Alright. So we're needing to order. Do a roll call. Markley? Here. Gilvin Est? Here. Gordon? Here. Green Street? Here. Alright. All stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, Thank you.
That's a, motion for the approval of the agenda. Hello? May I have a second? Second. Oh, Paul. Parkley? Aye. Sylvanas? Aye. Gordon? Aye. Greenstreet? Aye. So we're going to start our meeting today with our community spotlight. And today, we are honoring the, William Clark Junior Senior All State Choir and Western Slope Honor Choir. So we'll invite up, the choir director, mister, Hemmingson to introduce his team. Good evening. Thank you for recognizing my basic students this evening.
My name as you said, my name is Jeff Hamilton. I'm pleased to be the vocal music director here at Clark Junior Senior High School. I have three groups of students I'd like to recognize this evening. In the beginning of each school year, my students are given the opportunity to audition for both All State Choir or the Webster's Little Honor Choir Festival. For middle school students, they may audition to the Colorado Middle All State Choir. This requires them to complete a recorded audition with me over musical concepts, including solo singing, rhythmic and melodic sight reading, and oral recall.
Students are admitted to the festival based on the quality of their audition. This year, we had a remarkable eight students accepted. Please join me in recognizing Chloe McNerney, Sophie Cantrell, Jude Cederbloom, Ella Trichel, Zoe LaGuardia, Grayson Snyder, Molly Woma, and Macy Shore. My high school students are encouraged to audition for, the Western Slope Honor Choir Festival, and that's every year. This festival is open to ninth through twelfth graders who are enrolled in choir for the full year and is held at Western Colorado University in Medicine, which is where
I went to school. But students complete a recorded audition with me for this as well. This year, the director of the festival drastically diminished the number of students admitted from 220 students down to 150. Despite this, Woodland Park had 21 students accepted. This put us as the school with the second highest acceptance rate at this festival. So please join me in recognizing Sonia Kepler, Ada VanderMeer, Hannah Ball, Eden Florwell, Phoebe
Merle, Serene Miller, Aspen Qualls, Melia Duarte, AJ Haltort, Noah Wolf, Brett Shroklin, Matthias Goldberg, Michael Kremer, Olivia Jo Lenhart, Avery Martin, Evie Gutierrez, Olivia Ray Kingsley, Alex e, Maggie Vandermeer, Neddy Shomer Shomer, and Cora Vandermeer. The final group I'd like to recognize tonight are my high schoolers who are admitted to the high school All State Choir Festival. These students had to commit complete a rigorous in person audition that covers a wide
range of musical skills. Their score from their audition is scored against thousands of other seniors from across the state. This year, we had four students accepted, which is amazing. Please join me in recognizing Brad Shroklin, Edie Gutierrez, Hannah Ball, and Eda Van Der Beek. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight and for recognizing the amazing growth and outstanding achievements that our students are making for me first. Thank you. Well, thank you. I, you know, I say this all the time. You guys are welcome to stay. If you'd like to listen to the rest of the board meeting, but I understand
it's not the most entertaining. So if you'd like to, enjoy the rest of your evening elsewhere, you are welcome to to do that at this point. Okay. K. If anyone wants to change the seats, they're welcome to use the best. Alright. I guess that brings us to our administrative reports. So we'll start with the board of education reports. Does anybody have something they would like to report? Carol and I had the opportunity to attend the staff break thing, which was really wonderful to see all of them and just the lightheartedness that I just love and
I'm so grateful for our team of teachers and staff and administration. I also had the opportunity to go to our middle school girls' basketball game on Monday and then our JV and varsity girls' high school basketball game last night. And we didn't quite pull off the wins, but our kids really play with heart. And I was so impressed that they never give up and just keep fighting and playing with all their hearts. So I I love our kids. Yeah. I'm a lover.
But, also, just an update on the search for legal counsel. We have three firms that have submitted informal proposals. So we are moving forward. That's that's all. Yeah. Just to piggyback off that for a second, Candace will be sending out those proposals to all of us. And, if you guys wanna take a look at it and send back kind of your feedback to myself and to Candace, we'll be able to move forward quickly with that. Legal counsel is one of those things that, like, sometimes boards vote on it, sometimes
superintendents pick. So it's it's kind of one of those weird areas. We don't have to vote on it, but we'd love feedback from everyone. So if you just take a look and and we get that back to us. And again. Great. Also, Keegan and I, met with Rob Davidson, who has agreed to help with our, facilitate our board retreat and work on our, mission and goals, etcetera. And Rob is known by a lot of people in the community. He's been really active in the schools and really looking forward to his help at
the board retreat. Do we do you have a chance to say anything about Cali? No. No. No. I'll just give a quick update that, the board, I think, had an excellent opportunity to travel together to the, Florida associate association of school boards conference that was being held at the Broadmoor, in mid December. And that was it was very informative. We had a lot of opportunity to learn more and dive deeper into different areas. Legal Bay, one of them. PR being another, school finance. Lots of great topics and great presenters and sessions and connections with other districts including
Purple Creek, which I thought was excellent, use of our time. So Yeah. Just wanted to report that that was a great experience. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Mhmm. That brings us to our superintendent appointment. Alright. I have a lot. So sorry. So I'm gonna start with this school. So at Columbine Elementary School for the month of January, master classes for second and third graders begin this Friday. Students will have a chance to learn about fossils, and there will be cooking, sports games, and dinosaurs. So it sounds like lots of fun happening over there.
Both Columbine and Summit have their showcase night on January 29. And, showcase nights are times where families can, come and tour schools, see all the wonderful things that are happening at each school because, student choice is coming up quickly. So both Columbine and Summit will have theirs the same night on January 29. And then Columbine students have been enjoying lots of after school activities also including math tutoring, sounds very fun.
I can't eat. It's really great. Basketball and pay kids. And then Summit Elementary has had a fabulous start to the second semester. Staff are laser focused on using mid year data along with the curriculum and standards work to refine instruction and keep students moving forward. I always enjoy reading Katie's because I wish I could be as cool as Katie when she tells the things out loud to her staff. I don't know if that exclamation. She does. Yes. I'm trying really hard to use the enthusiasm that I hear Katie's voice when I
read it. She also let us know that they welcomed 10 new students at the start of the semester, so that's wonderful news. And, again, they will be having showcase on January 29 as well. And then the Woodland Park Junior Senior High School, they have showcase night on January 28, where seventh through twelfth grade staff discuss and exhibit what happens in their departments and through student work. Their time is 04:30 to six. Katie, is yours five to 06:30? Yep. Five okay.
So the elementaries are five to 06:30, so just slightly different. And then also on January 28, sixth graders will be touring the junior senior high school, and they will be welcoming sixth grade families at 5PM in the auditorium for a special session just for sixth grade families. And winter sports and activities are continuing. We'd love to have people come and watch basketball, swim, hockey, and wrestling. I think there's wrestling going on right now. If anyone gets really bored tonight, they wanna go to some of that that Something
more interesting. Yeah. And then the rest of my board reports, some of this a lot of this you've heard because I sent it to you in my update, but I'm gonna talk about it for the community here. So I agree we had an exceptional day on January 5. I am so thankful and grateful for all of the families and community members that donated breakfast items to our staff. Our staff breakfast, the atmosphere was so positive and so welcoming, and I was so
excited to see and hear the chatter of our teachers and staff and the smiles on their faces, and I truly appreciate all of the donations that everyone, brought in. It really gave us a great start to our second semester of the school year. We did have a really reflective presentation that Karen Hamlo and I really worked a lot on over the break. Our goals during that presentation to our staff was truly to acknowledge past challenges, to
intentionally let go, and begin heal the healing process, moving forward together. And Karen and I both showed shared some vulnerable stories, But I think it was really good for our staff to know truly why we're educators, and I really have gotten a lot of positive feedback, and I know that Karen has also. And, I'm just really looking forward as we move forward. I'm looking forward to our staff continuing to grow and move forward together. Something else that we shared during that presentation was our commitment and our philosophy about
shared leadership with stakeholder input. So some of the upcoming committees that we are creating, include a teacher advisory council to help us revise and update the staff handbook and make other big picture decisions for the staff and our school district. I know I've already talked about a district climate and culture committee, but that is coming soon to help us create a school culture where teachers feel valued and supported and do a little bit more of the fun stuff, but also some more of
the deep digging, and reflecting. And the district safety and security team to help us continue to update our plans and make sure that we're being consistent across the district, as well as a student advisory council, to include high school students to participate with district administrators to share feedback and help shape decisions that impact their school experience. And I'm really excited about that because I love our students and I miss seeing them every day, so that'll be really great to get some feedback from them as
well. And then just for our staff to know, I'm hoping to send out a survey link in, the next staff newsletter so that people can let me know if they are interested in participating in any of those committees or teams. Next. I did share a calendar of events with you all. I am gonna make some updates for, the purpose of separating some of the columns. One thing I'd like to know from you all is, do you want all the sporting events on it?
I'm just I wanna make sure that I'm giving you enough, but not overwhelming. So Hailey is going to be the one that does probably a lot of this morning events updates. I just I'm curious about what you would like me to put in. Can we have a separate tab for the story of this? We probably could. Yeah. This way we can see what Mhmm. In a separate does that make sense? Yep. There's also a really great app, that you can put on your phone from the oldest member of the board. That that, it's really easy.
It shows you the whole week and home and away, for sports. So Yeah. That is Okay. And if we have any, like, really big sporting events come up, like state Yeah. Meets or anything like that, I can definitely yeah. Put that on there for sure. Okay. Yep. Beats. And then I have some really great news to share. After we received our frameworks at the beginning of the year, our junior senior high school received improvement status because we did not have enough participation.
And after we received that, Karen and I wrote, there is a place where you can ask for reconsideration. We did that because we were within a percentage point, and we, were updated that we are now at performance status. So that's gonna be a wonderful Thanks for your diligence. Absolutely. And then something else that I shared with our board already, but, we are also sharing with our SAC teams and our deck team will be invited to this.
We are having a Capturing Kids' Hearts Culture Shaper meeting on January 22 from 05:30 to 07:30. I believe we're gonna have it in the boardroom here. And this goes along with our Capturing Kids' Hearts framework that is currently implemented at Columbine Summit and the Junior Senior High School. In recent years, both Columbine and Summit have been recognized as brightening star schools. And this year, the Junior Senior High School is being nominated as a national showcase school. This meeting will give participants a chance to learn transformational skills and processes fully aligned
with our capturing kids arts one training. How we engage students, empower learning, and create a culture of connection, as well as learning a high impact process being used in their schools to strengthen and bridge between home and school, and be honored for their contributions as parents and guardians. So we're also going to invite parents that they would like to attend. And then I'm almost finished. Community connections. We are having a community connections meeting on January 28 from 08:30 to 10AM.
This month, we are focusing on community leaders. We are actually sending out personal invitations this time to work really hard to get all the local leaders in the room, truly to work. I think this is a great opportunity for our school district to continue to build bridges and connections that have been lost the past few years. And What are the fees? Wednesday. Is that a Wednesday? Yep. A Wednesday, March. Yes. Yeah. This year, Columbine Elementary School was so lucky that they got selected to do the social studies CMASS test.
We have not done social studies CMASS since I've been in the district. So, it's been more than it's probably eight or more years. So I yeah. I'm sorry. I was being sorry. I mean, I think it's good. So, you know, I guess. So CMASS social studies for fourth grade specifically often covers Colorado history. And so I just wanted to ensure everyone that those schools do have textbooks for Colorado history, and I know that they have been teaching out of them and will
continue teaching out of them. Something that came up today during our DAC planning meeting is that we will need to have someone fill in on DAC because Nick will not be filling in that seat anymore. So we just want you all to have that on your minds. We do have a meeting coming up, like, February 5. So and then if if you I'm gonna just I just wanted to put that out there so you're thinking of it. And then just a few more a few timely things that I wanted to address
that were these were not in my original update to you. The first one is about boys bathrooms at the junior senior high school. So at this time, we've had a a some fewer a few fewer boys bathroom stalls available at the junior senior high school due to some incidents of vandalism and destroyed bathroom stalls by students. We are actively working to address the issue. Jason is actually gonna share a little bit more of those plans with you tonight.
I know that Tori and or doctor Ritchie and miss Eastman have also talked to staff and students. In the meantime, we are trying to be very solution oriented, and and we are working right now on a a plan to start unlocking the bathrooms in the cafeteria during passing periods as long as we have supervision out in the cafeteria. So it's a lot of it is about manpower and having enough people to supervise. But, we're working on it, and we just want people to know that we're doing
the best we can to get things fixed as quickly as we can. It is very the bathroom stalls are very expensive, so that was really unfortunate that that happened, but we are working to rectify the situation. And then last but not least, I just wanted to share a little bit of my thoughts with you tonight about the true ups that David's gonna talk about in a little bit and give you a little bit more background information. Because I know that some things we've been working on, and Keegan's been here, and David and I have been working on it. But you ladies are are new, and so I just wanna give you some updates.
So on November 10, we held a meeting with our William Bart team and Merritt's team along with, CDE representative Glenn Gustafson. The purpose of this meeting was to provide education and clarification regarding district charter relations, including financial guidelines. David Kuritar and his team have been working diligently to address the challenges they inherited, and they have done an excellent job navigating and correcting the issues. When David presents his information this evening, he will explain the rationale behind the portions
we are recommending to forgive as well as our expectations moving forward. And as we move forward, I believe it's essential that we find some common ground with Merit Academy for the benefit of all of our students and our community. And as the board establishes priorities for the future, one key priority should be the development of clear bylaws and rules of engagement with Merit Academy. This helps us ensure transparency, consistency, and a defined path forward rather than relying on
unwritten practices from the past. So that is my recommendation. So thank you very much. That recommendation was echoed by Glenn in that meeting as well to have everything documented and and signed up. One thing I forgot to mention during board medication reports, I will be traveling for work, in February. So I am not going to be here in person, unfortunately, for the February board meeting. I've already talked, with my vice president to to handle operation and running that meeting.
I am hoping to be able to call in from Pennsylvania, work permitting, for that. But I just wanted to give everybody the heads up ahead of time that I will not be here if I will call if I can. Yeah. Is this work permitted? We can move on now then to the facilities report. So Jason. Take my name. Fasten out. It's fucking school. Just like Should be one for everybody even one for kids. And those are not statements.
