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 0:03
Good evening and welcome to the May 25 2022 meeting of the St. Brain Valley Schools Board of Education. Please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Unknown Speaker 0:21
United States of America one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
Jim, would you please call the roll.
Unknown Speaker 0:38
Mr. Berthold present. Mrs. Brooks Present. Mr. Garcia here. This is her ironic. Dr. Martyr present. Mrs. Wagon here. Mr. Siegrist. Excused.
Unknown Speaker 0:54
Jim, were there any additions or changes to the agenda?
Unknown Speaker 0:57
Not that I’m aware of.
Unknown Speaker 1:01
I’d like to welcome everyone and thank you for being here with us tonight. Just as a reminder, this meeting is being live screen streamed, and a recording will be available on our website. If you could please turn off your device notifications to preserve audio quality, we greatly appreciate it. I’m Karen Ragland, standing in for our president Joey Siegrist. And Dr. Jackie Capetian, will be standing in for Don edad tonight, so that they can attend and provide remarks at the memorial service for Mrs. Laverne Johnson, and lifelong lions community member and champion for our communities, schools. This is a wonderful time of year for our families and our students as they finish up another year of school, they get ready for summer, which for some includes more learning in our schools. And we are so fortunate to provide that experience and also to celebrate incredible achievements that provide us with excitement and joy and hope. And also some perspective and some reflection, especially in light of an unspeakable tragedy in our country. Our mission to educate each student in a safe environment so they may develop to their highest potential is woven into the work of every person in every department. And our graduating students represent a culmination of the great work being done here. We do not have any visitor presentations today. But I see a lot of beautiful faces in the audience. I know we have five people signed up to speak for audience participation. Are there any are there any additional people that did not have a chance to sign up to speak?
Unknown Speaker 2:52
Okay
Unknown Speaker 2:58
so information about audience participation can be found summarized on our website on the Board of Education website on one of those pages. And it is also in board policy BDD h BDBE, d h and B E D HR. And we do not have any people signed up for agenda items today but we do have people to speak on non agenda items. Each will have three minutes and we’ll limit the non agenda item discussion to 30 minutes total. And each speaker is asked to say their name and their address. Mr. lammer will start the timer and then they may begin. We value our community tremendously and we will be listening to and thinking about your words. Even though we may not respond. The first audience participation member I have on my list is Patricia Gutierrez.
Unknown Speaker 4:23
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Unknown Speaker 7:34
thank you for that Okay, our next audience participant Diana Sanchez
Unknown Speaker 7:56
Hello, my name is Diana Sanchez and I am a safe seventh graders attending Timberline PE K through eight. I am here because I don’t like the food they serve in our school. In my experience of eating at school. I didn’t really like it because it doesn’t have any flavor or taste and it doesn’t seem appetizing. I honestly believe that the food is frozen and are not completely. I would like for the food to be fresher, healthier. I would like I would like that to be healthier. Why not add to our school menu nutritious foods for example, grilled chicken instead of a single chicken patty and accompanied with a complete salad instead of just cucumbers and carrots. In addition for breakfast, I don’t just want a piece of a piece of bread full of sugar. Why don’t you include eggs, toasted bread, bacon or fresh fruit without further ado, I hope that can be a change. Thank you for your attention. Have a nice day.
Unknown Speaker 8:54
Thank you Diana and next on our list we have Tristan Diaz
Unknown Speaker 9:14
My name is Tristan Diaz. I’m a sixth grade student at long speak middle school, and I am 12 years old. I’m quite concerned with the fact that students school lunches are unhealthy. For example, they serve various types of bread, cookies and burritos for breakfast, which aren’t very good on freshmen might be pizza, hamburgers, and chicken sandwiches are available for look. Most of the time these are extremely dry and difficult to students should not be offered these types of items. My opinion because they’re unhealthy. This makes us weak and tired, making it difficult to concentrate in class. It is also a shame. The oddest food goes to waste. It is not right the students have to go through this especially some of us have to pay. Thank you for listening.
Unknown Speaker 10:17
Thank you Tristan. Next we have Luciana Monroe Hello everyone.
