DENVER CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

Board of Trustees Meeting

December 5, 2016

6:30 PM – Teller Campus

I. Board Attendees: Staff Attendees:

II. Welcome

III. Opening Devotions – Michael Jewell

a. Michael compared the anticipation of Advent to the anticipation of bringing up and educating our children

IV. Review and Acceptance of Agenda a. Board approved the agenda

V. Review and Acceptance of Minutes of Sept 12, 2016 Board of Trustees Meeting a. Board approved the meeting minutes

VI. Consent Agenda Items - None

VII. Executive Reports

a. Academics (see attachment) i. Todd encouraged the board to refer to the results from the student survey

ii. Todd encouraged the board to read through the school profile for the CSI accreditation

iii. Board passes on its thanks for all the hard work that is going into the accreditation

b. Student Life (see attachment) i. Todd highlighted that the school is developing new ministry partnerships that

are more local to our new location ii. Todd highlighted the new advanced math program for the 6th graders and the

school’s commitment to increase the number of advanced classes c. Community Life (see attachment)

i. 300+ grandparents in attendance for grandparent’s day! ii. Todd suggested that we might invite recent alumni back into the school over

thanksgiving as well. iii. Parent association is doing well under new governance – at least 50 people now

attending meeting regularly d. Fundraising (see attachment)

i. Have nearly raised the $200k goal mid-year! ii. Fall Auction broke last year’s record

iii. The board thanks Deborah Adair for volunteering to co-chair next year’s auction

iv. Capital Campaign contributions are holding steady at $8.1M – Next big event will be in April

v. Todd suggested that one area where Capital Campaign dollars might be invested would be into the extend program

e. Admissions (see attachment) i. Todd expects to maintain around 460 students throughout the year

ii. More kids are shadowing in the school than in the previous two years f. Business Office - Finance, Facilities, HR, Etc. (see attachment)

i. Todd highlighted the enhancements to the security systems and protocols – parents really seem to appreciate this improvement

ii. We are up to $19k in space rentals to date g. Foundation Report

VIII. Board Items a. Old Business

i. ReNew Update 1. Back doors broke - $552 expense 2. Despite this we were only $400 in the red as opposed to loss of

thousands in previous months 3. Space rental covers $6k/month as baseline revenue 4. Looking for ways to improve financial performance even more 5. The board thanks Jen Kawasaki for her continued efforts

b. New Business i. None

IX. Public Comment (visitors please submit topics to DCS.Board@denverchristian.org at least

two days prior to the meeting)

X. Closing Prayer – Alan Natelborg

XI. Adjournment

XII. Next public Board of Trustees meeting will be held on 3/13/17

November 2016 Board Report Academics

High School Principal My role as high school principal has been going quite well with me fulfilling my goals to be in classrooms more often to observe and formally evaluate teachers more frequently. I have continued the communication pattern from last year of weekly emails to high school families with positive feedback. Our high school student body is at 139 students, and most performed well academically this first term (i.e. term gpa > cum gpa). Disciplinary issues have been infrequent and students enjoy school; however, we are still working with teenagers who are formative in social, spiritual, and personal development. Over the past three years, we have surveyed the high school students on Community and Academic Engagement, below is a link to those results. It is interesting to see historical data from these surveys.

● Summary of Student Survey - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cs2rIZbzFFMJckZsXlvGfdExikhwGOhTN4HA5OIr03w/edit?usp=sharing

As director of academics, my life has been consumed with accreditation and assessment. The School Profile for accreditation is completed, and we have a first draft of the accreditation self-study. When the self-study is completed, the next step is evaluating data, identifying growth goals, and preparing for the visit. We will be using the January 2nd professional development day to accomplish some of those tasks. Fall MAP testing was completed and presented to parents at the parent-teacher conferences. Teachers are now working with students to set academic goals and make progress based on the MAP data. Grades 3-8 are using Skills Navigator to help in this process; this is the first year using this service, and the initial feedback has been positive. Highlights from Fall Term

● Addition of PreCalculus and Statistics as dual-credit courses. This is primarily due to our new math teacher, Julie Cumming, who completed all that CCU requires to certify a dual-credit course in a short amount of time.

