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I turn my mic on. You think I hadn't done it before? Alright, we'll call our meeting to order. Thank you for joining the Board of Education this evening. Please mute your cell phones as we begin this meeting. Today is Tuesday, April 28th, 2026, and
this meeting is now called to order at 5:41 p.m. For those attending this meeting in person, live captions are available on a TV, in the boardroom, and in the lobby. To access the live captions in a
language other than English on your own device, please scan the QR code on the screen or on the table near the entrance and select the language of your choice. The live stream of this meeting is also available in
English and Spanish on YouTube. For links to these live streams, please visit the Board of Education page of the PSC website or PSC TV on demand on YouTube. Alright, next we have
approval of agenda. Would any board members like to make a changes to the agenda? Yes, Connor. I move that the board amend the agenda to include a second executive session regarding specialized details
on security arrangements. Thank you. Connor, do I have a second? Thank you. Kevin and Jill, please call the vote. Carla
Bass, I Conor Duffy I Kevin Scott Bauer I Jessica Zamora I doctor. Koranda. Ziegler motion passes six zero. Thank you. All
right. Next we have our resolutions and action item. So we have a resolution in support of Mental Health Awareness Month. Can I get a motion. Thank you. Charonda. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of the
Health Awareness Month. Thank you. I don't know if your mic is on. It is. Yeah. I feel like these are a little late. Maybe. Can you do it one more time? I move that the board approved the Resolution and Support
Mental Health Awareness Month for May 2026. Thank you very much. Can I have a second? Thank you. Carla. All right. Brian. Yeah. Good evening everyone. Tonight we are honored to be joined by Mental Health and Prevention
Coordinator Sarah Wilkins, who will present the resolution.
Welcome, Sarah. Thank you. Tonight, we are asking you to recognize Mental Health Awareness Month for the month of May in Poudre School District. Nami is a national
organization supporting mental health and. The following is some information from Nami about Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental Health Awareness Month provides a chance to stand with your community and
show that no one struggles alone. Nami's 2026 Mental Health Awareness Month theme invites everyone to join in speaking up against mental health stigma by turning silence into connection. By
sharing our lived experiences, learning from each other's experiences, and building stronger connections, we can challenge stigma and create spaces where people are supported, understood and find
healing. Every story shared turns silence into connection and connection into healing. Together, we can strengthen communities and create opportunities for empathy, understanding, and meaningful
change. At SRD, we are proud to center mental health and belonging as a key pillar of our strategic plan. Our staff are deeply committed to supporting the well-being and sense of belonging for every
student, every day. Strong family, school, and community partnerships are essential to the health of our community, and we are truly grateful for the opportunity to work together in support of our
students. Tonight, I have the honor of introducing you to Annalisa, a parent at SRD, to share her story and help create connection towards breaking stigma. Thank you so much,
Annalisa for sharing your story, which in turn can spark healing. Hi. Thank you, Sarah and the board for letting me speak tonight. I'd like to focus on
resolution number seven. Whereas staff and school are often among the first to recognize changes in mental and physical health among students, staff need to feel empowered to recognize and take appropriate
action when needed, including partnering with families to support student well-being. My son is an eighth grader at Tinmouth Middle High School. I was contacted in early
September by Miss Virginia, the mental health counselor there that Cooper had been reported to. Safe to tell regarding some concerning comments. At that point, she said we needed to keep a close eye on him. I'm a
family nurse practitioner and I'm trained in watching for the signs and symptoms of depression, but I thought he was just an irritable 13 year old. He was playing football for the first time in his life,
starting varsity and playing both sides of the ball. Over the next several weeks, he was able to touch base frequently with his school counselor, Mrs. Wells and Miss Virginia, and
they got to know him and his personality. I offered to get a counselor outside of that, and he declined. On October 31st, I got a call from Miss Virginia that they were worried about a
change in his demeanor and comments he was making. When he got home, I found out he'd been cutting since August, and in the two weeks prior to Halloween, it had escalated to
the point that I fear we were within days of losing him. There is no doubt in my mind that those two women saved my son's life. There are several things that came into play here.
Number one, the student who reported my son was educated in what to watch for and when to contact. Safe to tell. And also my son had gotten the education to call nine eight H, which he
had done two days prior to Halloween. Number two, Miss Virginia being on site a couple of days a week, made it possible for her and Mrs. Wells to get to know my son better
and be able to identify when he was in crisis. Number three, the staff had the support to reach out to me as a parent early on to result in the best
outcome. He just had his 14th birthday. Thank you for sharing
your story with a 14 year old and an eighth grader myself, and having not gone through that level by any means, but definitely observing the changes and the struggles that
middle school can provide, it's very real. And like you, I appreciate that our educators are exceptionally good and our students are exceptionally good at watching out for each other and being supportive. So thank you so much for sharing your
story, though, because I think it reminds us how important these services are. We all know it, but having the story articulated to us really helps. So thank you for being here. Are there any other comments at
this time? I think we're getting teary eyed, to be honest. All right. Do you have any comments? No. Okay. Jill, can you please call the vote?
Karla Bass I Conor Duffy I Kevin Scott Bauer I Jessica Zamora I doctor Koranda Ziegler
I motion passes six zero. Thank you. All right. Next we have our resolution support of Military Appreciation month.
Can I get a motion. Thank you Scott. I move that the board approve a resolution in support of Military Appreciation Month,
May 2026. Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you. Kevin. Brian, joining us this evening to speak to the resolution in support of Military Appreciation Month, our captain
Roby and student Garrison Ware welcome both. Good evening,
superintendent, board members and special guests. My name is Garrison Ware and I am the cadet Battalion commander of the JROTC program housed at
Poudre High School. I'd like to begin by thanking you for inviting me back to this board meeting to discuss a topic I'm so passionate about. I'm honored to stand before you
this evening to deliver a resolution on the importance of Military Appreciation Month. When reflecting on the lasting impact and legacy of our
country's extensive history of military service, it becomes clear that our nation is nothing short of indebted to the men and women who have answered the call of duty.
These service members who so valiantly stepped up in our country's time of need, were just like you and I. They had
families, aspirations, personal objectives, and bright futures. These people, regardless of their different cultural backgrounds or lifestyles for
all, unified in their ability to recognize the importance of service and standing in defense of our nation and its principles. And they chose to
prioritize that defense above their own interests. Every one of these noble and courageous individuals sacrificed. They
sacrificed their time. They sacrificed their futures. And some even sacrifice their lives
upon the altar of freedom. That freedom born of their sacrifice means that we do not go to bed each night afraid of foreign
attacks. We feel safe and secure in our country. That freedom born of their sacrifice means our nation has been able to flourish, that we as
individuals, have the privilege to pursue our dreams, to create and innovate, to strive to solve the world's problems rather than struggle to survive
day to day. That freedom born of their sacrifice means that we get to see the world as a place of plenty, and seek to
expand that abundance to others, rather than live in a place of fear, selfishness, and scarcity. The sacrifices of yesterday and
continued service of the military today ensures we. We may enjoy the freedoms we so easily take for granted, because for so many of us,
we've never known another reality. But we can never forget the freedom that this freedom was not easily won or
has been effortlessly retained, or is invulnerable to future threat, regardless of how vehemently we wish to honor the gifts these many brave
individuals have bestowed upon us, we must acknowledge that as a nation, we can never fully repay the debt we owe to those
who gave to us so much without asking for anything in return. It appears, then, the only way to honor their sacrifice is
first to remember our service members and recognize the connection between their service and the freedoms we enjoy today. The second, and I
believe, one of the most meaningful and powerful ways we can honor the sacrifice of our service members is by ensuring that we use the gift of freedom
we have been given to pay forward to selfless service. They dedicated their lives to demonstrate. We should all seek to uphold the tradition of
service and contribution these individuals have set into motion. It does not have to be in uniform. It does not have to be in combat, and it does not
have to be a career commitment. We have the freedom to decide what is important to us, what causes we champion, what wrongs
we can, right? We have the freedom to decide if we decide to exercise it. As John F Kennedy, the 35th president of
our nation, famously stated during his inaugural address, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for
your country. It is through observing this call to action that we can honor the sacrifices of our service members by using the gift of
freedom to live meaningful, impactful, and useful lives. This may, regardless of whether or not we've ever spent a day
in uniform, we can all choose to serve something greater than ourselves. Just as the noble service members of our country have. This may, we should
endeavor to give back to our communities, our country, and our fellow citizens by making a deliberate effort to practice selfless service. We are
keeping alive the tenets and principles of military service, and we fully utilize the freedoms these service members
gave their lives to uphold. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Are there any
comments that board members would like to make? Okay, I oh, please excuse me. I was writing down some of the things you said because it spurred some
thoughts of my own indebted to answer a call to duty, sacrifice, freedom, and our obligation to repay the sacrifices that you mentioned
is to ensure that the gift of freedom is more or less not squandered. That really resonated with me. I gave remarks recently to a school on what it means to pursue justice, and there was a quote that I
used I thought was appropriate based on what you said. This comes from Benjamin Franklin, who said justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as
those who are. I thought that was poignant based on what you said. I want to thank you for that reminder and for that charge, for all of us to serve our community, serve our schools, and serve our nation,
and honor that in the month of May. Thank you so much. Okay. I just want to I had my own notes as well, and I will not say it as nicely and as eloquently as
Kevin just did, but I appreciated that you talked a lot about the sacrifice. But that sacrifice in my own family and my own friends, it's often so quiet and without any expectation of appreciation.
And I think the very least we can do, and I appreciated most of all, like your invitation for us to serve our communities. While many of us either can't or haven't had the opportunity or have made the choice not to be in our military, still
inviting us to be part of an act of service, as a as a way of honoring the service that's been so generously given to us. So thank you so much for being here, and I really appreciate
you with that. I think Joe can call the vote. Karla Bass I Conor Duffy, hi, Kevin. I Scott
Sean Bauer hi. Jessica Zamora hi doctor Kuranda Ziegler I motion passes six zero. All.
Right. We'll take a picture with our resolution guests.
Thanks for coming in. Thank you very much. For that. You guys
are up front. Gentlemen, you're up front. You're here. Much
better than. Thank you. How are
you? You'll see. Oh, okay. One.