Unknown Speaker 10:30
My name is Luciana Monroe and I’m a sixth grader at Twin Peaks classical Academy. I want to thank the Superintendent and the Board of Education for listening to our comments today. I’m here because I want to give my opinion about food and St. Vrain Valley School District. And my own experience, I’ve only in school lunches a few times, and I decided not to eat it again because it was a very small amount and not very filling. During classes, I would get hungry, which would make it hard for me to focus. I would be hungry either because the food was very little, or I just didn’t want to eat because sometimes the pizza would be cold or really greasy and the meat and sandwiches would have small frozen parts. I think that we should be given more time to eat at school and also more healthy foods such as fresh vegetables and fruit, not canned food but fresh ingredients. For example, the school cafeteria should cook from scratch instead of offering frozen cooked food. I firmly believe that if school cafeterias serve healthier foods, students will grow up knowing how to eat healthy food. I learned about healthy food at my house but it would also be helpful to learn about it at school. Last but not least, I think that the school district should hire a professional chef that knows about healthy food so that he or she can be in charge of the cafeteria menus. Thank you for your time and have a nice day.
Unknown Speaker 11:53
Thank you Luciana and the next person we have signed up to speak is Deborah Lowry. Hi Deborah.
Unknown Speaker 12:08
Hello. So I am the flameout High School boosters president and I will try to keep this as brief as possible. I had a much longer thing written
Unknown Speaker 12:18
but quickly just by stating your name and address I did
Unknown Speaker 12:21
oh my address Deborah Lowry 1565 Harlequin drive Longmont, Colorado. 80501. Thank you. Okay, so, Everly Montgomery is currently shared by four major high schools, all four high schools experienced great amounts of success through their athletic programs, as we have all witnessed over the years and most recently, Longmont high school boys track taking the state championship. So with that in mind, you know, I recognize that the district had put some effort into updating the Fieldhouse this year, and when I went down, I was completely frustrated because they put all this effort and money into lockers and into bathrooms and then did not touch the concessions area. The concessions area is shared by four schools, which roughly equates to 5600 students that are being served through that area. Because of those four high schools who are sharing. It’s very difficult for scheduling. So last year, my son played JV football for Longmont high school, we had scheduled half of our games at home and we had one home game. And the reason why we had one home game was because there was not we were trumped by these other varsity teams from Silver Creek, from Taiwan and from skyline. So because of that we only had one home game. So we were traveling the entire season, because of our lack of buses, us as parents, we were then transporting our kids. So the My point is, is that when they updated the stadium, they should have also considered updating the concessions area. And that one of the things that I that I feel like needs to be addressed is when we have these two beautiful stadiums at Erie high school and at Mead High School, and they’re the only high schools using those stadiums. Why haven’t we thought about having them share with one of these other four schools? So in what I’m thinking of that would be that would make sense is as we’re trying to go through the process of continuing to update I’m assuming that the 1963 build that that’s not sufficient for today’s standards, in terms of the electrical and things like that that are now outdated, and that we would put money forth to try to expand that concessions area to make it updated to make it more conducive for volunteers that would make it easier to get volunteers that want to work in the concessions area. We have to pull teeth to get them in there and also to allow for a greater number of students to be able to enjoy that area. Additionally, by having two schools only at the stadium sharing, that would also alleviate some of the issues with scheduling. And it would also alleviate some of the excessive use of that concessions area. So another area that we have trouble with is because there’s four schools sharing that stadium that we have to move out, and I invite all of you to come and volunteer and concessions from start to finish and see how that works. But we have to actually use
Unknown Speaker 15:32
Deborah. That was three minutes.
Unknown Speaker 15:37
So do I have to schedule for another session? When’s your next meeting?
Unknown Speaker 15:42
Thank you, Deborah.
Unknown Speaker 15:43
When is your next meeting? You can look on your schedule.
Unknown Speaker 15:49
Our next meeting is Wednesday, June 8 at 6pm. Thank you. And that is the concludes our audience participation making sure I didn’t miss anyone. Which brings us to Oh, okay. non agenda? Is this an agenda item or non agenda item?
Unknown Speaker 16:21
This is related to the school lunches. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t know if it was agenda or non agenda thinks about procedure. All right. Are you okay? If I speak and then I’ll fill it out?
