The Manitou Springs School District 14 (MSSD 14) Board of Education (BOE) met Thursday, Oct. 17 at 5:30 p.m. for a regular meeting in the High School Media Center. All board members were present.
Stephanie Wilson, mental health professional and Ute Pass Elementary School Counselor and District Shared Counselor, began the meeting with a prepared public comment. Wilson cited the definition of a hostile work environment and unwelcome conduct, and alluded that she herself was a victim of such an environment.
“I’m petitioning for policy to protect staff to the extent leadership has benefited. Manitou deserves a culture where they do not face discriminatory assaults based on case-by- case protocols or practices that primarily serve to intimidate and silence employees. This also serves as my formal resignation and my 30-day notice. My health can no longer remain exposed to repeated, pervasive, and targeted, retaliatory, and discriminatory practices. I’ve been living in fear since May 2 of 2024. Thank you for your time and service to this community. I am open to further individual discussion by appointment.”
The Board had no further discussion surrounding Wilson’s comment.
Campus security update
Janie Anderson, director of security for MSSD 14, gave a short presentation regarding security around the district’s campuses. The district-wide Informacast notification system for drills and 911 calls is working well, she says, and even helps cut response times for first responders. Updates to district security include a new Manitou Springs Elementary School (MSES) security officer, video surveillance and student tracking on buses, and additional training for the district’s security officers. The DeAngelis Center Foundation for Community Safety graciously donated a “two-day, single-officer response active shooter training” to Anderson and each of the district’s officers, the equivalent of a $500 training course per officer. Moreover, Anderson and her team continue to investigate vape and THC usage at the middle school and high school.
New equipment is still needed for security, including new cameras for both the Shared Integrated Learning Center (SILC) building and the Manitou Springs High School (MSHS), as well as for buses.
HR focuses on staff development
Eric McMartin, Executive Human Resources (HR) Director, next approached the podium to discuss the goals of the HR Department for the year. Their focus for the 2024-2025 school year is a commitment to excellence and staff development.
“These are the four goals than we have established for this year …” McMartin explained, “Comprehensive job descriptions [for] clarity of roles and responsibilities … The second one is professional development program, that’s kind of the main focus … we started a new system this year to where we are accepting non-graduate level credits for salary advancement on the new salary schedule … The third goal is evaluation systems … last spring, we transitioned to RANDA, the state model evaluation system and the tool used to house that … then finally, under organizational success: compensation.” A subcommittee is currently responsible for reviewing the classified salary schedule to ensure wages are competitive by May of 2025.
Additionally, the HR Department is focused on student and staff success. All certified staff has been “transitioned [to] RANDA training measures on the evaluation cycle and processes.”
McMartin added, “They’ve done a lot more work on instructional rounding and instructional feedback, just in general. And really our focal point, from a strategy standpoint, is student engagement. So there’s a number of folks that have worked on, you know, what does that look like and mean to us? And they’re devising tools and strategies to be able to share readily with … staff at all levels.”
As a final note, McMartin mentioned that their new induction/mentoring program, which pairs seasoned instructors with incoming mentees, has received a lot of positive feedback from recent participants.
MSSD 14 financials
Suzie Thompson, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for MSSD 14, then approached to quickly review the first quarter financials with the board.
In regards to the district’s General Fund, Thompson detailed, “School districts struggle come February with money, with cash flow…[because] property tax money doesn’t come through all year long, equally.” The state has changed the way the money is distributed this year.
“Your two big months for property tax this year, they’ve changed it,” Thompson explained, “We’re a lot higher this year [on revenue] than we were last year. They front loaded our state share and divide it over nine months now, instead of over 12 months.”
The district’s Insurance Reserve Fund is on budget, while the Nutrition Services Fund has relied in part on the General Fund, due to a delay in reimbursement from the state.
“Next fund,” Thompson continued, “is our grants fund. This is really just our title fund…In the past, it supported both Ute Pass Elementary and Manitou Elementary Intervention Support…This year, Ute Pass Elementary does not qualify for target assistance anymore.” This change is due to UPES’ free and reduced lunch status with the state.
The Pupil Activity fund (revenue seen from Fall activities) and the Capital Reserve Fund are both on budget for the quarter.
ADA compliance/OCR audit
Executive Director of Secondary Schools, Kolleen Johnson, followed up with a presentation explaining the district’s recent ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and OCR (Office of Civil Rights) Audit. In Career and Technical Education (CTE), there are three types of auditing: desktop monitoring, financial audit, and an OCR audit which assesses ADA access for students and spaces. The district was randomly chosen for an OCR audit due to receiving Federal funding through the Carl Perkins Vocational Act.
“When you go to do a CTE program, you sign off on something called assurances, saying that yes, these are things that you do, yes, these are things that you provide for all students, that kind of thing. And so it’s a check on those assurances,” Johnson clarified.
Beginning back in December of 2019, Johnson received a letter stating that the district would be audited. In February of 2020, a team from the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) completed a physical audit of MSHS and portions of MSES. During the 2020-2021 school year, a Bond committee and the BOE planned for a bond measure in 2021, but the bond failed. Johnson began working with the BOE that school year to amend policy, and the paperwork was officially completed in August of 2023.
“In the summer of 2021 the following project was completed: the addition of the correct number of handicapped parking spots with clear signage,” Johnson informed the Board.
“During the ’23-’24 school year, the following projects were completed…movement of soap dispensers, bars, paper towel dispensers, toilet paper dispensers, [and] mirrors to ADA heights…[and] we had some exposed bathroom plumbing that had to be moved…In the fall of 2024…the following projects are under investigation: engineering and architectural assessment for the ADA bathroom in the commons of the high school.”
Connie Brachtenbach, Board Director, weighed in on the importance of bringing the district up to ADA compliance, “I think it’s something that we embody as a community that…we promote ourselves as a community that’s inclusive and diverse, and at its core, that’s what the ADA is about. It’s about supporting opportunity for all people, regardless of their individual circumstances. And so this is an important topic to me, and something that I know the other members of the board are well aware of, and I’m going to continue to ask on a regular basis, where are we? What are we doing? What are our next steps? Who needs to be involved? What’s our plan, and how are we moving toward hitting those timelines and those goals?”
The Board moved on to discussing a potential bond initiative in 2025. Superintendent Sean Dorsey explained that he met with RTA Architects and walked the district grounds to get a better idea of project costs for ADA improvements.
“[RTA is] going to develop… a bond steering committee website, where it will distill down elements of our master facility plan, which is very big and bold and audacious and unwieldy, and talk about facility needs that we have in a very understandable language that would be linked to our website,” Dorsey said. The architecture firm plans to present to the District Accountability Committee (DAC) in November.
The BOE voted on five second-reading policies before adjourning: GBGG (staff annual leave), JBB (preventing sex-based harassment of students), AC-R-3 (investigation of complaints involving sex-based harassment of students), ACA (process for student name changes on official records, with parent signature or court order, or informally to align with gender identify), and AC-R-1 (investigation of complaints involving harassment or discrimination of students), all of which were approved unanimously. The first reading of the updated tobacco policies was also approved unanimously.
With no further business to attend to, the meeting concluded at 7:17 p.m. For more information about the MSSD 14 BOE and their meetings and agendas, you can visit https://www.mssd14.org/district_information/board_of_education.
