School Board Workshop: July 26, 2023

001good afternoon it's Wednesday July 26 2023 the school board Workshop is now called order and the time is 1202. board member Langford Fleming will be joining us virtually today there are three items on the agenda first is the media center and classroom Library processes followed by a year 24 budget update and after that is the agenda review of the July 31st 2023 regular Action meeting Dr Bernier would you like to introduce the I would love to introduce the esteemed panel gathered for you we are very pleased to have the very great individuals who have worked really hard on Dr Quisenberry Dr Spyro Candace oliveiro Corey Huffman and our amazing School Board attorney Kathy Dupuis Bruno as you know we are facing we're in the midst of progress and we were progressing and the Committees we've

002been meeting and then we had some additional laws that found their way from legislation into actual law signed by the governor so I think before we say anything this has been a transitional and developmental process that it means very simply this team has had to be agile and they've had to continue to shift to meet the expectations not only of the community but also of our law of of the laws of our state of Florida so I'm going to let them take you through their best thinking at this time I'm stealing a line from Dr Spiro what we are interested in today following the presentation is your conversation while your conversation becomes critical to any minor or larger changes you would like to see as a board to what's being presented today because then the

003team will work in Earnest in preparation for the briefing for Monday because they have an odd cycle because of the need for a meeting in July we pick July 31st on a Monday so that's also a note to the community and the community's use of the board meeting on Tuesday nights this will be a Monday night meeting and then in that briefing they will brief on the any changes you've asked for and then that will give our community opportunity for open and public comment so this is your Workshop today I know some of our community advisors are in attendance we appreciate your attendance all the time and I look forward to the team's presentation to all of you so I'll turn it to Dr Spiro and he will begin the work of the best thinking

004the team has right now to ensure that we are in compliance with state law thank you very much Dr benir good afternoon board good afternoon board attorney thank you for everybody for being here today our goal today is to provide for you really a comprehensive overview on all of the media and classroom Library procedures and processes that we have it is an extensive presentation because we wanted to make sure that you are fully aware of all the procedures that we have in place as well as our community we think it's important that we are very transparent with all of the processes and procedures as Dr Bernier said this really is a changing land legislative landscape and so this is our best thinking as a collective group as of today and that Collective group also includes

005our curriculum advisory so our board advisory their curriculum advisory committee we've had multiple conversations with with those members as well as many community members have come and provided public input their voices were heard and you will hear in some of our processes and procedures that we captured as much of that input as possible it is important that our Community owns this we also understand that the media process is also a very polarizing topic across the country we don't deny that we understand that so the lens in which we look is through the legislative requirements our job is to say what is the legislation requiring us to do do we have clear processes and procedures that make sure that the intent of that legislation is fully implemented so that is the work that we're going to

006be sharing with you today as Dr Bernier said what we need from the school board today is your input and your direction so giving us clear guidance clear Direction on the next steps will be very important for the work that we do for Monday July 31st Dr benir up on the screen you can see it introduced the team already so I do want to just say thank you very much to our legal team that has been very much a partner in this entire process this is not done in isolation there are many individuals that are at the table as we create the processes and procedures yes we are the face of the presentation around the media and classroom Library processes but there are a number of people behind the scenes as well I would also

007say to you that the processes and procedures don't reflect personal beliefs of anybody that are making these decisions but rather our professional responsibilities to meet the legislation and I want to make sure that is underscored as well these are our responsibilities that we have and so you'll see that those processes do reflect that Lori Houchin is up there in the screen as someone who is going to be presenting us with us today I want to let you know where she is Lori is actually at a state panel there is a best standards educational panel and so Lori is with a number member of our many members of our team that are at that conference right now and that is valuable information that we have as we look at our best standards and so Lori was

008up there and I just wanted to make sure we'd give her some acknowledgment as well so here's the agenda here's the road map of where we're going today we are going to begin with our legal team where they're going to give us legislative updates the state statutes board policies everything that guides the work that we're doing around processes and procedures we're going to begin with that so there's a firm understanding of what is the new legislation what does it say what are the impacts of the words of that legislation and then how that impacts the work that we do in academic Services we're then going to transition into so how do we purchase materials what does that process look like at a Schoolhouse what does that process look like at the district level so we'll

009talk talk about the purchase process and then you know we've begun the vetting process of classroom libraries we shared that with you we're going to give you an update especially for our community as well how are our classroom libraries vetted how are we vetting our media center as well we're going to talk to you about a back to school form a media access form it is not a requirement of legislation that we have a back to school media access form but rather this was based on feedback from the curriculum advisor in our public comment that came out of that board advisory that we are going to be bringing that form to you today then we'll transition to the challenge process there have been new legislation around the challenge process that greatly impacts our timeline impacts

010what happens to books inside of our schools and so we're going to talk to you about what the legislative requirements are what are we doing to meet the law of that legislation and then we're going to talk about stakeholder resources we have we are very proud of the work that we've done in this particular area we have tried to be extremely transparent around everything that we're doing and so we're hearing when people are giving feedback hey have you considered this have you considered that and we're trying to make sure that all of our communication Avenues are open and we are opening we are also very open to feedback on how to better make sure that it's streamlined for our communities we're excited to share with you about our stakeholder feedback our stakeholder resources finally then

011I'll conclude with next steps we're going to talk about all of that and then we'll talk about all right so what are we doing as the school year begins and we matriculate into 2324 what does that look like and so that's the road map which we're going to go with today and at this time I'd like to turn it over to our legal team Kathy to pay Bruno and Corey Huffman Kathy thank you Dr Spiro good afternoon board and Dr Bernier there are numerous statutes that apply and that we should be bearing in mind in our instructional materials discussion today namely Florida statute 1006.28 duties of District school boards school superintendent and school principals and instructional materials Florida statute 1006.40 purchase of instructional materials chapter 1014 the parents Bill of Rights and specifically School District

012notification of parental rights which is Florida statute 1014.05 those are all found in the education code in addition there are Provisions in chapter 847 the obscenity law that we must adhere to as well namely Florida statute 847.012 harmful materials sale or distribution to minors are using minors and production prohibited as well as Florida statute 847.001 which offers the definitions Florida statute one zero I'm sorry not on Florida statute one zero zero six point two eight is the primary statute dealing with the appropriateness of instructional materials it requires that the school board who is responsible for the instructional materials within the district create processes for parents and constituents to access what materials are available to the students within the district and who are participating in District instructional programs it also requires a process for parents to

013be able to object to any material that they find to be pornographic or to be harmful materials and one zero zero six point four zero sets requirements as to what materials what instructional materials are purchased prior to them becoming available to students and that those materials should also be free from pornography or harmful materials it also requires that they be suited to the students needs and their ability to comprehend the material in which it is intended to be used for instruction and also to be appropriate for the grade level in which it is intended to be used for instruction it further requires that the school board provide Public Access and public comment on the adoption of instructional materials as discussed the law requires that instructional materials be free of pornography or other harmful materials as

