Alright. Good evening. Thank you for joining the Board of Education this evening. Please go ahead and mute your cell phone or anything else that might, beeper buzz as we begin this meeting. Today is Tuesday, 09/09/2025, and this meeting is now called to order at 05:30PM. And if we could go ahead and stand for the pledge of allegiance, please join me. Alright. Thank you. Would any board members like to make changes to the agenda? Okay. Seeing none. We will move on to recognitions and reports. So and just to let everybody know, those individuals being recognized tonight are invited to stay for a group photo at the conclusion of the last recognition.
So thank you. And here to introduce them is doctor superintendent Kingsley. Sorry. That's it's okay. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. This evening, we are super excited to recognize distinction in student athletics, as well as the performing arts. Leading the celebration tonight is John Cope, our executive director of communications. Welcome, John. Good evening, President Draper, superintendent Kingsley, board directors, and and everyone who has joined us tonight in the room and online. We will have two recognitions this evening as we celebrate the incredible accomplishments of our students and staff. We'll kick off tonight's recognition with Fossil Ridge High School.
Fossil has been racking up state championships, and we couldn't be more proud. Brennan O'Neil is the two time five a boys 200 yard individual medley champion. Addison Smith and Ellie Anderson five a four by 100 meter relay state champions. Lily Well, five a girls soccer and girls state track and field champion, and the girls soccer and track and field champions. Here to introduce all of these amazing athletes is Dave Wolk. Lily have Lily join us, and Addison might be coming. She's stuck in traffic. But, good evening. Thank you, board, staff, families, and the PSD community.
My name is Dave Walken. I have the honor of being the athletic director and assistant principal at Fossil Ridge High School. And as, mister Gropes said, we've got some great honors coming to our kids. We've got graduates, Brendon O'Neil. He was a two time state champion. He couldn't be here tonight, unfortunately. But, we wanted to congratulate our teams. A lot of these kids are so good in all these other things. They couldn't be here tonight, so I apologize that they're not here. We do have some of the coaching staff, and we wanna celebrate, the, the relay. Ava Hurlbut, Katie Feldman, they are graduates as well off to college.
And, that relay, the four by 100. And then also the our head soccer coach is, Cyrus Salehi, he's coaching college in Virginia right now. He'll be back for the spring girls season, but he was named five a coach of the year. The girls track and field coach Ray Bozeman was coach of the year for the conference. He was coach of the year for the state of Colorado, and then he was The United States track and field and cross country Coach Girls Track Coach of the Year. So a lot of honors and distinctions, and we believe, these achievements reflect the dedication of our student athletes, unwavering support of their families, and the pride of our entire community. Fossil Ridge, it has once again set the standard for excellence, and we could not
be more loud. I'm gonna turn this over to Lily, a rare occasion when you have an athlete that has won a state title on the same team. So she's gonna speak on behalf of the the two state champion teams. Lily? Good afternoon. My name is Lily Wale, and I am a very proud member of the Fossil Ridge and track and field teams. Last spring, I had the incredible honor of being part of two state championship winning teams. Winning a state championship is what I've always dreamed of. Winning two is an experience I will cherish forever. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by talented, dedicated teammates whose hard work and commitment were truly inspiring.
It was not just the victories that made the journey memorable, but the support my teammates offered me throughout the season. I know I will have friends for a lifetime. I will always remember the guidance of coaches who truly care for their athletes is an essential for reaching team goals. Our success is a testament to the passion of our coaches. Their unwavering support and genuine interest in my well-being as a multi sport athlete made all the difference, encouraging me every step of the way. It was clear that our coaches were committed to win, but even more committed to all of us.
They did more than just coach. They were truly a mentor in my experience. It is important to me that I mention our Fossil Ridge athletic director, mister Dave Wolk. It felt like he was at every event cheering us on. Mister Wolk is a constant reminder of the support we receive at Fossil Ridge. I'm grateful for the way he often checks in with me and recognizes all of our hard work. Winning two state championships in the same week, actually four days, is an indescribable feeling. I am so thankful for my teammates, coaches, and the administration at Falsal Ridge for
providing me with this opportunity. The moments and memories we created together will stay with me for a lifetime. Thank you for allowing me to share my experience. Excellence excellence in PSD continues in the arts, and we'd like to congratulate the visual arts program, the extraordinary achievements of Leanne Griffey and Kennard Corn Knowledge Middle School Symphony Orchestra for selection as a two thousand twenty five National Orchestra Festival performing ensemble, and Sean Murphy for Colorado ASTA Outstanding String Teacher of the Year award. I'd like to invite Alyssa Filaylo to the podium. Thank you, and thank you all for having us here tonight.
We're always happy to be able to celebrate the performing arts, and, we're also grateful for your support, the support of the community as well. The first recognition that I would like to do is for Leanne Griffey and the Kennard Symphony Orchestra. So if Leanne and her students would come up. This ensemble was in, in a very competitive field by audition, a recorded audition to perform at the National Orchestra Festival, which took place last March in Atlanta. And, missus Griffey is going to introduce her students who are gonna say a word about the experience. Good evening. It is an honor to be recognized for this, but I couldn't do it without
the support of my wonderful administrators, including principal Lindsey Matkin, my colleagues, the parents, of course, and also the students who inspire me and are enthusiastic and committed. So I'd like to introduce to you Adeline and Kinley, who are both now in high school but went on this trip last March. They're gonna tell you a little bit about it. Hi. I'm Kinley Thomas, and I was a viola in the Kennard Orchestra when we went to NOF. The NOF we took the NOF trip that we took to Atlanta in the spring was amazing for many reasons. Preparing for the trip, we got to talk to a lot of different people who gave us amazing feedback on the music that we were playing, learning a lot along
the way. We worked with some of the composers of our music, including Doug Spada and the Colorado composer Susan h Day. It was also a bonding experience for everyone in the orchestra. I got closer to a lot of my peers and have lots of fun memories from the class. Everyone who went to that trip is an amazing musician because of it. We heard performances from some of the best high school and middle school orchestras in the nation, then got to play on the same stage. While we were there, we visited the Olympic Park, the Georgia Aquarium, and the MLK birthplace. We also got to hear an incredible performance by the Atlanta Symphony. Overall, it was an eye opening experience for everybody who was a part of it,
and we're glad to have gotten to work towards the goal of performing on a national stage. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You too. And we're also fortunate that not only do we have amazing students and, families and friends that support them in their musical studies, we also have really amazing teachers, one of which is Leanne. But also we have teachers being recognized, for their work. So at last year's Colorado Music Educators Association conference, at one of the very last
things of the conference, the American String Teachers Association Colorado chapter recognized Rocky Mountain High School Orchestra teacher Sean Murphy as the outstanding string teacher of the year. So if mister Murphy, his student, would come on up. I think it's very fitting that our teachers are are so interested in having their students speak and listening to their students' voices. I know that's a huge part of their success and the connections that they have. So Aliyah Dearing is gonna say a few words. Hello. My name is Aliyah Dearing. I'm a violist, at Rocky Mountain High School in Sean Murphy's, orchestra.
And I'm here to say a few words on behalf of my entire orchestra. Sean Murphy is truly a remarkable educator. Yes. He teaches music, but teaching music means helping each and every one of us learn ways to express ourselves freely and safely. With every rehearsal, every lesson, and every gentle correction, incredible teacher and teaching skills, but
also the countless hours he spends behind the scenes and the many lives he has already touched and influenced. For example, he has given us the opportunities to play beautiful music. For example, last year, we played Rhapsody in Blue and had the, ability to play it in Italy. We worked alongside with our own student soloist, Ian Rowe, and through this experience, we were taught the importance of flexibility and collaboration. For so many of his students, including myself, he is more than a teacher. He is a mentor, a father figure, and a friend.
He is there when you need a shoulder to cry on and then there when you need to laugh. He has gone above and beyond, not only as a teacher, but as a human being. And this is why he so greatly deserves this honor. Thank you. Congratulations once again to all of tonight's honorees. Your hard work, talent, and dedication inspires us all, and you represent the very best of Poudre School District. At this time, I'd like to invite our honorees, board directors, and superintendent Kingsley to gather at the front for a group photo. Alright. Well, thank you all for, sharing those accomplishments with us. It's truly amazing and shows you just how, much PSD cares about the well rounded
students. So just wanna thank everybody for that. Next up, we have the resolution in support of Hispanic Latinx heritage month. Could I get a motion? Go ahead, Connor. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of Hispanic Latinx heritage month, September 15 through 10/15/2025. Can I get a second? Alright. And thank you, Kevin. And then we have a question. So joining us evening to speak to Hispanic Latinx Heritage Month is Jenna Altamar, our coordinator of Language, Culture, and Equity, and Maria Elena Thomas, language, culture, and equity family
liaison. Welcome to you both. Oh, soft. I'll start over. Yes. As you can see, I'm new to the district. My name is Jenna Altomar, coordinator of language, culture, and equity, and I'm super excited to be here. As I just started out, I wanted to just acknowledge how awesome it is that we allow student voices to be heard in such beautiful ways. So I think taking this step back, being that I'm new, as an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to really listen to what the students have to say so we can better ourselves and support them even more than we already do.
So with that being said, I'm super excited to be here for Hispanic Heritage Month. And to help me celebrate, I have these beautiful people next to me. And so Maria Elena Thomas is going to introduce these students from Bowder Elementary. Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Maria Elena Thomas. I'm a family liaison within the district. Principal Steven Bose from Bowder Elementary School sends his regrets. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and as proud Hispanic representative myself, it brings me great joy to honor two of our remarkable Hispanic students from Bowdoin Elementary and to
lift up their stories and recognize the ways they enrich our school community. First, I'd like to introduce Rosario, right here. Rosario is known among her classmates as a wonderful friend, someone who is kind, supportive and always willing to help others. She is also a talented artist and she brings creativity and joy into everything she does. Next, we have Diego, right there. Diego takes great pride in his bilingualism and he is an excellent example of how language and culture can be a source of strength and identity.
He's also a passionate soccer fan and he brings that same enthusiasm into his daily life at school. Both Rosario and Diego remind us of the many gifts our Hispanic students bring, not just academic skills, but also friendship, creativity, pride, and passion. They are role models for their peers and I am so proud to introduce them to you today. First, Rosario. Here we go. Hello. My name is Roselyn Gill, and I'm a fourth grade student at Battle Elementary. I'm happy to be Hispanic because all the different cultures and the food that we
have in common. My family is from Mexico, and I was born here in Colorado. I am proud that we could speak Spanish and that I am bilingual. I also love the foods from other countries. For example, my favorite foods from Mexico are tamales and pozole. I also like sushi. Personally, I like spending time with my friends. I also love art, sculpting with clay, sketching, and drawing. Hispanic artists that I love is free. Hispanic heritage month is important because I like celebrating Mexican culture and holidays here. Thank you for listening and being here.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Diego Romero. I'm in fourth grade at Baylor Elementary. My mom is from Honduras, and my stepfather is from Mexico. I am part of the traditions, music, food, and history that unite Hispanic communities. I am proud of the humanity, family, and friendship that character of the Hispanic community. I am proud of my roots and the language that we speak at home. I also have the ability to be a positive person in society. For me, being Hispanic is a true treasure. Thank you.
Can I just say, Rosario, Diego, thank you so much for sharing with us your stories and your pride? I really appreciate it. And I just wanna say to your families too, you should be very, very proud. So thank you for for sharing them with us. Before we take the vote, does anybody have anything they would like to share? Okay. Alright. So, Jill, can you please call the vote? Kristen Draper. Aye. Connor Duffy. Aye. Kevin Havelda. Aye. Scott Schoenbauer. Aye. Andrew Spain. Aye. Jessica Zamora.
Aye. Motion passes six zero. Excellent. Thank you so much. And I'll go to 5.2, resolution in support of National Suicide Prevention Month. Can I get a motion, please? I move that the board approve the resolution in support of National Suicide Prevention Month. Can I get a second? Thank you, Connor. Alright. And we have an instruction for this one as well. Right? Yes. Speaking to the National Suicide Prevention Month resolution is Amy Martonis, Larimer County Behavioral Health Director, as well as, I believe, she's joined by Sarah Mauder Wilkins, our mental health and prevention coordinator. Welcome both of you.
Good evening, superintendent Kingsley, directors of the PSD Board of Education, members of the cabinet, and all here this evening, both in the room and joining us online. My name is Amy Martones, sheher. I'm proud to serve as the director of behavioral health for Larimer County Behavioral Health Services, and I'm also a PSD parent. In 2018, Larimer County voters made a bold and forward thinking decision to invest in expanded behavioral health care for our community by approving a dedicated sales tax. One of the most significant outcomes of this investment is the twenty four hours a
day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year behavioral health urgent care that's available at the Longview campus. This resource is available to everyone in our community, younger or older, whether you have private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, or no insurance at all. It provides immediate crisis support and a safe place for people to turn when they need support most. Tonight, as we acknowledge the profound impact of suicide on our community and within Poudre School District, we reaffirm our shared commitment to teaching both young people and adults that
suicide is preventable. And in Larimer County, no one has to navigate crisis alone because support is always available. Recently, Colorado's adolescent suicide rate dropped to its lowest since 02/2007. Larimer County also saw the lowest two year average in suicides in more than a decade. This is tremendous progress. And still, in 2024, we lost eighty of our community members to suicide in Larimer County. This tells us that our work is not finished. We have a lot more to do. This can feel overwhelming, especially we when we consider all that's at stake.
