September 15, 2026 Board working session

I'd like to call to order this regular

meeting of the Bowler Valley School

District for Tuesday, September 15th,

2026. Board members may attend and

participate in board meetings by

electronic means in accordance with

board policy, BMEA, and state law.

Laura, can you please call the role?

>> Booker,

>> here.

>> Chavez,

>> here. Medler

>> here.

>> Quinn Linua

>> here.

>> Raj Paul

>> here. Tamu Aing

>> here.

>> Anger

>> here.

>> Thank you. Like to encourage everyone to

turn their attention to the screens for

our land acknowledgement this morning.

The Boulder Valley School District

resides and operates on land that is the

ancestral homeland and unjustly and

illegally taken territory of the Ude,

Pueblin, Arapjo, Cheyenne, Apache,

Navajo, and 48 other tribal nations

historically tied to this land who have

called this land home since time and

memorial.

We acknowledge the atrocities committed

here, including the painful history of

genocide, forced assimilation, and

efforts to alienate the indigenous

inhabitants from their homeland,

supported by the policies of the United

States government.

BBSD is aware of the many indigenous

peoples, past and present, and their

dignified nations and cultures, who care

for this land with strength and

resilience.

BBD recognizes the histories of the land

in Colorado and the survival of many

nations that carried their oral

traditions into the present.

It is BBSD's responsibility to educate

ourselves, our community, and our

students so that we can embrace the

wisdom and knowledge of indigenous

peoples

and actively stand together to address

injustices.

In offering this land acknowledgement,

we affirm and honor the history, wisdom,

oral traditions, and resilience of

indigenous people, and recognize the

responsibility to care for and

appreciate this land together.

I'd like to remind everyone that the

mission of the Boulder Valley School

District is to create challenging,

meaningful, and engaging learning

opportunities environments so that all

children thrive and are prepared for

successful civically engaged lives. Good

morning everyone. Thanks for joining us

here in person and for those of you who

are watching this meeting remotely.

We're always glad to have you observe

and participate in our meetings. At this

time, is there a motion to approve

today's agenda? Moved by Deian, seconded

by Jorge. Uh Laura, can you please call

the role?

>> Booker,

>> yes.

>> Chavez,

>> yes.

>> Medler,

>> yes.

>> Quinn Linua,

>> yes.

>> Raj Paul,

>> yes.

>> Teamu adding,

>> yes.

Anger.

>> Yes.

>> Motion passes.

>> Board members, as you know, today we

have a work session, a study opportunity

for one item. This meeting was

originally planned to discuss our

strategic plan update. Um, and given the

extent of community feedback that we

received last meeting, we have decided

to replace that topic with another study

of the resilient schools framework. and

the draft resolution number 26-27

when we were discussing making that

shift. One thing that I just really came

to me is

when we started our work with the

strategic plan, there were a lot of

significant changes that were really

hard hard for our staff to incorporate,

hard for the system to incorporate. And

through that work,

um, we have made some outstanding

improvements for our schools. Being

credited with distinction for three

years in a row was not without great

effort, um, and faith, trust that we

would do what's best for students. And

so, um, while I am saddened that we

couldn't get an update on that because

it has been a lot of hard work and it's

something we're celebrating, I do think

it's really important to give a little

bit more time to our community um to go

through some of the questions that came

up during our last board meeting on this

resil resilient school proposal. And

with that, I will hand this meeting over

to Dr. Anderson.

>> Thank you, board president Raj Paul,

board members. Um, I want to start by by

thanking the folks that are here with us

today, folks that are watching online.

um and really appreciate our board

listening to our community and making

this adjustment. So, we had an

opportunity to get in a little more

detail in terms of some of the community

questions that we've received through

our forums, through email

communications, both to the board and

individual board members, um and through

the uh five plus hours of public comment

that we uh heard last Tuesday.

So board members, as you can see, um

today we will we'll go we'll do a bit of

a deeper dive in some of the proposals

answering questions. Encourage board

members ask questions that you have

today. Um based on those questions, then

the proposal will go to uh to to the

board for action at our meeting

scheduled for September 22nd. And so

this is an additional um session based

on community feedback and board

direction to provide more detail into

some of the outstanding questions and

hope to be able to clarify that for for

many of the members of our community

and this is what I just shared. Um

before I I uh move forward uh board

members and community members we have uh

most of our senior team here at the dis

in our work session today. Uh Rob Price,

assistant superintendent of operations,

Glenn Sigru, our senior planner. Neil

Anderson, assistant superintendent of

schools. Emma Herszog, chief academic

officer. Uh Nativity Miller, deputy

superintendent, Bill Sutter, CFO, Randy

Barber, chief communications officer,

and Jessica Azine, our executive

director of accountability evaluation.

And as we present, uh today, uh board

members, we'll be bringing up additional

members of our team uh to provide the

expertise that you'll need to be able to

ask the questions that you have around

other topics as well. uh to make sure

that um that that your questions are

answered as you consider this proposal.

Um I'll close this introduction with

knowing and understanding that um and

and and the appreciation for the level

of engagement of our community on this

proposal, the level of questions, the

level of detail in those questions. And

so we look forward to today to be able

to to begin to bring some clarification,

bring bring some things to light that

folks may maybe not have realized as

they were trying to analyze what it is

we presented on the 25th. um and make

sure that the board has your questions

answered in what I know is a really

really difficult decision uh for the

board to take uh next Tuesday. So with

that, I'm turning the presentation over

to assistant superintendent of

operations Rob Price.

