o ahead and get started. Thank you for joining the Board of Education this evening. Please mute your cell phone as we begin this meeting. Today is Tuesday, February 10th, 2026.
And this meeting is now called to order at 5:44 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 on Demand on YouTube. Okay, next we will do the Pledge of Allegiance.
Please join me. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it
stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.
Okay. Next, we'll go on to approval of the agenda. Would any board members like to make any changes to the agenda? All right. Seeing none, we'll go on to recognitions and reports.
Brian, do you have introductions? Good evening everybody. It's really wonderful to be with all of you tonight. As you can probably tell, I'm not feeling very well, but I know. I'm really, really
grateful to be here. So forgive me if I don't feel like I'm on my A game today. As we start off with recognitions and reports this evening, we're honored to recognize excellence in our district. From state
champions in cross country to the America's Healthiest Schools Award. Leading the celebration is John Cope, our Executive Director of communications. Welcome, John.
Good evening, President Zamora, Superintendent Kingsley, board directors and everyone joining us tonight. This evening, we're proud to celebrate students and staff and their amazing accomplishments. And our first
recognition is for Baty Elementary. Baty has been awarded the Kaiser Permanente sponsored America's Healthy Schools award from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. Here to speak more about this
amazing achievement is Jen Kester. Good evening. Thanks for having us. My name is Jen Kaster. I'm the assistant
principal at Baty Elementary. This is Stephanie Coleman, our school counselor. We're happy and proud to report that this is the second time we've received this award. And it
truly speaks to the thoughtfulness of our community. So I'm going to turn it over to Stephanie to share more. Thank you. This is the fun part. I get to brag about our school.
Good evening and thank you for having us tonight. BT is proud to be recognized for the second time by Kaiser Permanente as one of their healthiest K-12 schools in America. This year,
Kaiser Permanente recognized 1110 schools nationwide, and BT was just one of 31 schools in Colorado to get this distinction. The schools are picked based on their ability
to create healthier environments where students can truly thrive. We were recognized in three key areas strengthening social emotional learning, bolstering physical
education and activity, and enriching health education. At BT, we invest deeply in social emotional learning through a 100% school counselor. A comprehensive tier one SEL
program delivered in every pre-K through fifth grade classroom. Schoolwide, Co-regulation practices a ready room to help students self-regulate and restorative practices that are embedded
into our discipline system. Additionally, in our health education, we are the only elementary school in SDE whose students are taught comprehensive health standards during their biweekly health
class that is built into the student's specials rotation. To ensure our students have access to fun and engaging physical activity throughout the year. Our PE program includes diverse
experiences like snowshoeing and pickleball. Our PE program also includes morning bike and running clubs, diverse 5210 activities, and a four school
wide walk and wheel challenges. We celebrate our final walk in wheel with a community Bike to school parade, complete with police escort, watching our whole families come together to
bike, rollerblade, and scoot to school is a great reminder of the many traditions woven into our community. This recognition reflects the collective commitment of our staff,
students, families and our district to educating the whole child. Thank you for allowing us to share our work with you tonight. Thank you. Thank you
very much. Thank you. Congratulations. Baty elementary. Our next recognition is for Timnath Middle High School and its state champion cross country
team. I would like to invite Matt Miltenberg to the podium to say a few words about the accomplishments of the team.
Okay. All right. Thank you guys. At SDE, we often talk about graduating with options, and this is a set of girls that I believe will graduate with almost unlimited options
because they have learned what it takes to set big, audacious goals, even when no one else would believe it were possible, and to commit to doing the work together to get there. I'm coming to a brand new school,
with no history or no reason to suggest that this was possible. These girls believed it, and I could tell you that nobody works harder than they did, and as a result, they've now won their second state championship
in just four years as a school, something no school in Colorado history has ever done, which is pretty impressive. But what I think, what I know will provide
these girls with all of those options, is that they have learned to take this same approach, not just to their running, but also to everything that they do in life, including in the classroom where combined,
they have a 4.0 GPA. Yeah, more than half of these girls. Yep. Awesome. More than half of them are in the top ten in their class. Three of them are in the
top five in their class, two are in the top three in their class. They've earned countless college credits, industry certificates. They have dreams of collegiate athletics and careers in medicine and
engineering and beyond. Yeah, and while it's been a real honor and privilege to be a part of of this part of their journey, what what excites me the most and makes me most proud is not the banners and
trophies that they'll leave in their wake, but all the winds that await them later in life. So congratulations ladies. Thank you for representing SDE
and Timnath so proudly. We appreciate you. Congratulations
once again to our honorees. We're proud to celebrate you as you represent the very best of Poudre School District. At this time, I'd like to invite our honorees and board directors to
the front for a group photo.
Yes.
All right. Now we're going to move on to our action items we have. Can I get a motion for the resolution in support of Classified Employee Appreciation Week? I move that
the board approve a resolution in support of Classified Employee Appreciation Week, February 2nd to six, 2026. Thank you. Can I get a second? Thank you Kevin. And we have
folks. We sure do. Joining us this evening to speak to Classified Employee Appreciation Week is Joni Baker, the president of the Association of Classified
Employees. Welcome, Joni. There we go. Good evening, Superintendent Kingsley, President Zamora and our board
directors. I'm incredibly proud to stand before you tonight to celebrate our classified employees. Last week was classified Appreciation Week, a time to recognize the dedicated
professionals who support our district. To start, we'd like to share a video with you. My name Remy Moffatt. My job title. Is it Field Specialist. And I've been with the district
full time since 2022, but I started seasonal positions in 2018. I'm a PhD graduate. My mother has worked here since I was eight years old. It's really all I've ever known. People here have taken care of me. People at the district
offices have taken care of me. Very welcoming environment and it's why I've continued to stay here. My name is Brayden. I'm a support center specialist here at the ITC, and I've been working here for around two months now. I grew up here in
town, so I've always been a part of like SDE, just kind of on their end of the stick, but it just made a big impact on my life and being able to contribute back to that and
kind of help out the people who helped shape me is pretty inspiring. The best part of my job is getting positive feedback from sites that something we did impacted them in a positive way, probably the people that I work with here.
And another thing I really enjoy is the problem solving doesn't feel very repetitive. We always get something new when it comes to tech support. So hi, my name is Roberta Perez. I work at Poudre High School.
I'm the kitchen manager here. I've been working for Poudre School District for about seven years now. It's been a joy to work here for Poudre School District because everyone has been just wonderful and very supportive, and I have an
awesome crew here, and it's just the best job I've had. My name is Jim Runner and I am the kitchen manager at Harris Bilingual. I have been here for almost seven years as a kitchen manager. I moved to Colorado
and my wife worked with kids and I'm a big kid, so it just it worked out. It was a perfect fit. The best part of my job is serving all the students and seeing their smiles when they come in in the morning for
breakfast and when they come in during lunch. Definitely the kids. It has a big kid. It just works well. We have a lot of fun and they fill your heart.
My name is Carl Talbert. I've been with SDE for five years and I work in outdoor services. I have a strong connection to the school district and the community. I also enjoy the
flexibility and stability the district provides. My name is Chris O'Mara. I've been with SDE for two months now and I work in outdoor services. Throughout my years here in Fort Collins, I've had a lot of
friends and family work for SDE, and have always had nothing but good things to say about working for Poudre School District. I enjoy working outdoors in a variety of
different tasks that we do, and I feel good after a day of working. You can see the impact that we have on the schools. I think the best part of my job so far is just getting to work
outdoors and just something new every day. All right. Thank you Matt and the communications team for putting that together for us. So many of our
classified employees often start their mornings at 5:30 a.m. and that doesn't include until the end of the day when it's midnight and they're
closing our buildings down. So our custodians are the first to open our doors and the last to lock them. They ensure our facilities are clean, safe and welcoming. Every single morning.
They manage the heavy lifting of setting up and tearing down for countless events, often multiple times in a single day, with tireless grace and not to
mention all the other duties in between. Our child nutrition team works with meticulous care, preparing thousands of breakfasts and lunches every
day. Beyond the cooking, they serve as the primary point of reassurance for parents, ensuring every student's dietary needs are are met and
that their allergies are managed with the highest level of safety and concern for our transportation. For many students, first friendly face
they see every morning belongs to our transportation team. They prioritize safety above all else, navigating our roads to get students to school, sporting events, field trips,
you name it. Building vital relationships with families along the way. Our facilities and customer service department keep the engine of our district
running. Whether it's a complex construction project or a quick fix for plumbing, electrical or lock issues, they ensure our schools function at a top level without delay, along with
maintaining our grounds, each and every facility. Our security team is essential. They maintain the technology and infrastructure for cameras
to badge entries, and they keep our campuses secure. Most importantly, they work hand in hand with our school resource officers to ensure a safe
environment for every student and staff member. Our family liaisons. These professionals provide a bridge between home
and school that is vital for our student success. They work countless hours to provide families with resources and support they need to ensure
their children's quality to ensure their their children receive a quality education. Our paraprofessionals. This
group does extraordinary work supporting our most vulnerable students. They are masters of de-escalating, encouragement
and patience despite the immense physical and emotional challenges they face. They return every day with the commitment to student growth.
They are true leaders who directly impact our graduation rates and our students futures. Our office staff are our front
line workers are the heartbeat of every school. They manage everything from attendance to calming an upset parent or student and providing a listening ear for a frustrated
teacher. They are the ultimate support system for our educators and administrators. The role of our health techs grows more complex every year
from managing seizures, diabetes, daily medications, to responding to workplace injuries. They meet every new challenge with professionalism,
professionalism and care. And last but not least, our IT and our central office. In a world where every student has a laptop or IT department is
world class, troubleshooting technical hurdles and providing the data that drives our district. Likewise, our central office team in HR, finance and
payroll keep the business of education moving forward every day. Poudre School District simply would not function without our classified staff.
We are fortunate to have such a dedicated group of individuals who, while often working behind the scenes in my opinion, are
the most important group. Thank you. I'm going to take the point of privilege and say I'm incredibly proud to. Joni,
thank you very much for being here today. Every classified employee makes sure that we're collectively at our best every single day, just as you said. And I simply can't thank them
enough. And I just want to say. Classified. Classified employees make me so proud. Thank you very much for being here. Does anyone else have anything they would like to share? Please. When I was
thinking about this resolution, I had two fond memories. If you'll indulge me, I'd like to share. When I was a kid, I went to a school that required uniforms. But every blue moon on a Friday we'd have a free
dress day. Except that I would always forget. And so I'd get up. I'd get on the bus, and I arrive at the front and the look of horror on my face when I realized that everyone else was in normal clothes and I was
in uniform, and the pointing and staring and laughing. And it's a horrible feeling when you're a little kid. But there was Miss Gloria who said to me, sweetie, go get your change. I'll go around the corner and
I'll come back for you. And she did that. And then when I got back on the bus, everything was normal. I don't think the kids remembered. I doubt she remembered, but I did, and that mattered to me. I thought about
Miss Titchener, who was our head in our the head person in our kitchen. She knew that every now and then we'd have pudding and for for part of the dessert. And I was a kid that liked butterscotch pudding. It
was. They didn't have enough. There was usually 1 or 2, but I always tried to get it. On one particularly rough day, she saw me coming through the line and I had a bad day, and she could see it all over my face. And I
got to the end of the line and there was no butterscotch pudding. And there was Miss Titchener, who had saved one for me and pulled it out and said, here you go, sweetie. Looks like you could use it. And I don't think that any of
these people probably remembered these instances, but I remember them, and it mattered to me, and that kindness mattered. On my way to this board meeting, I was behind a bus on Oberlin, and two little girls ran off at the
at a stop and followed, and they embraced their mother. And it was really sweet. And I was thinking about some of these things I was going to share anyway. And then there was a bus para who ran off chasing
them with a lunchbox. And so I share these stories because I agree with everything you said. Your your day starts before the kids get there. You're there during when the kids are there
and you're there long after the kids are there. But to all of those of you who serve in these roles, those moments of kindness that you get to have with our kids, from the bottom
of my heart, I want to say thank you. All right, Jill, can
you please call the vote Karla? I, Conor Duffy, I Kevin, I Scott Schoenbaum I doctor Andrew Spain I Jessica Zamora I
doctor Carranza Ziegler I motion passes seven zero. All right. Next up we have a resolution in support of Black
History Month. Can I get a motion? I move that the board approve the updated resolution that was presented to the board in support of Black History Month. Can I get a second?
Thank you. Andrew. All right. I believe we have guests. Yes. Here to speak to Black History Month is Wendy Grigg, gifted and talented coordinator at
Conard Middle School. Welcome, Wendy. Good evening everyone. It's an honor to stand here tonight. I've been at Conard
for about 16 years as a teacher, and recently in the last couple of years, I've had the privilege of being able to work with students in our student social justice team. And as it
is, a newer club at school, as a teacher sponsor, we look for students who have a heart for wanting to increase inclusion and belonging so that everyone that walks in our doors can see
that this is a place where they are welcomed and that it resonates. Who they are is appreciated and valued. And so Hank came to our district this
year and Conard is a sixth grader. And when we were putting out notice that we were looking for students, I saw this group of students around my office door at the sign up
and Hank front and center, and it was just true to form of what I would come to know about Hank. He's one of those students that stands out in those years as a teacher. That
is one where if Hank's in the room, everybody else who is around him wants to know what's Hank doing because he's up to something good, and Hank is the one that shows up. He will.
Whether he's on the court. He plays on two basketball teams, one Denver and one here. And he's a football player. He he plays the bass in orchestra. And actually he's one of the
leaders in helping other students to know how to show up, do the extra work, whether it's with the strings or with the football. But in student social justice, that's where I just
feel super honored. That's where Hank kind of captured my heart, because when we began to talk about what our purpose is and why we're here, Hank took the risk to speak first and
share with everyone about how important it is that when we walk our talk, we make a difference for people who we don't know what kind of day
that they might be having. And we don't know their story, but it's important that we know and recognize. And so Hank stood out so much that when Jenna
Baltimore came to visit our school to see what we're doing, they spoke for a little bit and she's like, hey, would you like to come and talk a little bit
about your experience and do the resolution speech for Black History Month? And just like Hank, he spoke up and said, yes.
So Hank Tillman. My name is Harry Tillman. Greetings to the board. Doctor Ziegler. I am
very proud of Hank Tillman to take this opportunity to speak about Black History Month. And I just want to make sure that,
you know, he has fun doing it. Hello, everyone. I want to thank the Board of Education for giving me this opportunity to speak with you today about Black History Month. My name is Hank Tillman. I was born and
raised here in Fort Collins, Colorado. I attend middle school and I am a sixth grader. I'm African American, Korean and Norwegian, and I'm 12 years old. Black History Month is important to me, not just
because of the history books, but because of my family's story. My great great grandfather was born a sharecropper. After slavery was abolished, even after freedom, his life was still shaped by unfair systems that made it
difficult for black families to build wealth or or opportunity. My grandfather graduated as valedictorian from a segregated high school and served as vice president of his class. Despite
his achievements, he still faced limits because of segregation. In the 1960s, he joined the US Army and fought in the Vietnam War. While stationed in Korea, he met my grandmother and they later had
my father. In the 1970s, my father and scholarships to attend the University of Northern Colorado, and later received his master's degree in computer information systems. In the 1990s, CSU lost funding
from the state due to low minority representation in graduation rates for minority students. This was the reason why he applied and was accepted into Colorado State University. If my father had never been
given that opportunity, he would never met my mom and I would not exist. My family's story shows the progression of Black Americans since the abolition of abolition of
slavery. This is American history and it includes black history. Our school district must continue to and improve teaching this curriculum. This will strengthen our community.
After slavery ended. Black people continue to fight for basic rights, like being able to being able to use the same restrooms and water fountains, attend the same schools, and
receive the same education. In 1965, Black Americans were finally guaranteed the right to vote through the Voting Rights Act, thanks to the leaders like Doctor Martin Luther King Junior and many others who
risked their lives for equality. The Civil Rights Act ended segregation in schools, allowing black and white students to learn together. That change helped open doors for future generations,
including mine. Black history is also filled with trailblazers who broke barriers and changed how the world saw black excellence. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Major League Baseball
Jim Brown became one of the greatest NFL football players of all time, and open doors for black athletes in sports. Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the Olympics in front of Adolf Hitler, challenging racist
beliefs. Black history began long before slavery, but in America, Africans were enslaved over 400 years ago. They endured forced labor, violence and inhumane treatment. Even in those conditions, people like
Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass fought courageously for freedom and justice. A major turning point came with the Civil War. And while Abraham Lincoln's leadership helped move the nation toward
emancipation, it was the courage and persistence of black people themselves that pushed freedom forward. Black History Month matters because
it reminds us that progress progress did not happen overnight, and it did not happen without struggle. It helped students like me understand where we come from, and it helps all students understand we are going black.
History is American history and learning it fully makes our education stronger, more honest and more inclusive. Thank you
for listening and thank you for supporting Black History Month.
You guys are amazing. You know in all I okay, first of all, I really appreciate that you made a slideshow like it's like an educational experience. That was amazing. I think that's what might be a first for me.
So thank you very much for doing that. And all through all the hardship that you showed through the history of our collective experiences and your experiences, but the pride that you have in your family history
and the history that you bring forward, and clearly the pride that we all have in you and your father has in you is beaming and that your educators have it in for you as well. I'm
so sorry for not including you. I was so focused on these two. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing both your personal and the collective story. And I just can't imagine a better way
to kick off 100 years of celebrating black history. Thank you so much. Are there
any other comments? I just want to acknowledge that you are braver than I ever was at that age. And thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's
important when our students share their lived histories. I think we have a district that has a diversity of students with a variety of backgrounds, and I think whatever opportunities that we can
provide them to be able to share their feeling histories, to be able to talk about American history and just give them opportunities to develop and grow as the wonderful people that they are, is an amazing experience. And, Hank,
I just want to thank you for opening the door and being a model for other kids in the district. And and that was
excellent. Thank you. All right. Yes, please. Hank, as your superintendent, I just want, want to say I could not be more
proud of who you are and what you just did. When Miss Grigg mentioned that people around you at school on a daily basis know that you're always up to something good, we all now
collectively know what that looks like, what that feels like. You're a natural leader. You're a natural teacher, and I look forward to learning more about you in the years to come.
