00:00:00:20 – 00:00:21:23
Matt
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Kooler Lifestyle Podcast. I’m your host, Matt Keuhlhorn, and I’m excited to have you join me as I interview community members and business leaders from the communities in which I live, work and serve. Through my business cooler garage doors, we’re going to bring you highlights and characters in our communities. Why? Because community matters.
00:00:22:02 – 00:00:49:11
Matt
And I want to know more about who is behind our business and leadership in order to understand and support the community fabric that are relationships make up. Join me twice a month as we dove into getting to know each other better and collectively we can build stronger communities that support our lifestyles. Our youth and our health. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Matt Gillan with the Cooler Lifestyle Podcast, and I am honored to have Dr. Leslie Nichols today.
00:00:50:01 – 00:01:04:11
Matt
And I’m really excited to talk about all things our school is doing and to learn a little bit more about the 5a bond initiative that we get to vote on here in a couple of weeks. Leslie, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day and joining us.
00:01:05:01 – 00:01:08:23
Leslie
Oh, my gosh, Matt, thank you. It’s really a great opportunity. Thanks.
00:01:09:19 – 00:01:22:09
Matt
Yeah, absolutely. And I’m really curious, you know, honestly, we haven’t had much time to interact and connect. So I don’t know your story. How did you end up in the valley and where do you where did you start from?
00:01:22:24 – 00:01:56:10
Leslie
Yeah, that’s a great question. I went to high school outside of D.C. in Fairfax, Virginia, and my family was living there after stints in New England and Hawaii and Alabama and then the D.C. Metro area. Because my dad was a career Marine, he was an aviator and flew a couple tours in Vietnam and taught in flight school and before that and and then commanded a squadron in Hawaii for a long time.
00:01:56:10 – 00:02:20:02
Leslie
And then he was working in the Pentagon when we were living outside of D.C. and then at the National War College there. So all of that was his exciting career. And then my mom was as once as seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, to become an Episcopal priest, and she entered the priesthood. When I was in high school late in high school and into college.
00:02:20:02 – 00:02:46:02
Leslie
And that was what kept us rooted kind of in that area when I was in middle and high school, both actually, and then ended up landing in Colorado right after college, I went to a small school in Tennessee and followed my eventual soon to be husband or five years later to be husband out to Colorado and learned how to river guide over on the Arkansas.
00:02:46:17 – 00:03:09:09
Leslie
I went to teacher school and got my graduate degree at the University of Colorado in Boulder. And we I started teaching in Ionia for a few years. I taught high school English. Then I was really rooted in the Lake City as far as Colorado goes, spent a year in Telluride in a few years and pay on a year in Boulder, so a little bit all over.
00:03:09:09 – 00:03:40:12
Leslie
But Lake City has always been kind of home because that’s where my late husband Jack’s family was connected. And then we had a rafting company there for about a decade while I was also teaching and while we started our family. And we have two boys who are now 22 and 18, which is hard to believe. Thomas, my youngest, is a freshman at School of Mines, and my older son, Johnny, just finished a wilderness EMT class and he got hired to be on ski patrol in Snowmass this winter.
00:03:40:12 – 00:04:05:05
Leslie
So that’s exciting. My husband died in an ice climbing accident in Lake City almost five years ago. Just before I started this job. So I taught math actually in Lake City to middle and high school kids for 12 years and then became I did my doctorate online from Lake City while I was parenting and being a hockey mom from Lake City to Gunnison.
00:04:05:05 – 00:04:30:06
Leslie
My boys both played hockey in Gunnison and then in Crested Butte. For my older I played hockey, Jack played hockey, so we did a lot of driving. I’m 49 but felt very connected to this valley the whole time we were in Lake City and became superintendent after I finished my doctorate, became superintendent in Lake City for Hinsdale County School District.
00:04:30:06 – 00:05:03:19
Leslie
And then Doug Treadway, my predecessor here in Gunnison, really encouraged me to apply for this job upon his retirement. And I did. And it was interesting timing. I kept my application in. I just submitted it before my husband died. So unexpected early, but stayed in it. And I think it was a good choice. But I did that and relocated to the Valley in 2018 is when I first started with Gunnison Watershed.
