##VIDEO ID:P4MyUDsWSLo## I'mma call the meeting to order we'll start with roll call director Assad Lucas here director bastelli here director Goldstein here director Marsh holen here director Potter here I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda so moved second director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I I'll entertain a motion to recess for an executive session to discuss the possible acquisition of real estate near the Thorton high school campus and to receive legal advice regarding such acquisition pursuant to board policies 2.0 General operating limitations and 2.5 asset protection and col Colorado revised Statute 24-6 d 424 A and B so moved second director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I we'll be back e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay I'm goingon to reconvene our meeting and looks like we're on the Pledge of Allegiance please rise if you are able I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we're gonna if there's no objection we're GNA skip over superintendent update and comments and we're going to do and the liaison reports and we're going to skip to board business policy matters since policy matters is here is there any objection okay Heather Katie Stephanie will get you hooked up test oh it works okay perfect hi test okay now it's working good evening everyone it's so nice to see you I'm Heather rco and I'm so excited to introduce to you the newest member of the policy matters team Katie Hancock um Katie do you want to give a little background about yourself to the board and superintendent hi so nice to be here and so nice to meet you all in person um like she said my name is Katie um I uh most of my background is in social work um I was recently the policy intern for Colorado Coalition against sexual assault and then spent the last year um as the senior legislative aid for Senator Janet Buckner um I'm so excited to be joining the policy matters team and please let me know how I can be helpful to you all and I think as you all know Senator Buckner is the chair of the Senate education committee so Katy brings um a wealth of knowledge in education and also just incredible relationships with the um both the Senate and House Education committees um so tonight we wanted to give you just a quick um local election recap um talk about the state budget which I know has been top of mind for a lot of folks and in the news um some of the things we're hearing coming down the pike in terms of legislation and then important um upcoming dates that we are um engaged in so Kitty is going to give you a quick election recap um yeah so uh the eth congressional district um was a big um kind of upset I think um Gabe Evans uh beat out incumbent yudira uh caraveo um as for the state legislature um our status quo was mostly maintained um so Democrats maintained the majority um in the Senate um the Democrats maintain a majority in the house however it uh is under question whether we'll retain the super majority um house districts 16 and 19 have been called for um Republicans but are under recount so we're just waiting to see how that ends up um for Adams County changes so um representatives wisan and dowy um have moved to the Senate and so five new elected representatives and one new elected Senator will be representing Adams County um they are oh sorry um they are uh Lisa farret who comes from housing and healthc Care background um Jack uh Jackie Phillips um Michael Carter they're both attorneys um Carlos Baron who is from the oil and gas industry Chris Richard Chris Richardson um a veteran and then Scott brigh who comes from an education background and I would just add for that eth congressional district um we've been really fortunate to work with representative gab Evans at the state legislature he's always been a great advocate for Adams 12 um and he's also we invited him I know um we've got an upcoming elected officials dinner and he is currently in DC but he has that invite and we're hopeful that he's um is able to make it so um uh so as for uh kind of the leadership at the uh Capital um for the Senate we saw um a major overhaul of leadership in the majority so uh Senator James Coleman is the new president of the Senate um Senator Robert uh Rodriguez maintains as the majority leader and then we have Senator Michael Jan um and uh Senator cutter have moved to be the president proem and the assistant Majority Leader um minority leader uh senator Paul lundine um and uh Senator cleave Simpson as the assistant minority leader and minority whip Senator Janice Rich um thankfully I worked closely with Senator lundine and Senator Rich um as they both sat on the education committee last year um for the house uh leadership remained pretty much the same so rep mcclusky as the speaker um rep Duran as the majority leader and then rep bacon as the assistant majority lead leader um rep rep Pugi as the minority leader rep winter as the assistant minority leader and rep armagost as the minority whip so the big conversation as I mentioned right now is certainly um over at the Joint budget committee we'll get into the nitty-gritty of the um Governor's budget request in a minute but um the big change in the joint budget committee this year was um Senator Rachel zenzinger from Arvada she termed out um there was a race for a new member of The Joint budget committee and representative juie amab from Boulder um won that race and so we're very grateful to still have um Shannon bird as Vice chair um she of course brings the wealth of knowledge to the JBC um is all is a fierce advocate for Adams 12 um and Senator Bridges was elected chair the rest of the members um have stayed the same um where things are at right now with the joint budget committee um so on November 1st the governor as anticipated submitted his um budget request for the upcoming fiscal year um as anticipated it's it's just a a really challenging year we knew that there were going to be quite a few Cuts recommended we were looking at potentially 1 to$ one.5 billion dollar cuts um based on the the prior revenue forecast and so um we received that budget request which we'll talk through in a second and right now um The Joint budget committee has just begun this week the um staff briefings and so they're hearing from The Joint budget committee staffers from each of the Departments um just kind of an analysis and recommendations uh for those departments based on um the governor's budget request so overall um it's just just a really really challenging year I think a lot of the challenges on our budget are certainly driven to case load increases especially in Medicaid there's a lot of pressures on Medicaid given the um postco um um Public Health Emergency unwind um increase in certainly Acuity of care people are needing just a lot um a lot more healthcare services and a lot higher degree of services and then also just increases in um common policy policies um keeping the 15% Reserve which is really important to the Joint budget committee members and the governor so all of those increases um all of those increases in account we are looking at um a budget that's short $640 million um going into the next fiscal year and so the um some of the key proposals from the budget um that the that the governor recommended are he asked each of his departments to look at a 1% across the board operating reduction um 1% only saves $5.5 million um and so there's been a lot of conversations with the JBC on is that enough um is that you know should we be looking elsewhere they're looking at swapping a lot of the cash funds into general fund um they are sweeping interest earnings they're do all sorts of different sort of tricks to try to bring down that 640 $ million um they're also um one of the big oh I realized our bullet got a little messed up but one of the big things that they're talking about is privatizing Pinnacle um and using that money that they brought in from Pinnacle to help um with the Paris solvency um the governor has has spoken a lot about this budget request and I think it's going to be one of the more controversial requests one of the more um potentially expensive requests and one of the more challenging requests to to figure out just how to how to do in practice so something will certainly be following really closely um specific to K12 um the conversation has been has been very interesting they his budget requests um asks for an additional $115 million um of general fund for k12 and that's through the um house bill 24448 which was the new school Finance formula that was pass last year the interesting thing about this is and I know we talked with you all um a lot and and superintendent gdowski worked really hard during the negotiations of that bill it was not supposed to go into effect if we were in a budget situation um like we're in but uh but here we are and I think that they're working to try to figure out how to make it go into effect so one of the things they've recommended is implementing it over s years instead of six years and then the really big um kicker is eliminating the four-year averaging um for districts eliminating it in whole which is estimated to cost districts about $190 million I think the the jux toos that we're working within is the the request um in effect feels like they're wanting to invest in education but at the same time cutting over here through this um elim elimination of averaging and so we're grateful to have Gina and superintendent gdowski who's who's spoken to a lot of these folks and the Press about the the challenging impact that would have on our budget even if they were to implement this new um 1448 formula with the $115 investment so certainly something that we're going to be paying um very close attention to those JBC members that I talked about have K12 front and center of their priorities they feel like um you know this is an effect to cut to 12 and really want to look at different ways to balance the budget um but I do think that averaging is going to be front and center of negotiations and conversation um this session and something that we'll be um certainly engaged in there are a few different um a few additional uh requests from CDE um and the governor um including capping the best cash grants um which has been which have been growing um uh they're also asking to move some of those um cash funds into the actual operating of K12 um to help fund that $15 million um they're recommending sweeping some money from the electrifying school buses program they've said that they've been able to secure Federal funding for that one good piece of news is they are requesting an additional increase of $23 million to help support CCAP um so that's something that we'll be certainly paying close attention to and and then there's a few additional one-time fund requests to support things like training on the react um support for the attendance Works challenge um different things like that but I think those one-time requests are certainly going to be something that the JBC members are talking about um at a time when we're cutting base core minimum cost how are we sort of looking to to do onetime Investments and then Katie is going to talk about the mevy override working group which has been a topic conversation since last year yeah so uh just wanted to give you all a quick overview of their most recent meeting um as you all know this working group um started because of the concerns superintendent gdowski raised on 1448 um so in terms of the district survey that they sent out um 22 school districts responded um most uh reported that they wanted to see a funding increase of either 50 cents or $1 per dollar of U mil Levy override Revenue um the match money um that they've utilized has been used for um different purposes mostly purposes voters approved General operating expenses um and then or their split between the general and capital reserve program um some of the concerns raised by school districts um include you know what the reliability of the funding is um the need for guaranteed ongoing funding um and they also need it to be easily communicated with uh people in the District so some of the highlights uh the committee is considering three possibilities for the program um there's the $100,000 floor with 30% maximum percentage um what the cost is to reach medium production per pupil which um Gina has been working on behind the scenes thankfully um and then a a layered approach of like what those two options would look like uh together um so the next steps are the um legislative Council staff will report data on what each of these would look like in different districts um the working group members should have that by late November um and then they'll have their their final meeting um the first week of December where they will make final recommendations could you elaborate on the $100,000 floor with a 30% maximum percentage what's that mean we might need to phone a friend from Gina I want Gina just a shout out to Gina she has been um