I also want to say thank you for acknowledging the importance of your family and our parents. Without them, there's no us. And I want to thank all of you for being here in community with us to
celebrate not just Black History Month, but this incredible district. Thank you for leading us in that effort, Hank. Thank you. Jill, can you
call the vote, please? Karla Bayes. Hi, Conor. Duffy. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Scott Schoenbaum a doctor. Andrew Spain. Hi.
Jessica zamora, a doctor, Karen de Ziegler. I motion passes seven zero. All right, next, we
have a resolution in support of placement of a statewide ballot initiative on the November 2020 ballot to increase K-12 funding and enhance educators salaries.
Can I get a motion? I move that the board endorse the resolution for the inclusion of a statewide ballot initiative to increase K-12 funding and enhance educator salaries? Can
I get a second? Thank you. Kevin. All right. Speaking about this resolution this evening is Candace Mosher, Poudre, Education Association
president. Welcome, Candace and crew. Oh, there we go. Good evening. Board directors and superintendent Kingsley. My
name is Candace Mosher, and I'm the proud president of Poudre Education Association. We are here this evening to speak to the importance of this resolution and the need for systemic changes to the funding
of structure, to the funding structure for public education. With thousands of members in CEA, we are asking our legislators to refer a measure to the 2026 ballot that would
allow already collected tax dollars to be used for K-12 funding. I'd like to introduce several educators who, like myself, have experienced funding shortfalls and are here on behalf of the need to fund
our schools more effectively. I would like to first present Irma Sandoval. Garcia's president. Buenas tardes. A todos. Mi nombre es Irma
Capasso. Sandoval. Yo soy maestra de kinder in Irish Escuela bilingual. Hi, everyone. I think you got the gist of that intro. I am very grateful
to be here to explain why we believe we need to pass a board resolution on behalf of the cut the Ropes funding measure. This would allow the bilingual and biliteracy aspects of our
amazing school to be more accessible to students with a wider range of learning needs. Several students who have started kindergarten with me have ended up moving to schools
with the funding for autism specialized programs, so they could access additional supports if we no longer had those ropes hindering our funding, then Irish Escuela
Bilingual would have greater flexibility to staff for stronger student teacher ratios and provide more targeted support for students with more intensive needs. And schools
that have been limited, like mine would finally be able to meet those needs. Ensuring that integrated services teachers are consistently available to
support all students with more complex IEPs. Gracias. Good evening everyone. My name is Olivia Becker and I'm a teacher at Blevins Middle School. When
I tell people I teach middle school, the response is often I could never. Followed by jokes about hormones or students behavior. And yes, middle schoolers are navigating big
changes, and rebellious or attention seeking behavior can be a real challenge. But I want you to know this middle school teachers love this age. We love
the curiosity, the growth, and watching students find confidence in themselves like we just saw in Hank. And we love what we do. We just wish we had the resources to do it
well. One of the biggest supports for student behavior is having enough adults in the room. One paraprofessional can make the difference between managing chaos and supporting learning, but it's hard to
recruit or retain paras if they aren't paid a living wage. Another way we find joy in middle schoolers is by engaging students in their interests. As a Spanish teacher, I love working with students who are
curious about language and culture. Yet electives are often the first area to be cut when funding is tight. At my school, we also have a project based learning class four days a week, where students learn
through hands on experiences like managing our greenhouse, social protest and music, and building a set for our theater. Funding these classes can be a challenge. Imagine the courses
we could offer and the things our students could create with adequate funding. So tonight, I urge you to cut the ropes that are strangling public education, because supporting this
resolution will benefit all of our students. Hi everyone. My name is Theo McFarland. I use he him or they them pronouns. I
am a language arts and theater teacher at Rocky Mountain High School, and kind of building off of Olivia. I am here to talk about the effect of funding cuts and not having
enough money for our arts programs specifically. And when I was trying to think of what I wanted to say, what I was really thinking about was all of my students. I teach technical theater. So my kids
are responsible for right now building an eight foot bridge that is safe enough for our actors to stand on. And so I literally went to these kids and said, hey, what is the
impact of either having enough money or not enough money to fund our theater programs? So here are some of the things that they told me. Theater provides an opportunity for me to express myself in ways I've
always wanted to, but never been able to. It helped show us what good communication is between kids and adults, which is an important life skill. There are so many life skills I've learned, like how to not
cut my thumb off with a saw and how to help a friend who came to class crying. I've learned what healthy friendships, relationships, and mentorships look like here. Theater is the one place where there is no
judgment. No one cares who you are or where you come from, and that's what makes it amazing. I have a home theater, a community that loves me. I don't have that anywhere else.
Sometimes theater is the only reason I come to school. Theater saved my life. Like for real? No cap. If our students can understand how critical
school funding is for their mental, physical, emotional and social health, especially for the arts, I'm hopeful that our board can also see that a holistic education where
students can connect, pursue their passions, and grow is as essential as any other part of their education. So please help us cut the ropes that hold back
our funds in schools. Thank you. Hi, I'm Wendy Bergman. I am also a teacher at Rocky Mountain High School, and I just kind of want to, like, say thank you for considering this resolution. Our students,
families, and educators face lots of systems that often do harm by design. We spend our days making the best out of a system that is tied up in ropes, workloads that push out
dedicated staff, inconsistent student supports, structures that send too many of our public dollars into the hands of corporations, and a Colorado tax code, preventing the investment we need in our
public schools, staff and classroom educators are expected to hold together an entire system without the staff. The staffing levels, supports, or time that our students need. These ropes have led to the
conditions we're facing in this community right now. We need more funds, and we have to make a structural change in order to get those. And that's why educators, parents, families from around Fort Collins and
across the state are fighting for the schools that we deserve. I'm really excited you're considering this resolution. I've been working on this campaign for two years, and I just we can build the district
that we want. We just have to go get the money to do that. So thank you so much. Okay.
Anything else to say? Okay. Just wanted to make sure you have. You have an army. That's great. I don't have a lot to add because you guys really nailed it. But knowing that
professionally and personally, I see the amazing work that you do. I can feel it in my own family. I can feel it as an educator. And I just imagine what you could do if you had
even more funding and even more support. Thank you for what you've done so far. Thank you for bringing this forward, and thank you for continuing to fight for more funding for
education. I think it's timely that you bring this resolution for the board on a night where we're going to talk about our district report card from
Doctor Duane Schmitz and our district ends. And so we examine how we're doing, and that with the impediments that you just talked about budgetarily everything. We still outperform our peer
district. We still hold the line, and we're proud of that. And juxtaposed next to that, we're going to get a pretty sobering budgetary update. And so for those of you who may not be in the room or may not
follow that conversation, we're talking about some pretty dark times that we keep dealing with and we keep dealing with. So I mentioned that because this resolution gives me a lot of
hope, because we have power in numbers. And while your group or our group or in isolation, we may be drowned out, but together we will not and cannot be ignored. And this is something that needs to be
addressed, because we should share in the joy and the pain of this district together. And I appreciate you bringing it to us so that we can work together towards this end. So thank you
very much. I thank you, Kevin. I just want to make a quick comment that I second what Kevin was saying, and we know that we're getting really high
marks and doing really well. And you are doing it with less than you need. I just want that to be out there and very clear.
Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you. I know that as Wendy, you mentioned, you've been doing this work for about two years. I know that the work will still continue to come.
And I just want to say that I think we all should be very appreciative, because there's a lot of work still yet to come, and you're choosing to do that and supportive and be there for
educators in the district and stuff. And so I just wanted to say thank you. I think a lot of times we don't we see things on our ballot and we're like, cool, all right, I guess I'll vote for this. And yet there's a lot
of work to make all that happen. And so I just want to encourage everyone who's in this space right now, or everyone who's listening to really consider and thinking about what that
means for us as we engage as citizens and support of the district. So thank you all. I
want to congratulate all of you, not just PE, but CEA. It was an honor to be on the steps of the Capitol side by side with you a couple of weeks ago when your
organization launched this effort. And I think what's special about how you're organizing one PE stands out across the state. So as we were
standing shoulder to shoulder with rural districts, other districts across the Front Range that we benchmark ourselves, like watching Wendy do rally cries to get everybody,
you know, just excited, aware, but involved in this measure. We're really lucky to have the leadership that we have of this of of PE in our in our backyard.
You know, there's one thing that I if there's anything that I've learned in five years of living in this incredible community is that our community supports K-12 public education. But what's significant about
what you're proposing and what you may vote on tonight, is that we realize that we can't continue to participate in a system that's broken, where we have haves and have nots, because it's only really
whether a community can pass mill levies or bond levies to advance public education. We need a different statewide solution. And this approach is
that, in my opinion, in a very thoughtful way, while also educating our broader community that our legislature just a year ago conducted a very thorough adequacy study of
public education, and there's a $4.5 billion shortfall and how we are funding K-12 education in Colorado compared to other states. Yes, we know that our
state is wrestling with a $1.2 billion deficit, but this snowball effect is not future facing. It's in our backyard now. Declining enrollment budget challenges. We have many
community commenters here. Tonight we'll be talking about holistic education similar to some of our community commenters. We can only do that if we figure out ways to do this work together. And so I
just want to applaud you on that, because as we've talked about the unpopular reality of potential closure and consolidation, that holistic experience that you're talking about, that every single child deserves in K-12, our elective
teachers, many of them who are sitting here proudly, they're already experiencing consolidation and closure quietly. So I want to say thank
you again for standing up for the holistic education that this district stands on as a part of its values. It's the PSD promise, as Doctor Schmitz would talk about, and I'm sure
he'll talk about later. But I'm just honored to be a part of this effort with you. And as I've had opportunities over the last week to talk about this with other superintendents across the state, you've gotten a lot of people's attention in
a very positive way. So kudos to you. Well done. Jill, can you please call the vote Karla?
I, Conor Duffy. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Scott Schoenberger a doctor Andrew Spain I Jessica Zamora I
doctor Karen de Ziegler. I motion passes seven zero. I
think we should do a picture. Would you guys mind and would can we get a picture with Hank and the fam? Everyone would be.
Please, please. Yeah. There you go. Good job, my son. All right,
let's mess with them really quick, okay? Yeah, I know, I know. Get up front right in the
middle there and I'll send it to you. Yeah, yeah. Hey, please.
Oh! All right, you're in. There
you go. I'm incredibly. Cool.
Oh.
You to become a teacher. Yeah. You're hired, I can. Have
lesson plans. Yeah. That was. I wrote a paper. Seriously, Hank
should just be a teacher. We're done. We're good. We got this. All right. We're going to keep rolling. Next, we have our superintendent report. Superintendent Kingsley will
now make remarks to the Board of Education and to the community. Thank you, President Zamora. Again. Good evening everybody. I want to start off tonight with my remarks by
taking a moment to recognize our incredible classified employees. As we all know and heard earlier, it's classified Employee Appreciation Month, and many of our classified employees are often the first
and last person that our students interact with each day. Jonah, you couldn't have told that story any more beautiful. You know, as I listened, like all of you, to the video of many of our classified staff,
talk about their sense of pride, of working in our district, the storyline that kind of is a common thread was that people had always taken care of them, and now they're collectively devoting their life to take
care of others. And our district is just point blank, stronger as a result of all of you. So I just want to say thank you for everything that you do. It's really appreciated.
We have our video. Highlight of the week is a feature on the boxing club at Rocky Mountain High School. I really am excited to show this to you. So it highlights how our teachers are going above and beyond to connect with our student
interest, just like our classified staff members. Let's take a look at this jab. Jab one two. It's one of the best things that's happened so far this year. It's just like a
great way to get up in the morning. Got to get warmed up baby. Let's go. I've always been passionate about martial arts, boxing, kickboxing, etc. so I thought it was a great
opportunity for students like me. This journey of becoming a teacher starts with I was in the military. I joined the Army in 2015, in hopes of like
finding myself in a way. And so through that experience, I really found this like passion for helping people. One two three, four I often reflect on
my own childhood and how hard it was and how much I needed someone like me. And so I think, what better way than to become a teacher and be the person that I needed at that age? Well,
10s kids are putting value in time into the things that we're learning here. Other than the athletics. Learning discipline in boxing has definitely helped just carry me through everyday
life as a better person. Self discipline and confidence in myself that like I can step out of my comfort zone, just can't stay inside the comfort zone. You gotta step out of it man. The idea is my feet are
alternating so I'm not just jumping. We give our hearts and our souls to kids in the sense that we care about their wellbeing. We care about their education. We care about all the other stuff, the content
stuff we get to. But it's are you okay today? The boxing club, I think Mr. B is intentionally made a community where people can feel like they belong
somewhere in the school. I think that that is ultimately what it is, is finding a home for these kiddos. It's so needed for kids to get some of that aggression out and to start their morning at eight in
the morning. It's a beautiful thing, and I think that they benefit from it. And I to me, it fills my cup up just to be a part of that process. All right. Bows on 31234. All right. Hey clean your stuff. Thank you
guys. Thank you partners I will see you later. How lucky are our kids right. I want to thank Jesse and other teachers and
other staff members for just continuing to figure out thoughtful, innovative, creative ways to make our students feel at home. Like many of those students, I had the opportunity to be on the
boxing team at Penn State University about 20 some years ago, and some of those lessons around discipline and resilience and fortitude, and knowing how when you get knocked down, it's important to
get back up and keep moving forward are all parts of not just who I am as a person, but part of the superintendency as well. And I just can't tell you how grateful I am that many of our students are learning that
at such an earlier age, as a result of hard working people like them, we have a very productive and thoughtful meeting plan for you, members of the board and members of the community. Tonight, one of our
agenda items that we'll hear is the first of two reports out on the district ends from Doctor Duane Schmitz, our Chief Institutional Effectiveness Officer. I want you to recognize, I know members of
the board are all already in the loop on this. Doctor Schmitz, I know that you are about to enter into a very well deserved space of retirement at the end of this month, and as
I've had an opportunity to work with you over the past five years, it has been such an honor and a pleasure to work with you. Out of the 28 years of me being in public education, working with many data and
accountability experts, you are the only statistician that I have ever met that can make what you have learned and what you can teach accessible to just about anyone, and do it in
a place of space or a space of joy and pride. So you're not just a CEO of this district. You are the chief truth teller of this district and our resident hype man. So we can
give Doctor Schmitz a round of applause for his leadership.
Yeah. I think this year's monitoring report is Doctor Schmitz 18th version of this
work. So just let you know the the longitudinal history. And for those of you who might not know what our monitoring report does, it examines how our students are doing in relation to our district ends.
Foundations for success. Success in a changing world, above and beyond, in connections which were established by the then Board of Education in 2015. These are our aspirational goals for our
students. We're going to celebrate many, many successes tonight. But what's beautiful about this report is we're also going to talk about areas where we can continue to improve. And that's important to have that
in a both and context. So Doctor Schmitz, I'm it's a bittersweet moment tonight. But I'm really honored that you are here. Also this evening the board will hear an update on the budget picture and some of the implications for managing
our operational and staffing budgets in the system. I want to emphasize that the district is in a very difficult budget situation, with budget reductions at the federal level,
the state level, and with continued declines in enrollment. What the board and public will hear tonight is a summary of those financial challenges that we're facing and how they may impact our
staffing in the services and programs we are able to offer to our students in the future. So I think it's important that we listen to both of these conversations together as we talk about our goals and what
we're setting out to do and what we're already accomplishing, and it's really going to require us to be collaborative, innovative, and think differently in order to sustain the successes and
overcome the challenges that we have in the system. So I look forward to a very productive evening with all of you this evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Next we have community comment. This is
an opportunity for public comment or this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who register to speak by the designated deadline deadline. Those people will be called on to make remarks in the order they
signed up. Each speaker will be allowed three minutes, three minutes to address the board.
First up, we have Oren Logan. Welcome.
Good evening. Board of Education, district administration, teachers, staff and community members. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. My name is Oren Logan. I am a proud elementary music teacher in SDE, and I'm here speaking on behalf of the Whole
Child Collective Committee, which is created to advocate for educating the whole child in subjects such as music, PE, art, world language, technology, health, media and more. Teaching students is an integral joy in my life.
Nothing is better than inspiring students and being inspired by them. I work hard to provide the quality life experiences that our students and community deserve. And yet I am burnt out every spring. Additional cuts and
inconsistency limits what I can do. The budgetary crisis this year makes me especially concerned about the future of myself and others in our ability to do what's best for our students. As the district weighs decisions on long range
planning, consolidation and solving our budgetary crisis, it is vital to acknowledge positions in these subject areas and how they frequently surface as a first line casualty of funding cuts. These positions are already being
consolidated, and we need guarantees that our future schools and operations will appropriately value them. Teachers in these subject areas provide unique and creative opportunities in and out of the classroom, such as ensemble
groups, art shows, athletics broadcasts, and community celebrations. These opportunities foster physical and mental health, creative outlets, technical skills and self-expression that strengthens due to cognitive
flexibility, social communication, critical thinking, and problem solving. We are a source of familiarity, comfort, and consistency for our communities that can attract students to our schools and provide a greater sense of belonging because of our unique
roles. How many celebrations and shared experiences and challenges have included our subject areas tonight? Now highly valuable professionals are facing reduced FTE, higher workloads that come with
teaching at multiple schools, and pressure to maintain quality program is enrollment time with students, and school budgets are reduced 80% at one school and 20% at another may provide a full time job, but often translates to double the
workload with twice as many events, lessons, and relationships to build. Some teachers will be forced to move to entirely new school communities next year to maintain a livable wage. As percentages fluctuate, and some teachers that have worked in
the district for many years at less than 100% will have to wait longer for full time positions. In addition, amazing new probationary teachers that bring innovative ideas. I wonder if they will be able to work here in the future.