00:05:03:19 – 00:05:34:20
Leslie
And it has been, I have to say, a wild ride with COVID the past two and a half years have about a year and a half to get my feet under me a little bit. And the job and we’ve been busy, but what a team I inherited here. I can’t say enough about the crew that I get to work with such a strong team of leaders, such incredibly strong teachers, and that really COVID has defined my experience with the district for sure.
00:05:34:20 – 00:06:14:18
Leslie
To date, and that we were able to be open from the fall of 2020 all the way through with no interruptions, is really a testament to the hard work that our teachers were willing to put in and really variable challenging conditions. And the facility work that we will be talking about more right now started before I came with Doug Treadway getting going on a facilities master plan and I picked that up and we kind of kept it going definitely before COVID made some great progress and then have obviously picked it back up with gusto over this past year.
00:06:15:08 – 00:06:19:23
Leslie
And here we are a couple of weeks away from Election Day.
00:06:19:23 – 00:06:43:11
Matt
Yeah, well, we’re going to open that up, too. But I first want to acknowledge you on a couple of things, Leslie, for for one, like your share of your your story. And in that tiny little nutshell, like, thanks for being open and sharing that. What a wild ride. And, you know, I can certainly attest, like life unfolds and in wild, magical ways.
00:06:45:02 – 00:07:01:20
Matt
So thanks for sharing. And yes, you know, my children are in the schools now. I have my oldest is 13 and and my youngest is ten. And I can only imagine they’ll be like tomorrow, they’ll be 20 and 18 and just like the time time lapse.
00:07:02:08 – 00:07:13:14
Leslie
It does fly. And I yeah. Kudos to your parenting. I just I have loved every phase and it it keeps going, but parenting doesn’t end that. I’m glad.
00:07:14:06 – 00:07:14:16
Matt
Yeah.
00:07:14:21 – 00:07:18:01
Leslie
And it’s always new. Yeah, it really is. It really.
00:07:18:01 – 00:07:33:09
Matt
Is. So I’m curious, in your in your journey from what you just shared, it almost sounds like you did not really plan on a leadership role in a school district. Is that true? I mean, I.
00:07:33:09 – 00:07:54:06
Leslie
Think that’s you’re very perceptive. It it was never like, oh, I dream of being a superintendent. It it really things unfolded step by step that, oh, that seems like a good idea. Oh, I would love to teach English. I definitely had that as a start. And then I was like, I really likes to be in Lake City and they need a math teacher.
00:07:54:06 – 00:08:16:14
Leslie
And I love math, and I was good enough at it, I was good at it, and I did. I did online or not online traditional correspondence courses from USC to get my endorsements to teach math. And that was great. So and I loved it. And, and then in Lake City, it was like, oh my, my superintendent principal is going to retire.
00:08:16:14 – 00:08:43:21
Leslie
And she prompted me to think about leadership and seemed like the next good idea. And I said, sure, I’ll three and a half years of online learning. And the first course I took that was like this. This journey around is going to require 15 to 20 hours a week. How do you plan to find that time? I was like, Well, maybe I’ll sleep less, which I did.
00:08:44:02 – 00:09:07:17
Leslie
And then some of my favorite memories are my own hockey playing time in the locker rooms at the at Jorgensen, showing up early knowing that a locker room would be available parking myself and reading, writing whatever I needed to be doing and the lights or motion sensors in there. And it would go off because I’d be sort of still and then I’d hop up and jump around.
00:09:07:17 – 00:09:32:11
Leslie
I’d be like, I’m still here and keep working. Anyway, it was it was a yes. You are right that it wasn’t like just a supreme like trajectory. This is where I want to go. It was always just the next right thing and it really has been gratifying. I can’t believe that even today sometimes I can’t believe I do believe it that I say to people when they ask about my work, I’m like, I love my job.
