. And I have my contact info there if anyone has questions or suggestions. Thank [Music] you.
Okay. All right, we will move on to our action items. So, if I can get a motion to approve the consent calendar, I'd like to make a motion to accept the consent calendar. Second.
Online voting now available. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Um, get a motion to accept the resignation of board member for district A. We'll move to accept the resignation for uh district A board member.
Second online voting is now available. alarm. Sorry. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Um, if I can get a motion for the city of Cortis historic property application for Man Elementary. I'd like to accept the city of Cortez
historic property application for Milan Alamry. I second. Is there any discussion on this one at all? Okay. Online voting is now available. motion passes
unanimously. Okay, if I can get a motion to approve the Colorado School Medicaid Consortium 2025 2026 service agreement. I will move to accept the Colorado School Medicaid Consortium 2025 2026 service agreement.
I'll second it. Madame President, I've got some discussion. So, um, page two is missing some information. The primary and secondary contacts are not filled in.
Um, and I I have a question. Is there any anybody here who can answer questions about this? Okay. So, there's this item uh the school Medicaid consortium service agreement and then
after this we're going going to vote on the Medicaid coordinator services contract. What I would like to um request and I don't know whether it belongs on the consortium or the
coordinator services is that uh the board receive monthly reports on um the services that are um done at the uh high
school um clinic. and get some kind of statistics on what's being done there in terms of students served services that in that were included
um uh possibly costs. I'm not sure yet, but um I would like to know on a regular basis what's happening at that clinic. And I don't know if it should go under the consortium service agreement or the
coordinator service contract. I just want to clarify this um is separate from the clinic. This is actually um where our staff or the district receives some reimbursement for services our staff provide to the students that qualify for Medicaid and
others as well. Um so it's for like personal care or um different um tasks outside of teaching that they are reimbursed for. Um so the one um the first contract is just to do the Medicaid billing so that the district is reimbursed. The second one is sort of
our liaison between CDE Hickpuff um and the consortium to make sure all of that is happening that paperwork's getting submitted timely and that um we're eligible for reimbursement. So it is separate from the clinic. Okay. So, the only problem uh then is the missing
primary and secondary contact information and we can fill that in. That is myself and Marley. Okay. How are we funding both the contract and the uh the liaison position? Historically, this
has come out of the Medicaid funding um year to year. It varies based upon our staffing um and what services are provided, but we get about 240 to 270,000 a year. So this would come from that as part of the administrative allowance and then we dedicate some of
that revenue above the charges to uh the nurses also that are in the district in far as far as their salary right that funds about 40 to 60% of all of our nursing staff the reimbursement students okay so this is actually the charge
program and so all the students that are under Medicaid are qualifiable for reimbursement to the district for services provided and there's a whole array of different items that get identified and the the provider with the
uh Medicaid consortium service agreement will collect that and we can have a report to the board in addition monthly so that you can see the historical transactions that are going on. Is this an annual renewal type of thing?
Yes, sir. Okay. Online voting is now available. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Um, Madame President, uh, the administration recommends that the board table this item, uh, because the contract hasn't been fully reviewed by
SWOS's legal and they haven't responded yet. You jumped an item. I jumped an item. Medicaid coordinator service contracts 2025. I'll make a motion for Medicaid coordinator service contract 202526.
Okay. Second. and then Okay, thank you. Sorry about that. Online voting is now available. Okay. Okay. So, wait a minute. Oh, sorry. Sometimes it takes a while before it
shows up on my computer. It's late. The internet wants to sleep. Motion passes unanimously. All right. So, the next action item is to approve the Southwest Open School Charter renewal, but that has been removed when we set the agenda. When we
set the agenda because we Oh, that's right. Thank you, Mr. Rice. Yeah. So we will move on to um action item G policy first readings AC non-discrimination equal opportunity
AC-E1 non-discrimination equal opportunity AC-E-2 non-discrimination equal opportunity AC-R option one non-discrimination equal opportunity AC-R2 asterct title 9 policy and
procedures for sexual harassment So this is just the first reading. So Madame President, I'd like to explain a little bit. Um, do we need a motion? Even though we're not taking this, the first reading. Okay. Sorry, Mr.
Interrupt you. So these policies under AC um are being revised um because of what's happened at the federal level. Uh
so remember under the Biden administration there were changes made to title nine and then when the Trump administration came in title N was changed back and in addition to that um the Trump administration was
um talking about well I better read what read what I wrote here. uh under the Trump they have been changed back guidance was provided earlier this year by the federal government. Additionally over district our district uses federal grant monies
and Trump has indicated those grants are at risk if any district continues to support certain previously protected classes like sexual orientation, gender expression or gender identity.
