2020-10-28 Board Of Education Regular Meeting

Read along below or follow along here: (pt 1: https://otter.ai/u/F9CyP8ATgrZO6BGYhsC7MbTbKHM pt 2: https://otter.ai/u/VarLY8C9-vxVp1dRPViIsFh6MDQ)

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Welcome, Paul.

Unknown Speaker 0:01
Jane,

Unknown Speaker 0:02
thank you for being here tonight. Paul, leader Mueller, is that correct? is here from CLA. And thanks for being with us today.

Unknown Speaker 0:20
So, we have about 30 minutes, we’re gonna spend probably 15 or 20 minutes, just covering some stuff, and then we’ll go answer any questions that the board may have. Typically, when we get to this, this time of year into this board meeting, we at least have a final draft of the Kaffir. I wouldn’t consider this a final draft yet it is very close the district stuff is is complete, substantially complete the charters, we’ve had a couple issues. And we’re still working through those. So they’re not quite as far as long as we would normally have them. But I think it’s it’s complete enough that Paul can go through and give you some some of the history and the results of the audit, we still plan to have the board accepted at the November 11. Meeting. We’re still on that timeframe. And so just wanted you to know you got a new updated one that included, you know, the charters today that could move a little bit, but it won’t shouldn’t move much. It has not gone through CLS quality assurance review at this point. And so that’s, that’s one of the next steps. We’re still working through data pipeline, especially on the charter. And so with that, I’ll turn it over to Paul.

Unknown Speaker 1:42
Well, thank you, Greg. And Can everybody hear me? Okay? Very good. So, Paul, nice to meet again, with Clifton Larson Allen, and my responsibility is to report to you, you are charged with governance and I work directly for you. So I’m going to get you up to speed in terms of how we got to this point, and kind of talk about next steps. And then also any things that are of concern or have items that are necessary to your role as charged with governance. We did meet with the audit committee two days ago, and went over in detail the financial statements as well as our responsibilities. We also went over any information with management prior to this meeting. But again, our direct line is with the board of governance, and I want you to be very keenly aware of that this was a different year. So our, my virtual air quotes don’t have to be used today, because I actually seen you in person. So this is nice. But I do want to remind you that we did work remotely, and this environment in this COVID environment and had to work through a variety of different forums in order to get the information applicable to be able to issue our opinion, or our projected opinion is, as Greg alluded to, I will tell you that the COVID environment, in terms of internal controls was different. And so we had to pivot in terms of our testing approach, it was basically under two guys, your pre COVID and post COVID. Because clearly, it was different in terms of workflow and approval. And so I want the board to understand that we took that very seriously. And understanding how you were able to go from that pre COVID to the post COVID environment. And we evaluated that as part of our testing and results that we come to you tonight. In conclusion, financial statement information, we only have a couple pages within your Kaffir. And again, those have not been finalized because we’re still working through the charter items. But we we do you understand that management is responsible for these financial statements with your oversight as board of governance. So again, just because we had an audit doesn’t mean we’re part of your internal controls, you must set that policy, you must set that tone, in terms of proper segregation of duties controls and understand an oversight and your role at the Board of Education. Our role was to expression opinion in all material respects. And again, we’re not there yet. But we’re we have gone through enough information to say that we’re projecting an unmodified opinion and a clean opinion in all material respects based upon the work that we’ve done thus far. So we were scoped to do the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report which is in front of you today, as well as the single audit and I just want to remind the board what a single audit is. That’s the federal compliance component. Now the federal compliance was thrown a wrench this year due to COVID. As you know, you’re a recipient of comprehensive Coronavirus relief funds, and those funds were receded in May of 20. We were also tasked to look at the title one program. We are not at a point to issue an opinion over those funds and I’ll talk to you about why. So the Coronavirus relief funds were receded. But the OMB, which is the Office of Management and Budget, has not yet completed the compliance supplement and what the compliance supplement is, it’s our audit program. So think of us as a direct result of federal auditors that are required to do the information that the federal government dictates we do not have any leeway in terms of how we test that program. And so since the federal government has not issued that final audit program, and is anticipated mid November, we are not able to issue our opinion over the single audit act. And that is very similar and into all school districts in Colorado. Because that information is available, you will have to issue a separate single audit report outside of this comprehensive annual financial report. So I just wanted to give the board a little bit of understanding in terms of what that means in terms of the single audit, or what we were tasked to do today. And again, the final item is that we come up with any items or see anything, we have to see something, say something and that’s what we’re here tonight, to kind of just remind you of what our responsibility and what we had in terms of items of findings or recommendations moving forward. So I did mention an unmodified opinion, a clean opinion, all material respects, the single audit is still open. We did have one proposed

Unknown Speaker 6:27
adjustment, and that was corrected by the district. And this deals with the lease recording, the district was a little bit more proactive than they should have been. They had they were working on adopting Gatsby statement 87. And so because of COVID. Gatsby basically postponed all of the pronouncements that are effective, the district did adopt that. And so they had one item that was should have been under the old standards, there was not an adoption of Gatsby statement 87, which deals with leases. And so we had to unwind a transaction that was recorded within the financial statements this year. The other item that’s that’s that’s noteworthy, again, this is kind of a constant theme of COVID-19 is property tax recognition. And I will show you to page 24, if you’re interested to kind of see it and how it reflects on the financial statements themselves. And this is the balance sheet of the governmental funds. The governor issued an executive order postponing or giving the 90 day reprieve on property tax from commercial and residential. And so the, the way that the st brain has always done is take a 60 days, so any property taxes collected 60 days after your end could be recorded as revenue, anything after that would be shown as a deferred inflow or an unearned revenue. So not hit your increase your fund balance. Because of this difference and accounting and how the governor allowed for that retrieval. The district as allowed under Gatsby and also helped with CD ease guidance, was able to extend that availability period to 90 days. So any collections that happened within that 90 day period, were now recorded is as revenue to kind of have that compare ability to the prior year. And so just to kind of paint the picture on page 24, you’ll see your property tax receivable is 36 million in the current period and the general fund and 14 million in the bond redemption fund. Those are the two sources that reflect taxes receivable. As a comparison, in the prior year, the taxes receivable in the general fund were 7,000,003 point 2 million. So you can see that increase in receivables as a relate to your constituents receive paying their taxes after that June 30 period. Also the same concept of the unavailable you’ll see that there’s only $3.2 million of unavailable or receded after that 90 day period. And also the bond redemption had $1.3 million. So I just wanted to show that because I think that’s a significant change. And and that’s something that we highlighted within our report and the management has shown that a summary significant accounting policies as a result of impact on COVID. And Gatsby defines that as unusual circumstances and we agree this is an unusual times and it was well received. So that was something that was different. And the other item is the unearned revenue on the same page, page 24. You’ll see the final caption under the liabilities and this represents the majority of it represents the monies that were receipted for the Coronavirus relief funds that have that have not yet been incurred as of June 30 2020. So you got the money. You spent some of that money, and there’s a portion or roughly $14 million, that is considered to be unearned, because that would be able to be utilized in future periods, as you incur cost associated with those refunds receded. So I’m getting kind of geeky in terms of accounting, and visiting credits. And I appreciate your patience. But I just wanted to highlight those two things, because those are significantly different changes in your 2020, a financial statements that I think are important to understand and highlight for the for your board of education. A couple other items that I wanted to highlight. And again, this is a highlight, we are required to come to for you, if we had any disagreements, if management wasn’t able to provide us the information, you can imagine kind of giving you the play, we did get everything we needed to be able to conclude. And so that’s a very, very good information from your perspective as the board and we did not have any significant disagreements, as we perform the audit or we come to the today at the conclusion as your independent auditor. So those are all very, very good information for the Board of Education in terms of your role, and our role is working for the board. To

Unknown Speaker 11:19
You know, I always think it’s important to address any specific questions, I can go over this for three hours that I think we would have, you’d probably pull the plug on me today. But I really want to be able to address any specific questions that the Board of Education has today, as your independent auditor over the next 15 minutes. And so now I stand for any questions that you have as Board of Education for your independent auditor.

Unknown Speaker 11:43
Great, thank you, Paul. And I appreciate you going into details and highlighting those specific areas. Thank you again, do board members have any comments or questions about the Kaffir? I know Karen and Paula, you you saw the presentation earlier? Okay, Chico No. over this way, Jim, or I looked right at you and called you gem deck.

Unknown Speaker 12:08
And one of those guys. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 12:15
Thank you, Paul, for the brief overview. Is this a time just for general comments or just questions for for Paul, because I have some comments about the way in which the statement was prepared.

Unknown Speaker 12:31
I think we’re we’re ready for anything you can can ask or comment on? And we’ll see what we can answer we will and what we can’t we will bring back November 11?

Unknown Speaker 12:43
Well, I don’t have any of those sorts of questions that I guess what I, I spent the better part of I don’t know, four or five hours reading through the notes and the financial statements. And I have to say read like a history of the district. I mean, in terms of providing a context for our operations, and a sense of the development of the approach we’ve taken over time for where we stand compared with a past years. And as well as just a very informative, I found the notes in particular, I don’t know who was responsible for that. But the management letter in the beginning, in addition to the notes, made the not only financial statements always tell a story for those of us that can read financial statements. But I think these financial statements were particularly informative, in that you interpreted the numbers for us, you gave us a historical context. And it was it was tremendously helpful, I think. And I would encourage, you know, I think that for new members of the board, the way to get acquainted with the operations of our district would be to read the this Katherine in particular, I think that you’ve taken it up to an additional, the next highest level with including the statistical information, both historical financial information, but also the student growth and property value changes. So I really appreciated the overall context of these statements. Well,

Unknown Speaker 14:34
I would tell you this is this is Jane’s wheelhouse right here. This is what she she basically works all year for us to be able to put this together. It’s it’s one of the things she loves most about her job and she does a terrific job of it. She puts a tremendous amount of time into it. And so yeah, she does. She puts together most of the mdna. She puts together all of the financial statements and you know, the stats and the supplemental information all of that she puts together and I kind of fine tune it if I, if mainly because I may have some historical perspective or something that she doesn’t have in terms of what happened and why it happened over the year. But for the most part, this is this is Jane’s thing.

Unknown Speaker 15:25
Well, Jane, thank you, right, I would find myself going through the financials, writing down questions, and I’d look at the notes and the answer would be there. So thank you. I don’t have any material questions other than the ones follow that you already answered, typically. You know, I think as a board member, I want to hear from the auditors that our staff was transparent and forthcoming, which you’ve told us and I would expect nothing, nothing else. And that, of course, it’s an unmodified opinion. And you explain the reasons for with regard to the federal guidelines for Title One and COVID funding funding that we’ll be addressing a separate statement in at our next meeting. So I really feel that I guess I feel like each year that I’ve been on the board, the statements have gotten a little better. And often when you reach a plateau, where it’s way better than they need to be, the progress stops, but I have not seen that here. And I really, deeply appreciate that approach you’ve taken. So thanks.

