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Unknown Speaker 0:02
Good evening and welcome to the sabourin Valley schools Board of Education meeting. Please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Unknown Speaker 0:13
I pledge allegiance
Unknown Speaker 0:16
to the United States of America.
Unknown Speaker 0:20
One nation
Unknown Speaker 0:21
under God, indivisible. Hi, Barb,
Unknown Speaker 0:32
can you call the roll, please? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
Mr. Aaron’s present. Mr. Berthold. Mr. Garcia, here, Mr. martyr, Rosa. Miss Pierce, your Mrs. Raglan here and Miss Seacrest
Unknown Speaker 0:45
here. And Barb, have there been any changes or addendums to the agenda this evening? There have been no changes. Great. Thank you. And we don’t show anybody on the signup sheet for public comments. Is there anybody in the audience this evening that’s here specifically for public comments? All right, thank you. All right. That brings us to our agenda item number four, which is our visitors and Don, we first step is healthcare partner recognition.
Unknown Speaker 1:21
Great.
Unknown Speaker 1:22
Thank you, Joey. I appreciate it. And thank all of you for being here tonight. I think it’s going to be a wonderful evening and celebration of our students who have done some pretty incredible things. We would like to start by recognizing some folks who’ve been really instrumental and helping us to get back into school, namely, by expediting the vaccination process for our teachers and staff. And we were able to move through that very, very quickly. And we’re talking, you know, close to 5000 employees and staff and so there was no easy task, but they have done excellent work. We were able to recognize UC health last time. And tonight, we’re very excited about recognizing some of our other partners who’ve done really excellent work in taking care of our children and our staff. So to start out, like the team from nextera to come down, Deirdre Flanagan, Glen Flanagan, Dr. Clint Flanagan, Danielle coolshot, and Katie Harmon.
Unknown Speaker 2:58
We would love to get a picture of you and love to present you to our community. You guys in the healthcare industry are nothing short of heroes. And we’re really, really grateful to you and the seamless way in which you helped us. It means more than words can express. So thank you very, very much. And if
Unknown Speaker 3:37
Thank you. And Don. Next up we have Oh, sorry,
Unknown Speaker 3:43
I got ahead of
Unknown Speaker 3:44
you. You’re fine. That’s
Unknown Speaker 3:46
not a problem. We have. We have our folks from Safeway that are here, Mr. Tony sizes. And Nicky price. Are you here. All right.
Unknown Speaker 4:07
You’re welcome. Come on over here for just a second, if you would, Nikki. You are welcome. Thank you. And when we got this process started, early on, when the governor indicated that there was the first phase of vaccinations that were authorized, and we were going to vaccinate our health care workers and some first liners. This group came through and as with Safeway, and really took a number of people got them vaccinated very quickly. got the ball rolling. And again, you guys are heroes, we appreciate you. All of what you’re gonna see tonight, in large part is because people like you came to the support and to the rescue of our schools with this pandemic. So thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 5:11
And do we have Dr. Tony Pearson here? This is just a in from long my United Center hospital, we got a call on a weekend. And it was a surprise, we weren’t expecting it. But all of a sudden, we were hearing, there were several 100 vaccinations available to us. And if we could mobilize some teachers and staff very quickly, they would get in and get vaccinated. It was one of those calls you just love to get. So thank you very, very much. I really appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 5:49
We’re gonna.
Unknown Speaker 6:00
And we’re recognizing Susan Goldstein from Children’s Hospital. Susan gets a double Thank you, one for the great work and support from children’s, but also is a parent in our district. And we were thrilled to receive that outrage to say, How can I help. And that meant a lot to us. So thank you very much for everything.
Unknown Speaker 6:45
You can see, you know, schools are central to the community. And while this pandemic has been extremely challenging for our students, and our parents, and our faculty and our staff, and everyone, one of the highlights for me is just seeing how a community rallies around their public school system around their children around their teachers around their staff, and turns a crisis into a group team effort that really causes you to feel good about the humanity and the support, and the kindness and the caring and the professionalism that we have seen from all of these organizations. So thank you very, very much. We appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 7:34
We’re gonna go to the next group. Okay. One of the things that is absolutely critical to the well being of a school system, it’s the finances making sure that your finances are in order, and the people who are making important decisions are making the right decisions. And so we’re going to recognize our finance purchasing department this evening. They were acknowledged at one of our last meetings, but we wanted to present them with a superintendents Excellence in Education Award. So if we could have Tracy Burnett come down. Tim Wellman, Diana Cantu. Bill Oliver is not going to be present tonight. Shelly St. Pier, Chelsea Axtell and Janine Waldrop if you guys could come down.
Unknown Speaker 9:05
These folks represent among the very best insane brain and the decisions, they make free up resources so that we can put those resources into the classroom with your children. And so I’m very appreciative for your professionalism, your expertise, and your hard work and your commitment. It makes a huge difference. And a lot of what you’re going to see tonight, we put resources into because of the work that you do to save resources in other places. So thank you for that.
Unknown Speaker 9:49
Thank you, Donna. Appreciate it. Congratulations to everyone on the purchasing team and to all of our community partners. Thank you for helping make this evening possible. works. To welcome many students here with us this evening, and that wouldn’t be possible without your partnerships. Thank you. Agenda Item 4.2 is an update from St. Green Valley schools Education Foundation.
Unknown Speaker 10:20
is Josh here?
Unknown Speaker 10:21
I didn’t that’s I was looking for a minute ago. All right, we’ll come back to that. If we need to. Absolutely. All right, then Don, if you’re okay with it, you know, we recognize the purchasing department, I would like an opportunity to push your superintendents report down and go ahead and move up 6.1, which is the season B athletics and activities report.
Unknown Speaker 10:45
Perfect.
Unknown Speaker 10:46
That would be righty.
Unknown Speaker 10:48
Chase. It’s nice to see you. Welcome. You have a you have a big group with us to see are with you with us this evening. No, I can’t hear you.
Unknown Speaker 11:03
You’ve got to get
Unknown Speaker 11:04
really, okay. Madam President. Dr. Dead, Dr. capetian. Board, thank you for having us. We never mind getting bumped up in the agenda. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 11:15
The ticket to getting bumped up is to bring lots of students.
Unknown Speaker 11:18
Well, they they did a nice job of that. You know, just just a brief overview. We have lots of success in season B. So I’m gonna let those guys talk about themselves. But, you know, specifically I want to thank Jackie and Don, and you guys for your support and making this happen. This year, it was these indoor sports were were rather challenging. We had some very uncomfortable, but productive meetings, Don and Jackie and I met with with Boulder County Health on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day. And, you know, we did all we could to make sure that we made wrestling and basketball part of this and especially to allow some spectators in towards the end of the year to watch their kids. So we consider this this major success on top of the achievements that were completed by the students. So without further ado, there who you want to hear from So first, we’re going to bring up Lyons High School’s assistant principal and athletic director calling for to introduce her athlete.
Unknown Speaker 12:31
Hi, thank you for having us today.
Unknown Speaker 12:33
Dr. hidin. And the board. I am honored to represent the lions community and speak to about the amazing athletes, especially Oren that we have at Lyons. A few thank yous that I wanted to say before I got started, I just wanted to say thank you to chase for being so diligent and supportive of athletics district wide and just constantly being available and being willing to help in any way that he can. So thank you chase, and to Dr. Smith, Andrea Smith, my principal who is always there and just supporting athletics and activities school wide. Additionally, before I start talking about wrestling and Oren, I wanted to thank the coaches, Coach head coach Brandon lor for his diligence and following all of the regulations and expectations so that our wrestlers could have a season. I’m truly, truly grateful. And thank you to Gary ganser, who’s here tonight as well, supporting those young athletes. Before I introduce Oren and Gary, I just wanted to talk briefly about some of our athletics. Our boys basketball team did make it to the state tournament this year in season B and other wrestlers that also went to state were David Gardner who plays third and Christian Keller who plays fifth in his weight class. So they did an excellent job. I wanted to acknowledge their hard work. We also had two students that were all state band and orchestra students, Arjun Waimea and Zach karlstrom did an excellent job with music. So without further ado, I wanted to introduce Gary ganser and our three time state wrestling champion or an huff
Unknown Speaker 14:19
thank you for the opportunity to be here to say a few words about this amazing young man here to my right. My name is Gary ganser. I’m the assistant head wrestling coach at lions High School. You know, there’s I’ll try to keep it brief. But I have a lot of great things to say about this young man. I try my best to keep it brief here. But you know, a lot of people say to me, like when did you realize it that Oren was going to be a great wrestler? And you know, I think I go back to when he was in sixth grade and he had a really hard, tough match that he lost and he came off the mat and came straight up to me at a little tear in his eye. He was only about 85 pounds at that time. And, you know, he just looked at me and said, Coach, you know, what did I do wrong? What can I do better? And as a coach, he had me right there. I knew he was going to be a great wrestler, that’s all you want to hear as a coach? Is your athlete ask you, you know, what can I do to get better? And since that day, he’s never stopped asking that question. Every day he comes in, he puts the work in, and is always striving to be not only a better wrestler, but just a better person. And so he I like to think that, you know, for me, personally, wrestling is more than a sport. It’s, it’s a lifestyle. It’s, it’s something that builds so many traits in these young athletes that they can carry on to other parts of their lives. You know, hard work, dedication, resiliency, and I like to think as a coach, I bring a lot of those and I instill a lot of those characteristics in my athletes. But at the end of the day, when I think about Oren I think it’s vice versa. I think he he’s the one that brought a lot of those things into our program. You know, hard work resiliency, you know, character that really rubbed off on everyone around the entire program. So you know, it’s been a ride and and I’ve just been really honored to be along for the journey. So without further ado, here’s our three time Colorado State Champion to in this year’s to a Wrestler of the Year oranjehof.
Unknown Speaker 17:05
Thank you for having me. Yeah, I remember in sixth grade, I walked into the the wrestling room and lions, and the three coaches there, Brandon Lin, and Gary all they all helped raise me to be the person I am today. It all started and not just in sixth grade, I went out there just wanted to try something new, I thought it’d be a really fun thing to do. And it ended up thinking it was really, really cool. And um, yeah, I just I kept wrestling throughout all the years through middle school. in eighth grade, I joined the club with Gary and um, he just kept, he was always there with me helping me train helping me compete, finding new ways to improve and get better partners and new people. And I went to high school not really knowing what to expect in the, at the high school level. Freshman year was like kind of intimidating. I was just I was didn’t really know what to do. And I just kept wrestling with the club wrestling as much as I could finding new people to wrestle. And throughout the season, kept improving and competing, always looking to get to the next level, and ended up doing really well my freshman year more than I think a lot of people expected I got fourth. And after that I was I was pleased. But I wanted to keep going. I wanted to keep improving. And so that that spring, I set goals and my goal was to get third. And then as the summer went on, and the fall came to be and I kept wrestling and kept kept going and improving. And I’d realized that my goal was really to win that year. And I really started to I started to apply myself more and more to win because that was always in the in my head was I wanted to win state that year. And so my sophomore year, I joined a club, an elite club at bear cave out in Greeley and got more partners and better competition out there better technique and kept improving. And then that year, I had really tough competition I lost to a kid that was in my weight class in my division three times. And I ended up beating the fourth time at the state tournament in the semi finals. And I wanted I want the finals that year. In the following year.