Two. Three. Thank you. All right. Next on our agenda, we
have our superintendent report. I do not envy your follow up to that, but please know that is an impossible act to follow. So I'm not even going to try to be myself and hope for the best
here. I don't know if it was intentional or by accident that mental health Awareness and Military Appreciation Month fall in the same month. I'm going to just hope that it was
by design, because it's hard not to see the intersectionality between the two. We all know and recognize that mental health is much bigger than the military, but we also realize that the military is much bigger than
oneself. So I'm just super proud to represent a school system that prioritizes mental health and belonging, and continues to show the honor and dignity for those who are brave and courageous to choose a life
commitment and dedication to service through the military. For those of you that are in the community or on our board that are interested, we, on an annual basis, have a military celebration and a formal
national signing day for those high school seniors who are committing their life to one of the branches of the armed forces. And that is tomorrow night from 6:00 to 715 at our
Future Ready center. And I look forward to celebrating not just with our leadership from the JROTC, but many students and many staff members and community members. It is a very proud moment for all of those
families, especially those young adults. And so if anybody has an opportunity, I certainly will relay gratitude on behalf of all of us. But just a special invitation to all involved. Since I've last been
at a board meeting for the last two weeks, I've had the honor of being in seven of our schools. I want to thank President Zamora for joining me at cache La Poudre Elementary School yesterday. As the
superintendent of this school system, I continue to be impressed by our school leadership in partnership with our entire faculty and community, on their dedication and hard work, to committing to
a strong finish of this school year. And they are straddling the thoughts around how to make sure that next school year has a very, very good and solid start. And that's no easy task in the midst of the changes
that we are all grappling, but they continue to show up and show out. And I'm very, very proud of that. Another week of celebrations on May 4th, just a recognition, I think this might
be the third annual PSD celebrates function that will be happening at the Lincoln Center on Monday night. To celebrate the achievements and dedication of all of our colleagues across the school system, there are more and more
people that get recognized and more and more people that attend each and every year. So for members of the board who are having an opportunity to attend and celebrate with our labor groups and our respective other employees across the
system who will be honored. Thank you for just elevating our best and brightest. Each and every year just continues to be an event that I'm very, very proud to be a part of. This evening's meeting has a
very important finance team update that will share the preliminary budget for the 2627 school year. Please note this is the first of a three step formal process to adopt to
adopt a budget for next school year. That will conclude in June. What the community will see this evening is simply a draft, and it will continue to evolve as the state legislature continues its work to set a
budget for the next school year. I want to close with a special video, but before I do that, I just had the opportunity earlier today to be in Denver. I was allowed three principal
attendees to join me and Amy Smith from McGraw Elementary School. James Garcia, the principal at Laurel Elementary School in Lindsay McKinnon, the proud principal of Kennard Middle School, had the
opportunity to join me as their superintendent in Denver as our school district along many other school districts, recognized some award winning schools for exceptional growth, exceptional academic
achievement, and Poudre School District continues to be one of the school systems. There's only, I think, 63 school systems that were recognized. There were just under 293
schools in. 20 of them are in our backyard. So I continue to be super impressed by our leadership, our teachers, our community members who are volunteering, our paraprofessionals, everybody. It's all hands on deck all the
time. And the rewards that we're reaping in terms of advancing outcomes for kids continues to be super impressive. But this is also a special way of entering. Since I spent the day this afternoon
with three of our principals, we are about to also acknowledge that school's principals day is here, and before I played the video, I just want to take a moment to recognize the dedication and
commitment of all of our exceptional principals and said, you matter. I'm. And I'm here
with Alyssa Kendall, principal at Trout Core Knowledge School. Hi, I'm Daikin, I'm an eighth grade at Casa Poudre Middle School, and I'm here with our principal, Matt Ellis. Hi. My name is Henry. Hi, I'm Cedar.
Hello. My name is Logan and I'm here with the principal at Polaris Star. I've got a few questions for you. What's a hidden talent that you have that most people don't know about? You know, I think a lot
of people know that I was an athletic director for many years, but many people may not realize that I was a three sport athlete. And I can still kind of put the ball in the hoop so I can play basketball
pretty decently. And I'm an avid off roader. I recently learned how to play the banjo. That's a great talent. My hidden talent is if you needed to get across the Yukon, I
could harness and run a sled dog team for you. Wow. I didn't know you could do that. Tell us about a proud moment from the school year. It largely has to do with our eighth graders
taking some leadership roles, right? So for instance, we had many girls on our girls wrestling team, yourself included, which was awesome. You know, we had we had students help with a, a bus
emergency with one of our drivers, a medical emergency. And that just speaks to, you know, how wonderful and community centered our kids are, our students leading tours or
any way that we really welcome the community into our space. I'm really prideful in that and how you all represent our school. I just went through all of our seniors transcripts, and
almost every single one of them has earned Front Range Community College credit or AIMS community college credit, which means not only did they have a college experience, they got to save their families lots
of money on college. That's awesome. The work that our teachers and kiddos have done with our new writing program, we took on the writing revolution, and everyone has been working really hard at it.
And I'm so, so proud of of the growth that I've seen. How and why do you do it? Well, the how is simple. It involves where we are right now in our coffee shop. I'm a frequent buyer and
I do it with lots and lots and lots of coffee. As far as the why I became a teacher because I struggled as a student myself and after being a teacher for a decade or so, I decided I
wanted to improve conditions and make space for teachers to do their best work. And so that is the why of why I became an administrator. And part of that is seeing students like yourself walk across the stage
in a couple of weeks. So that's pretty exciting too. You know, I was the I was the student who struggled early on. I did not love school. And it took me a while to build momentum and eventually I became a high
achiever. But it took me quite some time. And so I decided when I was figuring out my path, that I wanted to help provide a better experience to not only students and teachers and the community than what I
experienced growing up. So that was really my why and kind of what jumpstarted me into this line of work. I knew that I wanted to be a teacher when I
was a little girl, and that motivated me to go on to get my teaching degree. I do it every day because I absolutely love working with students like you. You make my heart happy and I
love being here in principle. Thank you kiddo. Man, I love our kids are so cool. Our
principals are so cool. Our staff. That warms my heart every time. All right, we'll move right along into our community. Comment. This opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who register to speak by the
designated deadline. Those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes
to address the board. First up, we have Derek Franz. Welcome.
Good evening, members of the Board of Education. I am here to formally demand an immediate stay of the administrative hearing scheduled for May 4th, 2026. I am handing you a packet containing a formal grievance
and evidence of a procedural crisis that requires your intervention tonight to proceed next Monday without counsel. And while vital records are being withheld, is a bad faith
violation of due process. As of yesterday, April 27th, 2026, we are unrepresented. Unrepresented. The Colorado Education Association attorneys
withdrew because we exercised our legal rights to a 21 day, 21 day stay consideration period on the District Leadership and Administration counsel's settlement offer.
This is a right mandated by federal law, yet it is a right district leadership and Administration Council would not tolerate. They have successfully isolated a 22 year veteran teacher less than seven
days before a life altering hearing. Furthermore, the district has yet to fulfill an emergency core request I filed on April 24th, 2026. You can't. You cannot outsource your due
diligence to an administration that has engineered an ambush. We demand a stay and a thorough, independent investigation. Our family has over 40 years of combined teaching experience,
including 18 years in Sjd. We are both K through 12 PhD graduates. Yet of the 14 staff members involved in this matter, she is the only one being uniquely targeted for a formal
termination hearing. This is a direct retaliation for our advocacy for our son's 504 rights. After he was severely injured in a school activity. I
sat in an HR office on June 3rd, 2025 and witnessed scripted interrogations designed to intimidate and coerce Predetermination. This scripted agenda nearly cost me my life.
Last August, I spent eight days in a hospital bed, six of those tube fed due to a perforated ulcer in my small intestine. My wife now requires daily medication for severe anxiety
to function daily to stay afloat on a single teacher income, we had to take our take out a home equity loan to help pay our bills and mortgage. Furthermore, the district seized almost 300 hours of
earned sick leave time she spent in the classroom with her students not at home. Do not allow this administration to define your legacy. Stay the
May 4th, 2026 hearing and choose the truth. Thank you.
Thank you. Next up, we have Grace Turnbull.
Good evening. I had a drawing, but I learned that I wasn't allowed to show it. So if you want to see it after the fact, let me know. I'll send it to you. It's called the cycle of
consolidation and it begins with stage one. Ground zero. The conclusion is clear consolidation is the path forward. The next phase is shock. In mid May 2026, when
28,000 students and their families hear the criteria that will determine whether their schools stay open or closed. After that comes stage three,
which I call denial, betrayal, anger or the hellstorm emails, phone calls, packed community comments, strong emotions in every direction. Stage four is
sadness. October 26th decisions will be announced. We will be naming which schools are closing. It's unavoidable, but once decisions are made, they need to be carried forward with
thoughtfulness and transparency. Next, stage five is identity crisis. Students, parents and community members will speak why their schools should remain open. Some will threaten to leave the district. Some will
withdraw support. The voices will be loud. But before the next stage, this is the most important part of the cycle. This is where we must lead with positive, clear and consistent
messaging, not reminders of why this is happening. We need to look forward. We need a new hope. People need to hear about opportunities, about resources, about what will be stronger,
better and more sustainable. On the other side of these decisions, this is the moment where trust is either rebuilt or lost. With that, we move to stage six. Accept and
understanding. This is where I'm at because there is evidence. There are districts that have been consolidated and come out stronger academically,
financially and as communities. Then August 20th 7th or 2027, sorry, schools close. The change becomes real. However, don't mistake the pain of
change for failure. Next we have the final stage. Stage eight second to last forgiveness and healing. Stage seven. Because even if it's the
right decision to consolidate, it's going to suck. And talking about that is important. And eventually we reach the final stage, the new normal. So I've
lived through this cycle. It's not theoretical, it's experiential to me and many others. And one final point is that the mental health that has been cut in order to balance
the budget, this was a mistake, especially at this time as we move through consolidation, restoring these supports quickly and meaningfully must be a priority if we expect our
community to navigate this cycle, we need to give them the tools to do so. Thank you for your time and let me know if you want to see my drawing.
Thank you. All right. Next up we have Anna Liberta. Welcome. Good evening. This evening I
want to talk to you about larger, well resourced schools. I've heard it said a number of times in consolidation engagements that an ideal school tends to be around 400 for an elementary school and
700 for a middle school. I think that many people in our district assume that this also means that services for struggling students will naturally be available. If a school hits these numbers and
isn't contending with a tight budget due to low enrollment. I have come before you multiple times asking you to charge the superintendent with the work of prioritizing discoverable pathways for struggling
learners who have historically inconsistently fallen below the state averages in PSD. I want to share my family's experience with trying to find a middle school for my child and PSD. Just a couple of years ago, I
reached out to Integrated Services and explained that my child is dyslexic and had a difficult road to finding support around dyslexia and PSD. As a result, my child experienced three different
schools in elementary school, the first actually being our neighborhood school which had 400 students. My goal was to get her to a middle school where she could find adequate support and be successful, and
not need to jump from school to school. I was told that I would need to get on the phone and call each school I was interested in and see what they offered, and that it was always best to start with my neighborhood school. I attended
the open house for my thriving neighborhood school, where enrollment is just shy of 800 students actually. Wow, what a school. They have three full time music teachers, one for band, one for orchestra and one
for choir. They had five foreign language teachers and a jaw dropping array of Stem resources. But at the end of the evening, when engaging in a thoughtful conversation with a knowledgeable staff member
around whether or not my child would be appropriately supported, I was encouraged to maybe consider a specific charter school in another district, because they couldn't think of a school that would meet her needs in PSD. I
genuinely believe that this person's intentions were good, but it's a cautionary tale that we can't assume that needs will be met if there isn't a clear directive and a focused
priority to do so. I want to leave you with a quote that I read this week by Kareem Weaver, an outspoken contemporary civil rights and literacy advocate. No social emotional program
fully masks the smell of rotting potential potential, crushed by the functional weight of low expectations, inadequate planning, inconsistent instruction, and
ineffective leadership. Rotting potential. That is exactly what we have when we do not actively address supporting students struggling with learning gaps, a gap between their grade level expectations and their present
levels. These are often students who are capable of learning, yet need additional supports to learn to read, write or learn. The functional math skills required for navigating everyday life.