That's when we can lean into something that I heard recently, that we're successful when we infuse hope and healing into our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and our classrooms. Hope and healing. We are successful when we strengthen collaborations, like those among the youth mental health task force, Poudre School District, the Alliance for Suicide Prevention, and among so many other community partners that support this work, and when we deepen our understanding of the signs to look for and the resources that are available to provide support when crisis errs.
If you are ever in the place of supporting someone experiencing suicidal thoughts, a mental health crisis, a substance use crisis, please remember that the acute care facility at the Longview campus is open to people of all ages for crisis assessment and care. No one in our community needs to navigate crisis alone because of the decision we made together to care about one another. Thank you to all the thousands of staff members in Poudre School Districts who see our students every day, support them for who they are, and in partnership with parents and guardians, nurture their well-being.
And thank you, Poudre School District, for making mental health and belonging such a priority. It matters. Thank you very much. And I just wanna reiterate, Amy, which you had spoken to, which is the lowest numbers we have seen since 02/2007. That is incredible and a testament to the work that you are doing and we are doing as a community for each other. So thank you for that. It is very much appreciated. And to all of our, healthcare providers in PSD, thank you so much for the work that you do, on a daily basis.
I know that it's not always easy and that sometimes it goes home with you, but it is the most important work that can possibly be done for our students. So thank you for that. With that, is there anything that, anybody would like to, discuss or have questions on? Okay. So Jill, could you please call the Kristen Draper. Aye. Connor Duffy. Aye. Kevin Havelda. Aye. Scott Schoenbauer. Aye. Andrew Spain. Aye. Jessica Zamora. Aye. Motion passes six zero.
Thank you. Alright. And we can move on to 5.3, resolution in support of attendance awareness month. Can I get a motion? Go ahead, Kevin. I move that the board approve the resolution in support of attendance awareness Month. Can I get a second? Alright. Thank you, Scott. Yeah. It's okay. Joining us this evening to speak to Attendance Awareness Month is Leah Hager, our student services coordinator. Welcome, Leah. Thank you, to the board members, superintendent Kingsley, cabinet, and the greater community, present here and online for elevating the importance of attendance.
Maybe it doesn't sound glamorous, but it is foundational. There is a great deal of importance in being present, being engaged, and experiencing belonging for all students. And that is what is wrapped into attendance. And we know the challenge is clear when we look at the resolution. Right? One in three Colorado students are chronically absent. That is a call for action. And we know that students who attend school regularly build important relationships. Relationships with classmates, coaches, staff, and sometimes these are lifelong relationships. They perform better academically.
They're more likely to graduate with options from high school. And to answer that challenge, to meet the need, PSD has made some lofty goals. We are participating in an effort across the state to reduce chronic absenteeism rates overall by fifty percent, and we are making gains toward that goal. And we're hoping and working to reach a 95% average daily attendance rate to help all students stay on track with school work, positively impact literacy skills, social, emotional, behavioral
health, and Access to that goal of graduation. And so we recognize that it's going to take all of us. We understand that this is a community effort, and we recognize that that partnership with families, with all PSD staff across the district, across all of our schools, is important to keep them informed of their child's attendance records, help all students know that they belong in PSD, and provide the support to overcome the barriers to attendance when necessary. So again, thank you for taking the time to recognize the importance of attendance and
support this resolution. Thank you so much. And yes, I mean, we hear that, you know, showing up is half the battle and we need to make sure that we get to that first half. So, you know, it's extremely important to make sure that we are able to see our students, and then be able to help them feel like they belong. So, any other thoughts that people want to share? Alright. Jill, can we call the vote? Kristen Draper. Aye. Connor Duffy. Aye. Kevin Havelda. Aye. Scott Schoenbauer. Aye. Andrew Spain. Aye. Jessica Zamora. Aye. Motion passes six zero.
If we could get a gather ready, to get a picture in the front here, that'd be wonderful. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us this evening. It was such a pleasure having you. We will now move on to the superintendent report where superintendent Kingsley will make remarks to the board of education and to the community. Welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. You know, I really love our resolutions and recognitions because it's a gentle reminder that PSD is an academic and extracurricular powerhouse. And on the heels of this morning, having the nation's report card on public education be released, it was a sobering report that really should remind us as a community
how lucky we are to have our school district be available to provide services to our students. We truly are an outlier. You know, over the last week, I had an opportunity to spend time with all of the leaders in our district at the school and district level, and they did a deep dive on a research study on what makes schools great in terms of becoming opportunity makers for students who may be on the margins. And those from a research standpoint, those schools do three things really well. And we have so many of our schools that are thriving in these areas, and
I visited them, over the past couple of days. But they do three things well. One, they don't negotiate belonging, both in terms of the feeling of being affirmed and seen for exactly who you are, but also feeling and experiencing academic belonging, to have students be able to develop their own self efficacy and be able to describe what they're learning, what they're passionate about, and we measure those things here. Schools that are also opportunity makers double down on consistency across the school, across the district, making sure the teachers are working in collaboration with each other to have well
defined educational experiences carved out where we learn from our students and we learn from each other as educators and peers. And PSD thrives in that area as well. And the other area is probably one of the most difficult that we focused on deeply last Thursday as it takes, is building instructional coherence. You've heard me talk from the day every single year that every second counts, so really making sure that we're mapping out the instructional day, the extracurricular experiences of our students in a way that not only helps us understand those students, but we, as adults, are all using the same academic language to make sure that we're teaching to
grade level standards, and the scaffolds and the interventions that we have are appropriate for each and every student. I was really proud to visit Trout Elementary, Linton Elementary School, Kennard Middle School, Zach Elementary, Bacon Elementary, and Fossil Ridge High School over the past week. And just seeing some of the work that all of their staff are doing to elevate their game for all of our students, not just on the ball field, but in the classroom and in the orchestra pit as well, just continues to make me really proud. As we heard one of our thought partners from Larimer County Behavioral Health tonight talking about really praising our system for focusing on hope and healing, The quick win video
that I wanna share with you as a superintendent tonight focuses on the importance of mental health and belonging and how we're getting that message out into our field. I'd like to turn it over to our conference team to show that video now. I think this month, to me, it means making sure that everyone feels loved and feels like their life is worth living. It can be a pretty hard time right now, especially in school. And so I think just taking care of everyone around you is really important. You know, it's important to think about people's mental health, how everybody is doing all year. But this is a month where we have an opportunity to kinda highlight that and
make sure that we're really paying attention. It's important to raise awareness about this month because everyone goes through something and is pretty much almost always going through something. And knowing that we're not alone and we're all in some sort of boat is really important, especially around time of year when school starts up. You never know what people are going through. So we think it's just important to to have that awareness, recognize, you know, how you're feeling, every day, and it's important to talk to somebody about that. I wanna thank the leadership and students at Cyneth Middle High School. What you heard from them is what really a shared priority across this district, and
it will continue to remain a priority in this district for quite some time. In fact, I would suggest that we focus on this in perpetuity. It's a it's a life skill. Another one of our district's strategic priorities is graduating with options. And over the course of the last couple of weeks, we had an opportunity to have a ribbon cutting ceremony for our Transition Pathways Academy that's at our former partnership center, and providing a program that is really equipped and designed to help students with disabilities to enter the workforce, to focus on independent, both work and living skills.
I think that was a major move for the system to put all of those good young people, young adults, with all of the plethora of supports under one roof so they can work in partnership with each other and our respective partners in the community. And I wanna thank everybody who was able to attend. Tomorrow, we have another ribbon cutting ceremony at 08:00AM behind Poudre High School in our new state of the art advanced manufacturing lab that would not be pop be made possible without a significant financial contribution from Larimer County, the Bohemian Foundation, as well as
Woodward, and Aims Community College, and I wanna thank all of the CTE staff in PSD who's worked around the clock to have that level of outreach to build these healthy partnerships where we're actually focusing on not just PSD, but the region. Thompson School District students are able to attend programming there, and as they're building out their programming, we're figuring out ways to drop our boundaries and barriers and be able to think thoughtfully around how to expand these types of opportunities for our students, and I couldn't be more proud. On our agenda tonight, the board will hear about results of a recent enrollment survey.
That happened a year ago, So I wanna just contextualize when we had an opportunity to engage many of our families. It circulated to gather feedback on what key drivers motivate enrollment for families across our system. That's something, as a governance team, we talk quite a lot about. This is paired with discussion of our Choose PSD strategic marketing campaign that aims to tell the story of how great things are that we do here in PSD. But let me be clear, we also have challenges, and we need to be honest and direct about how we're overcoming those two. We also hear about, tonight, the movement analysis, which tracks about where students attend schools
in our system, as well as our five year enrollment projection as well. We look forward to a robust conversation and look forward to entertaining your questions this evening. So thank you for allowing me to address the community. Thank you so much. And we will get into that in just a moment here. Before that though, we will have community comment. So welcome to the community comment section of the board meeting. The board desires to hear the viewpoints of all stakeholders, including students, employees, parents, guardians, and community members. Public comment is designed to address issues, not personalities or personnel matters.
Please keep your concerns and comments focused upon the district and appropriate for a K-twelve audience. Please note that the board does not generally respond to marks made during community comment. Our lack of response should not be construed to mean that we agree or disagree with what is said or with the description or interpretation of events as presented by any speaker. Further, even if some remarks may be factually inaccurate, we generally choose not to respond or correct the record here because formal board meetings are not the time or place for back and forth dialogue. As we begin this community comment session, let us model for our entire community how to listen and how to interact respectfully even with those with whom we disagree, for
we all have the students' best interests at heart. So this opportunity for public comment is for members of the community who registered to speak by the designated deadline. Those people will be called on to make remarks in the order that they signed up, and each speaker will be allowed three minutes to address the board. And first up, we have Eric Sutherland. Not here. Okay. Next up, we have Reggie Johnson. Welcome. Hello. My name is Reggie Johnson, and my pronouns are sheher. I'm the proud mother and grandmother of transgender and LGBTQ loved ones. Let me ask each one of you here. Which hand do you use to write a letter or brush your teeth or swing
a baseball bat? Okay. Now when did you decide to be left handed or right handed? Likely it was not a decision. Which hand you use is an innate characteristic simply part of who you are and so it is with being transgender. It's not a decision and it's not a choice. Some of you may actually be ambidextrous using either or both hands and so it is with being binary. I'm also the president of PFLAG Fort Collins whose mission is to create a caring, just, and affirming world for LGBTQ folks and those who love them.
I represent numerous families with kids in Poudre School District, specifically families with transgender and non binary youth. More than a few of these families discovered that their loved one was transgender or non binary at a mental health facility or an emergency room after their child had tried to end their life. As the LGBTQ students head back to classrooms this fall, there's an existential threat hovering over them more than ever. They're carrying huge weight of having their very existence questioned in critical areas of their
everyday life. They live in a reality of discrimination, harassment, and nonacceptance of who they are. Sometimes this is intentional, other times due to lack of understanding. The bottom line, it is really tough to be transgender or non binary in today's world. PFLAG families greatly appreciate the gender affirming policies and procedures that are in place here at PSD. The work that Poudre School District board members, teachers, and staff are doing to affirm each and every LGBTQ student and particularly trans and non binary students literally life saving.
