MEEKER | Last week the Meeker School Board held its monthly work session. Board President Bill deVergie, Secretary Hanna Borchard, and members Joe Nieslanik, Heather Sauls and Tony Theos were all present for the work session that evening. Vice President Tom Allen and member Ann Franklin were excused due to other obligations.
The board reviewed one of the policy updates recommended by the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB). Superintendent Chris Selle reminded the board they have talked about the recommendations from CASB a couple of times during the 2024–25 school year. Selle then went on to show the board some of the more significant changes that were recommended.
“A lot of it had to do with changes in federal administration and how they look at anti-discrimination policies, and there was some technology and iPad stuff in there for a couple of policies,” stated Selle.
The board then moved on to discussing their sick leave bank. Selle told the board that in the admin meeting earlier that day, they discussed staff leave and explained to the board how it connects to their sick leave bank. He explained that they updated the staff leave policy so that people who have not accumulated 80 days would still be able to get paid out for a portion of their leave time they were allotted for a given school year during that school year. Human Resource Director Jessica Browning ran the requests and only two teachers qualified for it. Selle read their current policy: “The policy reads that you have to have 50% of the days. You could probably make the case—so if a staff member gets 11 days and they’ve used nine of them, they have two left—well that’s still 50% of what they started with, then you still get paid out for those two days,” said Selle.
Describing how it is 50% for their allotted days for that year, he went on to give an example using the number 11 and a couple of different interpretations.
“If you get 11 days for the year, you’d be able to get paid out for five and a half days. One interpretation of that would be up to five and a half, doesn’t matter how many days you use—up to five and a half. The other interpretation would be you have to have 50% of those days to get paid out. If you’ve used seven days and only have four left, you don’t get paid out and they roll over into the next year,” Selle said.
He explained to the board that they landed on that implementation of the policy due to the fact the district’s intent is to promote attendance. Once again going back to the number 11, Selle explained how it connects to the sick leave bank policy.
“If I get 11 days, I’ve used nine or 10 of them and have one left over, does that really promote positive attendance? And then it connects to the sick leave bank policy, because what happens if that person had one or two days? They wouldn’t get paid out for them this year. Next year, they have something else that happens and they need to use 13 days—now they come back to the sick bank. Well, you got paid out for those days which could have rolled over, so that’s just so you’re kind of aware—that’s how we interpreted what I think we talked about when we rebuilt that policy,” explained Selle.
Selle also gave a quick update on the Meeker Elementary School art/music teacher position. He let the board know that they interviewed a potential candidate that morning, mentioning that she was a really good candidate but was hesitant if they’d be able to get her to come. They held the interview on Zoom, which is part of Selle’s concern. “That’s always a little bit of concern if you haven’t actually been to Meeker.”
There will be more about the budget in the superintendent’s weekly update as well as more on the June 23, 2025, meeting agenda. After hearing the hiring update, the board discussed the new school finance formula. The one they were using originally has been in place since 1994. Selle showed both the new and old formula.
“One of the unique factors to this is it really depended on order of operations. There are things that are added and then there are things that are multiplied, and then there are parentheses in certain places. If you switch around the factors at all, it has a pretty significant impact on the outcome.”
One area where those factors typically come up is the cost of living, personnel-based funding and non-personnel-based funding. Those get added up together, and then that number gets multiplied by the size factor. Every school in the state has a size factor, with money going to the districts based on their size—even the largest districts in the state. The smaller the district gets, the bigger that size factor becomes.
“One of the new things that the new formula is trying to fix is this order of operations uniqueness. Whether it’s a problem or not probably depends on how it shakes out in your school district. If you flip-flop, say, the size factor and cost of living factor, you get a vastly different number,” Selle stated.
The board had a discussion on the graduation requirements. Board Secretary Hanna Borchard was curious if any of those requirements have changed in the state of Colorado, which the board had revised last October.
“I have a freshman now, and I am thoroughly impressed by the packet that is published by the high school, which is really great. I don’t know if any of you have seen it, but the track—so you flip through this glossy printout, and it shows you, okay, you think you want to be this. These are the classes you need to take, and here are universities, and I think that’s incredible,” Borchard said.
Later in the discussion, board members talked about how declining student enrollment may impact the school’s ability to offer advanced or specialized classes each year. To address this, the school sometimes alternates Advanced Placement (AP) courses such as physics and biology. They also discussed whether participation in extracurriculars—such as sports, drama and clubs—should be more strongly encouraged or even required for graduation, with the belief that those experiences help produce well-rounded graduates.
The school currently follows Colorado’s graduation menu guidelines, which have remained largely the same over the years with only minor adjustments. These guidelines allow students to demonstrate competency in subjects through standardized tests, AP classes, concurrent enrollment or capstone projects. Some options, like the WorkKeys assessment that focuses on career and technical education pathways, are not currently used in the district. After the discussion on the graduation requirements at Meeker High School, the meeting was adjourned.