and go in there i refuse to call it by itself to your idea you missed that oh that's right what do you think i think new york is up there too i think they're even higher now
you have one for agenda right she definitely knows about it i'd like to call this work session to order uh roll call here bates here kimbell here patterson
here professor holtz here thank you uh we are next time if everybody can join in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the
republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay there's a note on here approval of agenda uh a motion a motion to approve the
agenda is not required because this is a work session so we will not be asking for a motion on that it being a work session it's it's not needed um and the next item is discussion information and
we thought it a good idea to bring both boards together and talk about the ins and the outs of the situation with the school and their their needs and uh i think it's important that both boards
hear all the facts about that so that is the purpose for this we're going to open this up for discussion there is no particular order but uh with that uh we can begin uh when did you want to do something initially or did did someone
have any comments they wanted to make for starters uh well we have a packet that you guys have and there's some out there as well there's a packet um there there's also a stack out there by the signing sheet but um i will open with just a
little bit of information uh historically i've been here since 98 so not with some but longer than many and so just kind of to give you give us a starting point i guess for the conversations to go this als also
connects or correlates with um page four here's a graph that connects to some of what i'm talking about here just momentarily i won't take long so before i got here while many others were still here in
1986 this district had 1,960 students in a william park high school junior high and gateway um uh buildings and coline was then built because as you can imagine those buildings were probably quite full in
1993 there were 2350 students in those three facilities so wooden park added two more campuses now totaling the five facilities that wen park has currently in 2001 up until 2001 there was a boom as
you can see and peak enrollment hit 3,360 students and that is when the decline in enrollment began uh in 2003 the district already lost 260 students in those two years by 2009 and
2010 in the crash they had lost over 550 students and that's where all of us residents started to panic a bit in 2011 the new superintendent was a little bit naive coming here from other districts
that had uh far more ability financially to approve various bonds thinking that wen park school district would support an increased property tax so there was a bond request and it failed pretty significantly and that's when again some
frustrating moments shift in 2012 there was a task force pulled together of which i was a part along with many other citizens in this community to discuss the poor morale poor performance ratings frustration of the reputation this that wen park had down in the springs and so
forth um it was a solution focused community group some of the things that were discussed was of course closing a school having a 4-day work week which was very very much uh put under the table right away and more money but
there was very little action from that uh from that task force by 2015 we lost total since 2001 over 860 students from the district and again administration was panicking at the need to cut and the poor condition of the buildings in 2016
the sales tax was approved allowing some breathing room but in all honesty i don't know that we ever addressed the necessary adjustments needed to match the severe decline in enrollment our perform performance ratings had several orange or not proficient ratings and
there was a lot of um work that the administration was doing to pull all of that together and bring those scores and so forth up by october count of 2021 the district lost over 1500 students and we are now where we are at the same point in 2021 keep in mind also declining
enrollment is a statewide issue and something that colorado and even districts nationally are wrestling with school choice law online enrollment homeschooling have all become national selling points and great options that family have completely bought into and have
required in all of that decline the past several years have seen many good things with the district's two years of distinction notes with wooden park middle school and merit academy top 10% district ratings this past year national ac accolades and district sports and um academic notoriety these are all the
pieces that the task force in 2012 were trying to address and it is good to see this all come together merit academy is forecasting growth where other schools are i believe forecasting a maintenance of student population next year merit academy looks like we'll be about 29% of
the district population at 570 students merit academy is the second largest school in the 14 school four district region and next year we'll likely hold this position if not close in on being the largest school in the region right now wooden park is at 1,844 students
fewer that we were at in the mid 80s when there were two probably very crowded buildings for the district to maintain add to that the fact that colorado districts are currently funded at 1989 levels when you consider inflation and you have an issue of resource allocation and severe budgetary
constraints especially when it comes to facility maintenance and improvements across the board and that brings us to where we are today thank you good comments anyone so far i mean this can uh jump in as as
necessary i mean as i said previously i think this is a good time to lay all of the facts out on the table i think it's important that that each member of both boards have a good understanding of of the current
situation and uh we we need to talk about a way ahead path ahead and so that's the purpose of this and you know the the
approach that we took initially uh was clearly not the road to take so this is an informational meeting people can uh you know hear hear the conversation today and uh there will be no questions today but there will be discussion
between the two boards comments anyone so i think um since i wasn't part of any of the conversations initially um i had kind of laid out some of the things we right like obviously we're here today to talk
so i was trying to think of why we were here today um and so i i listed some of the things so what we know right here are the things we know we know that merritt would like to purchase the property at 500 east road we know that
um and we know as any buyer would that they would like to pay as little as possible that's anyone um we also know that woodland park school district owns that property right now and that it was paid for by the taxpayers um we know
that as elected members of the board it's our responsibility to look after the district's assets so um and and to make sure that we're utilizing them to best serve and support
our students all of them right so um if we're talking about selling this building which obviously is the reason why we're here today um that means we have two parties that need to negotiate right and we need to make sure uh we
know what the building is worth that um and that we as a board responsible for taking ownership and and responsibility of all of the assets are getting as much out of that as we can so that we are supporting all of our students um to do
anything less really would be a failure um on our part to our constituents so um i guess what we need to the things we actually need to figure out conversations is what is the building worth um how much can merit afford to
pay for it and then do those numbers align i miss mr president can i yes sir i was i was thinking that that the sales part even though it says it on the agenda i want to hear
other options i don't want to just jump into to selling the making a decision on selling the the property and then what are our other options why does it have to be a sale uh does it have to be a
sale can it be uh why can't a lease option is there to secure the the property i know that we want to make sure that that all of the students in the district have a home whether it's at
the high school junior high um high school the elementary schools merit academy we all want to make sure no one is going to lose a facility so what i'm wondering is that is the you know what you guys
would like to do but you know first i'd like to discuss other options rather than jumping right to that well let's also remember that they're also part of the districts and they're also taxpayers so um i know that was just a thing and that we have a set of buildings how can