014they are defined by the statute and to determine what is harmful materials the law defines it in a criminal statute 847.012 and it considers harmful materials to be any picture photograph drawing sculpture Motion Picture film video cassette or similar visual representation or image of a portion of a person's human body which depicts Unity sexual conduct sexual excitement sexual battery Etc it also includes any Book pamphlet magazine printed material however reproduced or sound recordings that contain explicit or detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement sexual conduct that is harmful to minors the statute further goes on to make it a criminal offense for any adult to knowingly distribute to a minor any of the materials that I just described on school property or post anything of those materials on school property though the statute

015further goes to exempt any of those materials that has been School approved instructional materials that are designed specifically to serve as a major tool for assisting in the instruction of a subject or course Florida statute section 847.001 definitions subsection 7 states that harmful to minor means any reproduction imitation characterization description Etc when it predominantly appeals to a prurient shameful or morbid interest is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material or conduct for minors and taken as a whole is without serious literary artistic political or scientific value for minors this provision codifies what we call the Miller test which is taken from the United States Supreme Court case of Miller versus California 413 U.S 15 1973 we must always balance free speech and censorship to

016avoid a constitutional violation as the right to free speech is codified as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution Miller assist in that delicate balance as it states that obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment to help determine if a media is obscene and not protected the Supreme Court established a three-prong test one does it appeal to a prurient interest when taken as a whole prurient meaning having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters two does it involve patently offensive sexual conduct three does it contain literary artistic political or scientific value you will notice during the presentation that information is sought throughout the process from the ad hoc committee to the appeal before the school board to assist with the Miller test analysis based on 20 23 legislative changes the district must

017also confirm to section 19 of the definitions in Florida statute 847.001 which defines sexual conduct and I'll just read it per the statute sexual conduct means actual or simulated sexual intercourse deviate sexual intercourse sexual bestiality masturbation sadomasochistic abuse actual or simulated lewd exhibition of the genitals actual physical contact with the person's clothed or unclothed genitals public pubic area buttocks or if such person is a female breast with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of the other party or any act or conduct which constitutes sexual battery or simulates sexual battery excluding a mother breastfeeding if any material in the media centers violates this definition it must be removed both House Bill 1467 passed in 2022 and House Bill 1069 passed in 2023 are Incorporated in the district's process addressing instructional materials House Bill

0181069 is the new bill that amongst other laws revises Florida statute 1006.28 one thing that the bill clarifies is that instructional materials not only includes media library materials but also includes classroom Library materials the objection to instructional materials form or the challenge material form and its contents at some point will be prescribed by the State Board of Education the form must be easy to read and understand accessible on the district's home page and identify the point of contact under the new bill the parent or constituent has the ability to profit evidence that the material is either pornographic or describes or depicts sexual conduct as defined these are in addition to what was previously in the statute in 1467 which was the material was not student to the student's needs or their ability to comprehend or

019that the material was inappropriate for the grade level and age group any material that is objected to based on pornography or prohibition under the obscenity law 847.012 or depicts sexual conduct must be removed within five school days of receipt of an objection and remain unavailable to students until the objection is ultimately resolved parents also have the right to read passages that are subject to an objection during public comment at school board meetings if the school board denies the right to read the passages due to the content meeting the pornography prong then the material must be discontinued from use by the school district if the school board finds that any material violates any of the prongs such as its pornographic or depicts sexual conduct as defined is not student suited to the student is inappropriate for

020the grade level and age group then the school board has an obligation to remove the material that's from HB 1069 HB 1069 also codifies citizens Alliance versus Collier County School Board by mandating committee meetings to resolve an objection to instructional materials are properly noticed and open to the public as these types of review committees fall under the government and the Sunshine Law the Committees must also include parents of students who will have access to such material throughout the district if a parent disagrees with a determination by the school board after a decision is rendered through our final District process which is an appeal to the school board the parent May request that the commissioner of Education appoint a special Magistrate the special magistrate shall determine the facts relating to the school district's determination consider information

021provided by the parent and the district and render a recommended decision to the State Board of Education within 30 days of the request made by the parent the State Board of Education must approve or reject the recommended decision at its next regularly scheduled meeting that is more than seven calendar days and no more than 30 days after the date the recommended decision is transmitted to them the cost of the special magistrate is born by the school district further the bill states that the school board shall adopt and publish on its website the process for parents to limit his or her students access to materials and the school or classroom Library House Bill 1467 passed in 2022 required that districts annually provide a report to the commissioner of Education that identifies materials that were objected to

022and whether the materials were removed HB 1069 further adds that the reports must also identify the grade level and what course the material was used in it also requires that the district notes the rationale for not removing or discontinuing the material in its report so these are the reasons why academic services and legal are very meticulous not only in the policy but also the district's application of the law and the processes as it relates to instructional materials policy 2520-2521 and 2522 are the current policies of the school board as it relates to instructional materials that were adopted by the school board at the end of June the offset of legal services will ensure that these policies are updated to be in Conformity with the new statutory changes for the board's consideration and approval the State

023Board of Education is currently set to consider further rule changes on August 23rd of this year there are two proposed rule changes as it relates to clarifying which materials are to be removed within that five days following an objection and also the process for the appointment of the special the special magistrate and its review of appeals of parent objections neither of those two rules that are being proposed have been placed for public consumption as to what those proposed changes will be and at this time neither of them have been placed for consideration at that August 23rd meeting the office of legal services will monitor for these rule changes and when they are placed for the consideration and adoption by the State Board of Education once we have received those the office of legal services will

024again Continue to update our policies to be in Conformity with the state rules and Florida statute and provide those changes for this board's consideration and approval at this time I'll hand it over to the curriculum team who will show the board and our constituents what our policies and processes look like in action foreign first we're going to review the purchase of media and classroom libraries the process document is included in board docs for anyone to follow along as I go through the pieces this process document was reviewed at a board presentation on January 10th of 2023 we also reviewed it in the curriculum Advisory Board committee on March 27th as well as April 24th April 24th was when that committee gave consensus and the recommendation to approve to the school board I'm going to go

025through each of the pieces the first part is that beginning January 1st 2023 all school librarians media Specialists and other Personnel involved in the selection of school districts Library materials are now required to complete the required training by the Florida Department of Education so we have already completed that process for last school year and we'll continue that moving into each school year so the first step for school base for purchasing or process for the selection of is the collection analysis report so that comes from the destiny program the person who is supporting the media center will pull that collection analysis report and we'll go through that report's going to give them where they need books so for example in elementary it might say that the media needs additional AR level one books or 4.5 books

026and then it will also go through a description of Any teacher recommendations or any student recommendations once and then it also shows what books have not been checked out for a while then they follow based off of that report they're going to follow the weeding guidelines to remove any materials that haven't been checked out for a long time or any materials based on their age and appropriateness that violate the statutes that we just discussed and they will remove those for the for the from the media center they will also determine the challenge to instructional media committee so any books that are part of that process would also be removed at that time the next process is removing them from the shelves and then also removing them from Destiny then we go into the curating resources