It's an imperative that students, all students exist in an environment where they're safe, supported, and celebrated. When a student doesn't have to worry about who they are, they're able to focus on who they can become. For students who are affirmed at school, surviving is a reality and thriving becomes an option. On behalf of PFLAG, thank you for caring about our LGBTQ LGBTQ students here in Poudre School District. Thank you. Next up, we have Anna Labeda. Welcome. Good evening. I can't shake the fact that our four year graduation rates for students on IEPs
are below state ranges for five consecutive years. Why is this important to me? I have a child on an IEP, and I also know that it wouldn't be sustainable at all for her to be in PSD if it weren't for the support that she receives with her IEP. Before we returned to the district for sixth grade, we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my child needed to be supported by an IEP in order to be successful in school, especially when it comes to school attendance and accessing her learning environment. Despite trying to be proactive before the school year started, I was told we needed to wait until the school year started to see how things went. Our district's wait to fail model led to the loss of almost an entire academic
school year last year. It took watching her crash and burn for months then enduring a lengthy IEP enduring a lengthy IEP eligibility process that was not finalized until January. Then she had to work hard the remainder of the year to fight her way back to where she had started the year confidence and consistency in school attendance. I'm incredibly grateful that we landed with a highly skilled SPED teacher who happened to have a special personal interest in dyslexia, but I am well aware that that is a roll of the dice in this district. I know this because I have friends in the district with children with dyslexia who
are in the same grade in different schools who are having a very different experience this current school year. So what are we gonna do about it? How are we gonna throw intention at these kids with the same kind of gusto that we throw at our typically performing students instead of patiently making them wait their turn while their literal lives depend on it. Given the historical data presented in the packet to the board of education for the UIP, progress isn't likely to be made if separate, specific, and explicit explicit district ends aren't directed and focused at students on IUPs. The stated goal of helping students with disabilities gain more than an academic year whose
worth of learning is completely out of touch with reality without more intentionality on the part of of this board. This is a public school district. Generally speaking, fifteen percent of any given school district's population will need to access special education. These are services that your taxpayers desperately need available in their school district. Later this evening, you will see enrollment projections and enrollment data. And I wanna say again that when a district loses the trust of a family because one child isn't served well, you often lose the rest of the children in that family, high performers included. I believe very strongly that students served poorly through their IEPs or students being denied
access to special education altogether plays significant part in following enrollment. I'm calling for the board to initiate a disabilities audit to find out where the IEP breakdown is occurring across the district. Is it site based policy or lack thereof? Is it the culture within the bed department or the gen ed department? Is it the PSD's nationally recognized music programs and other extracurriculars that are forcing kids to choose between IEP minutes and or participation? Is it lack of board policy? Is it because site based administrators are allowed to choose whether kids with disabilities are worth the investment or not? Is it because the district would rather push families to have to take legal actions
in some cases to reserve receive services. I believe these are questions that desperately need to be asked by the PSC board. And as long as you as a board are willing to accept the IEP graduation rates declined last year and continue to accept the line that, yes, disproportionately I'm on the last sentence. Perfect. Yes, disproportionately exist disproportionality exists, and, yes, there's still work to be done without actively providing a vision to the superintendent, then I see no change in sight for our kids who desperately need your specific engagement. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Next up, we have Danny Lawrence. Welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity. Just recently, I discovered that the Colorado Department of Education compiles and keeps district profile reports. And these reports examine everything from absenteeism to student discipline and behavior to law enforcement involvement in school districts. And I have, included the link in your email tonight and I would encourage you to spend a little time researching these statistics on your own. Presentations that I've witnessed here in the boardroom regarding monitoring reports or district ends don't show the data that I'm seeing there. And what I saw there made me cry, particularly the data related to law enforcement
referrals. In 'twenty three-'twenty four school year, students with IEPs and 504s made up 68% of the law enforcement referrals district. That would be 68% of the law enforcement referrals in our district went to kids that had 504s and IEPs. This is at least 35% higher than any school district that we compare ourselves with, specifically with regard to IEP and five zero four students. Last year, it was, the one statistic that PSD didn't report to CDE, which is strange. If you haven't heard the term school to prison pipeline, I think we should get
familiar with it because our inaction here might be supporting that. Additionally, on this site, I learned that despite our 6% underidentification rate that we have in the school district regarding children even being able to qualify for an IEP, that we are actually adding less IEPs than we did two years ago, significantly less. I'm talking like a 100 less than the year before. And then I ask myself, how is that even possible in a time when rates for autism are skyrocketing that we are qualifying a 100 less students for an IEP? And even with less kids qualifying and a district being under identified, our graduation rate
is still sliding. And the district has 17 open investigations with the Office of Civil Rights, most all of them for disability rights related issues. So something is wrong, you guys. You can't put numbers up that like like that and think otherwise. The way I see it, you have one employee, and that employee has the power to change the course if he is given that as a priority for you from you. And so I'm here tonight to beg you to please give Brian the directive that we need an audit of the Integrated Services department and a task force to work with the information that follows that.
I sit in this space and I listen to all of us patting ourselves on the back, about mental health and belonging, and that's well deserved. That's well earned. You've proven that if we make an intentional and thoughtful effort, we can change and course correct, and that is what I'm asking you to do for the thousands of students whose graduation rates are continuing to decline. The evidence is overwhelming and damning, and now is the time we can multitask, but please let's at least start the work of examining the problem. Four years is a long time to wait for a sign of life, And right
now, all the signs I see are continued decline. Please try anything. I see this as a five alarm fire and PSD is better than this. These kids deserve a whole lot better than this. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So I just wanna thank you all for, taking the time to share your thoughts during community comment tonight. We appreciate your engagement and feedback, and we look forward to further discussions at our next engagement session. And the next one is going to be on September 18, I believe. Werner and Olander. Olander. Thank you.
I could not remember. So yeah. So So hopefully, you'll join there and we can have a great discussion. Thank you. Very much appreciate it. We will now move on to board topics and committee reports. This agenda item is an opportunity for board members to provide an update on committee work or speak to board topic. Do any board members have anything they would like to report? Kevin, go ahead. I do. Unfortunately, this isn't a, a cheerful one. A couple board meetings ago, I had we had actually we were getting a presentation on, some of the students' discipline, updates from, Jared Sargent, who had just assumed his
post that night. And so I had said, I was interested in the the city's citation or traffic citations, around school areas for both pickup and drop off, and those those had an uptick, which as a parent, I was actually appreciative of. Well, I got another an email from a constituent and friend yesterday who had a very near miss, at Olander, coming across a a crosswalk, and a car almost took out his, his family. So, I know there's very little I can do from the dais, and I can't direct, Fort Collins Police Department, and I I I don't direct the SROs.
But I would appreciate a, you know, any collaboration we could work towards with the city as far as having a higher police visibility during drop off and pickup. I mean, anecdotally, I used to drive Mulberry every day, and there's a a stoplight that allows folks to get across Mulberry to Dunn. Cars would blow by it all the time. I implore our community, If you live in or are commutes to and from a school zone, which is a vast majority of our city in some points, please slow down. Please please pay attention to not only the little humans, but the the, parents, the
volunteers, the cross guards who are there doing their job. It's not worth it. Get to work a little late if you have to. But I I just wanna remind everyone as a more of a PSA that, school's back in session, and we need to be very mindful and to be very careful as we're driving and navigating, throughout our city. Thank you. Thank you very much for that reminder. I think that goes for anybody who's listening is we can need to we can slow down. It's okay. If we get there a minute or two late, it's okay. Anyone else? Okay. So let's move on to consent agenda. Would any board members like to pull an item from consent?
Okay. Seeing none, can I get a motion? I move that the board approve and adopt the recommended actions, for the items in the consent agenda. K. Can I get a sec? Thank you, Jess. And, Jill, can you call the vote? Kristen Draper. Aye. Connor Duffy. Aye. Kevin Havelda. Aye. Scott Schoenbauer. Aye. Andrew Spain. Aye. Jessica Zamora. Aye. Motion passes six zero. Wonderful. Thank you. Alright. We're moving on now to 10 o informational reports and discussion items. So 10.1
is enrollment survey and PST marketing data overview. Thank you. Presenting the enrollment survey and PST marketing data overview, our chief of staff, doctor Lauren Hooten, and chief institutional effectiveness officer, doctor Duane Schmitz. Welcome. Hi. Board members, superintendent Kingsley, thank you for the opportunity to speak to these topics this evening. We're going to kind of divide these three topics into two parts. So we'll be starting out this evening with an update on the enrollment survey that superintendent Kingsley referenced in his remarks, which doctor Schmidt will provide here in a moment,
then move on to an update on the PSE marketing campaign that has been running since March. We'll take a break at that point to answer any questions on those two topics. And then we'll be joined by Bud Hunt, who will speak to the movement analysis five year projections, and then we'll have another opportunity for questions and discussion at that point. So I'm gonna turn it over to doctor Schmitz. Thank you, doctor Hooten. Okay. I want to say also thank you for having us tonight. What a pleasure to give voice to this important topic. I want to let the, board and the viewing audience know that the enrollment survey
we're gonna talk about, and Superintendent Kingsley mentioned this earlier tonight, It occurred, last spring, early spring, so January 13 to January 26. That's a thirteen day window. It was delivered in English, Spanish, and Arabic, which is our standard, three languages we deliver lots of communications in. I also want to mention, so as far as responses, we had eight zero two responses from the elementary level families. We had four twenty four responses from the middle school families, and we had three seventy eight from the high level families.
So that's like sixteen oh four, you know, responses. And just to set the table a little bit, when you think of how big our district is, this is a perception survey that's a representation of the voice of the Prince and the families who took the time to answer it. It's not a census, if you will. It's not the same as if we got, like, all of the parents in the district to answer. There's lots of good information in here and as we walk through this, I think a lot of it will resonate with our with everyone in this room that these
things, the themes that we're hearing make sense. All right? So with that up front, that was the nature of the survey and it provides a very important voice, in this room tonight for us to consider. Okay. So first of all, how do families learn about PSD schools to help inform their choices? Okay? The first big theme Oh, that's funny, I didn't catch that one, two, and three is a one, one, and two. So look past that. It's one, two, and three, okay? Sorry about that. So anyways, the, interpersonal connections, right?
When people have friends and connections in the community who have experiences at our schools, that carries a lot of weight. So, we that should resonate with us. So that's a really important network of communication that informs parents to inform their choices on which schools might be the best fit for them and their families. Okay? We found in the survey that some evidence that the families that are newer to the PSD community and the Greater Fort Collins community are a little bit more reliant on the digital resources, the platforms, right?
And so Doctor. Lauren Hooton later will be talking a little bit about some of our campaigns in that space around communication and advertising and what have you to make sure that, you know, we're informing our community about our different schools. And so that's especially important for families that are newer to our community. Okay? The third, kind of theme that popped out of that is that where parents get information and what they're being attracted to to decide which school they want to choose is the right option for themselves shifts with age.
And we'll see in the next slide a kind of a progression of how that shifts. But it's especially true that as students come into the middle school, high school level, they begin to really think about those college preparation, graduating with options, the extracurricular options, and things like that. And so not to get in front of myself, because we'll talk in a little more depth about how those priorities shift with time. Okay? So, what drives the family choices? We've known this for a long time, I think, as a district and a board of education and a leadership team, that archers matter.
You know, a lot of studies in the country have shown teachers matter most. People care more about having a great teacher in a mediocre school than they would take a mediocre teacher in a great school. Teachers matter. And so that came through in the survey results that our community signals to us that they want us to invest in quality teachers and those teachers' professional development and training over time, which I think we have made a commitment to that as a district. The second theme that kind of emerged, now going by basically, for elementary, the strongest
driver is, you know, summed up here as close and capable. So, logistics matter. There is a preference, even though we know about a third of our students' choice into schools neighborhood school when I say that. So but but for many of us, two thirds of the families, you know, logistics matters. And being in the neighborhood where your kids are going to meet the other kids in the neighborhood And being in the neighborhood where your kids are going to meet the other kids in the neighborhood, there's going to be birthday parties that are close to home, all those things, that has an impact. I think that probably resonates with us.
And, that those elementaries are capable of setting up those young people for success as they walk through their whole educational journey. So the the rigor, frankly, of the programming and the the instruction matters. Doctor Schmitz? Yes. May I just ask a question about data that you just mentioned just to make sure I heard it correctly? I think when we look at our data of those who are in students who are in our traditional public schools, it's one out of three families choosing a different school that's in their neighborhood school. That's not 30% choosing a charter school.
That's correct. So I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah. I hope that came across clear, and if not, I appreciate that, clarification. Thank you, Doctor. Schmitz. Yeah. And I wanna mention, I guess, since I took a pause here, on the elementary priorities close and capable, if you look at, our data dashboards, which are very make all of our data very transparent, you can really quickly ascertain, like, what are the achievement outcomes and various outcomes for our different elementary schools? And I can tell you as a parent in Poudre School District of three kids, there is not an elementary school in this district I want to be proud to
send my kid to, right? And that data backs that up. So you can look at the data in all our different elementary schools and they are very capable of producing great results for our kids with our kids, really. Okay. Moving on to point number three here, the third thing that rose up for middle school, which I kind of mentioned, I think, earlier, belonging matters a lot in middle school. School. If you think of the stage of development kids are in, as far as what we're talking about tonight is families deciding and students deciding which schools are the right fit for them, this belonging, inclusivity, you know, social network and connection is very, very
important. Academics is always important, right? When you think about student centering middle school, it's the first time really they're going to level up in a big way in athletics, they're going to level up in the number of of courses that they get to select and pick from relative to elementary I'm talking about. And so there's a lot of different choices, and so family engagement kind of goes on the rise a little bit sometimes too, as far as families needing to get engaged in that transportation, those choices, which sports, which clubs, which courses are you taking, and so on and so forth.
So all of this network, which I believe is not limited to just student to student networks, if we were in that mindset of just like the friends network for kids, That's true. It's also true that the parent networks matter quite a bit at the school too because of those things I just mentioned, those different changes and decisions and options that people are experiencing as a family. As students as families are thinking about high school enrollment, it really was clear in the data that that becomes like a future ready focus, and that probably makes sense to the board. Parents and families are thinking about concurrent enrollment and dual enrollment.
Those are two different options for getting college credit while you're in high school. They're thinking about those, again, leveling up in those athletic, competitions and athletic kind of experiences. They're thinking beyond just athletics to clubs and activities like band and theater and these things. Those matter quite a bit. So it's that whole menu of activities and the robust extracurriculars PSD has. I've always just termed it as a menu of awesomeness, frankly. And so, like I said, I've got three kids that have gone through the system. They're three completely different kids and they all were able to customize what they experienced
in this system that fit their personalities perfectly. And so, I really believe that, like PSD high schools, there's really a menu, that is quite rich and robust. And our academics are strong as well. Those that always matters. Anyways, speaking for the survey, these are the kind of the themes that rose up across those three different levels. Okay. Charter versus non charter decisions. Okay. Some school some insights that this data may have elevated for us, okay? Keeping in mind this is perception data, okay?
And perception matters because people make decisions based on their perceptions. Why do charter schools draw families? Often, you know, we all hear a focused learning environment is the perception. Smaller class sizes, individualized instructions, structured core knowledge programs are all listed here as things that emerged in the survey. Keeping in mind, of course, preschool district, and charter schools also have core knowledge as a curriculum, at several of our elementaries and one of our middle schools.
At any rate, this parent involvement, is another piece and and other special features like dual, like dual language immersion programming. So, like all schools in the system, they often have some special programming. All of the PSD schools, charter and non school charter. That type of specialized programming can be attractive to families for those purposes. The return route, theme number two that kind of rose up. You know, families come back to non charters, from charters, and when we ask those parents specifically about those decisions, they cite things such as strong student support programs, broader
social networks and a sense of community and belonging. Okay? So, everything PSD does to build community within our schools and all of the energy, time, money, training that we put into serving students with different needs is what pulls many parents back into the non charter schools when they see that set of options. Three, convenience matters. So, whether you're talking charter or non charter, walkability, you know, transportation, these types of
things matter. You know, director Hovalda brought up today, you know, one of these pieces around transportation, walking, and biking. It's, it's a value our community has and it brings its own set of challenges and such you have to navigate, right, as a community. But people do value that, that kind of like proximity. The fourth, theme that kind of emerged, high school families favor college and balance. It's the balance part that's new. On the last slide, I talked a little bit about, you know, the internships, the apprenticeships, the career tech center, the athletics, all of those things.
I think we all understand there's a huge menu of options for kids at every single one of our high school options, right? But the balance part is important too. Because these are young people, they're becoming young adults, several, like most of you, have been parents through this age group. And so you see that. You see this beautiful transition from a student leaving middle school to a student leaving high school. Wow. Those four years, right? So that balance. And the Schmidt family is in the midst of that where you got a kid that wants to take athletics and he wants to take calculus and all this, but
he wants to have his friendships. And so it's that's the balance we're talking about. Kind of what we adults would call the work life balance. So hitting that right and our staff helping students through that is one of the pieces that our community finds valuable. That's what that was signaled in the survey. Okay. What do they want from our schools? And when I say this, what do they want from our schools? I'm not distinguishing between charter and non charter, Right? We want, as a leadership team, every kid and every family to find the right place for them for their journey, their educational journey, no matter which school that is.
And PSD is super proud of all of our schools, charter and non charter, all of them. We have great schools in this community to be proud of. So, what do families want? No surprises here. Number one, push for an academic powerhouse outcome for our kids. I mean, I've been in PSD here in front of you and with you all for eighteen years now, maybe nineteen. That has never changed. Poudre School District has always prided themselves on, like, just and being an academic powerhouse, frankly, and always pushing to be stronger in that space. That matters to our community.
The way that shows up for us is in a lot of different ways. You know, we mentioned core knowledge again here, IB, GT, AP dual enrollment, all of these pieces. The future ready work that we're doing, helping make sure that families are more aware of what those options are and how to get their students involved in those different pathways and such is huge work. So we're engaged in this. Number two. And by the way, number one fits in perfectly. If you think about the strategic plan in UIP, the literacy piece and the graduate with options, those first two big priorities fit in perfectly with number one, pushing to
be academic an academic powerhouse. Number two, safety and behavior in the spotlight, which fits in perfectly with number three, mental health and belonging on our strategic plan. So I feel like our plan is in alignment with what the community is asking for and continuing to signal this is what they value. So, bowling, vaping, and classroom disruptions topped the list of concerns that came up through the survey. No surprise there. Families demand clear behavioral expectations and staff that foster empathy, safety, and a supportive school environment. So the way I read the survey results, and and actually with this work was
done by Ran Shee, doctor Ran Shee, who was with us as our coordinator, research evaluation coordinator, and doctor Lauren Hooton was involved in this work as well. And it's real clear that our community wants students to be safe and for there to be clear, like it says, behavioral expectations that are enforced, and we want an inclusive environment where all kids feel welcome, seen, and included. We want both of those things. That's what number two is indicating. The third theme that, emerged from these data, equity and belonging matter more than ever.
Now, Superintendent Kingsley did a nice job reminding us, and I mentioned the dates, I'm just going to mention it one more time, this is about a date at one year ago. So, if you just think about what was going on about one year ago when, families were responding to these items, okay? Families emphasize inclusivity, especially for students with special needs. That has been a focus in PSD. We have a lot of data indicating a lot of room for improvement in that space And we also have some data for some specific places where we're proud of what's happening and how we're moving certain things in that space.
Both of those things are true at the same time. But this survey is indicating that matters to our community. So, that is true. Gifted learners. Some people might say, I don't get that one. Like, if it's gifted learners as a group, aren't they just kind of like, you know, isn't everything just happening quite well for them? And the answer is not always. You know, students who are identified as GT actually have their own set of unique, I don't know, issues is a strong word, but they're unique exceptionalities that we as a school district thoughtfully support them with.
So that's true. And I just realized that one may not sound as, as familiar to some people. And then English language learners, which we also phrase as multi language learners, right? Those specific groups. And if you remember the UIP and the strategic plan presentation, those are a couple of the groups that we specifically identified that we're focused on in supporting through that work in our plan. Okay? Creating a deep sense of belonging while providing rigorous academic experience. So there it is again. Like the community is super clear. They want that support for every kid in an inclusive environment and they want academic
rigor. We want both. Okay. Number four. Teacher, support comes up strong again in, a set of these items on the survey. And that that resonates with me also as a person who works with the district accountability committee. That committee is always very supportive of, like, our teacher professional development and support structures to help our teachers help our students. So that's a priority that rose up in this survey. And then logistics. And we're well aware that matters a lot. The air conditioning comes up, facilities, safety, these types of things.
So logistics matter too. And I know the board's invested a lot of time over multiple years now working on various things to do with logistics, all times and start times and so on. So that came out from the survey too from the community voice. Okay? We're not gonna take questions right right now. We're not gonna break up the presentation, but I'm gonna hand the mic over to my colleague, Doctor. Lauren Hooten, to talk about the PSD marketing campaign. Okay. Thanks. Alright. So as Duane mentioned, we gathered a lot of information from that enrollment survey, and we used woah.
We used that information to inform the development of the Choose PSD marketing campaign, which launched in March 2025. So this is intended to be a comp a comprehensive marketing campaign that really promotes the entire district. We are focused on encouraging engagement with information about PSC across a variety of different platforms using a variety of different tactics. And we'll talk about some of the data that are associated with those, here in a moment. Overarchingly, we are really striving to continue to reinforce that PSC is the top choice
for pre k 12 education in Northern Colorado. So that is the theme that runs through all of our Choose PSD marketing. As I mentioned, we're really focused on promoting the entire district, but we are also doing campus specific marketing as well. So there's blend of campus specific promotion with promotion of the entire district. So whenever we're putting together a marketing campaign, it's really important for us to think about the audiences that we are trying to reach. So our primary audiences as the district are current families, as well as prospective families.
And when I say prospective families, I'm talking about families that are new to this region or are considering moving into this region, as well as families with students entering pre k or kindergarten. So they're really starting to think about becoming a part of PSD at that point. And time. So that's really where we're dedicating a lot of our focus from a marketing perspective. We're also dedicating focus on families that have students in fifth grade and students in eighth grade because those are points at which there's possible transition and enrollment patterns that we're currently seeing. In terms of our primary audience more broadly, we're also trying to reach our students.
We're working on reaching staff faculty. And at the moment, we're also spending a lot of time focusing on our non English speaking families and making sure that we are providing communication in multiple languages and particularly in Spanish. So if you've been monitoring our Instagram, for example, you'll see our Instagram posts now appear in both English and Spanish consistently so that we are providing that accessibility to our families. When we think about the audience that we are reaching more broadly, there is also a secondary set of audiences that we're connecting with with this campaign. We're communicating with that set of audiences a little bit differently than what than we
are with our primary audiences. But our secondary audience members include our community, our taxpayers, particularly taxpayers without children. It's important for us to be connecting with them about what the district offers to our community as well. We also engage with the media, local business, local partners, our alumni, and local elected officials as well. So the the core messaging that underlies what we are putting out in the choose PSD campaign really centers around the notion that you have excellent choices in PSE. We talk about that a lot in this room.
There is a lot of option and a lot of opportunity for any family who's seeking different things for their students across our system. So we really emphasize this idea that there there are good choices here. And we're trying to make it easier also as we're promoting those choices for families to navigate all of the options that they have. Sometimes it's a little bit like information overload. Right? I have so many options, it's difficult to choose. So some of the work that we're doing as part of this campaign and also with the content that's on our website is streamlining it so it's a little bit
easier to process and hopefully makes it more accessible to families that are looking for the options that best suit them. As we communicate too, we're really emphasizing being clear and transparent in our communication, and we're really focused on making it clear that every single student success in our system matters. So that's a message that will continue to be a common thread across all of the Choose PSD materials that we put out. So at this point, I'm gonna shift into some of the more specific statistics. What we'll start with is digital information or digital advertising information.
And as we look at this, I want us to kind of think about the fact that it's important as we're marketing to try to meet audiences where they are. So a lot of our audiences are engaging in digital spaces. We're starting here with our Google Search Ad campaign. So Google Search Ads are ads that would pop up when you're using an Internet browser. What you're seeing here is a a few different metrics, and I'll define some of these just so that we're on the same page. So impressions are essentially the number of instances in which an ad could be seen by an audience member. A click is an actual engagement with that ad, so they're they're clicking on it
or they're engaging it in some way. And then the click through rate brings those two things together. So that gives us a metric of engagement. So what you're seeing here with Google Search Ads, since the campaign has been running, we have more than 70,000 impressions, 19,000 clicks, and a 27% click through rate, which is really a remarkably high click through rate when we have a benchmark average of about 3%. So the folks that are seeing our content are engaging with that content. So that's a good sign for us.
Our top performing content tends to focus on choice enrollment, the options that are available to students in our system. And the data tells us that we are reaching our target age group of individuals between 25 and 54, which are likely to have school aged children. One note that I wanna make as we're looking at this slide is that click through rates and conversions are not the same thing. So what I mean by that is just because we have a 27% click through rate, that does not necessarily mean that we should expect a 27% increase in enrollment.
K? So the the the goal of marketing and public relations is really to raise awareness of the system and what it offers. It's not necessarily a direct correlation between views, clicks, and students enrolling in our system. So I just wanna be clear about as we look at the rest of the data. Okay? So continuing the digital space, we are also running ads on Metis. These are the Facebook companies, Facebook, Instagram. As you can see here, we have more than 700,000 audience members. We are reaching in this space almost 800,000 impressions, 23,000 clicks, and a 2.9%
click through rate, which also exceeds the benchmark average. So we're doing well in this space in terms of engaging with our audiences. The audiences that we tend to reach the most effectively in this particular space are those who have recently moved to this region and those who have younger children. So, again, we're we're really on target in terms with the group of the group that we are trying to reach here. We've also invested in Spanish language advertising here. And as you can see, we're we are having some engagement in that space as well. The Google Display Network, which you see on the slide here at the bottom, the
Google Display Network is a collection of about 2,000,000 websites, apps, video platforms on which ads can also appear. So we have engagement here as well over 500,000 impressions. You'll see a lower click number here, and just a 0.1% click through rate. What I'll note though is that click through rates on a Google Display Network tend to be quite a bit lower. So this is a pretty normal number for us to be seeing here. Speaking of meeting audiences where they are, we also know that we have audiences in
other spaces beyond the Internet. So we have tried to launch some new marketing efforts in different physical spaces in our community. So that has included ads that we placed on the Old Town Trolley that runs out of City Park. We also placed a couple of billboards, in the fall. So this was, Highway 287 North, and of 60 Fifth Street near the southern border of PSD and Highway 257 out near Banford. As you can see here, we have more than 90,060 weekly impressions on those billboards
during their two month campaign. So there were a lot of eyes essentially that were on those over time. We've done some direct mail marketing as well. We sent a kindergarten mailer to about 6,000 residential addresses within our boundaries and a Choose PSD mailer to almost 9,900 households with school aged children in our community as well. We are also pushing content about PSD specifically out to individuals who do not have children on digital platforms as well. So really building in that space of connecting with our secondary audiences and talking about
why PSD is good for the broader community. We've done some other unique advertising campaigns. We did a couple of movie theater ads. There was a fifteen second spot, that ran before movies and in the lobby at Cinemark, and we did a graduation video as well. We did a Valpak mailer also for the first time. That reached 20,000 households over about a three month period, and that included a QR code on it, and information in both English and Spanish that took individuals to the PSD website so that they could learn more about the options that are available.
We have also created choose PSD banners, which are located outdoors at our campus sites. Those have QR codes on them as well, so those who see them can use that to access more information about the district. And then I would just note too that we are in the process of making some yard signs that are school specific, but also PSC branded. So you will start to see those pop up around town. We're providing a certain number of those to schools and some schools, PTAs, I believe, are selling them as well. And we will be doing some more grassroots style marketing here at community events.
So we'll be at Hero Fest on September 13, which is this weekend. And also at Treatsylvania where we'll have information to share with those who tend to go to those kind of events with their young children. So that is the overview of our marketing campaign. And I'll invite doctor Schmitz to join me, and we can answer any questions. Thank you so much. That was tastic. And I think there's a lot of information in here that we probably have some questions on. And if it's okay, I'm actually gonna start off with one of them. And so, Dwayne, this is more going to you. So I'm looking at all of these the five survey results and when it says,
PS Family Speak Out, what we want from our schools. And the great news is is that within all five of those, we're seeing those overlay with our top three priorities. And in the numbers four and five, where they're asking, about teachers need support to stay and buildings to bell schedules, the community has literally put their money where their mouth is on this and has given us the funding to make sure that this happens. So this we know is, you know, is is legit. It's good stuff here. My question really comes down to is, is this do we know first of all,
do we know is this what people, are saying they want from this school from their schools? And or is it something that they think they are already getting from their schools? And do we know the difference? Yeah. So this is reflecting what they want from their schools. They're not telling us they're not having this from their schools. They're indicating this matters to us. And I read it the way you read it, which is when I look through those five things, I can see things in our UIP, our strategic plan, and in our recent funding that the community supported PSD with as being in a 100% in
alignment with this. Yeah. I see I mean, I I see the the 100% alignment in it. I think, to me, it it shows that we need to keep the focus where it's at because that is what the community is asking for. So, you know, our our top three priorities need to stay our top three priorities. And, you know, we need to be using the money that we have been given from the public, wisely. Is there a way then to, without further swaying or I I'm not quite sure how to do it, but to ask people, this is what you say you want. This is what we are doing.
Do you feel that you are getting it? Thanks. So let me talk on this for just a moment because I think this is so important that we have this continuous two way communication with our community. Right? And surveys are just one mechanism. So we certainly use surveys. And, Lauren has done a great job over the years in doing some of the big ones as well, so it's we're well represented in that space. On top of that, we do focus groups, right? And, we do community engagement. The Board of Education has been really diligent about community engagement in different types of
venues. We do community engagement through committees. So, we run the DAB and the DAC and the Student Advisory Committee and what we did call the Equity Coalition. These are the reasons for all those efforts. So we don't just use surveys. And I think it's the answer to why what we're hearing in this survey that we did resonates or is aligned with what we have put forward and we've collectively landed on in our UIP, in our strategic plan, in where we put our funding priorities. Dave Montoya and his group deserves a shout out because they do some engagement around
this too so that we're making sure that we're always in alignment around how we're spending our resources and what we're prioritizing with our staff time. But I think it's that's the answer is it's not just surveys. It's never over, never will be over. It's just a continuous cycle of listening, noticing, wondering, and engaging, which I do believe PSD does on so many levels. Thank you. And I I agree with that. And I just you know, it just, to me, just reiterates then the importance of sharing our good news. Right?
Sharing the good news of what we are doing, what we are accomplishing, and how that fits into what, is the stated need of our community. So how can we make those things, really just work together, and become integral with each other? So yes, I think the the marketing campaign is extremely important to, you know, side of that. And question on the marketing campaign, actually, do we know the QR click through rate from the Valpak? I do not know that off the top of my head, but I can get you that. No. No worries.
No worries. I was just more curious than anything else. And, the one thing before I'll let others speak was the, when we do the yard sign, is that specific to, like, graduating seniors, or is that for everybody? And if not, can we have it also for graduating seniors? So it is for everybody. So it'll celebrate, for example, I'm a done dolphin kind of thing and have that branding on the sign, but also choose PSD branding on the sign. But we can take the feedback that graduating seniors might like something special, and we'll take that back to our team.
Thank you. Alright. Kevin, go ahead. Doctor Schmitz, I've got some numbers questions. Oh, okay. So when you gave us the breakdown of the participants of the survey, I wrote down 862 elementary school families, 424 middle school families, 378 high school families. Does that track? Eight zero two, four twenty four, and three seventy eight. Okay. Yeah. So that's roughly 1,600 participants to a survey. So let me stop there. In your view is do you believe that's a a fairly good response rate for
a survey of this kind? Such a tricky question. So yeah. So it's hard to say, you know, when when you do surveys and you know exactly what number of people you've put the survey out to, you can do a response rate. Right. Right? And that's what we'd like to get. The reason we like response rate obviously is it gives us a much better idea of like how close did we get to the full population and then you can talk about bias that might be there and things like that. Right? When you think of how large our our population is and the way we send the survey, we're not calculating our response rate here, we know that's not clearly not
all of our families. So I think the real question just becomes this. Do you believe that that's enough, normally if this was a student survey, I'd say student voice, but in this case, family voice, a signal to come through, right, that's meaningful. And that's really the question. And so because when we look at when we look at through those, responses, the themes, really it's about themes because it was all very open ended or much of it was open ended. And so what are the themes that emerged and do they feel valid to you?
Like, do they pass the smell test, so to say? And so I hate to be so loose in my language, but it's not it's not like we did when we do the connection survey, we know exactly how many kids we surveyed. I can give you the exact response rates and I always do, right? And this isn't quite like that. So I think the real question is do we believe there's enough information in here to give us a valid read on some of the community's feedback to us on what matters most? Right. Let me stop you there. I by no means am I criticizing Yeah.
Those that did or how we're using it. I'm just in my own head, I'm trying to calibrate what importance and, again, I don't have the the each question and the, you know, how people kind of responded. But to your point, these themes feel good to me intrinsically. And it's like, yes. I've heard these in conversations and engagement sessions, so I appreciate your point on that. So they, I guess, I my bigger question is I don't know a better way to go about it, of pulling our community to determine what these things are other than to look at the 1,600 or so that that did participate, extrapolate what we
can from them, because we have to start somewhere. I mean, we have to use some sort of data to guide this discussion. But if 30,000 students in our our community, you know, that's 6% Yeah. Which is tough. It's hard. I I you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm scratching my head between how much fidelity should I give these numbers and how much is it just these are kind of things I wanna hear because I'm up here doing this work every day? Okay. So I think a good phrase right now or word is triangulate. So if we triangulate, we think about what did the survey tell us, what are the engagement sessions tell us, what are the input that we get from the DAC
and the DAB and such tell us, do those things triangulate? Do they land in the same space, right? Because to the extent that they do, we feel more confident that we're hearing that signal from the community because those are different ways of gathering. And we also get exit survey information from seniors when they leave, but that's students. It's not the families, but that's the students. So we get that kind of information back also. So really the question is when you triangulate across these different sources, one of which is a little bit muddy and not super clear, collectively, are they giving us some
consistent themes? Yeah. And that's the part where I think you and I both would land on, I, guess. Yeah. And and again, I'm again, I'm not being hypercritical. I'm what I guess, one of my bigger concerns, and I don't wanna belabor the poll, is just that that number that you that you that you shared also suggests a lot more engagement from those families. The folks that are showing up on our community engagement sessions Right. Have a higher level of active engagement in our community. I guess, I'm certain I always am concerned with us missing the voice of the person that isn't gonna be in the room tonight, that isn't going to show up
on the those survey results, etcetera. And so to not miss some of those other salient points and what we can do. And I think we're doing a great job. I think we're doing all the all the data gathering points that we we can muster, but I I wanna constantly be mindful of those voices that may not be here tonight or show up in the survey. So I wanna finish with this piece. Also, not to belabor, but I think this is an important topic you're bringing up, director Hervelda. What could we do moving into the future beyond what we currently do? What are the possibilities, right? We could think about and revisit what are those exit survey items for students, potentially
for families, something we're not currently doing as much, right? Do we standardize that across schools? What might that instrument and process look like? We could put some energy behind something like that. What type of focus groups would we want to pull together to capture the voice of, the folks that we know we might be missing in these other strategies we've talked about tonight, right? Could we put some energy in that direction? That's a possibility as well, right? So there are a couple techniques, if PSD wanted to delve deeper into this going, you know, forward, that we could consider.
Yeah. Can I also respond? Because I think when we have these kinds of surveys, they're, I think, a launch point. Right? I wouldn't wanna do anything only with this data. Right? But it gives us something to say, okay. They said this, or these 1,600 families said this. Let's go take it back to our community and have either focus group or when we're going to DAB say, what do you guys think of this idea or our community sessions. Right? So this gives us targeted conversations rather than this telling us explicitly you should do
x y z. Scott, did you wanna go? Up? Thanks so much for this information. This is this is great stuff. I would just caution us on and I don't think director Hivedo was saying we can't listen to this, this group of responses because it's less than we'd hoped for. I think any marketer worth their salt, if we get a 6%, survey result is a big deal, actually. Everybody's just familiar with the Nielsen ratings. That's at one time, it was only 2,000 households and that was that were doing
those services, like, in the sixties and seventies. But that represented, you know, millions of people just statistically. Mhmm. And I think I think a lot of this stuff, you know, they're reflecting other people that they talk to. You know, we talked about how parents listen to each other and are influenced by each other. This is coming out in the survey. So I I do feel and and we do hear this too a lot. But I I do appreciate the caution because it can be swayed. Looking at these five topics, academics jumps out. I hear that all the time. We wanna focus on academics.
So that's not a surprise. The safety and behavior, this is something I hear from teachers a lot. Teachers and staff, the classroom disruptions are a huge issue, and they've only gotten worse, in recent years. And and there's a whole bunch of reasons. COVID is probably the main one where kids just kinda got lost a little bit in terms of how to behave. I think that's something we need to pay attention to. I've heard that's a reason people are choosing to leave VSD to other schools that have the smaller classrooms and things like that. This was interesting to me. Number three, the equity and belonging.
There's you know, I had expectations of, you know, I don't wanna call them usual suspects, but, like, the people they're the groups that we typically see. But the ones that were named here, I think it's important for given the context of some of the things we've been hearing lately, especially students with special needs. Families wanna emphasize inclusivity of students with special needs. Gifted learners don't talk about gifted learning often. And then, of course, English language learners, which I think is a big deal. So I think we need to pay attention to that.
I think that's that's coming up more and more, where we wanna talk about inclusivity and include, the in the IS kids. Retaining high quality teachers, I think about this all the time. I was really happy to see this one pop up. I wanna foster an environment where they feel supported. They feel they can speak up. Their opinion matters. And at the same time, you know, the professional development, which I think we've done a good job of, including that and adding days and things like that. So I I like to see that.
And then lastly, the facility upgrades, we all know about air conditioning and all that sort of thing. I'm gonna beat a dead horse, but bell schedules and start times are coming right up. And I had a reminder. This is amazing timing. I had a reminder pop up in my phone that I set last spring. Make sure we get on bell schedules starting now. And it's gonna repeat every week, so sorry. But I'm gonna be sorry not sorry. I really think we need to talk about that because this point about middle schools aligning with adolescent sleep cycles, we had this debate about eight years ago.
We looked at the science and it tracks. And so we need to find a solution out. So I'm just ranting. I apologize. But, I did I did have some positive stuff, that last thing. I love the choose p PSD campaign. John, your your team is doing a great job on that. There was a the Cinemark Theater ads is such a great idea. Did you see when I saw you nodding? So I'm assuming you're picking family movies and things like that, put them right before.
That's just me in marketing. Love that kind of stuff, and that is impactful. It's a great idea, and I love the, the yard signs too. I think that's an awesome awesome thing and giving people that sense of pride for their school and, you know, and their mascots and that type of thing. So I will get off my high hopes. Thank you. K. Others? Go ahead, Andrew. I guess I probably have just one question at the point. Which not having taken the survey, so I don't know what demographic questions you asked
with it. How did the data come back to show where we don't have enough to really be useful statistically? So I'm gonna pick on right off the bat, what about our ELS group? What about our those those students that are in the IEP and five zero four group? Do we collect that kind of demographic data to then even know whether we have anything that is even remotely close to approaching some kind of statistical, hey, there's something there for us to then lean into more of the qualitative understanding, you know, story
by story or whatever we need to do. Because if we're already saying we only had 6% overall or whatever the number was, I'm just wondering if you're confident that we're getting enough feedback from those groups when we've heard that they often, don't necessarily have the same kind of access to respond to surveys. Okay. Thank you. Excellent question. So we do not gather the same type of depth of demographic information on this type of survey, we'll send it to families to get this kind of feedback, to delve into that as deeply as you would like to. And just to compare it real quickly to, like, the Student Connection Survey where we
deliver it with the student email accounts and then we've got all of those demographics data visualization tool even displays all that to see how closely the population matched the survey respondents. And so it's like we can go to town. But in this kind of survey, we're really limited because we ask just a couple questions of parents and we want to get right to the meat of the search. So we cannot retroactively go into that. And connected to that, though, and in alignment with, Director Hovalda and Schonbauer's comments, I want to share this real quick. This is a statistician professor, part of me, that wants to just I think the
board will find a lot of value in this, like, over time, okay? What Scott said is true, that if you had 200 respondents from a population of even 10,000, it gives you just as much information as if you had 200 responses from a population of 2,000,000 under the assumption that they were randomly selected responses from that population. That's the key assumption, right? So you're both right and all three of you are right where your concerns could
be and where you're kind of saying, yeah, that it feels like the responses are valid and useful for their purpose, and we don't know that these numbers of responses, whatever they were that I read off, were randomly sampled from among the the possible population, right? So there could be a selection bias kind of thing going on. So I'm just validating, like, you're correct, like, all of your instincts, which you're in alignment with this, your instincts are who didn't we hear from, who does this represent, and so on and so forth. That's valid.
And the triangulation idea is also valid, that we're hearing it resonates because you're hearing the same things when you engage in community comment and community engagement opportunities. We're hearing the same thing when you work with the DAB and DAC and so on. We see those themes emerging in the survey. So that triangulation idea is real important And we cannot do the kind of depth of analysis that you're asking about. So, there you go. Can I make a comment on that too, which is I think just, to point
out that even with the non randomization and the low feedback rate, what we're seeing, especially in three with, equity and belonging matter more than ever, I mean, the fact that special needs, gifted learners, and English language learners were lifted up, shows that it that is important to the entire community? And so even if we did not specifically get responses for from families with, of special needs or from students of, families of students of English language learners or gifted, learners, that we're noticing that the community is is lifting that up.
And so, while it may not be a randomized response and we may not be able to, extrapolate perfectly, I think the fact that the community has responded in such a way that that is important to them regardless of what the background is, it really states something as well. Good point. No. I I agree. I just I I think we have is a lot of good data. We just have to keep in mind where Absolutely. Where it comes from. Might have concerns and and how we can draw from it appropriately, of course.