we best ensure maximizing the use of all of our buildings you know um even talking we'll have to probably talk about another on another building that's not on our agenda so i won't mention it because it's not on the agenda but we have that as well and so um you know
these buildings are also zoned for our education so we have to think about the zoning as well in that and so um let me see so according to a press release and mr salt you might not know
this answer would it is it that the district would save 240 $240,000 with the merit um if there was a by reducing the flow through funding the merit academy i don't have any idea
um where that number came from okay well write that on your list or i can just give you this so i i have a followup question on that maybe um maybe someone from the merit side can answer because i was under the
impression that with the facilities usage currently that merit was already covering the cost of maintenance of the building is that accurate merit academy covers the operations and superficial maintenance i guess you
would say um all of the health safety security facets are um district responsibility because it's a district- owned building so all of the things like the hvac system at $600,000 the $250,000 um
uh um parking lot issue that actually started flooding our um choir room this year all of those things are tasked upon the district so that we have used district resources and district personnel to complete some of those things we've had electrical issues we've
had staff got shocked um and so we've had electricians come out and uh started talking about the needs for the electrical because apparently when the building was built they half-heartedly fixed the electrical and so it's a it's a tiger's nest up at the top um so those
are all the things that the district would be responsible for covering and merit academy would actually like to be able to cover that ourselves we cannot do that until we own the building we cannot secure um we cannot secure any kind of a bond or cop without having the collateral and so we've looked at being
able to make those facility payments ourselves and make those repairs but everywhere we go says you do not own building you would not qualify so then we did reach out to admin of wen park and we said okay so we need all these
things done um there are safety and security risk uh the district has a lot of buildings probably with a lot of uh various needs it's not necessarily right or fair that merit academy jumps in front and so we want to ensure that we
have and are able to take care of the facility we're in can the district lend us the money no the district does not have the money number two can the district um be a uh like cosign no because there's a tab rule on district district uh debt and to do so would then
offset the district debt so that if something were to come up with a roof or a boiler or anything else in any other buildings the district now would be hamstrung and not be able to take care of those um issues so it all comes back to merit academy needs to purchase the building so merit academy can get
funding so that we can actually complete these um these as the repairs that have been kind of thrown off the edge for a while and that's that's what it boils down so if you need the building as a as
collateral for loans how are you going to pay for the purchase of the building that's the discussion that we'll have um yes in negotiations if we get to that point well the district can't afford to give you a loan our finances are kind of
a mess right now right uh so there are stumbling blocks to any facet of this something that just recently changed that that was a big part of it was losing the uh sales tax um you know
that just puts the district and merit in a in a tighter spot financially keegan you're right the school can't can't afford to do those $3 million worth of repairs either i mean and we have needs in every school along those lines from
back in 22 when they did that ser uh did that facilities uh report um after they went around and kind of took a look at all of the buildings uh there's a laundry list for each building and i want to reiterate that
uh this ball has been picked down the road for many many years by previous uh school boards and at some point someone had to take had to pick up the ball and say you know it's got to stop here we've got to start doing some of these things
because they've already piled up to a mountain too high to climb uh so this board did start working towards those things but like i said there there's a lot to be done pick a school one of the things sorry forget about this one of
the things that you mentioned was the sales tax and that actually was by nature an alternative to a bond to property taxes and i don't want to go into all of that but um it was a better way to do that because it's a consumer
tax 33% paid by tourists the way the original conversation was planned for you all to discuss was the fact that merit academy would have $7 million going to the district through that um avenue because of the extra fines that we were bringing in through the sales
tax that um from short-sightedness is no longer on the table and so i think the the discussion there is something to be had um if we hit the point of negotiation so so kind of jumping off of what you were just saying there you said that um it was part of the discussion
and it was on the resolution that was going to be on the meeting um agenda for the march 12th meeting um who who was part of those conversations
which conversations when when the um i guess the parameters of this resolution was so we were not involved in the resolution you were not no um but we did talk about what are some ways for funding facilities obviously the more
common practice is real estate tax that will never fly up here um we pay too much real estate taxes as it is and we're a very conservative community um so then the thought was how can merit academy um set aside some funding for that and that's where the sales tax idea
came from and that's who's who came up with that idea you said you weren't part of the conversation i wasn't part of the resolution conversation yeah but you were part of the conversations where some of these ideas were floated well yes as administration you talk and you say "can you loan us the money?" no can we do this no taper tax it's a back and
forth a quick thought brainstorming sessions a million ideas are thrown out right and then you said that you were the one that initiated that when you yes we we said we have issues going on in our building they need to be fixed we have people who are getting chopped we have flooding going on in our classroom
i mean anybody who is there in the facility knows those issues and uh we had a um issue do you have an estimation of all the three million 3 million um and that's in your packet um we had a
lockdown practice and in that practice they went from room to room and those partitions opened and they said we can't have this and some of those petitions don't open very well some of them don't close some of them don't lock so there's you know the sound barriers another
thing it's not not something we can't work around but um for safety and security purposes they said those interior walls need to be fixed they need to be maintained they need to be fixed they need to be reconstructed and from the packet and the facilities needs from um i think it's
2021 it said carpeted carpeting and flooring repair place 6x7 store front door systems upcoming new track replace folding partitions wall prepare and
paint replace bathroom fixtures kitchen and food equipment and you're also saying hback now and um parking what electrical electrical oh yeah security there's a lot of security issues are any
of those is there any other funds available grants any other things revenue access that would be available other than borrowing the money like the best grant we are all praying that that
is the case since we were born we have been knocking on all those doors all day long and what we have is what we are given but we are not not looking it is not something we can rely what kind of places have you
been looking to i mean donations foundations rich people families we had somebody out we had a family out there who volunteered their time and their resources and they filled our pockets they're not pothole fixers they just did it as a family
um we knocked on uh traditional banks we've knocked on um uh color school construction charter school finances we we keep coming to the same wall own the building you will have doors open to you