00:09:32:18 – 00:10:03:09
Leslie
Like it is so hard and so gratifying because I so believe in public education and I’m so deeply rooted in that ideal for our country to maintain our democracy. And those are really big, lofty words. And I mean every word that I believe in public education as the foundation of our democracy. I believe that an educated electorate is why this American experiment works.
00:10:03:24 – 00:10:37:11
Leslie
I believe it’s the way for us to continue this pluralist experiment we have where we have so much difference in our country. But when we are educated, when we are educated together, when we learn about difference among ourselves, there is hope for what’s next in America. And I do think that rests on the shoulders of public education. And I, I think because of that strong purpose that I feel so deeply, it really keeps my drive going.
00:10:38:10 – 00:11:04:09
Matt
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel that in just your expression and, you know, I want to acknowledge you. I want to acknowledge your team over at it, to acknowledge anybody that’s working in the school system. I mean, it has not been at all easy. If it was ever easy, it’s only doubled, tripled, quadrupled down in difficulties through our pandemic, through the different policy decisions that had to be made.
00:11:04:19 – 00:11:45:20
Matt
And, you know, for everything that I’ve seen as an observer and having my children in the system, I definitely have viewed anything, you know, policy wise, leadership wise, being with the intent of the children. Right. And and I think that’s an important piece to recognize. I know that, you know, from policies county commissioners made to your decisions to other leadership around like there’s it’s so easy to to take the hits and no leadership position is is simple these days.
00:11:45:20 – 00:11:59:20
Matt
So I acknowledge you I acknowledge the entire team that you have. And, you know, just again, it’s always seems to be from my perspective for the kids and and that’s a really beautiful thing. So thank you for that.
00:12:01:13 – 00:12:05:03
Leslie
You’re welcome. Appreciate it.
00:12:05:03 – 00:12:41:14
Matt
Let’s open up our our conversation around five. So there’s a bond initiative and it’s going to my understanding, tax properties. Yeah. In a way that brings in funding to the school system. And I’d love for you to take the floor and explain, like, why is that needed? How might it be used? And, you know, for some of the folks that may not have students or children in the school system, like what is the benefit to the community and potential cost?
00:12:41:22 – 00:12:42:05
Matt
Right.
00:12:42:06 – 00:13:04:08
Leslie
I love that. Yeah, those are great questions. This is a property tax increase and that is effects that can’t be changed for several reasons. First of all, it’s a $95 million bond. That is really when the district goes to voters and says, hey, can we go into debt and then will you help us repay that debt over 25 years?
00:13:04:08 – 00:13:32:19
Leslie
It’s it’s incredibly similar to a mortgage. And I’ll mention that a couple more times as I explain a few things. The increase to taxpayers, to property owners is for every $500,000 worth of actual value of residential property. And that’s actual value is determined by the assessor. That would mean an increase of just under $200 per year for this bond issue.
00:13:33:15 – 00:14:02:08
Leslie
It’s about $16.57 a month. It’s about $0.55 a day. And it it is it is real money. And I understand for a lot of our property owners, our taxpayers, that any increase can feel heavy and like a lot. At the same time, I have to balance that in my mind with some of the ideals I was speaking about before, about public education in America and in Colorado.
00:14:03:05 – 00:14:41:16
Leslie
Our system is designed for property owners to have the responsibility of supporting public education financially. And again, that’s a that’s a big idea. And it is the reality and truth in Colorado and in America widely for especially well, not especially including capital construction. And so when we have bricks and mortar buildings that need to be built or that need renovations or that need additions, this is truly our only avenue to achieve those goals is a property tax increase.
00:14:41:16 – 00:15:08:01
Leslie
It is temporary. It doesn’t last forever. For example, we passed bonds in a bond issue in 1995 that has been paid off. We passed a bond in 2008 that will be paid off in 2033. So a 25 year period, these bonds as well, we’ll have a 25 year payback period. There have been a couple of things in in the community that have come up a few other numbers.
00:15:08:01 – 00:15:33:06
Leslie
One is $186 million has come up as a actually, it’s worth $186 million. And the project and that’s not entirely false, but it’s a little more nuanced than that. That will be the total payback that we end up paying over 25 years, the 95 million plus interest. So again, very much like a mortgage. If you read your mortgage carefully, there is that very large number included in there.