Unknown Speaker 19:13
I
Unknown Speaker 19:15
I decided to leave I took the summer off or I took the summer to wrestle and didn’t didn’t travel. I wrestled and I trained and I competed. I didn’t compete as much but I trained a lot and I just kept having in the back of my mind of just wanting to keep going and keep improving. And Gary was by my side the whole time helping me train. He wrestle with me a whole lot he would he’d beat me up but I keep getting up and I keep wrestling and up getting up and eventually just that in turn into a provement and I ended up winning two more. And then over this year this whole year with the with the Coronavirus and all that. It was difficult to find a Place to train in a way to wrestle. But I kept figuring out how to run, work out lift weights and find partners to come to my house or I go out to Greeley and keep wrestling out there and get coaching. And I just found a way to keep doing it, and persevere through it all. And then this fall found a way to get to some competitions, not as many as I wanted to, but I was able to get to the ones that I needed to. And I had some tough tournaments and some good ones, and just kept learning from the mistakes that I made in all those matches. and ended up winning the third title this year, and had a really fun season with all the lines, guys and the coaches. And it really was an amazing career with all these amazing people. And the great coaching I had coach Gary was like, he was like a father to me, in many ways. And he really just taught me a lot in terms of wrestling and how to be a good person. And usually truly like a second dad. Thank you. Hey, Warren.
Unknown Speaker 21:00
Oh, I tell you one thing before you leave, you know, it’s I know, they started out and they were not going to have the wrestling season this year. And there were a lot of people, your principal, your assistant principal, and others who fought really hard to get that. And when I saw your picture in the paper, hugging your coach, and that look on your face after you won the third state championship. I thought you know, these are the moments that we all went into education for was to fight for kids like you could not be more proud of you. Congratulations.
Unknown Speaker 21:30
Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 21:38
Thank you. Our next one here is Joe Brown. And he’ll be introducing swimmer from Taiwan.
Unknown Speaker 21:52
Thanks, Jase. Dr. Dad, Madam President, members of the board, thank you guys for the opportunity to be here tonight. And to recognize the great things that our kids are doing, not just at NIH a lot, but in the district. And also want to give a huge congratulations. And thank you to the principals and a DS that are here too. They’ve done a tremendous job. And it’s no no accident of as many state championships as we’ve won this year, and same brain. So thank you to those guys as well. I’m gonna apologize. Our coach was not able to be here tonight to a prior commitment. And I’m gonna have to read directly from my phone because the number of accomplishments for Mary is, is that extensive, I don’t want to miss any. So Mary codevilla, she’s the back to back state champion in the 200 freestyle in the 500 freestyle. This year, she set the state record in the 500 freestyle, she’s top 10 and every single in the 2021 season, she set school records and for events this year alone, and she now owns six of the 11 school records at nyuad High School. She had a four time all American and the 200, the 500 and the 200 freestyle relay and 400 freestyle relay. And she’s the back to back Boulder County Swimmer of the Year. And most importantly, she’s a great person. And she’s completely unassuming. But she’s gonna go to the University of Notre Dame after next year. So she’s just a junior. So we have the pleasure of bringing her back to nyuad High School. And we are so thankful for all that she’s done for our programs and continues to do. So without further ado, I’ll welcome Maria codeveloped
Unknown Speaker 23:49
thank you so much for having me here. It’s an honor to be here. I just wanted to thank all of you guys in the entire district for making our season possible because I couldn’t have done the things I did without a season. So I’m, I’m really grateful for all of you. And I wanted to thank my coaches who were unable to make it today. Kyle and Amy for just making the season so fun and so successful especially under the given circumstances. And I’m just so excited for
Unknown Speaker 24:21
next season with them.
Unknown Speaker 24:23
And then the last person I would like to thank is the whole nyloc community for all their support. I’m honestly just so proud to be representing them every time I dive in the pool.
Unknown Speaker 24:33
So yeah, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 24:43
Mary you when you have all of those state championships and you have all those records at nyuad. That’s not an easy thing because there were some really good swimmers that have come through nyuad over the years a lot of different talent and for dad those records is really impressive. Congratulations, were extremely proud of you.
Unknown Speaker 25:02
Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 25:09
Okay, next, we have a familiar face as he continues to establish himself in his programs that meet High School. We have two special guests that he’s going to introduce first that this was chesses inaugural year of girls wrestling. And they are they are first state place or so. And then Chad is also going to introduce the meat boys basketball team. So, Chad, sugar.
Unknown Speaker 25:40
Thank you guys for coming. I’m inviting down our head coach, Mr. Rachel Sallis, who also is she works at Meade high school as well. So it’s great to have someone in person, as Chase was stating that this season was the inaugural year for girls wrestling in the state of Colorado. As they join the ranks. I think it’s 22 other states offer girls wrestling as a varsity sport sanctioned by their state. And obviously, we all know when we got the news wrestling wasn’t going to happen. It was devastating for Coach Dallas and everybody else. And then Luckily, you know, the 11th hour we got that notice that we were going to have wrestling program. And we had to scramble a little bit because with it being a new program, we didn’t want to invest in uniforms and all those things. But Rachel literally jumped the minute we got the ball rolling. Because one thing we want to do is we wanted to make this program the girls themselves and they want to be part of just one team. And so we want to make sure they had their own practice times they weren’t practicing with the boys teams. We wanted them to be their own squad in their own team. And we’re lucky enough to have girls from Longmont joining the girls from high school. So it was a small team this year, which we expected with the restrictions that were put in place for the wrestlers. But I couldn’t be more proud of the the girls and the work they did and coach Alice and her dad helping out from hosting our first ever dual verse legacy high school which was our highest attended webcasted video we had the entire year. That’s what girls wrestling meant to the wrestling community, not just that meet not just that legacy, not just that long month, it started to set a standard and then to be able to go to the regionals. And have Jenna claimed the first ever regional championship for the San Fran Valley wrestling team was amazing. And for Francis to qualify alongside of her was something special. And then for them to get to go down to Pueblo and get to compete and represent meat High School, Longmont High School, San Fran Valley School District, all the girls that have wrestled before them and the boys tournament and all those things. It was a special accomplishment. And so with that, I’m going to introduce Miss Rachel Sallis, who can talk a lot more about Jenna and Francis and what they did. So without further ado, Miss Rachel Sallis.
Unknown Speaker 27:41
Thank you, Chair, thank you, doctor, her dad and board for having us here tonight. I’m going to try not to get emotional because this was a big deal for us. My entire life, my dad has been a coach of wrestling. So I don’t know winter without that sports alongside of us. We did it as a family. And that was probably one of the biggest things that I wanted to bring to these girls, as we started this sport. For those of you that are not much familiar with wrestling, it is a very big family. You spend countless hours in a wrestling room, in a gym doing things that most people couldn’t even fathom. So the work that these girls put in, day in day out two hours of practice every night, going home. So doing all of their work, having to you know, be home, doing school from home every day, and not with their friends showed a lot of commitment to us, as well as the community for what they were able to put forth as far as their efforts in school as well as on the map. So their accomplishments are much more than what their records showed. When we started this, my goal for them was to have fun. It was most important for me for them to enjoy the sport of wrestling but enjoy it in a fun manner and not just put in the hard work, but to enjoy the company of each other as well as everything else that they were doing. Jenna, obviously Chad just said she was our first state place or in the history of St. vrain Valley School District. So she placed first at regionals. She went into regionals undefeated, and came out undefeated. Her record actually only shows one loss, she placed second at state and she lost to the person that she beat at regionals. So that was a tough one for all of us. But she competed and left everything on the mat every time that she stepped foot on the mat, so I can’t say anything more about her and I’ll let her say a little bit about herself. And then I’ll introduce Francis, Jenna Joseph.
Unknown Speaker 29:53
I just first want to say thank you for fighting for us to get a season because without it, I would not have taken second place at this The tournament and we would not be here tonight. And aside from that, I would like to thank you to the coaches that made and the coaches at Longmont who despite not being able to coach me this year, stayed with me and were cheering me on from the sidelines, all that they could. Going into the state tournament, my main goal was to place top three. And once after winning that semifinal match, I was ecstatic, very excited. And losing that last one was definitely not fantastic for me. But it showed me that I am better than I thought I could ever be in wrestling. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 30:53
Francis Hudson was a state qualifier for us as well. This was her first year wrestling. She had tried club wrestling in previous years. But this was her first actual competition within a school. So this was a big deal for her she qualified by winning third place at the regional tournament, where we as a team placed 11th out of 22 with only six girls. So with small numbers, you can still do big things. And with this being her first year, she did not hesitate to take that mat and put every amount of effort that she needed to to make that qualification. So it was a big deal for her to although she didn’t place at state, she definitely left her heart on the mat as well. Francis.
Unknown Speaker 31:41
I want to start off by thanking my coaches for all of the hard work they’ve put in the season. Coach Rick and coach sellers have been really great inspirations to me and to the rest of the wrestling team. And we all thank them for that. Um, I went into this not really knowing what to expect with girls wrestling, I wrestled pretty much only boys when I was in club team in elementary school. And I don’t know, I just love my heart out there. And here we are. Thank you for letting us have a wrestling season this year. And I really appreciate all of the work that went into making sure it was a safe season for everyone. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 32:24
Go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 32:25
I would like to thank the board and everybody that fought for us to have this season because wrestling is not always the sport that everybody hears about. So for us, it was a big deal. And for us to be the first team for seeing Valley. St. Ring Valley, can you talk St vrain Valley for ever, we will be the first team we will be making that we made history. And we are thankful that you allowed us to be able to do that. Well, we
Unknown Speaker 32:51
are very grateful to to all of you coach, and to Jenna and Francis, you’ve made us very, very proud. It was really exciting to watch you guys compete at the state tournament. And you You made me high school proud you made the St. vrain Valley School District prize. And what you’ve learned through wrestling will follow you in life. And so to both of you champions, thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 33:23
It’s always a good day when you get to come back to the microphone after introducing one group. So with that, I’m going to welcome me boys basketball led by Darren Reese up to the stage here. And I’ll do some introductions. I panic when I get here sometimes and I forget the people that we really need to thank that helped this season get to where it is. 186 days ago I just asked Siri how many days ago was the last time this group of young men was in front of the same Board of Education. You guys were gracious enough to honor these gentlemen for last year, not happening. Their final four run being called short literally the day of the Final Four game. And at that point, you know, I there was no promises that that season was gonna happen again, and let alone we’d be here and this group. I know they’re blocking out a lot of people back there so don’t worry about a JP but um, this group led by head coach there and Reese couldn’t be a better group a better representation of meat High School. And everything principal errs and myself have set out for our athletic department, how they interact on the court, how they are in the classroom. We have seven I think we have eight academic all state award winners up here as well. And the list of accolades, we can go on and on. So I’m going to list some of them because it’s impressive. So for the first time ever, we have a two time Coach of the Year for the state of Colorado, not just for the local prep area but that’s head coach there and Reese was the former head coach of the year for the second year in a row. I want to give him a round of applause for that.
Unknown Speaker 34:57
For the first time ever meet high school had the player of The year in any sport in any classification, and that was Mr. Eliza Knutson was named for a player of the year.
