Fort Collins Coloradoan, Monday 10/19/26

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Megan Kelly Dunklee (00:00)
Hello, you're listening to the Fort Collins, Coloradoan. My name is Megan Kelly. Thank you for joining us. Let's get started. More school closure answers sought. PSD Board wants to hear from Comprehensive Planning Committee by Kelly Vile. There's a picture of a man sitting behind a desk at a meeting. It says Pooder School District Board of Education member Scott Schoenbauer.

At the board's meeting october thirteenth in Fort Collins. Show your work. That's the message given to the Comprehensive Planning Committee tasked with recommending school closures and consolidations by Coronada Ziegler and other members of the Pooter School District Board of Education. Show it, in fact, to the point that the conclusions become self-evident, board member Andrew Spain said.

Another board member, Kevin Hivalda, called for the release of the twenty-five person planning committee from the nondisclosure agreements they had to sign to allow them to shed some light on their deliberation process beyond the 379-page recommendation itself. Although much of the data the committee was using has been publicly available on a PSD facilities dashboard website.

Since early June, individual board members wanted to know how it was interpreted and analyzed to form the recommendation made public september twenty fifth to close nine schools and consolidate two others. I think it would be really helpful for our community to understand some of the thinking, Havelda said the night of october thirteenth when the recommendation was formally presented to the school board.

It would be really important to me to understand the paths not taken. And that left the seven member Board of Education asking many of the same questions the community at large has been asking. The board is scheduled to formally vote on the recommendation october twenty seventh. We just see your outcomes, we don't see the process, Ziegler said. We can't follow the logic.

We don't see how you made a leap from the dashboard to this closure or the dashboard to keeping other schools open, and I think that's why this process feels very confusing to a lot of people in just trying to understand why that's not evident. Plans were made in private, nondisclosure agreements prevent details from emerging. Meetings of the full twenty five member committee and

And its subcommittee of ten to eleven members, tasked with creating scenarios from June through September, designed to bring the building utilization of all schools in the district closer to 80%, were not public. Additionally, planning committee members were required to sign nondisclosure agreements before the scenarios were created, committee co chair

Tracy Guile, PSD's lead assistant superintendent, told the school board during a june sixteenth update The NDAs were different for the sixteen PSD employees on the committee than for the nine community members, Lauren Hooten, the superintendent's chief of staff, said at the time. It was not clear at the time of publication who required the NDAs in the first place.

The Coloradoan asked a district spokesperson but has yet to receive an answer. Giles and Brett Hansen, the other co chair for the committee, who is a Timnath resident with children attending PSD schools, said october thirteenth they were in favor of releasing committee members from their NDAs, but said the committee as a whole voted against doing so.

Questions abound for committee tasked with recommending closures. Members of the school board were updated on the committee's work over the summer in groups of two at a time to avoid violating Colorado's open meetings laws, which prevent more than two members of a publicly elected board from gathering to discuss public business behind closed doors.

For anything other than specifically exempted reasons. No such exemption exists for conversations about school closures or consolidations. So the questions the board members had for the committee co-chairs were extensive and mirrored those board of education members have been asked by the community at large. How is it equitable to close both Irish and Putnam Elementary Schools?

Which have the highest percentages of students living in poverty among PSD elementary schools based on the number who qualify for free and reduced school meals? Board member Carla Bays asked, How did the condition of Temnath Elementary School's building put it at the top of the closure list in its region in a process designed to address declining enrollment throughout the district?

Board members Oslim Gherkin and Ziegler asked How many hours a week will young students living in the mountains really spend on school buses to get to and from Kashilapuder Elementary School? And what happens when weather related road closures prevent those buses from running? Board members Scott Schoenbauer, Girkin, Havalda, and Ziegler asked.

How did Beattie Elementary School receive the highest score in the data comparison the committee created to guide its work among the five elementary schools in the Southwest region and wind up on the closure list? Board members Andrew Spain and Schoenbauer asked, And were the differences in the scores for the other four schools in the Southwest region statistically significant enough from one another?

