##VIDEO ID:ucVJ8x3RVow## it's stilling out I know good to see right here there [Music] not hey what's [Music] guys bed red yeah I was over at well I'd like to call this meeting to order a roll call please all pleas here Bates here Kim here Patterson here rester holds here good if everyone could please stand remove your Bonet man if you have one coach Drummond could you lead us to the Pledge of Allegiance please Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for we the people of Colorado with profound reverence for the supreme ruler of the universe in order to form a more independent and perfect government establish justice ensure tranquility provide for the common defense promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Prosper Pro posterity do ordain and establish the constitution for the state of Colorado we could have a moment of silence please thank you have a seat please okay looking for a motion to approve for approval of this agenda preses yes could I have a privilege you may uh before you vote to approve the agenda I'd like to recommend that you swap 4A and 7A that's academic Awards night recognition and student recognition we have a number of guests here and rather than making them sit through a lot more agenda the time if we swap the two they could take off when they'd like okay do I have a motion to switch those still move second second roll call I Bates I Kimbell I Patterson I and rer Holtz I okay to as a and now I'd like to get a motion to approve the agenda as amended so move second second roll call please Barkley hi Bates hi Kimbrell hi Patterson hi Holz hi all right good well that being said I I appreciate that we not we won't keep these guys here all night uh that being said uh we want to recognize a number of uh Athletics and uh it's it's it's been and is a very good year I'd like to first start with soccer uh coach Schubert could you uh either introd maybe all you guys with him could just stand up and introduce yourselves and then we'll go further on you want to start here or you want to introduce him start go ahead I'm James Urban James okay uh I'm Kevin James Kevin all right sht head coach Ry assistant miles Wy no mag and I want to thank we want to thank you all for coming here tonight is pretty special some things that are taking place in school the Woodland Park High School boys soccer team led by head coach Kip Schubert earned the title of Tri Peaks League Championship champion and have made history by becoming the first team in his program history to advance the playoffs [Applause] congratulations good job guys you had a wonderful season thank you uh next item cheer uh the cheer comp competition team has taken first place in their first two competitions of the Season congratulations to the cheer team okay next up cross country eight Runners competed in the state championships the girls team finished eighth in 3A moving up four spots from last year while Joseph Begley represented the boys as its sole qualifier with a strong 47th Place finish in 3A the team also had four runners earn all State honorable mentions Joseph Begley Norah skuna I might have really butchered that Landry prw and Olivia star [Applause] congratulations okay on to football uh The Wooden Park Middle School football team finished their regular season undefeated and earned the title of Tri League champions football high school football uh coaches uh if you could stand up as I coach kantrail coach Larson and Coach Drummond the head coach the Woodland Park High School football team completed a historic regular season season achieving something the program hasn't accomplished in 20 years this season has been the program's best since 2005 when the Panthers finished 7 and three with their win over Lun in the season finale the Panthers are now undefeated and have won the first league title since 2000 adding to the excitement head coach Chad drumond was recently named the Denver Broncos coach of the week and the entire team was recognized as Koa athletes of the week [Music] [Applause] congratulations hey guys what did we say no acting up back there in a second okay moving on golf golf finished 28th in the 3A rankings Marshall McAfee excelled placing 122 out of over 500 golfers that's that's quite anomid the softball team had an improved season finishing 34th and narrowly missing the Playoffs by just 0.033 points the team is celebrating several outstanding in individual achievements Christine Ria was named Tri peak's two player of the year and earned All State honorable mention Destiny Karan ad Hughes Christine renia and Riley sh dollar received First Team all League honors and Austin defabio and Molly Miller received all League honorable mentions good [Applause] job and volleyball volleyball had a great season with eight top performers across various categories under activities the marching band played second at Southern regionals and finished 11th in the State honor choir 38 students audition for the Western Slope Honor Choir Festival forensic and debate Woodland Park High School hosted the annual Pikes Peak Invitational home tournament on November 2nd and the team delivered an outstanding performance first place in Duo interpretation Felicia langenfeld and Emma Hannah fourth place in Duo interpretation Cavin West and Eden F and fifth place in poetry Ellena star [Applause] congratulations and you know a big congrat congratulations to all of our schools and their athletic and activi performance been a great year we appreciate all you students and appreciate you thank you [Applause] thank you for joining us tonight okay moving on can I say thank you for the incredible flag P yes you thank that is so gorgeous that is how that Stadium should look thank you very much very good thank you been a lot of comments on that flag po it's it is beautiful thank you have a beautiful night okay uh next up uh public comment Please be aware that any Personnel or individual student matters are considered confidential under Colorado law and it is out of respect of the law and our employees and students that we require those discussions take place privately excuse me in executive session individual comments are limited to 3 minutes or a total of 15 minutes total for a particular topic the intent of public comment is to give the Board of Education the opportunity to hear your comments however the board will make no decision or take no action on public comment during the meeting with that we got some public comment technology can you hear us now okay perfect thank you so ready we're run ragged tonight Joanie Miller evening a group of community members parents and local businesses came together to show our appreciation for the hard work and dedication of our wtsd teachers we created discount cards from local businesses in Willam Park and delivered them with cookies all four schools unfortunately the cards were taken from each office by the district and never approved due to a submission policy when I asked for the cards back I was told the district no longer had them in other words they were thrown away fortunately we have extras but we are getting more printed to ensure our teachers still receive the intended appreciation we partnered the intended appreciation we've partnered with sheath in Willam Park teachers and staff are welcome to pick up a discount card at sheath next to Sherin Williams sheath will offer a free gift when you go in to get your card teachers and staff if you're listening please share this information with your colleagues we at toughs and the Woodland Park Community deeply value your contributions to our children's education thank you for the time to [Applause] speak hello my name is Dana Kramer apparent in the district I'm here to talk about some curious things I noticed amongst the district accountability Committee Member appointments I Believe by the end of this you will see that some zck Representatives may need to be removed because their appointments violate Colorado Revis statute 22131 or the Woodland Park daak handbook page four of our Woodland Park deck handbook says that state law requires that a parent must be chair or co-chair of the deck on the contrary the law this statement was taken from Colorado revised Statute 22 21301 says the members of each School District accountability committee shall select from among the