incredible and is always called to as an expert at the capital especially in this space so thank you um good evening board so what is being proposed is having a minimum amount of funding for districts who are eligible and then a maximum amount of funding so one of the things that superintendent gdowski has shared is in the last batch of funding there were three districts in colro Springs who received gosh I'm going for memory 96% of the funds it was absurd one District got over 9 million of the $23 million so the committee is looking at should there be a floor the smallest amount in District could receive to make these funds meaningful and should there be a cap so that no one can get that huge amount might I ask a follow-up question about that if I remember correctly part of the issue with those three districts receiving 96% of the fund is that the formula they use to calculate that was not transparent um so in the most recent conversations have they contributed to this transparency in any way do we know do we have a better understanding of how they're deciding who gets what so there are certain people on the work group who are committed to keeping the formula the way it is and the piece of the formula that I think superintendent superintendent gdowski shared with you that is the actual problem is there's a income component for the community that assumes every Community Based on the income should have 25 Ms for their mevy override if they're a lower income District then that could go down to 15 Mills if they're a higher income District it could go to 35 Ms and the problem with that logic is 25 MS as we have I think that horse might be dead um does not equal the same thing across districts so for us I I don't remember the math but for example Boulder is 2/3 higher than us with one mil so that is the flaw in the formula it's assuming we should have 25 Ms because our and I'm doing air quotes Community can afford it thank you any other questions on that one great um and so just a few upcoming dates to flag for you so as I mentioned at the beginning we're starting those briefings and hearings from um all of the Departments so on the second we've got the briefing for the Department of Early Childhood the third is the Department of Education um and then the fifth is the um Department of Education specific to school finance and then the big um thing in December that we're all looking to is the December 19th forecast and that will give us a um a starting point to to see if that $690 million that we talked about at the beginning if that's truly where we're going to be if revenues came in higher if they came in lower it's sort of a level set as we go into the actual hearings and to figure setting um with the joint budget committee and then the session begins on the 8th um we'll start sending out legislation um meeting with members of the delegation lots of excitement there for the next 120 days after the eth um and then if you have any questions this is our contact information we're always happy to um we're always happy to answer anything that you have and and be a resource to you so any other questions for our team any questions great well thank you so much thank you and nice to meet you Katie so as the ladies are walking off I'll just share that uh you know we have a legislative dinner plan for I believe December 11th or thereabouts and one of the things that we want to spend some time on is tell them more of the story about school finance and how it affects Adams 12 last year as 1448 was being debated and mevy override matching was something we were advocating about we realize that many members of our delegation really don't understand the nuts and bolts of school finance and they don't understand some of the important attributes of a community like Adams 12 like our low property tax base compared to many peer districts so Gina and myself uh and perhaps others will be ready to do some quick educating of our delegation we think that'll be helpful later in the session thank you okay um while we're on ad liing our agenda and kind of moving it around I'm gonna um without objection we are going to go to monitoring reports 2.9 charter schools and Aubrey um has been waiting here we're going to expedite her report um but first of all before you start um see if I have to uh make a motion okay I do so I will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board has received a monitoring report as of November 20th 2024 for the period July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2024 of the superintendent concerning board policy 2.9 charter schools and finds the superintendent interpretations are reliable and supported by data that is relevant Justified and complete so Mo second all right Aubrey now you can begin hi everyone I know that you received uh monitoring report 2.9 and I wanted to go over some of the highlights the first being this report H is split into three separate sections the first having an A and B for Section 1 a we reported data that the Charter Schools right now have access to District policies board policies and operating limitations via the district website they also are notified uh when any District policies are changed edited or if there's an adoption of a new policy and when that notification comes to them they are given an opportunity for discussion through a monthly meeting facilitated by myself director of Charter Partnerships so if they have any questions or want more information that would be answered during that monthly meeting the report also included the terms of our Charter School contracts three of our Charter Schools Westgate Community School Prospect Ridge Academy and Stargate Charter School are currently on fiveyear renewals the new America school is on a 2-year renewal which will expire on June 30th of 2025 at the end of this year this school year they are currently in a renewal process that my office is f facilitating at this moment um and we will be making a renewal decision on their application no later than February 1st let's see uh the report also included the district waivers for the two charter schools that underwent renewal during the monitoring period which were Prospect rdge Academy and Stargate Charter School their District waivers were Linked In the policy or the monitoring report that you received the new America school and Westgate Community School were not in renewal during the monitoring monitoring period so they did not submit any new District policy waivers the the off of charter schools also monitors all compliance requirements for the charter schools annually we conduct a detailed review that goes through their um contractual requirements we have a benchmarks and assurances document that's shared with the charter schools it's a living document that outlines when the deliverables are expected every Charter School leader has um access to this and we make sure that they're complying with all the benchmarks this is not for the monitoring period but we did want to include that the district has adopted new software system called anvar which will be rolled out shortly um and that's where we will move that benchmarks and assurances document into a benchmark schedule through this software that will be hopefully being rolled out in January of this year um and it will streamline our submission process for both the charter schools and our Adams 12 District staff we have two opportunities to meet monthly with Charter School staff and leaders one through a partnership meeting which is school specific and one through collaboration meetings with all Charter School leaders and we also put out an annual performance monitoring analysis for each Charter School you could have you can see that Linked In the report that you received and the final piece there were no protests of the super interpr or superintendent's interpretations of policy or any decisions that were submitted by chair School boards during the monitoring period do you have any questions okay I don't have questions I have some thoughts love to hear the the first is um I noticed in the policy wording on page two we talk about the charter school board appeal process and I think a lot of the feedback um changes that Phil is planning for public comments to the board um or public uh the the language that you sent us recently for the feedback channel for people to submit appeals concerns Etc to the board I can't remember the policy but I gave you a couple of wording options I wonder if it also applies here but that's neither here nor there um the other thought I have is looking at the internal monitoring report I see that there's a lot of in this new software system you have and in these meetings and checks that you have that there a lot of monitoring that the district does um but what I'm missing I I guess as I as I look at the internal monitoring report is how any concerns that may come up in those District reports come back to the board does that make sense yeah that makes sense I think that that would end up in that annual report that was linked um in I think it's on page me me see page five uh that would come out through those school ratings if you open that document they're separated into certain um topics and they're either on track partially on track or not on track and you can open up that document that's linked at the top and it'll go through all the comments of where you may see some of those concerns so my question is and I guess this is more of a question for the superintendent and the district is whether or not we need some sort of accounting for that in the internal monitoring report too to say the the charter schools are meeting the policies set forth um by the board through the district's um guidance on those policies um just to provide that additional check and balance I guess and again I'm open to other interpretations suggestions or ideas but that's just one observation I wanted to make okay thank you so Paula this may or may not be responsive uh to the interest you're expressing one of the challenges with monitoring reports in terms of a monitoring tool about policy compliance is it's a want a year report and so in between that time what I and others on staff try to do is make judgments about the severity of a non-compliance issue with a charter school and a timing judgment about about when you need to know or when we should bring it to your attention and we try to do that in a way that's similar to how we would bring forward concerns about a performance or a legal non-compliance issue with a district managed school so that we're not treating P Stargate those schools differently and every time there's a parent complaint or an issue around some alleged non-compliance that were saying here they go again here they go again we want to do it in the same way that we do with a district managed school right now for example we have one of our ch that we have some concerns regarding their Staffing of qualified staff to support special education students and some of the risk and vulnerabilities that causes under the contract but we haven't brought it to your attention collectively yet we want to see first uh I don't think we've got it out the door yet it's coming soon and then we'll give the charter school some time to say here's what we're going to do to respond to that and then if we feel like we don't see adequate progress of response and there are some concerns about liability non-compliance of board policy or District policies or meaningful legal uh vulnerabilities that would be the point that either feel spare or myself would likely say in between monitoring reports this is something that we feel like you need to know about but we I think the basic rule of thumb is we're trying to use a consistent measurement about when to let you know with the charter schools similar to the other schools that we manage here in the district yeah so I don't know if that's responsive to what you're interested in or not so I I'm thinking it's not necessarily that I want to see that drill down level I don't want to know every single issue or concern I mean and I don't think it's really in our purview to to consider that but I think what would be helpful is to um have that highlevel summary that the you know X number that like this major concern occurred but it was addressed in the following way again just going back to the superintendent is holding the charter schools responsible for um um meeting District policy requirements so anyway that's just a suggestion a thought I have I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt or maybe I am but I'm trying to be nice about it no I don't think you're being in a pain I think you're raising fair questions I think Bo may have something to add yeah I wanted to come up and say has Audrey as someone new to this position was working on this monitoring report she pointed out to me some areas in which she thought it could be improved and some of I think of what your rais Paula is a a more descriptive element of this report that talks about