00:15:34:02 – 00:16:02:02
Leslie
So if you buy a house for $400,000 in the end, after 30 years of paying principal and interest, you may pay over $800,000 or $1,000,000. So that’s just a fact of how money works. And then one other. Oh, yeah. And then another important point about that, just the financial side is this is a fixed amount of money that the districts will gather annually for 25 years to pay this back.
00:16:02:02 – 00:16:25:05
Leslie
It’s very much like having an amortization schedule on a mortgage. In the ballot language, it says we can collect up to $9.4 million annually. We can’t collect any more than that. That is that is what we will need to repay these bonds. And so what that means for the taxpayer is I know that on people’s minds in the valley, an increase in property value is weighing heavy.
00:16:25:05 – 00:16:53:20
Leslie
It’s good. People’s equity will increase dramatically in some cases. Other people fear that they can’t buy groceries with equity. And I understand that. But that potential increase in property values for this bond measure, that means that the mills we assess will fall if property values increase, the number of mills assessed goes down. So we’re always only gathering up to that $9.4 million amount.
00:16:54:09 – 00:16:55:14
Matt
I follow that a little bit.
00:16:56:00 – 00:16:56:12
Leslie
Yeah.
00:16:56:12 – 00:16:58:20
Matt
So it just there are some nuances in there, right?
00:16:59:10 – 00:17:20:11
Leslie
So like the the paperwork that we put out says that this will be about 5.7 mills on your tax bill increase. That’s for this year. Right now with numbers that we have right now, if in 23 property value assessment in the districts increases, which is anticipated to do, the number of mills we assessed will go down. And so it might be 4.0.
00:17:20:11 – 00:17:44:02
Leslie
Who knows? I can’t guess. But it means that if your $500,000 property value this year goes up to $700,000 and property value, that property will likely still pay about 200 bucks, even though it’s increased in value quite a bit. It is a little tricky to understand. It just means that we don’t keep getting more and more money as property value goes up.
00:17:44:02 – 00:17:45:21
Leslie
We only collect a fixed amount of money.
00:17:46:17 – 00:18:12:01
Matt
Right. So if I was to reiterate what I’m hearing is, you know, if I own my house, which I do, and it’s, you know, let’s say $500,000 value in town, then my property, if this passes, is going to incur maybe 200 bucks in an increase a year, $0.55 a day in support of capital building that our school infrastructure can use.
00:18:12:08 – 00:18:37:14
Matt
And we can dove into that a little bit because I am curious on how it might be allocated. But then did I hear correctly that, you know, 25 years down the road because this is a quote unquote mortgage alone, that thing gets paid back. And you just mentioned one is going to be coming up in 2033. Does that mean increase the property tax at that time?
00:18:37:18 – 00:18:38:06
Matt
In theory.
00:18:38:20 – 00:19:08:14
Leslie
It it it in theory, that is all true. We will do something on purpose, which is an important to understand. To that, we will wrap this new bond when it passes around our existing bonds so that actually when 2033 hits, there won’t be a dramatic decrease. And the reason for that is so that so we will actually, on the new bonds pay a little bit less until 2033.
00:19:09:00 – 00:19:44:19
Leslie
And then after our old bonds retire, then we’ll pay a little bit more on today’s bonds. And the reason for that is so that as new people move into the valley on this projects and they they reap the rewards of our improvements, that we’re not paying for that all up front with really high tax increases, that we’re spreading it out over time and keeping the mills we collect for bond repayment somewhat steady so that the new people coming in kind of pay their fair share, if that makes sense.
00:19:45:12 – 00:19:57:13
Leslie
Yeah, it is a little bit complicated in the world of finance to explain that, but it is structured so that there’s not big fluctuations in in that amount as we go.
00:19:58:11 – 00:20:24:09
Matt
Yeah. Yeah. So if this passes, you know, basically we’re voting on the opportunity to support the school district with some capital improvements. Let’s say that, you know, I kind of want to play both sides if we have time, but let’s say it goes through. What do we do and how does that benefit community? And if it doesn’t go through, what does that really mean?
