Check. One, two. Done.
Test. One, two, three. Don, can you hear
me?
to order this meeting of the Boulder
Valley School District Board of
Education for Tuesday, April 14th, 2026.
Board members may attend and participate
in meetings remotely in accordance with
board policy BMEA and state law. Laura,
can you please call the role?
Here.
here.
Here,
here.
Here.
I'd
like to direct everyone's attention to
the screen tonight for our land
acknowledgement.
The Boulder Valley School District
resides and operates on land that is the
ancestral homeland and unjustly and
illegally taken territory of the Ute,
Puebloin, Arapjo, Cheyenne, Apache,
Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations
historically tied to this land who have
called this land home since time and
memorial.
We acknowledge the atrocities committed
here, including the painful history of
genocide, forced assimilation, and
efforts to alienate the indigenous
inhabitants from their homeland,
supported by the policies of the United
States government.
BBSD is aware of the many indigenous
peoples, past and present, and their
dignified nations and cultures, who care
for this land with strength and
resilience.
BBSD recognizes the histories of the
land in Colorado and the survival of
many nations that carried their oral
traditions into the present.
It is BBSD's responsibility to educate
ourselves, our community, and our
students so that we can embrace the
wisdom and knowledge of indigenous
peoples
and actively stand together to address
injustices.
In offering this land acknowledgement,
we affirm and honor the history, wisdom,
oral traditions, and resilience of
indigenous people, and recognize the
responsibility to care for and
appreciate this land together.
I'd like to remind everybody that the
mission of the Boulder Valley School
District is to create challenging,
meaningful, and engaging learning
opportunities so that all children
thrive and are prepared for successful,
civically engaged lives. Thank you for
joining us here this evening. We're glad
to have you attend our meetings remotely
and in person. At this time, is there a
motion to approve tonight's agenda?
Moved by Deianne, seconded by Jason.
Laura, can you please call the role?
Booker,
yes.
Chavez,
yes.
Medler,
yes.
Quinn Linua,
yes.
Rajpaul, yes. Tamuading,
yes. Hunger,
yes.
Motion passes.
First item on tonight's agenda is our
student moment. I'm excited to hand the
microphone over to Dr. Anderson to do
the introductions.
Thank you, board president Raj Paul.
Board members, good evening everyone.
Board members, as you may know, this is
art show season in the Boulder Valley
School District. We have several uh
shows going on right now, including the
high school student and staff staff show
at the Dair Arts Center. artwork, as I'm
sure you've seen, is amazing, including
including beautiful photos, intriguing
videos, and sculptures like the one
created by tonight's student moment
guest, Sophia Haltquist from Boulder
High School. Sophia's piece was chosen
as best in show this year, and also won
a Golden Key for National Scholastic, I
believe. We're excited to get to hear
from her about her journey as an artist
and how it translates to her life in
school. And wait till you see what it is
that she created. Oh, here it is. Uh
Sophia, turn the microphone over to you.
Uh yeah, hello. Um
my journey as an artist has been super
fun and amazing. I've been doing art for
as long as I can remember and I've
slowly been progressing my talents to
the point that you see now with the art
piece that's uh displayed. Um, I've
always loved dragons and I picked a
dragon as um, my focus for the sculpture
and art has always been a huge part of
my life and of course has affected uh,
my school life. It's helped me find and
make friends and express myself to my
friends so they can know about um, like
what I like to think, who I am, stuff
like that. Um,
and it's I think art is just an amazing
way for expression and to uh have it so
people can know you in another way other
than what you say or what how you look.
Um,
and uh yeah, so that this piece that I
made uh is a naga that represents my
mom's culture and it's
It's uh
representative of her culture that I I
like to look at of her Laos culture. Um
where I get to see these dragons and I
like to uh that I've gotten a chance now
to represent that in my art. Um and now
uh people at the school too now get to
see a part of that culture as well
through my art.
Board members, any questions for Sophia?
Melania,
so will you tell us what materials you
used and what your process was?
Right. Of course. Um, I used uh clay,
specifically Raichu clay, which has a
special firing process and glazes. Um,
and it was the process was like using
the clay and like having to work around
the fact that sometimes it gets a little
cracked and crumbly and like twisting it
into these unique shapes and smoothing
it out and then adding armor plates on
top of it and um
having the scale textures and smooth
parts and it was a lot of twists and
turns and a very long process uh but
eventually turned into that.
It is so neat. Thanks for sharing it.
Yes, thank you.
You alluded to what my question was to
be was how long did it take you to make
how long did it take to make those
pieces?
I think roughly around two weeks to make
the entire piece.
Alex,
yeah, I was wonder can you tell us about
uh some of your favorite art classes and
teachers you've had so far in school?
So far, I've enjoyed all of my art
teachers. I've found them all amazing
and they've all supported me in the
different art classes that I've done,
which I believe I've done pretty much
all the ones available other than
photography. Um, so far though, I
believe I've enjoyed clay class the most
where I made that piece. Um, and the
teachers have been really supportive and
helpful. They're the reason I even got
into the competitions that that uh piece
got submitted to. So, uh, yeah.
Dian,
how will you continue your art after you
graduate?
Um, I'm thinking I might go to an art
college um just to progress further in
art. I might pick a specific one to
major in. And I might eventually start
doing freelance art or um moving into a
more specific career. It's not entirely
planned out yet, but I'm definitely
going to focus on art in the future.
Well, thank you for sharing your time
and your talents with us here tonight at
the board meeting and best of luck in
your future art endeavors.
Thank you.
Our next item on tonight's agenda is a
superintendence report.
Dr. Anderson, good evening.
Good evening. Thanks again uh for
President Raj Paul. Have a few things uh
for remarks this evening to update the
board and community on.
Start tonight with a big milestone for
one of our schools. As Bilingu Pioneer
Elementary recently celebrated their
100th anniversary. To celebrate the
impressive event, all students and staff
posed for a once in a-lifetime photo
outside of their historic building in
Lafayette. Uh wish the sun was out for
that, but it's a beautiful, beautiful
picture. Uh as we mentioned during
student moment, BBSD's annual art shows
are in full gear. Dair Center High
School and staff show kicked off a
couple weeks ago with an exciting
opening reception. And we've got a clip
from that night.
A lot of passion, a lot of support for
the arts, and a lot of talent.
I think one of my favorite things about
this art show is that we have all these
students, individual students from so
many different schools and then somehow
we combine it all together and there's a
lot of like themes and things that play
together. It's really cool to see how it
all works together. The
2026 best and show award goes to Sophia
Hol from Boulder High School.
Super shocking. I I wasn't expecting to
win the best overall. I I I'm not I
don't even have the full words to
describe it. It was just crazy. I wasn't
expecting my name to be called.
My mom is from Laos and uh she like told
me about her culture and stuff and uh
the Laos Nagas which uh were like a
they're a very big part of the culture
and it inspired me cuz I already love
dragons and I thought the Laos Naga
looked super cool. So I made the piece
for her and uh yeah so she and her
culture was my inspiration. Art means to
me uh in like expression of yourself and
like the emotions and what you believe
in. Um and like bringing your ideas to
life. That's what art means to me.
It's up for a month and the dairy center
is open to the public. So come check it
out. I mean, I know for myself, this
opening is great and there's so many
people here and sometimes it can take it
in a little better when it's actually a
little quieter and you just have time to
absorb it. So, um, every time I come, I
see something new and every time I come,
I notice new things and different pieces
jump out of me or different details. So,
absolutely come out, check it out, and
enjoy the artwork.
So, the high school show at the Dairy
Art Center will be on display through
May 3rd. So, be make sure that you if
you have a chance, stop by. Also would
like to give a shout out to our partners
at the Dair for providing work-based
learning opportunities for our students
who helped install the show learning
about the job of a curator and have the
opportunity to give an artist talk as
part of Boulder Arts Week. So, just a
hugely successful event. Our K8 student
art shows are also on display at our
public libraries through the beginning
of May. Our opening receptions are
tomorrow, April 15th from 5:00 to 6:30
at Boulder Public Library and from 5 to
6:30 and Thursday,
April 16th from 5:00 to 6:00 at the
Lafayette Public Library. So, even if
you can't make the receptions, we hope
that everyone will come out and check
out the incredible talent in our
district on display within our community
this month.
Colorado State Representative Kenny Wyn,
who went to Alicia Sanchez Elementary
and Anjivine Middle School before
graduating from Centuris High School,
recently took some time to show the next
generation of leaders from BBSD a
behindthe-scenes look at his work at the
state capital. 64th graders were on the
field trip and during their visit visit,
Representative Wyn realized they all had
something in common. They're all
dragons.
After all, the dragon is the mascot for
both Alicia Sanchos and Emerald.
Last week, students from across the
district came together at Boulder High
School for our annual unified basketball
tournament. Stands were packed with
fans. Students showed off their skills
and teamwork. As always, this event was
full of joy and camaraderie along with
friendly competition. Centaurus took
home the win after some hard-fought
games, and all of our student athletes
did an amazing job on and off the court.
We also celebrated our seniors with
awards and medals for their
participation unified athletics over the
years, and we wish them best the best in
their future endeavors.
Finally, uh, board members, we are
approaching prom season in our school
district. And as you may know, our
parents, uh, throughout our school
district do an amazing job in providing
safe opportunities for students to
gather after the big dance. Number of
our schools events started after a
series of tragic alcohol and drugrelated
accidents that claimed the lives of 11
Denver, Boulder, metro area teens back
in the9s. Sadly, there have been
reminders of the importance a number of
times since. Each of the amazing events
are organized by dedicated, caring
parents who create epic and me memorable
nights of fun filled with food, music,
activities, and prizes. We want to share
with our community so folks can donate
to support their efforts. The first this
year will be the afterp shared by our
two Boulder high schools. This event
brings about 1,500 students from
Fairview and Boulder High School at the
East Boulder Community Center. Go to
fhsbhs
afterprom.org org for more information
and to donate. Centaurus is after prom
known as sea snap. Safe night after prom
will be on Friday, April 24th. It's held
at the YMCA in Lafayette, so students
can have access to the wise activities
including ice skating and swimming. To
donate, visit centurap.org.
Monarch after prom is the next night,
Saturday, April 25th, at Monarch High
School. Parent volunteers are planning
to transform the school into a Paradise
Island theme. Donations can be made at
www.mmonarch afterprom.com.
There are two schools on May 2nd,
including Just Jam just after midnight,
which is Broomfield High School's
afterprom event. It's held at Broomfield
High, and similar to Monarch, their
parents really pride themselves on
creating a cool theme inside the school.
Always so cool that Broomfield community
members line up at 7 p.m. that night to
get a preview. Donations can be made at
www.bhsjam.com.
Last but not least, Netherlands after
prom event is held at the Carob Room in
in Netherland. Netherland students voted
on a neon glow night theme. So, they'll
have tons of fun. Neon photo proms and
props and decorations. Donations can be
made uh to Netherland High School, 570
County Road 130, Netherland, Colorado
80466.
Board members, that's all I have for my
remarks this evening. Happy to answer
any questions you may have.
Board members, any questions for Dr.
Anderson?
I just want to double down on those
after prom parties. They are a great
place for our students to be incredibly
safe on prom night and those donations
go to a lot of amazing prizes and
activities and events to really keep
those kids entertained and safe. So, if
you can give, that would be great.
Seeing as there are no further
questions, we will move on to the next
item of tonight's agenda, which is
public participation. The board respects
the rights of the public to speak on
matters concerning the operation of our
schools. The board does not endorse the
comments of individual participants and
reminds all those who speak that you are
responsible for ensuring your remarks
are suitable for an audience that
includes kindergarten through 12th grade
students. Furthermore, this is not an
opportunity for the board this is an
opportunity for the board to hear from
our constituents. It is not a time for
the board to engage with or react to
speakers remarks. Speakers each have two
minutes to speak. You will see a yellow
card when you have 30 seconds remaining
and an orange card when you have 10
seconds remaining. If you run out of
time or would you like to share
additional thoughts with the board, we
do read all of our emails.
That being said, we will begin with our
first speaker this evening,
Gabby. I'm Gabby. I'm sorry, I'm not
going to say this last name, right? But
Schulties, who is virtual,
they're not on. Then we will move on to
Esme Kooperman and Natalie Marshall who
will each stand together but speak to us
independently.
Okay.
Hi, our names are Natalie and Esme. We
are third graders at Lville Elementary
School. Thank you for serving our school
district.
We are concerned about the two abandoned
oil wells that are leaking methane gas
near Metallark and Peak to Peak.
Fortunately, there is a program called
the Enterprise Marginal Wellplugging
Group. Oil well operators can apply for
funding from this group to plug the
well.
That means BBSD can put pressure on the
oil well operators to
to get the well closed. Plugging these
wells is important to the health of all
students. Additionally, over time, it is
equivalent to taking a thousand cars off
the road. This is important to us
because we are 8 and 9year-olds and we
have many more decades to live. We need
a healthy planet to live on, but the oil
from these two wells pollute our
community and kill lots of plants. So we
don't have fresh air to breathe.
We ask that you put pressure on the
extraction oil and gas, the oil company
that manages the the well near peak to
peak.
Thank you for listening to us. We hope
you have encouraged you to put pressure
on the wellers and blood the oils.
Thank you.
Our next speaker this evening is Alice
Cohen.
Our next speaker then will be Elizabeth
Miranda.
Moving on to a virtual participant,
Islet Leman,
also not in attendance,
Mary Newberry, who is also virtual.
Moving on to Deb Darnell.
Deb, can you push the
I'm sorry. I'm Deb Darnell and due to
the twominut limit, I'll be focusing on
these salient points. In October of
2023, the Daily Camera reported the
results of a parental enrollment choice
survey. It concluded that parents would
be most likely to open enroll in BBSD
for STEAN, which is science, technology,
engineering, art, and math, and gifted
and talented programs, programs not
available in all the schools across our
district at that time. Rob Anderson
emphatically acknowledged this choice,
stating this idea of steam and gifted
and talented, those are the things that
parents are really interested in here in
Boulder Valley. This is trend number
one. Trend number two comes in light of
the BBSD showcase fairs where a driving
theme showed that parents were enrolling
their students in other districts or
private schools for steam and other
programs.