parent Representatives serving on the committee a member to serve as chair or co-chair of the committee not just any parent on Deck someone who's assigned as a parent representative where this is problematic is Mike deou who's the chair of Dak and aarin hellstrom who's the co-chair of Dak are both Community Representatives a community rep according to page 16 of the Woodland Park Dak Campell book is defined as one resident in the community who is not a parent or an employee of the district therefore you cannot have two Community reps as chair and co-chair because one has to be a parent rep and the community rep can't be a parent Mike deuth is both a parent and an employee Mr deou was hired this school year to be the culinary arts teacher at Meritt Academy according to stat to State Statute a parent shall not be eligible to serve on a school deck if he or she is employed by or is a relative of a person who is employed by the school district including being employed at a public school of the school district Meritt Academy is a public school of the school district this disqualifies Mike deou from being on Deck it also disqualifies Rachel priest from being on Deck seeing she seeing as she is a merit employee who is assigned to the Merit parent rep position neither indicated on their applications that they were employees in the district I encourage you to recognize merid Academy as a public school and an equal to the rest of our schools I have seen a list of applicants for sack and d and the wonderful thing is that you had 47 plus applicants in only 29 spots to fill two were filled by PTO members that did not apply at least 27 spots to fill with 47 applicants eight nonparents who qualify to be Community reps applied five are unassigned at least one Merit parent applied who was not an employee and she was not assigned you have options and do not need to resort to staff accountability committees are in place to make sure school districts are following their policies and the laws when the committee itself violates the law and District policies then that needs to be taken very seriously thank you Wesley Sha good evening I'm a parent of a freshman at Woodland Park High School the middle school was a disaster and the district refused to instill critical life skills into our kids not a single class had a deadline for assignments your children could have 40 missing assignments yet still come out with straight A and at the top of their class sure this might look good on paper but the devil's always beneath the surface you can teach prioritization at home but when the school doesn't care and your kids spent over half their day at school we now have a conflict of interest the Middle School certainly didn't prepare the kids for high school now we're in the high school and we find out that the kids still don't have deadlines for assignments all kids are given a twoe grace period on assignments and test for full credit not only that but you allow the kids to redo all the assignments have turned in on time it's pathetic and at this point I'm convinced that my child will not be prepared for college or adulthood with her lack of accountability at school the worst part is that even the twoe grace period many teachers don't follow that policy and allow children to redo assignments outside of the grace periods simply because they're grades are struggling I had one teacher this week go in and increase the kids' grades without any reasoning behind it and no explanation you guys should be ashamed for not holding our children accountable for their efforts and doing everything in your power to produce good grades when not deserved failure is how people learn from their mistakes but if you're giving a kid every kid a trophy and keeping them from failing failure failure wouldn't happen if you gave kids learning tools but you can't even do that let me give you a perfect example from math and I bring a math since you referred to test scores last month I have the answer to all your problems give the kids a dang math book don't you think the first logical step to giving kids the tools necessary to succeed and producing good grades would be giving kids a math book and you all heard it right my freshman doesn't have a math book that even coincides with their course I as a parent had to ask for one and it doesn't even align with the curriculum being taught the Freshman curriculum being taught is called mathematic and it gets worse mathematic is a handout with practice problems it's it's a piece of paper with questions but no answers if your child struggles in math the high school at least the Freshman gives them zero learning resources outside their lectures and I've confirmed with all the administration and teachers now let's step into the lecture portion of class the kids sit down for a 60-minute math class teacher hands them a paper with practice problems for a new lesson for the day the teacher gives the kids 30 minutes to attempt the problem on their own and at 30 minutes into the class is when the teacher starts actually teaching and I can't make this up they're expected to struggle and I was told that this style of teaching produces critical thinking skills come on guys math is math and has been math for a 100 years and this model of teaching right here is why test scores are down significantly across the school state nationally math belongs in a book not on a computer I brought up to my child's academic adviser the fact that my freshman does not know some basic multi multiplication the response I got was and I quote reciting basic Tim tables is not a focus of high school math and based on her testing of just below average in eighth grade standardized testing she is more than capable of comprehending higher level Concepts this should answer all of your questions right here to the school board this is a perfect example at a fail point my child scored average on standard testing yet can't multiply and and and and and produce good chains for a dollar consist are you almost done sir yes I am okay um the left hand isn't isn't talking to the right and it's clear on top of this you got to split The Freshman up into different science courses based on their math test scores thanks for asking my permission to hold my child back the high school has zero tutoring or after school help available and my lastly let's talk about conferences it is truly tragic when three out of five teachers I spoke to said and I quote my classroom is out of control kids don't stop talking and create a negative learning environment for others when I reference how simple it is to send children to the office or similar the response I got was that the administration had asked us not to Kick K out of our classroom since they have nowhere to go and they end up wandering in the halls I can't give you any more time Mr shot my child has a SE in one class and the teacher stated that she was at the top of her class and that doesn't look good guys it's pathetic that we are not disciplining our children in our schools and teaching them respect accountability and organization and it's time for I've given you some extra time here I challenge all of you parents to try and follow along how the kids assignments are being graded what I see at the school district is a complete disaster and someone needs start caring and in case everyone cares this isul that to her thank you thank you Miss Bard members meeting Carol Green Street the Oxford Dictionary sorry it's okay the Oxford dictionary includes these three definitions for transparency one the quality of allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen two the quality of being open to public scrutiny three with reference to something dishonest or untrue the quality of being easy to perceive or detect I believe we all agree that transparency is important and builds Trust TR we don't always agree on what actions satisfy transparency from my perspective where this board fall short on transparency is their lack of public discussion about decisions and issues impacting our district I've discussed Transportation as a fiscal concern both with you and imprint I want to use that as an example tonight initially our district charter school did not receive the district service of Transportation which is common for Charter Schools due to the cost of this service