##VIDEO ID:WhkQpp1RW-M## all right call the meeting to order roll call director Assad Lucas here director bastelli here director Goldstein here director Marsh Holan director Potter here I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as stated so moved second director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Potter I okay rise if you are able and join us in the pledge of allegiance iedge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay superintendent update thank you I'll just uh highlight the two things that are most on my mind right now one I briefly mentioned to uh the Board of Education as we are finishing up work study but I'll just take a few minutes to share here too very grave concerns uh for our community and for lots of school districts throughout the state about where we might land if Governor polis's proposal uh to eliminate enrollment average aing for funding purposes uh moves forward if that happens districts like ours that see some fairly consistent declines in enrollment in recent years because people are having fewer children and people are often getting priced out of living in our community because it's really costly we're seeing declining enrollment here that's true of most of our state I believe four fifths of the school districts in Colorado are declining in terms of how many kids they serve it's especially intense in this metro area where the housing costs are most extreme and if this were to go through uh we would lose over $13 million in funding for next year which is obviously a significant amount of money if you think about paying an average teacher $100,000 a year between their salary and benefits that would be 130 plus teachers um that would be in play and don't hear me saying that we're going to cut 130 teachers if that happens we'll do everything in our power not to but we're uh at a spot because we're not a very well-resourced District we don't have the same kind of revenues that a lot of the districts around our region have that have more high value properties and people with higher incomes we're near the bottom in terms of funding already along with 27j next door and we can they'll afford another $13 million loss in Revenue in terms of having the resources we need to serve the kids I think we're all here to talk about tonight so actively on my mind and looking at ways uh every day to figure out how to Lobby effectively um on behalf of Adams 12 with parents and staff throughout our community and with others and other districts to send the message that this will have real impacts on what we do to meet the needs of children next year if it goes through so that's a big piece the other thing uh that I think a lot about and that's more on the exciting in but it's uh also complicated is we're looking to acquire all the right land Parcels so that we can construct our newly re-envisioned Thorton High School on Bowman campus down on the south east part of our community those who are there know that the current configuration when you have like huge slopes um and lots of buildings that are Thorton High School proper has five different levels to it there's lots of places that are dark to make that school what we want it to be we need to do lots of grading and moving of things around so that kids in that new school will have a Bright Beautiful School that's much more conducive uh to learning and there's some adjacent land that we need to get to make that happen a little bit trickier than I want it to be but we will work at it uh and I'm optimistic that we will get that done soon so those are the big things beyond that I think board members know we're heading into the time of year that's the busiest we do have budget preparation that's a big part of the spring and it's hard to do when you don't know how much money you're going to get or not get from the state and then we do have uh this year probably a a larger number than in some years of retirements and key leadership positions and principal ships that were posting and looking to hire good people so if any people in the audience are looking uh for a new challenge and opportunity check out our website we'd love to have uh have you take a look and see if you're a good fit for us that's it for me for tonight thank you okay Board of Education comments recognition Awards and vision start with Courtney thank you president Goldstein um I want to to start by saying I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season um there was lots of excitement going on through the community I know we had plenty of students that were recognized for awards or had um academic success or were just excited to make it through their first quarter in general um and you know I was really fortunate to kind of see all of the community Spirit throughout Adam's 12 there was lots of involvement through the community and it just makes me feel good when you see so many of our Adam 12 staff and family members getting involved um I want to take a second and recognize um Stargate charter school they celebrated their 30-year anniversary over the weekend um they did receive a proclamation from the city of Thorton on their 30 years and so I want to congratulate them I was able to attend that grad or that celebration with um vice president Amir Assad Lucas and it was um just a another joyous occasion other than that I hope that that everyone stays safe and when the new calendar comes out um that you remember that the calendar committee does not include any of us on there uh maybe maybe Mr gdowski but that really um there's always a lot of feelings about it but truly I don't think anyone was thinking about anything but what is best for the students and families and trying to balance it all so we're excited for that to get released and I'm excited to see some of the bond projects getting underway we learned a little bit about what is to come and kind of the way they spread it out across the district so everyone felt like they were getting some love including our charter schools and I really appreciate that effort so thank you to our staff that made sure that every felt every part of our district um was getting some attention and not waiting until 20:30 and with that I will pass the Paton on to miss belli okay Paula I was sitting here trying to remember everything that I needed to report on since last time um we did this um so I think last time I said I was about to attend a stem lab problem-based learning uh panel um and I did and it was fabulous the I think it was fifth grade kiddos um were presenting ideas on getting 18year olds more civically engaged 18 to 24 year olds more civically engaged in uh our community and they had some wonderful ideas um a lot of it was gamification so I think they knew Their audience um uh but if you've never taken part in a problem-based learning uh opportunity uh stem lab has them stem launch has them North Glenn High School it's a great way to see what's going on in schools um so yeah I highly encourage it uh the other thing I did not know Stargate just celebrated their 30th Anniversary that's wonderful to hear so my congratulations go out to them as well um on this past Saturday I attended the middle and high school honors band performances they were absolutely Exquisite and I've attended formal orchestras before but these were these were just phenomenal I mean really um they have recordings available if you're really interested in hearing it and I would highly recommend it um one guy they brought out they call them color instruments and they brought out a base clarinet this thing was I think 12 feet long the guy had to be six foot himself so they had to put him on a little stand so he could play it but I mean he played it beautifully um so I really enjoyed doing that one thing I will note the theme of that performance was the need to continue supporting the Arts in our schools and I wholeheartedly uh support that that theme in fact one of the performances they played to kick it off was a I think a music educator in Ohio wrote a composition um and the night it was performed the first night it was performed was the very night that that Ohio um District had decided to cancel funding for the band so the band was no longer but so anyway it was very poignant and it was beautiful and it just was a reiteration of how important the Arts are to our kids in our community um last thing I think there's a couple of adequacy studies that came out that I think the public should be aware of because basically they say um our public schools in Colorado at large are very underfunded to the tune of about I think one study said 3.2 billion another study said about 4.1 billion so if you're not aware um I encourage people to get out there and learn more about how funding in Colorado works for schools um I think we ranked 46 in the nation so yeah but I think Adams 12 does a good job of making lemonade out of lemons right so that's my report Paula can I just jump in out of order would that be okay um and I'm going to look to Gina a little bit but if if the state had $4 billion do more we'll just use that number round math that they're allocating to K12 my belief is that we typically get about 4% to 5% of what um the total pie is for K12 education so at 4% of 4 billion my quick in the head math is that would be another $160 million a year that we would be receiving here 5% would take us to 200 million a year it's uh at $200 million a year it's almost a 50% increase over what we currently have so I think it just gives people a great insight about objectively we uh when it comes to adequate funding we are so far behind other states and so far beyond what other places are doing to reasonably support kids in their learning and then to have the governor proposing a$1 13 million plus reduction for us for next year and really ignoring all of what uh director belli shared is just heartbreaking so I just wanted to add that that's there's just a lot of money that we already don't receive and we can't afford to let go of a single dollar beyond that good point Amir good evening everyone and thank you all for being here tonight hope everyone had a wonderful winter break and holiday season and happy New Year so it has been a busy start uh on the 8th the IBS team continued um from you know work from the previous semester um to continue yeah working and negotiating and ensuring best outcomes for kids um on Friday the 10th I attended the parent leadership Action Network which is also plan at stem lab and we were talking talking this has been been about I think 10 years now that plan has been a group here in the district and it continues to be a great opportunity for parent leaders in the variety of PTO PTA in um the schools to come together and talk and uh collaborate so it's really great to be a part of that on Saturday the 11th as director parter shared got to attend the 30th anniversary of Stargate and it was a privilege to be able to be there and speak and um I just want to give a shout out and recognition to Dr Green and all the work that she has done for Stargate and um especially with twiice exceptional Learners and um just the growth that you brought to Stargate so she's here in the audience in the back so um so thank you uh yesterday I got to go to centry for the Middle School principal meeting Kristen vulmer who's the principal over there invited me and uh I have I have a sixth grader who attends and um so I got to be more of a passive Observer of the meeting but uh we got to go into classrooms and monitor some strategies that they've been implementing uh to track um or to collect data to to track best practices um and education and what I really appreciated about this opportunity is again being more of the passive Observer is watch the relationship the professional relationships amongst all the middle School principles and how many of them you know I mean we have a very uh large variety of Middle School who attends middle school and U populations and and they just work so well together and have such great relationships and will bounce ideas off of one another and collaborate so beautifully and um you know I love Cy reflecting on how I've had many opportunities to witness interactions very similar to this throughout our system and so I just really appreciate and honor to be a part of a system that focuses on putting kids first and ensuring best outcomes for them so um I just want to highlight a couple events coming up the special education advisory meeting will be on Thursday feary feary 6 from 5:30 to 7:30 here at the district building and this is if you're not aware of these meetings it's a really great opportunity to meet other parents ask questions if your child has an IEP 504 um you know get clarification if you're new to it even if you're a veteran and there might be modifications to the plan or update you know whatever the case may be or if you need to ask in um it's just a really great place to network with other parents that um you know on the same boat uh I've been a part of it for a while as I've had two children on IEPs for years now um there will be food served and child care and then lastly want to share the upcoming powow event that's going to be hosted by APAC um which will will be Saturday February 15th at stem launch um and if again if you're not familiar with this event it's a really really exciting event and um I highly recommend attending not only will you get to watch traditional and ceremonial dances but um there's a variety of vendors and food that will be served so it's a really fun all day event and great for families and everyone so yeah that's all I have thanks everyone for coming tonight and I hope everyone has a great week thank you um I hope everybody had a nice holiday um I I my family and I did um we produced a a new driver that doesn't cause stress actually he's doing really well because his dad's taking care of it um I did let him drive from his friend's house to our house couple blocks and I survived okay well anyway um so I'll be focusing on that I'm sure in the next couple of months um I went to Horizon High School last week early to deliver an award to a young lady for um her artwork that she submitted to the Colorado Association of school boards at their annual convention she was honored and and she couldn't make it there so I accepted the award for her and so I went over there to Horizon and um the principal Erica fleeman and um clay Danbury and I gave her herward and uh her teacher she had gone to mountain range previously so Kyle Wimer her teacher over at mountain range had nominated her for that um I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the Stargate celebration um I had a board meeting for the Colorado Association of school boards which I'm a member of um other than that we had bargaining and I'm looking forward to uh a semester where you see all kinds of cool things going on in the district and I just want to add to my um add to the conversation about school funding and how uh disappointing it is that you know we we we do what we need to do for our children with what little that we get but just think of all the opportunities that we could be missing because of the lack of appropriate funding and I just have to put it out there but we have a billion dollar uh Surplus that we have to refund to the voters um other than that that's all I'm going to comment on now uh now it's time for general public comment to comment good evening the board welcomes public comment to learn about the preferences and concerns of the Adams 12 festar Community each speaker will have three minutes please use the microphone and state your name and city of residence before beginning your comments please give any handouts or information you would like to share with the board to Lee Koka here to my right a three minute timer will be set for each speaker please keep an eye on the timer speakers will be informed when the time has expired and we ask that you end your comments at that time our first Speaker tonight will be marabel Cervantes guys hear me all right hello my name is marel cantes from Commerce City and I am proud to serve as a post-secondary coordinator at the new America School the this institution holds a special place in my heart not only because I work there but also because I am an alumni just like my husband both my husband and I experienced a pivotal moment in our lives when we were in need of a second chance and we found that opportunity at the new America School in Thorton it became much more than just a school for us and it transformed into a light of hope during a challenging time the support and encouragement we received were instrumental in helping us rebuild our lives I began my journey with the new America School in 2015 taking on various roles over the years sometimes stepping away due to personal reasons particularly related to my husband's career in the Navy however my commitment to the school has never wavered as a teen mother I was fortunate to receive a second chance at the norm America School unlike my previous experiences where I felt judged for my decisions here at the new America school I was embraced and encouraged the staff helped me believe in myself even when I struggled to see my own potential this Unforgettable experience inspired me to return at and work at the very place that had given me a new start and a much needed opportunity to tap into all of my potential I am dedicated to providing students with the same support and guidance that I received as a student I understand the challenges they face and I want to be the source of encouragement for them my husband has always been oo sorry has always been one of my greatest supporters in my career and it