Bree Jones
August 24, 2026
The Board of Education held its regular meeting on Monday, August 24. All five directors were present and spent most of the meeting in a working discussion on board governance. Here is what you should know.
A health sciences pathway is coming to La Veta
The Board formally accepted the Perkins Innovations in CTE grant from the Colorado Community College System in the amount of $204,802.50 for the 2026-27 school year and amended the adopted budget to recognize the revenue and matching expenditures. Because the grant funds both sides of the ledger, it has no net impact on the district budget.
This grant launches a health sciences career pathway for our high school students, beginning with medical assistant training. The Board authorized agreements with our partners on this work: Colorado Education Initiative, Trinidad State College, Spanish Peaks Regional Health Center, and Mt. San Rafael Hospital. Trinidad State College will provide the core instruction, and students will have opportunities for hands-on learning with our local hospitals. The Board also authorized the hiring of a part-time health sciences instructor to support students in our high school, and we are working with Trinidad State now to finalize that arrangement.
Directors asked good questions about who will be in the room with students, what credential they will earn, and how the program will grow. We are building this program as we launch it, and we are doing that quickly in response to recent availability of funds. This is the same approach we used to start our construction pathway with Opportunity Now Colorado funding, which is now an established, reimbursable CTE program. The grant gets the health sciences pathway off the ground; a formal CTE pathway plan will sustain it. Our goal is to have students enrolled this semester and we appreciate the aspirational approach taken by our CTE Director, Mr. Alan Nelms.
Personnel
The Board approved the following personnel items for the 2026-27 school year: Gabe Vigil, custodian; Sam Montalbano, volunteer varsity assistant golf coach; Ksenya O’Banion, part-time childcare provider; Carolyn Frazee, district bookkeeper, effective September 21; and the district’s on-call substitute teaching staff. The Board also amended the contract of Alan Nelms, Assistant Principal and CTE Director, to reflect additional days supported by the CTE grant. Please join us in welcoming these individuals to the Redhawk team.
We are always looking for substitute teachers. A college degree is not required, and every substitute completes a background check. If you are interested, please call the district office at 719-742-6417.
Volunteers, background checks, and student safety
Volunteers are a gift to a small district, and we want more of them in our classrooms and on our fields. To make sure every adult who works with students is fully prepared, we now require a background check for every volunteer and have added training and written agreements covering student confidentiality under FERPA and appropriate boundaries with students. Our aim is simple: make the right thing and the easy thing the same thing and that the volunteers who give of their time have clear expectations and proper support.
On the same theme, the July accounts payable approved by the Board included a modest increase in our Linewise device monitoring service. The added features alert staff when unacceptable activity occurs on district Chromebooks, including within shared documents.
Board governance: what comes next
Over the past year the Board has been moving toward a Policy Governance model, in which the Board sets clear expectations for student results and the limits within which administration operates, then monitors performance against those expectations. The Board adopted its ENDS statements in July. On Monday, Kristina Gutierrez of the Colorado Association of School Boards joined the meeting to walk directors through the next steps.
In plain terms, the Board will work from two manuals - a Governance Policy Manual that describes how the Board governs and how it works with the superintendent, and the administrative policy manual that covers day-to-day district operations. Policies that state law assigns to the Board, such as the budget and hiring, will continue to come to the Board for two public readings. Operational policies and regulations will be maintained by administration, with the Board notified of changes and always able to call any policy back for review. Directors agreed that the Board’s own bylaws should live in one place, the Governance Policy Manual, rather than in two.
Before the September 14 meeting, the Board will review the governance manual, and I will prepare a crosswalk showing how each of our current policies maps to the new structure and which ones remain the Board’s to decide. CASB will provide a sample adoption resolution and a list of the policies reserved to the Board. Directors also discussed adding a brief self-check at the close of each meeting: Did we follow the agenda, and did we hear anything tonight that belongs on a future agenda?
Looking ahead
The Board also approved the minutes of the July 22 and August 10 meetings and the July 2026 accounts payable. The next regular meeting is Monday, September 14, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. in the district conference room. Agendas and supporting documents are posted online before each meeting, and the public is always welcome. Thank you for a great start to the year.
Go Redhawks!