school Dynamics issues successes that capture an entire year in between monitoring reports so I think what you're specifically interested is an aligned to an interest that Audrey shared with me in continuing to uh revamp this monitoring report uh to provide I think more depth um that high high level overview of what's uh happening at these schools individually and I will just say this applies to other monitoring reports as we go forward we're very much in a time right now as you know of wanting to uh not just fall in the uh trap of of repeating the Cadence because we've done it but if the board has interest in more information or different information we're very much open to it but that happens to be something that Audrey herself was interested in as she looked at this report for the first time thank you and I guess I should also add Audrey that um you're doing a great job uh you've been tossed into all of this and you've she's been swimming very nicely in this new sea that she's been dropped into so I appreciate it thank you very much the other thing I would add on this because I think it's helpful for uh just a broader board To Hear What I Hear in your comment Paula is really um helpful feedback and it's helpful to hear from others and it doesn't have to be tonight but I think where we are in this process that Bose alluded to about trying to calibrate the just right amount of detail and information that we should provide in monitoring reports when we first adopted policy governance in 2001 there were some monitoring reports that approached 100 pages in length and they just were like long tedious painful things that were really time intensive for staff to prepare and then over time the pulum almost swung the other way which is there's a policy expectation an interpretation well will turly briefly succinctly present some data and say either we're in compliance or we're not the board will say we feel like you're uh doing a reasonable interpretation given us legit data and you'd be done and I think there's a place in between where people want a little bit more information to know what's going on to make sure that things that are more conclusory in terms of statements saying everything's good or that uh we're meeting the expectations of the policy having a little bit more information in the middle I think I've we've heard from the board of an interest dating back to the 1.1 policies that used to be just about data and I think in recent years Dave at the board's request has done a lot of gathering about what are you doing with curriculum and learning activities in the schools so that there's more to show about some of the board's expectations in terms of a description so definitely a work in progress and I think the next monitoring report you'll see from Audrey and from us on 2.9 will be more on that Goldilocks just right place with more detail all right anybody else thank you Aubrey thank you call a vote director Assad Lucas hi director bastelli hi director Goldstein hi director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay all right let's jump back to reports updates and information and we'll start with the superintendent update so just given the the small small audience out there I'll probably limit some of the remarks I was planning to make I want to start with acknowledging my appreciation for Community passing our bond measure at the general election we're still waiting for official certified results from Adams County and Broomfield county we should receive those probably next week and conformally present them to the board upon receipt but we're grateful at this point that by a 55 to 45% margin between Adams and Broomfield counties that that measure passed lots of important Investments that'll be transformative for our school district that will come from that including a new Thorton high school campus that you've heard a little bit more about tonight on the override side I am uh in a position that confirming that you all have also are aware that the override was not Successful by kind of the opposite similar numbers but the opposite end in terms of yes to no unsuccessful by a 45 to 55% vote it was a little bit more supported in Broomfield than it was in Adams County and I think there are um probably some philosophical and also some Financial uh reasons behind why those two counties voted differently about the measure some of the staff that I've been interacting with uh are disappointed in in ways that I understand um we knew from our polling data that there was some angs dating back to the spring and summer about having both measures on the ballot and especially about passing our mevy override with a tax rate increase so the results that we received on both the bond and the override did not stray far from the survey and polling data we got from agellon earlier in the year still feel like it was worth putting those measures in the ballot because we have compelling need for those funds which I'll talk more about in the slide there's also times that your voters uh vote in ways that surprise you and is different than some of the polling and surveys that go on before and we thought that might happen happen this time it did not and then we also know that in the history of Adams County and lots of the districts it takes multiple bites at the apple and a lot of uh education efforts with your community to let them know uh the needs that you have and to get them to a spot of supporting those needs at the ballot there's communities like 27j that were unsuccessful I think five times before they passed they're override there's communities like Adams 14 that haven't passed any ballot measures since 2006 they are both suc they are successful with two items this time but it's been a long time before they since they've been successful Mapleton has had some elections in the past that would been unsuccessful and have had some active business opposition to the request and so the message I'm sending to uh to staff is don't be angry with our community uh we talk a lot in hear that we have the lowest property tax base of any school district in the 15 metro area region and so when we ask people for funds here it comes at a disproportionate uh burden for them in terms of Watermill cost and uh raises for us and a dozen other places all that said um moving forward we've got to find the right time to make another request and hopefully get to a yes vote because I'm confident for all the reasons you've heard from the policy matters team that the state is not going to help us in a meaningful way and even though many of them talk about equity quite a bit at the capital in terms of the school Finance system that their predecessors and uh some of our recent legislative actions have created it's not one that's Equitable and one of the primary reasons it's not is because of mevy override inequities so I think you have on your screen uh where things stand after the election and as we said before uh one of the slides that we presented to you on August 28th was one about what happens if others pass their overrides and we do not and that's proven to be the case when you look at the slide that's in front of you Aurora's uh override measure was successful and it was structured through a no tax rate increase mechanism they had on the bond side I'm looking at Gina to correct me if I mistake this prior authorizations from their voters that gave them uh a lot more permission to take in revenues uh greater than what might be needed to pay Bond princip and interest and to incur debt and so they're able to restructure how much they lovey to pay their bond debt moving forward even with a billion increase and still have money that they could move into a permitted override bucket for Capital purposes Gina anything you want to say on that I see you okay I'm good to go that's good to hear Trey Creek passed a measure that did come with a tax rate increase and then Adams 14 initially thought they were unsuccessful and and then in the end as more ballots were counted to uh election week emerged with slight victories or margins of success on both their bond and override and so what you see here is now we've declined from 13th out of 15th to 14th out of 15th in terms of override revenue and if we're not able to secure more funds in the next couple of years 27j will tighten with us and in the not too distant future will surpass us because unlike us they don't have a fixed dollar amount override they have a fixed Mill Levy override which has property values increase generat significant new Revenue each time you have a reassessment you'll see in the the column uh some of the red boxes on the right that some of the numbers we shared with you in August will be bigger next year for districts um you'll see that Boulder Valley is will be growing by over $100 a student Aurora is going to be grow growing by close to $750 a student westminster's growing by about $170 a student so a lot of these districts are growing their revenues in a greater amount than us and there's two reasons for that that I believe are true I'll again Ask Gina and Aaron to correct me if I'm mistaken one of the reasons why that can happen is you can have a fixed Mill override that has either uh you have reassessment on your property values grow brings more money or as you just add more properties to your community for new building and things of that sort you get some additional funds and then the second factor is if you have an inflation adjustment in your override that you can see uh in increase year-over-year and how much you get so that you're keeping up with inflation and for us we just have a little bit of our $4.5 million roughly of mevy override revenues that adjust for inflation out of that $27 million override package in 2018 the other half plus of our package just stays fixed dollar and doesn't increase for inflation and so why you're seeing some of the numbers in these other districts grow more more than ours is that they have a greater percentage of their override that has an inflation adjustment mechanism in it I'm seeing noding so I'm sharing this uh just to create awareness I think we have to continue to educate our community that we're not trying to uh unnecessarily ask for more money from them we know that uh families in our community are many places are in a pinch that um our ass come in many cases with a greater out of-pocket um contribution for a half million dollar house here than it would and a Denver or a boulder And yet when we fall it's significantly far behind many of our peer districts uh as we have now it puts us in a really difficult spot as we look to this next budget season around things like compensation around Staffing and around other necessary services for kids and especially if uh the four-year averaging thing that we talked about a couple of times tonight is removed we will probably be year-over-year in a deficit position with less money received next year than this year even after factoring in some of the inflationary adjustments in the governor's proposal so money is a big focus of mine I think it's a an important focus of all of us here and educating our legislators about this December 11th and then leaning hard into conversations at the capital will be really important other steps that we're taking is it's likely um that we'll recommend that we do a survey of our community to get some postelection feedback either about why they weren't able to support support the measure or things that we could do in our measure to make it more appealing that's helpful information to know and then that I could see us uh in the late spring of next year coming back to you and uh exploring the possibility of another polar survey just to see where the temperature of our community is and if it's different from where it was on Election Day this year so we can determine if a November ask is prudent appropriate or if we should wait for the 2026 election so money's what's top of mine for me uh right now and hopefully this is a good update about some of where we stand thank you questions thank you Chris all right on to Board of Education comments recognition Awards and vision start with Courtney thank you president Goldstein um I want to start by saying that I had the pleasure of visiting Horizon High School it was the first time I was there which kind of um was a little surprising to me that I hadn't been out there um in the previous three years but it's always exciting to get into the schools and kind of get a feel for how the staff is feeling um what the students are doing the layout of the buildings um and just kind of the overall Vibe and I will say it's it's one of the Cozier high schools that we have um I learned about you know when they made the tough decision about whether they were going to replace the carpet with carpet or tile and they went with carpet and you know the coziness and the hominess that kind of came with that and so just kind of like I said I always love being in our schools and learning all about each of the different