Please consider when you're doing your criteria and when we're doing next steps forward to consider these kids who need the help who are not helped by
PSD currently. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Danny
Lawrence. Welcome. Hey, thank you for the opportunity. A couple of weeks ago, I watched a presentation before the State
Board of Education to gain chartering authority back. And I thought it was a worthwhile fight. Thank you. And then I saw a director speaking at a charter school recently regarding justice. So I thought tonight I would share my family's experiences with
Charter School of Choice and Educational Justice in Fort Collins. When we moved here in 2021, we came from a small public charter school. After leaving the only public school district in our community, we were forced out of public
school because they wanted to institutionalize my son in a state run facility for deaf and blind children that was 250 miles from my home, and it meant separating siblings and living without our child. So we
enrolled in an art school and had an amazing two years in the most the most inclusive. When I look back in a place where he was embraced and educators had the license to experiment, charter school saved my son's
life and it gave him a place to belong during a medical nightmare. Initially, I tried to enroll in Fort Collins charter schools, avoiding entirely public school. And it was a yes on paper and
transcripts and a we no longer have room when they met him in person. You see, at the time my son had an IEP and he used a white cane. Then one charter changed their mind in 11th grade after seeing his PSAT
score and his National Honor Society involvement. I'm sure you can guess which one. Charter schools discriminate in this community openly, defiantly and proudly. So with chartering authority comes the watchful eye of a parent like
me who is going to be holding PS responsible for not allowing that selective discrimination to continue with new authorizations. So this is my word of warning to create the system now, to prevent charter schools from prohibiting the
enrollment of special needs students. We didn't want to fight PTSD, Mr. Kingsley. This is our childhood home. But some of us are held hostage here, held against our will without a
school of choice. And I hope you all keep that in mind as a board and as an administration, because school of choice is a luxury for parents with financial resources and healthy children in this community. In
your email tonight is a sample of that discrimination. Please take time to ponder the sheer arrogance and lawlessness of those words in the coming months when you are considering equity and disproportionality, I hope that those words will
continue to haunt you more than a graduation. My son is awaiting freedom from ignorance, from a system that he had to drag like an 8,000 pound backpack with him while he was just trying to be a kid, face a medical condition, and get an
equitable education. Because that is the reality in our community from a white middle class family. And I still haven't found the justice you speak of, Mr. Velda, 13 years later and 25 days before
graduation. But I hope that you use my vote and your awareness to create that opportunity for justice for all kids in Fort Collins. And I hope the school of choice becomes a reality for all someday. My favorite quote
about justice is from Plato. The worst form of injustice is pretended justice and based on evidence, in five years in this room, I question whether that isn't what we're doing here when we're turning our eyes away. Integrated services
students need your help and are still worthy of the conversation of this board. Thank you for listening. Thank
you. Danny. Next, we have M.L. Johnson. Welcome. Good evening,
board superintendent and audience. Have a cold, but I'm recovering. I have three items in one issue. First, and this
is a metaphor. Let's say I need some money to build my house. So I find a plan in which you can pay the mortgage. What a deal. That's how I get a new
residence and you get to stay in your old homes. However, some of you get to regularly visit my house and others by
invitation only. Then I get a new residence and you pay for the mortgage. Sounds fine with me. But it seemed. But does it
seem fair that you have to pay for something for someone else to enjoy? Probably not. The metaphor is number one. Number
two is. And this is a normal process for building schools. When we considered building the elementary school on the site,
it was only a big bear field. No people. There was not enough assessed property value in the attendance area. Even in the
attendance area, to build a $9.9 million. In 2008, school construction. So we asked the voters in the entire school district if they would pay for
construction of the elementary school. From Windsor to Estes Park, from Loveland to Wyoming.
And they said yes. I was there at the Bethke School dedication, and there were still few homes
built. Although we have validated the concept of if you build it, they will come, there still probably is not enough
assessed property value to pay the bond issue monthly or annually for that particular school. The third item in the three in the. In the tree, a
bond issue functions the same as a mortgage in which there is a borrowing and a pledge to repay. Although it is changing
the property value assessment that funds the annual bond payment for Bethke. Is paid for
by property owners and voters west of the Timberline Road. This is the area in which we are evaluating older schools. Basically, what we have here is
that property value, property and voters west of Timberline Road are paying for the bond issue for the new schools. Your time has expired. If you could
wrap up, please. Okay. In conclusion, consider that considering the metaphor, you probably thought it was unfair for you to pay for my building.
Therefore, remember who is paying for the new schools? When you think about closing the older neighborhood schools,
thank you. Thank you. And next up we have Joanie Baker.
Welcome. Good evening, President Zamora, members of the board and Superintendent Kingsley. My name is Joanie
Baker, and I'm the proud president of our Association of Classified Employees. I'm here tonight to speak about awareness and grace. On April
14th, it was announced that the district avoided a reduction in force for licensed staff. And that was wonderful news. However, it came with a
significant, often overlooked impact on our classified staff. The reality is stark 139 of our colleagues will not be
returning next year. Additionally, 59 staff members are facing reduced hours or days, many losing some of their
health benefits in the process. Next year will be challenging. We are asking a dedicated team to do more with less in our
classrooms. This means fewer hands for interventions and less support for our most vulnerable learners. Our paraprofessionals will always
give their best, their passion for their students is why they do this work. But we cannot ignore that morale is low.
Despite these hardships, I want to lead with a message of grace and unity. We are entering unchartered waters and the only
way through is together. As we enter these unchartered waters, we must support one another, offer grace and patience. Most
importantly, we must remain focused on our students. Our students success should always remain in the forefront. Now is
the time to show our community that we can navigate these challenges together. Thank you.
Thank you. That concludes our community comment for the evening. Next up, we have board topics and committee reports. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to
board topics. Do any board members have something to report? Yeah. Please contact. So a quick report out from Legislative Committee director Spain and I attended and hosted
the call on Friday. To my count, we've got 15 or 14 days left in the session. It's becoming action packed. Some of the biggest things is looks like
the School Finance Act is going over to the House either later this week or early next week. And there was, to my understanding, just one small
amendment to that. And it was immaterial in nature. So it wasn't any kind of big change to the to the way that we're funded. The other thing is
Senate Bill 135. This is the Tabor reform bill. On May 1st, there will be a day at the Capitol. That's this Friday. If
anybody is interested in this, please shoot me an email and I will direct you to the right people to get in touch with about how to lobby your
legislators. And I will leave it at that. Yeah. Thank you. Connor. Does anyone else. Yeah. Please. Scott. Yeah. I just want to recognize the student
Advisory Committee is in the in the house we got I think it's Jordan over there. And Lucas, if you guys want to just wave, they're here to observe our our
board meeting. And I've been really happy to along with Jess to be in Cala as well, to be able to, to join them for their committee meetings. And they're
doing good work. I believe they added seven new members just last night. We'll have an announcement about that coming up, so I won't go into too many more details, but thank you
guys for being here. Great. Yeah, please. Quick ones. Brian already got ahead of me for the PSC celebrates. That'll be this coming Monday, May 4th at the Lincoln Center. I think it's a
6:00 start. 536, 530 start. Thank you. Great kind of launch into celebration season with graduations before that, this Thursday, April 30th, we have,
I believe, our last board of engagement session for this period. There will be others later. This one is at Fort Collins High School at 530. At
this point, I did want to express my thanks to all the district staff who have been making these possible, who are getting logistics set up, thinking the security who are
there. We just did one at Teignmouth Middle High on a weekend, so people dedicating their weekends to help get those set up, the principals, the host schools and most importantly, the folks that are
actually showing up and coming. We can only give you the opportunity to come and talk to us in these sessions. And for those that are unaware, sort of curious as to what they are, they're slightly different from the regular board of engagement
sessions that are really informal, unscripted. These are more targeted with the consolidation and closure process that we're moving into. There are five questions that are that are there specific
discrete questions for our community to answer in small groups? We've had some groups that have had like 30 or 50 people at Rocky, the one at Mid-Ohio, we had about 2017 ish.
So we had smaller discussions, but it's a really good opportunity for our community to pick each other's brains and to get some things on the table. The board is there to listen, to get some data, to get some
input. And I do want to thank those that have come and been brave and expressing some really candid thoughts about what they need from this process, about what values our district should stand for. We'll continue doing our work and hitting the pavement, and
reaching out to those that may not be able to come due to childcare or other reasons. But I do want to express, thanks to those who are who are dedicated in showing up to trying to make this process improved. Finally,
on five six, Jess and I will be at the City County SDE Liaison Committee. The next one, I think it's being hosted by the county. There's I don't know what's on the agenda for that, but we've had some really good, substantive, meaningful discussions with our city
leaders, city leaders and city planners about this process that we're in. So we look forward to furthering those conversations and being very productive. That's all I got. Thank you. Any other reports?
Yeah, please. Charonda. I just want to highlight the fabulous theater programs we have in our district. I had a lovely opportunity to see The Wizard
of Oz. Was it last week? Yeah, at Collins. And let me tell y'all, it was amazing. Just so impressed with all the students
on the stage and whatnot. But don't worry, there are some more upcoming productions that's showing up. A personal favorite of mine. I might be a little biased, but my son. But
either way, Poudre High School this weekend is going to do much, much ado about nothing. I have a hard time saying that. So without productions this week and other school that I'm
aware of and I. Please forgive me any other school. I'm not. But I think it's. Fossil Ridge also has their production. It's on the weekend of May 8th and
ninth, and I'm gonna try, I think it's called Kimberly Kimble. Kimble. So that's another thing. So if that's your thing or if it's not, I encourage you to support our students because they are doing
a fabulous job. And the reason I say this is because I love theater. I will go to Bewell and have been going, I don't know, I think since I was like 12. And when I see these
productions, sometimes these productions are equivalent to the things that I see on these national shows in our high school theater programs. And so if you like theater, I recommend that you check out
what we have in our district. Thanks. You're good hype for our music group center theater groups. All right. Are there any other things at the moment?