this $3 million estimate that's in the packet you provided um where did those estimates come from many of them some of them came from woodland park district facility personnel others came from electricians
who came through our facility when they were trying to help us with electrical work and a fire that started in the server room um so they just as as we needed them we called upon service providers and they've given us it's we can't bid yet we don't own
the building and we don't have a loan so we can't put official bids out there those are the ballpark so um erin salt um since the district is actually actually responsible for those types of repairs since we own the building
couldn't we have been the ones to call in professionals to look at that um we have called in uh professionals and jason can probably speak a little bit better to this um i know we had um
the fire with the emergency ballots um we had the electrician that came out and worked with that um i believe the district paid for that because we own the building there were some other electrical i know they've called some and we've called some kind of been back
and forth we don't always get notified of or i don't get notified of all the issues i know jason gets a lot more the brunt of it with him being um kind of the face of the facilities um but i know we've tried to maintain and
and call out professionals and services um as we know needed or our team takes care of it and so when we look at the other buildings that the district owns how do we like i know the um there were feasibility and and studies done on like
what kind of repairs all the buildings needed a few years ago um obviously the or at least i haven't seen any sort of like actual plan in place to how we're going to attack fixing any of these things i i don't think any of the other
boards have done that yet um and we haven't currently um but you know when things are happening right we we've had issues at coline we've had issues out at at summit what is the current process for determining which issues get fixed
first what how do we prioritize so a lot of it comes down to uh life and safety you know like coline we had some heating issues and so we had to mic um when coline had the heating issue we couldn't have kids in in
classrooms there and so we worked really hard to that was an immediate thing uh so hvac is up there water leaks uh that's up there and so it really comes down to to life and safety and kind of trickling them down from
there we have problems that are popping up quite regularly and so you know it's really attacking what's the highest priority and that's kind of how weize those uh jason i've talked about doing a more holistic facilities plan
um just haven't had time to do a little bit put the fires out so thank you keegan have you seen the report uh with the long long range uh facilities master
plan from back in 22 yep you so you're familiar with it i am so um you're saying that the only way that you see forward to be able to maintain the
facility is either we as an entire district pay for the the property on kelly road the one that you're using or that you have to be able to borrow the money because
you haven't been successful at getting grants or any other mean of money coming in so that us leasing the building to you wouldn't would that would not work and we're not allowed to we a school
district can't lease the building can rent it you can't you can't rent it out to another school right you can um i don't know colorado springs district 11 so that was leased before they sold the um chart the school
building to the charter school for a cost of 3.25 million and so but that doesn't solve their problem from what they just said and i saw a bunch of heads shaking that they have any collateral or asset to get
a loan to repair it so leasing won't work will contracting it would if we were to make a have a contract with merit academy for use of the building for a certain length of time would that achieve the goal at all
that's where we are now that's fpua so unless district has $3 million and wants to catapult merit academy ahead of everyone else which we do not want that's what you're asking for a contract
so there's no kind of contract that could be formed that would help you achieve that goal not unless you have the funding to do that to lend it to us because we can't get the funding we don't own the building we wouldn't be lending you the money if we repaired our
building it would just be the district repairing its own building and you said that since your inception you've been looking for these various grants uh i i'm not that knowledgeable of them but you have been very involved in this and you've exhausted your
options as far as we know we no no one's been well they've bitten but they're not three $3 million it's,00und,000 here 250 there 450 there to get us started
and most everyone tells us we will not we will not fund um uh capital improvements if you don't own the buildings we will not fund a district's capital improvements that's what they don't
if we were to ask for you know i believe you but for the community and people who have questions would you be able to show that you've in do good faith made approach these
lending institutions uh and that you've been declined i don't have i don't write down that on february 2nd i contacted soand so i don't keep a track of all the phone calls i make okay but yes i mean go
ahead call them for us happy to have you do that they hit the same the other thing i'm seeing i know we keep throwing around this $3 million number but looking at some of the items on this list and of course they're just kind of broad titles but um it seems to me that some of these are more wants than needs
so of course you want your facility to be as nice as it can be but you i don't think you would need $3 million for it to be safe or right even usable right like you know yes having fresh paint is nice but probably not necessary or um
resurfacing a track probably not necessary um you know replacing dry erase boards or um cabinet faces are probably not necessary because you could probably knock it down to a much more doable thing and then some of the other
ones are things that the district who owns the building would be responsible for taken care of yeah a fair significant of that would be done by the district yeah immediately well in in order with the rest of our
buildings well that's the problem because right now the district is four years and $25 million in the hole from what the facility manager already said you guys need to do i don't see a like you said there's no plan so merit academy has a plan we will take that $3
million off the district's hands and we will take care of that building so the district no longer has to include the resources for that building and we can actually take care of it but until there's a plan for the district to take care of the other four buildings and the
other $30 million worth of effort that's not a plan that we can rely on but this whole plan is contingent upon us loaning you the money so you can buy the building from us in the first place it's contingent upon us buying the building and then getting funding to repair it
yes i was basing that off of the resolution that the resolution's done and gone so so i think again going back to what i said first these conversations like we already know building needs to be repaired we already know you want to own
it so that you can take care of those things yourselves what the next steps we need to do is figure out what the building is worth and how much you can afford to buy it for so until we have those facts i don't think we need to continue the conversation well i think that there's a lot of
things that i'd like to talk about i mean without ending the conversation here that i would need to know is is um anything from my first inclination is that i would not want to sell the building i
would want to work find a way that you're able to achieve the goals to be able to make the repairs and and grow as you need to grow without without holding it back but i'
i've just wondered i keep wondering is there a way to do it so that would not be my first choice but but my i would i still want to see not get in the way of success because you guys have proven
that you are able to run a successful school so you know with if we were to sell it is there a way that we can ensure that if something does go bad
with merit academy down the road 10 years or whatever or you need to you decide to move and build in a different location what insure is there any kind of way that we can make sure that the district
still can own that property yes is that so that's my question to you know to you guys i will say in colorado revised statute my question was that well i know but i i i just they can answer but to the statue it said if a charter school
