Order. The fact that we're two minutes late is my fault. Mother Nature's calling. And it's a it's a lively lively crowd here tonight. That's great. Okay. Call this meeting to order roll call. Barclays? Here. Bates? Here. Emeril? Here. Patterson? Oh. Patterson? Patterson? Here. Mister Holt? Here. Very good. Good. If you could all stand up and join us in saying the pledge of allegiance. Mister Bert West, would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? 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. We could take a moment of silence, please. Thank you. Have a seat. We, the people of Colorado, with profound reverence for the supreme ruler of the universe in order to form a more independent and perfect government, establish justice, ensure tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings to liberty of
our own liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Do ordain and establish this constitution for the state of Colorado. Thank you. I guess I should have turned my mic on. I'm a loud mouth anyway. Could you all hear me? Approval of agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? So do. Second? Second. Roll call? Hartley? Aye. Bates? Aye. Kimbrell? Aye. Patterson? Aye. Brester Holt? Aye. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Motion carries. Next item. So here's some background information for you. The National Blue Ribbon Schools program is is a recognition program jointly administered by the
US Department of Education and State Departments of Education. USED sets the criteria for high performing and achievement gap closing schools and state liaisons that then nominates nominate schools that meet these definitions based on state assessment results. The important work of identifying blue ribbon schools is done at the state level. The Board of Education proudly recognizes Summit Elementary principal, Katie Rexker.
Oh, principal Katie Rexford. There I am. Along with the dedicated staff and students of some for their hard work and commitment that led to their nomination for the National Blue Ribbon Schools Award. And, we wanna congratulate you. That that is a high achievement, and we're very proud of you, your staff, and
all of your students. Get up. Okay. I'm ready to come out here so we can address the crowd. Something that I wanted to say to the staff and to Katie is that I know how, like, work it takes to earn these types of awards. It broke my heart the day that I had to call Katie and tell her that the federal government had canceled the blue ribbon. So in my heart of hearts, I believe that you all would have won. And I also want you to know that Katie was also nominated, by several of us for a principal award.
And, I I believe she would have won that too. We made sure there's a blue ribbon on here. But thank you so much. There's a lot of time and then A few words. I I will. I'm gonna start by saying thank you for the recognition. As as nice as it as it is to be recognized nationally, it feels so good to be recognized in our community because that's where our work matters. That's why we do what we do. It's our community right here. And I'm gonna say, this is a bouquet of flowers here, but it goes to
our interventionists who make a difference every day. How do I make this lesson engaging and meaningful to the kids in front of me? Go as far as better mention it? To read that book. And it goes to our interventionist again. And analyze that data every day in order to make a difference for those kids, so it's not about the number. It's not 92.9. That's a good number. That is not what we're after. We're after getting those kids every day.
We don't get to 92.9, unless we get to all the different oh, two different people. Unless unless we're teaching them those reading skills and we're targeting what they need when they need it. And we're not looking at a kid growing, you're a number, you're a student. I'm trying to raise you up. Your sports will come. And it starts in preschool all night. I love that. And we talk about first grade, they're like, oh, they're they're learning to read there, and boy, how are they ever?
They come in as they're red, and we don't see that as a negative, we see it as an opportunity to grow. And it continues in our building, because our students have a safe place to learn every day. Our building is clean and beautiful and wonderful. When we make those phone calls, we say, hey, we need your help. And it's like, I got your back. We're all together, and we're gonna do this together. And it's in the newspapers that That's what it takes.
It's not one thing. It's all the things altogether every day. I was talking to my son about mountain biking. There's a term about target fixation. Oh, you think, oh, that would be a good one. We're goal oriented people. Target fixated. Well, in mountain biking, when your target fixated, that means I'm moving at the tree. I'm thinking, don't have to treat. Don't have to treat. What do you do? Treat it. Treat. And then as a patient, you're tempted to go, we gotta get those scores. We gotta get those scores. He's not coming.
That's my target. That is not our target. Our target is the pathway there. It's enjoying the ride and the trail all the way through. And every day, we get to ride the trail. And now I'm gonna say, I gotta come up here, because it's about the leadership too. And let's not forget the leaders that help guide us, support.
And and I think we're gonna So thank you. It's an honor and a privilege to serve our community and our children, and to
keep our eye on the prize. And like, thanks for taking a ride with me, And our wonderful summit staff and our students and families. You know what, Katie? In response to what you just did, let you and I switch seats if we just take over the meeting. Some things I will never do. Very, very nicely. You didn't get any flowers, but what topic? I'll tell you probably you did. That was well done. Thank you very much, and congratulations to you. Okay. Next. Board Board of Education reports. Let's start down here with you, Keegan.
Okay. Alright. Sorry. I got a little emotional there. Oh, gosh. You did it to answer it. Okay. So I am reporting on the, superintendent search. So a couple weeks ago, we we got together. We had our, work session. We went through the survey so we could send it out to the parents in the community. I made the updates that we discussed during that meeting. I had reached out to Chris. It it took a little bit of phone tag going back and forth to get, some answers there, but, we were able to connect.
So, as long as we have consensus here this evening, what I would like to do is push out the survey Friday, and we can work with Lindsay to make sure we get that out. We'll send out an email. We just kinda need to figure out who, we wanna send that to, but we have a a list, distribution list we can send it out to, and then post it on our social media sites, and get that out. Generally speaking, these, surveys are open for ten to fourteen days, so I figured about
two weeks to collect feedback. I have a feeling we won't have difficulty receiving feedback, so I'm hoping all of you are gonna participate. So once we get that, then we can have about a week to kinda digest all that information, send over our top priorities to Chris and team. They'll finalize a job description for us, and then we'll get the job, officially posted, November 3. So it's a Monday. Okay. I am assuming, for good reason, that the changes you made were what we all
discussed. Yeah. And I can I'll send it I'll send the link out to you all. Would you mind doing that? Send that and just take your last look at it. So I Yeah. An interesting thing, it was a coincidence today, but Chris called and said, Chris, who is who is heading up our superintendent search, he said, Nick, we're we're really come down to the wire. We wanna get this out the November 1. And he's he made some suggestions of some other types of for of forums. He didn't have even read that, it turns out. And she talked to him.
He called me and said, hey. We talked about it. She's got it all ready to go, and we do have the time allowed to do this. But, folks, we weren't sitting back on our heels during this. We were dealing with superintendent issues, a change in an interim superintendent, and and the number of other issues that we've been working on. But I spoke to someone the other night at the at the, debate. Actually, they called it a forum. And, you know, she was inquiring what's what's going on with the superintendent search. So that was a good thing to lead with.
It it has been in the works and is currently in the works, and it's getting ready to to pop. So we are gonna go back to the survey and we'll We to be able to get That just happened this afternoon. And Chris and Keegan spoke. Both were happy with the result. And he said, if if that's the case, we'll just continue in the survey. So that's what we're going to do. It was like we did all that work. And I I was confused by all that too because I had sent them an email, maybe a week and a half ago, like, telling them because I we had
the one, issue that I was running into is we had decided we wanted, two of the questions to be ranked where people could move up or down the importance of a specific, skill set, and their survey platform didn't allow for that. So I was trying to do what I could on my end, and I had reached out to them to see if that was something that they could do. And so we played phone tag for about a week trying to get that to where If there was I mean, I mean, I mean, like so they weren't able to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So instead of top three, I I opted to top five, and then they'll give
us a list of the the top, like, 10 to 12 answers that come up. So basic it's giving us the same information. It's just slightly different formatting, but I think We're all flexible on that too. And disregard that email I sent out this morning because, it turned out that we were on a a different path. That's not Keegan's fault. That's not Chris's fault. It was just a communication issue. But it's resolved now. Thank you, Keegan. So we'll have that sent out. On Friday, everybody be on the lookout and answer right away.