>> Rob, one quick thing. Board members,

there are a lot of slides and I'm just

trying to kind of think through how to

like logical places for pausing and

asking questions. We want all those

questions to be answered. My thinking is

if we can get through the methodology,

pause for questions, look at the data,

pause for questions, and so because this

first section is pretty is quite long

before we get to a discussion slide. So

after the methodology slides, we'll ask

questions and then if that's okay and if

it's not, let me know. Thanks.

>> Sounds good. Thank you, Dr. Anderson.

Good morning, President Rashall, members

of the board. Uh we're just going to

spend a little time this morning

revisiting how we made our decisions.

And as uh the proposal that we presented

to you on August 25th did not begin with

a list of schools and we've continued to

see that around the country. This work

has really grown out of several years of

board direction um analysis by our long

range advisory committee. Uh we've

monitored, we've analyzed enrollment,

we've engaged the community, and we've

considered multiple options, all

presented to you on August 25th.

Throughout all of this work, uh we have

kept our focus centered on the student

experience and providing a high quality

and equitable learning experience to all

students and to manage district district

resources in a fiscally responsible uh

manner.

The long range advisory committee began

its work in 2022 following the board

prioritizing this work understanding the

challenges that declining enrollment was

presenting to the district and from the

beginning and as I just mentioned we've

been centered on the student experience

the most important metric that we have

followed is the number of or the average

number of classes per grade level and

for planning purposes you can see it

here at the bottom of the slide one

round is 25 students students in each

grade or about 150 students across a K5

school. That has come up on a number of

occasions. So, we want to make sure that

is understood by our community. Uh the

committee then determined that when

enrollment is equal to or less than two

classes per grade level, schools feel

the impacts of declining enrollment. LRA

also considered utilization. Uh classes

per grade level really helped us

understand the student experience.

utilization helped us understand uh

operational efficiencies and that

utilization accounts for different size

of school buildings. Um the metrics uh

as we have presented to the board on a

number of occasions really was just an

early warning system. Uh LRA um also if

you remember emphasized the need for

geographic uh consideration. So looking

at regions, we're looking at multiple

schools at once uh within the same

communities. Um the timeline over on the

right side shows the steps we've taken

to study enrollment policies, attendance

boundaries. We looked at a number of

ways to increase enrollment to avoid

this difficult conversation. And like

many districts, we have not been able to

change the enrollment patterns just due

to the underlying demographic uh trends

that we have been seeing here in Boulder

Valley School District.

By the fall of 20ou 2025, enrollment

showed that by 2030, more than half of

our elementary school schools in

Boulder, Lewisville, and Spirior, and

Broomfield were all projected to operate

at or below two classes per grade level.

And at the same time, school leaders,

teachers, families, uh, were all

reporting the effects of declining

enrollment. And I remember that

conversation coming up many times at

this board DAS about the challenges that

we were faced with in some of our

smaller schools. And for years, we

figured out how to make it work. And Dr.

Anderson has talked about this. We have

pushed in resources.

And that was workable when we had a few

small schools. It is not sustainable

when the majority of your schools are

small. We're not funded like that. We're

funded on a per pupil basis. And based

on those underlying challenges, it was

during the October 2025 work session.

The board directed us to change course.

Uh that is when you had said let's not

address this on a school by school

basis. We need to address this on a

regional approach with multiple schools

to look at. So that direction led then

to the development of the community

engagement plan that we presented to you

in January. We then started engaging our

staff immediately. Dr. Anderson, Dr. De

La Cruz went out, met with all of our

teachers during roundt meetings. Uh we

then had at six community engagement

sessions and then at seventh I guess at

the Coline community engagement session

and then as we had stated we met as a

staff over the summer to develop options

and then based on those options we

brought our proposal back to you uh on

August 25th um as stated in the timeline

that we originally presented to you back

in the fall.

I'm going to present this slide one more

time. I bet I have presented this slide

30 or 40 times

um since October, right?

I've presented this during our community

engagement sessions. I've presented this

at least three different board meetings.

I've presented this at every municip

every every presentation municipalities

uh district advisory committees. I think

we had 14 of those and in a number of

written communications that have went

out to the community. So, I'm a bit

surprised why everybody is surprised

with the uh option or the proposal that

we brought forward to you. The proposal

is within alignment with all of the

options that we told the board we would

consider. So, uh what we um consistently

communicated was this full range of

tools that districts use throughout the

country when they're dealing with

declining enrollment. As I talked about,

districts go through the same thing.

They find out how how to make it work.

They push in resources. Then they shift

to let's figure out how we can increase

enrollment. We did that. We had the BBSD

this place to be showcased. We tried to

generate additional enrollment. We have

a commuter preference that we no longer

had. We slowed declining enrollment for

a bit, but again, there is no way to

address the underlying demographic

trends. The housing prices that we're

seeing in Boulder Valley School

District. Young families can no longer

afford to live here, right? and that's

why we're seeing what we're seeing. So

again, just for clarification, the

resilient schools proposal that we

presented to you on August 25th utilized

the options on this slide. And again, a

lot of these options were prioritized by

our community during the community

engagement sessions and during some of

the surveying and polling that we did.

Um, and with that, I'll turn it over to

Randy Barber.

So, following the board's direction, as

as Rob mentioned, as well as the plan

that we uh brought to you in January of

2026, uh we hit the road. Um our

philosophy has been listening before

leading. Uh we wanted to first connect

with our elementary school staff, so our

principles, our teachers, and staff at

those schools through roundts. Um you've

seen the slide before, but now with a

little bit more uh imagery, just again,

we were out there, we've got uh we've

got photographic proof of that.

um 14 presentations, advisory groups, a

lot of the places that that Rob was

talking about where we presented this

the plan, talked through the different

options that we had for folks. Uh we did

the same at the seven engagement

sessions that he mentioned and we went

to our city councils. We really wanted

to make sure that our m municipalities

were aware uh really be being following

along with what's going on here.