Teachers feel that our hard work is not fully respected, as our content areas are often thought of as a luxury for a school. But when studies have shown that these fields are fundamentally important to the to the development of the whole
child, as the board progresses forward with long range planning, solutions must include justice for these subjects. This means prioritizing full time licensed individuals at each location, providing additional support for teachers, fostering multiple communities, and
guaranteeing consistent and equitable involvement for all. We ask that you collaborate with us while our committee is working on innovative solutions and criteria towards these goals, we need your support to implement them. We must build
the schools that students deserve. We are not alone in challenges we face this year, as many other staff and programs across the district are facing cuts, every position, employee, and role is valuable. We need to establish long term
arrangements and processes to ensure students flourish, and staff are not pushed towards burnout. How will you proactively ensure that the district maintains and grows essential student opportunities and the retention of highly qualified teachers in these
areas? Thank you for your time, your work for this district and your current and future
collaboration. Thank you. Next
we have Derek Franz. No. Okay. We have Courtney Peterson. Hi
everyone. My name is Courtney Peterson and I'm new to the school district. So my oldest son will be entering the district in the fall as a kindergartner. And it's it's
really awesome to be part of this family. I've been in Fort Collins for ten years. We own a small business that serves the community and this is home. I
was driven to come and speak tonight because there's a lot of chatter in the neighborhoods, and I'm seeing tonight a lot of enthusiasm for our students, for our schools. And it's
really heartening to be able to see that. And also, it's really tough to be able to hear what we're hearing about the budget deficit that you're facing and
really just the low morale. It's it's as if people have really dug in their heels and have a lot of loyalty to their particular school without a lot of thought towards the broader
district and how we can be successful together. So I came here tonight as a new entrant into this space to think about what we can do about that, and
then to challenge us to use this opportunity as an opportunity, because that's really what it can be if we're looking at it in the right way. So how is everyone tonight approaching your job? How are
you? What viewpoint are you bringing to conversations? Because we can do something extraordinary for our students. We're you may be faced with closing schools. I don't know
what the technicalities look like, but you can also use this as a chance to dream really big and figure out what we can build for our kids that's going
to last for decades, you know, when's the last time you've zeroed out your budget and started from there and said, okay, well, what goals do we want to reach? And let's let's build it fresh because, you
know, bringing in I love that we have three new board members, I think welcome to each of you. And I'm thrilled that you're here, because I'm hoping that these fresh eyes and energy is really going to some bring
something positive here. I know you're all smart and you're creative and you can tackle this, but I really want us to think about how we can raise
good human beings. I saw a lot of that tonight in the presentations, and I thank you for that. But, you know, meeting math scores and test scores, you know, for reading,
it's it's not the only thing that's important. So I'm really hoping that we're figuring out how to raise resilient human beings who are creative, who
love, who love themselves and have self-respect. So again, I just I really am here just to say blue sky thinking people. Let's be creative. Let's be innovative. We can do this together. But if we're othering
each other and we're fighting for one school as opposed to another, we're not going to get
there. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Joshua railing,
railing, railing. Sorry. All right. It's green I can go. Hi,
everyone. 15 months. It has been 15 months since Fort Collins passed proposition for a the mill levy override. 15 months since the community was
told that a promise made needs to be a promise kept. And that passing foray gave the district 3 to 5 years to make good on a promise made to take a deeper
dive and slow down the process of consolidation, to really look at things in good faith. I stand I stood before you almost
two years ago as a voice for this community. We were clear then that some outcomes might be unavoidable, including school consolidations and closures. We understood that
reality. What we were asking for was transparency and accountability. Many of us worked to campaign for for a much like some of you did, and
it is affront to to those efforts that you are now failing to keep your word. Last week, the so-called Comprehensive Planning Committee released a timeline
and progress. What it shows is a return to the same place we were at two years ago declining enrollment and school closures, with little evidence of any analysis in between. You have
asked the community, through Pitos and SACs to weigh in on on how closures should be implemented and what criteria should be used for those closures. Yet the commitments
you made to this community remain unfulfilled. Nowhere is there an economic impact study showing what closing schools will actually solve or save. Nowhere is a consensus with the
city regarding competing goals, and nowhere is there documented analysis of alternative ways to increase efficiency or reduce costs. Instead, we are met once
again with obfuscation and condescension. This places community members who advocated for for a in an impossible position and and continues to erode the little trust and
confidence in district leadership remains. We understand that there are obstacles and hard decisions ahead, and many of us are willing to work within the confines of this reality. But
you cannot continue with within the confines of predetermined outcomes. This is outside the scope of the long range planning Committee is not an acceptable response. When people ask valid questions
about the impact of school closures on things like transportation, special needs ills, early childhood disciplinary programs, and other support programs upheld
by neighborhood schools. These are not distractions. They are necessary questions. That's what we asked for. That's what we were promised. And that is
what you are still not delivering. Two years ago I told you to do better. And I will say it again because it
bears repeating do better. Thank you. Next. Next we have
Sabrina Herrick. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I've got two things I want to touch on tonight. First, the more brief thing, back in October, I attended one
of Kingsley's listening sessions where I asked what collaboration is happening between efforts to catch up, building maintenance and discussions on consolidating the district, I was told there isn't any. Fast forward to two
weeks ago. An email comes out officially confirming consolidation talks are happening again, and tonight you're being asked to approve millions of dollars in building repairs. The public approved millions of dollars in extra
taxes to help keep PTSD going. I think the public deserves an explanation of how PSD is making sure that we aren't fixing up a building just to approve closing it six months later. Second, during one of
the campaign forums, we were asked what we'd think about collaborating with the city to have kids ride city busses instead of instead of school busses to school. I've since learned at least one of you is
pushing for that, and my first reaction was irritation. But I've decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. The name I heard attached to this is someone who wasn't on the board when Zanella got caught and to my knowledge, never attended a
mediation. So maybe you don't know what happens when safety isn't prioritized. So tonight you will all receive context sent from my campaign email. It's a compilation video of the abuse my daughter faced. Keep
in mind as you watch it, my daughter didn't face race based abuse. She wasn't sexually battered. She didn't end up with bruises. She didn't end up hospitalized with suspected traumatic brain injury. That
all happened to other victims. In this case, I want you to all watch that footage. I want you to remember that in addition to that case, I sat in this room and watched the board celebrate bus employees for Protecting
children from a random member of the public who tried to board a bus. And then I want you to ask yourself if all that can happen to children when PSD controls the situation, how bad do you think it can be when you
hand responsibility off to a third party? Now let's tie back into that first topic for a minute. We just spent a whole bunch of money on better bus cameras because of zanla's abuse. Are we just throwing
that money in the trash now by not using the busses? But let's assume for a second that you don't care about any of that. What do you think is going to happen to attendance for our
Bipoc community if we do this? Y'all already admitted that you have issues with kids being too scared to come to school because of Ice, and that information predates the news of a potential concentration
camp in Weld County and public confirmation that Ice is arresting people based solely on skin color, not criminal background or documentation status. Do you think these kids are going to willingly get on a
public bus, where they don't even have the small protection efforts that PSD is currently providing them? No. All this would guarantee is whiter schools. So unless that's your goal, I suggest you rethink
that plan before it causes more damage. Thank you. All right.
Thank you. Next we have Annie Lawrence. Welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity. Tonight, I wanted to address the apparent changes to your legislative committee process in hopes that you would consider adjusting back to the way we previously
operated as a district. In 2023. SCS legislative committee began meeting in August in 2020 4th December and always occurring weekly on Fridays this year. Your meetings didn't start until the end of January, well
behind well behind the state's opening legislative session. And despite stating that there would be two meetings in January, there was only one, and the meetings are now held every two weeks. This past Friday, I attended a meeting
and most of you were absent. Unlike previous years from outside appearance, it looks to me that the chair of your committee is making unilateral decisions about bill positions and coordination with your
lobbyist. Previously, board members would have discussed the bills, come to a consensus of opinions on, and develop positions. I don't think many of you are aware that positions of the boards are being taken and communicated in these
meetings, and I'm uncomfortable that none of this is being discussed in a public process. Additionally, this will be my second time asking you since January about the same issue. Can we please start following
Sunshine Law and attach meeting materials to the online agendas? Last Friday's bill tracker document referred to in those meetings, historically, has never been shared in any legislative session by PSD. I
usually have to request it, but in years past, there was a willingness to screen share that document during the actual meeting, which is no longer happening in a way that the viewer can follow online. The
bills are public information, but PSC position on them has been hidden for way too long. Clearly, we pay lobbyists at least $50,000 in this district, and the public deserves the clarity of understanding PSC
legislative priorities and how they are selected. And I mean no personal harm in this following opinion. But having the chair of the legislative committee be an individual running for public office at the county level in an election
year, while simultaneously none of the other board members are attending the meeting when bill position positions are being chosen without a public process by that same candidate feels icky. And it makes me question
what our ethics are like as a community member. I think it's entirely inappropriate, and I wanted my objection recorded publicly here tonight. Please consider assigning another board member to this task for
this particular legislative season. And this is meant as no insult to the efforts of Mr. Duffy or his generous volunteerism. I wish you the very best in your race. Finally, again, please consider posting
these meetings on PSD on demand. They are being recorded. They are a public meeting that conveys the legislative intentions of a publicly funded school district. So there should be no hesitation in
sharing that information transparently. Given the climate of our national politics and the intention of seeking consolidation of schools. Sharing your decisions, thoughts and processes is possibly the most important
thing that you could be doing for the community at large right now. Thank you for listening to my concerns, and I hope that PSD will consider making this committee's intentions more effective and
understandable. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have Tom
Griggs. Welcome. Good evening. Board members, Superintendent Kingsley. And to the many people who have contributed to
my understanding of all the ways in which public education is under attack, financial pressures, building on the state front, as I mentioned at the January 27th board business
meeting, I suspect even more than you all might be aware, we are being told by Governor Polis to believe that free money is available for Colorado education. If we just take
advantage of the federal voucher program tax credits. Who has stated his intention? Governor Polis has stated his intention to opt Colorado in to
the federal program. But what will happen to the federal support for education, which has steadily decreased in recent years when these tax credits are claimed, the most likely result will be further
more radical cuts than those we are facing this year. If vouchers become the order of the day, will we ever see federal support for our public schools rebound? I predict that
when people take federal tax credits for contributing to private school scholarship funds, they will be used to justify even more radical cuts
to federal support for public education. Free money. Indeed, as you can tell from my comments on January 27th and tonight, I view this matter as
absolutely crucial. For this reason, I'm offering an intent to provide my help to keep the board in the community informed about developments related to it. In the immediate term, I will be sharing with each of
you via email a report called Systems Risk Briefing, which was prepared and published by a policy analyst based in Colorado Springs. I will also be sharing a link to a webinar
sponsored by advocates for Public Education Policy, in which several experts report on the drastic damage that has been done elsewhere by vouchers and voucher like proposals, and
which will be done to Colorado public schools if we allow them to put roots down here. If tax credits are used to reduce federal tax revenues, the system risk briefing points out
it will set in motion a gradual erosion of funding for public education over the next several years. That is frightening, very frankly, and it makes the recent cuts pale by comparison the effect of vouchers and tax
credits, which has already begun to be felt in other states across the country, is to establish a two tiered system of schooling for those who can benefit from the scholarships, while leaving
behind those who cannot. I once again urge you to familiarize yourself with this issue. Listen to the voices that are rising quickly to resist this federal shell game, even here tonight, and make Governor
Polis aware, perhaps through casb, that federal vouchers do support unaccountable, unaccountable private schools
are a disaster for Colorado's public school system. Thank you.
Thank you. Next we have Reggie Johnson. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Reggie Johnson. My
pronouns are she her. I'm a proud mom and grand mom of four LGBTQ plus individuals. And I also serve as the president of PFLAG Fort Collins, whose
mission is to create a caring, just and affirming world for LGBTQ people and for those who love him. That's the mission that brings me here tonight.
Many of you have seen me before, but I want to ensure that the Poudre School District Board of Education keeps our LGBTQ plus students top of mind as we
navigate a federal climate that has emboldened discrimination on this marginalized community. LGBTQ plus students, especially
transgender and non-binary students, they carry a burden that their peers do not. Their very existence is being debated, and in many places, it's restricted in deeply harmful
ways. Two recent developments to illustrate this on December 18th, 2025, the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued proposed rules limiting
a provider's ability to deliver gender affirming care to minors, now labeled sex rejecting procedures by the federal government. Soon after, Colorado's two largest
providers, Denver Health and Children's Hospitals True Center, they announced, will no longer offer gender affirming care in including puberty
blockers and hormone therapy to minors for transgender and nonbinary youth, this care is literally life saving. At PFLAG,
we have seen children struggle with severe anxiety and depression, sometimes leading to attempts to end their life. Imagine carrying that weight with you when your US history
teacher says they need a five page paper about the Civil War battles. A second attack is now coming through citizen initiated ballot measures,
gathering signatures, initiative 109. Female and male participation in school sports seeks to bar transgender girls from participating in school
sports, using vague language that could lead to invasive practices, if you know what I mean. Initiative 110 would prohibit certain surgeries and
minors inserting government control into decisions that should remain between a doctor, a patient, and their family. Now imagine taking your French
final exam with all that going on in your head. Poudre School District has been a strong supporter of LGBTQ students, and continuing that support is
absolutely essential today, tomorrow and every day for these overburdened young people.
Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Eric Southerland. No, we
do not. Last. We have Ben Stew Soto. Thank you. Good evening.
The Colorado newspaper recently published an article about an anti ice protest at Lesher Middle School on February 2nd, 26 and on February 4th at Fort
Collins High School. The first sentence stated that the protest was student led. This is a key point. While student free speech is protected under the First Amendment, schools
are government entities and are therefore not protected. In fact, the courts prohibit schools from taking political positions. I understand this to mean that schools taxpayer funded resources cannot be used
for political advocacy, including the use of art supplies, the use of facilities during school hours, and the use of staff time. The article was accompanied by photographs
that suggest taxpayer funded resources, resources were used, and that the schools materially participated in the protests. First off, the protesters carried a lot of signs. Did
these children's or their parents purchase all these art supplies from a store? I know of no business in the area that carries so many cardboard sheets and markers at once. However, the schools do, and if
these signs were made using school supplies, the protests are no longer meet the criteria of being led by students. They become school sponsored. When and where did the students make
those many signs? Did all those children go to someone's house before or after school to make them? Not likely. It's more plausible that they were made on campus during school hours.
If so, the use of school facilities also switches the activity from student led to school sponsored. The article goes on to state that school administrators, district
security staff, and school resource officers were on hand to ensure the safety of the students. All of those positions are taxpayer funded, further showing that this was not a student led protected
speech, but rather school sponsored political event prohibited by the courts. The Coloradoan reported that nearly half of the 1766 students at Lesher Middle School and about
500 at Fort Collins High School walked off campus. Poudre School District open closed campus does not allow children to come and go as they please. Therefore, it appears that schools gave them permission to
leave campus to participate in the protests, again indicating that the protests were school sponsored. Now, I am not a lawyer, so don't take my word for it, but you might want to ask your own legal counsel to
log into their Westlaw account and look up related cases. Then ask them to explain to those instigating these protests how they are creating exposure to liability for the district. No
one wants to see you pay a hefty sum if it can be avoided. Thank you. I shall. All right.
That concludes our community comment. Next, we will move on to board topics and committee reports. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an updated update on
committee work, or speak to board topics. Do any board members? Oh, we'll give people
a second to check out. All right. We'll keep rolling. You guys don't get to leave. Do any
board members have something they would like to report? For board committee reports? No. No takers? All right, then we will
keep rolling. Next, we have our consent agenda. Would any board members like to pull an item from consent? No. All right. 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. Can I get a second? Thank you. Andrew. Jill, can
you call the vote? Carla Bays? Hi. Conor. Duffy. No, Kevin I
Scott Schopenhauer. No. Doctor Andrew Spain, I Jessica Zamora, I doctor Karen de Ziegler. I motion passes five two. All
right. Thank you. Next we have our informational reports and discussion items. Sorry. Next. And we have our board superintendent relationship policies review. Would any
board members like to discuss any of the policies please? For starters. Yeah sorry. There's two that I want to direct your attention to. Briefly. If you
go to four one in your packet. Again, for our community, these are the policies that govern how the board interacts and directs. Work with the superintendent as our our sole
employee. So four one talks about unity of control. And briefly I'll I'll read and I'll paraphrase the rest. Only directives made by a majority of a quorum of the board are binding on the superintendent.
Documents approved by official board action will not be amended by Superintendent of district staff without further board action, unless the board is authorized, further amendment is provided. Notice of such amendment. The reason I
bring this up is that it many times in the last two years, I've found that when we're having informational sessions, we're having discussions. Brian is in the unenviable position of trying to discern what is
the will of the board. And so he does a nice job, I think. Summarizing, I want to start pivoting to one of our items that's going to be a placeholder on our agenda, which is our prioritization or
board forecasting, is that's a good opportunity for us to keep doing check ins with each other about things that we want to hear updates on, things that we want to hear action items on.
