STEM School Highlands Ranch

Minutes

Board of Director's Meeting

Date and Time

Tuesday August 1, 2023 at 5:30 PM

Location

8920 Barrons Blvd.

P-TECH Mechatronics Room

Highlands Ranch, CO 80129

Directors Present

C. Gustafson, E. Quigley (remote), G. Shick, I. Kalra, K. Reyna, M. Horne, R. Lukez, R. Theret (remote)

Directors Absent

L. Davison

Ex Officio Members Present

M. Cartier

Non Voting Members Present

M. Cartier

Guests Present

A. Westfall, K. Johnson, L. Kovalesky, M. Pritchard, N. Bostel

I. Opening Items

A.

Record Attendance

B.

Call the Meeting to Order

K. Reyna called a meeting of the board of directors of STEM School Highlands Ranch to order on Tuesday Aug 1, 2023 at 5:33 PM.

C.

Pledge of Allegiance

D.

Reciting of the Mission Statement

E.

Approve Minutes

M. Horne made a motion to approve the minutes from Board of Directors Meeting on 06-06-23.
C. Gustafson seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.

F.

Approve Minutes

I. Kalra made a motion to approve the minutes from Annual Board Training on 06-09-23.
G. Shick seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.

G.

Approve Minutes

C. Gustafson made a motion to approve the minutes from Board of Directors Meeting on 07-19-23.
G. Shick seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.
Roll Call
I. Kalra
Abstain
M. Horne
Aye
R. Theret
Aye
C. Gustafson
Aye
L. Davison
Absent
G. Shick
Aye
K. Reyna
Aye
E. Quigley
Aye
R. Lukez
Aye

II. Annual Information Technology Update

A.

Mike Pritchard, Director of IT

Presented new Security applications that we will be using in the 2023-24 school year.

 

K12 Six- A group of organizations focused on Cyber Security education. STEM is one of those organizations. CISA is there to help critical infrastructure to have a strong cyber security presence. They graded us on our cybersecurity and Mike will be taking that report to Matt over the next few weeks to explore options for next steps.

 

New Products for this year:

BullPhish- we will be able to Phish test our staff and students

Graphus- looks for any email that seems to be impersonating any of us and will automatically pull it. It also includes a banner at the top of emails to allow users to report suspicious emails.

Securly- MDM, Filter, Classroom and Aware: Classroom allows teachers to have a more focused classroom. We will have multifaceted training available for all teachers to learn how to fully utilize this. Aware-this will notify admin and Mike, then they can assess whether to involve counselors. This will be used like Safe to Tell.

 

BOD Q & A

Do you think this will increase the time spent working through these? Yes. 

Will the system learn? Yes, it uses AI to learn from us as well as other schools.

Have we heard from other schools using this and are there any things that we should be aware of like unintended consequences?  Will you reach out to other schools to see how they have handled this? - Yes, I think that is great and I can reach out to other schools.

L. Kovalesky adds that they used Securly in her last school and students did not mention feeling like it was a violation of privacy

Will this be prevented by VPNs or anything?  Securely will not allow you to use a VPN.

 

Future action: Concerning current or potential lawsuit against Securly in California. the BOD asked that the school do it's due diligence to make sure we learn from the situation and avoid unnecessary missteps. M. Pritchard will report back to the BOD with an update in the October BOD meeting. 

III. Academic Excellence

A.

2023-24 Start of Year Updates

Presented by K. Johnson and M. Cartier

Current Enrollment: 1505

Evolve- will be installed at all 3 on the first day of school. Entrance times were adjusted to assist with flow of traffic.

Five Year renewal- Due 9/1/2023

 

Student Celebrations- Presented by L. Kovalesky

David Marquez as TSA National President 

Shriya Madhavan awarded the 2023 Youth Impact Award  

Multiple AP Scholars, Scholars with Distinction, and Scholars with Honors

 

Dates of Importance: 

New Teacher Onboarding-July 31, 2023

Returning Teachers- August 2, 2023

We have 16 new staff who joined us this year

SBL update- we have taken a lot of feedback from parents, community. The revisions will be presented in a future meeting.

IV. Policy Waiver Update

A.

DCSD Policy Waiver for Charters

Policies have been updated: 

Policy Waiver, Student Fees, Guest speakers, and Community use are Automatic waivers

Enrollment Policy is Non-Automatic- the revised Enrollment policy, Procedures for Selecting of Instructional Materials Policy,  and Controversial Material Resources were reviewed. 

 

There was a link to the master working list of DCSD waivers for STEM in the board book and all policies will be posted alongside all the policy docs on the webpage.

 

The intent of the BOD is to submit these policies with the renewal on 9/1/2023.

 

C. Gustafson made a motion to Approve updated policy waivers as presented by Admin.
I. Kalra seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.

V. Board Policy Document Updates

A.

Board Policy Approval

C. Gustafson made a motion to Approve the revised enrollment policy.
R. Lukez seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.

Ryan had to leave at 7PM.

C. Gustafson made a motion to Approve the procedures for Selecting of Instructional Materials Policy and the Controversial Material resources.
R. Lukez seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.

VI. Board Annual Calendar

A.

Discuss Proposed Annual Calendar for Board Meetings

Kelly pulled the annual board calendar for 2021-22 and said that we can edit this for the upcoming year to plan for board Meetings. This edited calendar will be presented in the next meeting. 

VII. Public Posting of Board Documents

A.

Update

THe BOD needs to go to the website and submit an email of school information. Previously, there was a form that was from the state that allowed you to register your school board that allowed you to post your agenda on your website instead of having to physically post them on the school building fill out a form. There was discussion about exactly the post on the website and pros and cons mentioned.   

VIII. Financial Update

A.

General Status Update

M. Cartier has been working with L. Kovalesky to determine what the BOD would like to see monthly, like a dashboard accessible to the CFO, Registrar, Etc.  G. Schick will be adding this to BoT.

 

There will still be a presentation by R. Theret or S. Ake once per year in addition to the regular cadence of monthly financial updates.

IX. Board Committees

A.

Confirm committee members - Board and Staff

Discussion tabled except:

 

Each committee should have goals set up in BoT. BOD to begin working on that.

 

 

X. Public Comment

A.

Public Comment Sign up link

No one signed up for Public Comment

XI. Closing Items

A.

Adjourn Meeting

CDE training, Self Assessment of BOD members, 

R. Lukez made a motion to adjourn meeting at 7:32pm.
I. Kalra seconded the motion.
The board VOTED to approve the motion.
There being no further business to be transacted, and upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, the meeting was adjourned at 7:32 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
M. Horne