Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
Come to the state Grand Valley schools Board of Education meeting. Please join us in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Unknown Speaker 0:07
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
Unknown Speaker 0:26
Barb, can you please call the roll this evening?
Unknown Speaker 0:29
Mr. Arens absent? Mr. Berthold here, Mr. Garcia here after murder present scarce here, Mrs. Raglan absent and Miss siegrist here.
Unknown Speaker 0:39
Thanks, Bob. Appreciate it. Were there any addendums or changes to the agenda this
Unknown Speaker 0:44
evening? The only change it sounds like we’re going to do our students first instead of audience participation.
Unknown Speaker 0:50
That is correct. In the interest. We know that our some of our students, we’re gonna say all of our students are anxious to get home and study. And so it is yes, we like to honor that and not have them Wait, wait too long. So with that, I’m going to go ahead and jump to agenda item. Four 4.1 to be exact, which is the Longmont High School medical and bio Science Academy. Not sure. I’ll grab looks great. Yeah, move around to absolutely sequency please do.
Unknown Speaker 2:29
That’s good, David. Good job. Well, good evening, everyone. It is my honor to be principal of Longmont High School. My name is Jeff MacMurray. And I’m going to give you a little bit of background on some of the great things that are happening at Longmont High School. And they have been for many, many years. And we have some amazing students to share tonight, and we’re just so thankful that we have the opportunity to do so in person. And just share a little bit about the the hard work and the great things that are happening at lfhs. This is the medical enviro Science Academy. And the just a few of our students from a program that just continues to grow. It was started in 2013. And that originated as a vision from Dr. martyr who thankfully sits on our board. And Jackie violin, who is a retired Longmont, high school science teacher and current Longmont, high school science teacher, Chris Chow. They brought this vision of creating a focus and an experience for all of our students in the sciences to really dive deep into what does it mean to be in the sciences? And what does a career look like in the health sciences. And that first cohort was 43 students. And we are currently over 200 students and the work just continues to grow. And the experiences are just amazing to to listen to and how how well they are received not only by the students, but our community. And we’re so thankful that Longmont High School has roughly 50% of our students open enroll. And the mbsa program is one of the guiding lights, the shining lights for for that purpose. And so without further ado, I’ll turn it over to Erica Hatton. And she’s one of our coordinators and she will share not only the mbsa, but an extension known as the smart team. And they’re fantastic. We’re going going on there as well. So thank you for your time tonight. We appreciate you. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 4:26
All right. As Jeff said, I’m Erica Hatton. I’m one of the coordinators of the medical and bio Science Academy. And I’d like to begin just by thanking you all for having us here and for your continued support of our program. And that’s on behalf of myself and my co coordinators Chris Chow and Elizabeth Ferguson. So the medical and bio Science Academy is a rigorous four year program for students who are interested in medicine, health care or any field within the bio sciences. And they begin their journey as freshmen in the introduction to health care foundations course. Where they learn a lot of skills, including CPR first aid certification, they learned to suture. They participate in a bio engineering lab hosted by Medtronic, they tour Longmont united hospital, just to give you an idea of some of the experiences that they have. They also hear from many medical professionals who come into the classroom as guest speakers. So that kicks off their journey in the program. And between that time and their senior year, they’re required to take two additional mbsa pathway courses. And they get to choose from a menu of options. We offer nutrition and wellness, anatomy and physiology, biotechnology, forensic science just to name a two. So students really start to see which courses align with their personal interests and pursue their own paths. Senior year students are able to apply and hopefully all of our students make it to that milestone for their senior internship projects. And that is a 40 hour commitment with a medical or bio science professional in the field of their choosing. And they take that experience, learn from it, and then do a 20 hour research project based on what they learned there and develop the poster presentations that you see before you. So I think the best way is for you guys to hear from the students themselves about their experience. And so it’s my pleasure to introduce David Murphy, Amanda inwin, Ariana areola and Jackson witted, David, you want to kick us off? Oh, David, let me bring this over to you.
Unknown Speaker 6:43
Okay, can you guys hear me? Okay. So as she said, my name is David Murphy. I’m a graduating senior at Longwood High School. And some of the classes that I took in the MBA program were intro to health care foundations my freshman year, which like, really exposed me to medical, like practices and bio science as an in general. And I totally loved it. And I didn’t take a nutrition, wellness, anatomy and physiology some of those classes. I was luckily lucky enough to be the first class of biotechnology with Miss Chow. And that that class totally opened my eyes to what I want to do not specifically, but I was able to use a lot of the skills I learned there. And go for take forward with that. And, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 7:36
Take your time, we feel the same way to
Unknown Speaker 7:41
get into me a little bit. Sorry about that. Yeah. And so once with those classes that I took, that totally opened my eyes to the biomedical field, and I was able to have this virtual internship with my mentor Christy bilin, daughter of Mrs. The teacher, Miss bilinga, started the program. And I learned about the complaint, evaluate and remediate process at Medtronic that they use by quality engineers in the post product industry. The basic roles that they do is they look at statistical analysis of products that have been sent out into the medical field and have been tested have been proven faulty in some way. And so they take it back and they first look at Okay, was it broken because of wear and tear or statistical error? Or is it because the product is actually there’s something wrong with it, and if there’s something wrong with it, then it will post Jose patient harm or patient risk. So then they will look at it more, more scrutiny Slee and they will try and fix the product so that it does not pose patient risk or harm and promotes patient health. That was, I looked at some case studies from this violin and her team and what they worked on some of the three most prominent and most defined definitive for her career, which is the SA monitor, which is just a monitor for surgical navigation with spinal clamp, which is exactly as it sounds, clamps down onto the spine for spinal surgeries, and the biopsy needle which retracts brain tissue during brain surgeries. Yeah. Thank you, David. I’d like to now introduce Amanda in good.
Unknown Speaker 9:35
Hello, my name is Amanda Nguyen, and I had a great experience in the mbsa program. Overall, I would say I would summarize my experience as a journey to discovering myself interest and continuously learning about the various fields within medicine. As a student who’s still trying to pinpoint a career that’s perfect for me. mbsa was an amazing opportunity to branch out and discover what excites me. My internship was focused in the field of pharmacy To be honest, I was disappointed our internship was virtual this year, as I wasn’t able to get the full on experience to understand truly what the field of pharmacy is like. However, I was lucky enough to attend a virtual presentation from a clinical pharmacist. It was really cool to see how a clinical pharmacist role is different from a retail pharmacist that we often see in our lives. The virtual aspect also made it difficult for me to communicate with my mentor and keep in touch throughout my final poster project, my posters on 3d printing of pharmaceuticals. 3d printing pharmaceuticals is a relatively new idea and my project focuses on its benefits and big milestones. 3d printing is a technology that gives advantage to design and develop medicines are suited to each individual’s needs. One of our pros includes drugs are personalized, that means the medication that ensures that the medication being provided for our patients aren’t correct though such as one of their cons, however, would be 3d printing will have a difficult time competing with traditional drug manufacturing as it’s less efficient. The 3d method produces 10,000 pills a day, while the traditional method produces 1.6 million an hour. A typical drug production their goal is to efficiently produce the highest quality drugs and control costs. So basically producing enough product for consumers. If we’re looking at a types of 3d printed drugs, I first have sprite M, which is our first 3d printed drug approved by the FDA. It was developed in 2015 and produced to treat epilepsy. It’s powder active ingredients is deposit in layers, which allows it to dissolve in seconds with little water. This characteristic is extremely beneficial as it allows patients to take 1000 milligrams of the drug during a seizure. If you’re looking at poly pills, there hasn’t been a 3d printed poly pill that’s been FDA approved. However, the advantages behind this idea is extremely beneficial. One of its benefits includes reducing the number of tablets a person must take. So as you know, in our elderly population, they’re taking so many pills a day, it’s hard to keep track and see progress. So the idea of 3d printing poly pills will help increase adherence and solve this problem. Besides helping the elderly population, 3d printing pharmaceuticals could also benefit children, which is what my case study focuses on. My case started my case study is about a 13 year old boy who was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, and he was prescribed hydrocortisone. However, there’s complications that came along with it, as children required smaller dosages than what the medicine was given. This led to their parents cutting the medication into smaller pieces, which lead to under dosage and affecting the overall performance of the drug. This led the hospital to undergo a research trial where they determine the appropriate size tablets for each age group. And they concluded if medication could be printed according to children preferences and help them control their illnesses and take their medication. So that’s basically my overall poster and I’m going to attend CU Boulder next year this fall, I guess. Thanks, Amanda.