um kind of energies in each of them and um I just want to say thank you to the team for having me out there it's spent a half my day out there learning about all the different things from their jewelry program to their homech um everything they were doing out there is just fantastic and then I had the pleasure of going to the Westminster Foundation line uh I think you know seeing all the resources that are available to the community in Westminster is really kind of a moving thing um they seem to have a nonprofit organization to serve just about every um area of their Community whether it's you know pregnant teen moms or people suffering with homelessness or whatever it may be they seem to have support there and it was just kind of moving because it's something that we don't see in all of our communities so attending that was really quite special and then I was sad to miss the Rocky Mountain partnership lunch I was home with Co yes I co is still around unfortunately um but it sounded like it was a really great evening there was tons of positive feedback and hopefully our other board members who attended can give us a good update on that um I want to thank everyone for passing the bond and I know that it was sad that the mill did not pass and likei had mentioned we're going to have to run it again but I do think um with failure comes opportunity to learn and do better and um look for Innovative Creative Solutions to problems sometimes and as I've heard our cabinet say especially um superintendent gadowski say that you know we really strive to be Innovative and I think this gives us space and time to do that a little bit while we look at how we can um hopefully get this meal passed in the in the future and I will end by wishing everybody a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving hopefully it doesn't snow too much there's no delayed flights um and the turkey and whatever meal you are enjoying with whoever you are accompanied with is fantastic and wonderful and everyone takes the much needed and much deserved time off thank you thank you director Mars holson oh thank you um sorry I just um wanted to thank everyone again um who voted and thank you for those who passed our bond um I to know it's been a hard year but I think um as we kind of dive into um Adams 12 I think there's a lot of misconceptions about our district and the funding we have so having those conversations continually is very important but um I appreciate everyone who voted for all things um on the tail end of that I also wanted to um say that uh no November has um trans awareness day in it and I want to make sure that people know know that um Adams 12 is a accepting and welcoming place for all of our students including our newcomers and our lgbtq students regardless of um whatever the rhetoric is um Adams will always be a welcoming place so I was um excited to go to the district equity and engagement committee meeting this month um and got a lot of good information we had a great presentation um from great education Colorado and um as a mom I got to attend Studio school's um mask parade which was a lot of fun for Halloween it's a kind of a cool way to celebrate Halloween than your traditional costumes um I took a tour of Mountain View Elementary which was always fun as I'm a graduate of Mountain View Elementary and the third graders were reading the wild robot and I had just taken my daughter to see it so I got to actually have something to talk to them about um and then director Assad Lucas and I attended the Broomfield Area Chamber corporate leadership mixer um and got to talk to the hosts about a different way of welding they do um and we invited them to come to our our welding facility so it was a it was a lot of fun to get to do that so thanks and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone as well thank you Paula hi everybody it feels like a long time since we met um it was a good break the first thing I want to do is just thank our veterans I think that's an important acknowledgement to make uh like everyone here we probably have several close family members who are veterans and we're aware of the sacrifices that entails the uh toll it can take on mental health and physical health and all other um aspects of their lives and we're grateful to them for for you know making that sacrifice um the next thing I would like to do is acknowledge Native American heritage month as well so a big thank you goes out to the teachers parents Elders kids who keep Native American history alive and vibrant in our culture so that we can all benefit from it um the next thing I wanted to share is I received a very interesting e uh letter today um with writing and signatures and everything it was amazing I didn't recognize it for a minute um but the the mother shared very valid concerns I think that a lot of people are feeling these concerns and I think it's important that we as a district acknowledge them this mother wrote to me and I'm kind of paraphrasing the beginning I worry about how the public education system will serve my daughter especially as she grows older as someone who relied on public schools myself I know how important they are for families like mine I am increasingly worried about the erosion of public education especially as we Face Federal level changes that could harm schools the incoming administration's proposed abolition of the US Department of Education and its push for schol School Choice POS significant risks to Equitable funding and resources for public schools so um she's not the first person who has approached me about her concerns I've had other individuals approach me too um the Department of Education for those who of you who may not well everyone in this room is familiar but for those of you who may not be familiar online um the department of education does a few key things that are um vital for protecting our students the first is they offer um funding for special UC ation purposes and for um students from low-income backgrounds uh it may not be a significant amount of funding I think it's about they contribute about 10% of their budget to um public schools in um the us but uh I think we know here in Colorado our special education services are already underfunded by the state so losing any sort of Revenue in that area is is a valid concern the other thing is that um Title Nine I believe is that the correct one offered through a protection offered through the Department of Education um protects lgbtq students it protects um for gender purposes Etc um and I think that's a really it's a big concern for a lot of people as far as what would happen if that were removed how would those protections be enforced the um additional factor I think is for our students who may be refugees um and who may be immigrants and there's a lot of trepidation out there right now a lot of fear a lot of anxiety um my perspective is always that I wanted to run for this office because I wanted to make sure that we meet the needs of all students that we care about all students regardless of who they are or how they come to us we support them for the person they are and we help them grow uh and become active adults in our democracy so that's the um that's the ideal I will continue to strive for and uh I am willing to um fight for that for for our students thank you Paula Amir good evening yes it has been a while I missed the last board meeting I was uh in international waters and then came home with covid as well so um it was a treat um but yeah know it's good to be back A lot's been going on since then I just want to say thank you to our voters for passing our bond um I I know there's the talk you know it's like oh rebuild Thorton high but um that's really significant for the southern Thorton Community um and not just for the kids the overall Community um parents that attended Thorton High um businesses it's a pretty big deal and it's a very very exciting opportunity for um that that Corridor which is my neighborhood and so I'm very excited to see when I asked my senior this year if she was excited she was just like H yeah you know it doesn't I won't get to be but I think kids it's hard for them to conceptualize what that what that means and what that um looks like and so what I'm really excited about when she comes back to visit from from college when she sees it the um the impact that will have on her and her understanding the meaning of it uh as shared about the mil loveing not passing uh you know I'm scared about how we will compensate our Educators uh be competitive in that sense how we can expand programming to the um extent that we really want for our kids I know that we will continue working diligently and hard to make sure we do what we can and um but yeah getting out there and understanding what needs to be done how to what the community wants and how we can get that um over the Finish Line you know one of the things the day after the election I went um I had a went and got a haircut that I had scheduled for a while um and I almost cancelled but I decided to go it was a new salon because the woman I went to before left and and I ended up scheduling it with the owner of the salon and she's an Adams 12 graduate from North Glen High she might have been there the year that you were Adan but um oh she remember she said it sounded familiar um but she shared how high school was not her thing um she almost dropped out but decided just to plow through to the point that she was even able to Gra graduate a semester early so she could start cosmetology school um her dream was always to open up her own salon and she worked and worked and worked and finally achieved that dream uh in 2019 only then for Co to hit and you know stress about how to keep not to lose that dream and she did it she managed um and when I told her about possibly expanding you know me being s about the mill um but wanting to expand programming and cosmetology be one of them she just shared how um that would that that would have been a game Cher for her for other students that she knows she even employees former Adams 12 graduates that have gone um that would have benefited from so it it felt good I'm so glad I was there I heard her story um it just really motivated me to continue to get back in and advocating for all kids uh I was going to go into my dive to about Department of Education and what that means Paula I think addressed it beautifully the concerns I think to uh especially having a child with a disability um that falls under idea it's pretty terrifying that's kind of what I've been hearing from other parents as well of what does this mean for our kids protections um you know I just had the re-evaluation process for both of my boys and one rolled off of his I AP and the other one has increased Services because of his needs and um you know we I was telling his teacher for visually impaired I'm not worried about about him we know how to Advocate my husband and I work with disabilities um in the disability world and but it's the parents who maybe don't and rely on these Federal mandates to protect their kids and to help educate them and they are really scared and I think just acknowledging that and validating those fears uh the other talk I've been having a lot with parents especially I mean even my kids friends parents um is if Deport Mass deportations come down the chain what that will look like for them many of them have been in the country for decades and um their children were born here and having real fear of what that what that is you know I think when you talk to parents they come because this is the land of opportunity I mean and being a daughter of an immigrant uh that he came because he had to support he wanted he needed to support his family um he came from a home a two-bedroom apartment with eight children and no water no electricity and um had to give back to them and that's what many of these families do and I think and they built a life and their children know no they don't know any different than their Community here and so I think again being very open and listening to these fears and concerns and how we can support in whatever ways we can um you know one of the story when I worked in school-based therapy as a refugee and Sean therapist um that was during a time when we were having a really large influx of unaccompanied miners coming into the country and I remember thinking of how awful the conditions must be that parents would think it's better for their children to send them into a country that they they don't know and hopefully find somebody you know a family member that might already be here um because as a parent I could never imagine doing that um and the how fearful that is and can't even comprehend how they believed in their heart of hearts that that was bet best for their kids um and I think there's so much misconception and misinformation around immigration and um so supporting our families around that um other than that excited to be back up here we have a long holidays coming up my