● We again are able to offer a strong academic program, especially for our size, with 5 dual-credit courses (17 college credits), 9 honors/AP prep courses.

● Athletics -- Volleyball team won regionals and qualified for state (1st time in school history); soccer team won league; golf team had one qualifier for state; cross country (with a new coach) increased numbers of runners; cheer is preparing for their state competition on December 9. The opening of the soccer fields was a huge success and will be a continued blessing to our athletic program.

● Fall Drama production -- The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever! performed December 3 and 4.

● International Student Program (ISP) -- we grew from 8 international students last year to 17 this year with the addition of our ISP director, Paul Lowe. We also

welcomed 2 students (1 high school, 1 middle school) from Guatemala for a cultural exchange (8 weeks). We are continually working to improve this program to encourage a global perspective for all of our students and help international students be successful.

Accreditation

● School Profile is completed (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HGBfgGdklctcETQUTfflY8YZjiaie-5UWdJbTGxo3QA/edit?usp=sharing)

● First draft of the self-study is completed. ● I have been in regular communication with our CSI representative and have been

affirmed that we are making good progress in preparation for our April visit. An area of improvement already identified is data analysis and data-driven decisions, i.e., we do an excellent job of collecting data, but need to improve in how we use this data (data rich / analysis poor).

Academics / Assessment

● Curriculum reviews are begun in Language Arts, Fine Arts, and Physical Education and will be completed by the April accreditation visit.

● MAP Testing was completed for 1st - 8th grades ● ACT test (seniors) and PSAT test (juniors) was administered on campus.

Professional Development

● Edcamp RedRocks was hosted by Tyler Amidon and his edcamp team on campus. ● #csi4edu twitterchat is hosted by Tyler Amidon each Monday evening ● Steve K, Tyler A, and Tracey T attended a MAP conference ● Rene Meyer and Nancy Waanders attended a Reading conference. ● Steve K presented at LEAD Denver, a student leadership conference

○ We have begun having monthy “Leadership Lunch” for any high school student interested in learning more about leadership.

Teacher/Staff Evaluation

● Each teacher has been observed multiple times and formally evaluated once during the fall term.

● Teachers are working on goals set last February and will provide a progress report on those goals to their principal in January.

Prayer Requests

● Many staff members have elderly parents who are struggling with health concerns (Chuck Aardsma’s mom passed away this fall).

● Rene Meyer has recently been in the hospital for a kidney stone, which turned into sepsis / kidney malfunction. She is still recovering from this health trauma.

● We have a number of staff members who are cancer survivors and every check-up is an important one.

Respectfully Submitted, Steve Kortenhoeven Director of Academics

2016 - December Board Report - Student Life / Middle School Principal Faith Families and Faith Teams: During this time of Thanksgiving our students brought in approximately 2,400 food items to support David Clifton Ministries. DCM is a local outreach ministry. They are located near Colfax and Wadsworth. For years we have supported Denver Urban Ministries but with our new location we were seeking out other ministries closer to campus and DCM certainly fit that description. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with them over time. Our next move will be to send middle school or high school students up there to volunteer on a semi regular basis. 6th - 12th grade B.Y.O.D. (Connected Learning Program) - Click here for details This program continues to go well with more and more students bringing their own devices. MS and HS students spending time in elementary classrooms: As we continue to learn more about how to leverage our PK-12 campus we are finding more and more ways to connect our secondary students with our elementary students (besides through Faith Families). For example, our middle school(through our Explorer Program) sends about 15-20 students to the elementary classrooms every Friday afternoon to volunteer. It’s very well received and the middle school students love it!! Hallway Heroes: A reminder was sent out to families after Thanksgiving break. We started off great last year with quite a few sign ups and then it tapered off throughout the year. Hoping we can gain momentum and then keep the momentum going throughout the year. Click here for details Middle School Principal:

● We continue to work at building community. ○ We are going ice skating again on the day before Christmas break. ○ We are having a middle school movie night. ○ Some 8th grade girls came to me with an idea of an 8th grade winter dance so

we’re exploring that idea. ○ We will likely be doing a middle school stocking stuffer idea to go out and bless

those that need a little extra over the break. ○ 8th graders (plus, some parents) will be serving at Operation Christmas Child

again (annual tradition). ● This year we are using data to drive how we break out our Math students at all levels.