It will also provide a more formal accounting of whether we have a quorum. And so I just want to remind us, as we're grounding in that, that directive superintendent can't
really act on the will of one board member. Right? So he needs our sort of collective. So let's use that as an opportunity. The second one I'm sorry, this is a little bit more granular. But for two it
talks about the the the superintendent is the board's official link to operational achievement and conduct superintendent vested with the full authority over accountability for management and staff. Accordingly, we are
not allowed to give direct directives to his staff, to cabinet, to subordinate staff, with the exception of if we want, it says, accept the
district's legal and policy counsel. The board shall be able to consult with legal and policy councils as it deems necessary or advisable. Over the last two years I have found,
or we have experienced, two situations which will come up again, where I think we need to tighten up that policy. And so one of the priorities that I'm going to add is we're I'm working with Autumn to have
another board policy for this exact reason. Autumn Aspen is the district's general counsel. So as an attorney she represents the best interests of the district. That's an easy
thing to say and digest, but in practice it there are some issues. So I think about specifically an expulsion hearing for a student. Autumn will represent the district's side of that case in the
adversarial process. But statutorily, the board of directors occupies a quasi judicial role, and that we are the ultimate determinants of whether we're going to approve
a recommendation for an expulsion or not. Cabined with the findings of fact that happened at that ALJ hearing. So what that means is we can't rely on autumn if we've got
questions for and we can't get independent legal advice from autumn or our general counsel, if we the board have issues with that, we should have external counsel on speed dial so that we can say, hey, we
think there's an issue here. Can you give us some advice? I think that'll be beneficial to the board in posterity, so that they know they have a process in place for when there's a speed dial for, hey, we need
our own lawyer. The same is true for certain personnel issues. Where, again, I think with licensed staff, we're the ultimate determinants before it can be appealed to the district court. We need our own external counsel. So what we're going to
be workshopping and gaming out is some language that would allow us to trigger when the board can just retain outside counsel and we can get independent counsel, so that autumn is not in the unenviable
position of having to sort through a potential conflict of interest. Does that make sense? Sorry, that was long winded, but it's I think it's going to keep coming up. Thank you.
Kevin, are there any other comments? Yeah. Please. Thanks for that input Kevin I, I did take a look at 4.1 and I worry about it a little bit. I think,
you know with the present board, I'm sure if we asked each other like, hey, I have this area of interest I really want to pursue, would you guys be okay helping me get a quorum so we can give a directive? I don't
know if that's going to be true of future boards. I don't want to tie the hands of future board members as a group. We are seven that you know you
need a majority to pass actual policy. But just to to dig into, dig deeper into like fact finding. I know it says on the bottom, you know, record
requesting records and access to school records and things like that is not the intent of this. But I know, like I was trying to think of some
examples. Carolyn was an expert on like water rights. I could care less about that stuff because I just don't know it. Right. It's important. Don't don't get me wrong, but I think,
you know, her digging into that was really important back in the day for PSD, and I don't know if she on certain board could get a quorum of people to
say, yeah, that's an important thing that we want to put district resources into. So this worries me a little bit in terms of tying our hands. I don't want to do that. I'm not saying there's anything
nefarious behind this. And I think I think there's a way to rework the wording because I think the intent is we don't want to send Brian and his team on wild goose chases, just on
the whims of one one member. So I think there's a middle ground. I'm just not ready to go with it with the wording that it's in right now. I don't know if
it's necessarily super important, but I would argue. It doesn't mean you can't make a suggestion. It just says that they're not binding, they're not required. So it might
require like a a push and pull and a conversation. And then our superintendent is not required to do the bidding of one person or a small subset of people. It doesn't mean that it
may not be warranted going back to water rights, right? Not everyone is as well educated, but if we have folks and we obviously do within our within our staff that align to that
expertise and can speak to it, and with Carolyn could get to a point where we could move forward and make it make sense for everyone else so that we could move forward. Is it clean?
Perfectly all the time, but I don't know that I want to make policies either for, you know, folks who are intentionally trying to break them. Point of
order, point of order. These are this is just informational. We're not voting on these policies. This is for had this discussion. So if we need to revise it that we got the input.
So I appreciate that Scott. I, I know when I looked at these policies I brought up some different notions that I, I
believe that this discussion actually kind of highlights. I mean, first of all, we have things like sort of the scoping for things like responsibilities for timelines.
You know, obviously the board is going to be the one that votes on it. That's responsibility. Where are we getting content, expertise, things like that? The things that are being, I think,
mentioned here are another area where I think a lot of these policies are. Perhaps missing, and that's the procedure side
of it, because I guess I'm used to a world where you have policies, but it also has standardized procedures for how to say if this is the if this is the statement of policy, A
shall or must or, you know, again, we have things here saying that it has to be the board giving the directive. What's the expected procedure behind it? Is it through a
board forecasting. Is it through a formal vote? Is it through a consensus? Some of these things like that. And I know I brought up some of these concepts, at least in my in my
inquiries back about should we consider adding in the procedure piece of it to provide that clarity so everyone understands? Here's the rules. And and speaking to
Scott's point, the board five years from now, wherever it may be, will see, oh, this is the rules of the road, just how to do things to meet the intent of the policy. So I think the intent of the policy has to
wisdom around it, because if we don't have a quorum, we risk seven different requests to the same topic. That may not be well aligned. And that's inefficient. Absolutely. I
would say that at the same time, we want to have the capacity to get those different viewpoints. And so just giving some guardrails and and framework around things and adding, you know, this is the policy section. And then here's the
procedure section for how to implement those things. Makes sense and is embedded in good practice for policies and procedures. I like clarity so I
appreciate I like clarity so I appreciate that sentiment. I'm not exactly sure the level of effort behind that, but we could start somewhere. It's process. Does anyone else have
any feedback for our board policies? Moment okay, well if you do, they're amendable. Obviously we can discuss them
more if we need to. If you come back to it, you have other ideas. Please share. All right. We'll keep moving along. Next
we have our monitoring report policy review D 1.0. General district ends Brian, do you have. Thank you. Joining us
this evening to present our D 1.0 general district ends. Part one is our chief institutional effectiveness officer doctor Duane Schmitz. Duane, welcome
again. Thank you so much. Here we are. So I have to start off as usual by just saying a heartfelt I feel humble, I'm
proud, and I'm thankful to be the person that gets to give voice to the outcomes we're going to look at. I want to remind the viewing audience. So the D 1.0 monitoring report is
about the ends. It's about how we did. It's about outcome data. It is not about the means. The means is what we are talking about when we do the strategic
plan and the UIP, the unified improvement plan that the state of Colorado requires, those documents are the means. This is the end. So it's outcome data. So there you go. I know
the board knows that. I just want to make sure everyone because some people get confused like, gosh, you're showing all this interesting stuff. Why aren't they talking more about how they got there or what their next plans are?
So I'm pointing people to realize that's a different conversation, frankly. And yes, they dance together and we always have a little connective tissue in the documents with one another. I also really
quickly want to mention, you know, the we've got a lot to celebrate, and we're going to look at those things. We've also got some areas that we can continue to improve on. We're also going to look at some of those. There's a 51 I think
page report that's publicly available right now, and I'm not going to make an attempt like I used to in the very first rounds of this thing, to go through and do a really comprehensive job of like
giving voice to that report. Rather, I'm going to try to keep it to about 15 minutes and really go kind of quick and just hit some highlights because the board and the public have the full report and
importantly, embed it in the report, are hyperlinks to what we call the SDG analytics platform, which is our many different dashboards that we have that visualize data. And
so through that process there's hyperlinks throughout that report. Anybody who's interested like I'd like to know more about, you know, one characteristic of students crossed by another in third grade literacy, specifically
with Dibels eight. Great. You can go get all that. It's all available on the PSD website. We're incredibly transparent with our data. So again, that's not my job tonight is to go through and follow every thread
of possibility. It's a fairly high level conversation. The last thing I want to say is I just think it's incredible. M.L. Johnson is in the room. He was a board member when I was hired in PSD, and it was just
great to see him. And I think it's interesting too. And cool that D.J. Anderson is here. And so is there something about M.L. and D.J. like when you have two letters as the first
name, in essence, that somehow you just keep getting sucked back into the vortex of PSD boardroom? I don't know, I don't know, but I just thought that was an interesting occurrence. The last thing I'm
struck by is I have to give voice to you real quick, is the passion of all the people who are in the room right now, and all the people that were just in the room and that they show up for our community comment. They tell us things we need to
hear. And it's exactly that passion, along with all the other forms that we have and the board engagement opportunities and so on that we make available on a regular basis. It's that passion in our
community around education, which is going to be reflected tonight in all these outcomes we're looking at. Right. So when we were going through hard decisions in the recent not too distant past, and there were a lot of people that showed up
with a lot of passion, great. We celebrated that because that's how people should feel about education. There's virtually nothing more important than our kids and our kids educations, right? Very
important, which includes their safety and psychological safety and all those components. It's not. And we know it's not just about reading and math scores, which also matter. Right? Okay.
Thanks for giving me a moment just to do some upfront table setting on some of these things. Let's jump in. So real quickly again I'm just providing outcomes update. And they are aligned to primarily the
district ends. And then additionally the Unified Improvement Plan and the strategic plan which like I said is about the means, not the ends. And at the end then we'll talk about, you know, answer any board questions we
may have, okay, okay, pre-K and early childhood. We try to, in the monitoring report, kind of follow the flow of students through our system. So we always start this conversation with early childhood pre-K. And
I'm happy to report that once again, they had their seven key items that we really measure. And they hit our benchmark expectations on six of those seven items, which is true last
year as well. And so that's an 86%, if you will, success rate. And our benchmark, our target is 85% or better. So once again we hit it. But we just hit it. Which item. The students. The
young students didn't show quite the level that we want has changed. Last year it had been in math and this year it's in social emotional learning. So it changed a little bit.
Which item in the myths is a very, very slight miss? It's just barely missed. So we almost were at 100% this time around. So I want to just say we're all proud of our youngest
learners. Okay? Okay. This graph I'm not going to go into great depth on I put it up here and we can refer back to it if we if it's helpful when we're doing when we're walking through questions the board
might have about any outcomes. But I do just want to spend 15 30s on this. PTSD gets a lot of value out of standardized scores. And the reason we do
that is because we have maps and dibels or map Dibels Cmass, PSAT, sat, TS gold. We have a lot of assessments and they all come with their own scale
scores and performance levels cut. By we I mean set by we don't know who and they don't always align and what have you. And so when we go to z scores standardized scores, it it sets
all those tasks on the same metric of like how are our students doing compared to other real students who took that real test in that subject area? That's why we do that. Now. When we do those
standardized scores, we can compare how SDS is doing, which is kind of in illustrated with the red normal curve compared to like the state as a whole or the nation as a whole when it
comes dibels or map. That's the blue normal curve. And this is an illustrative curve just showing you that that normal curve of outcomes is shifted to the right for PTSD, about a quarter to a third of a
standard deviation unit, basically every grade level, every test, every subject, every vendor. It's it's a very similar story, which is the basis of we our community knows
we are a high achievement district. That's how we track that. But we track it through that metric of like an achievement effect size by all kinds of different breakdowns.
And it gives us really real information where our strengths are, where our weaknesses are. Okay. So I just want to mention that's a visual that just helps people understand. As we're walking through the rest of this and we're saying the
achievement effect size is all we're talking about is how far to the right or to the left, which is a negative thing, is our distribution of achievement
outcomes shifted? Not every district's picture looks like ours. This is something we're proud of and we get a lot of value out of using it. So for example, let's start with again,
following the trajectory of kids K-5 reading gains okay. Continue to rise. There's a strong impact of our literacy initiatives. Chief among them is that new K-5 literacy
adoption that we did. And thank you to the board for that. The detail is on the next slide. So I'm going to show you some detail. This is proof positive.
And Superintendent Kingsley, this is one of those things we're going to see. I can think of 3 to 4 examples. And it's nice to have some older board members in the room too who have seen some history like I
have. It is it is challenging in my opinion, and it is rare for districts our size and larger to quantitatively show shifts that are both
substantial and sustained in outcomes that were specifically targeted and publicly announced as a target, because it kind of is that fulfillment of that dream of like an improvement
cycle where, you know, you identify through, you know, looking for where are our areas to improve, you name a short list of them. You come up with specific steps you're going to take, and you're explicit and
you document them. That's what the strategic plan is about. You implement with fidelity what you intend to. And then you continue to measure the big needles. And you in fact, see that they've changed and that
they sustain that cycle, in my opinion, is kind of rare in big organizations. And I can point to 3 or 4 concrete examples and see over the last four years. So I'm thankful for that. It makes my job easy to stand up
here. So this is one of those pictures because we have early literacy, you know, K-5 Dibels a map and cmass data for our Non-charter Non-charter schools
in PSD. And you can see in that graph real quick, it's an achievement effect size metric on the left side. And you can see we went from a 0.12 to a 0.16. Those are positives. Those are the normal curve
being shifted to the right of the state or the nation. But you can see that it shifts further and further right relative to who other real kids, same grade levels taking those same tests out there. They're
not also shifting. We're shifting relative to them. That is a positive picture. The the chart on the right that you can see the table of values. Your eyeball can see the color
coding from where you're sitting. And the yellow is the negative effect sizes, meaning we were a little bit under achievement. And you can see that actually occurred in some early grades in some past years. And that has shifted. And you
can see in those early grades is where we've had those biggest shifts all coded blue, where we've shifted like a third of a standard deviation or more. And the greens are positive. They're shifting like
a point. You know, they're a positive shift. So we're like in the positive zone. So anyways, lots to celebrate. The short story is third grade or sorry, not third grade K5
literacy good investment. Lots of work on our staff's part and we're seeing outcomes. Let's keep it rolling okay. PSD
students outperform state and national peers in reading and math achievement, exceeding targets and sustaining academic excellence. This is that PSD promise that Brian Kingsley was
mentioning earlier. We feel strongly about this. So so with regard to this this one quarter standard deviation shift that we see in reading and math
across all these different assessments like Dibels and Maps, Cmass, PSAT, SAT increase. You know, it's just like we have a really positive story that's in the monitoring report
on this. Now the sobering part, you know, that's the pat on the back. And here comes the slap in the face. Because this is the part we have to be fully aware of. Also we have gaps. We've been saying that for
multiple years. We don't we don't sidestep that. We have gaps. Specifically, we have tuned into and put action
behind trying to improve some of the gaps that we see for students supported with IEPs. Okay, our state achievement levels are very, very consistent on CMAs for students with IEPs, with other students
supported with IEPs and other districts. And yet, if you think about it, that's still falling short of the PSD promise of we should be shifted a quarter or a third of a standard deviation, just like
we are for the overall population. So we are not content with the statement, which is true, that our if you look at the state CMAS outcomes or student support with IEPs
versus students with IEPs and other districts, we're right there. We're not. Sometimes we're a little above, sometimes we're a little below by grade level, by various subject reading or math and so on. But
it's always right, right there. It should be higher than that. Okay. So that's one of the gaps English language learners. Right? That's another gap that we're paying attention to. And students eligible for free and
reduced lunch. So those are three groups that we're still working hard to identify and intervene on to support better outcomes and close those gaps
okay. All right. Overall results though. So now these are the overall results on this one is state assessment data because it says CMAs PSAT SAT.
So that's grades really three through 11 okay. This is outcomes for reading slash evidence based reading and writing. That's what IB RW stands for. Evidence based
reading and writing PSAT SAT. And you can see we're at that high 0.31.33.35.3. Oh my gosh it's moving the right direction. So it's really high. It's
moving the right direction. And you can see in the table below that that's true across the grade levels. And there's a whole lot of blue. Again I just want us to pause and celebrate.
These are our teachers. These are our students. These are our community partners. We heard people talking tonight about boxing club at Rocky. I
actually think that contributes to these scores in this way because kids show up and they're inspired and they're motivated and they're passionate and they're connecting with our staff and they're connecting with their
peers in more than just sitting there and learning something in a, in a, you know, the context of a classroom. And then that does translate to more engagement and higher scores. That is, I believe, part of
what we're seeing. Okay, so there we go. Well above state norms and moving in the right direction. This is the same picture for math. And you can see it's it's likewise way up
there 0.31.32.30.30. So it's more stable. It doesn't have the increasing slope we just saw in literacy. Right. But it's stable at a very, very high level okay. And you can
see the breakdown down there across multiple years and grade levels. So you can see there's no area like not contributing even in the 11th grade. You can see all those are green. That means that normal curve is
shifted to the right of statewide the outcomes in math for the. That would be the S.A.T. in 11th grade. Okay.
Okay. This is important. So we had noticed our attendance was lower and and Covid had an impact on attendance nationwide. It had an impact statewide. And
it definitely had an impact in PSD as well. And we noticed that we talked about that in the monitoring reports going back to that point in time. And so this is one of the areas I'm going to highlight real quick where the superintendent, the
Board of Education, the administrative team, all identified, like there's something going on with the tenants here and we should address that. So a lot of action has happened on a lot of my colleagues parts to put some
concrete things in place and to be systematic about it. You've heard that thing. You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And so they put some systematic pieces in place. And
in fact, our our attendance has gone up each of the last several years. We're still it's still a focus area because we're still below where the state's attendance is. We're
still below where some of our comparison districts are. So just because it's increased doesn't mean we're letting go of that. But attendance matters. We're addressing it, it's moving in the right direction, and we're going to keep that
work rolling. This slide is showing you how dramatic of an impact higher attendance has on achievement, which is great because that means guess what,
teachers, they matter and that contact time matters. That's what this graph really says. The kids showing up at school more consistently are getting the point. I think that's
6662545. So they're doubling our target of 0.25. That's dramatic. When we go to the next slide these are the students. This is trimmed to the students who have less than 95% attendance. They may have
94% or they might have something less like 75. Anything under 95. Right. And you can see how that drops dramatically. So now we're talking still positives, but
point zero, 7.1, 1.11 and 0.09 I think of this like PSD is laid out a pretty awesome buffet table. Thank you board of Education. Students who show up to that buffet table
regularly. They're reaping the benefits. Students who, for various reasons, don't show up as frequently at that buffet table. They're not reaping as much of the benefit. They're still traveling in a positive zone. There's a lot of
districts that would actually be pretty pleased to see that picture. For the overall population. We're not pleased with that picture for any component of our population. We
want everybody above that 0.25. But anyways, this again is just a story of attendance matters. I'm using math data to to make this point. I could use literacy data and it will show
exactly the same story. All right. The numbers will shift a little bit. But I'm not cherry picking up here. It's a it's a concrete real story. Okay. So on the tail of that PSD
attendance as I just mentioned did increase in 2425 and it had increased also in 2324. So we've had a couple of years of increase. We're at 90.6%
overall. I didn't mention before though, the way the state calculates or the way we calculate attendance and report it to the state is not identical from one district to the next. Statewide. It's one
of those metrics. You just got to be aware of that. It's not as consistent as like an achievement score or a growth score or certain other things. Not to mean it's meaningless, just that there's a little more
slop in the way it's calculated nonetheless. So PSD has increased in our attendance. That is true. We know that locally and our truancy remains steady at 3.1. Truancy is
unexcused absences. So that has stayed pretty like very steady. It was 3.1 the year before as well. State attendance declined a little bit. But then you notice that even though they
declined a little bit we went up a little bit. We're still below them. So we continue and will continue to take attendance serious and continue to work on that for the sake of
our students. Okay. Okay. All right. So we're already at this guy right here. So additional support PSD students receiving additional support. What is
that okay. Why do we do that. So we put in a system in place quite a few years ago. That's pretty cool. We said look, we got a mountain of data for every kid that's been in our system for at least a year, and
many have been in our systems for a lot longer than that. Why don't we look at that so that we know which kids are traveling below the 35th percentile on all of the big
tests that they took last year? And then don't pretend as they walk into the next school year that we don't know that we do know that. So let's identify that they would be good candidates for additional
support, because they're traveling in that lowest one, third among among their peers, grade level, nationwide or statewide. That's who they're going to go compete with in the world for jobs and stuff. And
so we started a system where we identified and we put the information into our system at the classroom teacher level so people know. And then we have various ways that we provide support. So good question is,
how are we doing with students that we knew needed additional support. So let's take a look at that catch up growth. By the way we came up with if growth
is 0.20 or higher that that on a on like a growth effect size that if a student gets a couple years in a row of that level of growth, they actually will catch up on a performance metric. That's what it takes.
