School Board Workshop: August 5, 2025

001Good afternoon everyone. It is Tuesday, August 5th, 2025. This is a schoolboard workshop and the time is 1 p.m. Sergeant- of arms, has the lobby been cleared? Yes. Thank you. There are seven items on the agenda today. RSM update, schoolboard attorney and general counsel contract, district advisory committee topics, safety update, Fort Myers Beach Elementary School conversation, public comment, good of the order, and other business. Per board protocol, each board member should strive for four minutes for initial comment, two minutes for followup with a total of 10 minutes during the discussion today. We will begin with an update with RSM. Matthew Blondo, RSM director, and Weiss Campbell will be presenting this afternoon. Good afternoon board members. Matt Londell with RSM internal audit director here. I just wanted to give you a brief update and review the

002results of one of the reports that is was completed recently. So just as a refresher the audit plan for fiscal year 2025 is shown here on the screen. We had five individual items here. two of those were brought to the board at the June 3rd meeting where we talked about capital planning and facilities maintenance and then incident response tabletop exercise. We discussed that earlier today in executive session. And then we did want to provide the results of the final version of the report for ESSE services and then also the results of our kind of ongoing follow-up testing. So as we mentioned earlier, we went through this in executive session due to security reasons. so that project is now complete and we discussed those results with the board earlier today. I will go ahead and turn

003it over to Weiss to walk through the two observations that we had related to our internal audit of the ESC services. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate your time today. I'm going to just briefly try to give you an understanding of what the objective was of this project before briefly talking through the two observations that you see noted here on the screen. The primary objective of this project was to assess the district's ESC program focusing specifically on regulatory compliance as well as the IEP development and implementation process. we evaluated the timeliness, the accuracy of IEP documentation and the alignment of these services with the federal and state mandates that exist. And as part of our procedures, we assess the review and approval process, verified compliance with the required timelines for the IP development, as well as the

004reevaluations that are expected to take place. We review the training programs that exist and are ultimately provided to the educators, the administrative as well as the support staff that exist at the schools and we perform detailed testing across 40 IEPs to assess service and accommodation delivery for those sampled IEPs. We did identify two high-risk observations which I'll briefly walk us through here shortly. The first observation is around the development and delivery of the services or accommodations. As part of our review, we noted that management was unable to provide documentation to support some of the key actions that are expected during the development and delivery of a sample of student IEPs. So, we sampled, as I stated before, 40 IEPs and we identified three primary exception types. The first being evidence of parental participation. So for

005one of the 40 there was no no documented evidence of parental participation in the IEP meetings nor confirmation that the parent had decline participation which is required by Florida administrative code. The second being delivery of services and accommodations. So we tested across those 40 IEPs over 400 services and accommodations within those IEPs. Our testing revealed that documentation was not available to substantiate the delivery of approximately 76% of that total sample. And while we I just want to highlight while we recognize that many of these accommodations may be difficult to document, many of many of these accommodations may require verbal encouragement for example, right? there there are still federal and state requirements that expect these actions to be documented. so we highlight that here. The third and final piece of this observation is around student progress

006reporting. So 11 of the 36 IEPs where we would have expected progress reporting 31% did not complete or upload applicable progress reporting to the state tracking system pier which again is required by Florida administrative code. The primary reason for some of these exceptions u and this is noted in the report is really rooted in in what we highlight in observation two which is really a lack of sufficient guidance for documenting some of these things and and defining the expectations. So I'll go into that during observation two, but I'll briefly highlight management's response as it relates to observation one. The primary, action that'll be taken by management, which again is included in the report, is the development of a handbook that specifically outlines expectations and explicitly defines criteria relating to the most common services and accommodations

007that should be documented and how those actions should be documented. additionally there will be pro targeted training regarding roles, responsibilities and expectations of these support staff so that all all requirements and compliance is met through this process and ultimately there's more consistency throughout the schools. Any questions regarding observation one? Perfect. Observation 2 is really focused on the consistency and maturity of the program. So as I alluded to some of the underlying or root root causes for observation one are really kind of encompassed here in observation 2. So during our review what we identified is there's an absence of clearly defined and consistently enforced district-wide framework for ESC services and oversight. So standardized procedures, training tools, monitoring mechanisms all all key actions that would be expected as it relates to oversight of the program. So specifically

008we observed variability across schools and how evidence of ESC service delivery is documented, retained and monitored and this is largely a result of a lack of centralized monitoring or quality assurance framework used to evaluate the effectiveness of the ESC service or accommodation delivery. So in the observation we highlight KPIs as an example of a way to evaluate the success of of ESSE service delivery. Management did highlight in here a few key changes. One of one of which being what I have already mentioned in observation one the development of a handbook that defines expectations that will help significantly and I think that will help define what those expectations are so that we can see some of these documentation challenges remediated. But there's also some additional actions that will be taken. A unified organizational chart, standard operating

009procedures will be documented and developed. quarterly sampling audits where resources permit will be performed to hold the schools accountable. And then like I said, develop KPIs that could be used to monitor the performance of ESC services and delivery of those services and accommodations. That is observation two. Any questions there? Miss Jordan. Thank you. as far as the handbook, who is to ensure that everybody is reading that handbook, the accountability part of that and then of course then the documentation of all of that. Understood. Yeah. And I believe I believe the management response highlights the ESC services team as as leading that charge, but I'll defer to management as to any specific responsible party that they see taking on that responsibility. Yes, if I may through the chair. you know, obviously this entire audit has caught

010our attention, right? Very important. And coming in as the relatively new superintendent, I really appreciate RSM's work, you know, to surface areas where we're doing well and obviously when we find areas that there there are opportunities for improvement. So, you know, ultimately I hold the chief academic officer who will be overseeing the management's response to this. he and his team have developed that and is my expectation that those things will be happening and so that's who will be ultimately responsible for ensuring the completion of the actions pro provided for you. Thank you. The next item that we'll be reviewing is the are the results of our follow-up testing. So, ju as a reminder, follow-up testing is the process that we go through to to validate that the management action plans that were stated in previous

011audit reports have been carried out and that those actions meet the underlying risk that was observed during the original audits. the intention of that is to provide some level of of of update or or or I wouldn't I won't say assurance, right, but some some level of confidence that those action plans are on track. So follow-up testing. The results you see here reflect the audit reports that are previously issued that have open audit items. What you'll see is across these eight reports, there was a total of 38 original observations. And you know, happy to see that we've we've closed over half of those so far. So we have 13 that are in progress, five that are that are that are not ready for testing as a result of this for a total of 18. I

012think that demonstrates some significant progress with for a number of these audits. obviously, you know, there's some of these that remain open, such as purchasing and procurement compliance. That's a report that was issued in 2021 that still has an item open. Some of these items, are open because we've retested some of the actions that they've taken and we identified exceptions. In other instances, it's because, they need a little bit longer time to implement some of the processes or systems that may it may take to remediate the underlying risk. So, overall, we've seen some significant process progress as we report on follow-up testing, and I think this dashboard reflects that. And for the board's benefit, our process here moving forward as we look to fiscal year 26 will actually be to report on follow-up testing on

013a quarterly basis when we meet with the audit committee as a way just to reinforce accountability and make sure that we have a closer communication with management throughout the year to make sure that these actions are being taken and are on track. a lot a lot of our process within follow-up is testing, but we also want to be a support system. So having that quarterly communication is going to be key. Any questions as it relates to follow-up testing? Perfect. Okay. So then that leads us to our final item here, which is the proposed fiscal year 26 plan. So as Matt alluded to, we've now completed our fiscal year 25 audit plan. we met with the audit committee twice during the month of July to refine and identify the audit committee's recommendations for fiscal year 26.

014And the bullets that you're seeing here on on the screen reflect those recommendations. So the first being a sensitive data protection project, that's an IT specific project, a budgeting project, contract administration, follow-up testing, as I', as I've alluded to, will be a continuous project, and then a fiscal year 27 risk assessment. So I can briefly walk through kind of an idea of what the scope would be for each of these audits, and then obviously answer any questions you might have if you if you don't already have any for us. Perfect. So, I'll start with the sensitive data protection. It's best practice on any internal audit plan to have at least one IT project. So, that's not there's no exception here. sensitive data protection is a very common audit that we do for many of our

015school districts just due to the nature of the audit. The primary objective of this project would be to assess how the district is managing access, encryption, and monitoring of the of the sensitive data that exists within the district. But we will specifically focus on the student information system focus as well as the RM ERP systemoft. as we look to evaluate how how sensitive data is being protected. we'll focus on standards, controls, technology that's employed and designed to protect this information at at both the student and the employee level within these systems. we'll evaluate the logical and the privilege access. Review the user access excuse me the user review process, user access review process. We'll look at segregation of duties. the change management policies and pro procedures as well as reviewing data encryption and the technologies

016that are in place to manage encryption. So really valuable audit valuable audit from an IT perspective. Any questions on this project? Perfect. The second item is budgeting. So this has been on our proposed plan on our last risk assessment. This was on the plan. It's been a continuous topic. so, so I would imagine it's not necessarily a surprise to see it here. The goal of this project would be to evaluate the internal controls that exist within the budgeting process as it as it exists today. Specifically, budget development, monitoring, reporting, and the budget modifications that take place. So, one of the key parts of this process from a procedural perspective that we'll perform will be evaluating how the data is obtained, how it's reviewed, how it's verified for accuracy, and ultimately reported through through the board.

017we'll look at the timeliness, the accuracy and the usefulness of budget status reports and communications that are issued not just once a year but throughout the year. We'll look at segregation of duties and how that how those are designed between the preparation, the approval, execution and the reporting phases of that as well as how budget modification amendment processes are authorized. Any questions related to this project? Perfect. Okay, the third being contract administration. So just as a reminder and you might you might be might see this and think you know in 2022 we actually did a similar project but I just want to highlight a key difference. In 2022 we did a contract compliance audit which focused on districtwide processes for managing contracts. So that's both development and execution of contracts. What we're proposing here would

018be an internal audit that evaluates contract monitoring and administration of specific high-risisk projects. So what we would do is select a sample of up to five contracts that are managed by departments within the district and we will we will evaluate against provisions of those contracts. So for example how vendor monitoring procedures are being managed for those specific contracts, invoice review and approval procedures, the adequacy of documentation that's provided by vendors and or suppliers related to that contract. We'll analyze the high-risisk terms and conditions within that contract and then ultimately test for compliance for the provisions that exist within those contracts. So we see a number of high-risisk contracts within districts. Some of those have service level expectations and there's also expectations of the district. So we'll evaluate those provisions within the contract to to to

019ensure that the underlying intention of those contracts are being met. Again, a pretty common audit that we do to provide some level of assurance that contracts are being managed properly. There are no questions on contract administration. I'll wrap up on the last two. follow-up testing this year will be pretty significant. So, if you you'll you might remember the dashboard we had up here earlier. That was that was the result of this year's follow-up testing. We will have a few new audits that will be added to that list for a total of 10 audit reports that will be within follow-up testing. So, a total of 41 observations that we'll be following up on in this upcoming fiscal year. Excuse me, I'm sorry. 41 was the total observations, but 26 remain open. So 10 audit reports, 26

020open observations that we'll be evaluating through the course of fiscal year 26 that incor that incorporates the three audits that we issued this year. We have one question. And it's not a question actually just a if you could confirm. So that number is obviously going to grow. Your follow-up's going to grow as you do more audits, right? And then once the once let's say there's no the follow-up is closed or or would you close out those that they when they finalize all the outstanding corrections that they're making. So will that come off your list? You won't really Okay. Correct. Yeah, they will fall off the list. For example, HR the recruiting and onboarding report that we issued in 2021. Happy to say we've closed all the items as of the dashboard that you just saw.

021So that'll come off the list. For example, we have one, two, three, three audits that have only one open it open item. So once we test those, if we can validate and close those, those will be three additional audits that will come off. So 10 audit reports seems like a lot, but a number of those only have one item that remains open. Great. Thank you so much for clarity. Okay. And then the last item is our fiscal year 27 risk assessment. So, we issued our last risk assessment in June of 2024. and we delivered most of the items that were included on that proposed top 10 last year with many of the remaining items included on this year's proposed plan. So, we would project to start this risk assessment process next May in 2026. and

022that will allow us to timely develop and start our fiscal year 27 audit plan after the summer and ultimately have, you know, go through the process of bringing those proposed items through the audit committee and to the board. So, we usually do this risk assessment every other year. So, this is right in line with how we've traditionally del delivered the risk assessment. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Superintendent, do you want to go ahead? Yes. Thank you very much. First of all, I think I can speak on behalf of our entire governance team. This is a governance team that is very interested in getting better. We are all committed to having good things happen in our school district and you are even helping us even more. So, just thank you very much for your cander. Thank

023you for telling us accurately where we stand relative to all of these items. And just as a note to our board, as a reminder, I have tapped Dr. Cupid McCoy who when I first came on board, she and I had a conversation. We found that we did not have what I would call a systematic approach to how we wrangle all of these different audits including RSM. How we track the findings and then most importantly how we incorporate them into our standard operating procedures because that to me is when we've hit Mecca is like when we have incorporated in our daily work. We don't just give a management response and say it's done. We make sure it becomes part of our daily process. That's the most important thing for me and for all of us as

024as a team. So, just thank you for surfacing them. Thank you for being a resource to us when we look for best practice out there across the nation. that's what we're all about. I really commend you on the identification of items for the FY26 audit plan. Again, I think you've hit the, you know, hit it out of the ballpark. Again, those are areas where we absolutely are, you know, have the opportunity to get better and we'll continue to work on that the followup and the incorporation into our SOP. So, just thank you for helping us improve as a district. Board members, any questions? Mr. Fischer and Miss Giovanelli, just a real quick comment. Thank you to RSM as well. I also want to point out thank you to the superintendent team. This is the first

025time that I've seen under that human resources recruiting and onboarding from May 2021. We do not have anything left from that audit. So, I'm glad to see that. I know there's obviously going to be conditional continued follow-up work on that, but I'm glad to see that we're finally closing some of these out. Thank you, Miss Giovanelli. Dr. Carlin, this is actually for Dr. Carlin, but thank you for gentlemen for the for the hard work that RSM we rely on you heavily. this is actually for the superintendent. regarding the ESSE plan of action, will you be bringing anything back to the board once we know so because I'm curious about changes like the changes and I know you inherited this so I'm I'm going to put that disclaimer out there first but how you know what

026is the plan because I for me it just boils down to training the lack of and accountability the lack of that has not happened to because we get funding fundings for ESSE That's correct. students and so we need to be putting those dollars to to those students and I don't feel like that's been happening so that therefore there there are shortfall in that. So I would hope that you bring back a workshop for us to see those changes and what your the plan is because there's got to be a plan because we haven't been holding anyone accountable and therefore that's how we've gotten behind the eightball on this. So absolutely I we would be pleased to do that. That's why Dr. Shaker and the entire team is here today. they have been paying very close

027attention to this matter. Obviously, this is something that is very important to us. All of our students matter, right? All of our students matter and that's why, you know, he is ultimately accountable. Even though we're all new, we hold the accountability for that. And we will bring be happy to bring forward a plan. Yeah. Absolutely. Because I because I think this we've got to do something different. So, I want I want y'all to show us you're the experts. show us what you're going to do different to have a different outcome. Thank you. Absolutely. We do have our plan identified. Dr. Shaker and team identified that in the management response, but we would be happy to keep you updated as we make progress on that plan, which I think is what we're all interested in seeing.