The trend number three is that many
schools in the district have decreased
staffing or funding and have some have
outright removed GT academic options.
Trend number four is a very concerning
long-term trend that is that enrollment
in general is down. And trend number
five is that GT population in BBSD is
increasing. BBSD's percentage is 20% as
opposed to the state percentage of 8%. I
mean, we have a unique opportunity with
the students we have here in BBSD.
Taking these three trends together
prompts me to totally support the BVGT
proposal that BDSD should require GT
inquir
professional development and
differential differential training at
least for all teachers at the elementary
level and hopefully grow it or regrow
these programs to stem the decreasing
enrollment
um of our decreasing enrollment tight
and attract more students to BBSD. Thank
you very much.
Thank you.
Our next speaker this evening is Crystal
Chin.
Good evening. My name is Crystal Chin.
Over the past several weeks, families
and educators have come forward to share
their experiences both publicly and
privately. At our recent community town
hall, we heard consistent patterns
across multiple schools. Concerns
related to student safety, harm, and
retaliation are being raised. And when
they are, they are handled internally by
the same system being asked to review
itself. We came forward in good faith.
We participated in this process. We
brought forward patterns not isolated
incidents and we asked a clear question.
What independent pathway exists for
concerns to be reviewed objectively
without conflicts of interest? At this
point, we have not received a meaningful
answer. We are hearing about community
engagement efforts. But when it comes to
concerns about harm and safety, there is
still no independent pathway for those
concerns to be reviewed. that leaves
families and educators without a clear
pathway inside this system. At a time
when the district is making important
decisions about resources and
priorities, it is critical that systems
for accountability and student safety
are also clear, consistent, and
independent. So, I want to be clear
about where this stands. This is not
about disagreement. This is about a
structural gap. When concerns are raised
and the only option is internal review,
trust breaks down. And without trust,
safety cannot be assured. And because of
that, we are now exploring next steps
beyond the district level to better
understand what mechanisms exist to
ensure accountability. We remain open to
engagement, but we are also committed to
ensuring that these concerns are taken
seriously and reviewed in a way that is
objective, consistent, and independent.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Techla.
Good evening. My name is Tela Ays. I
attended the recent community town hall
and heard consistent experiences across
multiple schools. This is not isolated.
What we are hearing reflects patterns in
how concerns are raised and how they are
handled. We need a pathway for concerns
to be reviewed outside of the system.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Christy
Maynard.
Kirsty, sorry about that. Kirsty, thank
you. It's a challenging one. Uh, good
evening. My name is Kirsty Maynard. When
concerns are handled internally without
independent review, trust breaks down.
Families and educators need to know that
when they raise concerns, those concerns
will be reviewed in a way that is fair,
consistent, and objective. We are asking
for a process that is independent,
transparent, consistent, and
accountable. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next speaker this evening
is Liz Himenez.
appears Liz is not here. So, our final
final speaker will be Gabriella Flores.
I think the rain has kept some folks
away tonight.
This concludes public comment for this
evening. On behalf of the board, I want
to thank everyone who took the time to
show up to share your feedback with us.
We really do appreciate hearing from our
community. and a special special shout
out to the youngest advocates in the
audience. That was really brave of you
for coming and sharing your thoughts
with us tonight on the oil wells. So,
thank you for that.
We'll move next move on to board
communication board members who would
like to begin.
Anna,
I did just want to take a moment um just
to uh show gratitude for the teacher
roundts that we went through. Um, my
final one was at Emerald Elementary
School, which is where my son goes to,
and that was amazing. Um, and just thank
you to all of the teachers that took the
time out of their day to come and share
some of their thoughts, ideas, and
suggestions with us. Um, I really did
appreciate everyone's um, uh, point of
view, their ideas, everything that they
have to say. And I am looking forward to
uh, going to the engagement sessions
with community. um primarily planning on
going to the Broomfield one uh happening
on the 20th uh at Broomfield High
School. And uh just thank you in advance
to all community members that are
planning on going to these engagement
sessions.
Deian,
I had the opportunity to attend the uh
IT uh the technology group after our
last board meeting where we had a
presentation and this uh group is made
up of different folks. So, it's
community members and a lot of teachers.
And um while I'm not a participant there
but an observer, I can tell you that
we're doing a really good job of
figuring out what their next next steps
might be and how they'll be able to move
forward with developing um some ideas
for um accountability and um
procedures for how we're going to use AI
in the schools and with a with a
moderate approach
um so that we're and we are flexible
enough in order to um take care of
things that we can't even see are coming
and I was really impressed with the
meeting and I look forward to working
with them again next year
Alex and then
uh yeah um first off I just wanted to
express my gratitude uh towards the
staff and leadership for the community
engagement design. Um I had the
privilege of being at the DAC meeting
last week and at the first meeting at
New Vista last night and I was amazed.
Um I was really amazed at our community
and the parents and teachers who were
there and their um their cander and the
depth of their thought and their ability
to listen to one another. I was sitting
at one of the tables and just really
really impressed at how quickly and
deeply people dived in. And I was
gratified how much they were focused on
all our kids. Um, and I think it's
really helpful in our community going
forward that we keep that focus on
what's good for the kids and keep that
civility from person to person and know
it's all good people acting in good
faith. And it's amazing to see that
level of engagement. So I'm I feel
privileged to benefit from that. Um so
kudos to the team and for the great
leadership and facilitation by our
principles who were there. That was
really great to see and by the
responsiveness of the team to the
feedback from the first meeting. So it
definitely evolved. I bet it will
continue to evolve and be even more
powerful. Also want to give my thanks to
the IT team at BBSD who helped me keep
this laptop going. Um which is not easy
given my abuse. Uh but I also wanted to
bring up something um that I would like
to see us do in the long term. I've
heard from parents who use GoG Guardian
and like AI, I think we have a small
group of intense expert users of GoG
Guardian. Whoops. Speaking of bad
technology,
I apologize.
That's ringing in my hearing aid, but
not for you. Um uh when you see what
experienced expert users of GoG Guardian
do to manage their children's screen
time, access to what they're looking at,
and track it, it's really impressive.
But if you're like me, I use 5% of
Outlook and 2% of Excel. And I believe
many of our parents uh would like to
have the benefits of GoG Guardian, but
the actual use of setting it up is more
than they have the time to do. And if we
had 30,000 families ask us to do it for
them and customize it for them, it
wouldn't work. So I think we should
really explore
um presets in go guardian in which you
have option like a b or c that are
pre-esigned that we can do for them and
then d would be other and you can do the
current customizing that parents do. So,
if a parent wanted to say, "Hey, I want
the minimum that's allow that will allow
my child to finish their homework
assigned by their teacher," that would
be like a preset they could just pick.
And if they wanted to say, "I want to
make sure that the internet on a
district device turns off at 7:30 p.m."
That's a preset they could pick and we
could figure out how to do it for them.
I recognize that that would be a lot of
work for the great people in the BBSD IT
team, but it's an unreasonable ask of
our parents to develop the expertise to
use a tool that I know that many would
like to have its power, but would not
like to the obligation of learning how
to use, how to design and and code its
power. So, I suggest we explore that. I
also think we'd end up with great data
on what it is parents want about their
kids screen use because we'd get all
their sort of voting for real about what
it is they want kids to do with their
devices once they're out of school. So,
I hope we can make progress on that and
I have confidence in our IT team pull it
off. Um, I also of course want to thank
our student awardees and speakers
tonight. I know they left, but we really
love hearing from students and are
always really gratified to see the the
great leadership that they present.
Uh finally, I want to talk um not
directly to uh different proposals, but
one of the issues that's near and dear
to my heart is how the district responds
to parents when something is not going
satisfactoryy for their kid. And I know
we've had calls for like an independent
and investigatory body, which I know
from my experience on the board is
actually just logistically legally not a
viable option. Like pretty much anytime
two people do something bad that's being
investigated, uh the district's hands
are tied about what is public and what
is private data. Whether it's social
services, the police, our uh collective
bargaining agreements, um uh furpa, you
name it. There's almost nothing we can
share with everybody once investigations
are underway. And once the police or
social services are involved, we
literally have to back off and not do
anything until they're done. So for
reasons beyond our control,
investigations can take a very long time
and they can be very opaque to affected
parties, including the students who are
suffering from an activity that that
harmed that child. So our obligations um
put us in a place where we can't do some
of the things the community would like
us to do. Many of these situations are
really complicated and they're legally
fraught and they are morally and
ethically fraught. So professionals are
trying to do really hard stuff. I know
from what we hear as board members of
stuff that's privileged that these are
tricky situations where professionals
are trying to figure out what to do. I
do think there's a way to make progress.
I mean, I'm happy to have advocated for
our changes in the website where it's
now easier to make a report and I'm glad
that we include information on how hard
it is what we can't communicate about. I
believe um in the long run, maybe
medium-term, I believe that what we
should do is pursue better metrics of
school climate and culture and that in
our UIPs at the school and district
level. Um we could have additional
measures. They'd be really powerful to
me as a board member to understand do
how kids are feeling safe, how they're
feeling included. Um our current
strategic plan metrics are outdated. Um,
I don't feel like the discrepancy
between white and Hispanic um, out of
school suspension is the best metric of
what's going on. I don't feel like the
proportion of kids involved in
restorative justice tells us how well
that restorative justice played out. So,
I'm really interested in additional
metrics of climate and culture that get
at our students and families sense of
safety and inclusion and the
responsiveness of the district when they
have serious concerns because those are
very real. whether it's I I can't begin
to name the different ways that
something can be hard for a kid. And I
and I don't want us to be having public
discussions about individual cases.
That's totally inappropriate. Um we want
to protect everybody the way we should.
But I believe we should have governing
board discussions about how we're doing
on it. And we collect a bunch of data.
And I I sort of challenge us to figure
out what's meaningful data that we can
share that we can use that would inform
our feedback to the superintendent that
would inform our feedback to the
different departments and say, "Hey, it
looks like we have an issue in
litigation about special ed uh state
complaints um you name it. Or the exit
of students who've been involved in
discipline proceedings from our
district. you know, there's metrics that
we could get that would protect the
students confidentiality, uh, not get
into the legally fraught manners and
still give us more insight into how kids
and families are feel and staff are
feeling about our conduct. So, I'd
encourage us to think about that and I'd
encourage people in the community who
care about this to explore uh in full
partnership with their school sachs uh
to talk about like what are the metrics
of the things you value. That's what a
UIP is for. Um, and I'm not saying that
that solves an individual family's
problem, but it speaks to the systematic
stuff of how we prioritize safety and
well-being and and the feedback we give
to people that when we we are I'm sure
as a board member I fall down and
haven't handled something well, but
people need the feedback. They need the
the sense of reflection that comes from
actually keeping track of it. So I'd
encourage us to explore that uh so that
we can um address the root causes
appropriately at the different levels
and I know that's a lot uh and I would
probably p I'll add that to the
prioritization list eventually that we
explore what those metrics can be and
you know we should along the way explore
like the role of ombbudsman um if that
can add some of the independence that
might help affected communities or or
the role of our community liaison and
how they interact on this. So, I know
there's lots that we can do. I know
there's great people working on this and
I know we can't talk about it the way we
would like. Uh, but I do think there's
progress that we can make and I
appreciate the feedback from the
community as well as I appreciate the
real diligence of protecting our
students interests from the staff now.
Um, it's not that people are hiding
things, they are protecting students and
they are figuring out what to do and we
are left needing to wait too much. So,
um, I'll stop there.
Elenia.
Uh, I'd like to echo thanks for the
community engagement. In particular, I'd
like to give a shout out to, uh, our
DAC. Uh, I went to that community
engagement session and was really
impressed as Alex was uh, by the depth
of their participation.
So, um, thanks to DACA and thanks for
the parents who are and comm community
members who are showing up at those
engagements now. We're looking forward
to all of those. Um, I'd also just like
to draw attention to Senate Bill 26004
and that uh was signed by the governor
since the last time we met and it
expanded the list of pro petitioners for
protection orders for red flag orders. A
red flag order is something where
somebody can go in front of a judge and
say, "Hey, um, this individual has a
firearm and could not be safe. You know,
there's potential for unsafe behavior in
our community." And this expansion um is
something that I do think will help keep
our students safe and more people in our
community safe. uh as a school district
we are now able to petition for red flag
laws. So that was just signed into law.
Um there are also be behavioral health
facilities
um higher education institutions all
charter schools. So um I was really
happy that Governor Polus signed that.
Um,
lastly, since we last saw each other,
um, I got the good news that we are
going to be doing a pilot of hotspot
mapping at New Vista High School. And
this is a way for um
us to get student voice about where they
feel safe in their school, where they
feel welcomed in their school, and any
places that are challenging. And once
you have that information, of course,
you need to figure out what to do about
it. But hotspot mapping is a way to do
that. um that will be provided by SPAN
who we have a
uh current contract with and I'm so
excited about this pilot and so I want
to thank Rob his team Kathleen her team
for helping make that happen. Thank you
Jason.
Uh yeah, thanks. I was going to save the
community engagement for that section of
the meeting, but since we're talking
about it, I was able to join last night
also and like uh my colleagues who were
there, I was just so impressed with all
the work um from our district staff,
from our principles that went into a
really thoughtful process um you know,
for folks who attended to be able to to
understand this issue in more detail,
really get some important uh data and
and understand the various perspectives
and possible solutions. Um and so I came
away you know really really energized
about the you know very positive great
turnout number one but uh you know
positive discussions very hopeful and I
think um you one thing I was I was very
nervous going into this process but
seeing kind of the discussions uh around
you know really solutions-based um
thinking you know really gave me hope
that um you know for for this process.