feels me with pride to be the part to be part of the Journey of the students at the new America School students who remind me of who I once was together we are creating a community where hope and opportunity flourish and I am honored to play a role in shaping the futures of our amazing students thank you thank you our next speaker is Loretta Southerland okay how about I can talk loud but they said to use the mic uh my name's Letta Southerland and I live in Arvada I am probably the newest member for new America schools dorton and I was really just very honored to be asked to come and talk on their behalf I have been teaching for a long time a little over 30 years and I've been in every capacity I can think of from prek to high school I taught General Ed I did self-contained I did inclusion I did all the different ways that you can teach and after a while although I still loved students I really thought maybe I needed to make a change so I retired from General Ed and got my special ed endorsement I'd had my masters and specials for a long time so I knew that it was a a population I wanted to try to meet um anyway when you put your special ed endorsement out there people come to you and I don't know if Myra and Michelle know this cuz I don't know if I told you but the day that I interviewed with you I had four interviews I actually had nine that week I also had nine offers but when I was sitting there talking to Myra and Michelle I just their passion just exudes from them their smiles were so welcoming they felt so sincere and I guess at this point in my life I needed them I needed you just as much as you needed me so I said yes and told everybody else no and I am so grateful this school has a special feeling I feel very different than the population of students that I'm working with but I feel extreme extremely accepted respected maybe even a little admired they seem to think I know more than I do but I'm working with them and they are working with me these are students who really want to be there and be successful and the cooperation of the staff and the support and the encouragement it's just a wonderful place to be in my own personal life I happen to be having a hard time right now and I really look forward to coming to school it's really great the kids are wonderful I love my teammates and I'm just super grateful so thank you maybe I'll stick around another 30 years thanks thank you Loretta our next speaker is Joshua abery can you hear me I'm Joshua the new America school is a place where diverse and opportunity come together to create a unique and learning environment the school is dedicated to providing education tailored to the needs of students from various backgrounds including those who are new to the country with the focus of personalized learning and support support the new America School help students achieve their academic goals while sorry I'm nervous um while also preparing them for future success the inclusive atmosphere and dedicated staff make it welcoming place for all the students to thrive thank you thank you Joshua our next speaker is Xavier Garcia yeah in the future I think we just start need to have a mic attendant at the podium for a public comment hello my name is Xavier I attend new America High School I like my school because it offers a unique a unique and diverse learning environment that encourages critical thinking and creativity uh the teachers are passionate and very sorry are passionate and very dedicated to all of us always pushing us to be to explore new ideas our school also provides a wide range of extracurricular sorry extracurricular activities allow allowing us our students to develop our interests and talents outside of school overall new America gives a sense of community and prepares us all for this successful future sorry that's all thank you thank you Xavier our next speaker is Jade castanada hello okay hello my name is Jade cetta I came to new America for a better education environment not only that with them having the CB program really helped me knowing I have a great support team of teachers now I'm able to continue my education further knowing I'll have my diploma this year thank you thank you Jade Jade can I ask you one quick question did did you talk about like a j a CV program or what was the name of the program that you said CB CB what does that stand for got it thank you very much okay our next speaker is Evelyn tros okay moving on to Randy Bry no okay I'm Dr Randy brille I live in Arvada Colorado I thank you superintendent gdowski and the esteemed board for allowing us to be here this evening I was here two years ago also with my friend the starfish and some of you remember the story that I shared then was a parable relating to the student body and I will reference that same Parable on my own behalf this evening um I would begin by letting you know that I represent all three campuses as their school psychologist so I'm privileged to be out of the Lakewood campus on Tuesdays the Thorton campus on Wednesdays and on Thursdays I'm in Aurora and most days I'm aware of where it is that I'm supposed to be and I usually appear sometimes uh in the past I've been in the wrong campus on the wrong day and I've been helped to understand that um as I think about it I've been with the new America school system for 13 years and uh God willing if the creek doesn't rise I'll be there even longer and uh this year will be my 75th year uh in December so um I continue to be a part of an incredible team and I would say that uh the way in which I have been able to experience the supportive staff and the nurturing environment that is the new America campus at Thornton was um underscored during the U November of 2023 and it was the date that my mother passed she was 91 years old she passed on the 14th and she was playing Scrabble until her final two weeks and then she was in hospice care and uh for those of you that play Scrabble you would know that her having scored uh 91 uh with a bonus of 50 points for a seven-letter word was pretty impressive for a 90-year-old mother so um I inherited some of her love of the game but not necessarily her expertise so my experience that November was even more damaging to me professionally and personally because 12 days later after my mother passed away in Hospice in home my wife died and that was on the 26th of November and uh that sent me reing as you would well understand and so it was a trying time for me and uh moving through my grief and my losses I could not have done it without the benefit of the team at new America and I thank you my I thank you Michelle and even Santiago for the way way in which you allowed me to continue to move forward at a pace that I could sustain and I'm accustomed to being the person providing encouragement and support and being an exhorter of others but this was an opportunity for me to realize the benefit of how others can be there on my own behalf so that's where it is that the starfish story comes in as a parable it's about a young boy who throws starfish back into the ocean after a storm this story is often used to illustrate how small actions can make a big difference well for me I was that starfish and I teach and I preach to the students the benefit of having a support system and without that support system I wouldn't have been able to move through so this past holiday was the first holiday season without my mother and my wife but the benefit that I realized from being a psychologist in the schools is what gives me purpose and it's part of my existential meaning and fulfillment so again if they don't change the locks I'll keep coming back so I'm thankful for that and uh I can only express my gratitude a new and realize how proud I am of the team that I'm a part of and the privilege that's mine to continue to return and so I thank you for that and thank you for letting me speak before you again this is two years after the last time I was here so it's good to see you all thank you thank you Ry our next speaker is let's say Ramos hello okay um my name is Ali Ramos I in from Henderson Colorado um I am a new student at new America this year they gave me a opportunity that most schools did not give me they gave me a sorry I'm sorry I'm nervous they gave me um a chance at a school where they teach you way differently at a pace that you can learn better I didn't get that chance at my old school at my old school if you didn't get it you didn't get it at this school they help you to understand it they stay with you after class to help you better understand what you didn't get during the class time if you have any other questions they can you can stay after school most schools don't allow you to stay after school and they have a very um I don't know how to say it but a very caring system they have their pride and joy against each each and every student if you have questions want to do anything else you can go to them and they'll try to get you what you need in a timely manner um yeah that's it thank you thank you Eli our next speaker is David Rodriguez good evening thank you all very much uh for this opportunity um um my goodness I stand um in support uh of uh the new America School my name is David Rodriguez I um am a mathematics teacher and I also teach uh music appreciation there at the school um I'm really excited to be here um like Loretta oh real quickly I just want to say great job elsi um Xavier um you guys all did a really really wonderful job um um I wanted to say thank thank you a lot like Loretta um I'm very grateful for the opportunity to teach at uh new America school I myself um way back when Adam I'm an Adams 12 kid um I went to um Hillcrest Elementary School back in the day um I've been teaching for about 20 25 years now I've taught in Mapleton and Denver public schools at the University of Colorado in bvsd and just when I thought oh gosh in the Twilight of my teaching career and that I had seen it all I came across this very unique opportunity a unique population of students like wow and I came across Myra and Michelle and Santiago and I just can't believe on a day-to-day basis I've been with the school for about a year and a half now and on a day-to-day basis I I am constantly motivated and inspired you know it's one thing to say I try and honor my students and I you know I try and learn more about pedagogi each and every day and then it's another thing to be immersed in it and to really really feel yourself growing and one thing that I wanted to make sure that I said was thank you to Myra and Michelle who very much model the exact support that I try and want to model for my students um I think you've heard it expressed in a couple of different ways just what a a godsend it is to work for this or this organization of Educators it's it's small but the love is powerful and ultimately I think that I've learned is that's what teaching is all about it's your ability to express your like the truest form of love for another human being and so I've learned a lot I continue to learn a lot it's the you know it's Wednesday and I I almost can't wait to get back into class tomorrow we've got a lot of things grooving in in music appreciation and we've got an assessment going on in algebra tomorrow that I just I cannot wait to see the results right of all of this woulded thank you and and and and and I wouldn't be able to do it if I weren't feeling so supported constantly and consistently by my peers at the new America School here in Thorton thank you so much thank you David our next speaker is Andres Alonzo hello okay well thank you um for having the opportunity for us to do this public speaking thank you for the um students that came in really appreciate that I know it takes a lot um I know that you meet a lot of people hundreds maybe thousands but I was uh one of the first teachers that got hired to help out with the new America needed help um and during the process it has been an experience like anybody else we we we move forward like Mr Rodriguez was saying you get challenged sometimes you feel like okay is this the right place for me but then you see the succe you hear the stories of the student succeeding and you hear of how they're overcoming how we're just a small part of their Big Dreams um I do believe that during all this process even the group the accountability group that went in to meet us it has been a something of an experience because there is a high standard there is that that bar we have to reach and I do believe that we continue to reach that bar every day more and more because our hearts in it but also we need to have logic with it and I do believe under the guidance that that ad St continues to give us and the resources and the accountability part and even um anything from our PD to our superintendent to our admin team to pour into us we continue to serve the students here that that come in years behind and try to catch them up to that level of graduation status to us that's a big reward so thank you for bringing that to us thank you for challenging us to be better as not just people but as Educators um and that really just make an impact um on the community so thank you for your time thank you [Applause] Andress and our final speaker is Veronica Ramos good evening my name is Veronica Ramos I'm from Henderson and I am the mother of Alexia Ramos I'm sorry if I mumble if I or you don't understand what I'm saying I was I didn't know I was going to be speaking today but they offered me the opportunity and I hopped on the opportunity because this school has made a drastic change in my daughter um having four kids I've been through Denver public schools auroral Henderson schools and none of my children have received the support that my daughter has received at new America school she went from being a student that had lost all hope in herself and as parents you could only do so much to tell them that they're smart that they're intelligent that they got this that they can do good in life but sometimes you need it from somebody else and as parents when I drop off my kids at school I'm relying on the teachers and the staff to do their job new America staff and teachers have exceeded my expectations and I speak from four different kids that have been through school from K to uh seniors and she's by far she went from D's and Fs at other schools where I would go to parent teacher conferences and basically if she didn't understand the assignment they would tell me this is what there is and she gets it fine if she doesn't she's too bad she loves this school so much that she's very antisocial she's willing to go that extra mile for this school to speak out in public to help out this school because that's how much this school means to her new America has become a second family for my daughter sometimes I feel she doesn't even want to come home which I don't blame her because she feels comfortable Mr Rodriguez along with all the other Stu uh teachers and staff have made her welcome have made her believe and she's now planning on going to college which is something she didn't have planned anymore so I thank you guys from the bottom of my heart as a single mom that's one less thing I have to stress on a daily basis and if this helps for new America to continue this she is not the only one that we have in our family we actually had her uncle come from out of state and be a new America graduate so that's how we learn about new America and I am glad and honored to help in everything and anything that I can as a parent of somebody that has drastically changed and they have made her change her perspective in herself and have encouraged to give it 100% and more when she can thank you everyone thank you Veronica okay thank you everyone for coming out tonight and speaking there's some good heartfelt stories there all right uh board committee liazon reports Dak anything to report uh we did have a meeting last Wednesday um and they discussed a lot of the highlights for the past d uh year for the district accountability committee um and you know they've done a lot of good things and some of those things include doubling their membership which broadens our reach to different schools in their sacks which is a wonderful thing to see I think they're also still asking some questions about how to better understand that relationship between the district accountability committees and the school accountability committees um and tonight I won't go into this too much but they'll be presenting on their um their uh discussions and their visits with the new America school so that's it thanks thank you is there a fact report I was unable to attend the last fact meeting and my counterpart that also serves on liaison is not here tonight okay thanks um LR Pac met before uh winter break and um we had a little different when we were at when I was at the we all went to the car Association of school boards conference in December and there's lot of vendors there and I don't know if I mentioned this at the last meeting but um there were a lot of construction Folks at the in the vendors and they saw that I was from Adams 12 and they gravitated toward me because we had just passed our bond and we're rebuilding Thor and high school and not that board members really have a say in all that kind of stuff but uh a woman from one of the architech firms came up to me and gave me this book and it was a it a children's book called if you um what would you do with a chance it's a it's beautifully Illustrated everything and I had thought well this is really a cool thing to maybe read at LR Pac so I talked to Molly and um we figured out how to make it so that I didn't I could read it and I didn't have to show everybody we had