Unknown Speaker 35:11
The great thing about this group is after we were all done celebrating because for those that don’t know this is meat High School new need high schools. This is the meat Mavericks first ever state championship. For any team sport, we’ve had individual champions in track and field and wrestling prior to this. This is the first ever Team Championship in team banner, we’ll get to hang in our gym. And so that’s that’s a special standard for everybody. Excuse me, really loud. Boy, I said this group represents so much more all the people standing up here played a role and us winning that championship over Montrose and winning that game that 24 points in the final from who it was on the bench, to everybody buying into their roles. I remember coach Reese and I talked after that a rough stretch and middle of the season. And a lot of people worried about me basketball. And Darrin Reese was not one of the people that was worried about me basketball. He said people are worried about tonight’s game. He said, I’m worried about wanting to play this team a second time. And luckily for us all those teams didn’t get the opportunity to play me the second time as we went through the state tournament win every game by double digits thanks to this crew. But his coaching led this group to where they are today. These boys dedication to their classroom and on the court, not just this year, but their entire lives for those two seniors for the seven juniors for sophomores freshmen, they’ve invested so much time on and off the court. And it shows who they are both on and off the court. There they are great representatives of everything that this district our school in our community stands for. And I can’t be more thankful for this group of young men and what they’ve done for our school. And the celebration has not stopped. There was an unfortunate quarantine that happened after the state championship has postponed our celebration. It’s supposed to be 35. A little bit of snow. And not one person. Our community has been like hey, we’re postponing this again. They’re on board meat loves meat High School, the town, the community, the Firestone community, the Longmont community, they have bought into what we do at meat High School and I’m thankful to be a representative of that group as the athletic director. But I’m gonna stop talking I’m gonna turn it over to Mr. Darrin Reese. Let him talk a little bit about this group of boys. But thank you all again for having us here and celebrating the greatness of meet the greatness of the same Green Valley School District athletics because it’s a special place to be. And that’s why this meeting will take a lot longer. But we thank you guys for getting to show off what we do special in our athletic department. So no further ado, head coach there and Reese.
Unknown Speaker 37:39
All right, thank you. Mr. Eisen. Trager summed it up pretty nicely, but I’ll hit on a few other points. It wasn’t too many months ago, we were here celebrating that 2020 season. And to
Unknown Speaker 37:54
to be here again.
Unknown Speaker 37:57
It’s it’s quite an accomplishment. And it’s a it’s a credit to these guys behind me. The uncertainty of whether we were going to have a season or not, and not being able to prepare in the summer in the fall like we normally do. We literally started out January 18. First day of tryouts weren’t with them any time before that. So it’s a credit to them and the ups and downs of the season. We started out as the number one ranked team in the state, won our first six games. And like Mr. Isaac Trager talked about, we call it kind of a rough stretch, last three in a row. And then we won our last night. And that includes five in the state tournament by double digits. But in every one of those games, there was kind of a moment. And some of them it was right away. Where we were down, we were struggling. And I think that’s where this group kind of really showed themselves and, and you can kind of go either way in those types of moments. And they they banded together and show their real character and couldn’t be any more proud of how they finished and how we finished and got celebrate after we beat Montrose. So quite an accomplishment like Mr. Eyes and trucker said first state championship and the new meet High School. couldn’t be any more proud of that. But I think the thing I’m most proud of is is is how they did it. They represented themselves meet basketball meet High School, the meet community, which is like again, Mr. Eyes and trigger said second to none. And they represented st brain schools really, really well. And I think that’s what I’m most proud of with this group and it’s definitely a special group.
Unknown Speaker 39:52
Thank you
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Whoa, coach, congratulations to you for doing something nobody has ever done in terms of being the coach of the year in Colorado two times in a row and well deserved. You’ve not only taught these young men about basketball, you’ve taught them a lot about life, and they will carry these skills with them for the rest of their lives. My bet is that you will never forget this man. As long as you live, you will have memories about the work that you’ve done with this outstanding coach. The other thing that I want you to know is what you’ve learned as a team will carry you far in life. Because that’s what it’s all about. It’s about team. It’s about caring about one another. It’s about hard work. It’s about resilience. And you guys represent that. And Elijah, I think there was a somebody said, maybe you could give Steph Curry a few lessons on hitting three point shots, because I don’t know what a team’s gonna do. And somebody just keeps sliding it up from three point land. But congratulations to you. Congratulations to all of you as a team. We’re very, very proud of you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 41:15
Okay, before we get to the next one, just just a quick point about the meet community. We were granted additional tickets for the playoff atmosphere, we had 100 tickets, we kept 65 for the home team and 35 for the away team, we showed up to their their their home playoff game. And none of the parents were in there, they they had given all of their tickets to the students. So they that you know the epitome of what culture is there at meet High School. Our next group is from Erie High School. We have a quite a group of young women coming up here. And they will be introduced by Justin carpenter, the assistant principal and athletic director at your high school.
Unknown Speaker 42:17
I know you guys are thinking I’m not the coach of the area high school dance team. I am so honored and proud to be here representing area high school and the whole town of Erie. We’ve been here before with our spirit teams. But now with our dance team, a little bit of the history about dance. They’ve been around for five years at Erie High School. And they’ve come close. numerous times I know of coach Chelsea over here knows the times. But they’ve never took first. This year, as you’ve heard, I’m sure there’s a ton of adversity, they had to wear mass to perform. They had to practice in smaller groups, they had to screen, you can throw everything at a team. And it didn’t faze this group. So very proud of them. The routine that they won with was two minutes long in length. And I think that’s very important. Because in a football game, if you take footballs example, there’s 80 plays, and you’re gonna mess up on one of the plays, you’re not going to excel every play. These girls excelled for two minutes to Wednesday, and they had to perform once, and then get judged on that and then come back and perform again. So they were excellent, perfect two times in one day, which is incredible. So with that being said, I’m going to turn over to coach Chelsea. And she will introduce and talk a little bit more about her team. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 44:07
and thank you for happiness. So yes, it has been a goal. We’ve been working so hard towards this for five years and doesn’t sound like a long time. But it’s a new program and to be in the finals all five years. And we are first runner up two of those years, and a third and a fourth. So we’ve been working really hard. We knew this year was different. But we also knew that we weren’t going to give up and we didn’t know what state would look like or if we would even have a state but we kept going whether it be small groups or a lot of zoom the unseen which is not easy to do or coached by so that was a whole different coaching experience for me too. But we just kept you know the goal in mind and kept working hard and I’m just incredibly proud of all of them. And the other thing to notice, we have Almost half of our team is new members, we have three freshmen. So very exciting. And I also I can bring up our with some of our captains, we have Kyler Caldwell, she wants to speak and then Jojo and Heidi.
Unknown Speaker 45:15
Hello, I’m Kyler Caldwell, I’m a senior this year on the dance team. This year is definitely been crazy and not what I expected from my last year on the team, I moved here my sophomore year, and I love the program. And it’s been great. And I’ve learned and grown so much. And I think this year, you know, it was a hard adjustment, knowing that it wasn’t going to be the same. And my last year wasn’t going to be the same at all. But, you know, we never gave up, we never stopped fighting all of us, I continued to push each other no matter what the circumstances, whether that was online or in person, we just we had hope and just never gave up. So I’m really glad that this was my last season. And I got to dance with all these amazing girls and was coached by an amazing coach, and just had so much love and support by everyone. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 46:13
Hi, I’m
Unknown Speaker 46:14
JoJo, right, and I’m a junior. I’m also a captain, I think this year was just crazy all of the roadblocks that we were handed. And we conquered them as a team, hand by hand. And it was just amazing to experience this year, whether it be a challenge or not. I’m together. And I think the support of our coaches and our families and the whole community was amazing. And I don’t think that we would have been where we are now if we didn’t have all of the support that we were given. So I think we are all very grateful for that. And yeah, thank you guys for having us. Hi, I’m
Unknown Speaker 47:01
Heidi Warlock, I’m
Unknown Speaker 47:02
also a junior and a captain on the team. I’m just so proud of our team this year, because there were so many unknowns. And we didn’t know if we were going to get to compete in person or what it would look like or anything and we just treated it like a normal year and worked possibly as hard as we could and it paid off.
Unknown Speaker 47:20
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 47:26
Is there any questions they want, as for the team or coaches?
Unknown Speaker 47:30
No questions from me. But I do want to say, coach, thank you for your excellent work with these young ladies. And to all of you, you know, they always say that adversity is a prerequisite to getting to the highest of levels. And so the adversity that you overcame, is really something you needed to go through so that you could achieve at the level that you did. And that will take you a long ways in life. So congratulations, we are very, very proud of you.
Unknown Speaker 48:22
We have another group coming up. And this is our high school varsity cheerleading team.
Unknown Speaker 48:36
We are
Unknown Speaker 48:36
small in numbers but mighty in spirit. So again, this is I really thought it was important to separate both of our teams, and separate both of our student athletes and our parents. Because what they did was similar in a sense, but it’s different sports. And it’s a different team aspect. And the interesting thing of note about our cheer team, and I’ll introduce coach Nora Roth, is this is their third consecutive state title at the foray ranks. If you take scoring out of the equation, if you include five in for a, I think they finished third this year overall. So the level of expectation, and that ceiling, that coach you’re off has set is continually going up. And that is a school that I want to be associated with. That’s a team that I want to play for coach. And that’s just a place I want to be. We don’t have a ceiling, she keeps raising it and our girls keep meeting it. So without further ado, Coach Ralph is going to talk about our cheer team.
Unknown Speaker 49:54
Hello,
Unknown Speaker 49:55
thank you for having us here
Unknown Speaker 49:57
today.
Unknown Speaker 49:57
It’s nice to see you every year. I’d like to
Unknown Speaker 49:59
just Put it
Unknown Speaker 50:00
on the books, we’ll just keep coming back. But it’s no, I don’t have to tell you guys how weird this year was. We all know how weird this year was for my kids we normally come in, in April. And we get a routine in June and we practice it for six months, and then we compete it. And this year was completely different. And they got their routine in February and competed it in March and the level, the level of our routine is so high, and they didn’t let them let that hold them back, they could have set a lower bar and done an easier routine. And been just as successful. But that wasn’t us. And that wasn’t where we’ve grown to. And so we continued to do the elite level skills and do the routine that we knew we were capable of, to bring another title home. So I’m just really proud of them for not settling this year. And hope that when they look back on this, and this rough year that this really is something that can highlight it, that they made it through. And not only that they were extremely successful. And so I’m super proud of them for that. I’m super thankful to my families, the Erie, they’ve all been great and extremely thankful to Justin. It’s hard to be a cheer coach at a school and he is an amazing athletic director. And he’s really supported our program a lot this year. And so I’m very thankful to work at Erie High School, and very thankful to have these kids. And we’re thankful to be here today. So thank you so much for having us. Alright,
Unknown Speaker 51:41
is there anything else for any of the
Unknown Speaker 51:45
I just can’t I tell you, there you are an elite group three state championships in a row. I don’t know many I we met a couple earlier. But there aren’t many of you out there, you really done something pretty special. So coach, thank you for working with these young ladies. And to all of you thank you for making us so proud. And you’ve got Bright Futures ahead of you. So very, very good. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 52:22
Okay, we are going to transition a little bit to our to our other side of our department and our fine arts and performing arts. I had some state champions as well. And we were blessed with with one of the nation’s top awards, and we’re going to bring Janae Byrd our fine arts coordinator down to to highlight a few things that happened in our district, as well as tell you about the warden and introduce the next group. Hello,
Unknown Speaker 52:53
madam president, President and Dr. edad, and board. I’m so excited to be here tonight to celebrate all of the accomplishments of our fine arts programs. So I will start with art yesterday, we kicked off our virtual art show. And it features 54 schools and over 14 180 pieces of student artwork. And I would like to thank the communications department and Erin Ford, who I think is back there. So much for helping us transition to a virtual event this year. It’s already been so successful. So that’s pretty exciting. And also I think that we sent you some communications on how to vote for your favorite pieces. So we’d love for you to partake in that. For theater. Our theater programs have done an amazing job adapting their productions this year, despite all the ever changing guidance. And we’ve had three schools that attended and competed in the 57th annual thespian conference. We’d like to congratulate Erie high school who had seven students receiving superior excellent ratings. Frederick high school who had three students receive superior excellent ratings and nyuad high school who had 20 students receive superior or excellent ratings. And on to music First I’ll share about our Allstate events. This year, the Allstate events that happened were for high school and they did not culminate in new performances but they did virtual auditions and unlike sports for music, every audition is not by three a four a five a it’s every student versus every student. So this year, there was a smaller number accepted meaning it was an even bigger honor. And we would like to congratulate your high school who had three Allstate choir students Silver Creek High School who had to all state jazz band students. We have a lot for Allstate orchestra, one for one from Longmont, two from lions, one for Mead, two from nyuad and three from Silver Creek High School. The Chiesa solo and ensemble festival was a statewide competition this year again virtually and we had four Middle School Programs who had students receive high Greetings, students represented the altona middle school choir program, Meade middle school choir, sunset, middle school choir and sunset middle school orchestra. And last is the one I’m most excited about. We found out last week that our district received a national award called the Nam 2021 best communities for music education. And it’s a national award given to districts who are just doing amazing things in music, education. And some of the things they consider are having a large music course offering making sure that music is available to every single student, a large percentage of teachers with master’s degrees or higher, high achieving ensembles and positive community support. We reached All that and more. And there were only three districts in Colorado selected for this award. And we were one of them. So we’re so excited about that. And I’d specifically like to thank all of you in this room for supporting music because and you know, theater and art too, but we wouldn’t have received that award if it weren’t for your support. So thank you. And with that, we have one more exciting award that Pete shuck, the athletic director at Longmont is going to present but do you have any questions that I can answer tonight?