028So, thank you, ma'am, very much. Mr. Persons, I want to give a little shout out to the audit committee. I'm no longer the leazison of that, but they're usually pretty good at coming up with areas to look into. they were the ones that put me on the ESC audit that I asked to have added last year. Glad we don't have quite so many audits going on this year as we did last year, which is good. Get really thorough. But I'm sure all the board members look at their their emails and they get so many of this and this coming but ESC was one of the larger components all the time and it's it's a difficult job simple as that to to mon not only just to monitor it but to do it. So, I'm glad

029may have put extra resources. So, I know I as a board member happy to listen to whatever comes forward from the superintendent and support it because we're going to get it done. Thank you. I think it was Mr. Ribble, then I'll go to Miss Gelli. Yeah, I just want to compliment RSM for doing a great job. I was really impressed with reading through your fleet audit and I have some suggestions for that. I totally support what your findings and your comments were. I think without a doubt in my mind, fleet imper appearance of our school buses is our brand and I think we do a pretty good job as a district maintaining that brand out there when I see equipment that's well painted and it looks like it's in pretty good shape. but other than

030that, there are some suggestions I like to make as far as some of the automotive servicing that you talked about preventive maintenance. I'm not so sure according to your audit that we're following a good PMI schedule and that's key to keeping that fleet running. There's nothing worse for a bus driver than having a bus full of kids and having a thing break down and you know what happens with with the mass chaos when you have a breakdown. So to me preventive maintenance and preventing a breakdown is really important for us. I think we should have a number that we can find every day. We call it car days per road call in the industry. So what's our breakdown frequency? How many bus breakdowns do we have the day before? What can we do to so

031our drive drivers have the confidence that as a board we want to support those folks. the other thing is running out of fuel. That's a big one in the industry. Believe it or not, you might have the best preventive maintenance program, but the vehicle doesn't get fueled and that's a no no in the industry. So we ought to take a take a look at that number. And then the last comment I'm going to make, you did a great job of auditing the part replacement. I can tell you going back to the 1980s and 90s militarily wise, the military stopped using secondhand parts off of aircraft. You know what happened in the Iran deal in 1984. used parts taken off a bus that's sitting out there for years. It's a crapshoot if that part's even go

032if you take a fuel pump off of there. It's a crapshoot that fuel pump is even going to work. Let alone the time it takes to have a mechanic go out there, go through all those buses to find out where that part is. And then the time in taking it off there, it's just not worth it. we know as carriers that buying that part right off the shelf, brand new to replacement is more dependable and it will give our drivers confidence and that we're doing the right thing to maintain our equipment, which in turn will help a morale, plus the morale of mechanics. Mechanics don't like to go out hunting parts in a yard in the middle of the night with a flashlight. It just does not work for everyone. So, it's a win-win to

033order that part brand new. And those are my comments, Mr. Janelli. Thank you, Mr. Ribble, because I would totally agree with your assessment on that. but it was a very enlightening audit though. it was Mhm. But I just wanted to bring up one thing real back to the ESSE. There's a lot of documentation and paperwork that teachers have and this is for the superintendent and the chief as well out there. We need that process needs to be so simplified and streamlined where it's a almost a click of a button for them because that's what happens is the work might been performed but then there's no documentation to back it up from the audit that I could you know could see and or you know so I just I really wanted to reiterate that we need

034to make sure that the processes for the teachers to document needs to be really simplified. side and I think that's would be a win-win for them and to help keeping that. So that's all I have. Thank you. Absolutely. If I may through the chair. so the really really good news is that this has been identified and the excellent news is that management has a response. so many of us have been teachers. You I can still still consider myself a teacher even though I'm been a principal and been a superintendent. am a superintendent. We always have a teacher's heart. That's where we start. So, I couldn't agree with you more trying to simplify the processes and I know that's part of Dr. Shaker's plan as well as his team. So, just thank you for emphasizing that

035anything we can take off of teachers backs is really important because then we allow them to do their most important function which is to teach. Having said that, there is always paperwork that goes with it, right? And I did it as a teacher for a number of years. Documented my ESOL strategies, my ESC strategies. We all had methods of doing that. those of us that have been teachers and we'll try to make that as easy and as simple as possible. So, thank you Miss Jordan. I want to thank you because ES this ESSE to me is really really important and I know that we are all looking into making it better and I and with that with the documentations and everything and the possibility too is just making sure that we have enough staff the

036right staff for what the kids need. So, accommodations. So, and that should be I'm sure that's going to be probably part of the plan and I am looking forward and I thank you Miss Ganelli for bringing up what you brought up. I really appreciate that a lot and Mr. Rival that was great to learn from you. But I did one question please to my friends over here. I really do appreciate all that you do for us and the longevity that you've had with us. And can you please I know there was a little bit of conversation the last meeting which I think was a little bit over a week ago regarding the possibility of bringing somebody else on and I just wanted to make sure that everybody is aware waste fraud and abuse that is

037something that you all have done for us and can do for us as our auditors. Correct. We do from time to time. but really that it comes from the board attorney's office. when when the board attorney receives complaints, if the board attorney feels that it's something that we can help with, she'll reach out and ask and we'll have that discussion. And then if it is something that we can help with, we craft a scope and discuss that with her team and then execute those as as assigned essentially by the board attorney. Yes, we do help with that. Thank you. I just want because I know there were some of the board members have not been here as long as you have been here. So, thank you for sharing that, Miss G. And you know, thank

038you, Miss Jordan, for bringing that up. That's I do want to say that RSM, you've been a game changer for Lee County and because you don't know what you don't know. So with you pointing that out, it's it's just been tremendous because and just a huge asset talking about value. We do get our bang for our buck with you guys. Okay. really truly because there's just so much and we're not experts but you manage to get that for us and then put it in the perspective that we understand it and then we find those deficiencies. That's how you correct it is pointing them out. So just thank you because we haven't had RSM really that long and it's it's you've made great strides for us. So just thank you Mr. Fischer. Thank you. can you

039all remind me your next update will be what? December, January for us probably February, something like that. It's not scheduled yet, but sure. Yes, we I mean we would so I think hearing no comments on the audit plan that we had proposed today we will create a statement of work based on that what was listed in in the a in the proposed audit plan and then that my understanding is that would come before the you at the next meeting in September. and then we would then basically work with management, the superintendent to start those audits and to map out when we would start each one so there's not too much overlap and things like that, how they would start throughout the year. And then yes, we would I mean we serve at your pleasure. So

040we're happy to come as often as you like. you know, typically we would do maybe like a quarterly update. So yeah, we if we go with that route, we would be back in the late fall. The reason I asked that and Dr. Dr. Caroline kind of mentioned this a little bit in the beginning kind of compiling this. I don't know if there would be an opportunity for us perhaps October, November to maybe have a little bit of followup on the items that are still open, the management responses to kind of see where we're at. Maybe if we get an update if that would be possible. Absolutely. We'd be pleased to do that. It'd be a great time to showcase the work of Dr. Cupid McCoy and how she's been partnering with our chiefs of our

041divisions to close those loops. So we'd be pleased to showcase that. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Any other questions, comments? well, I do appreciate the information in front of us. Yes. Dr. Carlin, you're right. Once you have that teacher hat on, you just never take it off. I agree with most everything that's been said today. The one thing I will say somebody touched upon having the amount having the right amount of staff but not only that but making sure that from the ground up that teachers are supported and I think that's where the frustration comes in for our teachers especially our brand new teachers right out of you know they this is going to be their first opportunity to work with with students that have you know IEPs and 504s and just you know I think

042it's just really important that we provide the support and really the culture that it's okay to ask questions that you don't know the answer to. you're not expected to know the answers to all of these questions. And I think that is what teacher that is when teachers hesitate to start targeting students. you know I can't tell you how many times as a fifth grader I would have a student and not a single documentation on and you as a teacher you have to wonder how how did they get into my classroom without any documentation? They can't read past a second grade level. And I just think it's really important to provide that support for our brand new teachers, teachers new to our district. I mean, we're all about retaining and retention. And besides safety, student achievement

043is our is our top priority. And that starts with classrooms and it starts all the way at the ground level. and you know, even especially identifying students early on. So Dr. Carlin, I absolutely want to concur with what you're what you're saying. U Mrs. Fleming and you know one of our district's efforts today starting today was meeting with our secondary teachers tomorrow our elementary teachers our new teachers to get them off on the right start. I had the pleasure of speaking with them this morning and then it was right off to the races. It was right into classroom management and the types of instructional strategies that work with children. the really good news and I know we've been celebrating this on social media but you know this would be the right time to say you

044know we are there. I mean, we have our teacher vacancies filled and they will be filled. You know, some of our schools had a couple of vacancies. Our coaches are stepping into those roles and they will take those roles on starting Monday and then as you know, additional teachers are hired, those coaches can step out. But our commitment to this community was to start the year with a teacher in every classroom. So, if I'm a math coach and you're a reading coach, we are going to be teaching starting on Monday if our school has two openings. And once that third grade position gets filled or that ESE position gets filled, we can step back into our coaching role. But our number one job is to do exactly what we're talking about. Support children in their

045learning and to support our colleagues, especially our new colleagues coming in. Imagine if we had three new teachers on our team. And this is our team right here. You know, the three of us are new. We're counting on the five of you to help guide us, right? Certainly, our administrators are part of that. They're a huge part of that, but our teams are so important. And that's why the work of Kelly Steedman, our regionals, and others is so critical because they help us with systems at schools. They go in, they go into PLC's, they go walk classrooms with our principles and our system principles. They find areas where additional support is needed and they push that in. And that's why this year we were so successful taking those 4D schools and moving them to C's.

046It's about on the ground support. That's what it takes. and that's why we're seeing success. So, thank you for pointing that out. The support is necessary and it is now being provided. Very proud to say we'll have a teacher in every classroom that makes a difference. Thank you, Dr. Carlin, and thank you again this afternoon. Thank you all for the kind comments. We're delighted to be here and certainly delighted to be helping mature this function for the board. So, thank you very much. Excellent. Have a great afternoon. Thank you for Dr. Star School. Thank you. All right. Next, we have the discussion of the schoolboard attorney and general counsel contract. At the July 29th meeting, the board expressed interest in moving forward with this discussion in the presence of conflict counsel. Attorney John Quick with

047Weiss Serota Hefman Cole and Beerman PL is here today to assist us with this discussion. Thank you. And Madame Chair, as attorney Quick will be conflict counsel, I am going to vacate my seat for the use of attorney quick during this discussion. Please come on up. Better better. Yes. Yeah. Good afternoon, school board. It's good to see everyone. thank you for having us or having me, sorry. as you all are aware we recent as as u vice chair Langford Fleming indicated the school board recently indicated they wanted to bring this forward today asked for me to be in attendance. In the meantime, I have spoken with with each of you individually to see where things stand as I identified and I will I can go through it all. identified really what what looked to be

048like seven key sticking points in the potential employment contract or a rene amended employment contract for the schoolboard attorney. spoke with this with the seven of you individually. as it stands, based upon the feedback I got from each of you, I don't currently have a path to a an approved agreement. as you can imagine, it's I think I described it to some of you. It's like a jigsaw puzzle trying to get the pieces to put together. There's seven of you and there's seven components. And while school board member one may say I'm yes to 1, three, and six, you know, school board member two may say I'm good with six, but no to one and three, but I also want four. So trying to get those pieces to fit together. Is there a path where

049we can get to an agreement where there's four of you that would support it? And also obviously you have u your schoolboard attorney on the other side that she would agree to it as well. So, the seven items that I identified that I spoke with you each about were the inclusion language included in the contract that's currently in there, what what I'll call the legal structure where it delineates the schoolboard attorney, the location, the assistant school board attorneys, that type of information delineated in the agreement. There is another provision that was being proposed to be added that related to what I'll call like off-campus items speaking engagements, things like that. There is a element in there that was being proposed to be included that the schoolboard attorney would need to get approval from the chair

050or I guess if the if the chair didn't agree or or didn't respond, majority vote of the school board. Third item is the termination part of the termination clause. Right now the clause requires a supermajority of the school board to to terminate. it's it's being proposed to reduce that to a simple majority. So four of seven. The there's another clause as well in terms of the contract when it reaches its end date that it would then if you all are not able to reach an agreement at least under the proposal not able to reach an agreement that it would then continue on on a month-to-month basis. So, you know, if say it ends in April, if you all haven't figured something out in terms of what you want to do, with the with the schoolboard

051attorney, she would then be on for another month for a contract, and then it would renew again another month if if, if you're not able to, determine what you all want to do. Then the next two deal with salary related items. So the fifth one is in the current contract. There's a provision that provides the schoolboard attorney with automatic salary increases commensurate with your administrative staff. that was being proposed to be removed. And then there was a request to increase the salary the current base salary and have it be retroactive to April 27th of this year. And then the final element had to do with severance in terms of if the schoolboard attorney is terminated without cause that there is a the provision in there as to severance that would be paid out to her

052and how much severance that is. As a reminder and I know I spoke with each of you individually and I reminded each of you I believe I did. I hope I did. If not, I'll remind you now there is a limit in term under Florida law as to how much severance can be paid and that is that's 20 weeks is the is the max by Florida statute. So those were the seven elements. the I've spoken with u with Kathy as well to try to figure out you know what are some of the elements of these that are absolute musts and are there any that she could walk back from. and I was able to negotiate a little bit there. There were some, but still it it doesn't give me that path to to four votes.

053And that's really obviously ultimately what you need is you need four votes to to do an amended contract. So, where does that leave you all? It leaves you've got you currently have a contract with your schoolboard attorney. It runs through 2026. So, your options are you could do nothing, and you all would proceed and you'd move forward and your schoolboard attorney is under contract till 2026. I will, remind you as your conflict council that in that agreement, there is an automatic renewal provision. So, if you don't do anything by April 15th, it will automatically renew. So I if if you opt to not do anything today or or proceed with the with additional negotiations, I would recommend that the school board that we calendar for January or February so that you all can can start

054that discussion early. I mean whatever time I would just recommend at least January or February because that gives you a couple of months to make that determination as to do you want to negotiate a new contract? are you happy with the one it is and just willing to let it autorenew or or something else? so I would recommend that if you decide to not move forward with anything today at a minimum you record that date so you don't miss that date. there the other alternative is we you know obvious obviously I've been involved with this for about a week and so we can continue the discussions to see if if some additional time can bridge that gap. I understand even though I've been involved for a week you all have been involved for many months.

055So, you know, I just, I mentioned that there's that option. The other option is if there's any changes, since I last spoke with any one of you on any of the individual items, you know, there there might if there's any changes, there might be a way that I can piece together where, you know, we can get a an agreement where the majority could support it or or would support it. So, I'm here I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have about the overall process or about any individual elements. you know please let me know and I'm happy to answer any questions persons how many of the seven points is there a cons agreement on or all seven we don't have four votes well on some on to best your knowledge I know everything

056can change so we actually vote but yeah so on all of them you have at least four votes to go one way or there's people who say listen it I go either way. It doesn't really matter to me. The problem is getting those four votes to match up. So, so you know, if you have say four, I'll just pick the first one, legal structure. If you have four that are willing to support on legal structure, I need those same four to also support whatever the elements are for the remainder of them. So, that's the toughest part. Honestly, the is to get cuz it's not consistent all the way across. So what school board member persons might be willing to accept, you know, schoolboard member Fischer might, you know, might be different. So while you might

057you all might agree on some things, it's getting four of you to agree on everything. now Kathy has indicated there are a couple things that she'd be willing to forego. So that obviously opens up more pathways to potentially get to four. But as I'm going through I, you know, the little chart that I created for myself so I can see, do I have, you know, four that go all the way along, I still don't have that. but there obviously there are some that are seem are what I would call bigger bigger hurdles than than others. and those tend to be really the salary related ones tends to be the what appears to me based on the conversations the biggest hurdle to get four that are agreeable to other ones also in agreement on the salary

058related items. Did I hope did I answer your question? I hope it's a little longwinded but is that something we can have a discussion in the open about on on a point? Is that the purpose of today? to try to maybe come to a consensus of more than four or five. I mean, you know who's where other places, but I wouldn't mind discussing it because we really haven't discussed each of those points with all of us on the dis. So, yeah, it's really up to up to you all if you want to have that discussion. Now, if you want to discuss it with with fellow board members, school board members, it obviously has to be done here. it can't be you can't do it privately as you all know and I can't act act as

059a conduit between you all to convey information. So if you want to have that discussion between the school board as a whole it would need to be at a at an open public meeting today or or some other time. Yes. I would like to see that. I see if we can come to a consensus. I mean we're not going to vote on it today. I mean in this meeting but I don't know how the other board members feel. Mr. Ribble. Yeah, I agree with Armor. I'd like to discuss it today if we can. We have an hour here to to bat it around. Maybe we could make some movement on two or three or four of these items because if we don't have this discussion in the open, this thing's we're never going to solve

060this. We're never going to solve this thing without So that I agree. I agree with this person's Miss Ganelli and I echo that. Thank you, Miss Jordan. I agree as well. And I but I do believe that the first one that was mentioned the legal structure I think we already discussed that when and put that was to be left alone when we had our conversation about another attorney coming and that was decided at that time. So that one should not even be on there because I believe that we already agreed upon that one. Do you madam chair do you mind if I make a clarifying statement on that? It was the quest of the attorney to also have it in the contract that was happening during negotiations as well as what we did. I don't

061know if there's any change in that, but that was the reason for that being in there was madam board attorney had requested the structure be in the contract even so we already had come to a decision. Okay, Mr. persons being I watch attorney shows. if it's something that's just repeating what's in our policy that we've discussed, I don't see a problem putting it in there. Again, I don't think it should We've already voted and passed that specifically. I don't think it should be one of the sticking points if you have four, but whether which four agree on that or don't agree on that, that one shouldn't be really that important because that's already part of our policy. If that makes sense, Miss Ganelli, and I would agree with that. I think the reason why attorney