Thank you. So before I get to that sheet, I do wanna address the issue in the restrooms at the junior senior high. We had a an incident in the boys bathroom in the hall right across from the library next to the main gym. There's only one stall with the actual commode in it, and that stall got completely destroyed. And since I worked here, which is about two and a half years, that stall has been completely torn down by vandalism at least five times that I know about.
Sometimes it gets damaged, you know, not severely, and the building manager will repair it, and I don't always hear about it. This time, it was not repairable, and it currently sits with a toilet and in front of God and everybody. So, I had, decided to we're gonna repair that by putting in a block wall divider instead of a traditional bathroom stall divider. Number one, the cost is only about $200 difference, and it's a lot harder to
destroy a block wall divider than, standard bathroom wall divider, and we have the space to do a six inch block wall. I actually have a local brick mason scheduled to do that over Christmas break, but it kinda fell apart at the last minute. I've got another mason scheduled to do that on Monday, while we're out of school. So the wall will be up. There won't be a door on it, but at least there'll be some division there. And then the, Josh Davidson with the welding shop has said that his kids would
like to actually build a door for that, which I think would be awesome. Yeah. So that's on the mend. So it took longer. The actual incident happened on December 8. I believe this is the right day. I have to go back and look. But it was around the December. So it took a while to get everything together, decide, you know, I wanna do block or go back with the divider and then order the materials and then try to get a contractor scheduled. But that will be taken care of very soon. There's also some damage when, when we moved the middle schoolers to this campus a
couple years ago. The halls in the 200 Wing, which is the far south end of campus. Those bathrooms we renovated the, boys bathroom with new dividers. And within, like, two weeks, it's we'll start. I think they got the doors got ripped off on it. And we repaired those several times, and they currently do not have the doors on. The doors are not totally destroyed, but all the hardware that holds the doors and the latches, which is the really expensive part of that kind of equipment, are all
completely destroyed. And so, we've got those scheduled to go back in as soon as we can figure out some hardware that might be able to hold up to some of the abuse. So but those kind of dividers aren't made to hang on and tackle each other into you. And so that's the kind of stuff. I mean, that's just what happens. Yeah. So it apparently. So, we don't we don't have the space in the what I call used to be the junior high wing, which I don't think it's all junior high.
We call it 200. Yeah. I don't have the space in there to do blocks, so we're gonna have to keep the traditional steel dividers. So we're working on that. At least there's walls around the stalls, but there's no doors currently at this time. Before I get on to the immediate facility, is she Katie, do you wanna keep my questions? I I am obviously baffled by our bathrooms getting destroyed. I don't it's not that I don't know if this is the right time for this, but I feel like we gotta brainstorm a way to stop that if it's,
like, wrestling into the back? Do we need the kids to have more movement time or, like, are they are they, like, going in with screwdrivers and pulling the doors off? They're digging in or pushing into kicking in on each other? Like, what is happening? Of course, I don't I don't I don't know if it's in there. I don't think any of us have ever been in there when it happened or when it happened. And, obviously, we don't have cameras in here. So I had no I mean, I can just imagine what what other evidence that
I find. But Yeah. I don't know. I need to get those kids probably. On the on the one in the 200 ring, we did move a a security officer right next to there's a room right next to it. So we we did that to try to be preventative. And then, like, Ginger's talking about, there's a lot of bathrooms. So it's we've gotta the manpower is to stand out during passing periods. And it might not not necessarily happen during the passing periods. Right. They're gonna get to move to classes. So it's just, like, seminar cameras and other sites. We we have suspicions. Yeah. And we've interviewed a lot of, folks, and no one's no one's given us the
info yet. But, Yeah. And I I don't think I would ever I would never advocate for having cameras in Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But perhaps maybe more in the hallways outside. So at least you can narrow them down. We do have them in the hallway. We could see who goes in and out, but then if there's a lot of them kinda getting in. We reviewed. It depends on what we find out. It's destroyed. A lot of kids. Come out. Yeah. When you don't know the timing Yeah. It's like, I mean, there's dozens and dozens of kids coming in and out. So Has this always been a problem, or is this new? It's been a problem since I've been here.
Yeah. So once in a while, it rears its head because they figure out there's no campers in there and have some fun. But a lot of times, they'll, they'll tell a friend who tells us, and so that's how we found it. But this this time, there's been some tight loops on it. So we're we're still gonna figure it out. You don't have bathrooms for now? That's pretty. So, Ginger and I had spoken about the desire for all of you to have an idea of what our immediate facility needs are.
I'm sure you're hoping it was a shorter list when the word immediate was next. That page is I've brought back on it. And I'm not gonna read everything line by line, but I will kinda give you a 30,000 foot flyover, so to speak. And, and then I've got, like, a an estimated total for each campus office. So I've got it listed by campus. And so we'll start with the junior senior high campus. And, roof replacement is one of the the biggest needs as far as the amount
of capital it takes for the repair. The the part of the roof that needs to be replaced on this campus is about $8,100,000 to replace. And that's, well beyond its fifteen year life expectancy. Most of it's most of that section of the roof is twenty eight years or older. So there are parts of this building that the roof has been replaced, but a big section has not. We do have some significant painting needs if you drive around and then after winter's over, that will increase.
So, anytime you have a crack in the asphalt anywhere and we get snow and then it warms up and the water goes in the ground at night and freezes, well, what happens with, you you know, water when it freezes, it expands? And that's where you get all and then it snows again and you keep we come through the plow and it just rips all that stuff out of it. But I only have holes and stuff. So the idea is not to let it get that bad. Some of it can be resealed. Some of it needs to be, you know, ground and resurfaced.
Some of it needs to be replaced. I mean, if you wanted, like, a map of specific areas, I could get you that. But this is just kind of a high level amount, around a million dollars for that. We also have a lot of sidewalk damage from plowing and salt and ice. Another real big ticket item when you add it up across the district is the building automation system. The building automation system is the, basically, the software and the, mechanical devices that control all of our HVAC. And, all of that system is extremely old.
It it's barely it's hanging on for dear life. It's been that way since before I came. And to upgrade just this campus about one and a four million dollars. Along with that, there's some HVAC equipment, the rooftop units and stuff like that that need replacement here. They're already well beyond their life expectancy. And we're already dealing with one. As you know, we had an emergency replacement that, we've got scheduled. And that unit is actually supposed to be on the ground in Colorado at the end of this month, and, tentatively, it's scheduled to be installed February.
But the total amount of HVAC equipment around 3,000,000. We still have a car right here that hasn't been replaced in a long time, and you may say, well, that carpet's not a big deal. But it if you walk around and look through the hallways where the carpet has been replaced and then you step in the classroom where there's holes and there's three different color of the carpet, it does make a a difference. It really does. The track needs to be resurfaced extremely badly. I actually got a really good quote to resurface that. Last year, we were around 200,000.
I had no idea if that numbers would hold true for an updated quote, but I assume we could get close to that. That's a really good price too. Bathroom stall dividers are on there. So that that's not the the two bathrooms I told you about are not the only areas that need upgrades in that department. Like, overall, this campus, we need about $20,000 worth of bathroom stall. The modern upgrades, some of those are, to help us stay ADA compliant.
So some of those things are gonna happen, pretty soon. The rest of it will be funding dependent. The next campus on my list is Gateway, and I know Gateway may think well, we don't have anything going on at Gateway, but we actually do. We have, some programs down there that transit transition and swap, and we have culinary arts, and we have testing, and we have the, what we call the the Giving Closet. Is that what it's called? The Yeah. The giving Closet. Now we have quite a few things down there.
So Gateway needs some HVAC upgrades. And, also, like, we can't upgrade the building automation at one school. So if there if I could convince you of anything, please do not, like, I would rather not upgrade it at all than to do just one school. It just makes things more difficult when everything's not on the same system. So that would need to be upgraded to 200,000 for that campus. Because most of the students that use that Gateway campus now are junior senior high, it would really be great to upgrade the bathrooms so we don't have little bitty
toilets and, everything for the little for the little kids. So that's a pretty significant expense. Like, if we were gonna do all all the bathrooms there, it'd be about $4,000,000 to renovate those. We need a lot of parking gateway. Those parking lots are pretty rough. I included PlayPark above the clouds and the Gateway Campus because it's right there. It needs about $25,000 worth of upgrades. And across the district, LED lighting upgrades. I forgot to mention that for junior senior high.
So you probably know, but I talked to someone yesterday that had no idea that incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs are illegal to be solar used in the state of Colorado. That was as of 01/01/2025. So every time I have one of the fluorescent lights around, we convert it to LED. So we buy universal bulbs so that we could use it with or without a ballast, but we we don't have a manpower to do every light in the district even over a summer break. So we usually do them as they burn out. It it would be a significant energy savings if we could do it all at
once, and I'm gonna talk about that at the end of my list here. So, Merit Academy is on the list. Building automation is also one of the top things there. They have a significant need for some repaving there, from some water damage that happened last year when one of our, roof drains where it's supposed to drain off into the watershed, froze, and all backed up in the parking lot frozen and really damaged the parking lot. That's on the bus loop which is on the east side of the building.
I need some window replacement there. Most of the buildings need a little window replacement. And those if you look around the buildings, you'll see windows that are fogged up. That's because the steel is broken in there. Sometimes the frame is getting rusted, and then they start to leak because you can't see them all. So some work like that. They also need some bathroom renovations over there. They got some bathroom with some countertops and stuff that were originally laminate that are damaged. And and when laminate gets damaged, it can be very dangerous. So I've almost lost a finger one time to that.
So we've we've taken the necessary steps to make sure nobody is injured, but you really would be great to be able to make those upgrades. LED lighting also. So if you wanna kinda know how I came up with these LED lighting upgrade numbers, it's usually around $2 a square foot. That's kind of the low end, but we don't plan on replacing the whole fixture. So we shouldn't be able to get that's where those numbers come from. Columbine Elementary. Columbine needs a roof. It's about 1,300,000.
Needs building automation, 300,000 HVAC upgrades. Columbine needs all of their bathroom stall providers replaced. So to do all their bathrooms, about a $100,000. Like, these commercial bathroom stall providers are not cheap at all. So you think they would hold up better to get to tackle the home home, but that's not what they're made for. So, and we we did some day repairs and staging at Summit Elementary this past summer, but Columbine, we weren't able to do theirs yet, and they need that.
There's some plumbing repairs and upgrades, and part of that 50,000, I've actually gotten a project that I thought was gonna be about 20,000 that I got. I don't know. It's quoted for about 9,800, and we're gonna do that as soon as the stool's out. There's a drain in one of the downstairs bathrooms, A floor drain, not a toilet drain, but it's completely deteriorated, a cast iron drain. So, when it does get stalled out, like, we can't clean it out, and it's a major problem. So at the elementary schools, they don't care for the stalls, but we found seven
pairs of scissors in a toilet. We've found 30 pencils in a toilet. Like, we found all kinds of interesting things. I don't know how kids get seven pairs of scissors to put down a toilet, but we have literally found them in there. So, the modular buildings at both elementary schools need some pretty significant repairs, to the exterior and the interior of the buildings, but mostly to the exterior. And, the elementary schools and the high school folks, we're running on custodial equipment that
is like, 15 years old. And it would be a a huge benefit to the custodial teams to be able to do and I I estimated, you know, junior senior high, $50,000 worth of equipment would just be, like, getting by and 30,000 in each elementary school. Every time we drive, every time we have a break and we're using our big equipment to polish floors and clean carpets, like, we spend as much time working on the equipment as we do actually doing the work. When it gets to that point, like, it would really help us to have some new equipment. That would've been expensive, so we've been doing the best we can on what we
have, but that would be one of my goals to be able to upgrade their equipment. At Summit Elementary, again, roof replacement. On this other report, I have it at 1,400,000.0. I actually had a quote for this last year because we were working on applying for a best rent for this roof, and that fell through. We had a quote for just under 1,000,000. I did not lower my number because I felt like because of the the amount of time and I don't have any way to predict cost of materials, I wanted
to kind of have we might be able to get it done for under 1,000,000 again, but I don't know. Building automation, 300,000. HVAC equipment at Summit, I've got 800,000. We have some equipment there. If you go and look at it, you would think it looks exactly like what's in Carmelite. And it's a newer building, you think it would be better. But, actually, the the units in the classrooms, they don't make any of the parts. They're discontinued. The manufacturer does not support them at all. So when we have to go more, we have to piece them back together with stuff that kinda works.
And so, ideally, at some point, it's not gonna be cost effective to keep trying to repair those. They're called they're called Univints. They're like under the window in the classroom. That's why that cost is significantly higher than the number I've called them by. As you know, in divide, they get a little bit more extreme weather than we get in town, and their sidewalks are paying the price. And so about $200,000 with a sidewalk repair there. They haven't had carpet, and I don't know. Is that original to the building? Yes. Okay. I thought it probably was.
So flooring, original to the building to do the whole building, I estimate around 300,000. They do need some plumbing repairs and upgrades. They also need modular repairs, custodial equipment. And they've got some window work, lighting upgrades, just like every other campus. In case you didn't know, we actually own the bus barn that Durham operates out of. We own that building and property. And that parking lot where they park the buses, like, we got it's, like, worn down to the sand in some places. It needs to be totally, repaved.
It's about 700,000 to do that area. The bathroom over there needs a an upgrade, and, the flooring inside the building and the HVAC systems, could use some work. And then lastly, my favorite place, the maintenance shop. We have a building at the maintenance shop that we love when we call a mouse house. I don't know if it was called that before I came here, but the first time I walked in that building, that's what I named it. It's an old modular building that, has just been used for storage as far as
I know in the district for a number of years, and it has not been well maintained. And the mice at some point got all in the building and the walls and my god. It's not it's not worth keeping. We do store some things in it. I wish we didn't have to store anything in it because it's so bad, but I'd like to see it go away. And at some point down the road, a replacement building for storage because you never have enough storage. The parking lot in my maintenance shop is extremely bad.
