Quist ROYALS Weekly News
November 11, 2022
Hello ROYALS!
Happy Veterans Day! To the spouses and families of veterans or current military service members, thank you for your sacrifices as well as your loved ones who served or are serving. We honored veterans as a school with our grade-level ceremonies. A special thank you to Mrs. Kile for organizing our assemblies, to our students that read their pledges to veterans, to Mrs. Chavez Johnson and Mrs. Kockler and our choir and band students that performed. We wanted to highlight a few staff members for their service or their sacrifice as a family member: Mr. Martinez, Mrs. Aleman-Perez, Mr. Green, Mr. de Dios, and two of our parents that sub at Quist: Kristi Donovan, Sabrina Peterson.
Thank you to our 27J community for your support with the passing of 5B. Please see more information below about what this means specifically for Quist. On Wednesday, our parents celebrated all our staff with breakfast. A shout out and huge thank you to: Kristi Donovan, Jennifer Yruegas, Angela Sam, Joy Power, Melissa O’Leary, Laura Gold, Darcy Brown and Christal Vollmar for your thoughtful contributions. In other good news from the election, Colorado Stat Proposition FF (Healthy School Meals for ALL!) passed as well which will allow free breakfasts and lunches for all students beginning next school year, i.e., 2023-2024.
Wishing you a fabulous Friday to end what has been a great week at Quist!
On behalf of the ROYALS Community,
Principal Norris-Buck
SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENTS
Need to make a lunch payment?
Lunch payments cannot be made over the phone. Please send your child to school either with cash or a check. You can also pay for school lunches online here.
Our parent group, Quist Advisory Committee, meets the second Tuesday of every month from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the library. All are welcome and encourage to attend. For questions, please reach out to Mrs. Norris Buck, or Kristi Donovan.
Upcoming Dates:
Winter Wonderland - Save the Date - December 9
A holiday themed event featuring the movie Elf, decorating gingerbread houses and cookies, a hot chocolate bar and a Taste of Quist (more information coming soon).
Athletic update from our athletic director, Ms. Brown
- Next contests - Basketball vs Stuart, Nov 15, 5:00 p.m. (A team is home, B/C team is away.) and Basketball vs BECS, Nov 17, 5:00 p.m. (A team is away, B/C team is home.) All season dates are on our school calendar. Here is the link.
5B passed: What does it mean for Quist?
The 27J Schools community approved the district’s mill levy override proposal, 5B, on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
This approval will infuse about $17.7 million to support the critical needs of school safety, improved teacher/support staff compensation and staffing our high schools’ new STEM and Career and Technical Education Centers.
We know, as a parent, student, staff member or community member, your biggest questions are:
How will this money impact my child’s school?
When will we begin to see the benefits of increased funding?
What does this mean for our school?
The passage of 5B for our school means:
Having a professionally trained safety officer dedicated to our school. This individual will add an important new layer of safety and security at our school.
Our teachers and support staff will receive increased compensation. Our teachers and support staff will receive better pay so we can hire and keep the best staff. This not only gives our district the opportunity to better compete with surrounding school districts in hiring and retaining quality teachers but also in hiring staff for hard-to-fill positions such as learning assistants, nutrition services staff and other critical roles.
The new STEM and Career and Technical Education Centers now under construction at our district high schools will be fully staffed and allow for the expansion of programming that some of our students will be able to access as early as next year.
Our district will not need to consider cuts to services such as transportation, sports and extracurricular activities
What happens now?
The funds from the property tax supporting the new mill levy override won’t be available to our schools or district right away. The new tax will be incorporated into homeowners’ tax rate and those funds are typically collected in January. The district will, however, finalize its plans for implementing the programs approved by voters. The new programs will launch at the beginning of the school district’s new fiscal year which starts July 1, 2023.
The next eight months will give the district and schools time to finalize plans to ensure a smooth launch of the new programs. We encourage you to follow the progress of this planning at ibelievein27j.com/
Mill Levy Override Accountability Committee
One of the most important first steps that will be taken is the formation of a Mill Levy Override Accountability Committee comprised of community members representing various portions of the district. The Board of Education will appoint the members of that committee much like it did for the 2021 Bond Oversight Committee. That group will be responsible for monitoring how the district is putting into action, the plan it promised voters. The committee will work with district staff, which will report on the rollout of the plan and the financial resources being used to operate the programs. The committee’s role is to ensure the funds are being used for their stated purposes.
To create the committee, the Board will solicit names of community members interested in serving on the accountability committee for this specific mill levy override. Please complete this form if you’re interested in learning more about the committee and serving on it. The Board will announce more details about the selection process and deadlines in the coming weeks.
This is an exciting time for the students, families and staff of our school and the 27J Schools community. Thank you for believing in 27J Schools!
Guest Teachers Needed
We continue to face labor challenges. You can help. Many parents and community members support us in the important work of substituting. We can use more teacher and para substitutes. Our teacher and para workforce has grown but our sub pool has not yet recovered to match this growth. As a 27J sub, you can choose your location and your work days (hopefully at Quist Middle School). You can talk to Malisa Denke, our office manager, 303-655-6955 or contact directly our 27J sub coordinator Julie Trujillo - 303-655-2900.
The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has training and a recruitment stipend to get you started, CDE LINK. Check us out at Workat27J.com. Please share with your friends and on social media.
Meal Chat Week 8 - Time Management
In ancient Greece, there was a statue called “Opportunity.” The statue had long flowing hair in the front and a bald head in back. Although it was a little strange, it was meant to teach a lesson: opportunity is something you can grab while it’s coming at you, but you can’t catch hold of it after it’s passed. This is why leaders manage opportunities. This week's Meal Chat looks at opportunity and time management. Everyone has 86,400 seconds each day to use or abuse. If you don’t use your time wisely you can’t get it back once it’s gone. See this week's resources below.
Meal Chat Resources: