e e e e e e e e e e e
good good evening I called us good evening I call this meeting to order at 6:16 PM welcome back everybody to our first school board meeting of the 2425 school year tonight we have present
directors titler defres after director Ramirez is joining us on zoom and myself meaning we have a quorum thank you to our interpreter ashd would you please share the interpretation instructions with our participants and then we can turn on the interpretation function
the first business in order is the approval of the agenda directors are there any proposed changes to the agenda seeing none do I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented I move that we approve the agenda as presented is there a
second I second all in favor say I hi hi motion passes you've just approved the agenda as presented our next agenda item is our opening celebrations and updates by our superintendent Dr Anna Cole good evening well welcome back to the 2425
school year welcome to the 2425 school year I think that the um in terms of celebrations one of the things we're really excited to launch is our our next fiveyear strategic plan so um if you all remember the priorities will really be leaning into are around students first
rigorous instruction for all operational excellence student centered Partnerships and a thriving team so we'll we'll start to provide a regular Cadence of updates for the community for board members in the coming months um and that works kind of settling in and taking shape and we're really excited to to be really
aligning our work to those priorities and then um making sure that we're holding ourselves accountable with the metrics that we've developed through through the the um the buildout of the Strategic plan uh new face on our senior leadership team we're delighted to welcome Christy Shakin as our new Chief
Financial Officer um christe most recently worked at the town of Carbondale and the town of Basalt but served um what we were really interested in as well was her service to Garfield re2 School District as CFO for over 17 years uh Chief Shakin brings a wealth of experience and commitment to public
service and this particular office uh her priority right now our priority right now in terms of finances is to make sure that she has the time to familiarize herself with existing systems and structures and then we can really lean in to really align the work with that strategic priority of
operational Excellence to increase transparency accuracy and accessibility of financial information for our stakeholders so really delighted to welcome Christie here and you'll get you'll get to know her more in the coming weeks and months um also celebrating that schools are back in
session and we're we know that folks are working through their routines kids and staff and families um and working through strengthening their immune systems um that's definitely a part of the work right now really want to welcome new school leaders this year Lindsey henchel as new principal at Roy
Fork High School Jamie hosac principal at Basalt Middle School Eric Olen uh principal at Glenwood Springs Middle School and Scott Anderson assistant principal at Glen Springs Middle School Laura Smith and Courtney Wrangle are also interim leaders at gscs this year so really grateful and delighted to
welcome all those new leaders um we also have as as you all know this year we are also celebrating that with the learning acceleration plan that came out of Co a few years ago that work was scaffolded and rolled out over a series of years and so 24 25 school year marks where we
have um staffed deans of culture at all of our middle schools and high schools and so we're delighted to welcome back returning Deans and some of our new Deans to that work at the middle schools and high schools our staff have shared that is always the first few weeks of school are a lot um in terms of energy
stamina and of course your immune system and takes the toll but but generally speaking folks are reporting that this has felt like a really strong and stable solid start so really kudos to assistant superintendent um Park and her team in terms of supporting and really prepping
schools and leaders and staff for a really strong start to school uh we are already in right into the routine and Cadence as you all know with our our commitment to Labor Relations we had new H policies last year we've started a formal um
classified IBB process we've tightened our processes around administrative IBB and our certified IBB process now has a Labor Relations Committee that meets monthly as do admin and um classified IBB all of those monthly teams have met already uh at the start of the school
the first meetings the intent was really to align on process calendars Focus areas I've been really impressed at the productiveness of these teams uh folks are really coming together with a problem solving spirit and a commitment right all these Representatives who are serving on these committees are doing it
in addition to their other role in the district so really excited to be launching that work um with routines and consistency in terms of Labor Relations um a couple of other celebrations in terms of operational excellence which we really have our eyes on and will for the next five years I
want to celebrate the the our HR and our finance teams uh Chief Shakin was part of this uh Chief Platt has been part of this that our summer payroll kind of July and August are massive because we have a lot of new folks and new
contracts and new salary schedules um and the teams this year had a 50% reduction in errors over last year and so really showing what continuity and continuous Improvement is doing so huge kudos to those teams that worked really hard um to decrease errors in payroll and know that's can kind of seem kind of
boring sometimes but it really matters that we are paying people correctly um we also had a huge lift in terms of operations that we moved a key financial system um called infinite visions that our schools use at all our departments used to manage budgets we moved that to
the cloud it was a massive kind of upgrade process and we got through it um with definitely some hicups but grateful for the teamwork flexibility and collaboration of all those teams especially um the problem solving work from our Tech Team we are there's a lot
of celebrations y'all it's just exciting time of year um we are delighted to um have to realize something that's been in the works for over two years which was bringing together the growing years preschool in the B elementary school early childhood programs um and under
the leadership of Adele Melnick and Liliana omo the staff of both of those teams coming together the kids and the parents who are learning new systems um they've had a really quiet launch it's been strong it's been solid and I think we can be really proud as the Roaring
Fork schools that um we're supporting now the largest early childhood education center in the valley and the one that truly reflects the linguistic cultural and socio economic diversity of our community and our district um that is really big work it's been phenomenal
from everyone involved so lots of Celebration there and importantly a big thanks um to Eric Willis and the facilities team you know part of that that transformation was really to make sure we had upgrades in terms of our usage of space and security and safety
improvements and the new um Eric Willis led a redesign of the entrance security to the red brick building and the security system systems that are much more dialed in um very comprehensive and really I think reflect the levels of um
of our commitment to Safety and Security for our littlest uh Learners so lots of thanks to Eric Willis and his team we are going to kick off so parents I know there's a lot of of family members and stakeholders here tonight and and tuning in and listening want you to mark your calendar for September 10th that is the
night that we will be kicking off two of our key District um Family Partnership family engagement committees and advisory councils so on December 10th our district accountability committee will be meeting at 6 PM um those meetings are always open to everyone to join and learn about the district
accountability committee that same night at 5:30 our family advisory Council that um is meeting at 5:30 also here in this building so keep an eye on the community newsletter that's coming out next week with more information about those meetings and how to connect um September
10th lots of accountability and family councils so that night will be a great kickoff for that work this year um want to also celebrate uh Amalia sparhawk who is an 11th grader at Roaring Fork High School she um this is
I don't this is really new to us I think it's new to the region she's been selected to represent Senate District 5 on the Colorado youth advisory Council so she will be I think it's a two-year commitment a two-year term that that Molly is going to be serving um as part of a team of student Representatives
across the state who regularly report to the state legislature and it's really exciting that we have somebody from the Roaring Fork School District representing the Senate District and engaging at those levels so um you will all get to meet uh Molly she's going to join our board directors Glennwood
Springs Elementary School students Glenwood Springs High School students for Monday September 9th when the Colorado Association of school board hosts their legislative bus tour so Molly and some other leaders um student leaders from ring Park High School uh some of our um students from Glenwood
Springs High School will be will be working with the the legislators who are here for that school tour for members of the community you'll hear more about the legislative um bus tour that the Colorado Association of school board is hosting they're coming to the Roaring Fork schools we're really excited to um
help have the legislators and their AIDS get to connect with our students with our staff um throughout that day that'll start at gses and end here at the district office so more information about that will be released here in the next week or so um and it'll be a great chance for some of our students get to
connect finally want to celebrate and really lay the foundation um for the work that the board's doing around policy so last year the board with support from families from students um
from our Equity advisory Council developed and passed the first Equity diversity inclusion and anti-racism policy and regulation for the Roaring for schools that was an achievement and accomplishment that we were really proud of in itself last year um but what I want to report to all of you on and
celebrate for our entire Community is that part of that policy and regulation requires annual training related to the policy and so once that was passed the equity steering committee which is made up of Staff developed a training that we
call the ADB close read um training and at the leadership uh kickoff in Late July the equity steering committee provided that training for all of our department heads School leaders and then the expectation has been that those department heads and school leaders will take that training to their staff and
their teams and complete it before Thanksgiving the majority of our schools and departments have done that work um and it's been an incredible opportunity for us to establish common language common understanding common um awareness of the expectations that the board has
for the district um in terms of Meeting those commitments and it really I think shows the power and impact of very thoughtful collaborative work developing policies um and the impacts that that has moving forward as we go to implement those so I know we have a lot of
policies on the agenda tonight and we'll have a lot more this year um but want to start with that celebration because this is really meaningful powerful work so that's a long list thanks thank you for that the next business in order is a superintendent presentation from Anna Cole and chief
Park that will provide updates on our equity it student fees and student attendance okay so for night tonight's um superintendent report we have a couple of quick hits and then some time for discussion uh one of the initiatives
connected to our strategic plan and also a resolution that the board passed last year was and also tied to ad policy ADB was the um directive for the district to complete an equity audit that would be conducted by an external independent
auditor on a fiveyear cycle prior to the development of the Strategic plan as you all remember that um commitment that we wrote Into the policy was um meant that because we hadn't done it before the development of our new strategic plan we
we would have to kind of wait another four years to do that work so the board passed a resolution directing leadership to schedule an equity audit out of cycle that would happen this year so want to update and then in that resolution the board highlighted four areas that would
be focused on in that Equity audit so we have we issued an RFP early last spring worked through an evaluation process with um the proposals that we received we've made the decision to move forward and have a non nonprofit organization
and independent auditor uh promise 54 be the partner to conduct that external Equity audit for us as a district um there's links you can learn more about promise 54 this work will kick off in about two weeks we're targeting a December 20th completion date for the audit that will culminate in a
presentation to the board and the community um by promise 54 we will hear a lot more as this once this work kicks off we'll hear a lot more about stakeholder input sessions interview opportunities because a lot of this work and the auditing will have um
very um lots of opportunities for community and stakeholder input so that's all coming one of the the components that I want to make sure that the board is aware of that our community is aware of is that the resolution identified four Focus areas in the work that we did with um potential Partners
it became really clear pretty much across the board that one of those components that was really focused on student achieve achievement and programming to support emerging bilingual students really felt outside the scope of the vast majority of folks who responded to our RFP and they felt like you know
we're we're really good at addressing these other areas of Staff diversity Recruitment and Retention Equitable allocation of resources policy regulations but this piece they really felt was outside their scope and the recommendation we heard again and again was that if you're interested in that you should look at a program review um
and doing a comprehensive programming review so want to let board directors know and our community know that we are going to take that recommendation and we will turn that push to have an external audit um and we'll turn that into a
formal CDE program review um if in our midyear amended budget we can identify that we have funding to get that work started in 2425 great if not we'll bake that into the 2526 budget for completion although we can certainly move forward on rfps and and kind of contract setup
this spring for that work so just want to let everybody know that that's kind of where we're at on the equity audit I think what we are really looking forward to and one of the pieces that promise 54 brings is Incredible strength in terms of talent work and so they are considered some of the the foremost
experts around staff diversity Recruitment and Retention in the public sector and for schools um they were absolutely the strongest in their expertise in this area and because of the needs I think that we've really identified in our strategic plan a lot
that we've heard from stakeholders about the importance of um recruiting and retaining a staff that reflects the diversity of our students um this felt like a really great match with promise 54 so really looking forward to working with them um and doing this
work okay another update that I think is important for our schools and Community is the roll out of the school fee parameters that the board has approved as you all know um based on board policy the board has to approve every fee that's that's um that we issue to kids
and families or to families and so the board re revised um and updated the school fee parameter document and approved it last spring uh for the second year in a row if you all remember that the the new revised School fee parameters were really designed to
improve Clarity consistency transparency equity and and really help us move closer towards fair and appropriate fun uh program funding and some of the technical components meant that we were moving towards a flat materials activities and program fees for our
schools um that we were going to develop a consistent um fee waiver process for families who were what we would who are living below or or whose income is below the federal poverty the established federal poverty level that used to be
called kind of f frl free and reduced launch eligibility now it's determined through a new form that we call the feds form or through direct certification that's connected to Medicaid and tanip and Wick programs so the School fee parameter implementation kind of we have a
timeline of how that work happened um the initial the initial approval by the board was in the spring of 2023 last year we had only partial implementation of the plan the board reapproved it in the spring and in the summer we had a lot of shifts so the new feds form was
released we were also all name we were inconsistent in our school-based Communications at the end of the school year the district released some Communications over the summer and so and there was a lot of processes kind of technical internal external that needed to be ironed out
over the last couple weeks um in terms of communications with families where we are moving forward with this is we're we're back where where we needed to be in terms of 100% implementation of the plan across our schools in terms of that goal and that was related to consistency
across the district we didn't quite achieve it we still have variation in the high school fees that are being issued um and where we're really trying to head toward with this work is trying to explore how we can as a district allocate funding to our schools that
ensures that kids and every classroom have the materials that they need um have the supplies that they need and that our schools have appropriate discretionary budgets to do the activities and field trips that that fit their program model and we're trying to
really you know in a lot of ways our schools have used school school fees to do this um and we would like to to move back and move away from that and to instead of being able to do these things and have materials because of the contributions of our families to better
allocate resources to our schools to get away from that so that is something that we will be looking at as we move into budget options in 25 26 26 27 to see if we can use this more consens consistent allocation to get out of the school fee business entirely um is where we're
trying to go so a couple of key takeaways from the roll out of the school fee parameters you know I think before the school fee parameters what we saw was that allowing the schools to kind of do pretty much whatever they wanted within some boundaries around
school fees led to real inconsistencies across the district in terms of what we were doing and it also created deeply held I think we underestimated How Deeply held the cultural practices were in our schools and communities around fees and I think another big takeaway
from this work is that when we shifted to the standardized system it took a lot more training and planning than we anticipated two years in a row I would say we under underestimated really truly how much training and planning and communication this would take um another thing that we
learned is that that reiterated that communication with our stakeholders especially around this required and didn't always get consistency alignment and use of appropriate channels so initial some of the initial information that was pushed out about this from the
district um came came from social media which is not a key line of communication for us um it's a nice form of communication to celebrate some things but it is not a central um Communication channel for us that was a big Miss um
and so we made a lot of mistakes through the rollout of this and it's it's really challenged us to tighten our communication and how we think about these sorts of systems overhauls um I will say one of the benefits of the new school fee
parameters and the challenges that we have faced is it's really forcing us all to look at in question I think a cultural practice that again was very different from school to school around school fees and it's forced a lot of us to ask I would say School leaders and
parents and families we're having really important conversations about why are we in the business of this what is this funding actually funding is that core programming or not um what what do we really need what is Our obligation what is considered materials especially as we
move into a very digital world um what does it mean to have an equitable funding system and how do we really partner with families when it comes to to systems change and so there are really I think valuable conversations happening through some of
the um the the Tangled Up mistakes and missteps that we've made in this work and I think another takeaway is that there's still a lot of work that we have to do around Equitable allocation of resources especially at the high school level when we're looking at our high schools and their budgets and the fact
that some of our that you know our largest High School Glenwood Springs High School can can do the work they they want to do with less Reliance on school fees than what basal and Fork can do to us that raises a lot of questions about how we're funding and allocating
resources to our schools and addressing economies of scale um and how we're aligning on practices so lots of work to do here lots of good learning um we're still trying to iron out pieces um around some of the these missteps but just wanted to kind of give you a
followup on where that where that is currently okay student attendance evening um I'm excited to give an update on student attendance it's everyone's favorite topic next to school fees I think um but uh I first want to share um just our approach as a
district as we think about student attendance and so first we've talked about this before attendance really matters um and time in class really matters for student achievement if the students are not there then they are not able to partip in the learning for safety too students and fam or for schools and families we need to know
where their child is and that they're accounted for and um during the school day and then just having just some alignment around absence so if parents are aware of the absence and the school needs to know why um for a number of reasons including tracking tracking illness any state reporting planning for
extended absences or access to resources and then finally I'm going to talk a little bit more about chronic absenteeism and one of the the key approach that we take um around attendance and absent ism is a commitment to learning about the root cause of a of absences and providing differentiated supports to families as
they need them um generally our practice is to I'll talk about this in a second but our practice is to recognize positive attendance and celebrate it and when a student is absent we leave with curiosity to find out more uh and offer support and determine how the student will access learning you might remember
that we established an attendance plan to better Implement board policy JH also to ensure that we have more accurate data and ensure that we do engage in a root cause analysis um and establish targeted supports here on slides on this slide you can see the average daily attendance
rate for the past seven years um including this past year so it ranges between little over 90% to 93.3% and uh which gives us an average of 91.9% over the past seven years we're much closer if you look on the rightand column at
92% for 23 24 to our pre-pandemic um uh rate it's not yet to our goal which is 96% average daily attendance so we're still working on that one thing I did want to show um and show this again and you've seen this is
the year-over-year comparison by month um for our average daily attendance so over the past uh in 2223 our average da tendance was 90.9% and we ended 2324 with a 92% average daily attendance which I always say 1.1 percentage Point
did might not see like a lot but it's actually pretty significant and I'll talk about why that is um but for every month with the exception of September and January um our attendance for that month compared to the previous year was higher you might recall January 18th I think it was we had a delayed start
which actually and we had a lot of absences and that pretty significantly impacted our attendance um but a big celebration is that you can see the uh year-over-year by month improve a lot and that's again due to the really uh strong and concentrated work by our
front office Specialists or School leaders or teachers who checked in on on students or family Leons Who provided supports um and just wrapping around and everyone just understanding that importance there I want to talk about some key terms that might be helpful to understand these are used by the state
and I'll talk a little bit about our uh District data for 2223 and 2324 compared to the state um you can as a district we have a um higher attendance rate than the state average so have
92% uh average daily attendance rate versus the state which is 91.5 and that attendance rate is calculated by the total days attended divided by the total possible days for each student so if you're a parent and you know that we have a 172 uh day student contact days and you
can calculate that as well but I have some numbers here um uh once a day is missed also we can't make it up right we have a finite number of days we're not going to add days at the end of the year and so um one day absent is 99% 3 days
is 98% and so on and so forth so a 96% average daily attendance is missing only six days of school and I don't want anyone to take that to say great I have six days to play with but just an under because I know kids get sick and things like that but six days ends up being
96% if you look here at the um it's both the celebration and a continued push at the chronically absent rate the chronically absent rate uh refers to the number of students who Miss 90% or more of days enrolled in the school year and
so in 2223 as a district we had 33.9% of our students who had 90% or less average daily attendance and the state average was 31.1% sorry not average the state percentage and in 2324 we reduced that to 26.8% of students having 90% or less
attendance which is still high if we are now lower than the state which is good but that's still a push for us um and that means like 90 90% attendance means that that student has missed 17 days of school which is three and a half School
weeks uh that's an entire math unit or reading unit literacy unit and so um it's pretty significant um our treny rate which is students who have four unexcused absent days in one month or 10 or more
unexcused absences in a year it's significantly higher than the state a .1% so we've reduced One Rate which is a chronically upser rate but our treny rate is still high is higher than in um the previous year so that's something that we're continuing to work on um so in short attendance is still
very much uh a focus this year as you know our goal that we had set was ambitious at 96% we're still holding that as our goal even though we are at 92% we are higher than last year and we're continuing to push so we can get closer to that 96% um we'll continue to communicate
expectations and value of regular School attendance we'll celebrate positive student attendance just some education even just hearing the numbers like oh six days that's that's what it is um sometimes really helpful um then we'll continue to monitor intervene leave with curiosity and make sure that we have
appropriate supports for families thank you I don't know if there's a Q&A okay it's time for questions so we'll now go around and each board member will we have two minutes to ask questions um and we'll start with director
Dees um just going back do Dr Cole to the discussion around school funding um through the lens of Equitable resources right and the definition of equity that we support in the district too um I'm interested how do you see that with
other fundraising efforts within each school so school fees being implied mandatory I suppose and fundraising is comp purely voluntary but often used to support projects and activities that are important to those unique communities that each school is in the center of so
I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that that's a that's a great question and I will also defer to Chief Park on this one as well you know I I think at the end of the day we have an obligation to provide a free and appropriate public education and we the way the roar Fork
schools is set up is that we provide um some autonomy in the the program model that our schools Iden like choose dual language um Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound those programs sometimes
have different costs and the in you know the interest of that school community in terms of what they want to do in those programming decisions have some um definitely have some restraints based on how much funding we allocate to them in terms of what they
what what's possible and what they can do um and you're right that they are a lot of our schools do rely on quite a bit of fundraising I I find that that's hard right that I mean somebody's got to plan that that's time that that administrators are not working on student growth and achievement and
supporting great teaching that's time that teachers aren't working um doing the job that we've hired them to do because their eyes are on on fundraising and other projects and there is incredible I think we've seen and our schools have done a really good job trying to to identify fundraisers that
also have the added benefit of community building and bringing people together um but I think it's a it's it's an odd um tension between funding schools equitably and
appropriately um and also allowing you know some wiggle room for schools that want to go out and do other things and be creative or Innovative uh and our schools definitely rely on fundraising and our education foundations and other grantors to do some of this creative
work and I think some of the the challenges that we're grappling with is um what is core programming and how how do we Define what is essential to a programming what is nice to have um and then what is really helping to drive us
towards the goals and initiatives that we've named as a district and as a community are most important um and so I'm grateful again that a lot of this work on on school fees is forcing us to have some of these conversations about why are we doing this and to what end
and what is what is the cost in terms of both um Financial Resources but also human human resources of time and energy um and expertise I don't know if je Park there's anything else you add yeah I just I feel like it is it is
a difficult line to walk but that it is I think it's critical to make sure that fundraising activities increased Community interests and parent buyin and and the ability of like I said we are not all the same communi as Glenn went to carative assault there there is different culture there is different
interests and activities um I think we need to make sure that whatever we're doing to support Equitable core programming doesn't prevent creative involvement from our stakeholders and
families yeah thank you director titler thank you for your presentation on the equity audit and information about the RFB and I understand the reasoning behind and I think it's
important that if we weren't getting companies who were given back and areas in which they're able to help us with um a CDE program review that we take that away but I feel like we need to get that
done this year and not put it off until next year and I don't feel comfortable at all waiting another year to do that I think if budget's a problem then we need to get creative with the budget and figure out a way we have contingency money from Meadowwood that we're talking
about waiting until we get some kind of program review happening for housing that we have the money there if we needed to get the money but I don't think money needs to be a reason for us to say we're not doing this review now it's a is struggling and something that we
cannot wait on and we need to get that done now and so I hope we hear back that yes that can be done now and if not then I think our job will be as a board or I would hope I would have the support that our job would be as a board that we ask
that yes this gets done now so I appreciate it being taken off for the reason that it is but I feel very uncomfortable waiting to have that done um yeah thank you director
after great thanks I second what director Tyler said about this CDE um line item in that Equity audit that seemed like a big uh potential outcome of the audit so I was surprised to see that taken out
um on the school fees I'm still confused even though I know I voted to P to pass last year is are schools asking now that we've paid the fees and we have this flat fee structure what is a parent supposed to do when a school says hey we
need 50 bucks for your kids to go on a field trip which happened to me this week are we supposed to pay those so the way that the school fee parameters are set up is that those fees that $90 fee should cover $90 for Elementary Middle
School 180 for high school should cover any sort of materials supplies consumables and activities um some of our schools budgeting has had some of those costs like a big for example there's some
schools that have very like a big trip yeah at the culminating year that is currently not been budgeted for in this model right in theory let's say you have um a fifth grade trip at the end of elementary school that's going to cost a
lot of money and the the way this should work because then that Kinder class starts building that towards so that that n because the way the board wrote it it can't go over 90 and if we have a big field trip planned then we would make sure that that class of 2025 started building that field trip plan
early um not all our schools are there yet and so I do think there's still this gray wiggle room in terms of of how those are working this year and probably for the next couple years as we have schools that have these commitments to pretty significant um
field trips or activities that are beyond what that combination of you know the activities and supplies covers and so I I think that in the spirit of where we're headed we're trying to get to a point where those kind of additional
fees for significant trips or Big Adventures um would be baked in and planned for but I think as we transition to this flat fee structure it's going to require schools to do a different type of budgeting to build up to that um and so I do know that there's some areas
where we're still seeing a little bit of that um and I would encourage families to that are that are concerned about that that that is going to become a burden to definitely check in with their school um because there always still needs to be processed processes to
scholarship but I think that for a lot of schools that have these very um kind of traditions of large Expeditions um this the school fee parameters is not giving them quite the on ramp to build up to that yeah okay
got it that makes sense thanks um I had a similar question to what Dr director de said um so about fundraising it it I guess or a comment it definitely feels like fundraising is part of a culture of
a lot of the schools as is um classroom specific fundraising and can't think of the name of the platform that donors choose um as is the uh sense that the schools themselves don't have enough
resources and yet I've heard before in finance committee and other conversations that in fact the schools often in the year with balances and so do you know yet and or or when will we know which schools have money left over
from last year or does that zero out and if so I just think that's a good thing for the community to be aware of because we've created this culture around fundraising and um uh constantly having to go without and teachers are paying for things out of
their own um out of their own pocket and I think this is all part of this conversation around school fees and it would be clear it would be good for the community to understand you know is the district supporting schools or are we asking schools to do all this fundraising and then the schools go ask
the communities to do to do to do fundraising on their behalf um it feels like there's quite a bit of a mismatch between reality and perception I I agree wholeheartedly and think that a lot of our goals this year
in the Strategic plan and some of the work we even started last year around school resource allocation a focus area of our Equity audit is really around how are we being clear more clear more transparent about that in terms of what the schools carry yes their their
activity funds um which kind of operate outside of the general fund um and that's where fun raising dollars come in that does carry over and we've really pushed you know with the board's Direction over the last couple years to saying to schools like the intent of that fundraising the intent of that
money was to serve the kids that year um and we did have some pretty large balances um I don't remember specifically where the number of what was being carried over in the activity funds was in the budget but I'm pretty sure it was there um I can follow up with you on that I would say that in a
lot of ways um one of the Avenues for and again we have a lot of work to do on just better telling this story of how we allocate resources to our schools and I think we have a lot of grappling to do with as director de fr's brought up and you're bringing up um what's the role of
fundraising and are we are we properly funding our schools to to provide a free and appropriate public education along with the program that they've adopted that we've you know in theory approved because of certain standards um and I also think that there is is an
accountability component that families absolutely could and should be looking at as part of their school accountability committees the role of those committees is to look very deliberately at those School budgets at those activity fees and to help provide input to school leaders on what those
activity fees should be used for and I would say you know a school a a school accountability committee is only as good as the folks who show up and ask good questions we have some amazing folks and we have some some um you know we call them sacks we have some School accountability committees that are
incredibly um I would say experienced informed and working in a really collaborative relationship with their principle around those activity funds in some cases really making strong recommendations on where those go um and so I would definitely encourage families to get involved at that level our school
leaders are um looking for that kind of collaboration and input um and accountability at the school level and then I think our challenge especially as as um I see as our senior leadership and um some of the goals we have around
transparency and finances H is how to better bring you budgets and and transparency around this because those questions you're asking like I don't have immediate answers to than director Ramirez need to turn off
mics ready for me all right good evening everyone I apologize for not being able to be in person uh thank you to the team for making that possible for me to join online um first and foremost thank you
um to Chief Park and superintendent Cole for the accountability from the get-go on the roll out of um our school fees I think that was something that was very important that this board stressed that we wanted to
make sure was easy and successful and um I think there were a lot of growing pains but I really appreciate that we were able to learn from it um because I think that really does matter that we learn from every
opportunity we can to do better next time so I appreciate that first and foremost um I also just want to Echo the sentiments from um director titler I understand um that this something that
in conversation with uh promise 54 and other or uh companies that it this wasn't something that they felt could be in their scope um but I do understand um the need for it as well as a director and as um someone who's been part of
this conversation and so I just want to make sure that we keep this top of mind and that we don't lose sight of what a true Equity audit would look like in our school district when we are a 60% Latino majority School District um I
also just wanted to mention student fees I mean um you know I I hear the conversation on fundraising um I I do want to say that I think that fundraising has looked very differently within all of the schools as
we've all acknowledged but it's also felt very differently for families and I understand our want to make make that um conversation around how schools fundraise and you know how what that looks like what that feels like for
families and I would push us and finance committee to really go over those numbers of um each school and what their balance was because I do think that we've we've stated this before that we hear two
different stories we hear obviously that you know staff is um using their own funds to pay for pencils and then we you know we're hearing this other story from our district that actually the school
has uh extra money in their account so I think you know in the spirit of accountability it's really important for us to pursue that to really understand what that budgeting looks like for each school and also where that line item Falls within our
budget and also the fact fact that we we I think we've all recognized that not every school has a sack that is not only inclusive but um that is representative of the demographics so I think that's a conversation we need to have continue to
have as well um thank you thank you director Ramirez um I also would Echo director Tyler's position I think that this is a critical this was a critical piece of the equity audit and I'd like to see it done sooner than L than later within the
constraints given so um I don't think that's a surprise coming from this board but just to to Echo that um my only question is about student attendance and how we communicated this again this year with school leaders specifically around
differentiating between excused and unexcused absences because that's often what we hear about as a board um and what kind of guidance was given either to front office staff or leaders or whoever it might have been about how to
classify absences yep yep I can answer that so we directed folks back to policy JH we pulled out those reasons and then actually gave explicit examples and talk through where in the past right it was Loosely implemented not as tightly implemented and so um just having some
just understanding there to and so it's reiterating all year and continue to it this year those those same pieces in terms of coding excuse and unexcused was that done with leaders or front office staff or was all of them okay awesome thank
you that's all I had so we have five minutes of open board discussion if anyone has anything else to add I think just piggybacking off what you were saying director kenberg I know at least at Carbono Middle School it tricked down to the teachers and in
their orientations with parents there was a handout to talk about excused and unexcused absences so I know at least the process was in place to make it down to the parents and the students so and then I would like to ask just a
follow-up question about the um CDE program review if there were money available what would you imagine a timeline or where do you stand in the process for how you would be able to Implement next steps in that
process yes and you can I we'd write up a new request for proposals and we build out more detail specifically that component for CDE we'd post it and probably reach out if we have if we know of organizations um that run them um
we'd have to I guess we I mean we've G we've done a couple ways where we said this is the max of our budget or we've asked groups to propose what they proposing alignment with the RFP and see what the cost is do interviews determine what's the best fit so that could be
something that could get rolling quickly with developing the RP probably it is it is a longer process to find the right person and then um I think the budget budget is a big thing I mean this could range 30 to $100,000 so depending on service or the organization or the
parameters of the RFP and I would also name I think uh money is absolutely part of it I think another piece is is the human capacity in terms of like writing rfps evaluating rfps um Chief Park is supporting a sped
program review that was part of our budget and part of our um our work that's that's working that's kicking off this fall um the you know the the equity audit work I am the point person for that we don't have a robust staff and so
you know those weekly meetings with promise 54 for organizing Community input sessions that's my work that's going to be Chief Park's work like we don't have it the data dashboard's also a big piece of kind of some of these additional initiatives that at least the two of us are driving right now um so
part of it is trying to time right like that if we can get that Equity audit done by December awesome then I should have some bandwidth to try you know to support you know our CLD department to get that program review out so there's I think it's balancing both of those and how many of these can we run efficiently
effectively and and frankly with um the appropriate time invested in community input like we know that Community input for especially those three an equity audit a special education program review a CDE program
review th that those programs are lived and experienced by our students and families every day and we have got to do a really good job of making sure that we are talking to the right kids and families through that those processes and that just takes time and it takes humans to make sure that we're getting
that together so I think those are the things that we would need to balance in addition to the budget that even if the money's there we got to make sure the human capital is there to do it right yeah I just wanted to say two things about the attendance presentation one is
congratulations on increase attendance percentage over the year and then my question is do we have data on absences in neighboring school districts is that public information or is that not available I'd be curious what AB Aspen
and our other neighbors have in terms of their daily attendance rate it is publicly available on the CDE schoolview websites and it was all just just released I think publicly within the last week or so um there's a ton of really amazing resources that the CD has
pushed out the commissioner of education has pushed out in terms of looking at attendance Statewide with the release of all the district data and so it is available um and let us know if you could use some support other click pass um but it's all there thank
you any other questions or comments from the board on this yeah I just wanted to clarify about the the school fees I'm not interested I wasn't trying to direct anyone to pursue anything that would hamper building's abilities to support the unique culture and activities through fundraising as long as all
students have the ability to access it free of charge which for the most part I've seen consistent in all buildings I don't think that we can um put any further constraints on that activity when we live in the state of Colorado that consistently Le underfund schools so I just want to clarify that
thank great thank you at this time we welcome members of the public who have signed up to address the board there are four speakers signed up tonight the board allots 45 minutes for public comment to respect the time of all who are present speakers are asked to limit their remarks to three minutes or less a reminder to all
speakers to uphold our procedures for public comment we ask that you be thoughtful and constructive with your comments and thank you in advance for sharing your feedback members of the public who wish to share their views with the board may always do so in writing at any time for this evening's public comment we've received one written comment tonight our first
speaker is Autumn Rivera good evening um my name is ottera and I a sixth grade science teacher at glet Springs Middle School starting year 20 in a middle school which is a little crazy um I just wanted to take a moment just to uh I just share out some awesome
work I've been doing um in 2021 of October I was named the 2022 Colorado teacher of the year and since then have been able to do a lot of advocacy work the district has been awesome in supporting me through this and so I felt like it was only fair to come and just show you the awesome work that I've been able to do through this support um the
district has graciously offered me five flexes throughout the school year to use to to support this and so that combined with personal time myself I've been able to do a lot of different work that I just wanted to take a moment and share with you um I've been able to do some presentations with different Roaring
Fork school district teachers we've presented at two different national conferences I'm myself as have also presented at a couple national conferences on my own or with other teachers from around Colorado um those include the International Conference that um is the society for technology
and education that was the iy conference in Denver this year I presented with payon from carpendale middle school um I also was able to present at the national network of State science Teachers Association ation which was also in Denver a lot of conferences were in Denver this year which was really helpful um I've also been able to do
some advocacy work I presented and um at the uh I presented to the house committee and the uh senate committee to talk about with the governor I worked with the governor's office to pass a bill House Bill uh one or 1446 which is providing more funding for Science
Education for providing for teachers and professional development so was able to advocate for that work at a state level I've given some speeches um I'm a different keynoting at a couple different events and being part of that I'm also on a couple different boards I am on the carnegi Educators advisory
panel I get to work with Dr cardova um at the state level of CDE I also am at a couple different National committees and have been able to do that piece um looking forward I'm keynoting a uh the Colorado Association of middle level education uh in for Collins I'll be part
of that piece um and just have really enjoyed being able to do this work and I'm very gracious at the Great that the district is supporting this and I look forward to continue doing that work for years to come um and so just thank you so much thank you our next speaker is rosalba Telles
I will I will speak in Spanish and then when I finish he will he will do in English because it's my mother language and I feel M moreable Forest School District for
School GL Springs for for scho for Mar Luther K J I have a Dre good afternoon Bard members my name is Rosal VES and I am the mother of a
former student of the Roaring Fork School District I have lived in this Valley for over 17 years and my son spent his his entire education in this school district the reason I am here is
because the school district has failed my son and now my family is going through a very difficult time that I don't want other families to experience the same situation that we are going through the school district failed my
son because no teacher counselor or administrator was able to provide him with the support he needed in his disability to get ahead in his education he was in special education from sixth grade through senior Senior
Year my son's needs were very clear but but the entire teaching staff simply ignored ignor them because of this lack of psychological support and the bullying my son faced because of his sexual
orientation for almost four years at gleno Springs High School it led him hurting himself and feeling worthy of being alive and thinking about suicide unfortunately this situation is caused
by a system that does not have the necessary support for Latino immigrant or special needs students my study and that of my son is not an isolated story it is something that is continually
repeated the needs of our children are continually being ignored and it's time for the school district to take responsibility for the failures that are impacting our children and the community I ask the roing for school district to
not only take responsibility but to take action by hiring more bilingual bicultural teachers counselors and administrators who understand the needs of or Latino student population the
number of District staff is not aligned with the student growth and this is this is impacting our children in school support ort and performance my son is an immigrant he's Latino he's a
person with a special needs and is a and is a member of the LGBT community and just as my son deserve to have received the support he never received I urge the board to work in supporting current
students 61 years ago today Martin Luther King Jr gave his a I Have a Dream speech and that dream persist to this day we dream that the bias between
supporting the Latino and Anglo Community will be eliminated that discrimination will be erased from our school district thank you thank you our next speaker is Kia
Gonzalez good evening members of the board I am delighted to be sharing space with you all tonight my name is Kya Gonzalez and I work for bidas as a parent organizer my role in boses unidas is to organize and mobilize local Latina
and Latino leaders um and parents to change in systems in this case systems um that impact their students as a first generation Latina who is an alumna of the RO Fork School District I profess
the roing fork Valley as my home the Colorado River and the mountains of our home hold memories of my upbringings as the 2024 2025 school year begins it is important we recognize that 60% of the RO Fork school district is
composed of Latina Latino students yet on average Latina Latino students are two grade levels behind an important subjects like math science writing and English the challenges that Latina Latino students face today are similar
to the challenges Latina La Latino students faced uh when I was a student in the Roaring Fork School District the quality of Education of Latina Latino students has not improved enough from when I was a student in the roing fork School District this should
be a clear indication to everyone that there there are systematic issues we need to address and fix Bas demands that the RO Fork School District creates a plan that will address three key issues areas we demand a plan that will aim to reduce the
academic Gap in the Roaring Fork School District we demand a plan that will transform and increase uh Latina Latino parent engagement and we demand a plan that aims at recruit recruiting hiring and retaining teachers and administrators that reflect the student
population each of these plans needs to lay out the necessary timeline goals metrics resources allocation and Community feedback in order to be successful this task will not happen overnight but if we work together the outcome will be greater as an organization we take a stand for the
children and members of our community as an individual I take a stand for my family who are part of the 5,846 students at the RO Fork school district is serving thank you for your time thank
you our fourth speaker is Alan Munos hello members of the board my name is Adam MOS valenciano I'm regional manager for w Las Monas a nonprofit organization based here in our Valley and our goal is to elevate the voices of Latinos and Latinas in our community uh and today
I'm here to remind uh to remind us about how much work we had ahead of us still we have been very clear to what our demands are and where we stand in as organization and as a community what we still don't know is where this board and this Administration stands on these demands we need to know if this board
and this Administration agree that a 40% achievement gap between white students and Latino students is an issue we need to know if this board and this Administration agrees that a lack of Latino parent representation in decision-making spaces across the schools and across the district is an
issue and we need to know if this board and this Administration agree that Latino teachers only representing 133% of the total number of teachers in the district as opposed to the school the student population that is 60% of the district if you do agree then you must