027so they take that finalized report they contact one of our approved vendors they send to them what they need for their media and that vendor sends them a list of books that is what they would take to the committee for purchase then the next step which is new in this process is the school committee review process so per legislation each school is required to have a school committee that would include the media Specialist or a literacy coach the administrator who oversees the media center if there's a media specialist that supports the media center and then there is also required to be parent Representatives such as from their Sac or their ptos they take that list that the vendor provided that committee reviews that list and they determine again all of those other pieces whether or

028not they're appropriate they follow those guidelines that we discuss they also look at book reviews and then they determine if any books need to be removed from that suggested list from the vendor and if not then they submit that list to their parent committee and it is approved through their Sac or through their PCO and then the principal reviews that feedback and they have the final decision the next piece is the principal will then go into the ordering so once the school places the order through PeopleSoft the final approved book list will then be attached to that order and it goes to our district media specialist for final review and approval so after all of that then it goes to the certified media specialist the certified media specialist reviews those books and then they will

029contact the school to approve or to let them know that some of those books need to be taken off of the list and the reasons for why then we have the circulation updates which is at the end of every school year we repeat all of those pieces and we also do a library inventory as I just stated and that the principal will sign off each year on the end of year inventory and then the last piece is the parental right so all parents and community members can visit each School website which we're going to walk you through those steps in a later part of the presentation and parents can also access their child's checkout history at any time through destiny so moving into the portion of the present patient we're going to talk about now

030vetting of our classroom libraries and the media center so the process Dr Quisenberry just talked about is how we buy new materials for our media centers or for schools now we're going to look at individual classroom libraries and really our media centers through the lens of those changes of legislation that Kathy and Corey Bulls touched upon we started this process or really I should say we ended the school year with a video from our superintendent and chairpersons on the updates to this process so we closed out letting teachers know what would be coming their way what we were asking them to do but really the greater why and as you see there this ties back to our house bill 1467 and 1069 that says we must inventory our classroom libraries we very much so want

031our classrooms to be full of those books for students to have robust access and a variety of those but we need to go through the inventorying process first ensure that all of the books are meeting new requirements in their there it linked in this presentation is the actual message so for any of our community members who would like to hear what was that message that was provided it is linked here inside for backup material we have the full process document but it was really important to talk through how is this information getting to our schools what do administrators know what is their responsibility and as well as Dr Spyro had started we've really leaned heavily on our curriculum and board advisory as well for feedback so in April and May we did a training on

032this process with all of our principals and assistant principals to make sure that they were aware of the steps because in both of those legislative pieces it comes back to the principle the principle is ultimately responsible for the materials which are inside of their buildings so it was important for them to have a thorough understanding of the process on April 19th we trained all of our media support staff and certified media staff which is very important here not all of our schools have a certified media specialist so as you just heard Dr Quisenberry say that final step that's why purchases come to the district office as a last step because not every school has one of of those every school is required to have somebody that supports and oversees the process and they went through

033both our training and the doe training so the third bullet there you'll see is the Department of education's required training which was new as well this year we also needed to submit a report on July 1st and that will be an annual report of who has received that training on May 31st we sent an email to all of our teachers letting them know the process for inventory in their classroom libraries and then on July June 7th we sent them a follow-up email we noticed we were receiving several questions and a lot of the same questions so anytime we receive multiple we put together an FAQ email to push back out to them to make sure they fully understood the expectations and how to go through with their scanning process so this isn't on the screen

034which you're seeing here this says non-purchase classroom libraries and the reason this says non-purchase is the district is providing at the Elementary classroom level a collection of books so every teacher starts off with a collection of books so it was important for us to delineate these are non-purchase these are the ones that a teacher is out buying on their own maybe they've earned rewards from Scholastic and they're putting resources inside their classroom so these are different than our district approved or District provided pieces they hear while they go through this process legislation says books need to be unavailable for students so the first thing we let teachers know is please make these books unavailable to students we ask them don't take materials home making unavailable is in a cabinet inside of your classroom close them

035up we're not asking you to pack them away we're asking that they're unavailable for students then administrators needed to verify that again this comes back to the principal lens the process is all very much so rely on the principle ensuring that these processes are being followed in their schools the teachers have been using an account called book Source this was a free account as our media team had scoured and looked for what would be the easiest way book Source at the time of implementation was our easiest way for teachers to create an account and scan in the books for the purpose of having a place we could house them and be able to download those files once they scanned them in they were putting them into a shared Google Drive that shared Google Drive then

036gets submitted a form comes down to the district office to let us know hey I've submitted my materials somebody go ahead in and review them and by that someone it has to be a certified media specialist which is very important to note we have 10 certified media specialists at this time who are working our 98 schools and almost 6 000 teachers classroom libraries so we needed a process to know when a teacher was ready to have their materials reviewed that certified media specialist then goes in and they begin reviewing based upon all of those pieces that Kathy and Corey just looked at so everything that we've shared with this board previously about what the ad hoc committee reviews and how we approve instructional materials the certified media Specialists are doing the same thing through those

037lens of classroom libraries from there they're providing any notes so if a book is going to be recommended that it is not available to a student it needs to point back to a statute this has been a piece that we've really had to work on because there's subjectivity and what language is actually in statute so we want to take that subjectiveness and that feeling out of it and everything we do is pointed back to those pieces of Statute that Kathy really spent a detailed time going through so they have a clear lens so if we do make the recommendation to a teacher for a book not to be available we can say here is why it's not available in your classroom the school-based administrators are then notified with final approval so once we said Miss

038elevator's books are ready to be available to students again that administrator is notified any books that were not approved need to be removed and approved materials can then go out on the shelves so you're going to see here this is labeled as our current process and there's a lot of steps to it as we talk through this section you're going to see we're making a transition that will be smoother for both our teachers our administrators and District staff to streamline our process but it's important as you're hearing teachers right now this is the current process in which they're going through to allow us to see their classroom libraries now beginning in August 2023 we're going to be transitioning from booksource and our Google Drives over to beanstack so at the last meeting in June the

039board approved our contract with beanstack so thank you very much for that it is helping us immensely here and what this is going to allow us to do is have students access to books more quickly and streamline the compliance process our teachers are still going to use the same scanning feature so it looks exactly like it did in booksource but now with being stack they won't need to rescan their books at all so it's really important to note here teachers will not need to do any work that had already been completed this summer this is what it will look like moving forward for them when they scan it here one of the pieces that we really appreciated about being stacked and why we moved forward with the company and I know it's a little hard

040to see on the screen so I'm going to walk you through it is when I scan my book let's say I scan Cat in the Hat I'm going to see automatically if that book is pending which means nobody has asked for it to be reviewed and somebody's going to look at it if it's already been rejected because somebody else asked for it across the district and a recommendation was made or if it's already been approved teachers will no longer need to wait for it to go submit and sit in a queue if it's a book that already has a recommendation made it's now automatic so when I scan Cat in the Hat and I see it's approved I put it directly out on my shelf and now it's available for students so we're making books