It's not like a one year, you know, one hit wonder. You got to get on consecutive years of above typical growth. And we did the analytics to discover it's like for us and the way we do our analytics it's 0.2.
That's our growth target for kids who are good candidates for additional support. Again I just want to mostly for the viewing public and for the board, somewhat remind you that we're we just switched in my
language from achievement to growth. So when we were talking achievement, we're saying let's compare PSD to other environments out there the state, the nation, whatever. How are we doing. Right. An achievement effect size. Now
what we're talking about we flip to growth. And now what we're saying is a student's pre score versus a student's post score. So now we're comparing a student to themselves. And that's why I've got two normal
curves stacked up over each other. The top curve is like the set of students pre scores like at the beginning of the school year. And the bottom normal curve is the set of
scores from the same test like let's say Cmass map or sorry math C math math same test. But a year at the end of the year.
And so you've got that normal curve of distributions. And the question is kid for kid student for student, did they slide forward in that normative comparison of distributions.
Did they slide backward or did they hold their position? If every student was a black arrow coming straight down? We're kids that were lower achieving at the beginning were in that exact same position normatively. Speaking of low achievement,
actually, that's a year's growth in a year's time because that whole class of kids has grown and that kid grew exactly as much and held their normative position. But what we want is we want those green
arrows. We want kids, whether they start at lower achieving or they start at higher achieving. We want them sliding forward in that normative distribution to be higher yet. Right. So I set that up as a
quick that's the picture we're looking for. That's the picture we would not be excited about. That student slid further behind their academic peers nationwide and statewide. Right.
And so this is just another way of kind of showing this growth effect size on the left, not the story we want on the right. That's the story we're looking for, you know. And we use this, by the way, in some of our
teacher evaluation work and other things. So PSD gets a lot of like mileage out of this kind of a concept. What we're going to show and talk about tonight though is these growth
effect sizes. Because when I have one of those effect sizes the z gain for like every individual kid, if you just average those up across a bunch of kids, you've got a good
metric. If it's at zero, it means those kids held as a group. They held their normative position. And I'd say that's a perfect definition of a year's growth and a year's time. On the other hand, if it's a positive number, they
collectively slid forward. And if it's a negative number, they slid back. So we're looking for positives period. Right. But specifically for students who we knew were good candidates for additional support, we're
looking for a positive of a fifth of a standard deviation like a 0.2 or better. What I'm listing here are the students that I'm sorry, the schools,
not the students. The schools that had met that growth target. Meaning there's their group of students that had been identified as good candidates for additional support did, in
fact, as a group, make a growth effect size outcome of 0.2 or higher. And the reason we highlight these six schools based on Dibels eight seven, based on map nine, based on the
state assessment system, CMAS SAT, sat. The reason we highlight these each year is to indicate to our whole system this is possible, right? This
can be done like you can attain this incredibly rigorous outcome of getting catch up growth for the kids that need us most. Thus, to encourage all of our schools and all of our
staff to be like, yeah, all kids can learn and all kids can grow and they can grow at exceptionally high levels, and it can be done systematically. And we have evidence of that. It's that existence proof. If you're going to tell me I
should do something, show me where it has been done. Because if you can't point to a single place it's been done. You're probably creating a wild guess of a target, right? Well, we're not. It's been done. So we
celebrate these schools, their teachers, their efforts, and these kids are the big winners in this this outcome. Okay.
This was that one was in reading. This is in math. And in math we have Map and CMAs sat, sat Dibels eight of course falls off. It's just a reading test. And so in this one we can
see here that we've got five schools in map, 13 in the state assessment system. It is a very rigorous challenge to get this outcome. So we congratulate
those schools okay. Students supported with IEPs and English language learners outpace growth of academic peers. Reading and math I want to make something super clear. What I
didn't just say is that their achievement that that we don't have achievement gaps, we do have achievement gaps. I'm being super transparent and clear about that. And so there is work that we continuously do
and will continue to do in support of students in these two groups groupings. Okay. The celebration though, which is the work of these students and their parents and their
teachers, so it deserves mention, is that they are in fact outgrowing they have more growth than their academic peers in reading and math. That
is based on map data. In both cases, where for the past four years in a row, both of those groups in both English language arts and math have had growth
above zero. That growth effect size. That's the basis of that. Okay, in Ell this the growth. Let's see. Is there anything different on that. No. That's
the in for the English language learner students. That statement is also true based on the state assessment system not just map okay. And by the way Map was specifically designed
to measure growth originally, which most assessments are not like Dibels was not CMAs was not they're not Map is the only assessment we've got that was
specifically designed to measure growth, hence the focus on map. When I'm talking about growth, it's the best measure of growth. It's just computer adaptive. And it's there's a
lot that goes into that next big celebration. Class of 2025 graduation rate sets PSD record high. Yet again. We keep getting these highs one after
the next, right? When when does this stop? I hope it doesn't. 89% we I've been around long enough. ML you were here long enough. DJ you were here long enough to know we were bouncing
around just we had an 85% target. We tried and tried and tried and tried to get to. And we didn't ever break the ceiling. Except one time we got like 86 and then all of a sudden we're boom, we're up.
And again, it's one of those perfect stories of like, we explicitly named it. We did root cause analysis. We took specific steps. There's a whole lot of system work behind it.
And then it popped up and it's remained consistent and it's rising. Still. This is a big celebration. So that's great. You, the board decided a year
ago to set the target to 90 or at 90%. And I look at that as a vote of confidence of this leadership team and our staff and our community. So a lot of times, past board members said,
at what point do you move a target up? Right. And I always said, like, not the first time you hit it because of two reasons. One, did you hit it with every subgroup? Because if you haven't hit the target with
sub, we don't have different targets for subgroups in this district. The targets, the target. Right. And so maybe you don't move the target up until you've hit it with every subgroup and you've hit it
overall. The second criteria would be you can't just hit it once or twice. You've got to have enough data hitting it like that to believe, like we're sustainably hitting this thing. Well, I think the second
criteria is true in this case. So our board made a decision to move that up to 90, which I think is appropriate because some of our comparison districts are sitting there at 91 to 93, which again, is that
existence proof piece. We're not crazy setting it crazy high. We definitely can get up to the mid 90s. I mean, somewhere in the low 90s, at least 92, 93.
We're on our way. Okay, so that's a picture. That's a picture of the state graduation rate in pink and the graduation rate in black. And we just
basically talked through what's going on there. So it's a celebration. Okay. Concurrent enrollment and career and
technical education. Remember we're following the trajectory of a student through the system roughly. So students have graduated. What do they do after they graduate? Lots of different things. In fact, a
lot of kids get going on that while they're still in high school. Right? Because now we've we've done the big blur, as Tanya Alcaraz would say. We're in the process of that. So we've got students getting college credit and a lot of
them in high school. We've got students in high school, obviously getting a lot of technical credentials and training, and we've got students doing all kinds of great work based learning and stuff. So we're definitely big
participants in the big blur. And that's the point to this slide is actually PSD is a state leader in that space. And I want to pause here to mention
we didn't do this alone. Not even close right. This is about community partnership. We have so many community partners, and there's too many ways for me to stand up here and name and thank how they do this. But I
do just want to mention they have supplied us with resources and in money to build facilities and such. They've supplied us with equipment and supplies and expertise to help
train our kids. They've supplied us with work based learning opportunities where they're mentoring our youth and such. It just goes on and on. So this is a community win, you
know that we're looking at. So the state data in this space has gotten unreliable. Frankly. It used to be the Colorado Department of Higher Education annually put out a report. And
it was always a couple like graduation classes behind because it took them a few, you know, some time to put the data together. But you could see what your dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment and all
these post-secondary outcomes were. They had some issues. They're not following through on all the data. So the latest class that we have, statewide comparable data between PSD and
other districts is the class of 2022. The Department of Higher Ed promised that they're going to get the class of 23 and 24 to us soon. In fact, their original promise that dates
past. So we'll see when this happened. We had this talk last year. We got local data. That's the lower chunk of the graph, right. And the local data
aligns shows clearly as we went from 34.8% to 41.2 to 48.6% in 2425, that the statement that we're growing our concurrent
enrollment participation is true. That percentage is climbing steadily. And again, that's through a lot of work and purposeful action, okay. And we are state leaders. If you look up at that top like we
in dual enrollment PSD the last year we have reliable data statewide on we were at 69.4. The statewide is at 42. And in concurrent enrollment we're at 66 and the state was at 36. And
the morning report does go in and differentiate for you on I think it's page five, I forget 25 the differences between concurrent and dual enrollment because it's got that's even gotten a little blurry. Okay.
Switching gears CTE career tech ed right. The latest data from the state is that class of 21 data. So there's nothing fresh there for us yet. Again though,
we see from that statewide data PSD at 80% statewide at 72. The local data that we're we're filling in the gap with. And I'm sure we'll keep this going in future years because it's it's great just to see this.
And by the way, there's a big difference to our CTE enrollment data I believe is our like ninth grade on classes where the class of 21 data is just the 12th grade. Like
there's just to be just to recognize the grade levels reflected in the upper and lower half of this set of information is not the same. The top is just 12th grade. The bottom is nine through 12.
Tanya is probably home going Duane, it's eight through 12 now. I could be off, but at any rate, you see, I went from 42.1, 42.3, 49.2 and 51.1. So we continue to expand those
opportunities for our kids and they continue to benefit and participate. Okay. We're drawing to the close.
Disrupting disproportionality. That is a big phrase in Poudre school district. And so we've got some indicators of success. And then we're going to follow it up with some indicators of
we can see where we have work to do, okay. And even where we see success, we still have work to do. It just means, hey, something's moving in the right direction. This first example
is Dibels eight K-3 data. It's the spring effect size achievement effect size, and it's separating out students who have a read plan or support
it with a read plan. That's the black line on the lower portion. And students who do not have a read plan, that's the green line, the upper portion. As we went through our K5 literacy adoption, you can see that same
bump up, right? That's that K-5 science of reading literacy adoption that we did. But the reason I'm putting it up here as an example of disrupting disproportionality, the type of
data you'd want to see in that systematic type of work is that the slope for those students who are supported with read plans is steeper than the slope of students, not. They're both
happy stories. They're both moving in the right direction, but it actually impacted students with read plans even more, which actually makes sense if you know the research behind the science of reading.
Okay, so that's the type of graph we want to see that we think is an example of starting to disrupt disproportionality. Obviously, we have more work to do because there's a big gap between those lines. Right?
Okay. Second example, we were celebrating big write on our English language learner graduation rates, because that is the black line on that graph. And look at that crazy
wonderful increase. That was fantastic. Several years in a row. It's still higher in 20 for the class of 25 than it was in many previous classes. That
is true. And it is also true. It has come down. So I selected this slide as an example because that really nice increase is what disrupting
disproportionality looks like when you're increasing on time. Graduation rates for your graduation rates for students that are second language learners, the cautionary tale
is that the next class actually moved the wrong direction. The other direction came down a little bit, right. So that also gives you some wonderings that we should have as leaders, some
noticings and wonderings where we should start to interrogate that because we don't want to see that continue. Right, okay. Disrupting disproportionality, continuing indicators of
continued opportunity. Because the one I just showed you actually kind of indicates we have an opportunity there to this is the same type of a read plan support graph that we
looked at a second ago for elementary. But this is for middle school. And you notice two things that I think are important here. One, we didn't do a new literacy adoption in middle school. We don't see the
science of reading. We don't see that slope that we saw on several slides tonight. And we see that those two lines are pretty much like railroad
tracks. But if you look carefully, the student supported with read plans are in fact slightly sliding down further. There's a little bit of a widening of that gap.
That's a great graph because I think, again, a noticing, a wondering and getting curious and lean into that curiosity. Do we have work to do? The answer is yes. Then I'm leading
us into that in the middle, at the middle school level, in how we support kids with read plans, which includes students with dyslexia. It's not only students with dyslexia. There's other reasons students have
read plans as well that are equally important. So this is just a disrupting disproportionality. Call to action middle school literacy student supported read plans.
This is a very powerful graph, and it's a hard one to look at when you care about kids and you believe in our system, because this graph shows very clearly black being the
graduation rate for students supported with IEPs and PSD versus pink, which is the state. And the other three colors are comparison districts Cherry Creek, Saint Vrain, and Boulder.
And that story that five for five years. And if we went back more than five, we'd continue to see a pattern somewhat like this. Right. So there's nothing magical about cutting it off at
five. We are traveling low on our graduation, four year on time graduation. That's a very complex issue. The board has done a lot with the cabinet and the cabinets done a lot to unpack that with our staff, and
we continue that work. And I'm just using this as a great graph of like, this is where we notice things and we get real about it, and we do the hard work and it's sustained work. But what we want to see is that
graph, that black line, start to pop up in a serious manner, like we saw with English language learning on time graduation rates. And we're capable. We've shown we can do
it. We have to do it. Very similar picture for student supported or not supported students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Right?
That's and that's and I'm going to slow down on this one a little bit because I want to point out I should have done this earlier. The top graph is what I call external gaps. And they're important. How are we
doing. How is the student group that we're talking about in PSD doing, doing compared to that same student group elsewhere? That's an external gap. Very important to track that in my
opinion. The lower part of that graph is what I call the internal gap. What is the difference between the PSD student for your on time graduation rate for students
not supported with IEPs versus students supported with IEPs? And that is what the lower little bar is showing a negative number on. And the fact that we have the biggest negative bar graph number there
is indicating we have the biggest internal gap, the biggest gap within our own system relative to our comparison districts. And we have a pretty noticeable
external gap. There's work to do right there. Okay. I probably was over 20 minutes. I apologize, it's hard. But anyways, that's a like I said,
that's a that's a that's not the full report. But those are some highlights. And I'm happy to take any questions or thoughts. Thank you. Thank you.
First I would say please don't be sorry that it was more than 20 minutes. Okay. I think this is the core of what we do and what we care about, and showcases the amazing work that
our staff do day in, day out. And it also, in many ways gives us our marching orders of what do we want to consider, what do we want to prioritize, and where do we want to put our resources. So I really
appreciate the report every year. So thorough. Yeah. Does anyone want to kick our questions off? Please go for it.