00:20:24:22 – 00:20:56:01
Leslie
Yeah. So Matt, I mentioned that for going on five years now, we’ve worked on a master plan for our facilities and really dialing in on our needs and what rose to the top, which makes sense, is school safety. We really have kind of four buckets that the project falls into and the first one is safety. Our buildings were designed, our campuses before Columbine, which occurred in 1999, and our campuses are all the core of them were all designed just before that.
00:20:56:01 – 00:21:29:09
Leslie
Now the Gunnison Community School and the Crested Butte community School were part of that 1995 bond issue that I mentioned when they were first built and they were online like they were open to kids in 1997. So all the design work again was before Columbine. Unfortunately for the past two, almost two and a half decades, we’ve learned a lot about how to make our schools as safe as possible, and that includes what we call an entry sequence, to be sure that the entrances to our schools are as safe as they can be.
00:21:29:09 – 00:21:53:03
Leslie
And that is what is included in this bond issue and all four of our campuses in the Valley, plus our marble charter school. And that is to be sure that we operate currently with all of our doors locked. When you enter any of our schools, the exterior doors are locked and you have to be buzzed in. What we’re missing is really a robust checking system with a receptionist through bulletproof glass.
00:21:53:12 – 00:22:13:14
Leslie
And then two options to either buzz into the entire school or buzz into the office. If that’s where your business is as a visitor. And the the work that will be done when this passes will be to improve all of our entrances at all of our sites for that type of sequence, which is really what industry standard is today and where we need to be.
00:22:14:01 – 00:22:18:03
Leslie
Our schools are safe and they should be safer in this regard.
00:22:19:01 – 00:22:23:01
Matt
Yeah, yeah. My copy of that, I mean it’s in the environment that we’re in.
00:22:23:11 – 00:22:23:24
Leslie
Yeah.
00:22:23:24 – 00:22:26:22
Matt
And that’s tough, gifted at drastically.
00:22:26:22 – 00:22:54:15
Leslie
Yeah. Yeah. The next real bucket of need that we’ve identified is around long term maintenance. And this is not really a exciting topic to a lot of people, but if you know facilities, it can be kind of exciting when you invest ahead of time proactively before things are falling apart, you save a lot of money in the long run and we are right at that place, especially at our Gunderson Community School where our boiler system is at end of life.
00:22:54:15 – 00:23:18:18
Leslie
Remember that came on in 1995, got about a 25 year life. And so we’re just past that. We’re still doing okay, but we know the time is coming and for better or worse, the building envelope designed for Gunnison Community School back in 1997 when it was finished, has left some some things to be desired. And we have a lot of temperature control issues in that building.
00:23:19:04 – 00:23:47:15
Leslie
The exterior insulation is completely updated and so do the exterior windows, along with just an overhaul or replacement of the mechanical system for back. And it may be that we go with a conventional system once we’re funded, we’ll do a real deep dove on an engineering assessment to see what serves as best. Our other option is to kind of follow the county’s lead on ground source heat and take advantage of that system.
00:23:47:20 – 00:24:12:02
Leslie
The county has some impressive numbers on return on investment there that were we have access to their numbers and we would like to do a comparison with a more conventional system replacement and just see what would work better in that building. The county has applied that at the courthouse, the new library, the airport and Blackstock and O’Leary were old school buildings where there are now county offices, and that retrofit has been incredibly successful.
00:24:12:02 – 00:24:31:02
Leslie
This would be a retrofit, but on a five larger building. And so we have some questions about that, to be sure. That would still give the returns that we want to see. So that’s the big projects in the maintenance bucket. Bucket, all of our HVAC systems would see improvements in controls. So we have some more centralized controls for everything and just improvements and efficiencies.
00:24:31:14 – 00:24:51:02
Leslie
The thing that is exciting about maintenance improvements is that it saves operational money that could go directly to teacher salaries. And I’ll just mention it wouldn’t be, you know, an overwhelming amount. I don’t have a dollar figure yet because we’re still doing that research. But this bond cannot be used for teacher salaries. It can only be used for capital construction.
