District Parent Council (DPC)

February 28, 2007

Meeting Minutes





6:40pm meeting convened. Roman Mica chaired. Amy Schuttenberg took minutes.



6:40pm Budget Update – Dr. Garcia, Bill Sutter

Budget Perspectives Booklet was distributed

·         June 30 of each year the Board of Education (BOE) needs to approve
the following school years budget

·         Page 4 – Budget should reflect what our vision is

·         Page 5 – Home perspective:

o   smaller class size, elementary has been reducing class size; average is
22:1 in a K-5 school

o   student-teacher ratio is much lower but it includes special education
teachers, media specialists, etc.

o   extra programs include special education – which is the most expensive

·         Page 7 – School choice is a very popular aspect; 7% or roughly
2000 students in BVSD are in charter schools

·         Page 8 – School perspective:

o   employee compensation is the largest aspect involved – 90% of budget
which includes insurance costs; if a teachers salary is $40,000 is really
costs approximately $60-65,000 for that teachers salary including benefits;
strategic initiative is to have the best and the brightest – this includes
having the best for our employees

·         Page 9 – School Resource Allocations (SRA) elementary school
sample on page 12 – one year $2.6 million to run

o   Additional funds include grants, fund raising

o   FTE allocations are very important as they are our salaries for
employees, which is 90% of budget; if a school is off by 10-12 teachers,
this could be a million dollars

·         Page 15 – District perspective:

o   includes strategic initiatives

o   discusses unfunded mandates which includes special education, each year
we spend 32 million in sped, state only funds 5-7 million

o   Per Pupil Revenue (PPR) $6,315 enrollment is our budget

·         Page 18 – chart of enrollment by grade level for the past 10
years; many grades are averaging enrollment under what we have had in the
past 10 years; Peak to Peak Charter went from no students in 2001 to 1200
students this year

·         Page 20 – where do we spend the money: for every dollar

o   77 cents is spent on instruction at schools

o   17 cents is spent on administrations and overhead at schools

o   6 cents is spent on district-wide overhead

·         Page 24 – Community perspective – taxpayers:

o   Referendum C created a restriction on state spending; taxpayers got
dollars back but the state couldn’t spend for growth or inflation on
highways and prisons, etc.

·         Page 26 – enrollment drives the formula $6,315 per student



7:00pm Colorado’s School Land Trust – Jared Polis, Kim Copanas

·         50% of audience has heard of Colorado School Land Trust

·         Land part of trust is over 3 million acres

·         Been ignored from the education side for quite some time; the
environmentalists have supported for quite some time;

·         We will discuss maximizing revenues, and disuse of revenues

7:35pm Video Shown

·         School Trust Lands

o   Property for schools

o   Granted to support education

o   134 million acres were granted in all of USA

o   Activities to raise money

§ Money is spent in schools

o   2005 half of states have lost land completely; only 45 million acres
left (managed in trusts by states)

§ Some people don’t want to pay for school lands

o   Must ensure school lands produce the revenue

o   Funds produced 35 billion which goes to supporting our schools

o   Ask questions about your states land! Ask state legislators and school
BOE members how you can help

·         Questions:

o   Is it illegal to not use as supplemental?

§ Budget consensus, legal strategy, might come to lawsuit

o   Are there bills in this session

§ Yes; we would like to see the school permanent fund solidly grow over
time

o   How do we get more information?

§ Working group – interested in joining let Jared know

§ If there is a lawsuit we will contact DPC to inform, or a bill scheduled
for major vote, etc.

§ Jared distributed some business cards

o   Why isn’t the money ear marked?

§ It is not separate right now

o   What is the governor’s position?

§ He supports the flexibility of the treasurers office; don’t think he will
support a requirement by the court

o   Can you do an incremental approach?

§ Yes it most likely will have to be, as it will take time

o   Roman will email out Jared’s email address to DPC



8:00pm Round Robin – Dr. Garcia

·         Will skip this part tonight to get finished on time



8:00pm Bond Update – Don Orr, Joe Sleeper, Robert Hammond

·         We sold the first issue of the bond, 120 million yesterday

o   The rate was 4.242

·         Last time Don Orr was here they distributed the Facility Master
Plan Overview

·         Hiring a Communication Specialist to support getting information
out to schools, community members, etc.

·         The BOE established a systems oversight committee, second meeting
will be tomorrow

o   Haven’t spent a lot of money on the bond yet as we haven’t seen the
money yet, will get money in a few weeks

·         Don will oversee the bond program management

·         Three project managers are in house

·         Signed contract with firm last night

·         Sent out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for design services to
design schools

o   41 replies came in

o   Interviewed 17 firms

o   Today tried to match firms with projects in phase one

o   Recommendation will go forward to Robert and Dr. Garcia tomorrow

o   March 13 will go to BOE for approval

·         Informational Technology advisory committee is also being formed

o   Bringing fiber optic wiring to all schools

o   Committee will be charged with developing structure for network

·         Throughout process the BOE has made a strong commitment to provide
communication to schools and community

o   We will put information in school newsletters on design, and structural
changes coming to schools

o   Nederland has a new track that is being reviewed that is not in the
overview

o   Community Montessori is not listed, 226 million for that project, design
built method, will review with a local contractor and will bring forward;
very little programming needs to be done on this project; will enter on
contract this summer and get ready to go next fall

§ What is timeline on that project?

