 Good evening and welcome to the St. Brain Valley Schools Board of Education meeting and please stand and join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Good evening everyone. It's wonderful to see you. I'm going to start this evening with a tradition that was started by our previous Board of Education President Bob Smith and I'm going to read the district's mission statement. This mission statement is our North Star and it does guide all of our decision making. It reads as follows to educate each student in a safe learning environment so that they may develop to their highest potential and become contributing citizens. Barb can you please call the roll. Yes. Mr. Here. Mr. Bertha. Present. Mr. Garcia. Here. Dr. Marder. Present. Ms. Pierce. Here. Mrs. Ragland. Here. And Ms. Seagrest. Here. Thank you Barb. Have there been any addendums or changes to the agenda this evening. There have not. Thanks Barb. And the last time I spoke with you there was not any audience. There was no audience participation. Correct. Correct. OK. And we get back to visitors which has been a fairly empty slot ever since COVID. So that brings us pretty quickly to agenda item five Don which is the superintendent's report. All right. Well I appreciate that Joey. Thank you. A couple things. One I've had a chance to get into every school and several of the schools more than once and very very appreciative and impressed by what I've been seeing. I've had the opportunity to stand behind some teachers while they have their students on the screen and wave to the students and make a connection there and and talk to a lot of teachers about the kinds of work they're doing with the synchronous learning model. And the reports in terms of student attendance are very good. We're getting very high student participation and attendance. And I think the combination of being able to see your teacher and being able to hear your teacher and have that verbal interaction. I also think it's been it's been good for the students to be able to see directly into the classrooms and to see all of the instructional materials and displays and demonstrations in that environment. I think that's important. It sets the stage for the learning. But I'm very very proud of our teachers and our staff. The buildings look really incredible in terms of not only their cleanliness but also the renovations and the bond projects which you'll hear a little bit more about. So that's the synchronous learning piece. The launched ed which we had about we have about 27 2800 students enrolled in launched ed. And the thing that I would share with you it's a unique situation because normally when we open a school we start a full year in advance and we hire a principal and we hire a leadership team and we hire secretarial support and we involve a lot of different people in that process. And that's when it's one level elementary or middle or high school. So the concept of opening a pre-K through 12 school with numbers twice as large as our largest school in a matter of weeks is something that I don't think should go unnoticed. I notice in a couple of places where they've tried to do it. They have consistently backed up the start date by first a week and then another week and then another week in our team took that challenge on and it does not come without struggles and difficulties for sure. We also had about 600 people register two days before the close of registration. And so if you can imagine in a traditional school if you had 600 students show up on your doorstep two days before you were getting ready to build a schedule you would then have to hire teachers and so they onboarded and hired you know over a hundred teachers in a short period of time moved the scheduling around. One of the early challenges was the electives piece. They have resolved that for the most part by allowing students to sign up for an elective or two at their home school. And so that piece is being finalized. Our elementary schools now the schedules are primarily done the high schools the middle schools all the cores and they're continuing to make progress with nailing down the electives. Also making sure all of the students are registered as full time students. So I appreciate that and I also appreciate the community's patience and understanding that when you go to an undertaking like this the other thing that I think is also important in recognizing the teachers and the staff is this is all on the heels of a 15 million dollar overnight budget cut. And so it's not as if you can hire all of the people that are necessary to do the work because you know if you remember in 2002 a 14 million dollar budget cut brought the district to its knees. And so a 15 million dollar budget cut overnight is not conducive to opening up a 3000 student high school K3K through 12. But nonetheless they've done that and it's up and running and we're going to continue Kale and Ann and those folks. And I am very appreciative of the patience that the community has demonstrated and the support. It's always a good news story when you talk about the community and St. Rain. They are they are very supportive. And I also want people to know that we acknowledge that there are challenges but we feel like we're moving forward in a in a positive way right now with both the synchronous learning and the asynchronous learning. They're going to continue to be some challenges. One of the other challenges that we faced is with technology. Sometimes you have people are really poor choices and they will log in inappropriately and sometimes they will do things that are racist in nature. They will do things that are extremely extremely disturbing. We have put in put into place mechanisms to block that. You have to log in from a St. Rain website or email address. You also have to have a password. And then the teacher has to let you in. So all of the things that we can do in working with Cisco. I know that this has been a problem across the state and across the country. It's been reported on by a number of law enforcement agencies. And what I want and I've shared this with our principals and our staff is that we have no tolerance for that. And those kinds of behaviors will be turned over to law enforcement and they will be met with significant discipline in terms of from a school district's response. So again I'm speaking to a very very small fraction of our students because overwhelmingly they have been outstanding as have our teachers and staff. But whenever you have a system like this across the country it invites some of these extremely serious behaviors. And so we're addressing that in a very serious way. So that's kind of the totality of the synchronous learning and the launch dead. A recent letter just went out sharing all of pretty much what I shared with you with our community. Those folks that are signed up for launch dead. But it's going well and our teachers and our students and our parents have a lot to be proud of. And again I want to thank them for their their patience and their support. I also want you to know that Jackie and her team Carrie and Michelle and put together a parent resource support center where you can go in and you can log in to WebEx help. You can log in to Schoology help. You can log in to all of these seesaw help and things like that. And Jackie will get into that detail with you in just a little bit. We also have our reopening team continuing to meet today. We met with Dr. Urbina. We met with Jeff Zayak who's the director of Boulder County Health and Heather Crate who's the school liaison for this COVID virus response. And then also Jackie Carrie and other members of our team and Jim thank you for attending. And we have established in partnership with them very clear criteria that we will be looking at and monitoring the data in order to make a decision as to what we're going to do in October. And that obviously will may be made before October. But and we also agreed Steve Villarreal was there along with Fran Docherty and we agreed that we're going to continue to have these conversations with all of the Association reps and then do a webinar or a presentation on WebEx to the entire community who can log in sometime mid September to see what those criteria look like and what the data is showing. The good news right now is that the data in Boulder County and Weld County is coming way down and that's good in terms of rates positivity rates and things. One of the most onerous challenges for us continues to be the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment that requires quarantining and closures and all sorts of reactions. To people if they test