It needs to be repaid. I've got that one to two years. I mean, we can serve we could drive the mud out. Like, Like, I would rather focus on the schools, but at some point and I've got areas, you know, as big as a truck that where the paint is just coming out of the ground. But more importantly, plow trucks. Plowing snow is really hard on a vehicle, especially when we're, talking about these are still what we call light trucks. So we need it would really be great if we could get two new plow trucks. They're not cheap. They're about $75,000 a piece fully outfitted, because we currently do not have a backup
plow truck. If any of our truck breakdown, like, we're down off the truck. Like, we're down to two guys plowing for four spools when it snows. This last snowstorm, we didn't have any trucks breakdown, but I had two ATVs go down and then my backup ATV, the four wheel drive wouldn't work. So it was pretty much useless. So we spent, you know, part of our time getting the ATVs repaired so that they could actually finish clearing the sidewalks. Every campus has a building manager, and they have an ATV with a plow.
They do the sidewalks, and the maintenance crew has trucks, and we do the parking lots. So the ATVs are all I think the newest one we have is like a 2011. And maybe one of them is a twenty fourteen. They're the same. They look the same, but one of them is a little. But they get used really hard. We could really use some new and I don't know that I if I got to pick out with ATVs to clear sidewalks and much better equipment to do that, but they are more expensive. But I've got about 60,000 listed for that. A field mower, like, for mowing football fields.
Like, right now, the biggest mower we have is, like, a 72 inch mower. It takes a little bit of time to especially when you're mowing three times a week and during the mowing season when you're mowing a football field. And and the mowers that we have are starting to age out where the the maintenance cost is starting to get much more significant than breaking down and having repairs. So some point soon, we're gonna need to buy a field mower and be I think if we calculate the labor savings over the period of time that we would
use that, it would be beneficial to have an actual field mower that'll load, like a 12 foot, 15 foot wide section. And then again, LED lighting upgrades at the that's gonna be required at the maintenance shop too. None of that's been upgraded. So the good news, that everybody's like, now this was exciting. The good news, there's a lot of these items that I think members of the community could help with if they chose to do so. Like, we've got companies in town that do flooring.
We got people that tons of construction companies could help with, like, the Play Park renovations. We've got paving companies that could help with paving. If people wanted to give donations towards equipment, that would be awesome. Roofing repairs, plumbing, like bathroom upgrades. Even if they just wanna donate labor, like, I think you know what? I've heard somebody talk about speaking with local businesses and how they could help. Like, I would love to be able to work with local businesses that wanted to partner with us.
So now I told you at the end I would talk to you about something special. So last year, we started a process towards the best grant, and that you know, I won't get into that, but I have, along with David, has started the application process for a best grant for the twenty sixth, twenty seventh fiscal year, but that application is ongoing right now. So we have to be careful what we decide we're gonna include in that grant
because we have to have a we have to match. It's not a 100% funded grant. And the best grant program actually determines what our match is. Our match for that fiscal year that we're talking about applying the grant for has not come out yet. Last year, our match percentage was 72%. So we get the grant. We still have to come up with 72%. We're talking about, you know, 2 and a half million dollar worth of roofs. It's still a pretty good roof. You know, we're getting 30% of it. So it's helpful. And so the idea is to see if we can secure the best grant for
some capital improvements, like maybe the summit or the summit in Palembine or maybe up to three projects, and then find a creative funding solution, which David and I have been working on. So there are, companies that help school districts, fund capital improvement projects through guaranteed savings from energy improvements. I know that was a lot. But for example, like, if say we went through the whole district and did a blanket LED lighting upgrade, it's pretty easy to calculate the cost savings.
And what does that save us over the, you know, fiscal year, and how can we roll that the money we would have spent on electricity into a capital improvement project. So you can do that with lighting. You can do that with water. You can do that with HVAC system. You can do that with roofing because of the installation factors. You can do that by renegotiating contracts with telecom companies. There's lots of ways. So we've got, two companies that we're working with right now to give us an idea of what they would be able to help with.
And so we can see, can we do something like that to best grant together? Once we kinda have some preliminary numbers, I know Dave and I have talked that that information is gonna come to you all to decide. Is this something we wanna investigate for? I think it's a pretty good option, and I think that there's a pretty good a pretty significant savings in, energy improvements in our district because everything is so old
and hasn't changed. We got we got a lot of savings we just find in a short amount of time in that area. Now you have to follow me, dude. I know you're being built here. Yeah. I have a question, Jason. If we, as we come across people in the community that maybe wanna take on a project, what's the number one, what's the the best place to start then? View number two. Let's say they wanted to donate a million dollars for a roof. I don't actually know that person.
But let's just say, that is there is there a way to donate that and have it be, tax deductible? Do we have some sort of way that we can do that? Those are my two questions. I can add the first part of your question. Yeah. I would you can just give them my cell phone number if somebody wants to talk about, hey. I wanna help with the project. I would love to talk to them now. An actual monetary donation, I'd have to let David speak to that because I don't think I mean, my answer just making up with Jason Ferris, but I don't think
that's the right answer. Yeah. We also, just kind of add to that. We have a discussion item tonight, actually, to go over our policies and procedures for addressing donations. Addressing donations. K. So we can probably talk more about it at that place. But it's good to know, Jason, that he would accept like, if people wanna reach out to you, at least get the ball rolling. Good. You're the right person to reach out to. I think is my information on the website? Am I on there? I don't think your number is. Okay. I have a couple questions today. Right? This overall list is I'm trying to understand if it's in any kind of, like,
prioritized order or not. Part of the reason I asked is because, like, even on the maintenance shop, when you looked at number four with the plow truck, you're like, that's a a top priority. It's really important, but it's also listed as number four. So I just wanted to understand from your perspective, like because it I can tell that this because it's organized by school, it's also not like a if we look at the district as a whole, one to 100 type of list in terms of order priority, that's not clear to me from the way that this has been presented. So I'm curious about overall prioritization and also too from that perspective, like, sort of,
like, categories of, like, these are, like, safety, security, like, importance level, and these are things that we'd love to have, but we can survive. You know? Like, I think that you tried to help with that in terms of, like, the the estimate time frame for, like, we need to address this by. But can you speak to the prioritization? So when you look at the all the cases, those are more in order of, priority. Okay. And then because I actually when I originally made this, I forgot about the menu shop, and I was like, oh, dang. I wanna forget where my office is.
And those things are because I feel like the, you know, the primary concern we should start with are because the need is so great at the campus levels, like, where students are actually learning. I I mean, if if you wanted me to prioritize the main because I would just, like, speaking last minute. I can put the main shop in order priority. All the campus stuff is mostly in order priority. Okay. So and then the time frames, I forgot to tell you that some of these time frames, like because this is just zero to two years.
And, you know, so some items are within the next year and then some are within, like, one to two years. Some of those are because we don't like, maybe we could go another year without it, and some of it's because even if you wanna do it right now, it would take almost two years to see that project come to fruition. And I didn't delineate that again. I just thought, well, That's about when I think that project could happen if we decided today let's do it. But it's also, like, almost everything at the campus level where the students are, it isn't like, when I say an immediate, like I mean, any day we can have
a major failure that and some of them could be catastrophic enough to cause us to not be able to have class that day or for a number of days. I mean, it happened last year, homebound, we were down three days. So because of a boiler issue. So that those kind of things when there's so much different maintenance, there is a little bit in the background. So I don't wanna speak dead over it. I mean, they're you know, luckily, we're we're doing great with what we have, but we don't wanna just keep taking chance after chance and hoping that we're gonna make
it another year because, eventually, we're not. The other question I have is whether or not the items that are on this list, if they've already been accounted for at all to a certain extent in the existing school budget for this year or the next year, but this is entirely the gap. Right? Like, this is Yeah. Things that we don't we're not budgeting for. We don't have a plan for. Yeah. We don't have outside. Okay. Budget for any of these. Okay. Yeah. Right now, my budget is unlimited. It's pretty much emergency repair. Okay. No preventative maintenance. Yeah. There there And even emergency repairs on over budget.
So sorry to have so much bad news. Safe to know. Thank you. No. Thanks. I'm fortunate that it's easier to follow Jason this month. And and just to speak a little bit about the funding, I I don't think there's one funding solution. I think it's gonna be multiple of things. And we are talking reviewing, number of different options. But, I we put the entire district. If we looked at it district wide, it would be doing another COP. District cannot afford that under the current funding mechanism, so it would need to get
paired with something else. Another bill of the override, sales tax, something would need to be in place. But what he described is probably a little nicer than, I think, some of the conditions, of the facilities. So we really need to to vote. The name is born to focus on, how can we solve the funding fee so that we can get schools. Did a little bit of math on the last COP in 2019. We had 500 more students in the district than we do now.
Today's value at, per people revenue, that's 6,000,000,000. So we're paying a COP with 6,000,000 out of budget. So I if I'm not here at some point, just be very mindful if you put a COP in place. What's the ramifications ten years down the road? Whatever the term that COP is, hopefully, student council will stabilize and do some long term planning. But I'm not sure, like, 2016, about at least 500 students and the corresponding 6,000,000
revenue. So so just something to put on your radar. The, I guess, bringing up to date on Skyward implementation, we are really close to having, I think, everything as far as the accounting system in. We're looking right now at the last and it may be done. But this morning, it looked like we're ready to bring in some of the HR data into Skyward, which is important especially as we have two w twos this month.
So working on that. The other pieces of Skyward, we need to implement this year, which, are gonna help gain some efficiencies. So I think managing the credit card and receiving processes, purchase orders, you know, rolling out the time keeping. So, which may be done as well. But there's components of that we're not able yet to utilize because we haven't we don't have the core functionality down. So we're working on that. The I'm on here three times and they all they're intertwined.
So it's like, okay. Do I erase that now or not? So I I guess the long story short, today I don't have financial reports, so we're working. Once we do have everything in, we'll be able to produce those bonds. And what I do, as I have done in the past meetings, has anecdotal information. It's getting more rich. But I'll just share a few things with you. Because we're not done with the audit, there's some adjustments that could get made between, July and August into the last year, as that audit's undergoing. And Hulte will be working on that with us as well.
But so I took out July and August. I'm like, hey. Let's just look at the four months, from September through December, and the expenses are down 12% over that time frame from last year at the same time. So that is a positive. Those are not pleasant cuts. Those are painful cuts, but they're not even deep enough because the other piece of information is where's our general fund at?
And so that number as far as what what's our bank account for the general fund? And as we ended the year, it's a million 50,000 less than a year ago. So, you know, we lost sales tax. That's about 3,000,000. So we did cut the expenses, but we're still down a million year to date compared to where we were at the same point in time a year ago. So We expect that to continue to grow, or will it be still a million
at the end of the year? I think that would depend maybe on this other part of the discussion. Okay. You know, true up and and the and the most flow through expenses there. So, payroll. So I looked at payroll and comparing, this this past December to the prior twelve months ago, 2012 December 24 versus December 25. So that dropped 6%, which I think the target was 10, and it's coming in
at six. I think maybe the last time I reported payroll was an 8% drop. So there is movement in there that you know, there's the base salaries, but if there's a lot of, substitutes or, I forgot it was one that really some vacation payout, there's some things that hit this year, I think, that inflated it slightly. Cheap would put that down the back closer to 8%. So, the cost, obviously, those people not hired again this year and no pay increases
for the district in Florida. So it's been a lot of dull tightening, not just for the district, but for the families that work at the at Stern. And just to know about reserves, that it's hard to calculate because I don't have audited financials, but we'll be able to look at those. But I will say, you know, looking at reserves back to, say, 2021, 2024, there has been a reduction of reserves over that time frame of about a half 1,000,000, and it's gonna accelerate.
Our kids say we're down a million already this year, year to date. So that number gets going. The, I think from a business standpoint, you know, spending a reserve if you have I think two months operating is really at minimum. And CDE even recognizes, recognize that. And that's on top of the taper, which is 3% of our operating expenses. So we don't want to dip in too deep into that, but that's kind of the traffic that we're heading on.
And, so we've looked at what can we do, to reduce that. And, you know, one thing that I think we talked about during the true, you know, transportation might be one of them. One, I I wanna I like solving things on the top line where we can bring in more revenue. That's the easiest way to solve problems. But when you look at expense, obviously, payroll is pretty significant size of the district budget. But what you know, if we didn't touch that, because I'm not sure we can, to try to provide the education that we're all here and and we care about,
you know, what else is out there. And I'm not saying we're gonna do this. I'm just trying to plan, some things on the radar of why we really need, I think, to push for the alternative fund that will let you override that. Because I would hate to cut transportation. And I think we're gonna talk a little bit about, you know, Merit Academy paying, you know, a similar rate that our students pay for transportation. And then we definitely help keep transportation viable in the district. So leave that there for discussion a little bit later in the meeting.
And I'm not sure as far as the budget goes, the numbers did come up from the state yesterday, yesterday afternoon. So I appreciate you guys moving the budget meeting until next week. We're gonna have solid numbers in that budget from what we expect in the funding. Jennifer Faircloth from Merit by Bet on Monday. We each did kind of our math, sat there and looked at what's per people conference, per people reference. Like, all of our numbers just match. So that was fantastic. So we'll be working through some of the flow throughs that we'll talk about later.
But but other than that, I think we're in really complete agreement on on everything, which is nice. So if you have any questions David, can you, I know there is some concern in the community whenever we're discussing budgets or or moving on anything like that, about just addressing why we have, we vote on a budget again in at this time frame, you know, what comes from the state, why we had to kind of defer that meeting today, and and just a little bit about that.
Yeah. I mean, to build the budget kinda based on numbers that we're guessing doesn't make a lot of sense. So now that the state, you know, I just issued here for our district, you know, our student counts have been that we collected in October. And so that was been really improved by the state with their state book approval, and and their per people revenue is now set as well. So basically, when we improve the budget for this year, we're working off some assumptions.
We now have some actuals so we vote on it so that it's more accurate to to to what we're actually going to need to see. And, David, if I'm if I'm tell me if this is correct or not. Because I think what I heard from the community is we're gonna vote on something that we didn't discuss in a previous meeting. And, with this particular, provision of the budget, there's really not an option to do that because we can't do it in December because you don't have the numbers that you need in December.