062Bruno wanted to add that into her contract is for security security reasons as well as it has increased her duties from initially from when she was hired. So I am not opposed to securing those duties and securing the legal structure. So I would support that as well. Thank you Mr. Fiser. I guess this means we're going forward with a conversation. Okay. At that point, I just want to check. I will strongly object to that because we already have that in policy and if we ever want to change policy, then we're bound by the contract. I think no matter who it is outside of obviously electeds, we should be able to change our policy without the effect on that contract. I I mean, things can change. So that's why my strong legal objection to that. So

063is so if we change a policy, doesn't matter. It's in the contract. Why should we have that set for one employee? Again, it's nothing about specific employee. I'd say the same thing for when we have a board auditor. Miss Jordan, I believe that was brought up because of the fact that and M. Juvenelli, we've lived through this where we had two attorneys and who actually was the client of this attorney or that attorney and who did they represent. So when when you it was approved that the superintendent nothing against the superintendent that she had has her own personal attorney for herself because she believes that she should have one. We still need to make sure that as a whole that our attorney our board attorney has the ability to take care of us as a

064as the client and the district. So that's I have no problem with putting it in the contract. Mr. Fiser, I'm looking at it as a public organization. Why should we have a structural our structure is set through a contract of individual employee versus we're a governmental organization. It's not a private business. I could see that in a private business, but our organization is defined by that including the board attorney is our employee as well as a board auditor. So why would we bound be bound by a single contract that defines the entire legal norization for our entity? Miss Chimell, you have a follow-up. Yes, I do. So, I would I would have been inclined to agree with you and understand where you're coming from, but I lived it where the attorney that worked for the

065superintendent undermined our board attorney. And that is a fact that happened and no one did a thing. It went so far as the board attorney was actually had to be a whistleblower as well. And that was and that and that and she was being undermined by the attorney that worked for the superintendent and it was a it was a huge problem and that's the reason why I believe she wants it in there as well and now that we have an elected superintendent that line where the board I think you it needs to be in there because otherwise it's protecting the integrity actually of the of the actual board as well as the integrity for the superintendent because she's going to have her own attorney. So, I think you would think everybody would work together and

066at the best interest of this of the district. That's not the way it went down. And so, you won't I won't be able I won't ever be able to agree with you on that now at that point if I hadn't witnessed it and dealt with it myself, Mr. Fischer. But we got to discuss the organization as a whole. That's a specific fact pattern. That's why we have policy. The board defines the policy, not the superintendent. So if we have an issue with the policy, we as a board change the policy. I I'm just amazed that we would have a governmental structure within an individual contract for an employee. I'm blown away by that, Mr. Rebel. Okay, so we're on number one. And it looks like we spent 12 minutes on number one and I think

067we have four votes the way it sounds to support the to support that language. So how much longer do we need to beat this around? Mr. Fischer, what is the specific language we're supporting? What version? Because there's been multiple versions of what's going to be in there. I think it's the ver the verbiage that was sent out. Correct. Yeah. I have the most recent red line which was from April I think it was. I'll have to but whatever the most recent red line was is the language that I've at least that I've been working off of. Would you mind reading that? Yes. Thank you. And so the language as I see it's on page two of that draft that's proposed to be stricken says the board shall provide dewi Bruno with adequate office space assistant

068schoolboard attorneys legal administrative and/or parillegal assistance telephone service email service legal publications and office supplies necessary for the maintenance of an attorney's office at the district administrative building presently located here at 2855 Colonial Boulevard, Fort Myers, Florida 33966. and it also has language just before that says Dewi Bruno shall serve as the chief legal officer for the school district that is being proposed to be stricken as well. Let me just make sure there's not another one that would if say it might behoove you all if since it says that she's the chief legal officer for the school district. You might want to it might behoove you if you if you do want to proceed with is to maybe spec to I'm sure that there's language that could be worked out to to clarify with regard

069to the schoolboard attorney and the superintendent's attorney. I mean, frankly, could probably just pull it straight from the from the U policy. But since it says the chief legal officer, if you're going to include that, it would probably behoove the board to recognize that structure as it currently exists. Miss Shavaniano, then Miss Ganelli, just to be clear, so the redline copy that I have has that actually stricken, correct? Yes. Yeah. Being proposed to that was the draft that the as I understood it the school board was proposing to strike that language. Yes. And that Mr. Puno was not agreeable to striking that. Anything else? Miss Ganelli. So, and I'll give an example. So, we were we were actually served a subpoena for a lawsuit and it went all the way to to mediation without the

070board attorney ever knowing that h that was at there was even a lawsuit. She and that was because of the district staff attorney did not advise and so therefore the board didn't knew nothing of it as well as the attorney. So that is a perfect example. We could have these processes and we say it, but if the if the superintendent's not enforcing it and holding that accountable and we and we know nothing about it and the attorney knows nothing about it, then we're just at and I mean we went all the way to it went all the way to a an executive session where we had to make a decision that was quite expensive at the la the very last second, the very last hour. So, I I understand we have we have a policy,

071but if if we if it happens that way and the information doesn't get to the board attorney, the board may never know anything about it. And I don't want to say what case that was, but trust me, we did not win that case. We lost. So, we lost quite dearly. So because of that problem of her not getting the subpoena, not aware of it and the only reason why we had we because we had to make a decision on settling that mediation. So thank you Miss Jordan. And I want to say too this that language if you look at other other counties, you know, within the 67 districts, there are other counties who actually do have this in their in their contracts, in their attorney's contracts that provides the space and everything that has that

072has been mentioned here. And I cannot say enough with like Miss Ganelli, we lived it. and not saying that would happen again, but just the mere fact of the communication was just not happening. Mr. Fisher, then Mr. Persons, last thought to ponder just again when I look at that, I get a special fact pattern. I just What is the purpose of having policy then? That's my question as we ponder this. Mr. persons. I mean, policy are in the contract as long as they're in agreement. You know, if everybody wanted to take it out of the contract, I'd be fine. Keeping it in, I'm fine because it's it's just a redundant to me type thing. but I think what we need to remember on this contract, I think we should go point by point and vote

073on it. And if we can't get four on any one point, then that's taken out of the contract. Once the whole contract is done, there I could read contracts all day long that we pass. There might be one little spot in there I don't like, but the overall board likes it. Then it passes. I don't see where we have to have the same four agree on every single point. It's just do you agree over Do we have four that agree overall with the contract? because like any contract, there's not going to be everything in there you want. And I think we need to be able to put this in. The other thing to remember is this is this contract would sunset when? I mean, it's April Well, if you don't notify by April 15th, it

074would auto I meant this new one. Yeah. April 15, 2026. Yeah. That's not that far away. So, anything we do, then it has to be done again. we can look at it a little closer to see what's working or not working with the superintendent staff attorney or whatever. You know, that'll be a new contract and you guys are if you're you're comfortable doing that where you know, if you have four for everything, I mean that's up to the board. I didn't want to make that decision for you all obviously though because and again that's just my Yeah, because there might be some that you know you might feel strongly about and others like you said you're fine either way. Mr. Fiser, just a question, point of clarification. It was my understanding, I guess maybe I

075understood this wrong, that instead of just amending the current contract, this would be a a new contract that would replace the current contract and this would be for the future and whatever date. That was my impression of what this was going to be that this one, you know, where essentially we would agree to, you know, both parties would voluntarily end the current contract. We start a new contract with all these new terms that would continue based on whatever said terms are in it. for the that's for the draft that I have and as I understand it that's correct. Yeah. That this was a this was a contract. but you're not it's not like an addendum to the existing contract where you would continue existing under that one. This would be a new one. So it

076would be a two-year contract from the date we pass it. Is that what you're saying, Mr. Fischer? Again, I don't have problem with that. Yeah. Through the chair, it would be up to whatever we decide. That's what I'm saying. This is that's why I was trying to finish this in a week, but Mhm. Yeah. I like a 2-year time period and I think Mhm. that's time enough to adjust it and I think and go from there. If there's fragrant, then we can always do what we have to do. Problem. I'd like to make a suggestion that obviously this is a sticky point for, you know, it's it's a it's almost a 50/50. If there were eight of us, it sounds like so I'd like to suggest to we've heard our we've we've heard each other's

077ideas and stances. Can we move on to the number two? You said there were seven. Just so that if we cannot conclude this today, it'd be nice to be able to get through all seven, hear a little bit of what each of us think. If we and then if we have to revisit this, obviously we have had this discussion. Yeah. And I think that's that's prudent because I don't know what discussions it had before, but this might be the first time you're hearing from your fellow board members. Correct. So, if we could just move through two through seven and have a short discussion, see where it is that I'm asking the board if that's okay. Thank you. So, the second item is on if if you have the draft at least of the latest draft,

078it's on page two. it's about 3/4 of the way down the page. It's the second subp paragraph A under paragraph 4 and it's the addition there. This again relates to outside items like speaking items. There is a proposed addition. It's in the red line to be added that says that the one of the conditions for the outside speaking engagement or or the like would be that it's approved by the board chair or majority vote of the board. that is and I just so you know I in my discussion since we're going to be talking about them I have had different things from from all of you some of you want to keep it some of you want to take it out others have said only if it impacts the workday or I just think they

079should just have to notify it doesn't we don't doesn't need to be approval or something like so there's it's some of the discussions I've had aren't just simply keep it or take it out I just want to mention that to set that up. Thank you Mr. persons then I'll go to Fiser and Giovanelli. Yeah, I don't see where we can dictate to any employee what they do outside of of their work time including each other whether we can go to a meeting or or teach a class or do whatever as long as it doesn't isn't during the normal work period. I think anything that does involve like a conference that getting off work or whatever, we need to approve and we have in the past. There's nothing different there. But if someone wants to go

080on a Saturday and give a talk to their association or to a club or teach a class at night at FGCU, I'm trying to think what an attorney might want to do. I don't see where we have any say so in that. So that's just again that's just my take on it. So I'll follow up with that and then move to Mr. Fischer. I agree with you Mr. Persons and it was not my understanding that this was asking for something completely like a Saturday or a Sunday or a holiday to go speak. This to me, the way I read this was an agreement that if they if if she was going to go speak at a conference, an FSBA approval would be needed, which I think we do that anyway. So, Mr. Fischer, you were

081next. I was going to agree. I think we should just leave it how it was before. I mean, board, we haven't had any, to my knowledge, we haven't any issues and, you know, our board attorney is a professional and any other professional. It's I think we should just leave that one alone. M not amended. I actually I would completely agree with that. I think my only question is if they're going to speak at a conference and they're getting paid for that, I don't think that's something that I mean and this would not be like FSBA. cuz we would pay for that. I'm talking about like, I don't know, going to Chicago and speaking at a schoolboard conference that none of us are at or and it and it's strictly you know, their expertise, but you

082know, to to to other let's say education attorneys. That's on she's getting paid for that. I don't think that we should be paying that. but so I just that's my only little take on I just want to make sure that's clear for me. Thank you. And I think just to address, I think in the agreement it says that she's exclusively the employee of the of the board. so I think that if she would to be getting paid, I mean, I'd have to consult with a somebody who's more professional, you know, a labor attorney, but I believe that would probably should be covered by that if she's exclusively a U employee of the district than if she's getting paid for outside work. It seems like I that could that could be covered already. Let me just

083take see if I while you're talking, I'm going to see if I can can analyze the agreement. to see if that's covered in there already. Mr. Ribble. No, I agree. I don't think she should double dip, but I don't think that's her intent. But I'm going to be flexible on number two. If whatever I'm going to vote either way, if this gets this thing done, I'll flip-flop. Either way you want me to do number two. Okay. Understood, Mr. Persons. Yeah. while he's looking it up or whatever. Again, I think it determines are you double dipping if you're doing it on your own time. Does that Yeah. And in that clause too, it does say that it shall it's going to be undertaken on vacation days, personal days, holidays, or other non non-duty work time. So,

084it's it it's anticipated in that clause that it would not be during a regular school district workday. So I would consider that double dipping and I would be fine with being compensated for something like that. Okay. I agree, Miss Shaviano. I agree. And I know the other item that struck out on this is teaching and consulting. So we're in line with that piece of it. That was not an issue she had raised with me when I spoke with her about that being struck out. It was just the subsection D approved by board chair. Yeah, that was that was all that it was that she had raised with me. So if that changes obviously I'll have to let you all know but as of right now that's what not she hadn't raised that with me. Okay.

085All right. I think we can move on from two. Yeah. And three. Honestly, we can move pretty quickly on that one. That one was going from supermajority to majority. When I spoke with Kathy in the negotiations, she was willing to move to a simple majority if obviously that it would she'd have to be in agreement with the other items. So that one I think if you're in favor of supermajority, I assume you're probably okay with her moving from majority since she's doing that voluntarily. But yes. so number four is the provision in the termination clause and that is section 15. It starts on the top of the red line document, page 11, where it says that the contract shall be deemed to have been renewed and it strikes out for an additional 2 years and

086then adds a on a month-to-month basis to allow time to negotiate a long-term contract. In my conversations, the it's my understanding her objection is to the additional language on adding it to a month-to-month contract. and you know, I've spoken with each of you. I've I've I've given you kind of my thoughts on, you know, the relationship on a month-to-month basis. U, but that's, that's really the next one to see where you all stand on that. Okay. Mr. Fischer. Thank you, Madam Chair. as long as there's no auto renewal, what I know which was out of that, we don't need month. That's an issue for the attorney. That's my suggestion, Mr. Persons. So, she leaves if the contract's not renewed by the end of think. She just walks out. Fill her contract. Is that how how

087it would work? Yeah. under currently the contract would end and she would no longer be under contract with the with the school board. so you all would need to either have anticipated that in the beginning which I assume you all would because you know all this stuff is calendared and you would presumably either have a decision of we want to renegotiate or maybe everybody's happy and you can we just say we want to renew the contract. You are allowed to renew it by affirmative vote if you want. it just wouldn't auto renew. or then obviously the alternative is you know seeking it if she goes goes away seeking a you know new somebody new for that position. I said one followup. Sure. Being you work with other districts and things, if it was a superintendent

088that was employed and his contract ran out, is it normally they just walk out the door if it's not been renewed or they're in negotiations or how how does that work? Usually, I haven't been in that situation. So, just wonder. So, if there's a termination and there's not what we call an evergreen provision, which is this autorenew provision, usually those negotiations begin well in advance because you realize, you know, we've got our CEO here and we need to I mean, using the superintendent example, we need to figure out what we're going to do because, you know, if you don't keep that person, you're chances are, you know, you're you're going to have to go through a process to hire. you're going to have to put the information out, go through interviews, might have to hire

089an interim superintendent to bridge the gap. So, there's there usually are discussions that come into play months in advance because you when you're dealing with somebody at this at that level, whether it's a superintendent or a schoolboard attorney, you need to make sure that you have a plan in place even if you don't have the person who's going to be stepping into those shoes immediately there on the next day. Mr. Fisher. So, I originally had suggested that term the month to month to kind of hit the middle between saying not an auto renewal and then just her completely going. So, it gave us time. I mean, in theory, I don't know, attorney quick. I mean, in theory, I guess we could also put in a term relating to, you know, 3 months before the contract

090ends, we can, you know, set a a reminder to begin discussions or something in regards to a future contract or potentially. Miss Jordan, I think they already have to do that if I'm not mistaken where they have to give us notification of it is time for us to start negotiating for contract. I believe that's already in either our policy or one of these I and I apologize that I cannot remember what it is, but there is something where the attorney themselves they have to send that to us to to make it make it known. And that the problem that has that I've seen that we've done and I'm part of that because I have been here is the fact that when that time comes we there's an excuse why we don't make it happen and

091so it never happens. So that's why it auto renewed. So we just have to you know really do our due diligence and make sure that we are doing our jobs and making sure that we are taking care of this. So the audit renew would not even matter because we would already have had that discussion. We would have already decided what was going to take place. So that would eliminate even though it's it may say autorenew it would never be because we would already have done our jobs and have decided what we were going to do. If that makes sense what I just said. Okay, Miss Juvenelli. Well, and how do you make an employee stay after they want to leave? I mean, that's what you're really ultimately asking someone to do. I think, you know,

092a 60-day notice or maybe even a 90-day notice would be something. I think that's what Miss Jordan's mentioning since we're we're only meeting once a month. 60 that's only two times to get it to get it done. And I don't we're not able to do that. So, unless we're going to put in there that we'll have a, you know, our policy that we're going to have a, you know, a special, meeting for that, you know, or something, we got to make sure we get it done. So, that would that would be my concern. you know, the auto renew has made it easy for us not to do anything. and that's what's happened. I understand why the monthtomonth, but I just don't know how you make employees stay when they want to when they want to