has purchased a school building um and grounds are pursuant to this paragraph vacates the school building and grounds or elects to sell the school building and grounds the school district that sold the school building and the grounds to the charter school pursuant
to this paragraph shall have first right a refu refusal to reacquire and purchase the property at fair market value or in accordance with other terms of the repurchase established by mutual agreements of the parties
okay okay gwen we we're all pretty much agreeing that we we can't afford to loan you any money if if a train you and you charter school is in fact part of this district there's almost 600 children or
potentially in that school out of 1,850 students we were to sell you that building for a dollar you would be responsible for the upkeep of that building and all the improvements in that building and that
and if anything did happen to merit which we we don't expect to happen because is the fastest growing school in the district then the contract must say that we will buy the building back
from you from the amount that we sold it to you with all the improvements that you have put into this school so how in my eyes is that a a losing proposition because it's it's for educational
property is for educational purposes only it benefits you it cuts out the liability the school is still in the district it's just under the the merit ownership so you have the
capability and the avenues to make the improvements in the school which we all want the school would must would have to come back to us for the same price that you we sold it to you and so i i don't i don't see whether
issues the problem is at all well i don't know that selling it for a dollar would be a good idea because that wouldn't help the other buildings in the district it wouldn't help the other students at all um and we'd be giving up one of our assets so we wanted to take
out loans we would have less collateral to do so so we don't want to give it away for a dollar that would be a very very bad deal for the rest of the students in the district it's not common practice in color i mean i don't know if it's common practice in colorado but it is common practice of my state where i
come from because the dollar thing in indiana and i was doing some research i found it interesting um it's about trying to keep kids in schools no matter what and reusing those buildings that are zoned so i'm not saying you know an
amount my question was after sue was mr s is there a way to find out what we would be saving or the operational cost of everything if we did not have the middle school under our umbrella
we can look at it well hopefully our district's not in in the dire straits where we need all all of these buildings to to apply for any kind of also my next question to you mr salt is
um do you know of any other incidents or things that were for turner schools that would be to get funding or buying um or purchasing buildings or what that looks like or do you have any sort of
historical past or just any information you could offer i know we are looking into the best grant for oursel force and the capital projects for next year yeah so the best grant is a match grant
yeah and so they would have to have some money together to be able to match with whatever they would get from the the grant um i know from my experience so i founded a charter school seven or eight years ago um and
we were able to work with a um private equity firm that had they already owned the building and then we had a a purchase plan from them to be able to um acquire the building and so we did start with some collateral in that sense
because we're able to to have the agreement with the the private equity firm um and then we went and we were able to issue bonds and ended up taking so initially it was about a $12 million purchase off of the
uh the equity firm and then we refinanced through the bond that we issued in want to say it was around 22 to$24 million uh that we got when we issued bonds and we were able to to build and reduce our
our overall payment um so the experience that i have is very different from what merit has but we were able i mean in my experience we had help from private equity not from the district
was that a bond election like per the no uh because it didn't go to the taxpayers it's a little different for for charters to issue than it is for the school boards to issue um i don't know all the ins and outs of
that uh i can connect you with people guys with people if you want to to have more conversations about it i my my knowledge is very limited on that time i was just looking through colorado state law and like you know charter schools
fall underneath those bond elections and such but i can't imagine that there would even be a vote to increase anymore anything um as we have some of the highest um taxes are out and
especially the property going up so okay okay thank you when you mentioned earlier about bond history here can you refresh us on that and what that has looked like what financing has looked like here in the
park school district u yes from memory faulty but um 2001 is when a bond passed or um um for additions and some maintenance
that was complete and i think the mlo the 1.1 million also passed in that timeline and i believe it was 2011 another bond was suggested and uh that failed like i don't remember the exact numbers but i
think it was something like 6624 or 34 sorry um it failed pretty well and that's when it was interesting because the superendent at the time came from douglas county and douglas county was used to we need more money here's a
bond we're going to pass it well douglas county and d20 and all these other large districts have a significant um corporate you know uh property tax and so it doesn't fall squarely on on the shoulders of residents like it does
pretty well here yeah so um that fa failed pretty miserably and that's when everybody re regrouped and said okay what do we do and nothing happened for four years and then the sales tax y
uh you know over the past years most everyone in here seen that you know the ambulance district came to the till i think two times initially and then the third time they did get that monies but taxes aren't a very popular thing uh
these days and haven't been for some time i mean people feel overt taxed already but you know we're going to have to make up that difference in some fashion uh with losing the sales tax i mean that was going to that was going to go as a property tax until the group got
together and discussed an alternative which was very appealing i mean i've heard anywhere from 33 to 40% of that sales tax is paid by the outsiders coming through town so we i'm
sorry i'm not sure why we're talking about failed bond attempts and the sales tax it's not relevant to this conversation really it's not there we don't have those bonds it's not i think we don't have sales tax anymore either
because of this proposed resolution because it's an option you can apply for you know bond and have an election bond so they were going over the history of bonds and how it is and how that came to be that's how i understand i think it is relevant to you because it shows the
history of this community and what people are willing to do if we put a bond forward it's not going to pass we know the sales tax was a brilliant solution it was it was um to answer your question very directly
you say you want to take care of all of the kids in the district yep can the wpsd afford to fix our building right now no but we're taking we have to look at all the buildings all together to give you the building what
happens tomorrow when our hvac fits and there's no funding to be able to fix it what happens tomorrow when a roof caves in somewhere in a different building and there is no plan in place what we are trying to do sitting here as a group what we are trying to do sitting here as
a group is come up with solutions do you think we're going to pick the building up and move to montana no we are educating district children in a district facility and we are trying to come up with solutions to be able to fix that facility for the safety and
security and comfort so our teachers aren't getting shocked of the people in that building that is what we were trying to do we're not trying to to steal something or get you to give us something we are trying to educate children in a safe building and take care of that building on our
own that's what we're trying to do good so if you if you can explain to me how the district is going to step up with a solution to fix our building and put all the other buildings beneath us that's not fair that's not right we wouldn't it would we have a solution we are trying