develop a plan to each of these issue areas because clearly what has been done before has not worked we have yet to see any detailed plan that have these specific elements that we are demanding and asking for however if you do not agree and you don't think that these issue areas are impacting our students
educations also let us know by letting us know we as an organization and as a community can proceed with the next steps to make sure we have a board and Administration that is aligned to the needs of students of this District we do not want to waste our time reminding you of what these demands are we would much
rather work with you to create the solutions that our students need however if needed we will demand for a new Administration that is aligned with our community and with us and we will work towards electing a new board that wants to see this work happen and will push forward as well we cannot expect that
Latino students will magically start to do better academically or that Latino parents will all of a sudden be part of committee across the district or that bilingual and bicultural teachers will jump at the opportunity to come to our Valley that can only be achieved by comprehensive plans that will challenge
the status quo and transform the way the Roy Force School District operates will you or will you not develop these plans our community deserves to know where this board and this Administration stands thank you thank you the next business in order is the approval of the consent agenda which
includes routine personnel and minutes from our previous board meeting on June 26 directors are there any items that you would like to pull for separate discussion and vote seeing none do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I move that we approve the
consent agenda Sarah second I second please call the vote director after I director Ramirez I director kenberg I director defrates I director titler hi directors you've just
passed the consent agenda the next business order is discussion on policies AC gbaa jbb regulations ac- R-1 ac- r-2 and ac- R-3 and Exhibits ac- E-1 and ac-
E-2 each board member will have two minutes to to share comments and ask questions recognizing that this is a a pretty large book of policies and updates if you need additional time please let us know um and also on AC during policy Committee just as a point
of clarification we proposed that a clean copy be presented to the board because the edits recommended by casby to get us in alignment with law were so vast that the edited version was was very unreadable um we'll begin with director Tyler
thank you I do have a couple questions first of all in many of the policies that we saw it has a preface like in sort of the beginning of the policy it says the district should consult with its own legal councel to determine appropriate language that meets local circumstances and needs as opposed to
what casby is offering and I as my first question is have we done this and have we talked to our Council about that and what did the council say we you know we we have known that the these uh revisions were coming for a long time and so we've been in
conversation about the the implications of the new state statute on our policies and especially in terms of I think for us often we're very interested in on the protocols and implementation of them and so we have absolutely been talking to council about this work specific to the
language and the policies no not yet um but we absolutely have been working with Council in terms of implementation of this in acr1 on number four the bolded the number four part of it and I can let you
get there but say the question is um it talks about the informal complaint resolution and in the second paragraph it says six or seven school days and I saw in all of the other parts that you had changed those ones that had said that to a specific number instead of a
range and maybe that would one more that you want to change that too thank you and then much the same as maybe the question that director kolenberg was asking earlier on a different on the on
attendance how will these new policies on harassment be rolled out to teachers I know like this is usually done sort of like in a first week of school thing where there's some signing off and you get training and then teachers sign off is this something that's going to be done throughout the year is this waiting
until next year that we do this when is how's the plan for the roll out on that that is a great question and I don't know that we fully fleshed it out yet to be honest you're right we typically do this training at the beginning of the year with with pretty explicit check you know accountability
components to make sure that folks have done it um we're going to have to still sort out the roll out and the significance of whether I mean the changes in this work are predominantly around what
happens after complaints are filed um and so a lot of the training that we do for staff is not at that level of detail it's that is really the work that happens once things land with our compliance officer um so we're going to have to audit to really see if these
changes you know kind of substantially change the existing training okay and then on ac2 was confused by especially the part that about civil complaints and the form to
fill out and then that the footer of it it talks about the School's district food and nutrition service department and like it's a form specifically for the Department of Food Services I take it that's not the case and it's like a whole different like complaints related
to that program have their own protocol but was that specifically to that program then because like it didn't seem headed that way I didn't understand it seemed like it was an overall District plan and then at the bottom of it it says direct your complaints to this department here's the phone number and
then it goes on to the Colorado Department of nutrition it just seemed like it was beyond nutrition my my understanding interpretation of this is that it's it's basically naming that anything that's related to the that you're right this
form is for kind of your general harassment concern like this is the exhibit for those and I think this note you're seeing is because it's trying to name that um if this is related to something within that department those are all the steps that'll happen and the levels of escalation that will happen
because that's a that's a parallel process so my but when I'm reading that and my interpretation if I'm trying to fill out that form that's where I'm turning it in and it didn't also seem like there was any like instructions or how do I turn this form in who do I turn
this form into where does this form go on that paper on this one okay yeah I mean I think the the previous protocols explain it but you're right that if somebody's going straight to this or we're linking to this I don't know that it says that it has to go to the compliance
officer so that we can have that okay you know upon so that is that I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly so that it would be something to the effect of like upon completion of this submit to yes something like that would be great and it seems like that footer should probably just be gone on that form I think we have to include it
in in the event that there is a something specific to food nutritional services to so could that say something like if this pertains to food and nutritional Services just seems like because the way I would read it that's where I would turn it in no matter what
it was thank you after thanks this was quite a um Deep dive for our first meeting back um so I have one detailed question and then one high Lev question I'll ask the
detailed one first um which is I didn't understand so in the first policy AC oh yeah AC it talks about bullying as being student on student
behavior and then in the subsequent policy harassment investigation procedure for students a C- R-1 I couldn't tell if that's where a student would go if they were being bullied by another student since it
defines bullying in the previous document as being student on student Behavior so if a student's being bullied in school are they supposed to follow the procedures outlined in acr-1 if the bullying is based on a
protected class so if it's bullying you know per that first definition oral expression physical electronic actor gesture and it and it has nothing to do with a the the student who is the victim of the bullying has nothing to do with a
protected class then we're moving into the kind of bullying prevention education intervention steps procedures disciplinary processes but if the bullying is based on anything that's that's defined as like protected classes then we actually move into a different
level of protocols um that that really are moving into anti-discrimination and how would someone how would a parent like let's say it's in the in the case of a young middle school or Elementary School child how would they be expected
to know about this policy or this process is the school directing them so a lot of the a lot of the components in these policies then require the administration to develop training for kids and training for families on how to
actually live this world and so it's it's through that work and that education and that bully prevention education that we would we would be articulating the differences and through the um you know these policies also require training for students um on
recognizing and Reporting harassment um and discrimination and so that would be the lived utility of this and so these are the kinds of things that need to show up and say a parent student parent handbook in a much more accessible directed manner I see interesting so big
picture um I understand these are C many of the changes here are casby driven and um compliance driven is there anything you want to flag for this board that is a shift Beyond a you know regulatory or
compliance change that you think we might want to be interested to see but is actually buried in this legal language that's a great question and I would love to provide some space for director kenberg or director Ramirez because we talked about this a lot on policy
committee you're right we we kind of picked up the recommendation from casban we're like that's it State Statute drop it in um and I think a lot of the reason that that we felt and and discussed in policy committee that it it wasn't as
tailored to the the values of this organization we felt in a lot of ways the workaround ad last year really stamped that and so with the nudge and recommendation from directors Colberg and and Ramirez you see that addition of that sentence sentence number two that
really frames that that the the values of the the district and the board are reflected in a lot of ways in ABB and I don't I don't know if that in AC the second sent second sentence of AC the board had done significant work
on this policy year and a half ago um being our only non-discrimination policy that was on the books and since we were able to get ADB through and officially passed we felt that that really contained a lot of
our district specific values and stances related to non-discrimination and Equity um and almost all of these are statute driven like if you look at the bottom to the statutory references they're 30 plus and
so there's really not a lot of space to adjust the language Within These like all the definitions are taken directly from statute [Music] thanks director
Ramirez thank you I just wanted to make sure I gave everybody time to mute um uh and to um director after's question we did include language in there I believe we added poliy ADB Links at the bottom so we
wanted to make sure that those were a referen um for future use um and at this moment I don't have any questions but I just wanted to Echo what superintendent Cole mentioned that
we did have a conversation um during policy Committee just to really understand and to make sure that we were aligning the values of um of this policy to already
existed is that it yes sorry I thank you thanks thank you director defrates um so my two questions were sort of both what director titler and director after were bringing up one was
the legal review I mean my take on any of this is pretty pointless if it hasn't already met the standard that were required legally and then um the other part was fishing out where do we have discretionary power as a board and where
is it just this has to be in here and I think as we up the number of policies that we're focusing on each week by a significant amount um it's going to be really important to flag those for us intentionally so I'm just saying what was already said there um and then of course also making sure that the staff
and Leadership throughout the district is aware of the shift and the pace of these policy approvals and that they might cons that you might consider if you haven't already um giving them access to a similar table that you have for us in the staff memo where you have a column that just says description of
updates um and again just identifying this is a substantial change this is a required by law change so that you know with the limited time that these that these professionals have to just focus in on what it is one they can impact and two that's going to impact them significantly so just thinking about um
how to sort of triage the time and resources um as we send out significantly more information um so those were my comments and those staff members are available to the general public via the board agenda that is sent out the Friday ahead of
every meeting um and yeah it would be good to make sure that we include those when we do includeing the staff newsletter the you know the little board section like the board is working on these policy topics here's the staff memo to that I think that would be a
great way to link it up so that people aren't having to navigate board agendas um I don't have any additional questions on these right now I think what we hit on in policy committee was that we wanted a
cleaned up version so that we could get any additional staff input and I did see some staff edits um and not seeing any additional ones to consider I'm assuming that staff looked at it again and didn't have any other other insights um these
policies regulations exhibits were all super prescriptive um so I didn't have have much to add uh we have five minutes of open discussion now if anyone has anything else on all of these policies that I will not list
