Kirk C. Watkins, Boulder County. The Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) District Accountability Committee (DAC) meeting took place on April 6, 2021, via Zoom. 

The DAC Chairperson, Ralph Frid, called the meeting to order at 6:17 p.m. 

A moment of reflection was taken to remember the lives lost at the King Soopers shooting that took place March 22, 2021.

A motion to approve the minutes from the March 2, 2021, meeting was approved unanimously by those in attendance. 

The DAC executive committee will be electing new officers. The candidates are Jorge Chavez, John Clasby, Jamillah Richmond, and Chris Haynes. 

A push is being made to create equity, with diverse representation from the schools. Due to the difficulty of attracting more diversity, efforts are being explored to make it easier to bring voices to the conversation that are not typical of the membership. 

A change was proposed to the bylaws, which requires two thirds of the members to pass. The change would take steps to increase the diversity in the DAC membership by changing Article III, section 1 of the membership Bylaws by adding language which states, “to help ensure the DAC reflects the student population significantly represented in BVSD. Per state statute and Board policy, these student populations may include, but need not be limited to, students who are members of non-Caucasian races, those who are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunches, those who are Emerging Bilingual students, migrant students, students identified as having a disability, and gifted children.”  

The proposal also included changing the length of term from two years to one year.  Currently members are limited to three, two-year terms. One goal is to allow newer representatives to have less stringent requirements, which aims to ease the time commitments required to attend meetings and fulfill the duties of the position. Also, having working parents attend meetings and fulfill two-year commitments has a directly negative effect on disadvantaged families that most need representation.

The change in bylaw was voted on and passed.

Following the vote, Kitty Sargent, BOE (Board of Education) representative gave the BOE report. She reports that the board met with state legislators and their representatives to advocate for their support on educational initiatives, to include I.D.E.A. (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). 

They have started negotiations to create consensus within the union in order to approve a new contract.

Senate bill 182 was pulled by its sponsors. The bill addressed school discipline and had many proscriptions for what police were allowed to arrest students for on campus. The bill would make it unlawful for police to make an arrest. While the board supports the intention of the bill, it had concerns about how it was written and how to implement the bill. The intention is to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. The BOE hopes the bill will be amended and reintroduced next year. 

A bill introducing an accountability performance audit also raised concerns. 

House Bill 1051, in which districts or the board of regents are not required to make the finalists for executive positions public was introduced. It protects applicants from retribution by their former or current employers that could prevent qualified candidates from applying.

There have been two candidate forums, and three BOE seats are open this year. Tina Marquis, BOE president, who is term limited. Also, Kitty Sargent, BOE treasurer and Donna Miers, board member. 

The superintendents report was given by Margaret Crespo. She started with a Covid-19 update. She urged families to stay home if they felt sick and reported that the BVSD staff has been vaccinated. Children aged 16 and up are eligible for the vaccine, and health officials are moving toward getting younger students vaccinated as well. There has been a small increase from students returning from spring break, which was expected. She said that there are fourteen testing teams rotating through the fifty-six schools to perform random testing. They are able to get to eleven to fourteen locations a day. Covid-19 rules are changing, and they are trying to keep up to date. Masks are still required. No word on vaccinations in the schools.

Kathleen Sullivan, legal counsel for BVSD and Nicole Rajpal, DAC vice chairperson gave a report from the Policy Committee. DAC’s Formal Policy Role deals specifically with student conduct. In June 2020, the DAC began to dig into policy work, to look deeply at student conduct and discipline in order to remove subjective and punitive language that drives deeply ingrained disparities in school discipline, leading to disproportionate discipline of students of color. These have been found to have long-lasting, detrimental effects on students starting as early as elementary and middle school. 

Student dress code, drugs and alcohol, searches and officer interrogation on school grounds are policies that will be reviewed. Policies have been written with language that requires annual review and a MOU will be designed. 

Sullivan broke down the process for policy review which includes everything from policy to punctuation. A concern was raised regarding a policy called the Code of Civility policy, which had potential to marginalize certain populations, and which was brought up for review. She briefly explained the codes that are used for policy designation.

The policy committee was asked to speak about their missions. Chris Haynes, policy chairperson, spoke about how the policy committee was able to enact ideas and policies that had real effect for the district. 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 p.m. The BVSD DAC meets on the first Tuesday of every month from 6:15 to 8:30 p.m.

(Originally published in the April 29, 2021, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)