Unknown Speaker 56:08
Perfect. Thank you so much for having me.
Unknown Speaker 56:21
Good evening and thank you for having us here tonight and giving us this opportunity to to recognize the Longmont drumline. I’m going to be relatively brief, mostly because I don’t want to steal David’s thunder and as a general rule, less of me is always way better than more of me. So but a couple things I do want to mention, you know, they’re called the Longmont drumline. As somebody who was mostly involved in sports drumline, as I’ve come to find out is a misleading term. These are not a bunch of kids banging on snare drums. It is a production of, of musical ability and choreography and theatrical. That is just amazing. I mean, they move around and cover an entire gym and play incredibly well while they’re doing it while telling a theatrical story. So what they do is very, very, very impressive and, and shameless plug if you follow me on instagram or twitter at go Trojan nation, there is a clip of performance. So you can you can view that. The other thing real quickly, you know, every year about it, it’s usually late December David Kuzma goes, Hey, Pete, we got to find some some time for the drumline to practice and start preparing. Under normal times with normal practice conditions for all the other teams and cheerleading in basketball, we usually can carve out some pretty good time for these guys. And then this year with the situation being what it is we had to teach back treat basketball is like seven different teams and you needed a 30 minute break between practices and cheerleading needed some time. And so when David came to me, I was like, Yo, man, how you’re gonna have like 12 minutes from nine to 912 every night. But he was patient, we worked with all the groups everybody, he kind of pitched in we found time, but I guarantee it was a lot less than they were used to. And the amazing thing is that the result was still the same, a very, very high quality production. So I give him a ton of credit. And these kids who just worked their tails off. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. David Merrill. Well, thank you, I
Unknown Speaker 58:34
don’t actually want to take any credit for what they do. The we want. I’ve been at Loma High School since 2001. And one of the very first things I did when I came to Loma high was I hired Dave Barba and the coach of these guys, who in the time that he since he’s been hired at Loma High School, he’s won 10 state championships and drum line with his kids have one I should say, just a tremendous leader. This year was as everyone has said, this is a continuing story of all these groups. This was a different year and it was for these guys. When they started out the season. They were not here at Lamont high, they were at home on drum pads, going onto a WebEx meeting and doing rehearsals that way. And when you do WebEx, when you drum, they all have to be muted. So we can’t even hear them. We can just watch their hands. That’s the way the season started in the arts. All these guys took a leap of faith because we had no idea in November what the season was going to be like, would there be any competitions? We just go and do some performances for our families. Would we do any performance will we ever get to get be able to be together and play and they stuck with it. And just the things they accomplished this year really are truly special compared to any other year we’ve ever had. They did when they state championship this year. They also were in the top 15. Nationally they were national finalists, and this year they didn’t rank any of the groups in the top 15. So to be in the top 15 is absolutely the top recognition you can get nationally. In addition to that, they had a nationwide poll last week, pulling everyone on who they thought was their favorite drum line, the fan favorite and Longmont came out as the top winner, the fan favorite national
Unknown Speaker 1:00:38
and because of that recognition, it took caught the interest of the CGN drumline network, which is an international drumline network out of the Netherlands. And so this week, there’ll be submitting their performance tape for that competition. And we’ll find out in May how they do against the rest of the world. So along that drum line, I’ll have Kayden and Sophia come up and talk a little bit. My
Unknown Speaker 1:01:09
name is Caden walk and I’m a junior at Longmont high, I think there’s two things that make this activity possible. The first is the individual drive and determination of every member of the program. And the second is the support of the district, the administration at Walmart Hi, and our amazing coaches and staff over the course of the season. We as members work together, bringing our individual talents to create a unique production. And with the support of the district, we’re able to put this onto an international stage and show the world that Longmont and Saverin Valley can do. So thank you. Hi, my
Unknown Speaker 1:01:48
name is Sophia. I’m a senior at Skyline High School. And I’m just really thankful that we even got to have a season because I’ve been in drumline since eighth grade. So the thought of not having a season senior year was very frightening. But I’m really, really, really thankful that we got to have a season and also that we made World Finals. Like I, I was my freshman year we went to W gi finals, and we didn’t even make semi finals. So the fact that we made finals in this season where we were, you know, in COVID times is crazy. And I’m just so happy that we got to season and that we got to do it all together in person, because it wasn’t looking like we were going to in the beginning when we were online. But yeah, so thank thank the district and the schools and just everyone in this group for making it possible.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:01
David, thank
Unknown Speaker 1:03:02
you for being such a great teacher and a great coach and mentor for so many of our students for so many years here are just a pride and joy of our school district. And thank you for that. And you guys, there was a movie I remember watching drumline It was like one of the things I remember. And we actually did this as a team building activity for our district leadership was one band, one sound. And the coordinated effort of a group of people coming together to create one sophisticated piece of music and make it work in the way in which you did is really impressive. And your national recognition, your state recognition, your perennial championships, really make us proud. So thank you so much. And you all have very bright futures and we are extremely proud of you. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:07
Okay, we have our last group and i would i would say sorry about all the time we took up but I but I’m not sorry. We we had a lot of achievements. And I think they deserve to to show them off. Axl is going to come up and talk about our evergrowing Robotics Club and some of their state championships that they’ve recently won. Good evening, thank
Unknown Speaker 1:04:40
you for having us here. We’re really grateful to to have this opportunity to share the achievements of some of our robotics teams. As I think all of you know this program has really grown considerably over the last seven years. And that’s to the support that the district and our leadership has given this program. Like every group, that’s gone tonight. At the beginning of the year, we of course, didn’t know whether it’d be any kind of season at all. And because of how much this has grown as a community here in St drain, that was a big concern for us because this is a big opportunity and experience for our students to excel. So our goal at the beginning of the year was to just continue engaging students with robotics. I really want to acknowledge Alex downing, who’s not able to be here tonight, but she led this effort, together with Jamie Nesbitt, who’s here as one of the coaches and several other teachers across the district. And they created some online curriculum and opportunities for our kids to learn coding in the robotic context. And so we had several 100 students enroll in that and participate in robotics there. And when things got a better, we were able to have some teams form and participate in tournaments. So in fact, this Saturday, soaring heights will be sponsoring or hosting the state championships for Vex IQ students. So we’re grateful that there was opportunity have some return to normalcy and some competitions. And last weekend was the Colorado State Championships for the older divisions of VRC, these metal robots that you see before you, and we had two highly successful teams, semi colon, which is what the Innovation Center, and 50 to a to five to 800 a anxiety, which is with soaring heights. So I’m going to have asked semi column to introduce themselves just briefly share a little bit about their season and their achievements, which are pretty impressive. And then same for soaring heights.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:36
Awesome. Well, thank you. First off, thank you, Axel. Our team obviously would not be a thing if it weren’t for the Innovation Center. We come from three different high schools silvercreek nyuad, and a long line. And without the Innovation Center, we would not have been able to pilot this program which has awarded off to become right now. We are ranked first in the state of Colorado and at first in the world right now. In the world rankings. Yeah, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:06
And we perform an art world competition in like, in May at the end of May. I’m Tyler flashgear. I’m a sophomore at Silver Creek High School.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:22
I’m Owen decarlo.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:23
I’m a sophomore at Longmont High School.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:26
My name is Sam Fallon and I’m a junior at Longman High School.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:32
Noah Raskin and I am a sophomore at nyuad.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:36
My name is Kate Fallon. I’m a sophomore at Lowell High School. Our season this year was really different. We ended up taking a lot of our stuff to our team members houses so that we could continue working this year, it was a lot of challenges for it was a big challenge for us just trying to make sure we had all of everything we needed through the Innovation Center and making sure it was all stuff we could use. And then we ended up having a big challenge with the season being pushed back a lot. We ended up only being able to compete in a few tournaments this year. But the ones we did have were super great for us in the community. We helped out by volunteering at a bunch of tournaments this year. And for super glad that everyone in Colorado who usually gets to compete, a lot of those teams did end up showing up.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:35
Yeah, and just said there’d be little shy so this is the third year in a row that they have been state champions. The the main awards at these tournaments are a skills challenge, and teamwork champ, challenge champion, and what’s called the Excellence Award, which is an all encompassing award. And so they have won all three of those awards three years in a row, definitely want to give kudos to Westview Middle School’s program, which is where they formed as a team and create the spaces. We just got to inherit them. And my job is to get out of their way. So we’re looking forward for them to be successful at the World Championships and really appreciate their outreach that they provide for students in the district. So thank you guys, and I want to do is Jimmy Nesbitt, who’s the coach for soaring heights. Hi, thanks.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:24
I just want to start by thanking everyone in the board and Dr. Dad and the superintendent’s office for recognizing all of our students tonight is really a great accomplishment for them. And I’m very, very proud. I also just want to thank everyone more importantly for all the support that we’ve received. The same brain has been a tremendous supporter of the competitive robotics program. And the Innovation Center and my principal Cyrus Weinberger have been a really huge part of helping us reach so many students getting to work with these students every day. It’s really apparent for me What a educational impact that competitive robotics has for our students. It’s just an incredible vessel for me to deliver engineering skills, computer science skills, teach them about teamwork, overcoming adversity, problem solving, critical thinking. It’s just absolutely fantastic. And, you know, with with the number of students that we’re able to reach, more kids get to have this experience. So at soaring heights, this year, we actually have 16 registered competitive Vex robotics teams. They range from my the student, that’s a third grader all the way up to we have a few freshmen from Erie high school that we’ve inherited. So we’re really reaching a lot of kids and is fantastic. We were able to host a couple of tournaments this year when we did fully virtually so we had teams that were using WebEx and breakout rooms to go in and compete from their home schools. We had schools as far as California and New Jersey that came in through WebEx to compete with our students, which was fantastic. Next weekend, we’re really excited to be hosting the Vex IQ state championship. And we hope to bring home some more, some more state championships for St. Brain next weekend. And I just couldn’t be prouder of all these students. So I’d like to take some time, just to introduce our students here. So you guys want to come up and introduce yourselves.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:17
So my name is Toby. I’m our team. No Booker, and I also drive the robot. It breaks a lot.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:31
My name is Ryan, and I code the robot and I helped build it. And it’s really annoying to code sometimes.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:45
My name is Anderson, and I guess I just build the robot a little bit.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:53
My name is Braden, I help with building but I would like to say a few words.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:01
That as much
Unknown Speaker 1:12:01
as this team is about the dedication of these boys. It is more about those who’ve supported us along the way, including our parents, Mr. Weinberger, and of course, our teacher, Mr. Nesbitt, they have given us our wings and we are soaring high.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:35
When we started the when you started the robotics program years ago, how many programs do you have now? How many teams do you have?