to work on a solution to be able to manage our own facility and not have to to fight with and i think that is 100% acceptable so what we need to do is figure out what the building is worth and how much you could afford to pay for
it that's all i have said talking about bonds talking about the sales tax none of that matters we need to know what the building's worth and we need to know what you can pay for it and asking why it's relevant why is this relevant to the it is relevant to that we don't have that money it is relevant to the conversation
because it shows the nature of the community that we are living in and what people are going to be willing to do they're not going to be willing to pass a bond right so let's come up with a different solution okay so let's get an evaluation of what the building is worth and then you can go and try and get a
loan to see if you can afford it well what you know one of the things that i hear what keegan is saying and i hear this the what the rest is saying you know this conversation the reason it's public is because it's public everybody wants to hear and the people
of the community in the district need to hear what are our options and have we exhausted our options and and part of the reason that i'm asking questions is because i want people in the community to hear these answers i think it's
important for for everyone to hear why is selling it the looks like it may be the only path forward to be able to take care of the facilities and for you to continue
growing as a district school so you know that's why that's why i keep asking and i want to know about bonds and and i like to hear the history so that everybody can else can hear it and hopefully we can answer as many questions for the public as we do for ourselves in making this decision so i
mean that's why i want to hear all those you know everything as glenn has said every single door we have opened or tried to or any kind of grants donation anything they tell us if you don't own
the building we will not fund anything for facilities period every door is closed on and that's why we're here at this conversation it is worth noting to mr salt's point on the equity um companies that are out
there um there's a couple that we were speaking with and the sales tax revocation is you know applicable here to talk about as part of the loss of funding that does remove the ability to pay a a big chunk of what could have
been debt service um you know we are in a taxpayer funded building teaching taxpayer children and been paid for once by the taxpayers you know are we putting a purchase on the backs of the taxpayers again for
something they've already paid for once you know so thinking about the sources of funding which we don't have now we're in the same boat really that the the rest of the wpsd is in you can't afford to fix
the building you know all of them um we can't afford a hefty debt service on purchasing so we're kind of stuck right so what we're looking at is well how can
we accomplish to mr ruster holtz's uh point how do we accomplish what needs to be accomplished while protecting the district while being able to allow merit academy to take that responsibility off the shoulders of the district um so that you can think about other
things you know you're in the process of looking for a new superintendent a new cfo um if there's one less checklist item that is a problem that you have to deal with that we can say "all right you know we're it's a it's a a liability for
us to take on to make those improvements and the capital repairs and things but if we can take that off of of the shoulders of the district that's one less thing for that new person to figure out um can we create a win-win?" you know can we get it done
and miss patterson brought up the dollar option well that's just it it's it's paper transferring ownership to accomplish a need it's paper transferring back ownership to where it came from when that school public school is gone if that
public school is ever gone so um you know i i i personally like to explore that because i think that it is um i it's it's something worth considering we're in the same district we're in the same community what benefit does the
wpsd have to retain ownership of 500 east kelly's road when you're not using it well again i go back to let's figure out what the building is worth and how much you can afford to pay for it because if you did
actually purchase it for value then we could use that money to go repair the other buildings and then the sale of an asset wouldn't make sense i hear what you're saying i hear what you're saying keegan but my what i mary
what you were saying is i think something that maybe we should talk about and dig into a little bit taxpayers already purchased the building
and if you take out a loan to pay the rest of the district now the same taxpayers are going to be buying the building again and plus you are going to have to borrow the money to make the repairs so now
they're going to have to pay for it again i mean is that is that what that's basically what it is paying for it twice the same people so i mean that's so so that's what i'm
i'm thinking how do we do it to benefit but take care of the kids because that's why we have the building we got to take care of the kids the students so and represent the taxpayers
i sat on that facilities committee four years ago or whatever it was and learned some things um but under the colorado charter school act there's a pretty good line i was rereading it's in your packets and it doesn't really apply to charter schools it applies to all schools and the opening line is that it
is the obligation of all coloradoans to provide all children with schools that reflect high expectations and create conditions in all schools where these expectations can be met and conditions means things like a heating system that works a safe electrical system a
security system that you can get parts for because it's not antiquated and that applies to all schools in the district now one of the things i learned in the facilities committee is the magic number of 80% that a school building should be utilized at approximately 80% of its
full utilization capability and once you get below 80% you're looking at a problem now i went back and crunched some numbers so the 3,6 5 seats and full utilization in the five buildings 80% of that is somewhere around 2884 and the district crossed that line
in 2009 so this is a conversation that should have been happening back in 2009 15 16 years ago the one thing we can't do now we if we had a flying magic delorean we could go back and ask our predecessors what were you thinking
about and they probably would have said it was really hard and we couldn't come up with an answer we couldn't be creative and come up with an answer and here we are 15 years later wrestling with the same problem and shame on us if our successors in
2040 are going "boy 15 years ago i sure wish they'd been they'd been creative." and maybe there was a paperwork transfer that could have been done that took $3 million off the district's burden and let it be applied to other schools so let's think about what our what our
predecessors did 15 years ago we're sitting here we talked about it in 2016 we talked about it in 2010 we talked about in 2022 talk talk talk winston churchill used to slap a sticker down and said "act to this day." and that's what we need to be mindful of
lest our successors be wondering what the heck we were thinking about 15 years ago so let's get after a creative solution let's everybody win i just wanted to follow up so i'm clear on what you and sue were kind of talking about there but
you're saying and sue your example you sell the building to us for a dollar we take on that liability we put three million four million million dollars over the course of the life of nerd academy building and for whatever reason we move the school fails we close
something happens and the building is now again vacant in that scenario the district would then take it back for a dollar is that i'm just i just want to make sure i'm clear on this that's what i said i actually think under the charter agreement if um merit were ever
to in the event of termination or dissolution if the property the real property so property um was would just come back to the district at no cost i think that's part of the charter agreement okay um
we don't we don't we don't want to owe you a dollar it's doing better but um my second i just want to make sure i was understanding that line of thought but then my second question when we're talking about taxpayer funds john and you say the taxpayers already bought
this facility paid for it were merit academy to take out a a loan to pay for it that would be coming out of our ppr funding right are the other schools when they've been built or when they've been acquired