Okay. Seeing none will move along. We next have our consent agenda. Would any board members like to pull anything from our consent agenda? Okay. Seeing none, can I get a motion? I
move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions for the items on the consent agenda. Thank you. Connor, can I get a second? Thank you. Kevin. All right. Jill, can you
please call the vote? Karla Bass I Conor Duffy hi, Kevin. Hi, Scott Schoenbaum I Jessica
Zamora I doctor Karen de Ziegler I motion passes six zero. Thank you. Next we're moving into our action items. Our first action item is I'm
RL2 point six. Can I please get a motion. I move the board determined that the superintendent has reasonably interpreted Board of Education policy L 2.6. In his internal
monitoring report dated April 28th, 2026, and that the evidence presented supports the superintendent's conclusion stated in the internal monitoring report. Can I get a second? Thank you, Connor. And
is there any discussion? Yes, please. Like always, I'm going to cherry pick one of the things on these L's because they're important for our community, kind of give you a ten second crash course. This
is an executive limitation policy. These are the things the superintendent shall not. And the board has to hold the superintendent accountable if he violates one of these policies. So this one being
asset protection. I think it's worth pointing out the second. Policy of this L 2.6. And I think it's a little unfair personally. Among other things,
the superintendent shall not allow facilities and equipment to be subject to improper wear and tear or insufficient maintenance. Now, it's not exactly superintendent's job to go out and look at every single
building, every single school. We have an incredible staff that does that and monitors these things, but I think it is somewhat unfair that it's it's up to the superintendent to make sure that these maintenance issues are go
addressed and not go unaddressed, especially if we don't have the resources to do it. So in the report that we that we've reviewed, the evidence suggests that the debt debt free mill levy that was
passed will support. These are the numbers from the following. And this is an annual recurrence, 22.9 million in facilities maintenance, 21.5 million towards existing
staffing and maintenance budgets. And per the statute, the debt free mill levy funding is to be used specifically for facilities, which is what we're doing now. More than 30 facilities projects are to be
completed in the summer of 2026. That's not a typo, right? 30 facility projects are be completed in the summer of 2026. Installation of new rooftop units are to use in air
conditioning. Boiler plate boiler excuse me, boiler replacements, roofing replacements, fire alarm systems, building automation systems which we've had updates about carpet flooring projects, athletic facilities such as
tracks, tennis courts and gym floors, generator replacements, debt free mill Levy also frees up 21.5 million for the following uses in the district's general fund. As we all know from the ballot language, 4 million in support of our small schools and
programing, 2.5 million in high quality instruction replacement cycles, 15 million in competitive wages for all staff. It'd be easy for me to give Superintendent Kingsley the credit for not violating this policy, but I think it's
behooves us all to yet again, thank our community for their overwhelming support and for the incredible staff that we have that can execute and implement these plays to make our district better, healthier
and safer. And with that, I yield the floor. I really appreciate that call because your list of items in our agenda, not one of those items, is small, not one. And so to
have staff be able to tackle 30 massive projects across our system is really impressive. Is there any other discussion on this item? All right. Seeing none. Jill, can you please call
the vote? Karla Bass I Conor Duffy I Kevin Havelka I Scott Schoenberger I Jessica Zamora I doctor. Karen de Ziegler I
motion passes six zero. Thank you. All right next we have 8.2. Our 2627 student staff device refresh. Can I get a motion. I move that the board approve
expenditures in excess of $250,000. Authorizing staff to issue purchase orders to DHE Computer Systems and Dell Marketing LP and expend funds
to support implementation of the 2026 Student and Staff Device Refresh program. Thank you. Connor, can I get a second?
Any takers? Thank you. Karen. All right. So tonight we look forward to hearing about the device device refresh from our Chief Technology Officer Bud
Hunt. Welcome, Bud board Kingsley and the public, I want to give you a brief overview about our student device refresh program. As we are up for renewal this evening. I
remember when my daughter was five and about to enter kindergarten. I voted for the funds that are still provisioning this work right now. So throughout our investment as a family and as voters in the community, I just
I have a tremendous amount. It's almost ineffable, effable, ineffable, effable gratitude towards the voters at that time and the staff who have before
me and, and supported and stewarded that and have allowed me to do the same thing. The money from our refresh program does come from the 2010 mill. So it's it's budgeted and
scheduled funds. We provision currently a K-12 set of devices. We begin that in kindergarten. That was the last addition to our K-12 model that happened during Covid. We began to
deploy a 1 to 1 model for our K-2 students. That's a Chromebook device. And three through 12, we are a windows laptop environment that that investment now also supports
our staff technology refresh and many. In most cases, while the refresh of our fleet takes four years, the life cycle of our computers is not four years. Four years is when we begin to
refresh them. As you might imagine in education, all of our devices have a second, sometimes a third, a fourth, a fifth life. We do try to retire devices for security reasons as
they reach year 6 or 7. However, in many instances that is a gentle let us come and take this thing that you have come to care for. And on the other end of that we also see a. Four
years can't get here fast enough. So we have a lot of users in the district, but we work very closely with contracting and sourcing to ensure pricing, warranty and thoughtfulness in the stewardship of those funds.
We've been asked to to frame and remind folks why these expenses are important. When we don't continue to invest in our fleet, it does create instructional and operational interruptions, potential
degradations of service. More and more, we have security concerns related to old or not kept up devices. They impact teaching, learning, assessment, and day to day school and business operations. In this
particular moment, as outlined in the packet materials, a delay we believe, due to, as Doctor Zeller and I were talking about just before the meeting started, everybody in the world would like all of the
RAM that is available in the world for. I don't know if you've heard of this AI. It's a thing people are talking about it. We're seeing we're seeing some very significant cost movement. So a failure right
now is likely an increase in costs, even in the very short term. That said, we have a lot of intentionality and desire to be good stewards of that resource, both in terms of how
we spend time with our students and in how we spend the dollars that have been entrusted to us. And so wanted to name for you tonight, as we continue to talk about what's the right use of technology, we're experiencing
several school districts across the country. You're experiencing conversations. I am eager to have those with parents who want to make sure that the 180 days that we have with our children are the best possible 180 days. They're
focused on the right experiences. That's the work of our curriculum team. You'll hear some some things about curriculum tonight. That's the work of our educators. It's the work of our IT team to be good stewards in that space. And we
want to be very intentional about that. So we are in the process of doing some work around relooking at two elements of our K-5 deployment. I want that for you tonight.
Should we be 1 to 1? K-5 is an open question for us right now. We are adopting more and more digital resources, and we have more and more physical items that we want our students to use. We need to get tighter on
our expectations for for technology, K5. K-2 is a very interesting place for us in terms of where we think there's likely a difference between what we provision currently and what makes the most sense to provision, but we're going to
explore that in the year ahead. There are more details in your in your packet. And we continue to wonder if elementary school is right for a dual platform environment. That Chromebook decision was a decision. We want to look at that. We want
to take a look at it for all the reasons that you should, on a regular basis, challenge assumptions and think through things. So I want to name that with you tonight. I could read aloud to you. In fact, I will a change in the device ratio and
or that platform choice could result in an improvement in our ability to hold costs while still achieving our core mission. So we have a primary need to make sure we're creating the right best experiences for children. We
also need to make sure we're being the right best stewards of the dollars that we're using to provision that. And we think that it's a good moment as a district to reorient and realign around how we are asking students and families
and teachers to spend time in front of technology, which is as as a technologist and a teacher and a dad, something that I think is always a part of the conversation about how we take up our tools and what
we use them for. So this last bullet on this slide is a little confusing. We couldn't make a decision until 26 or 27, which wouldn't take effect until 27 or 28. I just want to forecast for you what that
means in terms of timeline. These are conversations, some of the explorations that we've been doing as outlined in your packet are in flight now. Many will take flight in the fall, and we will be having some conversations in the new school
year ahead about what that looks like in terms of instruction. So I'll pause and see if you have any questions before we move forward. Thank you. Please. Thanks for this
presentation, but we talked a little before the meeting and really glad to see that you guys are looking at revisiting the needs and maybe looking at a refresh on, on policy. I
think Covid changed a lot of things. I remember when my kids were going through elementary school, they started, I think they didn't get anything until second grade, got a ThinkPad and then Chromebooks just on a
cart in third and fifth grade, never took them home. And then in middle school was, I think, when they first got their their laptop. So that seemed to work back then. I don't know if that's with curriculum. That's
a question I have for you in a second. I did talk to a volunteer this week who volunteers an elementary school classroom, and he actually brought up something about tech. He said he's noticing and he
helps a lot with math classes. He's noticing that teachers are having trouble getting started with their lesson plans because there's delays as kids are
trying to boot up their computers or get to the right, the right spot. And so he says, it seems to be a struggle sometimes with the kids, which that's always going to happen. You want kids to learn how to
troubleshoot that. But, you know, he says, I'm old school. Can we just do paper and pencil? And I said, yeah, that's probably true. But but that is something that's something that to keep in mind when you guys are talking about the needs for
these, these devices, the question I have is, does our new curriculum in math or literacy require a laptop that
can be taken home or needs to be taken home in elementary school for homework or any other other things? I. I appreciate the question. I'd also love to talk to that volunteer more if you want to
connect me to make sure that we're meeting that start up need. Because I have a couple of questions for you there that I don't think are for right now. The the answer to that question is it depends on how we implement that curriculum and
our team of staff and our director of curriculum is here tonight. They're working through, as they figure out what that deployment and implementation looks like, what the actual answers to that will
be. And as we put together our pilot committee, we're working with our curriculum coordinators. We don't currently have a math person in place for next year. So we're working through that piece. But answering those questions is a
big piece of what we're trying to get. Tight handles. On how much screen time. You've probably heard a lot about screen time in your emails, and it's a question we should be asking where those screens are
when they're engaged. Those are all open questions for us. Yep. Other questions. Yeah. Please. Me, I've got a few. I don't
want to get into a big philosophical debate or conversation, but I wonder if there's a way you could give us a summary in your view or the district's view. What is the
virtue of a 1 to 1 ratio of devices for K through two? I would tell you that the the initial virtue for this organization was to support an immediate deployment of remote
learning during Covid. We have come to this board and I believe you, you were on the board when we've discussed how long should those Chromebooks last? What is the refresh cycle for those. That was an important question for us. Do
we need to maintain? A couple of years ago we looked at that question are they four year computers? Are they six year computers? We determined they're not five year computers. The costs got silly for us. But
what is the role of screens in K one and two are open questions. By second grade. We do start to see a lot more assessment requirements and regular use of functionality K
one, but Hunt's opinion, that's a place where I'd like for us to look very close. And we are seeing in terms of utilization, those machines are being powered up and utilized throughout the day in schools, so they're not sitting quietly
in the corner all the time. So we know there's use and we want to get tighter on that. Okay. Follow up question. I've got a few. I'm sorry if you can jump in, but I guess I've had a lot of conversations with parents
as well and myself being one of them in this age range. Are you aware where the district has any policies on restricting use of devices from K through two? And if not, is that a site by
site decision, and if so, what are the parameters there? We we deploy devices K-12 for every student in our system. So the first level of control we have district policy around some
basic functions that anybody who's using a district device would use. I'd refer you to, oh gosh, I'm going to need to refer you back to the policy, which is up for revision later this year. I'm blanking on the
the reference right now, but our student use of technology policy does articulate behaviors and not an age of like, it's okay to do these things until you're eight, but then you have to really buckle
down. It's a common set of expectations as a district. We've not set, nor would I necessarily want to set in policy some of the requirements of do this and don't do that,
because we really work with our staff and our teachers and our administrators, and in some cases, our special service providers around what that experience for a child should look like in the day to day classroom. And we provision
with the safety parameters that make sense universally. AM I answering your question? Yeah, yeah. I got another question related to it. I just wanted to comment on what you're relating to. But having kids in the
district, I will say that those first level district controls are pretty good. I give you some examples, even sometimes in terms of like I've experienced, right? Even trying to do homework, right? Because
there's certain guidelines, right? So if you take a site like a, I don't know if this is an example, like a YouTube, right? A kid could have access to a variety of things. So there's certain guidelines and
restrictions that doesn't even allow for certain things. So I just wanted to your commenting on it, and I just wanted to share a lived experience of me seeing the effectiveness of those controls in terms of
limiting what students do and do not have access related to their classroom instruction. I appreciate that. I will tell you that different families experience those controls differently. And one thing not up for discussion tonight, but
we want to look at in the new year, as well as how can we continue to refine that conversation so that the home use of technology is appropriate? But thank you. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate the point. I think
mine was earlier down the age group, the K through two, the level of autonomy we're presuming those kids should have and the level of sophistication without appropriate supervision or help. I still question some of the
virtue there. Third question is can parents opt out of our use of screens at this time? No, and I would name that explicitly in the sense that it
would. In many cases, it's akin to opting out of. I would prefer not to have this textbook in the classroom. We do have some policy that allows for some discussion and some room that's best handled at the school and in the classroom
level. We have arranged some, and you'll sometimes see students who have different arrangements when it comes to if the device goes home or not, related to some very specific
circumstances at the school level, but as a I as an option to not engage with all technology, that isn't a choice that's necessarily an appropriate or meaningful one.