Unknown Speaker 1:12:43
So in 2014, when this started as a district program, I think there were 13 teams at three, four schools. This last year, before COVID, the season that we had a fully in tax season, we had 175 teams in the district. And we ran 15 tournaments, we had about 900 students involved. And at this point, after Saturday, over these last seven years, we have run I want to say 73 tournaments in that time.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:16
That’s incredible. When you think about from 13 to 170. That’s just like unheard of. and coaches. Thank you. I remember when you were at trail Ridge, when I first met you. And I remember when you started the robotics program here and all the work that you’ve done, and coaches Thank you so much. And to you, young people, there is a world out there that’s waiting for people that can come in and innovate and create. We live in a highly complex, globalized environment. And robotics and technology will touch virtually every aspect of our lives. No matter what your passion is, there will be robotics, and technology, and all of the things that you’ve learned about problem solving and innovation and creativity and teamwork and communication and all of those things. They are going to cause you to be the leaders of our future. And we are looking forward to your future success. So thank you, and we are very, very proud of you. Great job.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:24
Chase. Thank you. Appreciate it. It’s wonderful to have students back at the meeting, and particularly to celebrate, and we thank you for all of your hard work and dedication. I know it hasn’t been a typical year or an easier. Thank you. Yes. All right. We’re going to jump back up to agenda item 4.2, which is the st. Green Valley schools Education Foundation. Hi, Josh. It’s nice to see you. I understand you were at a celebration as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:56
Yes, I was.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:58
Well, thank you. It’s hard. To follow and I see these kids, you know, a lot of our teacher innovation grants have supported robotics. And it’s really neat to see these projects come out to fruition that they are now. So, Axel is an incredible person. These teachers are incredible, too. So, Josh Atherton, Executive Director of the st. Green Valley schools Education Foundation, really happy to be here today, I wanted to give you all quick updates, we can go on with the rest of the program. But what the foundation is doing, by one do a quick report on a couple things we’ve already done. And many of you saw our st. Brain gala that happened back in November, we unfortunately had to do it virtually just due to the pandemic, obviously. And I’m happy to report that not only did we stream it live right here upstairs Innovation Center, which was the most nerve wracking thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, to stand in front of a blue screen and try to act because that is not my specialty. But I see a couple of our skyline students over here go Falcons, because I’m scowling Falcon. And a couple of these students over here. Yes, thank you. Couple of our students over here, were actually part of a live stream that night behind the cameras directing, running the board and everything. So it’s really cool to see them here tonight. And congratulations to all of you really appreciate it. That night, we streamed to a lot of people, we had donors who were donating from North Carolina to New York to California, DC, and over in Europe, which I thought was really neat. And the other really neat thing about it, too, is that we had a ton of participation for people. And we streamed it live. And a lot of people watched it. We had a record amount raised that night for the Foundation, which is really interesting. And I I think going forward, the in person part of that is really, really important to us, we are going to have it in person November 3, this year is gonna be the date. But we’re also gonna do a hybrid for this next coming year rain stream it live like we did this year and also have an in person event too. So I want to say thank you to the staff here at the Innovation Center and the students who helped to stream it live and did a really good job as well. I think want to give a quick report on his teacher innovation grants, we just got done with our cycle for teacher innovation grants. And even during a very difficult year. We go sorry, had different difficult year from a funding standpoint, we actually had a 5% increase on our funding for teacher innovation grants. And that’s a lot to our donors who really stepped up to the plate this year. A third of our about half our fundraising comes from the sunrise Stampede. And we actually had to increase on fundraising for sunray Stampede, even though that we did virtually, again, it just shows the character of our community that when things are tough, our community stands out and helps. And this year, we had over $100,000 worth of projects that were proposed to us. That included nearly 100 applications, we were able to fund $41,716 worth of projects 28 projects for 24,694 for full funding, which is the most full funding we’ve ever done in the past. And we also did partial funding, which is 25 projects for $17,020. We had 19 projects that were in the general category, which is kind of all over the place. We had 19 projects for approximately 17,000 that were for special needs within our district, our district and 15 projects for almost 10 grand within the STEM program to and again STEM programs with the robotics and with those projects, too. So overall had really, really great year we’re teaching innovation grants that proposal proposals were down a little bit. I think the obvious reasons are teachers were working really, really hard, try and do a lot different things. But I would say the quality of the applications and proposal were just mind blowing. They were just really, really neat. We’re putting together a report for projects that had to do with what was going on with COVID and hybrid learning and asynchronous nerdy learning. And so I’m hope to report back to Don with that too, to let him know what our teachers were coming up. And maybe that might be the future of how we deal with problems like this too. Next thing is I want to talk quickly about scholarships. I know that’s going to be on the next agenda here talking about one of our students getting a pretty incredible scholarship. This year, we had over 200 students apply for scholarships for our education foundation. We have approximately $75,000 with the funds available right now. And when it closed two weeks ago, we had 600.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:29
There we go. We had 664 applications that were completed that night are coming up to the deadline there which is a significant increase. One of the reasons why we saw that increase, we went from paper applications for the past how many years to actual online digital applications. It we had a couple bumps in the road, but it was actually really neat because we can see where students were in the process. And then what we did is we communicate with high school principals and the counselors lead now Hey, while I’m in high school, you got 10 students sitting in the query right now. They have not Completed scholarships, here are their names, let us know if we can help with that. And that really helps students because before we went know who finished those applications until we got the applications in hand after the deadline, and so really want to thank our our school counselors and our school, high school administrators for being patient with us, and I think next year is gonna be really, really great as well. tribute to teachers is coming up here and a couple of weeks, a couple of nights ago, I recorded my portion right up there on the stage. Again, it’s virtual. We’re recording everything prior to it mainly just because we didn’t think we can get the people in the room for the event. But we’ve got a great program planned. We’ve got, we had over 900 teachers nominated for Teacher of the Year throughout the district, which was a 50% increase over last year. And again, the community is stepping up and they want to recognize the teachers for the work they’re doing. It made it incredibly difficult for our committee who met and went through all nominations. But they did a great job. And the applications were incredible. We had nominations from students, first graders, which are just so fun to read high school students. And I think you’re gonna be very, very happy with our Teacher of the Year for that.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:10
April.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:12
That is on April 23. At 630, which is a Friday, April 23 630. On a Friday coming up here, we’re going to stream it on Facebook, we’re going to stream it on our Facebook page on our YouTube page as well. And then if you go to attribute live.org, it will take you to that video too. So April 23, Facebook, YouTube and tribute live.org. Coming up here, we have sunray Stampede coming up on August 14, we are planning for a full event, hopefully a full event, but we’re also doing is can be considered a hybrid event. So anyone who feels like they can’t be in person for that event, Silver Creek on April 14, can do the online version that we actually introduced last year, which went really, really well. We’re going to do different categories, competitive categories, and if people do it online, they’ll be put into another category that way, those very competitive people who run 10 K’s don’t feel like they’re competing, it’s someone virtually, but it’s can be we’re really excited about that working through city of Longmont, Boulder County Health to make sure we put on a really good safe event. So April 14, about that as well. And then last but certainly not least, I mentioned earlier, coming up on November 6 is our same brain Valley gala, which again, we’re gonna have a hybrid event for that too. And I’ve got two years, including this year worth of Teacher of the Year district Teacher of the Year and finalists that we’re gonna be inviting to that event. Jeanette Rivera Gonzales from North Ridge elementary one in 2020, during COVID. And her and the other four finalists are gonna be invited to this event so we can celebrate them just do because we can do that in person. So that’s just a very quick, fast update for the foundation. like to open it up to any questions they may have and go from there. Alright, that means it did a good job. I
Unknown Speaker 1:22:57
think that means you did a perfect job, Josh. Thanks for everything. We do appreciate it. We look forward to celebrating the teachers on April 23. Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:05
Thank you all appreciate it. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:06
Take care.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:11
It is my pleasure to introduce our next guest, Greg Stevens.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:15
Are you here from
Unknown Speaker 1:23:15
skyline? Hi, Greg. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for joining us this evening.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:26
Thank you for having us. We’re bringing the team up here. So thank you to the board again for inviting us tonight. I’m Dr. Dad. Thank you doctor collusion. Thank you for having us.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:40
Dina.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:41
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:43
Well, my name is Greg Stevens. I’m an assistant principals guy in high school. I’m also the lead administrator for Falcon tech, which is our P tech program. And I have the privilege of introducing one of our students tonight who has done something extremely special and something first for skyline and first for Falcon tech. And before I do that, I want I want to introduce a few people up here and Jose is going to talk about these people just a little bit. But I want to introduce some people that Jose really wanted to be up here. Louise March who is the lead p tech counselor in St. Brain and she is also our Falcon tech counselor. She’s the heart and soul of our Falcon tech program and everything we do. Jeff Lund, he’s a falcon tech instructor. He also works at the IC. He’s been an integral part in the development of our Falcon tech program and working specifically with Jose. And I also want to introduce Jose his mother, honor who is here with us tonight. And you’re going to hear a little bit about Jose story in just in just a minute. I also want to just make sure we all understand and make sure the board knows this that Jose where who you’re going to hear from in just a moment. He’s a skyline student. He is a skyline theater student. Jose started to Spangler he went to Timberline and he is finished at Skyline, and that when we talk about excellence in our feeder, this is a prime example of that. And we can’t be we cannot be more proud of all the people that have helped Jose get to this place and the community of our of this gaming community. And it’s just, it’s an amazing thing and want to also say thank you to Mrs. ringer. How do you run your own principles, she’s unable to be here tonight. She’s actually getting in a doctoral program. She’s taking a class tonight. And she wanted me to also, thank you for allowing skyline to be here and give Jose, this recognition. So without me talking, Mrs. ringer said they don’t care what you have to say, Greg, they care about what Jose has to say. So without any further ado, I want to introduce our skyline High School Falcon tech student who has earned a full ride to Harvard University. Jose, Carlos Yanis.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:06
Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Stevens. Before I start, I want to thank you guys, board members for being here. And for all the support that you guys give our schools because without you guys, you know, I wouldn’t be where I am today, either. So I want to start off by telling you guys a little bit about my story. So I guess we can go back to when I was very little I was born in Mexico. And I lived in a very rural small town in Guanajuato. That’s the state and my father and my mother and my two siblings, we lived there together. My father used to work in the fields with crops and stuff. And my mother also owned a small school supply shop to help support us. And, you know, even through both those things, sometimes it wasn’t enough for our family. So we did struggle a lot. But then in 2011, all of us, except for my father received their us residency. So we were able to move here to the US. And it was it was difficult to say goodbye to him, and he had to stay behind. But ultimately, we all knew that, by coming to this country, I would have more opportunities, more resources. And if I stayed over there, so we came here, we arrived around Christmas time, like I said, in 2011. And I was I didn’t know it at the time, but I was all set up to start school that following January. I was very scared. For one because I didn’t know how to speak any English. And the other reason was, because when my mother took me to Spengler to enroll me, I found out that the fourth grade teachers, because in Mexico is already halfway up to fourth grade. And I found out that fourth grade teachers, none of them spoke Spanish. And so the best solution for me would be to repeat third grade, where could I have one Spanish speaking teacher, and when English speaking teacher. And so you know, looking back at it now, I wasn’t thrilled at the time to do that. But looking back, it was the best decision I could have made because my teachers and my classmates were very encouraging, especially my English speaking teacher. I remember this one time, we were in class, and she handed me a book. And she asked me to read a few pages for the whole class out loud. And I was sort of shocked that she asked me because, you know, I didn’t know how to speak English. I didn’t know about pronunciation or anything. But she was like, you can do it, you can do it. And so I stood in front of the whole class. And I tried to read from the book as best as I could. And after I was done reading my classmates and my teacher, they all clap for me and cheered me on even though I butchered most of the words I was reading. But it was that encouragement that I received from them. You know, that helped me believe in myself believe That I could master the language. And so you know, after third grade and fourth grade, I became one of the top readers in my class. In fifth grade, I passed the access test, which proved my English fluency. And you know, in middle school, I was in advanced courses, and I was even featured in the long run times call as one of the top 100 people in Long Island. So that was my journey up to that point. And then after that, I was scared all over again, because I was about to started high school, and I got into the PTA program. And so my first day at Skyline would be my first day of high school, but it would also be my first day of college. So I was scared. But you know, it was through the help of people like Miss March, Mr. Lang, Mr. Stevens, and all the teachers are at Skyline, and Falcon take teachers as well who have created this supportive and encouraging environment very similar to how I felt back in third grade. You know, I feel very encouraged, very supported by all my teachers and my classes, classmates. And so I think they’re a really big part of why this program works, and why so many students are successful. And I’m very glad to be a part of it. Even though, you know, and when I was applying to Harvard, I thought that maybe they wouldn’t consider me.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:01