And then it has to be voted on by the January. Is that correct? It does. Yeah. So then the state just puts us in a spot. It's not the board not wanting to be transparent. The state puts us in a spot that it has to happen this way. Correct. K. Yeah. And, of course, all of our budgets will be readily available on the website. So if anyone wants to take a look, they can. And, you know, we can answer questions as needed. But, unfortunately, we're just kind of in one of those we get the information what yesterday you said, you know, before January end of the month.
So yeah. Maybe. Do you wanna address the the forensic audit also? Just a quick update on that. Yep. Sorry. I missed this. I was wasting up my list. Forensic audit. So, and I can talk about the any audit as well. The forensic audit, so, I've been engaged. I shouldn't say reengaged. We just expanded the scope of the group of existing engagement to include looking at
the transactions between Merritt Academy and the district, that we posted in our books. So that may be underway. Right? I think that the folks in there have probably already talked to, to the folks over at Ivy Lane. So I We haven't received any information from them yet. Alright. We haven't received any information from iBill yet. No. Not yet. So I don't know the time frame that they're, you know, obviously, in the set
of goal. So I don't know if that is yet. As the scope of work have been determined, and do we have an idea of what that's gonna cost the district or not play? Well, we we did put them on, as we did before. So this is it's less than 10,000. It's the maximum not to receive number. It was $9,009.50 here, somewhere in that ballpark. Mhmm. Okay. In regards to the annual budget or the annual audit. So we're working with Holting. So my main goal is to protect the property tax revenue coming into the district.
And to do that, we have to be compliant to the state auditors office. So working backward from that, and working with whole team needs about four weeks to analyze the audit. We are working right now. We've got 15 bank accounts, and we're tomorrow should finish 14, and then we're acting up the fifteenth bank account. That's the last thing that we're waiting on. And I'm not gonna say that last bank account is the easy one because it's
the hard one. But we've got three people already shifting gears into that, Vector Bank account or main operating account. So our deadline for us, Friday, we wanna wrap this up and get Holting and company a trial balance, and that's that's their trigger point. Give me that, and we will do our field work. We'll be here. So why is it taking so long? I mean, we just had more work than you could imagine.
And talk to we've been in constant conversation with Chris, at Holting, and, it was last year. It's like, we can give you what you got last year. And he was like, please don't. Please take some extra time and get everything buttoned down, give me a good clean trial balance, which he should have. That is not unreasonable, like, request from the manager. So that's what we've been doing. We hope to get back to him with the dates. Yeah. And and get on track to get that that full full annual audit done.
And, protect them about the next revenue that we must have to keep the lights on. Unless we do LED. If I remember too, I think last year, we ended up paying, like, double what we usually pay because they had to do so much more work. So I perhaps you doing the work ahead of time is saving us that money. It would is not costing us more. So I talked to Chris about that. And we're within the original scope, so we should not see extra things paid for.
Yeah. Thanks, David. Thank you. Thank you. We do also have another discussion item about the audits. I don't know if we'll need that. But if you guys think of other questions later, there's another place for that. Okay. Alright. It's hour into the meeting. We'll get to our public accounts. So before we get to that, I'll just read our statement here. So please be aware that personal or individual student matters are considered confidential under Colorado law. And it is out of respect to the law and our employees and students that we require those discussions to take place privately in executive session.
Individual comments are limited to three minutes or a total of fifteen minutes total for a particular topic. So if somebody has talked about a topic a lot, you know, we can maybe discuss something else. The intent of the public comment is to give the board of education the opportunity to hear your comments. However, the board will make no decisions and take no actions of public comment during the meeting. At the last work session, we as a board decided to remove the total time limit for public comment. So anyone who signs up will have the ability to use their three minutes.
How many people do you have? Just one. Just one. Alright. You guys talk. What is this? Good evening. I'm Eric Sekowsky. As the treasurer of the mayor academy board, I'm here to address critical misrepresentations from recent district discussions and published articles. It is essential that facts set the record straight to foster transparency, build trust, and forge a path based in truth and fairness. Misleading statements include the error of the sales tax overpayment, which Merit Academy brought to the district's attention, not the other way around, and an attempt to justify overcharging for
items with no substantiation as required by law. But today, I want to focus on one important topic, transportation. The district has implied it is providing Merit Academy a forgiveness of fees in fiscal year twenty five for transportation, but that is erroneous because no additional cost exists at all. Instead of the facts, in spring twenty twenty three, the district launched the total opportunity initiative, discussed in board meetings and in news clips, utilizing expense u utilizing excess funding provided by the state to assist declining enrollment districts for services to students.
Between fiscal years '24 and '26, that excess revenue has generated roughly $6,600,000 of funds not connected to standard actual per student revenue. The calculations for this excess revenue include Merit Academy's students and generating more than the district would have received without our children. In fact, Merit Academy children contributed to over $800,000 of additional excess revenue. Merit Academy received none of this excess funding. To put it simply, in this funding alone, WPSD has received roughly $800,000 of additional
revenues off the backs of Merit Academy students. This is why the WPFD invited Merit Academy to participate in transportation. It would be inappropriate to charge Merit Academy an additional fee when Merit Academy children are already contributing to these district services and costs to benefit all taxpayers' children attending public school in our district. Transportation isn't a favor of the distribution of resources that our students generate. This excess funding is more than enough to cover transportation for all students, including Merit Academy, and as was verbally agreed upon and confirmed in adopted budgets, agreed flow throughs,
and true ups for years, including this school year. The district and Merit Academy have had an understanding that this excess revenue formula would change in fiscal year twenty seven, but at which point, Merit Academy and WPSG would discuss transportation services and the cost of transportation for the charter school. We haven't gotten there yet as fiscal year twenty seven does not begin until 07/01/2026. To say this as a forgiven expense or to apply it to the fiscal year '26 is unlawful by statute because there is no charter purchase agreement to to the
district's invitation under the total opportunity initiative and also ignores these excess revenues that would not exist if it weren't for merit academy children. These clarifications strengthen our collaboration for all students. Let's commit to avoiding divisive narratives moving forward. Thank you. You said there is only one? Yes. So that leads us to the consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the consent? I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. I will always Barclays. Aye. Villa Ness. Aye. Borden. Aye. Green Street.
Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Alright. That brings us to discussion and information items. So the first thing on here let me apologize if I can see the correct version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, is what we were discussing a little bit earlier, giving an overview of our current policies and procedures in place for addressing donations. So a little bit of background. Administrative policy KHD speaks to gifts and donations, but does not provide specific procedures for the processings on how these donations may be made to the test store.
So that is where you all have that. And you have well, there there is a policy there, but, there is some discussion. I'm not gonna read the whole thing. There is some discussion, I think, space for us to kinda kinda talk about that and figure out how we wanna proceed going forward. So I don't know if you all had a chance to read through that, and if you had any questions or comments at this point. I wanted to ask if maybe Ginger, like, if you have any other context from
the time that you took to, like, review or collect any of this, if you have anything to add before we discuss it all. I know that we recently got some information about, people who had worked here prior when we had the foundation. And so we were thinking of reaching out to them as well, just getting some guidance. Mhmm. I think that would be good to get that background. And again, because there's been so much turnover, I don't know if anyone here knows this, but if there have been major donations in the past, if that was it.
And then sometimes people make donations and they want the money to go specifically to, like, sports or or specifically to maybe the roof or maybe they wanna buy a new plow. I don't know. Is that something that we've done in the past where people direct the money or is it more you donate it to the school, it goes into the general fund, and then the board would vote on how to disperse it if it was over $10,000? You know? I think that was why we were gonna reach out to the foundation people. I just know that when I first got here, the foundation, I think, was ending.
And so I think it would be definitely or it was changing. I was changing, and so I think it would be worth our time to reach out to some people who are here. Cheryl, do you have any questions? I I don't remember any large donations for anything, specific, but I do know that the foundation existed to be a a place that that, they could provide grants mini grants to teachers. They had a couple of fundraisers. They had some ways that they that they that they, raise money.
And I believe that that the the money from the mine, the, donations from the mine went through the foundation. Does that seem right to you guys, Ginger? Well, I know that we do we do the Newmont grants for the teachers. So Yes. Possibly. Yeah. And so we would have to have something like that in place for people to have donations be tax deductible. Is that correct? I would assume so. Yes. Does that seem right? Yep. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. Alright. The other question I had on this would be, around, like, budget.
Right? So so we vote on budgets, obviously, if it's a if it's a large spend. If someone, you know, was generous enough to to donate a sum large enough that, you know, the it should be, like, over $10,000. Right? Would that mean the board would have to vote on a new budget to exclude that amount in it? Or is that something you could spend kind of immediately, you know, as needed? I wouldn't think it would need a board approval if it's a designated we received
donations into student activities, you know, for that. Yeah. So was it donation to the general fund that's gonna help absorb the million 50,000. We've already it's overspend, I mean, in essence, the cash flow. Okay. That's good to know. I just have a question on the over commercialization one, just as that is pertaining to, like, our local businesses being able to donate and then advertise. Because I know, historically, we've allowed that.
And I'm just wondering, is this line talking about that, or is it a different concern? If anyone I think the key is that it's stated in the policy because it's really intended to, like, protect from activities that are, like, as it stated, coercive, distracting, destructive, like, threatening to health and welfare. So I think that, like, for example, if you were to, like, try to sell sponsorship dollars, like, in a classroom, like, something like that would be inappropriate. Right? So I think it's just intended to protect from complete over commercialization of the educational
environment that we are trying to protect the integrity of. So, but I I don't know if we have any more immediate, like, examples of that or where that's ever been. But I think that's how it's why it's doing job. I don't yeah. I don't think we have any instances of that. At least that's fine. So one question I have overall is that I know that this is, outlined as an administrative policy and how you might be able to speak to this. Do we need to have anything in at the district board level in terms of
how these are this is handled? I guess it's my first question. Oh. Yeah. I don't think we would need to. I think it could be an administrative policy. Mhmm. Just we don't deal directly with this. Mhmm. The the school staff does. And so I don't I think it can stay in a administrative policy. Mhmm. Yeah. I yeah. I think that it my thought and I maybe a question too if any others have input is that I think that based on the policy, it's pretty general, and
there's not really anything that points to any particular protocol or procedures for the way in which we handle these things. Particularly, I think some thought given to financial thresholds for decision making around grants. Similarly, do we how we have thresholds established within the budget for spending. And I think also maybe some some thought around criteria for the way that we consider and evaluate, different types of revenue, whether it's, purely philanthropic, if it's sponsorship related type dollars or things of that, like, of that nature.
So my recommendation or thought would be that I think it would make sense to kind of convene maybe a working group to develop that type of policy, or that would be my suggestion to Ginger unless if anybody has any thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, the steps you've already started is the right place. We'll see what has happened in the past. Right? If it if it was working well, I'd say we we continue it if we want to adjust it, then then kinda go from there. Okay. I can definitely get more information and bring it back to the board. Okay. Can you take more on that?
I guess just one other follow-up, and I think because even Carol raised this earlier, like, in the immediate, if we have like, if we are aware of a an individual or group that wants to make a a donation or major donation in the meantime, what would be the appropriate procedure for that right now? I would say right now to reach out to the district office, and, we can work with David and and make sure that we are documenting it and giving them the right documentation back for taxes. Okay. Sounds good. And we're back to the annual audit update.
We actually need to continue that conversation to reveal we covered it already. I have more questions. Unless, David, you have anything else to add? I'll take it again. Questions. I didn't think so anymore in that time. Alright. So then that brings us to the superintendent search firm. We do have David here to kinda go through this as our new contact. Thank you for your time tonight. My name is Dave Perstegg from Renminer Leader Services. And I'd like to present my two colleagues who'll be helping me with the search,
Gary and Jason. So it'll be the theory that's managing this. We have a short presentation for you. I believe it's in your packet. And we will be showing the slides up on the screen. But at any point, if board members have any questions, please stop me and we can discuss this. Our goal tonight is to, first of all, just update the new members on where this process is and what's been done and what needs to be done. And the part that is about what needs to be done is really having some consensus around three meeting dates, to to move on with the process.
And, again, we just all wanna be on the same page about this and just take a moment to refresh everyone about where we're at and how this process is gonna work. And so tonight, we're really talking about alignment. And, again, at any time, ask any question. So I think that's all pretty self explanatory about what we're gonna be looking at as we move forward. We won't repeat the entire formal process that we have been working on up to this point, but I do have, a flowchart that I want to, just kinda go
back in time and talk about what's been done and what where we're at. So planning the search, hiring the timeline, salary benefits, those things were talked about, probably in the summer sometime. That was kind of some of the preliminary work about where the board's coming from. Identifying those desired qualifications is is always an ongoing process. We started advertising and recruiting candidates immediately upon that time. That the original deadline for applications was, I believe, sometime in December. And with the new board election, that was, added to so it's January 20.
Then we're at establishing interview teams and questions. We're not quite there yet, but that's that's in that's involved in the next phase. One of the things under identifying, sorry, qualifications is you did a community survey. And you've seen that in that I believe in the October meeting, you reviewed that. And that's really, kind of a baseline for what the community thinks, what the board thinks about what we're looking for in our next superintendent. And those those those data pieces are really important as to help determine, for example, what questions are we gonna ask? We try to align we try to align our search for candidates based on those
qualifications. You're gonna be you're gonna be thinking about that as a screener for answers to questions, because we really just keep coming back to those things that that we found out in in in those, those efforts to ask community and ask for what they think is most important. Establishing interview teams and questions is always an ongoing thing, but we'll we'll have to have that done by the time we do semi final interviews. And and, again, our process is on mixed group interview teams. So we'll ask you to think about teachers, students, staff, all to all levels of
staff, community members, parents, just mixed groups of people, and we'll put people in in mixed groups, not just have teachers talk to the candidate and then students talk to candidate. We we try to give them the whole perspective so that the questions come from, in a sense, everybody's perspective, not just a perspective as we go through the process. So we we rely on the board to, give us those names of those people. We're constantly reviewing candidate applications. I think we're updated. At this point, Keaton and Carl have been getting applications on a weekly basis, but
I believe we're gonna add the rest of you to that, Monday morning email. So you'll be seeing everybody's applications at that point. Do we have 12 to date? Officially, eleven. I can confirm a twelve that the paperwork is not in in at this point. And probably I talk to people every week, and I'll update you a little bit on that. So I I would expect we're gonna get three or four more by the twenty fifth. We're hoping to be right around fifteen. But I think you'll find it's a a very good representation of people with, all
kinds of level of administrative experience and superintendent experience from Colorado and from out of state. And so, reviewing candidate applications by the board is one of those meeting dates we'll be looking to do. And along with that, the semifinalist interviews, which would be an electronic meeting for candidates, not for the board. Myself and and the other consultants would be here in the room with you, and those people would participate electronically. And from that meeting, you would then determine who you would wanna see at the formal interviews.