Unknown Speaker 16:51
Thank you. One thing I’d like to point out is is the outperformance of the of the budget, you know, we typically outperform the budget by a bit this year, it was significantly higher. Part of it was due to just COVID-19. Actually, I mean, we outperformed by more, because if we had a position where somebody quit, and it wasn’t essential during the COVID timeframe, then we did not hire back for it. So we saw savings in salaries and benefits on those. So just putting off hiring and doing some of those things was part of it. Transportation not running, not running buses, allowed us to do that there was textbooks adoptions that were put off and delayed, because we didn’t get through the whole pilot stuff. There were textbooks budget, or I’m sorry, technology budget, where we did spend a lot of money on technology, but it was through the the corona virus Relief Fund. And so I think what that does is puts this, excuse me into a good position, knowing that after what we talked about two weeks ago, in terms of what we have to look at for the next three years, it’s it just gives us a little bit more comfort level, then, then what we thought we were gonna get. So that’s something I’d like

Unknown Speaker 18:22
to put one thing I’d always remind Greg of, and everybody is that those are one time dollars, and the state reduced us ongoing dollars by 1514 15 million. So we really didn’t do better. We just have a one time buffer, but that money is gone as quick as it came. The money that we counted on for year after year is gone permanently. And I just think it’s important because if people aren’t in this every day, they might hear that we actually made money off of COVID. We didn’t make money off of COVID. We lost a massive amount of money. We got a one time infusion for specific costs. But we didn’t save any money just to be very clear. Right.

Unknown Speaker 19:10
Thanks for that clarification. And thank you, Greg. I know Paula has a comment. Did you or Jane have anything else you want to point out about the Kaffir that you specifically want to the board? Okay. Great, Paula.

Unknown Speaker 19:25
Yeah, Karen and I were on the Finance and Audit Committee call Monday and I just want to thank you, Paul, and your colleague, Kevin, I think was there as well. And Jane, you did a really nice job of kind of walking the whole committee through the pages through the chunks, the components of the Kaffir, which I found really helpful. And so Oh, there was a spider here. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 19:49
thank you.

Unknown Speaker 19:52
Okay, I have to refocus. Um, but it was it was a great meeting. I think we got a lot of really good quality input from all the financing out It can be community members that were there. And I really I just want to thank everybody so much for all the effort put forward this year, because it was so abnormal in so many ways for so many people, but everything you had to do pre COVID and post COVID dealing with the CRF funds, the deadlines of when to spend it and how to spend it. And is it included in the PPR is there there’s so many moving targets, and, you know, working with the component units and struggling to get the charter school they’re struggling to, I mean, I’m not pointing any fingers, everybody’s kind of struggling to wrap their arms around this, but just working with them. separating out the single audit understanding that that’s going to have to be done separately. And in the fact that we can, it appears seamless, I don’t want to say seamless, because I know you guys have been working extraordinarily hard, but that we can pretty seamlessly get this stuff done in this environment when at the same time we’re reinventing education structure, the economy shut down. We’re our property tax revenue was deferred. There’s so that was just such a crazy year that you guys could come out with a with a product like this is really incredible. So and I’ll admit, I’m usually a stickler for the timing, and I am not going to be a stickler for the timing this year. Because I think you guys have been done an extraordinary job. I agree with Dec I love the format, I think it’s easy to read, I can always answer my own questions when I get in there. So we’re, I’m pleased that it looks the news is better than it might otherwise have been as of the end of the fiscal year, but we know it’s, this is a snapshot. And we know the years that are coming are going to look very different because there’s going to be very long term impacts for COVID. So we’re in a very solid position now to head into that wind. And I’m very thankful for you guys doing all this work.

Unknown Speaker 22:04
Jane, is it since 2004, you have earned those governmental financial Officers Association, and then also the asbo, the Association of Business School Business Officials, those two highest awards for fiscal transparency and everything. So that’s congratulations. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 22:25
Thanks for pointing that out. Did you have something here? And go ahead, please,

Unknown Speaker 22:29
I just wanted to thank you. The report is amazing. And I’m through about half of it, because I really need to give it time. And thank you again for the time on Monday. And Jane, the management discussion and analysis is awesome. It’s it’s a great read, actually. So thank you for doing that. And I just echo other board members comments about how, how professional and how well, it seems as everyone worked as a team to produce this. And then overall, it’s, it’s nice to see, you know, such such positive performance as well. And I think we kind of pride ourselves on on being so responsible and conservative in, in its times like these one, it just matters so much. It’s good to see we’re not in such a terrible position. So thank you.

Unknown Speaker 23:32
Thanks, Karen. Anyone else? All right. I’m gonna check the time out. This is perfect. We have about five minutes left. Greg Jane, Paul, thank you so much for everything that you do. Paul, thank you for helping the Board of Education fulfill its fiscal responsibility to our stakeholders. That’s something that we take very seriously. Also want to briefly just thank the Finance and Audit Committee. I know that the district relies on them greatly, and they’re certainly certainly contributing to that fiscal responsibility as well. Jane, I think I say this to you every year, and I don’t want to necessarily single you out. But But as Greg mentioned, you have played a large role in the Kaffir. And Greg, I do want to thank you and Tony and everyone else in the finance department. But Jane, the only way this board of education, and Dr. Haddad can fulfill its mission is if you know like our strategic priorities. No, we have that strong foundation. And at the bottom of that strong foundation is our strong finances. So thank you very much. While you’re not in the classroom, your work absolutely impacts the classroom. Yes, thank you, Paul. Greg, Jane, any closing comments before we wrap up we have a couple minutes before our regular meeting starts. Paul will you be back On November 9, when we do the final approval of the cafard, or do we do you have the pleasure of us doing that Without you, I should say,

Unknown Speaker 25:09
unless anything comes up. Okay, that’s of substance and then you require it for more information or you’d like to ask more questions. I will be available, but I don’t have to be.

Unknown Speaker 25:19
Okay. Great, then I’ll let you work that out. Out with Greg and Jane, do you just want to reiterate one more time that you’re projecting an on unmodified opinion, but that we will approve the final Kaffir on November 9 at our regular meeting?

Unknown Speaker 25:35
That is great.

Unknown Speaker 25:36
Great. Thank you. Great. It’s

Unknown Speaker 25:37
November 11.

Unknown Speaker 25:38
Is it November 11. Do I have the ninth in my head for it probably is the ninth. Okay. I take that back November 11. But good thing you don’t listen to me, Paul. Yeah, no, I thank you for correcting me, Greg. I appreciate that. The ninth as a Monday.

Unknown Speaker 25:57
So I think I think we don’t i don’t know that we need Paul back at that point. We’ll look at it. We’ll review it depending on what comes up. But But we we plan on asking you to accept the Kaffir on November 11.

Unknown Speaker 26:11
Great, thank you. All right. Thank you, everyone. travelsafe Paul, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 26:16
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 26:17
Appreciate it. Good evening, and welcome to the St. vrain Valley School District Board of Education meeting. Can you please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Unknown Speaker 26:30
I pledge allegiance to

Unknown Speaker 26:32
the flag of the United States of America. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and

Unknown Speaker 26:42
justice for all.

Unknown Speaker 26:48
Good evening, everyone. Barbara, can you please call the roll this evening?

Unknown Speaker 26:55
Certainly Mr. Arens

Unknown Speaker 26:58
present.

Unknown Speaker 26:59
Mr. Bercow. Here. Mr. Garcia. Here. Dr. martyr.

Unknown Speaker 27:06
Present.

Unknown Speaker 27:07
Miss Pierce.

Unknown Speaker 27:09
Here.

Unknown Speaker 27:10
Mrs. Raglan here. Ms. siegrist. Here. Thank you, Barb. And, Barbara, have there been any changes or agendas or changes to the agenda this evening?

Unknown Speaker 27:23
We talked about moving report number 6.1. The season a athletics honoring above the superintendent report so the kids can come in and out

Unknown Speaker 27:33
quickly. Yeah, absolutely. We did talk about that. Is the board. Okay, with making that adjustment? Great. Then we’ll go ahead and move forward. With that change. Barb. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. And then I’d also like to confirm with you this evening, Barb, that we do not have any nobody signed up for audience participation this week. That is confirmed. We have no one that wanted to speak in front of the board tonight. Right. Thank you. That brings us to agenda item four, which are our visitors and sort of in in the visitor spot, spot slash agenda item 6.1. Our season a athletics Fine Arts report. We’ll do those go nicely together. Don’t they barred?

Unknown Speaker 28:18
Yes, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 28:19
Do don’t they? Chase, I see that. You’re here. I’m going to make a couple comments before you. You begin? First of all, I do want to say it is to all the students who are here. I don’t know. Can you really see I have a really big smile on my face. You know, it’s absolutely a pleasure and a privilege to have board students at our Board of Education meeting meetings. Again, it is common practice typical practice for our Board of Education to begin every meeting with about an hour, hour to two hours celebrating students. So we could not be more excited to welcome all of you here this evening. I know chase that we have implemented we want to reinforce and let the public know that we are following all guidelines to keep everyone safe during this time of COVID. And then Chase, I believe that you’ve identified one person to speak for each group as well.

Unknown Speaker 29:24
One minute for the ad to coach and then one kid.

Unknown Speaker 29:27
Okay, fantastic. Are you going to then clean the microphones in between? Is that your job

Unknown Speaker 29:32
in between each speaker I’ve got my cleaner in my house.

Unknown Speaker 29:36
All right, so you’re ready to roll and then one final precaution we’re taking is making sure each group is in here for less than 15 minutes as well. So

Unknown Speaker 29:44
Alright, so for starters, we have some familiar faces in here with Joe Brown and Eric Ross called they they continue to show great leadership at nyuad and their kids continue to excel at crazy high level. So Without further ado, I’ll call Joe appear to the mic and let him talk about his his cross country teeth.

Unknown Speaker 30:06
Thanks, Chase. Welcome, Joe.

Unknown Speaker 30:09
Thank you guys for having us. Members of the Board. Dr. edad. Thank you guys for the opportunity to come here tonight to celebrate the great things happening at nyuad High School in our state championships. This completes since 2018, we’ve won five of the six opportunities at a state championship and cross country. So it’s been an incredible ride. But I can’t say enough about our coaches and our kids. It’s it’s been an interesting one, since we started these in June when we had 10 kits, and no equipment. And we’re running them through every hour or so, to this year, when coach Christiansen is spreading out at kids in different groups and rotating them through. So there’s no contact tracing, it’s been kind of a unique spot, because we’ve always told kids to to show your face and be close to your teammates. And we’ve had to take the opposite approach with cover your face and spread yourselves out. But our coaches and our kids have done this masterfully. And obviously at the end of the road, we had the great opportunity to win a state championship. So kudos to our kids, and our coaches, the literally 1000s of temperatures we’ve taken in COVID questions that we’ve done, it’s all worth it in the end, because these fine young ladies have the opportunity to hoist A state championship trophy again. So thank you guys for the opportunity. And I’ll turn it over to coach Christiansen. And we’ll kind of go from there.