um i think they've all been built in this district are those funds also taken directly out of ppr funding or do that come from grants and other because it seems like that's actually asking kids to pay for the building that they're in taking money directly away from ppr that can be used for curriculum stuff i'm
just wondering in the past how were the other buildings when built they were built with bonds the bonds that the taxpayers paid um as repaired they are coming through the district's funding so the repairs
have been coming through the revenue stream that the district receives but the actual acquiring of that property comes through the bonds that the taxpayers paid for okay okay i'd like to add that um you're
talking about the pupil funding and director barkley you're talking about what is the value of the building i i think there's a there's there's a more personal um connection here it's not like a charter school from pablo wants
to come up here and and start a charter school and buy a building this charter school was birthed by a local community and these are our children that have lived in this community some of them are out of a district just as
woodland park but this is a community initiative and now we're talking about it's all about the money what what is the fair market value or or um the value of the building i i think we're
and and i agree that we need to have we need to service all the children and and and devise a plan to to uh to make the repairs on all the buildings but this is a a starting point but but these kids
are within our community it's not like strangers are coming up here in this town and say "we want to buy your building for a dollar." no the these are inhouse kids already and and i and i think that that's the way to go to treat them like they're already in they are in
our community and they are our children the land value alone okay there's no comments for okay i'm just telling you the raw land is worth $4 million and which child you know i ask all you which what
what family is in merit's going to pay i'll put that on their backs and and and pay that money those are our kids already i think it goes back to the point
of we can't get the funding we don't own the building the district can't is not in a position where it can either lend us or just fix the building they can't cosign something for
us because of tabor laws which gwen knows a whole lot more about than i do but all of these different options come to a wall and the other side of that wall is building ownership so the question is what does that look like what can that
look like as sue said these are district kids it's a district building educating district kids here i think what we are looking at with wanting to acquire the
building is to keep all of those kids in the district to fix what needs to be fixed and take that liability on ourselves rather than asking the district to fix something for our building potentially before fixing something else for one of the other buildings which would not be
fair this is us trying to solve a problem without creating any other problems taking that responsibility on ourselves so the other aspect of this that i don't think we've covered at all and i know
you mentioned that that the building should be used at 80% so the middle or the the building at at 500 kelly's road has a student capacity of 900 students so what what was meritt's current
500 so we're so we're not at merit owning that building isn't at full utilization i understand you're looking to grow and and hope to one day fill that 900 but right now you don't and so to me again
looking back at does it make sense to sell it at all there's a possibility that the population in the diff other schools fluctuates as well to the point where we might need that facility again as a mixed use like we had in in last
year um if we sell it then that's not an option to the district anymore and then we're not as a district utilizing our facilities efficiently you want to talk page three so um the trend if you look at that
graph on page four has shown very little positive opportunities for the district there's no trending for the district to improve enrollment so hoping they improve is one thing
certainly and gateway is that number two you look at the facility um capacities and they're functional capacities so comfortable capacities this campus right here the junior senior high i think is
what it's now called um is at 58% capacity merit academy is at 56% coline is 64.9 summit 61 next year um we have already gotten our intent to
enroll and our registration i think a conservative number is we will be at 570 students so nearing the largest school in this district we will be at 63% capacity assuming colin and
summit stay the same they will be at 64.9 and 61.2 i honestly don't know what the forecasting is for that and the junior high senior high campus is coming right now there are 75 sixth graders in the woodland park school district and
there's 149 graduating seniors so assuming they're going to lose that 74 plus possibly garner some more um i think a conservative positive estimate for the junior senior high campus at 625
takes that building to 52% capacity so over the course of the years there's plenty of opportunity for this district to grow um and merit academy as you can see very quickly is going to have the highest capacity in all of all of the buildings because we are the ones who are showcasing growth and we are
starting from kinder through 12th grade next year we have 12th graders and as all of those um students mature and graduate within the u enrollment our numbers will escalate and we certainly are forecasting strongly and
conservatively at least 700 in the next several years four or five years um right now we are looking at for instance fifth grade we've had our lottery we have uh 44 fifth graders at this point in time no sorry 44th graders um they all
are returning and we had a number of students who want to come in as fifth graders we said we called them all and we said you have to be serious about this because we're going to hire another teacher so next year we will have 60 fifth graders um we are adding another first grade we're adding another fifth
grade we're adding seniors and as those groups go through um our maturation rate will extend so when you talk about forecasting for growth the only school that is showing growth is merit academy and the only show school that is showing an increase of capacity within their
building is merit academy well that's really good you know i that those are all encouraging numbers that's you you you've done a great job and and uh it really needs to be paid attention
to that you're and you are a public school part of woodland park school district so and and i'm thinking you're doing a you're i mean you're doing a great people want to send parents want to send their kids there that's right and so since you're a
district school how how do we together facilitate the the popularity of and the success of what you're doing there how how do we do that and you know it's like
any government entity anybody who's in business knows that one of the worst the biggest hurdles is government when you're growing a business you know with regulations and you know everybody wanting a piece of things how do we how
do we make this happen to benefit the kids first and it's and then keep in mind and the the taxpayers and at the same time it's you're part of this district just
because on paper you now own if if that is what it has to be now that you own it it's still the district school you're just now able to get the funds because of a signature on a paper you're able to
get funds to take over maintenance and things that need to be done at the school that's that's what i when i bring it into my own thoughts and try to clear think it here that's you know that's what i hearing everybody
say um two things one we actually have a pretty good track record of getting outside the box um when you go from a from the lutheran church nicole's laughing when you go from the basement of the lutheran church and three weeks in um our one of our devoted catholics
walks into the methodist church and talks him into the get in the basement key in an hour um and then you go to the basement of the hardware store and you put up with the pumping of the paint machine sometime going to the sherwin williams listen to the paint shaker and imagine getting math class underneath that thing um gets pretty tough and then
we've been able to partner with the district and that's one a bit more granularity on your good news um we did have our lottery we had 142 applicants and one of our goals when we set up merit was to be an attractant to families coming back into the district