00:24:51:11 – 00:25:14:15
Leslie
And we are absolutely committed to improving our teachers salaries, all of our staff salaries, as much as possible, to be sure that our good people can stay here in the valley with the rising cost of living. For better or worse, the way we’re funded for operating funds is through what’s called the School Finance Act, which is passed annually by the state legislature.
00:25:14:24 – 00:25:45:21
Leslie
They determine what we receive per pupil in funding, and you as a property owner mat pay part of that tax bill that you get from the Gunnison Watershed School District is for what we call our total program. It goes towards our operating funds. The state actually back sells the amount that we raise locally because it’s not enough for our 24 and a half million dollar budget and operating funds annually to get us to that per pupil amount that the complicated ad School Finance Act formula determines for us.
00:25:47:10 – 00:26:09:14
Leslie
Unfortunately, in that case, for operating funds, as property values increase, they stay local. But then the amount the state gives us decreases, which is a little maddening, but it’s how it works. And my point is that the only way we can truly increase teacher salaries is by fixing what’s broken at the state level in tax policy and in that School Finance Act.
00:26:10:02 – 00:26:35:15
Leslie
I advocate for that myself constantly. I’m on a couple of boards with the Colorado School Finance Project and Rural Alliance, which is an advocacy organization for rural school districts like ours, to try and improve that funding. So the maintenance part of our projects could result in operational savings to help our salaries, which are over 82% of of our operating budget, are really for salaries and benefits.
00:26:36:11 – 00:26:56:01
Matt
And I’m glad you brought that up. And I can see the relationship there. I know that is one of the community concerns. Right. We’re raising these funds and they’re not going to the teachers who we know are kind of on the front lines, if you will. They’re the direct impact on kids. But the facilities are an important component of that.
00:26:56:01 – 00:27:21:19
Matt
So I, I totally make the connection of where updating and maintaining facilities and, and your points are super valid because stuff does wear down and it becomes significantly more costly when it becomes a broken issue versus a ran down and a maintenance issue. I know that very well.
00:27:22:13 – 00:27:47:24
Leslie
Yeah. And I want to reassure listeners that we are incredibly responsible and how we manage our funds for maintenance. We have awarded been awarded best grants that’s building excellent schools today, grants in the past three years for two reroofing projects that got us in community school and a Crested Butte Community School. End of life for those roofs. That total project was just over $3 million for both roofs.
00:27:47:24 – 00:28:14:01
Leslie
We saved our taxpayers almost $1,000,000 by getting that best grant funding. The best grant, by the way, is where the marijuana money in Colorado goes for schools. It’s a competitive grant program. It’s only $40 million in marijuana excise tax money that goes in that direction. It’s also funded by other sources, but just 40 million to the best program for marijuana money that was supposed to save education in Colorado.
00:28:14:01 – 00:28:35:14
Leslie
It’s just thought that was a really good marketing campaign when that passed. But it’s not true because there’s 178 school districts in Colorado competing for those funds. We were really excited to get too far for our roofs. And so we do chase funds. We do also refinance our existing bonds when interest rate conditions warrant, just like you would refinance a mortgage.
00:28:35:14 – 00:28:58:08
Leslie
We’ve saved over $7.3 million for taxpayers over the past 14 years and refinancing. And I will also note that we had a real external affirmation of our financial credibility and responsibility, because our bond rating just went up to Double-A, too, which means that we’re in the top 15 districts in the state in our rating relative to 178 districts.
00:28:58:08 – 00:29:17:23
Leslie
So I feel really proud of that. The school board’s over the years have been very careful to be sure that we manage the funds that we have. Well and when we do address our maintenance needs on an ongoing basis. But some projects grow to a point that we really do have to seek increased funding, like through this bond measure.
00:29:17:23 – 00:29:21:09
Matt
Yeah, I get that. So are there more buckets? There’s the safety.
00:29:21:09 – 00:29:21:21
Leslie
Bar.