Unknown Speaker 31:41
I think that’s Chase’s calling right there. I can give him a little bit of slack because I worked for him. But I always am real terrible at thanking people. So I want to thank obviously everyone in this room and the families that supported the kids and the kids themselves and challenging year for sure. found myself on the second day of practice telling a girl that transferred to nyuad that she like as everybody’s running at her, like trying to hug each other. I found myself saying no, you can’t hug each other. And that kind of was the season and trying to protect the kids from losing the sport was really, really difficult and challenging. And luckily, my number one goal is that they had a good relationship with running had a good relationship with each other. And then at the end of the day, as hard as they were working and as amazing they are they were going to come out the way they did. So super proud of them. I’m going to go really quick through introducing them and then I’m going to let our seniors they didn’t know this, but I’m gonna let them speak really quick. And I’ll introduce them last but Sarah Perkins is our freshmen from Casey Middle School. Lexi Bolin is from Stargate. She’s a sophomore she transferred mid mid year last year. Mia proc is our Boulder County runner of the year as of this morning that the article came out. She’s from Platt Middle School. Luca Fulkerson is from Dawson. So and then Madison Schultz went to peak to peak in middle school, and Taylor James went to prospect Ridge Academy. So pretty awesome little group of very diverse, their diversity is just incredible. And then Eva klingbeil couldn’t make it tonight, we could only run six at the state meet normally we get seven wanted to her to be here, she had an injury, but she was from sunset Middle School. So obviously, they’re amazing. I can’t say enough. If I talk more about them, I will cry. And I’m probably gonna cry, because I’m going to introduce the seniors. Taylor James, who’s signed with Stanford for next year, and Luca, who is going to be going to run at Princeton, so I’m gonna let them talk really quick, before I lose it. So thank you.

Unknown Speaker 34:14
Hi. Hello, welcome. Thank you so much for having us. Um, one thing that I’d like to say is that we couldn’t have done this without the amazing people that are backing us, our coaches, Mr. Brown, and everybody, and just the hard work of all of our teammates. And it just means a lot and we’re forever grateful for that. Also, there’s just like the dedication that everybody’s had to keep school going and having our sports happen this year. I know a lot of schools at different states haven’t been able to compete or school tickets, there are teams and seasons got canceled. So it’s really just fantastic that we got season, we’re able to race. Yeah, it’s we’re very lucky to have everybody on this team and we have so many amazing runners and girls that are just going to do fantastic in the next couple Yours. And I just can’t wait to see where the team goes from here. Yeah, exactly what Luca said, I think this team still has great potential and they’re going to do awesome even after we’re gone and, and we can’t wait to watch them from afar for sure.

Unknown Speaker 35:14
It’s gonna be fantastic.

Unknown Speaker 35:15
Thank you say.

Unknown Speaker 35:19
Thank you. So is it possible to hear a smile because that’s I feel like anyway. So congratulations to all of you on a healthy and successful season. Best of luck to the seniors on your next endeavor. Congratulations, and principal rush call. It’s wonderful to see you here this evening. Thank you so much for your leadership, and I want high school. We greatly appreciate you and everyone else in the room and please pass along the our gratitude to everyone at the school when you return tomorrow morning. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Safe travels study hard.

Unknown Speaker 36:11
So we are going to leave the same group in here as, as Kelly seem to match his girl’s title with his his boys title Eric and I used to joke when we hired Kelly that he was our best open enrollment resource because he can get people to come from anywhere to come participate for him. So Joe Do you are Kelly

Unknown Speaker 36:40
so again, another amazing group of young men that we not only won the team championship at the individual championship for back to back years. And something I want to say about that. It was a pretty incredible race. So last year Cruz Cole tapper, who won the state championship as an individual and set the for a course record, we were lucky enough to have somebody that came through and broke the course record again, but did it with a takedown at the end, I would have probably given three points for the takedown and one for the escape. But got back up and finished and ended up breaking the course record and winning the state championship. So it’s just incredible. These boys have fought hard at the beginning of the year, we were wondering kind of where we would be after winning our first boys title last year. And they came back and repeated and did an amazing job. And again, with Coach Christiansen and his staff. We talked a lot about essential workers, and this new day and age that we’re in. And to me and these kids, our coaches definitely are essential workers. And they’ve done a masterful job here. So it’s an honor to get to introduce him again, as we recognize this additional state championship

Unknown Speaker 37:51
team. I wish our assistant coach Dan Blum was here because he actually spent most of the time the way we had to break things up into small groups and really just his natural leadership and draw with this group was really what guided them so comfortable, them’s not here, he’s doing an internship with us and I want to for counseling, so he’s a future educator as well but I’m going to go through these boys their their season was much different than the ladies. It was never really out of their hands as far as winning last year and then the amount of dedication that they put in since March you know, schools got shut down. They committed and met up in small groups and never missed a day they may go on six seven days a week since then. We’re gonna go three more weeks they just finished up a workout on the way here today and had they’re gonna head and race some schools at a state with their clubs. So introducing them we got Joey hinder shot who correct me if I’m wrong, Joey and everybody else but Flagstaff Academy, right? Yep, pretty small. Flagstaff got me. We got a trio of Flagstaff but Carlos Kip career is altona but also from Kenya. Grady raba Flagstaff right Academy, Joaquin Herrera was sunset Middle School. And Zayn bergeon is boulder Country Day, whose Sisters now at Flagstaff Academy. So we got a package deal there. We still it was still a few from so. The fun fact about Curtis and Grady and Joaquin were that they were soccer players. And Huertas didn’t run at state last year and didn’t make the state team until while this is his first year and he got seventh in the state. So we went from soccer all the way up until his junior year committed to running Didn’t make the team last year and now he’s seventh in the state Grady similar story He was on the state team last year, but tech fourth in the state. And then Joaquin was a soccer player until the sophomore years, and he ended up 14th in the state. And so multi sport athletes that join late, but it just shows that their love for each other, and they just can’t get enough of training hard and being high school kids and teenagers together. So super proud of all them. And then I’m gonna put a few of the seniors on the spot. They can go one at a time, since there’s three of them, they can just say a few words, will will lead off with Joaquin, and then Grady and then Curtis. Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see how good they do. The girls did well, guys. So thank thank you again.

Unknown Speaker 40:40
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 40:48
Well, I wasn’t really ready for this. But I guess if I had to say a few words, it’s how grateful I had to have this team and how committed they were and didn’t like, let me drop off. And when I wanted over quarantine, didn’t want to run, because it was like, you couldn’t group up. But they may made sure we stayed as a group kept the hard work going. And we ended up coming in good in the season and closing in and I wouldn’t have done it without these guys. So I want to thank them all too and a lot to go.

Unknown Speaker 41:31
Yeah, it really is crazy. How much of a brothership or how much I really see these guys as brothers. Like we’ve spent the past like seven months together training. And honestly, I spent more time with them and my family. It’s just crazy to think all the stuff we’ve done and how far we’ve come. And I really like to thank them for that.

Unknown Speaker 42:01
Yeah, this pretty much said that I was going to say, but I just wanted to seriously thank the coaches because they especially last year, because last year was super hard for me because I I felt like I was just training as hard as I could. And I was just dying, dropping off all the workouts, but the coach has always believed in me in coach always told me, like, just wait for the clay. He’s like, one day, like, it’s just gonna happen. And I still remember that day, because it was over quarantine. And I was training by myself. And I was like, struggling to find motivation. I was and I really just looked I was like, why do I even run? And then I I just could only think of like, the team and like, like Brady said, like, I spend so much time with these guys, and I just I love them so much. And then it really just, that’s all the motivation I need. And I was like, I’m not gonna let I’m not gonna sit and watch my best friends go to state this year without me. I was like, I want to help them this year. And so yeah, I just had huge thanks for the team and the coaches especially.

Unknown Speaker 43:16
Well, congratulations to all of you on a healthy and very successful season. Thank you for being here this evening. Eric and Joe and coach Christiansen, thank you so much for everything that you do. Really appreciate all of you. Thank you. Yeah. You guys enjoy your evening. Good luck on your upcoming competitions as well. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 43:45
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 43:55
Erica keeps saying goodbye to you and Joe, but you’re not going anywhere. So next,

Unknown Speaker 44:08
continuing with the nightwatch trend. We have their boys tennis team who who also want to stay championship this year. So Joe, would you like to introduce them.

Unknown Speaker 44:24
Another incredible team and opportunity. And again, I cannot echo more the dedication of our coaches and our kids. We had a lot of unique challenges in tennis that we didn’t foresee that came up with. We had to buy a heck of a lot more tennis balls this year. Because you couldn’t share those and wearing masks and socially distant and only could have 25 on a facility at one time. So trying to figure out once in singles and doubles and running original tournament with that it was a lot of math. And Amy and I will both tell you that is not our strong point. But it came through in the end So we go down to the state tournament thinking that we have an opportunity to win the state championship. And after day one, we’re wondering, we’re doing a lot of math trying to figure out if it’s a possibility, because the scoring changed this year with COVID. Because there was no playbacks. So it’s losing, you’re done. So we did a little bit of math. And then the next morning, we woke up, we’re at the tennis facility again, and we’re doing more math. And we finally figured out a way after various scenarios that we could win by one point. But we had to have a couple of things fall into place. And lo and behold, it came down to our number one singles, Neil Wilcox, who ended up winning the state championship again, who couldn’t be here tonight. And when he won the state championship, we won the state championship as a team 3837. And it’s the first state championship for nyuad in boys tennis in school history.

Unknown Speaker 45:51
So it’s incredibly special to not only do that, given the obstacles and the opportunities that COVID presents, but to do it for the first time in school history was pretty incredible. So I cannot say enough good things about these boys and their dedication, their hard work, and the coaches and their commitment to it. So I’ll turn it over to our coach Amy curonian. And then I believe

Unknown Speaker 46:11
Sam has some words

Unknown Speaker 46:16
may be corroded. Not only like Joe just mentioned that. We were the first ever from nyuad but I believe if I’m correct, we are the first ever seen brain school to ever win. Boys tennis. So I think that’s pretty cool. To be that make history for this the entire school district. It was an amazing year with a lot of things needing to fall in place. We lost them all in no we beat more than during the season. But we lost a cat Denver and it came down to us and cat Mon and Cheyenne. And we It was super stressful. We actually shine mountains not my favorite if anybody knows me, well. fact the opposite. So, and I actually needed them to help us this year. So I found myself cheering. And I believe Mr. Roscoe even said I was like yes, let’s go know what when Cheyenne Mountain when a point he goes, you realize you just called Cheyenne Mountain I went I said, Well, today they are we need them. So it was awesome. These boys worked hard. It was amazing season and I’m just super proud of them. So let my two senior captains Neil’s the third Captain but his he had to go visit a grandma that is not doing well. So he’s in California. So I would have our two boys come speak

Unknown Speaker 47:31
and see me.

Unknown Speaker 47:36
Alright, um, so So first and foremost, we’d like to thank the board for allowing us to have an actual season this year. Obviously, there are a lot of concerns going into the season, whether or not we’d have a season. And we’re honestly just really thrilled that we’re in the position we are now. Also, we want to thank our administrators, Joe Brown, and principal Rochefoucauld, without them, none of this could be possible. I’m going in to the second day of stay, if you told us we had a chance to win state we would not believe you. We we found ourselves at a we found ourselves at a deficit after the first day, not really seeming to find a way to make it to win it at all. And second day, everything just happened to fall in our will in our favor. And we we happen to we happen to win, which was unexpected, to say the least. And yeah, I also just want to thank our amazing coaches, Mika, Amy and Keith without them. And without them we couldn’t have done it. And yeah.