So thanks to everyone who put so much
time and effort into that. Thanks to all
the staff who were there last night and
will be there, I guess, for the next
five. Um, and all the principles who go
above, you know, in addition to all the
work they do during the day are there at
these sessions, uh, helping to
facilitate and lead. So, I I was just
really really impressed. So, thanks for
that. Um, and, uh, didn't did not have a
chance to go to other things. It's
spring and my kids are in a million
different things and it's hard to get to
other places, but I was really grateful
to be able to go last night. Um, and
then Alex, uh, among your many great
suggestions, I, uh, I really love the
idea of some kind of, um, a way to make
it easier for parents to use GoG
Guardian. When we had our, um, in person
or when we had our daytime session on
AI, uh, Lynn, who helped lead that, was
kind enough to give me personalized
instructions on how to do it. And it's
still sitting on my desk among a pile of
things to do. And if I had a
personalized instruction and I still
didn't get it done, I think that, you
know, I that's that kind of speaks to
how um it's not set up not for any not
at anyone, not because of anyone's
fault, but not set up uh you know, to
make it easy and to maximize, you know,
a really great and probably expensive
technology uh that we should be able to
to give more families access to. So, I'm
in favor of um any kind of thing that,
you know, makes it easier to use that uh
as a parent. Um, as I've said at during
the meeting, it's a source of great
tension in my household. Uh, the
Chromebook and what is what is uh what
is actual schoolwork and what is not.
And I'd love to be able to have a little
bit more um visibility uh literally
about what is happening uh on the
Chromebook. So, um I would love to
explore that further. Thanks, Alex.
Jorge, do you have
any comments?
Yeah, thank you. Uh hi and nice to see
you all virtually. I appreciate the
consideration. Sorry I can't be there
today. Um I wanted to echo some of the
sentiment. I know we've gone through
this process right now to u complete the
kind of school engagement part talking
to teachers, administrators and get that
perspective that was so critical you
know visiting um all the elementary
schools and being able to be a part of
that. You know, I think that really set
set us up well for the discussion. And
so I want to echo the thanks to the
teachers for kind of sharing their
concerns and perspectives and and giving
us some starting points for the
discussions as we think about um the
broader community engagement. Um it was
really valuable to be there as part of
the discussions and and from teachers
I've heard back from, they've
appreciated that appreciated it as well.
Um I'm looking forward to the community
um engagement component of it. Um, and I
would like to give a kind of a thanks
also to the ELRACK um, committee for
helping to kind of iron out this process
and and coming up and and and kind of
piloting the the the the ways in which
the discussions are being shaped for the
community engagement department. I know
a lot of work went into that and it's
they've been at the forefront of kind of
helping us figure out what this process
looks like. So, appreciate that and I
look forward to kind of hearing from
folks in the community as we move
forward. I think we've been really
thoughtful about this process. So, thank
you to the superintendent um Anderson
and administration for the work to
really make sure we're being thoughtful
about how we're approaching um this
tough decision point moving forward.
Thank you.
Thanks. Um I'll just a lot of my board
members have said what I was going to
share about the community engagement
sessions. The other thing I would add is
it's natur it's instinct if you feel
like your school might be one of the
ones that is cons up for consideration
for a closure or consolidation or
something to really attend in droves.
And I would really like to encourage
folks who feel like I my kid goes to a
school that's solidly three rounds or
doesn't feel like it's going to be
impacted by any decisions that the board
makes to show up because all voices are
really important as we consider
what are part of the trade-off exercise
is what is of most importance what is of
greatest importance to you and so I
think I would be great I would be
ecstatic to hear from a wide c like net
of parents and community members ers in
that not just the from in addition to
the those that attend schools that that
have been thinking about this for quite
some time because they've been
experiencing declining enrollment in
more significant ways. Along that I also
wanted to just give a shout out to some
of our local other local electeds Judia
Senator Judia Mallet city council member
Tina Marquis for sharing our community
engagement sessions. the more we can
share when they are, the better
engagement we will get from both those
that have students in the district that
teach in the district and then those
that are taxpayers in our district. It's
really important to hear from a wide
variety of people. So, thank you to
everybody out there who is amplifying
these sessions. They are really powerful
and and I'll also say that it might seem
a little discouraging to know that they
run from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. I will say
everybody that participated last night
in our first one was fully engaged that
entire time. So the time goes by really
fast because they are so thoughtfully
designed and are in intended to be truly
an engagement activity. So don't be
discouraged by the time. It's well worth
it. Um and as many people as can that
can come the the better. It's been a few
weeks now. I was able to a couple weeks
ago attend the community leadership
academy to talk about what the school
board does. And as I was sitting there I
was um Koh's closet. two students from
Koh's Closet showed up to share what
they do in our schools to teach about
health rellated topics. So they ran this
group of volunteers or engaged citizens
through one of their lessons. And I just
want to give a shout out to Ella from
Boulder High School and Kennedy from
Centaurus. They did an outstanding
job talking about health related issues,
suicide, depression, all of the things.
I was impressed. So that is a volunteer
organization. A lot of our students
volunteer for that. They take donations.
They do good work in our schools. And I
think it's really important for our our
students to learn from their peers. So
Ki's Closet shows up in class health
classrooms in 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th
grade at most of our schools. Do
outstanding work. So huge shout out to
them. Um and then lastly, but not least,
I just want to elevate that we are in
SEMASS testing windows today. A lot of
our schools had PSATs and SATs. that
will continue this week. It is a it can
be a stressful time for students and for
staff and uh changes in schedules even
just can be a source of stress. So I
wanted to thank everybody for all that
goes into that and for creating the
conditions to the extent practicable
that encourage our students to take the
test because that data does help us in
in important ways and it it's good
practice for our students as well. So,
just elevating that. That's another one
of those things going on this time of
year. As Jason said, there's a lot going
on and um thanks to our teachers and
thanks to our students for for working
through that process.
With that, um we will move on to our
next item this evening,
which we have three information items
this evening. The first of which is our
2627 preliminary budget, which Bill
Setter will be presenting.
Good evening, President Raj Paul, board
members, Dr. Anderson.
I uh
come to you once again for the uh
starting the details of the uh budget
presentations uh as we work our way
towards
uh adopting the budget for next year.
Uh oh.
Oops. Do I have to point at it?
It's not picking it up. Oh well.
A reminder. Um,
we built this into the slides just to as
we talk about uh updates. We have audits
and uh which is the prior fiscal year,
the current year activities and we are
talking about next fiscal year uh right
now. So, just uh there's a little color
coding up in the corner of each slide uh
to remind everybody of where we are in
this conversation.
There we go.
Uh a little agenda of what I'll be
covering. budget development timeline
and milestones, the input, uh enrollment
projections,
uh preliminary budget adjustments and
next steps
on the timeline and milestones, uh
a review uh of what we looked at back in
December. So this is uh the continuation
of that presentation. Uh the red line is
where we are right now. Uh we are still
taking input uh still incorporating new
data uh as that comes to us and uh the
majority of the budget uh has already
been committed uh through staffing uh
that has been uh distributed out to uh
schools.
Uh this sort of shading highlights uh
the remaining steps
uh finishing the legislative session and
the school finance act uh in the next uh
four weeks or so, five weeks. Uh the
proposed budget presentation uh after
Memorial Day uh at the end of May and
budget adoption in June.
Little summarization. The budget
development process spans many months.
There are numerous options for input uh
with relevant data and information
coming all the way up until the end uh
in June with budget adoption
the budget development uh input.
So the focus of uh budget development
for this year uh is very similar uh to
last year uh focusing on employees uh
employee compensation.
The strategic plan and strategic uh
investments uh the strategic initiatives
uh within the strategic plan uh
inflation which continues to impact uh
districts across the country and in
Colorado and uh Boulder is
not escape that. Uh and then we added uh
mitigating state budget cuts uh to the
list this year uh as conversations uh
seem to be continuous at the legislative
level of how to uh reduce funding uh for
K12
uh in uh obscure ways that uh aren't
tracked and are not uh transparent. uh
going forward
the uh input these are just uh items
committees uh that uh meet I've
commented many times before uh just
about any meeting that occurs has a
tangental connection uh to budget
development even if the meeting is not
called a budget input meeting right
anytime there is a conversation about uh
availability of resources or uh what
kind of services can be provided or
additional services. Uh those are
essentially budget conversations.
The superintendent and his staff take
those conversations into consideration
uh as the budget is developed.
Just a little reminder of uh the board
meetings and board uh meeting topics uh
that have occurred this year since the
beginning of the year. Uh strategic plan
and strategic initiatives uh the updates
uh revenue impacts and declining
enrollment uh in the state budget and
state economic outlook.
lots of opportunity for the public to go
back and watch board meetings
uh and get information on any of these
topics uh over the past months
for enrollment.
Uh no surprise I think uh that there's
further projected decline in enrollment.
Uh this table shows uh actual enrollment
uh
physical students not uh students that
are uh funded at FTE or uh part of
enrollment averaging.
Uh the decline is concentrated in our
non-charter schools uh and at the early
grades uh as previous board
presentations have portrayed.
There are uh legislated
student count reductions.
Uh this is compounding the effect uh in
the loss of enrollment as legislation
that reduces funding by changing how
students are counted or funded.
So this table shows the change in the
school finance act uh and how that has
reduced funding for districts across the
state uh with declining enrollment. Um
projected per pupil revenue for uh
Boulder for next year uh is a little
under $15,000 per student including our
local 25% mil levy override. So that is
approximately $7.3 million
uh when compared to the uh previous 1994
school finance act with the five-year
averaging. So again, all of those
numbers sort of get larger as we move to
the right uh as the
enrollment averaging changes from five
years to four years to three years to a
smoothing factor which is sort of a
weighted average uh to two-year
averaging. uh and so that is one of the
methods of
uh reducing funding uh by just changing
how students are counted and funded.
So the takeaway on this
uh these changes were not part of the
original 1448 implementation. I think
the initial one was just changing it
from five years to four years. Uh but
has been introduced as a way to pay for
the plan uh that the legislature didn't
really have the money uh to fully
implement.
Bill Alex has a question.
Yes.
Can you back up to the previous slide,
please, Bill? Um so what has the
legislature done? Have they done made
these changes? Are they proposing these
changes? Are we planning for the
possibility that these changes will
occur? So the current year is the
four-year averaging. Uh the next year uh
for 2627
uh has the three-year averaging built
into the uh school finance act that's
been introduced uh or uh proposed. Uh
current law says
either two-year averaging or a smoothing
factor in the following year. uh the
smoothing factor. It was developed by a
group of colleagues, CFOs from across
the state uh to
kind of split the difference between
three-year and two-year. Uh it's a
weighted average 50% of uh the current
year,
20% and 5% or something like that. So it
sort of uh
creates a way that counts current
students more um and then as the the
enrollment from prior years uh gets
further in the rearview mirror
uh it gets less weight to it. So the
last two columns are current law that
will go in effect one or the other uh in
the following year.
And so the the three-year average is
proposed in the finance act now but
hasn't been enacted. Correct.
Correct.
And what is the unit of these numbers?
Are these millions? Are these dollars
per kid? What what is what is what does
28.5
mean?
FTE. So student FTEE that is the the
averaging um benefit uh that uh is
included in our funding. So
like it's dollars
per child then
times 15,000
right
equals the dollars. Yeah. So that's a
per pupil dollar amount that would be
reduced if we went from the current
four-year to the three-year and then
from the three-year to the smoothing. Is
that a cut? Are all those against the
status quo today or are they against the
column to their left?
The u
second one from the bottom is a
comparison to the prior year. So
141 is comparing to uh five-year
averaging. Uh 135 is comparing to
four-year averaging. 144 is uh the
smoothing factor comparing to uh the
three-year and then two-year same. And
then the bottom row is all comparing to
the fiveyear averaging.
All right. And then if we're using the
factor word, is the smoothing factor a
new euphemism for the budget
stabilization factor or is that a wholly
new thing? A
euphemism for averaging?
For averaging. Okay. And what is what uh
what's our what are we telling the CFO
group that we would like to do in terms
of BBSD's participation in developing
the smoothing factor?
Uh
in so many words uh
the legislature
said
tell us how you want to be reduced
uh and come up with a factor that is not
called averaging.
And so the smoothing literally it says
smoothing factor in the legislation. Um
so that
factor was developed to
it couldn't be more right it couldn't it
wouldn't be accepted uh to have it be
more than three years uh uh value
similar value and averaging um and
certainly we wouldn't want it to be less
than two year uh because that would be
not beneficial. So it's again kind of
split the difference to come up with
something that met the current law that
said a smoothing factor needs to be
developed.
Rob and then Jason.
I think this slide highlights our
frustration
with uh with the new school finance act
um which uh makes it seem like they're
implementing more money for schools but
then gives us uh more money but for less
students
as opposed to when they just say how
much more per student they're giving us
uh alluding to the fact that this is
some big windfall for education and it
hurts us because the messaging doesn't
match the reality of what it is that
school districts across the state are
facing. And I do appreciate the 1994
comparison on the bottom bill board
members. As you'll recall, we were one
of a handful of districts pushing
against this new and improved school
finance act that all we've seen is
change and morph and
phase in and then the smoothing factor
which is uh you know folks are really
avoiding the realities which is they're
not funding education in the in the ways
they said they would or they should and
they're trying to make it seem like it's
not that bad. And uh to the extent that
that this is I think a frustration uh
but it's also a problem because it's
hard to communicate. I mean we've been
talking about this for five to 10
minutes and you all are informed
educated schoolboard members. So for our
general public so they know and
understand the school finance act was
changed. Uh it had different factors. uh
it had a phasein plan and as we had
predicted when we stood against this
there wasn't the money to implement it
as it was written and so now the rules
continue to change uh literally there's
a um in the school finance act I believe
that uh one of our our legislators has
coined the positive factor you heard
this bill yeah uh where any new money is
going to be the positive factor but so
it's just uh it's it's really It's
really hard for a public that I think
deserves to be um
leveled with and and and be communicated
honestly and clearly and I think a lot
of this just creates tons of confusion.
So uh to the extent Bill that we can
clean up some of these numbers but as so
we know that they're students and
dollars where students are students and
dollars are dollars. I think as our
community relies on our communication of
these numbers as opposed to the state um
uh let's make sure that we go through
and clean that up before we post it or
when we clean it up Laura let's make
sure that that happens.
Um I guess on the subject of making this
easier to communicate and to understand
I think between Alex's questions and Dr.