Unknown Speaker 12:58
All right. Up next is Arianna areola in the field of dentistry
Unknown Speaker 13:03
already, and it is an honor to be presenting on behalf of the MBA program today. across my four years, I have gotten so many new opportunities and so many eye opening experiences that I wouldn’t have been able to have or find if I really wasn’t in it. So thankfully, it led me to the path of dentistry which I have found that I really enjoy. When I first started mbsa I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, I had a broad idea that I wanted to go into the medical field that I wanted to go into something sciency ever since I was a kid, I was always playing with my toys and doing play operations on them like being a veterinarian. So I always knew that I wanted to go into a field of this, but I just didn’t know what yet I didn’t have any experience. I didn’t have any knowledge on what I would have to do to get here and exactly what I would like. So through that I’ve done several shadowing experiences with a multitude of different fields, one of them being dentistry. Another one was through a physical therapist, another one was through a nurse at one of the hospitals just a general nurse. And through that I’ve also been given many TED talks about different fields that I thought I was interested in. And then once I heard about them more, I thought maybe not for me. So through all of that it has really opened me up to experiencing new things such as dentistry, a lot of people don’t really want to go into this field because they feel a little icky about teeth and a lot of people are frankly afraid of dentists, which is why I made my poster. So my poster discusses the different types of tooth extractions as well as the implants and then the procedure everything that goes on through it. And I created this in order to mitigate people’s fears of going to the dentist. So in a person’s lifetime, a lot of people will have to get an extraction and without they’ll probably as well get an implant because it completes the whole smile and a lot of people are afraid to do that. But the problem with that is they need it. an abscess tooth I found in one of my studies is that an abscess tooth, once the bacteria from it reaches your bloodstream, it can go into different parts of your body systems. And that can create bigger infections that a lot of doctors don’t really know where the sources, a lot of the times the source is in your teeth. And they don’t think about the teeth. First, there’s a huge disconnect between the two fields. And that’s another thing that I found through this program. So I created my project in order to try and mitigate the fears of going to the dentist and getting your tooth extracted getting an implant into more informed the public on exactly what happens, the different options that you have everything that they do. I’m lucky enough, I was able, for my internship to go in person for some a little bit of shadowing experience. So I did see some extractions and implants through both of my mentors. So that was a great experience for me. And it made me fall in love with it even more seeing their passion and seeing how excited they were to just take people’s teeth out and tell them exactly what was going on. To me. It was so inspirational and just seeing people’s smiles once they’re done seeing how they’re so appreciative and so happy to finally feel whole again, it made me feel that I found my path. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 16:27
Thank you, Ariana. Up next we have Jackson witted talking about the HIV vaccine.
Unknown Speaker 16:40
I don’t want to have to walk that wonderful poster. But as my son said, Well, my name is Jackson Whedon, it’s been a great opportunity not only to be here to present on behalf of the MBA program, but also going through the program itself. I’ve really enjoyed all the great experiences that I’ve gotten to have throughout the program. I think it’s a great program that kind of does something that we always talk about what we want high school to do when I help get kids to a point where they can figure out what they want to do, or maybe get an idea with one of the study in college and the MVC program has definitely helped me personally do that I know it’s helped a great deal of people will explore unique career opportunities and kind of figure out what they want to do. More specifically, on regards to my project, I got to work with Kelly Tubby, who’s a contact tracer for the Tri County Health Department. So she’s working right as the pandemic said, in working on that contact tracing and all that really important frontline work. And she was a great mentor to me even virtually, unfortunately, didn’t get to go in there and maybe right on the front lines, but she provided a lot of great support. And come excuse me feedback on my poster. So I really enjoyed the internship. Still, even if it wasn’t maybe the most ideal set of circumstances, I think it was still a really great experience with my mentor. I can also kind of talk about maybe the process that I just went through to reach my poster really quickly. So living through the pandemic, like everybody else started to think about what different ways we could prevent something like the COVID-19 pandemic from happening again. And with that, the talk of the viruses and epidemiologists around me I really wanted to dig into and look into epidemiology and how that field works and what kind of aspects in that filter and really important. And the one that definitely stuck out the most to me was vaccine. We have vaccines are one of our most important tools that we use to prevent future pandemics and outbreaks or just outbreaks of known viruses. But the big question that kind of hit me then was, oh, why aren’t there vaccines? For some things? We have vaccines for the flu or measles? But where are the vaccines for something like HIV we HIV is a super impactful super takes a super large toll on people who are sick and with it, we definitely want to immunize against this. So why isn’t there a vaccine? So I kind of broke it down looking into what HIV is, what the vaccines are? Why the two don’t work together very well. What’s the big challenges in developing an HIV vaccine? And then a little bit about the current research and projects that are going on? Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 18:59
Thank you, Jackson. I would be happy to take any questions any of you have about the program before introducing the smart team?
Unknown Speaker 19:08
deck? Did you have any comments? Like the likely it seems like the most likely candidate to go yes.
Unknown Speaker 19:19
I wanted to say I David Christie violin was a student of mine. And so along with her mother and and Chris Chow when we formed the program. We had a dream of what it might become. But we had you through this are really through these projects you’ve presented are really showing that our dreams were too modest that you are achieving at a much higher level than we had envisioned envision to begin with. And that just goes to show that when we provide these sorts of opportunities to stretch beyond our current In our current vision of what school can be, that students and each of you price to that challenge and beyond, so I am so thankful to your teachers, and to you, of course, the students for the work that you’re doing and blazing the pathway for others. And it’s exciting to see that you found areas that you are you think you might pursue in the future. This is really college level work. So thank you for that. And thank you for being an example to your fellowship and send to your teachers and administrators as well. That there’s no challenge too great for our students to rise to and and overcome. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 20:55
Thank you, tick, appreciate it. I know as I was sitting up here, I could ask each of you multiple questions, and we could sit down and talk for a few hours. I’m certain. I know that I’ve, I was feeling very proud of the work that you’re doing. And so I’m wondering if any of you might have any friends or loved ones in the office or in the office. I’m not in the office this evening, in the audience that might be here that you would want to introduce because I’m certain they’re very proud of you as well. You all might drive in therefore you might be there on your own. Great. I’m sure watching Shelly, right. Hi, Shelly. Fantastic, David. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to be here. Your projects are truly remarkable. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 22:02
Alright, so the MBA program is just one of the great science programs we have at Longmont High School. And it’s my pleasure to introduce one of our crossover or partner programs, the smart team. Can you guys just raise your hand if you are on both mbsa and smart teams so they can kind of see the link? Yeah, whole handful of them. So Kelly loop news right behind me. Go ahead and take her Thank you. Hi,
Unknown Speaker 22:30
I’m Kelly Luqman. I am a primarily chemistry teacher at Longmont high school and I am one of the smart team men mentors, along with Dr. martyr and Chris Chow. Our smart team this year if you don’t know the program, the program is a group of students who they study proteins, 3d model them. I’m holding one right now. And they this year have studied proteins involved in the Coronavirus. And so they have we have three different projects that we would like to share with you and then we’ll introduce our seniors that have been with us for a while now and we’re sad to say goodbye to so we’ll go ahead and I have we have three different groups. The first group is going to be talking about the ACE two receptor on our cells. Our second group we’ll be talking about primarily the spike protein on the surface of the Coronavirus. And the third group we’ll be talking about nano bodies as a potential treatment for COVID-19. So let’s go ahead, group one with ace two.
Unknown Speaker 23:50
Hi, my name is Guido I’m a sophomore. I’m Kayla ball and I am a junior. Hi, I’m rose Adler, and I’m a senior. My name is Lauren Roberts and I’m a junior this year. Our research focus primarily on the ACE two receptor which is a person or software that’s all like a whole bunch of ourselves, but mainly it’s in our nasal cavity and on the linings of our blood vessels. Oftentimes, when people you know where people that you’ve heard of will get COVID-19, you’ll hear that they have lost their smell, or that they have really high blood pressure. Those are some of the two major symptoms that you’ll hear about. And those are largely attributed to the east to protein interface to receptors. So when the East two receptor attaches to the COVID spike protein, it inhibits significantly the role of East two in our bodies, which is to regulate our blood pressure and to regulate some of the nervous system cells around our nose and our lungs, which is what is causing a nausea or loss of smell. So for our project, we actually had a really fun opportunity to choose whatever we wanted to do about our project. And we were able to fit as much information as we could into about 60 minutes. Although in about a couple of videos, and we were able to actually consolidate all of our information into tic Tock videos, which has about 65 million people on the app, meaning that not only is our information public, we had the challenge of making sure that it was concise in 60 minutes, and also able to be digested by Apple iPod, I have 60 seconds, not 60 minutes, I couldn’t talk for 60 minutes. But it’s not only in 60 seconds, but it needs to be easily digestible to people of all ages, tick tock is used by people from ages 10 to eat a 60 plus. So ultimately, we were able to consolidate information about the Easter receptor and about COVID-19 into about four videos under 60 seconds.