again just back to the point that um director after was naming and the difficulty of reading casby suggestions and it's hard for me as a lay person to like read that and think oh I think we should do this differently and so I just
guess I would ask ask in policy review before we get to these if it would be possible for you where the notes are on the edge of the page to maybe make some comment of like this might be an area that we were looking at changing and
would like your opinion on or something because it's hard for me to go through and real think like I could say something then I would probably be told no from a lawyer point of view this is the reason and so sort of to Define my
I as I'm looking at it to see like where should I be paying attention to those policies I think generally we try to do that that this was definitely a unique set of policies and regulations and Exhibits that we reviewed during policy committee and that both Jasmine and I
were like well it's all very prescriptive and from staff side same thing very prescriptive we expected all these legal changes and I said I remember working substantially on policy AC not that long ago and and making it
very Roaring Fork specific but we have to now well we opted not to reincorporate that again because we felt that it was held in ADB and so we didn't feel like it was a worthwhile exercise to go through and adjust the Preamble language and AC to reflect all that
again and that's where we put that sentence in and the cross reference Dr Ramirez has your hand up thank you thank you and I I thank you director tler and I think that that is something obviously that I've shared before that
it's really hard to get these recommendations from casby and try to make them fit our school district um and we did talk about that during policy committee but I think ultimately we just felt like this was something that like director cinberg said it was very
prescriptive and we we knew that it had to be added and at the same time we're willing to hear back from um superintendent Co and staff um you know if there was any additions that they felt were missing or were needed um but
I hear you on us moving forward with policies and if there were any sections that we felt the board should be aware of of communicating that out before our board meetings and then the uh follow-up question that I had that escaped me when
I heard the echo um I just want to ask and I know uh superintend Cole that we put it in here at least I I remember we did but um who's in charge of the accountability uh for making sure that
we are adhering to um making sure that our staff is uh having updated harassment uh investigation procedures great question ultimately that's me um
and I delegate that to our chief of HR Bonia plat um in terms of you know we kind of divvy up again ultimately it's my responsibility um to implement and develop a plan to implement execute on policy but the way we kind of organize a
lot of the policy responsibility across our senior leadership team is a lot of you know the employee a lot of these pieces fall to chap plat a lot of the student instructional pieces fall to assistant superintendent Park a lot of the facilities fall to Chief Operating Officer Ben bonx so we we kind of
distribute it that way one of the things that um Jonathan Landon has really helped us do this year is he assign he really got very particular and assigning specific policies to those leaders um and we were tasked this summer with
reviewing all those policies and identifying where any policy would say something like need to report to the board on in topic here and we we then baked those reports into that annual perpetual calendar for board members as a reminder to make sure that like oh we
were supposed to report to the board annually on that safety plan when is that going to happen great put it in the calendar so we we further took those steps in terms of that kind of accountability baked it into our calendar um I would say similarly in
terms when we were doing that same work we were also then kind of internalizing then great what needs to be in the employee handbook what goes in the parent handbook um what do we need to clean up on the website so that that process of kind of owning that really helped strengthen that accountability I
also think this is that accountability as well I move that the board approve the Colorado erran 2024 School District resolution as presented is there a second I
second we now have two minutes discussion for each board member and five minutes of open discussion and we'll begin this round with director after I don't have any questions on this director Ramirez no questions thank
you director Dees um I just had a question about using this can you remind me what the precedent is within our school district for having access these this type of loan in the past and then is there a limit on the number of times that school districts uh would be able to take
advantage of this I don't have the history around how how much we've used the program so maybe superintendent sure Cole could answer that part of it but um there is actually uh it's one time a year and usually this is a this is passed around the budget
time and then um you have another opportunity during that year to look and see if there's any other needed changes to your uh cash flow which we will be doing this year um and then pass any resolution during the year um but but you can continue to use this program as
needed so there's not any limit like if we do it this year that doesn't mean we can't do it the next year yeah and I would say um under Chief Markham we never used this I'm not com I know that um we've definitely consulted with Chief former Chief Financial Officer Nathan
Markham and former Chief finan officer Shannon pelland on this um certainly Shannon Pand was familiar with the work I'm not sure if we ever utilized it in the past um and the reason we included that graphic for that local share versus
State share shift it was really to stamp the significant change that's that's really um caused us to need to access this resource and so definitely not during Chief markham's tenure um did we use this um but it's a pretty standard
tool across the state of Colorado we're definitely in a different world in the way our cash flow Works based on where we're generating Revenue that's necessitating us shifting into this so then let me just say it in my dumb layman's terms and make sure I'm understanding it sorry we need to access
these funds because with local funds those tax revenues don't come in at the beginning of the school year but they'll be delayed and we won't see them until spring and so this is the gap knowing that they're coming and this is just the filler is that correct that's correct I did a
review of that and it looks like about 80% of our general fund revenue is from that property tax which is very seasonal in nature and um you would have to have an 80% you know a very high fund balance to be able to fund that with your cash flow so um so otherwise you have to use
the state Loan program in the interim this doesn't impact our credit borrowing rating or anything in that manner no not sure what even that would be for us but sounded like an important question in my head I think it's you know I think your fund balance is more something that's
going to impact your reading because that really is is an indicator of the health of the organization and your general fund yeah thank you director titler first of all welcome Chief shoin and glad to have you here with us
I do have a couple of questions on this um from the errans so if we sign up to do this we will be getting tax-free any of the money that we need to be able to pay those bills while
we're waiting for our funds to come in is that how I'm understanding it yeah it's an interest free loan interest free Lo yeah so it's no cost to the district and so Chief shitcoin or maybe yourself um and that maybe one of the two of you
could um talk about what's happened in the past because I remember having a conversation with former Chief Markham and sitting in his office and asking them about that line in the budget and I was
understanding that we had money there as a budgeted amount of money and that when we weren't using it we were getting interest on that money and so if we had a line item in the budget for that what is happening to that money now and how is that being moved if we do move to
this each and not 100% sure on the the line item you're referencing that would be funding that we would have because in the past we had to have money for that so I thought in our general budget we were keeping a surplus of within our general
budget to be able to fund that you mean fund the cash flow you mean correct yeah yeah because we haven't taken a cash flow loan for at least five years so that would be cracked and so then what we would be able to do is the positive
thing about that is that you always have a cash balance you can then invest so you have some interest earnings which are Revenue that's brought in um you know so so under this is that we have to be really tight with our um you know how we handle our cash flow um so there will
be certain times where we're still going to get our interest earnings in when we have a positive balance and then we're when we're taking the 0% interest free loan then that's when we're not going to be getting that interest earnings maybe I'm I somewhat understand that I'm going
to try to phrase it in a different way if possible so we had maybe 10% of our budget as this is our cash Reserve but I thought on top of that 10% cash Reserve we had another 1% or 2% or I don't know
what the percent was to cover what each now is going to be able to do for us and if we did have that extra budgetary money in reserves to be able to cover this what are we earmarking that money for now and how would it just go into
building up our reserves or is that freeing it up for something else I'm gonna I don't know if this is quite gonna answer it but let me try I I think probably what we were able to invest previously had to do with the
fact that 70 that um well what was it I'm looking at the chart more than 50% of our Revenue coming from the state was coming every single month right so we had that the state's not contributing that same amount anymore and so you know the way they disperse money is a check
every single month and so because more of what we were um generating was coming from the state we had that monthly payment was higher now it's going to be much lower and we won't get this the the we won't get our fill of the total program funding until taxes come in in
the spring and so my my guess and I'm not 100% sure about what that fund looked like or what Chief Markham would have been noting but my guess would be that it has to do with the fact that that monthly payment from the state is going to be dramatically reduced for
us I I'm not doing a very good job I don't think of communicating so if it's okay to take another minute to try to flesh this out I I'm understanding that etan is going to be cover ing that Gap that before we had to have for ourselves
and I understand that that Gap is now bigger with the increased part of the taxes that we're responsible for before the state fill but it is my understanding that we did at a point have money in some type
of budget to cover that missing amount that we would have in a budget then then we would later be earning interest on and through and my understanding now is with Ean we're no longer going to need to have that because the state is going to be supplying
that taxfree money to us can I can I ask a related question just to make sure I'm clarifying what you what you're talking about I I know you mentioned um the 10% and I was wondering if that was related to the minimum fund balance in the general fund right so I'm and I was
instead of just trying to say an amount because I'm not sure what that amount is I know we are trying to cover like a 10% fund balance yes yeah okay thank you but I thought that wasn't I thought the money that we had to cover this Gap was separate from that 10% fund balance that was my understanding when we looked at
the budget well so the the fund balance the minimum fund balance of 10% is only somewhat related to your cash flow because cash flow kind of it relates to when cash goes in and out and your fund Balan is like on a modified acral basis
like as a specific point of time time after you pay all your bills what your what Surplus you have so there is a little bit of a disconnect between those two and so having a 10% B balance is partially
true that that it's partially based upon um making sure that you are are attaining your cash flow needs but also that has to do a lot with with what the bond holders are going to want to see and your your bond ratings and things like that so I see that only is
moderately connected to this conversation um and there are other inputs to that fund balance discussion that also need to be um really reviewed as well with that it's it's kind of a bigger scope than just the cash flow
part does that help maybe can I ask just an ask of you and then I can have us move on from this would it be possible to get back to me or back to us and tell us was there some kind of separate like line item within the budget separate
from our general fund that was used to cover this this These funds that needed to be paid that we wouldn't get until later in the year and were did we have other money allocated specifically to this
outside of the general fund balance is that under are you understanding what my question is you pop it in the tracker just to make sure that we get it okay thank you yeah thank you thank you I have a couple of
questions just I couldn't figure out procedurally on any of the any by by Googling um what kind of what I see from the board membo that we will need to access these funds this year that's what that's what we're hearing from the memo is that the
district will need to access this program this year and so what are the administrative requirements and are there limits specifically on what we can spend on I just couldn't see any like regulations or guidance associated with the program online or couldn't find any
is it cart blanch you can have a interest free loan and use it as you will but you have to pay us back in six months or or is there another level of kind of an administrative burden that comes along with this okay um