um we had 34 let's see uh of the of the 142 students 79% of them did not go to wpsd schools last year how what how many 79% did not go to wpsd schools last year where did they come from well 34 came
from another district so they may have lived here but they were going somewhere else um that's the biggest cut that's the biggest cohort um 31 of them are homeschoolers returning to full-time school um and so um that was pretty as a homeschool parent originally that was
pretty exciting to see um 24 of them went to schools in other districts so whether it was creek or lake george or you know be so they were coming they're coming from outside the wpsd coming back in the under the wpsd
umbrella if you want to call it refer to it that way um and then we had another 15 home part-time applicants to be in our part-time programs our parttime merit academy home school support program so lots of children coming back to the
district brought to the choice of a classical education so i just i want to share that additional granularity with you in terms of good news stories um and i don't have it written down here i thought i had it written down i think it was 21% we have people coming from north
carolina coming from california um coming from all over the country and they're saying and when we talk to them at our parent information meetings they're saying "we looked at colorado we looked at school websites we wanted to come here want to come to the school and i've got some other vignettes that i
want to carry on with but uh lots of kids coming from outside the wpsd to the wpsd so reinforcing that success is uh pretty important great job those parents said that the reason they moved to woodland park was to come so that their kids
could go to merit yes um and in some cases they were coming to colorado but they look for where to settle um i tell well d and john i don't want this to become a hey let's let's say all the great things about merit and overlook
the fact that there are great things going on in the district as well this is not an us work you guys this is these are all district kids and so i just i feel like the conversation is going a little too heavy in terms of let's praise merit for everything that we're doing and while we really appreciate
that we are a part of this district and there are some amazing things going on in the traditional district schools as well and so i don't want i don't want you to think that we overlook that either we stand on a very strong platform of school choice and so parents
who have the same philosophy tend to search for they're moving as jon has said will search for a place based on schools and i think that in the wpsd merit academy does draw that type
of like-minded parents but what it's also doing is drawing family to our community dollars being spent in our community maybe they have five kids and only two of them are good at merit academy and the other three go to the district this this is a
collaborative journey and so i just i don't want to get so far down the road of hey let us tell you all the great things about us without looking at the fact that there are really great things going on the traditional schools too i mean i was blown away by language in the wardrobe phenomenal absolutely
phenomenal and some of the other things that i hear about going on in the district it's like that's really cool if that's the choice that you want to make we have a different choice so i just i just i'm done i just wanted to make that we were addressing that because like i said i don't want this to be a hey let's
just talk about how great mar academy is this is a meeting to discuss a solution for a financial problem that we are all facing together especially with the recent uh stripping of school funding that we have to overcome and so i think
we should get back to trying to focus on that solution and to piggy back on that um and you know bringing it back to facilities is it's in everyone's interest in our community um for our community to thrive
and the school choice like nicole said you know we firmly believe helps to facilitate that um you know making the woodland park school district as a whole healthy and attractive has to be the utmost importance um
to to us it's of utmost importance to you and i think to our community um as a whole because when they are bringing their families here they're taxpayers they're they're spending money they're they're bringing kids to our schools um
and so to find that solution is good for everybody um and and when we hit a a roadblock kind of like we are at right now with having a potential solution um it's worth exploring
there are i mean if you look at public schools in general they're all struggling money's just tied it has been for forever and if we so it's beneficial to our entire community to be able to offer this
school choice it it it benefits everybody in this room we can offer some things that others can't clearly people have seen that and have elected to move their family here i mean i spoke to a couple that picked up he was a construction guy they picked up
everything in crest debbute and moved here to take advantage of of merit so there there's a lot of benefits to having the school choice here and let the people decide what works for them because they have many choices
great adding to that there are a lot of a lot of families in our district that have a child in merit and have a a child in the district so again we're we're splitting the families here it should it needs to be about about the entire district as a
whole and community like mary was talking about and um and a way to way to go forward so we can start um addressing all these other issues and and and put this behind us and and come
together as a as a as a district and work on a solution and move forward for the families instead of splitting the families showtime john say and all the kids and all the staff
deserve a decent facility to work in the better we can make that facility the better the staff will attract and it just said hello if we can get the facilities taken care of it just adds to that positive momentum that we see in all the schools and creative solutions
to how to do that is what we need to look for i'm i'm just curious um if we i think the question was already asked but i'm thinking it again what kind of savings would the rest of the district have if
we were to go through with that and that's something you were already erin's gonna's going to get accurate numbers that he'll report back to us with yes which i think is good um i was just looking through you know what do districts do when they have empty
buildings and and not this case is a little bit different and um it always goes to show that you know if a district can get more students in to recapture the lost students you're talking about some of those homeschooling codes some of the kids that come from other
districts and recapturing them it's always a good thing to get kids back in the school buildings and if not you're selling it to um i don't know the example was like a brewery and then that has more costs and stuff to it but we're not trying to you know looking through a
lot of different stuff different states have different laws on it um indiana has a dollar bill they they do that a lot there's different ways to look into it and so the main point is having our kids um in a building and trying to figure out a solution and and i i think this
was a good open dialogue i think there's some questions that we have for mr salt to come back to us and give us i think um this gives us an opening to continue to talk to the community and parents and and everyone that has been emailing and
such with their opinions and just sort of sorting out some of the questions and answers that you know may have been had so i really appreciate that well i s i certainly feel like this was very beneficial i don't know how many people are watching it online but i think this
is going to give everyone a uh a better understanding of the situation at hand and and we did not have that two weeks ago and i think you know the the information is very valuable to all parties in the district so this is good
i mean i'm not necessarily opposed to an appraisal but i have a good idea of of how much they could afford and there's probably a big distance between that what so the the only other question and
this one came to me from several people in the community uh emailing and and calling um and it was a question to say paraphrasing but basically it was asking what is to stop if the sale goes through for whatever price what would stop
merritt from selling the building to a charter management company um and then leasing that space and having some sort of like well it is already back law why not take i'm not going to ask you again can