last ask is yes with Thanksgiving we have many families that don't have the privilege of celebrating the way that many of us are able to celebrate um so if there is any way you can give back um donation s um support in any way it would really make a major difference for um a family or families so Happy Thanksgiving everyone and thanks thank you all right um yeah I want to thank also the voters of Adams 12 for supporting our our Mill and bond or our bond sorry uh and those that supported the mill too um I did knock on a few doors this time around and got to talk to people in the community about the importance of public education it seems like we have a few winners and a few losers every time in an election um I'm also grateful that Amendment 80 went down um that was a very nasty campaign um and I I guess it just drives home whether you realize it or not that fighting for public education is a war literally um there's those of us that support it and there are those that are out there to destroy it and that seems to be at the ballot more often than not so um I'm ready to keep fighting if I have to um on a lighter note um did you know that the district is 70 almost 75 years old and for some reason somebody thought I would be a good person to be on the committee since I've been around more than half of that um so I've met a couple of times with the committee and we're talking about what we want that to look like and we're getting to a place where um Raquel's in charge of it um uh Williams and she'll be recommending to senior staff some of our recommendations I really have enjoyed doing that um I got to go to the north Glen uh business appreciation um and every year they do that and Courtney was there too and um the North Glenn stem students make the party favors and they the engineering students and so they have some really cute um things that they make for the awards and then um the businesses in North Glenn are honored and you know there places that a lot of us know some of these places because you know North Glenn is uh a big part of Adams 12 so um we got to um celebrate that and then of course the Westminster Community Foundation and then hearing Lisa while at the equity engagement meeting every time I hear Lisa from great Ed talk about um School Finance you think I would have would be an expert at it by now but I always learned something from her um then we had long range planning but I will talk more about that when it's that turn um I visited a couple schools I um did the dictionary thing uh with rotary again went to Rocky Mountain Elementary Cotton Creek Elementary and a rapaho Ridge Elementary and um past board president Mark Clark and I did cotton Creek we tend to do that one together every year and he offers every year that whoever can spell the largest word in the dictionary which is like 1 1800 letters that he'll tell uh superintendent gadowski to give them a day off so um we feel pretty um confident that that probably won't be happening so safe bet safe bet um but anyway it's always fun to go deliver the dictionaries and the kids are so cute um I've done a couple of um pbls over at stem launch I did one on getting people to vote yesterday and I got I was there today um it was a first grade pbl on light pollution and these first graders were just stinking cute they they were and they couldn't stand stand still uh and and they but they got the concept down of what light pollution is and what to do about it they all kind of had the same idea um and it's great that some of the people in our community from various places like the oton society or uh seedot uh will also come into our schools to um give them feedback on their pbls too so it's a great Community Partnership and then tomorrow we have another one um so three pbls in a week and I've been really busy over stem launch and the funny not funny but um something else that happened today over at stem launch when I got there I was rushing in at the last minute cuz I dropped my son off at school and um the principal Kate Claver was on her way to a Middle School uh staff meeting so all the Middle School teachers and my son had most of them and um she goes can you just come in and say hi and she goes let me give you some background she goes they're feeling a little de Ed because of you know what's going to happen next with cup you know diminishing money and all this kind of stuff so uh in the 30 seconds that it took for me to walk with her and she's really tall and has really long legs so we were walking really fast um guy went in there and and you know there's all my son's former teachers and colleagues of mine and we talked for a minute you know about how you know we just kind of keep plugging away and I thank them for all the wonderful things they do because they really do great things for our kids and and I'm honored to have been the beneficiary of that with my own child okay so um anyway we will continue um I'm gonna continue to advocate for the kids and to do what I can on on the top end to make sure that protections are in place for for them too because there's a lot of unknowns and fears out there when it comes to public education especially from the Federal level all right um board committee liaison reports we'll start with the deck so Dave I might need your help clarifying um precisely what Aon uh suggested so um we had a very eventful DAC meeting um about a week or two ago and um the first portion of it was about two things it we broke into two groups one group was uh focused on looking at the um the results from the visit with um new um what's what's the name of the the charter school that's coming up for new America thank you I kept thinking New Horizon I was flipping through it like a Rolodex um new America is coming up for Renewal and so they had done some site visits and they were talking about their um their finding from those site visits and the other half of the group uh focused on looking at data metrics that um they thought might be valuable to consider um in assessing the district's unified Improvement plan or something to that effect um and we had some really great table conversations afterwards we um transitioned to discussing the survey the spending survey that we send out and the spending survey is where the group seemed to get a bit stuck there's still a lot of um confusion around what that spending survey should entail and I think there's also a general and I'll see if Dave agrees with me here a general concern from one parent at least that um they need to know how we're using those survey results they need to see that it's being considered in some way um and I think that was a valid concern um but I think with the spending survey one person in the groups and this is where I might need your help Dave because I'm trying to remember the details she suggested that the board discuss um the uh I think um the possible stumbling blocks that may lay ahead of us as far as spending goes particularly in relation to academic achievement and sort of prioritize what kinds of questions we would like to hear from the general public uh about the those spending priorities Dave was that an accurate assessment yeah I would say so that's one of the areas where we landed there was the the difficulty with the spending survey is it's very difficult to get participation in it uh they've tried to go through school accountability committees to do that um but the information is challenging to gather from the general public even the sack members because they don't see the inner workings of what actually going on and how most of those funds are really impacting kids in the classroom um because we know a lot of the money that we we budget goes to staff right so there's not that visual ability to see so there was a wondering about how to best gather information from the general public about the use of the monies um in our budget to really impact academic achievement and growth for students and so essentially the ask for the Board of Education from that group is that we consider those um what I just mentioned taking a look at possible spending um barriers in the future and thinking of how we might offer suggestions on particular questions to ask on the survey and also probably how to deliver the survey in a way where we get better results and also the final piece is just how do we make visible to them that we have considered those results um how are we taking action on it so on that topic I'll just uh while it's on the the table share a few thoughts one is that in my view the board does set a number of uh spending priorities for me and staff and developing the budget each year and so some of those things in your policy say that we need to have competitive compensation that's not 5% above or more than 5% below the market so there's a pretty strong statement about how compensation should work there are statements about what the board wants and Reserve so beyond the table Reserve 3 to 4% as a minimum supplemental amount of money uh in reserve and a cap not to exceed 7% so there's some things around savings that the board has said there's expectations that are set in terms of how much deferred maintenance or aging Building Systems that remain unattended to that are permissible as a percentage of how many total building assets we have in the district and I could go on and on and on but I think one of the misperceptions is that um the board hasn't set out uh its most critical values about what should be done with money I think where some would like the board to go and you could go if you want um although it's some would say at odds with the policy governance philosophy is what a lot of people want you to do is to say spending party one is reduce as many people of the ESC as possible spinning priority number two is to keep class size as low as possible spinning priority three is to make sure that we have art music and PE in every school and on and on and on um and the policy governance model indicates that those are all means decisions that you're delegating to staff to decide what's the right mix of investment and Staffing to accomplish the ends that youve set in terms of student growth and achievement so it can be tricky that way um another thought I have is I tend to attach greater value to insights from people who participate in Sachs and other school-based uh groups around budget than I do the general public at large because there's a lot of complexity around this budget that we talk about here that I think as Lori said each time she hears Lisa wild talk she learns something more about school funding uh I learned things uh here and there as well but this budget's incredibly complex and a lot of folks when they're completing those surveys as Dave alluded to really don't have a deep understanding about what's going on I'm hopeful that members of Sac teams have a better understanding and so for me when there have been surveys of sack folks around spending priorities that carries a different and higher weight for me than just opening it up to the the system at large and then finally one of the things I'm sensitive to just given past surveys that we've done sometimes with the community at Large large is that it can create uh depending on when you do it and how you do it a lot of uh self-preservation behavior and attacking Behavior so that you keep your job and you try to find the other parts in the system that you feel like are more vulnerable or more deserving of cuts and we start having Civil War factions within the district about don't cut the Arts yes cut the Arts don't cut teacher Librarians cut interventionists instead and just goes on and on and on so I think in terms of heading down this path um timing is important methods important and what audience we ask for information is important and really the starting point is do you feel like there are more granular things and what you have in policy currently that you'd want to put in place in terms of operating limitations to help guide budget development because that would be uh the most useful place to start in in terms of talking about how budget should be set for next year does that help absolutely okay anybody else want to add to the discussion okay thank you Chris for that explanation okay the fact it was a relatively short fact meeting um this group is fantastic they're very um to the point in their conversations uh they heard from the director of HR um Mila Shepard um discussed a little bit of what kind of vacancies we have what it means to fill them um different kind of compensation levels and really just kind of went through and monitored and make sure that we were in compliance with every um all the different Financial things we need to be and that's about it did I miss anything back there finance department okay thank you thank you uh LR Pac we met um we talked about um the October count and what it means and the trends and then we also talked about the choice policy that um we have and um talked about some of the changes in the profiles of newcomers um we've had