there's I mean and chief uh Markham did do um a lot of this before I got here um but there is a a very large and in intricated spreadsheet um that really lines out every month what you're anticipating to either use or have as a
surplus on your cash flow and then it determines the amount of cash that you're going to need to borrow and the state reviews that very carefully to make sure that we're not over borrowing or over asking um I've already worked with the state a little bit and I know that they're
they're a little bit finicky about that so it's not about what you're using it on but just making sure that you're calculating those cash flow needs very closely because they don't want to borrow any more than they have to yeah that makes sense and I could see this I
think last year only 22 of the 180 some districts in Colorado utilize this program but obviously with the shift in our funding especially within the last year such a great percent coming from local property taxes I I think that's what you're asking Kenny because historically I don't think we've had as
much of a period where we don't have enough State funding the state funding has gotten us through to November December January and then we've had reserves and that's gotten us through to collection in March is my understanding like we've been close enough based on that breakdown that we could make it
through but now since such a greater swing is going to come from local property taxes we're going to have a much larger Gap that is what I was asking but I also have it somewhere in from a conversation I remember where we were sitting and I think you were in that meeting to Dr
Cole in Chief markham's office and I had asked specifically about like a line item on the budget and I thought it was more than just Reserve funds I thought there was an extra fund specific towards that number a separate account and so that's where my question comes from we
dig it yeah we again and I would just name to your question dor kinberg there's a piece of that that to me um I really appreciate that Chief Shakin can respond to the kind of technical how we use it I will name that one of the things that does feel significant is and
this isn't quite the question you asking but it it's definitely in my awareness there is an increased um amount of work that maintaining this spreadsheet is going to require from our finance team far beyond the current capacity of the
team and so we're def like this this takes a lot more time every month in terms of the reporting and management to execute on this um and is kind of one of those hidden costs of I mean it's a great program you get to do this to manage your cash flow but it is
significant in terms of the reporting and it's just something that we haven't staffed for previously um and so we're definitely grappling with the realities of being able to like you all approving it understanding it is a first step us having the capacity to implement next of course we're going to figure it out but
um it'll have implications for the team's capacity and we're going to have to address that as we move forward and and try to weigh that in terms of um our staffing model and is there a a maximum amount that we could ask for because I guess I
can foresee a time in the future when our locally local property taxes continue to increase as the overall share of our budget like right now we're at 75% which feels huge um and that Gap it just feels like that Gap
could get larger and larger for us and I I don't know what our monthly expenditures are but seven and a half million I'm sure does not cover multiple months um and so I'm guessing this is the what we need for this year but is
there a maximum that we could be provided in future years if we were to need more so um that's a really really really great question because I think that that has to do do a lot with what um Dr Cole is talking about with the additional staff
time is really making sure we monitor our cash flow very very closely with all of our accounts and making sure that we're tapping into those funds quick enough and I'm um going to need to look and make sure that seven and a half million dollars is going to be enough um
to get us through because I may need a second resolution from the board even during this year so I'm going to need to kind of this is going to be one of my monitoring points this year as a very important piece because we just want to make sure that we obviously have cash in the bank at all times so yeah that just
doesn't seem like a very large amount like I don't even know that covers a single month so we can ask for more this year but I'm already having conversations with the state um to see what those numbers could look like in case there is an additional need okay yeah and I think generally speaking if
you're as a district if our ducks are in a row in our projections and need is there and we communicate that on on an appropriate time frame with when the erans organization goes to make their larger ask then there there's it's not
the sky the limit this isn't like but as long as it's reasonable that funding is going to be there like if we need to ask for more we get that request in in time and have the documentation to justify it the funding will be there okay especially when you um think about
the actual amounts they're asking for across the state date for all these larger districts that are similar you so it's as long as we get our decks in a raow well that's I can see totals are like 425 million were requested last year over 22 districts there have got to
be some large funds being requested so okay that was all I had um we have five minutes of open discussion if anyone has any other questions comments and then we will vote just real quick does this
pot of money legislation have a sunset um I I believe it's until they choose to revoke it so it's just one of those budget things yeah ABS so but I don't think that they're looking to do that funding
structure yeah thank you they would have to change the state finance formula then because schools wouldn't be able to sustain throughout the school year I mean there has to be a stop Gap if they're going to yeah put the bulk of funding on local property taxes that aren't collected until the spring like
there's going to have to be some sort of stop Gap right yeah doing this live session any other questions comments from the board any intervening motions to amend the
resolution being none could you please call the vote director Ramirez I director kolenberg hi director defrates hi director tidler hi director after hi
motion passes thank you thank you the next business in order is future agenda topic discussions um director after has proposed a topic related to Athletics and so we will give director after two minutes and then we'll have five minutes
of open board discussion to determine if we have enough consensus to give staff direction to add this to a future agenda sure thanks thanks for the time I am hoping at some point to get an overview for this board on Athletics and
activities um that are housed and um originate from the schools in our district either in a work session or a board meeting and I I realize I'm the first one in many months doing this
process here so it feels like a bigger ask than I intended it to be I was thinking I had in mind something uh similar to The Great overview we got on sped a few months ago in a work session um that hopefully was I felt like was
comprehensive and hopefully not a huge amount of work for the staff and so I don't um want to direct the staff to do anything cumbersome knowing everything you'll have on your plate and also at the same time I think Athletics and activities in our district are important
and meaningful in the lives of our students and families and um don't have the sense through conversations I've had that there's either a comprehensive strategy or a lot of awareness of what the situation is um and so that's why I
have asked questions about the state of Athletics in our communities and in our school district and why I'd be curious to hear more about it um from staff but again am also sensitive to asking you all to put more on your plate and just a note on process this is the first time
we've done this in a while and this is something that we want to get back into not just for us as the board to understand how agenda items get put on the agenda or how topics get put on the agenda for the public also and so that we're not oneof like a single board
member directing Dr Cole to add items we want to have more of a board discussion related to it so that it can be board direction of we want to hear more about this we want staff to use their time in this way thank you thank you for being the first one to I was surprised on the
agenda but also I will say I I appreciate the chance because I had took the time to do some research and signed up for a um chasa Symposium in Grand Junction on October 28th on Rural and small School athletics EXC so maybe I
should go to that and then give the presentation maybe you should do that um and yeah the goal of the board discussion now is to see if there's board consensus to give direction to staff on yes we want to have a work session on this or no director after is
on an island and nobody else is interested in this right now like that's kind of the the point of of having the the public discussion of it so there's not questions about it or it doesn't feel like one loud voice is getting their items put on the agenda over other voices
um yeah anybody else have input a couple things on that first of all yes I think that would be a great a great piece of information to receive I would like to hear about that too and then I don't know if this is something that can be added to that or if this is
already in the works or if it's through another committee or where it comes from but I'm curious to know about where we stand on pay for coaches all so and where we are in that process and I don't know if that would be part of this or if that's through another thing that's
already happening or if we can just get an update on that also yeah I think that that question kind of for me illuminates the breadth of this topic and how there are so many layered questions related to Athletics around
like training hiring pay Who's involved Equity issues around participation like all these questions facilities us usage Transportation like it feels very massive to me and so I think that if we were like I'm comfortable adding an item
I think that I would want us to hone down specifically what we want to hear so that staff knows like if it's a total program overview of how Athletics Works in each of our 14 Schools I think that's
probably a lot of staff so I think I would want input from Dr Cole what that would mean um or if it's specifically like what training are coaches receiving how are we allocating resources and are
we doing that in a way that is fair versus Equitable but you know I just think there are different questions I I I would name and I know I hope this okay that I jump in with some
ideas in context um I appreciate director your um clarification or um just explaining that your interest really around that current state uh that doesn't that's not a lot for us to be able to pull athletic directors to talk about the current state what are their
programs what are participation levels what's the number of kids and staff um I would say uh you know and I do think it's helpful if there are particular components or data points that you are interested that would be really helpful to refine of like we want to know the
coach's salary schedules and um how those have moved um I think I have a lot of very deep questions about how Athletics and activities drive towards our strategic
goals and initiatives um so much so and I think we one of the really important components if you think of our strategic plan and you think of the priority students first which is really about um focusing on the the lived student experience of our schools one of the
metrics that we're measuring is an in a question that kids are asked on the healthy kids Colorado survey that that is registering what percent of students are say that they participate in sports clubs activities um that's really
interesting to us in that that demographic because what we see is a real disparity between our students of color and our white students in terms of participation and so this is like I'm kind of encapsulating Athletics in this bigger question that we're very very interested in um and it's around all
sorts of activities and Leadership activities and and we really want to look carefully at representation of students because our theory of action is that um kids who are um participating and if are are going to have a deeper connection to their school a stronger
sense of belonging be more invested in their school and thus in their academic achievement and and and excellence and growth and so we're we're starting to really dig in and tracking that that metric and so I would say current currently are we have a an interest in
athletics as a as a driver to that initiative and the outcomes we're trying to see and so right now our eyes are absolutely looking at Athletics as we are activities and theater and clubs and student leadership to to really start to look at and audit student representation across
that I think um so I want to name that like there is a piece of Athletics that we care deeply about in terms of strategy right now additionally I would say and there is we can totally come and talk about current state different things that we've leaned in on that are that are say this was for example the
first year um that we as a district have had a a mandatory coaches orientation and we just did that August 6 the athletic directors wanted to do that we our leadership really supported them we found the funding to make sure we could stien coaches for that day um that was
really important we learned a lot in the process of how to do it better um but it was a great first step because I think we definitely do have some strategy and theory of action around like if we're doing it we need to make sure it's safe and we need to make sure that we're following board policy so um there's certainly pieces we can share on current
state I think there's a ton of questions that emerge when we open up I think this massive Pandora's box of Athletics and what we invest um and I I do see a future world in three to five years where we do something like what we did with safety Last year around Athletics