You you pointed out a lot of things that are clearly better than the number of years ago. You talked about things like root cause analysis, implementation of plans,
monitoring of same identification of successes, obviously where a few not successes and things like this. So my question for you is this
we given we are going to be facing likely some very difficult budget decisions. Do you have a list of the components that are essential
to maintain that momentum? Because we risk making decisions that could impact what's creating that success. And so I just wonder how much
that is readily available to say we did x, y, Z, whatever that's done this, we've got to try and hold those as harmless as possible, whether it and all of it ties to funding somewhere,
whether it's people that are doing it, whether it's additional supports, equipment. ET cetera. ET cetera. And just as much as possible, how much clarity do you have on the things that have really made
those big differences to help us with our decision making? Thanks for that. Now, I want to say I'm positive every colleague in this room right now of mine is just wanting to
get on this mic, but I get to have it. So here we go. So you guys will get this one over to you. Yeah. This that was such, such a well framed powerful question. And I want to lead
with this answer okay. There are multitude of things that are going on in this system. No question. We are facing hard budget times and there is going to be reduced resource. And I
loved what the one community commenter said that there's opportunity in that you can get lean and mean and you can figure out what your core stuff is, and you can get committed to it and do it well. And I
believe that's who we are and what we're going to do. I think we can come out of this next several years stronger and better than we're going into it, because it's going to force us to get clear on some of the
things you just asked about. Okay. A big theme to what the cabinet and the system have talked about is really being tight on what our what our
universal, you know, standard floor of excellence is and paying attention to that, as opposed to assuming that we
have our standard universal level tight and then just layering on and adding on in one offing and gray spacing and figuring all that out. If
you're flush with resources, you have the luxury of doing that, of just floating along as is and going, we're pretty good. There's a lot we can point to. We're pretty good. And then just going, except right there,
well, what do we plug in there? And then what's up there. Oh let's plug in something there. But you walk into the time frame that we're walking into and you say we can't afford all
these plug ins and extras and add on. That's not an efficient, effective way to do this thing. Right? So instead what you do is you step back and you ask the exact question you just
asked, what's, for example, curriculum investment? It's tempting when you look at the money curriculum costs to say, gosh, we could use that in other places. Imagine how many
problems that could fix. The truth is, imagine how many problems that's going to cause. When we just looked at what happened with those reading scores, including for the kids
who need us most, that was an implementation deep and broad in K5 literacy that was expensive, that this board voted on and it produced real results. That's a hard decision
you all made a couple of years ago, and it but it was a good decision as seen through the data. So there's going to be that is a universal level tier
one. It impacted the whole K5 system including the kids that need us most. Right. Those are the strategies, I think, that this system is going to have to
identify and commit to and do, and we're going to have to learn and look hard and careful about where we're having all those one off plug type things that wouldn't be necessary if you have the right universal pieces in place. Now, we could
talk all night on that question. So I'm very hesitant to open that one up. And I might just say, let's leave that right there. Maybe. But we do know what we're doing, and we do have a list of core stuff, but I don't want to stand up here
and try. And I think you've answered my my question. And I think the key is to get those things written down for those core, fundamental things that can guide us to that, that future, recognizing that some
of them are how to aggregate those, those one offs, but but streamline them for efficiencies, perhaps, you know, again what were the concepts and things like that. And of course then we can publish
those things to the community because then they can see where the transparency is on the focus points and why these things, you know, certain things need to have continued investment, for example. And I
just want to emphasize that that's really cool to hear that you've got these things. And I think it's going to be really important to share just, you know, food. If kids not eating, they're not going to succeed. I
think that's a we don't need data for that one. Probably back to Maslow's before blooms. If I heard my colleague say 3 or 4 times, number of times, and it's just having those
things and making sure we understand the impact of those as much as possible for clarity, even things like transportation, that's an impact. If you can't get to school, we can't get that 95% and you can't get that
enhanced achievement. ET cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's right. We just saw is a great example. We just saw that attendance impact. It's just massive dyslexia resources IEP resources. Again just having
those. Here's where it is. Thank you thank you. A few questions I'm going to go through the report not the
PowerPoint. So I'll refer to page numbers. That's okay. Yep yep that sounds good. On page 21 of the report. This is where
it begins a graduating with options section okay. Kevin or doctor or director? I'm definitely not a doctor. Don't don't did you were doing so great earlier as as tracking.
You know what you do when you were doing law. You were doing law talk. And then you were interpreting for us. And I was sitting there just a minute ago listening, you know, earlier. And I thought, man, you're good
at that because you're it was great. Okay. Which page did you say? Say that a little bit louder for my employer though. All right. So I'm on page 29 of the report. It's the beginning of The Graduate with options.
And it's got some red font, green font key indicators, met or not met. Are you with me? That's 21. Yeah, I think you meant 21. What'd I say? You said 29. Then you went to 20.
21. That's. Oh, it's getting late. Page 21. Okay, okay. I'm there. Hopefully this is a softball under six. See we're
talking key indicators. Are there met or not. It says CTE participation percentage. And then it says the outcome is 51.1%. Are you with me right.
Yep. See that. So I tried to glean when I was reading through this. And there's a couple related questions, but I don't know Duane. Is that inclusive or exclusive of
students with IEPs and 504? It's inclusive. Oh, so that includes students with IEPs? Yeah. It should it should be. Yeah. CTE participation is just that. It's not like parsing out
any other student groups. Now. Now I'm not going to stand here off the top of my head and try and tell you what number or percentage of students with 504 or IEPs are involved in that.
Like, I don't know that off the top of my head, but that was included in this. I mean, yeah, yeah, that was inclusive. The entire student that's that was my okay. That's what I thought. I just want to confirm that I think that's worth celebrating.
24. This is another big one. Kind of like director Spain's on 24. I think I got the page
number right. We're talking about graduation rates for economically disadvantaged students. There's a line that struck me. It said PSD graduation rate gap between
students eligible for free and reduced meals as compared to the state. More or less is underperforming, and it looks like it's continuing to
underperform. This is a big question since since your last one of these, I'd like to ask your thoughts. What do we need to do as a district so that I don't ever have to read that line in a report ever again? I
love that question. That is a great man. You guys are hitting like the right questions, in my opinion. Of all my experience. I mean, that's such a good one. And part of the answer is the
exact same answer I just gave to Doctor Spain. Right. Which is students. And I was one of them as a kid that was eligible for free and reduced lunch. Right. They need good systems.
They need universal tier one quality schools that every kid benefits from. They first and foremost. That is what they need. We are not going to be
able to change their parents economic situation, right? That's not going to happen. There are so many community supports for folks that are struggling economically. So
another thing the district provides and should continue to fund and provide is the outreach and the connection that we do for students and their families with core
resources, like when they have food insecurity, housing insecurity, they need medical assistance and other things. You know, we've got some great people here who do an awful lot. You've heard a lot about our
family liaisons and how critical they are on keeping us in tune and being responsive to the community we serve and like, what's going on. All of those components, those pieces, right there are really hypercritical,
right supports, but we can't do it alone. PSD school districts have become more and more looked at, as, can you provide our eye care? Literally. Can you can you give our kids, you know, eye exams and make sure
they have glasses? Can you make sure we're fed when we close schools because of a cold day or something like that? We spend time and energy thinking, okay, how do we get the food
packs and the different things to the families we support? School districts have become this massive like support for the community, but it takes the
community and we don't do it alone currently either. But I think that part of the way we function is hypercritical. And can I can I have one more thing
before you add that? Sure. Because it's going to dovetail into page 32 and this goes into the connections data. And I think what you just said I was
I was hoping you'd thread this needle. I think you just did. If I'm, if you go down to page 32 and it looks we're talking about the fall 2025 high school connections by graduation
expectation. One I just want to make sure I've understood this. So the connections data I will graduate. There were 5313 respondents. I'm uncertain is
189. Does that mean I'm uncertain about whether I'll graduate? That's what I okay, so drop down one level to that food security at school. Of
those respondents that responded, I will graduate 84.8% positive response rate for food security at school. Next to the students, our
students that are uncertain whether they're going to graduate, they have a 60.4 response rate. That's right. And beautiful. And that's the high school data. You're
looking at the lower half of the page and there's a replica above it right for middle school. And you look across that same item, food security across that I will graduate, I will not graduate. You see a
substantial disproportionality right there. So director, that's perfect because that's exactly right. You know, and I wasn't thinking about this connection data when I gave you that answer where my mind was
going as soon as you asked us, saying, what are all the things I know we're doing in the system and stuff that really make a difference for kids who truly are coming from homes with less resource like that? Right? Food is a big deal.
Housing security is a big deal. Some of these things, some of these things we can't fix. But you can see it right there in the data. Clear as crystal. That's a big difference. So you have students saying like do
you have food security. And there's students that are not certain if they're going to graduate and they are not
feeling they have food security right now. Where are we going with this? Food security is a little bit lower. I am uncertain if I'm going to graduate and they have less of
them are saying they have food security, right. So that flows perfectly. Last question. Keep your eye on I'm sorry. Yeah, I might try. Yeah. Selfishly you
guys have other big items on that same page. This is the point of reference for the rest of the board. Just a comment. Not really a question attached to it. I this is fascinating to me. The top three responses of high schoolers. I would like my
school to help me learn about stress. Management was the highest response from our high schoolers in both categories I
am certain I will graduate, I I'm uncertain I'll graduate. 22,157 students responded that they want their schools to equip them with some stress management tools. I don't know
what we're doing to address that. I don't know what we can do, but that was wondering that I had when I was reading this. Look at the middle school data right above that. So the kids who think they're going to
graduate there, as you would anticipate, hey, activities is the main thing on my mind. I want to go play basketball, right? The kids who say, I don't know if I'm going to graduate, boom. Stress management. Yeah. That's real.
All our staff would tell you this is real kids feeling stressed, right? And being aware that they feel stressed. And how can we help build
systems to help manage that, to navigate that with them? It's a good call out. I'll turn over the mic. But I wanted to say personally, thank you so much. Thank you for the work, for the
service, for engaging this. I wish we could just have Dwayne, sometimes for the entire board meeting. You will be missed and I hope that you will still pick up the phone and take calls of questions, because I'm sure
we'll have some. But I really want to thank you for everything you've always done to help, not dodge hard questions either. Confront some of our gaps and where we can do better head on, because that
gives me a lot of confidence that we will. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor Schmitz, for your response. I just wanted to add a little bit more context. The stress management piece. I think one of the things about
living and working in a high performing community is that we have really high expectations for each other, and we shouldn't lower them. I want to be really clear, but this is that data point is one of the
primary reasons that mental health and belonging is equally as one of one of our priorities as literacy and graduation. With options, we need to continue to figure out how to focus on that and make sure we're meeting kids who need us
the most. Going directly to going back to your first question around, how do we take that one data point around students with who might be experiencing an economic
disadvantage, and how do we disrupt that? To me, to not overly simplify, but the students who are on the margins, they need and deserve more. And
I think we're challenged as a system and as a governance team that when you think of the bridge to the next conversation that we're about to have, and as schools are wrestling with their budgets and where
reductions have to be made, it's not surprising that students on the margins are the ones that are impacted the most by that. You know, we have one of our elementary school principals that I won't name by
name is sitting in the room right now. I think it's the last two times that I've observed and went to their school. I went into a classroom because they were subbing in the classroom that day with the
students who were most marginalized in that school. That's not in the future. That's happening right now in our system. And so when you think about the budgetary challenges that we're
experiencing that are leading to class sizes, growing music, art, physical education, starting to. I want to be
really careful with my words here. We had an army of those teachers here tonight who bring joy and spirit in spite of the challenges that they're experiencing in many instances having to be shared by multiple
schools, many of them on part time contracts and fighting for survival where some of them don't even have benefits any longer. That's not sustainable. If we want to continue to improve students who are on the
margins and their connections to their personal interests and passions, that to me, those teachers and those students, they represent the soul of this district. This entire meeting started celebrating that soul,
but that soul of who we are and what we value is at risk as a result of these budgetary challenges that are not make believe. They're very real. We've heard, just as the Comprehensive Planning Committee presented to this
board, I think it was our last meeting within the last meeting or two, that principals have already over the past year, where we've had to make $12 million in staffing reductions,
where mental health specialists have to be reduced supports and paraprofessionals to support students with IEPs have been reduced. And we're not even
talking about the budget. We're not even talking about what we're needing to do to balance our budget going into next year. Those are things that have happened over the last couple
of years. So what it helps us celebrate this on even a higher level, in my opinion. Like in spite of some of those budgetary challenges, this district continues to thrive in many ways. But if we want to disrupt these data points
forever for the students who need us most, we have to figure out ways to put more resources in front of them in order to close those gaps. And the
reality of it is we're in a scenario where we're actually reducing resources. And I shared that with you. Not to be a gloom and doom superintendent. I continue to be inspired by the incredible work that's happening by this cabinet and
how they're leading and shepherding different and all of our employee groups, and inspiring way to continue to figure out ways to do more with less. But it's not sustainable. And I think we have to continue
to be courageous and brave in naming that, because the expectations aren't changing. But the reality in terms of the level of resource that we're providing, the kids who need us
the most is changing every day. So thank you for listening. Please. Dwayne, thank you so much for this presentation.
Really thorough as always. You're a pro and we're going to miss you greatly. You really are a treasure for PSD and you have been for many years. I wanted to jump back in. My
question is similar to Kevin's about the CTE program. I'm so excited about that program. I think it's one of the jewels of our district. You had mentioned
that you don't know off the top of your head, the number of kids with IEPs who or 500 who need or who are participating
in that and utilizing those resources. Do you have a ballpark or can you can you follow up or have have someone follow up? I'd love to get that out in public, get that
information out there. I think that's a pathway for a lot of those kids to find find their passions, find their joy in the district. So I, I would ask
that if if we can if we can get actual numbers on that. I think everybody else has said a lot of the other questions I, I had, I'm just looking at the
graduation rates for El kids. That seems to be where we're dropping. Like you said though, it's better than it was. But I think we need to emphasize
focus on programs that we know work and work on spreading the word in our system and convincing leaders and buildings to adopt things that might be different and
uncomfortable at first, but that have proven record. And then we can see that number go back up. So thank you again for everything you and your team as
well. Yeah. Others for the moment. Go ahead. I just have a quick question. Who is shaking down Saint Vrain? How are they
getting these incredible graduation rates across the board. Right. I can't help but think public school systems are of the same value, that rising tides lift all boats, that we
all want to see our state scores go up. I can't imagine that they're protective of their information. And is there anyone that's I mean, I assume that we're working with other
districts. We have a good network of people that work in our district who have friends and connections and colleagues and all the other districts, frankly. And we see each other at case conferences and we connect each other like our
department leads, connect with their department leads. So there's a lot of well, there's a lot of like connective tissue between these districts and Saint Vrain, Boulder and Cherry Creek and, and Poudre. I mean,
we are the four districts of this state that are, you know, large. And so, yeah, we do, we do. And every environment's unique. Like there are just unique pieces around what they
do, how they do. So it's tempting to say, let's just figure out that blueprint and pull it over here. That usually doesn't work. And there's usually gold nuggets of pieces that are insightful. So yeah,
rest assured, like we do seek that out. It's one of the approaches we take. So. And thank you. Yeah this is great. I'm glad we got to interact on
camera too. Have you ever heard of the Bayes estimator? No. The empirical Bayes estimator. Now it's spelled a little differently than your name, but it sounds the same. And it's one of my favorite things in
statistics. So when I first saw your last name, like Bayes man, that's great. Is that how you pronounce your name exactly? Bayes. Bayes. Oh, good. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Empirical Bayes
estimator. Don't Google my spelling. Little side fact. I'm appreciating you geeking out. This is great. Yeah. Please go ahead. Just respond to one thing about Saint Vrain that
I've noticed. This is from the Google. They cover a 411 square mile area serving students from communities as Longmont, Erie,
Frederick, Firestone, Mead and Niwot. I think Niwot. Excuse me, ma'am. Poudre covers 1800 square miles by comparison. And
one thing that we learned, the fact that I factoid that I like is that our geographic sprawl is one and a half times the size of the state of Delaware.
I don't know if that has anything to do with it, too, but we have different challenges than some of these other peer districts that I think is also important for us to keep, not an excuse, but also a calibration, because if we're still targeting them,
even though we have the challenges that we that we continue to face, I mean, that that gives me some inspiration. I just want to close to we are good partners with other districts and they are good partners with us. We have
people on this team that have gone off and helped other districts and specific areas where they want some consultation and help, likewise. And so yeah, they and context are different and talent is not
all in St. There's talent there too. So we're open to it. I don't know if I want to go that far. All right I win. That was a bridge too far too far okay I
do actually have a question. All right. So you were saying that attendance is reported differently in different spaces. Can you just give an example of like how do we do it? And maybe if you have no like 1 or 2
other that are tweaks different, all I can tell you is that the state of Colorado doesn't require an identical. Now, if you really wanted to know more, but or someone on Bud's team could give you an in depth explanation to nuanced
differences, I know enough to know that the state of Colorado doesn't require a really a methodology that is exactly the same from district to district.
So a student's ten minutes late or 15 minutes late at what point? 12 minutes late. When does that become an absence? Right. If they miss one out of three classes, there's all these little possible rules. Like all things are. When you
start to program it, you get into the details and there's just different ways to come up with that. So I know enough to know that it's not consistent perfectly, but I'm careful to say it doesn't mean all that
data is just noise. There's something there for sure. It's just not laser precise. If you're trying to compare between two districts. So the state just takes all these numbers and averages them and
well, they report out, they report back out what we report to them. And so yeah, the the differences flow through into those statewide numbers. Thank
you. They don't clean it up. Yeah. Is that fair bud okay. Yeah great. That's difficult to use but I appreciate at least naming it. Does anyone else
have a question. Are we. Sure? I think we're good. Thank you so much for being here okay. Thank you. I like it. I'm here.
Okay. Well, thank you so much. You guys are too kind. We're
going to take a short break and try to be back by 835.
All right. We're going to come right back in just one minute late. So not too bad. Thank you for waiting patiently for us. All right. The next item on our
agenda is our budget updates. Brian. Here we go. Tonight we look forward to hearing the budget update from our chief of staff, Doctor Lauren Hutton, and our Chief Finance officer, Dave Montoya. Welcome, both of
you. Good evening. Board. Tonight, we're here to provide a high level update on financial developments at both the federal, state and local level. And so we're going to get right into the presentation.
We're going to talk about some some changes, some things that we see on the horizon. There's some things we know. There's some things that are more speculative in nature. I'll try to draw those out during the
presentation. So the first thing is just kind of as we kicked it off at the the high level, an update on the financial developments is that we continue to have a grind at the federal level, at the
national level, impacting our grant funding, entitlement funding, and there's just a lot of instability. Still, we had a $9 million mental health grant that went away. And so that was
kind of one of the first pieces that we that we saw coming on the horizon. There were days where we'd show up to work and we'd hear that the federal funding was gone. And then later in that day, we'd hear
that it was restored. So it's completely there's a lot of instability in the federal funding. And I think it's just I think there's that goes without saying. Most of us understand that there is also some challenges at the state
level. We have a $1.2 billion state budget deficit that the state is trying to manage. This is also probably in relation to some of the federal instability
that the state is feeling. And in fact, that's a big part of it. And and so that is a real a real barrier to us getting our budget solved for next year. And then at the local level, we
do have declining enrollment continuing to, to happen. You know, in the past there was some question as to whether that was really real. It is continuing to happen every year.