093leave. and you've agreed upon it. I think that's another contract at that point to even get 60 days or 30 days out of somebody. you know, we have enough legal a legal team now that I think we could have an interim fairly quickly. So that there's that too. Thank you. Any other comments regarding this part of the contract, Miss Jordan? I'm just going to I'm just going to put it out there again. I think that the autorenew should stay there and we just need to make sure that we are doing our job to make sure that we don't have to worry about the autorenew because we have already had that conversation and I know we discussed about having special meetings which I've never seen yet since we lost those meetings. so I'm not going to

094bank on that. I just know that we need to make sure that we that we really adhere to making this happen and the monthto month if if I if you're telling me I'm monthtomonth and I have this big loss am I going to worry I am really not going to be stressing over that. So I think that their focus is not going to be there as far as the attorney for us even though we have other attorneys which I appreciate each and every one of you but I believe that we have to have that person needs to be there and the monthto month is it's it's too shaky for me. Mr. Fiser, I will object to the auto renewal. Mr. persons. We did our job, then the auto renew works. And I know as long

095as I'm on the board, we're going to do our job. We will be doing this well in advance next time. You know, we almost want it seemed like we wanted to brush it off again tonight, and I'm not going to let that happen. We need to step up and get these things done when we're supposed to get them done. And you need that, as Miss Jordan said, you need that secur security that you're going to keep your staff there if possible, unless they're doing a bad job. And we've already said if they're doing a bad job, you only need a majority now, not a super majority. So that's your way out. But if they're doing a good job, I want to keep that person. I want to work with them. And I think I know

096we dropped the ball. I don't want to blame the attorney, but maybe she dropped the ball a little bit too by relying on that. We just need to all get together and get it done next time. And we're going to be doing the same thing with our board auditor. Same kind of contract. and I know the a lot of these provisions in here will should apply also to the new attorney for the superintendent, you know. So, I more for that. I'm not I would not vote against a contract if it's not in there and one way or the other, but I think it should be in there. Miss Mr. Fischer, did you have a followup? yeah. Again, on the auto renewal, and I agree with you, Mr. Persons, but we've had our job. The contracts

097on up until April 2026, so I know that keeps getting put out there, but we've done our job. There was apparently at that time no disagreement from either side. So we're still on that. I just don't like the as I said as again a governmental policy standpoint. I don't do we have any other employee in this district that has an auto renew? Not that I'm aware of. And again we'll say as a you know the our employee but I just from a governmental philosophy standpoint I don't think we should have an auto and agree we can get the job done. We can get another contract done. I you know I hope we continue with the board attorney with that. So but that's my thoughts on it. Miss Giovanelli. So clarity on the red line. It's

098stay staying in or out because it sounds like to me majority wants to keep it in the auto renew and well I was waiting for youall to talk because I was wanted to see because I don't have clarification on that point. It seems to me that the monthto-month there's there's consensus at least from every that we've heard from to take it out, but the auto renew I haven't heard a majority say yes, we want to keep the auto renew or no, we need to remove it. So, yeah, I need clarification on that. So, I'm going to I'll just I'll piggy back off of what Mr. Fischer said. In my opinion, I mean, I've in in every job I've had, an auto renewal, in my experience, the employee loses a sense of accountability. I mean, that

099they know that auto renewal is coming up. and if there's no discussion and there could be different people here at the deis when that happens. so I'm I'm not I'm I'm I've really never been in favor of an just an automatic renewal of a contract. and it has nothing to do with this board attorney. That's just my philosophy in the business I've owned, working in corporate, being an educator. I just there's a lot of I don't know potential issues that could come with an auto reneal and that's just my opinion. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna second that position and coming out of corporate and having the business hat. again, there's nothing against our attorney for that. But to auto renew any agreement, again, we turn every four years. There's new people to lock someone in

100into that it doesn't make sense to me. Again, if we're doing our due diligence and following the timeline that we're supposed to follow and having the right conversations, it shouldn't be needed. So, I'm not in support of it. Miss Jordan, the auto and I am one who hates auto renewals. I like I don't in my life. I don't even do this for my bills. I just hate it. However, I know that if I don't have an auto renewal for cable, whatever, it's going to be shut down. If we don't have So, I make sure that I pay attention to that. But I the problem is if we do not have this prot to me, it's I'm looking at this as a protection regardless of who the word attorney is or not. If we don't have

101this and again, we waited because we had a new board. So we did not do our jobs because we wanted that have insight from other people coming on. So that's how this went moved on. How many times are we going to have that happen? And then if we don't have it, okay, today is April, whatever, she's gone. Don't worry, we'll pick up the phone and get the next attorney here. It doesn't work that way. So that is my problem with that. And yes, we can we have conflict attorney which we have used Mr. Quick, which appreciate you. You did a great job. However, it's the our own person, the person who knows the district, who understands that. That's my worry about that. And I think that we don't have to worry about it being renewed

102if we are doing our job. So, they're going to have to they're going to have to continue doing their job because there's no guarantee that it's going to come up. We're going to make sure that we that we're there with the new contract. Mr. Fiser. Well, I appreciate that argument. I mean, god forbid if we don't have another attorney. We have other attorneys on staff. It'd be like a superintendent. We would figure out an attorney. We don't want to get to that point. You know, there's outside counsel, whatever. We would never get to that point. We would have been a pretty terrible place as an organization if we did not have a single person representing us on the board at that point. So, and again, for an auto renewal, you can argue some of these

103points are the reason why we where why we're here right now is the auto renewal is part of it. as some of this conversation came up. So again, like superintendent leaves, you get another one. I don't want our board attorney to leave, but in a doomsday scenario, there are other attorneys or other resources. It's not like the district is going to be just stuck. As I said, one person leaves and we just completely fall apart. Not saying to devalue the the meaning of what this board attorney does individually. I'm just saying this, the organization is bigger than all of us as a whole. Mr. Ribble. Yeah, I'm going to go along with this one with the with the with the reasoning on the auto. I've never heard of auto renewal in all my years of

104being in business. I mean, it forces us to to stand up, negotiate in good faith, and get the thing done. And if you and you see what happens in corporate America, if you don't do that, you have a strike. So, that's how the process works. So, I'd have to go along with with the reasoning on not not having the auto renewal. I think we have to force us to do what we're supposed to do in the first place. Say one quick question, Mr. Persons. Mr. Quick, what are what is the standard in the other districts as far as attorneys renewals and things like that? Do any of them have an auto renewal or not or? Yeah, I don't know all of them, but and obviously some use outside council, some has have inside. I am

105aware that it is fairly common practice to have either one. So, yes, there are plenty of schoolboard attorneys within this state that have an auto renewal. that same thing would go for unelected supers. and then if you were to go outside of school districts and into other governmental entities with cities and counties, it's the same. It it it runs the gamut that they but it's out there. Yes. They're definitely a number that have it. Yes. So, it's not an uncommon. Exactly. It's not uncommon. That's I just wanted to make sure we weren't considering something. Miss Giovanelli. So then I have to ask a question. Is it a deal breaker breaker for attorney Bruno the auto renew? I don't know right now. So I would I know she was pushing for it but I don't know

106depending on what the entire deal looks like and then maybe we might have to take a break. I don't know if you know and I can always talk with her once we get through everything. I will go with consensus I think on the board. you know, but I mean I do want to know what if that's a deal breaker for her. Like I need to know that. Okay. Yeah, that one I'm not sure about. There are other ones I am aware of whether they are or not and I but that one I'm not sure if it's a deal breaker. so out of respect of time, can we I mean I think you've got a pretty good idea. Okay. Yeah, I understand where where the board would like to go on that. So five and six

107they're they're both salary related. So, I'll mention them, but we and you can take them up either separately or together. the number five was the automatic increase with the to be consistent with administrative support staff or administrative staff. And then number five was an increase in salary up to 212,000 with it being retroactive to April 27th of 2025. I don't know the import of that date, but that was the date that it was requested. I would say I looked into because some of you did ask me do others have these auto increases in them within the district and it looks like yes, there are other staff members and obviously your support staff would be governed by by a policy that does have auto increases in them. So that is something to to answer. A number

108of you asked me that question and some of you I was able to speak with others I wasn't about that as a follow-up that does exist within the district. Yes, definitely. Mr. Quick, can I ask when it comes to the actual number the actual salary number that's been suggested we when we are comparing other districts that are our size, how I mean how is that an average? Is that a comparable amount? So I did because you did ask me that and I did look at that. some of them have used law firms so I couldn't do a onetoone comparison. Obviously they're getting paid well I don't know if they have a retainer or flat or hourly but they law firm. So in in Pulk County which is slightly larger than Lee it was 215,000 a

109year and that agreement was in 2023. in Brevard it was 170,000 a year that was in 2022. I was able to actually the school board member Chaviano was had a copy of that. I was able to look at that did have auto increases in it. So calculating that out that would be about 191,000 if if they just followed only the auto the auto increases there. That those auto increases were based upon were not tied to staff increases though. was tied to performance increases. and then Oyola, this was a 2023 contract was 200,000. so it's in terms of districts of this size, obviously Bvard and OciOla are smaller, but the other ones in between had law firms, so I couldn't really do an apples to apples comparison. It's, you know, it's it's within the range. Yeah.

110Okay. Thank you. Any questions or comments regarding this item, Mr. Fischer? I do not agree with the retro. Outside of that, I'm open to suggestion. I actually agree. M I already had this conversation with Mr. Quick. So, Mr. Fischer and then Mr. Ribble. All right. One last thing I forgot to put on was I was also going to request depending on what we do with sal if there is any kind of auto increases, I would ask for a term in the contract that states the board attorney shall not make more than elected superintendent. Mr. Rubble, I agree with both both Mr. Fischer's comments. Mr. Persons, way I understood it is our board superintendent would always make more than any other employee. That's what we agreed to on this DAS when we were setting the salary

111for the superintendent. She would be the highest paid might only be a dollar more than whoever, but I mean with the some of the bumps that'll come up with like the deputy superintendent, some others, they're getting close to that. I know we also get an auto raise unless the beginning teachers get absolutely no raise. even as board members. So this would be the only to my knowledge the only employee of the whole district not getting an auto raise. Unless I'm looking at it wrong, you know, because the superintendent goes up if everybody else goes up and we go up and all the other employees go up. So I just think we should keep the auto raise in there. Mr. Fischer, thank you. I'm not opposed to that, but again, the superintendent through us sets what

112the salary schedule is for the administrator. So that's a little bit different. They conceivably have no salary schedule increase. I just want to ask through the chair to Mr. Quick, for the record, what is our current board attorney's salary to this date. at least on the contract I have and it was 211 211,650. I don't know if there has been any adjustment from what was in that document. Current number I meant not Oh, that she's asking. Yes. No, no, no. What What is her current salary on this date? Oh, yeah. That's what I at least that's what's in this document is 211,650. She's asking to go to 212,000. Oh, that's as I understand it. And I spoke with her to get clarification as to what the amount was that she's asking. because it was it

113was a little inconsistent when I was looking into it. There were some notes about 221. but I did clarify with her and it's she's seeking to go to 212. So, okay. Mr. Fischer, do you have a follow-up? Yeah, I was just I thought it was Can we just confirm 100% on what her current salary is? Yes, we right now. if we can. Okay. I don't Okay, so she just texted me. It's 1946. Yeah, that's I thought it was before. Okay, that's why I was and I apologize for that. It does, for whatever reason, on page three, it talks about the salary being 211650. So, I'm not sure why it says that because it's not as a red line. So, I just assumed that was the current one. So, apologies. I agree with I'm I'm fine

114with the raise and I and I'm fine I'm fine with the increase in raise. However, I think that's a great idea, Mr. Fiser, to not exceed the superintendent. Superintendent Dr. Carlin, how many employees do you have? Approximately 13,000 employees. So, I mean, and she has seven. So, I think that's fair statement that her her income should never supersede the superintendent. So, it sounds to me like like at least the majority is okay with the increase to 212 and the okay with the automatic increase with the proviso that there's language included that says so long that she cannot exceed the salary of the elected superintendent. Okay. Sure. I think we already said that in the past, but that's fine with me. Minelli and Okay. So, I would agree. And so, I have to go back to

115Mr. Fischer. He doesn't want retro and I'm I actually I'm leaning I agree with that because I mean right now we're still embargoning for the teachers and once that is done then she'll get a raise at that point in time another bump. So I that's really important and the evergreen study showed that she's behind. So that is I think that's where she became came up with the 212 just because of the evergreen study that we had where everyone was underpaid. So okay so I'm I'm good. I just don't think retro at this point that would be where I would go. Thank you Miss Jordan. Okay. So I am maybe I'm just a little bit of confused here. So if the bump would not happen until next year, not this year. Correct? Because if we were

116to give that raise now, that race has already been given. So that the 3% or whatever that is, cost of living would not take place until 2026. Correct. Am I think am I mistaken on that? Miss Shaviano, do you want to speak? And then so just so I just so maybe I'm clear and maybe I'll jump off of Miss Jordan's. I know we're still in collective bargaining that's until the 19th that has not been decided. Whatever we agree upon now, should this be effective today, the pay that we decide today plus whatever happens at that point, she would get another increment once that bargaining is reached with TA, right? So she would get the significant the pay bump now and then whatever is decided once talc reaches their agreement and collective bargaining on the 19th.

117Just to clarify, I just I want to jump in for a moment. it's always been my assumption that we go along with admin raises, not the not the contractual employees, but I would just want to clarify with the contract language. is the increase commensurate with when calc or spal conclude? It's always been my understanding it's been administrative raises, but let me just clarify. Says it currently says other administrative personnel. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have your direction on what your or do you need us to clarify? Well, I need clarification on retro, whether you want to do it retroactive to April 27th of 2025. I've heard it looks like three said no to retro and I'm seeing two other head shaking no. So, the majority are saying no to retro and then and then you all

118are okay with the auto increase then being included. Okay. Got it. Mr. Fischer as long as it has the clause that shall not make more than the current elected superintendent. Yes. Exactly. Yes. so then the last item is the severance. and that has to do with the current severance. it's whether the severance is going to be and again there there's been some varying opinions on this that are not necessarily also just reflected in the what's drafted. but the initial call that I made to each of you was are you looking for 20 you know Kathy's looking to have 20 week severance which again is you can't go past that. So, it'll be anything between 0 and 20. and then the current proposal from the school board has been what I'll call up to 20 weeks.