041available to our students at a much faster rate I can also search inside there so if I'm a classroom teacher and I don't have the book physically in my classroom but I would like to see what has already been scanned into beanstack I can search by title I can search by author and see if the book I'm considering is approved before I go out and buy it I can also if I'm out at a bookstore and would like to purchase it I can scan right there off of an app so I don't have to wait any longer so for our teachers they are going to get immediate feedback about the materials for their classroom now from the district and for the approval tools it also streamlines our processes because right now our media Specialists are

042going classroom by classroom we have to combine all of those and then say did we already review that book and where is it so we can either approve or reject now inside here when a district media specialist approves or rejects the book it's approved and rejected for the entire District at once so it's in there it also provides us beanstack has taken all of the legislative pieces that have been discussed so far today and their drop downs so a teacher now will see exactly why the book is being removed or recommended for a different grade level if that's there there's also a space for them to Mark other but again this takes it and puts it directly back in terms of legislation in terms of a principal ease of use now visit will be one

043of our applications that lives off of our launch pad where we house everything else a principal can go in and see all of their teachers to ensure they have all scanned in their libraries how many of their books are sitting in a pending review how many have been approved and how many have been rejected so instead of going into a Google folder and having to keep a check sheet this will all now be single sign-on so it will partner with an admin will be able to quickly go in for our Public Access requirement is that classroom libraries are also searchable so every school needs to have that link posted beanstack is going to provide us a URL link that's unique to each of our locations so each school that is what will get posted to

044the websites in addition to their physical Media Center so instead of us posting a Google Drive Link which is what we are doing currently we'll have one URL where the public is able to go in and see for Allen Park Elementary what are all of the books that are in their classrooms they will be able to search by Title by author by grade level and I want to make sure that we're clear when it searches and What legislation is these are the classrooms inside of the school they are not tied to an individual teacher's name the statute says we need to have those posted that's been a question that's come up with our teachers so we wanted to make sure we were very clear in that as well by making that shift to beanstack if

045you remember from the first slide that I opened this section with there were 10 steps and it was very detailed out our first two steps say exactly the same but now once the teacher scans it in it's immediate feedback the certified media specialist will review it's either approved removed from the library or put out for students and we're down to six steps so we started this with our current process and wanted you to know what that was but just in the short time of this summer we've been able to really transition our process to streamline for the ease of our teachers our admin and District staff to ensure that students have access to books as quickly as we can turn them around with that I'm going to turn it back over to Dr Spiro thank

046you very much Candace now we want to transition we've talked about the legislation we've talked about how do we purchase materials how are we vetting classroom libraries and media center so now we want to transition into the start of the school year and so we are going to be bringing forward to you a media center access form and on that access form there are three options that a parent has we felt it was important that parents had the opportunity to direct what access they want to have their student have inside of the school so this is an opt out form why do we choose opt out as opposed to an opt-in that is a question that's going to come up here's the rationale we asked our Information Systems Department and we said how many parents

047did not complete the health emergency student form this past year and the result from our Information Systems Department was only 1.97 of our parents started the form and did not complete it so we know that our parents are completing the form so we wanted to put the decision into the parents hands to say there are three options up there one my child has full access with no limitations to check out books in the media center I want my child to have everything two my child's not permitted to check out books from the media center no access at all and then the third which again was feedback from the curriculum advisory and our public comment as well was this third option that my child has not permitted to check out books in the school media center

048that have been formally challenged using the school district's challenge to instructional media form and so this would be a back to school form that we would have and focus and this is very similar to what we do each year as we do the back to school forms and yes this would be completed on an annual basis so this back to school form is just for the 23 24 school year and then parents certainly would have to do that on an annual basis now we're going to transition into our Challenge and this is one where we've had a lot of legislative changes this is one that we want to make sure that we pay special attention to also because this is also a great concern with our community what is our challenge process look like how

049are we communicating that what is the timeline so we're going to go through all of the processes and procedures around the book challenge process so the way we've laid out this section is there are many steps to it but there are four that are new based upon legislation and they're indicated with stars when we come up with them and we'll share why we've shifted those processes So currently if a family Community member stakeholder wanted to submit a challenge to instructional materials form it would either go to the principal if I am a parent guardian or it would come to one of the three directors that is our process however with having a new timeline in place that says if somebody is challenging based upon pornography or sexual conduct it needs to be pulled within five

050days that means we need to ensure that this challenge is getting to the directors of curriculum immediately so we have changed the forms are now going to be submitted to Media Services at Lee schools.net we have an email address for all things Media Services the media team certified media specialists in there along with the directors of curriculum to be able to see those pieces come in so no longer would we need to worry when did it get to the principal when did the principal send it to the district when did somebody at the district get it to the directors of curriculum so that's going to be one of the very first processes that we have changed that will be an update to our site is that mailbox there from there there's also a new Step

051previously our process document was either the principal could try and resolve the directors would try and resolve or it would go to ad hoc now the directors of curriculum can remove the material if it's a direct violation of Statute so if there's a direct violation instead of it going to the ad hoc committee it would be pulled at that time moving forward though if it needs to go to the ad hoc there's been no change there it would be recommended it would be scheduled and public noticed on our District's web page as to where and when that meeting will be held the committee meets as needed once a month typically however in this school year of 2122 where we had several challenges that committee was meeting on a bi-weekly basis so it's set in our

052process for once a month or as needed there so again we come up to another star new you heard Kathy speak on this one quite a bit but books must be removed within five days of the objection if it is deemed pornographic or sexual conduct so if the challenge comes into us and it's based upon either of those two pieces The book must be pulled within five days we're going to talk on the next couple of slides what this looks like for our schools and how we are verifying that this is actually taking place then the ad hoc committee meets they make a recommendation which goes to the chief academic officer the chief academic officer will submit it to our superintendent who then sends it to the school board chair and School Board attorney the

053directors of curriculum provide the outcome to the petitioner this one's a new one so this is going to be a piece that's in there is depending upon what the outcome is if a parental consent form is placed on a book then that will be at that time let schools know and flagged inside of destiny that book requires parental permission so as Dr Spyro just talked about our back to school form which feeds from Focus to Destiny if we have a challenge that results in apparent permission that will also go into destiny that is our place where students when they check out books Dr Quisenberry will talk about later alerts pop up and we have the books flagged in that manner from that time the documentation is then posted to our public facing page as we

054heard we need to make sure that we have all of these materials posted and available for public consumption this process has been one in which has been heavily discussed over the last two years so it was important to note here that the curriculum board advisory has been involved every step of the way the first being back in November of 2021 then in February of 2022 they came to consensus and we brought this process to the board we briefed them on March 27th of revisions that had parental permission but then on April 24th we were still awaiting legislation since legislation has now passed we have updated our processes looking at the piece of books being removed within five days these are the steps in which we're taking to ensure we're in compliance with 1069 we receive