positive or if they are probable or suspected in St. Brain we have had now 68 scenarios where we have had to ask people to quarantine. If we were to have had students in school those numbers would be in the thousands at this point because if you have a high school teacher for example and they teach six classes and they have a suspected case and all six of those classes of 25 to 30 students then have to be quarantined that one person being quarantined can result in 150 to 180 students being quarantined. And so we're having to monitor that and pay attention to that. And all of that data will be looked at as we make our decisions to come back to some form of in-person learning which again to reiterate is our is our priority that is what we're trying to accomplish. So I guess stay tuned and we will send communication out to our community with those dates and times and how to log in to participate and to see and hear that information from our health experts. But I do want to emphasize because a lot of times we're looking at the data and it's showing one thing but what the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is requiring us to do in response to not only a positive covid but someone who demonstrates symptoms whether it's covid or not until it's proven not to be. And as you can imagine in schools lots of people have sore throats and coughs and fevers and demonstrate these things. And when that happens then you it triggers these requirements. And this is what we're pushing really hard to get some of that relaxed. And at the end of the day we'll have to see where that goes. But we're pushing really hard to come back to in-person learning. The other thing that I would share with you is the covid testing for our teachers and staff. We're looking to start that in that first week in right after the first week in September where they can get two tests at no cost to the individual. And then once we get through that first round we'll make a determination around October and keep going as long as we need to. And that information will be very helpful for us and Jackie will share a little bit about that with you as she has been immersed for a long time with Greg and others ironing out all of the details with our attorneys with the Gary Community Foundation Family Foundation. Let's see. I do want you to know that on a positive note I've been able to deliver about 25 bells for 25 years of service. I've got two more to deliver tomorrow. But it's been great making the rounds in the schools and seeing some of our outstanding teachers and staff members who have been with us for a long time. Very proud of them. And that's been great to see and recognizing them for their great work. Also in terms of grants we recently were awarded a multi hundred thousand dollar counselor core grant which gives us opportunities to hire even more counselors and the counselors we added from the general fund last year. And then we also won a hundred thousand dollar grant from Boeing. One of their larger grants to continue to pursue the work that we're doing at the Innovation Center. And then we won a four hundred ninety four thousand dollar NSF grant around cybersecurity. So we're moving forward now with opening up and the planning process for our cybersecurity P tech program at Silver Creek and Longmont in that area. We'll have to nail down all the logistics. But so some great news with all of that. We've also been having a good deal of success with our fall sports activities. Whether it's the tennis teams that you've seen or the cross country teams or the the softball teams that have been out there and it's been really good to see. So very proud of our students and hopefully some of that success will will continue. And then I guess the last thing that I would share October counts. We've had two of them now and from the first to the second we ended up gaining about 80 students. But our enrollment is down which is to be expected. It's going to be down across the entire metro area. And so we're going to continue. We've got several counts that are planned and we have identified what that would mean from a financial perspective and also from a logistical perspective in terms of do we need to move people from one building to the next to balance everything out. And so we're in the process of doing that. But we've got a pretty good handle on on where we are and we'll continue to monitor that all the way up through the next month and let you know where that goes. So with that Jackie I'm going to ask you to turn over to you and you can talk a little bit about the parent support group and then also you've got some recognitions there and then the the covid testing and and whatever else you think you'd like to share. OK. So Don is correct in that we have had for a while a number of resources and supports for parents but they lived in different locations. Some of them lived on DTS's web page. We've sent some of them out in letters some links out in letters and just decided that it would probably be much more user friendly for our families if we put all of these resources into one location and that location is displayed very prominently on our our website on the the front page the home page of our website. So this is what it looks like most importantly is an easy way for parents to request personalized tech support through a user friendly form. So regardless of what parents are challenged with they have a way to reach out and to get support from one of our tech people at DTS with whatever personalized challenge they might be having. So that's that's first and foremost. Then as we you know we give some some general information for those who are still new to using the iPad. Our iPads are set up very specifically for Saint Brain and for the learning that will happen in Saint Brain. So parents sometimes need some direction and some support around the use of the student iPad and then our website also gives information on internet access both at the district locations but also ways to affordably gain access to the to the internet in their own homes. So we give some information to families about that as well. We provide procedures on how to set up WebEx for your child. This is our process that we're using to deliver direct instruction synchronously. So it's really important that our families know how to use WebEx how to download it and also how to protect students in terms of their privacy and how to get into different classrooms based on the links and the new procedures that Don also alluded to this evening. So we offer a tutorial around WebEx moving down the page we get into our learning management systems and in Saint Brain we have two we have Schoology for grades 4 through 12 and we have CSA for grades pre-K through 3 and we offer videos our learning services team put together videos that help parents understand our learning management system and what kind of information you can find on that system how you can access assignments see what your children are completing get the directions from the teacher and it just allows parents to monitor those assignments on the front end because then as we move down we talk more about infinite campus and that's the rear view mirror. Schoology and CSA are the windshield that's where I get to see what my student is being assigned. Infinite campus helps parents as you all know monitor grades attendance and see any assignments that are missing and so we offer again directions and we've done this for years it's become more important recently but we offer directions on how you set up your notifications and what are the things that you can monitor related to student academic progress in infinite campus. You have seen the English facing side to this all of these resources are also translated in Spanish as well and so we've just we've had again these resources for a number of months we started working on them last spring when we had to go online so quickly but again we just after you know hearing some parent feedback even at our last board meeting decided it we needed to get them all in one location and make it easy for them to find. So I'll stop there on this topic and see if there's any questions or anything that you'd like to to ask and if not I'll move on to a couple of other agenda items. Jack just real quick can you see how to get there from our website again or where on our website is that found? So it is it's found on our front COVID page. So on the our home page is our a link to our COVID page and this is displayed on our COVID page. Perfect thank you. From our home page and you'll see this large orange bar and that actually is on every school website