So that's the third thing we're looking for tonight is formal interviews. So, that's kind of a synopsis of of the process and and and where we're at. And as we think about those dates, again, your stateful survey was completed in October and and previously reviewed. And at any point, we can revitalize that for you at any one of these meetings or give you a a some a summary of that. The application period closes the twenty fifth. You will see all applicants. Our advice on choosing semi finalist applicants is really just thinking about, of all the
people that have applied, who are we most interested in? Who can do the job? And and we just need to know we just wanna know more about them. So we don't put a number on it. It it really depends on how much time you wanna spend doing this. Those are around twenty minute interviews. And and so they're kind of quick three, four, five questions. They don't take too long. But it's just another way to familiarize yourself with the candidate. Six. I've seen as many as eight, which which is a lot to consider. But it's really up to the board after you look cool and decide, what we've got all these people now. Who who's our who's our next level?
And then thinking about and then from there, we're gonna be down at two or three. So you it's just a it's just a consensus process about what we're thinking about at that time. At that same meeting, we'll, again, be be reiterating the desired skills and qualifications to make sure we're on the same page about that. Thinking about semi finalist questions, we'll bring you some samples, but the board can determine what those five, six questions are gonna be. And then we'll start to talk about logistics for that final interview schedule. In other words, if you're bringing in three people, what's that round robin sort of
system look like? If candidate a is gonna do this, what's b we we've got schedules to show you. You can just get to determine which one that is. And so oftentimes, we often will ask about the spouse and if there's a role the spouse can play in the interview, and we'll plan for something for that person. But, you know, it's an all day event, for for everybody. So if you have three candidates, the board's gonna do three interviews and a final board meeting to determine who your choice who your choice is. If I'm on a mixed group, I'm gonna do three interviews. And those would be back to back back for those people.
And at the end of those sessions, we ask every person to just do a feedback form, which then the board sees all the feedback forms. And there are some generic data to that to know where each group kind of follow with each candidate. But in the end, it's the board decisions. Again, it's this idea of input and and just giving you good input to think about, which is why you really need to think about the kind of people you want on your next groups who can give you the feedback you're looking for without always just telling you who they like and didn't like. We know that happens. So In that group, Jake, do you have a, a suggestion in terms of percent
that are teachers, percent that are administrators, parents, community members? Just mixed. Just mixed. So, ultimately, they don't have to be exactly the same number of people in every group. But if you had I got yeah. What whatever whatever you decide, we just try to break it up numerically proportionally to say, if you got x number of teachers, then we're gonna be in three group groups or four groups. So Okay. It's and then what what Gary and Jason and I do in those sessions is we're the moderator. So we keep the group on schedule.
We keep the group from asking inappropriate questions. We we just we're just there to moderate and make sure everybody stays on time because once this is, like, a fifty minute session, the next group starts in ten minutes. You gotta give people chance to feed do the feedback form. We can't get 59 because everybody relies on every group doing its thing. Correct. Do you have a number, like, an ideal number of people in a group that you find works better, keeps the flow going? There's only gonna be so many questions.
In a in a fifty minute interview, you know, it's about 16 questions. So it doesn't matter if there's 20 people in the room or not. Like, not everybody's gonna get an answer question. Mhmm. And some groups, like, they have the same person ask follow-up questions. Our preference is just go around the room. You know, give a different voice to every question. Doesn't mean that if I'm a teacher, I'm not gonna ask a teacher question or a student student question, but it it it just makes the the room feel a little bit more personal to a candidate when everybody's, kind of participating in that. Yeah. I'd say 15 to 20 people, 60 people total if you're gonna do three groups.
And, again, but that's full. That's staff, community people. So but our advice is, again, because this is such a transparent, initiative and such an important initiative in the district, If you've got people that wanna participate and you think they could really add value to what you're doing, I I wouldn't say no to that. We we we can accommodate more people in more groups. Yeah. And then how do you help the group come up with the questions? The board will actually tell the groups what the questions are. Okay. So that'll be something we'll finalize tonight as semifinal interviews.
We have a bank we'll we'll develop a bank of questions for you based on the criteria of a candidate you're looking for. Well, for example, I mean, I'm gonna assume there's gonna be several questions about finance and facility management. Right? I think he's talking about tonight. And so we'll give you several questions to consider. So, again, practically speaking, we're not gonna ask the same question in every group, but there will be a facility management question by every group. But it'll be slightly different so that it doesn't feel like they just well, I just said that to the last group.
It's like, no. This is a different take on, whatever it is, that that you wanted to do. So we'll we'll get sort of have those criteria listed out. We'll have those questions listed out. And you what we're asking the board is just to make sure that we're capturing what you're really wanting to ask in those questions. So what you see is where we start, and then if you decide, oh, we don't quite like the one that one's worded or we wanna add this, that's totally up to you. But when the groups come to the meeting that day, they will be handed the the question.
Yep. And, again, then then what we're asking is there's no there's there's no deviation from the question. That would be really an imperative process. Just like it's fine for a candidate to ask questions at the end of the session, but it's really not appropriate for somebody to just kinda go down the rabbit hole about a whole bunch more questions that I have and influence the group because that might not happen with every group. So we're just that's that's the point of the moderator, and and we coach people up before we even start the process. Like, this is how it's kinda working. So, again, part of that is what we need your help in and finding people
who understand they can stay in that lane and not just get, you know, down down their own, their own sense of what they wanna ask about. So that's during candidate presentation, which be the next meeting after the twenty fifth, is some of the work we would do mid closed session to get ready for semifinal interviews and formal interviews down the road. And the reason these dates are important is because we need to let all our candidates know when these when these dates are. Not not just the board. Yeah. But if if I'm a candidate, I I really gotta start planning ahead because semifinal
or semifinal interview to formal final interview, you know, I just gotta know where I'm at or so we've gotta decide that. And, again, those will be Zoomed, and they're in closed session. That's not my final interview. And, again, we due to a snow day, maybe that's not so significant since it's a Zoom meeting. We're not asking anybody but you and and us to get here. But, we we have had a snow day. So and the same with final interviews. We definitely don't wanna think about a makeup day because we want those people here
on campus and in the community for an all day all day event. And that final interview needs to be at least two weeks after the summer finalist interview as Colorado law asks you to post a possible hire, with two week notice. And so that way, we can post that these are our finalists. One of them potentially is gonna be offered a contract, and we've met the we've met the the notification on that. Confidentiality is a really important piece to this. I probably, that's the number one question I get every week from potential candidates is,
well, if I apply, who's gonna know, and when is the public gonna know that I apply? A lot of these a lot of people are sensitive about their current position and and the damage it can do to their reputation at home. And so they're willing to be a candidate, and they're willing to make it public, but really only to be a finalist. And and so it's just really imperative we until, we have the finalists, and then we we are really upfront with them about it. That really needs some publicity and and some, some press release about who these people
are. And and so at this point, you know, what we're asking of the board is when you see, and we just really want you to keep it to yourselves. If you have questions about a candidate, you may know a candidate. Just call me, and we can hash that out. What we don't want you to do is call up your sister in someone's place and say, you know, what do you know about this person? Because everybody knows everybody. And it does it's not gonna take but, like, two calls to find out something about everybody no matter where they're at. So we're just asking you to keep that between yourselves for now, and we can have discussions with us at this time, but it wouldn't be appropriate for you to
not do that. So I think I think that's been the number one thing to get more people to apply is understanding that this is just between really, us as consultants and them right now. And they're really comfortable with that because they trust us that we're not we're not out there, doing all that. We do do background checks on people, and we do reference checks on people, but we do that at the appropriate time. And so right now, the reference check is more paper and pencil, kind of a check. We're not really calling people because they've said don't call my district Right. Unless I'm gonna be a pilot.
Yep. Right. And we'll do that. So and then they know that They can prepare for that. They can warn people and warn their warn their communities and their boards or whomever they work for. So that's a just a particularly touchy area for a lot of our candidates. So when you're out in the community, you're in the grocery store or wherever, I mean, how do you respond to the question? Well, it's going well. We have a nice pool of candidates. We're really excited. I mean, you can be vague. You can be at that board level without without giving away any information about any candidates.
And and so, again, why is confidentiality so so important? Because because of what we just talked about in the previous slide. How and when will we know the candidates? Again, every morning, you're gonna get that you're gonna get that update, which includes, their cover letter, their resume, and their letters of recommendation. And then we will, again, be reviewing those. And at a meeting, we'll bring summaries of those candidates. We will we will rank more to the candidates based on what we perceive their strengths and their their, weaknesses to be, so to speak. But in the end, it's the board decision.
But we'll we'll definitely give you some impact on it. We also do background checks on people, but not until we get to that finalist level. But we do our own our own background check on those people. And, again, those people have already had background checks when they get licensure. So this is really just a a a double check or a triple check on where they're at. If you have someone you believe who's a good candidate for the position, what you should do, just let me know. You you may know of somebody in another district or you may know of somebody by reputations. We are happy to contact people and recruit people. That's what we do. So just let me know who they are.
Don't don't feel like you need to call them. Just let me know who they are, and we'll follow-up with them. Yeah. And like I said, don't be don't be, letting people know. And you're you're even said, we know how this works, and you might be getting calls about people. And you just really need a point to and you can always let me know. Well, I've been getting calls about so so, but I don't want you to be put on the spot about having to answer a question about somebody's presentation or something that somebody said happened or didn't happen in a previous district. That's something that we will up air it out for you and figure out what's
going on. So how are you feeling about your understanding of the process right now and your role in the process? Yeah. I think we're at that point where it's pretty straightforward. So I'm gonna suggest, and you can pull out your calendar if you want, we go back to those three important dates. Jan, January 25 is a Sunday. That's when application is closed. And we're really not making any exceptions for that. And they they're they're done. They're in. You're gonna get that final, notification on the twenty sixth. We start doing, summaries after that and some some collecting of information to share at
that at that meeting because, again, we're gonna review all candidates with you on we can do it as soon as February, or '4 that week. We could go to the week of the ninth, tenth, the eleventh. And, again, that's just a closed session with Renmier Leader Services and the Bull. That's it. And we're gonna walk out of that meeting with semifinalists whom we will contact with the date, and we'll also do some work on questions. Thanks for the formal interview.
A little bit of work product. Jenny, how how long would you expect that meeting to take? I know. It scares some power. Really? I'm just saying, I think you're all gonna have a pretty good idea, because you're looking at these applications in real time. K. I I think You're as, collaborative with one another as I think you are. I I think you're gonna find agreement pretty quickly. And from my role, when I hear agreement and consensus, you know, that's that's part
of what I'm gonna let you know. It's, like, time to move on. We don't need to second guess ourselves. We can we can we can have a summary. We can review. But, so yeah. Hour and a half. Okay. Make everybody feel because this is a big decision. Yeah. So I want everybody to feel comfortable about it. But I I see you as people who can pick up your minds and agree. Here's what we're gonna do. And, again, you've been looking at materials, so you're gonna have some sense of what you think about each candidate before you go in. And we're gonna be able to tell you there's, you know, several candidates, like, we
should consider it all. We are gonna know that, and we're gonna tell you that. And we're gonna so we're gonna move we're gonna move in a process. We're gonna move from, you know, the top to the bottom to the middle, and this is the whole point about summit finals. We're not gonna argue about whether we should do five or six. Let's do six then. That's that's your priority. It's just gonna take another twenty minutes or so. Yeah. So we're not gonna eliminate somebody just because we got this hard number we're concerned about. K. So that's the first day. Any any feedback from any board members on that?
Just out of curiosity, does that that doesn't have to coincide with a regular Does that meeting? Okay. So, like, it's a standalone separate meeting that we would schedule. Standalone at any time of the day. So just looking at the calendar, I think we have a a regular board meeting scheduled on Wednesday, February 11. So I think that can that be You'll be out. But you'll be out that week. Right? Or the week before? The the week of the ninth. So I'm out of town the ninth through the Okay. So I'm just gonna suggest in general that we avoid that week first. Yeah. Yeah. Because we already have a meeting, so maybe we actually do meet that first week
of February if we can. Maybe just a second? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My calendar's pretty open at the moment that week, so I can make every day work. I think there's just the deck meeting that Thursday. Right. Yeah, I can do that Monday to zero Wednesday. I would have a strong preference for Wednesday, but I could get other options for When you say it's good with me? I prefer to do the evening, or do you wanna head during the day? Are we doing this in person, or would this be a Well, normally, it's in person. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we'll do evening then. Evening? Yeah.
Probably. Okay. What time works for you, Patsy? Because I think you have to travel the farthest to get here at this point. Not on a Wednesday. I work from home. So that's good. I mean, let's see. Really, I would say anytime, like, after probably four, like, after kids are home from school and such. But, I mean, maybe maybe we do, like, a 05:30 or six. Candace, does that make sense for you? Is there a time? Not not that you have food in your mouth while you ask you the first question. I can't I can't decide to be here? I can't be in there.
No. I've been Oh, okay. In some of the pre insectative session. I'm assuming Yes. That's the closed meeting. So I would assume we just call the meeting to order. I think that's the executive executive closed session, come out of that order, and then adjourn the meeting. Yes. So we can go in the small small meeting. Yep. I can set that up for you guys. Okay. So if we can get Candace the proper times and who did who made what motion so she wouldn't have to be here. Alright. Do we wanna say what type it worked best for you?
Five would be best for me. Five? I could maybe make it to my daughter's basketball game. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. Five to 06:30. Does that work for you? Yes. So five to 06:30 if you guys do use a full half hour or one and a half hours. Yeah. Let's get it. Yeah. So from that meeting, we would have our semifinalists, and we would review and conclude the questions we wanna ask those candidates. And we'd start to work on the final interviews with, who's on their mixed groups, what's that what's that schedule look like for that day.