Unknown Speaker 48:47
Yeah, it was a great accomplishment for obviously not what the first boys championship in the history of the school. And for this team. A lot of the seniors had been playing with each other three, four years for myself only two years. But the dedication that everyone showed each day at practice really came out during state. And without that I don’t think there was a chance we would have won and just like staying with it and having the belief that we could win, it probably ended up getting it done in the end. So everyone gave it their all and without everyone’s points. There was no way we could have done it. So from top to bottom. Everyone showed heart in it. It showed so yeah.

Unknown Speaker 49:31
Just just in closing for nyuad I think it’s important to realize that you know, Eric Grace COVID certainly developed a culture of excellence there and involvement and it’s certainly a magnet for for a lot of reasons. Eric, do you want to say anything?

Unknown Speaker 49:55
Well, thanks Chase. I certainly enjoyed our years together. Now. It was a great partnership. You’re doing a great job up here at the district level. So thank you for all the support you offer. And, you know, to Dr. hat and the Board of Education, thank you for providing us with all the support that we need to create an excellent environment for our students and for our student athletes. incredibly proud of our coaches, Amy and Kelly, the young men and women that we’ve heard from today. You know, like we heard from the students themselves, it takes a lot of dedication when nobody else is looking. And when no one else is holding you accountable, to reach that level of excellence. And I’m just so incredibly proud of our student athletes. I’m also very proud of our three National Merit semifinalist that we have recently, with Carter Cruz, said Bhushan and I’m forgetting the third and Conor Cruz. So very proud of those young men as well. So we got a lot of good things going. And it’s because of great people. And so thank you to Joe Brown, who’s stepped in after Chase and done a fabulous job. And we’ve got a good thing going. So thank you so much for the support. Appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 51:07
Thank you, Eric. Congratulations.

Unknown Speaker 51:21
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 51:21
Thank you,

Unknown Speaker 51:47
chat. And Darren, you want to come up here. So next we have a bit of a bittersweet celebration. It, it brings back interesting memories for me. Doctor had dad and I went to their final a game where they played a Lincoln High School and about 45 minutes before game time, we had to close the doors to the gym, because there was no longer any room for for any spectators. You know, couple that to know we we have just a few 100 in our stadium. So but I was I was sitting right over there. When Boulder County when we had a meeting It was 10 3011 o’clock at night and for county health told us that we were not going to be coming to school the next day. So I called Darren and tried to arrange transportation. And then it was just a few hours later, we were we were told he wasn’t going to be able to play so a little bit bittersweet but you know meet certainly had some some great success of reset and you know, to that I we talked a lot about if if you have one good team that you know that that’s that’s a nice group of kids that that comes through. But when all of a sudden all of your teams are good. That’s that’s culture and Chad Aizen strugar their ad is is is, is responsible for that and the culture that he’s developed. And the pride that’s happening at metus is certainly certainly one of the best in our in our state. So at first I’ll have Chad come up and talk a little bit about his team throughout his school.

Unknown Speaker 53:26
Hi, Chad, welcome.

Unknown Speaker 53:30
Thank you guys for having us. When chase brought this up month ago, he made sure to recognize I remember when this all happened, Carrie McDermott sent a nice letter to our Meade basketball community and everything else. So Dan and I were just talking in the hallway, like we don’t need to look at the calendar, like we know March 7, we beat Abraham Lincoln, which was one of the best teams in the state of Colorado. And we beat them not comfortably. But I had faith in these these young men standing behind me the entire time. And going down to the preparation at the Coliseum was such an exciting time because meat hadn’t been in the Coliseum for basketball boys or girls. And this is the first time we kind of got over that last hurdle. And going through there. And Funny enough, one of the representatives there said, Hey, we’re not going to talk about COVID-19 or Coronavirus. We’re not going to talk about it. Like we’re good. We’re gonna play Don’t worry about it. And within that next 36 hours, a whirlwind of no fans for fans, no fans, and then chase called me at 1155 that night, unfortunately with the news, and I actually didn’t, I didn’t have the heart called Aaron. I’m like I know Darrin goes to bed at eight o’clock at night cuz he’s a good person like that. And I also didn’t have the heart to tell him that. And then I think at 230 in the morning, finally I realized this guy called Baron, and he was awake. And but that doesn’t take away from what these young men and coach recent his coaching staff accomplished last year. We’re just talking in the hallway, they for four months entertained an entire not just the town of not just the school with me, not just the town of Mead, the entire St. Green Valley and it was the most entertaining Basketball I’ve ever seen a team put on and like, like che said, there wasn’t a night our gym wasn’t packed, and the carryover effect to our fans showing up, then they’d show up early for the girls games to support our girls and steal a great seat for these boys to be entertained. The highest scoring team in the state and for a by far, and I can’t speak to what they mean on the court. But off the court, when I look here in the academic all state gentlemen that are standing behind me on the fact they took care of their academics, as much as they took care of business on the court. And like I said, I couldn’t be more proud of these guys. I’m devastated that they didn’t get to put that big trophy they wanted and they deserve is the number one seed in the hallways and meet High School. But that’s not gonna take away from the trophy, we are going to put in there, the banners, we’re going to hang in the gym for these guys, because what they accomplished, it’ll be tough to replicate that for any school in the state of Colorado, let alone at meet High School. So I couldn’t be more proud of coach Reese. There’s not a better leader of young men in the entire state of Colorado, I believe that. And you know, the culture chase talked about, I get to benefit from a series of great coaches that meet high school that are bought into the things we try to do to grow young men and women into great leaders in our community. And when you do those things, coincidentally, their success on the field follows immediately after it. So I’m blessed to be the athletic director and assistant principal meet high school because I get to work with people like coach Reese, and I get to help nurture these young men here that they excel at everything they’d live by the standard as a brain is excellent. It’s by design. And that’s what these young guys talk about. And that’s what they demonstrate every single day. So with that, I’ll turn it over to coach Reese and let him talk a little bit about these guys.

Unknown Speaker 56:30
Thanks, Chad.

Unknown Speaker 56:34
Welcome, kodris.

Unknown Speaker 56:36
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 56:36
Thanks for having me here.

Unknown Speaker 56:37
Thanks for having us. I think Chase and Chad for, for getting this set up. These guys deserve it. You know just a little bit about the season a little bit about them. We actually lost our first game in overtime and then reeled off 25 in a row. only had a couple that were were close. And I think that’s a testament to the skill and character in this group. They brought it every every day. They brought it every night. But they brought it every day in practice. And I think that’s a skill they can use well beyond the basketball court. And like I said, it shows great character. It was balanced team unselfish team. We were number one in the state for most of the year, we were number one in the state in the state tournament. I think we were poised to to win a couple more. And they’ve kind of already covered the, the the night and the week leading up. But I think the biggest thing with these guys is I’m I’m proud of how they handled themselves on and off the court. They represented themselves well. They represented the community well, families and meet High School and, and speaking of our community, there really isn’t the mead community there really isn’t a better community, they support their kids, they support the school couldn’t be happier, to be a part of the community and couldn’t be more proud of these guys. and thankful for the opportunity to coach him. So with that being said, I’ll turn it over to one of our senior captains. Well, Maurice can say a couple of words.

Unknown Speaker 58:24
So first off, I just wanted to say thank you guys for putting us on and having us out here and giving us some recognition. I know these guys definitely deserve it. I also we never had the opportunity for banquet or anything. So thank you to our coaches and our administrators in the whole community. That was one thing that was really cool about playing at me was we didn’t just represent ourselves, we did represent a lot more than that. And the whole community. I think, speaking on our team, I could go off about all the achievements, both individually and as a team. But I think more so just the things that stick with you longer than a season are kind of the things that really stood out to me. I think one one major thing was resilience. We showed it on the court and off the court throughout the whole season. And I think after everything got canceled was when I saw it the most. You know, these guys, they didn’t the guys that were still playing, and also my teammates were going on, they didn’t put their heads down. They didn’t hang their heads. They went on with poise and dedication to whatever they had next, which was a testament to them and testament to what we did. So