Yes, please. Okay, David. You're good. I'm good. Well, of course you're good. They've they've given you Diet Coke. You're spoiling these handles. Cassie? Yeah. Okay. Sue? I'm good. Thank you. Okay. Well, that was actually what I was going to speak to tonight, but I think we've covered it well. And I just was trying to bring everyone up to speed that we are still in the process here and now it's going to take the next jump. So we'll forge ahead. And, you know, the search company had originally said, we'd like to start this search
right away. This was back in June. We we weren't ready for that. We had too many irons in the fire. But we did know some some deadlines, starting in about October into November. You need to get moving on these searches because that's when people that would be qualified for the job are potentially available. If we have a moment either now or at the end of the meeting to look at calendars to set a work session. If we open the survey Friday and then leave it open, for for for two
weeks, if if we could get together the week of the twenty seventh, This way, we can get the information so that we can post by this third, which is the following Monday. If ever we'll we'll make it brief. But at the end of this meeting, if we can look at the calendar because we've got a couple other work sessions to work in here over the next three weeks. So that would be a good idea for us to sit down and try to space these out in there. Thank you. Okay. Any other board of education reports? I don't believe so.
Superintendent report to Snocum. Alright. I have a lot to share as usual. Okay. So I'm gonna start with schools. So Columbine Elementary had their walkathon, and their students walked 3,707 laps and raised almost $7,000 so far. So those are always really fun events. They're always usually at the start of the year, and it's a great way for, the community and parents to give back to the schools. They also welcome the fire department in a fire safety presentation, and the students got
to tour fire trucks. Their sixth grade students are traveling to Cave Of The Winds for some science enrichment next week. And their second and third grade students have been studying, habitats, scat, and tracks at Aspen Valley Ranch. So all fun things happening over at Columbine. It's important. I know. And then at Summit, they had a great bug presentation for their kindergartners by a former Summit Eagle. So that's always exciting when you can bring someone back who was, at your school.
The fourth graders took their annual trip up Pikes Peak, and they enjoyed thoughtful lessons along the route up there. And then they are very excited to welcome the junior high theater class to put on a short play for their kindergarten and first grade students. And they're also happy to have a Paralympic athlete coming to present to their second and sixth grade students. And then Woodland Park Junior Senior High School had a very successful color run with their staff and students turning out and supporting the run.
And, want to continue that tradition and just wanted to send a shout out of thanks to the strong parent support in making this happen. Homecoming week was busy but fun. I think we all were busy but had fun. Students, staff, and community came together for the homecoming parade, the bonfire, which was hosted at Merit Academy, and the homecoming football game, and finally, the great turnout by their student body for the homecoming dance. And all the fall fall sports are in full swing, and winter sports are right
around the corner. Friday, October 10 at 7PM, they will have a cabaret night for their theater students in missus Sfornik's room, which is 808, which has a black box theater in it. And I wanna say something just as a parent about all the sporting, events I've been to this fall. We have kids here who are tough, and they, really play with their heart. Last night, I was in Manitou for the girls volleyball game, and they lost by
two in the fifth set or match. But they really did a great job. And I know that our football team has been working really hard, and they've had some wins and some losses, but I just feel like the heart of our students up here is unmatched. And so I just really appreciate all the hard work of our coaches and our students and the the the determination to keep going. So Can I invite in a second? Sure. Everything she said was true. I mean, our our football team lost two of their primary coaches.
We filled the position with someone that that that is good. But, you know, I I have a student athlete that's plays football. We lost our homecoming game. However, the guys were out there with their hearts, and, and they gave it their all. I mean, my grandson comes home and begs me, why haven't we got a hot tub, Grandpa? But I'm very proud of all of our athletics and Ginger put it very well. These kids are putting their heart into it and it is really building them for
the future when they get out of school. This camaraderie is developed and this teamwork. I'm very proud of all of our various athletics programs. Okay. Alright. That's okay. Now I'm gonna move on to more district level information. So, this past week, we asked the state to reconsider the junior senior high school frameworks. If you were here, I think in September, I did a presentation about our frameworks, and we met with our scores for the junior senior high school, but we were about point 6% off for participation.
And so it put us on improvement. However, with the diligent, detective work of Karen Hamlo and her team, we found three students who were possibly, miss I don't know what the word is. Miscoded. Miscoded. Yes. And so we took those three students. We wrote to the state, and we'll see if they reconsider it. But I I feel like that was worthy. That's a worthy to do it.
Absolutely. So we'll see. Nice one. Yeah. This past week, I'm very excited that I've had two meetings with chief Dysler for the Woodland Park Police Department and sheriff Mike Mikesel for Teller County. I'm working really hard to reconnect and reestablish our relationships and our collaboration with our local police departments. I do think that school safety should be one of our top priorities. They have been very gracious and, quick to jump in. And so I'm currently working with them to update our emergency response plans as well
as create a reunification plan, and I'm just very grateful for their collaboration and support. That was a big deal. It's Yeah. Our relationship with them had had, struggled in the past. And Ginger took the bull by the horns and had a wonderful meeting with them with some good future plans. So good job. So we're continuing to work on that. It's a it's a great starting place. Thank you. And then just so everyone knows, we have parent teacher conferences next Thursday. Late source sent out today to parents.
And tomorrow so not to step on the toes of the interims or the superintendent search, I'm actually sending a survey out to our staff tomorrow, and it's all based on climate and culture. And what I'd really like to do with this is get a pulse check, get some baseline data to find out how the staff are feeling and what immediate improvements we can make, and then what, big picture goals we should be looking into. So following that serve that survey feedback, I'm also going to be visiting, each school
for a listening tour, and Karen Hamler is gonna join me for one of those. And then, I will be sharing that information with principals and with the board. And next, I'm also working right now to to reignite community connections, which is where we bring community groups into the district office. And so we're gonna start that later in October, and we'll do one once a month with a different community group.
And, we're gonna start with our local veterans this month. And last but not least, I do wanna give a huge shout out to our central office staff, and our district departments. We've been working around the clock right now specifically, but really all summer as well to meet, deadlines for grants and CDE reports, October count, you name it. It's pretty much been the deadline this week, it feels like. So I just wanna tell everyone that people in this office and in our department
head, they're working so hard. They're kind of like the hub of the wheel, and, I want them to know how much I appreciate them because many of us are doing more than your typical job description to keep everything running because we are short staffed. So I just wanted to give a shout out to to all the people here. Ginger, there's nothing that you should do differently than you normally would. This superintendent search, I haven't sat and talked to you about it. I assume she's gonna run for that seat.
So give it your give it your all. I like everything you suggested. This has nothing to do with superintendency. Is that it? That's all. I mean, I could go on if you want me to. I was trying to No. This poor lady had a migraine headache this morning. She sure had a lot to do for having a migraine all day. So okay. That being said, mister Ferris, would you like to give us an update, please? I would like to hear that. I'd like to hear that. Couple weeks ago, I decided to go back and watch last month's board meeting to make sure that I, didn't miss anything in my report.
And I think AI was watching it too because I started getting targeted ads just from here. I may have a few more gray hairs than when I started, but I've got an amazing team here at the district in maintenance and custodial departments. And, we're making great progress on getting these facilities back up to date and back in shape. So on that note, I wanna give you an update on some of the current projects, that I told you about last month. So last month, I told you Summit was getting new boilers. We're about 90% complete on that project, and I wanna just give a shout out
to all the summit staff. There's a few of them still here. They have complained zero times. They they know I don't like complainers, so I appreciate that. But hopefully, we don't run into any major problems. We'll have heat at summit at the end of this week. So very good. Good. Great staff out there. They never complain about anything. Gretchen gives me a hard time, but I know it's because she loves it. The temporary heater that I told you we were gonna have to install here at the junior senior high campus is installed and running. So now we're just waiting on the permanent unit.