Obviously, these things are going to

impact our cities and we wanted to make

sure that they had an opportunity to

hear what our our game plan was and in

some cases they provided some feedback

to us in in regards to their thoughts on

it.

Next slide. Oh, and then we also had a

survey that we'll talk about as well.

Uh, a big part of this was

communication. So, since the beginning

of the the process with LLR, uh, I think

we've got something like 30 stories that

we've done on the district side of

things in regards to this process. every

time that we had an update, we were

coming back to the community and letting

them know where we were at. As we went

through the attendance boundaries, we

were doing stories upon that. And then,

of course, things really ramped up after

that January plan came out right in

February. Uh and since then, uh we have

been uh doing uh updates uh to the

community through a newsletter uh seven

of those uh throughout throughout time.

uh those were really action-packed with

with all the information that we're

talking about the plan uh opportunities

for engagement, really encouraging

people to participate. We were really

reaching out to folks, letting them know

about the regional approach to it,

letting folks know again about the

options that we had on the table here.

Uh we also had a good amount of uh

earned media coverage. Um you know,

throughout uh our all of our media

outlets in the the Metro Denver area,

they've covered it. uh but most

specifically our local paper of course

would be the heaviest uh with seven

stories uh covering both the regional

and the options that we had on the

table. So uh that has been out there in

the community uh as we've been talking

through it. I do want to just mention

that this this work for my team uh while

we've done a lot of things uh that are

that are tough. Uh we obviously had the

Marshall fire that was uh you know

incredibly hard in terms of crisis

communication. Uh we went through the

pandemic and that communication was

incredibly hard. Um this was a whole new

area of uh of learning for us. Uh you

know we had never uh gone through a

closure uh like this and so with the

board's suggestion um we were able to um

bring in a couple consultants to give us

a hand with this. Uh Planfully is a is a

a couple ladies that have gone through

this at Jeffco uh through Jeffco public

schools uh had really lived through the

process and they're communication focus.

So, you know, they were able to give us

some real insights into how to best

approach community relations in this

instance, uh the kinds of communications

that would be needed uh through this.

And then um on the back end, uh uh once

the decision was made, we brought them

back in to be able to have some

conversations and actually give us a an

extra pair of hands in drafting some of

the communications that we used. uh as

you can imagine there's quite a bit of

things that we had to prepare and so

having some extra uh communication folks

um you know at our ready was really

helpful to my to my team. Additionally

and I I know everybody in the community

that came out to our engagement sessions

saw the work of ERS but I want to really

uh highlight uh what their what their

role was in this. As we went into those

engagement sessions our team was really

thinking about you know we didn't want

this to be the normal uh feedback

sessions that we had 20 years ago. We

didn't want this to be what we see

around the country. We wanted to do

something different. And so again, with

that idea of listening before leading,

we our philosophy was a how do we

introduce folks to the information that

we're talking about? Uh give them a

sense of what it's like to be in these

schools when you've got uh students and

staff that are being impacted by

declining enrollment. That's, you know,

tough. I mean, we could showed a video.

We could have done a number of things,

but by giving uh them exercises in order

to see what that feels like, uh it was

really helpful. a whole lot of parents,

you know, could kind of really then

understand uh kind of visualize what

that experience was like. And then we

really put them in the driver's seat and

thinking about these different options

and having uh throughout the process

we've said that one of the big things

that we really wanted to hear and

something that uh Jessica is going to

talk about in a minute is really, you

know, we wanted to be able to hear from

folks what their priorities, their

values, you know, how they were looking

at these things, the things that really

were most important to them. And so at

these tables and it was I I find amazing

to watch the engagement that happened

here. Uh parents uh some students we had

a a small number of students come out.

Um they were really debating and

weighing these different things and I

think everybody that came to these

sessions said you know there was it's

difficult work. I mean we'd like to

prioritize all the things that we're

thinking about here. And I think that's

the difficulty that we as a as a

district have. And so these cards that

they created, the tabletop exercises

really help people to be able to have

that experience of of being part of the

process, thinking through these things.

And then part of this was actually

trying to encapsulate trying to

understand and document that feedback.

And so of course we had our principles

at the tables. And so they were

facilitating this and writing down what

they were hearing. And then each of the

participants was able to in a packet be

able to write down their feedback as

well. And so all that was captured and

then ERS took that data, compilated it,

tabulated it, and then was able to hand

it off to us. Uh before I hand it off to

uh Jessica Aine, our executive director

of accountability and evaluation to talk

more about how that process worked once

the data was handed off, I do want to

just make a really important point,

especially based on some of the feedback

that we've heard in the community, that

neither of these two consultants, truly

no consultants were in the room when we

were making these decisions as

leadership team. uh we came together um

you know that work had already been done

in regards to the engagement and uh in

those rooms it was district leadership

that was really weighing considering the

data and then making those decisions. So

the the consultants were not part of

that.