And in fact, when we look to next year, our current projections for that were finalized on January 30th. For next year, we are currently estimated to decline another
160 654 students, so that was 654 students. Decline. And so we are still in a declining mode in this district. And that trend is not changing. Getting
into the impacts on SDS budget. We did the first two bullet points, I think are probably more known to us at this point. And and as we go through down the list, there's a little bit
more that's not known or that is still being developed at the state level. I'll try to draw out what we know and what we don't. As I go through this, the first bullet point is talking about base PPR in the
state. And and really what what's happening here, just like it happened all through even after the Great Recession and into the negative factor and budget stabilization factor, is that the state will be
required constitutionally to provide a 2.3% inflation rate to the base funding in the school finance formula that will generate additional revenue. Approximately about $7
million of new funds. And so that is something that typically happens in every budget cycle. And we would expect that that would happen in this budget cycle as well. What is what is coming on the
other side of this that is going to negate all of that increase that I just talked about is that we have a decreased number in funded pupils. Again, as I mentioned, that's 654 fewer students that we're anticipating in the
district next year. And if you do the math with our current PPR rate, that's about a $7 million reduction in funding because of the loss of students. So if you're keeping up with the math, I just kind of netted
us out to zero. And when you do the real math behind it, it's probably a little bit more negative once you net those two numbers together. At that point. Those two bullet points are
fairly well known at this point. And so I feel that those are things that we should count on, and we will be planning accordingly. With the budget moving forward into the next
bullets, I think it's important to understand that we're here presenting this tonight as transparently as we can, based on what we know and what our knowledge is dictating. That's not to say that we know
everything that's going to happen. And and I can pretty much say with confidence that as I go down this list, things will change as we go through the legislative process. This happens pretty much every time
we go through these budget contractions. There will be ideas that are thrown out at the state. They will be negated, there will be new ideas that come in, and we'll just have to pay attention to that as it
moves forward. So moving into bullet point three, we are possibly anticipating continued reduction of our averaging component. That's in the school
finance formula. And simply for those that are watching, what that means is the School Finance Act of in Colorado that dictates the funding to Colorado school districts, is
based on a primarily based on the number of students you have times a PPR rate the state many, many years ago, and it's always been in the formula since I remember, is that there is an averaging component component
built into the formula. And it was designed to help declining districts as they decline. And so what the averaging does is it basically takes your five year average or four year average now. And it will take
the larger four year average or your actual count. And if you're in decline, your average will always be higher than your actual count. So so this is something that was kicked around at the state last year
as they were talking about budget adjustments. It is coming back up again. And so we are paying attention to that. If averaging were to completely go away, that could be another
$7 million reduction for the school district. Again, I'm not saying that that is going to happen. We don't have a bill or anything that is in legislature to to dictate that. But this is
just what we're hearing and it may or may not come to fruition. The the third, the fourth bullet point, I think, is another idea that we've heard at the state where this is more
of a technical issue, really, in how districts receive specific ownership taxes. And and really it's a change in practice where instead of just picking up the specific
ownership tax that is generated from our 27 mills in the School Finance Act, the proposal is that they would also be looking at specific ownership tax generated from mill levies and
bonds. What this means is that the state would just have a direct dollar for dollar reduction in the amount that they're supporting in equalization. Again, as we get through this list, I think that the there's there's some
speculation as to whether this is actually going to happen or not. This bullet point itself impacts large districts specifically. And so I suspect that there will be a lot of lobby efforts to try to change
this, this idea. And and I know that we will be part of that. We also are having other budget impacts. You know, we have health increases, health
insurance increases that we may be contemplating. Compensation increases are going to be extremely hard in this environment. But if there was compensation that would need to be factored in and would add to further reductions, that we
would need to balance the budget, as we look at all of the information as we know it today. And again, I'm really trying to emphasize that we really know bullet point one.
Bullet point two, much of this is the rest of this is speculation or discussions that are happening, but the range of reductions could be anywhere from 8 million to 17 million in
general fund, as a result, to one or multiple of these levers being pulled if they're necessary to balance the state's budget. The note at the bottom is important. I've mentioned it multiple times. This is not final. These
estimates will change in the coming months. And and this is typically how this works in the legislative session. I would expect that we will see multiple changes between now and April. So we'll just have
to pay attention to that as it moves forward. Moving into planning for the future. And and what this means for the district. What this means is that we will be going through a
reduction of budgets. That is pretty obvious to me from the last slide, that that is what's what's coming at us. And that's what we need to be preparing for, to prepare for that. We are currently looking and evaluating central office
reductions. We're not prepared to talk about those tonight, but these are things that we're working on right now. We've also and these in in the next things that I'm going to talk
about are really more in relationship to the 264 kid decline, then the $1.2 billion shortfall at the state. So I'm trying to uncouple those because they're they're not
necessarily related. And so what I'm talking about here is that there will be some adjustments to our student based budgeting formula. And the first part, the first bullet point there is it's really a formulaic thing. As we
lose students, the formula provides less money for those students. It's a it's a calculation. So there's nothing that we're changing here. This is just how the formula works. So fewer kids means that there
will be fewer fewer budget deployed out to the schools, meaning fewer staff, fewer paras, fewer resources. In addition to that, we are also making a change based on some
feedback we got from the community and from the board last year around how we are applying the size adjustment to our schools in the student based budgeting and the change
that we are really looking at is bringing forward a situation where no elementary school above 400 would be getting a size adjustment, and any middle
school over 700 would not get a size adjustment any longer. So that was based on the feedback, some values that we heard from the board and the community around how the the small school
money was being used in for a we do continue to have within our formula this new idea that came about from for a and that is a flaw for our schools as
they get smaller. And so as we look at next year, we have more and more small schools that are getting more and more of that floor funding. And so that is going to be an increase in cost
in the budget formula. There will be all of this. And and I think as you're, as we're talking about magnitudes and, and just for context, we're talking about about an $8 million reduction just in the
first two bullet points there. Really what that means is that this will require reductions in staff. We we can't make this, this, this level of reductions without impacting staff. 85% of
our budget is staff. And so that it is it is really to some extent unavoidable in a budget situation like this. Just a little bit of context for those
that that may want to hear it. This is very reminiscent to what I experienced during the the Great Recession of 910. The magnitudes are very similar. If you take into account the time
value of money, the magnitudes are almost very similar to what was being discussed back then. I. I hope that the state can come up with some creative
ideas to avoid coming to what what we're seeing on the horizon, but in line with executive limitation 2.42.3, we're required to provide the
board with conservative estimates of both revenue and expenditures. And so if we were not, I would not be doing that if I was not bringing this news to you. I'm hoping that the
news improves as we go through the legislative cycle, just in reflection and kind of thinking back to the Great Recession. During that time, we cut $12 million from the budget. So
again, that was a while ago. So time value of money would apply to that. And that was about 139 positions, both all administrative classified and licensed, very similar
magnitudes to what I experienced at that time. I'm going to turn it over to Doctor Hooten, and she's going to go through some of the employee, employee or employee agreement
language. And I do ink I have another piece in here in just a second. All right. So as we're talking about reduction to our budgets, as Dave mentioned, 85% of our budget is staffing. So
we are in a position where we are looking at staffing reductions across the system. I do want to start this by saying that we understand that staffing impacts have an incredible impact on
individuals, on families, on our community in a very broad way. So that is not lost on us. As we move through this process, we will do everything we can to support our staff as we move
through the reductions of budgets and provide that staffing support in alignment with what is articulated in the employee agreement. So what I will be walking through here for all of you, are some high
level pieces of the employee agreement that the board does need to be aware of, because you have specific responsibilities as related to those articles in the employee agreement. So we will be
specifically talking about employee agreement articles 14, 15 and 17. Article 14 concerns licensed staffing, article 15 concerns classified as well as
licensed staffing, and article 17 specifically addresses administrative and professional staffing. In this discussion this evening, we'll be focusing on the article 14 language and
specifically the concept of a reduction in force. And again, that is because the board has a role to play as we move through this process. So for clarity,
the reduction in force is a process by which the district may cancel the contracts of continuing contract teachers or educators in our system due to
fiscal exigency situations, which is what we find ourselves in now. When educators enter our system, licensed staff enter our system. They are probationary staff members for
three years. At the fourth year, they become continuing contract staff, which essentially means that they are guaranteed a contract going forward. If we are in a space of essentially
fiscal emergency, we do have the provision in the employee agreement in article 14 to enact a reduction in force to essentially discontinue any
number of those continuing contracts that may be necessary. I want to very much emphasize, at this moment in time, that this discussion of reduction in force does not mean that a
reduction in force will happen. This is a preparatory step for what we may be facing down the road in the spring, as we as we work towards balancing the district's budget. So I just want that to be very, very
clear in this room. And to anyone who is watching this presentation after this meeting. So this is really a procedural step and an informative step that is necessary as outlined
in the employee agreement. I also want to emphasize that this is part of our commitment to being transparent with our staff and with our community about what we are experiencing and what and how we're planning
for the future. So with that said, as we talk about bringing forward the possibility of a reduction in force as outlined in article 14, we're doing this at this point in time in the
budgeting cycle, because there are certain timelines that are guaranteed to our employees and the employee agreement that we do have to meet. Those timelines are also associated with the work that our
principals and our department directors are doing right now to establish their staffing allocations for the next school year. So there's an intersection between what's required in the employee agreement, the budgeting
process that is occurring now and over the next few weeks. That has implications on how we actually staff our buildings. Preparing for the 2627 school
year in the coming months. We often hear, why can't you wait until the state legislature settles their budget? Unfortunately, that doesn't usually happen until the first
week of May, which would not allow us to meet the timelines that we are required to meet and the employee agreement, and would not allow us to sufficiently prepare for the next school year in terms of the staffing that our buildings
need to allocate and plan for, there are a couple of other pieces that are important to why we are bringing this forward. Now. Those are the fund balance fund balance policies, which is outlined in
L 2.3 and L 2.4, as well as information about our reserves. And I'm going to ask Dave to step in for a minute just to speak to those items. And then we'll come back to the procedural elements. Yeah. So
so why this is important is if we as we face reductions like this, it's important for us to balance our budget. And I would encourage the board to go back and review executive limitation.
2.3 an executive limitation 2.4 in there it talks. And I'll just kind of talk in generalities. It talks about me needing to maintain a balanced budget. And there are certain
conditions where we may where we can maybe talk about where that doesn't happen. Where that has occurred in the past is when we've had good fund balance. But because of some drawdowns of fund balance over
the last couple of years, our fund balance is at the minimum level that our fund balance policy, which is a board policy approved by the board. That
policy dictates that we must maintain 3 to 5% unencumbered unreserved funds in the in that fund balance policy. If we are unable to balance the budget
moving into next year, what that fund balance policy will require, because then our fund balance would drop below that 3% reserve. What it would require is us to immediately
institute reductions to bring that back into balance. And depending on how deep we go below the 3%, we have to restore it faster. So if you go below the 2%, you're making
those reductions as quickly as you can. If you're between the 2 to 3%, there's a little bit more time to make those reductions. But the fund balance policy will require you to make reductions. And so
that's that's important. This is a little bit different than when we were in the Great Recession that I was mentioning earlier. Our district had a lot more fund balance. At that time. We were above the 3 to 5% limit.
And so there were certain things that we could take advantage of. Because of that, we do not have those at our disposal this round. So we will need to balance the budget.
Okay. So at this point we're going to talk a little bit more about the steps that are associated with a reduction in force process, as article 14 outlines specifically. And I'm attaching a timeline here so
that we're all on the same page about kind of where we are in the next several weeks and months. So as we move into the process of potentially having to reduce the number of of
certified staff that we have on our rosters, the Human Resources Department is responsible for preparing seniority lists as well as lists of endorsements, which essentially is what teachers
are authorized to teach. And the years of service records. All of those elements are used to determine placements. When we end up in a situation where we potentially have more certified or licensed staff on
our rosters than we have positions for going into the next school year. So anyone who would like to look at article 14, this outlines those criteria very specifically there. And again I will say it
many, many times. This does not mean we are doing a reduction in force or if this is just the process that needs to be followed as we prepare for using that mechanism. If it proves to be necessary as we
move through the budget process in the spring. So the next step in this process, according to the employee agreement, is that the board must adopt a resolution that authorizes the district to take action to
begin the process of implementing a Riff. If the board were to take that action on February 24th, the district would convene a Riff committee. This consists of three
administrators and three licensed staff members. Those administrators are appointed by the superintendent. The licensed staff members are appointed by Poudre Education Association, or P.E. This also
is stipulated specifically in the Employee Agreement. The responsibility of this group is to review the data that we have available to us about staffing
needs and staffing that we have on our rosters. That group will essentially have the opportunity to dive into that data and recommended reductions. It is then the superintendent's
responsibility to make a decision on reduction areas and the number of positions to be reduced. This is coinciding with the beginning of March, because this is the period of time in which we're working
with our principals to identify how many staff and what specific staff they need in their building for the 2627 school year. So this is the point at which there's an intersection between the
possibility of needing a reduction in force and the spring action and overage process that we go through every year as we're looking at staffing and buildings. So at this point in time, we'd be
working closely with principals to take a look at their building budget, their staffing needs, and where they may have a need for additional staff, or they may have identified that they have more staff on their
roster than they will need to meet the needs of their students in the coming year. At this point in time, we're very much into the overage process to give a very, very short
version of what the overage process is. Essentially, we work with our building leaders to identify their staffing need. In some cases, they may have continuing contract staff for
whom there is not a placement in their building going forward. At that point in time, those continuing contract staff are placed into overage and we look for a placement for them in all
of the schools in the district. So the intention is to place all of our continuing contract staff. If we are in a position in which we cannot place all of our continuing contract staff,
that is the point at which we're talking about a reduction in force being formalized. So we're looking at the end of March, beginning of April, when we will know that for sure. The
board at that point, if we do determine that we have more continuing contract staff than we have, placements for board would need to receive a formal recommendation for contract cancellations for those
continuing contract staff under the employee agreement, they are entitled to individual hearings at that time, which would be scheduled with the Board of Education. That process would move forward over
about a ten day period, and then we would finalize all overage placements and any notifications that need to be finalized at that point in time. We need to complete all of this
work by June 1st. This is a very complex process, which is why we are bringing this to the board now so that we can prepare our system, prepare our staff to adapt as we move
through the next several months. We know that there are a lot of questions that are going to be asked about reduction in force, and so we want to take an opportunity to answer some of those that we anticipate coming.
Now, we know that there are likely to be others. We will provide as much information as our staff needs as we move through this process. So the first question that we anticipate hearing is what happens if if the board decides
not to authorize a reduction in force. So there are a couple of considerations for us to keep in mind if that were to occur. If we do not authorize a reduction in force and we have
more continuing contract teachers, let's say, in one subject area than we need, that means essentially that we'll be retaining those subject area teachers on our staff and
potentially not filling positions that do need to be filled. And the reason that this can happen, and we'll get to this a little bit with the last question, is that teachers are endorsed to teach certain
subject areas and certain levels. When we go through a process like overage, it is possible that we will have a mismatch between who's qualified to teach what, at what level and the positions
that are open and available for continuing contract teachers. So there is a potential misalignment that could happen in that space. If the board does not authorize a Riff, the district would be looking at
reductions in other areas as well as as mentioned previously, we are already in the process of making reductions to staffing in other areas across the system, so those reductions
would be deeper in those spaces. The next frequently asked question that we're anticipating is what happens if the financial forecast improves, and we don't need as many reductions to balance the
budget? We hope that this is the situation that we are in. Our finance team will monitor what's happening at the state very closely over the next several months. If we get concrete signals that we are
going to be in a better place, we will adjust course. So I need everyone to also hear that very clearly. We are not set in stone on enacting a rift, and we will adjust course as
necessary. And as we have concrete information that would inform a change in direction. What happens if more must be cut from the budget to balance
it? If we end up in this situation after we've already gone through a series of reductions, we would essentially need to start that reduction process over again. This is something that we as a
system, try to avoid, because it makes it very difficult to plan for the next school year and appropriately staff our buildings. If we're doing multiple series of cuts over
time. The system did experience mid-year cuts during Covid, and we would very much like to avoid having that situation in the future. But if we need to, because there is greater
deficit than we are anticipating, we would begin this process essentially over again to identify necessary reductions. As I mentioned earlier, we often hear, why can't we wait until the close
of the legislative session when we know for sure what the state's going to do with its budget? Simply put, their timeline does not align with ours. The legislative session will not end until
approximately the first week in May. All of the processes that are associated with staffing buildings take several months to execute, and we owe our employees decisions by June 1st.