for the 2324 school year they were included in this service with the reasoning given because it doesn't require an extra stop for the 2425 school year the superintendent indicated he was committed to continuing the service and informed the board that Transportation was reimbursed by the state however the cost of the district is over a million dollars recently the CFO of our district Charter School suggested transportation is covered by the students that the district receives funding for but does not have due to declining enrollment it seems like the story of why the charter school participates in this District service but not its cost keeps changing shouldn't this involve board discussion the charter school CFO also implied they don't receive any of the fiveyear average funding that the district receives for declining enrollment they are a growing school but if it's fair that they receive this why don't they if we continue to provide District services to the charter school without asking them to participate in the cost of those Services is that transparent what is the limit how many things can be reasoned into those declining enrollment funds the CDE reasons the fiveyear averaging provides allowances for districts that lose pupils from one year to the next recognizing that these districts may have difficulty budgeting for fewer pupils is it the charter school who determines who how those funds are spent is the greatest issue with declining enrollment transportation is this reasoning sustainable where does that money come from when we're no longer declining can this be cleaned up and become more transparent remember every dime counts thank you vict Leo good evening I'm a resident of Wood Park taxpayer actually and I apologize I'm late in this but I wanted to congratulate the school board this school board the Merit School Board superintendent the staff the teachers and the students for their Scholastic achievement having lived here 28 years this is the best I've ever seen you know the school improve in that way I also wanted to offer thanks to the citizens of Woodland Park who work to keep the sales taxs in place who spent their time uh talking knocking on doors and talking to people to educate educate us about what was going on when dark spot was that uh a disappointment in seeing that one of the school board members was went to the city who an elected board to determine the priorities for this elected B nevertheless my expectation is that you'll work with the city and continue to deliver on the IGA agreement and the changes there and that comes due in January and then in that case it sounds like from some of the readings I thought I've read through for people who have researched the numbers is that perhaps the school district will have much more detail than the Colorado Board of Education requires and that'll be another good thing for our district so thank you thank you Garrick the student academic increases are a good achievement the credit goes to the teachers it is not an an achievement that should be um given to a dysfunctional superintendent or board they should not be able to hide behind this achievement the words of a teacher should be repeated in public the beginning of this school year has been at least three times harder than it should have been due to the incompetence of the Woodland Park District School Board and it top administrators decisions that have come down from the top unilaterally have caused Ripple Domino effects that leave those of us implementing them scrambling like worker ants trying to make them function in real time things that should have been done handled anticipated were not they got to the level of our top edmin and stalled this caused the people trying to make the beginning of the school year successful for concerned parents inexperienced teachers and staff and scared kids doing all they can to make things run smoothly the staff and teachers have made the best of it despite having board members and admin who don't care about the damage their irresponsible and short-sighted decisions have caused teacher says I myself and other dedicated educational professionals that I have spoken to have experience the lack of knowledge these people have firsthand they don't even know what they don't know they sit on their High purchase looking down and thinking quote this is good when they have no idea what we have to do to make it so to give these people any credit for increasing Willen Park School District test scores is insulting it okay thank you okay moving on um I'd like to ask for a motion for approval of the consent agenda second second Lo call Barkley I Bates I Kimbrell I Patterson i rer h hi thank you uh next item discussion and information Awards academic Awards n uh academic award nights student highlights Mr Whit as we celebrated our athletic achievements uh earlier uh we'd also like to celebrate some academic achievements uh that were recognized this last week but I'd like to recognize them here as well um congratulations to our exceptional students who were recognized on October 14th for their outstanding academic achievements these dedicated students earned honors for both the fall and spring semesters of the 2023 2024 school year achieving a GPA of 3.75 or higher we're very proud of those students for their hard work and commitment Beta Club the Woodland Park High School Beta Club inducted 15 new members on October 2nd Beta Club is an honors program that recognizes and promotes leadership Serv Serv and academic achievement among students in grades 9 through 12 the new members join 25 active members helping Woodland Park High School earn recognition as a National Beta School of Distinction this year a title awarded to only the top 22% of beta clubs Nationwide members of the Beta Club maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher and participate in numerous service projects throughout the year for PSAT and sat Rec Rec nition uh Wooden Park High School recently celebrated 80 9th through 11th grade students who scored 1,00 or higher on their 2023 24 PSATs and SATs of those 80 students 32 achieved scores of 1200 or above which is outstanding we just want to recognize our students and I hope you'll all join me in a round of applause for the academic [Applause] thank you Mr wit uh now an enrollment update from update from Mr Bay Mr President board members uh even I'd like to give you kind of an update of a process that we call our October one count and really what it is the state of Colorado has its funding mechanism is uh really determined by the October 1 count what it truly means is we actually do take a count on October 1st um and 5 days before October 1st and 5 days after October 1st they also look at that window just to make any adjustments that may be needed during that process and so I wanted to kind of give you an update a in your packet you should have had a a three-page document and I'm breaking it down into a couple different slides which should really just give me an overview by each of the academies each of the schools uh that were reporting on the uh the funding account um if you move to the first one here on the Sumit next one please it's not updating up there one second oh there it is okay just give an overview a little bit bigger [Music] but to give you an overview uh what we end up with is there's a bunch of information on here but what truly counts for us is the number of students that we have in a full-time basis uh which we had four or 252 fulltime students we also had 19 halftime students which gave us a total FTE of 271 students in Summit Elementary School um below there they also give us a free uh lunch count and a reduceed count and how that impacts us is in the 1994 School Finance act that's recently got updated there's an at risk component in there and that's the measure at risk in the state of Colorado so those two will become a percentage at some point in time of the total count that we have and then it's determine where we're at within our at risk and that also impacts our funding totally for the school district we move to the next one please then if we look at columbin to give you an idea the same thing Columbine we ended up with 288 full-time students we had 0.5 or half of a halftime student given us 288.5a School uh down below we ended up with 95 