Monument Academy School Board, Feb. 9 – Board hears finance and mid-year COO updates

Correction
Financial update
Interim COO mid-year update
Updated calendar
Middle School uniform policy amended
Public comment on reasons for withdrawing
Highlights

By Jackie Burhans

Correction

In the Feb. 4 edition of OCN, the MA article misstated that Graham was term-limited. In March 2022, the board amended its bylaws to clarify term limits and Graham can run for a second term. OCN regrets the error.

At its Feb. 9 regular meeting, the Monument Academy (MA) board heard an update from its financial consultant and interim chief operating officer (COO), discussed the proposed school calendar, updated the middle school uniform policy, and heard committee updates. After the meeting adjourned, the board heard from a parent about withdrawing her student to home-school.

Financial update

Glenn Gustafson, MA’s financial consultant, reported that he had been working diligently on integrating into MA’s financial systems. He spent time in the past month on the annual bond deadlines for compliance reporting. He said he was working on payroll posting, the general ledger, and bank reconciliation. He noted that the board should have the quarterly statement in its new Colorado Department of Education (CDE)-compliant format. The new format, Gustafson said, is easier to read and shows the balance sheet, bond information, and school information with graphs and charts. This will be more user-friendly for the board and community and will benefit the school in the long run, he said. The report will also be on the school’s financial transparency page at https://www.monumentacademy.net/financial-transparency/.

Interim COO mid-year update

Interim COO Kim McClelland began by acknowledging the work it took to open MA in 1996 with 180 students and grow it into a thriving public charter school. She said her goal for the work that she and Gustafson are doing is to provide hope, sustainability, and cohesiveness.

The last strategic plan was done in 2016, and she wants to take that work and build upon it to provide a living document that will be updated and monitored. One key update she recommends is simplifying the mission and vision statement. Since she started, she has felt the need to bring the two campuses together as one unified community and build trust and collaboration between them.

McClelland highlighted activities in the previous 53 days, including revising financial systems by updating them for compliance, creating efficiencies, and beginning budget development. She also discussed ensuring the secondary campus complies with its bond covenants and reviewing service contracts to see if they are an efficient way to do business.

McClelland provided the following additional updates:

MA will have its first high school graduating class next year and will continue to focus on character development and partnership with parents. MA will review the special-education process and working with the district. MA needs more assessment data, more often to show results from beginning, middle, and end of the year on a dashboard. This would allow MA to fine-tune the academic program. She will review a draft of curriculum development policy with the curriculum
She is conducting a survey of staff in elementary and secondary schools to make informed decisions and budget for devices since the Colorado Measures of Success (CMAS) testing is moving to devices only.
Saxon math is going away, so MA needs to determine a replacement.
Work on the modulars at East Campus should be complete by spring break. Both campuses need maintenance work. She is looking at staffing a facilities manager to cover both buildings and updating facility rental processes and costs.
MA needs to improve communication and consistency around discipline. She has started a discipline matrix with level one for classroom disruptions through level three for very serious matters. MA needs to determine how often and when it does in or out-of-school suspensions, follow state law while ensuring conversations with the social worker and counselors but leave room for administration to have decision autonomy.

McClelland also touched on Title 9 training, the mandatory reporting process, enrollment, safety and security, the recirculation project at West Campus, athletics, outreach and communication with parents, outside committees and group alignment, the fundraising campaign, marketing and branding, and partnerships with the community and D38.

Updated calendar

McClelland reported that a survey of teachers showed a preference to stay with the current calendar and stay close to the D38 calendar. For the 2023-24 proposed calendar, some of the professional development days were moved along with the April teacher appreciation day off. She discussed using a new calculator to ensure MA complies with state contact hour requirements. She noted that extra snow days are built into the calendar but that if they were not needed, MA could adjust the last day of school. She also wants to create a draft calendar for the following year to allow people to plan.

The board unanimously approved the 2023-24 calendar for grades K-6 and 6-12 as presented.

Middle School uniform policy amended

President Ryan Graham noted that this was a formality based on the previous month’s decision to allow middle schoolers to wear team athletic wear. Board member Joe Buczkowski said he did his best to draft changes to the policy that were approved but not codified at the last meeting.

Buczkowski added athletic apparel in its own section, saying that athletic polo shirts and fleece jackets may be part of the daily uniform and polos must be tucked in. He also took the opportunity to fix some small typos and font issues.

The board voted 5 to 1 to approve the policy as amended, with board member Emily Belisle voting no after requesting a discussion of some oversight for the potential duplication with fundraising groups in the school.

Public comment on reasons for withdrawing

After the board returned from a nearly two-hour executive session discussing security arrangements, a contract for school administration, and the evaluation of the interim school leader and finance team, it adjourned after taking no action.

The next agenda item allowed for citizen comments not pertaining to an agenda item, and Tanya Santiago explained why she had withdrawn her children to home-school them. She said she originally selected MA due to its stance against critical race theory and gender and identity confusion.

However, she became concerned when the middle school principal explained at an assembly why Capturing Kids Hearts was an amazing social-emotional learning (SEL) program. She said she shouldn’t have to explain to a truly conservative school board why SEL poses such a huge threat. She quoted from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) organization that SEL is anchored in the notion of justice-oriented citizenship and discusses issues of culture, identity, agency, belonging, and engagement. She said that to her, that is socialism.

She also noted that a high school substitute teacher had their class debate the COVID-19 vaccine by physically segregating kids based on their opinion. She felt that no child should be easily identifiable as having been vaccinated or not and felt it was a horrible idea to have a debate class cover such a hot-button issue. When she spoke with Principal David Kennington, he asked her if she understood the classical education model that MA offered.

Finally, she noted that a suicide prevention program like Sources of Strength required student participation, raising the concern that if one student failed to recognize that another was planning to commit suicide, the damage would be irreversible. She also said the program was so secret that parents were required to go to the D38 administration building and leave their cell phone off so they could not photograph it.

She had a lot of hope for MA, she said, but it didn’t work out so her kids would now be home-schooled.

Highlights

Board meeting highlights include:

The board updated its list of authorized signers for its Integrity Bank CDs to replace those no longer at the school.
Board member Craig Carle spotlighted three staff members: Loura Polen, Krista Pelley, and Lena Gross who dropped everything to help gather bond information that was needed.
Graham reported for the Highway 105 committee that he would call a special meeting for the MA Building Corp. and the MA Foundation to execute documents with Wilson & Co. to allow the “recirculation project” to get started. The project is designed to have traffic go around the school and stay off Highway 105.
Carle reported that the Lynx Fund Annual Campaign had raised 15% or $75,000 of its $500,000 goal. He met with a videographer to discuss creating a commercial about the fundraising goal.
Board member Michael Geers said the West Campus School Accountability and Advisory Committee (SAAC) was working on its end-of-year survey, and the parent-teacher organization was recruiting.
Belisle reported that the East Campus SAAC had reviewed its survey results, posted them on the website under the school board, and written a letter to the board with its recommendations. The letter noted a high level of satisfaction with academic progress and room to streamline communications between parents and teachers.
The board set March 21 at 9 a.m. as the time for a 90-minute budget work session. The location is to be determined.

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The MA School Board meets at 6 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month. The next regular board meeting will be on Thursday, March 9, at 6 p.m. at the East Campus. See more information at see https://bit.ly/ma-boe.

Jackie Burhans can be reached at jackieburhans@ocn.me.