Miss Medina, can you call the roll, please? Missus Kutcher? Here. Mister Doc? Here. Mister Fisher? Missus Walsh? Here. Missus West? Here. Can I, get someone to make a motion to act on the board member's absence? I'll make a motion. Is there a second? That's checked out. There a second to excuse the absence? To excuse the absence of mister Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Doc? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Again, we wish him luck. He's at his daughter's wedding. So, let's all stand with the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alright. If I can get the motion to approve the consent agenda, we can move on from there. Is there a motion to motion to approve the change and mis agenda? Is there a second? Why not? I'll second. Any discussion on that at all? Is there anything anybody would like me to talk about in the consent agenda? No. Thank you. No? Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Dock? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Alright.
So let's move down to item three. And, Erin, have we received all correspondence? You have. Yes. You've received all correspondence. Thank you. I guess miss Amy is there. Good evening. It is recommended the board of education approve the appointment of mister Josh Trahan as principal of Mesa Ridge High School. Do I have a motion? I'd like to make a motion. I second. Okay. I don't I suppose we don't need discussion. So Alright. Josh Strahan. Josh is a native of Whitefield, Colorado with a strong connection to the local community,
having attended King Elementary, Janitell Junior High School, and Mesa Ridge High School. Josh is also part of the first graduating class to attend all four years at Mesa Ridge High School with the class of 02/2001. He received an athletic scholarship to attend Adams State College where he competed in both track and field and football. Mister Trahan graduated with honors from Adams State where he earned a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and his educational leadership license. His professional career spans nineteen years with eleven years as a building level administrator. Mister Trahan resides with his wife, Serena,
and their four children who are ages 14, 12, 10, and six. Outside of his professional commitments, his interests include reading, fitness, and spending time with his family. I'm happy to recommend Josh Trahan as principal of Mesa Ridge High School. Yeah. And if we can get a vote. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Doc? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Well, first, thank you. Thank you to the board. Thank you, mister Hoffman. Thank you, miss Howell. Thank you, mister Scala. Thank you, everybody that was involved with the hiring process. Thank you, mister Tucci,
for bringing me into the district. I really appreciate it. You know, I've had a lot of opportunity to think about what would I say while I'm up here, and there's a million things that have kinda popped in my head. My goal, first of all, is to not lose it while I'm up here. So if I do, I apologize in advance because that's probably gonna happen. It's a safe zone. Okay. If I cry, then you're gonna have to delete that off of the footage, please. No. No. That's going on YouTube. Something that kept coming through as I was thinking through this is, why is Mesa Ridge so special to me personally? And there's a lot of things that come to mind.
I will tell you in 1997 when Mace Ridge opened, walking in that building as a slightly shorter, more hairy version of myself, obviously, there's a lot of excitement and opening that school and I can't describe it. The only thing that's close is probably watching your child crawl and learn to walk and run. There's that kind of level of pride when you get to see a school open. And having done that as a student, I've also done it as a staff member. It becomes part of who you are, and Mesa Ridge is part of who I am.
And so I took notes because I knew I'd lose my place because I'd get emotional. Through that journey, I've had people invest in me that, didn't know what was going on in my life. And I'm thankful for that because I am exactly why we do what we do. Right? We're here to make people's lives better. And these people did that. So for me, it's special because I get to come back and serve the community that served me when I needed it. I'm gonna get through this. And so I'll leave you with this. The most powerful thing you can tell a kid
is I believe in you. Yep. Please. And I had people that looked me in the eye and staff members that said, I believe in you. And for a kid that didn't believe in himself, that makes a difference. So thank you. Alright. It is recommended the board of education approve the appointment of mister Matt Dobbins as the assistant principal of Whitefield High School. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve mister mister Dobbins? I motion to approve mister Dobbins. Mhmm. I'll second. Alright. Matt Dobbins is originally from Monona, Iowa, a small town nestled in Northeast Iowa.
His passion for education began at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls where he earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education with a minor in social studies. In 02/2018, he furthered his educational leadership journey by earning a master's in educational administration from Argosy University. Matt began his career in education 24 ago in Harrison School District two, where he taught middle school social studies and held roles including department head, team leader, and building athletic director. After eight impactful years, he transitioned to Falcon Middle School in District forty nine. Matt continued as a social studies teacher while mentoring new educators and serving as department
head for twelve years. He also contributed at the district level through the Falcon zone committee, collaborating with k 12 teachers to align essential social studies standards. Most recently, Matt has served as the assistant principal and athletic director at Horace Mann Middle School in District 11 for the past four years. Matt and his wife, Beth, a veteran educator currently serving as a special education teacher at French Elementary, have dedicated over two decades to serving students and families in the Pikes Peak region. Together, they have three sons, Austin, age 23, a US Marine stationed in Oahu, Hawaii, Carson,
20 1, who will soon begin an apprenticeship program for electricians, and Ethan, age 20, who is preparing to join the US Air Force this summer. Outside of work, Matt enjoys hiking, fishing, golfing, sports, and traveling with his family. Their two dogs, Zeus and Teddy, are frequent companions on weekend hikes. A dedicated sports enthusiast, Matt is an avid fan of the Chicago Bears and the Denver Nuggets. Go Nuggets tonight. It's my pleasure to recommend Matt Dobbins as assistant principal at Whitefield High School. Missus Kutcher? Hi. Mister Doc? Hi. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West?
Aye. Alright. Good evening. Great to be here tonight. First of all, I'd like to extend my sincere gratitude to the board of education, mister Hoffman, superintendent, mister Scala, secondary education, doctor Bidding, principal, and the interview committee at Whitefield High School. Thank you for your investment in me and your confidence in my leadership. The interview process was thoughtfully led, inclusive, and I was especially honored to meet with the committee that represented not only administrators, but teachers, counselors, dean, support staff, but also the student body. Your professionalism and commitment to excellence were evident at every step.
I would also like to thank the outstanding team at central office, including miss Roden, HR director, miss Griggs, communication director, for your warm welcome and kind words. I already feel a strong sense of belonging within the Whitefield School community and family. Throughout my educational journey, I've been fortunate to learn from remarkable leaders who have shaped me into the educator, administrator that I am today. I'm also grateful for school district eleven for school district eleven for allowing me the opportunity to take on assistant principal role and provide a mentorship that helped me grow into the leader that I am today. To the Mansfield community, thank you for believing in me,
trusting in me with your students, giving me the opportunity to support and mentor teachers the last four years. Finally, I wanna express my deepest appreciation to my family, my wife of twenty five years, my son Austin that's currently serving in the marines in Hawaii, Carson and Ethan. Thank you for your unwavering support, your patience, and your honest feedback. You have been my anchors throughout the educational journey. I am extremely excited and honored to be in the next chapter with Whitefield High School. I look forward to serving the students, the staff,
community with dedication and passion. Thank you. All right. It's, moving on to Sam with the superintendent's report. All right. Good evening. I'd like to give a shout out to Tablet Steam Innovation School and Panello Elementary. Both received a no place for hate designation for the school year. All of our schools now have this designation making us a No Place for Hate school district and that is all thanks to the work that Doctor. Wiggins, began over a year ago. So No Place for Hate is a student led initiative that uses the power of positive peer influence to build inclusive and safe schools in which all students can thrive.
Talbot was also named a project lead the way launch, distinguished school for the second year in a row, and Panella was named a capturing kids heart national showcase school for the second year in a row. On to graduations, class of twenty twenty five is graduating tomorrow, Saturday, and, Monday. So Discovery High School and the Haven High School graduations are Friday, May 16 in the auditorium at Whitefield High School. Discovery will begin at 4PM, and the Haven will begin at 6PM. Whitefield High School graduation is Saturday, May 17 at 10AM at CA Foster Stadium.