Unknown Speaker 25:49
Hello, it’s me again, Jackson. Being in both programs, you know, I can tell I really enjoy working on these kinds of things. So I’m happy to also be presenting on behalf of the smart team. So my group studied the COVID spike protein, the protein that’s actually present on the outside of the virus you can see here. So it binds to a stew, which is the the receptor that the first group was originally discussing a little bit about the spike protein kind of the process that it goes through. So it begins in this kind of closed state where all of these structures are folded in and it’s in a non binding state, it’s not ready to bind yet. But once the virus is going to attempt to bind to h2, or bind to a cell, it opens up and folds out, you can kind of see how the, it’s opened up a little bit here, this is in its open state. And so it splits into an s one and an s two sub regions. And the s one sub region will actually interact with the h2 receptor and lock into it and then as to separate them will then begin to interact and fuse with the membrane and then open up, open up the membrane, so to speak, so that the virus can enter through the membrane into the cell. So thinking about maybe possible treatments, thinking about how we could maybe inhibit that process from occurring, so that we would be able to not allow the virus or make it like kind of innate almost unable to properly undergo that process of binding to the receptors so that it could actually infect cells. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 27:24
I just want to add one little thing on Can you hold up that spike protein again. So for all of us who’ve been inoculated with the Coronavirus vaccine, it contains the mRNA or DNA that codes for this specific protein. So that’s what’s being generated by ourselves to elicit that antibody response. My name is Grant Olmstead, and I’m a senior. My name is Aaron Scruggs, and I’m a senior. I’m worrying I’m also a senior.
Unknown Speaker 28:06
And I’m Grayson Hubbell. I’m a junior. So we focused on a solution really to the the last two problems. And my peers here have some pamphlets for you that we this, this was a project that we created. And so we explored a solution really to COVID and it’s spread in the form of these actions, llama nanobodies. So these are little tiny bits of antibodies that are produced in llamas, and we’re replicated in the lab in order to work as a, as a kind of deterrent or the something to work against COVID. So, but what it does is it locks COVID into its closed formation. So as the first and second group, they both did open form spike proteins, so they their proteins were able to bind with ace two in this formation with the nanobodies bound on these three sites, the the spike protein is no longer able to bind, meaning that this could be a cheap and effective solution to neutralizing COVID in the body. Whether you have COVID or as a preventative measure, if COVID tries to enter the body, it can neutralize its ability to bind to the h2 cells, which means it can no longer get into cells infect human cells and reproduce. And so that’s all I have.
Unknown Speaker 29:42
Well next just have each of our seniors come up just introduce themselves and then tell you some of them will tell you about their experience with the smart team and what they’re doing next year.
Unknown Speaker 29:58
Man Third time’s a charm huh? Yeah, you know me already Jackson, but I’m a senior. Obviously, my plan next year is to attend Colorado State University to major in biochemistry. I planned to also plan to also do some research fellowships and begin kind of going down a path to someday work in a lab and do research.
Unknown Speaker 30:24
Thank you. So my name is Rose Adler, I was a senior this year, I was also on mbsa. And I think that smart team was a super valuable experience for me, because I was able to work with students that had a similar passion for science. I’ve also been on the team since I was a freshman. So I was really introduced to scientific and professional research at a really young age. And I’ve been able to continue studying that throughout high school. I was super inspired by the student projects that I saw at the 2019 experimental biology conference that I actually attended with smart team in Orlando, Florida. And I think that that experience really pushed me to go into an area in STEM, especially as a woman. And so next year I’ll be studying molecular, cellular and developmental biology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan.
Unknown Speaker 31:16
Thank you. Hi, my name is Aaron Skaggs, I’m a senior. And I will be studying neuroscience at Regis University. I’m sorry, are
Unknown Speaker 31:34
Royals. So one of the good things about smart team is that even though some of the content that you’re reading, so like it’s college level stuff, even though sometimes you don’t understand what you’re reading, you slowly figure out what you’re reading and you just get more accustomed to it so you can read more and more complicated stuff. And then although I’m not involved in biochemistry, and my pursuit of college, I’m going into cybersecurity at Front Range inside. The skills gained from smart team will help me along the way.
Unknown Speaker 32:12
My name is Grant Olmstead. I’ll be studying bio science at tantau University. And my time here at at smart team has been spectacular, in my opinion on getting to talk with like minded people again to analyze research papers. It’s all been very fun. And yes, I quite enjoyed the program.
Unknown Speaker 32:38
Thank you so much for your time. We were excited to come and present and share what we’ve learned this year. So thank you. You’re gonna have to squish together. All right. Are you ready? 123 Thank you. Right.
Unknown Speaker 34:25
Yeah, that was that. Yes. And that was absolutely incredible. And I know dick that you serve as, as a mentor. Is that the right word for the smart team?
Unknown Speaker 34:36
Yeah, I one of the Well, I’m not a mentor. I’m an advisor
Unknown Speaker 34:40
and advisor. I knew that used a different term.
Unknown Speaker 34:42
Yeah. So we we meet with his students every Tuesday night for two hours during the school year after from six to eight. And so these students were not only doing their full day of classwork, but were regularly attending those two hours. sessions every Tuesday. It’s an extraordinary program that allows the MBA students to take it to the college level for opportunities. And I wanted to express my appreciation on behalf of the team, to Don dad for funding this special program through Aloma high and making possible these life changing experiences of attending the international conference that was in Orlando, last American Society of biochemistry and molecular biology, to meet with 15,000 scientists from around the world and graduate students, as well as undergrads and really see themselves in the sea people like them in at different stages of their professional career. So, Donna, it’s a tremendous program, and we’re very thankful for your support.
Unknown Speaker 36:02
Thank you deck and thank you, Don. Alright, that brings us to we’re going to jump around just a little bit and stick with our theme of students here. agenne chase agenda item 6.1, is a season see athletics report. Welcome.
Unknown Speaker 36:19
Welcome. Madam President, Dr. Dead board, thank you for having us tonight. I just want to go through a little bit of celebrations from from our department. First, we’ll start with some fine arts, we had all but one of our high schools was able to execute a musical in some form or format. Some of them were virtual, you got to watch part of them there. And then you watch the other part in person. And somewhere all in person, you took breaks, and then somewhere all virtual. But we made it work at almost every place. every high school did end up having some sort of performance via maybe not a musical, a large portion of our middle schools. And some of our elementary is even were able to execute a concert as well, which in the times was was extremely difficult and taxing. And you know, but one thing that certainly happened this year is because of the virtual setting, we were able to have have feeder concerts. So we started with the elementary, and then the middle school, and then the high schools have the same feeder. So it’s kind of a neat concept that hopefully we can figure out how to weave that into the future. Specifically, skyline and their VPA program. They, they constructed their musical themselves from they originated it, they wrote it, they produced it. And they did all of their performances outside on their Hill. And they brought families in to watch from from outside and they did it up on the hill. And I talked with Heidi, their principal this afternoon. And she said they are they’re so so gung ho about it. And so excited about it the next year, they already have plans to to bring food trucks and move it down to the football field and they want more people there. And so, you know, maybe we maybe we started something new there. So that that’s been a fun experience as well. Second, middle school, middle school, sports, they kind of get the the short end of the stick this year, and they weren’t able to participate in a lot of things. But we were we were able to execute eighth grade track this year. We had a culminating event this last weekend. So that was a lot of fun. In addition to that, our unified population. We certainly were unable to provide them with with their normal opportunities. So this year, we we did our first annual day of champions, where we had every school in addition to Main Street attend the high school attend. Everly Montgomery. And we set up different events for the day. We had Bo Joe’s pizza, donate 35 pizzas for us. We had a dunk tank for all the principals. So it was it was a lot of fun. And it was it was it was the nice day that was mixed right into you know, a tough year and it was it was one of my favorite days for sure. Moving on to season See, this was boys soccer, volleyball and gymnastics. It was certainly one of our more challenging seasons with with quarantines. But we we made it through it. And you know, Brian and his team certainly had a different type of challenge as well. Playing soccer in a in a normal, normal dormant grass season. So we’ve added a different kind of challenge to our facilities as well. So So thank you, Brian, for you and your team for their work. With our soccer we had a nyuad High School made the final four we had three teams make the make the state playoffs so that was great. Volleyball half of our schools made the state tournament and meet High School. They put a put a run at the state title and they lost in the finals. Dr. capetian joined me in Colorado Springs For was the eight o’clock start time. We made it back on Thursday. But we made it back in they, they had a great season. It was fun watching them.