Unknown Speaker 59:36
thank you all so much for coming. And I’m just so sorry you all ran head long into the brick wall that was COVID. But it is what it is. But really what’s more important is I hope it’s so intrinsic for you like you guys, I can hear it in your voices. You know what you accomplished? We know what you accomplished. The lessons you’ve learned from this nobody stopped playing basketball. You said you didn’t put your heads down I’m sure you guys have all been working out through shutdowns through the summer. in isolation, however, you have to get it done because you’re going to come back and helpful. Go find a way to is as we manage navigate through COVID to get basketball back. And you guys are just rock stars. Thank you so much for coming. I’m so happy to have students here because it’s just been such a heavy time for for all of us to get education back. And all of the parts of education, not just the instruction, but this, the the social interaction, the teamwork, the culture, all of it. So thanks. Thank you so much for coming, because you guys are champions in my book, and no one’s ever going to take that away from you, Chico.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:40
Yeah, I just want to say something real quick. I feel like I don’t always know what I’m doing up here very well. But I do know basketball. And I’ve seen you guys play a lot of times. And you guys were awesome. And just really appreciate how you played how you went about it. Often, I always heard like, hey, this guy’s the, you know, this guy’s the man on this team, whatever. And every time I watch this, like who I don’t know which one is because every every 10 minutes someone else is the you know, really sticking out. So you guys did some awesome stuff. I think we often look at that final accomplishment as what it’s about, right? And to get there you guys accomplished everything that really matters before before getting to that piece, right? So it’s not really about that. Like, I appreciate what you mentioned that the things that stick with you after, after basketball. And after maybe that tournament. You guys did all of that. And that will be with you forever, the Brotherhood, the hard work that what you did for your community, all those kinds of things happened and you guys should feel so proud of that. And not only for your community, but like you said for the whole district. And for everyone who got a chance to see you guys play. And so I appreciate what you guys did. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:51
Thanks, Chico.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:53
Thanks, you guys. Appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:01
Doctors are prison secrets. And Dr. Dad, thanks for letting us share some success tonight. Hopefully, we’ll be back after after football season.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:11
Thanks, Chase. And thank you for being here. And I know it was extra work with all of the COVID regulations. It is such a pleasure to have students back at our Board of Education meeting. And I know I don’t have to tell you this. But the reason all seven of us sit up here is because of the students. And to have them back. There really aren’t any words, I’m just so grateful. Thank you for going through all of that extra work. And I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize you. This hasn’t been a typical, you know, fall sports season. And we didn’t have a typical spring sports season. It’s taken a lot of extra work on your part in all of the IDS across the district, in order to make these athletics happen for students. Thank you. There’s no doubt in my mind that you’ve seen many, many late evenings. So have the IDs. So have the coaches early mornings, you know, temperature checks, social distancing, monitoring the number of fans that are in attendance. Just thank you. That’s a lot. But I hope that I hope that when you see the students I know the answer to this, this is such a silly statement, Chase. I know that it’s worth it to you. So thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:21
It’s my pleasure.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:23
Appreciate it. Yep. Thank you. Have a great evening. All right. Don, we’re gonna jump back up in the agenda to agenda item five, which is the superintendent’s report. wasn’t that great? Oh, my goodness, I know that I need to keep saying that. But it’s just so wonderful to have students have students back at our at our board meetings. So fun. Thanks for giving your update.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:54
You bet. Thank you. I want to start out with just similar to what we’ve been doing the COVID update to start out and then I’ll get into other topics. The the most recent information in terms of what’s on our dashboard with positive COVID cases. We currently have 25 students. And total of 69 students who had tested positive so the the active cases are 25. And the total cumulative cases are 69. And that’s about 0.22% of the student body. And then for staff, the current is eight active cases and 32 total, which is 0.62%. Now these get updated quite often. So you can log into the website and to the dashboard and see You know, in a day you might get more. So it’s constantly evolving and changing over time. We aren’t aware of any hospitalizations within our school district at this time. And what I’m going over right now is just our school district. I’m not going over the county at this point are the counties in terms of quarantines, and again, you can find this information on our dashboard. The the current number on the dashboard would say 401, because we updated every Friday, but I did ask for an update today, because of the board meeting, and it’s at 520 at this point, so we have 520 total people in our district, that includes students and staff, which is 1.4%. And then a total on the dashboard, you would see 935, but it is increased to 1236, which is 3.4%. And so, every Friday, communications will update the number of quarantines that we have for students and staff that are active. And the number of quarantines that we have that are cumulative. The other thing about this, and I know that Johnny terell had done and report to share the process, and I know at each board meeting we’ve had, we’ve actually had the epidemiologist here. And we’ve shared this numerous times that the county health department will have the final say they are the decision maker around who gets quarantined and they will share that information and work collaboratively with our district nurses. And you’ve met Sophia Jaeger. And so that’s how that process works is that Boulder County Health, with contact tracing will tell us here are the individuals that need to be quarantined. And in each case, it can be different because the circumstances of what they learn during their process is different. So that’s who is responsible. And again, we will continue to include that information. I’m going to finish this and then I’m going to read you the most recent message from a conversation that I had with the Boulder County Executive Director for Boulder County Health in terms of moving forward.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:34
The the dashboard on our website, if you go to our Coronavirus page, you can log in, and you can see, you can click on and watch Jeff’s a acts presentation that we had on the 21st. And that presentation clearly spells out the metrics that Boulder County and st brain are using to make decisions. And he walked through those and they include things like the positivity rate. They include the two week trend rate. They include the cases involving five to 17 year olds, and the rate per 100,000 people. So how many per 100,000 are we seeing test positive and then hospitalizations. Now each of those areas in my most recent conversation with Boulder County yesterday is increasing. Not in a good way. The numbers are across the state are increasing pretty quickly. And so we are following that trend. And then we’re also following the trend in the actual county of Boulder and weld county because we’re seeing higher rates in Arapahoe County, in Adams County in Denver County. But we’re also seeing higher rates in Boulder County and weld county. We still are within those metrics and those zones. But there is concern because those rates are climbing across the state and they’re climbing in Boulder County and so we will continue to monitor that data as we move forward. I want to read you the letter because given the data obviously my question and again we we communicate with with the health department’s multiple times during the week we get multiple reports and on the phone via you know emails, you name it, but just stay in close contact and I want to read you the statement from Jeff sack who is the director and executive director of Boulder County Public Health in response to the inquiry around where we are today Boulder County Public Health, and this has been reviewed by Dr Urbina as well who is the chief medical officer and then also Broomfield health. And they also work closely with in our district with weld county in terms of getting gathering data. So we received that

Unknown Speaker 0:00
As well continues to see increasing cases in all age categories within Boulder County. And I would say that that’s true for weld county as well. In addition, we are seeing increases in positivity rates and hospitalizations. This is a trend that is consistent with many parts of the state of Colorado, and is concerning going into the fall months which drives people indoors and includes holidays, that culturally include large family gatherings. In addition, we are approaching flu months that will further stress our health care and our public health systems. The latest state updates includes that the number of people positive in the state has significantly increased over the last couple of months. At this time, we continue to see little spread among and between schools, with most positives likely brought into schools, from extracurricular activities and community spread. It is important that we continue to stay vigilant to maintain strong school prevention strategies. And those are the things that we talked about with safe with seven and all of the mitigation efforts and careful isolation, quarantine and contact tracing within the schools. That again is LED and decided upon by our county health department epidemiologist and their team working in collaboration and supported by our district nurses. This is consistent with what we are seeing from schools that opened across the state and is consistent with the recent Brown University study that has been occurring since September with over 200,000 students and I think there were 47 states involved. The letter doesn’t say 47 states but I remember reading it and that’s what I recall. assuring kids have a high quality education while reducing the risk of COVID-19 for all staff, teachers and students is a high priority for public health agencies across the state and is with us locally in Boulder County. We strongly believe that a myriad of approaches to school, including some in person for our youngest and most vulnerable students, as well as a hybrid approach that maximizes social distancing for our older students in a controlled environment such as our schools have created is the best approach for our students to both maximize learning while taking a risk reduction approach to COVID-19. This, however, does create capacity issues for Boulder County Public Health, with the current outbreaks at a statewide level. cdphp, which is the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is having to divert contact tracers and case investigators to other counties. These statewide surges create capacity issues for the entire state. And we do not have access to these case investigators and contact tracers like we did during the cu surge. As more kids come back to school, we anticipate there will be more isolation and quarantine required. And we know this will create capacity issues for Boulder County Public Health. This will require more support from district staff to do more follow ups as quarantine and isolation occurs. Or we will have to institute and alternate an alternate mechanism for contacting probable cases. So that’s the end, please let us know if you’d like to meet further to discuss this. And we always do follow up to talk about specifically to make sure that we are on the same page and understanding exactly what it is that they’re saying. I also so that’s the end of the statement from from Jeff, that I also had an opportunity to watch the governor’s press conference and listened to the entire conference, but also in particular to his comments about school. And he did reiterate that he believes schools are safe places to be in alignment with all of the mitigation efforts. And those mitigation efforts include things like masks, and social distancing, and upgraded h vac systems, and intensifying the spot cleaning and the custodial cleaning throughout the buildings and hand sanitizers and washing of hands and all of those things, health checks and screening that parents are doing and should be We are grateful that they continue to do that, you know, with temperature checks and things at home to make sure especially as we’re getting closer and closer, deeper into the cold and flu season. So those kinds of mitigation efforts along with

Unknown Speaker 4:39
with the opportunity to pursue instruction, again, as they said, some form of in person instruction, including hybrid models and things along those lines. It’s it’s hard to know what you know, every two weeks we receive and we receive information sooner than every two weeks, but it’s hard to know what the trend will do it the forecast is not Good in terms of the it when I say no, I’m always reluctant to use the terms positive and negative. I don’t want to confuse it. It’s not favorable. The trends are not favorable. And what we’ve seen most recently is I think the Aurora public schools move back to fully online. The Adams 14 schools, I think the Adams 12. Adams 14 is commerce city, Adams 12 is the Northland thorton area. And then I just read recently that Denver moved their third, fourth and fifth graders back to online along with their middle schools and high schools, which I don’t believe started. I know, this is our fourth week back in since we started, we’re in the middle of that fourth week. I know Boulder County or boulder Valley, this week, returned, I think they’re third graders and on up their high school is going one day a week, and I don’t, I think they’re Middle School is on a hybrid. And they moved there third, fourth and fifth graders in. So that’s kind of what we’re seeing, you know, around us, I know that school, other schools in Adams County and Arapahoe County, and Denver county and those places, are watching this closely as well. We continue to have meetings with the health departments, and with with our colleagues across the state to make sure we’re monitoring what’s happening. So we will continue to keep people informed as we move forward. Right now. We can provide the information as we get it, and we will continue, we will continue to do so. I know that before we went back in in on October 5, we spent a lot of time sharing with our community that quarantines were inevitable and so we’re isolations. And we talked about that being part of the challenge of coming back into school, one step is coming back in the other step is being able to stay in. You know, so it’s it’s, that’s those are two separate issues. And what I want to remind people of is when you see or hear the number of quarantines, those are not the same thing as positive COVID tests. And back to the statement that Jeff made. Jeff say, we when it is we meaning the multiple Boulder County, Tri County, Jefferson County, Denver County, the health department’s both in Colorado, and I know this from talking to my colleagues to we’re not seeing that secondhand spread, with groups that are quarantined, and that’s a good thing. But you know, nothing is definitive, you can’t ever say anything is 100% sure that that data is positive. I guess what I also heard from the governor yesterday was that the fatality rate is dropping. And I think they attribute that to better treatment and better, you know, understanding of, of COVID. So this remains to be you know, the safety of our students and our staff remains to be our top priority. And I know it’s it creates a lot of a lot of stress on families and teachers on all of us. So we’ll continue to do the best we can and continue to move forward with our current model, unless we hear something different from our county and state health departments. And I want to, you know, reiterate this, and I know I’ve said this before, technically, when they say the final decision is the school district’s decision. But I’ve said from the start way back in March, and at every meeting, I’m not going to move away from alignment with what the county health departments in the state health departments are recommending. Because we meaning we as school officials, we are not health experts. And so we cannot, I won’t supersede the recommendations that are being made by the health experts. So that’s a nuance, but it’s important because sometimes people have said, well, the decision is yours. Well, yes, it is. But I do not believe that it would be prudent in any way, shape or form to make a decision in consistent with what the health experts are recommending. And I just want that all with that clarification to always be there. I’m going to start with COVID and see if you have any questions. And Jackie, if you are I know Kerry’s back there. If you guys have any thing that I’ve left out about the things we’re working on with COVID before I move on to other stuff, and board, any questions that you might have questions

Unknown Speaker 9:33
from anyone? No.

Unknown Speaker 9:39
Thanks, Don. So the match the data metrics that we’re looking at those five, the five points have not changed. There’s those are those have been consistent. We’re always looking at the you know the percentage of positivity, the cases per 100,000. Looking at the age group of students hospitalizations, those have not changed at all. We’re simply watching this data, we’re watching the trends, we’re watching it, you know, it ebbs and flows. And right now it appears to be flowing. So we’re keeping a careful eye on that in conjunction with Boulder County Health, right? Yes. And then as well as looking at our resources and what you know what what we can use what we have available to comply with the quarantine standards which are being fine tuned a little bit there are a fine tuning those the quarantine standards.