And then Mesa Ridge, graduates on Monday, May 19 at 7PM at the World Arena. And our, school district will be participating in the free summer meal program once again this summer. We'll have three locations, including Whitefield Parks and Recreation, Panello Elementary, and Sunrise Elementary. The dates for the summer meal program start May 27, and that runs through August 1. We'll have breakfast served between eight and 08:30, lunch served between twelve and one, and that's Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Thanks. Thank you. Let's move on to our board of education reports.
Mister Doc, would you like to start? Sure. Why not? Well, I met a week ago today with, mister Dave Gish, which I meet once a month. Second, Thursday of the month. And, a lot of projects already underway for the summer months with regard to, capital repair and those kinds of things with our facilities and some contracted work being done. I'm gonna throw a joke out there and I I hope it, lands, but, do do you guys know the the top two complaints in any any workplace? What are they? It's too cold.
No. Tell us. It's too hot. It's too cold. Hot. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't need to make a lot of that because because we know, especially Mesa Ridge recently has has suffered through some breakdowns on HVAC units, and that's been a huge topic of concern the last couple of weeks. And I know there's been some hot days this week, and I without going into the building, I I can just imagine pretty warm. And I appreciate students, staff, and everybody hanging in with that. There have been three, rooftop units ordered. They are on order. Sometimes those take twelve weeks or longer to arrive.
Those were ordered a couple of weeks ago. I hope they get here in time that we can have them installed at a time school starts. If not, they'll be placed. They'll be placed but they have to be placed during the day that there's not students in the building. So, somewhere along in there, early part of next school year, we'll have those in and those, of course, are not cheap. I mean, these three, three of these together is going to run right at $135.00. And and they can't continue to service the old ones. They're obsolete. The upgrades with EPA regarding refrigerants don't allow us to use the the old machine.
So, when you consider there's 40 plus rooftop units on on, Mesa Ridge alone, It's, thus the incentive that we have to get some funds through our bond initiative initiative that's coming up. Otherwise, we'll just continue to suffer in those kinds of those kinds of, repairs. And it is what it is. I mean, we've all gone through times where we existed growing up. I I don't think we had air conditioning and that's the way it was. But, now is the eight and now days, it seems like it really is it really is crucial.
We we all believe that. And, anyway, going on, recently, the, best grant interview was occurring. There's a couple of best grants in the works that really help us, probably, 35 to 37% participation in what we can do. Interview, I think, yesterday was with best grant folks regarding boiler controls, for Venetucci, French, Sunrise, Discovery, Whitefield High School on the boiler controls. That interview went well. We just don't know what to expect and it could be another month before we get an answer as to the go on that.
The one that happened a couple of days ago was regarding the North Preschool and mister Gish was here on Tuesday and explained to us that that interview went quite well. Of course, I don't know if we talked about the fact that it is it is bond dependent. So, many millions probably $1,516,000,000 dollar project, but, it'll be dependent on the bond before we can move forward. So, hopefully, that will pass the best grant folks, and then we'll see how things unfold. The other thing that, several things that we talked about and mister Gish is always a wealth of information
as what's going on in the district operationally. I know that Grand Mountain School is doing some some work or they will be regarding some crosswalks out there, safety issues. I think think they need some lights, crosswalk lights, and so forth, and they're working with El Paso County. Again, several projects going on during the summer. And, again, there's always a need for those, bus drivers because, as we talked about earlier this week, it's hard for kids to even take field trips or sporting athletic events because of the coordination with schedules because the drivers are have to get back here in time
to run regular routes. So, anybody's listening in and could help us out on bus driving. The last thing I'll mention, returning back to the the ongoing or the need for to pass our bond and mill. Whitefield Way hopefully appeared in everybody's mailbox locally in the district, and, it's really, I wanna say thank you to Sam Briggs for a really good article. You'll need to read through this, investing in our future, a critical step for our schools explains the current, situation with regard to the need for our bond and mill and really paints the
picture of of the cost involved and what's going on. So I'd encourage everybody to just take that in. And, anyway, sorry to go on and on. Is it in? No. Great. Thank you. Miss Donna? Okay. Security Public Library. So they had their book annual, semi ammo, book sale last month, and they made $2,300 during that sale. Also, April 26 was the drug take back day that Susan always helps out at. Poetry contest. They had 120 entries for that. The story time that they do is on a break for right now.
There's a free comic book, move on May 24 from twelve to five. Staff development meeting will be on May 22 and the library will be closed in the morning and will open at noon. And also, they are cosponsoring a shred truck that will be at the District Credit Union on May 23 from twelve to three. Summer reading program is May 27 for all ages and remember this is Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month.
May is also mystery month. Let's see. Makerspace. The makers and I'm so, I meant I have several things that the makerspace has made, but I keep forgetting to bring them. So, count it up to old age, but one day I'll just bring it in so that everybody can see the little things that you do. But they are ordering a new bigger Glowforge and three more three d printers for there so that you can sign up and go over and make some fun things with that. Also, they wanted to announce that, they're increasing their volunteers and they wanted to know let everybody know that their volunteers
are fingerprinted as well as a background check is done on all volunteers. And that's it. Next meeting will be June 12. Okay. Miss Kachur. Good evening. I'd like to thank everybody that's here this evening. Thank you for taking the time to come and spend with us. Also, everybody in TV land, I just have to say hello to you. I don't think, though, young people use the word TV. Okay. To streaming land, hello. Park and rec. Loves you know I love some park and rec. I I wish I had a park and rec cheerleading costume. I would wear it regularly. So,
we discussed our in excuse me. We discussed our income and our expense reports, on that Thursday evening, where, mister Hulan presented a budget worksheet to illustrate actual numbers from last year compared to this year's numbers and projections. He also explained this is very exciting. He also explained options for funding projects like a new aquatic center in the future. Yes. Very exciting. We also, incorporated Josh Tucci who is the future director of Park and Rec and how the
advisory board, we're gonna get together with him and brainstorm on some things. We will be meeting again in August. We won't be meeting in June and July, but I just wanna say to them and to mister Hulin who is retiring, thank you, mister Hulin, for everything you've done. I'm not sure I'm I'm confident that the park and rec would not have been as successful as it is without all of his hard work. So thank you very much, Eric, mister Hulen. Our next meeting is oh, August 14. I already mentioned that.
Okay. Next. Okay. Alright. So, I, we had our last DAC meeting on, 05/01/2001 at Sunrise. We had a couple of different presentations. One is one was by our CFO, Terry here, who will give a presentation this evening about that as well, but on the budget. And then we had another presentation by Tricia Bentley on the title funds and how those are used and what those are used for, how much we get for those and very informative. I encourage anyone who wants information on those items to search for the DAC link
on the website and look at those presentations. Those should be available to you to view. We also elected a new Chair. Tabitha Moneypenny will be taking over in the fall. There was no Vice Chair elected at that time. I don't think there was much interest, but we'll try again in the fall and see if we can't get that seat filled because it's really imperative to have, something someone else there to handle things if Ms. Moneypenny isn't able to. Let's see. So the reconsideration committee comes goes through the deck as well.
And we had we discussed weeding lists or I discussed the weeding list with Terry Brungard, who will be getting those to the reconsideration committee in the fall. Those are still being worked any more meetings until September. September '4 is our next meeting and the location will be, S. A. Wilson. And that's that. Let's move on. So we've reached the public comment section of the agenda here. Any resident or employee of Whitefield School District three is welcome to address the board of education at this time on items pertaining to education and or the operation of
the district. Any person wishing to address the board is requested to come to the microphone and on, being recognized, give their name and comment. Public comments shall be directed to the board, not members of the audience. Comments directed to members of the audience shall be considered out of order. Board members will not respond to individual statements or questioned questions during the public comment portion of the meeting. Questions relating to employees of the district will not be permitted. Such questions should be referred to the superintendent at another time. The total time allowed for public comment will be limited to thirty minutes,
and it is requested that each person limit their comments to no more than five minutes. This is a professional meeting in which district business is conducted. Board policy KFA, public conduct on school property prohibits profanity or verbally abusive language, Behavior in and outside the boardroom and on all district property is a model for the students served in Whitefield School District three. So we have a few people listed today. I have a Brian Samsel. Is that correct? Actually, you got it right. Okay. Thank you. Alright. By trade,
I'm a engineer. I work with people to find patterns in their data and I've seen some decisions and behaviors in the district that have me concerned that the future of the orchestra program as a whole. It started a couple years ago when I noticed that the orchestra teacher at a middle school, I'm not gonna mention it just to steer away from forbidden topics, was not getting the support that they were supposed to be getting. I donated a couple sets of strings to help out with the school owned instruments and some music stands because he was coming up short on those at concerts.