119So, if there's a provision in there that says if she obtains gainful employment that then it'll be reduced based upon the number of weeks that she has that gainful employment. So I think there's an example put in if after 10 weeks she gets gainful employment then you would reduce the 10 weeks. so I see that handwrit Yeah. I know that's what we did with the superintendent severance. I do want to make a point for the public who's can be listening in on this. That is severance for dismissal without cause. Yes. If if she's does something wrong and is dismissed, there's no severance. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just want to make that clarification there so people can understand. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Yeah, I would support up to 20 weeks, but not automatic 20 weeks. Just

120follow per statute. And I echo. Thank you. And you said that's in the super's current contract that you have. our past the past one. I'm sorry. The past one we gave up to 20 weeks, but he got employment so we were able to stop it sooner for Dr. Bernier. Okay. I'm just I just mentioned it because then if there's already language that you all are comfortable with and that there's been a board policy, I can look to that language and and you know, not you know, try to reuse that language as we can because it's already been something that's established as a policy for the board. So, sorry, Miss Jordan. That's okay. I think that the what was written here was pulled out of Dr. B's contract. So that 20 20 weeks, I believe it's

121the same verbiage that was in his that's in this one right here. And I still I'm I'm so sorry that I just want to go back. So if we say 212, we're saying 212 and then a month from now, two months from now, then it's 212 plus another bump. That's where I'm thinking that's why I was saying is does that not take effect in the next year because this is what we're doing now. I'd have to ask Dr. Carlin as to when the other personnel would get their raises and I think she could clarify when that time frame would be. Yes. If it's like two at a right so typically if tradition follows and again you know I'm I'm nine months in now so right we'll obviously we'll take a look at this but if

122tradition follows typically we have settled our contracts first with our spal and our tal folks. once that has been established then the determination is what will the administrative salary be I've seen it play two ways. I've seen it retroactive and I've seen it go forward. So again we would need to look at the money make sure we've got the money in the bank right before we make that decision. So and I think that's why it's been attached to what we do with administrators is what we've done typically with our contractual folks. Mr. Fiser. Thank you. I any any financial term in this contract I would not support any retroactivity. I would also the other question on that the retroactivity and I forgot come back to me Mr. Persons. Yeah, I know. We have reclassified several

123administrators in the last few months with salary increases and I would assume that they would be getting the administrative increase and I think they deserve it, you know. So, I don't see any difference here. Mr. Fischer, sorry about that. Too many things on my mind. I was thinking about also member Chaviano had mentioned this but you know I don't know attorney quick when do we want this contract to take effect I don't know if attorney Bruno has talked about that when do we actually want to go ahead on that depending if we agree on this yeah and so I that I haven't gotten to that because we were you know I hadn't gotten to the to the effective date I mean honestly you could if you approved it today it could be effective today and

124everything moves forward. and I assume I would have to look to Kathy. I assume that's what she would be probably looking for that if you've got the agreement, let's let's start it today. I'm hearing from the the school board here that the majority do not want retroactive. So, in that case, I would not make an effective date past because then that would mean you'd be in effect creating retroactive salary increase without having that language in there. So, I would just recommend if if you're going to renegotiate and approve it, I just I'd recommend you guys have it be effective the day that the day that you approve it. Thank you. Okay. so was that all did we hit all of the seven major? I believe. Yeah. From from my perspective, I mean, if I can

125go through them all if you'd like again, or if you all are comfortable, I'm happy to do. I think we just need to circle back to the first part of the contract. I think you have your direction for the rest of the contract. Could you reread the red line to that first the one about the staff? Yeah, the red line. So, there were two parts. It was at the under employment relationship and title. There was a proposed language being stricken that says Dupri Bruno shall serve as the chief legal officer for the school district. And then there was another provision a little later in that paragraph that says the board shall provide dupe Bruno with adequate office space, assistant schoolboard attorneys, legal administrative and/or parallegal assistance, telephone service, email service, legal publications, and office supplies

126necessary for the maintenance of an attorney's office at the district administrative building presently located at 2855 Colonial Boulevard, Fort Meyers, Florida 33966. And I was saying then one one recommendation that I did have and I don't have the language for it but I can can craft some. And honestly if if we if we're in agreement on the other terms I'm I'm not sweating whether or not this would be a holdup but I do think it would probably behoove you all to include since you do now have the setup with where the Dr. Carlen has her own attorney that it would pro it would I would recommend and I think it would be prudent to include that distinction there so that it's in if you're including this language I think you should also include that in

127there and again I we can come up with some language I'm not if we reached agreement on the other terms I'm not sweating that language too much Mr. persons. Yeah, I'd like to see something there where it defines the clients of the attorney like the number one first attorney client is to the school board where their her client and the second one is the district is the client. Yeah, that's how I was something along those lines is I think is what you were alluding to. Exactly. That's what I was envisioning. Mr. Ribble. Yeah. Can we take a 10-minute break and perhaps Mr. a quick and talk to our attorney to see if we're close or I'd love that. It'd be nice. It' be nice to know where she's where she's at on this. Okay. I

128think that let me finish. Dr. Carlin, you wanted to Yes. I just wanted to respond to a comment that was just made. again, just for point of clarification with the chief staff attorney, it is an adviser to the superintendent and district staff on all legal matters. So they're not the chief legal counsel for the entire district. But I want to make it clear, it's not my own personal attorney. It's very important that is an adviser to the superintendent district staff. And then just a point of clarification, more of a legal question. Can an attorney serve more than one client? For example, serve the board and serve the district because I'm the CEO of the district. So I just want to make sure that we have clear lines of delineation in terms of who is the

129client. And the reason I bring that up is again, not because of this situation, take Denise and Cathy out of it. if there's an elected superintendent and there comes to a point where there is a disagreement, who is this attorney serving? Who is the client? I just want clarity on when there's a conflict, how that works, and do you represent both the district and the and the staff? Yes. And you as a client? Yes. So you if there's so as I understand it there in the scenario there's a potential disagreement between the elected superintendent and the board. So, the way I understand your current setup, I'll have to double check your policies, is that your schoolboard attorney would represent the board and I guess really the district, but then the attorney for the superintendent would

130be representing the superintendent's interests. It's it's a little fuzzy because obviously you oversee the district staff but the school board governs the district. So that's why it's a little fuzzy to say, but but the your board attorney generally, unless you have a different setup, would be representing the board and the entity, and then the I'm not sure what the term is, the chief chief staff attorney would be representing the superintendent in whatever the dispute is. And that's how I've seen it around the state as well. that's that's a fairly common setup when you have this type of u scenario. Okay. So my only request would just be in the in the language just so there's there's clarity because I know it is a fuzzy area just to make sure because I know there's a whole

131body of law about conflicts as it pertains to clients. So I just would like go on the record as making sure that we're real clear how that language would read because I don't you know again take Denise and Kathy out of it. This is for 10 years from now. I don't want there to be any ambiguous language and I know the attorney won't do that, but just to be very clear on who is the client. I think that's going to be essential. Mr. Fischer, thank you. I'm going to renew my objection for what goes into item number one. I would ask that the named position be board attorney and the rest be left up to our board policy. Thank you, Miss Shaviano. Just one more point of clarification on the red line on page two

132in the first paragraph it states to be Bruno's title shall be schoolboard attorney and general counsel for the school board and that's not a red line. So yeah I think I but I still think you need to I'm I'm trying to find exactly where you're reading that but I still think you need to clarify because that this was created before you had this current structure. So I want to make sure that whatever if it's included that your document reflects what your current structure is and that's way that way it's clear because this was this was this was after the last time you had a you know a staff attorney and but now you know you you were without it and now you have a chief staff attorney slightly different but but roughly similar setup. I

133want to make sure that your contract, if you're going to include it, it recognizes those those roles so that it's clear in there as to who serves what role and that and that's what my goal was in recommending that. Anything else, Miss Haviano? Okay. so I would like to recommend that we take a fivem minute recess to test the temperature of where the board attorney is at. then reconvene because I know we have some really other some some very important things on our workshop this afternoon that have not that we still have a ways to go and I know that the goal here is to have this contract at tonight's board meeting. So, we it's 2:49. We will let's come back at let's come back at 3:55. 255, excuse me. Thank you. Watch me. Good

134afternoon. Thank you. Good afternoon. The time is 3:03 p.m. Out of respect for time and efficiency, we're going to continue on with our meeting agenda. We are going to ask for Dr. Cupid McCoy our chief strategy officer to present to us with the district advisory committee topics. Thank you, Mr. Fischer. Madame Chair, real quick, can I ask a question through you to the superintendent? Yes. Yes. madam superintendent, could you your staff find out with the salary increase, what is it 17 or $18,000 up to new, what would be the total fiscal impact for the district? I just want to know what that would be if we're to vote on it tonight. As long as the board doesn't object to that question. Thank you. So I did ask the information from from our CFO and the

135total fiscal impact as I'm reading it to include salary amount the increase at the end purchase of vacation time retirement investment account. that total would be $233,94824. and then to counter or to include board attorney as senior management service class for the purpose of F FRS social security and health the same as other employees and health and life insurance that would be a total amount of $342,94 and can we figure out what then the difference would be between current and that? Yes, absolutely. We'll be able to look into that. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, go ahead. Dr. for Cuban McCoy. Welcome. Thank you, chair. Good afternoon, board and superintendent. this afternoon, I'd like to share with you the three proposed topics for DAC beginning this school year. the first meeting for DAC

136will be held in the month of September and our current structure is through a virtual platform. So, we use Microsoft Teams and our meetings typically run from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. The three topics for the first half of the year are parent engagement, which will be supported by the strategy division. We want to continue the work that we've started in working through some of the recommendations from the task force. Then in November, we will partner with the human resources department and focus on our retention efforts through project thrive. And when we return in January after the winter break, the third topic will be the code of conduct facilitated by academic services. this allows our community to be true thought partners with us around these three specific topics. As it relates to a first meeting in

137September on September 17th, that meeting is dedicated to presentation of sunshine and understanding what DAC is all about. It encompasses the nominations for chair and vice chair. And really at that meeting we also have to vote on the platform for the remainder of the year as well as the proposed dates that we have for the remainder of the year. Additionally at that first meeting we will select three members for the transportation committee a representative from elementary middle and high. Additionally, we will select two elementary representatives, two middle and two high school representatives for the site selection committee. Madame chair, superintendent, that is all that I have. Thank you, board. Any comments or questions? Miss Gioanelli. yes. Can you refresh my memory as well as for the public how many DAC members there are from each

138school how and how you know and then who selects them and that is that policy that's drives that or is it a law and that might there be a question also for the attorney? Each school has a primary DAC representative as well as an alternate at a DAC meeting. the representative is the voting member. The alternate only votes if that representative is absent. As it relates to who makes that determination, I need to confirm that and get back to you. Thank you, Miss Jordan. Dr. Cuba McCoy, can you please tell me for the site selection you just mentioned six individuals based on 9140 our policy is that what we're supposed to have? I thought there were that we should have other people from the community as well because I know that they we pulled them

139out of this is something that was part of EDAC that no longer exists. So that was part of that committee. So I just I thought that there were more people on there versus just the six individuals and that it stated something about the and I and I apologize. I should have looked it up before coming here. Those six individuals are the representative from DAC. Those six individuals do not constitute the entire site selection committee. So the six individuals are plus the others that we had originally selected from EDAC before it went away. What member Jordan I'd like to do some additional leg work and get back to you. That would be great. Thank you so much. I just want to make sure we have the amount that we need per our policy. Thank you for

140that. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Dr. Cupid McCoy? Okay. Excellent. Thank you. We are going to continue to move on. we have a safety update with Dave Nulan. He is chief safety, security, and fleet operations. Good afternoon board members. Dave Nulan for the record. Good afternoon our superintendent Denise Carlin and our board attorney for today Cory Huffman. this is our safety update. So basically well this is a return from probably back in May u I brought forward some data talking about the comparison or would there be a comparison we first brought forward openg gate in 2023 looking for the correlation would it affect activity at our schools for law enforcement mean you know number of arrest civil citations nose to appears when I came to in May I had half the data

141so I had a I compared half data of 2024 versus half the year of 23. Now I'm back to you now with a full year comparison for both years. So overall comparison for 2023 there was over 1,226 and that means a combination of again arrests civil citations knows to appear with a combined of 2024 of 934 incidents of those same three which is a 27% decrease in comparison to 2023 for Lee County Sheriff's Office just them specifically that agency there was again accommodation of arrests, civil citations, notice to appear and compared to 2024 at 491 which again is a 19% decrease in this current of this past year. And then for Fort Myers Police Department, as you look at the number comparison for a year-to-year comparison of 2023 at 156 to 143 in 2024, a

1429% decrease. And then for Cape Coral, you'll see a 474 as far as a total of three different types. Again, arrest, notice to appear, and civil citation to 2024 with a 45% decrease in overall activity from year-to-year comparison. This is another another way of looking at it from our chart basically in comparison each all three agencies with an overall of the 23 24 year. Again, just look at the data. Again, the curiosity of of does it have a correlation and maybe more than just openg gate, but again, as we move forward, these are things we will continue to look at as far as safety goes as we implement new measures, training, other things in our schools, how we'll affect overall, not just by facts, but also by how people feel as well, the feeling of

143feeling safety. And that's part of a Biva surveys as well. Another way to look at this too, you're looking at police activity for all three agencies and year-toear. You can see th those in red show that those numbers are always higher in 2023 except for there was one that was in Fort Myers Police Department. They had a little more civil citations in 24 compared to 23. But looking at the going down into the data that I have pulled for each agency, it was nothing. a lot of these were less serious offenses, could be more maybe tobacco violation, stuff like that. So, it wasn't anything serious. The one thing I will share with you, looking at the data, too, and it's not on here, but I did pull the notes just looking at looking at weapon

144charges, for example, in 2023 to 2024. I can tell you there was a 50% drop in decrease in 23 versus 24, which I thought was a pretty big difference. And weapon could be anything, not just firearm. It could, again, when I say weapon, it could be a lot of things. Could be a knife, box cutter, anything. Again, anything like that can be considered as a weapon. So, that was I thought was a big difference. And that was pretty much it. again, as I we move forward, we'll continue to bring things forward as well like this to compare not just this, but and continue to measure it as well. open gates move forward as well. Other events, after school events as well, but other things will be introduced into the schools to see how it will

145affect safety as a comparison. Thank you, Dr. Carlin. Do you have anything? Appreciate the presentation. Thank you, Mr. Nulan. As always, thank you. Board members, any comments or questions for Mr. Nulan this afternoon? Miss Jordan, I just want to say thank you as well. and they showed this on TV last on the news last night and they interviewed parents and you could see the positive out there. So, I just really want to thank you and appreciate everything that you do. Thank you, Miss Gioanelli. Oh, thank you. So, thank you for this. I think safety is so important, right? And so, but I when I go to schoolboard conferences, I it's hard for me to so many people haven't even gone to the open gate or they have nothing still like and I'm just shocked over

146that like in this day and age. I mean, safety is like number one for should be for any school board so or district, you know what I'm saying? So, I just think thank you for the numbers. It's it's that puts it all in perspective. Thank you. Yeah. And I will say we've had numerous districts come down here to really see how we've implemented open gate. especially in all of our schools in all of our any any entrance that a student or or public would come in. So just see how how that worked out. How do we implement that whole plan moving forward? Yeah, I agree. I think open gate has been a gamecher. if nothing else, it's a deterrent. It's not the perfect solution. nothing is solid, you know, foolproof, like 100% proof, but my

147just because I went to so many of our outside sporting events and you know, I'm always advocating for athletes. it's just something that I have continued to sort of witness is as the season goes on, we get a little looser in our maybe paying, you know, maybe paying attention, making sure every single person is going through the open gate, not going around it. What are we bringing into games, whether it be a football game, a baseball game, a soccer game? it's those outside facilities that I think worry me more than even the inside sometimes. and some of our you know some of our schools are subject they're they're in neighborhoods with with you know chainlink fences that are the only thing to protect them from you know a baseball game being played by a major

148traffic road. So, that's the only I'd love to see that the safety team sort of focus on that this year. but I don't know if you want to comment on our outdoor facilities. Well, we did have an actually discussion yesterday with our athletic director and with Ed Matthews as well talking about just going over the concept talking about you know what's in place now where after school events talking about what we can put in place for consistency strategy stuff like that. We are having conversations. We will be meeting with all of us coming up very soon talking about having more discussion getting something really on as a process and having that you know kind of answering questions about what to do. We talked to law enforcement as well getting them on on board too as

149far as how to react if something was to happen moving forward. And I'm sure that you all are talking with our communications and media team because I think a big frustration for like our gate our legit true gatekeepers is you know people don't realize that this is a protocol especially you know our incoming freshmen their families have no idea that this is something that we're doing at our football games or or whatnot. And I just think it's important that we continue to blast out like please expect please you know don't worry this is for your you know for your kids utmost safety. So as long as we keep that transparency and communication live I think that people will most most of the time be willing to work and do the right thing. Yeah. We'll continue

150to work on that this year. Thank you so much for everything you do. You're an asset. Thank you. We're going to move on to our Fort Myers Beach Elementary discussion this afternoon. Dr. Ken Savage, deputy superintendent, and Donald Nice, chief operations officer. Warren Wilson, director of risk management and intel and compliance. Cheryl Neely, our regional associate superintendent of the South region, will all be presenting to us this afternoon. Is your microphone on? as I was saying, I think Dr. Savage was going to lead in, but it looks like he stepped out. So, if you guys want to kick off, we can jump in. Harlland, do you want to kick off this discussion? Sorry to put you on the spot. No, no worries at all. No, absolutely. Our deputy superintendent is busily dealing with the issues

151of the day. So, you know, goes with being a very large school district. So, first of all, just thank you for the opportunity to have the conversation today. we brought to you a discussion at the June meeting relative to Fort Myers Beach Elementary School and as you know we had engaged the services of an outside third party to take a look at the current state of the building and we brought that report to you for your consideration. today our team is going to provide for you momentarily. I know we're trying to intercept the screen here. but we're going to bring to you just some updates on where we're at. there was some information that we believed coming out of the last conversation you may have had some questions about relative to insurance dollars, reimbursement, that

152type of thing. so we do want to bring that forward. We've also continued to have conversation relative to some possible options and ideas that we are entertaining. and as a reminder, you know, we continue to have these conversations. our number one job is yes, we absolutely love our students at Fort Myers Beach Elementary, and I think I speak on behalf of our entire governance team. the opportunity also exists for us to be good fiscal stewards of the taxpayer dollars, and so that's always top of mind as well. So, with that in mind, it looks like Dr. Savage has arrived. how was that for some tap dancing until he till he arrives? So, we'll turn it over to Dr. Savage and our fantastic team. Thank you. Good afternoon, Dr. Carl and good afternoon board members. Attorney

153Huffman, I really appreciate the opportunity to continue the conversation of Fort Myers Beach Elementary. We'll go ahead and move to the next slide. So, today we're going to talk through five updates before we have the board conversation and it starts with just kind of the asset maintenance piece. Just want to give you an update on what has transpired there and a brief overview of that as well as over the summer. We want to talk a little bit more in detail about the partnership with Heights Elementary School. As you board members are aware, we've moved from the San Carlos site over to the Heights site. So, we're going to talk a little bit that what that work has looked like and what the upcoming school year will look like for those those faculties and for those

154families and for those students. then we're going to kind of give an update of the state operations perspective of where we're at now in terms of our state operational aspect. We're going to give an insurance claims update just based on our current standing with various different storms that we've had and kind of the claims in that standpoint. And then last but not least, we'll touch on some of the more innovative options and partnerships that we've been looking into and kind of the why behind that as well. That said, we'll go ahead and move first to the asset maintenance perspective. All right, so this slide gives you an easyto read visual on how much we've spent on this location since October 2024. As you can see, we've spent just under 975,000 over the last 11 months.