Unknown Speaker 10:30
Yes, the Boulder County Public Health and Jefferson County, the Tri County are the Tri County health department’s and others have worked with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. And the superintendents across the state, you know, at least in the metro area that I’m familiar with most of them. They have been submitting data to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, stating that the and this is not new. We’ve talked about this so many times in terms of anticipating, but what they’re saying is the quarantining protocol is challenging from a standpoint, because it begins to disrupt your capacity to continue within person learning. If you have teachers that are quarantined, for example, you know, our most significant impact was at Silver Creek High School. Not too long ago, we had nearly 302 separate instances, we had nearly 300 students quarantine and I think it was 19 teachers. So obviously that creates a challenge for continuing with any kind of normalcy. Now, we were able to get some substitute teachers in and we were able to get some central office staff and personnel to keep moving forward with it. And then most of those kids will come back and those teachers will come back. But when they come back, there could be additional quarantines. And so I shared with you in our meeting that we had before the board meeting tonight, the CDC, the Center for Disease Control was looking at ways to perhaps shorten the quarantining time. And then the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is looking at what they call two different approaches. One is standard quarantine, and targeted quarantining, and they’re looking at ways to fine tune their process to be more targeted, because it’s not good to quarantine people who don’t need to be quarantine. And so you can do the standard process, which is what they do, or you can do the targeted process. And again, we won’t decide that as a school district that will be decided by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Boulder County and those kinds. And so what they are doing now is a little bit more of a targeted approach to look at, and they determined that in the contact tracing, who needs to be quarantined and or isolated? And again, that will be their decision, and we will follow their lead and their direction on that. But that to your question, Paula is what they’re looking at. Because the other thing that gets that gets difficult is when you quarantine which we’re seeing across the state of Colorado and across the United States, literally 1000s and 1000s of people being quarantined, then the question becomes, what are they doing when they’re quarantine? are they staying home? Or are they then out in the community? And they’re not positive? Some of them are, but they’re not positive? And so then the question becomes, is that the best practice? And so that’s where we take our lead from the health experts. So that’s kind of what they’re looking at. And we will continue to follow their lead and their direction. I know that sometimes it’s hard, because you might look at one school and say, Well, why did they do this versus what they did at this school? And all of those differences come from their investigation, meaning the epidemiologists and how they identify who these people were in close contact with or those kinds of things? Because we asked the same questions. Well, why this happened over here. And then this happened over here. And it seems like different numbers, but then they’ll explain it to us. And they get into conversations like major symptoms versus minor symptoms, who’s a close contact versus who’s just a contact? How long were they in contact with somebody? Were they in contact with them for more than 15 minutes? Was it six feet? Was it 12 feet? So there’s all of these questions and details that are fleshed out with the epidemiologist and then they come back and tell us here’s who you need to quarantine. So that’s, that’s how that plays itself out.

Unknown Speaker 14:47
Thanks, and because I just want the public to know like, as we’re trying to make this as I want to say the word consistent, but I can’t Like, like our metrics aren’t changing our resources that we’re depending on for the data like Boulder County, public health, and Colorado, public health environment, all of that is state in place. But it’s just it’s so volatile, like day to day like we see the trends keep going up and down. And we want to be as forthcoming and predictable with the public as possible. But we really can’t just because of the nature of the beast, what we can be is very consistent in our approach to everything. And that’s, that’s really what I want to reinforce. Because we know the data is trending up, we know when the memo that Jeff just sent, potentially, there’s a little bit more pushback on our own resources for some of the quarantining because Boulder County staff is being pulled out to other parts of the state. We know all of that’s happening. And in the event that we have to make a switch, we will give as much notice as possible to to the public and families and teachers and everybody. But I don’t know that we’ll be able to do that two weeks out because this this moves. This moves faster than that.

Unknown Speaker 16:03
Well, you just heard from our boys basketball team at Meade High School, how quickly it moved when they were in the semifinals. We were in a meeting the night before tonight’s with the with the chase just explained to you a few minutes ago. And at 11 o’clock at night, they said shut it down everything schools. And they gave us that directive meeting the health department of the governor. And so that’s how quickly it happened in the spring. And I think they know a little bit more, we’ll have some lead time. But how much lead time, we just don’t know. I my understanding now is that we are moving into safer at home level three, which reduces the amount of gatherings now schools and places of worship and things are on a little bit different guideline with the number of people that can be in an area. But but it looks like almost all of the counties are going to be moving into that safer at home level three, which is I think, right before the next level of stay at home. And I when I always say I think I want to just make sure that I’m not miss speaking. But that’s the conversation. And so we just have to monitor that closely. And I will continue to communicate with with Jeff Zack. And then not only Jeff, I’m also part of an agency, administrator, phone group phone conference that takes place we have those. I’m also part of the attorneys meetings that take place on a regular basis that help us interpret the statutes in the governor’s directions that are coming out for a whole host of things because some of the language is very, it’s not something we’re used to. And so our attorneys interpret that. And it’s not just our attorneys, its attorneys across the border in weld county areas and things like that. So there’s just it’s a constant meeting time, with county health, with Department of Education, with governor’s office with you know, you name it, it’s just it’s that kind of a deal that our folks are into, and I shared with you, we hired an additional group of nurses to help with the contact tracing, and we broke them out into four areas, which is what our district, we have the four areas to help Sophia and Johnny and that team. And then we also have the 17 nurses throughout the district. And then we also have the health clerks in each of the schools. So we’re trying to be as supportive as we can, with this process for everybody. The other thing that’s,

Unknown Speaker 18:42
that’s very challenging is for our teachers, you know, our teachers are trying in the hybrid model. Our teachers have, you know, children at home, and they have children in the classroom in person. And that creates a whole new dynamic of challenge and stress. And I’m grateful to them. And yet, I’m also very aware of the fatigue, and how weary, they will grow with the extra added stress and the work. And I share that with you because, you know, we look at the data, and the data is that primary driver. But there are also human elements to this, that we have to take into consideration as well, that aren’t as you know, black and white in terms of the data. And then we also have to know that when teachers get quarantined that could impact other teachers who then have to fill in for them which intensifies their workload and creates another dynamic. And our substitute pool when I say our subs tool, our substitute teaching pool across the state of Colorado is depleted. So it’s not as if you can just call in a substitute teacher. So there are a lot of factors that go into this that may not be readily visible on a metric or on a day. dashboard. And we try to have as many conversations as we can with people. And at the same time, you know, you have to also be able to attend to all of the other elements of the work. You know what I mean? It’s, and so what I would encourage people to do, I did get some requests about specifying schools, like the number of quarantines. We specify the COVID cases by school, and by student by teacher, that kind of thing without any names. I did get some requests to specify the school. It changes so fast that what we’ve told our principals now and I know Jackie, and I and Carrie have talked with our assistants to let our principals know that if a parent or someone wants to know the number of quarantines, current and cumulative at a school, that they, the principal and the administration can absolutely and should give them that information. So if you have a specific school that you are interested in knowing about. Now, I know there’s been some question about the ready readily available nature of that information. But we’ll continue to work with our principals to make sure that they share that information freely with anybody who’s looking for it. And again, it will change on a daily basis. Today, for example, I think I heard from five different schools, that additional students will be quarantined. And, and this is not an exaggeration at all, during this meeting, my text messaging has been going off where I learned of two more schools that are going to be impacted. And so it’s just important to know that this is just a target that’s moving moving, moving daily, hourly. And, but we will, we will give that information gladly from our schools to any parent who wants to, to know about their child’s school. That’s, that’s kind of the nature of this thing. And it’s, I think, the the, it’s intensifying right now, because of what’s happening across not only Colorado, but across the United States. And we just need to be aware of the reality, it’s a very stressful time for people to very stressful time for our children. It’s a very stressful time for our teachers. It’s a very stressful time for our parents and our staff, and our community as a whole. And we are just going to keep walking through it until we are told otherwise by the health department.

Unknown Speaker 22:36
Thanks, Dan, real quick, I just, I appreciate you bringing in all of the sort of quality, non quantifiable pieces of this. Because I would love to give our public that consistency and that predictability to know exactly where we’re going to be in two weeks in two months, and what next semester is gonna look like. But we can’t just by the nature of this beast, we can’t do that what we can commit to is consistency of process, thorough understanding of all of those pieces of it, it’s quantifiable, and qualifiable. Essentially, thank you thanking the public and the teachers so much for their support during this highly stressful and unpredictable time. And just asking them, you know, we have learned so much coming through this, like when when it started in March, when they shut everything down versus where we are now we’re kind of looking at another wave. And I have so much confidence in you and your administration team and the principals and the leadership that it’ll be better this time. We’ve learned so much and and we have a really, I think rock solid process in place. And that’s what I asked the public to trust in that the process is solid this time. And we’re going to get through this. And we’re going to, we’re going to educate our kids as best as we possibly can holistically instruction as well as social engagement and everything else. So we’re going to do it safe and feasibly. It’s everything we’ve been saying all along. But we’ve got a track record now that has been reasonably successful. And I have a lot of confidence that we’ll keep. We’ll keep building on that. So thank you.

Unknown Speaker 24:15
You know, I appreciate that. And I also appreciate, you know, we’ve had an opportunity to hear from a number of parents, we’ve had an opportunity to meet with several parents. And they provided some, some good feedback. One of the, you know, one of the results of recent meeting was putting the quarantining numbers and I know there’s requests for additional information around school by school. We’ll try to accommodate that at the school level. But I do appreciate parents, because one of the things that happens, you know, and I acknowledge this, we’re in this work 24 seven, and we’re talking to each other and we’re talking to the health departments and we’re talking to the governor’s and everything. And so, sometimes we, you know, we’re hearing it so often, that we can assume that other people are hearing it as often. And that’s not the case. And so it’s been a good reminder to continue to communicate more and more, and to continue to seek input more and more. And so we’re committed to doing that. And I really am appreciative of the parents and the teachers and the staff who’ve taken the time, their time to share that with us. And we’ll continue to do that. The other thing that we are, you know, we have leadership st reign. And we paused that this year, because people had said, when we asked you, I don’t care, you are looking at it. And we decided to maybe started later in the year, given the the nature of COVID, we’re going to do kind of like an offshoot of that, that is a parent update advisory committee that will start in December, as opposed to the traditional leadership st reign that we were planning to do in December. And that will be we’ll talk about some of the operations, but they’ll all be in relation to, you know, how they’re impacted by COVID. So when we get into transportation, we can talk about transportation as it relates to COVID. We can talk about, you know, the technology as it relates to COVID. And then we can also get from our parents, thoughts and suggestions about how we can do better in giving them the information that they’re looking for, to cause them to understand at a level that they feel comfortable with, and our teachers and our staff as well. Now, we also do something I meet regularly with our Teachers Association reps, and there’s one for every school. And in these meetings, others have been coming to those meetings as well. So it’s, you know, anywhere from 60 to 70 teachers, and then Steve Villareal and Fran and Susie and those guys, and we’ve been meeting regularly on zoom meetings, and sharing and answering questions. And then our principals have also been meeting with their teachers and their staff. And then they gather questions, and then we’ll respond to them. But we, in years past, we’ve had a teacher Advisory Committee, and again, we talked about that, and we made a decision based on feedback to postpone that till December, we’re getting close. And so we’re going to restart that, in addition to the AAR meetings, and that will be in December, where we have teachers from the different schools, not necessarily the same teachers as our a ours, Association reps. But it’s just another feedback loop that we’ll have. I also had a chance to meet with, with the launch dead teachers and staff virtually, and talk with them about some of the things they’re looking at doing and some of the things that they’re struggling with, and some of the things that are going well. And so that’s always helpful. And we’ll continue to, to make some adjustments as we can. So it’s a lot of moving parts, but I think I think I’ve covered most of it. But I want to make sure that you if you have any other questions, and Jackie and Carrie, if you have anything that you’d like to add to about, because I know you guys are in all these meetings. So yeah, one thing I did want to say because I got asked a question about the safety meetings that we’ve been having. And I wanted to let you know, that’s that those are the meetings that Dr. martyr that you and Jim that you participated in with. Jeff sack, the Executive Director, Dr. Urbina, the chief medical officer Heather crate. SOTA, who’s the epidemiologist, Steve, who’s a Teacher Association, President Fran, who’s the uniserv director, Susie, who’s the Vice President for the Teacher Association, then we had about seven or eight other teachers, representative of elementary schools, middle schools. That’s that when we refer to the safety meetings that we’ve been at that we’ve been having, we’ve had those but we also have meetings with our leadership cabinet that extends at our principals and all those kinds of things. But that’s, that’s what I’m referring to when I say our safety meetings. We also at the school levels, when we were reopening asked our principals, well, we required we said to our principals, we want you to involve two to four teachers in every school to talk about the reopening plan. And this was back in when we were planning to reopen with the hybrid. And then as you recall, our principals put together those videos that were available to the public to kind of walk them through the schools to show how everything would would look as children are coming back and teachers and staff are coming back into the schools, though any, any questions or comments or thoughts?