Then all of a sudden, he started getting a little bit better support. So I filed it away, okay fine. And then more recently I have seen I was talking to the owner of Fountain Valley Music and another music store, but another decision was made to restrict in the last couple of years who can go to the nights where the kids are introduced that are instruments and be listed as a place to rent from. There was no local music stores in there. There was just a Denver store. This is not the community to do that to.
And you do that, you choke off interest because as a parent, if I can't afford to go up to Denver to deal with an instrument problem, I'm not gonna bother. I'm not gonna let the kid get interested. That'll kill the program. Let's see. There's the fact that I've never been able to verify that anybody's pursued any grants around the orchestra program. I don't know about this school system, but everyone I ever attended, I went to more than a few because, you know, I'm a marine brat. They pursued every nickel they get their hands on. D eleven just got, like, $400,000 grant for their orchestra program.
That's a lot of money. Even if it's focused on the instruments, that's a big chunk of the the cost. And then we've got other I had a conversation with one of the teachers just an offhand thing a few months ago. They were told to expect there'd be another freshman class added to Mesa Ridge. And now that teacher is not getting renewed, but I'll stay away from that. It's a shift in personnel that doesn't make sense. That's as close I'm gonna get on the topic. The other place that has concerned me is when I've tried to give feedback. I either got radio silence or I had reached out to two different levels,
the high school and then the district, and the high school responded. Miss Kraft did great. She did exactly what I expected. It didn't really answer the concerns, but it was above where she's in position to do much about. There's just no two ways about that. So that's what I'm bringing up here tonight so you guys can look deeper into this in more detail Mhmm. To find out where it went wrong and why and fix it. Because we need a strong music program and not just band, not just orchestra. I'm a band geek. I did eight years of band because where I went to school, I could start in fifth grade.
But I fully support my kid in the orchestra, my kid the choir, and every other kid out there, even the ones that don't have a look at talent. They all deserve that, especially at this age. I'm an engineer, and so many of us are former musicians. But I'll stop now because time's up. You still have some time. It'll Yeah. It's still beeping. You're good. Okay. Over yet. But this is just as important in many ways as the tracks to get these kids employable right out of high school, let alone off to college. And some of them are gonna do one or the other. Pray all of them do one or the other.
But that is one of the benefits of this district is you guys had an orchestra program. There's only one other one in the area that's got one. I think it's d eleven. D forty nine doesn't have them last I heard. You know so many other very wealthy districts. That's something we got to keep. We got to protect it just as much as the others even though the numbers dip a little bit one year to the next that's got to be protected along with everything else. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate your comments. Mr. Hoffman will be on contact with you.
Yes. Mr. Samsel, I will reach out to him. Yes, I will. Thank you. Yes. I'd have concerns about regarding the participation of the music stores and the grants is a good idea. So yes, please. Thank you, mister thank you. Thank you, mister Damsel. Okay. Next step would be Rob Oson. Thank you. You actually got that one. Right? I think, when your children might have gone to did they go to You actually know that one. Right? I think, when your children might have gone to do they go to Whitefield? Yes. Yeah. Actually, my family has been in in the district since 02/2015. Mhmm. Two of my other children have graduated from, Whitefield High School, and my youngest is, currently in Sproul. Today,
I'm I'm here to address the board, regarding the orchestra program. My family loves the arts. I myself am an I'm an actor. Some of you may have seen me in other places. Not gonna go into that. Good evening, members of the board. I I prepared a letter for you. I'll leave this for you to review later on. Thank you for your time and your continued service to the families and students of Whitefield School District three. I speak tonight on behalf of a growing number of concerned parents regarding the restructuring of the district's arts program, specifically our orchestra program. Whitefield has long been a dis a district that values the whole child and is
touted as the secret gem of Southern Colorado Springs. Our commitment to academic, social, and music programs earned distinction at state competitions with students from Sproul Junior High and Whitefield High School receiving superior ratings at c h CHSAA festivals and solo ensemble events. Even this year, Mesa Ridge scored excellence in their performances. These are not isolated achievements. They are the results of dedicated educators, engaged students, and a district that once strong stoodly supporting the arts.
These accomplishments serve as a reminder that Whitefield School District three is a musically competitive school district. Unfortunately, we are seeing signs of decline. In several of our schools, parents have noticed a malaise setting in. Our middle school's honors orchestra, orchestra was cramming for a performance with one month to perform. A decline in our middle schools participating in state level competitions as well. Last night, I was invited up to, Timberview, and I saw their seventh graders performing who just scored, excellence in their their performance at CHSAA.
That's neither here nor there. The vibrance and excitement that once filled our orchestra rooms is slowly being replaced by uncertainty and disengagement. Students are asking questions like, why should I stay in the orchestra if it's not taken seriously? Now I understand the difficult decisions you all face, balancing budgets, managing staff across the district. But we, as the parents of the district, ask you to remember that the orchestra program is not expendable. It's essential. It's a gateway for our children to develop cognitive thinking and provides a creative outlet
that complements our STEM program. That's all I really have to say is please take into consideration and look into our orchestra program a little bit deeper. Just take a couple of minutes if you will, please. We're looking for consistency for all of our children. My daughter's in sixth grade. She's gonna stay in Sproul. She's gonna go to Whitefield. And lord willing, she's gonna graduate from Whitefield and move on to music engagement, end of music entertainment or education. But it's gonna start here, and I need your help to make sure that that happens. Thank you. Thank you,
mister Olson. Okay. The next, person on the list is Micah Good evening. My name is Micah Dolphin. I am 12 years old, and I have been a student in Whitefield since preschool. I've gone to five different schools in this district. At every one, I've seen bullying, cruelty, and hate happen out in the open and and get ignored by the people who are supposed to stop it. I'm here tonight because I'm finally leaving. My family is moving to a community where kids like me are safer, schools are stronger, and there aren't constant stories about bullying being brushed off.
Before I go, I need to say what too many students are afraid to say. This district does not protect us. It punishes us for speaking up, and it rewards the kids who cause harm. This isn't the first time I've stood at this microphone. When I was seven, I spoke at a board meeting about COVID safety. I was calm, respectful, trying to help, and adults in the room laughed at me. Since then, I've come back to speak up for the LGBTQ plus and disabled students, people like me, and people I care about. Still, nothing changed.
So tonight, I'm not here to ask nicely. I'm here to tell you what I've survived. In third grade, I tried to protect another student and got punched in the face so hard it nearly dislocated my jaw. The kid who did it barely got in trouble. In elementary school, I was threatened twice. One student said he was going to bring a gun to school and shoot me in the face, and another said, I'm going to kill you. I reported both. One was back in class the next day. In middle school, I joined boys' choir. Not to make a statement, but because it was the only one that fit my schedule. Some of the boys constantly questioned my gender.
One asked if my shoes were the Biafrai flag. I said, no. They were the lesbian flag. He made a face and said, oh. So you're like, fully gay? I've been threatened by an eighth grader who said I'd be jumped if I didn't stop going to a counselor. In my English class, a handful of students hailed Hitler. They were given two days of in school detention, the same as a miss missing a couple assignments. So, yes, sometimes the district does something, but here's what it feels like to kids living it. Two days of detention is not justice. Silence from staff is not protection.