Unknown Speaker 40:12
And then
Unknown Speaker 40:14
lastly, I we have a special guest here with us tonight. But I want to bring up Joe Brown from now at high school to talk about his crew. And certainly Joe continues to excel in his leadership at nyuad. And I’ll bring him up to introduce his crew.
Unknown Speaker 40:33
Thanks, Jason. Thanks, members of the board, Dr. Hood dad for having us here. Again. Thanks chase to his leadership. He’s been fantastic. Day or night, anytime we need to call and talk about something or the changes in guidance as they come through. He’s been awesome. So so thank you chase for your leadership. And it gives us the opportunity to have an amazing gymnastics team as well. And one thing that’s unique with gymnastics is there’s not many teams in the state. So there’s not a whole lot of people that you call and say, how do you do this in a pandemic. So fortunately, we got the best coach in the state that tells us how we’re going to do it in a pandemic. So coach Maria Purcell has been here for a number of years now, and she does an outstanding job. I just cannot say enough about the great things that she does. And some of us in the district know that have outside teams like lacrosse at Erie, it’s tough to bring in kids from every different school, and make a culture and an environment that’s accepting of everybody, and also demands excellence, and Marisa does a great job with that. And the perfect example of that is Mia. Mia curry is the defending all around champion. And she was able to defend her title this year as a junior, and the leadership that she shows to her teammates is nothing short of just unbelievable. She truly cares about each one of her teammates and, and what’s going on in their lives personally. So it’s just been an honor to see the great things they continue to do. So further ado, I’ll introduce coach Purcell. Thank you, thank
Unknown Speaker 42:00
you guys for having me. And having me here tonight. First and foremost, we’re just honored to be here. I wasn’t able to be with her here last year. So I’m glad that I can make it this year. Chase thanks for all you do. He’s I when I first started at NIH what he was ready, so really kind of showed me how to get in there and do that as a head coach. And then now with Joe, I really can’t say enough about him. He’s been so supportive, this has definitely been quite the year. And because gymnastics has to be done without a mask. We jumped through serious hoops in order to have a season and it didn’t matter It was all day or night, I could call him and let him know that something changed in a matter of minutes. And he was in the gym measuring for some of you that don’t we had to be 25 feet away from one from each equipment because the girls didn’t have a mask on her 25 feet per for events is a lot and so Joe was in there and measuring and had taped for me long before I got in and and did all that and so I can’t even he cleaned everything at our home meets. He had the sanitizing spray backpack on but a lot of the other teams noticed that because they didn’t they weren’t able to have that nice oh, I athletic director comes in and he does it for me so I can focus on the girls and try to keep them where they needed to be and the other teams and and try to keep posting as many meets as we could have. So I appreciate them. They were all there for me at the state meet in support, just to be there. So I truly appreciate it. Thank you guys for everything. In doing that now, I really want to have the time for Mia for her to shine and have her moment. She we had no seniors this year on our team, a couple with COVID with COVID situations and and different things going on and so she was our captain this year and had to lead a team and, and do all that in this kind of a year and the things that I had to call on her for to do. She did wonderfully. She never questioned anything. She went above and beyond anything we asked and even when I didn’t ask she did other things. So she did all of that without not once in this entire season did I ever hear her or her and I talk about her being the defending state chair the state champion from the year before a lot of we had a lot of media people and newspapers and she just kind of dealt with it and kept saying team team team is all I heard her say in her interviews. And it wasn’t until the night before that we had a it was about three minute moment of what we’re going to go in and do tomorrow and for herself and to kind of take a deep breath and and go from there and and take it all on. She got sick and not was COVID but was in the hospital two days before state and so to take have to kind of deal with that and shift and to lead a team, and not let anybody know, she does want me to tell anyone that but I want, I want her to really know that it takes a lot to do that and to have that on your plate, push it to the side, and take a team on Friday morning to compete and do the best that we can. And then in the end come out of it as, as a all around state champion back to back is a really big deal. And I’m so proud of her. So proud to be your coach and to go and we’re gonna go forward again next year. So here, let me let me come over and talk.
Unknown Speaker 45:34
Thank you for having me. Um, first of all, I would love to thank the staff at nyuad High School, especially Mr. Brown and Mr. Rush club. It’s hard coming from a high school that barely knows what you do. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to my ad or my principal about my accomplishments in gymnastics. So I think that it’s really awesome that nyuad has such a support for me and my other teammates who also come from different schools, I think we only have one or two that were on this team from nyuad. So I’m so thankful to have the support from nyuad High School. I would also love to say thank you, Teresa. She is genuinely one of the best coaches that I’ve ever had in my 14 years of gymnastics. Now I think she took me in as a freshman, I had no clue what I was doing. Because High School gymnastics is such a different. You’re doing the same skills, but it’s a different sport from my club, gymnastics team. The mentality is different clubs. Gymnastics is a very individualistic sport, you’re competing for yourself and yourself, only your team score doesn’t really matter where high school is the exact opposite. You’re competing for your team, and not for yourself until the last day that you compete. So that was a huge adjustment to try to fit into. And Marisa was there for every step of the way. And she’s also been there for me for everything else in my life. As she said earlier, like two days before, stay, I was in the hospital. And she told me that it was fine that I didn’t have to compete at state that she just wanted me to be okay, she wanted me to be able to take a deep breath and step back and take care of myself. But of course, me being me, I was like, No, I’m competing at state I have to, um, but she has always been there for me, always cared about me. And I think our bond and trust in each other has just grown since my freshman year, especially this year, her making me the team captain was huge, because that is something that I’ve wanted to be since my freshman year since I saw the first seniors, my freshman year between captains. So I think that was really the point where I knew that we had a bond that was unlike any other bond that I’ve had with my coaches. Thank you. Do you know what? You know, they might, they might be at home. They’re watching. Not every day we get through.
Unknown Speaker 49:13
All right, so that brings us back to agenda item three, which is audience participation. me find my list here. Dan, are you here? Hi, Dan. I’m well it’s nice to see you again. See you again. Thanks. You know, Dan, I realize I don’t know the proper way to say your last name.
Unknown Speaker 49:35
Most people don’t. So it’s okay. It’s Deloitte with Deloitte. Yep, with a T. Great. Thank you for that book. One way it’s pronounced another.
Unknown Speaker 49:44
Great. And so Dan, you you know that there’s three minutes for public comments. Absolutely. And please state your name and address at the beginning.
Unknown Speaker 49:52
Absolutely. Thank you. amyloid 365 poppy view lane Erie, and the timer’s going. So Alexander Solzhenitsyn said That we do not error because the truth is difficult to see for it’s all around us, we err because it’s comfortable. And right now the truth that we all know and the data supports is that we have less than two tenths of 1% inter school student to student spread. And yet we still go on and put these students into disruptive and harmful quarantines. instead of pushing back uncomfortably against officials in state positions of authority, and county and state departments of health. These departments of health issue their guidelines with the best of intentions to protect themself and to do anything they can to avoid having a disease spread. But they abdicate all responsibility for the side effects of those decisions in those guidelines. And they push it down to the next level, which is the district and ask you to enforce it. When we put these guidelines in with such a low interest schools spread, they become performative. And we’re asking children to perform and suffer for adults to feel safe and protect their careers. When asked the governor if he would stand up, and say that he will accept all responsibility, should districts choose to reopen? instead of following Harry Truman’s Maxim that the buck stops here, he pushed it down a few levels and left the responsibility with you. That’s not right. That’s not your responsibility to implement state guidelines when they’re wrong. Right now, it is shameful to ask somebody with less authority than yourself to implement guidelines and expect them to just say, I’m just following orders. as a species, we’ve moved past that for the last 70 years, you are no longer allowed to intentionally inflict moral wrongs on people just because you’re following orders from somebody else. Today, we all share a responsibility to ignore morally wrong decisions that performatively harm children and protect the careers effect with politicians in Denver. It’s time that we all stand up and say that we will not follow these. And we will allow our children to stay in school, we will not ask them to perform for all of us so that we feel safer. And they will actually protect their education, their mental health well being and their physical health so that they get the education that they need to move forward into society. I appreciate your time. Thank you guys for your patience. and have a good day.
Unknown Speaker 52:24
Thank you, Dan. Appreciate you being here. Next on the list of public speakers, I have Nora McCloy. Hello Nora. Welcome. We’re glad that you’re here this evening. And just like Mr. Malloy with the T. Three minutes is what you’ll have for your public comments. We won’t start timing until you state your name and your address, please.