Unknown Speaker 29:39
Just

Unknown Speaker 29:41
thank you joy. Just to follow up on first of all, thank you, Dawn for all that you and your staff are doing. keeping up to date with an ever changing environment is really extraordinarily difficult and it can be It can be worrying over time to continually think that you’ve reached a point where you can have firm footing and realize that conditions just change. I was wondering if you could help me understand a bit more about the approach we’re taking to reporting out the quarantine numbers by school. I realize you can pick up the phone and, you know, call the principal and get a number back. But if we do, if we do understand that those numbers are ever changing, and ever in need of updating, and that’s part of what we’re reporting as well. Wouldn’t it be? Well, help me understand the the reasoning behind having a parent or someone else just call it schools individually?

Unknown Speaker 31:03
Yeah, a lot of it has to do with the revolving nature of it. A lot of it has to do with when people see it. And this is not my own speculation, it’s been brought to my attention that people oftentimes don’t differentiate between a quarantine and a positive case. And so you can begin to draw conclusions and assumptions and things along those lines. But, you know, to be clear, we can certainly put that information on the dashboard, if you would like us to do that. I do know from having talked to most other districts, they include the aggregate number, think there’s three or four. The irony is the majority of the three or four who are doing it, their kids aren’t in school, you know, so I mean, boulders just going back in auroras out permanently Northland? And I think there was one other I can’t remember. So it’s that aggregate approach seems to be the consistent approach. But again, it’s not something that you know, I guess the question that I would have is, and, well, if you’d like us to put it in Dec, we put it in?

Unknown Speaker 32:13
Well, I don’t think it’s, you know, a board decision. At least that’s my?

Unknown Speaker 32:20
Well, I think it is, I think it is, and I think if you’d like us to put it in, we’d be more than happy to do that. We made a decision not to do that for a variety of reasons. But if it’s turning into something where people are really frustrated by it, we more than happy to put it in. And then we’ll respond to all of the feedback as to what does this mean? And how many disruptions? Do you have things that are operational, that we, you know, we manage the schools from within. And we know that if we have too many people, quarantine and we can’t run school, we would let people know. But managing the day to day operations is not something that we have always communicated to everybody. But again, Carrie, go ahead and put them in, we’ll just do that. I have, I don’t I don’t want to, I don’t want to have that debate. any longer. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s just easy to do, and we’ll do it and we’ll move forward. There’s gonna be a lot of confusion around it. But we got we’ve got to just keep moving forward.

Unknown Speaker 33:27
Understand. Karen, did you have a question or

Unknown Speaker 33:30
a question about the quarantining? So is there a percentage of quarantine that we would reach before closing a school?

Unknown Speaker 33:38
Or that there’s not a percentage? It depends on if you can manage with substitutes and people filling in and things like that? Yeah. for teachers and things.

Unknown Speaker 33:49
Yeah. I’m concerned about posting quarantine on the database for exactly what you said is that I think it’s going to lead to a lot of confusion. But I wonder if it would be if if principals could include it in their weekly reports to high schools, at least or

Unknown Speaker 34:03
Well, yeah. And we’ve asked them if there is a disruption of significance, because with the Silver Creek thing, we didn’t do that at the beginning. And so that created and so we said, if there’s going to be a disruption, then let’s let the community know what the plan is to mitigate the disruption. And so that’s kind of what we’re doing. But if you have like four people quarantined, it’s not something that would warrant a school wide communication because you know, that it just creates uncertainty and confusion and then leads to a lot of other questions. But again, here’s the thing. There’s a really important it’s important that we move forward. And if we’re going to get bogged down in a debate about whether we should add the quarantines daily, then we’re just going to add them and keep moving forward because we don’t have the capacity to Keep answering the question.

Unknown Speaker 35:03
More question, carry to carry? How many hits is the dashboard getting?

Unknown Speaker 35:10
Let me like and pull it up right now just take me a minute.

Unknown Speaker 35:17
You’re so good on the spot.

Unknown Speaker 35:19
I think when we first posted it, it got a fair bid. And then we included a link to it in Don’s update last week. And so there was a spike, then because it was right there for people. But I’ll give you an example of just what today’s numbers were, as a typical day versus a day where we published it out. Just taking a circuit actually defaulted to do today. So today, that page had 1500, unique pageviews

Unknown Speaker 36:07
1500,

Unknown Speaker 36:09
unique pageviews.

Unknown Speaker 36:15
All right, Karen. Thanks, Don, I’m gonna circle back to some of your original comments, and no need to repeat, you know, much of what Paula said, and much of what you said, I do want to give you an opportunity just to confirm and reassure our community that when you talk about Jeff Zach says that they’ll need to push more responsibility on to the district for some contact tracing and quarantine, monitoring and all that, I just want to reassure our community that that the resources to do that absolutely are available, that that that doesn’t mean that will fall through the cracks, it’ll continue. And we can absolutely provide the resources to make that happen.

Unknown Speaker 37:04
Yeah, that’s kind of a joke with hiring of the additional nurses, and things along those lines. And we’ve offered some support, some assistance in in terms of financial resources to assist with they getting them getting some more people to help with the contact tracing. So absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 37:22
Great. Thank you. And then the other thing, you know, when we had that the very first meeting, when Jeff siac, the director of Boulder County Public Health was here, along with with his key team members, I always remember that one of the things Jeff stressed so strongly at that meeting was that that local conditions matter. And then it’s important that you know that he works very hard not to get distracted, just to be aware of what’s happening across the state and in other communities and across the nation, of course in the world. But that it is very important when it comes to decision making, particularly for St. vrain. We are listening to those experts, but they’re monitoring local conditions, and the local conditions right now, all of those metrics that you have consistently been following, they indicate that this hybrid approach continues to be appropriate. And that at any point, and I don’t doubt that at any point, Jeff will reach out to you and say when that’s no longer possible, so I just want to just reiterate those local conditions. I think that helps me significantly in my approach to COVID as well.

Unknown Speaker 38:36
Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. Well, we’ll set from the beginning, we’re gonna stay in alignment with the County Health Department and the state health department. And what what their recommendations and directives and guidelines are, that’s what we’re going to fall. Okay. Until this board tells me to deviate from the the health experts. Mom,

Unknown Speaker 38:57
I don’t anticipate that will happen. You know, you mentioned also Don, just the stress level. I think it’s easy to be a little bit weary of COVID at this point. But I want to reassure the public that this district isn’t weary from maintaining, you know, focusing on on the safety of the people that are a part of this district, that that isn’t a part of that weariness in any way, shape, or form. And that as a district, you know, we do understand, it’s stressful, it’s hard. It that’s an understatement. I don’t know that there are words to really convey how challenging This is.

Unknown Speaker 39:39
Yeah, and I think your point about the counties, you know, oftentimes people will look at another district. And they’ll say, Well, this is what this district is doing over here, but they’ll pull one piece of what that district is doing, and then all of these other things that they’re doing. And so it’s very hard to compare what one district is doing because we all live in different counties. And it’s very hard to compare with what they’re doing in terms of their approach. Sometimes they can’t go hybrid because they don’t have the technology. Sometimes they can’t do something for another reason. But what I would encourage people to do is, you know, for example, I remember, there were some that were saying, you should follow this school districts approach to doing a model. But once that school district changed and did this, they were no longer asking to follow that model, because they no longer like the fact that this is now what that school district was going to do. And so if you’re constantly bouncing around, trying to emulate every other school district, when the circumstances are different, you won’t have any sense of stability. And so I would just encourage people to look at the totality of what’s happening, and not pull parts, because unless you have the whole picture at your disposal, it’s really can become a misleading conclusion, that kind of thing. So for example, if some district that’s putting their quarantining information on the website, but they don’t have kids in school, it’s a very different reality for that school district. There aren’t any kids getting quarantined. So they’ve got the topic there. And, and those are the kinds of things and again, in talking with the other superintendents, part of the reason they all went to the aggregate, because it just started generating so much confusion and so much day to day, and keeping up with it. And people, you know, wondering, Is this a positive? Or can the school keep functioning and all of these things. And so that’s that was the thinking behind it. But we’ll just start putting it in as a result of, you know, probably we’ll update it maybe not every day, because it changes five or six times in a day. So what we could do is just update it once a week. And then people can see that, and then if they have any questions, they can specifically ask the school. Alright.

Unknown Speaker 41:56
Thanks, Dan. Appreciate you and everyone else, and the heavy lift that COVID has demonstrated to be I believe, now Jackie was going to give an update. Don is part of the superintendent’s update, is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 42:14
Yeah, one of the things that we were going to do is try to provide some after school support for students. And so Jackie will share a little bit about that.