For example, we are offering about 13 sixth graders PreAlgebra, we have never done this before. This is being taught by Judy Perkins (MS Extend teacher and current HS Algebra teacher) It is going well so far, but we continue to monitor it.

● I have now picked up a group of 7th grade math students because the data was showing a huge difference between our stronger and weaker students in one of our 7th grade

sections. We have broken one section into 2 to 3 sections to better meet these students’ needs.

● I continue to enjoy being in classrooms and focusing on the growth of our students and teachers.

Questions? tamidon@denverchristian.org or 303.763.7916

Board Report Director of Community Life December 2016 ADMISSIONS

● Open Houses on October 26 and 27 were well attended and interest in DC continues to grow.

● Tours are happening frequently and students are starting to sign up for next year as well as those transferring in mid year.

STAFF/COMMUNITY RELATIONS

● Fall Festival on October 7 was a huge success. Thanks to DCPA for organizing and to the many volunteers who made it such a fun night.

● DC Auction was another huge success and great community event for DC! Thanks to Elizabeth Monaco and Dave Youngsma

● Grandparent’s Day: Each year it get’s bigger! My estimate of 250+ came to make classroom visits, get tours, attend the assembly, and stay for lunch. Lots of smiles. Thanks again to our parent association and Adele for making things run smoothly.

PARENT ASSOCIATION: We have had a smooth transition with our new leadership board in place. Kendal Mullins (president) and Susan Hawes (vice president) are working out well. Efficient meetings and positive energy from the group. Many new parents to DC are being integrated and are already making contributions to our community. BOOSTER CLUB: I am happy to report that our Booster Club is up and running again. Steve Peters, Dave Youngsma, Wendy Smith, and Kellie Beijer make up the leadership team. Their mission is to build community by supporting our athletic and fine arts programs. This will be done primarily through sales of concessions at events and sales of DC gear. PK-5: Parent/Teacher conferences held on October 19 and 20 had nearly 100% participation. I received many positive comments from parents about the growth they are seeing in their children and positive relationships they and their children have with teachers. I’ve completed one round of ELEOT observations and am thankful for the dedication and commitment I see in our staff.

Board Report Fundraising

Loyalty Drive:

Total loyalty drive contributions collected 2016-2017 for use in 2017-2018: $197,667 (as of October 31, 2016).

Fall Auction:

The Fall Auction this year netted approximately $145,000 (exact total awaiting final accounting), breaking DC’s all-time single Loyalty Drive event record total of $118,000 that was set only one year ago.

We have had a number of recap meetings with the Auctioneer and Auction Steering Committee. We have several innovative ideas to continue to grow this event in the future, including measures to decrease expenses next year, increase sponsorships, increase optimal items donated to the auction, targeting specific and varied areas of benefit from the auction proceeds, and to involve staff and students to a greater degree.

In January we are participating in a free 2-hour planning session with our Auctioneer to discuss fundraising in general and with respect to next year’s auction.

With Elizabeth Monaco leaving, there will be a natural and beneficial transition of Auction Steering Committee Co-Chairperson to Debra Adair, DC’s Volunteer Association Chairperson. Dave Youngsma will continue in his Co-Chairperson role as well.

Loyalty Drive Spring Event:

We are in discussions regarding a second, lower scale loyalty drive event in the spring. Some ideas we are exploring are a golf tournament, ladies luncheon, or fashion show.

Capital Campaign:

Thanks to our new Director of Communications, Nicole, we have a new theme for the capital campaign: “Grow With Us.” We are excited to roll this out throughout everything that we do in the school. This theme was first introduced during the Auction (video), and distribution and implementation of this theme expanded with the release of the “state of the school” video unveiled at Grandparents’ Day. This video will also be used for re-enrollment and a year-end gift opportunity. It is versatile and will be meaningful in our effort to bring people along our journey of growth at DC. We’ll continue to update the “state of the school” at regular and strategic points throughout the year.