We wouldn't have to actually finalize that, until the semifinalized interviews, but we'd at least have some work product to go from and feel pretty comfortable that we we know where we're going with that. So then on the forum, we name those candidates, and we would contact them for a Zoom meeting of like, individually scheduled Zoom meeting on sixteenth, eighteenth. Sixteenth is is next school, then sixteenth and seventh.
Yeah. Eighteenth? Another Wednesday night? That's good for me. Yeah. Yeah. 05:00? That works for me. That works for you all. Yes. And if you just say four and a half, we do we wouldn't be in Canvas. We would just have open session, make the announcement, boom, go to close, come back out, go to recess, and we give her the info. K. So there there that that might be a little bit longer. Yeah. And we don't know how many people we're gonna do. And, like, say it's probably say it's a twenty minute interview, but it's, like, thirty minutes Yeah. Time because you just gotta give some people a little bit of flexibility in that.
Mhmm. You're gonna have some robust discussion at the end about candidates because you're you're down to the pilots. So if there's, three people, that's now Yeah. Six people is two hours plus discussion. Right. Yep. So Probably three Three, seven, and a half hours. I see. Yeah. K. So if you started at five, it'd be more like 08:30, 09:00. Mhmm. Mhmm. K. And then, again, following the posting posting notice, that would mean we with the earliest
we can do a final interview is more. Maybe later. I'm just saying that's two that's gonna be two weeks from that. Right. I need to And that really the the board members need to basically plan a whole day for that. If Yeah. So, I mean, I don't have a time frame. I'll just tell you, like, if somebody came in at let's say the candidate interviews were I'm just gonna pick three people just for purposes. They came in and and did mixed groups at twelve. The first person was twelve, one, and two, and they did, like, a community tour
at three ish. Then they're with the board at four. So, like, then the board would be four, five, six, final entered. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Where the mixed groups would be they'd all meet from noon, one, and two. Yeah. Because those those candidates would be rotating those through those four things. Right. So we probably need that to be a weekend. Any day you want it to be. Is that I've got a lot of people like it on the school day because the candidates love to walk through schools. And they they when they see when they that's one of the things they usually ask to do is, like, you know, can I have this field school?
Can I walk through the halls? Can I see what climate and culture is about? Can I I just wanna see? I don't know about, the very last superintendent about doctor Neil's search, but I know that with Steve Wolf, we did it on a weekday. And we didn't have trouble getting community members and people involved. More worried about how big is these teachers to cover, to have them out of class to do the interviews. Yeah. It's a bit of a juggle. Little short. It's a bit of a juggle to find selves or to have people cover. So it's totally up to you.
We've done weekend interviews. It's just a different vibe because it's just school isn't a session, but it's totally understandable. You'll have you'll have some people in your pool think that's better, and you'll have other people that will they just it just doesn't there's no right or wrong way to do it. Whatever works for you. Can can I ask can I ask for, our our school leaders to throw some input in there? Do you think it's unreasonable to have teachers involved during school today? I think it's super doable. Okay. Yeah. That's what we've done in the past. Okay. We just have to coordinate just because the three the three buildings are gonna have
subs. Like, I know, like, our our max out of the junior has been, like, 20 tops. You know? Like, so, so that's not we're not gonna have 20 necessarily in interviews, but if we're gonna have spread out between three buildings, I guess Yeah. We should have to coordinate. Okay. And then if we put it in now, we can talk to some of our favorite subs and, like Kinda get it lined up. Your calendar. Yeah. Okay. Pick it and then then, yeah, decide who's gonna yep. Yeah. So the fourth would be the meet the day where you should bring your who who from your buildings is interested being on this committee to get this board for
that meeting. Okay. The fourth is the earliest. Right. Because that's the earliest. We do wanna be able to say who's all interested in. Let's make some. How are we gonna use all these people that will be a part of the we're gonna try to determine at least start to determine who those mixed groups are on the fourth. We we don't need to finalize those until meeting at the eighteenth. Gotcha. I'm sorry. I was looking at March 4. That's two weeks after the eighteenth. That's right. Eleventh. That'd be the date when we're gonna have we need them available. Eleventh. Okay. And they would know what their schedule's gonna be on the eighteenth. We have a board meeting that evening.
On the eleventh? Yes. Oh, so you might not wanna no. That probably wouldn't work. No. Is there a better day of the week in terms of or getting staff involved? And Yeah. I mean, we stay away from the Mondays and Fridays. That's when we have a higher sub rate than normally, for the various reasons and quick stuff. So Tuesday through I don't know about you, but Tuesday through Thursday. Uh-huh. So the Thursday the twelfth, that'd be the earliest date. Right. We're going to eleventh. What about work for all of you that are still slaves?
I don't have anything on my calendar right now that far out. Okay. And no major events. I know. Yeah. Thursdays, I can if that works. Because we as the four, we would need to be here at the like, 04:00 ish timeline or just should we be here? Late afternoon. That's yeah. We would probably start, you know, four, five, six with those like, start at four. Right. You can finalize that. We can start a little earlier. I just use noon as a Yeah. Time. I mean, we can start in the morning. You can start your interviews earlier in the afternoon if you wanted to, your interviews.
And then that board meeting could start, you know, as early as, like, 06:00, the final board meeting, the decision board. Right. So I like earlier. Yeah. I guess, my framework All all we're gonna do right now is be able to tell candidates that these things are gonna be on the eighteenth. Or, excuse me, the, the What? The twelfth. March 12. And we'll get back to them with time. But from from a candidate standpoint, I mean, they're gonna plan all day. Yeah. Or have to come the night before. The only other thing I'm thinking about, Carol, in terms of the early start is that if we're coming off of a board meeting midnight before, depending on the length
of that meeting, it could be out of here at, like, ten and then back at nine. So You wouldn't be down here here till, like You're right. Not here till here till later, but just in general, like, if admin or staff, he has to be here late too, then I've been there already here early in the morning before the meeting anyway. No. It's been a thought. Yeah. Yeah. Primer side, like, related to board activities is a lot. There's a weekdays easier with the subs since we probably would only need half day? We probably need full day just the way it would fall because the half day
step is, like, until 11:30. Okay. Sounds a bit funky. Got it. Cool thing. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Okay. Well, we can hash that out. Okay. But later, we can pick up a date. That fits my goals. We do candidate review on the fourth at 5PM. We do semifinalist interviews on the eighteenth at 5PM, and our formal final interviews are all day March 12 with, you know, hopefully, again, just just to be transparent about it, I mean, you don't have to offer a contract.
It's always your priority to start over or to do something different if you get to that evening. You know? Do you have to work? You do not have to feel like you're locked in if you just end end up at that point. But let's say that we all feel good about a candidate on the twelfth is we'll we'll make that offer that evening. Can't and you can wait until we hear back from them. But I can't tell you that it's always accepted that evening because there's just usually a circumstance where somebody says, I gotta talk to my spouse more. I never really thought you'd, you know, like, get the job. I mean, there's just all kinds of things.
I just need a couple job. And and, honestly, some of the candidates, like, they might have another interview the next day. You just never know. We've tried to get that out of them, but and so I can't promise you that we'd not be able to come back and say they accept it. Yeah. But then you'll have that in the evening, then we'll figure out what that announcement looks like, if they did accept, and when you wanna have a meeting formally formalize their contract, which we would be happy to help your attorney or however you wanna do that. We don't necessarily write contracts, but we definitely consult on writing contracts.
So and you'd have all the parameters already. People are gonna when they interview, they're gonna know what the salary ranges, what the benefits are. I mean, there aren't gonna be any surprises for people to try to negotiate outside of what you're already saying you're comfortable with them. So that shouldn't be a hang up. Any other questions? No. I think I I just have a tie. From the from the people that I the the, applications, the letters that I've looked at, I really appreciated the fact that they are that, like you said, there are
some from Colorado, but there are from lots of different like they they'd be a good fit for our community. And so I really appreciate the work that you've done. And I think for our community's sake, I think that they should be able to rest in the fact that this is a really, zero search and that all candidates
will be looked at. Thank you. Mhmm. The feedback I get from candidates is this is a very desirable community and position for them. And this is some for a lot of them, this is the only thing they're really interested in pursuing. So they're happy with where they're at, but if they were gonna do something, this is the kind of place they'd like to do. So I feel like that's a really good really good position for you to be in to find the right people for this job. So no. It's a good really good I just have a question about the process of getting
the word out to the community to be part of the community. Or, like, is that on our administrative end? Or do you guys It's a district responsibility. How you decide to do that, whether it's in the district office or by the building. It's completely up to you. A lot of groups use their parent teacher organizations. You know, organizations of people who are already committed to their school and have some investment in their school. It's there's no right or wrong way to do that. Okay. Thank you so much for being here. You so much. We'll see you very soon.
Snow days. Do we need to talk about snow days? We can. You just do the next step? Sorry. No. I think that's a good that's a good point because you're you all need to know if nothing else. And I know there's no right or wrong way to know. I mean, I mean, nobody knows the duration of the storm and what's gonna happen where. But it's generally a day or two after the original state, so it's not too far out of the plan. Yeah. And, again, if we moved if we moved the eighteenth, we'd likely have to move the the March 12 thing to me to two week thing too.
So it's three weeks, though. It does look like three weeks. It's three weeks. That is three weeks. To what? I'm sorry. I was looking at my calendar, and I didn't hear what everyone said. Oh, that was three weeks. But but And between the until March. Yes. Yes. That's right. So we're we did that first snow day. Now we can be super flexible. We can just go the next day. But, yeah, we wouldn't wanna do because that's Friday. Right. We could I mean, we could try that as a snow day? Yeah. Are we just talking about the March interview date?
We're not looking at the other two dates, just to be clear. February 20 is is, Zoom. It You guys would be here in person. I'd be here in person. I feel good about that. Okay. Yeah. I'm flexible. I mean, if I saw a major storm coming in, I'd just come early. Okay. It's not it's not a big deal to me. She's walk here. Yeah. Okay. So in the eighteenth, again, it's just you and us. All the other people are Zoom. So I I feel like that's a chance we're taking. Yeah. Because even even being the con even if consultants I mean, technically, they could be
on Zoom. So, yeah, same thing. Yeah. I've done advising. K. So it's really that final interview. If we have the twelfth, can we do make a day on the thirteenth? Might be hard to get the teachers We'd make it work. You do. To be honest, with that much lead time and just phone days and, like, we'd be able to make it work. Okay. If we can even just talk to him about conditional, like, just in case. Mhmm. Yeah. Did you be available on that? Okay. So let's just Yeah. That. K. K. Anything that comes up that that last slide in the in the presentation, Gary, Jason, and then my contact info, sir, feel free to reach out to any of us
about any of these things. We're really excited about where you're at in the process. We're super happy. We wanna keep this going. We know we got a lot of major work to do with the board and finding another board member as another big thing. But I think these two process can run parallel, and I think that it looks like that person can definitely be a part of this part of this process. So they won't feel too far left behind. Right. K. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Just before we move into the, action items, we also need to schedule that meeting
to, approve that. You know that we don't have our calendars out, I've just realized we haven't we didn't discuss that. David, do you have a preferred date for that Thirty first. For the thirty first. Yeah. Can we do it on the twenty second? Or So the twenty second was the Capturing kits part. Think that if we did it before? I talked about Do we Oh, Candace and I were talking about that use that work. I don't have much time you need for that meeting.
We'll be going through the through the budget with questions. Alright. Probably, there'll be minutes or something. Yeah. I would put in an hour. An hour. I would put in an hour. Yeah. Just in case. Four to five. Four to five, please. What time does the capturing kids' hearts start at 05:30? 05:30? Everyday you'd like to be in the room a little bit beforehand to get set up. So I think if you were done by five, that Could we meet in no.
This is five. But Okay. Okay. Does that work? Is it four? Thank you, mom. Thank you. Not in script. There you go. Let us while we look at our fund managers. Got it. And we had talked about using that date as a work session as well, but I will have to accept that. Here. Yeah. Well, then we have a retreat scheduled two days later. Right? So right. Yes. We were hoping to have the work session We're gonna do both. Start. Oh, okay. To kinda kick it off. Okay. So the we'll we'll just be more efficient. On traveling. Yeah. Okay. Cool.
So then, I believe, we can move into our action item. So a is the district merit service true love. So suppose I need to ask for a motion here, before we discuss Got it. Motion before we discuss or it could be discussed first? Motion first. Yeah. Okay. So in order so that we can discuss this properly, let's, I'll ask for a motion to approve or for the motion around the district wide services true up for the FY '25, including the one time adjustment for the FY '25 transportation and administrative
fees in the amount of 1,437 thousand 213 contingent upon Merit Academy's agreement to pay its proportionate share of certificate of participation cost and transportation cost beginning in f y twenty six. Calculated based on Merit Academy's f y twenty six per people count of 551.5 students. So we need a motion to approve or not so that we can begin the
discussion. I'll make a motion to approve it. K. Do we have a second? I'll second it. Oh, no. No. We have a discussion. Sorry. Oh, no. No. You're not in discussion. Sorry. Okay. We'll let you kick off the discussion. Multitasking over there. Put together a little chart to kinda show kind of a flow through. I mean, it's to to some degree what we're talking about today is a flow through of some fees and cost. Possibly zoom in on the chart. Sorry. That's the next question. Yeah. Thank you. There's an old number in there already. The fund per pupil count for merits five fifty one point five.
Here it says five thirty two. But the concept I just wanna talk about the concept. So at the top is the state per people revenue. So for every person they count is a full time equivalent students. Some students are only half. Right. But for everyone that's counted as a full, when they add up, like, two homeschool, a a 10 part time or equivalent of one full time equivalent student. And so that's 12,300.
So that's the money that comes into the district. So we've we've got close to 1,786 students times 12,300. That would be the revenue that the state has, allocated to our district. That money comes into the district, and then there are shared fees. So there are central office fees that support every school in the district, including Merritt Academy. Those come off the top. That's, for Merit would be 5% that we can retain.