's remarks, it's a little clearer. But I
think uh if I'm looking at like column
two, the 25 26 and 26 27 numbers in the
like high 400s and then you move down to
like column four, the 218.5. Is that
like that's probably what we're looking
at in the future, right? This smoothing
factor, some version of that. Like how
do you explain that like 50% or more
jump? Like what does that mean? Uh
that's a change from four-year averaging
to
two and a half year averaging. Uh
what does it mean when it goes from 496
to 218? Is that like like we're seeing a
more than 50% cut from the state level?
Are we seeing like how would you
describe that in those things that are
funded FTE
uh and then you multiply any one of the
numbers by the $15,000 per pupil
and which is the what did I say 7
something million um 7.5 million is the
500493
uh funded FTE difference is 7.3 million.
So that's how much less funding we will
have in one of those outyear scenarios
than if the four fiveyear averaging was
in place.
Okay,
Alex.
Yeah, I just I really appreciate the
idea of how we figure out how to make
our budget more transparent because one
thing I whenever there's a budget
discussion with parents in this
community, it is, oh my god, can you
figure out how to make that budget
transparent? we can't figure anything
out from what the district shares. So, I
I do think it's like incumbent on us in
a period where we are advocating uh
against the state in order to not cut
funding from our community when we're
having really hard discussions with
people in the field about closing
schools that we be able to communicate
clearly what's going on with the budget.
And I I've been the treasurer for two
years and I still can't figure out a
slide like this. So is in 2024 25 with a
five-year averaging $368.9
per student is up or down from 1994. Is
that what that says?
Uh
which number did you say? 200
uh the cell 368.9 in the upper left
cell. What what is that?
That is
what are you telling me with that
funded FTE? So funded pupil count. So
that's a uh the the benefit the district
received in 2425 under the 1994 school
finance act with five-year averaging. We
were funded for 368.9
more students than we actually had. This
is where the conversation of uh funding
phantom students uh comes from which is
um like a
really derogatory way of uh explaining
that legis some legislators use because
they're funding the students that are in
our school. It just gives the district a
little runway to make adjustments and
changes as we experience declining
enrollment. Um, so those were additional
resources that the district received
over and above the actual students in
the district in each of those years. And
then the bottom rows are the decline or
the the reduction uh as the averaging
went from five year, four year, three
year, two year.
Okay, that's that's not at all what I
thought it was. So that's helpful to
explain it. And again, I'm always
arguing that our figures and graphs
should be labeled so that someone who
doesn't know what's going on can
interpret them when we're not explaining
it.
Lolini and then Deian.
Thank you. I'm starting to understand
it. Um,
and what would be helpful to me for my
discussions with
folks in our community would be
a a chart that shows that $7 million.
That's that's the chart that I want to
have or that I want to be able to have
the numbers there, you know, because I
understand that and we certainly are not
calling them phantom students, but we
see that we would have had 639
students. Is this right? That we would
have if if we if things had stayed the
same that we would have received
funding
funding for. And now by the time we get
to smoothing factor, we're down to 218.
Um, and I'm sure some could argue about
continued phantom students, but I what I
need to understand is how much less
money comes in.
So that then when someone asks me that
that is that's the piece of information
that is more understandable for the lay
person. Um,
is that making sense? Is that what you
need, too? Can someone else speak up?
No, I think that'll be I think that's
helpful. So, you don't have to say 146.3
time 15,000.
So, I I hear what you're saying there,
Dian. My question may be irrelevant
because if we turn this into actual
dollars and cents, I won't need to ask
this question. But if I go back to 1994,
well, this the 1994 finance act and I'm
taking the numbers for 2425,
that's 368.9,
which I understand as an average even
though it's last year. Do I multiply it
by 15,000?
Uh,
or is it a less
It would be a less amount because it
would be in the 2425 per pupil.
Okay. So, dollars and cents would help a
lot.
Y
all good. All right.
All right.
Uh just a little reminder uh that we are
in what I would consider uh the early
stages of the budget finalization.
Uh enrollment is being monitored
uh as students uh and families continue
to put in uh open enrollment requests
uh and the weight lists are being
cleared on a daily basis.
Uh staff negotiations and compensation
is being finalized. Uh we're still
meeting with uh all our various
associations and employee groups. uh new
expenses are uh being identified and
legislative actions are being actively
engaged
uh over the course of the next uh month
or so.
Uh this really is right up to the last
minute um as changes come along.
So uh the first step in the process is
to identify the base budget uh what we
would consider the base budget. So this
removes all the one-time items uh both
revenues and expenses uh to find uh the
starting point uh from moving forward
with the budget adjustments. Uh this is
a key to maintaining a structurally
sound budget. uh something the
legislature is struggling with
on the revenue side. Uh this is the uh
net amount of per pupil revenue. So this
is a 2.3%
inflation. So that was the uh 2025
inflation number for uh the Denver
Lakewood Aurora
Metropolitan Statistical Unit. So that
is the the number that is inflation uh
under Taber uh and incorporates the
decline in enrollment and the roll out
of the new school finance act. So 3.7
million
uh 25% MIL levy override uh for that. So
the MIL levy override is only on those
new dollars in the school finance act.
Uh a little increase for categorical
funding.
Uh some of the categorical funding uh is
based on enrollment, district
enrollment. So within declining
enrollment, there's a little reduction
uh in categorical funding when inflation
is uh taken into account. Uh and then
services provided to charters as part of
the charter school contracts. Um they
buy services from the district and so
that's a revenue line. Uh so 5.3 million
uh dollars in ongoing revenue
adjustments. So just for some context uh
in April of 2024 when I was here for the
2425 preliminary budget that number was
uh 15.9 million at the bottom line. Uh
and in 23 it was 18.2 million. So that
included negative factor buyowns and
inflation rates of 5.2 and 8%. So much
higher inflation.
uh two and three times higher. Uh but uh
that is what is driving uh those revenue
numbers and a large portion of it was
the negative factor buyowns uh which is
gone away now that the the negative
factor is at zero right now.
uh transfers. So as dollars come into
the general fund uh they are transferred
over to uh charter schools. So it is
their uh portion both uh legal and
contractual uh share of per pupil
revenue categorical funding and mil levy
overrides
uh and the adjustment for enrollment. On
the enrollment slide I think there's
five more students uh projected for our
charter schools uh overall. Um so a
little u use of those new dollars into
the general fund.
On the expenditure side uh compensation
uh so we have not included a cost of
living adjustment in here yet. Uh we
have salary schedule movement uh so uh
movement on the salary schedules uh that
are uh in place or uh under
negotiations.
uh a little other change associated with
uh some negotiations process we're
working through now and then health and
dental insurance uh this is what the
benefits committee recommendation was uh
that came to the board I think last
meeting um there is also a employee
contribution increase on uh those health
and dental insurance uh benefits uh so
this is just the district contribution
further budget adjustments. So, as we
experience declining enrollment, we
reduce staff uh by our staffing
formulas. Uh so, this is where districts
uh can get into a financial squeeze uh
keeping staff not supported by
enrollment uh and then have to announce
large staffing cuts uh instead of
addressing it annually.
board members and for our community. Um
this is just a really important point
that Bill is talking about. Each and
every year we adjust our resources based
on our revenues and ongoing um dollars
that we have. If you are looking at
other districts that are looking at
declining enrollment and there was a
news article the other day, you know,
districts cutting 150 160 individual
teachers.
uh if you if you do things the way we're
doing, which is continuing to decline as
the students aren't here, um that's why
even though we're having this
conversation around declining
enrollment, it doesn't mean we're, you
know, there's there's 150 um people
being being laid off or we're in some
kind of reduction in force scenario. Uh
it is our formulas, our staffing
formulas that are allow us to budget in
a way where we're not deficit budgeting.
Uh next we have uh utilities. Uh so this
is um a portion of what I would consider
that inflationary cost. Um water is a
big component of of this about twothirds
of that amount uh is both the water
rates uh and usage. It's been a wee bit
dry if folks haven't noticed. Um this is
ex we have started watering earlier uh
and um that uh is going to be
challenging this summer. Next we have uh
cost savings for staff turnover as more
experienced people retire and uh newer
folks are hired in. Uh and then uh
expanding Apex uh for new programs, new
CTE programs, uh behavioral health,
computer science, pharmacy, tech, and
medical assistant are the new programs
uh being rolled out in the fall.
Uh little summary here. Uh new
resources, uh new uses, and an ending
balance, uh 1.8 million that's
unallocated at this point. Um just to
put this in context right this is on
about 400 million in uh total revenues
uh and total expenditures in the general
fund or total uses. Uh so um pretty
small margins of what we're talking
about uh as changes uh even though
millions of dollars sounds like uh big
numbers uh it's a pretty small
percentage of the overall uh general
fund budget.
Uh as I regularly comment, we are very
careful to track one-time revenues and
expenditures to ensure ongoing expenses
have ongoing resources uh to create a
structurally balanced budget. So we uh
specifically call out those items uh
that we add to the budget uh both on the
revenue side because there are one-time
uh revenues that come in that we don't
want to commit on an ongoing basis. Uh
but then also uh expenditures uh that
we're committing to for either one year
or multiple years. We'll call that out
if it's a multipleyear uh use of of
resources. Uh but uh our staffing
reserve that we've uh been putting in
place for uh a number of years now for
uh the enrollment in inefficiencies.
uh special education support for the
moderate needs program rolling out uh
some curriculum, subteer pay uh and uh
communications to uh continue our
showcase and marketing efforts uh with
that
reserves uh required by state law and
board policy. So a little increase
there. um net expenditures aren't going
up very much. So the net reserves don't
need to go up very much.
Uh this is the summary of the one-time
available about 11.5 million and the
one-time uh uses uh that I just
described. Um there are uh one-time uses
being discussed in negotiations. So this
number will uh get smaller. um uh as
we're uh working through uh salary
schedule transitions uh and things like
that uh with our employee associations
summary uh the base budget uh as I
referenced earlier uh the new one-time
new ongoing uh and the total preliminary
budget at this point uh there have been
years where the bottom line numbers are
negative
uh which is not a great place to be but
uh also we're early in the stage. These
are not negative uh and we are
continuing those discussions on
particularly on negotiations that'll be
the uh biggest changes uh that will be
uh included in the proposed budget uh in
May.
I guess I'll pause there see if there's
any questions.
Anna and then Jorge, I don't want to
forget about you, so if you ever need
anything, just chime right in. Anna,
for the 2627 projections, uh, and I know
that this is a super short runway
because the JBC just passed the long
bill on Saturday. Um are the projections
in line with what uh did pass in the
long build?
That is the next slide.
So yes, uh the long bill has been
introduced. uh the school finance act
while still uh being discussed
um
there is I would say pretty limited
legislative desire to make changes. Uh
there was pretty significant push back
on the SOT uh change that was uh
discussed um you know taking those
resources making a cut to school
districts and counting it uh the the
local share the local portion uh of the
school finance act. Um so
they backed off on that. Um there's lots
of uh talking points for campaigns on
how the budget stabilization factor has
been eliminated and uh we're not
bringing it back and so it would be kind
of backpedaling uh if that was to come
back. So there's not a lot of desire to
do that. Um
the next item on here though, the
midyear recision. Uh so the JBC decided
to use a um we'll say a somewhat
aggressive revenue target uh for next
year. uh which sort of increases the uh
chances for a mid-year recision if the
state economy doesn't uh perform as
expected or there are further federal
legislative changes or anything like
that.
So, uh the chances of a midyear
recision, we haven't had one in a while.
Uh but it's not particularly pleasant
when
the legislature comes in January and
says, "Okay, we need some money back
that we uh said you would get." Um
whether they're
sort of hedging their bets on uh passage
of the referred measure uh that will
bring in uh additional dollars to the
state um to cover that potential
deficit. um pure speculation but um uh
that sort of is out there. Um and then
the last one, enrollment uh changes. Uh
so a 0.1% uh decline or 25 students is
about $375,000
or 1.5 million for 100 students. So if
enrollment doesn't materialize, uh
that's where some of our revenue
sensitivity also exists that we
experienced uh this year and this past
fall.
Uh some other funds, notable items,
community schools, uh the high school
scoreboard, uh and advertising and
marketing. Uh the board approved the uh
install purchase and installation of the
scoreboards for the high schools. Uh
so including that uh within the
community schools fund and then the
initial uh estimated Sundance uh
impacts. Um we want to be very clear
that uh the intent is not to spend any
uh taxpayer resources on uh the Sundance
Festival or the impacts thereof. Uh and
so getting the uh festival to uh cover
the direct costs uh for the district. Um
we're not in the same situation that the
city is with collecting uh sales tax
revenue or lodging tax revenue. Uh
things like that. Um there's no benefit
to the district uh for increased
property values because Sundance is now
here or whatever. Um the the so the
district needs to make sure that we're
recouping those uh hard costs, direct
costs uh associated with the festival.
Uh in the preschool fund, uh we're in
the third year of this new uh structure
of funding. Uh we've not received any
communication on the funding rates um
which is sort of challenging. Um
it's probably the third year of uh
funding being below inflation or funding
increases being below inflation. Uh so
that continues to put pressure on the
general fund as we're needing to uh
support staff compensation out of
general fund resources uh because the
preschool UPK program isn't keeping up.
Bill Jason has a question then. Alex.
Yeah. Thanks, Bill. Just on this
Sundance impact, uh, you know, was I
actually wanted to ask kind of what the
word impact meant. It sounds like you
you're clear on that. Are there no
opportunities for revenue? I mean, maybe
it's something we need to prioritize and
discuss, but I feel like that would be a
real wasted opportunity.
There are uh opportunities for um
revenue. I mean, our normal rental rates
uh that we would charge that are posted
on the website um uh are sort of the
starting point, right? Are there
benefits to the district uh
altruistic benefits, artistic benefits,
you know, all the things that will come
uh from Sundance being in our school in
two of our schools. Um
so,
Yes, it's also a new location after I
know 40 years of being in Park City. So,
I think everybody's feeling out just
exactly what this is going to look like.
The facilities uh that they were in, the
school facilities in Park City, uh was a
giant addition wing on the school. So,
um, not in the building in the same way
that, uh, it's going to be in Boulder
High and Casey. So, kind of a different
setup. Um, and we're working through all
the contract negotiations on that even
as we speak.