A system that protects and rewards bullies and punishes the ones who stand up, that's not safety. That's neglect. And just because I'm a student just because I'm an a student, just because I'm in top band and choir, just because I seem fine, doesn't mean I'm okay. I've been hurting for years, and still I rise. But what happens when the next kid can't? I will say, not everyone has failed me. Miss Dombrowski, miss Zateca, miss Bone, miss Henning, miss Alvarado, miss Beswick, miss Whatley, miss Harris,
missus Ruiz, miss Tims, and miss Craner. Thank you for seeing me when others didn't. You reminded me that not every sorry. You reminded me that not everyone looks away. My kind teachers do not fix a broken culture. Thank you. Whitefield Mission says you believe in respect, integrity, urgency, and honoring diversity, but I've lived the opposite. I've lived fear. I live silent. I've lived a school culture that protects bullies and exhausts survivors. So I'm asking, where was the urgency when I was being threatened?
Where was the integrity when I was laughed at? Where's their support for students who are just trying to feel safe? This isn't a bullying problem. It's a character problem. It's a culture problem. So don't tell me you care about community. Prove it. Create a district wide character policy that is taught, modeled, and enforced, not a checkbox, not a hallway poster a culture. Because the lesson I've learned here is simple. If you're different, you're not safe. That's what Whitefield taught me, And I hope tonight you finally learned something too. Thank you. Thank you, Micah.
Thank you. Thanks, Micah. Okay. We'll move on to our administrative reports. Stephanie. Alright. Keeping in theme with the end of the year here. This originally had students throwing their caps up in the air and graduating and stuff like that. But we threw this picture on here. This is from our community parade. So let's look back at this last year. For us, it's gonna be four years. Okay. Whitefield School District security department. How did we start? Far as back I can go back with talking to some former employees was in 02/2007, we had a security coordinator. Right? That was, I think it was John Morris back then. And four campus supervisors,
there's two at each high schools. Going to 02/1314, we had an armed security coordinator, John, and then we had, I believe it was Don Roycroft, was the armed district patrol. And then four unarmed campus supervisors, two at the high schools as well. 02/2014 to '15, we added another patrol officer. There's some of the guys there. Eighteen and nineteen, John went to director of security, then we had three armed district patrol, and then eight unarmed campus supervisors. Two at the high schools, one at each of the junior highs, and then we had one of them at Discovery High School there. Some trainings that we had going on,
2019 to 2020, director of security. That's when John's last year, and then we had three armed district patrol, and then we put one at the mill for a little bit. Then we had mister Southworth open up at Grand Mountain as an armed security there. We have the two armed guys at the high schools and then one unarmed guy at each of the high schools there. K. Twenty twenty to '20 '20 '1 is where things started to change a little bit. I came on as operations manager of security, and we had three individuals on district patrol. We had an armed guy between the junior highs, and then Mike was out at Grand Mountain.
We had some of the high school guys there as well, one armed. And I think eventually started moving to be armed that year. And then seven unarmed campus supervisors at the junior highs, someone at each high school. That year, we started, I guess, tracking some of our activity. Right? We wanted to see what we were doing in the district, what we were, getting involved with, what what impact we were making. Some of those things that we documented since March till the end of the school year, There's a 19 incidents that we reported to ourselves. Those are things like responding to accidents in that list there. That could be district vehicles,
students, public staff, bus support. Right? We get called to a bus stop, anything like that, or acts of crime. Right? Maybe we're responding to parks and rec. Maybe we're responding to a school site in the morning, something got vandalized. I mean, some crisis intervention, helping out staff, students, parents. We also helped out with some gaggle reports that would come in and then the safe to tell us. We had medical emergencies, things that involve with staff, students, and public as well. If we had to help out with a missing student that didn't make it home, and then checking welfare, individuals throughout the neighborhood that have come on property, and any other support requests that we would get.
Does say wildlife on there, and it does say livestock. It helped it helped corral some cows before. There's a picture somewhere. I couldn't find it. And then just general contacts and informational contacting. I have mentoring on there. There's a picture later on. We actually did do some chess with some kids. I personally helped out with some kids at French where, we would get some earned time with them and and build Legos together. That was a blast. K. Twenty twenty to '20 '20 '2. I don't know if I shunt off here. There it goes. Goes. One thing that changed on that was on the left side, I think we still have the unarmed guys in the high schools and an armed
guy in the high school. Everything else pretty much stayed the same. We went down to 83 incidents. A lot of that was just because we had lost some staff, and we're trying to replace those positions. So the reporting just wasn't being done with the same incidents that we were recording before is what we were tracking. Okay. 22 to 23. That's where the department absolutely changed. Right? Summer of twenty two, Board of Education added on armed camp or armed supervisors at elementaries and junior high levels, something we've never done before. Before. I can say we probably spent the first six months of that year figuring out
how and what we were gonna do in an elementary school, figuring out how we would support them, coming up with roles and responsibilities, right, to help integrate into that culture. That's totally different. Responding to an an elementary versus a middle school versus a high school. So we went from six armed up to 20 in that next this this course of that year. Our incidents absolutely jumped up. Right? We went to 236 incidents because there's more individuals that are reporting and showing up and helping out with things. Here's some of our depression professional development that we had. Top left corner there, that's the guys doing stop the bleed with one of our trainers there,
learning how to fix bleeding if they need to. Right? In the middle, that's definitely a box of pizza. We had to come in late one night, and we actually went around Venetucci and learned about bird alarms and how to figure out what's going on with an alarm when we get it, watching the maps, watching the cameras, seeing if we can track down where the movement is. Very bottom of that, again, just some more training with them. And then, obviously, in the bottom right is our range time. We're over at Magnum Shooting Spot or shooting Center. We do our training there. 02/2003 to 02/2004. Things changed a little bit.
Right? We put just had two guys on patrol with me, and then we put two armed individuals at the high schools, Grand Mountain. The guys at the junior highs went armed, and then the ones all, obviously, all the ones at the elementary were there. And then I think we added another one that year, which would have been Whitefield l. Same thing. Incidents dropped a little bit. Right? I think we started seeing some of the impact that we're having with the kids and and the community, and that was great. So, again, this is just a summary of what those incidents look like compared to the the staff in the red. You know,
eight the first year, seven that second year, 19 individuals, and then up to 20 that next year. Another thing we do a lot of with our department is working with the standard response protocol. Right? That's what's on the back of our ID badges. It's our locks, lights, out of sight, things like that, our holds, our secures, evacuations. The big graph over there shows all the drills that we did, and then the bottom left shows the actual response incidents that we had to deal with. It says hold. Hold's typically someone in the hallway. Maybe they made a mess. Maybe there's something we got to clean up. Maybe we had medical come in.
We wanted to keep education, keep the, privacy of the teaching going on. So we just keep everyone in the rooms and and clear that hallway. Evacuates, we've had a few of those. Right? Whether that's, someone in the kitchen accidentally burning something or popcorn at Grand Mountain, kinds of different things. Secure, 99% of that is law enforcement happening in the area, and we've had to put the school in secure to keep everybody inside. We had a lockdown incident out of Grand Mountain that we responded to and helped with. And then that modified release is instead of us reunifying it like another off-site location, that's where we actually had to release them from the school.
I one of those might have been where, you know, police activity was on the East side. We released on the West side of the school just to keep everybody safe. But as it shows there, 49 evacuation drills we did down to 37 lockdown drills that we did, four secure, four shelter, and then three holds. Those are the drills that we do in one year. And how about events? Right? You guys have seen us at a lot of different events across the district. Board meetings. Right? You guys usually see me here or one of the guys. We've been to a back committee meeting before.