and activities what are we in this for what aligns to our strategic plan what does our community want from us in terms of Athletics um so I do have that hesitation of like oh gosh how big are we opening this given staff capacity um but I also want to name that there are
pieces of our strategic plan that were very interested in looking at it through Athletics and I I think a current state update that was very simple in terms of what are we doing what are our challenges what are the what are the bright spots um could wouldn't be a
burden and I actually think that our athletic directors would love the opportunity to meet with this board and share share those pieces and I think then I can always have that voice of like and how far are we gonna go you know like let's be really thoughtful and measured about what we're gonna we're
gonna solve right now um it seems like there's board support for that and can you touch on the piece about salaries is there anything in the works to deal with that because I know that was a big concern well I will that the board in in our 24 25 budget you all
approved a 10% increase coaches salaries they hadn't been adjusted in I think three years um and so when we moved other salary schedules we hadn't moved that and so we did push that you approved that increase for the 2425 school year um but we haven't you know
in terms of do doing a big step back and comparables uh that would be another task to run that out I do just want to keep us focused on the question of if we want if this is a future agenda item instead of getting into the weeds that makes sense yeah thank you talk about it
forever yes but at the discretion of the capacity that you see for your staff I I personally knowing that the years started we're not going to make changes this year that if if there are other priorities that need to get addressed first I would suggest finding the time that you see it working best with the
available schedules that your staff has instead of like it doesn't have to be next week it doesn't have to be next month in my in my mind at least director after do you have a timeline that you wanted to see this in or would you be okay if we fit it into the yearlong agenda cycle and it that's
that's fine where there's noes is that their Direction great the next business in order is Bo updates and appreciations and we've combined these last two items I'll begin
with Ramirez we can turn off mics once awesome thank you everyone um I just wanna take a second to appreciate all our teachers and staff um tonight was back to school at the high school and um
I know that everyone's busy just welcoming families back to school so a huge shout out of appreciation to everyone who has kicked off the new school year and is getting um just accustomed to their new little
faces um I know for me um it's been kind of crazy with some of these field trips the kids are going on and I'm just so appreciative of all the time and scheduling and organizing that our staff takes to make it possible um on an update I just wanted
to mention um obviously like um superintendent Cole mentioned earlier today about us um having the federal relations network from casby here and having um our
legislators in town super excited to be able to host them and to have the opportunity to talk about our housing program but also just about all the amazing things we're doing so I am really looking forward to having them here and um I think it'll be a really
important moment for us to be able to highlight some of the pain points that we feel as a district um and some of the issues that we're dealing with with out here in our Valley Corridor um and then
I just wanted to make sure I um made a comment about two things one is um a followup to maybe scheduling a work session to debrief on the town hall
that um uh superintendent Cole and I were able to have uh be this summer at the end of last school year um and uh a form um that we briefly talked about uh
creating for teachers or families who had questions um and so I'll make sure to add those to our board tracker because I think those two would be really important things for us to to try to create um or to schedule uh in the
coming future before it gets too late into the school year all right thanks everyone thank you director defres um board report for me is um I missed some Labor Relations committees due to conflicts and schedules but I'm looking forward to participating in that
committee moving forward um and um I'm glad that that's all been calendared so efficiently and I appreciate the work of the staff for that and I also appreciate all of the um the work that was done over the summer whether it was in the administrative
office making sure that positions were filled leadership was clear on next steps or whether it was classroom teachers making sure that they're set up for the year I know that there's a huge variety of work that gets done even when we are all out of session and there's
just no way to name everybody who's a part of that but generally appreciating that that shows the dedication of our Educators and our leaders in this District thanks director titler few updates on some different committees the first
one is about the housing committee that has been meeting we met and had our first meeting of the year and there were sort of four one of the major outcomes of this was try to figure out what was the housing committee going to focus on this year and there were four major
focuses the big one was about what we're doing towards of moving towards any kind of ownership model for staff but we're talking about putting that one on hold until we try to get some kind of 10-year plan going that we're in the process of doing with
housing and so it was decided that was like overwhelmingly the biggest issue that came up but we're sort of putting that on the back burner for right now until we get that 10-year plan going as we're have that RFP out for that but three other things were talked about
one was the rent structure for what we're doing for our rental housing and it was a discussion about how as salaries raise so do rent raise and so does Child Care raise and so what happens to the are people just staying where they were or is it really a
benefit and so there's going to be one sort of group within that that's going to be working on rent and seeing where do we think and giving a uh bring into the board their thought on what should happen and rent for it
another one was a group was talking about our Basalt end of our Valley and how Basalt continues to lose staff to further down Valley and that's mostly dependent upon people being able
to be closer to work and then the staff housing that we do have isn't necessarily very much in Basalt and it's mostly down Valley and so in lotteries is there something that can be done to give more points towards people who are up in
balt and then there was questions about is there's going to be some kind of stien possibility towards that too for or paying for all the mileage that people were having to go up there as they're losing staff and that was a second area and then a third area that was brought up was talking
about what is happening in the units that we are renting out and do we need to have some better paperwor work follow up follow through with people who are checking in and checking out of houses it seems like that's maybe been a little bit of LAX and how people are checking in and whether expectations are being
held of how the unit should be looking and being kept up and so there's going to be a group who will be working on that um the next thing to report on is metalwood and I know we just as a board got a little bit of an update from um
Chief bom on that and so yes that by the middle uh the 20th or 23rd of September are dates that we're looking at trying to do a ribbon cutting and having people move into the two buildings that are still not open but it's getting very close there and I just wanted to give a
shout out as part of that to the great job that FCI has done there they've been very professional they've been very upbeat they've been very knowledgeable the whole team has just really worked very well to keep us from after our original delay at the beginning that had
something to do with a water line that was a part that had to be special and couldn't be anything done with that we've really kept on schedule and they um so I just wanted to give a shout out to the people working at mealwood and FCI especially Christian Chad Rob and
Ben who are FCI people there workers there and then also to our own Chief Ben bomac who is there on a weekly basis working there and so many decisions are coming at him and having to make many like decisions in this at at the snap of the fingers
and say yes let's go with this or that and he's just done a really great job leaning in and using his resources and doing a great job um as our guide for our district there and then I want to
talk about as bosies we're having our um fall first fall um meeting as the Bose board we our last meeting at the in the spring was cancelled that we're having a little bit of a difficulty as iosis
getting membership getting people on the board we're still having vacant positions so that's one of the things that we're trying to work with with the board is really trying to get people to represent so we can have a quum and so we can do the work that we need to do a positive that's coming at of bosis is
that we have a contract that we're ready to anou for our services that we have with them which is very important for us because it's sort of been pulling teeth a little bit of like trying to get details in the path alob and this is sort of just like puts into
writing what our deals are what are our services how they're being delivered in a way that has a lot more accountability to it so this mou is a very positive step forward with us and then the other thing that we're really looking for um
doing with uh bosies is just really trying to Define our services that we're wanting as a board and instead of Bose saying here's things we can offer you we're wanting to try to figure out more like bosies can you do this for us instead of them saying these are things that we have to offer for you so and
then as my shout out and my thanks is as we start a new school year I just really want to give a thank you to the teachers it's such an overwhelming job for teachers at the beginning of the year there's so much information that floods teachers in so
many different capacities and from having to do paperwork and get to know names and get to know people and get to know behaviors and try to set up systems but more than anything the part that I want to appreciate from teachers is all the interactions that happen in a
day that you as teachers there's conversations that need to happen in ways to promote the wellness of the students and the behavior and the making them better people and it's just so fleeting as a
teacher of you hear something and then you get home and you're like wow that's something that still needs to be talked about and it's just so much swirling I know in the teacher heads all the time and it's just such a big job that is
like never ending and so for all that extra brain space that is being used up not only when teachers are at school but later when they get home and they're realizing all the things that need to be done and didn't get done I want to just say thank you for that hard
work thank you director after great thanks I unfortunately had to miss the first finance committee meeting with our new um colleague and so sorry about that um it actually looks like the September one was rescheduled I think probably
because of Labor Day and I'm gonna be out of town for that one too so might need to just check in on seeing if we could bump that um um but thanks to all the hardworking folks of the district um who kept the lights on and kept plans moving over the
summer I know that can probably feel like a bit of a grind while other folks are off on vacation so really appreciate that and um like Kenny said thanks to all the teachers who show up so um happily and delighted and through all
the hard work um to kick off the school year and special shout out to the Llama that was present at CES on the first day I hope everyone saw that oh Tina yeah that was many days of
delight we wish you well Tina um thanks um I don't have any additional updates I feel like you get my updates via policy committee um Dak is looking for new leadership um the
deck chair stepped down they're having their first meeting in September so if any of you know anyone who would be a great fit on the deck please send them that way um there will be information going out in the newsletter this this week yeah next week yeah the next
newsletter there will be information going out for recruitment um and I'm hopeful that that group can recruit and continue the great work that they've been doing because they've they've done a lot of work to lay a foundation and build out School sacks and I'm I'm really appreciative of everything everything appreciative of everything they've done and they've got some some
committed members and I think um getting more people on board would be amazing and it's a great way for people to get involved and really get into kind of the the nitty-gritty that that we get into as a board in terms of budgeting and and the uip and and other topics so if you
have any ideas please send them along um for my appreciation this week I wanted to give a specific shout out to the staff at Basalt Elementary School and starting this year with all three of my kids in one building which is amazing I'll get one year of that um but for
anyone that doesn't know Basalt is a 50-50 dual language program and so at our orientation at our boohoo breakfast after dropping off kids kindergarten at every step of the way there were equal opportunities in both English and Spanish and there was a really concerted
effort to ensure that all families were welcome and taken care of um and I'm just so appreciative of the programming that my kids get to be a part of um and the amazing committed staff and teachers that are there and that are driving up
from Glennwood and Beyond to be a part of of that school and the amazing things that are happening there so a special shout out to them for going above and beyond and doing everything twice um if there is no further business and
no objection this meeting will be adjourned it is 8:29 p.m.