00:29:22:08 – 00:29:24:20
Matt
Which I guess is important. There’s the maintenance bucket.
00:29:26:10 – 00:29:55:14
Leslie
Safety mission couple a couple more. One is overcrowding, and it’s primarily the custody community school that’s experiencing that. That school, when built in 1997, had about 300 kids. We had 800 during the pandemic. So more than doubled over the past two decades. And that growth has studied slightly these past two years. We’re closer to 750 kids in Crested Butte right now, but that is the capacity of that building.
00:29:56:00 – 00:30:24:01
Leslie
We have six modular classrooms that are fully operational because even though we say capacity 750, we still have kids learning in what we’re closets and maintenance spaces are our engineering and design, career and technical education program. There is literally in what was a storage closet of the cafeteria. It was remodeled to be a classroom, but it’s this super funky, undersized space.
00:30:25:01 – 00:30:46:18
Leslie
And we have we have, you know, three teachers who do intervention work with kids. They’ll have five kids in a space at a time with two other teachers using that as office space because there’s no other place to put them. And we have a counselor that shares a space with an intervention teacher. And, you know, these things are they’re hard to capture all the stories.
00:30:46:18 – 00:31:15:09
Leslie
But anyway, the need is real to add classrooms, to add on to the building in Crested Butte and the fourth. Well and there’s also some over one overcrowding issue at Gunnison Community School in particular as the cafeteria has never been sized appropriately for the 800 kids or so that are in that building. And this will expand that space when we redo the entry way, it has a whole host of dominoes that kind of follow along with that.
00:31:15:09 – 00:31:39:16
Leslie
And a lot of them are beneficial for what kids will experience in that school and on a day to day basis without having middle schoolers, their primary eating location is outside, which isn’t horrible. We love being outside in the valley, but, you know, some days the weather isn’t always great for eating outside. So instead of putting them in the gymnasium, we’d like to have a more functional cafeteria there.
00:31:40:02 – 00:32:28:14
Leslie
Anyway, the final bucket is vocational education. We have a pathway center in Gunnison at our Gunnison High School campus that houses our career and technical education or vocational education programs. We are already beginning to expand in the areas of health care and we would like to expand in the area of outdoor leadership. At tourism, hospitality, it was health care, tourism, hospitality and construction that came up as the three most needed areas for vocational ed when we surveyed the Valley a couple of years ago and we have construction programs at both ends of the valley, at both high schools, and we have started a medical assistant program and a certified nursing program at the high school
00:32:28:14 – 00:32:49:19
Leslie
in Gunnison at our Pathways Center. But we don’t have lab space for those programs, and so we have to have a great relationship with the hospital. We use some of their space, but it requires moving kids and scheduling. And it it just would be more efficient, more effective to have an appropriate lab space and then a culinary arts kitchen and instructional kitchen for that purpose, plus hospitality services.
00:32:49:19 – 00:33:05:23
Leslie
And building a program in that regard is what we really heard from our business owners and Chambers of Commerce a couple of years ago when we did a scan about what what do you want from your local school district? So those are the four buckets safety, maintenance, overcrowding and vocational education.
00:33:07:06 – 00:33:44:03
Matt
It up all sound critically important. And if we chose not to pass, then I mean, is there really a backup plan otherwise? Like the operational costs can continue to rise and especially as stuff breaks down and and just gets deferred maintenance. Right. Like and then the safety piece like that’s a I get that’s a critical component. And then there’s just the opportunities that you just spoke of for education in different realms that can also benefit our own local economy in a lot of ways.
00:33:45:03 – 00:34:09:20
Leslie
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The workforce shortages are real across the valley and we hope to be part of that solution. If this doesn’t pass, I don’t have an answer for how we’ll proceed. These needs are not going away. And unfortunately, if if our community decides it’s not the right time, it will just become more expensive down the road. And we will still need to overhaul our mechanical system at Gunnison Community School.
00:34:09:20 – 00:34:32:06
Leslie
We will still need to get our kids out of modular classrooms or Crested Butte School. That’s a safety issue as well. We will still need to do what we can to serve both our graduates who want to step into the workforce sooner after graduation, maybe, than going to college and serving our community in that way by having trained folks who can who can be part of their their needs and small businesses.