Unknown Speaker 16:39
Yeah, if you could just state your name and your address, definitely. My name
Unknown Speaker 16:43
is Anne Hill Sanchez, I live at 900 South Broad Street, Longmont, Colorado, 80501. So I wanted to have an opportunity to speak on behalf of the kids and and I’m really, really proud of you all good job, and talking about their needs for healthier foods and healthier food options in the in the classes. So it’s no secret that we are navigating a an achievement gap. And that achievement gap impacts students of color at a much higher proportion than it does their counterpart, white peers in our education system. Our education and our students education is not solely just based on test taking, and what they do in the classroom in relation to grades, it’s also how we show up for them and prepare them to do that, that includes the nutrition that we’re giving them, and how we’re feeding them to make sure that they are in a better position to be successful in their academics. And because of that, I want to support them and ask that we do something to change this nutrition for them so that they have a better opportunity to focus more on their academics and be successful. Now, that achievement gap also comes with an economic factor, right? Too many of our families are living hand to mouth and can’t necessarily afford to produce the kinds of lunches that many other families might be able to send their students to school with to where this, this might be a non issue for them. But in lower income schools and in our communities, we really, really, truly need the support. And if it really does, in fact, take a village that that includes our school district and includes all of you. So I hope that you take an opportunity to help support our students and students success, which has not only given them better options for meals, but it’s also going to help to contribute to closing that achievement gap and making sure that we’re practicing equity across the board here in the st. Green Valley School District. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.
Unknown Speaker 18:27
Thank you. Thank you, and I believe that brings us to reports.
Unknown Speaker 18:44
And, as I mentioned earlier, Dr. Don head is not here but Dr. Jackie Capetian. Do you have any updates?
Unknown Speaker 18:51
Sure. I have just a couple of updates. First and foremost, we were very sad, frustrated and shaken to hear of the tragedy that happened in Texas. Yesterday afternoon. Dr. had addressed that this morning, in a letter to our staff and also a letter to our parents and asked anyone who is struggling with that crisis to please reach out and we will offer support and resources to anyone who might need that. We also have spent the better part of the last week celebrating our graduates through graduation walks we had those blocks today at in the Frederick feeder that culminated at Coleridge middle school, they are a split Middle School, half of their students go to Frederick and the other half feed into Mead. And so all of the graduates from both schools came together today at at Coleridge Middle School. And that was a beautiful sight to see our our students, our teachers, high fiving students that they have taught years ago and inspiring our younger students to get across that finish line as well. And then we have graduations. The rest of this week we celebrated our life skills. Students today at Main Street. tomorrow and Friday. We have some smaller graduations for smaller programs and schools throughout the district. And then on Saturday morning, we’ll celebrate all of the rest of our graduates at all of the high schools in same brain. It is going to be a beautiful day, we’ve been watching the weather closely, it looks like a 3% chance of rain in the afternoon. So I think we are in the clear, and we’re excited. Tomorrow is the last day of school for our students. And so we’ll close out very successful 2122 school year and hope to see many of our children back on June 6 To start our summer programming with with project launch. So we look forward to that as well.
Unknown Speaker 20:56
Thank you, Jackie. And that brings us to report 6.1 introduction of superintendents fiscal year 2023 proposed budget all funds. Tony, welcome.