uh students that have a free lunch and also on the reduce side we have 16 students to determine our overall at risk for Coline we move to the next one we'll have Woodland Park Middle School the middle school we ended up with 193 students that were on a full-time basis one and a half students at a halftime basis given us a total FTE fund full-time equivalent 194. students and you can see we also had three students that were 52 students and there're also one or five students were at risk for the redu side of it and if we move to the high school the high school gives us our largest numbers that we have but we ended up with 482 students that were full-time and two and a half students on a halftime basis um given us a full full time of equivalent of 484 students 4845 students that we get for the high school then the at RIS side you can see we end up with 112 students on the free side of the lunch and then also nine students for the reduced side that totals of you look oh we almost forgot we had one student forgot we have Merit and then we also have a district program um on Merit on the non-traditional side of the house uh they ended up with 426 students on a full-time basis and 26 students on a halftime basis they're at risk they ended up with 90 students that are participating in the free lunch program and then also five students on the reduce side then we'll move to the non District program we have one student that is being placed in District or programs that are outside of the district and that brings us to a total if we go to the next one this one's kind of a little hard to read but what it is it's a comparison of this year versus last year and I'll give you a comparison so on a full-time basis we had this year 1621 students last year we had 1763 students which is a reduction of 122 students on a halftime basis we had 99 this year 112 last year and don't ask me why CD does this it's actually there's a0 five in there somewhere that's why you're seeing it it's at 13 um but it gives you the then we have some students that are non-eligible um and in a full-time basis we end up with 1641 students versus the 163 you can see the total and we end up with our total amount that we will get funded at which is 16915 students versus last year of, 1819 students in essence a reduction of 180 128.57 144 students of which will be funded on a basis of 1,691 students and our total at risk population which represents 27.1% of the population of 499 students that are at risk and you can see kind of where it rolled we're actually in a decline um where in 2021 we had 1,900 total full-time equivalent students where at this point Time 5 years later we have 16 16915 that will be funded as well um our at risk is down just a little bit it's kind of navigating up and down last year we had an at risk population of 34.3 where this year we have 27.1 um so those factors if we move to the next slide it's kind of a little bit of how this impacts us is school Finance in the state of Colorado is you think it's simple but it's not um this kind of gives you an idea you know just a difference between year over-ear where we're at um and the same thing we have a Traditional School being um we're all within one school district as we said before but we have a traditional site and non-traditional site this is an overview that kind of shows you that depiction of us losing 127.5 students we try to figure out where those students come from and then make the prediction different what the moral of the story is not only from a projection standpoint are we down as a district we're also down within the two components being the traditional and non-traditional U because even the charter school in visiting with their CFO earlier this week they had anticipated um their numbers being a little bit higher than they were and they were down as well then we'll move to the last item of the and somebody mentioned this earlier about the 5-year averaging and I totally believe in it because what is said of the fiveyear average and it's been going on I've been involved with school Finance since 1990 and one way or another and it started probably in 1993 94 when the school Finance act came in it actually was official that they they did this because you used to have to apply for it um but now what it is considered is a soft Landing it allows you time to make those adjustments within your budget with not having a cliff where you actually just go out the cliff and have to fund that the very next year so in that you can see and this gives you a basis of How It's calculated it actually gets taken the funded remember we talked about the full-time equivalent it's the full-time equivalent that we get funded that gets averaged and they take that average that year times the numbers that are listed below and you can see it gets offset a little bit and I wanted to share this depiction for you because in fiscal year 23 which would be in 2223 we were funded at a rate of $1,279 53 per student yet in the fiscal year budget 25 we will be funded nearly almost $1,000 more um at $1,243 12 so that in its sense offsets a little bit of that um reduction in students as well now there's one last component and within that what I'll do in the office and the finance team will do is we'll look at that and determine with one other component the state in December usually makes the adjustments of the entire Governor's budget and may allocate additional funds to school Finance as well um I think I've only only seen two two times in since 30 some years that it actually is either negative or zero most of the time it's a positive number sometimes it's very small but um we'll get an indication here within the next 30 days of what that will be and then we'll bring back to you a revised budget in January any questions uh if I may I'd just like to make a couple of points uh things that you said that I'd like to clarify just little on if you don't mind uh first was he mentioned that students participating in free and reduced lunch in Colorado now we do participate in the free food for all Yes program so none of our students all of our students have a free lunch just to be clear but they still account for this category of free and reduced lunch yes so all of our students are receiving a free lunch and then the second thing is uh you mentioned that the Charter School enrollment was down but it was not down over year over year down for projection in the rest of the conversation he was talking about year-over-year they are not down year-over year they're up year-over-year yes that is correct um if I recall what is last year they were 3985 te students and this year they're at 452 but their projection was actually down what they had projected appreciate that superintended quck um in questions on school finance and student count I'll stay up here for the audit Date Update to next it well can I can I sorry um not necessarily a question for you but around student count so um obviously we have lost a significant number students districtwide this past year 128 or 129 depending on what what column you're looking at um is is basically a grade A full grade level that we've lost um and I I think it would be a good idea for us to send out um basically exit surveys to the families who pulled their kids out to figure out what it was about the district that they didn't like um so we can address those directly to prevent any more loss going forward because um although we will have a soft Landing if this continues we're going to be in a lot of trouble um and rather than us up here at the district level trying to guess why people are leaving I think it's smarter and faster just to ask them why they left so we can address it head on thank you I mean this is a trend now and uh it has been for quite some time and you know people are taking advantage of other opportunities homeschooling has gone up and it would be a good idea to to know why that is taking place unfortunately we're in a trend that has gone on a while and I'm afraid it's going to continue to take place thank you it has continued but it's also changed a bit at least up here traditionally it was mostly the high school students who are opting out and we've seen a large increase in elementary students that are opting out of the district and be interesting to see why yeah I think if I can make a