it projected on the screen and it really struck a great conversation because um we we are rebuilding a school in an area of our district that has not always gotten new and shiny things and so now that part of our community is going to get something new and shiny and it's going to be an amazing opportunity for our kids down in in the South part of Thorton so that's how we started the meeting and um I really appreciated the participation of everybody on the LR pack and indulging me in the conversation about thinking about really what the impact is going to be to have such a great opportunity um as we rebuild Thorton high and then um we went over uh the project uh timeline which um you guys got tonight I already had it before and um we um learned how this is going to all roll out it's going to take about six years um to basically do all these projects with the money that the voters approved and I really appreciate my heartfelt Thanks goes out to the voters who voted for that and I just want to point out too that and I had said this at the last meeting that um people in the um construction industry think very highly of Margie and Tim Margie Ammon and Tim dozel and I just want to say point out um the best of luck to Tim and his new adventures he's doing great things for schools so that's the LR pack now we are going to have a charter renewal presentation on new America and um I believe we are going to start with the district okay well I'm just going to give it to Bo fobert and let him take it from here y all right good evening board members superintendent gadowski Happy New Year to you all I'm going to uh try to talk while I maneuver uh the screen here give me a moment thank you okay so first agenda item tonight is the uh renewal process for new America Thorton it's a process that we take uh very seriously and uh put a lot of diligence into so that you as a board can make a very informed decision and so I want to orient you to what the presentation is going to look like tonight cuz it's going to have three phases to it but I also want to begin by just acknowledging a lot of great work that's happened over the past several weeks uh that have put together the information you'll see tonight obviously I want to recognize Myra and Michelle and their openness and their team uh and their uh partnership with us over the last several weeks as we've done this work uh you're going to hear a lot tonight from Audrey Monaco and kellyanne Scott who are our director of Charter Partnerships and Charter liaison respectively I also want to recognize Kim Brady and Dave B who do a lot of technical support with this work uh provide a lot of uh advising to Audrey uh throughout this process and then we have members of our Dak here uh this evening along with our Dak president Tara Raju who will be having uh a portion of this presentation tonight all of those folks have put in a lot of extra time and effort over the past several weeks uh for the presentation that you're going to see tonight so the presentation is going to come in three uh pieces tonight you're first going to hear a presentation from new America Thorton that myn team will lead we're then going to allow for questions and answers after that section so you can really focus your feedback your questions on one section at a time from there you'll hear the presentation from our district accountability members same thing they'll present Q&A and then finally Audrey and kellyanne will present the district's presentation as always superintendent gdowski reserves the right to hop in at any time as he fills the need uh and then you'll have a Q&A uh at the conclusion of the district's presentation as reminder tonight is giving you information uh allowing you to interact uh this is not an action item for you until our next meeting in February Audrey anything you'd add as part of the overview or are we ready okay clear for you all all right new America I'm going to invite you up to get us started here and I think I pulled the wrong one up let's do this okay it's all yours let me take this one so I don't make mistakes good evening board members and superintendent gadowski my name is MAA Ramirez I'm the principal of new America School Thorton it is a pleasure to be here with you today my team and I are very excited to share all the great work we have been doing during this last renewal term let me introduce Santiago Lopez superintendent superintendent of Nas Colorado he will be starting us off by reading our school's mission statement something we do with well I'm Santiago Lopez superintendent new America school I started with new America thoron in 2013 as an assistant principal then became the principal and now I'm the superintendent overseeing the three new America schools in in the metro area uh one thing that we do at all a lot of our meetings all of our um professional development meetings as well as our board meetings is to ground ourself in our mission the new America school empowers new immigrants English language Learners and academically underserved students with the Educational Tools and support to maximize their potential and live the American dream before we get into the focus of our presentation I would like to talk about our programming and student demographics in terms of scheduling students attend classes 4 days a week from 8:15 to 3:50 p.m. they take seven classes inclusive of an advisory period we do offer extended schedule our evening classes run from 5:10 to 7:11 p.m. this allows us to customize schedules based on student needs and it also allows for more credit acral we offer a variety of credit recovery options such as online classes evening classes Friday school summer school credit for students who are working and a foreign language test currently only available in Spanish we have a newcomer program where individuals in this program are full-time students they receive three and a half hours of English development they also take shelter statistics US history and physical education students in the newcomer program can be in that program for up to two years in addition to our traditional diploma track we also offer the Competency Based diploma which we refer to as a CB diploma this is our alternative diploma track that was modeled after Pathways and adopted for new America school students this is a semester long program students attend classes from 9:20 a.m. to 3:50 PM also inclusive of an advisory period And there are strict requirements for students to enter the program please take a minute to look at the numbers on this slide these are the experiences and backgrounds of the students who enroll at our school 97% of students have at least one indicator of being high risk of dropping out as defined by Colorado State Statute for alternative education campuses 95% of students have a history of Habitual truancy 94% of our students are minorities predominantly Latino Hispanic 85% of students come from low socio economic status 67% are overaged and under accredited 54% our multilinguals inclusive of long-term MLS 40% of our students have a history of suspension or exposion and 22% of our students are former dropouts now that you know who we are and who we serve I turn it over to Santiago who will speak about our current contract Provisions thank you maida so under the current contract that started in 2022 there are some renewal Provisions that happened or that were put into the contract and we're going to talk about some of the all of those the first provision is keep balanced keeping a balanced budget maintaining maintaining an in or increasing I'm sorry current instructional and non-instructional staff new amerk school thoron has done that we've been able to maintain a balanced budget prior to this current contract as well as through the current contract term we've also been able to maintain instructional and non-instructional staff to ensure that our academic program is we are able to to offer the academic program that we offer meeting that Taber Reserve we consistently meet that we've have we have done that ever since new America started and as well as under the current contract term this is a busy slide so there a lot to read one provision was we are on the four-year comprehensive support planning and implementation through the Essa the federal government and so we recognized that and one thing that we've done is we were able to tap into some easy Grant targeted dollars for um for last year and what we did is we contracted with a national Dropout prevention center specifically their diploma planning Institute which was a which consisted of a three-day training and some direct consultation not only for new America school thoron but all three of our schools so we can work together because we we have the same challenges so we want to work together to really open the minds and really understand what's going on so starting with that root cause analysis and looking at some research-based Dropout prevention strategies the new America School Thorton's team worked with the DPI team in order to really lay out a plan it's really a uip a unified Improvement plan specifically around graduation so that's one thing that we done we did a combination of things of in person and zoom meetings with DPI in order to focus on a lot of different things the new America school team put together a plan that was focused actionable and measurable they were able to look at what really does increase student engagement which then leads to students completing High School whether it's through our Competency Based diploma or the traditional track or completing some of our students do leave us and get a GED so it's a small percentage but really looking at getting them on track to finish something progress towards a performance rating on the aecf increased by 2.7 points on the 2024 aecf alternative education campus school performance framework so this is another busy slide and I'm going to walk through it so under the academic achieve section of the acpf that in increased from 7.12 to 7.25 it didn't change the indicator rating but there was a slight increase there so we're going to continue to work on that academic growth increased from [Music] 17.51% student engagement saw the reincorporation of the attendance uency measure which was left out over the past few years really around covid time that's when it was pulled out to look at things differently eight of the 20 points were allocated to attendance and truancy and resulted in a decrease in allocation of points to optional measures and an overall decrease in points earned from 15.01 to 11 which we expected with the re addition of attendance and treny postsecondary Workforce Readiness increased the points earned from 15 to 16.08 we added an optional measure and working with Dave baina and the district we added graduation rate as an optional measure and that was added and we did our result of that was 40.8% so if you look Nas thoron met the 2022 renewal provision regarding Improvement on the ACs PF over the contract term which was 2.7 points with an increase of 3.05 points over the contract term I'm going to turn it back over to Mida thank you again this is the first year that the graduation rate has been incorporated into our a into our acpf measure to put this into context with the acpf rating exceeds a set out of 54.3% % while meet is at 33.3% we are excited to share encouraging news about our graduation rate we're currently at a Meats rating with 40.8 showing significant progress from 36% in 2022 and 37.9 in 2023 thank you to Dave Baya for his support in gathering and calculating this data for us over just two years we've achieved a 5% growth we're now only 133% away from an exceeds rating and if we maintain our current growth rate of about 2.5% or more each year we will be closer to exceeds than meets within 2 years we will cover the various goals and strategies that we have implemented to increase our graduation rate a little bit later in this presentation another stipulation of our previous renewal was to demonstrate accountability and growth through District reporting due every six months some of the great outcomes from going through this renewal process are highlighting the accountability pieces that Nas tooran excels at and identifying identifying areas of growth we have continued impactful work for students through attendance behavior and single School culture we have improved the processes for graduation monitoring through credit acral tracking and physical safety we have been able to track systematize and embed these practices into our day-to-day operations professional development and our staff collaboration we have met our goal reporting to the district and have shared with you our areas of growth progress and celebrations ardan Michel Aila will now go through our specific initiatives and goals thank you MAA my name is Michel AI Lino I am the dean of the new America school board members and superintendent gadowski thank you so much for your time this evening okay so Nason initiatives and goals this last renewal period fall into three categories post-secondary Readiness academic achievement and student safety and connection we are excited to report we have made substantial progress in several areas our Competency Based diploma program has seen a 64% enrollment increase working towards our 100% increased role we continue to be intentional with graduation tracking 65 % of continuously enrolled students within seven credits of graduation earned their diploma by the end of the school year last year our goal is to reach 75% this school year we have exceeded our student retention goal with 65.5 returning student rate surpassing our 60% Target and notably our behavior intervention programs have particularly been successful only 15% of students who participate in restorative mediation required a second intervention for the same incident meeting our goal in this area we're actually expect expecting a 20% recidivism and we're pleasantly surprised to have less turning to our academic initiatives we are making steady progress in curriculum development with 70% of our courses already addressed in our scope and sequence revisions we are particularly proud of our map grow results we have met State expectations in both reading and Mathematics achieving the 56 percentile in Reading meeting State expectations and the 61st percentile in math exceeding State expectations our language usage scores are also improving currently in the 48th percentile we continue to develop schoolwide systems that balance that balance classroom uniformity also with teacher autonomy regarding school safety and student connection we have several key initiatives we're working to increase positive responses on on our AEL survey which measures how well nasor and students feel welcomed supported and connected to the school our Target is to increase 25% in this area Nas dorton Works closely with Adams 12 Safety and Security team Anthony Paul Olivia q and others to ensure our building is a safe place to work and study we train on standard response protocols yearly and for the 2024 year our staff training is nearly complete at 95% due to the addition of new staff and we plan to have them trained within the next 30 days our school enroll students three times a year during year one of this renewal we conducted enrollment meetings with 95 % of the new students that came through our doors to assess their needs in attendance behavior and credits this year um our our Administration team developed an orientation video to inform students and parents of school expectations resulting in uniform messaging to students and it also helped us better allocate our resources outstanding concerns and behavior and tendons and credits are still addressed through individual intake meetings when those are needed but most importantly our graduation rate of 40.8% meets aec State Standards special education is an area we continue to improve year one of this last renewal we had three qualified learning Specialists who left Nas Thorton for reasons outside of the school's control at the beginning of year two we continue to struggle with hiring and retaining a learning specialist this led us to pursue alternative options by Contracting through staffing agencies restructuring the role of a learning specialist and implementing systems and structure structures to support our special populations team as of semester two our special education department is fully staffed we are so excited to have a full-time learning specialist servicing students in person we also have a part-time learning specialist who is in charge of all the paperwork and documentation in addition we are having special district meeting uh with kellyan Scott every two weeks and we have weekly school team meetings with our key team members we are fully confident that moving into this year we have the right people the right action steps and we have the right structures with leaders running those structure driving those structures to be able to make this happen in in a more compliant way a point of Celebration is that 83% of students who receive special education services Grew From fall to winter in their map Reading I want to address our current status and leave you with a final thought while we moved from performance in 2023 to Improvement in 2024 on our aecf this shift was primarily reflect this shift primarily reflects changes in metrics including the readdition of attendance and treny measures it is not a reflection of decline in performance if the metric had remained constant Nas Thorton would have earned a performance rating in their 2024 acpf we are not on the clock for turnaround and we're confidently confidently projecting