Unknown Speaker 21:12
Thank you. 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 2020 to 23 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 2022 Through June 30 2023. I would like to thank all the people who are involved in the development of this budget added as it is truly 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 Finance, assistant superintendents, department heads and their secretaries building principals and their secretaries, Sandy Tams our budget analyst Greg feet, our CFO as well as Deputy Superintendent Capetian and Superintendent had. This year’s timeline was thankfully much less affected by the pandemic compared to the past two years. The legislative session is over the school finance Act has been passed and our compensation agreement with the education association is substantially complete and awaiting ratification. per state statute. We are required to introduce the proposed budget by the end of May, beginning our public comment period. We are then scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the budget which is scheduled for June 8. And finally formal adoption of the budget is slated for June 22. Finally, in January of 2023. In the normal course of business, I will bring forward a mid year amended budget proposal, which will contain adjustments to this budget based on actual changes to assess valuation, state funding, student counts and other revenues and expenditures. This proposed budget is based on conservative and preliminary estimates available at this time. And it is also based on a zero growth K 12 Student FTE strategy in order to position the district to effectively address additional needs in the fall as students arrive in classrooms. As you know last week at the board study session, we had the opportunity to delve a little deeper into this budget and its inputs, and particularly from a general fund perspective. But for the benefit of the public and any viewers at home. I’d like to provide a brief recap of the general fund budget changes compared to last year and make myself available to the board to answer any questions regarding the other fund budgets for fiscal year 2020 to 23. The proposed budget contains a planned spend down of general fund fund balance in the amount of $27.4 million. This is compared to a budgeted spend down to 21 point 4 million for the current FY 22 budget. This change is a result of increased revenues in excess of increased expenditures. Compared to fy 22. This FY 23 proposed budget reflects an increase of revenue in the amount of seven and a half million dollars. This is mostly due to an increase in total program funding revenue as a result of reduction of excuse me a reduction of the total program budget stabilization factor. Removal of one time capital projects transfers increase Special Education categorical funding, and this is offset by the sunset of a majority of our federal COVID Relief revenues. This budget also contains an increase of expenditures of $13.6 million compared to the FY 22 expenditure budget. This is primarily a result of our compensation increase package, additional faculty and staff a curriculum adoption and then offset by a sunset of a majority of our federal COVID Relief expenditures. So those as we talked about the COVID Relief revenues and the COVID Relief expenditures are coming off of our budget. These changes mean that the district proposed budget will see a budgeted reduction in fund balance Save 27 point 4 million as I mentioned previously, the current projected ending fund balance for this year, which is the beginning fund balance for next year is approximately 152. Point 6 million, this $27.4 million spend down would bring that to about 125 million, or about 31% of budgeted expenditures and that’s before any outperformance or variances of that budget. We will make this proposed budget document available on our website@svsd.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 any updates to the board at the next board meeting at on June 8, pending any further changes after that this budget will then be brought forward to the June 22 board meeting for formal adoption. And it would be my pleasure to address any questions at this time.
Unknown Speaker 25:54
Thank you, Tony. And just to provide some background, the Finance and Audit Committee was able to review the budget on Monday. And Dr. Marta and I both attended that meeting. We also reviewed the budget. I think it was last week at our study session with the board and had a great discussion with you. So thanks so much for the time and effort. Everyone in your on your team has put into this. Do board members have any questions or comments?
Unknown Speaker 26:27
Just the just a question with regard to really not so much a question but a little more insight on the approach we’re taking to the fund balance and the plan spend down in in this year. And that takes into consideration what our cash flow needs will be through the end of the year, our low cash time. And are we in your mind sufficiently? While we have the planned spend down? There? We have historically had outperformance that have offset in part with us spend on in fact, turns out to be but assuming that none of that happened. And we did spend down the 27 million and change that we’ve that is in the proposed budget. Are you concerned at all about future years if we were to do that?
Unknown Speaker 27:25
Thanks for the question, Dr. martyr. So with regard to our plan spin down and our fund balance. So we are starting the fiscal 23 year with an estimated 150 $152 million. This plan spin down as mentioned would go down to about 125. And that’s up prior to performance. As you mentioned, that percentage as a percentage of our overall expenditure budget is about 31% or so we try to maintain a target of a minimum of about 25%. And what that does is it results in about three months or so of expenditures that we have in our reserves. In in the case of capitalization. As you mentioned, our lowest point cash point in the year is right around January February before tax payments start coming in. And that reserve even at its lowest point I’m using these numbers and this spin down would still maintain enough’s where we would not need to take advantage of the interest free loan program and fall below our cash needs for the entire year. In many circumstances where there’s less than adequate reserves, districts around the state would be required to participate in an interest free loan program in order to have the cash needs to meet payroll and things to those low points in the year. And so with this $27 million spend down. What this does is like I mentioned at the board study session and a moment ago, it would spend us down to 125. Before outperformance after outperformance we would probably do better than that. But what this will entail the large fund balance that we have at this point allows us for is a course correction in the future if we do find that future inflows of ongoing revenues would exceed future anticipated ongoing expenditures. And if that were the case on an ongoing basis, and we saw large spend downs of our fund balance in future budget projections, we have adequate time to kind of course correct and adjust for that to ensure that we don’t put ourselves in an uncomfortable situation or have too much of a spend out over fund balance. We can make sure we’re maintaining enough to to not have to take advantage of interest free loan programs, as well as do a lot of other things. The fund balance provides us with quite a few other benefits in terms of haven’t been able to weather variability in terms of providing for returns on interest on those funds that are invested and such and so I think that this is been a really great year in terms of us being able to take advantage of that fund balance and via Will to put as much as we could towards compensation and to help offset the high inflationary rates that we’ve had, as well as provide as much as we can to the base funding in the salary teacher salary schedule.