Yeah. Uh, I would have interrupted
earlier, but I I wanted to go back to um
again the theme of making this um easier
for the public to understand or the
board members to understand. Uh
this one
actually I'd go back to slide 19.
All the way back.
Yeah.
So for me like the column on the far
right is our bait buzz budget and we
make one-time changes that are affected
by a reserve that results in the column
to the far left right like what in you
in American western culture do we go
from right to left to sum the columns of
something for someone to understand like
wouldn't it start with 433 it has a
onetime increase of 8.3 nothing from the
reserves that adds up to 441.9
like I usually add up from left to right
I would be my point. So, is there an
accounting reason why you would put the
first number as the sum and all the
other numbers that add up to it?
Uh,
or I'm understanding it wrong.
Maybe, yeah, it's more of a subtraction,
right? So the revised budget that was
adopted in January includes
8.3 million of one-time expense uh
onetime revenue and the base budget
is 433 million to start next year. So
that's that's the 2026 27 base after the
431 revised. So the four the 202526
revised budget that's our baseline for
what we're moving forward and then the
2026 27 is a new budget year or is that
the 202526 revised budget for 2627.
The far right column
is the starting point for 2627.
So
we've removed all the one-time revenues
and expenses
and that is then the starting point as
we add revenue
so on and so forth. So that the the
202526 revised budget is the revision to
what we had spent or uh in 2526.
And so are we assuming that the 2526
budget is the baseline for what we spend
in 2627
less the one time
less the one times changes. So we're
starting out with it that way.
Okay. Well, that I guess that
illustrates for me why one of the points
I've made for quite a while that I I
would love to see us at some point like
on slide on subsequent slides like 20,
you know, 21 when we're dealing with the
amount of the changes, I would love to
have them proportionate to the baseline
for them so that people could evaluate
whether they're big or small numbers. So
when something of a preschool fund, you
know, changes 100,000 bucks, it's a big
deal to know if that's out of a 200,000
baseline or if it's out of an 11 million
baseline, right? So with the addition of
a single column, I think we could add
make that data so much more meaningful
to people so they would know what it's a
proportion of and then we could maybe
reinforce what I get confused about when
I look at the slides and can't figure
out how the numbers add up from left to
right or right to left. So it uh sort of
a a base budget to the left and the
amount of the change.
Yeah, I think the public and myself
would be able on slide 21
like 1.3 million in the charter schools
fund is a transfer which is great
because money becomes available from
school finance act or the override and
it goes into our fund. Uh but is that
1.3 on top of 100 million or 1.3 on top
of three million? Right. And so were we
off by a factor of 10 or were we off by
a factor of 0.01? Like if if the idea in
public governance is to oversee how
close we were and how well we were able
to predict it. If I don't know the
baseline, I can't make a governance
evaluation of how well we did at
anticipating or knowing unless I go back
and do it myself. So that's where I'm
like that's one of those things of opa
making it opaque is making it harder for
someone to interpret it where all we
have to do is add the baseline number
and then they'll at least know how close
we were.
So, I've asked for that three years in a
row, and I would love to see it uh next
year.
So, this kind of sums up but not
individual lines as you're referencing.
Yeah. to illustrate my point like I
don't know how these numbers uh
correspond to the other ones because the
other ones are summing up those
individual pieces within it. So this is
the baseline data but this baseline data
isn't necessarily divided up into the
same things that the transfers are going
into. Those are sort of sums of points
that are transferred or in the one-time
expenditures as I understand it. So in
order to judge the numbers on the
previous slides, I need to know those
baselines. Then I need to know how those
baselines add up into this slide. That's
the way I would aspire to understand it.
Yep.
Transportation.
uh
an additional transfer of 200,000
uh for McKini Mckin Vento support u
there's an expected reduction in title
one funding uh and an additional school
uh being qualified as a schoolwide
school uh elementary school
um so that sort of uh spreads the
resources a little thinner so uh
covering the costs of the Mckin Vento
transportation, the homeless student
transportation
um uh as a transfer and additional
resources into the transportation fund.
Uh and then the charter school fund. Um
so here's the total um for the
uh charter school transfer. So 37
million inclusive of that 1.3.
Bill, I have a question actually about
Title One funding. I know the federal
government is decreasing that pot of
money. I was also the under the
impression that they were making it
harder to qualify at the same time for
Title One. Is that not the case? Is it
just the pocket of money and that it
just is spread around more thinly, but
not that the qualifying standards are
changing at all?
I have not heard of changing the
qualifications. It's still based on
pre-launch status.
Okay. And the percentages haven't
changed or anything like that. It's just
just that money is shrinking.
We determine the cutoff. There's some
minimums uh to identify a schoolwide
school. Uh but we get to determine where
that cut off is. So um we have in 30
years focused the title one resources at
the elementary level. um to make them go
further so that they're not spread too
thin. Um and then the one high school
it's uh once you hit 75% at the high
school level uh or maybe it's secondary
in general um you're you have to be a
schoolwide school. just as high as a
title one school as well because they're
80 or 85%
free lunch.
And as we're making our
assessments on that, do we ever consider
particularly as that pot of money, the
title one funding from the federal
government is decreasing.
There are times where a title one school
in our district frequently is a very
good fundraiser because while they might
have a large percentage of students that
qualify for free and reduced lunch, they
also have a very large percentage of
folks that are able to generate
generously donate a lot of money. Do we
ever take that into consideration when
we're thinking about the allocation of
this shrinking resource?
No, it is just a number and a cut off
point.
Okay.
strategic investments. Uh so
uh we added this in the revised budget
uh for this year back in January uh to
uh identify some of those uh strategic
investments that are included in the
budget both on an ongoing uh and
one-time basis. And then if there's any
uh future dollars that have been set
aside, the weighted differentiated
funding uh school support fund uh that
we have transferred uh dollars into uh
which is the future dollars that 11.5
million uh and then next year's uh
allocation to be used uh 5.2 million uh
for that weighted differentiated
funding. uh and then uh so on and so
forth through these uh they're the same
items that were uh discussed in the
revised budget. The ongoing programs are
continuing to be ongoing uh and the
one-time uh are continuing uh as one
time. Uh the UVA um professional
learning uh cohorts
uh is the last year uh of that uh
funding that has been set aside so far.
uh the wellness rooms, uh some one-time
funding that's uh expected uh to be
available for next year. Uh and then uh
the ongoing funding that exists in the
uh current ongoing budget, curriculum,
restorative practices, assessments,
MTSS, professional development,
and Bill, is that wellness rooms what
we're anticipating receiving from the
county mental health tax, or is that a
different source of revenue?
It's
combination of uh donation and that
county tax.
Uh this is a subtle question that's
maybe more important for later. Um in
looking through like some of our charter
school renewals, uh not all our charter
schools are accessing like interim
benchmark assessments which are really
key to assessing you know the student
quality and growth. Are we letting when
we spend our money on our state
assessments? I mean excuse me on the
district assessments linked to our
curriculum. Are we offering those to our
charters or is that a fee for service
thing we can offer? because I sure want
to insist that a school coming up for
renewal that has no CMAS testing data
have benchmark data that we can use to
assess their quality. Otherwise, I have
no insight into whether kids are
learning there. So, as long as we're
spending the money, it would be great to
allow 100 kids at a charter to use that
assessment to and sort of encourage or
require a charter to do one. Do you know
if we do that yet?
I'll have to check. I'll have to check.
Um, and it may be different for the um
for different charters. Let me check.
Laura, you're making a note.
Strategic realignment of administrative
resources.
So, board members, um, as as we're going
through declining enrollment and we're
going through, um, adjustments in
budget, I need to be clear with you and
with our community that that means that
we need to make adjustments to central
office spending. Um, we are currently
finalizing budget reductions in central
office. Um, I anticipate those those
dollars that we would recoup to drive
towards um priorities in schools to be
in excess of a million dollars. And uh
across all of our divisions, I think
that we've asked all of our cabinet um
I've asked all cabinet members to to
really look to see where where can we um
make reductions without negatively
impacting schools
um or teachers or educators. uh you
know, if you start to cut um certain
things or if you cut people across the
board percentage-wise, it may have
unintended consequences where all of a
sudden there's more work for teachers to
do, there's more work for leaders to do.
Um in some instances, a central office
uh staff takes the takes work away from
schools. And so those are those are
investments that we'd want to keep. and
where there's opportunities to make
those reductions as as tough as they may
be. Certainly, um, all of our schools in
our system are facing those same types
of challenges. And so, um, I will have a
finalized number when we bring back the
final budget for study.
Uh, but you can expect that to be in
excess of a million dollars. And I would
say that um based on the teacher
roundtables and the feedback that we're
getting from our families as we go
through this community engagement uh
there may be a redeployment of those
resources to priorities we've identified
through those opportunities.
Next steps uh so the legislative session
ends uh here in the early May. Uh we'll
have the proposed budget public input uh
session at the board meeting on May
26th. Uh and then the study item uh
followed shortly thereafter. Uh and then
June 9th is the tenative uh adoption
date uh for
the 2627 budget.
That's the end.
Thanks, Bill. Board members, any I know
we spent a lot of time throughout this
information item asking questions,
digging in any additional questions or
comments. I see Dr. raising his hand.
I
I'll just say thank you board members
for your feedback. I appreciate your
focus on making sure that our community
can understand. Um we do have we have
been taking notes. We will make some of
those adjustments prior to posting this.
Laura, if you can make that note. um in
particular making sure that when we have
numbers whether it's students whether
it's dollars that that's that's
incredibly clear with a footnote um and
uh to the extent that we could add some
of that proportionality
of budget I think that we could probably
add that that's just another um column
we can add that prior to posting uh and
then we'll continue to strive to to do
everything we can to try to tell the
picture in ways that are um that are
accurate not so overwhelming
but are clear for folks to understand.
Thanks for that, Dr. Anderson. Alex,
then Jason.
Yeah, I just want to express my
gratitude for that because um uh I find
I find the budget tricky for me to
understand as former treasurer and
member of the board a lot of time and my
interactions with the public are 100%
like I've yet to have someone say,
"Thank you for how clear your budgeting
is. It's really easy for me to
understand how you get raise and spend
money." Zero people. all the people who
have mentioned budget cannot finish the
conversation without saying, "I don't
know what the heck's going on with your
budget. Can't you be more transparent?"
So, and I think in it's incumbent on us
when we're doing something as intense as
potentially closing schools, um dealing
with coverage of the staffing changes
that we make that may or may not be
accurate to do whatever we can to build
public trust and understanding of it.
And so if there's a way we've done
something for 10 years because we've
done it for 10 years doesn't make it the
right way to do it because our public
can't understand what's going on. I'm
not sure our board can I myself can't
understand it. So I I do think uh it's
one of those exercises where we should
ask ourselves what's the function of our
communication about the budget and
what's the outcome of it. And if we were
teachers in a classroom teaching a class
on the BBSD budget, we would have failed
as a collective teaching force to
educate the students about it with the
way we do it. So I I just think um we
really should do better and it's in our
interest in the long term to do and I'm
not saying anyone's doing it wrong. It's
just we are going the way we are. Public
can't understand it. We're struggling to
understand it. And uh the more I dive
in, the more confident I am that we're
doing it right and we're being prudent
and I feel good about our stewardship.
But I give us a very low grade for our
um transparency.
Um I should have asked this question
earlier. Can we go to slide 11? I I
didn't know we had question
opportunities earlier. Um
it's kind of a big picture question. Um
not not so different from Alex's, but
more in terms of kind of board member
understanding of how of the process and
the inputs. Um the slide shows like I
think it says 14 different board
meetings uh that kind of contributed to
the budget process and I really
appreciate that because I feel like I've
never seen that translate into a slide
of where are you know we talk about a
lot of things we prioritize a lot of
things we care about a lot of things.
Um, and I don't mean this in like a
gotcha question way, but like when we
talk about all these things here, could
you just like how does that translate to
the work that you all do and you and
your team into, you know, in addition to
the priorities we have, you know,
strategic priorities that you mentioned
like when we had a conversation about
the with the be well action plan, we
talked a lot about mental health and
counselors and what what is that like
that conversation, how does that
translate into budget processes and
prioritization. I think like and again I
don't mean this in a kind of tell me
what you've done with our with our
priorities because I know we have
limited resources, a very narrow budget
to work with and we like I said we talk
about a lot of things that we care about
and a lot of things we'd love to do that
we know we can't. But I think you know
in I guess this is my third year with a
budget and so I guess first appreciation
for this because it's first time I've
seen kind of our work here translate to
what you do but I really want to better
understand how this translates into the
rest of the slides. And maybe that's
another conversation, but maybe just
some initial
in summary more it's about um all of the
conversations that happen
uh as we talk about mental health and
the supports that students need and what
we're doing that goes into the
collective
um uh needs bucket of the district. uh
as the superintendent is working with
staff and pulling together uh the budget
for the next year. And so um if there
are resources that are available to uh
new money uh to spend what are the top
priorities
that's within the strategic plan or if
there is something that is such a high
priority that we need to uh redirect uh
existing resources make reductions to
add something like that all goes into
the collective
budget development decision.
So what I think what Bill has tried to
do here is that this has evolved. It
used to be we'd go out and ask people
what we should spend our money on
disconnected from the conversations at
the board table and disconnected from
our strategic plan and strategic
initiatives, right? And so it used to be
the develop we would build I mean
remember when we I started Bill we would
go out and say what should we spend
money on and people didn't they don't
it's they have a hard time articulating
exactly the investment right so then you
get real generalized feedback and then
folks were giving feedback in ways that
wasn't maybe necessarily showing up in
the budget right with the idea that um
every time we have conversations a
couple of things have happened. Number
one, you have all prioritized this as
something we I need to focus on. Many of
these are embedded in my superintendent
goals, right? Which are then embedded
and cascaded through our entire cabinet
and to our principles. And so when you
have an aligned organization, your
conversations matter. And so in some
instances, we've decided to to maintain
the a level of funding. In other
instances, we've had to change and shift
resources. Sometimes we add, sometimes
we subtract. I so but I think what Bill
is trying to do here is to really um you
know inform the budget that our
conversations
right inform the work of the school
district. So, it's not a um it's not a
direct, you know, at the end of every
presentation I say, "Okay, $40,000 goes
to this thing we talked about, right?"