comment one of the interesting Trends that's happened since Co happened and and I had been involved with not only a different District but also a charter school um in my you know previous stent in education and since CO's happened there are some very unique trends that are beginning to happen with that um and a lot of districts are seeing um the same thing not only wouldn't part but I know there's an awful lot of few city of Colorado are seeing the same trend thank you a couple notes sure as I'm sure you you're all aware you can see the news as well Denver's announced the closure of a significant number of schools Jeffco has announced the closure of a substantial number of schools uh Statewide enrollment is down and there are a number of factors but you can follow the trends because they're all there um the local private school in Town's enrollment is not down it's up substantially the uh Charter School in Town's enrollment is not down it's up substantially uh we've decided to focus on academics on in this district and get back to the practice of educating children and eliminating a lot of the distractions in all honesty some people like the distractions so some of them will leave too all of those things occur and the question is number one are we in fact doing a good job educating students because that's our mission and the answer is we have solid evidence that we are and number two do we in fact see that parents are able to find the program that they want their children in and yes they are we see them moving around within the district and moving them around between districts what we've also did is we did a survey of this District versus manatou Springs because they're nearby and there were claims of Stu student Exodus there the flow in and out was roughly equal last year uh so we we will continue to follow those Trends but we do recognize both some national and some local trends that account for a lot of the movement yeah that's true but I think it's smart to actually ask the people who left why they left so we can address the issues that are affecting us here in Woodland Park because I'd like to think they're probably different here in Woodland Park than they are up in Denver um it's a different group of people who choose to live here than live up in Denver and so the issues that are driving them to make changes are going to be different and it doesn't make sense for us to guess at what we need to make sure we're not losing more students and the best way to do that is to ask them why so we can address those issues head on Mr Bates this is David yes uh I thought at one point we were doing exit interviews whenever possible several years ago but I agree I think that you know many businesses do exit interviews with employees and I think be very valuable if we had a formal process that we went through to determine why parents are pulling their kids out of the school where they're taking them and uh I'm not suggesting all the questions but uh it would be interesting to see what those reasons are you know it could be at this point you know we can all speculate on what it might be um sometimes I'm not sure why people are leaving when we've gone from a school that is in the bottom third of the state of Colorado and performance to the top 10% now but you know we always can improve and I think that if we humbly ask these people why you know parents why they're moving their kids to other schools it could be quite valuable at least for reflection on what we can do better because we can always do better just to add a little detail because a couple of people have asked what we do here uh yes we do track every student that moves to another school district we have to track where they went uh reason given uh but how formal the interview process is depends a lot on who the family is and whether or not they they choose to provide information could I ask a favor of everyone I know that it's kind of my fault that I'm not there but if you could speak into your microphone I'd be able to hear better and I only caught a little bit of what you said Mr we do track where students go um uh what district they end up in uh whether they've dropped out at the Dropout case uh where they enroll in the enrollment case uh we do get some information about reason given sometimes I don't know that we get it every time but we will look into what information we are capable of gathering and see if we can't uh pull some information together is this something we could have a work session on so that we could come up with questions that would be helpful for us help us make decisions on what programs are most important to the families here I think I just heard tonight that this used to take B take place more formally I think we need to look into that and get that boilerplate uh thing and and then we've got something to discuss uh it's a new idea it's not a bad idea but there's got to be something out there that we could take and improve on rather than just starting from scratch yeah I I don't think we need to start from scratch I think it's also getting the parents to respond because I know a parent that had a leave after their child died unexpectedly and they went back to live with their parents and they bought a house in a different state and she text me and was like oh yeah the school district keeps calling me and asking me you know where if we're coming and she just I don't know if she responded I know she was in between so I would be curious to see if parents are even responding or when they're reaching out and if you mean you can't force parents to respond to that information but I do know that you guys were tracking if they were transferred and if they respond to those yeah but I think that's a slightly different case right that was the like student was actually enrolled and then didn't show up so the school was asking hey why didn't this enrolled student I think it was like in between summer so I don't know if they were enrolled or not and it was just a lot going on and I that's very different than sending out like an email surve monkey type thing that says hey we noticed you left what are the reasons that led you to it yeah but you have to send it to see first yeah I think she was getting calls possibly but I'm not for sure I can ask yeah I think that's a different thing than what I'm talking about all right thank you uh okay Mr Bay you you're on to phase two here yes phase two AIT update um over the last several weeks well we let's roll it back a little bit uh we were scheduled to have our on-site audit um during the week of the uh evacuations the fire evacuations so ultimately we ended up having to postpone that activity um and then one of the other issues that augmented the uh the delay in us getting our on-site visit because we could have rescheduled it but we found out that our trial balanced um due to uh an air rolling and not our air um being the districts being our vendor uh which is our program called IO which we utilized to do that there was a glitch in how it actually recorded the rollover of last year to this year subsequently causing things to appear to be out of balance that weren't out of balance and so we subsequently over the last two weeks of working uh Beav with alio and some folks there uh we've got that taken care of and now we're as of today send all the information out up to the portal to our audit firm hting and we will be scheduling our on-site um visit with them I've been speaking with Chris Banton which is their our representative that we have from hting and given him an update almost every other day um I spoke with him just previously prior to coming to the meeting and we'll schedule when our test will be as far as what obviously what they do is they do testing uh sampling of certain types of funds certain type of activity whether it be Revenue whether it be expenses so we're going to go through that process of selecting that we provide them an information and then he'll schedule his time to come back on to do what he calls his field work and then we'll move on from there we still hopefully anticipate getting it completed uh as quickly as possible uh by the end of December and so we're going to shoot for that but I just wanted to give you that update um I'm very feel a little bit more uh happy now that we actually found what the issue