055the objection the District staff logs into Destiny to determine which schools have that material an email is then sent to All impacted level principles so what this part is really saying is if I go into Destiny and I see that at x-middle school and X High School have the books I'm not just going to contact those two schools every middle school and every High School needs to know that there is a challenge on that book in case it's a book that right now is being considered for purchase or one that was in a teacher's classroom library now the schools who are impacted have additional steps they need to take but we needed to ensure that all principles were aware so they can know what its next steps come out of it then the schools with

056the challenge material have next steps so as we talk through new processes in which we've had to put into place since new legislation is we've created a Google sheet and which contains any challenge material that is submitted to us on our challenge form the principals get the link to this they'll see the book title they'll see the book author if underneath the book title and book author where it says located in Media Center if that is green with the word no they have no action to take because the material is not inside their school if they see that it is located in their media center now they have action to take because remember new legislation says we need it unavailable to students within five days the principal or the media staff will log into Destiny

057they'll find out how many books they have they'll go to the media center they'll pull those books to make them unavailable to students ensuring that they're stored in a location that students don't have access to once they do that they'll email back the directors of curriculum with the appropriate executive director letting them know that those books have been made unavailable and will stay unavailable until a final decision is made and we will go back into the spreadsheet and we will change it from a yes located to Media Center to yes it's located but it's unavailable so this is our process of ensuring that as challenges come in any that are tagged to being a violation of pornographic or sexual conduct are being removed within those five days to ensure compliance now if it goes to

058the ad hoc committee these pieces are very much so the same and which have been presented before with just a couple additions so our ad hoc committee makeup you'll notice right down to the bottom there's a new piece out of house bill 1069 that says we must have parent representative we're going to utilize from our district board advisory because those are parent Representatives we are going to request from there so if a challenge material comes in it's for elementary we will go to our Elementary District board advisory and ask for a parent representative what's important to note here is statute says that it has to be a parent who would be impacted from this challenge so it must be from a school in which has the material there so it can't be from just any

059Elementary School it would have to be from an elementary school parent who has access to that material so that's a very important piece to note about this Edition here the next pieces are all that we've talked about and Kathy really hit on earlier it's what the committee looks for when they're making their considerations so as they go through the process they're looking for all of those pieces that are specific to legislation adding the new prong here which is the definition of sexual conduct once a recommendation is made the committee posts a committee response form this form has been updated from the one that was used during the 2122 school year it had the addition of reviewed by directors of curriculum added because if you think back to the process at the beginning if it's a

060violation of Statute directors of curriculum can automatically remove it and it wouldn't go before the ad hoc committee any that are in violation and that's the recommendation underneath the rationale for decision and additional notes specifically call out that statute with definition and will provide examples that way it's transparent as to what caused in that book for it to be pulled if a book makes it through the ad hoc committee though and is recommended for parental permission there are two types of parental permission forms in which we have the one on the left hand side is a restricted media title this is one in which went through ad hoc committee but they decided there's something here that maybe parents should be aware of have the parent choice before that book goes home so student goes to

061the media center in Destiny pops up this book requires parent permission before the child can walk out with the book the book will be held back the child will get a parent permission form the one you see here on the left the child will then need to go home have their parent Guardian sign it and can come back once it comes back as a signed form then the student can check it out from the media center the one on the right hand side is specific to our Advanced courses so this is that there may be content that is inside a book in which we need parents to be aware of but it's gone through the Miller test it has literary value to it but before a teacher can instruct with it the parent needs to

062sign off on it so these are two very specific forms for two very specific reasons one for our physical media Center and one for our Advanced courses the advanced courses one will call out the book and the author it will also provide an alternate book and author so if I'm a parent who decides I do not want my child participating in that portion of instruction I will know what the alternate assignment is and again we're asking teachers that this goes home a month prior to instruction happening so wrapping up this section here as Kathy mentioned earlier there's also an appeal process so when we take something through the ad hoc committee there's also a process in which the person who submitted the complaint can go ahead and appeal the ad hoc committee's decision they would

063fill out the appeal form that form would also get submitted to Media Services again with streamlining our processes to ensure that these forms are getting to the intended individuals the school board would then hold a public Hearing in which case the school board would render a final decision based upon the materials provided and finally the new piece of legislation is districts are required by June 30th of each school year so we just completed this process June 30th 2023 where we have to submit any materials that were brought to us as an objection it lays out the type of material where the use was for it and our recommendation for it so we did submit that on time we did not have any formal challenges for the 22-23 school year so therefore that is how it

064was submitted on June 30th of this year and with that now Dr chrisenberry will take us into some of our stakeholder resources thank you so I'm going to review many of the pieces that you may have seen before and some of the updates to some of our stakeholder resources so when we talk about stakeholder resources we all delineate between parent access and Community Access so the first piece is per legislation we are required to have our media centers for Elementary posted for any Community member or parent to access although it's only required for elementary we have chosen to make it available for all schools so all of our secondary schools also have them posted in the same place as of last week our new media content specialist has verified that all of these all of

065our websites have been updated to show in the way that we see on the screen so you can go into any school's website you click on our school scroll down Media Center click media center and then it's going to pop up with the unique it has the URL code but then the unique username and password for that school that will then give access to search in that specific media center go ahead parents also are able to access through their students launch pad so if their student goes if they go into their students launch pad they can click on Fallout Destiny which is the physical Media Center or they can also click on overdrive which is the digital media center and be able to see all of the books that their child has access to the

066other piece that the second piece that this gives for parents is when they go into either of these programs they're also able to see their child's history so as a parent I'm able to go in to see as long as my child has been in the school district of Lee County I can see all books that my child has checked out or currently has checked out Miss alevedo talked about the parent preferences so an additional piece for our parents is if we if a parent has a specific book or genre of books that they do not want their child to have access to they are able to contact their child's teacher or school and put an alert on their child's account so it goes into the student's Destiny account it says it has a child's

067name and it says what that alert is and so then anytime go ahead and click one more anytime that the child checks out any book doesn't have to be the book that they have an alert on anytime that they check out any book that alert is going to pop up and it stays in their account until the parent says to take it out yeah a couple of the pieces that we have updated to ensure that all of our stakeholders have access to the parent Bill of Rights is we have posted in multiple places on our District web page and then I'm going to walk you through where it is on our school web pages as well so it is on the banner of the District web page and then we've also added on the bottom

068you can't see it really well but on the bottom where there are the icons for school Flyers fortify Florida we have added a click for parent Bill of Rights once you go once you click and you go into the parent Bill of Rights inside you just scroll down a little bit because it's C we have posted the process documents as well as the forms for the challenge shoe instruction so the challenge to instructional and our media materials and use form the challenge to instruction and our media materials ad hoc committee documents as well as all of the process documents that we have reviewed are easily accessible on the parent Bill of Rights on our web page if a parent goes into the District web page and clicks into the parent portal this is the way