We're looking at mid December. Hopefully, it'll get installed sometime before the end of the year. So, that one is still a little bit I if I gave you a hard date on that, I would be wrong. So we'll just leave it at that. This past week, we did get all of our sports field irrigation system to winterize, and I wanna just take a minute to say a huge thank you to my maintenance staff, Mike and Duane, helping to get that done. It's a big project taking care of all these sports fields. They've worked hard all year mowing, weeding, spraying, dragging fields, And, I wanna give a
shout out to Caleb Kettler too if he's watching. Caleb's a really hard work round up. You don't know Caleb, you should. He has, taken on helping us with some of the athletic events, and he's taken on all the striping of the athletic fields himself. So he does all the chalking and softball. Somebody donated a striping machine. I wish I knew who it was. I'd say thank you. But, Chad Cosner came across that last year through a donation. We rebuilt it, got it running, and Caleb's been striping. It saves the district a lot of money because it's expensive to pay a striker
to come up here twice a week because you got soccer and football almost every week until, you know, November. So That's a big deal. Yeah. Big thanks to Caleb and, Mike and Duane on the maintenance staff. I wanna take a minute to highlight, one of my custodial teams at Columbine Elementary. This summer, I came up with the idea to do a little friendly challenge between the schools. We call it the custodial cup. We found an old we found an old trophy and, basically, we set out some parameters. Like, these are things that we want every campus to have accomplished by the end
of the summer to be ready for the start of the school year, whether it's getting all the windows good and clean, all the air filters changed, all the paint touched up, bathroom floors waxed. You know, this the list goes pretty extensive. I don't wanna go through all of it, but, Dimitri and his crew at Columbine Elementary won that competition. And so we got a picture of Dimitri and George and Aurora quit their trophy. And so part of the deal, if you win the custodial cup for the summer challenge, I gotta buy you a steak dinner. So I took them to Texas Roadhouse, bought them a steak dinner, and I paid
for that out of my pocket, so we don't need a court request on that one. And they're working. They're hardworking crew, and they did an awesome job getting that school back in shape. So I also wanna say I appreciate them very much. As far as facility needs, we do have four open positions in the the, maintenance custodial department. So I have three non custodian positions I need to fill and one building manager. And so what we've got is we've got two non custodians that have retired or
are retiring soon. So we had, Linda Roybal at Summit Elementary. She was with us twenty eight years Wow. As a custodian. We had a little party for her last week. She's retired, so we're filling her spot. George West is that Columbine. You saw him in that picture. He's retiring. We had one spot at the high school, junior senior high, sorry, that was already vacant that we need to fill, and our building manager at the junior senior high is retiring in December. So if you're watching this or if you know somebody looking for a job, we've
got some openings here. I'd love to talk to you about an opportunity to be part of my team here at the district. Take a breath. Transportation. I don't have much on transportation, but I do want to say a thank you to Jim Kingston. He's the general manager for for Durham Services. He has, started joining us for our monthly operational leadership meeting. I think it really helps to bring him to the table every month with everybody else. It opens up that, dialogue and make sure that we catch thing the issues before they become a problem.
So I appreciate Jim. He's a great guy. A lot of knowledge in what he does, he's been doing it a long time. So we appreciate Jim, joining us on our monthly operational meetings. And thanks to Ginger for bringing him on board for that. Last thing I wanna highlight, I told you last month that the play park Above The Clouds, which is the wooden playground down here by Gateway, I don't know if this is in and needed some repairs. Actually, our my maintenance department has, since the last meeting has gone down there and walked that and done a bunch of temporary. I call them temporary.
I wouldn't we did some repairs. We're putting, kind of lipstick on a pig at this point, but we made it safe. There were some boards completely missing where kids could fall. We fixed all that. We had handrails that were falling off, prepared those, did some work on the box where the trash goes to keep the bears out. So I wanna say thanks, for to the maintenance team for getting that done as well. We wanna keep that safe. The community loves it. The kids love it. I even hear people coming from out of town that'll they come up here specifically to play with that.
So I wanna keep that on the forefront if anybody has any ideas how we could get rally some community support, and I think we can. I think that Duane Park is worth investing in. Yeah. Anybody have any questions, concerns? You know, I I wanna give you a standing ovation Oh, yeah. For what you've what you've been doing. Jason gave us a tour last spring, and some people weren't able to be there. He's given them an additional tour, and we've gone around all the schools.
And folks, it's, I need to say this, for three decades, we haven't spent much money on upkeep and repair. And when this school board came in, we had used some reserves for some very pressing things. But in talking to Jason, you know, he had a list, and some of them are big some of them are big deals. I mean, the boilers at Summit at the high school were in dire straits. And your report is fantastic. So thank you very much.
Thank you. Okay. Mister Peratar, financial report. Before I get started, one request is everyone follow Jason next month. I don't know what he has against gray hair, but I was personally offensive. Alright. Financial report is my first one, inaugural. So pleasure to be here, honored. One thing I don't have are, like, financial reports. So as you know, we're working in the system conversion from our old one, Alio, into Skyward, and we're also doing a tremendous amount of data entry as well as reclassification of a lot of financial information, that was entered last year and getting that
all corrected before it gets imported into the new system. So having said that, I hope next month, I will be able to provide some real financial details. So in lieu of that, I just wanna let you know I pulled together some information, and, one is our cash on hand. So how much cash did we have a year ago at the September compared to this year at the September? So the difference last year, we had 6 point almost 6,900,000.0.
And then this year, adjusting for some open APs related payroll due to our outsourced k 12 company, which I'll address in a minute, we're about 750,000 less than we were a year ago. So, the general fund sits at about 5,700,000.0 right now. Sounds like a lot of money, but a monthly payroll of about a billion and, other fixed expenses, can chew that up pretty quick. And as you know, we get, probably pretty good chunk, almost half of our revenue
in the spring for property taxes. So we've gotta bridge that gap. Part of it is how do we do that, and, there's a few different ways. One is grants. So, Ginger mentioned those grants. I'll get a little bit more details. So, just in the last few days, we have filed for grants of almost $700,000. Right. Unbelievable. Yep. So they did the CDE 40. That was a few weeks ago, working on a concurrent, enrollment grant that's about 50,000.
There's auto enrollment grant coming. And then, just this week, the title one, two, and four grants, were done, and those are about 600,000 for those grants. So a total of approaching $700,000. So the team, it was a lot of work getting a lot of stuff reclassified, and, they were able to get the deadlines. CDE was gracious, and we were able to work with them, pretty closely, to get those done. So a lot of people in the central office involved in that, a lot.
Almost everybody. So that's one way that we're gonna help fund future. That's about a little more than half a payroll, so that's good. The other one is interfund borrowing, and, I'm not a big proponent of borrowing. I think it's always a step back when we have to borrow. But looking at kind of the situation on which cash we have on hand, not getting a lot of revenue, about a, about a million a month from the state, and we split that with with Merit as well.
So interfund borrowing is a common practice and it's something we can talk about later, and is borrowing from that, available funds that are going unused right now, and we can pay that back in the spring. Don't wanna do it if we have to. That is one way that we can bridge the gap, until March. Another way, last year, they applied for the e tran loan, which is actually borrowing money from those, future property taxes. And so I looked into that a few months ago, found out that is actually
a process that starts in spring. So they gather up that information in Denver, they float some bonds, and provide the funding. So we'll see if that becomes available. So right now, they're kinda you missed the boat, but we'll see if we can catch up on that. Then the state treasurer's thing that we were that we discussed last week. Loan. Yeah. I think so. And it's short term. It's gonna be paid back. Yeah. That's right. So it's it's just to help us get to where those revenue funds are coming
in. Proud of Jason for all the capital, you know, there's a lot more to do. I think he's scratching the surface on the boilers and HVAC units. But there's an opportunity, I think, with with our bank, the one that we hold money with, to do a short term loan for those funds that we expended for boilers and HPC about 300 approaching 400,000 that we could get back for that as a short term loan into the spring. And then, the other one would be ten years ago, there was that certificate of
participation where the district borrowed 10,000,000 for capital improvements. And that's just putting that on the radar. That may be something we need to do if after that facility tour that we took Mhmm. Just there's so much need there that there's no way that could get paid for out of the operating Uh-huh. Budget. So so that's where the financing sits. As far as payroll goes, it's like our revenues have dropped. We lost the sales taxes. Everyone knows.