Scott Lumpkin has been helpful in helping us identify our 3 levels of givers: low-level, mid-level and high-level givers. We are currently in the works of creating opportunities for all 3 levels of givers to be engaged.

We also continue to ask for his input on specific ways to market our campaign as the fields become complete. This is part of the shift we’re making from “Build the Fields” to “Grow With Us.”

Year-end gift: Todd has a end of the year ask letter that will go out very soon. All funds from the end of the year ask go toward the Capital Campaign this year. There is a very strategic process in sending these letters out as to not interfere with the re-enrollment efforts. Todd will send hard copies of letters to those that are not current families considering re-enrollment and to demonstrated and potential high-level givers. The letter will also be available online - a “softer” release and invitation to participate - to those current families going through re-enrollment.

Spring Event: We are in the planning process of the spring event. More info available in January. We anticipate an April event once again in the context of DC’s birthday.

We are in discussions on re-engagement of a Capital Campaign Steering Committee. The discussion is around a “fundraising committee” vs “capital campaign committee.” We are looking into the structure and manpower to get this committee started. We would like input from the Board on people to head up and engage on this committee. We are hoping for strong involvement from the board as representatives on this committee. We hope to have the committee mission and expectations formulated in early January to engage members in mid-January.

Todd continues to make calls and develop relationships with high-level donors - past, current and potential - in particular. The Board’s participation in introducing Todd and DC to any influential or potential donors would be very he

Admissions Board Report

December 5, 2016

1. 2016 Enrollment

We have 465 students currently enrolled at Denver Christian. Two students will be

leaving on December 9 as they have been part of a Guatemalan Exchange program. We

added to sophomore girls at the beginning of 2nd semester and 2 brothers after

Thanksgiving. As of right now, we have one additional student starting after Christmas.

2. What is keeping me busy?

I have started to get busier with giving tours and setting up shadow days. So far this

year we have had 20 students shadow in all grade levels!

I have been meeting and preparing application and enrollment packets for the 2017-

2018 school years with Lauralee Veenstra including International Students.

3. Upcoming Enrollment Events

Reenrollment letters will be sent out on Monday, December 12 to current families.

Reenrollment will run from December 12-January 17. Once the reenrollment period is

over, we will have Open Enrollment for new families. At that time I will reach out to all

who have expressed interest into Denver Christian so far this year and let them know

about the Open Enrollment.

Our next scheduled Open House is Monday, January 23rd.

Reenroll banners will go up on campus on December 12 to remind current families of

reenrollment. Current 5th and 8th grade students will “shadow” in middle and high

school to experience what those programs offer.

DENVER CHRISTIAN SCHOOL Business Office Executive Report

Board Meeting November 14, 2016

ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE The annual financial audit covering July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 for the School and the DC Foundation is still underway with our new audit firm EKS&H, LLLP. They have performed several rounds of field work. As previously reported the first year with a new firm does take longer than a typical audit year. In addition to that DCS has had a lot of activity with property sales (Van Dellen), property improvements and construction financing, along with a robust capital campaign. All of that does make for a longer and more involved audit process. We are near complete and working hard provide a draft of the financials very soon, but it does appear we may not have a draft and presentation ready for the December 5th Board Meeting. It appears most realistic that we will need to present financials at the January Board work session. I will keep you posted on our progress. ACCOUNTING SYSTEM UPGRADE We have engaged EKS&H to begin this critical project to convert our accounting software from Fundware to Quickbooks. There are a number of reasons for this move, but most notable is the current system is antiquated and has no technical support from its developer along with no sync features to our School Management System (RenWeb, which manages our Accounts Receivable). Additionally, Fundware has no synergies with our financial aid and accounts receivable vendor (FACTS) and no automation with our banks. In short, this conversion to a modern accounting system is way overdue. The business office personnel will be much more efficient with their time and maximize the efficiencies in the business office when this is place. The initial meetings started in the Summer and we have built a new account structure and it has been tested. The next big step is to map the old chart of accounts to the new chart of accounts and then to input some historical data for comparison and measurement. Our goal would be to have this completed and running by January 1st. CONSTRUCTION FINANCING We closed this morning on our permanent financing with ANB Bank! Congratulations to everyone on crossing a major and significant milestone in the transition of DCS to its new single campus. A big THANK YOU to the Board for its resolve and support during this lengthy process. This project alone has affirmed God’s gracious hand on Denver Christian. 2.95%, fixed for 10 years!!! CONSTRUCTION UPDATE We are nearly complete on the project. Since the last update the baseball field is now complete with only a few minor finishes to be installed. The track surface, painted lines and numbers has been completed as well and it is the final touch making that field really look spectacular. The Concessions Building and the Press Box building are still underway on the interior with the most notable item being the steel steps on exterior yet to be completed. The steel steps are projected to installed around the end of December due to longer lead times to galvanize such large sections of steel. The new north parking lot (63 spaces) and drive lanes nearest the building were completed this past weekend and the entry drive will be paved this week. The DC construction team met with the City of Lakewood this morning we are projecting the entire Athletic Complex to be opened and ready for use by the school after Christmas Break.