I'm answering your question a little bit, and I think there's a value. Just to be clear, I think there's a value in providing resources, especially to students who may not have that resource at home. And so
they'll get the opportunity at I do, I'm going to press back and be a little concerned about whether we're allowing our parents to have any decision making whatsoever, and allowing a kindergartner to have
unfettered, unassisted access to a screen. Let me. I completely agree with you. Let me nuance that a little bit. In our K-5 environment, those screens are not necessarily provisioned to a child. They're
provisioned to a cart in the room, and the teacher is very involved. And when that cart is opened, when it is on, when machines are taken out, and what a routine or experience for the child or the children
in the room might look like, okay, there's also a level of lab management that is available to a teacher in the room to lock a machine down extremely far up to the level
of let's all look at my screen together. Let's look at one screen, let's look at a screen and not engage with the technology. So it is not the case that in kindergarten we're saying, please enjoy this Chromebook. We'll check on you
in six months. It's a much more gradual release of responsibility. And I would agree with I would certainly agree with the idea and all of all of the educators I work with would say we, we have to
be very attentive to the experiences that we're setting up for our children in those domains. Okay, I appreciate it. The last one is, so I think we're, you're you're talking about a conversation that we're
going to have about informing the true need of education, the right device and right situation, etc. So can you give us an idea of what that looks like? Are we going to have a committee stand up, or is it
going to be more board presentations? Or what can we expect at this moment in time? We have and there's some specifics in your packet. There are other things that are still being developed. We've got multiple experiments in a district that's large. There
are frequently experiments going on in terms of let's try this model, let's try this mode, let's try this software. In the case of the ratios, we are putting together a pilot group to explicitly look at in K-5, some screen time expectations
and recommendations, some platform or environment conversations. So I'll go back to the math example. Does the math curriculum. My answer is no right now, but does it require a windows device to do
what it needs to do? That that curriculum material is primarily provided through the browser, but we need to have our arms around all of the experiences that we are provisioning for students to have in K-5 and make sure that
there aren't windows specific requirements there. And so that's an active pilot that we're looking at. We're also looking at assessment windows and time and expectations, because assessments are a place where we frequently get stuck
in how many screens do we need with how much time and some very mundane things like, and how much battery do we have to make through the testing window and the number of children that need to test so that we can
prioritize our staff time to teaching children and administering assessments and not managing batteries, and then hopefully administering assessments and then hopefully attending to children. Does that make sense? So we'll be
looking at that very intentionally and very specifically with a tighter eye towards that in K-5. Yeah. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Yeah, please. Scott,
I just have a comment. I think we all know, but is one of the the more well read members of our staff and therefore his vocabulary is pretty strong. So
for those keeping score at home, it's ineffable. When he was talking, that's the only thing I focused on in this whole presentation. I'm so sorry. When he was talking about his appreciation for the devices for his kids while in school,
it means two great or extreme to be expressed or described in words. So very well used word. And thank you Bud for continuing to educate us. Thank
you. You do other stuff. Always a good time. All right. Did you have any. Oh yeah. Please. I just wanted to make a request in relation to this, whether it be, I don't know, whoever's
watching or whatever. I would love to know, like, what are the concerns with technology? That's like a broad concern. Screen time. So like, if those concerns are up, if we could be
specific around that, it could. I just feel like maybe some of those questions could be answered. I think Bud did an excellent job in saying how that's managed in the classroom, how this class, how teachers can manage those different
things. And so if we know specifics, we potentially I don't want to put nothing on nobody's back. Don't help me up here lying, but answer those questions versus making an assumption that technology is
used in the classroom. Students are on the screens all the time, right? And it's taken away from their education and learning. So that's just kind of a call out to folks of, can we be specific? Because when we have
specifics, we can then actually address the concern because we'll know what the need is. I just wanted to state that. Thanks. I really appreciate that. I think your slides were done so good. Quite content. Thank you very much. All right.
If there are no no other big words for us bud. Yes, please. Sorry. Real quick bud, thank you for all this in relation to what Doctor Ziegler was saying,
I think that potentially a concern of parents could be that because we're lacking facilitators and classrooms, that kids are spending more time on screens. And I don't know how we would make an
assessment of that, but maybe that's something that we hear from our parents and educators themselves. Thank you for the comment. All right. I think
we're ready to take the vote. Jill. Carla. Baz. I, Conor Duffy, I, Kevin nay, Scott
Bauer, I, Jessica Zamora I doctor Koranda Ziegler I motion passes five one. Thank you. Okay. And next up we have our
L.D. curriculum. Can I get a motion. I move that the board approve the K-12 and newcomers English language curriculum,
seven year digital and one year print from signage. AM I saying that right? Signage for $362,208.83. Can I get a second?
Thank you very much, Carla. And I believe we have a presentation. Yeah. So with with us this evening to present the English language development curriculum is one of our assistant superintendents, Doctor Olson
in soon. Welcome. Good evening, President Zamora, board directors, and Superintendent Kingsley. I am very honored and excited to bring this curriculum to you. I want you
to take a moment and think about, in any of your schooling experience, whether it was in elementary, middle or high or college, and think about when
you got a book that had pages torn, had holes in it, had highlighting in it may have something fall out of it when they shake it, all the things.
Right? And then think about a time when you got a brand spanking new textbook. Maybe it was college because you were forced to buy it, I don't know.
That's an experience I had, but there's some there's something that comes with new materials for students who may not always have had access to concrete
materials in the past. And so with that and a personal story, I don't know if you know, but English is not my first language. I came to the United
States in right before kindergarten and began my journey of language acquisition in public education. I was the
only minority student in my K-8 school, and we did not have curriculum like I'm getting ready to present to you today. I, I'm sure if you hear me now, you may not realize that
English is my second language, but I had to work really, really hard to shift my accent and to assimilate into our culture and our language. And
one thing I'm super proud of with the work that our staff have done in conjunction with the language, culture and equity department, and our curriculum and instruction department, is to really find a
curriculum that not only honors who they are as a person, but amplifies their skill set in their own language so that they can now access and gain skills
and confidence and competence in the English language arts component of our school. And so this is a direct connection to our strategic plan under
literacy, our high quality instructional materials. We have explicit instruction that is now going to come in and ensure that our students are learning not only academic
vocabulary, but also social vocabulary. And as you know, there are multiple ways that we communicate in schools. And our job is to help our students not only be literate, but also be
confident citizens within our own community. They will be supported in the four domains of language, which is listening, speaking, reading and writing. And it absolutely is a direct
through line to disrupting our disproportionality. And so I'm very excited that not only are we going to be honing in on language acquisition for our
students, but this is going to give our students who are coming in, not at the proficiency level and or first time in our country, that they
will be able to not only leverage their own language, but then also be engaged and be able to have access to all of the amazing options that we
have here in Poudre school district. And just a friendly reminder that the funds for this has been earmarked through our regular general funds of
curriculum and instruction, so that we were prepared for a adoption, I think first time in 15 to 20 years, possibly. Oh, I
was being nice. Over 25 years we have not adopted a high quality instructional materials for our multilingual learners, and we are super proud of the
fact that we went through a rigorous process. It was identified, it was piloted. And here is the proposal from the staff who would be teaching
these courses within our schools. Oh, the other piece I wanted to say is the reason there is a discrepancy of seven year software, but one year materials is that we did hear
you, and we wanted to ensure that we were able to adjust our purchases every year based on exact student enrollment or the best that we can get, as our ML
population can fluctuate throughout the year. But that is why you see a discrepancy of years is so that we can really meet the needs of our students and ensure that every year we
have really good quality materials in front of our students. That's it for me. Any questions from you? Questions?
Yeah. I just want to point out that in reviewing the contract, there was what I thought was a really nice provision about safeguarding of confidential student information. I was
really encouraged by that, given other things we've heard in the news, this is pretty, very good. And also there is a I'm looking over Autumn and Dave. There is a choice of law and choice of venue that
selects Colorado Law and Larimer County. That's nice. Thank you. That's a good cause since you were very concerned
about that for previous things. Out of curiosity, the cost of this is for the full seven years or is that a okay? Thank you. I just wanted to affirm, based on your comment, are
there any other questions or comments at this time? All right. I would simply like to say, let's not go another 25 years. That would be wonderful. Thank you so much. All right.
Jill, can you please call the vote? Karla Bass I, Conor Duffy I, Kevin I Scott Bauer I Jessica Zamora I doctor Kuranda
Ziegler I motion passes six zero. Thank you. All right. Next up we have French field track and turf replacement. Can
I get a motion. I move that the board approve expenditures for the French field track and turf replacement in excess of
$250,000. Authorizing staff to execute a contract for $2,405,877 with Renner to provide construction services.
