The Gilpin County RE-1 School District Board of Education held two meetings on February 20, 2024. The first meeting was a regularly scheduled meeting to pass a resolution to partially finance the Wastewater Interconnect Project, and to get a status on the contract negotiations with ESCO Construction. The second meeting was the final Meet and Confer workshop with staff for this school year.

During their regularly scheduled meeting, the Board unanimously approved a resolution to authorize lease-purchase financing for the purpose of funding the costs of improvements to the district’s wastewater system.

The lease financing will be for $4.2 million for a period of no more than eleven years. Annual payments will be $565,000. The district can reduce the total interest paid with accelerated yearly payments. Board member Joe Marr thought a five-year payback period was achievable. The minimum payback period is three years.

The total cost for the Wastewater Interconnect Project, which connects the RE-1 campus sewer line with the Black Hawk-Central City Sanitation District, is projected to be $8.5 million. The district has $4.3 in available funds and will use part of Black Hawk’s contribution to the District to make the lease payments.

Superintendent David MacKenzie provided an update on the contract negotiations with ESCO Construction, the low bidder. District lawyers are in the process of finalizing the District’s standard construction contract for presentation to ESCO. MacKenzie expected the contract will be ready to be presented to the Board at their next meeting on March 5, 2024.

Salaries and school year tweaks were the main subjects of the final Meet and Confer workshop with school staff for the current school year. Since it was a workshop, the Board did not vote on or pass any resolutions. The purpose of these meetings is to allow the Board and staff to consider potential changes and improvements to school policies and procedures.

MacKenzie started the meeting by showing a series of spreadsheets for potential adoption in the 2024/2025 school year and beyond. His first two spreadsheets showed the potential salary structure for existing and new-hire educators. The rows were years of experience, and the columns were levels of education.

MacKenzie has written that the two schedules are necessary to raise the starting salary for a new hire without overtaxing the financial resources of the district.

He wrote: “The Board's objective is to raise the starting teacher salary to $49,781 for new hires who graduate with a BA or BS this spring and enter teaching in the fall. The District does not have the revenue to push the change of starting salary through the entire schedule and increase all teacher salaries proportionally.”

This transition to a higher starting salary will take a number of years to transition. In the 2018/2019 school year, the District had two teacher salary schedules in force, one for current teachers and another for new teachers. Over the next few years, all teachers were placed on the schedule for existing teachers. For 2024/2025, the District is repeating the process with a schedule for current teachers and a second for new teachers. Again, over the next few years of transition, all teachers will be placed on the current-teacher schedule.

Teacher salary schedules were developed and put into practice in the early part of the 20th century. For decades, a step represented the number of years’ experience a teacher had in a classroom, and from year to year a step increase was an automatic practice. That practice held firm for more than 80 years. During the past 20 years, the step/experience practice has been applied inconsistently, and, therefore, has evolved to express a range of years of experience.

Other salary items addressed at the meeting included paying for new-teacher orientation, paying the mentee during mentor/mentee training, and a stipend when a Montessori educator achieves a Montessori Continuing Education certificate.

The school year issue resolved around starting the school year earlier so that the Thanksgiving holiday vacation break could be for a full week. The explanation referenced the high level of absences on the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week because of family travel. There was also a discussion as to how the current school year will last into June. Any changes to the school calendar would be for the 2025/2026 school year at the earliest.

The final item of the night was an update on the superintendent evaluation. The District has new software for the evaluation of the superintendent and the Board will receive training in how to use it.

The next board meeting will be on March 5, 2024, in the school boardroom at 7 p.m. A video link for this meeting will be on the home page of the school district YouTube channel, which can be accessed via the published agenda at the school website (gilpin.k12.co.us). Click on an agenda link and then click on the YouTube link to watch the video of a particular meeting.