069that those documents will show if they go through that route all of the same forms we have also added on to every web School website they had the same icons and so underneath four to five Florida the parent Bill of Rights icon is on their main page when you click into the school website and so families are able to quickly access the parent Bill of Rights there as well and then the last piece is that every quarter using School messenger we send a notification to all of our families telling them that their students report card is available but then we also include all of these steps for how they access all of the books that are in the media we will also in the future include classroom libraries and then how they can challenge where

070they can access the challenge forms and then also how they can get into their child's Destiny to see their students specific account I'm going to turn it over to Dr Spyro for our next steps and actions thank you very much so here are next steps today we talked to you about a legislation we've talked to you about the purchase process we've talked about the vetting process the back to school media form how does somebody challenge the materials and then parent resources that are available to multiple places that we've tried to put the content for our community so our next steps we are going to go back and we are going to review all previously challenged materials to show that ensure that we are in compliance so that is a piece that we are we have

071begun to do we are going to continue to vet classroom libraries in the media centers throughout the course of the year as we transition to being stack that Miss elevator talked about there is a continual professional development that is happening we are going to have continued professional development for our school-based administrators as well as our media Specialists as well as our classroom and non-non-classroom instructional staff also talked about the unique URL links those then will be added to our websites also and then when our teachers come back to school on August 2nd there is August 3rd is the district in service day there will be a video message to all of our teachers again to make sure they hear a common message around the legislation their requirements as classroom teachers and the supports that we

072have also so those are our next steps and at this time we turn it over to the superintendent for his comments and School Board discussion I'm 100 sure you have a thousand questions and that is no easy piece to put together I will make the suggestion that one of the best ways to have this conversation is they've presented in cabinet a couple of times is to consider scenarios if you're not already planning to ask that way it is a good way to say so Johnny arrives at the counter and he wants and it just I think it will help them work through I do want to take just one other opportunity to thank the team for for this immense amount of work and this is just the beginning of it I mean it is going

073to be a consistent amount of effort and work and I think the other piece that I would like to hear very specific discussion about is the form that we are considering putting into our software for parents to register which then would tell us what their preference is I'm very interested to see if that form passes the muster of the board and the philosophy behind it and how we're approaching it works with all of you as well so Mr chair thank you for the opportunity for discussion Mr Fisher I will let you go first we'll just go down the line here thank you chair thank you everyone first off it feels like I'm talking to an appellate court with all the fine professionals over there so but thank you everyone for your hard work I truly

074appreciate what you've done and I appreciate this presentation I do have some questions if I go to lawn chair please cut me off so first one can we go to the process document process for inventory and posting classroom libraries non-district purchased police can we go down to item 16 please okay I saw this a little bit on the presentation today I hadn't seen it before can you describe for the approval process it talks about professional reviews two reviews and I saw a little bit in the presentation could you explain that process a little bit more to me please absolutely so when our team took the doe training the initial time one of their recommendations in there is the professional reviews which we have been doing but they call out to specific reviews and looking at

075this it would be good to update here that ties the language the same language to our challenge they actually call out these reviews for the school library journal the recommendation from fldoe those are the two in which they we now look at previously we would go out see what common source media would say we would look at some of those and now they say they need professional peer reviews on it and these are the two sites in which the Department of Education recommends so they're the two specifics so seeing that we should add those two specific instead of saying two reviews here call out the same game two that we use in the challenge process because that's what they'll be utilizing thank you that answers that next beanstack you already answered about the I gotten

076questions about teachers asking the rescan and you answered that I appreciate that beanstack looks like it's going to be a big Improvement especially with some of the instant access on things okay now if we can go to page 40 in the presentation about the process yes so if I'm reading this right and I had this question for attorney Dupri Bruno before so ad hoc committed decision let's say they remove a book completely for whatever reason can that be challenged then the other way to be put back in circulation yes it can so if somebody does not agree with that particular recommendation they can challenge the other way and we'll go through that process in regards to the school review committees and you talk about things downtown and not everyone having a media specialist but do

077all the schools have the appropriate individuals for that internal School Review Committee we're staffed appropriately every school for that they do so their media paraprofessional or their literacy coach whoever is filling that role for covering the media center or responsible for doing those pieces that I talked about every school has someone who does that okay and just to add to that whoever that someone is also had to go through that Doe training so the principal the admin who oversees the media center the literacy coach whoever in that building is part of that has to review the fldoe training first before they can make those recommendations okay for Destiny and I remember this as a question I believe with the prior board I remember watching something about this are you able to with Destiny utilize it

078whenever a child your child takes out a book to send you an email or is that not possible it is one of those pieces please continue to request from Destiny and I'm going to look out to our team here we are working with them so we have a back to school call coming soon and we will add it back to the list to follow up with him but at this time it's currently still a work in progress okay thank you I appreciate that now going back to the opt-in and the opt out question not trying to put you on the spot Dr Spyro so you talked about health forms the 1.9 percent and we know they're needed in school but my question on on top of that would be what about the ones that have

079not filled it out at all yeah so the information that I received from our Information Systems Department was that was the group of individuals that have not submitted a form 1.97 okay okay and this is just generally for the team Mr Fisher excuse can I ask a question on that yes if they don't fill out that form does that mean that we get to treat them or not treat them if they do not fill out the form that means Autumn that is an opt in automatically that they are at full access to all the materials in the media center I'm talking about the health yeah like I cannot answer that right now Mr Mr chair I can handle that one with health the law was very specific with the access to health and Clinic issues

080it was very specific and I want to make sure I get this right so I'm pausing just for a second parents had to opt into clinical service so if they did not fill out the form their child could not go to the clinic and receive services from the health attendant or the school nurse that was the way that law was written it was very specific that it had to be an opt into Clinical Services I will defer to my legal team but in all the time I've spent with them and you have as well none of the media challenges all this legislation is silent on an opt-in versus opt-out right and what the team is recommending to us today and Mr Spyro did some additional research on his own without even me requesting it he

081looked at how many of the parents didn't fill out the form and it was 1.797 nine seven one point nine seven percent of the parents as you're filling out these forms you know people do it because they want to get to to the end so but that is a good question and one that I was hoping would come up during the discussion do a follow-up there Mr Fisher yes I feel like I would think the reason they we would not treat them is it could be some harm if we treated them let's say they were allergic to something or whatever they could be harmed and that's why without a parent's permission we do not treat them I would submit sort of the same thing on this access form if there's something you don't want your

082child to read or be exposed to and you don't fill out the form I mean that's on you didn't fill it out but still the child could be harmed in that way and I think there's no harm if if it's the other way around if they don't fill it out it's only again only one percent or two percent supposedly that the child would just have to get a permission slip it'd take them one more day to get get the book and then the parent could actually sign it and not even be bothered with it from that point on if this that's what they wished I just think we're taken away the parental right just like in health they have the parental right where they can be treated or not I think the parents should ultimately