was that was causing the problem um such as we man to roll forward from next year this year to next year um even though we're going to be doing a different system we're still going to have to utilize that system as a Legacy history so I want to make sure that it's wrapped up the right way thank you yeah thank you any questions have any dates on I know you said end of December but I see a couple like you know six steps do we have any dates for any of those yeah what what we're almost done what we've done is we have provided um there's quite a bit of data that we have to provide them we've actually uploaded it to the portal um so they've had access to that so it's not that we haven't been doing things just they doing a lot of their activities at their office and so um in L of them coming up and making the selections and then we provide that data we just said well let's do it this way you know provide me the information we'll get it all ready for you and then come up uh but I would anticipate uh Chris and I spoke a little bit about it of them you know next week we'll try to get them on site if we can obviously the week after we have the Thanksgiving break um but we would schedule them very much right after that um and usually take a couple of days once they get done with their testing then we roll into our financial statements to get those done um and then we'll be writing our management discussion information as well at the same time so I would anticipate I don't believe I'm not sure what the date of our next board meeting is getting it completed by then but definitely by the January when we'll actually have it done second second Wednesday yeah thank you Mr B all right thank you Mr sa you are up good evening uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and chat with you about some of the facilities stuff we've been doing uh so updates as you heard earlier we have a new flag pull up by the football field I've got a picture so if anyone hasn't seen it show it to you uh we've got lots of compliments and hosting a couple of these postseason games uh it meant a lot to our teams to our coaches and to our athletic department to be able to represent the district well it it's been huge huge boom uh purple heart sign uh back in August we did or September we did the presentation uh with the purple heart sign designating with Park School District as a purple part of the Purple Heart Community we are currently working to be recognized on the website for The Purple Heart Trail um it's just takes time respond um go back and forth and so we're still in the process of that uh the gentleman who was here that did the presentation has helped start to to kick that off and uh we'll let you know once we actually get updated on the website the sign is out front in front of Gateway and so uh you can see it we actually had two signs um they only give us one but we had a donor who helped provide a second sign so you can see it from both sides but that's up I've got a a sign that I or a picture here I can show you of that as well if you haven't see um Gateway usage um we are currently using Gateway as a testing facility for our secondary campus they've been utilizing that on and off all year and they're going to continue to do so throughout the year um because of some of the testing requirements that I don't it's not my I just say yeah you can use the building they need to make sure that they've got certain students there and certain students who aren't there whenever the testing is going on this also provides them an opportunity to have a smaller more controlled environment during weekend testing they can bring other people in so this is where how we've been able to utilize it so far um we've had a couple of Staff who have done just a remarkable job really investing their time and getting it set up so that they could run the testing their at Gateway uh and it's been they've been very pive of having the space it's dedicated to testing so they don't have to keep setting up the high school and then going back and flp flopping in uh Wi-Fi at Columbine and some Portables I know there's been some some uh it's been a process we ordered equipment back over the summer uh through delays I think we talked about this previously but through some of the delays and the equipment it took a long time to get here we got Summit set up only partially set up a Coline as of yesterday all of the equipment is installed and we have Wi-Fi at all the Portables so we are good to go all the students have it now I appreciate the partnership with our um tech company that helped order all the equipment and all their patients and be hammering them with emails and phone calls saying when is it getting here when is it getting here when is it getting here um I know there was a comment I heard earlier today that there were students sitting in hallways at Coline for Wi-Fi uh we checked with the principal that is not the case she said the only time she seen sixth graders in the hallway was doing small group readings with um their Primary students so I think that was um some confliction of issues and then the PA conversion at Coline Summit uh equipment was ordered partially installed uh they're going to finish that up the week of Thanksgiving we have them on the schedule and then we'll get all the PA appointment set up in both Gateway and Summit not on here but I'm also excited about is R servers that will also go over Thanksgiving break um we've had some connect excuse me uh can you talk into the microphone just a little more I'm catching almost all of that you're saying but not quite the end of your sentences I also have a question I you mentioned um PA conversion you said um Gateway I think you metant Coline correct yes I did sorry thank you Coline and Su um I lost where I was oh the servers so we've had some connectivity issues um the servers that we have were out they should have been replaced a few years ago and we were able to to get some new technology that will also help us with our data recovery plan and so my Tech Team Mr Parnell over here is going to be uh working feverishly over Thanksgiving break to to make sure those get up and running so once we come back in December we'll be all set running and we'll have some brand new servers run everything swimmingly well here's our flag pole up at the uh field the stadium there is the purple heart sign back up to the flag pole for a second if you would mind there is the flag pole back up at the stadium notice it in relation to the uh field sign the goalpost just to give some sense of it's a very tall prominent flag P out with a big flag it's wonderful I heard some concerns as we were getting this up uh we were hosting a couple games late in the season and the where we had the flag previously we had the flag full attemps the visitor side bleachers which caused a lot of issues for our visiting teams when they got up to do the the national anthem and they're not sure where to go that is no longer an issue thank you uh purple hard sign and any other questions so we are 100% on wifi in the district now yes okay thank you and then my followup question for the um the PA systems that that includes having PA systems out in the Portables uh yes I believe they don't right now not a lot of the PA system is working right now and once that gets resolved they should have Pas in the portals okay so after Thanksgiving they'll have Pas and the Portables that is my understanding we did the the schematic including the Portables so unless we have some issues with the equipment like we had with the Wi-Fi um which we'll get button up as quickly as we can but that's through the install process and when they hook everything up I couldn't quite hear what you were saying but was the question about the Portables at Coline is that what the question was about about Wi-Fi being in the Portables the question was about the PA system being heard in the Portables at com the answer is okay I'm not sure if I'm buting in here or not but I understand that there is currently no Wi-Fi service in the Portables at Coline is that accurate that is not accurate uh we have Wi-Fi at the Portables at Coline and at Summit uh the last part of the install happened yesterday okay but before yesterday was there wi-fi there there was Wi-Fi in one of the port two portables at Coline