HUMAN RESOURCES We are underway with the project to rewrite and strengthen our Employee Handbook. Much of the state and federal regulations of Employment law and practices are an ever changing landscape and the DCS policies must keep up and in some cases further define and clarify our policies with new issues that arise – gender identity, medical marijuana, etc. As you might recall we decided to move forward with Nate Plantinga of Miller Johnson Attorneys in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He currently advises several other schools like DCS with a Reformed tradition as well as a few higher educational institutions who have all recently been through a very similar process. This project will take most of the school year with the goal to have it finalized before the 2017-2018 contracts for teachers are presented in late March of 2017. FACILITY MANAGEMENT The facilities team has really been busy keeping our campus looking beautiful. With our campus nearly complete Brad Lanser has been working hard learning all about synthetic turf and best practices for maintenance and upkeep. He has also been making great progress in organizing the available facility storage spaces in preparation for the new fields and having our teams practicing and playing on campus. The next big facility project will be “moving-in” the athletic department to their new facilities and reissuing the interior spaces to departments. Along with the normal week to week campus maintenance schedule Brad is researching viability and capital cost to start pumping our pond water for irrigation in Spring of 2017. SECURITY, NETWORK, & SYSTEM CONTROLS This area is led by Mr. Chuck Aardsma who has been vigorously working to keep our campus safe and running efficiently. We have completed two very important safety and security enhancements to our campus (1) a cell phone antenna installed into the gymnasium area in order to provide cell phone service in those areas to our families and guests and (2) a visitor management system called Lobbyguard.com. Lobby guard is a visitor management system that will screen all visitors to DCS by the swipe of a driver’s license it will run a rapid criminal background check and sex offender check and print a photo ID badge to ensure all visitors are tracked and our students are safe. Chuck has also being researching a student print solution for DCS middle school and high school student. That program will be rolled out in the very near future.

Board Report for December 5, 2016

Period Reported - October 31, 2016 Updated Reported for Budgeted

Operating Fund Budget Approved - 430 Adjusted - 462 Variance

Revenue 4,590,642 4,958,432 367,790

Expenses 4,590,642 4,690,642 100,000

Surplus/(Deficit) - 267,790 267,790

Operating Budget vs ActualAnnual Budget

Revised YTD Actual YTD Budget Actual vs. Budget

Revenues 4,958,432 1,561,144 1,513,547 47,597 Expenses 4,690,642 1,537,441 1,513,547 23,894 Current variance: 267,790 23,703 - 23,703

A01.00.4280.009

2015-16 Loyalty Drive Report 11/28/16

Budgeted receipts 200,000$ Actual receipts 197,667$

Variance (2,333)$

DCS Foundation, Inc.

End of Year 06/30/16 10/31/16

RBC Account Value 1,178,739$ 1,178,739$

YTD Revenues 139,490$ 97,458$ YTD Expenses (316,817)$ (323,654)$ YTD Net CHANGE (177,327)$ (226,196)$ Fund Balance 1,001,412$ 952,543$

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