Just because, you know, Falcon tech and programs like p tech are relatively new. So students who have gotten into Harvard in the past, you know, we take a lot of AP classes and stuff like that. But because of P tech, I was more focused on the dual enrollment courses. So I was afraid that maybe they weren’t going to consider me to be as competitive as other applicants. But, you know, I didn’t want to give it a shot. And I almost didn’t apply. Even though it’s been my dream for a while, because the Harvard application was due January 1 of this year. And in the beginning of December of last year, my grandfather, he got sick with COVID-19. And so he was in the hospital, we didn’t know if he was going to make it or not. And, you know, all I wanted to do was be with my family, I didn’t want to do schoolwork, I didn’t want to be up in my room, writing college essays, so I almost didn’t apply. But then I remember something that my mother told me, that kind of opened my eyes. She told me that my grandfather, he would always speak very proudly of me to anyone who would listen, he would tell him how great grandson I am, how great of a student I was. And so she told me, you know, he would want you to do it, not for him, not for me, but for yourself. Because it’s been a dream of yours for a very long time. And it really has, if I was back in Mexico, you know, when I was studying over there in elementary school, I, my dream was always to go to college. But I always saw myself as not being able to fulfill that dream, because of the financial situation that my family and I were in. So, you know, I didn’t want to give up my opportunity to apply to this school because, you know, it’s one of the best universities in not only in the country, but in the world. And like I said, it’s been a dream of mine to apply and to potentially attend for a very long time. And so, I felt encouraged in that moment to you know, apply and even though my grandfather did pass away this January, he’s not here with me and I’m heartbroken that he can’t be here to celebrate this with me, but I do know that wherever he is, he’s proud of me. I I can feel that. And so I’m thankful to him. And I’m thankful to the community here in Longmont. You know, a few days ago, there was this posts made on Facebook, very group called Longmont Latino, and they posted my picture along with my principal Miss ringers tweet. And they were congratulating me and there was so many comments under that post from people that I’ve never met before, who are congratulating me wishing me the best. say how proud they are of me. Because, you know, in a way I represent them to my community. So it was very heartwarming to see all those posts even though you know, I’ve never met those people, but they’re showing me their full support. And, you know, the news even made it back to my small town back in one. I haven’t told anybody, but somehow the news had got over there and my family, my friends, my neighbors from that Then have been calling, my mom had been calling me to congratulate us and to wishes the best. And so I’m very thankful for them as well. Because you know, just like I represent this community, I also represent that community.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:20
And so, yeah, I’m very thankful for them. And I’m especially thankful for my mother who I would not be where I am. Without her, she has sacrificed so much for me, for my siblings, for our well being, you know, it was a very hard decision to move all this way by herself. She has been basically raising my siblings and I by herself. And you know, I’m very thankful to be here. Because back when we were in Mexico, she would sometimes go to bed on an empty stomach, so that my siblings and I could eat. And so, you know, over there was challenging, but moving here was definitely the right decision. And I’m so glad that I get to learn from her and to very proud to be her son, because she’s an amazing woman, very hardworking, and she doesn’t speak any English. She doesn’t even know or didn’t know what Harvard was, or what the I really was, I had to explain those things to her. But when she understood those things, she was truly proud of me. And as I said, I wouldn’t be where I am today, without her full support. And without having her by my side, fighting for my dreams. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:54
That was incredible. And very, very, very proud of you. I would, I would like to know if you would allow us to take a picture with you. So that when you become one of the best leaders, President of the United States and beyond, we can say we had a picture with you. And your love of your mom is, is amazing. And that that kind of love and that kind of caring, is really special. And so thank you for thanking her and, and thinking of your grandfather and your father and everybody else. But you are a true inspiration. And congratulations to you. And we’d love to get our picture with you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:35
Would you like to get in? Touch. You can have
Unknown Speaker 1:38:40
whoever you want in the future. For you
Unknown Speaker 1:39:00
tweeted out so you’re going to get more
Unknown Speaker 1:39:17
postcard.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:38
All right, Don, before we do the superintendents report. Todd, I’d like to give you an opportunity to introduce a couple of folks please.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:48
What amazing achievements It was so nice to have our students back here at the board meetings. Good evening. Thank you. President siegrist members of the board Superintendent had It is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Johnny terell. As the new assistant superintendent of student services, Mr. terell graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He continued his education at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he completed his master’s of education and instruction and curriculum. Mr. trail also received his principal leadership certification for the university from the University of Northern Colorado. For the past three years, Mr. trail has been the Executive Director of Student Services at St. vrain Valley schools where he manages staff members who provide service and support for students. Prior to that at Adams 12, five star schools, Mr. terell served as the Director of Student Engagement initiatives from 2015 to 2018. And as the director, principal and mapleton, school district, assistant principal at live director, Dean teacher, and coach him Adams 12, five star schools and I teach him Adams School District 50. Mr. Trump.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:09
I learned from the other people game before. First of all, I wanted to sincerely say thank you, that the head that proportion, members of the board and all who remain here, it’s truly humbling to serve and support in a role like an assistant superintendent in the school district llega St. Brain Valley, like a district like St. Frame Valley School District. And so with that, I’m excited. I am elated to be able to do so with colleagues and our central administration, and a cabinet with colleagues in our department, our Student Services Department, with colleagues around our school district, at every one of our schools, It’s often said, It’s truly a good day, when you can inhale and exhale. That’s a good day. But it’s a fantastic day when you’re excited about getting up every day and coming to work. And I do so at 430 every morning without an alarm clock. And so I can do that because I know that I’m coming to a place of purpose, that we are truly making a difference in the lives of students in the lives of families and the surrounding community. So it’s an honor and privilege to serve in this capacity. And thank you not going to belabor it the hour is getting long here and I appreciate the opportunity, and you will not regret it. I can guarantee you that.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:42
Congratulations, Johnny.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:48
It is also my pleasure to introduce Miss Emily Scott as the director of special education for St. Green Valley schools. Miss Scott graduated from Miami University of Ohio with a Bachelors of bachelor’s degree in education. She continued her education at the Medical College of Ohio, where she received her master’s of occupational therapy. This Scott also completed the Executive Leadership Program at the University of Colorado Denver. For the past four and a half years Miss Scott has been the special education area coordinator at St. vrain Valley schools, where she provides feeder systems and building administrator support for significant support needs classrooms. Prior to that Miss Scott served as the building Team Leader school special education facilitator from 2014 to 2016, at every elementary school, and from 2010 to 2015. At Meade Middle School. Miss Scott has also served as a school based occupational therapists, clinical instructor and staff occupational therapist.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:55
Hi, I’m I’m both honored and grateful to be here and for this opportunity to serve special education in the district and in an expanded role. I’ve worked with an amazing team. And I’m just happy and excited to continue that work.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:11
So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:12
Congratulations, similar. Todd, thank you appreciate it. All right, Don, that brings us to your superintendents report. You have a pretty tough act to follow this evening.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:28
I do and I think what I’m going to do is just cut it really short. All of the things that I was going to say has been said tonight, except for an update on COVID. So I’ll give you a brief update and then we can move forward with the rest of the agenda. We currently have 13 154 students on quarantine and that ebbs and flows. So it goes up and comes back down as kids come back in 24 staff 59 active student cases and five active staff cases and talking with Boulder County. We anticipate that these will continue to decline based on individuals getting vaccinated as we move forward. Currently 16 year old students and above are eligible for the vaccine. And the request has been made by Pfizer for 12 years old and above. And so we will, between now and the fall, most likely see the majority of individuals vaccinated. boulder County’s one week cumulative incidence rate is 149.8, which is in the yellow one week average positivity is 4.6, which is in the blue and days of declining or stable hospitalizations is that seven which is in the orange in weld county is 193 on the cumulative incidence rate, which is yellow, and 8%. On the one week average positivity rate, which is orange, and eight on the days of declining our stable hospitalizations, which is yellow. We are currently back in four days a week. And then on Fridays, we have a lot of students who are coming in and getting additional support. And we plan unless something were to dramatically change to stay on this pathway throughout the remainder of the school year. And then move right into our summer programming with Project launch literacy and math and those types of programs. So that’s the most recent update.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:14
Appreciate it. Thank you. Alright, that brings us to our consent items this evening. Do board members wish to pull any of those items? All right. Then we have agenda item 7.1. Approval staff termination sleeves 7.2 staff appointments 7.3 approval of minutes for the march 10 2021 regular meeting and the march 17 2021 study session 7.4 approval of recommendation to hire Assistant Superintendent of Student Services 7.5 approval of recommendation to hire Special Education Director 7.6 approval of change order six to construction manager general contractor cmgc contract for spark discovery preschool renovation project 7.7 approval of change order nine two cmgc contract for nyuad High School renovation project 7.8 approval of change order one two cmgc contract for Columbine elementary school renovation project 7.9 approval of contract award for district wide as radio communication and repair project. seven point 10 approval of amendment to cmgc contract for Longmont estates elementary school renovation project, seven point 11 approval of amendment to cmgc contract for Westview Middle School renovation projects. I would entertain a motion for approval please. so moved by john. Seconded by Karen. Hi.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:56
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:57
Yeah, yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Ragland. Ms. siegrist.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:04
I thank you, Barb. I’m just looking at the time real quick. It’s 748. Let’s go ahead and vote to extend the meeting. I would entertain a motion to extend the meeting until 815. Please. So move by Jim in a second. Second, by Karen.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:24
Mr. Arens Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan. I am Miss siegrist.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:34
Thank you, Barb. Probably wish I did that until 830. But agenda item 8.1. Is the recommendation for adoption of resolution proclaiming tribute to teachers today.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:56
Did you want me to read this? Or what would one of the board members like to read this?
Unknown Speaker 1:49:00
And Sure, absolutely. I didn’t know if you wanted to introduce it. Or we can just go right into reading it in the interest of time since Josh did
Unknown Speaker 1:49:09
you did touch? Did we talk
Unknown Speaker 1:49:11
about it?
Unknown Speaker 1:49:11
We’ll explain much of it throughout.
Unknown Speaker 1:49:14
Great. Sounds great Chico, would you mind reading that this evening?