an Inc less Spanish speaking and More in Dari and Pasto also there's been a lot of um discussion around the bylaw changes and the composition of the LR Pac and one of the um things being tossed around was who are the voting me we had to vote on who the voting members would be I'm not I'm I've never been a a board member has never been a voting member but they were talking about it and I was pretty much just listening to what they decided they wanted to do and um they came up with um that um do they want a regular administrator at each level or do they want to rotate them based on whatever the topic is because it you know taking um administrators out of their buildings on a regular basis they already have a lot of other stuff going on so it's kind of you know asking a lot of them um and then also um uh they voted on a chair in a vice chair so um it doesn't say who they are but it was um wasn't it Kim Schaefer and um Bo do you remember off top of your head who are the chair and the vice chair now of um Adam correct is the chair vice vice and Kim is the chair correct okay I did remember that um we were talking about um well Margie talked to us a little bit about what they were thinking for a central warehouse and kitchen site there are two sites to think about one is south of the North Stadium um and then one is over south of this building here so they she gave us the pros and cons of each and we'll um and they were they actually voted on which one they thought was the best option and they went with a recommendation of the one by the stadium and then we meet again tomorrow so okay um public comment nobody has signed up for public comment tonight thank you uh we already on the board business we already did policy matters but now we have to talk about our legislative platform because U the legislative session is going to be here before we know it and also it gives us some grounding for um our dinner with the legislatures that we'll have on the I think the 11th of December it's a Tuesday and then also um we always prepare a nice um document for us to share with them and then Al for us to take to DC when we go in um January so looking at the platform um is there any changes that anybody might suggest and this is what we'll talk about tonight and then we'll have it edited and come back and vote on it next time I have a question yes and it is on page two and it's just a I'm there's a warrant and I can't quite figure out what it is Adams 12 festar schools supports legislation that would help districts address long-term impacts from the covid pandemic including student learning loss increased student mental health and behavioral issues um increases in student and family basic needs continued Staffing shortages and further growth of deferred maintenance I'm just wondering with regard to the covid pandemic um the after effect how is it continuing to to contribute to some of these items I was thinking in terms of particular ularly deferred maintenance is it because of expenses that we had to um funding we had to provide during the covid pandemic that is leading to deferred maintenance now um so it's just me trying to make a connection between those I'd be inclined to delete the reference to deferred maintenance okay I'm just saying I don't I don't I just didn't know if there was a connection I was supposed to be making that I wasn't making so then you're suggesting to remove that sure okay and I'm also wondering if on um the charter school related Equity priorities um we talk about at the very top of Page Three Adams 12 festar schools supports legislation that improves the relationship and academic accountability and fiscal responsibility between charter schools and their authorizing Public School District um and we mention that um does not support the state providing supplemental Revenue to charter schools that are off authorized through the charter school Institute I wonder if we should also mention as one of the reasons for why we don't support it that we cannot provide an adequate safeguard for students who attend those schools um in relation to sped and elll because we do not have data or insight into um how they are doing in those schools so uh there's a gap in our ability to protect our kids in the district so I just wonder if we should add something to that effect did you get that Stephanie okay anybody else have anything they want to add or subtract um one thing I'd like to see in here um I think would be under adequacy and Equity of school funding um something specifically to um public funds should be for public schools and we oppose vouchers perhaps we should also in that vein um just to make clear to our Charter School Partners um Stargate and Westgate and um p and I mean we firmly support our public charter schools that have the district oversight um the concern is just really that oversight is missing in other cases um do you want to stick that in the section on Charter School related Equity priorities sure yes keep it succinct no I think add I would second adding something in there about um wanting our legislators to understand and Advocate hopefully that public dollars should go to public schools where there's the financial um or where there's that accountability and what the money is intended to do and not be and not have ways that it can be um circumvented to private businesses I have a question does that include upk so then we could put K12 in the sentence yeah so a couple of things I would raise in the adequacy and Equity section the first bullet I think uh it's a little bit of a comp licated sentence but I think the gist of it is we want the BS Factor eliminated which has now been done I think there's a way to rephrase that bullet or others in here to bring attention uh at a high level about we don't want the BS factor to essentially be indirectly reestablished through eliminating the four-year averaging provision and I think there's also room in not the platform to raise attention about the inequities created by mevy override disparities in our state so if those were things of interest staff could work on some language to bring back or to incorporate in the platform I support that yep same is that any more adjustments all right so then Stephanie you'll put the edits in and throw it back to us to look at and we can discuss and hopefully vote on it next time so it's ready for will we meet before the legislative dinner no but at least it'll be ready by the session and we can certainly talk about some of the things that we have an interest in all right thank you for that conversation and then director districts okay um so we are obligated to um look at director districts um every couple of years and um by Statute so um Michael Bello went through and did the crunch the numbers and um you know a lot of it's based on the 2020 census which is before we looked at this last time even but um basically um looked at the makeup of it and the recommendation is that the numbers have not changed enough to Warrant adjusting any of the boundaries is there any discussion I would like to see maybe one day we scramble this whole map up and do it a little differently when looking back at our School Board elections um I want to say there's at least one seat on almost every election if not every other election where um it's one person uncontested and even when we're looking at who is running or who may run some of these areas it's harder to find people um that are interested or able and so kind of digging into a little bit more of like yes I understand this is the population but what are the demographics of each of these areas to make sure that we have good adequate representation of the board um and our community obviously our community is not 100% female um and so doing just some creative thinking around what these Bond boundaries could be in in the future I think would be a wonderful a wonderful thing comments I think um for me uh I don't necessar disagree that it's sometimes hard to find people in some of these director districts I guess my what I appreciate about them is kind of be centered around a community um and like I was sharing in my comments of being in District 4 that's my community and my kids attend all the schools except I guess my middle schooler um this Century but um I've lived in that area for many years 15 16 17ish years and um uh I think if we adjust too much it might lose some of that Community Focus um and so that's one thing just really being cognizant about if that discussion ever comes up just keeping making sure it stays really Community focused so then um people that are representing that director District understands that area that they're being elected for to represent so to your point like I completely agree with you um and looking at you know direct District three which is my district running from Holly all the way over um to Sheridan in Broomfield that is that's like three communities in there like there isn't that same sense of community and I would argue you know I live close to Horizon High School and my Comm Community is currently comprised of District 3 and District 2 um and so just doing a little bit of you know adjusting I think to make sure that to your point we are including a whole community and not extending anyone too far I think would be great the only thing I mean I can really add to the conversation is that I'm not sure that reconfiguring the map or even adding more districts would help with the representation piece that you bring up I think that has more to do with the nature of the work does that make sense I am privileged to have a very flexible position and a very well sometimes supportive husband I mean it depends on whether there's math homework to be done um and this this job there's there's an equity piece in that people from lower income backgrounds who don't have a lot of extra time and who have child care problems it's really difficult to take on this kind of work and I think that is probably more of the issue than any sort of service we can bring through reorganizing the the maps um it that's still going to be the key issue so I'll add my three cents worth um I think the way they're designed now they kind of follow a socioeconomic gradient because you know the title schools are in district one and four for the most part um maybe creeping up a little bit into two and five but it is a gradient that's very obvious in our school district um the other thing too is that I think to redraw these would take a lot of Staff time that I think is unnecessary um because they're very busy too doing other things um the other thing I'll throw out there to consider down the road is there is a state law that says we can pay our Schoolboard members um any of us sitting here now would not reap that benefit until then they were well I'm turned out so it would never affect me um and if it was something we decided to do in the next year um it would only affect director district four and three and then um in two years later it would it would um influence one two and five that's something else to think about because we are allowed to do to approve that that might bring out the people that you were talking about that are um you know have issues with child care and their jobs and whatnot um and there are several school districts that do pay their directors it's not a lot but um it's something for the time that they spend doing this so um yeah any well and I think too like about that is you listening having this conversation and Paul you bringing up the challenges of that and pay is I mean many families in District 4 District want or dual incomers and some of them have multiple jobs and so yeah being able to say this every other Wednesday night and occasionally the special board meetings and these conferences to travel to and all that that that's that can be burdensome and so having just maybe some compensation would help be more attract people who are more representative of of our population and for the record I'm not asking for money I'd probably just donate it right back to the district anyway um but I do think I mean I think it's a valid uh way to get better representation to allow more opportunity to be involved in um things like this that um we have to be the voice for everyone right well and you know we've seen a few shifts over the years in the um boundaries of our director districts funny story well funny in a funny fact I guess more than anything is um where I live Lee Colmes was the president of this board I don't know long time ago like early 2000s mid 2000s and he was the director District was District Five and Lee lives right on the other side of my fence so my neighborhood used to be in five and so you know there have been adjustments over the years but it like I said it's it's based on State Statute of population um well there's no um action to be taken here um Phil do we vote on this next time or not vote on it if you're not making changes you don't have to vote on anything you just have to review it every four years and this takes care