GILPIN COUNTY – The Gilpin RE-1 school district Board of Education met on January 25, 2025, for a Meet and Confer work session with staff on a range of school policies including changes to the school calendar.

The Board also unanimously approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Gilpin County Parks and Recreation Department for mental health and wellbeing classes and cooperation with after-school and summer camp programs.

Gilpin County Parks and Recreation Director Gabrielle Chisholm presented the Board with the MOU, a requirement for applying for a grant that would fund mental health and wellbeing classes and after-school activities into 2028.

The Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Challenge Grant is being funded by the state of Colorado from the vaping settlement with Juul Labs.

The MOU between the school district and the County would allow the Public Health Department to continue to teach health and wellbeing classes during the school day, provide access to the County after-school programs, and provide District buses and drivers for field trips. Applications for the grant are due by January 15, 2025.

The study and dialogue work session started with an overview of the financial condition of the District with Superintendent David MacKenzie. MacKenzie  reported that the District was in stable financial shape, but continued increases in salaries and benefits would reach a point at some time in the future where the Board would have to consider alternatives to full coverage of benefits.

Educators Jennifer Gillette and Kellie Bayne represented staff at the meeting, and both expressed gratitude to the Board for their efforts to retain staff, and for proposed increases in salaries.

An issue on professional development and pay increases was raised regarding the timing of turning in earned credits. Gillette noted that the District policy (GCBA-R) for turning in earned credits at the start of a semester to be eligible for a pay increase was hampered by the sluggishness of some colleges in producing transcripts.

The subsequent discussion yielded a short-term solution: speaking with the superintendent to get a verbal approval of the increases; and a long-term solution of altering the policy regarding when professional learning credits are recognized.

Gillette also brought up the possibility of changing the policy (BFGB-R) for future Meet and Confer meetings back to small workshops for the initial meetings. The rationale was to allow for policy considerations in a more informal format between designated board members and staff before presenting them to the full Board.

After discussion, the Board agreed to try the informal format for the 2025/2026 school year, starting in August.

A Meet and Confer issue was discussed regarding the quality—or lack of—exit interviews in order to try to bring closure as to why staff leave. The Board has hired a new agency to conduct the exit surveys via phone or email. The proposed objective is to try to identify any issues the Board could address that cause staff to leave.

The last Meet and Confer issue discussed was changing the 2025/2026 school year calendar. The consensus of the Board was to shift the school year so that it ends the last week in May.

The agenda and documents for this meeting are on the RE-1 website (gilpin.k12.co.us) under the Board of Education Agendas for January 7, 2025. Click on the C.2.5._2025_2026 School Yearly Calendar.pdf to see the proposed calendar. There is a video of this meeting on the GCSD YouTube channel. Click on the link on the agenda to access the video.