March School Accountability Committee (SAC) Meeting Recap

Written By Greg D

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

TL;DR

  • The SAC held its first operational meeting on March 10. Two parent officers were elected: Danielle as Chair, Anna as Vice Chair.

  • Most of the meeting covered material already presented at the February Board meeting and the morning's Coffee with Kathy — school choice enrollment figures, behavioral screener data, and the UIP. Not much new if you've been following along.

  • DPS will not administer its Tu Voz parent survey this year. A replacement survey is being coordinated across DPS charter schools; FASD can add school-specific questions.

  • SAC bylaws are with external counsel. SAC members had input, but the Board — not the SAC — will vote to adopt them. The key thing to watch is whether the final bylaws preserve the parent-led, elected structure described in the draft now embedded in the charter.

Parent Recap (What Happened)

The SAC met on March 10 at the school. A consultant, Maya, co-facilitated alongside Kathy. The meeting was light on new information — much of the content recycled from the February Board meeting and earlier that morning's Coffee with Kathy session. Two of the named SAC members were absent.

Officers elected. Danielle (parent) was elected Chair and Anna (parent) was elected Vice Chair. The Recorder role will rotate among members. Those officer elections appeared to take place among SAC participants present at the meeting, which may or may not match the final bylaw structure once adopted.

School Choice. Enrollment figures were consistent with those shared at the February Board meeting: DPS forecasts approximately 240 students, FASD's own estimate is around 250, and current School Choice applications came in around 264.

Academic update. The 2026 UIP focuses on targeted English literacy to support early total dual language. The identified root cause: the French curriculum doesn't fully align with Colorado state standards, meaning students sometimes encounter tested topics on CMAS and STAR that haven't been covered at grade level in French. Improvement strategies include refining the MTSS intervention program and building collaborative planning time to align French and Colorado curricula — work that began last year. STAMP biliteracy results for classes assessed so far are above some benchmarks, which is an encouraging early signal.

BESS. Behavioral and Emotional Support Screener results were presented — the same data from the morning's Coffee with Kathy. The main message from the school: there is a strong push for more families to complete the screener, particularly in grades K–2, where participation has been limited.

Spring 2026 Survey. DPS announced it will not administer the Tu Voz survey this year. A replacement survey is being coordinated across DPS charter schools; FASD will participate and can add school-specific questions. The SAC brainstormed potential additions including budget priorities, class size, volunteer barriers, and language use in the classroom. The group also noted a desire to preserve trend questions from prior years for comparability.

Bylaws. The SAC bylaws are currently with external legal counsel. SAC members had the opportunity to provide input, but they will not vote to adopt the bylaws — that will be done by the FASD Board at an upcoming meeting. An observer flagged that the adopted bylaws will need to be reported to DPS given the charter contract's requirements (more on this below).

Next meetings: April 14 and May 12, both in person, 4:00–5:30 PM.

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.

Progress worth acknowledging. FASD now has a functioning SAC with elected parent officers. That's overdue, and I want to genuinely recognize Danielle and Anna for stepping up. Governance roles at a school with our recent history take some real commitment, and I hope the experience is meaningful for them — and for the community.

The bylaws situation has a long and strange history, and it matters.

When I reviewed the FASD-DPS charter agreement last week — documents I received through a CORA request — I was genuinely surprised to find SAC bylaws embedded in the contract as Appendix B. The same bylaws have been posted on the school's website, stamped "DRAFT," with a blank, unsigned certification page. Board members have indicated they were never formally adopted. So we've had unapproved governing documents sitting inside a signed contract with our authorizer for over a year.

I'll admit my thinking on this has evolved. I'd previously advocated for the school to develop proper SAC bylaws — we clearly needed them. But that was before I knew we had already presented a version to DPS as part of our charter. That changes the calculus. The bylaws in that contract describe elected parent officers and a parent-led structure. Formally adopting what's already there would have been the faster, simpler, and most defensible path.

Instead, outside counsel has been engaged to write something new. Maybe the result is identical. I hope so. But rewriting bylaws is not a neutral act — it's an opportunity to change things. If the new version shifts from elected to appointed SAC members, that's a material change for the parent community and a contractual one for DPS: Section 5.C of our charter contract requires any bylaw modification to be submitted to DPS Authorizing & Accountability within ten business days of adoption.

We've been non-compliant on this long enough. When the final bylaws are published, that's the thing to read carefully.

Here's what I'll be watching in the final bylaws: how SAC members are selected.

Both the website draft and the charter-embedded bylaws describe elected parent officers and a parent-led structure. That matters. A Chair selected through an elected process and charged with setting the agenda alongside school leadership is very different from a committee whose members or officers are effectively appointed from above.

I haven't seen the new draft. Maybe elections are preserved. I hope so. But if the final bylaws shift to Board or ED appointment of SAC members, that would be a material change — both substantively and in terms of what DPS has on file. We've been non-compliant on SAC governance for too long to step into another compliance problem by quietly changing something significant without scrutiny.

The SAC has an opportunity to do something the Board hasn't: be proactively transparent.

Nothing prevents the SAC from publishing its meeting packets, presentation materials, and reference documents. The Board and school administration are stakeholders in the SAC's work — but they are not the drivers of it. The School Accountability Committee exists to serve the parent and community members it represents, and one of the simplest ways to do that is to share what it's working with. I truly hope the SAC takes this seriously. An engaged, well-informed parent community is an asset, not a threat.

The Board could really use an advisory body willing to tell it the truth, even when that's uncomfortable. I'm cautiously optimistic that this SAC can be that. The people who showed up give me some reason for hope.

~ Greg

Resources

Greg D
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