Unknown Speaker 1:49:25
All right. Resolution resolution tribute to teachers day may 4 2021. Whereas the same revised School Education Foundation supports St. brainvire School District strategic plan and provides supplemental funding to enhance teaching and learning in our classrooms. And whereas 1984 the National PTA has designated the first full week of May May 3 through the seventh 2021 is Teacher Appreciation Week. And whereas the same nearby school, schools of education foundation is is virtually presented to the 14th annual tribute to teachers event on April 23 2021. that pays tribute to st revised school districts teachers for this week of recognition, and whereas communities and schools will unite virtually to celebrate educational, professional educational, professional teaching, and show appreciation to the teachers for inspiring a thirst for learning in our youth that will last a lifetime. And whereas the foundation’s fourteens tribute to teacher teachers program, which includes virtually recognizing a teacher of the year from every school, and a teacher of the year for the district provides the opportunity for students, parents, community members, and business partners to show appreciation to teachers who exemplify excellence in teaching. And whereas schools businesses and communities play a vital role to ensure the success of the tribute to teachers program. Now therefore, be resolved that the same green bicycle District Board of Education podcast proclaims may 4 2021 as tribute to teachers day in our school district, and we urge all staff, students, parents and community members to support this ritual event to take some time to show appreciation to our to a teacher for providing our youth with a gift of learning. Adopted improved April 14 2021.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:29
Thanks, Chico. Appreciate it done.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:31
Yeah. Thank you, Chico. And I would like to also recognize Steve Mr. Steve Villareal, who’s here this evening, who is the president of our Teachers Association, longtime outstanding teacher in St. reign. wonderful person. And thank you for all you do for our children and our teachers and our staff and our community. And thank you to all of our teachers as well for their outstanding work, Steve, thanks for everything.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:53
Steve, thank
Unknown Speaker 1:51:53
you. And we look forward to celebrating the teachers on April 23 every day, but especially events on April 23. I would entertain a motion then for approval for action item 8.1. Moved
Unknown Speaker 1:52:06
by Chico second
Unknown Speaker 1:52:09
by Dick. Right.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:13
Mr. Arens? Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes, Mr. Garcia? Yes, Dr. martyr? Yes, Miss Pierce. Hi, Mrs. Raglan. I am Miss siegrist. I
Unknown Speaker 1:52:25
am action item 8.2 is the adoption of resolution proclaiming teacher substitute Teacher Appreciation Week may 3 through seventh 2021. Todd,
Unknown Speaker 1:52:36
thank you. Each year proclaiming these dates as Teacher Appreciation Week and substitute Teacher Appreciation Week helps promote public awareness of the importance of the role of teachers in public schools. As much as any group of employees, the teaching staff is a valued and integral part of providing quality instruction for the students of the st Grand Valley School District. It is the recommendation that the Board of Education adopt the attached proclamations in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and substitute Teacher Appreciation Week, may 3 through May 7 2021.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:10
Thank you, Todd and Paul is going to read that resolution this evening.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:14
I’m happy to
Unknown Speaker 1:53:17
Teacher Appreciation Week Proclamation. Whereas today’s teachers mold future citizens to their guidance and education. And whereas today’s teachers encounter students of widely differing backgrounds and abilities, and whereas society expects public education to provide quality services to all children, no matter what their backgrounds or abilities, and whereas the country’s future depends in large measure upon the education youth received today. And whereas teachers are charged with the daunting task of assuring that no child is left behind by public schools. And whereas teachers spend countless hours outside their classrooms, preparing lessons evaluating progress, counseling and coaching students and performing community service. And whereas the St. vrain Valley School District recognizes that as teachers are providing quality educational services to our children. Now therefore be it proclaimed the week of May 3 through seventh 2021 is Teacher Appreciation Week in our communities. The st. Green Valley School District urges all citizens to join in recognizing the dedication and hard work of our teachers by expressing appreciation for a job well done. proclaimed Wednesday, April 14 2021.
Unknown Speaker 1:54:33
Thanks Paula. Read the substitute. Yes, please.
Unknown Speaker 1:54:37
The second resolution addresses substitute Teacher Appreciation Week Proclamation. Whereas the St. vrain Valley School District joins the nation in recognizing substitute teachers as an essential part of the district’s education system. And whereas substitute teachers are dedicated to providing quality instruction for the students of the district and demonstrate their commitment to giving time, energy, effort and talents in the best interest of all students. And whereas I just clicked off of it, whereas the substitute teachers of the district provide an invaluable service of teaching students in the absence of their regular teacher in a most professional manner, and play a vital role to ensure the quality of students education. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed the week of May 3 through seventh 2021 is substitute Teacher Appreciation Week in our communities. The St. vrain Valley School District urges all citizens to join us in saluting these dedicated men and women proclaimed Wednesday, April 14 2021.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:41
Thanks, Paula. Appreciate it. I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.2.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:48
shall move
Unknown Speaker 1:55:49
by Jim and a second second by Dick.
Unknown Speaker 1:55:53
Thank you. Mr. Arens Hi, Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr. Yes. Miss Pierce, aye. Mrs. Raglan. And Miss Seeger. If so I’m sorry. I
Unknown Speaker 1:56:09
write Actually, I’m 8.3 is the approval of secondary language arts arts materials adoption.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:18
I kale.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:24
I’m excited to learn more about this.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:27
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:56:30
Thank you to the board. Thank you, Dr. Dad, Dr. solution. My name is Zack Chase. I’m the secondary la coordinator for the district. I’d like to recommend bring forward the recommendation on behalf of the secondary pilot teachers to adopt the curriculum materials for secondary era grades six through 12. We began this process in spring of 2019. With the secondary la leadership team, unanimously approving the development of new curricular resources by district teachers. A design team of 31 teachers representing all secondary schools began the process of drafting those new resources shortly thereafter. The curriculum sets rigorous expectations of academic excellence for St. vrain students while allowing for greater choice and adaptability of resources to meet the needs of individual students. Using backward design. The units presents students with broad essential questions each quarter, and utilize in depth reading, writing, and research tasks to move students closer to thoughtful answers to those questions. Additionally, because of the homegrown nature of the resources, we will be able to review and revise the resources in much shorter cycles, rather than waiting for traditional curricular adoption cycles of seven to eight years. Finally, because these resources were developed by st frame teachers, they come with a sense of ownership, impossible to achieve as a prepackaged program. Also as the former chair of the Colorado standards review and revision Committee for the reading, writing and communicating state standards for 2020. I can attest that the materials can fully align with the new 2020 Colorado academic standards and support the content best practices in English language arts, learning and teaching. Additionally, to those resources, the Committee recommends the purchase of licenses for commonlit.org and writable comm as supporting reading and writing platforms, the committee further recommends the adoption of commonlit and writable resources for the curriculum. Input through this process was gathered from pilot teachers, students, parents, non pilot teachers and the community. After building the resources of the pilot program, piloting the program for a year, and gathering input about the selection, the Committee recommends our curriculum titled lenses that the same to the board for adoption. feedback from students, parents, school administrators, teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. Teachers and students find the resources to be engaging with greater choice than traditional language arts resources, and a suite of assessments that better reflect what students know and are able to do. I believe the board packet has an outline of the costs line by line the total cost including professional development for these resources is $946,000 $590 for fiscal year 2021, based on enrollment projections for the 2122 school year. Not going to go through all of the financials on this one. But I would like to welcome up two teachers in just a second. And our adoption is a little bit different for a number of reasons. Our pilot is a little bit different for a number of reasons. When The pandemic started last year. And we moved into all virtual. I had the pleasure of sending out an email to all of our secondary la teachers, asking them to raise their hand and pilot completely new curriculum, not knowing what they were going to be doing or how they were going to be teaching in the fall. Not only did we get almost 50 teachers raising their hands throughout the course of this pilot, we picked up pilot teachers who heard what was going on and wanted to be a part of it. representing that pilot team today, we have Meghan Mueller of Erie High School, and Jenny wrote armor of Westview Middle School. Not only were they pilot teachers, they’ve both been part of day one when we started the design process, Megan. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 2:00:51
Alright, I’m Megan Mueller, and I’m a current high school teacher at Erie High School. And I’m the representative I guess of our high school curriculum here tonight. I’ve been teaching for about 10 years. Several of those were at another district and then I’ve come here. So when I heard have an opportunity to be a part of this curriculum design I left at it, we were part of it from start to finish. In the design phase, middle school and high school teachers join forces to tackle vertical alignment for consistency in all schools across SV VSD, creating engaging standards based lessons and assessments, and curate a wealth of resources using new platforms like commonlit and writeable. The pilot promotes efficacy in teachers by using a menu style selection process for extended text short literary and informational texts, writing assessments that can be applied to a variety of learning opportunities. This curriculum is an effective option for student centered learning because it provides for student choice in both texts they read, and products they produce. Additionally, common lent encourages flexibility in the reading levels and differentiation within the program, all unified by essential question or theme. Additionally, there’s the design team intentionally selected text to promote diversity and inclusion to reflect differences in gender, sexuality, culture, language, ethnicity of students. A diverse and responsive curriculum creates a realistic, balanced and authentic experience for students to both consider perspectives different from their own, or align with characters and authors who speak to their experiences maybe for the first time in their academic careers, to develop empathy, and acceptance in our student body and our greater community. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:02:43
Good evening, I’m Jenny wrote armor and I have taught language arts to sixth, seventh and eighth graders at Westview Middle School. for 13 years out of the 30 years I’ve been a teacher. In that time, I have always taught using the state standards and backwards design starting with the end in mind. It has been so exciting to have been part of the leadership team from the beginning of this effort to develop a curriculum for all English language arts teachers in the district that embodies those best practices. This new curriculum has a solid base in teaching the standards in a way that helps students to master concepts at each grade level before moving on to the next. The skills and tasks are spiraled over the year for students to truly help them to learn how to become better readers and communicators. The themes and essential questions help both students and teachers to have a clear focus for each module. These essential questions also give students big ideas with which to wrestle as they work through the text and writing tasks. There’s enough structure for new teachers to feel confident, as well as enough choice in text and writing tests for veteran teachers to create the specific needs and culture of their learning community. The two online platforms of the curriculum commonlit and writable are an added benefit to both students and teachers. Common lid has over 2000 reading passages for teachers to choose from, with research based questions that are aligned to standards as a writing program writable enables students to receive actionable feedback is an iterative process that helps them to master skills and increase their ability to become better writers. Some final benefits of this curriculum for students are related to choice of reading material, and authentic audiences in writing and research. Because of this choice, they have a greater chance to be able to see themselves in the books they read, which helps them to better connect with the text. The writing test also benefits students, these tasks were written with a student perspective in mind, and often have an audience outside the classroom making the task more authentic, and therefore more relatable.
Unknown Speaker 2:04:49
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:04:54
That concludes my remarks.
Unknown Speaker 2:04:57
Great, thanks stack. I do want to give board members an opportunity to ask questions if anybody has any comments or questions. deck?
Unknown Speaker 2:05:07
Yeah. Thank you for that very thorough presentation. And in particular for this teachers perspectives.
Unknown Speaker 2:05:18
I just wanted to confirm what I thought I heard you say that the curriculum that we’re adopting, is in full, I guess, compliance with and approved by the state board
Unknown Speaker 2:05:32
is in full compliance with the state standards. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 2:05:35
And has the state board recommended that list of curriculum from which we would
Unknown Speaker 2:05:41
not at the secondary level?
Unknown Speaker 2:05:44
That’s what I thought.
Unknown Speaker 2:05:44
Thank you. Thanks, Chico.
Unknown Speaker 2:05:48
Yeah, I just wanted to say thank thank you for that report. It’s exciting to see the process that that we went through to get there and, and everything that’s detailed here, and especially just wanted to thank you for, for reading the comments around diversity, equity, inclusion, and being a focus of, of what we’re doing. That’s important for me to hear that important for us to hear that I think so. Thank you for considering that in the process.