So I took a snapshot of what was our payroll like last year in September compared to this year in September? Had to adjust it because we pulled both these employees in, of which we also pull revenue in. So, adjusting for that, payroll dropped a 138,000 in September over a year ago. And that's about a 15% drop. I'm just yeah. So I know a lot of that is Jason's staff that he hasn't hired yet. Yeah. That'll fill the gap. I think the goal was to hit about 10%, but there are some open positions
that contributed to that growing towards the 15. Overall expenses, and again, pulling this from systems that we're working on right now, but last year approached 6,300,000.0 for the July, August, September in fiscal year '25. This year, we've spent 5.6. So the expenses have been reduced by about 700,000. So 138 of that was payroll, the remainder is operated.
So I think there's been some bill tightening for sure. K twelve, I mentioned before, is our outsourced payroll company. Well, they were our outsourced payroll company. So they were under contract for about 90,000 a year. They were not fulfilling even remotely close to what they needed to do. So we amicably split with them. We're pulling, the payroll processing back into the district starting next week with the October 15 payroll. And, hopefully, our internal team is gonna provide a lot higher level of service than
k twelve did. And they're gonna catch up on those outstanding invoices that k twelve didn't process. Let's see. Audit update. So there's two audits this year. The forensic and the Correct. So the annual audit, Holting, is an audit for instance that are coming in. They're gonna do field work beginning in two weeks. And when I took this job a few months ago, I was told I met Chris right away from Volting, and he says, you know, you're gonna have a bad audit already. Right? It's like, okay. Yeah. I heard that from Glenn, up in Denver.
So, so much in that year had already gone by. I mean, this is the work through June, that a lot of things on his initial work here, there's been improvement. So I just wanna set the anticipation for you that I think the audit is gonna be improved, but it is nowhere near where it should be. And I anticipate a year from now after we've got a full year of this team operating, because it's a good team. So you're comfortable that when they come in in two weeks, they're gonna be able
to hit the ground running with some some stuff, with some some work. And that hinges on how fast we can upload What's the sky? Into Skyward. So, actually, this week was the first upload that we're able to do, with one of the funds. We have seven funds, and one of the funds is almost nearly up to it. And it's going pretty quick. There's a significant amount of work done before we could upload. So we're at that stage. After the uploads have all occurred, then there's bank reconciliation and any adjusting entries.
So we are and we've got Chris informed at Hilton. He knows where we're at. His his he said his expectation is we will finish by the end of the year. He would be ecstatic if we got done by Thanksgiving. So we'll see. Thank you. But we're all working hard on that. I know that the grant work is done. The focus is back on to getting the getting the books up to date. Is that a manual upload? It is, actually. It is month by month by fund. So seven funds times 12.
And, and then we gotta go back and reconcile the bank accounts. And there's over a dozen bank accounts by month that have to be reconciled as well. Are you, do you like the new software? I know the financial team was excited about some of the features compared to Axiom? Or Oh. Yeah. Compared to Alio? Yeah. Alio. Yeah. The district was on probably a few weeks ago. Issues with some of the payments, and so they're excited that they were able to jump on this new software. Yep. This software's not even any better than Alio.
And do you And I know Alio I'm sorry. Do you like it then as well? Oh, it's good. I mean Okay. I mean, you can see there's areas that they need to improve, and they know that. But it is way better than Alio. And I don't wanna hammer on Alio because this is a product they abandoned these. Basically, they don't really support it anymore. We were just remaining on it. It's just as long as your team is more comfortable with the feeling that some of these payments will be able to go through, it looks like, versus some of the issues they were having with the previous software.
Yeah. So, the payments that we issue out of the district Mhmm. Are going very smoothly. Okay. I think the one thing I like about Alio, and I think our I think our auditors gonna love about Alio's, our name is Skywards. Excuse me. I got ALEO on my mind now. I know. I just drove it to Skyward. So with Skyward, everything is electronic. So if if there isn't really a need for that paper trail because there's digital fingerprints all the way through. So someone submits a time sheet, we know who did it, who approved it, gets to payroll, who submitted it into the payroll.
Same with APs and purchase orders and everything. It's all digital. Yeah. That's what they're saying. Credit card The seller. Everything else. So it, it's an auditor stream. And it we're going digital, so no more paper. If you ever walk through here, you can see the filing cabinets, and we've got more than you probably don't know. So we're basically digitizing those documents into Skyward, and the efficiency there is just gonna be tremendous. So I've done that a few times in the past, and, and it's gonna be fantastic.
I know. It's a lot of work on the front end, but hopefully, I'll just move out here in a few weeks. Right. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. The other audit is the forensic audit. So they came back and asked for some of the same information just in a different format. So we provided that to them and they're continuing their work. So it's on track? Yes. Yep. So, nothing outstanding that I'm aware of on our end. So deadline. Yep. They I'm not sure there is a deadline. So They said it wouldn't be done for, what, another six months?
A year? You can remember. Just me ask how long they went through. So we we knew it was gonna pick them up. So that's about it on the audit. Just BOCES. Fannet Two Springs, you likely know, pulled out of BOCES, and they were doing the accounting. So lucky team I have moved the BOCES accounting, the HR, payroll processing, and Lindsey
for her IT group. We pull all those support services for BOCES into the district. There's compensation for us there, but we've assumed all of that work as well. And then Merit Academy working on the trophy was due on the on the ninetieth day after the beginning of the school year, and we gave them our data on the ninetieth day. Working with them right now, so I think today I sent their CFO with some journal entries so that our books match. The good news is their bottom line our bottom line matched.
It's just some journal entries to correct, some line items that they were posted to and hopefully get that done quickly. After that's done, we're gonna work on the 26 flow through on how much, funding they get for certain categories. And then, the last one would be purchase services. So they purchase services from the district, and we need to provide some pricing on that and identify what those are. That's it. What I do is I have to find this You came in with a tough
road to hoe. And, it's been a it's been a pleasure watching you approach it like you like you have and like you are. So thank you. Pleasure. Enjoyed working with you too. So I this question isn't necessarily for you because you weren't actually here when when we were talking about it. But last year, we spent a good bit of time talking about that state treasurer interest free loan. I was under the impression that we had applied because we voted on it and approved. Yeah. But I but it didn't actually go through.
We didn't I think we did that last year and then we paid it back. It was all within last year. I think he's talking about this upcoming year. Am I wrong? Well, I don't know. That's why I'm asking. Because I thought it when we were talking about it last year, it's witness coming here to help us bridge this gap because we knew we were gonna have it. It's within one fiscal year. So it was borrowed earlier in fiscal year twenty five, and then it was paid off in June 9. Yeah. It was At property tax. Our Yeah. Right. Property tax. Yeah. So but that application for this year, it started in the spring In the spring.