of that obligation next have to look at this in 2028 okay well consider it discussed we took action in 2022 because we got off schedule there was some other things going on in 2020 uh so it got kicked to 2022 I do want to thank director Potter though for bringing up a a valid representation issue okay um then on two minutes I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the work study session and regular board meeting of October 23rd 2024 as presented so moved second any discussion okay call a vote director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I all right on to monitoring reports that we haven't done yet internal monitoring report ends policy 1.0 schooling graduates dropouts combined data report I will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board has received a monitoring report as of November 20th 2024 for the period July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2024 of the superintendent concerning board policy 1.0 schooling graduates dropouts combined data report and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant Justified and complete so moved second all right hi Dave good evening superintendent gadowski board members um this is a new report formerly 1.1 had data elements as well as the curricular and U uh 21st century scale elements those have been divided and so this report is new it really is a very dense data report there's a lot of information there with some analysis statements as well as at the end there's a page of actions that are included in the uip and other actions that are being taken to address some of the issues we see in the data or ways to improve things that are already going well uh so that's the structure of the report um in conversation with superintendent gdowski we thought we'd run through the the different data elements talk about uh some general takeaways and then the actions that we're taking in case you had any questions about the actions related to um the different elements I'm sure a number of them look familiar from the uip especially around growth and achievement but there are some things like that that are going on related to other things around discipline attendance that may have been new so um starting with the report um starting with the uh demographic data the main shifts we've seen when we compare pre-pandemic to this last year we're reporting on 2324 data are some shifts in E ethnicity most notably an increase in Hispanic percentage of students and a decrease in percentage of white students uh about 6.9% for whites and an increase of 4.1 for Hispanic students um a couple of increases in terms of special programs but the largest increase was for free reduced lunch of of 13.4% although based on what we heard in week work study that may be coming back down when we get the 2425 data based on the October count we'll have to see where that comes in when that's finalized so in terms of demographics I didn't know if you had any questions around that particular area moving into the report then there's a lot of data that should look familiar to you from Achievement and growth where we provide all sorts of data around mean and scale scores and growth percentiles by a variety of subgroups in terms of the state achievement data the largest concerns were our comparisons to prepandemic data uh especially for elementary and middle school Ela and then middle school math we're we're lagging quite a bit where we were pre pandemic um sat was only listed if you know we give PSAT in grades 9 and 10 and sat in 11 uh it's really impossible to combine those data because the tests are on different scales so I chose to report the SAT because that tends to be gets the most um views so to speak it of most interest um there's mixed performance in terms of the SAT some up some down um and so that's what we tend to see there's more of our concerns in both growth and achievement at elementary and middle school levels in terms of some things we're doing around both achievement and growth data on that last page um there's a lot of work being done around Benchmark advanced in terms of both the reading and the writing at the elementary level there's look at trying to uh looking at adopting a new curriculum for the Middle School level so we would have a common curriculum for all our six through eight students um there's assessment work being done to provide assessments for middle schools so that they have an understanding of what the focus standards are really asking for um that was requested by Middle School principal specifically um we're going to um look at adopting an elementary math resource which would help with that growth we're seeing at the elementary level um we're aligning all um District structures around grade level planning and focus on rigor that's across the board all different departments within the district are focused on planning and rigor and student engagement and then lastly you'll see that last bull is around the CTE they're adopting um new gvcs a guaranteed viable curriculum and they're weaving in math and literacy standards that exist so those are the things we're really trying to do to improve both achievement and growth uh in terms of growth uh the largest concerns are what we're seeing in terms of Elementary and Middle School Ela and math we're just not seeing the growth compared to where we were pre pandemic for those those two levels in both subject areas and so um that is our our major concern I will point out that access growth has continued to be strong the vast majority of grade levels and subgroups are above the 50th percentile which is average growth that's why you see a lot of green for Access we've traditionally done very well at each level for that we don't want to see some of the declines we're seeing particularly at middle school but it's still above that state expectation of average growth any questions on achievement and growth data okay very happy Point around AP data what you'll see is the percentage of kids uh earning a three plus who taking the test is up um that is also up over over where we were pre pandemic we've seen that rise year-over-year it's a very it's a point of Pride we are also seeing more students taking the classes and more students passing the test so it's not just there's fewer and fewer kids taking it so that's really a point of Pride particularly around that achievement for those students who who are electing to take those courses in terms of graduation rate and dropout rate data now we're transitioning to um data around postsecondary and Workforce Readiness indicators one thing you'll note in the table in that 2024 column those are predicted values right now we should get the data sometime in December the final data from the state in talking with our it Department we feel like those estimates are pretty close we don't expect those to change significantly from what you see listed here obviously this is the first time we're doing this early so we'll see we'll learn more as we go through this cycle that can apply to next cycle grad rate again is uh generally a positive trend that we're seeing um as we move from pre pandemic to pandemic um so a lot of um Kudos go to everyone in the system particularly our high schools who are facilitating that closure of kiding kids to the Finish Line in terms of their diplomas a dropout rate is not quite so positive we're seeing it's not changed much but it's not coming back down to where we were quite before the P before the pandemic we'd like to see that tick down even more um and so that is not quite as positive but there's not huge changes there we would still like to see that tick down further um what I can tell you in terms of what high schools are doing around these data and then the failure rate data that we're going to talk about in a minute is that each building has been given about a 04 FTE to come up with a customized school plan of how do we deal with the fs and how are we monitoring dropouts in graduates so there's a lot of um school specific plans that are being done we're not saying this is how you shall do it because we know the needs at a Thorton are very different than a legacy than a horizon versus a mountain range yes I think I asked this before but I can't remember does the Dropout rates are we able to track if they dropped out and earned their GED the the technically what what happens with us is if they um go through a GED program that is affiliated with us then we can see that technically they're not a graduate they're a completer and so that won't show in the graduation rate there's another rate called a completion rate which is very similar to graduation rate but does include students who graduate with or or exit with a GED but if they drop out and do a GED program not affiliated with Adams will we not capture that what will happen with Dropout it's a tricky calculation it's an annual Cal calculation so what happens is if a student leave is enrolled with Adams 12 leaves our district and does not enroll anywhere else in the state or we have proof that they've enrolled out of state then they're a Dropout for us once they enroll in a different program or a different District then they are no longer a Dropout for us within that school year so if a student enrolls in a GED program completes the GED program they would not be a Dropout for us they would be a completer for wherever they completed the GED it's a little bit of a tricky tricky statistic and that's why we have to work so closely with the Colorado Department of Education because they do a lot of that reconciliation when kids leave our district to see where they did go and did they complete um and then lastly in terms of the ninth grade FS obviously the data there's concerning we're seeing an increased percentage of FS across the board regardless of core subject area and it's really increased every year the percentage of FS has increased every year um pretty much across the board one of the really Stark uh data points there is when you look at the change for males versus females um the female F rate regardless of subject is increasing much more than the male F rate and I don't have a good rationale or reason for that but it's one of the things that shows up in the data interestingly I was taking it back a little bit I thought the highest F rates might be in math but that's not the case it's science actually that has the highest with Ela and social studies about the same and math actually the lowest FR rate and I think that's can be attributed to a degree of the emphasis that schools have put on math and thinking about how do we get kids another bite at that apple or intervention so they don't fail um that's a hypothesis but I was a little surprised to see those data myself questions in terms of grad rate dropout rate or ninth grade FS okay in Curr in terms of chronic absenteeism those data are generally good we're seeing positive Trends back from and realistically we only have I've pulled these data directly from the State website and they only list for the three years that I've included that are disaggregated the um so we're seeing positive trends for us however I would caution that back in 201819 we don't have disaggregated data the uh Adams 12's chronic absenteeism rate then was 25.6% so we're still not where we were prior to the pandemic and I don't think we're surprised by that but we are trending in the the correct direction again it's going to be a major emphasis in terms of chronic B absenteeism some of the things that our our district is engaged in is uh We've implemented five-star student insights it's a data tracking program so that there can be more real-time tracking of attendance data also there's an engagement being led by District staff in a national cohort run by digital promise and so we're looking nationally about what are some promising ideas and interventions that might be applicable here in Adams 12 and lastly we're also engaging with an Adams county attendance task force on much the same work so we're hoping the national View and then the Adams County view will give us some ideas about how to continue keeping or or reducing that chronic absenteeism rate questions there okay in terms of discipline um the data are I pulled these directly from again the CDE website the dis data the discipline incidents by in school suspension out of school suspension and expulsion um they've only reported those data for the last three years um overall we're seeing mainly declines but there are some mixed data there currently we're working uh I'll get to the the what the steps we're taking the the second table on incidents by type this is a baseline year we've only have one year of data from CDE but interestingly the by far the most common incident is other violation of code of conduct um and so part of the work that we're engaged in the discipline space is trying to get a better understanding of what that is because that can be a whole range of outcomes or reasons for discipline so again we're implementing that five-star student