But I do think that it does shape goals.
It shapes our further prioritization.
Every time we have a conversation on a
topic some, you know, topics come up and
then at the end of the meeting, we can
say, "Hey, based on this, man, I'd
really like for us to dig in here, dig
in there." And then over time those
things be then can can come in um in
either a redistri redistribution of
resources a new resource um sometimes a
reduction in resources. So, uh, I think
that, um, I really appreciate the idea
that our conversations matter when it
comes to budget and that our
conversations matter, um, at, uh, at the
board table when it comes to, um, the
direction of the school district and,
uh, you know, that this isn't a list of
things that I decided I wanted to do.
These are things that we kind of really
talk about together.
Um, yeah, I really I I appreciate that.
Again, you know, I'm grateful for this
slide. Like I said, it's the first time
I've been able to connect uh you know,
the conversations we've had to this
process. And so, if I can make a request
for future presentations, it would be to
continue this stuff and even build on
it. And so, you know, here, you know, I
could I could look at a few of these
bullets where later in the slides, you
show, you know, how that budget has
changed. Not maybe not as a result of
the conversation we've had, but like,
you know, strategic plan progress. And
so if there's a connection to hey this
we plused up this not because the board
discussion maybe but you know here is
here's the connection between what you
all talked about and how it impacts the
budget process. And so I'm not sure how
that looks but if there's a way to tie
this stuff to kind of the actual budget
development and actual numbers and you
know in some cases that might be
nothing. It's not I'm not asking for
like hey we mentioned AI there's a
$40,000 plus up. It's more just, you
know, for us to be able to understand,
you know, that these um, you know, that
these conversations are important and
where they do translate to budget, you
know, budget impacts.
I mean, deciding to to maintain budget
is a decision too, right? Like, so I
think that to the extent that based on
any conversation that either you do
something differently or you maintain
your efforts, right? I think those are
decisions as well. I I like that idea. I
do think that we can take that back and
think about how our prioritization
aligns with um conversations that align
with budget implications.
Anna and then Alex.
Uh first I do just want to say a big
thank you for guiding us through all of
this. This was uh very indepth. Um, I am
going to pull my new board member card
out and say what would be helpful to me
uh in understanding new board member
card but also a relatively um new parent
in K through 12 as having just a
kindergartenner in the in the system. Uh
it would be helpful for me to to yes
have the footnotes so that when I go
back um I know uh specifically on slide
15 um what these units are measuring. Um
it would be also helpful for me to have
some sort of a matrix um that tells me
what our FTE for BVSD is um but what the
average per pupil revenue is for the
state. not so that we know like um like
where we land but just like to have an
overall sense of what the state is
trending at. Um and to that to that um
also highlighting how much uh per FTE
we're getting from those mill levy
overrides. Um so that I also can break
out what is the state and what is the
district. um along with these uh student
counts
totals
for projected future years of FTE. Um so
that I know kind of like what we're
looking at so that we have that like
we're losing the $7 million um what and
and to that effect what that is going to
mean for um for programs within the
district. Um, I know that that's a
little harder to to really dig into and
and weed through, but um, trying to
understand some of the the district
priorities and being able to see the
numbers and being able to kind of
guesstimate of like what would be the
the tradeoffs um, for that declining um,
declining future projections.
if it's like a matrix or a whatever it
could be just so that I have a whole a
holistic picture for the district and
for the state I think would be very
helpful to me
um ditto great idea uh it's always it's
we have a lot of that in there so we
embed things in different documents it's
just hard if we don't pull it out and
summarize it and give the executive
summaries for people to to find things
you know I feel like We're very
transparent if you read everything and
but you have to read everything and
understand it which is part of the
challenge. So totally been there respect
that very much. I I and I would benefit
from it just as much as a new board
member. Um back to the point of the long
list of people up there. Uh I do think
um one of the things that helps with
understanding the budget is actually to
not talk about all of it in a
quantitative way. So like I think to
understand how you and your team have
acted on these things is actually a
fairly narrative qualitative discussion
about like well I heard this and I heard
this and we're making an investment in X
and it's part of this bigger thing. like
we can't say oh it's 42,000 or 41,000
that you added because of this
discussion but you can say I've heard a
lot about the importance of teacher
needing more support from our
interventionists and so we need to work
on either the you know the collective
bargaining agreements for the numbers of
thresholds for those interventionists or
the inefficiencies and there's where it
shows up so some of it I think of it as
sort of a storytelling that helps us
understand your thinking and your
leadership's actions and and I'm not
asking for a a spreadsheet that adds up
to the penny. I'm asking for more
philosophical and like um uh big picture
decisions that you and your team have
made that are based on either this input
or our discussions. And part of my
motivation is to make sure that we are
safeguarding the ability to do the
things that come up and that you know we
do these budgeting process on annual
basis and we got two or three shots at
making changes but things come up in our
community. mass shootings, fires,
declining enrollment, mental health
crisis, you know, suicide cluster, you
name it. Super important stuff we have
to act on. And if we not responsive to
those things, then we're not responsive.
And so, I really want to make sure we're
protecting our values and our priorities
in our budgeting, too. But I don't
expect that to add up to the dollar.
What what I really appreciate about this
board is um that uh that you trust my
leadership to be able to make these
decisions and we talk about outcomes and
what we're trying to accomplish and then
you empower me as the superintendent to
make the the moves that we need to make
to begin to create the conditions for
success to happen and I think that
that's served that that that
relationship I think has served us
incredibly well. So um so so yes some
you know based on these things based on
this feedback based on what we're seeing
these are the investments that that
we're making that are different and I
would say that that Alex that
flexibility is critical and and to the
community at large um that you know that
we do have the ability and flexibility
to to real time make some shifts and
adjustments depending whether it's board
priority or community need um and
whether it's through our funds or other
funds that we that we can access
depending upon what's happened. Uh that
we set budgets and then we run the
district. And I think that uh
oftent times almost every time at the
end of the year what you spent isn't
what you thought you were going to
spend. Always less, never more. Uh um
overall and so you know trying to
capture some of that nuance. And I do
think that and I want to be clear I I do
think that what we do to your point is
transparent but very complicated. So how
do we simplify what we're doing without
cheating the budget of its complexity?
you know, we we try to tell Bill Bill
tries to tell very highlevel complicated
stories through kind of some of the
things that he shares, right? Like if
you go back to the slide that we've been
talking about, you know, the story Bill
is telling is that um you know, the the
ways that they're counting students is
is creating a different narrative than
what you might hear in the public. Now,
to do that in a spreadsheet without the
conversation is impossible, right? If
you if you buy into the premise that uh
you know every presentation's going to
get legs and you have to be able to read
it upon its own without the narrative
and without watching 40 minutes of video
to get it then you know certainly uh so
um so I think that sometimes um you know
clarity versus trans I mean trans we are
as transparent as as we we've we have
enough awards in Bill's office and over
in business services to prove our
transparency. It's the clarity and clar
clarity with simplification so folks can
understand. Now I think the danger
becomes then people you know you
oversimplify things they misinterpret
things and come and jump to conclusions
that then you have to try to get more
complicated to solve. there's a balance
and uh you know since I've been here,
Bill has has has adjusted and shifted
the ways that we presented the budget.
Um but has always done an amazing job
making sure our resources are where they
need to be and accounted for and
transparent. So I do appreciate Bill for
that. Um and the great thing about Bill,
he's always open for feedback, right,
Bill? So, uh, we can make all the
adjustments that we need and and try to
get to that clarity, uh, for folks that
they're looking for
and get clarity around the school
finance act, which is anything but.
Jorge, I heard your ding, which means
you must have put your hand up.
Thank you. Uh, I I appreciate this
discussion. I want to say thank you to
Bill for presenting this and to the
administration putting it all together.
I I think it's an important discussion
to have and I really appreciate that
we're having this discussion in this
sort of way thinking about the ways and
we should make this more clear for our
community and for folks understand kind
of what's happening with our budget
because I think that's a really to
Alex's point the way we can tell stories
from this is really important and
powerful for helping folks understand I
mean so that that slide that we've kind
of gone back to numerous times to
understand what FTE means right that's
that it's full-time equivalence for
students and that, you know, declining
enrollment is cutting our funding as we
lose students, but that the ways in
which the state is counting students is
accelerating that trend even more and
and deepening the cuts going from a
fiveyear to a two-year average, right?
So, how do we tell that story more
cleanly and efficiently? Um, and then to
the slide that um that Jason pointed
out, right, the story we have there is
that these are the investments that
we've made. This is part of our
strategic plan. these are the priorities
that we think are important for us to
serve all of our students. Um, and our
ability and that's in our budget. And
then looking further down the budget,
looking at personnel, that's over 80%
85% of our budget that's going to
people, the people who are there with
our kids, educating them and supporting
them. And we're doing a lot of heavy
lifting with one-time funds. um you
know, I think it was something like over
40 million of one-time funds to kind of
support initiatives um um support
personnel, support our curriculum in
terms of the direction that we've kind
of gone and and as our our budget
decreases, you know, we'll have less
wiggle room and and so having these
conversations now while we're still kind
of working within the money that we have
is really important. So, I want to
commend the district for for doing that
work and the board for keeping us all
for us for, you know, the board members
for asking the questions that are hard
um but having the discussion. So, um I
think it's been a really useful
discussion this evening. So, thank you.
I'll chime in because I haven't had a
chance to talk yet before we go back to
you, Alex. Um I just want to say thank
you for this. I know one of the
challenges is also balancing
to one of Anna's questions with our
MLOS's and different revenue streams. We
our per people funding is can can be
more generous and I think sometimes we
we don't want to make an example of
ourselves in a negative way. So there is
a balance I feel like Bill is always
trying to strike in these presentations
and to Rob's point not oversimplifying
things to the point where somebody's
misinterpreting. I think that happens a
lot. a point. You know, we've received
some emails lately. There was some new
nextoor threads blowing up over the
weekend about administrative bloat and
how what we really need to do and
consider in this declining enrollment
situation is cut dollars at the at the
administrative level, the central office
level. And I appreciate Dr. Anderson. I
just want to elevate that that slide. We
that we are doing that. We do run very
lean at our administrative level. Our
staff work a lot of hours and
exceedingly hard to try to juggle all
the things. I think at the last board
meeting I joked our academics department
is three. I mean there's we have very
few people at the administrative office
and and as we continue to make cuts
everywhere, we will continue to make
cuts there. It's an easy place to point
to and it wasn't on a slide as
necessarily a negative number because
central office staffing doesn't decrease
proportional to student enrollment in
the same way that our teachers
based on our contractual obligations
they do decrease that way. Uh but I just
wanted to elevate that because it has
been coming up in the community. Are you
looking at central office spending? It
came up at roundts and every single time
Dr. Anderson has said yes, the central
office will not will not stay as it is
when everything else in our budget is
most everything else and our budget is
taking a decrease. So I just we didn't
spend a lot of time on that and it has
continues to come up in the community.
So I just really wanted to elevate that
that piece um in there as well. And
we'll do one last question and then we
will move on to our next information
item.
Dr. Anderson and then Alex.
Sorry. Sorry, Alex. I appreciate you
bringing up that point, Nicole, and and
certainly we're hearing those things,
but you know, I want to be really clear
with you board members and to our
community that the district conditions
matter that the dollars we've invested
where so we can take some of the work
away from schools and centralize some
things actually is much more efficient
and much more effective, saves people
time. um and the district conditions
that we've created have um along with
our incredible educators together have
led to incredible results. And so, you
know, for example, Nicole, to your
point, you know, people may may frown
upon the dollars we spend on the BBSD is
the place to be showcased. You know,
they see that, oh goodness, you have
$200,000 in this budget for the showcase
and for marketing, right? And if we
through that event where we have 12-500
people show up bring 20 people back from
private school or from other districts
right at $15,000 a student.
I mean you could start doing the math
but I do think that there there on
occasion especially when folks are
trying to advocate for something they'll
try to highlight something devalue it to
then try to lift up what it is that they
want. And so that's the nature of of of
of as of being a public servant and
having public budgets that you present
like and and we're incredibly
transparent. But I do I am sensitive,
but I also stand firmly behind the
investments that we've made because we
have the results that show that they've
worked in ways that a lot of things have
not necessarily worked in the ways
they're working now in BBSD over the
years. Um, and so I just want to make
sure that, you know, you you're not
going to cut your not going to cut your
way to get whatever it is that you want.
You're going to give something up every
time you cut dollars. We're being
thoughtful. We're being mindful. Um, we
know and understand it's something that
we need to do. We will do it. But
there's also things that we need to
stand firm on because they're working
and they're they're showing up in our
student outcomes.
Well said, Alex. Uh I just want to thank
you for that and that's part of I know
I've been sometimes the critic of the
transparency thing and that's exactly
the kind of dialogue that I think the
community that will serve us well like I
fair reviews rate of the percent of kids
go getting college credit before they
leave's gone from 56% to like 94%. We
have invested in grad plus. That means
there's people who work in Fairview and
people who work in central office whose
job it is is to get more kids college
credit. When we go from 56 to 94%
college credit, that's a lot of
individual students whose life is better
and their opportunities are expanded
because we made it a priority to focus
on getting all the kids at Fair View a
rich opportunity. That's part of our
pursuit of equity as is our
differentiated investment of, you know,
$5.6 $6 million in the schools that
historically had the biggest achievement
gaps. We picked as a huge strategic goal
that we would close opportunity
achievement gaps. And you don't do that
by not investing money in it. And you
have to invest money in the school. And
you have to invest money in like a
curriculum and in assessments and
interventionists and people to help with
MTSS and a data system. And all those
are going on in an office with a
threeperson curriculum office. You know,
if we were Jeff Co, there'd be 12 people
in that office. So I totally respect and
again I defer to your leadership team
and your expert judgment of making sense
of all this that we're trying to do. So
I'm trying to protect the different the
difference to our discretion because
that's how we do nimble things that
matter. And I want us to be able to tell
that story so our community understands
it. And when we're we're all making
trade-offs, that's what all this
community engagement is about is the
trade-offs. And we're making painful
ones, too. So I just totally uh kudos to
you and your team and the lean staff who
are doing all this and I um you know are
we need to be transparent enough that we
are resilient to misinterpretation and
that we can you know make the case for
what we're actually caring about and
valuing.