Um so the reason for these changes are uh our district uses federal grant monies and those grant monies are at risk if we do not change these policies. A
um and then in the process of uh going through this policy, one of the members of the committee um pointed out that our district actually does discriminate
um between races. Um, and how can we have a policy that says there's no discrimination if we outwardly and openly discriminate? And what I'm talking about is
um, indigenous students are um, offered scholarships. There are um, there's indigenous tutoring. There's I think the money is called JOM money. I may be wrong there, but Mhm. Right. So
that's a that's a purposeful and um approved form of um what someone might take as discrimination. Maybe it
would be called reverse discrimination. I don't know. But anyway, it's a situation that we have and it's uh something that um it it is okay that by federal rules. And so there's some
strange text that was added here on the second page, the first paragraph, there's a lot of red text there. If you go down about 2thirds of the way, there's a sentence that starts with the word
seemingly. So, this text was added to account for those situations. Seemingly contrary to the letter and intent of this policy, there are certain programs that are exempt
from judgment at this time. This exemption includes programs and opportunities explicitly reserved for indigenous students unless or until federal guidance affords the Monizuma Cortez School District with greater
clarity regarding these programs. Basically, it's going to continue and please don't think this is discrimination because it's been approved. That's what what was trying to be said there. Okay.
And that's all I have unless somebody has a question. It still kind of reads like a hot mess. And then are we then getting involved in providing oversight as to who
categorizes as indigenous or not to be able to qualify for those programs? Perhaps Leland could answer that for us. I don't know. As for us guys, we use our tribal IDs most of the time to um justify if we're an enrolled tribal
member. But there are tribal member. There are indigenous people out there that do not belong to a tribe and that aren't accepted. You know, they don't meet the blood quantum and stuff like that, but they still use try to use the the funds
and stuff. That's as far as what I know. And um Mr. Mr. Ramirez, um I forget the number, but there are more than 20 different There's a lot tribes assoc
uh is that correct? There's like 27 or something. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, it's not just the U mountain youths, right? We have a CIBs, too. I think that's what we go off of too is a CIB
certificate of Indian birth they use to to provide to to the district when they want stuff. Okay. Any more discussion on any of those? I feel like it needs work still to be a little more consistent and cl
provide clarity rather than kind of this flippy floppy. We don't discriminate unless it's this case. Well, any suggestions you have would be welcome. Great.
Mr. Can I can I ask a question about um the bottom of this policy where it lists the Title 9 coordinator and compliance officer? Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that in talking to legal counsel that we were going to leave the name of the position but not
the name of the individual so that the policy wouldn't have to be updated every time there's a change in personnel. Is that the case or is that going back? Are we changing that? Um I don't believe that's the case. Um the legal council
made a suggestion and um let's see. I'm looking in here. I thought we had put that in here. Anyway, the the intent was that there's one place in policy where those pl those
people would be identified and and um they would also be identified on the website and in any policies that we mention discrimination or whatever, we refer to this policy and it'll have their names and titles there. And then
um uh any um any other references anywhere there there will be only in one place in policy and one place on the website so that there's only two places to change it. Right now they're in all kinds everywhere. Right. Yeah. In in
many different policies. So that was the intent. It looks like we left it off. And the names are listed but I was just wanting some clarification. So thank you. And this is the one policy where we we're recommending to keep the names.
Yes. And all the other policies will not have the names. They'll just have positions. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So I need to add that to uh to this policy. All
right. Any other discussion on this these policies? Okay. All right. We will move on to action item H to approve the policy. Second reading BBBG for board elections. I move that
we approve approve um policy BBBG board elections. I second. I know this is to even out the election years. Um, why did we take that example
out of say starting one on an odd year and then going to an even year? I guess because I don't see a start that way really what to do there. I guess you just decided you just didn't really need an example. Is that the
reasonings behind that? So, um I ought to I ought to point out this was uh already adopted under the emergency I call it emergency but under a different procedure under the policy adoption method. Um because it was
important to get this done quickly in order to have it done in time for the process uh prior to the election. Um this was adopted and uh we have 90 days from that
day to um seal it by taking the second reading vote. So it's already adopted. Um now we're going to either um accept or reject it. Online voting's now available.
Motion passes unanimously. Deborah, just for some clarification, it does say that the board um that Mr. Bur recommends this um review policy BBBG board elections for first reading under that recommended action. I don't know if you want to change that. I think I got it changed.
Oh, you did? I can see it up on your screen. Yeah, I saw that the same time you did. Okay. Thank you. Um, President Noise, before we adjourn, um, I just wanted to say publicly that in our consent calendar was a change in the June meeting that you guys did
approve this evening. So, our regular board meeting will be June 24th instead of June 17th. I It wasn't publicly viewable and it was done in a bulk, so I didn't know if everyone would see it. Okay. Thank you for that,
Deborah. All right. All right. I'm Everybody ready for the gavl? No. Can we stay longer? I will adjourn this meeting at 10:13. Another presentation. Thank you everybody. Thank you.