Just one other point, board members. Um,

and thank you, Randy, and thank you,

Rob, um, for sharing. You know, in my

nine years here as superintendent, I

don't know that there's been any topic

or any moment in time where our

community has had more opportunities for

engagement and communication from the

district than the process that we just

went through. Um, uh, Dr. Dr. Alzine

will will talk you through the the the

statistical analyses that we we were

able to recover as a result of that. But

board members, we anyone and everyone

who wanted to participate in um in these

processes in these work sessions, we

accommodated uh we shifted venues just

like we did last week when we knew that

we had more folks that wanted to talk to

us than we potentially had room to be

able to to accommodate in a way that was

respectful and meaningful. Um, we

originally planned having these sessions

in libraries, then we moved them to

gymnasiums. And I just want to thank our

team for all of the things that they did

to make those um those opportunities a

reality. But it gave us really clarity

on our community as a whole, what

they're looking for from their

elementary school student experience.

uh the the data and you'll see as we

talk about the survey data and we talk

about the community polling data and we

talk about the teacher data that we

collected uh triangulated in a way that

gave us a really clear picture on what

it is we were trying to do as we began

to develop this proposal. Uh so I I I'll

share that I'm very proud of the process

that we used. I will share that I'm

proud of the ways that we tried to

communicate and I think the trick with

communications is and even engagement is

to the extent that you can put forth the

best effort, it doesn't mean that it's

100% guarantee that that everybody is

able to participate or is is able to

engage in that. And that's just human

nature and that's just kind of I think

the reality in any big decision that

that school districts make is that you

know we're going to put for our best

foot forward and really try to do what

we can. But I will say that uh the ways

in which we engaged the process that we

used uh I think was was really a a great

opportunity for lots in our community to

learn about our challenges. That's one

thing to say watch board meetings. It's

another thing to come and sit for three

three and a half hours with a

facilitator know and understand the

experiences that are happening across

the district that might not be your own

experience. Right? that that that you

know as as we solve for these things we

have individual experiences and then we

have the collective experiences that

we're trying to provide. So um I will

say that that the feedback that we

received at the end of those of of these

um these sessions was incredibly

positive board members. You were there

you heard what I heard. folks were

really appreciative that we listened and

heard and so um just as establishing

that that those that that engagement

that data that feedback very very

important as we developed our proposal.

So

>> before we turn it over to Dr. Elian I

wanted to see if board members had any

questions on the timeline u methodology

up until this point of the presentation.

Elena,

>> first I appreciate the clarification on

consultants. I've had a lot of questions

on that. Um, so thank you for sharing

that. Um, and I'm curious on

the timeline. Did we ever change the

timeline for voting on this? Did we ever

move it up?

I I I just I can't remember and I and I

didn't know if there was the answer to

that is yes. the answer to that. Can you

just explain to me? I thought maybe it

was an open enrollment thing, but I

>> No, we we had originally um shared I

think it was October 8th for the vote

and in board discussion. I think some

really valid points were brought up on

um the potentially negative impact that

could have on individual families as

they were trying to access our open

enrollment process that that window

would be too tight. And as a result, to

make sure that we're supporting

families, given, you know, the the

magnitude of this decision, the board

elected to move that back to the 22nd.

And I believe that was at the June 9th

board meeting.

>> Yeah, it was during the board work

session, our prioritization meeting.

>> And I'm certain I was at that session,

but I did not remember that when someone

asked me that. Um, though I assumed it

was about open enrollment and and that

window there. Okay. Thank you,

>> Deian.

because I'm a relative newcomer on the

board, I uh kind of walked in and some

of these decisions were sort of in

progress. And so if I'm asking questions

that are just um history that happened

right before December last year, please

uh help me fill in the blanks. Um when

the decision was made to go to a

regional approach

um

how were those regions defined and who

defined them?

Well, the regions were well one of the

outcomes from the October meeting was

the board had told us that allowing

schools to stay small is no longer an

option. And by that time long range

advisory committee had uh presented two

different metrics and those are the

metrics are average classes per grade

level and then the utilization. So

average classes per grade level we knew

that uh the student experience was being

impacted when they got less than two

rounds. So that defined what a small

school was is anything equal to or less

than two classes per grade level. So we

knew that allowing schools to stay small

was no longer an option. So then we

looked at the different regions and in

those regions, Boulder, Lewisville,

Spear, and Broomfield, at least half or

the majority of the schools in those

regions are at or below two classes per

grade level. So that's what defined it.

We saw some growth in Erie. We saw some

growth in Lafayette. And then the

mountain schools were not included just

due to their unique geographic

locations. So,

>> uh follow-up question would be um so the

regions were um

uh were set really by geography

>> and yet it appears that there a region

that would have included all the

students that are all of the schools

that are trying to do second language

instruction that they were sort of not

in a region because they're separate.

We're going to speak um in more detail

on on the recommendation to study this

the schools that are in dual language.

Uh you when we did not identify

Lafayette, you'd be correct that we

would then not have been able to

consider Pioneer or Anjivine Middle

School. We also limited this to the K8

uh schools in um in Lewisville Superior

and elementary schools. And so Casey

Middle School, Manhattan Middle School

also wouldn't be part of of this

analysis. And so uh challenging because

certainly um two of our dual language

elementary schools are are in the middle

of Boulder. Um but we will speak to kind

of more detail on in regards of why we

we recommended to take a year to study

that. um really studying that as a K8

continuum, not just elementary schools.

And really thinking about systemically

the experience, the student experience

that we want our students who are

studying or participating in dual

language program schools to have. And

through the engagement process we had,

uh there wasn't specificity around dual

language schools and programs. uh and

their instruction and their experience

is vastly different from students that

are in our monolingual schools that just

teach in English.

>> Anna,

thank you. And for a timeline, one of

the biggest pieces of feedback that I've

received is um folks did see the uh LRAK

recommendations that uh kept coming out

on um school consolidations and where we

were at in elementary schools. And I

think that some of the the community

members um that really showed up to our

community engagement sessions were of

the schools that were in the red that

had some of that notice put into some of

those plans. Um

and now that we have announced the the

consolidations that we are looking into,

I wonder uh my my biggest question is

where that shift happened of um looking

at the recommendations of ELRACK um and

then switching to what we have now um

within that timeline for community

engagement. Um just getting a clearer

sense of what when that shift happened.