on Monday the reason I'm pushing this is because I just I want to address something that was on social media and what some parents talked to me about so uh the concern was this and I'm address I'm just asking the question so that we can clear this up one way or the other that there are actually sixth grade students who are having to go and sit on the floor in the hallways inside Coline to get internet access to do assignments um I don't know why else they might be sitting on the floor in the hallways in the Coline but first of all M mrol Mr restol let let me just stop you here because we've already addressed that and apparently that never took place evidently you couldn't hear but that was covered pretty well and to our knowledge no one was ever sitting in the hallway to be able to get Wi-Fi coverage there may have been an activity going on out there that someone misunderstood but uh there is Wi-Fi there is Wi-Fi throughout the district now that is up and operational so uh does that clarify your question sure that answers my question perfectly I just can't hear uh Nick every when you're talking I can hear you as clearly as can be because you're talking into your microphone and I just wanted to make I know it's my own fault because I'm not there I'm doing so but anyway um I appreciate you you know stopping and repeating that for me and I apologize that it's already been discussed I apolog I'll try to make sure I'm in the mic more okay so a lot of these updates seem to be completed or almost completed will we be hearing about a list of updates or uh future projects that we'll be working on for facilities or anything that you can speak to of now or is that something I need to wait until another meeting I would ask that we wait for another meeting I would ask that we wait for another meeting um we had to there are some ongoing changes I just uh our facilities director was just telling me that we have some potential boiler issues at one of the schools that we might have to start investing in and so what the existing plan is today for kind of how we're moving forward with facilities is likely going to change in the next week or two as we get more information so because this is fairly new that we have some fairly large expenses that we're we're trying to navigate I would ask if we could wait on some of the future looking stuff for another couple meetings so that we can better understand what that outlay is going to be think that's appropriate I have one additional question I I know I heard you talking a little bit about it earlier but I want to give you the opportunity to let the community at large know um obviously there have been a lot of questions and concerns over leaks in the various building Summit Coline the Portables um where you know kids are ducking buckets or there's quote unquote sludge um just want to give you the opportunity to address those issues thank you I apologize I told you I would talk about it and I totally forgot to put it on my slide so thank you for the opportunity for to speak to this anytime we have large storms like what we just went through we always have new leaks that come up in the roofs our roofs are old and they need to be replaced we're talking $10 million plus that we it's going to cost to really re-roof all of our buildings right now and so we're having to go through and Patch stuff the patches we have done up till now are holding really well we did a lot of patchwor over the summer here in the high school um and so most of those were taken care of we've got a few minor ones that we still um trying to get through we think one of them's actually coming through one of our hbac units up on the the roof and so we're we're working with the manufacturer to get additional covers for that to make sure that we can we can stop that so it's an ongoing process the one that um I heard some uh actually was at Summit this morning and there's a new one there it's one I was talking to one of the employees who's been there over a decade and she said this has never been a leak before and it's one that is uh coming up prominently in the community as far as conversation goes unfortunately we can't go up and track down where those leaks are originating to be able to patch them until all the snow melts off uh we have at some places three foot snow drifts still up on the the roofs so we have to to wait for the snow to melt so we can pull the the Rocks back the rocks are holding down the the sheating pull the Rocks back so we can really investigate where these are coming from it's on our list and we're going to get up there as soon as we can it just takes some time with the win thank you for that Aon any other questions right thank you thank you okay next item an action item uh calendar revision Miss Lo please evening everyone evening uh before I start with the first action item I just want to give you a little um FYI about a date for high school graduation so typically High School graduation is on a Saturday so I just want to make sure everyone's aware and I confirm this with the high school again today graduation this year will be on Friday May 23rd at 10: a.m. and this is the teacher work day this gives all of the teachers across the district the opportunity to come and watch graduation which I know teachers often from elementary schools want to come and watch as well so it's a nice opportunity for our teachers to come on a contract day so that's just for your information and now I'm going to start with the first action item so if you look at the 2024 2025 calendar and you find February 14th and you'll notice that it's shaded a lovely color of blue so what we are proposing here this is a parent teacher conference day I believe currently it's K kindergarten through 8th grade we would like to give um the opportunity for all parents kindergarten through 12th grade to come to conferences and then the high school will be on remote that day because we always have to watch the high school minutes so that's the proposal for the change for the 2024 2025 calendar go ahead um so my question um obviously we've had several days of closures already this year between the crazy snowstorm and then the snow of the fire the week before how many days do we have built into the calendar for those types of events before we have to add days back so Candace and I keep track of that together and we actually talked about it with our leadership team today so as of right now um because the secondary campus has been on remote they haven't lost any minutes and Elementary still has five more days and so we've talked about being proactive if we um need to do if we hit a lot of bad weather coming up we will talk as a leadership team and create a plan for ele but at this point we are planning to keep the secondary campus on remote as needed to make sure that we're not losing the minutes um obviously you haven't quite planned for that but would you anticipate that being if we have to add days back for like the elementary school at the end of the year or in what we would do we actually um talked today with the elementary principles and we've done this in the past before where we will make a snow day packet and possibly send them home like the start of second semester if we needed to and they would have their core subjects in there and that would be kept someplace for that exact um opportunity if they needed it any other questions is is that it that is all for the 2024 2025 calendar right motion to approve the calendar um adjustment second roll call parley I Bates I Kimbrell I Patterson I rer hols I okay next uh I need a motion to approve the draft oh okay so um the second action item here is to review the 2025 2026 calendar as well as the 2026 2027 calendars so I just wanted to give you a little bit of information about these two calendars um these are based on the traditional calendar of which we group vacation days together instead of spreading them apart um this calendar or these two calendars were based off of the 2023 2024 calendar so we Tred to keep that same theme going any questions motion to approve the moved second second roll call barle okay I have one question before we go through that sorry um I I understand we're we're kind of repeating what we've done this past year and the year before have we done any uh Outreach to the community to