Thank you Bill. We will now move on
board members to our next information
item tonight which is resilient schools
community engagement update.
Oh, Randy being asked for a comfort
break. Board members will take a five
minute comfort break and resume.
Welcome back everyone. Thank you for
that little interlude. As I was saying,
the nextformational item we have this
evening is a resilient schools community
engagement update. To give that update,
we have with us Randy Barbara, our chief
communications officer, who is usually
the man behind
behind the curtain. Um and so we are
happy to have him out here uh to present
to us tonight. Thanks Randy.
Absolutely. Good evening, President Raj
Paul and members of the board. Uh it's
my pleasure to be here tonight. Um I'm
here as you know uh in January we
started the community engagement process
related to how we we might best create
resilient schools in a time of declining
enrollment. At the board's request uh we
are back here to give you an update in
regards to those efforts to comm uh
connect with our community. Our
commitment as always has been to ensure
that stakeholders are informed, heard,
and meaningfully involved as we begin
shaping the potential paths forward. Um,
here in BBSD, we really believe in
listening first before leading. So, in
this phase, we are creating space for
thoughtful structured input that will
help to guide the development and
options that for the board to decision
uh for the board to consider as we move
forward. It's also important to remind
our audience that this work is really
focused on our elementary and PK8
schools in Boulder, Broomfield,
Lewisville, and Superior.
This slide here shows us a little bit of
the phases of the process. I'm going to
start and end the pro uh the
presentation today on this uh over the
next two years uh kind of what to
expect. Uh the yellow line shows where
we're at at this point in April. Uh
we're in the middle of our community
engagement process. Um as we as we
engage our community uh our goal has
been to create a deliberate transparent
multi-step process that begins with
listening and moves through uh
thoughtful uh thought through move
through thoughtfully through towards
action. Sorry. Uh we've been very busy
over the last two months. This I slide
uh demonstrates all the places that
we've been we've been connecting with
community stakeholders uh in a number of
places starting with our ed educators uh
and uh principles out at elementary
schools. um principal or uh
superintendent uh Anderson and Deputy
Superintendent Dea Cruz uh visited with
each and every one of our principles and
went to each one every one of our
elementary schools uh to talk to our
educators in regards to their thoughts
as we lead into this process. Knowing
that they're the closest to this uh to
the student experience, we really wanted
to begin with the schools as we look at
what we're going to do with the
district. We also engaged our district
advisory committees. Uh all 13 of them
that are on the right hand side there.
Um and uh we uh we've been out uh Rob
Price, our assistant superintendent of
operational services, has been out
talking to our municipalities. Uh we've
got one more of those meeting scheduled
in May uh in Broomfield. And then
finally, uh superintendent Anderson will
also be presenting to the Boulder Rotary
Club in the next week.
Additionally, uh we've really been
working to communicate not only about
these engagement efforts, but also the
information so that folks are aware of
what's going on. Uh it's really
important that our community is informed
about what's happening, how they can
take part in that process. Uh and so
we've been sharing our information
through a number of avenues. Um one of
the biggest ones that I want to mention
is in February, we launched a special
edition of our newsletter. We call it uh
declining enrollment impacts. Uh we took
a a page out of the uh emergency
management book here. Um when you have a
a wildfire or some sort of situation
like that. Um it can be hard. People
really want a lot of information and I
think in this situation that's certainly
the case. We have a lot of families that
are wondering what the what the impact's
going to be, staff members, that kind of
thing. And so by providing a regular
update that's timed that people know to
expect it, they know what that's going
to look like. It really helps for folks
to to sort of worry less about are they
going to come back to us and give us
more update. um that newsletter has
really been a good good avenue for that.
Um additionally in that first uh first
one we developed an animated video to
really one of the things that we heard
pretty loudly in talking to our
community is that you know this is a lot
of information. How do we distill it in
a shorter period? So I actually really
enjoyed what the the DAC uh printed in
the paper. They give people options of
you know depending on how much time
they've got. Uh that's the shortest one.
You know if you really just want to try
to understand the situation in a basic
format in 2 minutes it's really the way
to start. Um but on our website we have
much more information. You can watch
back to the board meetings here, hear
that dialogue. Uh you know that takes a
little bit longer but all those options
are available to you uh if you really
want to dig into it. Um additionally
we've been out in social media trying to
promote uh the events um uh you know
really make sure that people are aware
of the of the situation as well um and
and make sure that uh this information
is really flowing out to wherever people
might be. Uh as president uh Raj Paul
mentioned, we uh have been doing some
television on this. Uh I interviewed her
in the last of the three episodes that
we've done for Let's Talk BBSD. Um the
idea really for this was, you know,
we've got a lot of information and uh we
are sending emails, you know, direct
emails. Sometimes we're sending these
newsletters, that kind of thing. Um it's
it's hard for folks to really uh ingest
all that. And you know, one of the
things that we know about communication
is that people really have a lot of
different channels. there's a lot of
noise in the world. Uh and they also
people uh learn uh differently. Uh they
have different interest in what in the
way that they get their information. So
this provides us one more slice of that.
Um it doesn't suit everybody, but for
those that want to sit down and watch a
conversation on it. And I think very
importantly, you know, again, back to
that idea of listening, we really wanted
to open up an opportunity for f folks to
be able to ask questions. And so they
weren't always easy questions that uh
that were posed to us. Um and again, I
think uh Superintendent Anderson was a
champ. uh up up with us for all three of
the sessions really answering uh a lot
of those questions that came in from
parents and from staff and that kind of
thing. Um but the the structure of this
really was to try to set set up the idea
of what was going on. So uh the
challenge of the declining enrollment we
went through the graphs and really
talked through the data. Uh the second
time uh we talked about the impact of
schools. We had two great principles
join us uh to give their insights in
regards to how that looks in our schools
right now. And then finally uh we talked
about the next steps. And so of course
that's when we had board president Raj
Paul with us. The next step for us is
really the idea of community engagement
sessions. And so uh we've already
started uh yesterday this first one.
We're going to go into that a little bit
more. Uh but we have five more sessions
that are available for people to join
us. So I really want to draw your
attention to the dates that we've got on
the screen there. Um one of the things
that I do want to mention right up front
is that for one, you don't have to go to
the session that's in your neighborhood.
Now, obviously, we know that most people
will probably do that, the one that's
most convenient to them, obviously with
their friends and neighbors and all that
kind of thing, that's cool. If you want
to do that, that's awesome. But if
something else works more uh you know,
for your your schedule, it's all
challenging for us to fit things in as
parents. Uh you know, and I just want to
mention that one of our smaller sessions
right now is Saturday morning. So, if
you're you got a little extra time on on
the weekend and and want to try to fit
it in, that's a perfect time to do it.
Uh but really, you know, we're going to
be covering the same agenda throughout
it. I'm going to go into what that
agenda looks like a little bit. Um
certainly in the tables, you know,
you'll be able to interject uh the
situation that you're seeing at your
school. Um there will be that
opportunity, but the sessions themselves
are relatively general, so you really
can attend any of them. And another
important thing to know is that we do
have uh services at each of them uh for
for all of our families. So, we've got
child care, uh child supervision for for
families that that might need that. Um
we've got translation um and
interpretation. So, we have uh folks to
help uh uh if they're Spanish speaking
and then if they're of other languages,
we definitely want to know that. Uh
we've got an RSVP form and we've got a
place in there for us, you know, for
them to let us know that so that we can
make sure that they've got a interpreter
on site there. But all the materials are
available in Spanish. We really want to
encourage our Spanish uh population to
come out. Honestly, we want everybody to
come out. This is really a great
opportunity for folks to have a voice.
And I've been checking back on the
numbers. Um I think the word's getting
out. uh last night's uh attendance was
was it was well attended uh last night's
event and then additionally looking
forward we've got some relatively large
uh groups coming forward. So again that
Saturday one's probably the lowest one
but uh most of the other sessions are
about 80 and our biggest one's probably
at 120 right now. So um really excited
that people are getting the word about
that. Um this is a a picture of what it
looks like uh while we're doing the
session. And again, I just want to
really affirm the idea that we are
dedicated to ensuring that stakeholder
stakeholders are informed, heard, and
meaningfully involved as we begin
shaping those potential fa paths
forward. This phase is about listening
first and creating space for those
thoughtful those thoughtful uh
conversations. And our first session at
New Vista was really a good example of
that. Uh one of the things that uh we've
really tried to do is set the page for
what these conversations look like. You
know, typically when we have community
engagement and I can think about a
couple issues that we've faced here as a
school district um since I've been here
even uh school start times comes comes
as one thing. You know, the normal thing
is that we make a decision and then we
go out and we socialize that decision
and see what people think and maybe we
can make some small changes regard
regards to it. No decisions have been
made at this point outside of the fact
that we don't want to continue on the
status quo. uh we really feel like in
order for us to ensure that the
education of our students is as rigorous
as possible that those services are
available that we really do need to make
some sort of change and that's really
come from you the board um in regards to
that. Um but another element to this is
that we really want to make sure that
everybody has a voice and in those
sessions typically what hap would happen
as you might know is those loudest
voices take take the room. It's really
hard uh you know once that happens uh to
bring that back to to an opportunity for
everybody to get a voice and so we've
really been diligent uh as we've
designed this to try to make sure that
that's the case. Uh so we really want to
make sure everybody's involved. We want
to make sure everybody has that and the
format of it um really uh uh sets us up
for that. So we're doing that uh small
table exercises. So you still get to
hear from the superintendent. you get to
still hear about uh you know again the
declining enrollment. If you need a
quick update in regards to if you didn't
have a chance to to listen to some of
those uh materials before you get there,
it's okay. We'll get you up to speed
quickly. But a main part of this is
really understanding what does it look
like in the day in the life of a
student. Uh what is it, you know, what
are the uh tradeoffs that you might have
to take if we do uh these some of these
different solutions that we're looking
at. And so uh you know, you can kind of
see the flow of the meeting there on the
right. Um, our main idea too is that we
really want to make sure that whatever
feedback is gathered, which again,
that's the key part here. We want them,
we want people to be able to share. We
want them to feel like that's uh that
they're being heard and whatever
feedback is coming out of that session,
those sessions, we want to make sure
that that comes back to you all so that
as you're making your decisions, you're
hearing from the community. Um, and of
course, we're going to be coming back in
June to give you a more robust update in
regards to specifically what people
said. uh small small focus groups um and
uh like a lot of reflection and
discussion. Um I think maybe the best
way for us to get a sense of what that
feels like is maybe to watch a little
bit uh of a news story that just came
out last night from 9 News. Um gives you
a quick little picture of what it's
like.
With fewer students in Colorado schools,
districts around the state are closing
or consolidating school buildings.
And tonight, families in the Boulder
Valley School District came together to
talk about how they make these choices.
9 News reporter Rachel Krauss joins us
now after attending a meeting put on by
BVSD. Rachel, this was the first in a
series of meetings.
Yeah, the first in six. And people
packed inside of New Vista High School
tonight to hear more about the state of
Boulder Valley's declining enrollment
and what needs to happen soon to be able
to tackle this problem.
Show of hands if you don't have an idea
on what we should do.
Boulder Valley schools say they've lost
3,600 students over the past 10 years
and are projected to drop another 1,700
in the next five. They're focusing on
closure and restructuring plans in
Boulder, Lewisville Superior, and
Broomfield elementary schools because
that's where they're seeing the biggest
declines. Parents and school leaders
came out to hear the district's plans.
Some say they know closures are needed,
but they hope their child's school won't
be cut. Tonight, district officials walk
through scenarios of how enrollment is
hurting schools and where the district
should focus resources like class size,
supports, and opportunities for arts and
language. Superintendent Rob Anderson
says they're bringing parents and
community members in early because this
problem isn't going away. And hard
decisions are coming.
We know that it's the responsible thing
to do to have this conversation now. and
regardless how tough the choices are
going to have to be that we need to make
those so we can preserve the experiences
that we want for our kids.
No decisions are being made tonight.
It's just feedback and discussions about
the state of the issue, but the district
will be acting on this. They'll be
taking their plan for closures and
consolidations to the school board in
August, and they're expected to vote on
that plan in October. Reporting live in
Boulder, Rachel Crowns, 9 News.
Yeah. So, I think you get a a little
sense of what it's like in there. Um,
again, we hope that people will get to
see this firsthand. I do want to make
sure that we give a shout out to the
team that's behind this. U, we've got a
lot of uh different teams coming
together to make it a success uh both
for this and the other uh elements that
we're doing. So, a huge thank you, kudos
to those folks. Um, and we've just
begun. Um, uh, one of the things that I
would like to mention is uh again in the
idea of we we're trying to capture that
feedback in every way that we can. So,
uh, the let's talk shows that we were
just talking about is an element of how
we can gather that feedback. All that
all those questions will be shared. Um,
in addition to that, of course, the
community engagement sessions, a huge
part of that, the the feedback that's
happening at tables. You know, we really
want folks to know and I think you got a
sense of this with Rob's question in in
case you didn't couldn't quite see, no
one no one raised their hand.