083have that decision and if they fail to fill it out we shouldn't be making that decision for them so I think it should be the other way that's just my opinion I don't know how the rest of the board feels on that if they don't sign it basically they have no access to challenge materials that would be the default so I miss Jim and Ali just to add to that I'm a parent or anybody you don't know what you don't know so how do you know how to opt a student out of a book that you don't know exists I mean so I think that to protect the child because we should always be in the protection mode first and foremost would be I so I agree with you because you we don't know what

084books are actually there so if the parent doesn't want that then have them decide that at this time you know at the time so I agree with you because obviously the inventorium and books are huge in some some schools have certain books and some don't have them it's because it all goes back to what that was one of my questions was the principals have the ultimate say of what's in their Library so at the end of the day what if they what if one principal decides I don't want any books that has foul language inappropriate sexual content what if they decide all that parents don't know that they've made that decision because they're not involved in that so there's there's a lot of unknowns and so how would parents know to opt out of something

085without just making the decision right up front like what you're saying right thank you Mr Fisher I interrupted you so I'm going to go back to you then to Miss Morgan then too Langford Fleming no you actually both of you kind of asked some of the questions I was going to ask so no I appreciate that I haven't two other ones so I guess ones for the in regards to the opt-in opt out do any other school districts throughout the state do we know if they do it differently with opt-in opt out we I do not have that answer for you today we can gather the information and provide that at our July 31st update okay then then I have a legal question we all knew that was coming sorry it's already typing Bruno now

086if we go to a opt in is there any from what you're aware of you don't have to answer this now in regards to case or anything any kind of chilling effect in regards to that's not the question I thought you were going to ask sorry in fact well we know that the statute is silence on it so it doesn't speak to it at all this is brand new legislation there's really no case law out there that will address specifically 1069. if that's as much of an answer that I can give you at this time if you want to talk about First Amendment chilling effects that's a whole constitutional question and I can take a look at that as well thank you okay Mr Huffman has a common to add I did want to add

087based on the discussion by Mr persons and your question Mr Fisher I believe that the statute is silent on to that because as we discussed with the Miller test there is a First Amendment right to free speech and free expression and I believe that the legislature's intent was not to remove all access to Media materials for the students but to provide parents and constituents who have concerns as to what type of materials may be available to students a process in which they one are informed of what's available and two based on what is available what maybe should be considered for removal if there is potential that there is harm to a minor within that and that's what these long processes that have now been created were intended to do and I believe our intent was

088to say you know we don't have this requirement under the statute but because we as a district appreciate parental rights we want to give you this opportunity at the beginning to say I agree with you in the legislature give full access to my student but also to tell the parents to give them that access to say you know what I agree with other parents if there's a reason to challenge it I don't want my child even to look at it or to say I just don't want my child to have any access whatsoever and so that was the intent behind this form thank you I appreciate that in regards to what Mr persons and Miss juvenile said I'd be interested in exploring that further but I also want to balance out to make sure there

089isn't you know we're not trampling anyone's constitutional rights obviously so that's very important to me so well I'm done with my questions a moment thank you chair Miss Morgan well I do have a couple of questions but but I will get to this business about the opting in what did the curriculum committee I mean you obviously came down on one side so what was the thinking in terms of doing the opt-in as opposed to opt out the curriculum committee members they want this was their recommendation now there was feedback from public comment that was the other way as well so I knew this was going to be a topic that would have a robust conversation but for the committee members they wanted to have the parent rights to decide yes or no but not have

090not close access but begin with access and then let a child parent choose to restrict the access for their child I mean my feeling would be not to change it because I believe that if a book's been challenged and it's been put back on the shelves for all intents and purposes we have protected that child and I see no reason for us to act in loco parentis by denying a child when a book has been challenged and put back on the shelves so I do not agree with the notion of changing it to or keep to making it impossible for child whose parents do not fill out a form to have access to challenge books so that's one comment and some of this some of my comments actually basically this is an incredible presentation this

091walkthrough and as I was writing all my questions down you were answering them as you went through the process so but I do have a couple when the district reports to the Florida Department of Education at the end of the year regarding so this is books that have been removed not challenge books but books that have been removed right it's challenge books okay it's both so let's say let's say I'm trying to think Escambia challenge is a book and they or they have had a book Challenge on on a particular book we haven't had a challenge on that book is the state going to turn around and come back to all the school districts and say okay Escambia you're gonna drive the decisions being made in the rest of the school districts in the in

092the state and that is a Starkey comment but I and it's a political comment but I'm putting it out there the other comment I would make is that there's a phrase and I've been sitting here trying to think of the phrase when when alerts are provided on the radio or when or TV or when you're enroll in a college class and you're required to put a what's it called it says you know that this is a warning that there may be sensitive material it's a sensitivity alert we do that right now with our trainings we have a disclaimer I am so sorry to hear that I am so sorry to hear that honestly when did we as grown-ups start and making decisions for other grown-ups okay this is overwhelming and frightening to be perfectly honest

093and I know I shouldn't say anymore so I won't say anymore I'll stop right there okay thank you Miss Langford Fleming are you on the phone I am can you hear me yes good afternoon everyone thank you so much for the presentation yes I found this to be very a deep dive into everything I'm hoping that the general public who isn't able to listen to this does going into the fall so thank you for the hard work put behind all this a lot of my questions have already been answered two things though the form for the parents to fill out I think it is imperative that we do our very best as a school district to make sure that all parents know about this form that we try our hardest to get these forms in

094front of the parents in the beginning of school I don't know how you're planning on doing that is it going to happen with the you know preschool forms that we do in that preschool week or what are the ideas on making sure to get this form out to everybody those forms would be available to parents and focus like all of the other back to school forms but we do hear you and we wrote down what additional Avenues are we going to let parents know communicate with them about this new back to school form okay I appreciate it like you know like a just a mass text saying please check out the new forms that have been added for the 23-24 school year I think will be a great idea and then going back to chairpersons

095when you were talking about the form and the one percent versus the or two percent my concern here is when I'm hearing that number I think about I start thinking about our ell families and our families that have no adults in the household that speak English that's my concern yes they might fill the form out but do they really understand what they are actually filling out is their student is their child just handing them a you know or saying get on focus and and fill this out I just want to make sure that we have people on campuses that are readily available to help out our second language learner families I'm sure that's been a discussion and I'm sure the Forum is going to be provided in both Spanish and creole but those are just

096two things that were concerning to me when I was listening to you talk about the help form this is sort of the same thing making sure that even those families are able to understand what they're filling out and that's really all I have okay thank you Miss juvenile do you have more yes a little bit Miss Morgan I had a similar thought who's going to be policing what we do it was the word I thought of because so another County challenges a book and then the book is removed or is put back on the Shelf you know are we collaborating with these other districts probably not so the information doesn't come to Lee County and we're not aware and it's it's an oversight for for those that are the media Specialists that are you know