make sure that this process works for the parents having uh you know for their kids being home at you know weeks chunks at a time for the parents that are working is that better than the spread out we we actually did an extensive survey when we switched to the this model presented apparent feedback on both sides could you speak into your microphone everyone please sorry I was asking if we had surveyed about um this calendar model to make sure that it's working for the family since it's you know slightly different than a maybe more traditional model would be and we did that survey good because that was my question as well we did that survey as you recall when we adopted the new calendar model presented uh a parent survey feedback on both models uh exact counts um and a pretty thorough research exercise we had been on the other model for a while then we switched to the new model we've been on the new model for a while then we switched back to this model after having done that research so yes we've B we've gone through that exercise and that's how we decided last year to switch to the new model so our last survey was parents have been surveyed and two years because it's four what is the feeling among the staff and teachers as well because my original concern when I was really pushing about this a few years ago was single parents how on Earth do single parents cope with all this time off during the week and maintain a job or any parents maintain a job so you know I I just wanted I want to make sure that that was taken into account consideration and discussed with parents or surveyed yeah to to be clear this doesn't add time off it just combines a couple of the weeks off in a more traditional calendar instead of spreading them out more because with a lot of the single parents they were having weeks off almost monthly and so they were we were getting a lot of feedback on that especially after Co so um it's very split within the district this was we do also have child care at the the two elementary schools now and I believe that happens during the baks is that right Mr salt yeah so there are some opportunities that we're providing as well to support some of those families um and I just to add to that I know during the um the fire um a lot of that was service was free for the for the students to go in is that the case during breaks or is that on the parents to find the funding when the school is closed that's correct because it's planned we were trying to be very thoughtful because the fire was very unexpected any other questions roll call Par hi Bates hi kimal I Patterson I rer Holtz I motion carries okay next item board reports has anyone got a board report I do um so while we are in in this Spirit of congratulating students um I had we had a parent message us um about a a situation that they wanted to call out a congratulation to the the students that were involved so I'm just going to um kind of read this year um so back in October um there was a student who suffered a pretty serious seizure in the hallway um outside of the panther Academy um um and the seizure went on for about 30 minutes um and the the staff um you know obviously came out and the EMS was called um so kudos to to the school um and staff for taking care of that the way they should um but the parent wanted to bring attention to the exemplary behavior was her words um displayed by the panther Academy students during this situation um she she called out how kind they were um how much concern they showed for the student who was in distress um and you know how they were able to kind of keep their composure um and and stay calm in a very stressful situation um you know and these are students who don't necessarily get these kind of call outs and um often are um you know seen in a in a A different light so I just wanted to to call out um and and congratulate them for their behavior and and the way they handled the situation um and help them and and I do want to call out that that um the student who suffered the seizure was I'm recovering well at least at the time that I received the email so that was that was very encouraging that these young people had the wherewithal to conduct themselves that way that's that's wonderful it wasn't always that way when I was a little kid we were leaving church and this person had a seizure out there in the norx and when I walked by there was a Bible stuck in his mouth well they did that so he didn't swallow his tongue but I thought the guy was crazy he was trying to eat his Bible so I I probably didn't handle that as well as I possibly could have too much information I know okay anyone else yes Mr BS I I would uh first of all I want to thank the board of education for their patience with me in my absences and I'd like to just briefly without detail explain to uh people in Park and the Board of Education that um my mother has been going through some uh health challenges and I have needed to travel and uh spend time with her while she going through these things and I would like to ask also tomorrow that there is uh she's undergoing some surgery and uh I would appreciate your prayers for her going through that um it is quite challenging at this this time so uh that's why I haven't been there the last couple months and believe me I want to be back home uh the next thing I would like to say is I'd like to thank the voters of the Woodland Park School District for overwhelmingly voting in favor of supporting our students and our teachers by continuing the sales tax funding for our district this was a vital important thing and uh if you listen to the city council meeting last Thursday um it was uh it was an interesting meeting for during public comment to say the least um I would also uh want to thank Mr Bates and Mr wit and many others for all the hard work that they did in meeting and surpassing all the requests of the Woodland Park City Council um in posting our budget in transparent And Timely in a timely manner so in light of that I would also like to publicly urge our city council to follow our school district's lead in a timely and transparent public reporting of the city's budget and spending so there's a lot of things to be thankful for since the election this past this last week and uh I look forward to a successful school year and the future of this great Republic that we live in thank you thank you Mr wests okay anyone else okay there being no other comment ask for a motion toour um I'd like i' just like to thought Cassie would be on it the uh the veteran celebration was amazing our our our teachers and our students are such such Patriots and they gave the veterans the the respect that they deserved and they were proud to do that and my hats off to the administration and the teachers and all the students and and on my way out we were instructed to to go talk to one of the veterans so I did there was a table of four veterans and um I had my badge on and a Vietnam V asked me do you work at the school and I said I'm on the board and tears started to run down his his face and he said that was the best Taps that he has ever heard in his career sure it was very good and his name is Carl so oh Carl yeah I did talk to Carl I didn't he talking so I'm so proud and and I was h to be there and um thank you for putting that on it was a great event and um I ended up talking to a veteran that was in the Korean War and so U my grandfather-in-law also still alive they're in their '90s so anyone's usually in the Korean War in their ' 9s and he drove from Colorado Springs because he had heard about our program to come visit and he was very much in tears there was a lot of people in tears and so it was a wonderful performance but not only that with the choir and the band but the student council and the kids that spoke they were they were great um I even saw one of the parents of the kids that he was talking about his father I looked back and his dad was in tears so was tou it was very well equipped together and uh you know it it was a blessing to see these veterans there uh taking it all in because I thought it was very well put together sorry Sue I didn't know you were still anything else all right uh do we have a motion to adjourn so move a second second roll call Arley hi Bates hi Kimber hi Patterson hi rer huls hi meeting a [Music] jour know it's