Everybody's got an idea of what the
solution is. And so, you know, we wanted
to make sure that people were honored in
the idea that you're probably walking in
with some idea. We want to make sure
that that that packet that we're getting
at the end of that has that information
in there. But we're also really hoping I
just want to kind of spend one more
second on this. We're hoping that people
really do look at this regionally and
think about all these different options,
not be focused on that one thing that
they think is going to happen at their
school because that's it's natural. It's
natural that you're automatically
thinking about your own situation and
that kind of thing, but that we really
have a a wider view. And so, uh, again,
uh, one of the things that we do is we
go through each and every one of those
scenarios, all five of them, and we give
them an opportunity to reflect with
their tablemates and then be able to
write down for us the feedback that they
have, their fears that they're talking
about, that the things that we should be
thinking about. And I think all that's
going to be really beneficial as we walk
away from this. So, that's in April. As
we move forward, we're also looking at
um, how we might have community focused
qualitative feedback. What that really
means is surveys, uh, uh, polls into the
community. Um and then uh we anticipate
after we we wanted to really make sure
that everybody's involved in the
sessions that we've built, but we will
have a feedback form on our website for
folks to give feedback as well. Um and
we also intend to try to uh viralize
these uh sessions as well. We have all
the materials and we'll be providing
them to our principles so they can take
them out to their school communities as
well if they have uh desire to share
that with specific groups that weren't
able to make it out. I do want to circle
back on to the time frame here because
it is really important. Once we finish
up with the community engagement element
of this, we will come back in June and
present to the board in regards to that
feedback so that you get to have all
that uh back from our from our team. We
obviously over the summer will be
working on developing uh what plans uh
are up for consideration and bring that
back in August uh for you guys to to
then deliberate over the next few months
uh into October in which then that would
be when we'd make the decision. And then
it's a two-year wh there's a two-year
plan here really as we think forward
into actually implementation. You know,
I think a lot of the feedback that we've
gotten as we've been at our roundts and
as we've started to hear parents is
okay. So when this does happen, make
sure that you're considering our kids,
you know, their mental health needs or
these type of things. These are uh all
ideas that we are uh, you know,
contemplating as we haven't made a
decision yet, but when those decisions
are made and I will hand it off for
questions.
Thank you for that update, Randy. And I
just want to start by saying thank you
to your team for all the efforts that go
into each of these elements to make sure
our community stays upto-date and
engaged and aware. It is a lift. And so,
thanking thank you and kudos to your
team for all the efforts there. I have
received a lot of positive feedbacks on
the monthly newsletter. People are
feeling
informed and appreciate that that level
of information. Board members, questions
or comments for Randy?
Anna,
thank you so much, Randy. Um, we did
have uh just a a little bit of a
sideline conversation. I did have um
some folks asking me if there will be
child care provided and I did just want
to highlight again uh that Randy did say
there will be child care at these
sessions. Um there will be um or well
child supervision I think is what you
said. Um, so I do just want to highlight
that that you can come participate and
know that your kiddos will have
something to do.
Yeah. Our school age care folks, uh, you
know, are there and they're going to got
snacks for them. They've got special
activities. So, it's it's really a fun
opportunity for them.
Randy, you forgot to highlight that we
have dinner.
Yes, that's right.
Food. So, yes.
Uh, we're really trying to do everything
we can to to accommodate a family. Um,
and bring your kids. Uh, we we we have
activities for them. You we'll feed
them, we'll feed you. Uh, and you get an
opportunity to to converse around a
really important topic, uh, with your
neighbors. And, uh, I think that it's
it's going to be a valuable valuable
time for you, valuable time for us to
get the feedback. really would encourage
folks to come out on Saturday morning
because uh
right here at the ed center,
you know, we we we are I will say, you
know, there is this tension board
members that we want to certainly
obviously open this up to our entire
community and have as many folks uh but
the part of the experience is having
facilitators and so RSVPing is very
important. So folks will please continue
to RSVP to so we can make sure that
we're prepared with the number of
facilitators we need. We've moved from
uh libraries to gymnasiums
uh because of the of the of the desire
to participate which is wonderful. We
just need to know who's coming uh to
make sure that we're prepared. So would
ask our community to it's really easy.
RSVP process will take you two minutes
on our website and uh and that way we
can be prepared when you show up. can
also say a benefit of RSVPing is that
when you do so prior to the event,
you'll get a list of suggested if you
have two minutes, if you have five
pre-ereads to like get up to speed a
little bit before you show up. So, I
think that's also a nice benefit if
that's a carrot for somebody. Alex,
I think we'll all be saying how grateful
we are to the team and the staff uh for
their work on this and all the
principles for putting in all this time.
It's not like it's an easy time to be a
school leader right now. So, we really
appreciate the the overtime and the work
and I think it pays off in spades. Um, I
wanted to say two things to the
community about it. Number one is you
don't have to be having researched this
for 40 hours and that you can show up
and get briefed on the things when
you're there, but anything you can do
before. I do think the the community
last night at New Vista was really well
informed, but they would have had really
rich discussions had they just come in
with opinions and real lived experience.
So, lived experience is enough. Um, I'll
also say I really appreciated our
international parents who were there who
were able to say, you know, where I come
from, this is what we do and it's so out
of the box compared to where we are and
how we think in our own world. So, if
you're coming from someplace different,
that's why you should come, not why you
shouldn't. So, please uh come share your
experience. Um, I also uh I really um
appreciate the exchange. I also want to
tell people like it seems overwhelming
when we're getting a thousand people to
write down what they want on a bunch of
complicated questions and just in the
world of AI like and modern technology
there are tools to summarize what a lot
of people say. So your voice will count
and your input will be heard and it will
be incorporated. Um it may go through a
silicon chip at some point but we as a
board and as a staff will benefit from
your input. It's not going into the
void. It's going into uh what we're
doing. So, please come. Um, you don't
have to do the homework, but if you do,
it'll be great. And I'm so impressed by
the experience and thoughtfulness that
our parents brought. Oh, one other
thing, too. I think it's really great uh
I was moved to see our communities
um the quality of the civic engagement
of our community last night. And uh one
of my one of my concerns which is really
affirmed that I don't have to be so
afraid of it is that we let our stress
about this affect our our children and
our students. So kids have a lot of
stressors going on. And not only is it
good for our community to have good
engagement, it's good for our families.
It's good for our kids. So, if we can
model how to be a a good human
interacting with other humans about
something hard, that is so much better
than getting our kids worked up about
the anxiety that we feel about something
that's hard. So, please don't just keep
in mind our community and all its kids.
Keep in mind your own kids. And um as we
conduct ourselves in this, just
celebrate the quality of the community
engagement and how much that is
safeguarding not only our school system
but our kids childhood.
Deian,
just a question. Randy, is there a sign
language interpretation available?
So, that will be again if somebody lets
us know that they're coming with that
need. Absolutely. We'll make sure that
they have a interpreter.
Thank you.
Yeah,
I know a lot of us addressed this in our
opening remarks, but any further
questions, board members,
comments? Thank you again. We appreciate
the way in which you keep both the board
and the community up to date on all that
is declining enrollment and community
engagement. So, thank you again.
Thank you.
We will now move on to our action items
consent grouping portion of tonight's
agenda. 7.1 Personnel item 7.2 approval
of minutes March 10th, 2026. 7.3
approval of minutes March 24th, 2026.
7.4 acceptance of donation Boulder High
7.5 Acceptance of donations High School.
7.6 accept acceptance of donations
Foothill Elementary. 7.7 Acceptance of
donation M Elementary 7.8 ated
acceptance of donation operational
services department 7.9 purchase of
school buses 7.10 10 resolution 26-10
non-renewal of license contract 7.11
resolution 26-11 appointment of city of
Boulder urban renewal authority 7.12
grant economics climate justice
classroom for climate action 7.3 grant
academics gift and talented CDE 7.14
grant Boulder prep school health
professionals CDE 7.15 grant health
services substance education city of
Boulder 7.16 grant peakto peak school
health professionals CDE are there any
items board members would like to pull
from consent grouping
Seeing as there are none, we need a
motion to approve the items. Moved by
Alex, seconded by Anna. Any discussion
board members? Lenia,
I would just like to offer thanks for
all of the generous people here, all of
the PTOs, all of the um individual
community members that are donating to
our schools, the corporations that are
donating lawnmowers,
all of those things are making our
district what it is. And so I just want
to put gratefulness out there.
Deian,
I came today worried about uh the school
bus purchases because I guess I missed
the first part of the bus literally. Um
I didn't get the presentation about why
would we be buying diesel and propane
buses and I was able to have a
conversation about the reason for that.
So, I want folks who are really
interested in us pursuing sustainability
uh to know that I've thought about it
and I've thought about the reasons that
we need to buy these particular kinds of
buses and um I think that it's a go
ahead for us.
Jason,
yeah, thanks Dian. I was going to make a
similar comment um but having had a
presentation on this I think about a
year ago, I I refrained. So, I'm just
gonna be heartened by the words clean
diesel and hope that that is good enough
for now. Uh, but I appreciate that
there's, you know, propane, which I
understand from the presentation is
better than standard gasoline. So,
thanks.
Any other discussion? Board members,
seeing as there are none, Laura, can you
please call the role?
Booker,
yes.
Chavez,
yes. Medler,
yes.
Quinn Aea,
yes.
Raj Paul,
yes.
Teamuading,
yes. Anger,
yes.
Motion passes.
Board members, I just realized I forgot
to do the legislative update and the
information item.
Do I actually have to make
an amendment, a motion to go backwards
or
I think you're okay if the board members
agree.
I apologize.
It's there's been a lot going on and you
know legislative update. Dr. Anderson,
do you have anything to address the
board regarding legislative session and
updates?
You know, we're getting towards the end
of the session, so um you know, I think
that we um have our eyes on a couple of
of things that could potentially emerge.
Um,
I think a lot of uh a lot of the things
we were initially worried about, you
know, the the specific ownership tax, I
think that that has kind of gone away,
which was probably our number one
lobbying effort. Um,
I was I was made aware of a bill that
may be dropping uh today uh that would
combine uh the Sheridan School District
with other school districts, a bill by
um Senator Bridges. And so be interested
to see how that plays out, if that does
play out. Um, you know, seems seems to
me that uh um
if we're going to get into the business
of merging school districts through
bills, uh how does that align with local
control and um and uh and just, you
know, kind of who who we are as a state?
So, I'm very interested in watching
that. Um, I'm just trying to think um
if there's anything else that's emerging
that that I'm worried about at this
point. I don't I I think that we're just
kind of waiting to mo most things are
we're just kind of waiting still.
Yeah. One thing I am curious about is
there's discussion as a cost-saving
opportunity since we are in the middle
of CMASS testing right now. Eliminating
CMass social studies for one or several
grades as a cost-saving measure. I'm
keeping my eye on that one because
social studies is highly opted out of in
a lot of school districts and I just
find that a curious a curious move
forward.
Questions on legislative update board
members
and sorry about missing that one before.
We will get back on track with the
agenda and uh address any future agenda
requests that board members would like
to raise for consideration at our next
prioritization meeting.
Jason
Um I think this is our first meeting
since our uh work session on AI and I
know we talked about um I don't think we
had a chance to offer um prioritization
um items then but I wanted to make sure
we prioritize prioritize kind of the
next steps which I think is a followup
on the road map and how we'll approach
this as a district um our policy and
kind of guidance. Uh, so, you know, I'm
not sure what that looks like, but I
know that there was a followup from or
strong interest from others, um, myself
included in a follow-up,
Alex. Yeah, I would ditto the AI thing
and and within that I would make a
friendly amendment to include the
discussion of what our reluctant
non-users are feeling and experiencing
because it's pretty easy to gravitate
towards what the heavy users are doing
when we still have a lot of people who
are not there yet. So, we got I want to
deal with the whole spectrum. Um uh I
mentioned it earlier, but I'm interested
in having a discussion about our metrics
of school climate and culture that can
inform our different um accountability
structures that can get us to better
understand things about the student
experience. Um so I'd love to get to
talk about that and figure out if there
are ways that we can better understand
school climate and culture and how we
measure it and what all that should
include. Um, and then finally, uh, I
would, and this is probably might get
folded into some other topic before we
get to it next semester, but I do want
to follow up on the GoG Guardian idea
and how we make it easier for our
parents to understand and interact with
our technology and what what we can do
as a district to make that easier for
them to have insight into what's going
on.
Deian,
I've had some feedback back from a a lot
of uh high school teachers that it's
time for us to review the grading policy
and also to look at um what happens with
this uh creation of the partial absences
that can come um in Infinite Campus that
are creating
they're creating permission for students
to be very late and still be counted
there. Um, so it may be creating some
inequities. So, I'd like to see that
brought up. And, um, I wonder if we
can't talk about this student safety and
accountability process in a way that
meets the law. Um maybe not ex totally
externally as Alex so uh well addressed
the fact that there's all these legal
problems with having an outsider but
maybe this is something we need to have
a process for when people are
unsatisfied with their uh with what's
going on with their students because we
do want them to be safe. So I'd like to
put that as a topic. And um last
semester I had introduced the idea that
we review what's happening with our
neurode divergent policy and I still
think we need to talk about that.
Can I ask a clarifying question?
So we started a first conversation about
our grading policy. It will be coming
back to us this semester. You mentioned
attendance and we have a separate
attendance policy that talks about
absences, partial absences and how
assignments can be like how much can be
taken off if a student was absent. And
so I was just clarifying
this is this is really the um this is
really about more about absences.
So our attendance policy
because our attendance how our
attendance is working in infinite
campus. Um, if a teacher
tells the computer that someone is
absent,
it notifies a parent right away and then
later it tells them that they're
partially absent. And so parents are
getting a lot of messages and it's
creating a lot of confusion and students
have learned to abuse that system. So I
just think we need to find out if that
if that u is really working. If we were
trying to avoid punishing students for
being
late, this is might not be actually
helping them come to class.
No, that makes sense. You said grading
policy and I just want because there are
two separate and the attendance does
have a a little bit of a grading
implication. So, I just want to be clear
which one we're
Is the grading policy already on the
We're in the middle of the grading
policy right now. We've had one
meeting on it. DAC is providing
feedback. It'll come back to us again
this
Okay, good. So just let's just stick
with the attendance then.
Okay. Awesome. Yes.
Anna,
just a clarifying question. Things that
we've added previously before um January
because this is what we have added after
January 20th is still on the
prioritization list. So I don't need to
read our wrapped response around um uh
immigration enforcement at schools. No.
Okay. Thank you.
Anything else? members.
Seeing as there are no additional items
to add to our future redempt concludes
our business for this evening. Good
night and I hope before we convene again
a lot of members from our community show
up at these engagement sessions. Good
night everyone.