District Advisory Board Meeting Notes

January 15, 2009

7:00-9:00pm

The meeting was called to order by DAB Chair, Will Walker. The meeting
minutes from the November meeting were approved as written.

Faith Community Volunteer Program – Tom Balchak & Kris Cord

Tom Balchak, a Board of Education member, is a member of the Faith Advisory
Board. Our schools are good because of their connections with our community. With
1,000 children in PSD now homeless, these connections are especially important. This
program was started in 1999, after the Columbine shootings by people in the faith
community who wanted to support our students.

The goals of this program are to:

• Provide students with additional resources,
• Provide the opportunity for community members from the faith community to
volunteer in the public schools, and
• Have an impact on student achievement, often through one on one mentoring.

Examples of what this program is doing including providing volunteer time, school
supplies, warm coats, and many other items for our students.

Kris Cord gave us additional specifics on this program. There are currently 24
schools matched with faith communities. The Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU,
makes it clear that religion is not promoted within the schools, but the support is provided
through volunteers from these faith communities. Volunteers receive training so they
understand what the MOU. The Memorandum of Structure defines how things work.
There is a coordinator at each school participating in this program and a coordinator from
each participating faith community. Coordinators meet on a regular basis and exchange
information on needs and resources.

Kris Cord works with the PSD Volunteer and Partnership Program and helps to
coordinate the Faith Community efforts. The PSD Partnership Program works
collaboratively with the PSD Foundation. The volunteer program has over 13,000
volunteers who are registered with PSD. PSD also runs partnerships with local
businesses. Resources from businesses are matched with school needs such as career
planning and skills development.

Budget Development Process – Dave Montoya

School District Revenue Sources

• State
• Local Taxes (Property & Specific Ownership)
• Programs
• Federal Grants
 • Other Local Revenue

Estimated Fiscal Year 08 District Revenue by Source (ALL districts)

• 62% School Finance (state aid, property tax, specific ownership tax)
• 16% Other Property Taxes Authorized or Required by Law (overrides, bonds,
abatements, other)
• 11% Non-tax Local
• 7% Federal
• 3% Categoricals
• 1% Other State
These numbers include all monies in all districts in Colorado including grants on other
designated funds.

PSD General Fund Revenue (What we run on day to day)

• Used to account for overall operating activities of the District
• Includes all revenues and expenditures not designated to other funds

General Fund Revenue Sources 2008-09 Revised Budget

• 83% State Formula $161,169,745
• 5% 2000 Local Election $10,000,000
• 3% Other Local $7,677,410
• 4% State Categoricals $6,854,917
• 3% 1996 Local Election $5,960,000
• 2% 1988 Local Election $3,052,147
• 0% Federal Revenue $200,000

General Fund – State Formula Funding 2008-09 Revised Budget

• 58% State Funding $93,258,102
• 39% Property Tax Funding $62,557,832
• 3% Specific Ownership Tax Funding $5,353,811

General Fund – State Formula Funding 2008-09 Revised Budget

Funding by Formula
Statewide per pupil base
+ Cost of Living Factor
+ School District Size Factor
+ Personnel Cost Factor
+ At-Risk Adjustment
= Total Per Pupil Funding

General Fund – State Formula Funding 2008-09 Revised Budget

Greater of…
• Funding by Formula (estimate $6,484)
• Minimum Per Pupil Floor Funding* (estimate $6,554)
*Defined as 95% of the Statewide average Per Pupil Funding
 PSD and 14 other districts in Colorado receive the minimum per pupil funding.

General Fund – State Formula Funding 2008-2009 Revised Budget

Per Pupil Funding x Number of Funded Pupils

$6,554 24,590.0

83% State Formula $161,169,745

October Count numbers are very important for this reason. We only get funded for the
students in school on the October Count dates. Districts will continue to receive state
numbers, plus inflation, plus 1% through 2011.

General Fund – Mill Levy Overrides 2008-09 Revised Budget

Mill Levy Overrides account for 10% of PSD budget. Unlike the state funding, no
inflation is taken into account with the Mill Levy funding.

• 5% 2000 Local Election $10,000,000

• 3% 1996 Local Election $5,960,000
• 2% 1988 Local Election $3,052,147

Mill Levy Override Limit

Additional property tax available to authorize is limited to 20% of total program
funding. (This requires local voter approval.)

Because of the current Colorado constitutional requirement of education funding

increasing yearly by inflation plus 1%, as property taxes have been eroding, the state was
having to backfill from the general fund to make up money which was not being
collected from property taxes.