Absolutely. That's just so I think we got some good understanding of where it has some solid pieces and so on. Perfect. Okay. Anything else? Other questions? Alright, Jess. A couple. Some of those really quick. So we did billboards for, like, two month campaigns. Are we gonna do that again? Did we think that was valuable? Or is that kind of like a one off? So we are currently envisioning choose PSD two point o. So to be determined on billboards. Cool. I love that there's a two point o. Thank you. So I'll, like, kinda go over that part. So then my one other question is, you mentioned focus groups, Rain, and I'm wondering
is that something where we're gonna lean into the groups that we already have, like DAB, DAC, STACK? Are we gonna just stick there? Or do we also envision possibly having focus groups that are more of like a one off where we invite folks and say, okay. This is what we heard from a big crew. Like, let's dig into this, and what does that mean to those folks? So we're the painters of the painting. Right? And we can do it any number of ways. And so we can have conversation and decide what is the best way to move forward. But all those options you just laid out make sense. And I I could definitely envision some specific focus groups for this purpose.
But it's up to us Alright. Collectively. Any others? Alright. Thank you so much. This was fantastic. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Those are great questions. Thanks. I didn't assume you were cynical. I think you were so defensive. My perception was not that you were cynical. Okay. We're gonna move on to 10.2, twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five movement analysis and five year projections overview. Yeah. So tonight, we look forward to hearing about the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five movement analysis as well as our five year projections overview from our chief technology officer,
Bud Hunt. Welcome, Bud. Thank you. Good evening, board, superintendent Kingsley, colleagues, and, public friends. Now we get to the fun part. We get to look at large bodies of data and talk about that. And I'm I'm glad to have the opportunity to celebrate a little bit of my team's work, tell you a little bit about that team as we do the work, and take your questions in conversation about something that is, I think, fascinating, but also complex and nuanced. And I hope it will be, a useful conversation for, ourselves, and we'll continue as I heard, some of the board name in the last presentation. We have a lot of good data.
How do we make sure we're drawing the right conclusions from that data? So, we'll we'll move into this, to say that we're gonna look at two collections of numbers tonight. We're gonna look at the movement analysis. That's a historical, collection of data. We'll talk more about what that information is in ascent. This This is a report that we've provided to the board annually, prior since before I was here. We've sometimes asked third parties to do that. Our team right now, there are four data analysts who work for me. All have backgrounds in mathematics and statistics to a level I do not have. I like working with smart people who teach me things, and they teach me teach
me a lot in this space. But that's historical data that is based on, previous year's October calendar. The second set of data that we're gonna look at starts with current data, but it moves into projection. It is not yet fact. It is statistically derived, to use a word that, Drevalde might use, conjecture. But it's informed conjecture. And I would name that it's, it's appropriate to to treat those numbers slightly differently. One is a look backwards. The other is a look forward. And a five year projection is a lot like driving at night. The closer you are to the headlights, the it is, the more accurate it is,
the more likely you are to see. And the further you are from the lights, the easier it is to see a Bigfoot that may or may not actually be in the road, down the street. But as you get closer to what you thought was a Bigfoot, it might just be, the, deer that, is in the road or perhaps it was just a a bit of fog. So we'll talk more about that in a second, and then we'll certainly move into conversation. Before I give the, parameters around the data, I need to tell you a quick story. I know that, at least and and director Veldt, I'm gonna come back to you. You're you're a West Wing fan, and I say that because I am as well. And I there's a scene in the third second season where Oliver Platt's paying an
attorney, and he asks the press secretary, do you know what time it is? And so I'm gonna ask this room, do you know what time it is? Yes. Oh, so you went right to the end. Right? What time is it? There we go. There are two questions there, and you get two different answers. And when we look at large datasets like this, it's really important to know what question did you ask and what parameters did you use when you do it. Much like when you're talking or or typing into, a chat GPT or or an online tool, and it's changing. You have to ask the question that you're seeking to answer, and sometimes you have to fiddle with the ask because it might not return, what you were looking for.
And so it's an opportunity for us to be curious, together as we move into this. Here comes some disclaimers. The data that's in the presentation that the team put together comes from last year's Octo count, which is the snapshot that we use to determine enrollment in PSD. All quantities listed are student counts. They're not enrollment counts, so these are actual head counts. The large collection of numbers that we look at we will look at here represent individual children who their families have all made decisions. They've all made choices. We've talked a lot about the word choice. I'm gonna say more about that in a second. I love choices. Sometimes choices when you have too many can be, as Barry Schwartz reminds us, a
a paradox. You get stuck or paralysis is the is the title of his book, which if you haven't read it, I'd urge you to read it. But in this case, we're excited about that. Last of the caveats, we're gonna show you some tables tonight, and I promise I'm not gonna read all of the data in all of the tables. I'm also gonna promise you that the totals won't all add up because of some of the constraints in the data that I'll I'll talk about later too. Before I do that, let me tell you that 80% of the children that live within the boundaries of the Poudre School District choose a PSD, neighborhood or choice school. Sorry? No. No. That's a different statistic than the one that's on the slide.
I cheated. I said something that I didn't have written down. Roughly one in 10 students who live in in, PSD and go to a public school choose a PSD charter school. And about one in 10 families who live in PSD with kids who go to public school choose a school that isn't located in PSD technically even though it might be. And we're gonna come back to those things. But I just wanna say, we have a lot of choices to be proud of in our community. And as we've heard tonight, we have a lot of work to do to improve and make sure that every kid has access to every choice that makes sense for their families and leads to an outcome that is a healthy and right and good
outcome for families. So as we get into the numbers, I don't wanna forget about choices. Now I will name that 30% of the children or the families living within boundaries attend a school that is not their neighborhood school. That doesn't mean they've all chosen a school that's not their neighborhood school. Sometimes there are programs that they need to be in that only exist in some schools. So it's it but that is a percentage that's important to keep in mind. Choice is also it's a value in our community, but it's also a state law. Right? In the state of Colorado, the law allows, a a school a family to choose a school for their child outside any boundary they might be zoned into provided spaces
available. And spaces available is is a phrase that different schools define different ways in different spaces. But it is the law in Colorado that people can make choices, and we have a lot of good choices, here in the district for families to choose. If you live inside of the PSD boundaries, you have three choices as a family. And you have more than that, but if you if you choose a public school, these are those three. You can, choose to attend a PSD neighborhood choice or charter school. You can choose a non PSD school within PSD boundaries, which is in in most cases a charter school institute school, which is a chartered school that is technically not
of PSD, but exists here. And the third choice is you might could choose a non PSD school outside of PSD boundaries. We'll talk about that in a second. It's important for me to define all these terms with choice because now I have to do it again in a little more detail so that the data we're about to look at makes sense. Choicing into PSD, as we're about to see in some data, means children and families who live outside PSD boundaries and choose to attend a PSD neighborhood choice or charter school. Right? So you don't live in PSD, but you choose to come in. Choicing out means that you live inside the PSD boundaries and choose to attend a
non PSD school within PSD boundaries, again, charter school, or a non PSD school outside of boundaries. And as we'll talk about in a second, you may or may not physically travel outside of the boundaries to go to an in district or an out of district school. So when we talk about choosing in and choosing out tonight, and I promise that we will not get to semantic satiation with the word choice, There's a lot in what we're talking about, but defining these terms will help sort of frame, the data we're about to look, at next. And then the last caveat before we look at data, and I wanna explain this
one a little bit, is all the data that is derived here, again, it's October count data, which means it is public school kid data. That means it does not include homeschool or private school enrollment. That's not because we're not interested in that data. It's not because it's not important to look at that data. It's because we can't longitudinally track a child who does not have what the state of Colorado calls a SACID. I can't remember what that s a SID stands for. Forgive me. I can look that up. But that's the unique identifier we assign to a child to allow us to do longitudinal tracking that makes the data you're about to see make sense.
There are families who might elect into homeschool, never having attended a public school. There might be families who elected into a private school from a public school, but we cease that data relationship when they make that choice. And the cleanliness from a a a data nerd standard of homeschool and private school reporting is a little bit messy. In fact, the private school data that is reported to the state of Colorado frequently is gathered by our team who works VSD. At the behest of the state, we're required to do it, but we have no
authority to pull that data from schools that may or may not wish to comply other than incessant emailing and phone calls and, hey. Do you mind? So that data gets messy. That's why we're not talking about it in this presentation. It's not because it's not important and we don't think it matters. By the way, sometime, in a different presentation, we can talk about the the people who choose not to go to a PSD school, but have chosen a PSD options enrichment experience for their families. So these are homeschooled children who live inside and outside of our district. I'm selfishly proud of some of the children because I am their nephew or excuse
me. I am their uncle. They are my niece and nephew. They do not live within our boundaries. They are homeschooled by their mother, and they travel into the district once a week to receive enrichment, and we do receive funding for that service that we provide. So that is to say that there are a lot of reasons families make choices, and they're not gonna show up in this data. Now that I've explained an awful lot, let's look at some numbers. Everybody ready to go? We track this data longitudinally, and we look at it two ways. The blue line in this, table represents choice in out, so students have chosen the way we described earlier. The red line represents choice in.
And this is a a ten year, report of that data. And we're curious about two things, the raw numbers. But the data that I think is most relevant for us this evening is the differential between the two. So if you look in the year 2025, we saw a net, impact of choice to the district of 22 fewer students or 22 more choosing out than choosing in, if that makes sense. And you can see that that data, shifts and moves and grows a little bit. If you think longitudinally about the last ten years in Colorado, there are choices than there were ten years ago.
Online schools, were are continue to grow and you you might notice that the dip at the bottom of the data when everybody chose to stay home for a while and some people didn't get a choice at all, that was the biggest sort of choice out, and we saw some recovery over the last three years. So the 2024 data represents a net choice out of 739 students. K? I'm going to show you these next tables. We're not gonna spend a ton of time on them, but, historically, the board has been curious about when people choice out, where do they go?
And you can look at this to show sort of the complexity of this issue. Many of the people who have choice out of the PSD school district haven't left the district at all. They are attending Charter School Institute schools that are located in the district, but for the purposes of this conversation are not, PSD students. To grow a little bigger, the top 15 choice out schools in the district, you can see, again, see several Northern Colorado schools. You can see some geographically contiguous schools, which makes sense when we look at the districts in a moment. And then you'll see some schools that are far away geographically from us, but they're
online, programs. And that'll be clearer in this next slide. So here are the the top five choice in districts. You'll note that those districts are all geographically contiguous here. It makes sense. People are moving based on the convenience of their families. There are some families who live in Thompson that live closer to a PSD school and vice versa. The same is true of Weld RE 4, and the other districts named here. And then the top five choice out districts, if you look, that starts to be much more, while the Charter School Institute is the largest, the others that make this list are are mostly online programs with the exception of Weld RE four or excuse
me, Windsor RE four, which is our geographically, adjacent neighbor. The the Charter School Institute itself is worth naming here, just to say here are, schools that are represented in this set. Remember that if it's under 15, the state won't give us the data, so it we we can't tell you exactly how many. It's a smaller number than 15. That, less than or equal to 15 really could less than could less than or equal 15. It might be one. It might be 15. We don't know because the state doesn't tell us for the privacy of the family. But you can still get a rough sense there.
It's worth, looking at Education Re Envision because that is a collection of online schools that is geographically south of us located physically in Monument, Qatar, headquartered in Monument and in the surrounding area. And I will pause there, to say that that is, the quick look at the movement analysis of people who've choiced in and choiced out. I'm gonna ask us that we go to the end to do the discussion just as we did in the previous, but I wanted to pause here and say, now we're gonna look at the movement across PSD charter schools and PSD neighborhood and choice
schools. So that is a different, movement analysis, but it is showing all PSD schools, charter, neighborhood, and choice, and movement back and forth. And what you'll notice here is that it's it's it's grown over time, but it's it's remained relatively stable, although you will see bumps in years where new schools have opened, new campuses has opened. And also, look at that movement back and forth. And, board members asked a question, prior to this meeting as I was preparing for this.
Hey. Do you have this data by grade? We do. And we've shared that data, but to name it here in this slide because I didn't update the slides, we see move more movement into charters in the early grades and a lot more movement back into neighborhood and choice schools in the higher grades. Secondary is is where that movement comes back. And these are the specific schools themselves. That large spike, in the Liberty common numbers is aligned with when they put into the second elementary school campus on, Tafton Horseshoe in 2022, I believe.
And so we track this data to pay attention to where folks moving and and how does that work and where are they. So that's that look. You've got the you've had the data, and we want the data to be in public so everybody has that. We'll come back around for questions, but I'm gonna pause here and say, everything we've looked at previously was factual historical data. What we're gonna look at now is statistical modeling and adjustment based on or sorry. Historical data applied to some statistical modeling. And I do not have a master's or PhD in statistical modeling, but I do
we did provide you some of that background prior to the meeting. It's it's located in the packet, and we will certainly talk about some of the modeling that we do. But let's talk first and ground ourselves in what is the process by which we do projections and why do we do them. So if I may read a little bit, student enrollment projections are forecast that estimate the number of students expected to enroll over a future period, typically one to five years. Projections here are broken down by individual school, by grade level, and aggregated district wide. They're broke they provide a data informed outlook on future enrollment patterns based on historical
trends and local factors. We use a variety of methods and data sources and tools to start that, but some of the ones to mention are, historical enrollment data, which is what we always start with. We look at birth rates, which are on the decline in Northern Colorado and have been for a while, although we did see a blip last year. So our fingers are crossed for kindergarten and four years out, but that's later, not today. And it's a small blip, only about 200, birth. But, anyway, we we won't get into those weeds tonight. But we do look a lot at this data. I want you to know that.