Unknown Speaker 52:50
Okay, so Hello, my name is norm coy, 3569 Larkspur circle. And I’m here to discuss the addition of pads and tampons in the Women’s and Gender neutral bathrooms in our schools. When I was in seventh grade, I got my period in the middle of math class, I hadn’t been expecting it at all. I was still very new to it. And it was very hard for me to predict when I was going to get it. praying that there wasn’t a blood stain on my clothes, I stood up to go to my teacher. There were no pads or tampons in the dispensers in the bathroom. And I had stopped working and interrupt my teachers private conference with the student to ask her what I should do. She told me to go to the health clerk and ask for a pad and a change of clothes. The five the five minutes to the health clerk’s office felt like the longest in my life. Now I’m a confident person I have no problem standing up for myself or asking for what I need. But to this day, no social situation has made my heart hammer as much as this did. I was mortified, mortified. Now imagine all of the young people who are still building their confidence having to go through this. In addition to embarrassing us unnecessarily having to walk to the nurse to get a pad or tampon disrupts our education and amplifies gender inequality in our schools. One in five teens cannot afford menstrual products. 25% of teens have miss school because they don’t have products. St. vrain prides itself on its attendance but students are skipping school because they’re unable to provide themselves with menstrual products and st brain won’t. And often people just forget their products. If a person goes to the health clerk during passing period, they will likely be late to class. A group of friends and I timed ourselves and saw how long it took to walk from the bathrooms in each wing of altona Middle School to the health clerk’s office. Four out of five tests took longer than five minutes the standard passing period of time and this is not factoring in time spent in the bathroom and time spent getting what they need from the health cork. If there are products in the bathroom, they would be saved this walk. This is not a new issue. We have been pushing for the addition of period products since 2019 but have been refused by our middle school principal. Well, our school health clerk, our district nurse and the assistant superintendent, a group of wonderful young women and I met with Assistant Superintendent Dina perfetti Dini in March of 2020. When asked for a straightforward reason as to why San Fran had turned us down so many times the answer was, quote, because it’s unnecessary, and quote. But pads and tampons are necessary in people’s everyday lives. boys get toilet paper, which is all they require. Girls require menstrual products just as much as they require toilet paper. To deny them. This is unfair and unjust. We should be promoting gender equality in all areas of our school, not just not just in academics. Same brain is the school district I am proud of. We have incredible attendance rates, incredible test scores and incredible technology. And I am lucky to be learning here. But there’s one race we are losing the race for gender equality, because while we promote women’s education and empowerment, school districts like boulder Valley and Denver Public Schools are pulling ahead by taking a simple action. Our school districts have already added other school districts have already added menstrual products for Women’s and Gender neutral bathrooms. And so I asked you, why not us?
Unknown Speaker 56:12
Thank you, Nora. I appreciate you. Thank you. Next up for public comment is Trista gage. Hello, Trista. I’m sorry, I’m a little out of practice with having everyone in the same room. I’m sure you heard me give the three minutes already and the name and address so I won’t. I won’t repeat myself again.
Unknown Speaker 56:37
My name is Trista Gage, and I live on Sunset street in Longmont. I’m here, as a parent in the district, I’ve been part of same brain for 14 years of my partner’s kids have been through K through high school at St brain. And we have a 10 year old also now in st reign. But I’m also here speaking for search families of Boulder County, and search stands for showing up for racial justice. We have had the pleasure of meeting this year, often with Dr. Had dad and other members of student services. But we are you know, we’re moved to tonight to just bring a little bit more immediate attention to the need for a more more action by the district in regards to racist incidents in our district. And obviously it particularly mean High School. We were happy that or is it happy to see that there was a strong response from the district with the acknowledgement of an email form. But I think that the problem is that we need more proactive steps to prove a commitment to anti racism in our district. one incident isn’t really the problem, it’s it’s that we need bigger institutional change. And so we just want to implore the school board to really take a look at, you know, having a strategic plan to have a clear commitment to prioritize anti racist training for staff and teachers to have professional development that is mandated, and to have measurable goals to work toward. You know, at the end of the year, we always get these emails about the success and achievements of SB VSD. And we’d be great to see some of those achievements be about our inclusivity and how we’re making our district a safer space for all students and in particular students of color in Black and Brown students in our community. You know, in some of our goals, is strategic plan should outline you know, and have specific equity and inclusive goals that a timeline to achieve those goals and measurable time frame to for us to measure the success. We need curriculum changes that are standard across all schools and not up to the whims of a particular school or principal. And we need to have a lot more cultural sensitivity. I think there should be a space for advocacy, advocacy groups within the schools for bipoc families to have a voice and to feel listened to and supported. And there should be clear consequences that all students and parents understand for bias based actions and hate crimes. There should be a safe space for reporting bias related incidents. And there should be absolutely accountability for principals who fail to to live up to these steps. I don’t think we should wait for the NAACP to bring our failures to our attention or to Thank you chair so we appreciate your comments.
Unknown Speaker 59:49
Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next up this evening is Michelle Morrissey. is Michelle here. All right, Julie. And Julie. If you could help me with the thing of your last name also please. Then wha okay. You are the opposite of Mr. Malloy. Exactly. I have a silent T. All right. Welcome, Julie. Thank
Unknown Speaker 1:00:17
you. Thanks for having me. I’m at 2229 jewel Street, in Longmont. So I moved here five years ago from Baltimore, Maryland. And one of my biggest hesitations in coming to this area was the lack of diversity while leaving a city so rich and diversity. And I still worry about raising my two kids in such a place where the community and the school system are not doing the necessary work around racism that I’m aware of in our community and in our country. I remember moving here and seeing that sign Longmont, you belong here all over town, and I witnessed a few things that made me ask the question, but do I? Anyway, it wasn’t quite sure over the past five years, I’ve really invested a ton in the community. My kids go to school in Longmont and I’ve opened a business on Main Street. So yeah, I am pretty invested in this community. And I do feel like I belong here. But when I heard of the incident that happened at me, I found myself asking the question again, do I belong here? Is this how I want to raise my family. I wanted to thank Dr. Had ad for emailing the school district and bringing the attention to the community about that racist event that took place at me in high school. It’s disgusting to see these teenagers act and these horrendous ways and there really needs to be changed. I’m glad this is being acknowledged and talked about now. But we need more than this. We need more than talking. We need action and we need change. I’d like to know how these teenagers have been held accountable for their for their racist actions. And what does that accountability look like? I’ve heard rumors here and there but nothing certain the school district needs to be transparent here and with the community and the community needs to know that these students have been held accountable for their actions. And also accountability needs to be a priority to ensure that there is an understanding as to why this is unacceptable behavior. The same brain very Valley School District compared to Baltimore does lack diversity. And that’s something that we as a community have no control over but we can do is change things. Could there be some sort of equity inclusion, anti racism fact base history of America and its history of racism and the systematic, systemic racism curriculum implemented throughout the entire school system that’s mandatory for all students, the students need a safe place to talk about racism and ask questions while receiving information from experts on the issue. And school seems to be the best place for that. As far as I know, the school system isn’t doing a ton of work on this and it needs to be underneath mmediately to mitigate these racist actions from happening again, we have to start somewhere I understand it’s a hard topic to talk about. But to be honest, it doesn’t seem any harder than teaching kids sex education. And our kids are learning that in school. Clearly, students are not receiving accurate anti racist education at home or this wouldn’t be happening. Some parents may not agree to curriculum changes. But this shouldn’t be a deterrent for doing what’s right for these kids. The same kids will one day be adults may be raising their own kids. And if we want them to be the change, we have to start now with the change. They can be properly educated to educate others, and then circling, circling back to accountability. How is the principle of need high school being held accountable for this incident that took place on school property as a leader and a role model, she too needs to be held to account. With that said, Maybe sbst employees need mandatory anti racism and equity training led by experts? Is this something you’ve considered? And what would this look like? I’ve heard again, there are plans to do this. But it’d be great to see these plans in writing and asking for a town hall type of meeting that would be accessible to everybody. So maybe a virtual hybrid type of situation. Thank you. Thank you, Julie. Appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:28
All right. Our final public speaker this evening is Alicia graves. And Don, I believe that you are reading the comment from Alicia, is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:39
Yes, yes, I am going to read it. And I want to thank Alicia for sharing this with me. I have appreciated the opportunity to visit with her and others from the NAACP, in partnership to support St. Brain Valley schools in this work and our community.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:00
