Board Meeting November 14 2024
Horizons K8
Board Meeting Minutes (Virtual Meeting)
11/14/2024
Facilitators: Travis Lockhart, Jasmine GBC
Timekeeper: Emmy Kurtz
Process Observer: Rachel Clionsky
Secretary/Minutes: Michelle Bargo
Call to Order: 6:01 PM
Present: Travis Lockhart, Rachel Clionsky, Kristin Hauger, Michelle Bargo, Jasmine GBC, Jim Freund, Mike Ashmore, Emmy Kurtz, Adam Brink, John Bogosian, Rob Horansky, Fran Cohen
Absent: Adam Brink
- Quorum established
Additional community members in attendance virtually: Julie Cohen, Elizabeth Parady, Lauren Yedell, Lisa Ton, Jeff van Geete
Video Link: https://meet.google.com/rmu-gnau-tqw
Public Comment:Jeff van Geete - Spoke for 3 minutes regarding the issue of classroom cleaning that was discussed and concorded on at the October Council Meeting. There were parents who had voluntarily paid for cleaning prior to the Council discussions. Some of those parents attended the September Council meeting to voice their views but none were able to attend again in October. Jeff felt that there was not equity in the decision that was concorded on at the October Council meeting.
Consent Agenda: Reviewed minutes from 10/10/24 and agenda for 11/14/24
Agenda: Board Meeting Agenda – November 14, 2024.docx - Google Docs
- Motion to approve: Travis Lockhart
Second: Rachel Clionsky
Concorded
HOS Update: GBC
- October 1 Count: BVSD will fund us for 358 students for the 24/25 school year.
- Open Enrollment Events: GBC is looking for more parents to attend Open Enrollment events because attendees have many questions for currently enrolled families. Our OE events have been very well attended. OE has only been open for 14 days and we won’t get numbers until January.
Board Committee Updates:
- FRC: GBC
- Faculty problem solving around enrollment issues:
- The first faculty proposal targets cases in which potential incoming families are offered a space at Horizons but do not ultimately fill that space for various reasons (e.g., special education needs that exceed Horizons’ capacity, accepting a space in a different school, etc.)
- The second faculty proposal (which may not be required) targets increased enrollment in specific grade levels.
- Discussed additional special ed paras to help when new students start at the school with significant special education needs.
- Discussed how the incoming presidential administration may affect COLAs, contracts, and school funding over the next several years.
- Faculty problem solving around enrollment issues:
- Development Committee: Kristin Hauger
- The annual CO Gives Fundraiser has launched. We’ve already raised 25,000! There is a benefit (in the form of bonus dollars) for making donations through CO Gives.
- Promotional Video - Suzanne Tadros, Lauren Yedell, and Kristin Hauger have created an incredible promotional video to use for recruitment!
- Spring Gala 2025 will be held at a new venue this year, the Embassy Suites/ Hilton on Canyon! This theme this year will be Prom Rewind.
- Artastic Fair is coming up in December. This year there are a huge number of student vendors and a waitlist for non-student vendors.
Review of Concordance Process in Council Decisions (by community request): Travis Lockhart
Concordance means that a wide range of voices contribute to the discussion. Consensus/ concordance also means that in some cases, even if you don’t agree with the majority decision, you can consent for the sake of not impeding the community’s progress or ability to reach a decision.
- Discussion: We discussed using a trained facilitator to help achieve better organization of conversations. John Bogosian is interested in pursuing this further. There was discussion about whether the concordance model makes sense with such a large community and with poor continuity of which community members are in attendance at the Council meetings. Faculty board members recommend additional training on concordance as turn over occurs in the community.
Section 3.12 of the Bylaws is relevant to this conversation. The wording allows for a majority vote if concordance cannot be reached, or for unmade decisions to ultimately be made by the Board. - Motion: To incorporate facilitation training into the community with the intention of improving the concordance process at Council meetings.
- Motion to approve: Michelle Bargo
Second: Emmy Kurtz
Concorded
- Motion to approve: Michelle Bargo
Board Priorities for 24/25:
- Open Enrollment - In an effort to gather past open enrollment data, Travis has asked for a cost estimate for a CORA request regarding the past OE numbers for Horizons. The cost will be $30/ hour for the district to provide us with this data. We are awaiting the cost estimate.
Process Observer: Rachel Clionsky - There were a few missteps in the process today but these were quickly brought to attention and resolved. The discussion went long on a couple of topics but the meeting still ended in a timely manner.
Celebrations: BVSD was named as one of the top districts in the nation in US World Report; Horizons Middle School was placed on 27th on the list of middle schools!!
Adjourned: 7:45 PM