And we do this to help us with planning, ensure that resources, staffing, and facilities align. Specifically, too, the projections report in the packet and included online tonight is what you use to set our student based along with some, financial factors that you've heard, Dave Montoya talk about previously and probably will again as we get into budget season. That's the foundational number that's used for student based budgeting. So it's important for us to end up a number, not a range, because we built some budgets and models around that. Roughly, it takes us it takes us a year to do five years worth of
projections because we're doing a combination of things throughout. So October count, which feels like a day in October, and let me remind you that it's always good to go to school. I know we talked about attendance awareness month, but please come to school every day, not just the October 1. We like it if you come to school all of the days of the school year. I'm gonna say it one more time because even though it's an October count, we want you to come every day. But it takes the state and our schools a couple of months to configure the and compare the October count of enrollments versus kids who say they're in two schools
versus kids who have moved during that time and making sure all that number is good. So once we have those real numbers in December, that's when we start our one year projection analysis. In mid January, we're providing that data to schools for them to say, yep. This makes sense, or no, this doesn't, or, hey. Did you know about because principals telling us things is a really important piece of our projections in the one year. Hey. This family left. That might not mean much at a large high school, but at a mountain school, that could represent 12% of the population of the school. So those things are really important in that early projections conversation.
We look and review at those. And then in February, we distribute those because those are budgetary numbers at that point. We'll be building student based budgets around that. Then we start to look at once we've got the one year sort of tightened down, we start to look ahead and project and forecast into the future. And so usually around the end of the school years when this data is produced, we provided this data to the district at the end of the school year, and we're here tonight talking about it. So, that's a rough time. I bless you. There's a lot of factors that go into that. You saw a few in a previous slide, but we do look at historical enrollment
and trends. There's birth rate data. We look at county and state demographer information. We're looking at Larimer County data around, where where are people born, where are people moving from. We do look at housing growth. Our team our excuse me. Housing growth. Our team is finding a tighter alignment with housing prices and, children in the area than we are housing building right now. The the price house is a pretty good indicator of whether or not a family with young children can afford to move into this area, which is one of the wonderful challenges and problems of choice in Northern Colorado right now.
And then we also look at, other things related to housing and and movement, and water. We continue to pay attention to water, which is an important thing as we all know. And then we do a lot of statistical modeling. And by a lot, this is me saying that our team uses a model called the cohort survival model, which is to take a look historically at how many of our kindergartners are with us in first grade. So we start with a data set and say, and I'm making up this percentage because I do not do this calculation. But, hey. Historically, we know that about 85% of our kindergarteners go to first grade in the
district. So we can apply 85% to last year's kindergarten number, and that's a starting place for what first grade might look like. And we do that up both across the district and the grade levels to do some of that modeling along with the datasets. We look, at that both from a school lens, a grade lens, and a district lens. And we we generate a bunch of numbers. You're only seeing the one number because we're sharing the dataset tonight. That is the one that we use in in the budgeting process. But we, look at a bunch of those numbers to figure out, does it make
sense from each of those lenses? We also are paying attention to school of choice and seed offer data because that's a new piece of fact that we can bring in. Hey. Families are making a new choice. That's a signal. And then we look at that history as well because we have years and years of choice. I was gonna say choice choices, but I think I think it stands. I'm gonna stick with choice choices. We know what choice choices are, and so we use that in the factor too. We do work with our operations and other teams in the district, to to figure out, some of the other pieces of this puzzle too. And then we're paying attention to what are we doing to buildings in the district because that impacts families make choices based on that as well.
As I told you earlier, our five year projections are fuzzier than our one year projection. This is just a a data table that shows you what that looks like. Our accuracy gets better as we get closer. That's I think that's a captain obvious statement, but I I just wanna say it again. A five year projection is not as good as a one year projection in terms of tight accuracy, but historically, they've been pretty good. And I wanna pause here to name that as our our team has has jumped in and been in a lot of community conversations, a question we're asked a lot is, yeah, but where did these numbers come from, and are they any good?
And our team, at my request, put this slide together to articulate the accuracy of their work over the last decade. If you take COVID out, I can say with certainty that they hit it within one percent every year. But because COVID happened, I can't say it. But I am gonna say that if you take COVID out, they're within one percent accuracy over the last decade. Now that's a combination of our team. There's four data analysts on our team, our ops, colleagues. And some of these years, we did use an external partner. I do not have tonight the external versus our team, but I did wanna name.
Our team has worked both internally and externally. I feel pretty good about these numbers and how tight they are. And as I think some of you have have said previously from the dias, we also wanna make sure those are conservative estimates. We want to under project, not over project. Because as we're doing budgeting, if we owe if we miss it high, that's real impact to site budgets, to school budgets, and impact. So we wanna be one to 2% wrong conservatively. Does that make sense? That's better from a budgeting perspective. I could continue.
I have lots more stories about data collection, but I think it would be a good moment questions and ideas you might have. Fantastic. Thank you so much, bud. And does anybody have any questions that when I kick it off with? Kevin, go ahead. I I just I appreciate that, especially the West Wing quote. I I do my, deposition prep position preparation sessions beginning with that question. Oh, nice. I don't want the witness to overshare. I just note that in 2020 to 2021, it looks like the aberration was four
point four three percent. Just wanna let that sit there a little bit longer. But if you took that out, you're If co again, I will name. If you look at every data point that year, that that is the one that I'm giving you a hard pass. Oh, no. It's I'm cool with it. Legit serious question. So in the very beginning of this migration or the the the movement, you talked about 30% of fans don't attend a neighborhood school. I'm trying to find the slide. Yep. It's right here on the screen. So I think we've kind of answered it in a roundabout way, but do we
have any idea of that 30%, how many are choosing out and how many are just choosing in within PSD? Let me be clear. That data represents students who have choice within the district. Those are PSD students and families who have chosen a PSD school. That's just not their neighborhood? Correct. That's what I was gonna ask. Okay. So then the next question is, do we have any understanding of where they're going? We we do. I do have data, prepared for you tonight, but we have a matrix that actually, I think the team finalized earlier today, and I'm looking at Lauren because I think
she got the email. So we can share that data with you tonight. It was finalized earlier this afternoon. It's a matrix that looks annually at, are you, you know, where do you live? Where do you go to school? Or where are you zoned for and where do you go to school? I'll be happy to provide the board that data. That's my first ask. I'd really appreciate if it's not too much burden. The second the second ask is there's a reason I'm gonna ask this, but let me just ask to see if it exists first. Is there any such report that gives a breakdown of a school's total enrollment based on October counts alone, not projections, but I'm just interested in the hard numbers for
October count, that also includes a category or a column for the academic programming offered at that school. That seems pretty simple, but I don't know if it's It is simple. It crosses the data and the system moves into marketing a little bit, but we can provide that information. I'm I'm interested in that based on the conversation we had, earlier, not with you, but with, the enrollment survey. And I'll stop there for now. Okay. If that's available, I mean, I'm but I'm really looking thinking of, like, a cell. Oh, yeah. No. I'm I'm tracking. Right? You you want to take our annual enrollment report and there'd be fields on the
side that say, some of the options at that school. Correct. Yeah. I gotcha. I might even ask to throw into there how many, or what percentage of students, in that school are, neighborhood based versus opted in from PSD boundaries and, outside of PSD boundaries. And I think what we would find is, like, a Bamford, you would probably have a lot of people who have, opted in from outside of PSD boundaries. You'll see that in your email boxes as soon as I can get back to my computer unless doctor Hooten doctor Hooten has beaten you beaten me to it.
Excuse me. I think we just did. And I'm gonna mute that. And then I can pause if you would like to check your email real quick. Okay. Okay. I think just having the information is good. I don't know if it's not gonna No. Affect anything tonight. But a question I do have is, you know, in looking at that that COVID bump that we that we have, where we're a little unsure of what was what was happening at that point, in the world, let alone anywhere else, but do we have that type of question coming up with immigration status?
I know that for a long time, you know, the immigration, status for Colorado was very high, people coming into the state quite a bit, and that was helping with our our student enrollment. And I don't know that we're gonna have that necessarily anymore. When you say immigration status, can you say a little bit more about what you mean? Because I Sorry. I don't mean immigration status. What I mean is people who are coming in, immigrating from Colorado. Sorry. Status was not meant to be whether or not we're tracking or not. That apologies. That's a that's a touchy subject and touchy word.
I I apologize for using that. You're you're talking about migration. And and Thank you. I think the state demographer will talk a lot more about that in December when they're here. I would also I would name in the interim, there are there are both people still moving around and those that those family compositions might be different than they were five to ten years ago. And I would encourage us to be curious, with the state demographer when when she joins us to to talk about there is still movement. That movement looks different than it did, even five and ten years ago. Thank you. I appreciate that, and thank you for checking my language because I I I wanna
make sure that I'm not, using incorrect language. And I I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. Can I just add on just for just for the community to, awareness? We don't track immigration status. That's right. I say it's really important to, reiterate that with our community. Yes. Thank you. And and, again, apologize for the poor word choice there. But migration status was more what I was thinking of migration and out. Who's coming into Colorado? Who's coming in? Who's landing in Northern Colorado? Yep. I I think that's a great demand for Colorado. Exactly. Just to so that we know, because we we've heard that it's different than it
was. So that that's all I'm asking. So, again, please forgive me for the No. No. I I I think that's fine. Yeah. Other questions? Kevin? Can I pose a larger one to the governance team? As I'm thinking about the intersectionality of the last three presentations we've just had, the questions that come to my mind are, and I appreciate the, again, the the comment about five year projections of enrollment and birth rate. There as I'm looking at these issues, there are things that are beyond our control. Right? I you know, we can do everything we can to have people choose PSD.
We can't have any effect on people having more kids in our in our county. Right? We can attract those families that are coming to our district, and we can and I think the the the marketing campaign, John, and with the Choose PSD and what we've talked about is exceptional. And I'm very pleased with the work that you've done, and and I think we're we're having momentum on momentum now. The other thing I think that's interesting and the questions that that that the reason I ask you for those reports and those kind of questions are I really wanna examine the the patterns of families that are choosing also just to see within PSD,
where are they going and why? And are there patterns that track families moving from their neighborhood schools to other schools for the programming that they're offering is is the first thing that comes to mind. We should examine that to be thinking about that and be thinking, well, if we are gonna have a birth rate decline, if we are losing students both in and out, then what can we do within our locus of control as a governance team to keep families within? Right? I think that's a big fundamental question. But I also think we need to start looking at which programs are in neighborhood
schools where people are choosing out of altogether. And again, these are not I'm not making suggestions or any conclusions tonight. I think these are the questions that I'm interested in. Hopefully, some of these numbers will will show some trends if they haven't already. And I don't know if you could speak to those. I can't speak off top of my head to those movement trends. I will tell you we track it every year because we pay attention to it to see how that will impact the site, and our sites work pretty well. I mean, I said this before. I'll say it again. We have a really unfortunate problem in our district in that we have a lot
of good choices. A lot of good choices. And so people make those choices for a variety of reasons. Some of them are related to programming. Some of them are related to geography. Some of them are related for means and ability. To your earlier question, director Spain, about who's participating in these spaces and things, like, movement is is in some ways a choice that is easier for some than others for a variety of reasons. And then I don't think that particular data will show you, but the trends are there. I can, take a look at the matrix. Absolutely. I appreciate that response. I also appreciate the question.
I think another piece of this when we do provide that data set is to professionally interrogate that with the lens of who actually has access for choice. And knowing socioeconomics has a big role to play in those decisions, because we need to be frank about this. Not every family has a choice, even though they do. And we need to name that. Go ahead, Scott. I just had a a quick comment. So I do understand what you're saying about the homeschool and the private school enrollment
not having those trackable students. I'm looking mainly, though I feel like that's a blind spot for us as a district. So I'm looking for just a simple number of and I feel like this should be in, like, census data or something of school age children in our boundaries. What percentage of that are choosing PSD? And what's the trend? I understand the question. I mean, like like, we're getting what do we have? Twenty five five, 25,500 kids last year. Are there 30,000, you know, potential kids in our district?
I I wanna know that number. Like, that's driving me crazy. I I I would refer you back to the comprehensive planning, resources that we shared, in June, I believe. And if you recall, there was a slide, and we'll provide it to the board tonight because it's it's all public data. But, the number of children who live in the area and then the number of children who attend PSD schools in the area. What I what I think you're seeking, and I wish I could give you, and I want it to, are the private schools on the fringe that are drawing children in and out in a way for a variety of reasons.
And that, I'm not sure we can statistically provide to you because the data doesn't exist in a consistent format. But the one thing I would I would counter that is you mentioned that your team actually collects the data as much as you can. When it's provided. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. We have the raw data. It's provided to the state. It's not consistent and it it isn't we have no way to verify the accuracy of it. Okay. I would We we our children in PSD, we know who they are. We know that we have enrollment verifications, and we have that longitudinal tracking.