Football events, k, and then the color code obviously is what what grade level those are at. A lot of basketball it looks like. Some open house, volleyball, soccer. Our next biggest things are music and some wrestling events. 288 events across the district about when I made this a couple weeks ago for this year. We get into the next part that we kind of do with the team to help give them a goal to go towards. Right? And those are honors of the five year badge. When individuals are armed for five years, they get a badge with their name on it. First individual that got that was mister Southworth from eleven of twenty twenty three.
Brin's handing him that. Again, it has this badge at the very bottom of that, which is great. Places that patch upon his chest. Mr. Nellis, his wife is putting that on his chest. That was a fantastic day too. His was from nine of twenty four. Mister Keyes earned his in January of twenty twenty five. He's over at Whitefield High School. Doctor Bidding's putting that on him. And then I got mine in eight of twenty four as well. Again, this is a school year. Right? We're wrapping up the end of the year here. It's our graduating time. So what's some things we've done? Right? We've had convocation. We've had our district parade. Some panda pride.
We have mister Reinhart up there and his little panda on his chest. Some training. That was miss Mena as a student getting her backpack searched by us, teaching us how to do that appropriately. We have mister Walton walking a dog that he found on property. And then that's over by Parks and Rec, right, celebrating with the festivities. Backpack bash. Mister Nellis or Nellis I'm sorry. Willie Nelson is standing there with their, Watchdog program, hall of fame, and then some of the other things here. Ended off with Marlon out at Grand Mountain. He really likes butter.
That's all I'm gonna say. Let's wrap it up, everyone. It's been a great year. Right? Great few years of us building up this team. Those are some of our missions and our goals, our values that we have on that right side there. That's all I've got. Alright. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Jack. Thank you. Alright. Mister Kimber, are you ready to give us that draft budget report? Got my got my notes with me here. Oh my goodness. Alright. So Do we need to take a a break first? Really. No. Anyway We're waiting. Dated. Guys, I I really appreciate the opportunity, to present to you tonight. I also,
was really nice to be able to present to you on Tuesday at the luncheon. We talked about most of this information there, so I will we'll try to be as brief as I can in in certain areas, but there's some other important areas that we need to talk about. When we talk about the budget this year, again, we talked about the fact that, you know, that some years there's a good budget year. And we have had a few good budget years last few years as the state was paying down the negative factor. Now that that's gone, there's not additional funding coming. And so there but there weren't budget cuts. It was just kind of a year. And so sometimes that makes it more difficult and we'll talk about some of that
as we go through here. But the the the biggest thing, guys, is that what are we here for? We're here for our kids. Our goals all start with student learning at the top. We reinforced with a new strategic plan. Sam has been working hard on on getting some information out on that. We hope to have that adopted by the start of the next school year. And if you look through that, I know you guys have seen it, you can see how intentional we are with everything we're doing around student achievement. It's why we're here. We want to continue our academic focus with the TLC three point o,
but we've also started a renewed focus on our PLCs. And I know you guys have heard the information about that from Ms. Houchens as well. But that's a that's a huge piece for us to and, again, to try to do that. And it takes resources. It takes resources to for our for to pay staff to be able to do it. It also takes resources for us to be trained and work through some of those things. But it's important for us. Instructional frameworks we've had for years, we have to keep reminding ourselves about those and looking back on those, our k 12 literacy staff development support, career and technical education opportunities. We are we've never stopped,
or stopping trying to find the best path forward for our kids. And we wanna maximize student learning by prioritizing and directing our our dollars towards those particular pieces that will help improve that the most, as well as we want to continue our increased focus on math. Math is an issue for math achievement is an issue around the state, not just Whitefield. We want to be a we want to get better. And so we've got to focus on that and may are maintaining that in this next year. Fiscal responsibility is also a very significant piece,
especially as we're going into bond season and want to try to sell bonds to be able to pay for the projects that we have. We wanna continue to maintain between the two and three month. Worth of expenditures in the general fund balance. We wanna maintain the fiscal responsibility in all funds. And we've talked a little bit about, trying to recoup the the dollars that we had, spent inside our cap reserve fund, the, excuse me, the, parks and rec program, building the new facilities and those types of things. So we're working hard to reestablish those particular pieces. And guys,
it's we're going to have cuts or we're not going to have as much increases we would hope. We were supposed to have increased, by eighteen percent implementation of the new school finance formula this year. It went to 15%. But you remember, from early on conversations about how they were trying to take away our averaging and the whole nine yards. And thank you board for for stepping up and and producing, a letter to the state, to the JBC joint budget committee as well as the others our our state representatives. Those things made a difference in this last year, and we were able to maintain that. And then,
of course, always trying to make sure we're we're, competitive with our compensation for our employees. The School Finance Act of 1994, this will be the last year that this sign will this one will be in the thing because we have a new, School Finance Act called fourteen forty eight from last year. But basically this year, as they're starting to implement that, the only real difference for us is that adding special education is a factor inside the numbers. And for us, that's a huge factor. We have a significant special education population. If you don't believe me, you can ask miss miss Lake right over here,
what what our caseloads look like. However, that really helps us, and and that's the real reason that we have additional money this year is because that for has been added into the formula. Because otherwise, our our enrollment would have caused us to have a a reduction. Actually, they they actually had did a horrible harm, so we would have gotten exactly what we got paid last year. We also, for Rinal, the budget stabilization factor is gone, which is still a huge huge thing for us. But it still remains out there as a little carrot that if the state really gets in trouble that they could probably reinstate.
The budget development process, again, we've got federal guidance we have to maintain. We have state governance we have to maintain. And then, of course, you, the local governance that we have that we work through in trying to make all this work. Our budget methodology, this is on our federal grants. I'm not gonna read it all, guys, but this is a required, part of our our piece of information that we have to provide in our budget. So so miss Bentley can can can turn around and get our our all of our federal funds and and same with miss Lake with our federal SPED funds. And so it just tells how that that we are,
doing what we're supposed to be doing. We are not discriminating against any schools based on any criteria and that we are allocating effectively to all schools, the same. On budget requirements, we are required to report in two different fashions. One of them by fund on the right hand side and the other by the particular categories that we have that are that are built into our financial statements. This should be the last year. Well, actually, this at the end of this fiscal year, this last year for print shop, we're gonna move some of that back into the general fund and outsource some of our copying costs because it's just too expensive and the space is too valuable to
to not work through as we move forward. The Colorado Department of Education requires that I present a proposed budget to you by May 31 each year and, that you will approve and appropriate that, by June 30. You guys having fun with my little little flippy thingies? Pretty cool, This thing? Yeah. Yeah. Gotta have some fun stuff here. Budget highlights. Again, we went over most of these the other day on Tuesday. But the big ones is school finance act provides an increase for $437 per pupil,
full time equivalent students. Again, that's about $3,800,000 additional money coming into our district. Again, the majority of that is related to the new school finance formula, not enrollment. Amendment 23 increased funding by the base funding by 2.3%, which of course is inside that $437 The new formula is phased in over six. It's actually seven years. With this year, moving it back to 15% and then the way they're trying to phase it in. Again, we I've beat this horse to death, but that's because, special education is coming into the formula.
It really helps us with the new formula. It's It's gonna move us off the bottom. We're not we'll no longer be the second lowest funded school district in the state. I don't I haven't gone through and done that recalculation based on the new numbers yet, but, that will move us off the bottom but not too far. Enrollment projections and averaging reduced student count about about 90 students, into this budget. So we that's, if you take that number times our PPR of 11,000, roughly 11,200, you can see that's a significant number of dollars. It's almost a million dollars less funding we are gonna have because of our student
count. Enrollment expected to remain stable to slightly decreasing right now. We are not projecting an increase yet. Universal preschool program is separate from PPR. You remember that happened last year. They gave us a whopping 0% increase in the amount of money funding that we get per student for this next school year. And then we also, when we added Haven as an online multi district school, they are locked in at the PPR rate of 10,480. That's what all school districts who have multi district online programs have. Our brick and mortar PPR is 11,198.