Thank you. Connor, can I get a second? Thank you. Scott. Great. So tonight we are here to get board approval for the board,
consideration for approval for the Rocky Mountain High School. French field, track and field. The track the French field is actually located close to Rocky Mountain High School, but it's actually shared by many of our
high schools. So this is actually a facility that is not just for one high school, but many high schools across the district and and other programs. This project is actually one that we wanted to do last
summer, because the condition of the field was such that we felt like that was important to do last summer, but given the short timeline, we had to get everything ready. We just didn't feel like that was going
to be accomplishable last summer. So we are bringing it forward this summer to be completed. Summer of 26. Just a little background. The last time that the the field was was
worked on is in 2012, and it was resurfaced in the turf, was replaced and replaced. That was roughly 14 years ago. And typically for these type surfaces, you're getting
anywhere from 8 to 12 years. So so that's why we were talking about it last summer because it was in poor, poor disarray at that deterioration. At that
point, the the replacement is necessary because of safety, the functional service and and that supports student athletes. So the way it's described to me is that the field has been
compacted such that it no longer has the cushion that's necessary. And I've learned a lot about this. They actually come and test this to see is there enough cushion when people fall on the fields. And,
and our athletic director has been concerned that it may not pass that test for a while. That's just one example of some of the things that are starting to deteriorate on, on such a big level that we felt that we
needed to bring this forward. For the board's consideration tonight, the Summer 26 work would be completed this summer. And and again, it's made
possible because of the debt free mill levy. Great. Are there any questions or concerns? Yes, please. I just want to affirm and support this. I
don't know if anyone knew, but I ran track for a long time, and I never knew that that would actually come into play on school board. But it does make a difference in terms of
the quality of that track. I can recall times of running on not so great tracks, and the damage and the impact that it has on your body. There's also a consequence of spikes not
landing and grounding correctly, causing trip ups and falls and different things and stuff like that. So yeah, also the way it's taken care of, it also makes it more resistant to
weather because when you do have things that need to be repaired, it can wear out over time and stuff. So I just wanted to add that extra piece of having had that experience that this is a good purchase to
have as we support our students and all their activities. And I and I continue to learn more even tonight about our track and field. So thank you very much. Great. Other comments.
Yeah. Yeah, I'd second Doctor Ziegler on those comments. I think the fact that this is a, you know, well used facility for a lot of different schools
in the district, including our our middle school, sometimes our elementary schools, it's really important to have this as a safe facility. The cushioning is really important. I've I've seen it with my kids
and their friends and it's. It's a big deal when you play on a poor field. So we want to be proud of of what we offer. So thank you. Thank you. So is the field getting replaced with
turf? As I understand my my it wasn't loading yesterday and today. Yeah. So so we're actually doing both the track and turf. So it's a pretty substantial retrofit of the
field. Is the district looking to replace a lot of our natural grass with turf. And if not, could we look into that to save on water costs? I would like to come back to you with some further discussion with staff to see what we're talking about
there, and and to actually see what our inventory looks like with what is natural gas and grass and turf. And we're actually talking about it right now in real time, because we're expecting that water is going
to be a precious resource this summer, and that we may have to put some drought considerations in as to what we're watering and what we're not. So that that also is something that we're looking at. And I
appreciate that. And then the one other caution I'd give is was also former athlete and a former life doctor. Ziegler playing a lot of soccer in my life. The quality of the turf matters, and I don't want our
kids to get injured. There's there's research that suggests our teenage girls soccer is more susceptible to ACL tears on certain kinds of turf. And so I want to make sure that we're not going cheap on
certain things if we can do it right. So if we have any kind of studies or anything that would would help. I know we had the right experts in the room having that conversation, specifically our athletic director. And, and he was very
instrumental in making sure that we got what the right value for the district is and not going with the cheapest. And, and as you said, there's actually cases in Colorado where that's been an issue and
people putting in turf that was subpar and then injuries happening, having to replace it again, it's not a good situation. So I figured you guys had it covered. I just wanted to put it out in the room. That's another reason why
we do good procurement. We have the right experts in there to actually create a good scope that we're thinking through all those things. Appreciate it. Yeah. Please. Just last thing, since everybody's bragging
about their athletic experience, you know, as a player, I spent a lot of time on the bench. I think the sideline condition is also important. So thank you. I
think we're all feeling that we're heading towards the end of the school year. Yeah. But our field isn't until June so we've got some time left. We
have two months left of board meetings. Let's keep it going. But I do think we're ready to call the vote. Yes. Yes. Joe.
Carla, Baz, I Conor Duffy I, Kevin I Scott Schoenberger I Jessica Zamora I doctor Karen de Ziegler I motion passes six
zero. Thank you so much. Thank you Dave. All right. Next we have bus purchase agreement. Can I get a motion. I move that the board approve expenditures in excess of $250,000.
Authorizing staff to execute a purchase order totaling $2,169,806 for bus fleet replacement with McCandless Truck Center. And I believe. Oh,
can I get a second? I'm sorry. Thank you. All right. Joining us this evening to present information about the bus purchase item is our
transportation director, Mr.
Dan Weaver. Dan, welcome.
Thank you and welcome. It's always lovely to see you. Are there any comments on our potential bus purchase? No. All right. I have no comments. Yes, please.
All right. I'm gonna just joke because I'm in the mood. But I support this. And so I didn't realize serving on the board bring back so many childhood memories, but I can't recall
busses breaking down and being stuck on the side of the road. And it takes a very long time for that to be repaired. So I just want to say that we should always support the replacement
of busses, because it's a very harmful experience. And decades
later, kids remember that
experience. So I support it.
Yeah, yeah. I was looking at the materials. What's the sourcing fund of this? I think you covered it, Dan, but was this a bid or what was this? It was yeah, I apologize, I just found out my mic was off. So
I'm a loud gentleman. So that's how I heard me anyway. Yes, we did send it out for public bid. There was an IFB done through bid net and we did receive bids back. This was the lowest
bidder. And the time scope is also on par with the other ones as well. I just wanted that for the record because in my pocket I didn't think anything was checked. So it did go out to bid. This was the lowest cost, correct? Yeah. Lowest cost.
Yeah. Comparatively to everybody. And all of the manufacturing are about the same time to get them. We'd be anticipating a delivery in September or October. So shortly after next school year
starts of this year. Wow. That's that that is impressive considering we've had some long lead times in the past. Yeah. And part of that in the past was that international, which is the company we are going
with for these. They were actually redesigning their busses. And so they were going they were between generations. And so they were short on inventory and unable to supply some of the stuff plus then
supply chain crisis stuff. So yeah, they've, they've significantly increased the turnaround time. That's great. Yeah. Are there any other questions. Yeah. Please. I just have a quick comment. I also
rode the ten Twinkie to school and as we lovingly called it. And I have just, in the last nine months become aware of how
much you all do and that your texts also are drivers and that you're covering all of the bases with many fewer drivers
than you need. I just want to have that on the record and make sure that our community knows how amazing you all are, and the incredible trust that
we all have in you to get our kids safely to school. Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that. I get to be part of a fantastic team here, here, just because I've been
around a minute. Like I think you I appreciate you calling out that we have historically had an average age that was substantially higher than the nine year old. And the fact that 11 years gets us within
reach of it is a huge achievement like that is it makes me just feel safer. Like for our students, it just makes me feel more confident that our fleet can. We're not going to
have to worry about will there be a bus? So I appreciate the work and the diligence and just thank you so much for making this happen. Thank you to our voters for obviously helping us financially make it happen. But
also thank you to your team for your diligence in getting us the best price, making sure we're getting quality busses over and over. So thank you so much. It's our pleasure. Thank you. All right. I think we're
ready. Yeah. Thank you. Jill. Carla. Baz, I Conor Duffy I Kevin I Scott Shane Bauer I
Jessica Zamora I doctor Karen de ziegler I motion passes six zero. We're a lively bunch today thank you so much Dan you want to take a break. I'm going
to does anyone else need a break. Are we ready to keep going. The two minute break. Two minute break. All right.
We'll come back at 718 ish.
Let's get as close as possible. Okay. All right. We're going to
rein it back in. We are professionals and now we have our informational item for our preliminary budget for fiscal year 2627. Yeah. Brian, welcome.
Brian Gustafson, our budget director, is here to present our preliminary budget for fiscal year 2026 2027. Glad you're here, Brian. Good evening. It's good to be back with you all again this this
week to talk about the preliminary budget that's in your packet. And as was mentioned earlier, this is the first of three budget submissions. And a couple weeks
ago we talked about what this budget would entail. And so we're going to build off that conversation and understand that while doing this, I'm going to talk about numbers, but also give you a little bit
of a brief tour of the budget document. And so walk through both of those things simultaneously. Now, just to set the stage a little bit, what's on the screen is a visual of a summary sheet that we like to use when we get
together, and we talk about what's available in the budget. And that's what the purpose of this preliminary budget is, is to identify what's available for ongoing recurring needs. So
I'm not going to go through this slide specifically line by line. But what the presentation does is it addresses each of these lines. And so we'll go through this. I'll show this again at the end. But the
bottom line down there at the right bottom right corner is that this preliminary budget identifies a difference between the revenues and beginning balances versus the expenditures and ending fund
balances of about little over $5 million, about $5.1 million. That's going to be available for on time recurring uses. Now, I will tell you, as was
mentioned earlier, this is a draft and things will change. We will have some changes. And I anticipate even in the few days since submitting this to board packets, going through
some different analyzes, that some changes have been already starting to pop up. But we'll we'll talk through this budget with that number in the back of
our minds. Again, I'll reiterate, as was already mentioned, this is a draft. It's a draft. And we're going to keep coming back to this is a draft. I think I mentioned last time the budget guys
default is always, hey, I'm going to be wrong. I'm going to be wrong. But there will there will be changes here. We feel pretty confident, despite the uncertainties that we're experiencing, as we've been talking about with state
funding and other things, we feel fairly confident about where this will end up. And I'll guide you through that a little bit here this evening. Primarily, we're going to focus on the general fund and in fact,
almost exclusively on the the general fund, but primarily on the revenue portion of it and touch a little bit on expenditure assumptions and
what's what's not in there. So in the document, if you you've got hopefully the document in front of you a and I'll talk about pages. So you can kind of
follow along. You're going to see comparisons for columns in there. You're going to see three years last year. Last year is fiscal year 2425. We call that fiscal year 25. This
year is fiscal year 2526. We call that fiscal year 26. And then next year, fiscal year 2627. So you'll see a comparison of last year's
actual numbers compared to this year's budget and this year's estimated actuals through three quarters of the year through the end of March, and then next
year's budget figures as a preliminary look, what do we have in this document? Well, we've got various funds, primarily the general fund, but all of our other funds are represented here as well. And
they have separate pages in pages seven through 14 of the document. Not going to get into those really tonight. But if you have questions, certainly welcome those later on and understand that those are still
being worked through, just like the general fund. We've got adjustments and some things to dial in with the other funds.