a return to Performance in 2025 this trajectory demonstrates our commitment to continuous Improvement and sustainable growth thank you very time thank you very much for your time this evening thank you anybody have any questions you mentioned TR and see and points and I was just trying to understand what was trying to translate it and figure out what it meant so if you could explain that to me I'd appreciate it yes thank you for your question I will let s answer that question I'm going to go back to the slide um so on the school performance Frameworks whether it's an aec school performance framework or the traditional there's a set of points that are given for every metric that's in there and on the um the treny the attendance and truy rating they're separate but on there the points that were awarded this year were not not existent on that it was just a it was a measure that was taken out over the last the previous few years and so when they brought and back those points were given to us based on what our attendance is and our treny is we do have a tendance that we know is a struggle and that we're addressing through the one-on-one meetings and the additional um conversations with families as well as the high truancy rate um it always baffles me with the state that the state definition is treny of treny is um attendance age however on the measures it includes everybody in the school so they we know that so we're trying to address are those students that are truant and habitually truant how do we engage them better in order for them to come one of the ways that we found works is that connection to students and Myra and her team have done a tremendous job to connect with students and families to really just ra Ram home that it's important to be in school but those points are awarded based on what our attendance and our tcy rates are does that answer your question yes thank you perfect and you kind of about answered partly my question that I was going to have or what measures um and practices have you put in place to help with yeah attendance and addressing that thank you for your question I think one of the biggest pieces we have put in place is focusing on our CB program which is our Competency Based diploma to try to re-engage those students that are overage and under credited and are losing hope in finishing high school I had a another question about the special education and IEP could we move back to that slide for a minute let me um so you said that uh uh you have hired an a part-time learning specialist to ensure IEP meetings take place do we have any uh data that we can look at around IEP meetings like how many have taken place on time um thank you that's a really good question there is we can pull that data for you I don't have it with me but I can definitely provide that for you we do have someone on staff taking notes for us so we will make sure we get that to you thank thank you it seems like good information uh it seems like there are good things happening it's just the data can help further thank you yes yeah we will get that to you to build up what director butali had said I would love to see data around what percentage of your student body is Special Needs how how are you assessing that how are you making sure that everyone is being identified properly but also um I would like to know a little bit differently what percentage of your graduating students are receiving the CB diploma versus the other options and kind of see a breakdown of some of that data I think having a little bit more data you know on treny and things as well would be really helpful and putting some of this in context um because it like she had said there's a lot of great things seeming to go on but without those numbers it's hard to really see that thank you for that feedback and we'll make sure we get that information to you anything else can we make observations at this point one thing I will say that I appreciate that new America does is it it's um meeting the needs of a population that is historically underserved um and I can't um I can't overstress how important that is um and I also recognize that it's difficult um particularly around hiring learning Specialists who have expertise not only in IEP but meeting the needs of uh students who have other factors in their lives as well thank you very much for that feed and also the evening classes as a as a person who had to work in high school um I always say had that been an opportunity and that's the reality so many of our students face is that they have to work to support their families so I appreciate the um innovation in the hours offered thank you again for that feedback I appreciate the effort that you've put in the last couple years um a couple years ago was a little uh I think it was a little stressful and um you know we laid out a plan for you and you you stepped up and you're carrying on and I see what you guys do there thank you very much for your feedback I do have a question uh do you have any of your board members here yes we have three can you raise your hand if you're on the nas board yes Sano will introduce them we the president of our board Dr David K one of our board members um Carlos Clinger and Dr Edgar Maldonado thank you thank you for being here board members okay all right next and I'm GNA leave this on so nobody struggles I see uh the daak I'll be it for now yes you're very welcome thank you thank you okay good evening superintendent gdowski members of the board uh I am Stephanie Ortiz a parent member of the district accountability committee and the first of three speakers this evening from our Dax Charter subcommittee uh this year our subcommittee comprised of two District staff and six parent and community members we appreciate the continuing opportunity to have the Dak engage in the charter renewal process engaging in this work is always valuable to DC members and is greatly enhanced when done in collaboration with District staff sorry as in previous years members of the daak both participated in a site visit and reviewed the charter renewal application focusing on uh focusing on three main areas mission and vision culture and climate and organizational performance we are not here tonight to provide a recommendation to renew or not renew but to share our perspective based on this work thank you Stephanie hello my name is ID uh I'm a parent member of the district accountability committee I've been with uh DAC for almost a year today I will like to highlight some the strength and some positive findings about Nas so those findings are mostly based on what we observed from the school side visit and from the renewal documentations it's clear that the school did some meaningful changes to support student diversity uh these changes are strongly aligned with their mission and vision as most of their students are new immigrants English language Learners and academically underserved it offers a lot of options for them like online courses the extended scheduling Friday school summer school and they have a work study program uh the staffs are also trying to engage in Communications with families the administrator team hold this one-on-one meetings with newly enrolled students and they hold this like monthly coffee talks as a smaller School compared to other high schools in Adams 12 they have a small student teacher ratio this ratio allows them have a personalized attendant attention so every student's known by name which we think uh those students might feel more supported also we want to mention their great efforts in student attendance and their efforts to increase student behavior um since considering 100% of their students have at least one adver childhood experience indicators and 95% of their students have a history of Habitual transy these efforts are critical the students have an interventionist to build relationship to build a strong relationship with the students and they also trained all their stuffs with hisorical practices so they can apply this during their mediation meetings uh as a result they their attendance rate increased and their habit uh and their uh incident uh and their incident uh Behavior Uh have dropped over the past three years we believe the management is working hard to sport to support the student learning by getting better habits and creating a positive School climate also compared to the school site visit from a few years ago there are some improvements um there are some improvements in policies and protocols the hallways are much cleaner and they are decorated to celebrate different cultures and holidays the 2024 Vision uh revision of the student handbook is another step forward it provides students families and staff with more clear expectations and responsibilities um we feel that from things we observed that the manager is trying hard to build a more consistent and structural School environment so the whole school Community can have a better shared understanding of stability and belong belonging now I will hand it over to Omar to discuss other concerns good evening everyone uh I'm om Karam City I'm also another uh parent volunteer at the district accountability committee um the things that I'm going to cover over here are the areas of growth concerns and considerations that we that we thought about uh the uh new American School uh one of the things that Dak noticed is that uh new America being a unique school by itself uh it needs to be uh uh marketed more what we felt like was that the school has been being marketed more through its uh uh through the families and word of mouth and it should also be tried to connect to the other school districts and that would help in terms of recruiting more students for the specific needs that the unique needs that uh n serves um and we also thought that the uh the second point that we also looked at is that uh Nas serves not only uh Spanish PR speaking students but also other uh multi or non-native English speaking students so uh we would like to see like there is more support for those students and those families uh from Nas and uh in terms of student engagement we saw that there's a lot of collaboration among the students uh and uh as you can imagine there is uh a little bit of variability in different kinds of classes so we will would like to see more consistency in that part of it uh in terms of opportunities uh uh we also thought that uh uh there is a uh varied communication like uh there there is a coffee with principal and other Communications that are being done but we would also recommend that uh the school reach out uh in different other ways of communication like uh text messages phone calls emails or whichever other ways possible uh so that the uh schools Mission and uh the uniqueness is spread out for the for the community um and also that uh uh we uh one other thing that we did not notice is that we did not see any specific uh details about the culture and climate survey or feedback uh from the community so maybe if those can be done and those can be uh published out to the district or to the community that would be helpful uh in terms of understanding the school's performance and uh lastly we thought the uh one one point of recommendation from us is that there are lots of resources that are available from the from the district that the new America school can uh reach out to and uh uh collaborate and partnership uh to develop the staff and teachers and use those resources thank you thank you questions so Tara you just like the denm tonight and not actually talking but making sure that all your kids uh come forward nice job that's ow tell our Dak folks that you did a great job they're always so nervous about it beforehand so yeah you did you did good yeah very well done you okay thank you all thank you good evening I am Audrey Monaco I am the director of Charter Partnerships and I'm kellyanne Scott I'm the charter liaison for special populations we will be co-presenting the district P presentation for uh new America Thorton's renewal application tonight I wanted to start our present presentation by giving an overview of our atams 12 renewal process a renewal process is required for any renewal consideration of a charter contract our renewal process here in Adams 12 the primary purpose is to review a school's record of performance and to determine if it should continue to operate as a district authorized Charter School so I'm going to provide a brief overview of our renewal process and what that entailed you can see here that it was two-pronged the first part is our site visit this is a range of classes um that are observed by District stakeholders the district accountability committee or DC members and a Colorado Association of charter school authorizers or CAA reviewer this person was a third party reviewer who supported our process um in addition to going and visiting the classes we also conducted interviews with the Charter School's board leadership parents students and staff the charter was given a summary of the site visit observation feedback um the school was given an opportunity to respond to this in writing um and also respond to some questions that arose from our reviewers those reviewers also reviewed the renewal application packet review here that you can see um this is part of our requirement under board policy 2.9 and includes the categories of school climate and culture organizational performance academic growth and achievement equal access and opportunity and financial accountability and transparency so those reviewers again um were the same same reviewers that looked at this part and we really wanted to make sure that the site visit and the renewal um renewal packet process supplemented each other and gave us a more comprehensive understanding of what was really going on at the school we were able to tease out some Nuance in the school's programming and their government um governance and also just how they were running and improving their academic program in addition to the site visit and the renewal application we also looked at the school's record of performance this data was collected through our accountability processes in the uh Charter Partnerships office this included annual reviews school performance Frameworks uh the school's progress toward their goals outlined in their unified Improvement plan we also reviewed the original charter application to make sure that the school was uh following through on its promise to the Adams 12 Community we reviewed compliance reports and corrective action plans we also reviewed the school's financial audits uh we conducted a board meeting audit and we also reviewed the progress reports submitted by new America outlined in their District uh Charter contract attachment 11 we wanted to include our renal timeline here you can see from August all the way to January our entire process I did want to point out um January and February we had a mutual extension between new America Adams 12 and our d committee um for extra time to review the school's uh application so that's why we're here presenting on January 15th and the board will vote on February 5th the next few slides we will go over our application assessment um some strengths and some considerations for the board prior to making your decision you've heard from new America today and you've learned a lot about them uh I have a few additional pieces of information about the school they opened in 2005 and have been authorized by Adams 12 since 2018 they currently hold a 2-year Charter contract with our district and that will expire in June of 2025 which is why we are here tonight and reviewing our renewal process they currently serve grades 9 through 12 and as of of December they had 174 students students I am happy to say that since the uh holiday break they have seen an uptick in enrollment and as of yesterday they were sitting at 185 their school model is in alternative education campus in aec they are Charter School dedicated to serving English language Learners new immigrants and non-traditional students they are part of a new americ Network they are one of three schools in the network linked here for you to review are their application materials the submitted application is linked as well as uh our compilation of their site visit summary I also included their site visit feedback response our reviewers had a few questions um and the school did provide feedback to those so I've linked that here in the next couple slides you will see a summary of the strengths that we uh that we identified climate and culture and Miss Mission alignment were part of those strengths you will also hear some summary of concerns or considerations in the areas of equal access and opportunity academic growth and achievement mostly surrounding post-secondary and Workforce Readiness as well as Staffing allocations we wanted to include a historical timeline of the time that new America has been AU authorized by Adams 12 you can see our current Charter term is in gray and red um but we did add in information from 2018 on Adams 12 approved naz's contract in 2018 they had previously been authorized by the charter school Institute our Statewide authorizer this contract was a 2-year contract with some contractual visions and a extension option for one year the concerns that had been outlined by Adams 12 and CSI as well were at a low SPF rating a low graduation rate concerns in special populations and concerns in Safety and Security new America did meet the provisions in the contract and was granted the extension in 2021 our last renewal with new America was in 2022 they were given a 2-year renewal with again agreed upon contractual requirements these can uh these conditions