as well so this is across our system. You see links here in both English and Spanish so whichever language is your preference you would click there to access the reopening plan and this takes you to our coronavirus website that houses all of the information that we've put together related to school reopening and we've added prominently on the home page on both English and Spanish the technology support center button so when you click that it takes you directly to that support center that has all of those resources. It's also accessible if a parent is on the elementary school page and is looking through the elementary school information the technology support center is also accessible straight from any of our leveled pages on that website. Thank you. Jerry also just wanted to say thank you to everyone involved in also getting this up in Spanish. It's you know I know huge undertaking but so important and much appreciated so thank you. You're welcome. Okay so I'm going to move on to some celebrations that we have this evening. Jackie can I just jump in real quick. Are you are we already seeing solid utilization of that of the consolidated resources and the technical support. Are we tracking it yet. You know we just pulled it all together on Monday. Okay. And made sure that everything was translated and it's live now so we can monitor that as we go. Okay. Yes. Okay. Great. Sounds good. Okay. Great. Thanks. We can give an update at that. At some point. Yeah. Okay. So I I want to just talk a little bit today about some things that have been going on in the area of reading early literacy to be exact. Over the summer we had a mobile innovation lab tour. It was our Saint Brain Reads tour. I just wanted to give an update about that because I talked about it earlier in the summer and then said I would come back and update you. That mobile labs had 10 different stops within each feeder and also at Stap Toyota. We gave away over 3,800 books in grades K through 12. We were highlighted in two publications. People were very excited about the mobile lab being out in the community. So the Times call and the Longmont leader covered had stories. Hey Jackie. Yes. Just one thing you know as I'm looking at this picture down in the left hand corner. You know I can see the steps there. Yeah. And you know what I would want to just share is from way back in 20 years ago when I was the principal at Niwot High School that this family was instrumental with our weight room construction with our scoreboards out at the baseball field. They have been truly supporting us with thousands and thousands of dollars for years. It's an incredible family and I really want them to know how much we appreciate it. Their kids you know played football and other things at Niwot and they're grown now and have their own kids. But it's just a real testament to how Stap Toyota has come back and continues to give back to this community for years. So thanks. They are. They were really excited to have the mobile lab at their business on that day and they invite us back often. So we enjoy being there. It's really a great central location out in the Carbon Valley area. And then we also had a parent who provided this quote about the mobile lab on behalf of all of the St. Brain Valley School District students who picked up books in Lyons today. Thank you. What an amazing and fun program you have put together. We are so grateful that you squeezed in Lyons Elementary School as your big grand finale. The book selection and organization by reading levels reading levels were great. And students who are managing the book tables were very professional and helpful. What a great crew. And that came from one of our Lyons parents. They probably loved having it at the end because we gave away books like crazy to that last stop. And we did have student workers work the mobile lab all summer. And they really were. They were just fabulous kids. So we appreciate all all that went into that. Colin Rickman is our mobile lab coordinator and he has a lot of energy. He's planning some great things for the fall. We're going to try to get out to elementary schools and do science little science in a bag experiments where we host almost a Bill Nye the science guy type lesson from the mobile lab and students can do the lesson using the materials we've distributed in baggies at home along with the teacher who's going to teach that lesson. So we're excited about that. We also are looking to do a design challenge in a bag and again have those materials at various schools for distribution and then allow students to do design challenges from home. So we're just trying to find ways to bring STEM to them. Okay. And then another celebration that I have is that we just calculated the summer reading challenge for my on and we had we calculated all of the minutes that students read and we had three winners and two of our winners are first time winners for the the my on challenge. Our first place winner and they've been winners before is hygiene elementary and their students read an average of one hundred and twenty one minutes this past summer and three hundred and seventy nine students were involved in their my on challenge and then our second place winner and this is their first time is Indian peaks elementary three hundred and thirty seven students and they read an average of ninety five minutes per student and then Rocky mountain elementary was our third place winner and they had three hundred and eighty nine students involved for an average of seventy two point nine zero minutes. And so Dr. Haddad was able to deliver their big checks. They're always appreciative of that most of the time they use it to buy books so that students have more reading materials. And so he was able to deliver those this last week as well. And then the last celebration I have is actually a superintendent's excellent excellence in education award. This was an award that Ashley Swanson who is our coordinator for e-learning put in. So she wrote this and I would also like to recognize Ashley even though she submitted this award on behalf of the teachers who taught e-learning this summer credit recovery really all of the things those teachers did would not have been possible without the leadership from Ashley. So I'm going to include her in this award as well. So Ashley Swanson wrote I would like to nominate the team of educators that ran and supported the twenty twenty summer school session for an excellence in education award. Working in St. Rain you never have to look far to see innovation excellence hard work and passion because it's all around us. But this team of educators exceeded all expectations in unprecedented times in education. After a sudden shift to online in the spring these educators willingly willingly jumped into the first ever online summer school session. All the while knowing that the fall semester ahead of them would likely bring many changes as well. This year's online summer program proved to be much more challenging and time consuming than previous summer school sessions. Many of our teachers were working eight hours a day instead of the normal three hours a day. Teachers were answering emails in the evenings and on weekends. They were making support calls weekly in some cases daily and providing face to face support for students who needed to every late registration class size increase parents support request these teachers said yes. In every conversation and meeting teachers expressed genuine concern about students completing their courses and getting on track for graduation. These teachers relentlessly pursued student engagement and academic success. These incredible educators represent what education should look like in the middle of a global pandemic and embody the heart and the passion of what makes St. Brain so great. I am inspired by each of them and thankful for the work of such incredible educators. And I can honestly say that we tracked especially on our seniors and many of our seniors made it to graduation day because of the work that took place over the summer to help them finish up their last credits. And really this group of educators did whatever it took. I'd like to read their names the list is long it's about 20 20 names but I'd like to individually recognize them. So from Skyline is Michael Aragon, Alma Ariano, Christopher Blair, Stephanie Bragalone, Thomas Caliento, Elizabeth or Beth Serone, Frank Safrice, Karen Gaughan, Laura Guida, Jackie Higgins, Stacy Hopel or Hoople, Carly Jerome, Andrew Kaplan, Shannon Crack, Amanda Kerjack, Beth Lee, Alayna Metivierre, Alayna Metivierre, Michelle Mills, Rashani O'Berry, Rebecca