That's what you guys will get as well, which is good for you, over over at JMCA as we as we pass that on. The growth, right now we're looking at around 65 to 70 less FTE. I have a hope, but I've said before hope is not a successful strategy, but, I I have a hope that our kindergarten class will actually rebound and help us a little bit with that. But we don't know until we see the whites of their eyes on August? Eleventh. On August 11. Well, actually, we won't even know until eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, probably the thirteenth when we have all of all of them there for the for
the first time. So we'll have to see what that looks like. On the summary of major budget expenditures, we talked about these the other day in very, probably for you, excruciating detail. But however, we had turnover savings. We have staff adjustments from staffing for about $1300000.0.2.25 percent for all staff increase adds up to almost $2,000,000 Health insurance contribution, district is picking up a portion of the increase. And we've adjusted extra duty contracts. We haven't done that for a couple of years based on the formula for people.
And we've also had added we're added, soccer at this junior high levels, girls and boys. We've added, girls wrestling at both high schools, individually and some difference. And then our cross country teams keep adding more and more people, and we they get to add extra coaches. So we had to make adjustments there. We suspended you. When I say we, I mean you. Suspended our our curriculum adoptions for the year. Miss miss Houchins went through and and calculated what those amounts that we could save in this current year to postpone into the future. Again, I wanna use the word postpone,
when we do our financial statements for the audit. I plan on, asking you to reserve, some money for those particular pieces out of the fund balance for future use, so because we can't let it go away. In the past, we had thirty year old microbiology textbooks. That was great. You can't do that anymore with the online pieces and everything else that's going on. They they get you every five to seven years, every single one of them now. So we have to we have to continue on. We just have to wade through that. Accrued salaries, when we that was because we aren't increasing 6%,
seven % like we did last year. We're increasing two and a quarter so we can reduce the amount of accrued salaries. Special education costs for the increased demands that we have, we talked about that a little bit earlier. And then inflationary costs accounts for utility increases and different things that go on in the facilities and transportation department, dollars one a hundred and seventy one thousand. That's not enough, guys. It's still continuing to grow and we'll have to keep continuing to look at those budgets and work through those over the course of this next year. Come on. Alright. Where are we now? We have we started off the woah. We started off the year with two and a half months worth of reserves because
of the things that we talked about as far as enrollment this last year, taking those numbers down as well as the our PPR dropping almost $90 a a kid. We we're we're projecting to use about $2,600,000 which is gonna bring our beginning fund balance, for 2526 down to 2.1 2 months. Our this budget I'm I'm preparing for you tonight or presenting to you tonight not preparing. Presenting to you tonight, is calling for about a $600,000 use of the fund balance. With that, that would put us down at 2 point o three months,
which is the bare minimum I I feel for where we need to be as a district going forward. 25, 20 six budget recap based teacher salaries moving to fifty four one. All staff will receive a 2.25% increase. And we're doing market adjustments for bus drivers and health technicians, adding and it's not on the list, but also adding a dollar an hour fee for center based to the preschool program. We're gonna treat them as a center based program like we do our our schools. So that will be, they're they're doing that work and it it makes sense. We also,
picking up, there is no PERA increase this year. We anticipated there might be. It's called the auto adjust that's sitting out there. That didn't happen this year, which is a good thing. And health insurance, we did district did pick up a portion of that eight and a half percent. Come on. There we go. I like to, give you guys for just mostly for your purposes in reading, just a different look at the budget. So I did it by school. I said I you can see it by program, and then you can also see it by administrative service. For a grand total at the bottom down there of $121,000,000 is what we're projecting to spend in this current fiscal year or not current fiscal
year, in the in the 2526 budget year. How the School Finance Act is coming through to us? Again, we've talked about how we have a piece of pie sitting there and the pies divvy up in different slices. The specific ownership tax piece, cars, registrations account for about 1.77%. Property taxes account for about 22% of our PPR. And state equalization is almost $77,000,000 for $101,000,000 1 hundred and 1 point 5 million dollars is what we're anticipating on receiving this next year.
For the kids that we have built in the budget, again, that will change depending on what our enrollment actual enrollment is. Our assessed valuation numbers right now is $846,000,000 with that, you guys have all received well, most of us have all received our notices from the county assessor. A lot of us, a good majority of people have seen a small decrease, not if that's if that's the case, you know, that number would go down. We're also but we're also anticipating the fact that we still do have building going on. We still have new houses going up,
and we still have the growth that's happening at the at the airport and around the airport and the commercial pieces that we have, which we would hope that would at least keep us at this close level and probably a slight increase. But I don't have that information yet. Our again, our projected PPR, I mentioned earlier, is $11,198 or a $437 increase over last year. It's just a nice little graph that shows the history of our PPR. See, ten years ago, our PPR was at $7,000 but you also need to realize that,
the state at that point had a significant negative factor, that would have increased that number up. And so to be at 11,198, you're you really want to compare really close to 24 and 25, is where is where we're really comparing those numbers are. But it's nice to see the history, at least I think so. District revenues. Again, we start off with our projected fund balance. We have our local sources, which include property taxes, specific ownership taxes and just the other things that we have, investment income, all the things that are generated locally,
about $38,000,000 state sources, again, that's we said a minute ago is about $77,000,000 Of that $87,000,000 is in state equalization through our PPR. The other $10,000,000 comes in the form of special education, vocational, transportation, and other state grants that we have throughout the system. Read the read monies. Federal sources. Our federal sources are are impact aid. Junior ROTC. They they pay us half of the salary, for our ROTC people. We still have to pay the rest of the half and all the benefits for
the for those staff. But, and then we also have our Medicaid dollars that come in for for the services that Rachel's department provides throughout the district. And then we turn around and have to spend those on on certain, items that they're approved of. So and we spend it on on, nurses and social workers and, also the staff that take care of what's that? Health therapist. And oh, yeah. Well, that well, yeah. Mental health therapist. I'm sorry. I considered you a social worker by that. Our source again, I like to show you a different way. A lot of people are graphic. So you can kind of see we're at 68.6%
of our money, comes from the state. And you can just kind of see what the other parts of the pie are for us as far as our revenues go. On our expense side, breaking it out by by object code, we have salaries and benefits add up to almost 87 I mean, excuse me, 86%. As you can see, Amy's very busy, when you when you think about that. That's where 86% of our our dollars are going directly to staff. That's that's, we are definitely in the people business as Kirk used to always say. Professional and technical services, and property services and other purchase services,
you can see kinda see what those are. Supplies only end up being about 5% of that total, as you work down through that. And, again, I like to make a pretty graph. I thought this one was really colorful this year. I just wanted to point that out. But, you can kinda see when you when you really look at pie and how big the the salary pie is and the benefits. Again, you can really see that again, I'll state it one more time that we are definitely in the people business. Come on. There we go. I try to break down. We have to break it down by our program. And when you do our instructional program of 67,000,000,
our pupil support of almost 12,000,000, and our, excuse me, our other pupil support of $6,000,000 If you go back and add up these numbers Dave, you got your math calculator out? Sure. Okay. I'm just kidding. But you've got 55 and 10. That's 65% of our our dollars are are basically right at teaching level. And then the next people who are touching kids every single that that's not a great way. Are working with kids every single day, as another 5%. Percent. We're at 70% of our our funds are are spent directly in front of and
with kids. That is a huge, huge, number. And I think that shows how committed we are as a district to making sure that our kids are the priority and goes back to our when I my very first part of the conversation, we started talking about the goals of of the district and student achievement. We have general administration is less than 1%. Our school administration is 8%. Our business services, 1.4. Facilities is almost 11% and transportation is 4.5%. Central services,
which includes HR, our support services technology, communications department is 3.5%. And then other, is less than a percent. And then our debt service guys, this is the last year we have to pay the the payment on the mill building. So that will go be be done at the end of this, at the end of the school year. Year. Here's another required slide you have to show, per pupil numbers where you can see our per pupil funding coming in and then what our per pupil expenditures are. We're projected to spend $13,457
per kid in the next school year. And again, I talk a little bit about UPK or UPK taking those out. It used to be part of our our numbers, but it is no longer there. And again, the online PPR number is $10,480 for our two fifty nine students that we're projecting into the Haven as far as starting school next year right now. Our general fund expenditures is how it affects fund balance. Just to kind of keep an eye on some things there. Again, at the bottom, you can see those ratios projected this year at 2.12,
proposed down to 2.03. And those are months. That's how many months are in reserve and fund balance. And then here's the I'm just I'm going to flip through these really quick. Just the other funds that we have. Risk management fund, we're we're getting to the end of having any fund balance inside of those. That's why we had to increase the amount that we're we're depositing in that fund. Next year, we'll have to do that again. Our cost of our liability and and general liability insurance is significantly increased. That's you've seen it in your own home, insurance. All of you I'm sure all of you have,
but it's it's hitting schools too as well as the fact that we have had major claims on roofs in the past. Nutrition services fund. We talked a little bit about that. The only caveat there is that if the ballot measures do not pass in November, we don't feel it's it's a great idea to pull out from underneath the students that are that we're currently feeding. You can see we we have about $2,900,000 that we could eat some of that up in the one year and then then then notify parents and work through that particular process then. But we hope that would pass.