We've done the math per CDE, and we actually or capped at 5%. But we've exceeded that, So we cannot play the 100%. The central office can't kinda recoup a 100%. So Well, just to clarify that. So so what you're saying is that the central office is putting in more work towards the needs that to cover Merit's needs than we can charge for because we have a 5% cap according to the state.
Correct. K. So that taken off the top, I've got Merit in the green on the left with an operating school. So that's the cost to operate the The Us. Merit out in green. We look for the operated schools in the blue. So then when you drop down in, there's additional cost. So I heard earlier that that's not true, that, you know, we're the district operated schools are living off their academy students.
That's what I wanna show is not accurate. So we've got a COP. If the up Woodland Park operated schools carry the full burden of that, 735,000 Transportation cost, the the operating schools treat the full burden, about 900. Again, these numbers, you know, it could be $9.50. It could be but that's in the ball. These are ballpark numbers. So the total cost of those two line items alone, $61,635,000.000. So now we got it funded for pupil count.
What's the revenue driven to those schools? So I've actually understated Merit Academy's revenue because I didn't use $5.51, use $5.52. My bad. Right now, as it stands before, this true up or the reforgets to the budget, the cost of the COP and transportation being worn by the operated schools, 1,635,000.000 comes out of their budget. Net funding bottom line, what it and my goal as CFO of the district is
a level level playing field for our students, whether they're merit students, district operated students. I wanna level playing field of funding for them. And right now, as that chart shows, it is not level. So we've got some room, I think, that we need to work with Mary and get this level for the community. Also, you know, tax paying, property tax, I would not be happy that there's a
unload playing field. So So what this is showing, the the discrepancy there is basically saying that for each student in the district operated schools, they're getting less education funding Exactly. Yep. Than the merit students as it currently stands. And every student in the district, whether it's a merit student or a district operating student, is benefiting from transportation Right. Benefiting from the COP. A third of the $10,000,000 went into the Merrick Academy building for that expansion.
So it's anecdotal, but they're one third of the district population wise, and they happen to historically be one third of COP. And we did meet on November 10 with, the CDE, and they were very Glenn was very clear. Hey, Merritt. You are indicated to all the business. You need to pay your bills, and that includes transportation, and you should pay your share of COP. That is from Denver.
So and I agree. I it seems fair, and and I think what's not fair is the bottom line. So we need to get those in closer alignment. David, I have a question about about that. The the funded people count. Mhmm. Now where is the the it's two year averaging now. Is that correct? Right. And so are those students in is is the funding for those students included in what you have up here? They are not nor should they be included.
So Uh-huh. The state, and I don't remember the number. So if someone added those two numbers and, took the difference of that in 1786, that would be the what's commonly known I forgot what the term of use today was, but commonly known as GO students. Mhmm. But the purpose of that is the CDE recognizes that districts with declining enrollments have overhang expenses as they're trying to wind down the operation.
That's what those dollars are to go for. Right. Not to subsidize operating or anything else. Correct. Yeah. K. So anyway, let me Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that that I was clear on that. I've been thinking about this from the expense end that if you look at it, then our, our WPSD operated schools is more expensive to educate those students because we're carrying the weight of the COPD.
And so that I mean, that's just a different way of looking at it. So, I had maybe some some questions that, I also wanted to address in regards to this true up. So there's been a lot of talking, you know, they blew through the ninety days, you know, by statute, by law, even in the in the agreement. And I will say that we had dialogue and mutually signed extensions all along the
way. So it wasn't one-sided. It was a clarity to actually execute those agreements extending the deadlines for audits. Let's see what else did we have. One of the one of the discussions was, you know, forgiveness. I never included that in any written. If I said it verbally, maybe the CVE who coined the forgiveness term, I don't know where it came from. But I actually don't think it's totally that, like, you provided services and never charged.
So if we don't say we forgave them, we could say we gave them for free. So, you know, Rose by any other name still Rose, and and Barrett students benefited from free services. And and I hope the board will recognize that and work with me to kinda get those two numbers at the bottom in closer alignment. We run through a couple of these, charter community facility use fees on the expenditures
and buyback. It's almost at the bottom of that list. Yes. That one you took off, and so all the schools kinda rent out space to, you know, local clubs in the organizations. It is not much much money, but the way the agreement was written, I think, was not well written for, like, better terms. So, the district interpreted that language that those funds went to the district. And Merritt said, you know, you wanna keep those funds.
And it was this I don't remember what the original line item was, but it wasn't much. But that's what someone asked, what is that? Those are the rental fees. So we kinda wipe that out and we go through. Is that, for the contract? Doesn't the current contract say there's no subletting? What I've seen in contracts. There's been many. It it might. Yeah. I think it actually does. Yeah. They need to virtually integration it right. So but but, you know, when I answer the question, that's what that line item is for.
So we do we just zeroed that out. And then a contract for the transportation costs, we don't have I mean, it says in the charter agreement, the one that was just signed, like, I don't know, six less than six months ago, about six months ago, said they don't use, you know, transportation services. Pretty sure that's what it says. The original one definitely said that, but they have for years. So I think everyone knows that transportation so we long story short, we need to
put something in writing Yes. On the transportation. And that's the transportation's been kind of a funny thing. And in the two years I was on the board, and I I asked multiple times of previous superintendents about that because it wasn't something the board discussed about, changing the contract, and the contract wasn't changed. And it was a lot of very vague answers about how the transportation was funded. And so I don't know that I don't think that was ever formally discussed as
a board, or or approved in a budget where it is actually discussed. If it was hidden in budgets, you know, that wouldn't surprise me. But it was certainly never discussed. And the time I was shocked. Put it in writing. That way we all understand. I I think one of the best things about going through the exercise of written documents is you get a lot of questions answered that you would have thought of until a year later and then every month subsequent to each other. So Yeah. It's also my understanding sorry. Yeah. It's okay. Just that superintendent agreement is that they wouldn't manage anything over 10,000 without board involvement.
And from following board meetings, there was nothing said in public or written in public, voted on in public regarding the transportation fees, which are well over 10,000. So I think it's fair to say we, as a board, do need to establish that agreement. And and, you know, I I've heard people say it doesn't cost the district extra to provide that transportation. I don't think there's been any research done on that if if the number of bus stops changes, if if the total cost would change, if, you know, if there's
different stops. Right? I I think at one point, there was an argument that, both district students and married students were getting dropped off at the same location so that, you know, we shouldn't charge for that. But, obviously, that's not the case anymore. And and, again, I don't think there was ever any study then or contract negotiation with Durham to see if that would change. But even if it doesn't cost the district more overhead, we can see there's a discrepancy in the way our students are being educated, and that is not a fiscally
responsible way to operate a district. And, you know, as elected officials, we do have that fiduciary responsibility to our community. And so I think this is a really important conversation. David, I was wondering if you might be able to offer any insight on this the total opportunity initiative excess funding that was mentioned in public comment. I'm not familiar with that. Which one again? The total Total Opportunity Initiative excess funding. That's what I have in my notes, but I I just don't I don't know.
I think that was a reference to the commonly known that it's those students. Okay. Yeah. It's it's the declining three year, you know, the average portion of the district's declining. So our three year average Okay. Higher than our current reputable count. Okay. The state still funds that. And but, again, that's used to help districts wind down at cost of of operating an enterprise that's bigger than what's needed as they're winding things down. Okay.
Not to fund ongoing the state is not allowed just using that money to keep operations going because that money every year for us is going to be dropping. And do we like, is that funding right now being applied in other areas or being used to subsidize other things? Or is it really being used as it's intended or to the best of your knowledge, I guess? We haven't classified those funding dollars anywhere. Okay. We could put I guess, I thought to do that.
So right now, it's in you know, it's it's hoping to subsidize those two items right there. You know, we after losing the sales tax, we're picking up, you know, COP and transportation's held to the district. So you could say those dollars are on that wall right there. Okay. And, when we did have the sales tax, the COP was taken off of the top. Correct. And then the rate was divided between the the traditional or the district schools and
Merit Academy in an equal way. So in a sense, Merit Academy was already sort of paying with that COP by taking the the part off of what was left. Correct. Correct? Yep. Yeah. This would just be more evenly distributing than the loss of the sales tax. The the cost? Like Yeah. Having having, a a line item for COP for Merit would just be adding that back in. Right. But in a different license, the sales tax itself.
I wanted to clarify too based on the motion that's on the floor right now that the it's it states con a contingency. Right? Contingent upon Merit Academy's agreement to pay as it's written here at the COPM and the transportation cost. Is that based on discussion that's already happened with Merit Academy? Like, you mentioned you've had some meetings with Jennifer Faircloth. And I just wanna clarify, like, if that contingency in that discussion has been based on ongoing conversation already or if that or if this would then trigger, like, discussion
notice, whatever that looks like as of, like, next step. And I would say that the discussion about these came up in November 10 meeting with CDE. And it wasn't a formal, like, CDE is coming here. It was CDE, you know, recognizes some of the dynamics, that's the best way to come up with, between the two, you know, district operated schools in in Emeritus Academy recognized that maybe they could come in and help educate all of us on how
districts and charter schools should be operating together. Best practices, common practices. Through that discussion, these items came up. Mhmm. And that is where, it was restated numerous times by our PD representative that Merritt should be paying transportation and they should be paying COP. They, by law, like, we can't charge them rent, so they get the facility at no cost. The COP can be paid. I mean, they could pay whatever you know, they could write us a check for
a million dollars. I mean, they can do that. They can pay the COP. They're what I consider an ethical, a moral a civic responsibility is pay your fair share. Get those two bottom lines closer in alignment for the community's sake. They can pay the COP. So we can't legally force them. But if we make this, tying these together to say, Merritt, if you did the right thing in my opinion, and you say I will pay for this these costs
that we're adjoined and joined the building, joined the transportation, then what we're saying is that we will put this waiver in place. Whether you wanna call it forgiveness or an adjustment, but this 437 it? 57 37. 437,000 goes away. So when I do the math, it's a great deal for them economically to say, you know, we'll pick up a third of the COP, and I won't be paying
for asked to pay the 437,000 in services that I received. COP is not on here at all, so I mean, we paid, like, the sales tax last year. Yeah. So that's why we're tying them together. I think it's the right thing to do. If they don't agree with it, then we'll have then we have the right to come back and visit this because we did give services. We provided these services. Yeah. I I have another question based on that meeting that you had. Was that one deaf system? Yes. Yeah. Did you talk about the, declining enrollment students that we're funded on, did you talk
about whether or not that should be shared, with Merit Academy? Because and what what was the what was the conversation around that? And I will say Glenn Gustafson is highly involved. He's a big fan of charter schools. Yeah. And he's got long experience working for d eleven. But he said that that those dollars are there for the district, not to be sure of the charge. They're there for us to help transition from a bigger budget to a smaller budget.
He actually specifically called out the fact that, in this instance, the charter school does not have declining enrollment, and it wouldn't be for free for them to receive those funds. I I I believe I've spoken with, CFOs in other districts, and they also don't share those funds with their charter schools. So I think that I I I haven't done a broad search, but that would be my my understanding. I could say it would be even a misappropriation of funds that the state is
funding us for the purpose of dealing with declining enrollment, and we provide those funds for services for a charter school. It's I would think on that as CFO, I would say that would be on that the court. This is a long winded answer to you. Do they, miss Merritt? No. I would say they found out this week because I I was surprised. Saturday or I was surprised on Monday when I learned that after the big meeting with CDE on on November 10, that Gwen was gonna fight this.
We found out Monday. It's like, how do we react to this? Today's Wednesday. This is what we put together was, you know, tying these two together. So and I know yeah. Is there agreement on the rest of this, between you and the board? Yeah. Absolutely. So Got it. Through this. They're good. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Got it. But I I know that they're bored. I sent out an email yesterday after I got the email yesterday afternoon that, the
wording of this suggested action item was changing, to kinda give Merit's board, some awareness of what was gonna be discussed tonight, you know, as much as I could, and and let them know if they had questions to reach out. K. I didn't want it to be a surprise. Right. Thank you. I did have one question on the wording of that motion as well. Because in the summary, it adds the admin fee, like, that will be going forward,
we will charge for COPD admin fees and transportation. But in that motion, the admin fee isn't mentioned. I'm Yeah. I don't the admin fee is the state CDE. That's a good question, but the state and there's law Established. Established law. It's it's maxing at 5%. So there's really no need to put in put in a motion or an agreement that's there. Also just history on that. At one point, the district was charging the 5% to merit for the operation, the
the administrative fees. And then at one of the true ups, it was waived. Again, it wasn't discussed as a board. It was it was something done on the administrative side. So this would just be returning to kinda what the practice was originally. And I I also too just wanna clarify, in terms of standard, like, practice for transportation with charter schools, a lot of schools aren't able to or don't offer transportation. Is that correct? Most charter schools do not receive transportation. Yeah. From the district. That's the type of Initial.
That also comes from CDU. And so, I guess, just the the follow-up to my original question is what what happens what would happen next? I just wanna be really clear on, like, we take action on this tonight. What's the next step? The next step would be then for, I think, merit to fulfill, resolutions asking them, which is I forgot the language I have in front of me, but acknowledgment or, you know, that this is their agreement that they will share the CMP of transportation beginning January, about July 1. Okay. This, this is not related to the true up, but it is related to contract.
So the things we desperately need to clean up. Yeah. I just think it makes so much sense to instead of will this pays for that and that pays for this, let's just have it in in a contract crystal clear for everybody to see so that everybody knows. Mhmm. And and the contract, if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, what Marin also says that we do not provide food service to them. Are we providing food services? The they are under our contract.
Okay. But those costs should be allocated specifically to that. Each school. Originally, when they started, I don't think that that was the case. So it seems that that might need to be another thing to make sure is is leaned up in in contract. Yeah. But moving forward. I'll verify that. Not done. Yeah. One of the things that one, really recommended was that the the boards meet annually to go over a standard contract. So, you know, looking at what what overhead costs are for the district, for everybody.
Right? What student count looks like and making sure that on an annual basis, we are looking at what kind of cost would be passed through. So I think that would be a really good thing for us to establish here going forward, so that, you know, it's a it's a year long, here's what what costs are gonna be shared and and how. So, again, there's no ambiguities in there. There's no way to say, like, oh, but, you know, so and so told us we didn't have to. Right? It's all written down. And, like, it's something that we can look at annually.