Which we missed. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I'm trying to get it. Okay. It gets Thank you, David. Yep. You're welcome. Thanks. And I wanna say I answered questions, but if any question you guys come up with a question, feel free to reach out to me. And, in the next board meeting, hopefully, come prepared and answer any question. Thank you. Thanks, sir. You're welcome. Yeah. We had paid that back before June. I do remember before this meeting, they said it was all paid back. That was actually a question you had. Yeah. Well, and I thought we were just going like, going to continue that on a
covered basis, but I don't know that. Well, it's not uncommon practice. It sounds like a lot of people are able to take advantage of that. We we will continue to participate in that as needed. Yeah. Alright. Thank you all. Next item, public comment. Please be aware that any personnel or the comment. Please be aware that any personnel or individual student matters are considered confidential under Colorado law, and it is out of respect for the law and our employees and students that we require both discussions take place privately in executive session. Individual comments are limited to three minutes or a total of fifteen minutes total for
a particular topic. The intent of public comment is to give the Board of Education the opportunity to hear your comments. However, the board will not make no decisions or take no action on public comment during this meeting. That being said, you've all heard it so many times. Have you got a list, Candace? Certainly. Good evening. My name is Sara Lee. Hello. Hi. I'm a former Woodland Park educator and high school librarian. I think it's rather fitting that I was, able to speak today because this is Banned Books Week, and I'm very passionate about the freedom of reading.
Banned Books Week began in 1982 in a response response to an uptick in the number of challenged and banned books in The United States with a goal to quote, highlight the value of free and open access to information, and to ensure that we all have the freedom to seek and express ideas. According to the American Library Association, people challenge books for any number of reasons, including quote, claims of illegal obscenity for minors, inclusion of LGBTQIA plus characters or themes, and
covering topics of race, racism, inequity, and social justice. Now this differs from banned books, which are materials that have been removed from a library of any type with and without legal procedures in place. Censorship by exclusion is one way books are banned without the knowledge of community stakeholders. This is when quote, library workers are prohibited from purchasing books or required to place books in restricted or less accessible areas of the library due to fear of controversy,
unquote, which has become a common practice of the Woodland Park School District since the election of the board members before us today with the exclusion of Teagan Barclay, and under the supervision of superintendents Ken Witt, Aaron Salt, and Ginger Slocum. In May 2025, Colorado Senate Bill, SB25-sixty three, the Library Resource Decision Standards for Public Schools was signed into law. Let me break down the important parts of this law from the bill summary found
on the Colorado General Assembly website. Each school district's board of cooperative services that operates a school, District Charter School, and Institute Charter School is required to establish written policies for the acquisition, retention, display, and use of library resources, and for the reconsideration of a library resource by 09/01/2025. To make a request for reconsideration, the individual making the request must be a parent of a student enrolled in that school.
Any public library, school library, may remove a resource only if the library resource has been reviewed in accordance with the written policy. Before a provider reconsiders a resource, the local education provider is required to make these policies available to the public. Before reconsidering a resource and making a final determination, a local education may I finish? How much do you have left? A minute. It's about the law. As speedy as possible. It is required to make its policies available to the public. Any public school library staff member is not subject to termination, demotion, or discipline, or
retaliation for removing to refusing to remove a resource. As of September 1, to comply with Colorado State Law, the Woodland Park School District should have published and made public these established written policies. Additionally, they should have made public a list of all materials that have been censored or removed from libraries or classrooms in the district since 09/01/2025. I ask you, what are the WPSD policies that by law should have been made public over a month ago? And how have they been implemented? Who is currently responsible for determining which books will be added and removed from the
district's libraries and classrooms? Is censorship by exclusion still commonly being practiced? Or have the certified librarians been given back the, a final approval for those resources. We, the community whom you serve, require that you follow all state laws, especially as they pertain to the education of our children. We require that you make the appropriate documentation available immediately. And that an accounting of all books that have been removed and censored from libraries and classrooms in the district be made public.
I will leave you finally with this powerful quote from Deborah Caldwell Stone, the director of the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom. The movement to ban books is not a movement of parents, but a movement of partisans who seek to limit our freedom to read and make different choices about things that matter. All who care about libraries and personal liberty must stand together and join the movement to halt this assault on the freedom to read. Thank you. I'm gonna take a a slight exception. Normally, we wouldn't comment, but pardon?
Any speakers won't listen. With what? My my own my only comment, I'll be brief. We didn't remove any books, but we did create a section to where children had to have parental permission to to to have access to those. Actually, sir, that is incorrect. Book. Yeah. That is absolutely incorrect. Books have been removed from the libraries and the school district since this board has been elected. I know it. I saw it. And I've I've got many, many people who could back me up on that. So I would I would encourage you to go check that out. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Bill Brown. I want to take time tonight to speak about our district's test scores. Like many others, I want to give a shout out to Summit Elementary, both for their scores and for their Blue Ribbon nomination. Quite an incredible honor. I also want to offer congratulations to Merit for earning an 85 on their performance framework last year. It is an accomplishment, and I know they worked hard to get that score. But this brings me to the reason I am speaking tonight. I recognize, as many others have been pointing out for weeks and months now, that
in 2017 and 2018, people saw the secondary level scores and knew there was a problem. With a score at a mere 52.8, percent in 2017, the administration, teachers, and community realized something had to be done to improve the level of learning students were receiving. There were many discussions around building a plan to reverse the trend and build not only a love of learning into our students, but also develop critical thinking and an
ability to do the hard work needed to succeed in life. It was recognized that significant change, hard change was needed, and the secondary schools be began making those changes. Now to be clear, there were some missteps. Not all of the changes were wise or good. But with the changes, test scores began to improve to the point that we are now celebrating the improvement while recognizing we still have plenty of room we need to grow. However, my concern is this.
Most of the changes that helped improve our scores have been systematically undone. The school level administrators that guided the changes are all gone. Many of the teachers that embrace the changes needed to improve have departed. Standard space grading, which is actually about making sure a student meets a minimum level of understanding, a standard, and not about deadlines, has been removed as of this year. The block schedule that helps students and teachers to dive deep into a topic is
no more. Moreover, many of the families and students who helped increase our scores are now in other schools and districts. Now to be clear as we talk about this, many people are going, well, but it was the American birthright standards that have helped us improve. To this point, I would simply share something our then superintendent, Ken Witt, told me two years ago. I was questioning him on how he and the Board of Education thought these standards would improve our scores. And he said, you do realize that the only reason the standards was chosen was
to make a political statement, don't you? No. He said nothing about improving sports. In closing, even though I will do everything I can to enable our students to excel, the framework that has got us to the improved sports has been dismantled. And I, and truly I say this, I pray that I am wrong. I am worried that they will start going down once more. Thank you. I'm a sixteen year Teller County resident, and my kids attended WPSD for eight years, during which time I was an active volunteer.
Our boys now attend Manitou Schools for the last two years due to the actions taken by this board, along with many of their Teller County friends. And yes, I am very thankful for school choice. Director Bates, on 01/16/2024, I emailed you as followed follows. Quote, Director Bates, if you burn this bridge with the community by rehiring wit, I believe you will regret it. You will regret the sour faces at at you at the grocery store, Walmart, in the park, and, yes, even at church.
You will regret the animosity that half the community feels for you because they didn't vote for you, and they don't want what you're doing to our schools, to our teachers, or to our children. You will regret the stain on your family name in this county, and so will your children and your grandchildren. You're at a y in the road. This decision will decide if you're supported by your constituents or basically hated. Kenway isn't worth it, unquote. Your response was, quote, be careful. Much of what you have said to me could easily be construed as a threat,
unquote, utterly laughable that you are so easily threatened. What you should have done was heed the warning. I saw you Monday night pop out of your seat and hightail it out of that candidate forum. All that talk about how the school board has failed under your leadership gets you, All that talk about how you and you and you and she have failed along with cronies, Penn, Witt, and Brad, excuse me, Miller who lined their pockets with our taxpayer dollars. You failed to oversee the fiscal health of our district's finances and assets so outrageously
that the words financial transparency could have been a drinking game Monday night. So many people you know and respect have called out your utterly terrible job as president of the school board, your poor family, the shame they must carry. Alas, you were warned. I digress. Your miserable failings go on to include how you failed to maintain the mental health of students and staff, the physical health of our buildings, facilities, and worse, how you put student academic achievement behind your own personal policy agendas. For instance, all this talk about protecting girls in sports and locker rooms and WPSD
is a nonissue because there are no trans standard athletes in Woodland Park School District. True. What a waste of your time. Our time. Just like there was never CRT or strings attached to mental health grants you threw away. Enough of your ideological harm that never should have been brought to our schools to begin with. Regarding the upcoming election, Wes, there claims no one asked him to run, that he isn't part of any slate, yet fellow Kiwanis board member, Roeshek, claims that you yourself asked Bert to run. And that just today, I read about how you were signed stuffing incident at the
rally couldn't get Mr. Austin's signs in your car fast enough apparently. So on that note, Mr. Bates, please do share your endorsements, please ten seconds, for the men you'd like to see sitting up there on November 4 so the community knows exactly who not to vote for, for the community can choose confidence instead. We'll expect your resignation on November 5. And if we don't get it, we will be here. We will be here to ask for it every single board meeting afterwards. And we will be here when you're gone.