155From those funds, approximately 700,000 has gone to facility assessments, remediations, as well as moving in storage. Outside of the rough order of magnitude, there are very few reoccurring expenses. We have purchased five de dehumidifiers for $8,700. We spent 10k for floor reinforcement and vapor barriers. And outside of that, we perform HVAC preventative maintenance in May 2025. And currently, we're conducting weekly checks to monitor for just general condition and humidity levels. All right. Thank you. As you just heard, Fort Myers Beach Elementary and Heights Elementary have partnered this year. This partnership is here to help reduce the burden on Fort Myers Beach families. regarding specifically distance to the school and travel time. Heights Elementary is located just 18 minutes from Fort Myers Beach, making it more accessible for families. As we move into talking about enrollment,

156as of Thursday, July 31st, Fort Myers Beach Elementary had an enrollment of 39 students across grades kindergarten through fifth grade. Currently, four grade levels have four fewer students fewer than 10 students. while first grade has 10 students and fourth grade has 11. Principles Baxa and PLO of Fort Myers Beach Elementary and Heights Elementary are working together to share resources this upcoming year. This will create a positive and supportive experience for students of Fort Myers Beach Elementary. They will explore the possibilities. When I say they, the principles will explore possibilities of sharing staff and pro to provide a more traditional option for any students or grade levels that have low enrollment. if that opportunity to share staff happens to arise, the principles will work together to communicate with their staffs respectively and their families to ensure

157that there's a transparent decision-making in those particular areas. Moving forward, all communication regarding the Fort Myers Beach campus itself will go through the updates from Principal Baxa. there will be a specific section that's going to be dedicated to outline any ongoing work that might be taking place throughout the course of this year. Thank you. Moving into the state operations side. we as you are aware at the prior meeting we went over a report that we had engaged a thirdparty consultant to do a complete analysis and start to produce kind of some understanding of where do you go from here considering lots of different vantage points considering enrollment considering the storm recurrence the damage that's been observed just all those different feasibility aspects to really kind of put it all together and put into more of

158the some traditional options to get us going. One of the things that we consider as we go through it is not a very easy thing to do. obviously after Hurricane Ian, which just want to make sure we kind of surface for the entire governance team because obviously we've had some turnover on that team since that time. Ian was an absolutely catastrophic storm that had just in prior had we had not observed that level of destruction on the island to the magnitude that it was and so it completely destroyed really those buildings and just completely had a was a game changer in terms of that site. I think the understanding at that time was this is really a once in a 50 to 100year type of event and because of that, you know, we'll go ahead

159and build back the building. And so they put in roughly $6 million to get the historic building up and running as it was. I don't believe that they anticipated that on the two subsequent storms that building would be affected by those subsequent storms as well. had they anticipated that I think they may have chosen a different option or considered other options. So really from this you know one of our big aspects here is we want to model fiscal responsibility. We really want to be wise with taxpayer dollars and so we have to kind of consider the evidence that we've seen over these last few years that those storm events we have to be very careful in what we do on that site and be very strategic so that we don't continuously find ourselves every storm

160season with damage. And so that's a big aspect of why we engage the third party consultant to give us an understanding of what what are some good options that could help harden that site from future damage so we're not continuing to spend. As you've seen already, the amount of maintenance dollars we put in just to keep the asset where it is still substantial and that's excluding all the new construction options and so forth. So if we want to have all the different options available to us, one of the things that is required at the state level is an advanced plan survey. what essentially this relies upon for the district is that the state has a set of criteria that they utilize for all of the school districts and this is a an attempt for the

161state to kind of control for some of that stewardship. So essentially what they do is they have a state defined criteria in this report that we submit and it utilizes the exact information that they require for their analysis and essentially what it does is it compares the costs of remodeling and modernizing a building to the cost of replacing it with new construction. So if we want to evaluate options such as building a completely new school maybe at a much higher elevation or any of those other aspects, we require a state report to do that. and it's detailed, it's comprehensive, and again, it's standardized across the entire state. Everyone must do that. And we've also had to do that numerous times whenever we have facilities where we consider these new options that are brand new construction.

162because in some cases, depending on the findings of that report, the state can either say no, you have to continue to work within just that existing building footprint, or yes, it makes good sense to completely go in a different direction. so we have engaged that same third party consultant that did all the extra work. we're going to allow them to continue to to utilize the state criteria because you have to it has to conform to the state expectations and when they are completed with that report we submit it to the state via our planning office. and then they give us a review to determine what options we really have available to us based on that review. So we'll have a chance for questions and comment after we get to the next areas. Ladies and gentlemen,

163my name is Warren Wilson, risk manager. the next slide is on the insurance claims update. most of you are familiar with the dashboard. It's a much more detailed document. I can send that to you. I thought this would be much more useful to you, especially as talking points if you're working with your constituents. the recovery is going forward. We've recovered 70.5 million for our win policy. We're only $4.5 million remaining on the outstanding insurance claim. We received the 5.75 million for flood, the $55 million lap from the state, 12.38 from FEMA. I'll stop here for a moment. If anyone asks you how much money we received from FEMA, it's $ 122.38 million. That's it. going forward, 17.5 million from the state for infrastructure and 1.2 2 million from the county to reimburse us for the

164shelters that the total is $162,38. the rough order of magnitude from the storm is north of $250 million. So you can do the simple math of looking at that $162 million figure and see what the shortfall is. Currently we're in a dispute with FEMA under our applications for recovery. they're disputing some $30,000 in deductibles. They don't recognize our deductibles. $20 million difference on the Hector Cafaretta permanent structure, 7.5 million for the Hector Cafaretta temporary structure, and another five million not acknowledging that converging composite roofs to metal roofs is actually something called mitigation. So you can see we have a discrepancy with FEMA of some $62 million. Let's focus on Fort Myers Beach Elementary School because I know folks are focusing on this particular campus. The damage to the entire campus from Ian was some $20

165million. The grand total of insurance we received from the wind and flood policies is $6 million. You can see the difference there. The cost to rebuild the historic building alone after Ian was $6 million. Please be mindful that the rebuild cost was not tied to the amount of insurance that we received. Just a coincidence. The maximum flood insurance policy limit is available from FEMA is $500,000. That is the most amount of flood insurance that you can get for any single building. We received $414,000 under that policy for Hurricane Milton flood damage. The reason why there's a small difference between the limit is because it's paid at actual cash value, not replacement cost. There are exclusions and it's only tied to repairs. That's why when you see that dollar amount that the CEO presented earlier, the

166$974,600 600,000 figure, if we subtract the insurance that we had from that, the $414,000, we're still $560,000 upside down with just maintaining this particular property. we also even had damage from Hurricane Helen, not covered by insurance, paid for by district proceeds, $ 32,775. I want the district folks to be mindful that this $162 million that we received, while it sounds like a tremendous amount of money, that's from all sources from every campus, all our 94 schools, our 172 buildings to support 88,000 students. That's to give us some perspective about how large the loss was. And even though we are working diligently to try and recover as much as we can, there are no guarantees that we will receive any additional funding from FEMA and we will be moving forward with the forgiveness program for the

167lap funding because that lap funding money from the state from Cong from our state legislature is in the form of a loan. So, we have to we will proceed going forward with moving towards the forgiveness of that $55 million. All right. And last but not least, basically we wanted to kind of highlight some of the other aspects that have been continuing. So, first off, we've just had excellent engagement with our municipal partner. in this case, it's it's town of Fort Myers Beach. I'm just really thrilled. we actually have the mayor has is present even today has engaged with you all as other electeds, but we've even had a lot of engagement with the staff as well, the town manager as well as the deputy town manager. I think it's really important that we keep a

168line of dialogue going just because we understand as the as the town is in its recovery that this is obviously a really high priority for them and so we want to keep that open line of dialogue. as well as something that has now come to the you know conversation really more or less is this dialogue around a potential charter model. the charter model just want to kind of highlight what some of the benefits are for why this wasn't really something we contemplated in our initial report but it's something that we're bringing up here. and we've continued to explore and there's a few reasons why there are some advantages of the charter. First, there are charter statues operationally that allow for hybrid type of programming which is really just a unique way for charter schools. One

169of the challenges you have with a small school on a barrier island with a small enrollment is you want to provide a full complement of services, but you recognize that sometimes the amount of students you have have a hard time offsetting that cost. It's been a long-standing challenge with it. that's not unique. There are lots of small schools all around the state. And one of the unique ways that charters can step in and produce that aspect is they can leverage resources within their network. And so you'll have schools that'll have a teacher of record at a school located far far away that are able to kind of provide some of those pieces at a more cost-effective solution so that students and families get a lot of really unique offerings, but the actual staff footprint at

170the building maybe isn't quite as substantial as you would look just paying for the headcount. Additionally, from a capital perspective, the charter provides a whole new additional amount of money that potentially can qualify for for these types of projects. So, when new charters come up and even charters that are not new but have the ability to tap into PICO dollars. So, that's public education capital outlay. Our state set aides a substantial amount of money every year to really support charter schools in this specific way. And charter schools have to qualify for it. So there's several criteria they have to apply for that in addition to other types of grants and so forth they can achieve that can help add a significant additional amount of money into that on an annual basis. that's just something that

171a lot of our schools take advantage of. We have them here in Lee County as well that get that tap into those PICO dollars. That's money that we as a as a traditional school district can't tap into, but charter allows for that. And so the reason why we mentioned the insurance aspect is that what you've heard already is all in all likelihood any amount of money we put into the school, it's going to have to be at the expense of other projects that we have budgeted, other projects that we'll have to delay. And those are any of those capital dollars we have such as technology for schools. That would require maybe saying we're not going to pay for certain technology so that we can do more there. It could be new schools that we have

172planned to build that we're going to delay in the capital plan or eliminate altogether so that we can prioritize whatever project we do there. It can be maintenance, replacements of roofs, air conditioning, other unexpected storm damage that we may see in future storms. All those things are competing for the same capital dollars. And so anytime you can introduce new revenue to the equation, that gives you potential to help do a more meaningful build or renovation or any of the work that we can do there. So all those things are just some of the many benefits that a charter model provides. because there's still public schools and there's still public school students in our district. that's a part of it. So just wanted to highlight that. Another piece that we haven't talked about but is also

173something worth thinking about that we are digging into as well is some potential benefits of either a P3 or just engaging third parties. And up until this point, we've predominantly looked at it as a municipal arrangement where it's the town of Fort Myers Beach and then there's an organized group in ad hoc, which was really designed to try to help bring some of those different stakeholder perspectives forward as well as just the town of Fort Myers Beach as well because they get to hear from many different constituents in their area. But that we're the only other party in in that engagement. And as you can see, you know, we're strapped from a capital standpoint across the entire district. We have to make every penny count for all the students including Fort Myers Beach, including Lehi,

174including Cape Coral, Dstero, downtown Fort Myers, and so forth. So those are very competitive dollars. So for us sometimes if you can get a third party a different partner to the table that can provide some value that can provide solutions that help us so that we're not maybe having to solely come up some P3s around our state have we found unique things where they either help with financing when school districts they simply don't have the finances to do it or the speed at which they because again one of our challenges if we were to build a traditional school we are held fully to SREF standards whereas if you have a charter model that is not that does not apply. if a charter builds they are able to build at a different level of building standard

175than what we would have to do under SREF. Now if we were to build it as a district piece that again SRF applies to that with a P3 potentially have other options there. You have other more unique building alternatives that you could do in that case. so that kind of led leads us to the last option which is really this benefits of thirdparty engagement. general really for us when you're asked to pick between a rock and a hard place sometimes the best thing to do is are you really exploring all the alternatives I think that's one of the things Dr. Carl and this board have challenged us to do is okay, we understand some of the non some of the more traditional options, you know, the rebuilding of the historic building, the filling in the

176floor, you know, and those potentially help you for some of the more minor storms, but we know that they don't really help you on a major storm. And so when you know you have when we can't raise the entire building, which is something we certainly looked at, could we just bring the entire building up? It was very clear from our consultant that is not a possibility that could cause the building to collapse on itself. So now you're looking at other potentially much more expensive options and that's a lot of additional capital dollars which would require some substantial investment and dep prioritization of other plans. So why would we not at least consider are there other unique options that would make it you know so everyone wins so the town of Fort Myers Beach is excited

177that those families are excited that we as a community you know are being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars. Is there a way for everyone to win? And in order to do that, we wanted to make sure we're really talking to all the different right people who may be able to help provide insights and ideas and opportunities for us to bring back to you as a board. that's something that we owe you and that's something that we have continued to do. That's all the more reason why we've kind of laid out the timetable so far today, which is we know we continue to maintain the site. We are engaging now to get this report done that we can submit to the state. That gives us the full different range of options for any unique options

178that we may want to consider on that site. and we continue to listen to any offers and ideas of of different folks that we have and we are engaging with one group right now. We're really digging in to try to look if there's a very creative solution. we're very excited by some of the preliminary work we've we've engaged with with that party. but at this point, you know, we're not ready to kind of talk more specifics on that except excepted to say it's a very exciting prospect. something we'd be very excited to bring about in a future meeting. but right now we want to focus on today, which is getting the school open, getting those students back in school at Heights Elementary. getting an update to you, and then standing ready for any questions and

179comments you may have as a board. At this time, I'm going to pass it back to the superintendent if she has any other comments before we turn it back to the vice chair. Thank you very much, Dr. Savage and team. We appreciate the update. And, you know, as I said before, it was very important, to us as a team that you had an opportunity to hear, out loud. Sometimes we talk, you know, with our staff behind closed doors. So, we want to make sure that we surface not only for you, but for the community, the ongoing conversations we're having and remember, we're always balancing the care and concern that we have with all of our students. you know, obviously we've talked about our Fort Myers Beach students joining in with Heights Elementary and it's a

180wonderful school and I know, the two principles have been collaborating, so it's been really exciting to see their work and I know that, Miss, Neely has been working, closely with them. so we know that our children are well cared for and they continue to receive their education. So that's that's primary. And then also, like I said, being good fiscal stewards of the taxpayer dollars. We know that we're all entrusted with those valuable dollars and just really trying to work through some innovative options so that everybody has some skin in the game and that we've we've got some opportunities to to think differently on this solution. So we look forward to any questions that you have. and certainly we'll we'll go back and reference in the slide if there's specific questions you'd like to ask. So,

181I'll turn it over to you for your conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Carlin. Any questions, comments, Mr. Persons? You know, I'm very pro getting a school back out there. I've never made that a secret. Can't believe it. I just want to commend you on where you're going here. I think it's best idea is to get some kind of a charter in there. I know there's a lot of private well they're not really private they're public charters that are K12s and to me it looks like that could be a possibility also and in the future there because you've got the Bay Oaks there and everything else. so I just don't want that not to be anywhere not to be mentioned when you're in negotiations people. I mean, I would say start off with a K5

182and make it where next year K6, seven, whatever, and grow into it. But if I was going to do a charter there, which I'm not. But anyway, that's just I just wanted to throw that out there. I think it's a great opportunity for the island. Thank you, Mr. Ribble. Did you have Yeah, I just wanted to comment. There's been a lot of passion over this as as you can imagine. I think everyone's kind of settled down now, really focused on how we're going to operate on the beach moving forward. I think we're we're all pretty much agreement we're going to put a structure up there, what that's going to look like. We have a we have quite a few folks that have come up with some drawings and shared them with the community and the

183newspaper and there's a lot of conversation about what the design of the school should be and how it's going to operate. So, I'm looking forward to to being able to disclose some of the things that we have been talking about with some folks that's confidential and people say, "Well, geez, you know, why can't you disclose it?" It's like a negotiations. It's like anything else. When you're negotiating, you have to be patient and you have to trust that we're going to do the right thing. But we're going to have a structure out on that beach. Guarantee me that. And it's going to be a school. and at at the end of the day, everyone's pretty pretty darn happy with with what's going to be happening out there. So, I just wanted to make those comments. Thank