Right. Right. Right. I think and I can't remember if it was Kegan or Laura. One of you said that as the elected body, we're responsible to the taxpayer for the use, you know, for the use of educational funds. And and I want every every school and every student to get every dollar that is owed them. If there's money merits not getting, I want them to get it. For sure. But I think we do have to we have to also make sure that the
other schools are funded correctly as well. Alright. Does anyone else have any other questions or or discussion you'd like to have, or did we feel ready to to move forward with voting? My last question is for you, David, just to make sure that, like, I it seems like there's been a lot of movement throughout the process of make of, like, evaluating this. I just wanna make sure that tonight do you feel like this is complete accurate that there's no real other ambiguity that merit like, merits discussion or evaluation before we
take action tonight. I can't speak for them, but I I am confident in having worked, with their CFO. And, you know, I believe this has been passed around there. These numbers are good. Okay. I just wanna commend you and Ginger and everyone who put time into this. I know it was a process, time consuming process, and, just seeing that there's a movement towards the middle ground. And that's really the desire that we move forward together and and make adjustments together,
both sides. See that on the books. Yeah. And I I think the other the other thing to address is, like and I I totally understand why Merit's, administrative team and and board would be upset about the idea of losing funding. Right? But it's because it's gonna be less. But that doesn't mean that it it it's inappropriate for it to be less. Right? If you were getting more than you should have in the first place, you know, this isn't punishment or or anything like that.
It's just bringing the scales back to balance. And and that is what we are charged with doing. Anything else? I think maybe just ask really quick question for you. Keegan, and meeting you guys had with CDE, I think the the recommendation that they gave, right, was to try to shore up things from this particular, like, fiscal year, but really not to, like, focus on or look back any further. Right? So we're not needing to true up anything from any prior years. This is gonna bring us up to date, and then we go forward. Does that sound right? Yes. Yeah. With the announcement, right, things were were done in the past, whether it was done
the appropriate way or not. Mhmm. We're not looking back at that. This is let's finish up this year and and focus on going forward. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. We have the motion and the second. So will Pauline Barkley? Aye. Villegas? Aye. Gordon? Aye. Greenstreet? Aye. Motion passes. David, I think you're back up again. I'm getting my stats in the car. We're on the, amended middle of the day. Resolution. Hopefully, this will be quick. Okay. No problem. Oh, I guess I should do this. Okay. Okay.
So I we need a motion to approve the amended middle of the resolution to be able to pay first. I motion to approve the mill levy amended in the levy resolution. We have a second. Second. Okay. Then we discuss. Okay. The packet that you were given at that meeting, I think several approved it at four pages. First page had the correct the cover letter had the correct no money. The, document sent to the state had the correct no levy.
The document that we sent to the county had the correct no levy, but the document you saw had an error. So we fixed that. So I worked with Keegan. And with the whole purpose, full transparency, that's what this is. Just I think it's legally, like, scribner's error, but we got it fixed. And, I talked to the county. Everything's good. So but it was originally sent to them. It was the correct information. Yeah. I think it was even the next day you sent me a message saying you
had popped the error in on one page. So most of it was correct. One page had a had a slight typo. So I signed off on on amending that. But for legal purposes, since we had voted on it, we now need to vote on the amended. But everything that was submitted was already correct. Alright. Any questions on that? I. Do you want an s? I. Gordon? I. Green Street. I. Meeting notice resolution. So this is an annual thing that we need to vote on. At the first meeting of the New Year, the Board of Education must approve meeting,
a notification of meeting place and risk approval of a notification of meeting place resolution. Sorry. That was my time tested presentation. So it's the same resolution that we've had last several years, but I'll read it. So the resolution is whereas the Colorado Sunrise Act, CRS four twenty four dash six dash four zero two two b, declares that all meetings of three or more members of any local public body at which any public business is discussed or at which
any formal action may be taken or are open to the public at all times. And whereas the Colorado Sunshine Act CRS 24 dash six dash four zero two two c requires a full and timely notice to be posted at designated public place within the boundaries of the school district not less than twenty four hours prior to the meeting, And whereas Colorado Sunshine Act CRS twenty four dash six dash four zero two two c requires the public place for meeting notice be designated at the first regular
meeting of each year. Therefore, it be resolved the board of education of the Woodland Park School District r e two as follows. The all public notices of meetings of the board of education of the Woodland Park School District r e two will be posted on the district website as well as on the bulletin board at the entry of the administrative building at 155 Panther Way, Woodland Park, Colorado in case of technical issues. Should we make a motion that we approve the resolution? No. I don't need to I'll second.
Thank you. Any discussion needed? Okay. Roll call. Barkley. Aye. Kevin Evans. Aye. Gordon. Aye. Greenstreet. Aye. Motion carries. Alright. That brings us to the next discussion item or action item, Heather. And this is a board director resignation, as probably known as. Director Bates was not here with us this evening. He did submit his resignation, and so we need to formally approve that or accept
his resignation, at this meeting. So, first, I just wanna to thank, mister Bates and acknowledge the time he spent here on the board and and wish him well, in the future. But to get to formalities, I do need a motion to accept his resignation. I'll make a motion to accept mixed resignation. Do you need a second? I'll second. Any discussion? I just have a question. Can you reject someone's resignation? Like, what will happen? Yeah. I'm just curious. It's like It's a funny If you have to accept it, then what's the alternative?
I think you're saying Travis after me. I'm just curious. No. The only discussion right now, and I think this is probably the appropriate place, is that we the the procedure next is that we're gonna have to were you gonna want to discuss that after the what what was your plan? No. I'm not. I'm not probably discuss it after, but we can discuss it now that we're Alright. Kevin. We also have to have a a meeting where we declare the vacancy. Right. So tonight, we are voting on to on accepting a resignation.
However, you cannot also vote to declare a vacancy in the same meeting. So that's fine. So if we if we vote to approve this, we also need to schedule a additional meeting so that we can vote on have a resolution to post a vacancy. And so we probably wanna do that fairly quickly so that this new board member can also be be part of all of those other meetings that we just scheduled this evening. And and if we had a meeting this Friday morning, we could do it virtually.
We could also get word into a paper and have it publicly posted there for the next issue. So that that's an option. Friday morning? Is that where you're supposed to be? We could do Google Meet. I think they need if we wanted to try and get it in that paper, it would have to be before noon. We're not but we're not, like, default into that. But if we wanted to go that route, that's our deadline. And that's the only action item we would have, right, for this meeting? Yes. I would anticipate the meeting would last maybe five minutes.
Okay. We would call it to order. We would have an action item to close the vacancy. We would vote we'll have discussion. Yeah. And that would be the whole thing. K. I'm available. Yeah. Is there a I I'm, probably not available until 10AM this time, but you'll only need three. Okay. If you wanna do it earlier than 10AM. I can do at 08:30 or after eleven three. You guys could do it 08:30 without me. I mean, do do you okay. That's fine with that. Perfect. So I can give it thirty.
And we'll do that. Then 08:30 on Friday or even remote? And you'll have to get that published for, like, now or maybe probably tomorrow morning. Oh, yeah. Do we need to push it back just to give you time to publish it? To publish the Announcement of the meeting? Of the board meeting. Oh, because you need you need to do this. I do think that's fine. Based on the resolution you've just approved. Yeah. Does that start work? Anyways, that's too much. I'm supposed to explain special meeting. Otherwise, we could do 11:30 the intent is, like, being dialed by courier.
It's up to you. Oh, yeah. It's to that new thing. Yeah. But again, 11:30 if it's a five minute meeting, that still had gets us. Well, we could do two in there. It's $3 to True. Yeah. Totally. You can do that. Bet I would I would feel more comfortable if you guys make sure the three of you can be there because the I'm actually at the Pentagon that morning. Not just a tour. This is work. But I and and we expect to be held by noon, but just in case
because they they won't let me bring my phone. That makes sense. Yeah. Can't do Zoom meetings for the Pentagon. That's right. I don't know. Dream line. That's what you're saying. Okay. So you wanna say 11:30. Would that work for you? 11:30 on Friday? Yeah. It does. Mhmm. And then they'll give you some wiggle room and so you don't have to work any later tonight in the hosting. Yeah. Sixteen. Okay. Cool. So we've got that taken care of. So now I think we're ready for real talk. Barclays? Barclays? Aye. Gilgamesh? Aye. Ordon? Aye. Greenstreet? Aye. On that same subject, do we want to while we've got our calendars and all
these dates, do we want to go ahead and decide when we're gonna do interviews of potential board members. I know that my head's spinning. I know. Can I ask one question? Yes. So on the resolution, the board vacancy resolution, the vacancy opens as soon as you vote on this resolution, but there is a, noted closing date. Yep. And so if we opened it Friday, the this Friday, so the '16.
Sixteenth. How much time would you want to have that vacancy open for people to apply? Well, I'm thinking two when is the next when is that at the meeting? The fourth. Fourth. That would put us at the '20 thirtieth. Sorry. If you said if you were about to say two weeks. Well, it's yeah. So my thinking was if we publish it the the sixteenth, but the idea was to get it in the paper, that doesn't come out till the Wednesday. Right. I mean, it's online, but it doesn't come out in people's mailboxes till Wednesday.
So if we said one week, then that's, like, two days that or three days that we When you say it's in the paper, how exactly does it bank advertise? It's the legal notice. So the resolution is actually put in the paper. Okay. And is that like a like a full page or how it's generally I would say Like like a quarter of a page. Yeah. Quarter of a page. Yeah. Perfect. So, I mean, we don't have to like, it it's going to be there. It's going to be online or say it than that.
So I guess as most people probably are not hearing about this vacancy through the newspaper Right. At this point Yeah. People who wouldn't be interested in applying or paying attention. So I think maybe a week is is still appropriate. So if we said the close at the twenty third, I think that's an appropriate amount of time because are we then also planning on Is there a reason why we wouldn't wanna, like, close it on the twenty fifth per se just to give people a few extra days if it's such a tight turnaround?
Like, does it have to be on a business day? I suppose. Because we could review it or we could have applications in by that Monday. Like, we're probably not gonna look at it many earlier than that even if it closes on a Friday. Yep. That's true. So perhaps twenty fifth? Just to do you have a couple extra days? The only the only thing to say is that we do have a retreat on the twenty fourth. Alright. And so if we closed it before then, we could potentially discuss At the retreat. Instead of scheduling another meeting. Another meeting. That's too bad. Are we just gonna discuss them and then pick our or or interviews?
Right. That's awesome. Something we need to I mean yeah. I I yeah. I would think interviews I haven't I haven't seen this election process other than interviews. Right? It doesn't mean you have to. So I I feel like our board retreat day is pretty full. Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, you guys. No. You're good. I'm just thinking then it like, I don't know if it makes sense to have because that would be a public meeting, the interview. Mhmm. To include that as part of the board meeting on the eleventh.
But I'm not going to be here. So that makes me sense. Yeah. I apologize. That feels logical. I don't like you not being here. Well, we could do it on the four after the meeting. Yeah. And then After. Dave and them. But that's the idea with that meeting is to review the candidates and we do want a board member for them. Right? We have the Wednesday before that, which would be the January 28.
I I'm not completely uncomfortable with making that first group of decisions without Yeah. But it but for sure having, having having somebody on board Before we make a final decision. Well, before we do that second where we do the, you know, the Semi bonus. Down to the we would have it down to the five or six or whatever. But I don't I I I feel like that's okay. I don't know that one person would would have impacted that decision that much.
Just to choose the pool? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we need time to look at the application. Right? Like This is true. So I would say that Wednesday the fourth then seems reasonable to just do that after we do the candidate or Then I I would propose that we don't close the candidate until the thirtieth so that it's open for a full two longer? For a full two weeks. Okay. So we'll say the thirtieth then. K. Thank you. Sorry. No. And then do we log in? Sorry.
Oh, that's not I don't know. And work. They can see. So then we'll we would invite the applicants to come at 06:30. I would say seven. Mhmm. At 7PM on February 4. For interviews. Is that a we interview every person that applies regardless of the total, or do we look at the candidate similar to the search process and identify those that are most qualified? Like, how does that work?
I can get clarification. I don't believe that you have to interview every candidate, but I can get confirmation. That would be good to know. Yeah. Yes. Probably got a legal I also think that the names that interviews are even required. They're not. I mean, we don't we don't even legally need to open it up. We could technically appoint somebody. I don't want to do that. Right. But we could. So, like, anything we're doing beyond is kind of at our discretion. So if we wanted to interview everybody, that would be up to us.
If we don't, we can narrow it down ahead of time. But legally, once like, the only thing we're legally obligated to do is to say that there's a vacancy. So we clear a vacancy and then don't know the answer probably. Okay. Sounds good. I mean, we could make that call depending on the number that people apply. Right? If it's fifty, twelve, and then maybe if it's, like, ten, you know, 50. And then I think we, have the applicants send you an email. And it's pretty general. It can just be an email. It could be an attached letter of intent. It's kind of a it's a loosely requested document.
There's not, like, certain bullet points. They just have to be a registered voter in the county for It isn't at large. Not at large. And so it's open to have been the district boundaries and have no crime against a child. So And is there the two year you have to have been registered to vote for two years? Twelve months. Twelve months. Okay. Hello. Hello. At this time, I need a motion to adjourn to executive session pursuant to CRS 24 dash six dash four zero two four b and e for superintendent to convey
legal advice received regarding an ongoing lawsuit to discuss, position relative to litigation, which may be subject to negotiations, and CRS twenty four dash six dash four zero two four b to discuss specialized details of security arrangements. But we don't have an operations report after that, do we? Sounds good. Okay. That's fine. So so I need an option to go to executive session. So moved. Second. Second. No problem. Barkley. Aye. Alberto. Aye. Green Street. Aye. Question carries. We will go into executive session.
If Ginger will join us David's call. And David as well. Are you able to say that David joins us now? Okay. Okay. You should put the ball play on your activity. Oh, I would put it to the top. Yep. It's already on there. Also, I'm not all those patients. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Everything comes out, though. It's not coming in.