Budget Process
Phasing in for FY 2009-10
• Develop multi-year budget assumptions
• Set overall budget goals and expectations
• Encourage input from community employees and District schools/departments
• Ability to adapt to internal/external budget constraints

Monitoring State’s Economic Condition

• $600 million state budget shortfall
• Governor has called for $800 million in reductions or 10% of State’s budget
• Possible risks to K-12
o Full-day kindergarten
o Grants/categoricals
 o Other??

FY 2009-10 Early Budget Assumptions

• Enrollment increase of ~0.8% or 200 students
• Inflation (December Economic Forecasts)

Legislative Office of State Planning &

Council Budgeting .
2008 3.0% 3.8%
2009 1.8% 2.2%
2010 2.8% 2.5%
2011 3.4% 2.8%

• Official 2008 Denver-Boulder-Greeley CPI will be released on February 20th

FY 2009-10 Early Budget Projections

Enrolment + Growth + Inflation + Amendment 23

Budget Pressures
• Some costs increasing at a faster rate than inflation
o Employee benefits
o Textbooks (increasing 50-100% over last 3 years)
o Software (increasing 10%-15%)

• Increasing number of at-risk populations

o Special Education
o English Language Learners
o Social/Economic Disadvantaged

Questions & Input

Is the 62.5 million property tax level controlled by the state? The Mill Levy rate
is set in state law. The Mill Levy legislation passed last year would freeze the
property tax level based on last years legislation and is now frozen at 27 mils.
Assessed value can either grow or shrink. Mill Levy freeze legislation is now
being considered by the state supreme court and we are expecting a decision at
any time. The supreme Court told districts to follow the law as written (that is to
continue with the freeze) until their decision is announced.

Prior to the freeze, the state was having to backfill money from the state general
fund to make up for the number of dollars being lost from property taxes to reach
the number of dollars for education required by state law (inflation + 1% through
2011).

The PSD Mill Levy committee is currently meeting with schools to identify and
prioritize the needs at each school.
 Given economic uncertainty, how do union and association negotiations work?
These are currently ongoing, but we don’t really know where things are going
right now. We always have more needs than money. Communications are
important at this point.

Can we look at increasing class sizes and keeping good teachers? It was pointed
out that some class sizes are already very large.

The cost of living factor in the state formula is an adjustment to the state funding
based on the relative cost of living in different locations in Colorado. Our area is
considered fairly inexpensive to live in.

Can student populations be redistributed from some crowded schools (like Rocky)
and use other underutilized PSD facilities. The facilities department and
committee have and are looking at these types of options.

Grade configuration requires staff development. One DAB member expressed

that this should be a funding priority since we are in the middle of this right now.

Student Based Budgeting true-up from October Counts – how did that work?
Schools which ended up with more students than projected this year received
more funds based on the October Count numbers. Schools which ended up with
fewer students than projected did end up having to give money back. Since this is
the first year of true-up, some schools may have to phase in some of their
payments.

It was asked what percentage of the state budget K-12 education represents.
Dave Montoya new K-12 Education was the largest percentage of state general
fund numbers, but didn’t have exact numbers at the meeting. Dave looked this
information up following the meeting and has given us the following numbers
from the last fiscal year, 2007/2008. The top four funding items from the state
general fund appropriations and the percentage of the state budget they represent
are:
• 42% K-12 Education
• 29% Health & Human
• 13% Corrections/Judicial
• 10% Higher Education

RTI (Response to Intervention) and PLCs (Professional Learning Communities)

- Chuck Dewayne

Two new terms have been going around in education and throughout PSD. These are
RTI (Response to Intervention) and PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). Chuck
DeWayne came to give DAB more information on these hot topics.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) of 2004

 • Reauthorized IDEA 1997
• Made the case for results-oriented approach
o National re-designation rate: 1.8%
o National dropout rate for special education students: 31.2%
• 15% of Part B funds can be used for school wide early pre-referral interventions
• No state should continue to use the discrepancy model
• Placement made based on response to interventions

In the world of learning disabilities, there needs to be a system in place to gather data
on students to determine if they have learning disability. All teachers need to work with
kids who are experiencing learning difficulties, not just special education teachers. Some
kids may be slow learners or have gaps in their education, but not have a learning
disability.