184you, Mr. Fischer. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just wanted to to clarify again with Superintendent Carlin and Dr. Savage. So, just to just to confirm the public, we're still providing educational services to the kids of Fort Myers Beach. Yes, sir. That will take place at Heights Elementary, one of our A schools out there. So, we're excited about that. Okay. for me personally, I know Mr. Ribble had talked about putting a structure out there for me. If we want a structure out there, I don't know if I'm on board with Lee County School District putting a structure out there. If if there wants to be a charter, that's kind of where I'm I'm looking at the moment or some innovative opportunity. I'm I'm telling you that I'm not fully in agreement with putting a Lee

185County School District specific structure out there. I'm curious to see, you know, perhaps a charter out or some other ones and happy to work through that. I personally would not support any putting any more dollars into the current structure at the moment, at least me individually. So, thank you, Miss Shaviato. Thank you and thank you for the information and I know I've met with the Fort Myers Beach mayor. I've sat on the ad hoc conversations in the past. So, I'm happy to see that there's conversations outside of the box to come with a resolution, you know, for these students. I fully support charter. I came out of a charter from where I taught and where I started. so, there is value there for these kids. So, just looking forward to this moving in the right

186direction and getting some answers for our families out there as well. So, thank you, Miss Ganelli. Thank you. So, this is exciting news because I know that the community at Fort Myers Beach wants a school. So my mind was going all different ways like so with obviously you brought up the SRF piece cuz so if we did a public school it would have to go follow SRF which I mean the cost of that is I don't even want to think about that. But I think with charter the ability to create the facility that would best suit the community and I was starting to think like what about it you know being a possible shelter and if it's raised up it's you know a shelter that's going to be hurricane resistant as well as possibly even

187maybe up their their emergency center. So, a combination of things. And one of my notes was and I was going to say this earlier, but when when it was talking about the when we talked about some building, it's everything needs to be metal roofs from in if I mean because I don't think the hurricanes are going away, unfortunately. So, anything that Lee County School District builds, I would recommend metal roofs. but anyways, there's I think there's endless opportunity here for a partnership and with the community and I look forward to future conversations for that for the best interest of Fort Myers Beach. Thank you, Miss Jordan. I'm just always amazed that we bring back charter after three years. I mean, it just keeps coming back. So, thank you. I met with the mayor as well

188and it was a very great conversation. But we're we're here again with the charter. So I just want to make sure that we just it's another one we just keep going, you know, forward and forward and forward with this. And if there are and I'm just curious if we could have this because it's the first time I've seen this presentation. I appreciate the presentation. It's great, but I've not seen this. So if you could share that, that would be wonderful. So that way because I have to digest. It's hard for me to look at this and figure it all out at this moment. And then also with the pictures, if there's pictures of any proposed buildings or anything like that, I would also like to see that and I'm sure other board members would like

189to see that if they're out there that we have not seen. Mr. persons. Also, is the superintendent of the staff research and find out how much we're currently getting in schoolboard taxes from the beach and what's anticipated with the new developments and things like that. I know I it's not easy to do, but I know we have a plane department's pretty sharp, so I think they could probably figure that out. these new resorts and things because they'll go on the tax roles and I'd like to know what are they actually giving us and for us to give back and happy to do that. I think it'd be nice to put into the conversation. Absolutely. Happy to do that and we'll also provide some context around that about you know the how we share you know

190that it's you know that's how the Florida formula works. Yes. Thank you. Dr. Savage do you want to add in? It was just in response to member Jordan's question about the plans. So there was a comment I think Mr. Ribble may have talked about, you know, plans and so forth. One of the things that we don't have any actual plans of you know here's the PL project of what we're trying to execute that's the reference I believe was we received a I think a pro bono type of drawing that was done by an architect or some some level of architectural work that was done through Fort Meyers and that was shared with us. So, I'm I can't quite recall exactly how we received it, but it just shows I think the goodwill that I think

191a lot of folks are really excited about different ideas and they're willing to try to chip in and help in a lot of ways, but that is a it wasn't a specific plan that we have already developed. The work that we're doing with the different folks trying to come up with different alternatives. We're not at a point yet where we have a blueprint or anything along those lines. It's just that's the reference point. there was something that was circulating in the town of Fort Myers Beach related to but I'll let me Ribble clarify if he wants on that. Yeah, this has nothing to do with with what I was talking about, but there was a like I said there was a there's a lot of passion and there's a lot of suggestions and there was

192a party by the name of Michael D. Stewart PE LLC that designs buildings and does projects on the beach and he put the pen to the pencil and to the paper and this is on the internet. This isn't a secret. It's It's out there. I'm surprised you folks haven't seen it yet, but it's been all over Facebook 100 times and there's a lot of chatter about it. this a particular design would not be compliant with an elementary school because of the number of steps it has in the front. And I know he put a elevator in the in the middle if you look at the drawing, but the elevator is not going to be conducive for what we want to do. So but anyway, it was a thought. It's raised at the right at the

193right level, I believe. our mayor's seen this drawing. We've talked about it and when I had lunch with him a couple of weeks ago. So, a lot of chatter, a lot of conversation. You I can give this to we can send this thing out. Dr. Carlin. Yes. And I do want to give credit where credit is due. The mayor did share that information with us. and you know, we're very purposeful and when we provide information for you. there is a there are a lot of suggestions that come forward. we try not to share every single thing that we receive relative to this with you. What we try to do is we try to vet the ideas and see what seems to work, what doesn't. U Mr. Ribble, you pointed out a number of of of

194situations there where, you know, there there were concerns if this was to be a true public school as opposed to a charter or some other partnership. So you know, I want to be very clear. We're never trying to hide things from you. We do try to properly vet them to make sure that they are ready for prime time. And so those are opportunities we do share within our staff for consideration, for evaluation to make sure that they would indeed be compliant. So we do receive a lot of information and we do want to give that out to you when it is a viable option. So just to be clear and to give credit where credit is due. Thank you, Miss Jordan. Thank you, Dr. Carlin. I think that was for me. I'm I'm not sure

195if, if I'm understanding this, some members received this and some members did not receive it is what I'm understanding because it wasn't vet it and that's why it wasn't sent out. Let me clarify. Our staff received it. Our staff received it. I received it from the mayor and then I shared it with our staff because our staff will vet it. But I did not forward it to any any additional board member. Okay. I just for a point of clarification. That's why I just want to Yeah. For point of clarification, yes, as we receive things that are appropriate to share. there are a number of things we receive. We will properly vet them through our operations team. We want to look through them, make sure that they are part of the conversation and then when we

196come to you there, they are ideas that have been properly vetted and we will make sure all of you are availed to that information. But yes, thank you. Okay. I'm very hopeful to the future of what's going to happen at Fort Myers Beach, with the families and the students and the, the families and the and the children that will continue to be a part of that island. But I'm going to pivot a little bit because I think we really need to focus on those students right now. I can't add to the construction part right now that hasn't already been said, but I'm really excited for the students that are going be going that are attending Heights. They've had enough taken away from them as is. and I'm just I'm very hopeful that they're going to

197have a more traditional setting that this is going to come out on top when we talk about student achievement. you know, these ch these poor children have been moved from a beach to a homeschool environment back to a San Carlos and which is very far from the beach and then to Heights. So, I'm I know I'm very confident the two administrators that are going to be working together to make sure that those children have an amazing year and I commend the staff that is going to be working behind the scenes to help those. So, thank you, Miss Neely. I know you're a big part of that. obviously Heights is a little bit near and dear to my heart being a former employee there and it's a great school and I'm very confident that those children

198are going to have a great year. So, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Thank you. Have a great afternoon. We're going to pivot back to I believe we are ready. Okay. so before we had a recess we were in discussions with the schoolboard attorney and general counsel contract. I believe conversations were had so we are going to invite Mr. Quick back to the deis with us to have these to conclude this conversation. Dr. Carlin. Yes. Before we continue I do want to reference there was a question asked of of my staff and myself prior to the the recess. there were questions relative to the difference in the salaries in the salary. So the proposed salary would be 212,000. the current salary is 194670. The difference would be 26,669 including salary, retirement and social

199security. then on top of that, if there was a severance package of 20 weeks, that would be the additional 118,000 for a total fiscal impact of 144,669. So I just want to make sure we got back with the board regarding that information. Thank you. I have also emailed it to you. Thank you. Hi. so I was able to speak with with Kathy for for a while while you were you all were talking. I also was able to speak with Dr. Savage just to try to bounce some ideas since actually Dr. Carlin was busy in here to try to bounce some ideas about the language on the legal structure just to make sure I had an understanding from the superintendent's perspective as well. So there are a couple of outstanding issues that still remain. The biggest

200is with regard to the 20 weeks severance. Kathy indicated that if if she is giving up the supermajority u that she would insist on having the 20 the a flat 20we severance in there. So just 20 weeks not not the language about potentially reducing it if there's a if she obtains due to gainful employment. So it would just say the demand is just 20 week severance. if she's if she's terminated without cause the other there's a couple other issues in terms of with regard to the outside professional activities. She asked if the teaching could be would be could be added back in. She would like to have that in there. Again she stressed with me that's on her off time. It's not during her district time. it's so it would be weekends or or vacation

201time or something like that. she had asked to add that back in. there was also a request in terms of the end date. So the end date of this she indicated that would be it would be June 30th, 2027. I think that as I understand it that aligns up with some other end dates of yours. So it's actually would be actually 20 23 months I guess if we if we made the effective date now. Yeah 20 so a little less than 2 years. so the effective date she said to line it up with with everything else would be June 30 or not the effective date the end date would it would run till June 30th 2027. She asked that if the board to include to include language in the contract that if the board as

202to whether or not the board intends to either try to renegotiate to keep her on basically whether the board intends to try to keep her on beyond the contract or intends to move forward. it was a request from her that way if the board intends to move on she can start looking for for new employment. my recommendation to the board is if if you're open to that to to make it mutual. That way if she intends not to continue on that you all know so you can also start your process too. I think that's a that's a fair thing if you're going to have it that it be be mutual so that both sides have the ability to to move forward if they'd like to. I did draft some language in terms of the the

203potential structure that we're talking about with regard to the chief staff recognizing the chief staff attorney. again, it's I can read it. I just so you have it. The what I had drafted and it's a kind of rough draft is Mr. Puno will serve as the attorney for number one the board and number two the district. and then I pulled from the policy. It says the schoolboard attorney shall also serve as the general counsel for the district. Then it will continue on something along the lines that the board has approved the superintendent to retain a chief staff attorney who will be available to advise the superintendent on matters related to the superintendent's official responsibilities. trying to to see if I can carve that out. I think I think that should hopefully be agreeable. Kathy was

204agreeable to that language. so, you know, hopefully that's something agreeable. I think that because you don't have a policy on the chief staff attorney, so I was I didn't have language I could lift from that. So I but I think that properly categorizes it at least as I understand it from the discussions with all of you as well as the discussions with with staff. so the big issue I guess for you all is are you willing to either keep the supermajority and then go with the up to 20 week severance language or are you willing to give her the just flat 20 weeks but but keep reducing it down to the majority? I think that's that is seems to be the biggest tipping point I think. Thank you, Mr. Persons. I just had a couple

205questions I think the public might want to know. If the contract is not renewed, then there would not be any severance. Am I correct? That's correct. It's a non-renewal. You know, you're not terminating for without cause. It's just the contract's running its course. And in your experience, when someone it doesn't renew a cut, do they normally have another job? I mean, when someone is let go for no cause, I usually don't have another job lined up. So, it would take a while to get that. I'm just they could possibly I mean I obviously anything's possibly could have a job the next day but most likely it's going to be a few months and this is like basically a five month severance. So I don't know up up to I don't know what the difference would

206be. There's no way to know for sure but in my opinion it's not going to be that much. It probably be like it was in Ber's case. Was it four weeks you know by the time he had it interviewed and got another position. So, it didn't really save us a whole lot of money. So, I could I'm fine with the super majority and 20 weeks or or sort of fine with 20 up to 20 weeks or I'm fine with a set 20 weeks and the regular majority. I I can go either way whether the board wants to do the majority. So cuz I don't see a whole lot of difference there. Mr. Fiser, thank you. for me on the super majority and the total pay of 20 weeks, I would be a hard no on

207both board. Any other comments? Well, super. I agree with Armor. I'm I'd go along with it with same as Armor, Miss Jordan, I would as well go with the Mr. Person's supermajority and up to 20. Yeah, I said I could go along with either, but I prefer the super majority and up to 20. Okay. So keep the super majority but then have the language be what was proposed which is the up to 20. Yes, Miss Gio and Ellie. So this is so I thought we and just help me remember. I thought we got away with the supermajority on our voting. Am I wrong? Super majority like on policy policy right within the 20 weeks was a debate. But I just I just I'm thinking about that. I just need help on that piece. Mr. Quick,

208did you want to comment on that? No, I thought she was asking me, but I realized she was talking about a broader policy. Mr. Fiser, chair, through you, if you don't mind, if I can clarify that we originally had policy in order to amend or remove policy required a supermajority. Now it's a simple majority. That's separate to that, Miss Jordan. And that was done because of a way a vote went and then we decided to do that. So that's what happened with that. That's when that came out to be because we always did have a super majority and then we came up with that policy. Mr. Fischer, just to clarify, the purpose of changing that was to line with other legislative bodies including the state of Florida. So this would be the only thing that

209we would have to have a super majority on it would be to terminate the superintendent then I mean the super the board attorney am I then am I correct then is what that's what we're agreeing to that's yeah so I'm not aware that of whether you're you have any other agreements that require a supermajority if you do not then yes this would be and again she's she's saying she's go she's okay with the majority but then she wants the flat 20 weeks. so she it's there's there's I guess if we're going to have an agreement with M a new agreement with Mr. Dwee Brono, then those are the those are kind of the two options that she's presented. Super majority and then she's okay with up to 20 weeks or regular majority but then the

210flat 20 weeks. So that if we're in the buffet line, those are our two options. Or the other option is continue under the agreement that we have. Okay. So, I don't like going against a policy that we put in place regarding the supermajority. So, in order to put this to bed, I would rather forego the supermajority and give her her 20 weeks, I guess, is my option if I'm going to do the buffet line. So, you're hungry like me. So, I am not willing to give up the super majority. I would prefer it to be majority vote. but perhaps we could negotiate the 20 weeks to 16 and I rather rather 5 months than four months. I mean I and I don't know how much money that's going to save the district. I mean if

211if it's a hard you know not up to but once a definitive amount of time. I've just The reason I say that is I've I have I've seen this happen before in the corporate world where quite frankly somebody gets 20 weeks and they wait till the I mean I understand this is a flat 20. She could have a job and I'm this is not anything against our attorney. This is any anybody that works in this realm. they could have a job lined up knowing that something was coming down the pipe and leaves the district Friday and starts working on Monday and now they've now they've taking 20 weeks of pay and getting paid at their new job at the same time. So I mean unless I'm under misunderstanding but that's what we would be that's

212what we would be giving Mr. Persons. She doesn't leave her job on a Friday. We say get out of here for no reason. That's that's a big difference to me. I mean, I just want to make sure it's not like, yeah, I'm just going to resign on Friday and go take my 20 weeks. I mean, we're it's if she's released for no cause, you know, if there's a cause, then, you know, we they're set 20 weeks and we can come up with four votes resignation is and then she's gone and she gets 20 weeks. or if there's I mean if there's if there is a cause all we need is four votes and I would if I had to pick I'm I would rather get rid of the supermajority if I have to choose between

213the two. Miss Jordan, it's termination and it's up it's 20 weeks. It's not that you get 20 weeks to go take a vacation. It's you have 20 weeks to figure out what you're doing because just like that's not negotiating. Well, the proposal if it goes to down to a majority, she's saying she wants a straight 20 weeks. If you keep the supermajority, then she's willing to agree to the up to 20 weeks where if she gets a job after a month, then she wouldn't get any more payment after that. What? I'm sorry. I'm here bills. I need I need to let her finish. Can you just Yeah, just please clear make me understand this. So if I am terminated today. Okay, get out. So if I find a job tomorrow, I still getting 20 weeks

214severance. It does not stop depending on the language of the agreement. Yes. The So there's two ways to write it. One is if you're terminated without cause, you get 20 week severance. That means the district writes writes a check for 20 weeks, you get it. Okay. The other way is to write it. You get 20 weeks and but then with a if she has obtained gainful employment then it's reduced by the amount of time that she was employed. That's that's the buffet I want right there. Okay. Mr. Revel. Yeah. I think I think we're missing a point here. The key word in this agreement is termination. It's not resignation. We're saying if we terminate her, we tell her don't commit anymore. we decided to go another direction. That's terminating her. If she resigns, that's a

