August School Accountability Committee (SAC) Meeting Recap

Written By Greg D

Reminder: Independent parent group — not affiliated with or endorsed by FASD.

TL;DR

  • Conflicting notices listed the start time as 3:45 and 4:00. The meeting began shortly after 4:00 with two parent representatives, a teacher representative, the Board liaison, and the Executive Director present. Two community members also attended as observers.

  • The working plan is to continue with last year’s parent representatives rather than conduct elections this fall, although the recently adopted bylaws call for two elected parents.

  • The Board expects to revise the bylaws in September to correct statutory issues, including the need for separate parent and PTO positions.

  • SAC meetings will be open to observers, but no virtual option or public-comment period is planned.

  • Most of the meeting involved applying a structured “data protocol” to CMAS and student and family survey results. Additional analysis will occur outside the meeting and at future sessions.

Parent Recap (What Happened)

Membership and bylaws

The opening presentation described the current members as “returning,” including two positions labeled as elected parent representatives. One of those parents noted that she had not actually been elected.

The group discussed keeping the current membership in place for the school year rather than holding elections. The adopted bylaws, however, call for parent elections within 60 days after the beginning of school.

The bylaws are also being revised because their seven-seat structure improperly treated a parent representative as simultaneously filling the legally required PTO position. Colorado law requires those to be separate positions. The revised structure will therefore have eight seats, with the PTO and qualifying business or industry community positions currently unfilled. The Board is expected to consider the changes in September.

Public participation

The Chair explained that SAC is an advisory working committee without final decision-making authority. Members of the public may observe, but meetings will not include public comment. The committee also decided against offering a virtual attendance option.

Meeting dates may move from Tuesdays to Mondays, with a tentative 3:45 start time.

Reviewing school data

Most of the meeting was devoted to learning and applying a structured analysis protocol to CMAS results and student and family surveys administered by Denver Families.

The initial discussion focused on observations, patterns, and “I wonder” questions. Those questions included why parents believe they should participate in school decisions, what kind of input they expect, and how they would prefer information to be communicated.

Members expect to continue the analysis independently and at future meetings, potentially using trended results and more open-response data. Because FASD has not publicly released the survey results, I am not reproducing them here.

UIP and budget

The administration expects FASD to remain at the state’s Performance rating. The school plans to use biennial flexibility rather than submit a full Unified Improvement Plan this year.

SAC also revisited prior budget recommendations involving clearer staff roles, instructional assistants, special-education support, and staff retention. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for September 29 and will continue the data, UIP, and budget discussions.

The “Since You’re Here…” Section

Unofficial reflections — offered in good faith (and with a grain of salt)

I want to be explicit: the section above is my attempt to keep things factual and balanced. This section is my personal perspective.

One word: disappointing.

The Board unanimously approved SAC bylaws that cite the relevant Colorado statute while contradicting a requirement appearing later on the statute’s first page: one person cannot fill two required membership positions. I am glad the Board intends to correct the problem, but this was not an obscure technicality. A basic review of the cited law should have caught it before adoption. Something in the Board’s quality-control process is not working.

The decision to postpone parent elections is harder to understand. FASD has been required to maintain a SAC throughout its existence; this is not a newly created committee. Even the new bylaws provide 60 days after the start of school to hold elections. Continuity and compliance are not mutually exclusive: existing members can run, and an uncontested election can be decided by acclamation.

I appreciate the parents and teacher who have volunteered. My concern is not with them personally—it is with a structure that risks creating a closed feedback loop.

SAC members wondered why parents want a role in important decisions. At the same meeting, an attending parent could not answer that question because public comment was prohibited. There will be no virtual option, and the promised parent elections are not currently planned. A committee charged by law with increasing parent engagement should not make engagement harder than necessary.

The answer to their question is fairly simple: families enrolled at the French American School of Denver because of its particular mission, charter, instructional model, and commitments. When significant changes move the school away from those promises, parents reasonably expect a clear rationale, supporting evidence, and consideration of multiple perspectives. Parents are not asking to operate the school. They are asking the Board to govern it and protect the institution’s mission.

SAC’s first improvement plan might therefore be its own:

  • Hold the parent elections required by the bylaws.

  • Let teachers select the colleague who best represents them.

  • Offer a short, structured public-comment or written-input period.

  • Provide listen-only virtual access.

  • Publish agendas, data, and pre-reading before meetings.

  • Fill the distinct PTO and qualifying community seats.

Then SAC can turn its attention to substantive questions—including the notable year-over-year decline in FASD’s schoolwide 2026 math achievement and growth measures—and make informed recommendations about how the school should respond.

That would be a meaningful accountability committee, rather than one that simply completes the required exercises.

~ Greg

Resources

Greg D
Next

August Board Meet-and-Greet