My First School Board Meeting

I spend a lot of time looking at global and national politics – but I’ve neglected local politics beyond the organizations that I align with. I attend marches and rallies, but I didn’t fully understand how the machine works – especially the school board.

I’m a note-taker, voraciously and annoyingly so. Below are the notes that I captured for myself including questions that I intended to ask current members.

These are the original notes I took from the Jan 14 meeting:

Agenda & talking items

• Awards and recognition (cross-country and band) — then 90% of everyone left (womp womp)
• Motions on celebrating MLK Day – there was a fantastic girl from Rocky Mountain High (president) that spoke and she was awesome
  • She spoke through her awkward moments and how the lack of students of color made her feel more self-critical and unsure
  • She has asked the school board to work toward more intention diverse learning especially beyond MLK day and specific textbooks
    • MLK didn’t just dream, he worked hard every day to make things happen
    • I’m not sure specifically what she was asking for beyond the status quo to stay but everyone agreed (7-0)
  • The members that were there were all white + one asian woman, there were 8 men and 8 women that were present (1 guy online?)
• Superintendent report (Mr. Kingsley)
  • Waxed on about how he’s proud and he likes that the school district is actively leading with humanity
  • Likes that the school board and the media are doing a good job of showing all options – trade schools, military, college, straight to work, etc.
  • Literacy in elementary school went up 21% in 1 year
  • Celebrated a teacher at Centennial (Mr Montoya) – he emphasized that pairing philanthropy with passionate teachers has amazing results
    • It’s interesting because the video seemed to say that space was a wellness center but then he changed it to more of a physical wellness program with weights and equipment but I’m not sure how they’ve still accommodated mental health – I’d like to understand this more
• Thanked the votes, especially with 4A passing and giving them funding
• Community questions >> none were submitted so they didn’t go over the process at all (I raised my hand to ask them to go over it but they didn’t see me)
• Oof, there was a point that I missed because I was typing – it’s something about student applications and something being a subset of “stack” which I don’t know what that means
• The District Advisory Board met last week – it’s an assortment of parents from different schools. They focused on cell phones. No info was given other than just saying that someone did a good job presenting
• There was a legislative subcommittee call on Friday and what they are going to do at the capitol. Those meetings are every week I think at noon and are online if anyone wants to attend but there wasn’t any information on how to learn more about them
• 10.1 related to policies on LBD (Autumn Aspen spoke)
  • LBD as an acronym was never explained verbally or on the slide
  • They are reviewing because there was a House Bill 23-1025 (Concerning Extension of Charter School Applicants)
  • It changes the application period from 12 month to 18 months
• Someone asked to discuss 11.1 for Automation (no idea where this comes from) – for Fort Collins High School
  • It was to approve an extra $250,000 for….? They have to vote on anything over $250K
  • Kevin Havelda was the one that brought this to the table
  • They noted that there were a lot of items on their “consent agenda” that can be very different and are voted on en masse
  • What are we buying? The price tag is $3.1M (update: it was for a building automation system, addressed below)
    • 4A is making this possible, it’s how they are dealing with past maintenance on the buildings and buying the district some time
  • This was for a BUILDING Automation System
    • There was an effort to standardize the building automation systems which manage the HVAC and electrical and all of that
    • This helps them to manage the systems on a more efficient manor – and picked a vendor after an RFP
      • The system has a lot of graphs and data so that they can better understand what’s going on with the building and temps
      • There are 60 schools/buildings across the district
    • “McKinstry (sp?) engineering study” highlighted that FC High was a big priority, makes it a good pilot (story of a boiler failing)
  • This was honestly the one thing that was properly explained
• Then they moved to have a closed executive session to discuss a legal issue

Notes & Questions

• They mentioned that they were light on the agenda today
• Everything passed 7-0 which was a little annoying – not any real discussion
• There was no introduction into the meeting – what is it, who are these people, what is the goal, how are the audience members to participate, etc. It feels like if you’re in the group you’re fine but if you’re just starting out then it’s alienating
• Circling back to MLK, what exactly is the district/board doing to actively build DEIJ principles? 
• RE: Robert the teacher at Centennial, he mentioned that the space was a wellness space before. How has he merged or managed to maintain the level of mental health support in the space? Or did that move elsewhere?
• Where on the priority list is ensuring that the website and published information is accessible? For example, the mailto: link on the district site doesn’t work
• Is the audience allowed to ask questions? There was no info on how we can engage and the one time I raised my hand either they didn’t see me or chose not to call on me