You're gone. You're gone. And Patterson is gone. Obviously, Scott hasn't been here for three meetings. Thank you. The buck stops at the president, sir. The buck stops at the president. Ethan William? I'm hard of hearing. Sorry. I just wanna tell you guys, fire Brad Miller. This is a joke. You guys are You're here. You're here. He's lost six lawsuit. Why isn't this on? Yeah. I don't know. I was trying to get you out. This is not this is not on. They don't want the public to hear. I need one that works. I need the timers restarted. Thank you. No. Your time starts, sir. My timer starts when the microphone works, sir.
You have a technical issue right now. She just resigned too. Fire Brad Miller in five years before the year of 2020. They delivered over a $143,000 half a day. Yeah. And then what happened? Brad Miller came on board, and that year, they quadrupled. And then we had only worms and rooster holes who went down the rabbit hole Since you have been on the board, the legal bills have been $657,000.
And then the next year, we had I can't read my writing. I think it says Dimwit. And once he came on, he was on he was the superintendent for two years and four months, and we had $507,000 in legal fees, half a million dollars under Ken Witt too, and one third years he was here. In a decade, $863,000, but only a fifth less than a fifth of that was before you guys got here. He's lost six lawsuits, including an embarrassment at the Colorado Supreme Court, and then you
guys didn't wanna repay legal fees, and he lost that lawsuit too. He's a loser. Zero one six in court. Fire him now. Go into executive session. Call emergency session. Get rid of him. Why are you why is he in your pocket? Are you guys why is there a tit for tat for this? He's outrageous as a taxpayer. You could give three hundreds I don't know if there's 300 teachers in Woodland Park. You could give every single one of them a $500 Christmas bonus for the last five years Sir on the money you spent on legal fees.
Please address the board, not not the not the Don't tell me which way to face. It's not them Robert's Rules of Order, sir. Sorry. You're a mess. You're a mess. Why are why are the financial reports not coming out before the election? That's kinda fishy. Everything's in two weeks or this and that. Well, guess what? You guys took a brave new world, and then we got to a clock with orange. We're behaving like it's nineteen eighty four. And now the temperature is Fahrenheit four fifty one, and we're here for it.
And you're out. You're too scared to run again, you guys know you'd be creamed in the polls. So all three of you are abandoning your seats. Don't say it's, I need to get back to my family or blah blah blah. No. You know you lose your lame ducks, and you're on a runaway train. And my time's up, so fire Brad Miller. Fire Brad Miller. Here. Here. Come in front of me. Hi there. It's me. The court stated thorn in the side of the district still standing up to you
with both the legal system and morality on my side. And before you blame me for your legal fees, which you have done, keep in mind for four years, I have simply been upholding the COOML and CORA when you and your legal team violate them again and again. But I'm not here to talk about policy. I'm here to talk about people. Please know that what I say about board members does not include director Barclay. That usually goes without saying, but I'm gonna put it on the record anyways. I've been thinking a lot about what I've said to you over the last four
years and what so many people have said to you. About how you try to silence us, try to remove us from spaces where we belong, try to ignore our worth, try to invalidate our very existence. I know that in a month, most of you will walk out these doors and will probably never walk back in. You get to try to wash your hands of all the damage you've done. Walk away from the irreparable harm you've brought to this community. You will tell yourself it's for the greater good and that you've been doing the right thing. You will defend the fact that you have made Brad Miller and other administrative leeches richer and richer at the expense of our children, our teachers, and staff, and this
community. You will try to convince yourselves that you haven't shredded this district in the name of private interest and a consolidation of power and money. You will ignore the casualties of your actions. But I know that every time you close your eyes at night, every time you sit in a church pew, every time you spout your rhetoric to try to justify your actions, you'll have to reckon with what you've done here. I hope the next people that sit in those seats are ones who care about all children. Yeah. Ones who want to protect and stand up for all children. What's best for all children? Because you definitely, definitely don't.
I know that because you can't say you care about kids in this community and then willingly leave them behind. And you can't refute that because you've decimated SEL, fired inclusive and respected teachers, and created discriminatory policies along with countless other ways you've tried just now with Silent's Voices. Your bullies through and through. You just wrap it in the ribbons of policy and the bible. Yep. But like I've said before, you can't silence us. You can't stop the way we care. You can't stop the way we fight. And see all the incredible people who have left this district and this community, please know we understand. And that we also know that you are continuing amazing work in other places because
this current board cannot break the spirit of people who love. They cannot break the spirit of people who stand up for marginalized communities and those with oppressed voices. This fortitude has always been our truth. You cannot destroy that. You can't silence us. You can't hold our spirit. You can't take away the fight in us. And if there is anyone, and I mean anyone in this district that feels like they are not heard or loved or understood, come my way. Come our way because we are still here. We are still listening. I hear deeply about the people in this community, and everything I have ever said and done here has been for them.
Amen. We Thank you. You have been well. Hi. Hi there. Alright. My name is Alicia Straub, and I'm a mother of two students in this district, and I'm also a Williamsburg graduate and a former Summit Eagle back in the day. I've been traveling long enough, and I really just got here to ask some questions,
and I hope that my questions will spark a conversation and encourage Ford to find a solution. My questions are as follows. One, why after almost two years being displaced and rehomed, do our junior senior high school students still not have a playground area or jungle gym outside? Two, is this this question is really for my middle school students because they have had they been able to stay at their old school, they would have had access to a playground, and I'm wondering, you know, why that wasn't moved. Honestly, many students at eighth grade can still benefit from play as an outlet, and
it's really hard to sit through a school thing and that exercise outside is just a win win. Which brings me to my next question, why does the merit get to have two playgrounds? It seems a bit unequal, and concerns that the I just hope that the district can allocate the resources equitably and fairly. And four, is there a plan to move or create a space for our 11, 12, and 13 year olds to play when they come up here to the high school? And it's literally anything more than what currently exists, which is a pretty big empty lot with a couple of bath clothes hoops, but that's not a playground.
And so why is this on my mind, you ask? My kids are here, my friends' kids are here, and my daughter will be at the middle school next year. She's 12, and she's terrified. Many students will be entering the building who are younger than her, barely 11 in many cases, and these kids still need a a place to play. It needs to be given the option to play. My fear is that without play, without an outlet, without a jungle gym to spark creativity, teamwork, conflict resolution, what will kids do in the meantime in between academics?