Reed, Kelsey Roberts, Shannon Rodriguez, Tracy Sandler, Katie Schmidt, Andrew Scott, Michelle Scott, Christina Smith, Donna Stamphill, Emily Sturr, Michelle Sullivan Blanken, Ashley Swanson, Greta Vaughn Bernuth, Erin Moran, Whitney Weiss, Dallin Wright and that's it. And so again, we have certificates. Normally we would have them at the board meeting and Dr. Haddad would give the superintendent's awards to them. We are going to find a way to connect with them at their schools or in a central location so that we can recognize each of them individually. But they really are a fabulous group and really very much exemplified everything that is right about the teaching profession and everything that's right about the teachers and St. Brain. And the last thing that I will update you on is just our COVID testing. Dr. Haddad is right. We are looking to begin that the day after the labor day, so September 8th. We made a determination just this evening that we're going to use the Innovation Center. We can control a lot of the variables that we need to do with the testing at one of our own facilities. That is a very centralized facility that does not have a lot of traffic right now. It has good traffic flow. It's within and away from a highly populated neighborhood area. There are some houses there but many are still under construction. So we will house it there for the month of September and look as to whether we'll continue to house it there in months after that. We will set the testing site up on September 4th. It all goes well and begin that testing. We are anticipating about 300 tests a day. We will operate from noon to 5 p.m. in order to get the results back in a expedited way. We have to get them FedExed out by about five or six each evening. So we will wrap it up by 5 p.m. so we can get the tests out. We potentially will have results back within 48 hours, sometimes 72 hours but that two to three day window is really important because if we don't have to keep people out or keep them quarantined beyond three days of course you know it's good to have everyone back as much as possible to give us stability. So that's what we're looking at. We're working with Gary Community Foundation. Our district is covering the expense for our employees for those first two tests. The data will be really useful as we look ahead to what our potential models for bringing students back might be. And you know I think our teachers and staff members have requested easy access to testing so this is another way that we're able to support our our staff in same brain. Thank you Jackie. Don did you have anything else to add. Oh thank you. Yeah well yeah the meeting was very I mean it was very thorough. I had covered an awful lot of information that as we go through that process next week when we meet again it's starting to clarify what we're trying to get Boulder County Health to help us with because we we get settled up with them and then the state tell comes in with new new requirements. So they said that they're pushing against that and I didn't don't necessarily refer it up but they definitely are trying to push back at some of the some of the requirements to stay throughout us at the last minute to change everything we were doing. I thought it was very good. And I think the planning to be able to get that WebEx with those folks as our speakers and give the information directly from them directly to to our our staff and our clients. That's I think that's critical. So I'm looking forward to the meeting next Wednesday. Sure it'll be even more information and more progress. Thank you Jim. Paula did you have a question. Jackie I just had a quick question on the covid testing for the teachers. So it's it's they don't have to be symptomatic. It's it's voluntary. They can go just they can go get it if they want it. That's correct. It is voluntary although their results will be reported to the district and to Boulder County Public Health so that we can in an aggregate way really monitor just the health of the community and the health of our organization. So if they're asymptomatic and someone was positive it would be that turnaround time that two to three day turnaround time. We know and then we would take responsive action as required. I know you know that it's teachers and all staff also all employees have access to it. That's right. So if so if they were positive then they would have to stay out of the building right. They would have to quarantine and would we get subs in place for them or. Yeah it depends. It depends on the circumstances if they're a teacher and it requires a substitute we would either we have options to either pair them up with another teacher of a similar subject and or if the teacher is able to do something at home if they're being quarantined they could conceivably run that lesson from there as well. And then we would backfill with some support for supervision and things like that. So it all depends on how many students are impacted as to whether or not we're not we're not counting on substitute teachers to be able to fill some of these. If we can utilize them we will but we do not anticipate having a large pool of substitute teachers that can come in into that kind of an environment and and pick up the lessons because of the the nature of the technology that's involved you know we've taken them through some training but our teachers who are. Ongoing teachers have gone through some pretty good training and have that skill set down and so we would like to utilize them as much as possible as long as you know we're maintaining their health as our first priority. And if a teacher is symptomatic we ask them to stay out of the building because of the symptoms and then they can be tested either through this this arrangement or they can they can privately go correct out to the community to get a test but correct. Yeah symptomatic even if they've not been confirmed as a COVID case. Yeah they have to stay out of the building and then again you'll either they can either work from home or if they're feeling up to it or the teachers will consolidate the broadcast. Correct. Okay. Okay. During the during the COVID testing we have covered the cost of two tests per month per employee but if somebody becomes symptomatic within that two week window they can go back for another test. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you. I don't I just had I appreciated your update on the attendance we saw in the first the good report on the attendance in the first weekend. The preliminary work that the staff is doing with regard to enrollment. I was wondering are we at a point where you have some initial numbers or do you want to wait until further on I'd be interested in what the initial attendance numbers and what it looks like the enrollment decline might look like. Yeah we have some preliminary numbers but we're still wanting to make sure that we go through a couple more counts before we put any information out just because it's so fluid that it can shift like in one day it shifted by over 80 students and so it's just some people are still coming back from vacation from different locations in the summer and then there's been that movement between launched ed and the synchronous learning model at the homeschools and so I just I know when I put something out people will hold on to it even if it's going to shift by hundreds of students so I just like to wait maybe one more week. That's fine. Yeah I understand that I was just wondering where you were in that process. Yeah I know it's a great question because we anticipate that it will be you know there'll be a number of students in terms of decline I read an article in the paper one of our neighboring districts say we're reporting initial reports of like a thousand students down and so we'll just kind of see where we land with that and then some of it is the difference between FTE and student so you sometimes with preschool or kindergarten it might be a halftime student so it's a body count but also an FTE count and sometimes those are two different things so we're trying to look at how the impact on the budget's going to be. Thanks. You bet. John. Thank you very much. I guess due to Paula's question I do have a question about the COVID testing and I'm wondering if it's voluntary how significant numbers what numbers are we hoping to get in terms of testing until we have a significant data point where we can actually make some smart decisions and next if a teacher is showing signs are they dedicated or mandated to take a test or is it all still voluntary at that point. Yeah so we have requested between two and four