were surrounded by uh Financial considerations Safety and Security graduation rate and special populations attachment 11 of the charter contract outlined these requirements and were in response to those concerns that brings us to 2024 the school has uh part participated in the renewal process this year and we are happy to say that they have improved their fund balance as well as the Safety and Security concerns um the next couple slides we will go over some of the remaining concerns that we have surrounding low graduation rate and serving special populations new America did an excellent job outlining their progress towards um the contract attachment 11 requirements um this like I said in the previous slide was in response to some of the concerns outlined um and the school did set additional goals that and reported on them quarterly we had an executive summary that was given to the board in June that is linked on the next slide that went over the progress that they made as well as some that are still in progress again new America did an excellent job showing us um the progress that they made I will say that they did um do an excellent job at providing us with quarterly reports and working with the district on their comprehensive support plans last year and again this year they did keep balanced budgets um and maintained their current instructional model and they did meet the Taber Reserve two goals are still in progress uh like Santiago mentioned we did have a goal that they would um make progress towards that performance rating by making at least 2.7 uh percentage points in growth they did score the Improvement rating on the two uh 20124 aec but again their overall score was impacted by that re-inclusion of treny and attendance data and they were correct had that not been um included they would have had a meet or a performance rating on the SPF the second goal um we did have a goal of them reaching uh or making progress toward reaching a goal of 67% graduation rate um we wanted that best of four five six and seveny year annual graduation rate to have a 15% increase the school does have a graduation rate um rated meets on their 2024 SPF and they have shown Improvement consistently and graduation rate and completion rate currently their completion rate is rated a does not meet um and they have been identified federally through every student succeeds act Essa for comprehensive support and Improvement under the low graduation rate category and they've held this identification for six years audre can I jump in there yeah I just want to like uh point out for the board and for others one of the biggest uh struggles and tension points for us as an authorizer for Nas are these competing in different standards for acceptable graduation performance from the state and from the feds so on the one hand when uh the state says it's satisfactory and you meet expectations to be 33% plus we've like that's good and then obviously when the feds say 67% is a standard and you're not there and haven't been for six years we're conflicted it's it's a difficult spot for us to be in and that's why we continue to lean in on graduation all the time Beyond just wanting kids to have a certificate and credentials that allow them opportunity uh as they enter the workforce in the world it also just puts us in this really challenging place in terms of the accountability systems and the conflicts between the two so I just wanted to make That explicit absolutely so I have the privilege of sharing with you some of the strengths that emerged from our work um in this renewal process and I want to speak first about school culture and climate so as we reviewed the uh application as we entered the school we conducted interviews the thing that really became clear is that students perceive that what they can get at their school they cannot get elsewhere at other schools the leadership culture is overwhelmingly positive student and educator perceptions are very closely aligned in regards to their school um students indicated that the school staff is very passionate for their work they feel like they're connected to their staff um and students are enthusiastic about their time at the school the school offers some unique support U for students who require that more flexible approach as we heard earlier they have afternoon classes flexible schedules a 4 day school week with flexible Fridays they also have opportunities to receive a full high school diploma not just a GED they have a competency based uh diploma program cohort which is really gaining popularity with students um and students who are in that cohort feel very strongly about uh what it has meant for them in their lives and have actually sought that out and come to the school specifically for the program students experience physical social and emotional safety they have these small classes that feel very supportive for them um and they have opportunity commities to do things like art and music appreciation in addition to their curriculum um and just generally support is very widely available um students identified safe adults in the school across all of their interviews um that was a consistent Trend the leadership has clearly implemented a lot of structures and systems also to support professional growth of their teachers um whether that's working through Consultants working through um in school um supports and programming training the staff um UNC consistent procedures that came through very strongly in this process another strength is their mission alignment which you've also heard a little bit about tonight um but I want to highlight that this is a small alternative education Campus High School experience that offers support for that long-term language learning um and no barriers to enrollment so the school staff oh I'm sorry I'm looking back at my other notes um when we look at the options for aec programming in this area um there are some different programs that students can tap into depending on their unique needs um students may need to meet admissions requirements that are unique to each of those programs and that might include living within certain boundaries age requirements high school semester completion um in this program there those um barriers to enrollment or conditions for enrollment are a little bit different um we also have a newcomer Center offered by the district but students May attend that for one year um we do have an extended time available to students it um in this program there may be changes in what the newcomer Center at thoron high school has to offer in the future to allow for multiple year attendance um but this is currently something that fills a gap that we would have otherwise um in addition the site visit observations and our interview responses um again underscored that commitment to making sure that the um practices in the culture align with the State admission and vision we could see things like safe hallways initiatives and restorative justices in practice um throughout the school not just in classroom spaces but in common spaces as well we noticed that staff and Leadership actively work to create that environment um and students and Staff feel that sense of unity and purpose and I think that extends to the families as well uh the visibility of the mission physical visibility even it's posted across classrooms and hallways um it's commonly referenced by staff and students alike um really inspired confidence in that that focus and priority that they had set as a school um and in addition the board of education for the school and the school's leadership are very representative of the school population I also want to share with you some considerations um we mentioned earlier that one of the considerations is equal access and opportuni specifically around student Support Services during the charter term for the school there have been ongoing concerns around appropriate special education services that are offered specifically related to Staffing so a little quick timeline here of some of the action that has been taken to help resolve some of these issues um in November of 2023 there was a notice of concern issued to the school related to a lack of Staffing specifically in nursing um it also noted that Staffing special education providers was difficult and and the school had a delayed response to some of the concerns that were brought forward that led into February of 2024 when a breach of contract was issued to the school um the school had hired a learning specialist but that learning specialist had an expired license and therefore the services that had been provided did not meet student IEP minutes there was a need for compensatory services and the school also uh had a delayed response to those circumstances that impacted their contractual agreements to serve students with special needs this breach was rectified by the end of the school year um by hiring a learning specialist who was qualified through a staffing agency that staff that staff member has continued in their employment as a part-time virtual um support for they mentioned a lot of the documentation and making sure that um timelines were compliant and student work was being um uh or documentation was being completed on time in December of this school year so uh December 2024 we issued an additional notice of concern um because the school had a virtual support for learning specialist but did not have an in-person learning specialist who could provide services um there was a gap in that Service delivery for students on IEPs um they had they were struggling to hire a learning specialist despite advertising the position working with outside Staffing agencies the day before this notice of concern was issued they worked with the staffing agency and they were able to hire a special education teacher um there is a need for substantial compensatory services and that process is ongoing they're providing weekly reports about the progress toward delivery of those Services um but that is something that is is a continuing pattern of concern um and to that end we wanted to just note um the Recruitment and Retention of hard positions serving special populations is something that is a is a trend um during this Charter term the school has struggled to staff and retain teachers for these hardto fill positions um particularly special education teachers and service providers but also there's a gap at the beginning of the year in an English language development teacher um this has resulted in notices of concern and a breach of contract that you just saw due to not being able to meet those contractual requirements so um in the interiew responses this is also held up that we saw newcomer students and families say you know I was disappointed that I didn't get that service from the very beginning of the school year I'm getting it now things are going okay but um you know there was a gap in our in our time our education we do not typically have salary in our purview because but because we hypothesize um that the impact of salary may actually be impacting the ability to hire in these hard to- fill positions um we wanted to note the this bottom bullet point here the starting salary offered to a special education teacher with a master's degree at um no America school is 19.2% lower than the Adams 12 District starting salary for the same position similarly for a general education position um which might include something like a a CDE teacher um that's 30% lower than the Adams 12 starting salary for this position and so we wanted to just note um that this is something we see as a potential ch challenge in school's ability to provide services for special populations in addition to equal access and opportunity we also had some considerations um with academic growth and achievement specifically in postsecondary and Workforce Readiness uh like we had mentioned before and superintendent gdowski clarified new America thoron has a graduation rate of 40.8 which rates meets on their aec SPF um but again they were identified federally under Essa as being in need of that comprehensive support um and they also fell below our mutually greed upon goal of 67% in attachment 11 however they did make progress um the table that is on this uh presentation slide is the 7-year completion and graduation rates for new America School Thorton um the entire time they've been authorized by Adams 12 again the current Charter term is in the teal green color and you can see from 2018 all the way up until the 23 24 school year um they have made progress in both completion rate and graduation rate there was a drop um after the 1920 school year due to the covid pandemic but you can see in school year 2324 their completion and graduation rates are either exceeding or approaching where they were uh pre- pandemic an additional consideration um also related to postsecondary and Workforce Readiness is a new America's dropout rate um their dropout rate currently has maintained it does not U meet rating on the SPF uh during the current Charter term as well as in years prior uh the dropout rate is significantly higher than State and District Dropout rates um it's also significantly higher than the aec average um those are sitting at about 2% roughly uh new America's dropout rate um for the 23 24 school year was 31.5 um and it has maintained from 2018 um it it hasn't changed much in additional consideration um per their renewal application new America experienced an unexpected 22% decrease in their enrollment for this school year at October count the school is at 79.6 of their projected enrollment um while this is not technically a concern at the moment it's it is a consideration uh if this is the beginning of a trend and pupil count continues to drop uh there may be some concerns regarding the ability to continue with current Staffing levels uh and there would definitely be uh a concern over their ability to potentially increase salaries if they chose uh to effectively recruit teachers and retain staff uh in response to the 22% decrease in enrollment they did adjust uh their projected enrollment to budget conservatively over the next 5 years uh they also maintain a healthy fund balance currently uh while talking to board members at the site visit uh they stated that they have uh plans for pinpointing targeted areas for marketing and they are using specific technology to help out with that so they do have plans to address this should it be the beginning of a trend as the Board of Education you have options for their Charter renewal term um we have listed the three options here the first would be a five-year Charter term which is the maximum Charter term uh and new America would undergo the standard monitoring procedures the other option would be less than 5 years uh the school would be subjected to increased monitoring and oversight by our district and the third option would be non-renewal uh this would mean that the school would not receive a new Charter and would close at the end of the current school year or an agreed upon date as per our district policy 1600 we do have a recommendation um because of the considerations that were previously discussed uh the recommend recommendation today is for a contract that's less than 5 years the considerations surrounding recruiting and retaining staff members serving special populations as well as postsecondary and Workforce Readiness considerations led us to the recommendation of a 2-year contract with contractual Provisions to be negotiated by both parties we did consider a one-year recommendation um meaning that the school would need to submit their renewal application by fall of 2025 this would mean that they would have less than one year of data for us to review at the time of that renewal the schools plans and uh their goals in our opinion would take more time to execute and our atams 12 reviewers would need more data uh than less than a year to be able to identify those Trends and make sure that the school is moving in a positive direction so at this time we feel that the 2-year recommendation is more appropriate I mentioned that the recommendation was the two-year with some Provisions that could be negotiated by both parties we do have some recommended Provisions here that really Target um those concerns with special education as well as the postsecondary and Workforce Readiness the the first uh section would be to improve special education procedures and remain compliant with state and federal statute we would like to propose that new America hire and retain an outside special education consultant to work with their Special Education team to remain compliant um and they would work with this person for the entirety of their Charter term the school must hire and retain qualified ELD and special education teachers as well as special education service providers by the start date of the school year and in in the case of turnover the school may not let more than 3 weeks elapse without a qualified staff member in these areas in terms of postsecondary and Workforce Readiness measures um we are asking new America to work with our District's executive director of secondary options and Innovative programming on a minimum of a quarterly basis we would like that to be able to help extend their capacity to execute um their Competency Based diploma program and get more students to take take advantage of that um our executive director of secondary options and Innovation programming is willing to work with the school he actually said that he would work with them monthly if they were interested the second uh bullet point we would love for the school to demonstrate substantial progress towards reaching that