Unknown Speaker 30:14
You You’ve entered, painted my next comment or question. You’ve briefed the board at our study session with regard to negotiations that we’re currently underway. I understand they have not been approved by the association. But could you share with us whatever is is public at this point. Our teachers really, and our whole staff deserve every dime that we can provide. And I am delighted that we’ve been able to be, in my view, appropriately generous in this year,
Unknown Speaker 30:51
agreed, I’m really happy to be able to, again, allocate as much as we possibly can to compensation. Again, we’re trying to make sure we’re doing it responsibly, and that we’re leveraging the reserves that we have. But yeah, the the compensation agreement hasn’t been ratified by the teachers associated with the Education Association. I know that a an announcement was made yesterday that there’ll be an increase of $4,000 on base funding the teacher salary schedule, I believe that will come forward to the board and report in a future board meeting. There’s a corresponding increases for other employee groups. That amount has not been released. And so I’ll keep that under wraps for the time being. But when that’s announced, we’ll, of course bring that forward and provide that to the board and publicly as well. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 31:48
Any other comments or questions? Great. Thanks, Tony. Thank you have a good night. And that brings us to 6.2. District financial statements. April 2022.
Unknown Speaker 32:07
Good evening. So again, we had a study session, this earlier this afternoon, where we discussed the financials for through April 30 of 2022, I was able to brief the board on that, I would say that we are in a good position across the district in all of our funds. And if you want to go if the public wants to go out and look on the website, we’ll be posting those tomorrow. And it’ll show an executive summary. We call it a dashboard, but it kind of just highlights green, go yellow, let’s look at and read. We need to be real careful. And we are green, all systems go. There are a couple of funds that we were concerned about during the pandemic. And those two funds seem to be doing dramatically better than they were. And so we’re seeing increased participation in both Nutrition Services and Community Schools before and after school programming. And so if you guys have any questions, I’d love to answer them. But I gave you an opportunity earlier.
Unknown Speaker 33:18
Thanks, Greg. Yes, we met at the study session prior to our regular board meeting today to review the district financial statements of April 2022. But do board members have any questions or comments for Greg? At this time?
Unknown Speaker 33:36
All green, green, thank you. And now it’s time for consent items. So we are I will ask for a motion to approve. Oh do board members have any consent items they would like to pull tonight.
Unknown Speaker 34:00
No items to be pulled. So I would like to entertain a motion for approval of consent items 7.1 amendment to the CMGC for meat elementary modular Project 7.2. Approval of the amendment to CMGC for Erie High School modular project. consent item sorry 7.3. Approval of the contract award for lungs peak Middle School generator replacement 7.4 approval of the change order number two to CMGC for AES radio project 7.5 approval to change order number one to J Chelsea M GC for Frederick High School rebranding 7.6 approval staff terminations and leaves 7.7 approval of request to grant an exception to board policy GBA staff ethics conflict of interest Condry 7.8 approval of the school to work Alliance program contract it
Unknown Speaker 35:02
So moved. Second.
Unknown Speaker 35:06
And Jim, would you please call the roll?
Unknown Speaker 35:10
Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mrs. Brooks? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. This is her onic. Yes. Dr. Martyr Yes. Mrs. Raglan I miss aggresses absence.
Unknown Speaker 35:27
Okay. We have no action items, no discussion items, which moves us to adjournment of the shortest board meeting of all time may have a motion for adjournment. Oh, next meeting? Yes. Sorry. So our next meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 8, it’s a regular meeting from six to eight. And then June 15. We have a 6pm to 8pm study session and other meetings in June and may have a motion for adjournment. So move. And Jim, would you call the roll, please?
Unknown Speaker 36:15
Mr. Berthold? Yes, Mrs. Brooks? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. This is chronic. Yes. Dr. martyr. Yes, Mrs. raglan.
Unknown Speaker 36:24
I thank you. Have a wonderful evening.
Unknown Speaker 36:31
That was a sneaky one.