thousand tests so they will be they will be Gary community and COVID Colorado will be ready to administer during the month of September up to four four thousand tests and we could increase that midway through if we're seeing a really high high interest. None of the testing will be mandated however if a staff member is symptomatic they will be asked to stay home because we need people to be healthy who are in in the schools. And so you know we we will encourage testing it's a quick way to clear your health and to demonstrate that you're you're ready to come back to work. And so we'll certainly encourage that but none of the testing will be mandated. They shifted their you know originally when I say they I mean the health authorities originally was if you have a positive test then you have to continue to go back until you get a negative and then they shifted it to where it would be about a 10 day period of time and then any time after that if you are without fever and without the support of any kind of medicine to bring that fever down for the 48 hours then you could return. So if you're not taking Tylenol or something like that and your fever comes down and it stays down so we would still have those screening mechanisms in place before we allowed somebody to come back into the building to make sure they were fever free and symptom free at that point. I was just alluding to the fact that if we have a test base of 6% of the population of staff and teachers versus 60% we're going to be able to make some smarter decisions as to when we might be able to return to in school learning. So I was hoping that teachers would want to find out if they have asymptomatic or if they're infected and in terms of hope that we will be getting back to in-student learning in the classrooms. Don and Jackie thank you. I would like to on behalf of the board recognize all of the recipients of the 25 year bells and then Jackie the superintendent's excellence in education awards as well. Those are our two things that as a board of education we very much look forward to celebrating in person here at a meeting and we are able to do that this year. So thank you for Jackie for delivering those Don you know for delivering those. I know that that takes extra time out of your day but I'm pleased that you can connect with those people and we congratulate them and thank them for everything they do for St. Vrain in public education. Thank you. Don as you know I was thinking back as everybody was talking and you were giving your update and Jackie was sharing hers and I was talking with Carey before the meeting. You brought up launched Ed and really opening a whole new school in a very short period of time multiple schools technically if you look at the number of students. But when you think back over our first conversations first meetings in March you've done that with the entire district really shifted more than once technically to online learning and then this semester starting with synchronous and asynchronous learning. And so I just want to just publicly thank everyone who's had a hand in that. And I know Don your leadership has been instrumental without the systems in place and the funding in place financially being so strong. This really wouldn't be possible. So thank you for that foresight and leadership. And thank you to everyone who's had a hand in executing. I can't imagine the magnitude. Thank you. I appreciate that a lot Joey and I would tell you that we definitely appreciate it. And it's just and I know that you guys have shared this with me many times. Our teachers and our staff have just been incredible. I mean beyond incredible. And and our parents have too. You know our parents have reached out in so many ways to try to offer support. And you know we are not by any stretch of the imagination perfect. And we have had some challenges and some struggles and some bumps in the road some slight and some pretty significant as we tried to get launched ed up and running and we acknowledge that. But everybody's forging ahead and we're really really making good progress and we're going to continue to do that. Our commitment is high. It's just some of these waters are uncharted. And but without our parents without our students engaging the way they are without our teachers without our staff and our team. None of this would be happening. So I'm very very appreciative and want to recognize our entire community for their support. Oh absolutely and bumps are to be expected when you're doing something entirely new. But at the end of the day you know I started the meeting out by reading the district's mission statement. But at the end of the day I know every single person who's involved in this in this endeavor is committed to that mission statement. And bumps can be crossed. Right. And repaired and absolutely. So thank you. Just recognize everyone who's who's done that. You know I was volunteering for the Sunrise Stampede a couple of weekends ago and you know spent a good chunk of the day there and community schools was there working on a Saturday to get everything together and everything ready for the students to go back to school that next week. And so really you can look in every nook and cranny of the district and see that dedication. So aren't we fortunate to have the community support and the ability to do that. You know one other thing when you said that I just reminds me you know because we're not transporting students right now. But a number of our bus drivers are in the buildings and they've shifted their responsibility to custodial support. And so as I go into the building I say you're not driving a bus right now. And they're like no we're helping out here. And so a lot of our teams have shifted their responsibilities to be helpful. And when you mentioned community schools you know we had the two in every elementary school but we just opened up a third one at Redhawk based on some community requests. So that community school program right now is is running pretty well. So keep our fingers crossed and thanks to everybody involved with that. Right. All hands on deck right in in various capacities that may not be typical. So all right. That brings us to agenda item 6.1 which is a report. Tracy Burt net is joining us via Web X and Tracy you're here for your annual cost savings report. We'll give you a minute to or Greg are you introducing Tracy. Sure I can introduce her. OK. I just sorry I saw your initials up there and I thought maybe I had it out of order. So I'll let you take it from here. No that's that's great. Thanks. Tracy and her staff do a wonderful job in procuring for our district. They work very hard. They worked diligently and she's going to just give you some information in terms of what that's looked like over the past couple of years. So Tracy. Thank you. Thank you. I'm I'm very pleased to join the board again and present our cost savings are our activities in your procurement department. And over for this year or these last two years in particular I think what's brought right off the bat a strong point for us and the procurement department is tying this report to the strategic right priorities strong district finances and student staff well-being. That is something that really elevates this information within the district that procurement is seen as more of a strategic partner than just processing. But our our report we demonstrate the value of the services we provide to this report. Not only cost savings data but vendor participation in in each solicitation. The lead time or timeline I guess you could call it of when a bid or RFP is released and then a deadline date and then the surplus property sale proceeds and that disposal process which brings some revenue return to the district. Just to highlight in fiscal year 19 the procurement staff process total purchases and established contracts in the amount of 6,565,000 reflecting our cost savings of 1,021,000 then in fiscal year 20 they established purchases and contracts of 5,561,000 reflecting a cost savings of 752,000. So in fiscal year 19 it it projects the savings rate of 16% overall purchases and in fiscal year 20 savings rate of 14% of overall purchases. Though in fiscal year 19 we facilitated approximately 89 formal invitations to bid or RFPs then in fiscal year 20 we facilitated 75 formal solicitations. And one of our key performance indicators is tracking the turnaround time or the lead time. Typically we've seen average turnaround time to be 25 days from the time a solicitation is posted to the deadline date. Then in but in fiscal year 20 due to the pandemic and then from working from home and