Pyramid Response to Interventions

Discrepancy Model Response to Intervention

• Difference between potential and
achievement
• No action can take place until
there is a discrepancy
• Wait to fail system
• Special Education responsibility
• Learning rate over time and level
of performance
• Provide high quality instruction
and interventions matched to
student needs
• Consider special education only
after students have not responded
to interventions
• Not Special Education, not
Regular Education – just
EDUCATION

Overview of RTI

Chuck had a 5 minute RTI video to show us from the CDE website which we had
technical difficulties showing. I couldn’t find it on the CDE website, but there are a
variety of videos on the referenced RTI Network site which can be found at this website:
http://www.rtinetwork.org/Professional/Podcasts

Part of RTI is to perform more frequent assessments so we can catch kids before they
have major difficulties.

Pyramid Structure
• Tier 1 Universal Level 80-90% of kids
ALL students receive research-based, high quality, general education that
incorporates ongoing universal screening, progress monitoring, and prescriptive
 assessment to design instruction. Expectations are taught, reinforced, and
monitored in all settings by all adults. Discipline and other data inform the design
of interventions that are preventative and proactive.
• Tier 2 Targeted Level 5-15% of kids
Interventions are provided to students identified as at-risk of academic and/or
social challenges and/or students identified as underachieving who require
specific supports to make sufficient progress in general education.
• Tier 3 Intensive Level 1-5% of kids
Interventions are provided to students with intensive/chronic academic and/or
behavior needs based on ongoing progress monitoring and/or diagnostic
assessment.

The Professional Learning Communities Journey: from Beginning to …

Professional Learning Communities

• What Do You Want the Kids to Know?
• How Will You Know When They Know It?
• How Will You Respond When They Aren’t Learning?
• How Will You Respond When They Already Know It?
• Learning vs. Teaching

All Principals and a few of their staff members (a total of five people from Each
school) have now received training in PLCs. Schools are at different points in
implementing PLCs.

Coaches Academy
Purpose: To support the implementation of Professional Learning Communities
by providing educational leaders with the knowledge, tools, and skills to
effectively coach others in their schools throughout the change process.

“Don’t tell me you believe ‘all kids can learn’… tell me what you’re doing about the kids
who aren’t learning.” -- Rick DuFour

Interventions

Traditional School PLC School

• Typically occurs as re-teaching • Occurs individually or with small
for the whole class. groups of students.

• Interventions occur whenever the • Intervention occurs in response

teacher feels help is needed. to student performance on
common assessments.

• Failure IS an option (kids suffer • Failure IS NOT an option (extra

natural consequences). time and support ensures that
students all learn).
Resources
• http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/RTI.asp
• http://allthingsplc.org
• “Whatever It Takes” by DuFour, DuFour, and Eaker
• “Pyramid Response To Intervention” by Mattos & Buffum
• “Learning by Doing” by DuFour

Questions
With so many changes occurring in PSD at the same time, isn’t this a lot for our
schools and teachers to absorb? Yes, but many of the changes are interrelated and
support one another.

How are these assessed? The outcomes should always be the same. Teach how
you want, but the kids should learn the same material.

While we would like all staff members to be trained in RTI and PLCs, training
five staff members per school is what PSD is able to afford.

About 15% of the kids need to have differentiated instruction.

Learning how to differentiate instruction is very difficult. PSD likes to spend a

lot of their staff development time on training staff how to differentiate
instruction.

With RTI and PLCs we want to measure students in several ways (not just C-
SAPs). You can’t always get a good measure from a single test. Classroom
performance, MAP, AP, ACT, and other tests are additional measures of student
performance we can use.

Kids have very different needs when it comes to the types of interventions they
need. A reading problem, for instance, might have different causes for different
children, so different instruction might be appropriate to deal with the same type
of apparent problem.

Board of Education Report - Jim Hayes

Choice Bussing is gone except for travelling from PSD high schools to the Poudre IB
program. The Poudre IB program families were able to convince PSD that they would be
able to support the bussing. This bussing is only being done on a fee basis except for free
and reduced lunch kids. Based on the number of kids and the number of free and reduced
kids the bussing serves in other schools, this may be revisited.

There is a proposal the BOE is discussing to house early childhood programs in some of
our elementary schools. This would be a limited, fee based, early childhood program as a
four year pilot project. The fee would be $3,150 per child for a year for a half day
program. We are looking at four sites (Moore, Rice, Fullyana, and Bethke), one class per
site, and 14 children per class. The fee based program would help to balance out the
special education preschool programs which are already in place as HeadStart programs
in some locations. This issue is currently being discussed by board.

At the last board meeting, the board had the opportunity to approve Olander’s name
change to the Olander School of Project Based Learning. This name change recognizes
what the school has been doing for several years.

PSD Foundation is offering see the world tours – this year project is Olander & Lincoln –
more info on PSD Foundation website. (I was going to include the link to the website,
but the website expired on January 9th and is pending renewal.)