i hear thank you i didn't i didn't hear can you stop interrupting please thank you i wanted to hear the rest of your i didn't hear the rest of i couldn't hear just because so there have been other charter schools that have basically sold their building to charter management
companies or charter management companies have come in and purchased the building and then they lease it to the charter school um so basically the the question is if wpsd sells it to merit for a dollar because that's what has
been floated around and then they turn around and sell it to a charter management company for actual value of the building and then you know there's like backhand deals and everyone's making money for the district would be required under colorado statutes to
honor the right of first refusal to the district right but the right of first refusal was right if we sold it to you for a dollar and then you found someone who was willing to pay $30 million for it and then you came back to the district and said "hey i found a buyer." because that's what the that's what the original
uh proposal said that you you would come to the district and say "we have someone who's willing to purchase the building for $30 million you have right to first refusal to pay us that sum." let me let me and the district could not afford to do let me address address that miss
barkley uh cassie just read crs22-30.5-104 which says we are guaranteed the first right of refusal right i just explained what that meant though well but then i i can read on here uh the the school building and grounds or latch to sell the school
building grounds the school district that sold the school building and grounds to the charter school pursuant to this paragraph shall have first right of refusal to reacquire and purchase the property at fair market value or or in
accordance accordance with other terms of repurchase established by mutual agreement of the parties so there is there is a way to see that that doesn't happen i mean i never went on and read the last sentence of it so but the
reason i brought it up and the reason people have asked me about it is because the original resolution that went through didn't include any other clause it just said first right of refusal so that's why people are concerned and i not saying i think that's something that's going to happen but since this is a public discussion for the purposes of
clearing out misconceptions i thought it was an appropriate question to ask first i'll t would just say that's addressed by contractual terms and the statute allows you to do it which is why i looked up the actual law on i think
that's why a lot of people were going to be concerned when they saw that first resolution because it didn't actually protect the district from that kind of thing at all and the verbiage that was used in that resolution changed uh originally it should have been that we'd have first
right of refusal and and to buy it back for what they paid well then you get into other issues and this is for all of you okay so let's say we sold it to them for a dollar and they were done with the building for whatever reason and and we bought it back for a dollar well what if
they had already put the $3 million worth of improvements into the building so this wouldn't have to be negotiated to satisfy both entities yes right well and that's why again there was such an uproar over the original
and that's why it's important that all of these conversations always happen in the public so that these things don't happen and that's on i'm gonna say that's on you at this point for not having these conversations in the public like it should have been from day one it
is completely normal and acceptable for administrators or one member of the board to meet together to have conversation before they bring it to our entire you feel like you were kept in i didn't know all the details of all of this either until it was presented to
us as a board it is completely normal and legal and acceptable almost expected that some of these conversations do happen behind the scenes perhaps and then they're brought to the public do according to our own board documents the
board president does not do those things on his own it is for all of us to discuss as a board the board president's job is to make sure that the superintendent has one point of contact so that the superintendent doesn't necessarily have to message everybody back and forth all day long so messages
are funneled in through the president and out through the president not a point where information stops and not a person who goes off and does things on his own it's supposed to be discussed as a board okay as per robert's rules the
law states robert rules states that the resolution could have been put on which it was on our agenda as an action item we get a first a motion one first motion to approve and a second that it goes into discussion the board discussed it
in the public that was the basis the resolution that was proposed was the resolution which was the basis we had opportunity to discuss it amongst us and then we we we had the um option of
tableing it we had an option of let's discuss this further but that is the proper role of robert's rules you put it on as an action item you get a first and second motion to approve then it goes in to discussion yes you can also just have it as a
discussion first before there's an action item um and also in the year and a half i've been on this board there has not been one resolution that didn't pass 100% exactly as written despite discussion that things weren't perfect
it has never been amended once it's printed as a resolution uh one thing i know this is kind of jumping it but since we're on this subject i would like to have asked that we as board maybe two
boards work together i just throw that up that we discuss the things first that we would like to see in a resolution and then have it written and then discuss and approve up voted up or down i'm good
with that anything else anyone else anyone have anything else i do have a question for you what will what are our next step going forward then after today's meeting what are the
next steps we will we will make a plan for that this meeting was important to get the facts out on the table to discuss what what the next next move would be would would it be an appraisal i i don't know we'll have to have conversations about that and we'll work
to keep this ball rolling in in a positive manner but this this was important i think a lot of things were brought up here today that all all board members needed to hear and as well as the public having the opportunity to set
in on this i i have another question then for our merit board uh is there a timeline that that you need decisions made that we need to work through just
i'm curious about that before the re-election i think the the answer is as soon as possible the application the timeline for getting um lending funding in place it's not
like hey let's sign the documents today and tomorrow we get one there's a long process and so even if we signed something today we likely by the time we could get funding get bids i don't think
we'd even be able to get completed this summer we probably be looking at a lot of things getting done next summer and so or maybe next christmas because i know a lot of this stuff the bigger things need to be done when the school's empty so the problem with continuing to kick
it down the road which is what's happened for decades which is why we're in this position is it pushes out the timeline in terms of when we can actually get these things addressed for kids and so if we look at tomorrow and we say "okay we can do this tomorrow
we're looking at not this coming summer but the next summer to maybe be able to fix fix the age because one you know i'm sure you guys all know you have to go through bidding processes and and all of that." and so it's not a fast process nothing in government is fast and it's
not a cheap process so it's you know as soon as we can figure something out let's figure it out and there's there's really not a lot of time to waste on it anything else anything else you guys
well with that the meeting is adjourned i do we do not need to uh do a roll call because thank you everyone oh maybe yeah i to watch o'connell in the state supreme
court versus the woodland parks school district just want to let you know that you're all under the microscope and you're excitation by the state supreme court question anything else
i don't have those i don't have those answers and well that's kind of thank that turn into and all the ones anyway i'm not wearing [Music] but i didn't even
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