Unknown Speaker 42:23
Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Jackie. Yeah. Good evening, board members. And thank you, Dr. Haddad. We know that in this pandemic environment, online instruction, and even the hybrid learning model approach is not optimal for all of our students. We also know that many of our students have other life challenges that prohibit them from being fully engaged at high levels in school. And for this reason, we’re looking to add academic support opportunities in all of our schools across St. moraine. I’ll give you just a short overview of what our support services will look like. And we’ll begin these next week, the week of November 2. First of all, our objectives are here. And really we have two objectives. The first is to provide supplemental individual and small group support to students in grades K through 12, who are struggling with new course content, are failing to turn in their weekly assignments, or just in need of more direct, explicit instruction. We also want to ensure that students see current grade level success, which includes supporting students socially and emotionally. And some of our support services may include extra counseling support or connecting small groups to peers to work together because we know that the best learning takes place through relationships, human interaction and collaboration. So I’ll talk just a little bit about what our structures will look like. Schools have been provided an allocation of hours based on their size and need for student support, and will each create a plan for offering these sessions, but there are some commonalities that will take place across all schools. These include providing sessions in which both hybrid groups can have easy access. So we won’t offer for example, a tuesday thursday support after school support because that would hit only one hybrid group at the elementary and middle school levels. So schools will plan to make sure that both hybrids both hybrid groups can access support. This support will be in in addition to the support that we provide every Friday, either by appointment or by invitation from teachers. Support sessions will begin next week. It will be delivered by certified staff who will be paid additional dollars for extra time that they’re putting in to support students that set our $30 an hour rate, and students will be able to access between four and 12 additional hours of support depending on the school. Our high schools, of course will offer more hours just simply because of the number of students that they serve. The resources have been allocated to this strategy total about $630,000. And those will come from react funding sources, the cares act dollars, as well as our general fund. The areas in which we will focus our support with students include early literacy support that supplements the reading core instruction provided in low literacy block each day. Additional core content instruction for students in middle school and high school for extra practice, and instruction to help students before they take tests or retake tests. And to help them get their assignments successfully completed each day and each week, and ultimately, to ensure that our students receive all of their credits towards graduation, any student can access added support, and some will be explicitly invited. These can be students who are in advanced classes who need extra help students who are receiving 504 accommodations are English language learners, students on IEP s, but truly any student who reaches out can access additional support. And then finally, we will be using formative monitoring tools to help determine student success. We’ll use pals and iready data,

Unknown Speaker 46:49
which are beginning to demonstrate some very encouraging results. With our implementation of fundations and Orton Gillingham, we saw a significant decrease in the number of students who entered first grade below grade level. This is even after students were out of school in the spring and in we were unable to provide a lot of summer support. But we saw some very encouraging results for our first graders after kindergarteners had received nearly a full year of fundations in Orton Gillingham instruction. So we’re pleased with those early results. We will also run weekly f reports and missing assignment reports and reach out to parents and students to get those students additional support. And as always, we’ll closely monitor our credit completion at the high school level in our E credit recovery courses. On a final note, we’re very thankful for st brain strong financial position, which allows us to target our resources to the classroom during this time. Not only are we experiencing a health crisis, but many other districts across the state are, are in a financial crisis as well. And we are not in that position in St. barang. I would like to tell any parents or community members who are listening this evening, that if your student is having challenges in the classroom or with their assignments, please reach out to your principal. And we will work to get them accommodated with some extra support. And that’s what I have at this time after we get up and running. If the board would like to have an additional report just to let you know how it’s going. I’m happy to provide that at a later time.

Unknown Speaker 48:34
That would be great. Jackie. Yeah, no need to share any data or any further details this evening. But at some point down the road, when it seems to make sense. And when there’s the capacity for report, that would be great. All right. Anything else done you had is as part of of your superintendents update.

Unknown Speaker 48:56
Now, just a couple of things I was going to share about the Kaffir. But they already covered it. So I think we’re good

Unknown Speaker 49:02
done. Were you wanting to speak at all about the the snow plan the plan for our next snow day?

Unknown Speaker 49:12
Yeah, I can I can share that the thanks, Jackie. We will be moving when we have our next snow day. This week our teachers and our staff will be receiving with our principals. Just a brief summary of what the process will be to continue distance learning virtual learning. And then parents should receive that next week that they can keep. So and it’ll be by school so that any event we have a snow day, they can look at that document and say this is the schedule that their particular school will follow. And then that way we can and it won’t be throughout the entire day. It’ll be blocks of checking in and work being assigned and then students can have the opportunity to continue their learning at home if we have a snow day. Hopefully we won’t have many But if we do, we can leverage that. And so that information will be received next week by our families.

Unknown Speaker 50:09
Thank you, Don. All right, Greg, agenda item 6.2. Is the 2020 fiscal year Comprehensive Annual Financial Report or Khafre? We did well, I’ll let you you’re going to mention that Paul, was here and all of that. So I’ll just turn it right over to you. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Greg.

Unknown Speaker 50:30
So we met refrain 530, and six o’clock tonight with Paul neater Mueller, who is the primary partner on the audit. He’s with the certified public accounting firm of Clifton Larson Allen. And so he was here along with Jane Frederick, who is our comptroller to kind of go through all of the details of the Kaffir with you and answer any questions, I’d kind of like to go through our timeframe and maybe what’s included in this section. So typically, this time, we would be presenting either a final audit or an issued audit, I’m sorry, a final Kaffir and issued Kaffir. We are delayed slightly. And so we will be asking the board to accept that at the November 11. board meeting. Part of the reason for the delay is just all of the detail and they did their audit remotely and that, you know whence it was successful, that went well, but delays their delays with charter school information. So at this point, we’re still working through some of the charter information, some of the data pipeline is what we have to submit to the Colorado Department of Education in terms of making sure that our accounts all line up. And then it will have to go through the quality assurance review by CLA Clifton Larson Allen. And so we’re still working through all of that, I can tell you that they’ve made it through the audit is substantially complete, especially on the district side. And at this point they are, the plan is to issue an unmodified, modified, unmodified, which is a clean audit, which means that they didn’t have any significant findings. And so what I would encourage the public or anybody else, to, once we get that posted out to the website would be to look at either the transmission, the transmittal letter or the management’s discussion and analysis. That’s a much briefer condensed version, rather than the 100. It’s included inside of the Kaffir. But rather than go through 172 pages, or whatever it actually ends up being this is a more condensed one that kind of gives the history in the background.

Unknown Speaker 52:59
Thank you, Greg. Appreciate it. You already mentioned the Board of Education. You we all heard from Paul, with CLA from 530 until 6pm. This evening. And Greg, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that there will be a video of that available on the district website.

Unknown Speaker 53:18
I believe that is the plan. Okay, that that will be available out there.

Unknown Speaker 53:22
Great. So for any community members who might want to watch that discussion and hear directly from the auditing team or from Paul, then they could certainly do that as well. And then we’ll look forward to coming back with the projected unmodified pay or clean opinion on November 11. And my dates right now.

Unknown Speaker 53:43
Yes.

Unknown Speaker 53:43
Great.

Unknown Speaker 53:44
You are correct.

Unknown Speaker 53:45
All right. As long as there aren’t any board member comments, we’ll go ahead and move on to our consent items this evening. Great. We have 7.1 approval of amendment. Oh, I forgot to ask. Sorry. Do board members wish to pull any of the consent items this evening? Paula, yes, I

Unknown Speaker 54:09
would like to pull 7.3

Unknown Speaker 54:12
Great. Thanks. And thank you for the reminder. Paula two 7.1 then is the approval of amendments to construction manager general contractors cmgc. contract for Lyons middle senior high school auditorium addition and renovation project 7.2. Approval of fee adjustment five to architect agreement for nyuad High School renovation project 7.4. Approval of closure of schools October 26 2020. I would entertain a motion for approval, please. so moved by Karen and a second. Second by Jim.

Unknown Speaker 54:50
Mr. Mr. Arens? Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr.

Unknown Speaker 55:00
Yes.

Unknown Speaker 55:01
Miss Pierce. Hi, Mrs. Raglan. I am Miss Seacrest.

Unknown Speaker 55:07
I thank you, Barb. And Paula, do you want to provide an update on 7.3? Please, and then I believe, anyway, go ahead and do that. And then I’ll wrap up my thoughts.

Unknown Speaker 55:20
Yeah, I just very quickly wanted to elaborate and actually make a change to 7.3, which is a first reading of several of our board policies. the repeal of board policy, ie a eg use of wireless communication devices by school transportation vehicle operators, is essentially because it is no longer required by state statute. It’s, if you read it, it’s kind of an antiquated policy that it was developed when cell phones were first being commonly used back in 2005. So it’s now something that’s not necessary policy, and I’m sure it’s addressed in driver training and regulations for our drivers. So that is a request to repeal J. Eb entrance age requirements. That adjustment essentially is is aligning with the change in school funding because it used to be triggered by first first graders on up and now as we’re funding kindergarten, the policy changes aligning to those dates as children being five years old by kindergarten and not six years old, by first grade. And then the final policy tonight, I’m actually going to pull Jay HB truancy. Because there were some there’s some additional editing that needs to happen. The policy that was posted in our packet is not accurate. So we’re going to do some additional editing and include it in a follow up meeting. So with that, should I make a motion? Yes, please. I would I’ll make a motion to approve 7.3 approval. First reading repeal of board policy EAG use of wireless communication devices by school transportation vehicle operators and adoption of revisions to board policy g Eb entrance age requirements.

Unknown Speaker 57:13
Somebody want to second that motion, please.

Unknown Speaker 57:19
I pulled that. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 57:23
So moved.

Unknown Speaker 57:25
Alright, so BB a motion by Paul and a second by Karen, please. Sorry, second.

Unknown Speaker 57:30
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 57:30
It’s Mr. Arens. Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia?

Unknown Speaker 57:36
Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 57:39
Miss Pierce. I miss Raglan. I am Miss siegrist.

Unknown Speaker 57:46
I thanks, Barb actually moves us to our action items and agenda items, specifically 8.1 is a recommendation for approval of contract for the wild plum center for young children and families. Diane, I believe we have you. There you are. We have you on WebEx. It’s nice to see you. Welcome to our meeting this evening.

Unknown Speaker 58:09
Thank you. It’s nice to be here. Thank you, Madam President and members of the board. Dr. Haddad, we bring to you an a request for your approval for our wild plum contract. We’ve been in partnership with wild club for many years. They’re an excellent provider of early childhood education, you will notice there is an addendum to this. And there it has been a universal increase in preschool tuition across the system. And so that addendum reflects the additional payments that will be made to wild plum for their students a total of 320 per child not to exceed exceed 90 children.

Unknown Speaker 58:56
Thank you, Diane. Any questions from the Board of Education for Diane at this time? I agree with the gianyar. Great program thick.

Unknown Speaker 59:07
Just Hi, Diane. Thank you for this just a question. How many students do we have enrolled in the program? I know it’s a maximum of 90.

Unknown Speaker 59:18
I’d have to get back to you on that. I don’t know exactly how many vileplume has at this at this moment.

Unknown Speaker 59:26
Thank you. It’s a wonderful program. It’s really extraordinary.

Unknown Speaker 59:31
People really

Unknown Speaker 59:33
connect. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 59:36
Right. All right. Thank you, Dick with that endorsement. Would you like to make a recommendation for approval please? I move approval motion. All right.

Unknown Speaker 59:49
I move approval of 8.1 approval of the contract for wild plum center for young children and families.

Unknown Speaker 59:58
And a second by john BB

Unknown Speaker 1:00:01
Mr. Arens Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
Yes. tector parner.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:09
Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan. I am Miss siegrist.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
I thank you, Barb. We don’t have any discussion items this evening. So that does bring us to adjournment. Our next regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting will be Wednesday, November 11, at 6pm. I appreciate everyone being here this evening, thanking everyone for making public education possible in the same brain Valley School District and our community for all of their remarkable support. I would entertain a motion for adjournment, please. by Karen and a second. by john All in favor. Thank you everyone. Be safe.