·         Don will communicate with Montessori to deliver a timeline once a
firm is decided on

o   Questions?

o   How do you manage working around students, are portables involved?

§ Master schedule will be developed next week, will develop preliminary
schedules when the design phases will occur – exceptions will be Columbine
and Casey; most projects will be done during the school year; the most
important is student safety; we have the top architectural firms in the
state – most have done a considerable amount of work in schools

§ Displacement of students? Students might be displaced in portables but
those answers will be developed by the design advisory team

o   Rep from Casey has heard many different things…what is happening?

§ Visioning meeting had intent to bring community together; their charge is
to develop what that school is going to be not what construction is going to
be done.

§ Casey was going to be replaced; all opportunities will be explored; it
will be difficult to maintain that shell of the building as the foundation
is not solid, etc.; the design team will help the visioning team process;
Don will discuss with the principal

o   Internal and external stakeholders are welcome to provide input, but
school community will select in the end

o   Broomfield H.S. budget for portables; where would money come from?

§ In school budget, there is a dollar amount that is for direct costs and
indirect costs; to address those types of situations

o   Have you done other presentations for schools other than at LMS?

§ No; we try to bring everyone up to speed on each building; but the
Communication Specialist will deliver all of this information; much like a
visioning meeting

§ We prefer to have the architect run those visioning meetings; there will
be many more meetings

o   If you are not in phase one, how do we find out what phase we are in?

§ We designed the structure of what schools are impacted by: 6-7 criteria
for phase one

§ Validate schedules for phase one

§ In process of designing phase two and three; will develop; and get out to
folks soon after Spring Break

o   Is there a way to get other networking contacts out to people that might
want to contribute more money?

§ We are starting with Casey to lead this and use as a model for getting
word out to folks

§ Louisville mayor stepped up and indicated that they would be willing to
collaborate with us to address the community with the performing arts
department

§ Time to increase increments, is now during the design phase

§ Chore is on DPC to get word out; always looking for those opportunities

o   Leads certification, only looked at if the school has extra funding on
those projects?

§ We have committed to implementing green buildings strategies; might not
be certified because of the extra costs to become leads certified

o   Other buildings have been taken over by historical groups, as projects
have changed due to city approval etc.; does school district have control
over that?

§ We are sojourn from local land use control; main issue has run its
course; but we ask the City of Boulder energy director to help us with the
selection of the architect for Casey; will ask anyone who has experience,
success, etc. We don’t pull permits from the city we pull them from the
state

o   Will phase one be completed before starting phase two?

§ Many projects will overlap to phase two as well; it will depend on the
project and the time needed to construct

§ We have a great interest rate as well; we will monitor all factors, will
go back to the same process of implementing architects, committees, etc. How
effective will the design be? We built in CSAP schedule so that we are not
disruptive to student safety and success

o   Three prongs to this are the oversight! Financial and accounting side is
great as well; ratings are up, bonds are at a good rate. Program management
and project management; bond sold on Nov. 7th; we now have a firm selected,
oversight committee was formed; we are really moving ahead! After the 13th
of March you will see a lot of activity as well with refining of phase one
and start of phase two and three; communication specialist on board. Very
pleased. To Don and his staffs’ credit.

o   Summary question: when is this going to hit my school?

§ Website eventually…once we get the scheduling; everything presented to
oversight committee; will be relayed to schools via website revisions.

o   IT project separate? IT is also phase one?

§ Info structure is a two year project at the most, we hope to get this
project started in the next two months; getting wiring to buildings

o   Hiring 13 firms; each project could have a very different feel?

§ No prototypes; days of work; tried to match firms expertise with each
project; each project has unique features; firms willing to bring in
bilingual interpreters for high diverse schools that will need it

§ Five people evaluated and scored members; then four to five other people
provided the same input to best match each firm with each school

§ Some firms will be used in phase two and three but not in phase one;
others will be opposite

§ You will see many different styles of design; majority of projects is
renovating or modifying different space not creating from scratch; some
projects have new additions but most are remodels

§ Don’t think construction will start until June; will bring the
contractors on site before starting the implementation of the designs; we
need contractors in the design phase

o   Start of bond issue was XXX amount; are these projects based on less
than what needs to be done. How strict will you be in holding the dollar
amount to the certain project?

§ We know that each project has a budget, and deviation of that budget must
be approved by the oversight committee and the BOE; we can not go beyond the
scope of the original project; if we have over runs on some projects and
under runs on other projects; the committee and BOE will have to evaluate
where the money is needed most.

§ Katrina killed DPS on there bond as prices on things skyrocketed; we need
to keep in mind these factors as well

§ We don’t want a big pot of money sitting at the end as we want the
schools to get what they need

§ We are earning interest on the money so phase three will be good