00:34:33:00 – 00:34:39:22
Leslie
None of that’s going anywhere. And we can’t make those improvements without this support.
00:34:41:13 – 00:35:07:14
Matt
Yeah, I get that. This has been super informational. I really appreciate the the detail and I know there’s a lot of little nuances to the entire game. But what I’m catching is this is a very well thought out. It’s been decades in the in the plan, actually, and it’s in it’s unfolding in a way that is actually from from what I can gather like economically sound, right?
00:35:07:15 – 00:35:43:16
Matt
Like, yeah, yeah. Maybe we can choose to kick the can down the road, but it’s going to cost more, it’s going to create additional limitations in the time between now and then. And if we go for it now, there’s actually some good cost savings. And I know from my work with our county and in our Drug Prevention Coalition like schools and strong schools that that are critical, critical protective factor, whether you have kids in the school or not, it’s going to create a ripple that is felt throughout all fabric of the community.
00:35:44:10 – 00:36:10:05
Leslie
You’re speaking my language with perspective factors, and you’re exactly right. I mean, those are essential and strong schools benefit our kids and families very directly. But every community really knows that the stronger your school system, the safer your community, the less violence there is, the more robust the community senses and connections are. People want to move to communities with good schools.
00:36:10:05 – 00:36:25:09
Leslie
People participate more when the schools are strong. And really in the Gunnison Valley, that’s what we have going on. These are the shining stars of our communities and we want to keep them that way so that we continue to be proud of our schools. The where we are.
00:36:26:07 – 00:36:36:20
Matt
Absolutely. I love it. Well, I’ll do everything I can to push information out there and just make sure folks have informed abilities to make decisions. Right, because.
00:36:36:24 – 00:36:37:11
Leslie
Otherwise.
00:36:38:09 – 00:36:57:02
Matt
There’s all these rumors that can pop up. But at the end of the day, it’s like having the sound information. So thank you for sharing as a closing question. I’m just kind of curious like what do you see whether it’s for you personally or, you know, in our community? What are you excited about over the next, say, 5 to 10 years?
00:36:57:24 – 00:37:32:20
Leslie
Oh, my gosh. Gosh, I’m excited in the near future to be working on a large capital construction project for the Gunnison Watershed School District. And I think that would be fantastically exciting. I’m really I feel like we have just this groundswell of incredible leadership and energy in the valley coming off of COVID. I can’t tell you how impressive it was to work with leaders at the beginning and often on daily, on Zoom calls like this to collaborate, to be sure that we were staying as healthy and as functional and strong as we could in every way.
00:37:33:03 – 00:37:59:21
Leslie
And I think that that those collaborations, those connections that leadership has built an even greater vibrancy up and down valley, north and south, across Gunnison County. That, I think only holds just the brightest future ahead for everybody who lives here. And that includes schools and it includes our recreation, it includes our services. And so what do I look forward?
00:37:59:21 – 00:38:26:22
Leslie
I look forward to being in a vibrant valley. That’s what I love about being here. I love playing outside. I love all the services and great people here. And I look forward to continuing that and continuing our work as a strong public school district that brings the best possible to kids on a daily basis. And our teachers and our families are really thriving because of strong schools.
00:38:28:11 – 00:38:38:15
Leslie
Five It’s going to help us help us realize that vision. So I’m incredibly optimistic about it, and I’m so grateful for this chance not to share so many details. Thank you.
00:38:38:15 – 00:38:50:07
Matt
Yeah, absolutely. Again, it’s been very informational and educational for myself and I can only imagine others as well. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your leadership and thank you for that beautiful vision. Let’s go.
00:38:50:18 – 00:38:58:02
Leslie
Yeah, for sure. I agree. Let’s go by Bay on Leslie.
00:38:58:02 – 00:39:03:09
Matt
It’s an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. And I look forward to future interactions.
00:39:03:18 – 00:39:06:15
Leslie
Absolutely. Matt, thank you so much. This is just been great.