more electronically we gained some efficiencies that we learned of improving that turnaround time to an average of 14 to 18 days from the deadline date. And really that was really the vendors and the market participating that they previously they had been on board with processing and submitting bids and solicitations electronically before you know we went to this process. So going full electronic we did successfully complete 24 formal solicitations and working through a virtual virtual processes for pre bid meetings or even a virtual walk through. So being saying that as far as our electronic going full electronic I'd like to point out it's on I believe the bottom of the spreadsheet for the cost savings from July 2019 to 2020. There's a bottom section I've put in italics the project descriptions of those projects and those were full electronic released and we got the proposals back electronically but I wanted to highlight the asbestos project for spark. That was the first kind of virtual walk through we did with suppliers that were pre qualified and that was very successful. We partnered with the engineer and the procurement staff that helped facilitate a virtual walk through and the vendors understood it. It went really well. It just the amount of time that it saved and the expense not only for the district but also for this supplier. Returning to our overall procurement value results the graph there. You can see over a seven year history the procurement team has continually achieved the cost savings significantly that are our department total cost to the district. We're more than covering ourselves and also wanted to reflect you know I overall really trust is the most valuable asset in public procurement and I think this report over the the past two fiscal years really reflects the high level of trust. Integrity in the process, the procurement team projects and really the trust within the community that you know St. Brain is respected and our suppliers that participate know the integrity of the process is kept and it's fair and it I'm just really proud of kind of the results over you know my tenure being here as director of procurement. And I'd be glad to address any questions or in any any other you know anything I can bring back to clarify or other questions you might have. Thank you Tracy. Do board members have any questions or comments? Tracy. Thank you. I don't really have a question because I find the report very thorough. I really appreciate the format of the whole thing how you kind of walk us through your your process and how the cost savings are generated and then how you compare that to your own budget. And truly you made the point you all pay for yourselves and are really a critical point of the overall financial responsibility that we have as the in the district as a whole like centralizing your skill sets in your department and trusting you guys to handle it. I'm sure it takes a lot of stress off of every department particularly transportation and the ones that utilize you a lot. I'm sure they appreciate it tremendously that you can actually spearhead all of this and manage all of this on their behalf. But I just want to thank you for that for the report the accuracy of it the comprehensive nature of it and all the great work that you guys that you guys do because it's it's critically important that as far as the public and public tax dollars that we are responsible for those and and this is a perfect example of that. So thank you. Thank you Paula. Dick. Thank you Joey. Tracy I as I did last year I want to recognize really that the excellent work that you and your department are doing. And just a couple of comments. You have focused on the value of your work to the district primarily within the context of money saved and the regular purchasing process that we go through. It's clear that you're saving money and that the cost of your functions are more than compensated by the money that is being saved through your operations. But I would submit that as Paula mentioned that it's every bit as important. Your role that the part of your role which clearly establishes that every cost savings that is possible is being achieved for our district and the process is squeaky clean at every level is is in my view as important as the dollars that you're saving for our district operation. So I think that you and your department are to be tremendously commended for not only ensuring that every public dollar is well invested but also and that the district receives the dollar savings but also providing clear assurance that the function of your department helps makes it clear that all of the processes for which we have fiduciary responsibility are done and with a tremendous commitment to excellence. So thank you to you and your staff for your continued good work over multiple years and this last year being the most recent example. Thank you, Dick, John. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Tracy. I do want to also commend your efforts and your whole team. What I enjoy seeing is the number of bids and the ranges and I think that really shows the due diligence in terms of really procuring the best not always the best route available for the district to save money and to get the best product. So thank you very much. I know you do a great job and the report is well orchestrated and put together. So thank you. Tracy, I'll echo what already what board members have said and thank you for being here this evening and please pass along to your entire department, the Board of Education's appreciation. Yes, and thank you that appreciation from the board, the superintendent Greg, you know, all the leadership is greatly appreciated and that just means a lot to all of us and just the support that you have for us and backing us that way. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes, be safe. Enjoy your evening. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Agenda item seven is our consent items. Paul, I think you are going to make a brief comment about the two policies before we jump into that. Yes, very quickly. I just wanted to remind the board and the public that we are working through a chunk of policies that need to be updated to comply with recent changes to title nine at the federal level with Colorado state legislation that was passed this last spring as well as reopening schools in a COVID-19 environment. So the two that we have added to the consent agenda today are an extension of all of that. JII student concerns, complaints and grievances and LBD relations with district charter schools have been highly vetted through our standard process. These recommended changes come very often from CASB or from our attorneys. They are parsed out to each of the departments and the policy owners who go through it with staff, looking for best practice, law compliance, really through the eyes of reality and how best to align these policies with the work that we do and comply with the law. And then they are reviewed by our attorneys and they get back to us. So again, it's a very detailed, very thorough review process. Everything is highly vetted by the time it comes to us. This is a continuation of that process. And I believe there's still eight that are in the hopper. They will get to us when the process is done. And they all will pertain to students. They'll be in the category of J. So they'll be under students. And I think Jackie is running with those now. But we will get those when those are ready, just continuing the process. And that's it. Just a quick update on all that. Thank you, Paula. Then before I read the consent items, did board members wish to pull any? We have two this evening. Did board members wish to pull those? All right. Then we have consent items 7.1, approval, first reading, adoption, board policies, JII, student concerns, complaints and grievances and LBD, Relations with District Charter Schools, 7.2, approval of requests to grant an exception to board policy GBEA, Staff Ethics Conflict of Interest, Kelleher. I would entertain a motion for approval, please. So moved. By John and a second. Second. By Chico. Barb, can you call for the vote, please? Mr. Arons. Aye. Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia. Yes. Dr. Marder. Yes. Ms. Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Ragland. Aye. And Ms. Seacrest. Aye. Thanks, Barb. Agenda item 8 brings us to our action items. 