To provide a fair comparison, board members Havalda, Schoenbauer, and Spain asked Gilin Hansen offered explanations to each of those questions, sometimes with assistance from other district staff, including Chief Finance Officer Dave Montoya, Assistant Superintendents Julie Chaplin and Insoon Olson, Transportation Director Dan Weaver, and

And project manager Javier Chavez. But those explanations contained many of the same inconsistencies community members have been questioning since the recommendation was made public. Why did the Comprehensive Planning Committee seemingly contradict itself in determining that Irish and Putnam Elementaries should not be consolidated because of concerns about increased

Racial and Socioeconomic Segregation while recommending a split of Temnath Elementary students that would increase segregation along those lines in the Southeast region at Linton Elementary, Girkin asked, and why did the combined campus of Kashala Puder Elementary and Middle Schools elevate the scores the committee used to evaluate those score schools?

While seemingly disregarding a similar shared campus between Johnson Elementary and Weber Middle School by putting Johnson on the closure list, Schoenbauer asked there are so many things that have come up through this whole discussion, and it leads me to a systems level question. Was there enough time? Spain asked, because I don't feel that this is what the committee was capable of.

You've got a lot of really good stuff here, but I don't feel like you had enough time to give us everything, to make it self-evident, and I'm really struggling with that. Time ran out for board members to continue asking questions too, during a meeting that ran for more than five hours. The last four devoted entirely to the presentation of the recommendation and questions surrounding it.

After the third brief recess of the night, Board of Education members agreed to schedule another meeting for them to continue asking questions and hear the planning committee's plan for how the closures, consolidations, and boundary changes will be implemented. That meeting has been scheduled for five PM october twentieth in the Board of Education's regular meeting room.

At twenty four seven LaPort Avenue in Fort Collins, according to the agenda that was posted online october fifteenth. Reporter Kelly Lau covers education, breaking news, some sports, and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at KELLY LYELL at Coloradoan dot com. Election twenty twenty six.

Proposition one hundred and thirty three What a yes or no vote would mean for human trafficking by Sadie Swanson Colorado voters will decide whether to increase the criminal penalty for people convicted of human trafficking of a minor. Proposition one hundred and thirty three penalties for human trafficking of a minor asks voters to weigh in.

On whether to mandate a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for those convicted of child sex trafficking. It would also expand child sex trafficking to include buying sexual activity with a minor, according to the 2026 State Ballot Information Booklet, also called the Blue Book. Election Day is november third. This measure was placed on the ballot.

By a citizen initiative. What a yes vote means The penalty for child sex trafficking would become life in prison without the possibility of parole. Those who are accused of buying sexual activity from minors could be charged with child sex trafficking. What a no vote means the existing felony criminal penalties for human trafficking of a minor would remain in place.

Which ranges from eight to forty eight years in prison plus a mandatory parole period, according to the Blue Book. Ballot Language Shall there be a change to the Colorado revised statutes modifying existing law concerning human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, and in connection therewith creating new law expanding human trafficking of a minor for

for sexual servitude to include knowingly trading anything of monetary value to buy or sell sexual activity with a minor and increasing the penalty to be life in prison without parole or release. Owners reassure local pickler members after bankruptcy by Aaron Udell The Pickler's northern Colorado location won't be impacted

By its parent company's recent bankruptcy filing, according to a partner in the franchisee group that owns and operates the local clubs. The Pickler's Parent Company filed a petition to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas on October 9th. Jorge Berrigan, its founder and CEO,

Told Sports Business Journal the company had agreed to be a guarantor for facility lease payments for early franchisees, and that those deals became an untenable financial burden. We signed, unfortunately, too many corporate guarantees that landed on the holding company, and that's on us. I own it, Berrigan told the publication. There's a picture of a man standing

Holding a pickleball paddle and a pickle ball, ready to it looks like serve it, with another man standing behind him observing. It says Nathan Presley instructs players at the Pickler on november tenth, twenty twenty five in Fort Collins. Berrigan said no locations will close as a direct result of the bankruptcy filing, but he does expect a slowdown of the business, which has been rampantly growing.