We know that the majority of the time, just like adults, we're gonna turn to their phones. They're gonna use that to pass time to avoid isolation, to disassociate, and these smartphones are Pandora's box. They are ultimately such a source of stress to our youth and cause so much anxiety, but that's not what they should be doing at recess. And to to the last thing we want is to encourage more technology usage during the school day. So my daughter doesn't have a smartphone. We don't plan to get her one, which is a cause of stress to her
too because she is going to be left out. My question is, what do kids do when they don't have a phone? My son tells me that when you don't have a phone, you're pretty much forced to look over the shoulders of your friends at recess or at lunch or you choose to be ignored because they're all staring at their phone. There's literally nothing else for them to do, and that is the playground that we don't want to expose them to. So, ultimately, not every kid is in a rush to grow up. Not every family is ready to hand over a smartphone, which is a dangerous playground. And I encourage the board to take some time to find a solution to make
play happen for all our kids. Thank you. Any more? That's it? Thank you. Okay. Next item, the consent agenda. Have I got a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Mark? Second. Okay. Roll call second. Barkley? Aye. Bates? Aye. Kimbrell? Aye. Addison? Aye. Westervelt? Aye. Motion carries. Oppenite users. Discussion information. Enrollment update. Miss Slopon. So you should all have a enrollment update or coded sheet in your binder. I'm gonna go through that, and I'm gonna give you a little bit of extra
information as well. So currently I'm gonna to get there. It's yellow. Okay. Yellow check. Yeah. I got it. Very colorful sheet. So currently, Columbine has 315 students. Summit has 310 students. Willard Park Junior Senior High School has 624 students. And Merit Academy has 614 students. The total account is 1,863 students. If you look a little bit further down, the k 12 account is $17.53,
and pre k is 110 students. So $18.63, that includes homeschool or no? Yeah. I'm assuming it. I think it does. Right? Yep. Erica, do you wanna speak to that? These are our health school enrichment students Right. Come on campus. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yes. Right. Yes. The ones who come in Yep. That aren't here full. Right. Sorry. I just wanted to hear before I answered it correctly. So then I have a little bit more information that you don't have. I just wanted to share. So a little bit about students who withdrew, at the end of last year.
We had a 192 total, and I wanted to share a little bit about where some of them went. In case you have questions, maybe I'll answer them before you ask. So we had students transfer to a different a different state. 24 students did that. Students who transferred to home based education, we had 34 students. And then students who transferred to a different a school in a different Colorado district, we have 68. And transfer students to a public school within our same area, we had 47.
So that's kind of the bad news. Now I'm gonna show the good news. So students who were new to Woodland Park School District, we had 340 students who were new. 33 of these students transferred from a non public school, and then 42 transferred from a school located in a different state. 63 transferred from home based education, and seventy two transferred from public schools, from a different Colorado school district. Do those numbers so the homeschool students in particular, are those full time enrollment students
or are those homeschool students who are now utilizing our enrichment program? Maybe not. For which part? Sorry. That so the number you were saying that there was an additional number of students I'm I'm sorry. Forget the number. That's okay. But that is for two of the district that used to be homeschool students. I was just curious if they are full time students or if they are enrichment students. Well, I'm honestly not sure, but I can find out for you. And I can share this with you if you'd like it. It tells all of the details. I'm I just have the summary sheet on top, but I can definitely give you
that if you wanna look through it. Okay. And you can send that to all of us. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm happy to do that. And I can Yep. And thank you to Erica for helping out with this because she does a lot of great work keeping us up to date. Thank you. Did the state, sort of, wow, the whole, like, October week be the whole week versus the day? Or I've heard some rumors. I think it's usually the day, but I do think they look at the week. We don't have we don't have the final like, we have the That's the initial
one that Yeah. The initial the final count is October 16. So, like, they'll tell us. Mhmm. Thank you. You're welcome. Salary results. Miss Ambo. Hello. It is fun to be back to be able to share these results. I was part of the team that helped us get there, and it's exciting. It's just really exciting to be able to share with someone. I'm trying. There we go. Alright. So we have had a tremendous increase, and, just a shout out to the former staff of Little Park High School and Middle School and the current staff of the junior high because it's like this, like, a team effort here.
Look at our green line over there. It's pretty impressive. I did enlarge it just a little bit from the graphic that you have so you can see it a little more clearly. But it's the same information, just the same little different. Our score was ten fifty two. And just a word about scores here. I'm gonna present data from three different sources because not one data source gives us all the information that we need. And so I'm gonna highlight some things for you. So this score specifically is pulled off of our SCF, the school view, site that
will be available for everybody to look at. Our SPS is not finalized yet, but it's and so our end size was 96. And so if you look in different sources, CDE also has another source for raw data. The score is a little bit low. And so with that N size was one twenty six. And so the N size is just a sample of students. So anyway, I'll talk to you through some of those things. Just know that it's not always the same. It's kinda like being on the scale of the doctor's office versus your home.
There's slight slight the different details. So, another important thing to point out there is in 2024, we changed the digital SAT. And so the scores are not it's hard to take two very different tests and align the scores, but we've we've done our best here, and SAT has certainly done their college work has done your best to help us out. The other thing I think might be helpful since SAT scores have changed recently, like,
what a good score is maybe. What is the highest kind of like, where does this fall and what's possible? I think would be helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry. No. That's okay. No. I was gonna you're perfect. Reading and writing scores there, this is over five years. And, 2021 was a fall test, because that was a COVID COVID year and also that's highlighted in gray there. Where we're at right now with reading and writing, is a five thirty eight, which is incredible. That means seventy eight percent of our students met the Woodland Park School District graduation
guidelines, which is about 4,000. So, I will say college ready, really four b is where they'd like they're predicted to earn a c in their freshman level college class. So real close there. But the state of Colorado and the only part that shows the four seventy. Is that the yellow line? That's, it's really the green line. K. What's that? It's well, the 500 is the green line there for a couple years, and it's changed because of digital SAT.
And so you've got that dynamic there as well. So now it's risen to a five fourteen. The standard again is from school view. And so 57% of our students made the Willow Park School District graduation. Really huge in recent over the last five years. It's really especially in math. Math math is tough. Around the state, that's always the score that struggles the most, and our our staff is doing a wonderful job. Couple of highlights there.
SAT scores are doing an outward trend over the last four years. Our scores have been higher than the state. Math, it made increased 19 points, and RWC increased to 28 points. Good job. What questions do you have? Questions, anyone? I should be reading that. Okay. K. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to action items, a revision to the board governance policy e e nine. An emergency succession plan is necessary to protect the board and district in the event
of an unforeseen inability of the superintendent to serve in the capacity of superintendent. EE9 states that the succession plan allows for only executive staff to be named in the emergency superintendent secession. The requested revision would allow for building administration to be named in the emergency of a succession plan in addition to executive staff. Have I got a motion to approve the the e nine governance? Yes. I will. Second? Second.
Roll call. Barkley? Aye. Bates? Aye. Kimbrell? Aye. Patterson? Aye. Besterholtz? Aye. Motion carries. Next slide. Real quick. We didn't actually have discussion there, but I did want to just kinda call out that we did discuss this at a work session. And, the major reason why we're approving that change is because we are running, a tight administrative shift right now. And so, making sure we have our administrative needs covered in the event that we
needed another superintendent, and then making sure we had people, with the right kind of, background and experience to cover a superintendent. We wanted to make sure we had a larger pool to pull from. So that's why we're doing that. Thank you, Peter. Good explanation. Okay. Emergency superintendent succession plan, miss Slocum? Yes. I'm gonna I'm gonna speak about this just a little bit. Are we on secession plan or are we sorry. Can we move to Daph and Zach? Well, I just I need a we believe we've got to do a motion for
the emergency superintendents secession plan. Do I have a motion to enter? I need to read it. I'm sorry. I just got I I jumped ahead. We have a lot tonight. Yeah. That was fine. So I just wanna reiterate the background information and then we're just this is a succession plan in case something happens and the superintendent, can't serve in the capacity. So, basically, I've asked to have Karen Hamlo, director of academics, would serve, for interim
superintend superintendent in the event that I was unable to. And if she was unable to fill that role, then doctor Tori Ritchie, the principal of the Wilbon Clark Junior Senior High School would step in. And then we can Now now there's Basically, we just voted for the policy change, and this is now the vote for those. We actually said that we have to also session plans to help. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So a motion is requested to approve the emergency superintendent succession.
Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. We'll get the discussion part. Right, Keegan? Yeah. I was like, you're in the discussion part, and then we'll go. Yeah. No. I I think, just do we need to read the actual thing? I think that's what Wait. We put it quick. Okay. But the order we should begin. She read the emergency question plan. Should be me covering it. I don't I just that's fine. We're good. Is everyone comfortable? You just had a look on your face, so I was like, I'm sorry to
hear you. That's why I'm in the discussion board. Barclays. Aye. Bates. Aye. Kimbrell. Aye. Patterson. Aye. Chester Holt. Aye. K. Motion carries. And item c, discussion and appointments of DAC and SAC committee members for the 2526 school year. So move. Discussion. Can I get a second and then discussion? And do we wanna read them through or what do you wanna Yes. I yeah. Well, so it's We we need a motion to approve the debt. We had a motion and it's a header, but now we're in discussion.
Okay. So I get so first part, I know we we're doing things a little differently this year. Ginger, did you wanna cover some of the changes there and and how we came to the I would ask if you wanted to explain that. I would love to explain that. Thank you. So we sent out the a similar survey as we have in the past several years. We tried really hard to honor the people who filled out the survey, and followed the timeline. And so those people, I believe, if we had a place for them, they received
a spot on your sheets, whether it was for DAC or SAC. So we really wanted to be transparent with that and ensure that people who really wanna be there were able to be there. And then we also talked about these at our last leadership meeting with principals, and so they also had input. The other thing I wanna point out about DAC in particular is that the SAC parent reps will be voted on at their first meeting to decide who will be
the DAC rep. And so I want people to understand that that's how the parent DAC reps will be will be chosen as by their local SAC teams. And the other thing I wanna say about that is, I believe the first meeting is tomorrow night. So whichever parents, put their names in the hat to be that back rep, I want to make sure that it's very clear to them that we are expecting our parents to step up to the plate when they come to the first DAC meeting.
And, we really need our parents to be the DAC chair and co chair. And so I wanna make sure that they are all aware tomorrow night that if they're putting themselves in that race to be the DAC rep, they're also understanding that we would like them, at least one or two of them to be our dad chairperson because they need to be we need a parent to do that. Yes. We do. So I want I just wanted to reiterate that. But, again, we tried really diligently to give the people the voice that really followed
the timeline and fit the roles that we were requesting. So I know we're voting tonight. Address meetings tomorrow already. Yeah. Where is it? It's always Some parents had reached out unsure whether they needed to be prepared for that. Maybe For a sec tomorrow night? Yeah. So But they made aware that they were on the list and may have to be in attendance at a meeting tomorrow. I know the list is public online right now, so I was hoping that they
would also know to look in the board packet, but we also didn't want to, I know that they've signed up. I just didn't wanna put any false promises out there because I know it has to be approved by the board. So that's why we didn't reach out individually yet. I wondered about that knowing it was so soon if you guys But we also we also put the dates on the survey. So everyone should know those dates and be prepared to attend those dates. So I'm assuming if a parent signed up, they also had that jotted in their calendar that the that it's a quick turnaround.
And the reason it's so quick in October is because we usually try to talk about our UIPs in October, and those are due October 15. We already did a lot of that feedback last year during that DAC and SAC in the spring. But, it's just it's always a really quick turnaround in October. Plus, we have to have our first meeting in the first quarter. And and the meeting tomorrow night is for SAC? SAC. SAC. Even last year, they're fully signed up and then they weren't there towards the first meeting.
And so we see this sort of to try to help them Yeah. Know the dates ahead of time. But but yeah. It I mean, it could be something we improve in the future. Yeah. I'm just wondering if we can step up our side of the process and and have people sign up and then we vote in the September meeting That would be wonderful. Instead of October next year. Yeah. I would be all for that. If I could Okay. Always looking for a surprise. Okay. Do you wanna read out your name? To read it out. And we also put it in your packet, the whole spreadsheet of everyone who applied
and the light green colored, section are the people that applied during the the actual first time frame Mhmm. Where we were hoping everyone would apply, but we didn't get all the spots filled. So just wanted to make sure you understood. A lot of people signed up, but it's still there. Yeah. So you're are we we're getting reading through this list? Do you want me to read it? My yeah. Go ahead. It's it's available. But Steven, you just asked where you're gonna read these names. We we can do that.
Do you wanna read out loud? Do you want me to I mean, I don't mind reading them. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Sorry. Let's announce what we're I like announcing something for even though it's in the back. Back. Okay. So the first sheet here is our our DAC roles. So Karen Hamlow would be the superintendent designee. I'll probably still be at those meetings as well, but I'm handing the reins over to Karen. Our principals will continue to be Landis Sebel and Tory Ritchie this year. Our Columbine teacher will be Jennifer Luttrell.
Our summit teacher will be Sherry Porter. Our Woodland Park Junior senior high school teacher, Blaine Miller. You can see the blank spots for the parents that will be voted on tomorrow evening. Our Woodland Park Junior Senior High School, we had two, so that's exciting, that wanted to join us. Midian Stump and Aiden Graham. And then one business person in the community that business must reside in the school district boundaries is Giuseppe DiPietrio, and I don't know if I said that right, but I'm sorry if I didn't. And then one resident in the community who is not a parent or an employee
of the district, Steve Wolf. And then board members, Keegan and Mick, since you're both returning to the board, it felt very appropriate that you would be there. And then charter school parent would be Julie Anna Bandajar. And one person in the community who has demonstrated knowledge of charter schools is Sean Hector. Okay. Do you wanna talk about that at all before I move on to Zach? The only thing that I thought might be useful, because I saw some questions on it throughout the community was, what constitutes as demonstrated knowledge of a charter school?
So I sent an email with a lot of that, and I don't have it in front of me. I wish I did right now. But, basically, someone who has worked at a charter school or has had a child at a charter school or has, background with that. And I can give you a very detailed list if you want me to forward it to you. So I just did I'm prepared with that. Okay. Next. Just saw that. Yeah. No. I understand. Okay. Next is our staff committee. And so these were all discussed with principals to really make sure that prince because
principals know their their people, and, I believe we took as many as we possibly could. So at Columbine, principal Linda Seibault, teacher is Jessica Ricks. We have three parents, Michelle Brewer, Stacy Patton, and Samantha Fletcher. And then the the parent who's also part of the parent organization group is Sierra Whelan, and our community member is Amy Wollum. And they do not have students on the elementary.
And then Summit Elementary, principal Katie Rexford. Katie has a few extra parents and a few and more than one teacher, which you can do. She was just trying to honor the parents that signed up within the time frame. So for teachers, she is Christy. And Sherry Porter. For parents, she is Joni Miller, Andrea Gardner, Bridgette Coran, Teresa Kane, and Heidi Crippen, and, as the parent organization leader. And then community member is Leah LaNucha. And then for Woodland Park Junior Senior High School, principal Tori Richard Ritchie, doctor Ritchie.
Teacher is Bethany Geist. The parents are Shannon Valero, Jesse Seibert, Bridget Strawmat, and then parent organization leader is Dana Kramer, and community member is Freddie Beck. And then our students, Mideon Stumpf and Adrian Graham. You're welcome. Sorry to be down. It's okay. No problem. Any questions on Zach? Zach. And Zach. Zach and Zach. Yeah. We we we just we have we answered the questions regarding Zach, I believe.
Anything for SAC? Yes. Okay. I'd ask for a motion to approve the DAT committee members as recommended by the administration. So the the motion's already they're gonna change the votes. Arthony? Aye. Bates? Aye. Kimbrell? Aye. Patterson? Aye. Russ Nelos? Aye. Motion carries. There being no other board motion board action tonight, should, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Second. Roll call. Barkley. Aye. Bates. Aye. Kimbrell. Aye. Patterson. Aye.
Mister Pence. Aye. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned. Fire, president.