The first ballot language is going to be, can we keep the money that we already asked for because they're kept kept, collecting more than they than they said we could through the, through the TABOR process. Then they say that's not enough. We're gonna ask for the balance. Our designated grant fund, revenues and expenses have to match. And something I failed to mention to you guys, the other day was that, next month when I come to you, I'm gonna come to you with a supplemental budget for the grants fund. We received the ZODEA grant, a couple years ago and we had planned on spending about $650,000
on kits for our elementary kids to have science kits. That money or that we couldn't get those kits in in that time frame. We they came in this year. We ended up spending those funds. I didn't have them budgeted in there. And because it balances back and forth, I'm gonna come to you with supplemental budget just to allocate that and appropriate those funds so that I don't get in trouble on the backside when we go through audit. Just give you a heads up that that's coming. It's not it's not a big deal. We already have the money. We already spent the money. It's just I need you guys' approval. A people activity fund, that's just our buildings, funds that they have available to them.
Parks and rec. Parks and rec has had a has had a good year. We're projecting, them to make, add to their fund balance this year, and we're budgeting for them to do that next year. I think, miss Kutcher mentioned earlier about trying to work on a plan to try to get a new what you call it, an aquatic center? I keep saying pool, but aquatic center. And and that's that's part of the plan in trying to work through this. Conservation trust, that's money that we get from the lottery. Those those lottery funds have to be used on on areas where the the community can actually use some of those facilities, and that's what we they do with those. Most of that money,
if you if you've noticed, goes to parks and the ball fields and things like that. Bond redemption fund, this is the money that we collect to pay our bond payment each year. Capital projects fund, we've had a long conversation over the last couple months about our cap reserve program. As you can see, our revenue is down about $500,000 because we needed to use that money to help shore up the general fund budget in this current year. You also see that, we're planning on using more than what we bring in, 2.3 coming in and 4.8. Again, that money, guys, is the money that's left over from a Janitell roof COP that got offset by
us receiving the best grant for that. So that's a huge project for us, and then we're able now to turn around and do a lot of these, Dave, talks about doing controls, which allows us to manipulate the the temperatures and stuff correct more correctly in the buildings. Plus, we're able to use some of those funds to to help with the Mesa Ridge problem of those things of those rooftop units starting to go out. So we have some funds to be able to do that because we were blessed with that best grant on top of getting that COP. So that's why that number looks, is is high there. We're gonna use fund balance in that fund.
And then overall, guys, a hundred 93,000 a hundred 93,000,000, dollars budget for this current year when when we come down to you next month in your appropriations. Again, our expenditures are around a hundred and 50. Dollars We appropriate our contingencies so we don't have to come back to you and do this thing I was just mentioning with the grants fund. The last one is the fund balance analysis. I've done this last couple years. We've talked about it. I don't know that I need to do it anymore other than I try to project out into the future. In 2027, if things stay the same, we're looking at and and working through some stuff. It looks like about it will be right at two point o.
In 2028, based on the things that we know, it it's, right at two, but it's a little less. So we have a little bit of work to do there. I'm gonna I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the biggest factor that we have in making our budgets better and working through them is enrollment. Enrollment. Enrollment. If we get our enrollment, enrollment will will will pull us up out of the out of the we're not in the bottom. We're just right we're right there in the muck, and we just need to get pulled out of that. And I think that'll be a good thing for us when enrollment increases. Looking forward, we wanna have a balanced budget next year.
I do. Before I before I leave out of here, I wanna have it balanced. We're getting close. We're at 600,000, but we'll work hard to get that. New state funding formula is at 15%, so scheduled for '18. We the the spread at risk factor we talked about. The the next year, it's supposed to go up to 30%, but go down to three year averaging, but only if they get it to 30%. We're getting very close to the averaging isn't going to affect us much because our big year drops off next year anyway. And so we're gonna have to, so it's not the averaging portion isn't gonna affect us,
but we will have, a significant decrease in enrollment next year because that averaging is contributing significantly to our bottom line right now. But it's going to go away anyway. So, the bond mill override election in 'twenty five is huge. Mr. Dock was talking about that earlier. Our COP, bond and capital projects, Best Grant has allowed us to access additional funding for work on the HVAC projects like I mentioned. If we are successful with the, best grant for, North Preschool, that is gonna free up an allotted dollars for us to move down that that
list of things that we need to get done and really be able to attack some some other things that need to be done in our district. So I'm excited about that prospect with the news that mister Gish gave us on Tuesday with how it looked like they received it very well. Whether they have the money to fund it, I don't know. But, we're we're I'm excited that they were they were excited about that process because I didn't know that they would be that much. Continued inflationary cost we got to work about. I just mentioned it earlier, enrollment, enrollment, enrollment. We still have a growth in the housing market. If you guys have driven out Bradley Road on the right hand side there,
there's a lot of homes still going up in there. If you drive around in there, there's still a lot of homes for sale in there. There's not a lot of many open. Same thing is happening on the backside, and then would be the South East Side Of Of Grand Mountain. There is significant, housing development still going on. They're still laying lots of infrastructure, but not a lot of homes. We don't haven't seen a lot of kids come into our district from those particular places. And then, the decrease in the in the residential, assessed valuation, don't know how that's gonna lay out, should help us a little bit with property taxes for for for people. However,
when we say $9.25 per or or $6 per, that number is gonna fluctuate until we get the the actual, estimated numbers around the August 1. So we'll have to keep you informed of where that goes. And the last thing I have is questions. No. Not right now. Thank you very much. Thank you for submitting your budget report. Alright. Alright. Stephanie. Good evening. In item five a, the board of education received the employee input process recommendation, the blue sheet, at last week's board meeting. If there are no questions, it is recommended that the board of education approve the EIP blue sheet recommendations for
the 02/2025, '2 thousand '20 '6 school year. K. Can I get a motion to approve the EIP recommendations? Sure. I'll make a motion. Any second. Let's approve it. A second. Do you have discussion? No? Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Dawe? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Thank you. In item five b, the board of education also received the memo of understanding for licensed, non licensed support, special service providers, and administration constituencies. The memo of understanding is attached in five a,
the employee input process recommendation, the blue sheet. If there are no questions, it is recommended that the board of education approve the memo of understanding for the 02/2026 school year. Okay. Can I get a motion to act, approve that memo of understanding? Give a motion. And do we have a second? Yes. Second. Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Dock? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Thank you. And I know we have a few members of our discussion team here tonight. I wanna thank all all of those members of the employee input process for their
time and dedication to that. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I'm gonna take items four c through n together, but but talk about them individually, with that. So if we could do those Yeah. Consent, that'd be great. Thank you. Those items include revisions to the following policies. And and before I start, I might add part of that is, we didn't do it in the consent because you've only had a week with these, and so we wanna make sure that we're clear with the public and everyone that that, you know, what's going on there. It's not the usual month review. GBBD,
the employee benefit summary, updating leave of absence and insurance information. GBCA sick leave increasing payout accessibility and rates. GBCAB personal leave aligning language with practice. GBDA administrator salary representing a compensation increase. GBDAB support salary representing a compensation increase in incorporation of educational salary increments GCBA career technical education annex to the non administrative licensed personnel salary representing a compensation increase in incorporation of educational salary increments,
big win there. GBC GCBA RB educational salary increment adding the support and CT educational salary. GCBARC non administrative license personnel salary representing the compensation increase. And I'm not missing GCBB, licensed special service provider salary representing the compensation increase. GCBC extra duty, salary table adding women's wrestling assistant coach and activities extended season stipends. GDBA non licensed personnel compensation representing a compensation increase and GDP change of classification expanding
promotion rule guidelines. Okay. These revisions were received item last week as I mentioned previously. If there are no questions, it is recommended the Board of Education approve these policy recommendations as presented. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve these? Motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Doc? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Thanks for reading. And then for I am oh, we wanna make sure that we clarify that that was to through the 2027 to 2028 year. We had it on the agenda as 2029 to '20 so 02/1930.