Dear St. vrain Valley and this is the letter that she shared with me. Dear saint brain Valley School Board members we write to you today to express thanks to Superintendent Don had for his recent email addressing the disgusting and racist enactment of the murder of George Floyd by three meat high school students, and to discuss further the actions the district can take to address this matter. His condemnation of these students behavior was appropriate and his support for our black students and family’s well being was much needed. Unfortunately, Superintendent had ads words are not enough to address the epidemic of racism that has existed in our schools for decades. We ask that the district take bold and rapid action to protect families such as mine from harm in our schools, racist actions traumatize black students and their families and contribute to post traumatic responses that are misrepresented as behavior that warrants discipline rather than support school administrators who do not address those actions with the swiftness and seriousness that they warrant Add to the trauma and teach white students that such actions are a normal part of their school environment. We recommend that st brain Valley School District ensure these students are held accountable for their actions and take proactive steps to prevent similar incidents in the future. In addition, formal structures should be put in place to support students and their families when discriminatory events do occur. These proactive and systemic changes are crucial as this event was not an isolated incident of racism. But one of many. There is no shortage of racism in our schools and principals should be held accountable for racist incidents, especially since our district’s mission is to be an exemplary School District, which inspires and promotes high standards of learning and student well being. Below we detail the steps that should be taken to begin to repair the harm done to the black community and protect us from racism moving forward. Number one, the students in the photo should be dealt with in the most serious manner possible and we recommend that amends are made. In addition to any other consequences deemed appropriate by the district. The students should not be allowed to return to spvs D unless they have made a public apology and made reparations for their actions. To protect other students from their racist attitudes, the offending students should be required to participate in anti racism training and restorative justice workshops prior to re enrollment. While some of the community have discussed the idea of charges of disorderly conduct, and while we recognize that students of color have been charged for incidents less severe than this, we do not wish to introduce more policing into our schools. Instead, we would like this incident to be addressed through our school discipline methods. And for Black and Brown students to be shown the same courtesy moving forward going forward. The code of conduct this is to the Code of Conduct should be updated to include a clear definition of what constitutes a bias related incident and what disciplinary action should be taken in response to a bias related incident. While we understand that the district cannot publicly state the disciplinary actions taken in this case, due to privacy concerns, there should be a zero tolerance stance on bias related incidents on or off school grounds. Bias related incidents refer to any act or behavior that is a violation of the Student Code of Conduct and reasonably believed to be motivated by consideration of race color, creed, religion, age, sex, gender, national origin, marital or pre, prenatal, parental status, sexual orientation, citizenship status, veteran status, disability or any other basis prohibited by law, St. Brain Valley School should create a publicly accessible document with the partnership of the bipoc community that clearly defines all disinherit disciplinary infractions, including bias related incidents and disciplinary actions that will be taken clear, appropriate and consistent consequences will help to eliminate discrimination and bias that fuel the disproportionate harassment and punishment of bipoc students meet High’s handling of this incident behavior and broader racial climate should be reviewed. All bias motivated incidents should be reported to the superintendent immediately and treated with the utmost seriousness. Because the incident was so egregious, we recommend a further review of the culture at meet high that goes beyond this incident to facilitate a greater understanding of why the students involved thought this behavior was acceptable. Number four, the district should provide mandated anti racism training for all staff each year on staff performance evaluations should include assessment measures on racial equity, teachers and administrators insane brain Valley School have not received anti racism training in over a year and there is no system in place to evaluate their performance on matters of equity. We would like to continue partnering with the district to develop a form of procedure to hold educators accountable for their responses to racist actions in their schools. Furthermore, we recommend that spvs D create anti racism standards for principals and schools and consequences for when they fail to meet these standards and protect students and families and teachers and staff of color. The district should support Dr. Hat Ed’s agreement to partner with the NAACP Boulder County to create formal affinity groups to support parents and students of color. Currently, concerns about students experiences of racism are often directed outside organizations and community groups because there is no dedicated entity inside the district to address their concerns hear their voices and offer support. The lack of affinity groups within our district leaves families feeling unsupported and leaves the district unaware of festering issues. The district should also avail itself of the lived experiences of these affinity groups members and allow them to advise on how to handle matters of equity. Furthermore, these groups should be empowered to connect students and parents to culturally responsive mental health resources provided by the district when they experienced racial trauma in our schools. The district should create a system for tracking bias related incidents that occur in our schools. We would like to see a standardized reporting system for families to make the district aware of these issues when they arise. Currently, because no such system exists, parents and guardians should exist. Then a significant amount of energy and emotional labor to ensure their concerns are addressed. It is unfair that the burden of educating teachers and administrators about racism and other biases currently falls to parents and students who are experiencing the stress and trauma everyday in their everyday lives. A transparent system for reporting bias that results in action that all parents are made aware of would right minimize the additional trauma caused families who are experiencing racism and other biases in our schools. Allowing racism to persist fails our students minimizes their learning harms the well being of students of color through disproportionate harassment, bullying and mistreatment of students of color. The meat high school students who reenacted the murder of George Floyd need to be held accountable for their deplorable behavior as do any adults who enable these students to progress this far in their education without teaching them to be respectful, anti racist citizens. We look forward to hearing what steps you will take in holding schools, principals and students accountable for racist or otherwise biased actions and what proactive steps you will take to protect communities of color in the same brain Valley schools. Please share your response with Alicia graves chair Education Committee, and double acp Boulder County sincerely Alicia Gray’s education committee and she has this letter has been signed by Serge families el camino de El Paso, YWCA of Boulder County, St. Brain Valley safe school school coalition 100 black men of Denver incorporated being better neighbors and Colorado immigrant rights organization. And again, Alicia requested to do this virtually which we did not have the setup and so we read this on her behalf. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:43
Thank you, Don. Alright, I’m gone. If you don’t mind. I would like to ask Todd to introduce a couple of special guests and then do your Superintendent report after that. Todd Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:05
Thank you. I’m good evening. President secrets members of board Superintendent had dad. Let me remove this for a sec. It’s fogging my glasses and I can’t read. Sorry. I’d like to introduce tonight the recommendation or the to introduce to you Sorry, Crystal Tinkler as the Dean of Students for soaring heights, peak aid and with her joining her is her husband Ryan and her principal now Cyrus Weinberger. This sprinkler has graduated from California State University Stanislaw with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She continued her education at Cal State University’s Thomas law, where she received her master’s degree in education. Mr. Winkler also received another master’s degree from the University of Colorado Denver in educational leadership with the principal licensure for the past six and a half years was sprinkler has been a counselor in the St. vrain Valley schools, where she provides prevention support to all students. Over the past five months. She has also worked as the project Launch Director where she has been responsible for hiring and training all project staff for project launch from 2011 to 2013. Mr. Winkler served as a post secondary options coach at mapleton public schools. And prior to that she served as an elementary school counselor at Weaver Unified School District in California from 2007 to 2011. So I’m gonna let Strickler say
Unknown Speaker 1:13:34
Hi, everyone. It’s an honor to be here and an honor to be selected as the Dean of Students for soaring heights PK eight, I have been with a brain since 2014. And I’m really inspired by all of you to take my next step into leadership. And I’m excited to keep serving in the area community. I’ve been at Red Hawk Elementary, in airy since 2014. And now we will continue to serve Erie as the Dean of Students at starry nights. So thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:12
I’d also like to introduce to you Matt Romig as the Dean of Students for soaring heights Piquet and Erie High School and joining Matt tonight is his wife Heather, and then his principals, Cyrus hornberger, and Matt buckler. Sorry Mr. Roemer graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a bachelor’s degree in music. He continued his education at the University of Northern Colorado, where he received his master’s degree in music education with the K 12 music licensure. Mr. Robic also received his EDS degree in educational leadership from the University of Northern Colorado. For the past nine years, Mr. remmick has been the bulk of music teacher at call Ridge Middle School, where he guided large numbers of students to perform concerts and musicals and work collaboratively with teachers and parents to help students be successful. From 2011 to 2012. Mr. Romek served as the choir and drama teacher at land’s middle Senior High School, where he overhauled and reshaped the culture of the choral program into one of the one of positivity inclusivity and excellence, Mr. Roman.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:26