graduation rate of 67% um and we would love for them based on the class of 2028 graduation data to improve the best of four five six and sevene annual graduation rate data by 15% and to address the um dropout rate we would want new America to move towards a SPF rating of meets um by achieving a dropout rate of 177% by 2027 do you have any questions anybody I have a question can you clarify for me someone I know new America school opened in 2005 and you had said that they were they kind of fell back into the Adams 12 umbrella in 2018 were they with the state Charter School Institute from 2005 to 2018 entirely San you were with so they were with CSI right before they came to Adams 12 and before that it was Mableton that's what I thought okay sanag were you all uh chartered by Adams 14 at any point or 27j I'm I just think there's been a number of authorizers over time uh yeah has haven't you been with us before you were at CSI too yes so I've been with new America school for 20 years so we when we first open it was um Adams 14 then it was Adams 12 then it was Mapleton because we moved and then it was CSI and then it's Adams 12 again so in the presentation it would be really helpful to see that because looking at it especially you know I was here the last time that there was a presentation on their renewal and so I knew that there was there was discussion around that right like why did we release you guys before and this isn't our first rodeo and so now you know you know I was a little off-put to see like oh they came back it was the first time in 2015 and that just wasn't the case um I would also like to see um significant more data like I had mentioned earlier there's a lot of talks in generalities and when we're talking about um some of the special special needs students and their needs how many kids are we talking about how many kids are taking advantage of Competency Based diploma we we're talking about we're going to increase that well what what does that actual number look like um and having some of that tangible data is just it gives all of it so much more context and you know it it's a really alarming thing for me that you guys were in breach of contract in breach of contract especially in that special education space as someone with a special education student I mean it is it can impact their life for the Long Haul and it's something that is just serious and not just for the student but for the school for Charter Schools as a whole I mean just big picture and I and I would hate to see um you know lawsuits and things come up for you guys when it's something that's preventable um you guys have done a tremendous job of growing and improving and I still just like two years ago I can feel the passion I can feel the dedication um that your students are great and the culture and the climate everything is really really good and you guys have risen to the occasion on some things and I'm confident that you can rise to the occasion on other things but you have to keep going um when it when there was a discussion or a point made about declining enrollment and if this Trend continues we'll do something about it do something about it now be proactive I would love to see a more proactive approach on some of these issues start marketing because they're not going to all enroll today and I would encourage you it's really hard especially when you're building an organization and you're fighting for it to see kind of past what's going on in your school but as you've heard superintendent gadowski talk about school Finance issues it's coming and that will impact you so while I'm glad that you guys are being more conservative with your finances and creating a 5-year plan start planning for the impact it's going to have start looking at you know there was proposed legislation last year there's we heard it when we met with a local representative this year there will be proposed legislation again for Charter Schools specifically around special education needs so please please please you know listen to the team you have a ton of people around you that support you lean into them be proactive and just keep hustling because you serve a very underserved community and as Adams 12 grows and as our enrollment declines we tend to find and correct me if I'm wrong that we could have more space for some of these students at Pathways at vantage point when that wasn't an option before so I would love to see you guys continue to expand offer some language services for people that are um learning a different language um or speak a different language other than Spanish and really just continue to thrive because you're part of the Adams 12 family and and we need you so keep up the good work and just keep hustling I have a question in relation to um and this is something that actually might it impacts both Adams 12 and um new America and that is around the Dropout rates that so you talked about I think I can't remember who mentioned it maybe it was Myra um some of the students have gone on to earn their GED how does do that factor into both and this might be a Dave sort of question too how does that factor into statistics on Dropout rates is there a way do we track for those sorts of things Dave come on up sorry Dave it seems like every time I open my mouth Dave has to come to the front good evening superintendent board members um so in terms of GED um that factors into the completion rate so so they are not a dropout they're in a GED program so they would not Factor there a Dropout is a student who who is at a school leaves that school does not enroll anywhere else there's no documentation that they go anywhere else and so they are a Dropout that year it's an annual statistic so then if they enroll somewhere next year they would then could then be a Dropout if they leave that school and don't enroll somewhere else so GED program would not count as a Dropout so when we talk about the dropout rate here with new America School were talking about uh dropouts meaning they did not go on to pursue a GED yes so they disenrolled from uh new America thoron and then did not enroll anywhere else that what happens is this process we report all this data to CDE we don't have the ability to track where students go and if they actually enroll somewhere else we might get paperwork we might they might say I'm going to go here what have you CDE then does a Reconciliation process we say this student left us and it they can check their SED their state assigned ID to see if they did in fact enroll anywhere else um and so there's a long convoluted process that goes on and really the data comes in November December and is released by the state in January that's how long the processes I just wanted to make sure I was understanding all of the variables around that before I started you know making assumptions um so you're good Dave he's like can I go sit back down now um I guess what I would like to say is that I I can't overstress how important it is to explore the reasons for Dropout um in relation to some of the conversations we've had around special education and I'm not saying that correlation equals causation but there could be some factors there around the lack of special education support and the lack of elll support um for people who want to go past a certain point so I can't overstress the need to make sure that um you're exploring that Avenue as much as you can uh so that's what I wanted to say so I have a question for new America Loretta spoke earlier this evening is she the learning specialist now yes and and so she full-time okay and then my other question I have for your board you know a lot of other Tor schools have foundations that raise money to supplement the money that they don't have is there anything being done because you know I see your pain as far as hiring U is there anything being done to supplement what you get you know for your P per pupil Revenue to help augment that okay because I asked that question so I explored that as well I was like don't we have a foundation because I know all the districts do and we have a foundation registered from years ago that hasn't been active so that's one thing that our board has talked about in our strategic planning sessions is can we Revitalize that and can we do that but it is still registered so it's not going to I don't think it's going to take a lot to get it back up and going um and looking at how we can supplement some of our finances or our revenues coming in so then we can offer those um so we're going to explore that continue to explore that good because I think I brought that up a couple years ago too yes so I also have a lot of questions that I think would probably just be better you know because as director Potter said there's a lot of generalities that been um presented and not a lot of specific data points to be able to reference and so I guess my instead of you know going down the list of the questions I have especially uh related to those data points who would be best who should we if we need to reach out for more to get more information and get that uh data um and those questions answered before the next or before February 5th my suggestion would be if you had questions ideally it' be great to put them in writing and email them to Audrey and to uh yeah to Myra and then I think from there they can work with various members uh on both sides to get some more data is it possible to put together like maybe we come up with a deadline because like I have a list of questions and I'm sure that there's some overlap and then we can collectively send it so that we're not all bombarding them with it's a nice friendly amendment to what I just said uh so maybe uh by close of business on Monday if you can have uh on the board member side uh to Audrey the questions you'd like to pose if you can do it sooner that would be great because the time between I just know that it's helpful to have time to dig into things but if you could do that by close of business Monday we'll eliminate some redundancy and then get things on to Myra and um then we'll talk about reasonable timelines to get some responses back and then we all get the responses okay Monday's okay but thank you so much for for all the hard everybody Dak Audrey um you guys I know it's it's a lot okay so thank you thank you should we take a break Lori just asked if we should take a break and I would say absolutely uh five minutes sounds great 10 would be better we'll do 10 be back here at 25 after e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right intermission is over the candy's been delivered and uh let's get going the candy and the Tylenol so okay so yes good point instructional materials presentation Miss Brady all right good evening superintendent gdowski and board members I'm happy to be here this evening this is the first of two times you'll see me this year um I will probably go a little bit faster through the first couple of slides in our presentation because I think from last year many of you probably remember our process and um just how we go through um this instructional materials review process first we start with our Colorado academic standards and our Adams 12 curriculum to make sure that whatever materials we bring to you are aligned and meet both of those two standards and then um we follow this policy 6230 which is a consensus model and um we were fortunate this that this time we were able to reach consensus on all the materials that we are bringing forward to you so um we didn't have to take it to our CA o in order to um you know be a tiebreaker or in order to receive a recommendation from our CEO um we felt that all of the materials um were in alignment and where our committee is bringing that recommendation to you today um and then um really what our identification process um is is that our individual schools um look at materials that they want to use for a class or for a curricul kilum set or we have a Content team and um they might look and see if they're interested in using a set of instructional materials for use and then um they may bring it to this committee for review or we look at a new course or program or an update to a series so two of the um top two we have um a school that's bringing forth some materials and we have a Content team that are also bringing forth materials today so we'll have a little bit of both and then um you'll be able to see that we've got representation from a diverse set of shareholders um we've got building principles on our committee classroom teachers parents a Community member students from our respective high schools and then um staff members with various expertise all sitting on the committee we were a little light on um our committee representation and attendance this time um we only had um a small group of staff members but I did follow up with both our Middle School and High School principles to make sure that they had reviewed um materials and made sure that they were appropriate so um again we were able to reach consensus that we would bring all of these materials forward to you um again our learning Services criteria is that they are aligned um to the Colorado academic standards or in the case of science that they're aligned to the NextGen science standards and that this meets the needs of our students based on the data that we see in relationship to instruction and then our committee really looks for does this meet the interests of our students is it um High interest is a grade level um appropriate and um will the materials be used does it stimulate um our students factual knowledge literary appreciation aesthetic values or ethical standards and then also does it have um controversial in issues that our students would explore or um critical analysis of media and then also does it represent the various different cultural groups that are represented in our um various um respective groups in our country and um their contributions to our American Heritage and does it show fairness towards all those respective groups and individuals so you'll see today that we have one piece of non-fiction it is an online um open source textbook open Sayed and then some Middle School texts that are part of a um set of materials on migration and then some high school texts um that are part of um 12th grade units of study so we'll first start with open SED like I said that is um aligned to our Colorado academic standards and The Next Gen Science standards it's really around um phenomenon based learning and allows students to explore some online um lab based thinking allows um a lot of lesson based collaboration for teachers and for students it's all open source it is middle and high school and um our teachers have been kind of exploring with us for a while and then we decided that we wanted to bring it to be approved our science coordinator felt like this was a really great Open Access resource that we wanted to make available for all Ed Educators and because it is that phenomenon based um learning it allows for lots of student hypothesis student thinking exploration and some um great stem activities so again um lots of connection to the science and engineering practices that are aligned to um the nextg science standards so that's our nonfiction um piece of material that we're bringing forward to today and um our committee was really unanimous in bringing this one forward in terms of our fiction texts both middle and high school both of these started at the school level and um again the teachers and the schools that brought these forward felt that they were a nice alignment to our respective units of study that these um would be of high interest to students that they were nice um representations not only of students Maybe current students current experience or maybe a window into an experience that they hadn't ex um had before or they could be a sliding glass door a peak into something that a student um may not have experienced previously but a window or um an opportunity to see what a student of their same age might have um had in their upbringing or in another um particular part of their Coming of Age so it was um an opportunity for us to really talk about how do you open um access to something that may be a little bit different than your upbringing or your opportunities in life um these texts have all been approved by the respective School accountability teams before they were brought to us so if we're approving them then we know that they've kind of passed the smell test for the respective school account ility teams so at the middle school um the texts that we reviewed are internment welcome to the new world and we're not from here these are all um proposed as part of a managed Choice opportunity for our middle school students really around migration and they all explore this um you know story of students traveling to the United States or traveling um and immigrating to the United States and their various different immigration stories um definitely some differing experiences welcome to the new world is a graphic novel and so um again very high interest for students who you know maybe are not the traditional readers wouldn't necessarily read a traditional novel and then also the story of an internment camp in the we're not from here um or I'm sorry internment is the story of um an internment camp of families who then are interned um when they come to the United States um rather than having a very welcoming experience so again all migration stories as part of a managed Choice students and families would receive information about um you know what these novels all have available to them and then they would be able to choose which one their student would read and then our high