Um, and I know that right uh right now

is that that moment of uh where our

community members are able to give um

that feedback on our proposal. Um, but I

also just want to go back to acknowledge

um just the fact that some of these

parents um and community members,

families um hadn't engaged as much

because they weren't um considering that

they were going to be uh put in this

proposal for a consolidation or a

closure.

>> Uh thank you for those questions. A

couple clarifying points. Um,

we had broad community participation at

Broomfield High School, at Boulder High

School, here at the Ed Center. Um, we

Monarch High School, uh, gymnasiums

filled with individuals and they were

not limited to the schools that were

identified in the in the engagement

phase. um in the LRAK metrics that we

released as part of the annual report um

on LRAK declining enrollment annual

trends report that is per board policy

that we presented every February. And so

um because we would only have had two uh

small elementary schools participating

if that would have been the case. And so

um I do understand that that there are

some folks who didn't participate in

that opportunity or maybe didn't

participate in our surveys um that um

that at this point uh maybe didn't

realize the u the magnitude of that of

that opportunity. And uh this is why we

went through what what Randy shared

which is uh you know we we were we're

sending monthly updates to all of our

families in communications. We weren't

we weren't hiding the fact that this was

a regional approach. It was very much

front and center on why we were actually

doing the engagement process. Uh and in

any engagement session uh not every

parent participated, right? We had we

had a pretty good showing thousands you

know thousand people. I mean I think

that you know when Jessica will speak

you know when you look at all the

individual data points 76,000 data

points which we feel is a a really

strong sample and we'll talk about that.

Uh so uh so so there are people who

didn't participate in that right but if

they were to have participated without

knowing their school is named would they

have said anything differently than the

sample size that we collected from all

of these communities. The data we've

suggested is is incredibly triangulated

and clear. It's not really fuzzy at all.

Uh so that process wasn't about

individual schools and it wasn't an

engagement process per LRACK. that was a

community engagement process on the

student experience and I think that we

were incredibly clear about that. So um

and and as Rob shared, you know, we've

really tried to engage in ways that are

very honest and transparent in terms of

the of of what the board shared, what

your direction was, and how we

communicated that to our community and

the staff. And you know when it when

when when you all shared in October 2025

we need to move to a regional approach.

As superintendent I asked you for

several months to think through what a

strong process would be. How do we

create a worldclass process that listens

to people before we just behind closed

doors pick a list of schools and roll it

out to the community and ask them if

they like it or not? or even worse, when

we did this in 20 or 2003,

put out competing proposals and then ask

communities to come and give feedback on

whether or not we should close this

school or that school. Proposals that

competed directly with who was going to

be closed. And I've talked to board

members from that era. I've talked to

staff members. I was in a meeting

yesterday with a teacher who was part of

that. Uh it was horrible. Not that this

is easy. I'm not saying this is easy.

And I'm not saying that this um isn't

hard. Uh however, I think we were really

clear on what our task was. We engaged

thoroughly. Um we, you know, as as part

of of doing this, I've had a lot of

conversations with a lot of districts

across the country and I've asked them

what's their process.

Our process stands out as one that is

more inclusive and more engaging than

other districts. And you could compare

what we've done and our our um

engagement to any other district in

Colorado. I tell you, we I I promise you

our engagement has been the deepest. Our

outreach has been the most proactive. Um

so I do understand at you know folks who

are engaging at this point may have some

questions about the process. I stand

behind the process and our team who

built the process. I think it is not um

just an effective process for your

decision, but it is something um that

that should be stood up as a model

across other districts going through

something that is incredibly incredibly

difficult.

>> Alex,

>> yeah, I guess I have a comment and then

a question. Um I would just say actually

in partial response to my colleagues on

the board, uh I campaigned and um came

into the board very interested in moving

to a regional approach. Uh I live and my

kids attend schools in the Table Mesa

neighborhood and the LRAK approach would

treat Mesa Elementary as a totally

different thing than Bear Creek than

Community Monastery and Creekide. And

the parents in that community treat it

as the offerings that are within walking

and biking distance of their houses. And

so if you just looked at the LRAK thing,

you'd be we were parsing out differences

between uh small differences in

enrollment when to our later point most

of them were underenrolled. So, we

needed to act more and we're acting as

if one school because Heatherwood was a

little smaller than the next school that

Heatherwood's obviously the one that

should change and it's all on them and

we'd put all our resources into solving

Heatherwood. So, we give spend a quarter

million and what do you know? It adds

six kids in enrollment to the school.

So, it just doesn't really work and it

doesn't serve the community. So, uh, my

memory from when the board suggested

moving from the LRAK to, uh, more bold

action in part was because we knew we

needed to act substantially and that we

shouldn't act on schools in isolation.

Uh, we didn't want to go back to 2003

or whatever and pit one school against

another. We wanted communities to talk

about how best to serve the all the

schools in their in their communities.

And we're not just Boulder, like we're I

forget how many geographies we serve,

but it's a lot of government

institutions and counties and stuff. And

people do sort of work within their

community. Some will commute a half

hour, 40 minutes to a school, but not

many. Most people want to make it

practical. And so I am a strong believer

that the move from the individual school

parsing out small differences to having

a regional approach was something the

board uh I'm argued for it. I found that

the rest of the board u many of the new

people were agreeing with that approach

and that it is more holistic and

comprehensive and from the feedback that

we get I think we we see that that's

probably necessary and it leads to a lot

of transition planning. Um the other

thing I would just say is that the the

LRA the the issues we were dealing with

collectively with all 27,000 kids were

before us all the time and that the

shortcomings were not hypothetical or in

the future. they were kid families

leaving the district now for private

schools or homeschooling because uh they

couldn't get the services they needed uh

for their neurodeiverse kid in the place

where they were or that there was no

acceleration available because they had

to do advanced courses uh online rather

than in person and their kid couldn't

learn that modality. So like the

shortcomings were real. the school

by-school approach was really a short

service to our community and I for one

on the board didn't not want to wait

four or five more years of waiting for

those numbers to creep even lower. So I

I think the red and orange stuff is

helpful, but there was no green there.