215whole different deal. Then she doesn't get 20 weeks. Correct. There's if she's terminated with cause, if she resigns, or if the contract runs its course and is not renewed, there's no severance. The severance comes into play only if she's terminated without cause. Mr. Fisher. my objection to that with paying out, you know, the 20 weeks. I've I've talked about the super majority before for me is just looking at it is my individual governmental philosophy where we're different than a private business. We serve at the pleasure of the public. the employees serve at the pleasure of the superintendent and the board attorney and the board auditors serve at the pleasure of us and that's how I look at from governmental philosophy. So I mean it's we can't compare private business with that. Again, that has nothing

216to do with the performance of our board attorney. have said that, you know, that's how I look as a philosophy. So, the thing with the supermajority is the same thing. It would be the only employee in this district that to get rid of would have a supermajority. In the past, we had an obvious superintendent. I mean, there's nothing saying we couldn't negotiate up to 20 weeks as we did before. I know she doesn't want that. I'm just saying from a philosophical standpoint. So, as as I understand it now, I've I've heard from six of you. three have said that you would want to keep the supermajority and go with the up to 20 weeks language. Miss Juvenelli, you said that you wanted to the you were good with the majority and then going with the

21720 weeks. Miss Langford, Fleming, you said the majority. and then I wasn't clear if you were okay with the 20 weeks, but you also you mentioned 16 maybe maybe a reduced number. Mr. Fiser was you wanted to keep the majority and keep the up to 20 weeks language. So, Miss Chaviano that I just needed to hear from you as to if you had a position on that to see if there if this is a deal breaker or not. No. Yeah. So super I'm not supportive of the supermajority. It goes against our policy. and in terms of the 20 weeks I'm almost inclined similar to flleming if it's something where we reduce it that's fine. in of employment kind of a thing. Okay. this is going to take some this issue obviously is going to take

218some more time. I mean, we don't have I mean, I'll have to speak with Kathy to see I mean, her conviction was strong when she talked to me and said, "This is what I need." so, I'll need to speak with her some more. I know I are we at the end of your agenda now or Yeah. Mr. I just want to let Mr. Persons Yeah. give his comment and then I just have two points to bring up. Number one, it is in the statutes up to 20 weeks. It's not like we're just pulling something out of thin air. I mean, this is and it's quite commonly done in the private sector where they work at the pleasure of their board. You know, attorneys like over no cause are often getting 20 weeks. That's not unreasonable

219whatsoever in this world. I'm just the way I could the way I see it. I don't have a problem with 20 weeks. so super majority, I can live without that, but I think it should be a guaranteed 20 weeks if we're just doing a simple majority. You know, it's just I see boards all over the state, all all the cities and everything, and it all of a sudden you just get four people get mad at you for one week and you're gone. I mean, it's that simple, you know, at a board this size. I've seen it with superintendent. I've seen it with I don't really follow attorneys that much, but I'm sure it happens there, too. so I see that where she would want a supermajority because it would be harder, and I understand that.

220but to have a super majority and then almost get nothing, I mean I mean obviously you're going to try to get a job, but you've done nothing wrong. I mean, if you're being released without cause, then, you know, it's we have, I think, a duty to sort of make it right as best we can. And within the statutes, I think 20 weeks is not bad if we're just going to do a simple majority. So, I hope we'll eventually end up coming down with a simple majority and 20 weeks and just move on. I mean, this we shouldn't just keep going on on this, Mr. Ribble. Yeah. They also the 20 weeks gives you a good sense to get a hold harmless. You get the employee to sign off so you don't have to worry about

221any type of repercussion down the road. So it's it's a cost of doing business. May I ask a just a clarifying question also when I I think I already know the answer but if she is receiving he or she whoever's in that role is receiving 20 weeks they don't work with for us anymore or getting 20 weeks of pay regardless. do they also continue to get benefits over? Let me check. I believe it's just Let me check. I don't want to misspeak because you can do it either way. So, I want to make sure I know how you have although receiving benefits is a is let me just Good question. while he's looking that up, I let's have a discussion if you don't mind. I know this is on tonight's agenda. I'm not sure that

222we're going to come to an agreement today or be able to vote on this tonight because I think it's fair for our attorney to have this conversation post wi-i with Mr. Quick and us being at the end of our workshop. So, what are the thoughts about pulling this item off of tonight's agenda just before we continue to maul this around? Are there any, Mr. Fisher? If it continues down this path, I was going to pull the item no matter what. Okay, Miss Gelli, do you have any thoughts there? I would like to hear what the public has to say. and I think even this evening what the public would have to say because I'm sure they're they're watching. So, I mean, I honestly I hate pulling the item because I feel that we need to

223I think we're I think we're almost there. I think we're almost there. Okay. I guess if we pull the item, I'd love to hear what the public has to say and I'm hoping that we can get it back on for tonight. But and if we pulled the item, then then we deal with it. I if we can get there, I'd like to get there. So, honestly, okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to call you out. I was kind of just going to see what the temperature of the board is. Yeah, Miss Mr. Fischer, I should have clarified my apologies and to member Juvenelli as well. if it's going to be on the agenda tonight, I would like to pull for discussion. So if this I want to put the notice now that if this continues I

224want that formally pulled okay for discussion tonight. Item F2. Mr. Ribble, how what are your feelings about? No, I'd like to I'd like to I'd like to see how this plays out and yeah, if we have to pull later on, okay, this evening that's fine, but let's let's see how it plays out. We're pretty close. Any other board members want to comment there? Just so we Mr. Persons. Well, it seems like the majority wants a simple majority as far as doing it. And then it seems from my count, three of the board would like a set 20 weeks and two members of the board wanted like 16 weeks or something along there. I mean, we're so close. Hopefully You know, I again I think the way it works, I don't see a big difference. So

225hopefully someone on the board might change their mind. So Okay. So leaving it on the agenda's okay with you tonight. Yeah. I mean we'll call it for discussion because Okay. It has to be quick attorney Quick has to go back and talk to the attorney. So right Miss Shav discussion maybe we can find out where we're at. Miss Shaviano, no, I'm in agreement. I mean, we're here because of my push for last week to get this done. So, again, I believe we're close. I understand the up to 20 weeks. It wasn't on the original contract this was placed in and the agreements after the fact. I believe we can get there. So, if we can put it to bed and come to an agreement tonight, I'd rather do that than stop kicking the can because

226there are other things to focus on. So, yes, I'm I'm okay with that. Mr. Quick. Yeah, just to answer your question from before, it's base salary. So I would not in in the contract you have a separation. You have compensation where defined salary and then you have retirement and benefits. So I would interpret this to just be her salary. So it would be that the if we're talking about increase right now, it would be the 212,000 and then obviously there might could be incremental there could be increases in the future as to when it comes into play. But thank you Mr. Fischer. thank you madam chair through the superintendent. I just want to confirm that I will be pulling to your staff item F2 on the agenda tonight for discussion. Okay. Thank you sir. just

227a point. Would you all like me to stay for the board meeting for the for the discussion tonight? I'm available too. So but I anticipate that. It's a party. Yes, please. Okay. thank you. So, I will give you a few minutes to swap chairs because we now need to go into public comment which our attorney needs to read. Coral, Madam Chair, would you like me to proceed? Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Schoolboard policy provides the opportunity at this point in the meeting to address the board concerning any matter on this meeting's agenda. If you completed a public comment card, please provide it to the staff. Public comment will be held at the podium in the center aisle in front. Please be advised that the board will not respond during public comment to

228remarks made by speakers. Abuse of language defined as swearing, use of profanity, or name calling is prohibited. Speakers who fail to follow proper decorum in the chambers will be ruled out of order. Any speaker continuing with such remarks will be required to relinquish the microphone per board policy 0169.1 and may be removed from the chambers. There will be one warning. Also, per board policy 0169.1, the time per speaker is 3 minutes if there are 20 speakers or less. You will find a countdown on the big screens in front of the room. Once your time has elapsed, the microphone will automatically shut off. Please state your name when you approach the microphone. Madam chair, there are currently one speaker signed up that will address the board at this briefing and I will call that person once

229I think we have a few more that would like to speak. If you'll raise your hand, we will bring a comment card over to you. Thank you. Our first speaker can approach. Yes. So, I thought Marge Cox will please come forward. Hi, I'm March Cox. I live in Bonita Springs. I'm a retired educator and I'm here because it's the beginning of the school year and I'm so excited and I hope that you do important work here. I appreciate that. But let us remember that what we're really all about is our kids, our students, their families, their success for this school year. I sent you an email earlier today and have left a paper copy for you as well. Yes. about the importance of reading aloud because that makes a difference for students of all ages.

230It is not just something for students who can't read. I can still remember what my high school English class felt like when the teacher read to us. And so I've given you five pieces of research that reflect the importance of reading aloud both for the parents who could do it and the teachers as well. And then some proposed actions because I don't think the research makes any difference if you don't see ways for it to make a difference for our kids. So the first one is for principles to set an expectation for teachers to read aloud in class consistently because your principles are your building leaders. If they believe in it, the teachers will believe in it and research shows it is important for kids. So just as a reminder to the principles that reading

231aloud is appropriate for students of all ages. that makes a difference for them to include readaloud strategies for parents at back to school nights or other parent meetings. Some parents were never read to as kids and so they aren't quite sure how do they do that with their child and so helping them to know how to read effectively aloud can be a strategy that we can help them to develop. providing parents with book titles so that they've got ideas of what to do and what to do with. We have wonderful bookstores. We have a wonderful Lee County Public Library system including audio books in our school libraries because there are some parents who can't read. I wish that weren't so, but the bottom line is it is so. And so, how do we help that

232next generation of their students to be able to read? they need to hear it. And so audio books provide them with a hearing of it. Kids aren't going to read things that they haven't heard ahead of time and then to connect with the Lee County Public Library system. we do have a wonderful public library system and helping them to see ways to make connections in with our students and our programming will make a difference for students of all ages. So, as you're thinking about all the deep topics that you think about as a school board, please think too about the joy of reading and the excitement of reading aloud and how it is when that child hears those words come alive that may just look like black marks on the page. So, I just Thank

233you, Miss Cox. Our additional speakers are John CS and Daners. Again, please provide your name at the podium. Hi, my name is John Cass. I think it important for us to remember where we were a couple years ago. A couple years ago under previous regime we were about to get approved for $5.9 million for a temporary campus that was elevated and us as a community saw risk in doing that. We didn't want a temporary campus. We wanted something permanent because we know how important a school is to our community. So we came to you guys and said, "Well, instead of doing that, can we forego the portables? We'll send our kids off the island for as long as it takes, but we can take that 5.9 billion 5.9 million dollars and invest it in something

234brick and mortar that's elevated. And that's the agreement that we made and that was the agreement that was approved. Now, I understand storms have happened, things have changed. It's changed for us on the island, too, what we deal with down there. But that original agreement just kind of has fallen to the wayside. We had an ILA. We had an agreement. None of it's being adhered to. I appreciate the comments to about Heights. There is zero excitement on our island about our kids going to Heights. Zero. We have lost almost 50% enrollment in the last year because it's been a year. It's been a year and we're still talking about like maybe we can do this, maybe we can do that. It's concerning and I just want to be frank. I think you guys all know

235that my heart is in this. I've been fighting for this school from the beginning. We have 39 kids. My two kids will not be attending Heights next year. I cannot in good conscience put my kindergartener on a bus for sometimes one to two hours a day one way. I know this is a tough nut to crack. I know it's a real tough nut to crack, but it's been a year. If if if we think that we're going to leverage contractors to come on board, maybe maybe something could be reached, but they're all going to have a price. I don't know that price will sell through our town. I we need to have a little more urgency for this and we really need to find a way to get around this. We've worked with you guys.

236I think we've been good stewards. We've tried to find solutions. but we just need to have some more urgency to get through this. And if it is a third party or if it is something, but there's a lot of obstacles to overcome in that. And we need to have our kids back in school on our island. Thank you. Good afternoon or evening, whatever. Dan Allers, mayor of town of Fort Myers Beach. first, thank you, Madam Chair and board members. one for allowing me to speak today and two for taking the time out of your busy schedules to meet with me. I've had the opportunity to meet with most of you, if not almost all of you. Superintendent Carlin, thank you for you and your staff meeting with with our staff to try to to find

237a resolution. I think I can point to a few things to answer some of your questions. member Parsons, I have that those numbers specifically for you because that's a question that I had. And these numbers are based from June of 2024 through May of 2025. And they're broken down by month. I'll be happy to share it with you if you want, but that number over the last year is $29,367,14049 specifically from the town of Fort Myers Beach. And we all know we're not even close to being built back yet. You know, a lot of the conversation has been around enrollment. I think John kind of covered that as things get drawn on that enrollment is going to go down because as you well know, some of our kids waited for a bus that never came.

238This is after they've lost their homes. And I don't want to go back down that road, but I think that has to put some context into some of some of these numbers we're talking about. Sitting on that side of the DIS, I completely understand what it means to be fiscally responsible. Totally understand that. Totally get it. I think you've had some good conversations here. I think you'll have some good conversations going forward. in our meetings, I think I've provided you with some information that meets all the criteria that you talked about fiscal responsibility. You know, for me looking back at it, I told you I have a daughter that I've had to go through this with for 23 years now. And it's it's sad to me to see that sometimes we have to put fiscal

239responsibility over our children first. As parents, anyone that's a parent knows that your number one job is to take care of our kids. And yet we're when we're sitting on that side of the DAS, we have to look at fiscal responsibility. It's just part of the job. We get it. in our meetings, I won't go into detail. Oh, I want to point a little clarity on the school that you guys are talking about, the renderings. I did that purposely just for one that knowing what it could potentially cost to build a school there and without having some sort of drawings. It's hard to put per square foot numbers to things until you kind of. So, that rendering was just basically what's essentially there elevated. Obviously, it's not what we're proposing. It's not it was nothing

240more than to just get hard cost of what it would cost to build a building on that site. But I think there's a path, as I've shared with all of you, to go forward that meets all the criteria, fiscal responsibility. It allows us to answer to our constituents. It allows us to get the kids back in school very fast. and it allows us to never have to do this again. I saw the excitement in Dr. Fischer's face when talking about a potential another partner. as we all know, the more partners you had, we know how long it took to get to the agreement we have in place now. You add another partner, it's going to be very very difficult. I'm just going to put it out there. it's going to be very difficult to achieve.

241thank you, Member Fleming, for making it about the kids because that's what we're all here for. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor Allers. Madam Chair, that concludes public comment. All right. Thank you. we're going to move on to good to the order. Other business, I will start with Miss Shaviano. I'm going to reserve my time for tonight. So, we're good. Thank you, Mr. Parsons. the same and I'll reserve to the night. Miss Jordan, very good. Thank you. Mr. Ribble, sorry. Miss Giovenelli, ditto. Mr. Fischer, sorry. I know I've talked a lot during this meeting. Just a couple real clarifications. thank you obviously for, Mayor Ellers and John. I think you meant Dr. Savage. Dr. Fischer is my wife, so that's all right. So, but, the but one thing I just wanted to clarify I was thinking about

242so for the which I should brought up during the discussion it slipped my mind for board board attorney tonight we don't have any backup material to show the public I don't know if there's a way we can put up a draft or something or at least put the fiscal impact up that was a little bit of my concern last time making sure we had something to show the public before a voting meeting tonight so I don't I mean obviously that'd be up to the direction of our board right now but I just wanted to put that out are you all first of all, is it even a possibility, Dr. Carlin? Do you know if staff could put that up during the meeting on our Yeah, I would defer obviously to our attorney at what point?

243I don't want to don't want to push him, but I but I do his action would determine our action, right? But it is possible on our end, but is it possible? We can display anything up up there, I believe. But I again I'll defer to him. Yeah, I can I can sit down when we break and go through and work on the points of agreement that we have here and then I'll look at the best way that I hopefully that to present the two options as to what the I guess the two outstanding options are for that we're still talking about here. Thank you. And so yes, I will work as quickly as I can. Well, we will try to adjurnn as quickly as we can. So you can do that. Thank you. Is that

244all, Mr. Sure. Okay. I am just very grateful that staff pulled off the welcome to new teachers. I was pulling in the parking lot and a lot of excitement. You could see conversation bubbling in the parking lot. So hopefully those were all positive conversations. I'm going to I'm going to guess that they were because they were all smiling. So thank you for providing lunch for those new teachers. I think that's I think that's great. Mr. Attorney Huffman, do you have anything? I have nothing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Superintendent Carlin, and I will share my comments this evening. Thank you very much. Excellent. Today, we have our school board meeting, our action meeting at 6:00 p.m. At this point, having no other business to come before this body, and seeing no objection, this meeting is adjourned.

245The time is 4:34 p.m.