Good evening. Thank you so much for having me. I decided I’d write down what I’d like to say. I’m, I’m incredibly excited and humbled by the opportunity to be a dean of students at soaring heights pre k eight, and Erie high school. I just finished my 10th year of teaching all in St. vrain. And my first teaching, as I said, was at Lyons, middle senior. In my time as a choir teacher, I have had the opportunity to work with students for a wide variety of backgrounds. One aspect of teaching that I love is putting my students in a position to take risks and be successful. I love supporting and helping people grow. I am looking forward to bringing those same skills to the dean position at both of these schools. The Erie feeder is growing at an incredible rate and I’m excited to stand behind students and teachers and support them and help them be successful. I am thrilled to learn from the admin teams at both soaring heights and Erie High School and specifically from principal Weinberger and principal buckler. Thank you Dr. Haddad, Dr. cavusin Mr. Kraus principal Weinberger and principal buckler for this opportunity. I would also like to thank my coal Ridge, middle school current admin team and specifically principal lies an IBO and my former principal, Dr. Brian young, who’s that Frederick High School for their belief in me and the mentorship. Thank you again for this opportunity. And I’m really excited to get to work.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:45
Congratulations. Thank you for being here. Don, that brings us to agenda item five and your Superintendent report.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:07
Okay. You know, just gonna share a couple things. We are, I guess, one day away from the last day of school. And then we will start our project launch programs and some of our other so summer programming. We also have graduation coming up this weekend that we’re all very excited about and looking forward to. So that should be a wonderful experience for our graduating seniors. I also will, I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time, because we’ll eventually be putting forward a report to our community. And then also following up with our routine town hall meetings that we have every year a lot this year was disrupted pretty well, because of COVID. To have in person. We did do some of the the virtual meetings, but they were primarily focused on COVID information. But we will continue those in various schools throughout next year. Currently, there are numerous activities and projects that are underway. And again, I’m not going to get into all of them, but related to inclusion and equity. Looking at curriculum, which Cale Charles and his team have been doing for quite some time now. And we’ll continue that process we had planned this year. To go through training, we had agreed with our teachers, through the negotiations process to go through training for all of our teachers and staff. And unfortunately, because we couldn’t meet in person that got postponed, but we will be reconvening that in the fall. And so our teams are working on the preparation of that. We also have a national equity Summer Institute plan for this summer here in St brain. And so we’re looking forward to having conversations, they’re always reviewing our code of conduct policies and procedures, something we do on a regular basis. And we’ll just do it with that lens around making sure that it doesn’t put any student at disadvantage. We’re also intensifying and expanding our recruitment and retention efforts for teachers and staff. And our new teacher induction program helping new teachers, as they come in with their induction program include that element to it. Parent Advisory Group, we have several of them in the district right now. But we’re looking at creating an additional Parent Advisory Group with students that would meet with me with parents of our students that would meet with me, share with me some of their personal experiences and their children’s personal experiences in our schools, so that we can make sure that all of our children are receiving the support necessary. We’re hoping to continue the speaker series that we’ve begun. We had a really exceptional one done in Erie. And we hope to continue to expand that as we move forward. And we will be sharing more of this with our community as we always Due through various means, through superintendents, updates, through brochures, through personal meetings, in person meetings, and then we’ll look forward. Our meetings this fall will include conversation around equity, and then other things of importance to our system, school safety and, and finances and some of the other things. So, and again, I won’t spend any more time on that, because there’s a whole host of things. And one thing that I would say to people who have asked, Will you start doing these things, as was indicated, a lot of these things are underway, and they’re intensifying and growing broader and deeper. And so we’ll continue to look forward to partnering with all of our students and continuing to support everyone in this effort. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:44
Thank you, Don. All right. Um, if I forget something that’s the new we’ve gone out of order, please, somebody, please jump in. I believe we’re at 6.2, which is district financial straits statements for April 2021. And Greg, we met the board and you met at 530. With Dr. Had add to discuss those financial statements.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:07
Yeah, thank you. So we did cover the financials at 530. We will post them out to the website. Again, we have an executive
Unknown Speaker 1:21:16
dashboard, executive summary dashboard where people can look at that everything is going well. We continue to monitor the community schools and the nutrition services programs as they are basically self supporting in typical times, but because their participation is down, we need to just make sure that they’re getting the support they need.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:39
Great. Thanks, Greg. And that is due to COVID. Yes, to be clear. All right. Thank you very much. Agenda Item 6.3 is the introduction of superintendents fiscal year 2022. proposed budget all funds. Hi, Tony. The board had a very informative study session last week with Tony and Greg. And we dove very deep into into this proposed budget. And so once again, just want to thank you for that, Tony.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:12
You’re welcome my pleasure. So Good evening, members of the board. Tonight I have the privilege of introducing the superintendent’s proposed budget for St. vrain Valley schools for the 2021 22 fiscal year. As you know, this budget is the comprehensive spending plan tracking all resources and expenditures for all funds used to educate our students and support the vision and mission of the district for the date spanning July 1 2021 through June 30 2022. I want to thank all of the individuals who are involved in the development of this budget, as it truly is a team effort and includes the cooperation of a large contingent of individuals including the Finance and Audit Committee, board members, and a broad swath of District personnel including members of HR and finance area assistant superintendents, department heads and their secretaries building principals and their secretaries Sandy Tam’s, our budget analyst, and other finance personnel. And of course, Greg feet, their CFO, Dr. capetian and Dr. Had. Before we start with the details, I want to emphasize that due to the pandemic, this proposed budget contains a few more estimates than it would normally, the state legislature is still working on passing the school finance act. And while we anticipate increases in our total program formula funding, we do not have final numbers at this point, as we would in a normal year. Also, as a consequence of that compensation agreements have only just very recently been finalized. And so expenditures for salaries and benefits have not fully been adjusted to reflect such in the general fund budget. Even in the normal year. The proposed budget is based on some conservative and preliminary estimates available at the time. But these additional variables have exacerbated this situation. Now per state statute, we are required to introduce proposed budget by the end of May beginning our public comment period. We are then scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the budget on June 9, and finally adopt the budget on June 23. In a normal year, there are very few if any adjustments from when the proposed budget is introduced to when it gets adopted at the end of June. However, this year as we get more information over the next few weeks on state formula funding and are able to finalize or include our final finalized compensation agreements. I will work to incorporate those changes and bring forward revisions to the board at the subsequent meetings. Finally, in January of 2022, in the normal course of business, I will bring forward a mid year amended budget proposal that will contain adjustments to this budget based on actual changes to assess valuation, state funding, student counts and other revenues and expenditures. Now on to provide a few details surrounding next year’s proposed general fund budget changes compared to the current fiscal year 2020 2021 budget. This current document hasn’t changed since we reviewed it At the board study session last week, it contains a budgeted spend down of general fund fund balance of approximately $16.3 million. This compares to a budgeted spend down of 19.9 in the current FYI, 21 budget, and this is a change as a result of increased revenues over increased expenditures. Compared to FYI 21. This FYI 22 proposed budget reflects an increase of revenue in the amount of $12 million. This is mostly due to a large increase in total program funding revenue, offset by estimated reductions for mlo specific ownership taxes and certain federal COVID relief revenues. This budget also currently contains an increase in expenditures of $8.4 million compared to the fy 21 expenditure budget. This is primarily a result of some preliminary estimates to compensation, as I mentioned earlier, and restoration of the budget for the iPad lease offset by savings from lower participation in the launch ed program. The expenditure budget for compensation for teachers and staff, as I mentioned will be revised and presented at the public hearing in two weeks, as we incorporate those recent changes as a result of the agreement with the Education Association. As for now, however, these current changes mean the district’s proposed budget will see a budgeted reduction and fund balance of 16 point 3 million. The current projected ending fund balance for this year is about $141 million. That’s our general fund reserve. The 16.3 budgeted spend down would then bring that amount to 124 point 7 million or about 33% of budgeted expenditures, and that’s before any outperformance. We will make this proposed budget document available on our website at sb vsd.org. And a printed copy available for public inspection here at the district offices. The public input and comment period begins today. And we will have a public hearing and bring updates to the board at the next board meeting on June 9, pending any further changes after that. This budget will then be brought forward to the June 23. board meeting for formal adoption. It would be my pleasure to address any questions about the general fund, or of course any of the other funds at this time.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:11
Any board member questions or comments? Paula? Thanks, Tony. I just want to thank you all for all the work, it’s always it’s always a big lift to put together these very complex budgets. But this year in particular, for obvious reasons for you know, the different funding mechanisms that were coming in through the feds and then the rescission from the state and then they gave some money back and just trying to track all of that. And to put it all on paper and make sense out of it is huge. It was it’s really been incredible work that you guys have done. And also I’ll just share with the board. The Finance and Audit Committee met on Monday and went through this as we went through it at our board meeting and they were all very supportive, very supportive of it. That’s it. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:01
Appreciate it, Paula. And so Tony, this begins the beginning of the public comment, period. Correct? If the public has a question about the proposed budget, who should they reach out to