Unknown Speaker 2:06:15
Hi, thanks. Thanks for coming tonight. And thank you for the report in the packet, it really was quite thorough, like kind of going through the process and what the objectives and the goals were. I was just have we ever done this before? as a district? I don’t remember us. Yeah, no, we’ve never written anything. I think this is amazing. Like, amazing, this just going from six to 12. And not like, we were having a conversation earlier today about how so many of the traditional boundaries of education are crumbling away. And this is the example of one where we can really get in there. Do that backwards design, target the learning styles and interests of the students get them engaged. I mean, they still, they’ll still be in the seventh grade, but they can go much farther beyond whatever that means. or not, you know, or stay there and really master those skills at a specific level. So it’s so flexible, and it’s so engaging, and this is really awesome. I’m really impressed. Thank you so much. Thank you worth every penny, I
Unknown Speaker 2:07:14
think.
Unknown Speaker 2:07:17
I agree. Polly kale. Did you have anything? I just wanted to make sure you I’m not asking you to speak I just you walk down like you You thought you might want to I didn’t want to leave you out? No. Or you can say no. I wouldn’t think so. I’m just gonna echo every everybody else’s comments. And one thing that that stuck out to me stuck out to me, Zack, and I was so pleased that you mentioned and it also was the ability to review and revise. I’m not a curriculum expert. So I’m relying on all of you. You’re the experts. But I believe that that must lead to a greater relevance. And a little bit more simply so fantastic. All right, then if you don’t have any other comments, I do want to thank you for being here. This was a long meeting. We did have many things to celebrate and we are grateful for the students and grateful for you for all your work and and staying here with us this long. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. All right. With that, then I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.3.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:21
so moved
Unknown Speaker 2:08:22
by john.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:24
Second.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:25
by Karen. Mr. Arens Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce, aye. Mrs. Raglan. And Miss siegrist I
Unknown Speaker 2:08:43
kale, now I know why you were you were heading down here action item 8.4 is the approval of the E credit instructional materials renewal.
Unknown Speaker 2:08:52
Thank you presidency, Chris, members of the board of education Dr. Dad, Dr. capetian. I bring forward for your consideration and approval renewal of our edmentum licenses. Ad mentum is a program that we use for our E credit recovery program. It also has uses for middle school it will be used in middle school project launch this year as part of the program not the entire program. But in the station rotation in a blended learning environment. We also use the program of for some one offs. For example, if we have a student who might be experiencing some behavioral issues, and needs to take some time out of the classroom, we can put them into this program temporarily, while behavior supports are put in place and then get them back with the goal of always getting them back in there. And I work with principals on doing this. It is a cutting edge program. It’s adaptable. It’s fully aligned to the Colorado academic standards, which is really good and we can adapt it some of our needs to like our health classes that we go through with this. But more than just having a really good program. I want to say just real quick a little bit if the board will give me a little bit of latitude This is really about the people that Institute this program. We have up there, she took a break from our doctoral studies, Ashley Swanson, one of our credit coordinators, and Casey luchar, who oversee this program, our principals and more importantly, our teachers who go through and work with these students after school on the weekends, during the summer. And it’s really amazing what they can do. Also, this program affords students to have ownership, they get to control the pace in the place many times and then have the affordability to go in and get small group instruction. With the teachers. It’s a real good program for skill set. You can see we’ve been using it, we just went for a short cycle adoption the first time, kind of what Zach was saying, you know, that seven year we wanted to see where this would go. So we only did it for three years of first time we really liked the results. The feedback we get is just really, really positive. It’s rigorous. In fact, we’ve had some students that have actually and this has been confirmed by me for some teachers that have got up in their classes and told that their classmates, listen, if you think credit recovery is that easy. You’ve got another thing come and get it done right now. Because this is a fully rigorous program. So that’s all the remarks I have any questions I’d be happy to answer.
Unknown Speaker 2:11:17
Thank you kill any questions. All right.
Unknown Speaker 2:11:22
Then I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.4. Some bike, Paula and a second. Second, by Jim.
Unknown Speaker 2:11:35
Mr. Aaron’s Hi, Mr. Birdsall. Yes, Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan. I miss Seacrest
Unknown Speaker 2:11:45
I kill thank you for staying this evening. Thank you. I
Unknown Speaker 2:11:48
appreciate it. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 2:11:52
action item 8.5 is the approval of fiscal year 21 transmittal form for Esther to funds. Hi, Greg, thank you for staying this evening as well.
Unknown Speaker 2:12:02
Thank you. So we’ve done this a couple of times, we did it with S or one funds. And we did it with monasteries successfully getting students back in the classroom grant. But what this is a requirement from CDE that basically says that we know and understand and will fully comply with the rules and regulations associated with s are two, which is kind of that third component of the cares act. And so this is something that we have to submit to the state as part of our approval process with our budget in our application.
Unknown Speaker 2:12:39
Thank you. I don’t imagine there’ll be new questions. Paula. Greg,
Unknown Speaker 2:12:45
I just had one quick question, because the form itself says fiscal year 2021 to 22. But the memo sided fiscal year 21 which just Can you please clarify which fiscal year it is?
Unknown Speaker 2:12:57
It’s 2021. We have to put our budget in but in the span goes for both fiscal years 21 and 22. So it’s it’s not that it expires in 21. It’s that it covers both fiscal years.
Unknown Speaker 2:13:11
We’ll be spending it through 2020.
Unknown Speaker 2:13:13
Yes, that’s what’s allowable to be expanded. Okay. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:13:18
Thanks, Paula. I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.5. By Chico? A second. Second,
Unknown Speaker 2:13:28
by Paula. Mr. Arens? Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce, Mrs. Raglan. And Miss siegrist. I,
Unknown Speaker 2:13:43
Greg, you also have action item 8.6, which is approval of the fiscal year transmittal form fiscal year 21 transmittal form for those SF three funds.
Unknown Speaker 2:13:54
Yes, and this is similar to S or two and the previous ones, except this is the one that’s coming out of the American rescue plan. And so these are the new funds that are coming down through they’re calling it s or three, but it’s basically not out of the cares act. It’s out of the American rescue plan. And I can give you some details next week. I think I’m scheduled to talk a little bit about federal relief funds and those types of things and give you some details on what all’s involved in s are three.
Unknown Speaker 2:14:23
Great, thanks. I was actually just going to mention that that you’ll be talking about that at our study session next week. Yes. So if there aren’t any questions or comments, I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.6.
Unknown Speaker 2:14:35
So move. Was that?
Unknown Speaker 2:14:39
Jim? Okay, it’s hard. I can’t tell the difference between y’all over there. Jim Barba and then john.
Unknown Speaker 2:14:48
Mr. Arens Aye Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr. Yes, Miss Pierce, aye. Mrs. Ragland. And Miss secrets.
Unknown Speaker 2:14:58
I
Unknown Speaker 2:15:00
Greg, you’re on a roll action item a point seven approval of vendors for the purchase of surplus technology products.
Unknown Speaker 2:15:07
Yes. So this is going through a process of qualifying vendors who have the capacity and the capability and desire to buy some of our surplus technology. And so we went out with a request for qualifications. And based on basically had people apply, we got nine responses in December, we reviewed those based off of the vendors expertise in years of operation, their project team, their proposed services, Industry Certification through data sanitization and recycling. And then we also did reference checks and financial background checks, to fully vet them to make sure that they could actually, one afford to pay us for it, too, they were going to follow the proper procedures so that we have zero waste, you know that most of the stuff that we will probably do, they will repurpose, it’s not like it’s going to be recycled, it will be repurposed. And they were also required to show a date sign a data protection addendum, so that, you know, if we, if we did have anything on our devices that they would take care of that on, we typically clear them off ourselves. But if if something’s there, they need to sign it and take care of it. As a result of that, we found six firms that were were selected as pre qualified vendors, or what we will ask for you to approve. We did this process probably three or four years ago, and pre qualified some. And we just felt with the with what’s going on. We knew we were getting towards the end of our iPads and would need potentially need to refresh them went through this process. And we’ve identified these six some of them which are new, some are existing. So we’re asking you to approve those, those vendors tonight.
Unknown Speaker 2:16:59
Great. Thanks, Greg. Pretty straightforward. Questions, comments? JOHN,
Unknown Speaker 2:17:06
you mentioned that you are going to repurpose instead of reuse is that due
Unknown Speaker 2:17:10
to the length or the age of the product?
Unknown Speaker 2:17:14
Potentially? Yeah, I mean, when you take a look at the iPad lease that we just entered into, part of the reason and timing for that was because the value of what we have right now, in in our current devices, gives us a lot more reap a lot more selling power than if we were to wait until November when we were originally established to do it. So just looking at that they will buy it back. And then they take and they sell it to potentially other school districts. Other places that that need those. Maybe they’re not obsolete devices, but their people can get them for low cost. And we’re looking at basically a three year turnaround time right now. Is that correct? We just finished our our fourth year. Okay. And so the lease we entered into was for a three year, but that doesn’t mean we have to sell them. At the end of three years. We could extend that lease if we needed to, to a different subject. But I’m just curious if we were to have a two year window or a three year window, would that be more of a reuse period or
Unknown Speaker 2:18:26
fall into the
Unknown Speaker 2:18:27
repurposing?
Unknown Speaker 2:18:29
You know, I don’t know if there’s a definite term there in terms of that, but, but they would definitely be repurposed as these are. What we would sell from what we have coming up is our devices that can be reused or repurposed. They wouldn’t be recycled. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:18:50
All right. Thanks, Greg. Everybody else? Good. All right. Then I’d entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.7. so moved by john in a second. Second, by Karen.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:06
Mr. Arens Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes, Miss Pierce. I miss this raglin. I miss siegrist. I
Unknown Speaker 2:19:19
thank you, Greg. Thank you. Appreciate it. Our final action item this evening is a point at the approval of teacher contracts 2021 to 2022 non renewal notices.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:31
I Todd.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:36
I bring forth the recommendation that the Board of Education approved teacher contracts for all probationary and non probationary teachers currently employed but the St. vrain Valley schools with the exception of those listed on the board agenda item.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:48
Okay. Thanks, Todd.
Unknown Speaker 2:19:51
I just want to make sure I didn’t interrupt you. No, that’s fantastic. All right. If there are no questions, I would entertain a motion for approval of agenda. Item 8.8, please. so moved by Karen. Second. And Paula.
Unknown Speaker 2:20:08
Mr. Aaron’s Hi, Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Ragland. I am Miss siegrist. I
Unknown Speaker 2:20:20
thank you, everyone. Our final agenda item this evening is a discussion item. It’s 9.1, which is the Colorado Association of School Boards update from our kaspi. elect President Elect, Dr. Richard martyr. Dick, I’m wondering if you would be so gracious as to allow us to reschedule your agenda item to the next regular meeting, which would be two weeks from this evening.
Unknown Speaker 2:20:46
I would graciously accept that opportunity. Right.
Unknown Speaker 2:20:50
Thank you, Barb. If you could go ahead and get that moved. That would be wonderful. All right. Then I do just one more time want to thank everyone for staying late this evening. I hope that you feel the same way that I do. And that recognizing and honoring our students was absolutely worth that extra investment. I want to thank everybody who made it possible for us to have the meeting here at the Innovation Center. appreciate all of your work. I’m sure that wasn’t overly simple. Thank you, and also the Innovation Center for hosting us this evening. We’ll look forward to seeing everyone next week for a study session. That’s April 21. At 6pm at Erie Middle School will be in your neck of the woods, john.
Unknown Speaker 2:21:33
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 2:21:34
With that I would entertain a motion for adjournment. Please. by Karen and a second. by john All in favor, aye.