So let's turn to page two in the budget. And page two starts us off into our operational budget revenue summary. And we've talked multiple times in
board meetings about program funding or the total program. That's the formula, right? We keep going back to the formula funded pupil count times, number of funded pupils. And
this number represents about three quarters of our general fund budget. That's why we focus so heavily in this area. I've got a graphic on the screen that has those four
columns of fiscal year 25 versus 26, and a budget column for operational budget revenue for fiscal year 27. We're going to talk about the formula a little bit. That will generate
what we expect to be about $325.2 million. Just quickly stepping backwards. What goes into that $325.2 million? It's
different now than it used to be. Hey, we're in that situation. If you recall from a few weeks back where we were in the crossover of two school finance acts. And so we are
assigned basically a funding dollar right now. And then we know our estimates for funded pupils and we back into that per pupil rate. It didn't always used to be like that. And then that will change down
the road as well. But as we look on the right side of this screen, the table that's their fiscal year 2627, the total program estimate of $325.2
million. To do the math to get there, we expect our funded pupil count to be 27,786.1 students. This does include our district charters. Okay. To get
to that 325 million, that per pupil rate would be about $11,705 a a 3% increase from what the rate is this year.
Okay. Comparing year over year, fiscal year 27 to 26, it's pretty similar, pretty similar. And that's because we're in this whole harmless situation.
It is about $715,000 more based on this calculation. But what I'm illustrating below that table is we do expect that our charter in-district charter
enrollments are growing not quite to the same level as maybe we thought initially, but we do know that a portion of this will go to fund their growth. Right? About $1 million
is the estimate right now. Okay. Now if you're doing the math, you go, well, gosh, how many charter kids is that? Hey, that million dollars includes not only program funding, but charter allocations and mill
levy funding, special education funding. It's the whole the whole formula that's in there. We expect having having seen the preliminary charter budget start to come in in the last
couple of weeks, charter growth at about 1%. When initially we were thinking about 2% pupil growth right now, in talking with some of those folks,
they're strategizing intentionally to kind of undershoot a little bit where maybe this year they overshot some estimates and then had some, some negative true up. So
just that that's some information for you. So really when you take that out, we're looking at $285,000 decline in program funding. When you
remove those those charter allocations. And we talked about this a little bit last time as well, and trying to get to that idea of trying to conceptualize this whole hold
harmless thing. And so what I've, what I've done here is in hopes to simplify a little bit is really just reduce this down to the three years that are included in the budget. Okay.
The previous year, 25, the current year, 26. Next year, 27. These three bars represent from the range of 300 million up a
where the hold harmless line was established. Hey, we've got a stacked bar charts there with these these levels, right about
$355 million all across the board. A that calculation was identified last year as our hold harmless calculation for the entire district. What's in here? The tops of these bars
are the Charter school Institute amounts that come out before we even get to that 325 million. I was just talking about the calculation starts there. That's the horizontal
line right at the top of this, this bar chart. Okay, those get peeled out. And then the formula that I've been talking about is really below that gold line that's in the middle, okay. That's the allocation line that
starts in with our 2024 School Finance Act. Okay. So when we peel out that the charter school Institute amounts and that initial hold harmless
calculation, we get a look at our program funding in a little more of a realistic manner for what's in district here, where we have a line of funding allocation going from fiscal
year 25 up to 26, and across the 27. That's the new School Finance Act and what it's providing for our district. And that's that $325 million. I was
just referencing the dark blue bars in these stacked bars represent the calculation of funded pupils times per pupil rate. In the previous School
Finance Act 1994, a, that number for next year would be about $317 million. We're going to be funded at 325 ish. There's a difference. A that
difference is what we're calling the hold harmless. And what's being referred to across the state is the hold harmless. That includes a lot of things. That's a lot of one time dollars, like we talked about
from the state level, that's propping that up. We believe that includes part of a phase in of the new School Finance Act. But then in that fiscal
year 27 bar the gap that's shaded and got a little texture there, that's the hold harmless that we feel are one time dollars in our formula. Okay, I paused here last time. I'll
pause again if we've got some questions for for clarification. Brian, would you mind? Thank you for the gentle pause. Would you mind going back? One slide. So many of us, I think in many
members of the community are visual learners. And so one of the things that took me a second for my eyes to calibrate on this slide, I think Brian did an amazing job explaining it. When you look at peeling
out the yellow parts of each of those bars for CSI schools, it's looking like, well, that's a lot of money. And I just want all of us to orient our eyes to
where the Y axis on this grid starts at 300 million. So when you think about our total share of the contribution of what we're retaining, it doesn't start at zero there. So there's a lot more depth to those bluer
bars. And I just think for those of us that are visual learners, it's just important to call that out. Yeah. Thank you. We're zooming in so you can see that detail. Okay. So
we've talked a lot about that total program. Where does that stand right now? Well, as was mentioned earlier, the School Finance Act is still going. I think it was in the second
reading with the Senate today and still proceeding. We don't anticipate really significant changes based on what we've been hearing so far. In fact, we received a communication
from CDE last week that basically was like, stop asking for runs. Stop. You're not going to get it. I use the January 14th data and keep plugging along and win. The
School Finance Act comes out with with some numbers. Then the folks that generate that, that data for us will, will start to plug it in. So I don't
have any additional information besides what we've had as far as the numbers. So we're continuing on with the assumptions that we've been working off of. So again, back
to page two. In the document, we've talked about the state formula about $700,000 more than last year. The big middle section of that page is other
local revenue. And you can see that we we have in the budget various local revenue items, primarily the bulk of local revenue, our mill levy override dollars, and we have a handful
of them in there, six of them in there from 1988, all the way through 2019. And that revenue is budgeted to be about $66
million next year, a significant chunk. The general fund total program is about three quarters of our our our general fund. Hey, this is a really large, large bucket,
that mill levy override that's been approved over over different years of those mill levy override dollars from different elections. One grows
annually by the rate of inflation. The others remain stagnant. They were passed on set dollar amounts. But the 2019 mill grows by the
established rate of inflation in the School Finance Act at 2.3%. We. We expect that to be about 500,000. And that drives the change in what we see in other local revenue for next
year. Below that, we've got other state revenue categories and we talk about categorical funding. These are specific streams of dollars to address specific school districts. For
instance, transportation reimbursements, special education, state funding, vocational funding, various other ones. These are scheduled
to also increase by the rate of inflation. And when you start to factor those in, we feel like that section, that state section will grow by about $1 million next year. So we see some some revenue growth, not
not really huge growth because we're talking about 2.3% inflation, but some growth in those those sources below the state revenue. We've got a
federal revenue section. And right now we're leaving that unchanged. That's primarily our Medicaid reimbursement dollars and federal revenue, as we've
talked about over the last year or so. We've got some uncertainties there, instabilities here. And we also work on a much different fiscal year when we're talking about federal federal dollars that we
have to integrate into our school fiscal year. So we'll learn more about federal dollars, hopefully a little later on in the year. And that's something that if there are significant changes we can address with a mid-year budget
revision if necessary. But I don't anticipate right now making any changes to the federal revenue lines. If you
turn to page three, that also a revenue summary, but basically condenses what we went through in page two. So it takes all those sections, reduces them down, and it adds in a key
component down at the end in line 16 that of the beginning balance. Beginning balance is what we anticipate will be the ending fund balance from this year moving into next year. And
we've got two more two more months of activity, obviously, and things, you know, I'm knocking on wood. I'm doing all the things you got to do to bring some good mojo. But
things are looking pretty good. But you never know, right? You never know. And so we're we're hoping that that's where the, the beginning balance comes in. And when you combine that
beginning balance of 75 point just about $9 million with what we anticipate to be about $444.5 million of revenue, we've got a grand total of $520
million in the the general fund budget. At the end. When we compare this to expenditures plus reserves, those $2 amounts should match in the preliminary
budget. They don't. And that's intentional because of this availability that I've been talking about for ongoing uses. So we'll jump in and talk a
little bit about expenditures. Pages four and six of the document. Look at the general fund expenditures here at SDE.
Page four is a good illustration of this. We really kind of carve it out differently than a lot of places. And we look at expenditures by location type. So you can look and you can see, well, elementary schools, what
do we spend in elementary schools? And that includes all kinds of things. That's compensation, that's books. That's whatever that gets assigned to elementary school locations. Okay. Same thing as
you go down through the list of those locations, finance, you know, that's what we spend in the finance operation. So it's not quite by program and object that may be would be in
different formats. That's a little more of the kind of the, the user friendly sort of general look at expenditures. We do, however, compare it to a
different slice that's on page six. And that's more of a compensation focus where we lump some things together, but we break out how we spend the dollars on, on licensed staff
versus administrative staff and classified staff. So you can see where the compensation chunk of the budget falls and how we spend those across the classifications. Okay. So as
you explore the budget, those are always interesting things to compare. Pages four, pages six. We'll talk about what's
what's in these. In or we'll stay on page four. That budget column is based initially on fiscal year 26 estimated
actuals. So through three quarters of the year we analyze. All right. Where are we at? What do we know about these locations. How are they trending with expenditures. And then we try to project what will the end of the year look
like. That then becomes the basis for establishing the budget for fiscal year 27. Then we make some additions and subtractions. Okay. Based on
some known variables that that we've got in front of us, some projected cost increases that we're we know we're going to be facing. We know our health benefits, the district portion
of premiums is going to go up by about 5%. That's about $1.6 million. Additionally, we have have been monitoring leaves of absence and what we spend on leaves of absence over the past
few years, and acknowledge that we need to increase what we budget on those to the tune of about $700,000 to get us more in line with with how we spend
there. We're all feeling the pain at the pump and the busses, as Mr. Weaver talked about earlier, are going to be feeling that for a while too. Right. And so fuel is the big driver of what we see are some
increases when we're talking about fuel, insurance and utilities. And then I've already talked about how we flow through dollars to the charters. What else is hitting
that that budget column? Well, our schools and our departments have been working hard to adjust the budget and make reductions as well. And when we
deployed the school based or student based budgets out here in February for the declining enrollment impact, if you were to compare fiscal year 26 with
27 student based budgets, a 27 will be about $8.2 million less. So that is also reflected in this fiscal year 27 budget column. Additionally, our
central departments are going through processes and finalizing those to evaluate their budgets and have identified to this point about $2.9 million of reductions
there. So those are also reflected across the location types that you see in the expenditure columns. So what's missing? Well what's missing is changes in compensation besides
the health benefits. That's that's considered some compensation. We know that when we know that driver it's at what's what's missing is okay.
The difference in compensation. So as we start to get towards the end of the budget, we turn to page five and take a look at the reserves. Okay. The fund
balances. The series of stacked bar charts are on the screen is a reflection of ten years of reserve levels. And this is something that you've seen a portion of in a previous
monitoring report. But this compares ending fund balances from June 2017 through June 2026. And the the trend is pretty obvious, right? You can
identify that fund balance and reserves grew through 2020, 2021, 2022 pandemic times as we had other sources come in and stabilize the budget. And then
as those sources were spent, a the reserve levels have been dropped. A what the Office of State Auditor and those that would be monitoring these, what they would look for are trends like increasing trends,
decreasing trends. And we're at that spot where we need to start to see a stabilizing trend, if not probably a little bit of an increase as we move through the next few years.