There is a trust piece to, some of that reporting because the state requirement is actually pretty minimal for a private school. No. It makes sense. I and I'm just saying I I personally and I think the other board members would be curious to see that. We don't need to dive into it if it's not something we can stand behind, but I'm just curious about anecdotal. It's available on the, on the CDU website. It's called non public pupil membership, and it's a it's an annual reporting of spreadsheets. It there's two sort of big pieces of data in it. One is private pre k or or early childhood search that we do have, relationships
with, and the second set is private schools that don't, have a a public school, tracking requirement. Hey, Kevin. Are you down there? I'm sorry. I keep jumping in. There was something that I saw. I was looking at the numbers, and this is the the five year summary projections, the second PDF that's in our packet. I was curious. Again, I'm looking at the 2025 to 2028 five year difference with the red notation being the delta of how many they're projected to lose again? And Can can I can I use a dual language moment as you ask your
question? Yeah. Please. Lose implies that we had them and they don't and they're not here anymore. Some of this is that children aren't here. Like, you can't lose something that wasn't there to begin with. As there are fewer children entering the system, we see declining enrollment. And I I just wanna name that as, like, we we aren't I I I I'm trying not to think we're losing this conversation anymore. Yeah. I I think of it as, well, if we're looking at differences, then the baseline make sense. Yeah. The difference is that that amount is and, again, I I get that it tracks
grade levels that that go on. So so I I think we're saying the same thing, but the the red number denotes fewer students than were there Yes. In five years ago. So let's okay. 100%. So I'm curious because I remember the conversation about doing Some feeder changes to Fossil Ridge that we had. We had great input from our principals and etcetera. But there's I understand why Rocky Mountains, for instance, on the West Side, given some of the trends we're seeing on the West Side and it trickling through in five
years. I get that. I guess, do you or maybe this is a Brian question. I'm sorry I didn't ask this earlier, Brian. Can you explain at least why that projection for Fossil Ridge looks so significant? I'm looking at the 213 delta. Yeah. And if you can't, that's fine. I can Well, I think a I appreciate the question. I'm thinking on my feet just based upon You're fine. And I'm I'm I was just I had a curiosity earlier, and I didn't I couldn't figure it out. A couple of things play a role. And, again, I'm not speaking from a space of expertise right now. But as I look at some of the moves that were impacted by changing Bamford
into the Preston boundary, you look at over five years, Bamford and Preston, while there may be a difference in the negative, they're relatively stable. Right? So I just think that's a noticing. The other part of this story that I have wonderings about is we have, you know, a thousand more seniors than we do kindergarten, first, and second graders as a cohort. And so I would want to know in those students over the next several years, now seeping into our middle schools right now, when those are gonna start to enter into ninth and tenth grade.
So that's a that's a wondering that I have. I'm not saying I'm speaking from a space of fact. That's when it's gonna happen. But I do wonder if that ninth grade cohort, that fossil five years from now is projected to be significantly fewer students than what they're serving right now. I don't know if any staff members want to add context. And, again, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but if there's anybody else that has a perspective on that, I would let you into the conversation. That's a really good question. I do have a perspective. I, you know, when we opened Timnath Middle High School, the projections for Fossil Ridge
were always, pretty severe decline. And so while we did adjust that Bamford cohort, it's a very small cohort. It is it is right now a two track, only approximately 60 kids that would be moving into that potential Fossil Ridge. So that decline is still going to happen as, it was predicted before, and that is that has happened with the result of opening up Timnath Middle High to have that continued decline down as well as just the enrollment changes over the district, in
general. So Thank you, Yael. Other thoughts or questions? Go ahead. So that I'm I'm definitely a numbers guy. Mhmm. I'm I'm gonna bring Missouri back into it and I'm I'm a show me the data kinda guy. Mhmm. I'm I I know I put a long list of questions in because there's so many different pieces of data out there that are really difficult to reconcile in my brain. Yeah. I agree with you. And I'm gonna I'm gonna just point out a few of them.
So first of all, your your five year projection has us going from 25,509 students down to 23,050. That's a almost 2,500 drop, 10%. It's a 7.78% drop. Twenty five five zero nine, school year '24 to school year twenty twenty nine, twenty three zero five o. So that's 2,500 in my break. Okay. Okay. So just Oh, we're cool. That's where I am. Okay? And look at Larimer County growth. 2% per year and accelerating. That doesn't reconcile. I struggle with birth rate, the, fertility rate because we're actually up this year and
so that's great. We had the COVID dip. We're actually, right now, roughly at the level that we were in the mid 1970s. We got up through the February and the 2.1, things like that, which we were right around two point o for the feeder of approximately five year delay to twenty fourteen. And here we are, the feeder number for 2024, if we look at 2019 for the for the class. And I'm just trying to see where these things might line up because in theory, we can target what do births tell us that might help us predict as an
example. So we're going from two point o to 1.71, but we have over ten years, about a 2% difference down, admittedly. That's a much different picture than 10% in five years, as as you would agree. And so I think I look at all this data and, you know, what are the Larimer County fertility rates? I don't know. I don't have that data source. And so, I think that's the type of thing that we can say, this is where we're pulling our data from, and make it public. So that way, when I, as a board member, wanna see how we're where that
data input is coming in and how that, access is what we're looking at, then I'm using the same dataset as you because it probably doesn't match national numbers. That's our statement. No. We get it from Larimer County annually, and I'd be happy to provide that. Right. And that's the whole thing. I mean but see, I I think that's that's, again, part of I think we have a lot of really smart people in this community that would like to see where the data comes from. And you have that cohort model. What does that look like, you know, in terms of the different date horses and things like that? Because that helps us all have understanding so we're all take talking the same thing. The school view numbers clearly don't match.
No. They don't. And that doesn't help. And and that's that's a dataset that's not ours. But it it creates that confusion because there's that difference of 4,000 students enrolled. Wait. How come they have over 29,000 students showing enrolled this year? You know, we're at 25 for for this last year. Are you asking a question? I'm just I'm just stating again about how how I'd love to see us move to a different model of sharing the data that helps build the trust with the community. Are are you following what I'm saying? So that way they can see how we make our calculations. Yes.
Because and and I know some of the other board members talked about, let's make sure we just have all the lines. What is actually the PSD school, PSD charters, PSD charters, estimates on homeschooling, that's fine. Estimates on total number of I mean, again, just so we can see what that looks like, and we're sharing the data as transparently as possible. That feels like that's to our benefit. And, of course, then generating that high line, the low line, and then how we're budgeting because we're gonna be conservative. We need to share that as well. That's that's absolutely great. The modeling side of me says I'd love to see some of the stochastic calculations
behind it, how we let that levels of uncertainty come in that might help. Again, spaghetti model hurricanes, that's testing modeling, those those variable things in there, and we can share those things with the community, potentially, if if it comes up graphically and makes sense. So I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on how we can better share how we're doing our data, getting from which sources, and then walk it through that analysis process because we need to build that trust as we're talking about, hopefully, expansion at
some point. We know that if things are are shifting, well, we may have to expand to school, but that may mean that we're leaving one behind. If there's an area that absolutely is not growing, where's the data to actually share that and be and be open with the community so we have that trust? And we don't surprise them with anything. I I I don't know that we're ever going to get there, which we I mean, at some point, we have to think there's gonna be more schools. We can't add 2% more people every year in Larimer County without thinking we're we're gonna have to add something at some point.
If I can, though, I I think I think part of the problem that we're we're seeing is that we are aging in place. And so while more people are coming, other people are not leaving, people are not dying. That's that's that's that for the data to share, though. So where what what is our K 12 population actually looking like in terms of the rates of growth compared to the other portions of the population? Right. But I think what we have to very much say is that those are different things. Right? The population growth overall in Larimer County is very different than the population growth rate in PSD because we are very specific to an age limit.
Whereas And and we know that our K 12 population grows from k all the way through 12 Right. If you use the same cohort. That's an important piece of data to also be wrapping our brains around because that means, in theory, we need an arbitrarily high number of high schools compared to elementary schools with districts that just have the same size classes all the way through. That's part of that transparency that I'm saying we need to really be engaging in. When you say, Director Spain, if I can ask a clarifying and maybe slightly probing question, when you name that our cohorts are growing through that trajectory kindergarten search, Can
you clarify what you mean by that, please? The data that was shared with me on the steering committee last year showed kindergarten classes starting at a certain number of students. And if you trace it all the way through to when they graduated, there's more students graduating than started in kindergarten. That that's an important piece to understand because I think it's very reasonable to say that it's probably older parents bringing their older students into our district, and they're enrolling as of third grade, seventh grade, whatever it is. That was my story. Yeah. If I could just offer this, I I actually think that's I don't know where
I've seen this, but that was a part of our discussions throughout. Is it adding another layer of comcom complexity? Thank you. I can't speak tonight. Complexity to this whole thing, the dynamic is multiple things can be true at the same time. We can have declining birth rates across the nation and in Larimer County, and yet we still have a higher percentage of migratory, you know, transitory behavior up from Denver or other places, and and then when does that happen? And to you, I think you said the point arbitrarily, but I I do think there is a a pull for Larimer County in general, has been historically, to to
pull families that have older kids. And so I think both of those things can be true at the same time, which is also why I go back to our Choose PSD campaign. I think they're looking at the data, and, hopefully, we're looking at some of these trends too and and determining what we can capture and what we're trying to bring in. I I don't wanna but I think that's what I was trying to suggest earlier too. But to director Spain's point, where does this all live? Connor, go ahead. So just for clarification, all of these questions are being tackled within the comprehensive planning committee. We've had three sessions on numbers already.
Our full three sessions have been dedicated to this. We will get to one version of the truth. There will be one version of the truth because I share in your consternation about having a very intelligent community bring in numbers from different data sets, different locations, whether they be CDE or they're not October count number. We have people who can put things together. We will have one version of the truth because we're going to work off of that playbook. That time frame that time frame on that is three to five years.
Yeah. And I agree. A solid consistent set, going back deep on what you're talking about, high performing schools, we need to have consistency. Our data has to be consistent, and we need to be comfortable with it. I absolutely agree that it's gonna take time. And I and and, again, we get lots of data points that school districts are dealing with the same things that we are nationally when you're talking about birth rates. Yep. Weld County R E 6 has increasing enrollment. Okay. So they have a different situation. Absolutely. That county has a higher rate of growth than Larimer County. We know that. So it probably it probably describes it. Right?
It's just wrapping our brains around those things, which the committee is already doing, which I absolutely that's fabulous to hear. I'm very glad to hear that because they're the ones that really should be doing it. And it involves the community in identifying this is the dataset you're gonna see. So that's that actually right there probably answers most of my questions in terms of process, and we wait for the outcome. And and and I can throw things Connor's way and say, have we thought about I'm sure other people will too, but they're getting it from lots of people already. And that's the place where it probably you know, again, you've got a community, key members within the district looking at all data and that's what we really need to
be wrapping our brains around so we have that consistent message that shows this is how we pull the data, how we got past the noise. Because I I it one could argue that some of the things I'm bringing tonight are noise, but there are things that are out there. Right? And that create infusion, especially when people are concerned with you know, it's been brought up since the consolidation. We may have to consider closing schools. That makes people really nervous when they see negative 10%. I'm I I mean, that I don't I'm not sure I I can agree with those numbers because I can't reconcile them in my brain without really good explanations.
And that's what the community deserves, I think. Yeah. And that's what will be, presented from that committee. And we the timeline for having those numbers, publicly available, do we have an idea? Well, what what you're looking in the packet here is the stuff that we've been working on. Actually, this is the second time that I've heard this presentation from Bud and the data analysts in there. It went into a little more depth. My conservative estimate on that would be to really get that playbook where we work through the noise by the end of this school year.
Right? And then we can start, you know, not only providing transparency, but I think more important for the community, more visibility to let everybody know in stark terms, these are the data sets that we're using to make decisions. Great. Thank you. Anything else? Alright. Oh, wait. Jess has a question. I wasn't going to, but I have to wait. The CDE numbers come up all the time and it I on the one hand, I appreciate that the CDE but it's collecting all of the children.
And when we're talking about our enrollment data for PSD, we're talking kindergarten to twelfth. And the CDE come with pre k numbers, which is an entirely different funding source. They come with our charter schools, which we've already dispersed within our numbers and how we're tracking our values. So a sense. Thank you. Yes. So while I appreciate like, the CDE number is a great number just to know and but we need to contextualize it every time we say it. Because otherwise, we're giving credence to something that doesn't quite tell the story that we're trying to get at when we talk about enrollment.
And and, Avatira, even that's probably part of what we need to share because on the CDE website, it doesn't really clearly list it. And so you you're left with the impression, they're saying this was in PSD and it doesn't have the clarity that we might like, creating some of that noise. Plugged in within our locus of control, looking at migratory patterns inside our own district to see if if that is a core tenant of what people are saying that they need in their PSC schools is strong academics or strong this, which is I mean, that could be anywhere in The United States, but that is a core tenet.
And we're listening to that data of the 1,600 or so that responded, then we need to analyze what that means in our own footprint. So I'm I I I don't wanna be shrill about this, but I do think we need to start examining instead of just letting the forces that be carry us to decision two or three years once we get to a truth. There are things there are levers that we can press internally if we scrutinize and we examine them with our locus of control. And having conversations with our community is something I'm way more interested in than just trying to keep people coming up from Denver and and coming to our schools. I'll do that too, but that's a conversation I think we should be having, and
I'll just leave it there. Perhaps that's a conversation we can have on September 18 at our engagement sessions. There you go. That for a wrap up. Thank you for that. And with that, it is 08:05PM on, 09/09/2025, and we are adjourned. Have a wonderful night.