Like all those schools, so many of those

schools are under enroll to the point

where they were harming kids. And I

think that's where the board I've heard

feedback from the community about, you

know, the transition from the LRAC as if

they were the policymaking body. This is

the policymaking body. We're the

decision makers directing where we go.

and we directed the district to move in

a more regional comprehensive holistic

approach and to accelerate the action so

that we wouldn't be waiting four or five

more years to pull the trigger and just

punt it off to some future board when

kids are suffering today. So I just

wanted to explain the regionalism for me

from for new members on the board who

weren't there during some of those

discussions. That's that's where I was

coming from and that's how I remember

those discussions. And one more thing on

the uh there's been the discussion about

the engagement. Um, I think it's wrong

to frame what we're doing now as like a

short version of engagement versus this

other stuff. The other stuff we did is

in addition to what districts normally

do. Most of the districts would do a

short version of what we've done in the

last 8 weeks. That's what community

engagement is at the best case in our

surrounding districts. In St. Green, I

think they had like two weeks notice

before they closed an elementary school.

Jeffco had their LRAK thing and they

went to just quick action and proposed

closing you know 11. Um so I think our

large engagement process which I look

forward to having described in more

detail now is in addition to what is

actually a normal district engagement

process with a fairly normal district

timeline that we've been engaged in in

over the last 10 weeks. That's the way I

see it. And I never expected the the

deep community engagement which I found

also great greatly gratifying to see the

sophistication and the engagement and

the deep dive of our families and our

educators. Um but that was not to avoid

having the discussion we've had over the

last two months. That was to inform the

discussion for the whole community that

we're now engaged in. So it's not an

either or or the right or the wrong way.

I think we did an additional step that

was very necessary and appropriate.

Before we move on, I just want to again

provide context to this timeline. I have

been on the board for five years and

we've been talking about declining

enrollment since I was elected in

November of 2021.

Before that, I was on the district

accountability committee and we were

talking about the impacts of declining

enrollment on student learning

experiences and student data. So, it has

been a long time coming and I understand

particularly for parents of

kindergarteners or elementary school

student or first graders who haven't

kind of been along for the ride with us

in the same way or haven't watched the

experiences at their individual schools

deteriorate over time because there are

fewer and fewer students. Um, I

understand that this feels like a

surprise and I just really hope

everybody hears how long me personally

on this board and representing on school

accountability committees and district

accountability committee before that

have been considering declining

enrollment relying on Glenn's data. I

mean, I first looked at your enrollment

matrices when my senior was in first

grade. It's been a long time coming. Um

so I I just want to share that and also

share

re-emphasize that the board which does

change every two years roughly on the

composition we directed we told staff

schools could not stay small. We asked

staff to come up with a plan. It wasn't

consultants or something else that said

we're going to close schools. You should

close these schools. We said schools

cannot remain small. Present us with

options that meet the needs of our this

entire school district. 500 square

miles, 27,000 students, and 4,000

employees.

That was the cadence

we directed. That was the cadence that

was taken. Um, so I just wanted to

clarify that as well. And then I'll turn

it over to Dr. Aline or Dr. Anderson.

>> Just one point of of clarification

because I think that there's uh, you

know, words really matter here. um when

you state options, options for each

region, not multiple options for each

region to be considered. And so, uh the

direction was clear that that wasn't

specified on October 20 25th or January

or in any any point in time during this

process that the board directed staff to

come up with multiple options for

consideration. I just want to be really

clear about that. um that it was to look

at each region and options for each

region, it would come forward in one

proposal. So, just wanted to make sure

that I clarify that uh board president

Rajbo. And with that, Dr. Azine, uh

we'll turn it over to you uh to um get

into our data sources and some of the

analysis that we did.

>> Okay. Uh so when we talk about all of

those opportunities for our stakeholders

to provide feedback, you can imagine

that we amassed a pretty robust u and

varied data corpus of data. And so this

table summarizes what we had to work

with. We had the feedback from the

teachers at those elementary roundts. We

had community engagement feedback

packets. These were packets that

individuals who attended those sessions

filled out during the evening and

submitted at the end. There was also a

follow-up survey that was offered to

attendees via QR code as they were

leaving that evening. And then we had

our resilient school survey that we

offered to the full census of every

staff member and every family currently

affiliated with BBSD. And it was also

offered to a random sample of community

members not currently affiliated with

the district but residing within

district boundaries. So as Dr. Anderson

stated this we had the 63,000 responses

ultimately 76,000 bits of data and

before I walk through this findings I

want to ground us in the scope of this

data and kind of give a little bit more

background on the methods that we use to

turn this table into the information

that was used to help support and inform

the proposal.