8.1 is a recommendation for the adoption of resolution equalizing the director district population for 2020. Scott, I believe we have you with us on WebEx. I'll give you a second to unmute and get settled, if need be. OK, I think I'm live. Do you see me? I can see you. Absolutely. It's been a while. It's a pleasure to see you. Yeah, good to see you all. Good evening. I've got two items. And I'll just start with the director districts. This is required by state statutes every four years to equalize the director district populations. So it's a state statute. The primary purpose is to make sure that the populations of each district are as close as possible, that the districts are contiguous and they're compact in shape. So the primary purpose is to equalize them so that we're drawing future board members from an equal area. So I guess I want to reassure you it doesn't change any of your assignments. I think there was a question about that as far as what schools you tend to serve. Some of the boundaries may have moved in and out of certain buildings, but the attendance areas are all the same within your areas. So I want to walk you through a little bit of a PowerPoint here first to just talk about some of the changes. And OK, so from the beginning, do you all have this chart up? Yes. Yes. Yes. OK, great. So this every four years is substantially equal populations. We try to keep it within 1%. That's kind of been a standard we've held of each other. Here's what you can see how things have changed over the past four years. The blue bars are the current populations of the districts. So you can see that D, F, and G are the significant areas of growth. And A and C in particular just had kind of minimal growth. So our task really was to try to expand the area of A and C while reducing D, F, and G to get a good balance. The average population in 2016 was 23,000. You can see we've grown to an average of 26,000 per district. So over this time period, we've added 18,000 residents to our district. As kind of a comparison, the previous four years, 2012 to 2016 was only a growth of 6,000. So our growth really ramped up population-wise within our district. So with the proposed boundary adjustments, expanding A and C, shrinking the areas of D, F, and G, we've come up with a pretty balanced scenario. So it really falls in line with what state statutes require, going onto the map. The black lines, and this might be kind of hard to see, but I'm going to zoom up maps. The black lines are the old 2016 boundaries. And the colored shapes are the new 2020 boundaries. So if we zoom in on the A and C areas where we had to expand, you can see where we had to grow to the east, F still does represent skyline. It's in that area. It has Fall River Trail Ridge, but it also extends out to the Meade area, as it has before. B, and you can see some of the changes that had to be made to be along our south of Clover Basin Drive, and then a new area along Quicksilver. We didn't have to do quite as much with that. And really our overall goal was try to make these a little bit more compact so that citizens or others couldn't accuse us of gerrymandering districts for certain purposes. So that was our goal. G changed slightly. Some of the areas took in different subdivisions to try to balance the population. And that's really the summary of the maps. Really it's kind of a team effort between Ryan and Heidi and our department of pulling building permits certificate of occupancies and census data, and then trying to comply with the state statute requirements. So in their packets, also included is the resolution. The legal descriptions, and then the chart that shows where the physical building is. But once again, that doesn't need to represent or change any of the ways you've been representing schools. That's just where the physical building is. But the attendance area has pretty much stayed the same among each director district. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Scott. Any questions or comments by board members? Paula? Hi, Scott. Thank you. So just to clarify, I'm going to say back to you what I heard you say. I understand the point of this. It's legally we have to balance out each of our areas that we are elected from. But this is primarily for the purposes of our elections. So we have an equal number of people that are so anybody living in my district F, the new one, for example, next year, my seat is up. We'll have the opportunity to elect somebody new. It doesn't have to align with the schools that we choose to represent, because there were some shifting around the schools. Yeah, this doesn't do anything to you, who you represent. It's just a state statute requirement to balance for the purposes of elections and where they draw future directors. OK, thank you. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you. Scott, this is Dick Marder. It looks like we also received, good to see you, we also received a list of facilities by director district. And that list is there's some minor changes with regard to the schools that the directors are, at least, occur within the district. And it was my impression, perhaps I'm wrong, but it was my impression that those new schools, for example, for director district E, the one that I serve, now includes Blue Mountain, and that I would be the contact point, if you will, for that jurisdiction. And that was not true before. So again, these are just the physical buildings that are in these new boundaries. So you're director district E, correct? Yes. So Tindalline moved out, and Blue Mountain moved in. Yeah. OK. And you're saying that that's just a, the board can assign whatever schools we want. And my understanding is the board is going to sort of realign the schools that we're responsible for based on this state mandate. There's no need to realign who you serve or connect with. So if you're comfortable with the schools that you're in, that's certainly your right to stay. This document really has nothing to do with your areas of responsibility. Thank you. Yep. Thanks, Scott. John. Thank you very much. I just wanted to clarify one thing, because I'm kind of assuming parents that see this might be concerned that their school is going to change. And I think I know the answer to this, but I wanted to just make sure it's publicly said, the schools will not draw students from any other population in terms of the boundary lines for the schools remain the same. Right. Yeah, that's correct. That's a good point. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, John. Anyone else? All right. Scott, thank you. I think I would just reiterate one more time that this is what you've done is primarily for voting purposes, right? So that we're in alignment with statutes. Right. But this Board of Education, right. As a Board of Education, we are elected from a specific geographic area, a specific geographic location on the maps that you create. But as a Board of Education, we are representing all of the students across the district whenever we're making decisions. And that the people that live within those director districts can certainly start with us as a starting point, like Dick mentioned, or they can reach out to anyone on the Board of Education that we're not, you know, we're not lording over those districts, so to speak. You know, we're not claiming them to be our own. It's simply for voting purposes. But we do represent every student and every family in same ring. Great. Thank you. All right. Then if there are no other questions or comments, I would entertain a motion for approval for Action Item 8.1, which is the adoption of Resolution Equalizing Director District Population for 2020. So moved. By Karen and a second, by John. Barb? Barb? I'm sorry, I didn't catch the second motion. It was made by John. John, OK, great. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Arons? Aye. Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. Marder? Yes. Ms. Pierce? Aye. Mrs. Ragland? Aye. And Ms. Segrist? Aye. Thank you, Barb. Scott, you also have Action Item 8.2, which is the recommendation for adoption of Adjustment of Boundaries between Blue Mountain Elementary, Altona Middle, and Longmont Estates Elementary slash Westview Middle School. Yes, that's correct. I want to walk you through a few slides here that the subject area that we're looking at is north of Nelson and south of the St. Brain River and over an airport road on East and West. And this area has long been designated for industrial commercial types of uses. But over the years, changes in the Longmont City comprehensive plan have shifted this area to a much stronger density of residential. And it kind of raised the question for us as we were reviewing developments and working with the city of a concern that this could overcrowd Blue Mountain with all these new units. So it's kind of been on the list of consideration among the city of Longmont as they changed densities of developments and our staff here in planning to try to see if we could balance future growth here. So it does comply with one of the guidelines that if large developments occur kind of on a boundary area or on an edge between two areas, we could consider looking at adjustments. So this kind of fit that kind of area to kind of keep an eye on. We got additional information that some of these developments are a little more imminent now. So we wanted to try to do this before residents start moving in or houses are being built and they start out in Blue Mountain, for instance, and then change to Longmont estate. So we kind of want to be ahead of the curve here. So just to kind of highlight some of the things that have changed here, there's quite a number of developments and the boundary line that we've drawn and kind of reviewed with our transportation staff and the administrators at all the schools kind of evenly splits what could happen here between Longmont estates and Westview and Blue Mountain and Altona. And it's kind of along Rogers Road there in the middle. And then catches a few developments along the edge of Hover. So in some ways it was kind of a more natural boundary for busing to take kind of that edge, straight up to Longmont estates rather than all the way over to Blue Mountain. So the breakdown of total units, 11,000, or not quite that many, 1,150 proposed in the Longmont estates area and 1,044 in Blue Mountain. This is how each one of those breaks out. So there's a couple of potentially pretty large ones, Mountain Brook and Flatlands annexation. According to the city, the more eminent ones are Fairground Marketplace, Nova annexation and then some phases of Mountain Brook. So a few in each of the two areas. So this would be technically how we would draw the Longmont estates and Blue Mountain boundary. We would implement this as soon as possible or as soon as you vote if you choose to vote in. I guess I want to add one other thing that we did work with transportation and made sure that there's no existing resident that is impacted by this boundary. There are only about 10 students in this area right now. They're kind of in a variety of schools some in Blue Mountain, Altona, they would remain. There's some that open and roll to Longmont estates and then there's some that just are open and rolling to a variety of places. So there's not many students in this area right now and none of them would be changed with this boundary. So I think that's all I had on that. Are there any questions that you have? Questions or comments? No. All right. It doesn't appear to be any questions or comments, Scott. We thank you for being forward thinking and yeah, it made it easy. So appreciate it. All right, with that, thank you. With that, I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.2 adopting the making the boundary adjustment that Scott just described. So moved. By Jim and a second. Second. By Karen Barb. Can you call for the vote please? Mr. Arons. Aye. Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia. Yes. Dr. Marder. Yes. Ms. Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Rackland. Aye. And Ms. Segris. Aye. Thanks, Barb. Thank you, Scott. It was nice seeing you and we appreciate your points this evening. All right, good to see you all and thank you and we'll check in later. Sounds good. Take care. All right. Greg, you are back up for action items 8.3 and 8.4. 8.3 is the approval of updated vendors providing services over 100,000. Yes. So thanks, let me get my stuff pulled up again here. Take your time, no worries. I am good to go. Per board policy, DJA, there's a requirement that the board approve all vendors to whom the district pays over 100,000 for services. So this one is for purchase services. And so in June, we did that, but we now have some name changes and we have found some vendors that we haven't historically had on the list. And so we are adding those in and I'd be happy to answer any questions related to that. Thank you, Greg. Any questions or comments from the board? Doesn't appear to be any questions or comments, Greg. So we'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and call for a motion for approval of 8.3, which is a recommendation to approve updated vendors providing services over 100,000. So moved. By Chico and a second. Second. By Jim. Barb. Mr. Arons. Hi. Mr. Berthold. Yes. Mr. Garcia. Yes. Dr. Marder. Yes. Ms. Pierce. Aye. Mrs. Raglan. Aye. And Ms. Segrist. Aye. Greg, action item 8.4 is also yours and this is vendors providing goods over $100,000. Exactly. And the same board policy applies and we've had some changes. We have a new dairy vendor. But the other thing that I would like to ask is that the board approve the increase of the Home Depot Pro line item for this year. We have it as 125,000, but our nutrition service department uses them to purchase paper supplies. And with remote learning, we have seen a large increase in how much paper supply we need in order to provide those mills kind of as a grab-and-go versus in the lunchroom. So I would ask that you approve the Home Depot Pro to be 250,000. All right, thank you, Greg. Any comments or questions on that? Dick? Hi, Greg, this is Dick Marder. I was just, I had a question about the increase in the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment from $100,000 last year to $600,000. Can you shed some light on that? Yeah, we're looking into that, but right now it appears as if they're allowing substitute teachers, if they were working a certain amount of time during the course of the year to apply for and receive unemployment. So that's the biggest part right now. It's not any of our normal employees. It's related to substitute teachers and we're looking into that to see how that works, how long that lasts, those types of things. And so the anticipated amount here is one that we may not necessarily pay, but it's kind of a contingency to alert us. We are probably high-balling that, so. Thanks. Any other questions or comments? All right, then I would entertain a motion for approval of action item 8.4, the recommendation to approve the updated vendors providing goods over $100,000. So moved. Second. Motion by Karen and a second by John. And Barb, can you call for the vote please? Mr. Arons? Aye. Mr. Berthold? Yes. Mr. Garcia? Yes. Dr. Marder? Yes. Ms. Pierce? Aye. Mrs. Raglan? Aye. And Ms. Segrist? Aye. Thanks, Barb. Thank you, Greg. It was nice seeing you this evening. Thanks, you too. Yes, take care. You too. We don't have any discussion items this evening, so this brings us to the adjournment of our meeting. I did want to mention that our study session in September has been moved here to the board room so that we have access with WebEx. We will no longer be meeting at Meade Elementary School. And so, Don, if you don't mind, if I extend an invitation to the board individually, if they would like to visit Meade High School, typically as a board of education and as a district, we would celebrate the grand opening of an elementary school and with the current conditions, we're not able to do this. So if the board would like to tour, is it all right if they contact you? Absolutely, yeah. And John and I had a nice tour of the building the other day. And anytime you all are interested in seeing any of the schools, I know you are pretty active and out in the community a lot and you're in the schools a lot. So absolutely, we'd love to get together anytime and take you there. Thank you. Or on your own if it's more convenient, whatever works best for you. Great, yeah. Thank you very much. I suppose it's not fair of me to ask you that. Oh, it's good. Necessarily. Yeah, no. It's a beautiful school and it's well laid out. I've only seen the outside and it's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, Betsy's done a really nice job of coordinating everything along with Brian Lamer and his team and turned out really nice. Great, thank you. Well, and certainly board members could contact Betsy as well. But always important to initially go through you, so. Oh, thanks. All right. Did you have any closing comments on after at the completion of the meeting or? No, thank you though. All right, great. Then our next Board of Education meeting is right back here in the boardroom on Wednesday, September 9th at 6 p.m. for a regular meeting. And I'll see if I can say this. I seem to mess this up every time, but I would call for a motion for adjournment, not approval, Barb, adjournment. So moved. By Karen and a second. Second. By Jim, all in favor? Aye. Thank you, everyone. Good night.