Since it opened its first indoor pickleball club in Utah in 2021. Since then, the Pickler has seen more than ninety new franchise locations open across the U.S., including five in Colorado. Since the Pickler's Fort Collins and Loveland locations are independently owned and operated, they will not be impacted by the recent bankruptcy filing, according to Chad Price.

A partner in the club's regional ownership group, Colorado Pickleball ADA LC, which also includes the Picklers in Aurora and Cheyenne. The Fort Collins Pickler, which opened in Jessup Farm's Artisan Village late last year, is instead growing and just wrapped up a significant investment that includes the addition of three outdoor courts, Price said.

The new courts are expected to open october twenty fourth. The group also recently extended its lease at thirty one thirty seven North Garfield Avenue in Loveland, where it opened its first Northern Colorado club in twenty twenty two. An email sent out to local members of the Pickler october fifteenth reassured them it will be business as usual at the Northern Colorado clubs.

It's full steam ahead for us to create an amazing pickleball community, Price said in an email to the Coloradoan october fifteenth. Aaron Udell covers business for the Coloradoan. PSD School Board sets extra meeting to discuss closure plan by Kelly Lyle. The Pooder School District Board of Education will continue its discussion with

Of a committee's recommendation to close nine schools and consolidate two others in a special meeting at five PM october twentieth, spokesperson John Cope told the Coloradoan. The meeting will be held in the school board's regular meeting room at the Johansson Support Services Center, twenty four seven LaPorte Avenue, according to an online posting of the agenda.

Board members spent more than three and a half hours questioning the co chairs of the Comprehensive Planning Committee and District Leadership about the recommendation during a regular meeting october thirteenth. The school board's seven members agreed at eleven forty seven PM to adjourn for the night and schedule an additional meeting prior to its scheduled october twenty seventh vote on the plan.

The recommendation made public september twenty fifth and formally presented to the Board of Education at the october thirteenth meeting calls for the closure of Beatie, Irish, Johnson, Livermore, Putnam, Redfeather Lakes, Stove Prairie, and Timnath Elementary Schools, and Blevins Middle School, and the consolidation of the district's two alternative high schools.

Centennial and Pooder Community Academy. The plan also includes boundary adjustments to expand the attendance area of Bacon Elementary to bring in some students currently assigned to Bamford and Warner Elementaries. Board members had additional questions for Planning Committee co chairs Tracy Guile, PSD's lead assistant superintendent, and Brett Hansen.

A parent with children attending schools in Temnath when they adjourned and planned to pick up where they left off. They had not yet determined a date or time for the additional meeting at that point. There was still a second part of the recommendation focused on how the planning committee suggested the closures, consolidation, and boundary changes be implemented that had not yet been presented.

Board members also said during a dinner session prior to the regular meeting October thirteenth that they planned to provide their overall thoughts on the recommendation, something they have not yet had the opportunity to discuss among themselves or share publicly. The Board of Education is continuing to hold sessions to solicit community feedback on the recommendation.

About one hundred seventy five people attended a session october fourteenth at Rocky Mountain High School, and additional sessions are planned from six to seven hundred thirty PM october fifteenth at Pooter High School two hundred one North Impala Drive and october nineteenth at Fort Collins High School, three thousand four hundred Lamkin Way. Reporter Kelly Lyle covers education, breaking news, and

Some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at K E L L Y L Y E L L at Coloradoan.com. Obituary Robert Bob Foster Fort Collins, Robert Bob Foster of Fort Collins, viewing Monday at 1 p.m. at Kibby Fishburne Funeral Home in Loveland.

Followed by funeral services at two PM. Interment Fort Logan National Cemetery. The full obituary can be viewed at WWW dot kibbey.