So we uh conducted several sensitivity

analysis and checks uh with this data

just to make sure that we felt confident

that this was a round representation of

what the community wanted and what they

valued and what they prioritized. So

first of all um as Dr. Anderson said

these were open to everyone. We didn't

turn people away and that extended all

the way to the resilient school survey.

uh rather than sending that to a random

sample of individuals that would have

guaranteed or at least better protected

against unresponse bias, we wanted to

make sure that everyone had the

opportunity to provide feedback via the

survey in particular, well across all of

these. So, uh I want to talk to this 9%

response rate from families and make

sure that we uh know that there were

some sensitivity checks done to to check

in on the validity of that being

representative of what our community

wanted. So first we looked at the

response rates across regions. So that

9% of families overall worked out to

about 7 to 11% by region. So that means

that no single region is driving the

results from the survey from the family

viewpoint. We also looked at we'll talk

in a minute one of the items or or

sections of the survey was where

individuals identified their top three

musthaves. We looked at that list by

role as well as by region to see if

there was great variability there. there

was some limited variability and all of

those results were presented to the

board in June as well as what was used

to inform the proposal. And then

finally, just to talk a little bit more

about this community survey that

occurred, we uh contracted out with

Mellan Strategies. It's a local polling

firm. So they are who ran that was a

stratified random sample in the

community to ensure that it had

representation across the district. Uh

and they ran analysis separate from the

analysis that we ran internally. and we

looked at their results compared to what

we saw within the district. Again, a

little bit of variability, not nothing

that was extreme. And all of that was

used to inform the proposal, to inform

the information that was used to inform

the proposal.

So, that's just adding to the validity

of some external validity to what our

internal results showed through that

survey analysis. And then as was said,

we triangulated across all of these

different data sources to make sure that

we were again trying to provide the most

full picture of what we heard from

individuals across roles, across

regions, across these opportunities for

engagement.

Okay, so talking about the survey, the

resilient schools community survey had

two primary sections. The first section

was this what's referred to as max diff.

This is where there was a predetermined

set of 12 priorities under consideration

when thinking about schools experiencing

declining enrollment. Individuals had

nine items where they saw four random

priorities and they had to identify what

was the most and least important from

those four. They repeated that nine

times. We heard from the community that

this this felt really frustrating that

we they were being asked to identify

most and least important from a list

where everything was important and that

we recognized that and we named that.

That was by design because that is where

we find ourselves needing to move

forward and make some decisions. We

needed to know from our community given

limited resources what is the relative

ranking of these priorities and that's

what this form of survey design allows

us to do. So head and shoulders above

the rest within our community, small

class sizes was the number one priority,

but these six are the ones that rose to

the top from the fullest of 12 as being

the most likely to be chosen as most

important across all survey respondents.

When we go to the second part of that

survey, that next part was after they

had those random sample of items, they

saw the full list of 12 and individuals

could select up to three as their top

three musthaves. And these were the top

three that were pro uh identified across

the sample.

Oh, sorry.

Next, at the community engagement

sessions, one of the activities that

people were invited to participate in

was that collaboratively at their

tables, they learned about challenges

that schools experience uh when they

have under enrollment. and the tables

worked together to collaboratively

identify those difficulties that they

wanted the district to prioritize to

solve when the proposal came forward.

And these are the top five of those

cards that were identified as the

problems that the community wanted to

see solved. And then lastly, doing some

qualitative analysis through the roundt

discussions. Uh the top two themes that

came up most often in those

conversations with staff were problems

related to small class sizes as well as

uh challenges related to part-time

staff. So when we look across these

data, we kind of quickly see some themes

show up. Uh small class sizes as well as

challenges related to variable class

size or small class sizes came across as

the top priority across all of these

data sources.

Next, we saw some emphasis for

challenges related to part-time staff.

So, our our uh stakeholders really

emphasized they wanted to see full-time

comprehensive staff in every building.

And then finally, uh equitable funding

and neighborhood proximity were also the

most likely to be chosen as uh top

priorities from the community.

And then lastly, at the community

engagement sessions, one of the

activities in the packets as well as

conversations that happened at the

roundts was when given a list of options

that the school district could take to

solve these problems. Uh what would be

the highest priority? What would be the

first choice? uh or specifically I

believe this action is a move in the

right direction to solve the challenges

of underenrolled schools is how

individuals responded from both the

community engagement sessions and the

roundts consolidating schools was the uh

most chosen top priority in those shifts

there at the community engagement

sessions the second one was to

reconfigure PK8 schools

>> Dr. Charlesine, can you go through all

of those the um how all of the the uh

the options that folks considered? You

you gave the top two. Can you just kind

of run through the rest of those? I

don't know that that's on the slide, but

I'd want that to be on the record.

>> Yes. Uh so the top was um consolidating

schools, second being the PK8 split,

third was close and redistribute

students, fourth was relocating for

focus programs, fifth was to reconfigure

or split K5 schools. And then uh final

was introducing new focus programs.

>> All right, the next part Glenn Sigru,

our senior planner, is going to be

presenting some of our methodology on

how we determine projections. Uh all of

you around this table know Glenn, but a

lot of people in our community don't.

Glenn has been doing this work for this

district for 19 years. Uh, and if you

have followed any of our enrollment

work, it has been extremely accurate

over those 19 years. And I would say it

took something like a uh, global

pandemic

to throw those projections off. And

that's about the only time that Glenn

has been off. We have a lot of people in

this community, extremely intelligent,

that are looking at numbers. There's a

lot that goes into projections. And

Glenn's going to get into that a little

bit. Uh, I'll jump in if need to, but

um, and I've got a tremendous amount of

confidence in Glenn's numbers, and it's

not about me. We can go back year over

year over year and look at our, uh, uh,

enrollment projections to see where

Glenn projected and where we actually

landed, and you would see that for

yourself. So, with that, I will turn it

over to Glenn to present our

methodology.

>> Thank you, Rob. Um,

let's get the right slide.

So our methodology uh these are the main

data sources used in most current

planning projects and the resilient

schools initiative. Uh the student

records are the primary source for trend

analysis and projections. These records

are universal meaning they are pulling

data from actual records not estimates

or extrapolations from outside sources.

Also, these records are by address and

can be aggregated in multiple ways,

usually by attendance area, but other

ways are possible as well. This is

important for school districts because

most outside data sources aggregate at

the county or municipal levels, uh,

which do not align with BBSD's

boundaries.

The next category there, the Colorado

Department of Health and Environment,

you need to go

one more. All right, there we go.

>> This one. Okay,

>> data sources. Yes,

>> our methodology.

>> Data sources here.

>> Methodology. Okay,

>> apologize.

>> Okay,

so uh every student is guaranteed a seat

in the neighborhood school. Um so this

is based on our resident populations as

the starting point for our projections.

Colorado law allows parents to apply to

attend another school only if there is

available space and programmat

programmatic capacity. Resident student

population and housing stock data is

less variable and more predictable than

parent choice uh which is a large

component of open enrollment. Open

enrollment is the valve that we can use

at times to fill space in neighborhood

schools once we account for all of the

residential students. Okay.

So, moving on to our data sources. I did

discuss

uh uh the BBSD student records is one of

the is the primary source that we start

from. We also use department u of health

and environment uh data birth data which

is primary to establishing kindergarten

class estimates uh and also just general

tren trend analysis as well. Parcel

records and development referrals from

local governments form the basis of

housing estimates uh estimates found in

projections and student generation

rates. These are also fieldverified with

periodic site uh visits to to make sure

that uh the the the data is accurate and

that it's timely because sometimes

there's quite a bit of a lag time

between some of the data we get from

parcel records for example uh and when

we actually need it.

Other outside data sources are useful

references and can be valuable for some

uh projects especially redistricting

data uses a lot of census data and state

demography data but otherwise these

sources uh can be tricky to use since

they don't align with our boundaries as

I mentioned earlier and are frequently

frequently not timely enough for

district use.

So moving on to

the enrollment projections themselves.

Uh the district uses a cohort survival

uh method which is the principal

technique. Uh it looks at seven years of

historical data resident student data by

grade for a given school. It then

calculates ratios for each class as it

progresses from one year to the next. So

in the illustration you can see past

year data. Uh this one shows 2017

through 2023. uh you take that first

kindergarten class and look at how it

compares the next year and turns into a

first grade class and that makes a ratio

and that's the red circle on the bottom.

You can calculate that for all of the

classes uh in all of the years and use

those uh those averaged ratios and apply

them to your current kindergarten class

and first grade and so forth and then

project those out in the future. That's

the core principle and using that with

resident students.

In doing so, BBSD can estimate how

future classes uh will grow or decline

based on uh these past ratios. It also

effectively accounts for large or small

classes in the system as they progress

through the grades. Basically, if

entering kindergarten classes are small,

the the model will typically project a

decline in the coming years as those

classes progress to higher and higher uh

grade levels. In fact, this is what the

district has been seeing in the years

preceding the pandemic and we continue

to see today.

Cohorts based on residential students

have distinct advantages over some

districts use enrollment basis, but we

use resident uh here for these reasons.

Resident patterns tend to move more

slowly and stably than open enrollment

patterns which are constantly evolving

year after year. This method better

isolates the underlying population in a

neighborhood and separate it separates

it from open enrollment impacts uh at

the school. For example, in the past,

we've seen uh schools where we may see

enrollment growth at that school while

at the same time the neighborhood

population is declining. So the open

enrollment rate in that school is what's

really driving that growth when in fact

the underlying neighborhood population

can be declining. So it's important to

make those distinctions.

Resident students form the foundation

for many of the analysis going forward

into the resilient schools. Using

resident student location, we can

determine how many students are in close

proximity to school buildings. Here a

heat map of resident students in the

Douglas attendance area. The right, the

light yellow represents clusters of one

to five u students with darker colors

representing increasing densities of

students.

Also shown in this table uh is also

shown on this is a table of students and

housing units within one mile of the

school. again and we see far fewer

students and housing units close to the

school compared to other district

neighborhood schools.

Uh we did do have to note that we use

single family detached here as the

measure. Um there are other housing

types that we do use in our projections

in our estimates. Uh but they can

complicate things with CU apartments and

things like that. For the purposes of

here of illustration, we just use single

family detached.

We consider proximity to neighborhood

schools an important measure since

almost twothirds of of BBSD students or

about 63% attend their neighborhood

school rather than an open enrollment

rather than opening rolling to a

different neighborhood focus or charter

school. In fact, recent public out uh

outreach listed walkability or proximity

for that matter as a value our school of

our school communities.

We can see here that the resident

students in BBSD schools vary widely

with many schools having insufficient

resident students to meet a two classes

per grade standard or about 300 student

school. As of 2025, nine schools in the

initiative were operating with resident

populations below 300 and another four

only slightly above that level.

Uh this slide also shows the number of

students that have that leave

neighborhood schools shown here in green

as opposed to those that attend their

neighborhood school shown in blue. The

district average for students attending

their neighborhood school is about 67%.

But that number ranges widely from some

schools being below 50% to some schools

being as high as around 85%. But that's

only a very small handful of schools.

We can see here that open enrollment out

of the of the school has a significant

impact on many schools ability to

populate a two- round school with

neighborhood students alone, making

those schools very reliant on attracting

open enrollment. In the past, open

enrollment has functioned as a somewhat

of a relief valve for crowding in the

district, allowing some leveling between

schools with varying resident

populations.

However, the current situation is very

different. Few schools are in need of

such a relief valve. While the overall

uh u resident population of our schools

has been declining dramatically in in

recent years,

the focus on residenta populations pro

prompted the board to recommend a review

process for attendance boundaries every

5 years uh uh including the one that we

just undertook this last fall. In turn,

the boundary exercise also revealed that