school literature this is all part of our 12th grade um units of study and these are all novels um while they deal with some complex issues and complex topics these are um all coming from 12th grade classrooms that just would be aligned to our units of study so I'm going to pause I don't have a question I just have a com comment um a couple years ago the Hispanic advisory Council read we are not from here and I read it and I don't really read a lot but I couldn't put it down it was it was really a good book and it it talks about um some young folks kids from um like Guatemala that Journey to the United States and if it's anything like it really is in real life it's horrific what these families have to go through to get through Central America it is it is yeah I think our committee definitely felt like there were some complex topics and themes which is why we'd want to share as part of a manage Choice unit um that we definitely would want families to know which text their student um was selecting I appreciate the rich richness the complexity behind the books that have been selected I think it's a nod to the fact that our our kids have um it gives them credit for their ability to think through and reason through those complex topics is what I mean um I did want to mention with open sight Ed uh that I was H I was really glad to see that on the list um because I work with one of the professors behind that initiative bill penel at Su Boulder and I know some people think oh that's an open education resource but knowing bill and his team and inquiry Hub and how they work I know that those resources those curricular materials are heavily vetted um by teachers who work to implement those strategies and they're they're going through a constant sort of feedback cycle so um I was glad to see that cuttingedge sort of science pedagogy approach there with inquiry um and phenomena and helping kids think as scientists there's some really amazing lessons um in open sad so we're excited to make that more accessible to all of our science teachers at the secondary level thank you okay thank you all right um on to the amended fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and appropriation resolution and while Gina is making her way up here I'll read um I will entertain a motion to adopt the amended fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and appropriation resolution as presented so moved second thank you hey Gina can you hear me okay um good evening board thank you for um listening to our presentation tonight around the fiscal year 2425 amended budget um you have two resolutions one is to adopt the amended or approve the amended budget and the other is a use of beginning fund balance okay so we're going to do a few quick updates um please stop me with any questions as we go through um these are the agenda items we've talked a lot over the last year and a half that I've been here or a few more months and I'm sure you've heard for many years how the um School Finance act works currently in the funding model that we're using for this current year we get the benefit of up to 5e of averaging so you can get the best of two three four or five year averaging um as we talked about last year as enrollment stabilizes that benefit goes away as the higher numbers go away the average benefit goes away in our presentation we've updated our forecast you might remember last year we were showing that we forecasted going flat in the in the next few not next few years but down the road we're no longer forecasting going f um flat based on information from the state demographers office so I want to explain this chart to you because it's um it is a little deceptive the way the lines show up because I'm doing two types of data on the same graph the bar portion of the graph is our October count with no averaging so you can see what our forecast is looking like from um the actuals of 201920 through current and then in the future the line graph that I'm showing which is the scale on the far right side of the graph is the additional students that are added to that number through averaging and I decided to use fouryear averaging and five-year averaging to show you what that looks like because current law for next year we will be funded on a four-year average and Chris has definitely giving you updates on what we may be looking at for next year so what you can see there if you're looking at that line the I don't know dark red um line is the benefit of four-year averaging you can see it's lower than the benefit of 5year averaging in the current year if we were funded with four-year averaging we we would look at funding of an additional 1,28 students to to um help offset the declines we've had over the years fiveyear averaging in the current budget we're getting the benefit of 1,343 students on top of our October count number next year the fiveyear average is 1,210 students in our forecast and 4year averaging is 885 so you can tell from that quick math that even going from five to four years has a substantial impact on our funded people account I know that's a lot of information to digest but I liked being able to show what that looks like for us we've spent a significant amount of time talking about assessed valuations and how our school Finance Act is made up of state and local share and the fact that when Avs go up we don't get more money well this year thank goodness because in the milley certification that you did last month assess valuations actually went down for total program and so if you were to look at the financial statements that were attached for the amended budget our local share went down $16.7 million and our state share went up by that amount so this is a really great example of just because AV changes it doesn't change how we're funded for schools we've you're well aware about our um mevy override Revenue our 2018 Mill Grows by inflation and um like we talked about AV doesn't impact our actual District Revenue something new that we're adding is some information throughout each month on the work that the district does for budgeting and and call it the ABCs always budgeting constantly and so we wanted to pick out um we wanted to pick out just some high level information for the board to understand the work that has happened July through December and then January we we um are doing the amended budget right now the legislative sessions have begun we are monitoring the assumptions by the JBC um tip last year when we did a presentation we started talking about forecasting for next year and as Chris may have shared with you I don't know what to tell you today because there are so many potential scenarios so we're focusing more on the amended budget because I'm I'm not prepared to give you numbers to start working on I I could but I don't like I don't like having four different scenarios and I'm going to be wrong on all four of them um February we will start finalizing hopefully the budgets that will go out to the schools along with their title allocations departments and the districtwide budget will um be begun to be worked on some of this may be delayed based on what we start hearing um out of the the different hearings um March hopefully we are well along the way and then April we likely will bring a presentation to you depending on what we know and we're currently scheduled to and I I think this is just going to be a strange year for for the budget um and then we will bring the proposed budget to the board in May and then you will abop hopefully you will adopt it in June okay so back to the amended budget um I did want you to just be aware of what that budget calendar looks like annually for the district so the um beginning fund balance compared to what you adopted increased by $14 million and you may remember when we presented the am the adopted budget that we were aware of almost $9 million we were getting from Adams County for an error they had made on so so at the time of adoption we didn't know when we would get the monies and we also didn't know exactly how they applied and so we were waiting for additional detail that those funds did come in before June 30th and so that makes up the bulk of our $14 million increase and and then there's a few smaller items in the scheme of our nearly half a m half a billion dollar budget our um budgeted Revenue in the in the amended budget has increased by $2.8 million that is mostly um an increase in in expected investment earnings interest rates have been higher than we had originally budgeted Chris can say I told you so and then um we also have more of our funds from the state earlier year due to a legislation change um not in the amended budget because we didn't know this until the night before last but our state Equalization our school Finance act funding is actually $1.6 million than we've we've put in the amended budget and that's due to a change on the um number of at risk students the district is able to claim for the um School Finance act and unfortunately that information was very late coming to us and then we um have a a a bit of an offset with lower upk Revenue due to offering um 10hour sessions instead of 15 10 hour weeks instead of 15 and so it we we have a little bit less Revenue than we had originally planned for that so net net for the amended 2.8 million add 1.6 and that's what we should see um at year end our budget expenditures which is a little bit different than just expenditures that's what we appropriate is has been increased by 16.4 million of that $4.1 million is the carry forward we allow schools to roll forward that they didn't spend last year they are given the ability to spend it in the current year some of it is based on timing differences they'll place an order in April it doesn't arrive until after June 30th my mean accounting rules they can't count it in the year they have to count it in the next year so that's part of how that works we have um an additional $2.4 million uh for um transfer out of reserves for curriculum purchases that are anticipated throughout this year and then an increase in 9.9 million for some one-time projects and programs and so in summary our budgeted ending fund balance is increased is projected um to decrease by 32.9 million from our audited balance and the next slide you will see oh Stephanie this is not the newest presentation I'm sorry we will email you the newest presentation we this is showing audited and so um this is the FY 24 audited fund balances to the fiscal year 25 amended budget fund balances and so in the amended the um total ending fund balance on the amended budget that you adopted was $ 77.1 million in the amended budget it's $ 86.8 million that you can see in the second column that's consistent so that is a change an increase in ending fund balance of 9.8 million so I know that's very confusing to see this um displayed in two different in different ways so I apologize for that but we'll get you the updated presentation um with the change in school Finance act Revenue that we're aware of we are projecting the ending fund balance will actually be $ 88.4 million again that's not reflected in this budget because we didn't know about it in time all right and then so for the other funds that you're um approving the amendment of it's really mostly just a adjusting the beginning fund balances from what we projected in the adopted budget to what happened in the audit and the um Bond Redemption and building fund reflect the um the early prepay of those bonds that the board approved as well as the issuance of the bonds from the other [Music] day so the um general assembly convened on January 10th they are will be acting hopefully on the supplemental budget request something just uh um listening to the economic forecast in December before they had the updated at risk number the um the expectation is that the state is having to um increase their budget to fund schools by about $45 million because of those changes in Navy in Prior years they've been able to lower their o ation to schools because of the increase in AVS so something that um I would expect to see as a line item in the supplemental budget um inflation was released today and Aaron 2.3% yes 2.3% um that is point4 lower than the um projections we had been hearing so a little disappointing for our fiscal year 26 budget and then our 2018 bill will grow by the 2.3 um so that was new information um just funny enough it was released last year today as well so um our timing with this board meeting aligns with the release of the inflation numbers uh so um the other the last thing I wanted to share about legislative action is as of right now the ledge Council does not anticipate any of the trigger language causing the um pausing of the house bill 1448 and so I had I finally read it in a way that I understood why that's happening and both of the triggers are based on Revenue numbers and so the the expectation is that those will not be met we won't know though until the March economic forecast so looking forward to next year a little bit of time the inflation is going to um very minimally increase the base funding declining enrollment will decrease our revenue and we will be using the March economic forecast to help understand the um different pressures that we may be facing so key tape ways um the amount we receive is really dependent on how averaging works as as you guys have um been getting to hear a lot about school Finance this is probably the most uncertain I've ever felt in a budget cycle with where it's going to land um the budget stabilization could very well return you've heard about the state's challenges in in what they've got to do they they have about a billion dollar Gap in what they can spend um and the needs and then I think that there's absolutely potential changes to either the school Finance Act of 1994 or house bille 1448 or we could see something completely different no no idea what's going to happen um but based on what we know today we do believe that there um that we may face a significant funding Gap um based on the approach that Chris has led in his many years here I believe that we will work as collaboratively as possible to work those through those challenges and provide the support to our students staff and families so I'm a ray of sunshine this time of year and that's my last slide any questions um I take it you talked about both agenda items in one presentation yes thank you we do have one motion on the table first so just keep that in mind any comments thank you for providing all this yeah very it it it helps it is it's it helps so you when we have to have talks we have something to talk about of you know encourage others to talk about so thanks you have a very eloquent way of delivering bad news and and um difficult topics like Finance um you're just such a ray of sunshine so thank thank you for making hard topics brighter and doing all the work and to Aaron as well you guys are great yeah Aaron did the bul of the work on this that's for sure so thank you and don't text us at three in the morning this year I didn't text you at 3: in the morning that was policy matters you need to talk to them and I'd appreciate it if they didn't text me if you're listening Tanya don't text me at 3:00 a.m. Stephanie all right director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Potter I okay now I'll entertain a motion to adopt the amended fiscal year 2024 2025 beginning fund balance resolution as presented so moved second any more discussion director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Potter I okay I'm going to entertain a motion to adopt the resolution to support students and families as presented so moved second so um this resolution came out of some discussions that I had with other board members and other places um one of the things that we're all kind of gravitating toward is some of the concerns we have with the new uh administra Administration coming on board on Monday and um we're there's a lot of concern concerns about our families of um our our kids who are um not from here um whether they're undocumented or not so um I confess I stole this from Boulder Valley Schools but we did look at it uh Phil and Marie took a good hard look at it and made it ours basically so there were some changes that were made to it but um I'm open for comments I am glad that we are moving forward this and um you showing our families of support so thanks for adopting it from BL Valley and making it more for ours you know I I think for me and I started addressing these concerns shortly after the election but um I had a lot of families Reach Out parents that I've known for years um scared of what's going to come what's going to happen um you know I was it was before the break a student that has been with my my third grader now his entire since K I think even since preschool but um I know for sure since kindergarten and is is his best friend and loves him dearly his mom who um does not speak English but was sharing her story through another parent at the school of how they're having to make some hard decisions and didn't even know if they were going to be returning after the holidays um and I know I shared at a previous board meeting of the implications of not only these kids and not only these families that are going to be directly impacted by decisions that the incoming Administration has shared that they want to enforce but um the secondary victims of their friends and um Educators and you know School communities and so I think it's really important that they know we as a district support them and take this stance and want and will'll do what it takes to support them and let them know that um you know schools are a safe