We also want to do right by our employees who are transitioning out of our system, give them ample notice so that they can continue to pursue their career options elsewhere. And that's critically important as we
think about this timeline as well. And then finally, why is it possible that continuing contract teachers would experience a reduction in force in lieu of impacting only probationary teachers? So
typically when we are reducing in the licensed area and really any area in our system, we're going to look for reductions through attrition first. The next space we'd look through,
look for reductions would be in probationary staff. So staff who are not guaranteed continuing contracts at this point in time, if those options have been exhausted, that's the point at which we move into the
reduction in force space. As I mentioned earlier, there can be a situation in which we have a cohort or a number of teachers that only have certain endorsements and can only teach
certain subject areas at certain levels, and we may not have open positions for those subject areas and those levels, at which point it is possible a probationary staff member would
remain, and a continuing contract educator's contract would be discontinued at that point in time. So there's a lot
of kind of matching of of qualifications and. Matching
based on what is outlined in the employee agreement as well, that will dictate this process. So next steps as we move forward, the budget design team or BDD will continue to meet through the spring. This group meets every year. They provide
feedback on the budget as it is developed. BDD consists of representation of our building leaders, our department leaders. There are also representatives from all of our employee associations on the beat group. They will continue to engage with the budget as we move over
the next several months. The finance team will continue to monitor developments at the state and federal level. They will provide regular updates to the board in the next several months. You're probably going to have a budget update on just about every board meeting going
forward through the spring. The superintendent will also provide regular updates to the community about the budget and changes that we anticipate coming. We are committed to being transparent with what we are facing, so we will be sharing a lot of information
with our community and keeping everyone apprized of what we are grappling with as we prepare for the 2627 school year. As is always the case, the board will receive the preliminary and proposed budgets that the finance team
develops in April and in May. That is part of a three step budget process that occurs annually. The board must then adopt a final budget, with all reductions that are contemplated across our system,
both in operating as well as staffing budgets no later than June 30th per statute. So what we need from the board. We'll close here and then we'll take
questions. So we as an administration believe that in alignment with the fund balance policy and what is stipulated in L 2.3 and L 2.4, authorizing
a reduction in force is needed. As a reminder, this does not mean that a reduction in force will automatically occur. It is giving the district the
mechanism to use this this process if it proves to be necessary, as we get to later in the spring, and we have a clearer picture of what we're facing. I also want to reiterate we are not asking the
board to vote this evening. We are asking you all for guidance around whether there is opposition to the district bringing forward a resolution, as is required in the employee agreement and article 14
specific to giving the district the the authorization to implement a reduction in force if it proves to be necessary. Okay. So we'll take questions
at this point in time. Thank you. Would anyone like to get us started? Go for it. So maybe a technical question, Dave, you
talked about before and I think this was in connection with for a but when we have cash flow shortages, we often go to our lenders and ask for either
interest free or some limited cash flow. Do you recall what I'm talking about? Yeah. So we do participate in the interest free cash cash program. And what it what that's designed to
do is in Colorado, the state recognizes that property taxes don't come in until the spring. Right. And so we don't get that cash until late in the spring. What the state does is it goes
out and issues debt financing on behalf of the districts. The districts can use that debt financing, use that cash to get through those cash poor months until the property taxes come back in. When the property
taxes come in, we must immediately pay those back to the state. It does not resolve us from balancing our budget. We can't. We can't draw or borrow from the state to balance our budget. That was my question. But you anticipated
close to where I was going. Is it my understanding, at least some of those is that there's there's debt ratios that would trigger instances of default. So I guess another question I have is does that is this
implicated by if the board doesn't move forward with the riff and we have an imbalance of the budget, would that be an instance of default that we should be worried about on some of those cash flows? You're right. It is a very technical
question. I'm not going to be able to go too deep with that tonight. But what I'm reflecting on is the board's audit committee many, many years ago created this fund balance policy. And what the fund balance policy
contemplated in it was various different things. It was thinking about cash flow. It was thinking about debt ratings. It was thinking about all sorts. There was a couple other things, but those were the big ones that are coming to my mind. We
utilized our bond underwriter, RBC Capital Markets, to help us determine what that was way back when. And we I think we actually used some attorney help at that time is a long time ago, probably a good 18
years ago. But to your point, if we're unable to and that's why the fund balance policy came into about, because if we're unable to balance the budget or if our reserves dip to a unforeseen low position,
our debt credit, our reading, our ratings will start to drop. We may have trouble getting other things. There's a lot of problems with that. And the other thing around the debt, the the reserves, is it's also
calculated in as part of the cash flow. So we know we have some reserves as part of the cash. Now that doesn't get us all the way through January and February, but it is part of the
equation. And the state actually looks at that. When we submit for that interest free loan program, they want to know how much reserves we have, because they're contemplating
that factoring that in. Please. One question I have is I'm presumptive, that there will be
a second vote if next board meeting, we're saying, yes, start the process. But I don't didn't see in the slides is at some point there will be the
final. Yes, yes do it vote. And so I guess I just missed that or at your April 14th meeting. So the first step in this process would be for the board to authorize this mechanism. If
it is necessary. That will happen on February 24th. If you all give us the guidance to bring it forward, that then will kind of start the process that we will we will track
through the next several months, the next point at which the board will be making a formal determination via a vote, is that your April 14th meeting, where you will receive a recommendation for contract cancellations? You will need to
take action on that at that meeting, which means we'll still be making an estimated guess on state outcomes, potentially with budget. I'm
just yes, it's a it's a yucky situation. I don't want to pretend otherwise. Just trying to make sure I fully understand the situation. Yes, that is that is accurate because the legislature usually does not conclude its process until the
first week in May, and at that point in time the district would not have enough runway, nor would it be fair to our employees to kind of keep them in a holding pattern until that point in time at which we would
have to complete any sort of staff related actions before the guaranteed deadline on June 1st. Okay. And what is your sense, given the data that came out that showed roughly two
thirds of the districts in the state are losing students, what's your sense for? How many of them are facing a similar situation or have already impacted enabled this or
started the process? So at this point in time, most districts are kind of at the place that we are in terms of determining how to move forward. We know that other major districts along the Front Range are making multimillion dollar reductions to their budgets.
Each district is approaching that in very different ways, based on the circumstances of their district, and based on whether or not they have an employee agreement with their employees and the stipulations
that are outlined in that agreement. What I will say to say that in a very short way, we are not alone in facing multi-million dollar reductions across this is something that
we're seeing across the state. On the April 14th meeting. Will that recommendation include how many contract cancellations?
Yes, it will include the specific contract cancellations. Please. It's my understanding
that the circumstances that you've just shared paint a really grim picture of what might be coming, but it's also my understanding. Doctor Spain
and I were able to visit with Principal Haughey at Bacon, and he had just received their budget and had to share with his team that it was twice as
fall, like they had a deficiency double of what he had originally anticipated. And so my question would be, is this happening across the
district, and is this reflective that even if these circumstances that you shared earlier don't come to fruition, we still need to consider a
riff. So I'll take the piece around staffing and I'll ask Dave to step in around budget specifically. Yes, director Bass, to to your question, even in the absence of a change to
averaging or to specific ownership tax, the decline in enrollment in the district would put us in a position in which we would be considering a reduction in force. Again, just to be clear, not a decision. We
will go through several steps before making that final determination. But yes, we would be in the same situation. And I would add that from the budget perspective for the schools, they would all expect
to experience a decline in enrollment they have been experiencing, especially our elementary schools. They've been experiencing that for many years now. So I would expect that that would be something that they were contemplating. I think what you're also hearing
is that there are going to be some schools that are feeling the reduction of the size adjustment because it is being targeted specifically at schools that are above 400 at
the elementary and above 700 at the middle schools. Can you talk? Sorry, I guess I'm curious about like for a and how that factors into here.
Does that not help us at all. So for a freed up about $4 million of general fund dollars to put to small school support what we're seeing in the most recent runs that will be
released on Friday is that the tier one and tier two supports of which are zero based tier supports, and our and our floor
funding supports, will exceed $4 million just this next year. Considering the. Ambiguity on
what the final budget is going to be, could you walk us briefly through how we would gain employees back if the
budget isn't as severe as it as it indicates? Yeah. So article 14, which specifically pertains to our licensed certified staff, does have recall provisions that are that are outlined in
it. There's quite a lot of detail in the steps of those recall provisions, which I'm not going to try to walk through in this space, but we would follow those those procedures specifically if we
were in a situation where we were bringing staff back. I'm just curious because you mentioned like there would be like a reduction in like if the resolution went through, there
would be a reduction in force. But then somewhere in there you was like, we might potentially have to do a second reduction for us. So I'm curious, I'm going to assume, based on what
you have on April 14th, that if you had to do that second wave, that would come back to the board too, right? Yes. So the board is responsible for formally taking action on continuing contract
cancellations. The district cannot do that without board action. So if we went through another round of reductions, we would not bring a new resolution specific to resolution in force if it had already been authorized within
this, this cycle. But we would bring another set of contract cancellations if they were necessary for board approval. The timing of that would be
determined upon when? When we know so. Oh, sorry. Quick question on on the
communication side of things. Obviously this is the first public meeting that we're having about this, these specifics. How much have the the employee groups, or at
least their leadership been informed about this? Is that a plan going forward, or have they already been clued in on this? At this point, we have been sharing information with
our associations about the budget reality that we're in for quite some time. We also have shared this information with all of our building leaders and department leaders. Great. Thank you. I think
transparency, communication super important. Especially with something this devastating.
Dave, can you provide as much as you can how solid the projections are? By the time we would be informing staff at the end of March, and by the time
we would have to take a vote in April. Yeah, I wish I could, but I can't. It's going to be dependent on the legislature, and I'm reflecting on prior experience of these times where we don't know these answers until late. We're going to do
our best. We're going to have to, quote unquote, call the ball at one point to say, this is the number we're solving for because of the timelines, but we may not have a complete picture as we're moving through
this process. And it's it's uncomfortable, but that's that's how this works. I'm
always looking for solutions and, and ways to kind of not just accept things. So in terms of what people can do, I think
the number one thing is call your legislator at the state House. We need decisions sooner rather than later. You know, enrollment is a big problem.
That's the loss of of kids is is a big problem. That's ours, but also other districts. But but the state funding the fact that they're $1 billion for the
second year in a row, short is a is a huge problem. And so they need to step up and help school districts with the
reality and the consequences of their inability to to balance the budget. But force them to make decisions on what their
priorities are. What are our values as a state? So call your legislator. That's the number one thing enrollment wise. I will continue to talk about
marketing. We need to attract people back to our district that are going to alternative schools outside of our district. We need to do that. I know
there's birth rate issues, but there are several hundred kids that could be kids that aren't here, and that would alleviate us having to make these tough decisions too. So think of it
from that side of the ledger as well. What can we do to bring more kids back, and what can we do at the state legislator legislature? Any other ideas?
I'd love to hear what what can be done to help avoid this? Okay, I don't I think, to be
honest, as we move through the budgeting process and we're facing the kind of magnitude of a deficit that we're we're looking at, we will be exploring all creative solutions that might be in front of us. What exactly those
might be? I'm not in a position to share right now, but the district, I would say in the time that I have worked here has worked very, very hard to ensure that we have as many qualified staff in front of our
students as possible, and we will continue to do that. Director Schoenberger, you may not want to hear this, but when we started talking about the
the BS factor, that the amount of money that we've lost from the BS factor from legislator was correct me if I'm wrong, Dave. Somewhere around 350 million over a ten year period.
Three 3330 excuse me. Thank you. 330 million over a ten year period, with an operating budget of around 450 million, that's like two thirds or, excuse me, three quarters of our entire operating budget for
a cycle that's been reduced by BS. So one of our meetings recently, someone shared a lawsuit from Washington where a school district had sued state of the legislature in
Washington and got some good relief there. My home state of Kentucky, there's a lawsuit named Rose versus Council for Better Education, where essentially lawsuits have held General Assembly to task. I'm
not advocating for that in this room. I'm not suggesting the PSD declares any kind of legal war with the General Assembly. But you asked for, I think what we're hearing tonight, at least
I'll just react individually, is that we keep getting bad news and you ask about our locus of control. From my perspective, it's scant to zero. It's nothing. As far as what
we're talking about, I can't force birth rates to go in an upward trajectory. I can't force people to migrate into our community if it's not affordable to live here. I can't force affordable housing.
So what we're talking about is the locus of control, what we can do, and we have to hold the line more or less is what I'm hearing, too, based on sort of the budgetary climate that we find ourselves in now, we don't
know what's going to happen with averaging. We don't know what's going to happen to that specific property ownership tax. Those have got me nervous as well, Dave, but I think if we're starting to think about
not getting in this debt spiral year after year after year, we may have to start thinking drastically. And one thought I had is to hold the legislature to task for what's happened to
this district. And in particular, I would I would add that there has been, at least in my time here, a handful of lawsuits that have gone to the state. They have not been
successful. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to try. Okay, this is just me. Since making out loud. So the
way I'm making sense of this is I'm viewing it through the lens of like, household budget. So I got a household budget, I got more expenses and I have coming in. And so I got to make some
changes. So do I want to pay my mortgage, my light bills, so on and so forth. But what it sounds like we don't have any like great aunts or uncles,
nobody that's going to give us a loan like so I guess I'm just trying to like that's the context that I'm understanding what you're saying. So do you think that's a fair sense that I've made from what you're
describing? Yes, absolutely. And I wish that we had some great force out there that would provide us with sufficient funding. But frankly, this is a reality. Imagine if your employer kept changing your salary year after year,
and you had no idea how much money you were going to make every year and plan your household budget. I think that's somewhat of a more apt analogy, and I'll let you draw
your own conclusions as to the employer would be in that. Yeah. Any final thoughts? I just want
to thank you all, I guess. I sorry, y'all, it's been a rough night. I'm gonna cry all night. I guess. Sorry. I just wanted to say I appreciate you naming
giving people a heads up. I think that really matters. I like I appreciate that transparency. I think sometimes I like to say decisions go into a dark abyss and then decisions come out. But it gives people
an opportunity to plan and to prepare. And if the worst doesn't happen, great. So I just want to say I am appreciative of that. And thank you for considering that
advance notice as we consider the people within our district. I appreciate that comment. And I do think because Lauren mentioned it earlier, I'll mention it again. Transparency
is at the core of what we do. If we're not transparent, we're not doing our jobs. So I know we're taking a vote tonight, but it might be handy if anyone
has any concerns about the vote coming. April 20th. April. Sorry, February 24th. Now would be a good time to state them. Do you need us? I mean, have you gotten what you needed as
far as what the. I think the question on the slide was, are we going to do it or not? It's not an informal vote, but I'm sorry to hijack, but I think to to the question that was posed by President Zamora, if there
are concerns or objections of us bringing forward a resolution, it would be helpful to know that I'll go first. No.
Same. You don't have to necessarily say anything, but it is helpful to get clarity. I don't have objections to you doing the work. I think that
it's appropriate at this time. I would say the same. I think there's lots of things that could be said. I don't think I've talked to anyone who is
not absolutely stressed about the fact that we're impacting people and how to engage in a process like this with empathy, specifically to that fact. And I don't know if we have any
great answers for it except to try and work with everyone that we can. I mean, I know we've got our listening session scheduled on February 19th coming up, so I'm hoping that the community will come and talk to us about these things.
I mean, there's a lot of things that are popping up. And there I for myself, I would say they feel very fast. But change has come at us really, really fast. Two years ago I was on the
steering committee. It's such a different picture, even from two years ago. Not just the change of numbers, but the change of what we're actually getting funding wise. It's it
feels dramatic and that's probably accurate. We're having to look at everything. And so that that hurts for all of us. And these are not easy things for you to share with us. And
so I just want to say thank you. And we've got to look at all the levers that we can to keep this district doing great
things. Andrew, thanks for saying that. I think you and Carla, for sure, you know, dead on in terms of I agree with
let's move forward with the work, along with what Andrew was saying. You know, I was a new board member two years ago. So this is all fresh and but
we've taken the time. I've been going to the Comprehensive Planning committee meetings. I'm seeing the data. It's it's
dire and and so reality is we need to we need to finally make some decisions and not kick the can. So I. You know, hope we
don't have to do anything. But I, I agree that we need to at least prepare. I have no
objections. Would you like to speak to it or are you okay? Do you have what you need? I think we have what we need. And I would just like to say in
closing again, our staff is our greatest asset. They are the people in front of our students each and every day. It is our commitment to handle this process with empathy, compassion. As we move forward, we will continue to be
transparent. You can expect to hear a lot from us in the coming months, so that we can move this forward together. Thank you, Lauren and Dave.
Thank you. Yes, thank you very much. Oh, we're not there yet. We're still here. One more thing. You're so close. Alright. That moves us to 11.0 board
forecasting. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to discuss topics of interest for future board meetings. Would any board member like to start the
discussion? Okay, I have one actually, based on some of the commentary we had during the monitoring report, I would actually like to know when our. Since our middle school and high school students
predominantly want to know more about their stress management, I would like to understand what our middle schools and high schools are doing currently, what they may need, what those students need. Anytime a student is coming with an idea,
especially at that level, with so many of them, choosing, that feels like an important thing for us to consider. I'll second that because I'm interested in the if we drill down into that,
what that does for the mental health and belonging aspect, and will it be more connectivity, will it be better response rates when we get our Healthy Schools survey? This iteration? I mean there I'm
going to use a Scotism. They're our customers, right? Our students. So we need to figure out what we can do to equip them. Yeah I'll just second that. And the other thing I already mentioned it, but I
would like to examine the BSR policy on retaining outside counsel for the board. Again, we can I can work with Adam on that. And we've got an idea. What we need to be able to do is have a couple of bullets
that would trigger that, so that we have enough flexibility if it's not in this tight hypotheticals that I provided. But we need to be able to do that. And I think we've got some external counsel now that
we like that have been doing good work for us on fairly routine public matters. They may have some suggestions of how we can do that. So I don't know how soon that cadence would look like. But when we're
going to revise BSR policies, we should probably have that implemented somewhat soon. Any other suggestions? Yes. Scott, I just want to reiterate the question I had for Dwayne
earlier. I'd like to get some feedback on people with IEPs and 504. Like what? What are the actual numbers of of them
utilizing CTE? I'd like to see that. Sorry. I'm wondering, is that like a one liner question or is that something that you
want to be like a priority? Go like, do you want both like just the what it is right now and then what we intend to do in the future? Or is it just what you want? You want to know what we're where we are now.
I'd like to know where we are right now. That's the main thing. And then from that number, we'll see if we need to improve. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other? Okay. Now I
think we are on to 12.0. Can you please move the board into executive session for the following purposes one. To confer with an attorney for the board to receive legal advice on specific legal questions
relating to CRS. Section 2230 .5104 as authorized by CRS section 24 64024B 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 640243 individuals
invited to join the board in executive session or Superintendent Brian Kingsley, Chief of staff doctor Lauren Hutton, lead assistant superintendent. Doctor Tracy Gayle, chief finance officer Dave Montoya, and general counsel Autumn Aspen. Thank you.
Can I get a second? Thank you, Andrew and Leah, can you please call the vote? Carla Bays? I
Conor Duffy, I Kevin. I Scott Schoenbaum. Hi doctor Andrew Spain I Jessica zamora. Hi,
doctor Koranda Ziegler. Hi. Motion passes 7 to 0. I move to
adjourn at the end. Oh, sorry. We will. Sorry I missed it. Thank you. We will now convene in a closed session. This is the last agenda item before adjournment. At the conclusion of the executive session, we
will adjourn the meeting and adjournment will be recorded.