Unknown Speaker 1:28:15
reach out to the main phone line number which is listed on the website and encourage anyone to visit svsu.org and scroll down to the very bottom and click on financial transparency. They can see all the information and including this budget as well as a lot of other information. They’re available on our website. And there’s also some contact information listed there as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:33
Perfect. Thank you. Appreciate it. We’ll look forward to seeing you back on the ninth then. Thank you. Thank you. Agenda Items 7.1 is the beginning of our consent agenda this evening. Do board members wish to pull any of the consent agenda items? Alright, with that then I would entertain a motion for approval of 7.1 staff termination sleeves 7.2 staff appointments 7.3 approval of amendment to design build contract for Erie High School modular Project 7.4 change order one two construction manager general contractor cmgc contract for lions middle Sr 7.5 purchase of Kubota tractors 7.6 purchase of annual maintenance smart net for Cisco network products 7.7 recommendation to hire Dean of Students for Erie High School soaring heights PK eight and 7.8 recommendation to hire Dean of Students for soaring heights PK eight 7.9 approval of administrator contracts for 2021 22 show moved by Jim and a second
Unknown Speaker 1:29:52
second by Chico BB. Mr. Aaron’s absent Mr. Berthold? Yes, Mr. Garcia. Yes, Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce, aye. Mrs. Ragland, absent Ms. siegrist. i.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:08
We have three action items this evening, the first of which is action item 8.1, which is a recommendation for the approval of the intergovernmental agreement with the town of Erie. Hello, Scott.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:20
Hello. Good evening board. Good to see you. Again. I might talk about 8.1 and 8.2. Together, they’re the Erie and Frederick IGA. I’ve been in a process of meeting with city planners there. And they’re town attorneys to implement these, again, they’ve come to their kind of end of their 10 year period where we have to renew them. So just to refresh your memory on these types of IGA as they are for setting up the parameters for the dedication of land, or the cash in lieu of land, so they’re really an important piece of our long range planning process. And it kind of gets us in the front door of negotiating with developers and with towns to identify school sites. So over the years that I’ve been involved with these agreements, we’ve dedicated over or received over 590 acres of school sites that we didn’t have to pay for. Currently, we have over 7 million in our account for cash in lieu, and we track that by feeder by town, and are able to use that for infrastructure, acquisition of land and the development of land. So there’s a few nuances in each of the the two agreements. In the first one, the town of Erie, we kind of partnered with boulder Valley School District, who is also implementing an IGA at the same time. And we started looking at land values in Erie, and saw some increases there. And we were able to work with their town planners and increase the value of the land components. So you’ll see within the town of Erie, IGA, there’s an increased cash in lieu fee for each type of dwelling unit. There were a few other little modifications one was in their agreement. The town wanted the ability to purchase back sites that we didn’t end up using. So we had this and other agreements where they have a first right of refusal to acquire sites that we’ve identified that we don’t need any longer. But that’s probably not the case Neary that will run into that. We’ve also increased the timeline of being able to hold on to the funds from 15 to 20 years in Erie before, we’d have to make those available for refund if a developer if we didn’t end up using it. But again, that’s not a likely scenario, in any of our IGA is we ended up using the funds within five to 10 years typically. So there are reviewing this at their June 8, board meeting for final approval. So you may want to take action on that first, that the only difference in Frederick is they’re maintaining the current fees. Part of that’s connected with the tribe towns, are similar fees to Kono and Firestone, and to get one of those out in front of the other, it probably is going to take a group or a conjoined effort between the three towns to raise the fee all at once. So that’ll be a project that we bring forward at a later time to all three, but so their fee remains the same. And otherwise, their agreement is identical to the one that was approved in 2011. So with that, I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:13
Thank you, Scott. So then you’re entertaining questions for agenda item, action items, 8.1 and 8.2. Correct. All right. Any other any board member comments or questions this evening? on either agenda item deck.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:28
Thank you, Scott. I just have a question about we negotiated or sorry, you negotiated the IGA with both with the town of Erie and boulder Valley School District. So is the IGA is that agreement, the same for boulder Valley as it is for
Unknown Speaker 1:34:48
right? So we ended up with identical IPAs. There was kind of a back and forth where they had some more important items and We weren’t One of them was the 20 year period, which they may not spend the funds as quickly as we would because of the growth. But so it ended up in our agreement as well, the 20 year. So it was it was fine for us.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:17
Thank you. And then just one follow up question. You talked about the IGA for the having being unchanged for Frederick. And then, but alluded to a renegotiation of those prices that at the track, track town’s level and what do you have a timeframe for that?
Unknown Speaker 1:35:42
Yeah, we we hope to maybe do that summer project, start looking at land values there. They are different than Erie that weld county as opposed to, you know, some of Boulder County and in Erie. So it’d be involved evaluating land prices throughout the entire tri town and then reaching out to the planners in each of those three towns, to see what the political will is for, for a fee increase there.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:14
And those town planners are aware that that’s our intent.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:18
Yeah. So we talked about that a little bit in Frederick. And I shared our methodology with Erie so they, they’re aware of it. And actually, I was presenting at Frederick last night, and alluded to that topic coming forward. And their planner mentioned it also. So Frederick’s aware, and it’s a project that we mentioned when we updated Firestone maybe four or five years ago, that to be an alert for that kind of thing coming up. Thank you. Alright, thank you, Barb,
Unknown Speaker 1:36:59
can we vote on both of those at the same time? Or would you prefer I do them individually? I’d prefer individually, if you don’t mind? No, I don’t mind at all. That’s why I asked 8.1 then I would entertain a motion for would entertain a motion for approval of 8.1 which is the intergovernmental agreement with the town of Erie. so moved by Dec and a second by Paula.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:25
Mr. Arens absent Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan absent Miss Seeger.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:34
I would also entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.2, which is the intergovernmental agreement with the town of Frederick
Unknown Speaker 1:37:44
by Chico. Okay. And Jim. Thank you, Mr. Arens, absent Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr? Yes. Miss Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan, absent and Miss Seacrest.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:56
I thank you, Scott. It was great to see you again this evening. So you are final agenda item this evening is 8.3. And it is the approval of the 20 to 23 and 2324. school districts calendars. Diane, that seems pretty strange to say, and I don’t know how you must I feel like we’re reviewing the count. I think we just did the calendar. And so I can’t imagine you must work on the calendar all year long.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:25
President secrets, you are not the only person who have noticed that. I’ve had lots of comments about the calendar. And you know, we traditionally have a two year calendar. But this year, we had a number of them because of COVID. And so I just want to thank all the people who’ve worked on the various calendars. Looking at this level of detail is quite comprehensive. And starting up this committee this year, to review the next two years of calendar is was really a rewarding experience was the first time we had a virtual committee. And I think we’ll follow through with that it was really great not to have to drive we were able to have a more varied committee lots greater participation, because people didn’t need to physically come together. So there were some benefits to the process. And so you’ll see the calendar here before you and it is kind of strange to see 2024 on on the list, but we typically took it through a process that we have in the past we look first of all through the lens of what is instructionally most critical for our students. We look at dates where we think that we will maximize their attendance. We look at various opportunities for athletics and attendance. This year, we looked critically, especially around music concerts. Some of the parent conversations that came up was the compaction of winter con concerts alongside High School finals. And so that was a real kind of lens that we used, along with other neighboring district calendars and just kind of looking at what’s critical for our families in our community. And what you see before you are the calendars for the 20 to 23 and the 2324. calendar. Thanks, Diane.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:32
You know, I think the calendar, the creation of the calendar is one of those things that from the outside looking in my appear very straightforward, but in practice is incredibly complex. And I appreciate that you’re taking it to the level of detail that you really are thinking about what’s convenient for parents, maximizing attendance, how can you best support students during finals? And then as you said, comparing it to a variety of other other measures. So thank you. Yeah. board members, comments or questions? No. All right. Great. Thanks, Diane. All right. I would entertain a motion for approval then of action item 8.3. so moved by Jim. Second. And
Unknown Speaker 1:41:26
Chico BB. Mr. Aaron’s absent Mr. Bercow? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. martyr, Yes, Miss Pierce, I miss Ragland absent and Miss Seacrest.
Unknown Speaker 1:41:37
I, I suppose, Barb, you’re here and you don’t need me to call out who is actually making a motion second appreciated. Voices sounded like out of masks on my virtual my virtual habits will take a while to break. We do not have any discussion items this evening. Our next meeting is going to be June 9, which will be a regular meeting at 6pm here in the Board of Education room. I do want to miss wish all of the students happy last day of school. And congratulations to all of our graduating seniors this weekend. I know that the board members and several members of Don’s team are excited to attend those graduations and celebrate those accomplishments. If there’s nothing else I would entertain a motion for adjournment. Please. from Belgium and a second by Chico All in favor? Aye. Aye. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Right