place to provide what they need academically so yeah I mean all I could add to this would second what Lori and Amir have added so far and that we have kids who are afraid um regardless of whether or not it is founded and all news reports seem to suggest that it probably there is some Foundation to it that that fear is legitimate um and our kids are our kids and it's our job to make sure our kids receive the education that they need um and so I think bringing it to us now is a great idea especially considering that it's a good um uh way to try to ease those fears for kids before the inauguration so I appreciate that you're sort of the timeliness of it I would like to draw some attention you know this resolution is so inclusive of everybody and in in our district um we talk about the emotional well-being regardless of disability race Creed color sex sexual orientation gender identity or expression national origin immigration citizenship status religion ancestry family compositions or physical characteristics and I really want to say thank you to some to everyone that worked on this to be so inclusive because there are kids that are scared that are bullied that are struggling and sometimes it it has nothing to do with Administration it has to do with the beliefs of their family or the color of their skin or you know what they're wearing um and so you know looking at this resolution and to see that we can really lean in and continue to remind our families and community that Adams 12 is a welcoming place for all and I think this is this is a really great thing to put out and do just that remind people that um Adam 12 is caring inclusive and engaging and that sometimes whether it's politics race gender you know all the things I previously mentioned like there are kids that are scared and hopefully they can feel safe and you know we can continue to treat each other and students and families and everyone that disagrees with kindness and caring and and being inclusive and and less divisive so thank you for putting this together before any vote I would like to acknowledge and apologize for a typo in the title of this resolution and I would like to correct the spelling of the word families well some language it's correct okay so thank you for sharing that okay director Assad Lucas hi director bastelli hi director Goldstein hi director Potter hi thank you everyone uh in a more timely manner because today is the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr we are going I will entertain a motion to adopt the proclamation declaring February 2025 which is next month as Black History Month in Adams 12 festar schools as presented so moved second um we do this every year um and if also honors the diversity that we have in our district is there any discussion the usual love it glad to see it can't wait to hear about all the different MLK activities going on in our district same yeah director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Potter I on to minutes I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board meeting minutes of November 20th 2024 December 11th 2024 and the work study session of December 11th 2024 as presented so moved second any discussion director Assad Lucas I director belli I director Goldstein I director Potter I okay internal monitoring report operating limitations policy 2.5 asset protection I will entertain a motion to acknowledge that the board has received a monitoring report as of January 15th 2025 for the period July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2024 of the superintendent concerning board policy 2.5 asset protection and finds the superintendent's interpretations are reasonable and that his conclusions are reasonably supported by data that is relevant Justified and complete so move second hi Miss BR all right thank you very much so uh 2.5 is our asset protection um board policy it uh protects District assets through the following ways so ensuring the district is um ensuring the district maintaining District facilities equipment and Technology infrastructure we talk about purchasing policies and practices intellectual property protection and uh approval processes for purchases exceeding 500,000 our reporting period is July 1st 2023 for June 30th 2024 there are 10 kind of sections of uh board policy 2.5 so 2.1 through 2.10 as a little teaser here uh spoiler alert um the compliance statement here is the overview for the glob Global policy and that our District's performance in 2.5 During the monitori period has complied with all 2.5 policies except 2.5.2 I did put the the little language there so you can see and I'll talk more about this when I get to 2.5.2 but this one uh relates to the projected cost of our total deferred maintenance and that it shall not exceed 10% of the total value of the district's facilities replacement costs um I will say say that with the passage of the 2024 bond issue funding is planned to include approximately 248 million of deferred maintenance to be addressed and we do anticipate compliance in future years I will give you some more data about current state in the monitoring period um when I get to that slide so 2.5.1 is about U shall not fail to ensure the district you can see that in both areas we are um compliant with the board policy just some data and reminders nothing has changed since last monitoring report but the district continues to be a member of uh sidp so Colorado School District Self Insurance Pool we um have appropriate policies in place to cover board members staff organizations and we're also insured by Pinnacle Assurance for workers compensation and all of our policy limits are consistent with industry standards and similarity or similar situated school districts um and that is 2.5.1 for 2.5.2 uh the this is what I discussed that we are not in compliance with the amount of deferred maintenance as it exceeds the standard in the district policy of 10% we are at 14% of the cost to replace all district facilities um I will share a little bit more in that realm so the cost to replace the District facilities is 1.3 billion per our cost lab software that we use we currently have deferred uh maintenance cost estimated at 19 190 million and that is 14.34% of a total value and this has increased uh since last year for three primary reasons one is the inflationary cost increases in Construction and Equipment two is reductions in the useful life levels of some of equipment as we started to align to Industry recommendations and three is increases in quantity of equipment um and items that have exceeded their predictable useful life uh this is the final year to report data from cost laab we have um for fiscal year 2425 we will be reporting from the vfa facility software um that is a web-based capital planning management software Ware that we have been implementing over the last year um and deferred maintenance and replacement value costs are anticipated um to be different uh just because there's different methodologies between the two systems and we look forward to sharing that with you between now and next monitor report so we can uh give you kind of what is different just some high level things of examples is um the different methodologies is soft costs are included and can be included in vfa it's also an all-inclusive system based approach um versus individual components and that cost lab is currently individual components taking the system based approach you'll learn um that items are not trackable in cost lab that can be trackable in vfa which does uh improve our landscape of how we track our elements um and protect our assets so things like IR ation playgrounds scoreboards dugouts storage buildings and it can now be included so we'll be uh referencing that as we go through the next fiscal year and uh learn more about our vfa system the the second part of 2.5.2 so that was deferred um cost and deferred maintenance the second part of 2.5.2 is about the maximum of 3% of projector replacement value value in our uh plant contingency fund and happy to report we have not exceeded the 3% I will say that during this monitoring period 1.4 million was expensed out of the plant contingency fund for the North Stadium track repair that you guys received a decision information report on and was approved by the board uh funds within this plant contingency fund have also not been spent on any non facility purposes all right 2.5.3 uh this is that we shall not fail to maintain the plant with due care um in a manner that ensures facilities are open 99% of the available instructional hours I will say we are compliant uh during our monitoring period but I do want to note two things for you um so as luck would have it it's Martin Luther King weekend again uh last Martin Luther King weekend we were also faced with extreme cold weather and we had a one-day extended closure uh Beyond The District closed days as for the per or per the cold weather at Centennial Elementary and this was related to flooding from a broken pipe um this closure resulted in in loss of instructional hours of 6.75 but has remained above the 99% policy uh standard um we have since made improvements to our cold weather protocols to avoid plant mantenance errors that contributed to this event uh we are imp we have implemented those and we are ready for this weekend's uh cold uh spell I will tell you that um we do have aging old infrastructure in our buildings but we are going to do everything we can to have preventative proactive and responsive approach to this weekend so looking forward to that and uh but wanted to share we do comply with the monitoring Peri with the standard but wanted to mention that the final one um that I just want to mention it doesn't really go with a plant maintenance but if you'll remember um following the Marshall fire there has been EXL energy does Public Safety shut off um periods where with high wind they might then turn off some power and then re-energize the grid that did happen to us at Northland High School and northmore Elementary that did result in uh reunification and early dismissal for those schools um but like I said that wasn't uh something that was due to uh not maintaining the plant that was just something I wanted to bring up as we get into the spring um we aren't certain what the weather may bring but with Excel Energy we are tracking that so we have complied with the standard in 2.5.3 in 2.5.4 um shall not fail to maintain equipment and information technology structure with due care um we are compliant with 2.5.4 all of our CDE School transportation vehic inspections were completed prior to buses uh transporting students and are compliant with the thresholds of CDE in addition we have uh obtained 90 99% of uptime for um our technology systems 2.5.5 this is that we shall not make a purchase where we have protections against conflict of interest and material material amounts without having obtained comparative pricing and quality so we are compliant with 2.5.5 we have District policies in place 3300 all the way to 3340 and uh 4130 that protect us against conflict of interests and ensure methods and processes there are no known policy violations and P was involved in all formal solicitations during this time uh 2.5.6 is shall not failed to protect intellectual property from loss or damage um we are compliant and we have no loss or damage uh report to report for this uh monitoring period some fun facts I think that are interesting that um I was able to use to show our compliance here is that out of 325,000 daily in bound and outbound emails 16% are actually blocked or found to be malicious so I thought that was a good fact um to help us support that we have systems and processes in place where we are catching things and training for our staff around fishing and others 2.5.7 shall not uh fail to provide periodic procurement reports to enable board members to monitor purchases um during the monitoring period we are we did comply with with 2.5.7 and no requests were received 2.5.8 um this is uh the like I mentioned at the beginning this is the we shall not fail to obtain board policy for purchase over 500,000 uh we did have three purchases over 500,000 that were not part of a bond part of a Mill and or already in the uh approved budget and those were all brought to you via decision information report through the monitoring period and approved and then we also had no um asset dispositions in excess of 500,000 as well per 2.5.8 just a quick add for me I I had intended earlier today uh during work study to talk a little bit about uh Bond approvals around architectural engagement contractor engagement things of that sort ran out of time bottom line is given the language in 2.5.8 that says outside of bond implementation the expectation is that we B bring high stakes contracts to the board for Bond imple implementation our practice last Bond was not to do that and to say if we're going forward with uh hiring an architect a general contractor doing other things if it was part of the bond plan and we following followed our purchasing procedures instead of having you approve it we'll notify you we'll say here's what we've done and here's who we're planning to engage I think the first time of doing something uh in that realm is coming at us soon I see a meeting tomorrow around I assume uh engaging an architect for Thorton high school so following our our past protocol we do a memo probably a page page and a quarter saying here's the process here's how many people submitted applications here are uh some of the price differentials here's why we selected this group and do a summary just so you know this is what we're doing but we wouldn't plan to bring it here what we would plan to bring here is if there's um additional money that we propose to use for additional projects then we would come forward and say we feel like Bond premiums come in better than we expected or cost for the first half of the bond are substantially lower and now we want to uh add another story to Washington Square if we did that then we would come forward and say this is our plan this is our recommendation there'll be some consultation with LR Pac as well so I just want to clarify that because we're going to be spending some big money uh in the months and years ahead and very little of it is likely to come here but just from an accountability and oversight standpoint on the really big contracts moving forward those are things like around Thorton high school that you'll have some notice about all right thank you superintendent gdowski the last two 2.5.9 and 2.5.1 are about acquiring property or disposing of property um when we talk about property in this as um in this instance it's real estate so we shall not acquire property without as you see the bullets there um in excess of market value and comprehensive buildout plan Etc um we the district is reporting compliance with this as we have not acquired property during this monitoring period if this is something we were to do we would follow board policy 2.5.9 same thing with 2.5.1 we shall not relink property without assurance that the value received is considered to be at market value and that the condition and relinquish propery property if conditions cause remaining property to have an economic disadvantage or pose hazards so we are compliant with 2.5 point10 as the district did not relinquish any property um during the monitoring period that concludes the monitoring report any questions any questions I have a question going back to cost lab and the vfa if I remember correctly when the Auditors the external Auditors came in they said something around it and needing to or potentially adding it to how and what we audit so my question is is part of the reason why we move from cost lab to BFA because they contract for those sorts of things or what was the impetus behind that I um I'm not certain if that was the only reason have staff Margie U morish they went through this about two years ago into selecting the system and then they started a year ago more than a year ago into the implementation of the system but yes that is one of the functionalities that will be beneficial to us as a district any uh feedback on that Chris that you might have just Simple Simon superintendent uh has the notion that it we felt like this was better but I can't tell you more about the specifics we can certainly get you some answers on that and I will I'll definitely do that so was this a surprise when it came up with the 14% number or was it expected it was expected last year we non- compliant in this area as well at 12% and and it was expected um with the passage of the bond we are anticipating as we looked at our numbers that we feel that will be in compliance uh next year okay anything else director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein I director Potter I airor was going for that button I thought so too all right consent thank you Miss BR for hanging in here this is one of the later meetings we've had I know you have to go a long ways um consent agenda I will entertain a motion to approve the personal actions as listed resignations and terminations transfers and reassignments employment and leaves of absence still moved second any discussion director Assad Lucas I director bastelli I director Goldstein hi director Potter I okay our next meeting is February 5th um Amir and I will be rolling in from DC that day oh yeah we will um and then on the 10th we have our annual meeting with DTA so we'll need to dig those questions out and look at them and run them by um Dave and Steve and find out the details of where we're meeting anything else anybody needs to um add for the good of the order okay we're journ