Yes, ma'am. I item five o is the contract renewal for James Madison Charter Academy as presented and discussed last month and already signed by the JMCA board. This renewal is for three years three years continuing and through the twenty twenty seven twenty twenty eight school year. I just want to take a moment to say thank you to have Mr. Casina come in tonight, but his help throughout the process, and we value the partnership with JMCA. If there are no questions, it is recommended the Board of Education approve the JMCA contract renewal as presented.
Okay. Is there a motion to approve the contract? Yes. I'll make that motion to approve. Thank you, Dave. Second? I second. Thank you, Donna. Mrs. Kutcher? Aye. Mr. Dock? Aye. Mrs. Walsh? Aye. Mrs. West? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Did you want to say anything real quick? I just want to thank you all. Of course. The work that we're doing there, I believe in it so much, and I and I thank you for the opportunity to continue to be a part of this amazing community. Of course. Mhmm. Alright. Good job. Thank you. Alright. Alright. And then, I have the next three receive items,
five p through r. These include if I may take those by consent. Yes. Sorry. Include revisions to the following policies: DJB federal procurement aligning to current practice. These get kind of tough for me, the e's. EEEAEAA dash r, procedures for controlled substance and alcohol testing of commercial motor vehicle operators updating in accordance with CASB recommendations and law. EEEAEG, use of wireless communication devices by school transportation vehicles, vehicle drivers updating communication practices updating references in EEAFA
bus service for activities and EEAFB R non school use of transportation vehicles. EEBA small vehicles updating the expectations. EF school nutrition program updating references. EFE1 school meal payments updating the monetary references. EFEA, the Nutritious Food Services, updating regulatory references. Deletion of DJBR Federal Procurement Procedure, FEF Architects, FEFR Selection of Architect, Engineer, Construction Manager, and FEG Construction Plans and Specifications whose necessary content is already covered in other policies
or is no longer needed. And DIA online school and programs, which is a CASB required for online attendance. All the aforementioned policies are received items for this month for your review. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, mister Stecher. Alright. Stephanie's up again. Okay. The board has received the resolution in five s, authorizing early dismissal of seniors for the 02/2026 school year. If there are no questions, it is recommended that the Board of Education adopt and approve the resolution authorizing the
early dismissals of seniors for the 2526 school year. Okay. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second? I second. Thank you. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Dock? Aye. Missus West? Oh, Walsh. Missus Walsh. I'm sorry. You're not showing them on mute. I'm sorry. Missus West and missus Walsh. Sorry. Yes. K. Also, in item five t, the board has received the request for the high school graduations for next school year, 02/2026. If there are no questions, it is recommended that the board of education approve the dates for Discovery High School,
The Haven, Whitefield High School, and Mesa Ridge High School for 2526 school year. Discovery High School will be on Friday, 05/15/2026 at 4PM in Whitefield High School's auditorium. The Haven School will be on Friday, 05/15/2026 at 6PM in the Whitefield High School Auditorium. And Whitefield High School's graduation will be on Saturday, 05/16/2026 at 10AM at CA Foster Stadium. And finally, Mesa Ridge High School will be on Monday, 05/18/2026 at 7PM at the World Arena.
K. Do I have a motion to approve that? A motion that we approve the graduation date requests. Is there a second? Second. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Dock? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Okay. Next, I have the high school trip request for you in five u. I'm requesting approval for five students from Mesa Ridge and Whitefield High School, NJROTC, to travel to the annual area nineteen leader academy at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, June Second To The Fifth Of 2 Thousand 20 5.
At the Leadership Academy, they will be having academic lessons regarding leadership, lessons on how to lead NJROTC units, how to teach aspects of rifle and sword. They will also hike. They will go through a challenge course, physical training test, and mentor time with various instructors. We have five students and one adult attending the training, and the students in chaperone will be flying to Dallas, Texas, will rent a car, which will be driven by senior commander Andrew Pearson. Students will be staying on campus during the training. Female chaperones will be provided by the local area nineteen and our NJROTC unit,
and funding for this event will be covered through NJROTC funds. The group has completed all the appropriate approvals to this point. Do you have any questions? No. Is there a motion to approve this travel request? Motion to approve. A second? A second. I'll second. Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Dock? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Okay. One more exciting trip request. In five v, I'm requesting approval for one Whitefield High School student and one student from the Haven to travel to Atlanta, Georgia on June '20 eighth '20 '20 '5 to compete in the SkillsUSA National Leadership
and Skills Conference. Both students currently attend classes at the International Spa and Salon Academy, and these two students will compete in nails and aesthetics. There is one district chaperone and two ISSA chaperones traveling with the two students. Both ISSA chaperones have completed background screening with the CBI through their employer. The students and chaperones will be flying to Atlanta, Georgia. Students and chaperones will be staying at the Marriott Hotel in Atlanta. Funding for the trip will be covered through fundraising and CTE funds. The group has completed appropriate approvals to this point.
Do you have any questions? What I didn't see what is ISS International Salon and Spa Academy. You probably said that. Thank you. Is there a motion to, approve this request? Motion to approve. And I'll second. Okay. Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Doc? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Megan. Good evening. The board received a recommendation for instructional equipment for our secondary art art courses last month. There are no questions that is recommended. The board approve the instructional equipment recommendation as presented.
Yes. Is there a motion to approve the instructional equipment? Motion to approve. Thank you, Donna. Second? I second. Okay. Missus Kutcher? Aye. Mister Doc? Aye. Missus Walsh? Aye. Missus West? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Those laptops. Hey, Terry. I'd like to formally, receive the 2526 proposed budget. You have thirty days, if you have come up with any additional questions. The second thing is is in your packet is the draft notice of, use of fund balance resolution, for your information. And, we will bring the actual, one when we return next month to approve the budget.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. So, future meetings. The board of education has scheduled the following meetings. Our luncheon meeting will be 06/17/2025 at 12PM. The board of education meeting will be 06/19/2025 at 6PM. All meetings are held here in the boardroom at 1820 Main Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Is there a motion to adjourn this meeting? Motion to adjourn. Is there a second? I second. Alright. Meeting adjourned. Oh, wait.
I haven't called the role. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's okay. It's not. That's okay. It's still clicking. It's okay. She's still at the vote. We have to vote. Yep. Missus Kutcher? I jumped the gun. I. Mister Doc? I. Missus Walsh? I. Missus West? I. Now we can go. Thank you.