insights to really look at the data granularly at the student level and at the school level um Lori Bala and her team in school student engagement initiatives are revising the discipline Matrix and training on that with all Deans and administrators to ensure we have a better more consistent understanding of the outcomes for students and prioritizing non-exclusionary uh discipline rather than going immediately to exclusionary discipline unless it's warranted obviously there sometimes it is warranted um there's a multidisciplinary team that's looking at every um expulsion and looking at the all the information around it so we can get an understanding of the that the case particular case we don't have that many expulsions and so they're meeting weekly to go through each of those referrals and then lastly um we're currently conducting a system systemic analysis to look at out of school suspensions at every Secondary School to check how does that proportionality of out of school suspension align with that school's um population to see if we are seeing disproportionality because what happens when you roll that data up to the district level where the discipline is occurring can skew the overall data if I have a lot of discipline occurring at schools where there's a large minority population that can skew the overall data whereas at the school it may not be disproportional so we're undergoing that investigation right now I've got an initial round of data but I need to meet with Lori and her team about that so we are doing a lot of digging around this disciplinary data that we have um and then lastly you'll see the uh Panorama survey data the good news is for the student competencies that's where students are reporting on their their own personal competencies we're seeing good data generally at both the 3 through five and 6 through 12 levels uh for the school supports and environment we're seeing different data at the elementary we're seeing positive Trends whereas at the secondary we're not seeing positive Trends we've seen some declines around that school supports and environment and so one of the things we're engaged in there Matt Schmidt is working with schools to coordinate I believe it's five schools right now uh capturing kids Hearts which is really a way to create that more welcoming engaging supportive environment and we hope that we'll see positive results with the Panorama survey there um the last thing I'd add is um superintendent gdowski throughout the beginning of this year has been engaging with principles and DTA Representatives around hearing all of their particular concerns and thoughts about the how the district is functioning and our support for schools for principles and dtea and we're Gathering feedback on that to then think about what do we do moving forward what do we keep in place what do we add what do we change and so that's another another engagement that we're we're working on in the district to um really look at these data and try and make sense of them and put them on a more positive trajectory um so that's my kind of high level summary I realize there's a lot of data there and I just wanted to hit a few points with you but I'm open to any questions you may have I have no questions I'm just thrilled I love it because it's very data rich but it also helps paint a more complex picture that really helps us understand what's happening in schools I think sometimes people want to just automatically go to the standardized tests and schools are doing bad on standardized test and I'm not saying that's this District but then all of the resources are put towards how do we help them improve there but there are so many other factors and nuances and um details going on in the background that can have such a dramatic effect on the overall performance of a district and I think this captures it nicely this is a great data portrait two quick ads I'll just say uh procedurally getting back to policy governance and the discussion we've had a couple times tonight this is a non-standard approach uh to monitoring but given what we've heard from the board it feels like a more comprehensive picture than some of the narrow uh data demands and existing policy would be helpful so if you uh feel like this meets The Mark will continue this path uh in the future and then the second thing that Dave alluded to near the end is we have done a lot of listening there's a lot of opportunities for improvement and change in our system and we had a principal meeting last week where we shared lots of here's what we're hearing from you in terms of the most pressing important themes for us to change everything from we need different and better support for working with disregulated kids to um we want to see the vision for professional learning for the full course of the year in late spring summer start of the school year so that we can do some things at the building level to align we'd like to see some changes in just the content of professional learning and on and on and on and as we tested that out with principles that was yeah you've heard us and so the next step at the December principal meeting will be to share this is what our plan looks like in terms of adjustments and tweaks we'll share that with you after that meeting but for me it's an exciting time there's a lot of red on a lot of the pages that you see in this report in terms of declines um compared to the pre-pandemic time that I know a lot of us have a lot of urgency to change and uh to move kids to a more effective place in this feedback will help us get there thank you Dave thank you call vote director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein hi director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay uh number two internal monitoring report operating limitations policy 2.4 Financial condition and activities July 1st through September 30th I will entertain a motion to acknowledge the board has received a monitoring report as of November 20th 2024 for the period July 1 2024 through September 30th 2024 of the superintendent concerning board policy 2.4 Financial condition and activities and finds the superintendent interpretations are reasonable and supported by data that is relevant Justified and complete so moved second dinina good evening board um Stephanie's looking it looks like maybe I failed to give her the presentation and so if you didn't get that I apologize in advance from from Veterans Day I hope if not I will walk you through the monitoring report do you have the presentation or the financials we we have three things we have monitoring report we have the quarterly financial report and then the internal monitoring report PDF we have a a it's a it's sort of a PowerPoint it's a PDF yeah Financial condition activities okay good I I thought I swear I did it but maybe I forgot I am a little tired tonight um so what they can see thank you I think this is probably what you're that's right yep that's it do you want to keep this yeah if I could see it that will help me go through it so you all can see it we just won't be Pro projecting it which is fine thank you Chris okay so we have the presentation and so as we've done in Prior board meetings we've talked through what is the internal monitoring report looking for we're monitoring do we have adequate reserves and fund balance what's our cash position liquidity and Investments how are we doing as a district with our accounts payable and receivables um monitoring our bonds borrowing M overrides and bond tracking the spending of the bonds tracking and then audit and internal controls so I'm just going to go through a few highlights of the monitoring report the good news is you have the report and we report compliance on all of the areas through sub September 30th okay so slide uh I don't have page numbers because it's a PDF I apologize but the U monitoring fund balance and reserves it's explaining what we're looking for throughout the monitoring Report with some of the different sections and we go to the next slide we have a graph that shows where our board reserves are where the four floor four 4% floor is where the 8% ceiling is and you can see that our um over the last four years we've stayed well within those parameters and I feel like the district has done a really good job in budgeting to ensure we spend as much of our reserves as we can to keep programs going but maintaining the boards did I break can you guys hear me e e e thank you okay so you guys ready for me to go back okay um so that first graph shows you where we are with our reserves we're well within board policy 4% and um this is what we're forecasting through the end of the fiscal year as of September 30th and then we look at our monit we look at monitoring the cash Investments and liquid liquidity and so when we go to the next graph it shows our total unrestricted cash with our restricted cash the light blue bar is the restricted the big purple is unrestricted and then the green line that goes across as our monthly expenditures and so you can see our liquidity is very good Ain talked a little bit about that in the study session a elbow dim and said you took the one really cool thing I had to share thanks so I'm going to share it with you anyway the reason our cash liquidity is better than what you've seen in Prior years is because of a change made in the way we're being funded for the state's portion of our School Finance act so in the past they took the projected amount divided it by 12 and gave it to us in 12 equalis installments now they're dividing it by closer to nine and on the quarterly Financial reports in the budget to actual in Prior years we typically at this point in time have received about 25% of our state Equalization funding currently we're I have it right in front of me but it's around 33.5% so you can see that increase in that state Equalization earlier is helping our liquidity and so and Ain also pointed out the other awesome thing is our investment earnings are significantly higher and it's directly because we have more cash on hand to earn interest than we have in Prior years along with the higher interest rates for the um accounts payable and receivable one of the big areas that we look at is are we paying our obligations on time and if we aren't are we incurring late fees or penalties in aggregate we're to report to the board if it's over $1,000 we do not have any of those to report year to date all right and then we um provide information about the tracking of bond spending and mevy overrides and so there's detailed information really on the mevy overrides for the last Bond we've really spent all of those Bond proceeds there's still some dollars in there that are related to interest earnings and um other cash that gets deposited to the project fund but the bond proceeds themselves have been um nearly fully spent all of them on approved projects and then we get to our monitoring audit compliance and internal controls you received an updated monitoring report because we had a section that I failed to update um and that's on when the fa has reviewed internal controls the last time they reviewed them was actually in October of the um October 24th we have that it will happen in October because the report is as of September so it's a little weird acting like October's in the future but as of September it was in the future so that happened in October and the f um was able to see that we and uh agree that we're following our internal controls so that's really all I have for you I shared the information in the corly financial statements and again we are reporting compliance so any questions any questions thank you you're welcome all right director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh Holan I director Potter I okay uh to we get to skip number three because we already did it onto the consent agenda I will entertain a motion to approve the Personnel actions as listed resignation and terminations transfers and reassignments employment and leaves of absence so move second any discussions director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Marsh holen I director Potter I okay uh future agenda items we are going to casby December 5th through the 7th then we come back and we have our dinner with our legislators we invited not just the state house and state senate but we invited congressional district six and seven State School Board and con Congressional Congress people no just six and oh seven and eight just seven and eight because that's the two that um are in Adam 12 um we haven't heard back from them but um Tanya and has to are collecting RSVPs because they'll be a part of it too uh that's December 10th December 11th our regular meeting you can see here the um um work study you're going to learn more about how we're going to do the um 75th anniversary and rebranding um safety update anything anybody wants to add no okay so we just have the one meeting in in December right the regular meeting the year's half over on that note I'm going to call us a Jed