What's stacked up in these, these bars are various forms of reserves. From the bottom is the most restrictive. The bottom sections. We can't we
can't spend the non spendable reserves, which is a very, very, very small amount. You can't even see it on these bar charts. It's so small. That's inventory followed by restricted levels
of reserves, which are things like our Tabor Reserve. That's a statutory 3% we can't touch and multi year obligations. And as we move up these charts, we
get to a little bit more flexibility with how we can utilize these reserves, committed reserves is that that's an amount that really helps us transition with a, an
overlap of our payroll calendar versus our fiscal year calendar. They don't quite line up by a month. So that reserve helps us make an audit transition, a gap transition there. And then
we've got assigned reserves. That's where we see a lot of our carryovers and budgets and more things that have identified uses in our budget this year. And I'm going to
show you these numbers here, in here in a moment. This year. As a group coming into this year, we identified a portion of this year's Hold harmless to assign in the event of future funding
uncertainty about $4.3 million. That's part of that green middle section in June of 26. And then the top is the unassigned reserve section. That's where there's the most
discretion. And we have two unassigned reserve categories. If you were to look on page five, line 61 and 62, those are the unassigned reserve lines. We have a required and this is
district requirement. Board of Education contingency reserves. We would really like that to be a much higher number than what you see right there. Okay. That's a number we would like
to get into the 2% range. And at the end of this year, it's probably about a half of a percent. And so I'm going to talk about what our what's our strategy to address this? That
number combined with the number below it of the appropriated reserve. That's that's sort of the what's left that's there for emergencies. We appropriate the dollars. Things come up. We
have that available to address challenges that occur during the year, whether that be a mid-year rescission. We had that question last last time or other things that that come up,
those two amounts combined. And this is reflected in the estimated actuals on the screen in fiscal year 26, are about 3.5%. Our target there that
we're working to get to, and we feel like we need to get back towards is like seven, 8% for those two items combined. Yes, sir. Get to it. But how does
the district accrue unassigned reserves? Can I jump forward to that? Because that's a question that's been percolating. Unless you want to build the suspense,
your presentation, the the unassigned reserves. Really, it's kind of like a I'm trying to think of it simply. It's, it's a little bit of what's not already spoken for, right? So
if we haven't spoken for them in other areas of the reserves or expenditures, then that's how they get here. And then when we have an established level, for instance, in the required Board of Education
contingency reserve, we have an established level that's going to be modified annually and try and held at about 2% of the budgeted expenditures. Unless there's a significant event
that reduces them. We had a significant event that reduced those. And so now we actually have to make some adjustments to then start to replenish
those. Does that help a little bit? Okay. So as we look at next year, what's the strategy that we're putting into this
preliminary budget to start addressing this, this need to start to replenish reserves, line 60 has the reserve for funding uncertainty. And in
this year, we carve that out as part of the hold harmless about $4.3 million. All hopes are that we don't have to address or utilize those those dollars here in the next couple of
months to address any uncertainties. And then to address that question, the the process would be move or reallocate that out of assigned
reserves and more into that required Board of Board of Ed contingency reserves for next year, starting to replenish that portion of the fund balance that would start to to
get that moving back toward the 2% target in that particular line that we'd be looking for, the appropriated reserve line, that illustration of $13.3
million. That is simply a multiplier right now, comparing that to the budgeted expenditure so far. So that will change as we add more expenditures in and what we try
and peel out there. But those two combined would then be more at a 5% level where we're starting to head in the direction of getting, getting a little higher, but still some
work to do there. Okay, now I'll take your attention back to line 60. The addition of another reserve for funding
uncertainty. If you think back to the stacked bar charts where we showed the hold harmless, that $7 million is the difference between the 1994 and
the expected 2024 levels. Again, could change. We've got to see these numbers come out. But that gap, that $7 million, is the plan in this budget would
be to put that into that reserve for funding uncertainty. So then you kind of see how this flow starts to work. If we can get into fiscal year 28 and not have to utilize those
dollars, then we've got that to start to build our unassigned reserves. As we think about things down the road, you know, we've we've even received
emails from lobbyists case, others that say, gosh, with this state budget being propped up on a lot of one time funds, wouldn't be surprised by a rescission in early 2027. Well,
how would we address that? Hey, this would be our how we don't we have no idea what those levels would be. But this would be the strategy towards how a thinking even further down the
road, we've talked about specific ownership tax sweeps, fiscal year 28 and beyond. How would we address those changes? This is where we're trying to get into a system to to address those and think into the future
for those those things, we can maintain some agility to address those. And then continuing the impacts of enrollment. And what is that going to do with our school portfolio throughout the
district? How are we going to address any changes that occur there? We've got to continue to think about strategically using these assigned and unassigned
reserves to, to probably get into those spaces. All right. So. We'll add one more line down at the bottom. It's on that same page, line 65. You do
all that math, you compare the expenditures and reserves combined versus the operating revenues and the beginning balance. And we've got a difference of $5.1 million.
That's what's different in this budget. When when we come back with a proposed budget in a few weeks, then the hope would be any compensation changes have been identified. Other changes
have been identified that we've plugged into the budget that would balance this out, but that's what's different and available as of right now. And
that takes us back to this summary summary page. Again, I'm not going to go through it, but those are the items I hit on as we as we went through the presentation that, you know, and we're constantly looking at,
okay, if we had to, to walk through the math of these things, how would these be adjusted? And then we try and use this to check, check the budget numbers. So what's next?
We've talked about the School Finance Act. We've got the negotiations process and compensation decisions to make and any final department adjustments and budget
priorities that that arise have to be addressed. We've got scheduled anyway. I believe I have the dates right. Fiscal year, proposed budget here on May 26th, where we'll show you
the next and closer iteration of where we think this should land and then budget adoption scheduled, I believe, for June 9th, with the requirement of
having it adopted by June 30th. All right. With that, what questions do you have? Questions. Comments. It's a lot
to take in. Yes. Even though you just did this two weeks ago, still never ceases to amaze me. Yeah. Please. Connor. Brian, quickly on the expenditure side for health insurance costs
driving that increase, are we seeing a higher rate or are we seeing what we saw coming out of Covid, of more of our employees utilizing those
services? Boy, I'd have to I'd have to think back to the benefits Committee for some specific answers, but I can I can say just generally, the rate increases we've seen over
the past few years have really resulted from utilization, right. And in particular, shock claims. And so the benefits Committee does a lot of a lot
of work with Aon, a broker, to monitor and analyze those and try and mitigate any increases as as they arise. And this year has been a little better year
than what we've seen recently. And nobody wants to celebrate a 5% increase. But I know our HR department is tracking what others are experiencing in some of these realms. And there's
some high numbers. Speaking of those other realms, and insurance has our rates for building insurance, asset insurance gone through the roof
like it has for residential? Not yet. Last year, but we're not anticipating really big changes so far this year. But I
don't know, maybe if Dave, you know of others, but. Fingers crossed. I did have a question. Well, people seem to be
contemplating on slide 12. Can you tell me why does it seem like our restricted reserves are highest when our funds are
lowest? Maybe I'm just. Now I'm trying to open it. So many slides. Okay, there we go. It's the red bars at the bottom.
That's a good question. I'd have to look into that. Okay. Yeah, I'll have to look into that because so many of those are going to be 3% of what our expenditures are. So you would
see some fluctuation there. I would have to look back at June 2017 through 2020 to see what else was in those restricted categories at that time. Yeah, yeah. Good question. I'll take
a look. Considering we had the 3%, I'm expecting it to go the other direction. And I have curiosities with Covid, maybe there was an exception. So I just have a wondering what would cause that to be. So I'd
appreciate a follow up if you don't mind. Thanks. Other questions or comments at this time? Yeah, please. Scott. Yeah. I just wanted to comment that I'm really happy to see the focus on getting our reserves
back up to that higher number. It's just there's so much uncertainty going on. I'm seeing it on the business side of things. And so I think it's really good stewardship to to
get going. So I commend you guys for pushing for that. Thanks. A lot of things got to go well, but we're going to keep working hard at that. I
don't know, I feel like there's just like trepidation on. I can't honestly imagine what your day to day looks like right now without more firm, hard numbers. But I really
appreciate the the presentation and getting us kind of settled into what our budget hopefully going to look like. Going once, going twice. Comments, questions. Okay. I think we're
good for the evening. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. All right. Next we have
board forecasting. So this is an opportunity for board members to discuss topics of interest for future board member board meetings. So something you'd like to put in consideration for our next year
to discuss in June. Yeah. Please. A question, Brian, we had an update. This last year or the year before. It was an
SRO update on our numbers and expulsion numbers, student contact numbers. Do we anticipate having one in this calendar year? We normally align that with the contract
renewal. So I need to go back and check in with staff. And we can work together through board agenda setting to to discuss that. I just remember being a really good presentation. We should probably be looking at
what those what that data is telling us, what we're doing right, what we're doing, what we can do better. And then in addition to that, sort of the next step is what happens and what are the options for students who have been touched
by that disciplinary process? Happy to. Thanks. Okay. Other topics for consideration. All right. None at this time. Then that leads us into our 11th
item for executive session. Can I get a motion? I move the board enter executive session with the following purposes. One to provide the board with specialized details of security
arrangements related to security protocols for board meetings and related events, as authorized by CRS 24-6-4024D, and two to develop the strategy of the school district for
negotiations relating to the 2026 2027 collective bargaining agreement or employment contracts as authorized by CRS section 24-6-4024E3.
Individuals invited to join the board in all or part of the executive session are Superintendent Brian Kingsley, Chief of staff doctor Lauren Hutton, lead assistant superintendent Doctor Tracy Gale, chief finance officer. Dave Montoya, director of student safety and emergency
management. Jared Sargeant, budget director. Brian Gustafson. Gustafson. I always butcher his name. Sorry, Brian, where are you? Gustafson school resource officer and Mike Natasia and general counsel Autumn Massman. Thank you.
Kevin, can I get a second, please? Thank you. Jill, can you please call the vote? Karla Bass I Conor Duffy hi, Kevin.
Velda I Scott Schoenberger I Jessica. Zamora I doctor. Kuranda. Ziegler I motion passes six zero. Thank you. We will now convene in closed session. This will be the last
agenda item before adjournment. And at the conclusion of the executive session, we will end the meeting and the adjournment
will be recorded. I want to put an extra syllable someone like.
Updates. Like they never happen when I need them to happen when I'm at home. We heard one or nothing and never updated. The
governor started it off and oh yeah, or if I'm in a meeting or something about the budget update. Oh no, no, sorry. That's like, I'm sorry. Thi