097going through the books but what happens when Tallahassee gets our list of what because they there's a reporting this done right so once the reporting's done and we have books that we didn't challenge or you know who's going to police that are we going to be in trouble as a board for not for not making you know making sure that students are protected so that was that was one of my concerns and then and the parents rights are protected as well so one of my concerns was the book is challenged and therefore pulled and we report that and other districts don't I mean so there so there's this conflict of that you know who's then responsible what if a book gets all the way challenged to the school board and we decide that the book

098was didn't meet all the requirements and we put it back yet Escambia decides it was pulled and it's then they take it off and they report that they challenged it and they took it off the shelf and yet we kept it on the Shelf what happens to Lee County you know you know where's the accountability because I believe we're going to be held accountable two questions there and they're excellent excellent questions I'm gonna Kathy already has her hand up so I'm going to let our general counsel go first so the first thing is that there are still some rules that we're waiting for the State Board to finish formulating as Mr Huffman indicated we thought that they would finish those August 23rd but it's not on the list yet so some of this is still

099developing and we're still waiting for guidance so hopefully when we get the guidance that will be into able to answer some of your questions I will also say that the list of all of the objectional materials that were challenged and the rationale behind those and what was pulled or not pulled is going to be available to everyone so I will say that people will be able to have access to it if there's something that we miss we'll be able to have access to and if it's in violation of law I know that our curriculum development directors will be able to pull it so we just at this point step by step process by process and continue to wait for the guidance Council I just like to add so what Kathy was saying is the same

100thing generally I was going to say without as much legal we suspect that there's a reason why they're collecting all these lists there's it we do suspect through rulemaking will get further Direction and probably collection of challenge book lists more often and there will be a cross-pollination probably potentially coming out of the Department of Ed which would come to a district-wide contact at each one of the districts we suspect all of these things we just don't know yet because the law has been passed in rule making hasn't yet been completed all right thank you so and I just have a couple more things Mr Hoffman wants to add something okay to give an example of an appellate process generally when a court is looking at an appeals from a lower court who's made a decision

101they give discretion so the statute provides guidance for a Judicial body to decide here's the definitions here are the things that you're looking at based on the evidence you receive please make a decision and based on that statute they give Credence to the decision making of the people making the original decision and so then when it goes up to the appealth process first they look okay do we feel like the lower per the lower body the original Court made the right decision or did they abuse their discretion and so with this appeals process that goes to a special magistrate and then finally to the school board or the State Board of Education for final ruling if it goes through that full process I think that's where you're going to see the accountability mystery of anelli

102regarding these types of books first they're going to give credit to the decision-making authority of this board and their ability to take the evidence that is presented to you during these processes and the decisions you make and should it be further appealed and they decide that maybe there's something that you else that you should have considered then they'll send that back in a very similar manner as an appeals process to the Supreme Court for the United States so I hope that answers your question that's a very very good point Mr Huffman so they State Board of Education either approves or denies the special magistrates recommendation I guarantee you that the districts will be aware of that final decision and we will be in compliance and I assumed that but it comes to us before we

103go there and I would hope that we as a board will be making the right decisions protecting children before it would go there because when it goes there that's a cost to the district as well and so speaking of some something that you mentioned Mr oh my gosh I want to say Corey so I'm sorry so guidelines so that made me that I brought this up about a year ago I call it I would say guidance so once it gets to a certain you know it goes through the challenge process if we just not necessarily I don't want to say the word flag but if we rated that book because some of it could be just you know foul language and that kind of content that some parents may not want their child reading so

104I mean I don't let you know I didn't let my student or my grandchildren go to the movies based on the rating of that movie theater you know and we have ratings on actual video games I mean so it as well as movies I read what things are ready before I watch it on Netflix or you know what the content is so I don't I don't understand why we can't do that and leave the books there and never aband any books if we just so a parent knows they don't have to go read that book to know the detail of it and know it's going to have that whatever content and be rated that and we only do it once it's challenged if the books never gets challenged the book stays on the Shelf until

105it's challenged so I because that way then it leaves the book in the library and it protects the child with a rating of an adult has decided on that book and I think eventually if you see more of this you're going to have authors reading their books and for people to know the content in the long run and so I just I think this is maybe the way that things are going with with education and books and I just think we start that I would rather be proactive than reactive and that is what the challenge process is a reactive situation and let's be proactive and nip this in the bud at the very beginning and as a book is challenged we rate it the content and we move on without it and it never really

106has to go very much farther and we had that ad hoc committee that makes that determination that would be my goal I one of the things on the slides 31 I noticed your slide was different from the slide that I had and I don't really know why and I don't know one was starred was different from what was starred in my what we received on the board Docs it was different that was just an update of the star when an additional box was added the star landed here on directors of curriculum that is not a new piece the new piece was here on the parental consent thank you the one that is currently posted right now for a community and it has been updated in there has the star that matches this presentation thank you

107so much you're welcome all right thank you that's all I have for now thank you I'd like to say when this 1069 passed the one thing came up everybody said all these books are going to be banned and the reality of it is the only books that are going to be banned are the sexually explicit books and they're being taken out the others are going to be challenged and we'll probably have some kind of Parental Advisory put on them I mean a book that has and the parents gonna be able to decide whether they can read it or not that'll be up to the parent but if a book has the f word 90 times or the n-word 100 and something times like some books do I mean these books a lot of parents say

108I don't care my child can read those my favorite the one I always bring up scenario wise is killing Mr Griffin they kidnap a school teacher to get him to change the grades he dies because while he was in captivity and they put all sorts of peer pressure on a child to keep her from turning them in and what happened and they got her to help she was a goodie so the books about peer pressure but it has all this violence in there of a killing of a schoolteacher and as we know we had that actually happen here in Lee County Lords of Chaos so I would not want my child reading that book other parents again may not you know with parental advisory you know we're not Banning any books any parent that wants

109their child to read that book could read that book no problem any parent that did not want their child to read that book would not be able to read that book so I think the route we're going is very good because we're not really Banning books except for this sexually explicit books you know so I think that's we're going the right direction it's come a long ways from when the bill first passed and everybody thought you know you're gonna anybody mention Two Dads in a book that book was going to be banned and taken off the bookshelves something along those type things people do not some do not want their parents I mean their child to read that others have no problem so again this is the route to go is not to have book

110Banning but I like the parental advisory aspect and that's something that either the ad hoc committee needs to be able to say we think this should go back on the Shelf with a parental advisory you know or the board when it comes before us we make that decision type thing and I think that's where both sides get a lot out of that my only thing again was the access access form I just think that if a parent just didn't fill it out they didn't realize they didn't fill it out last year they don't realize they have to fill it out this year and a child reads a book that they don't want them to read then they could be you know intellectually harmed you know according to their upbringing or whatever and the parent would

111be very upset so I think it's you know should be the other way than what you have on there I mean that's my only thing again if a child is told they can't check out this book goes home tells the parent they won't let me check out this book because it has whatever in it and the parent says no I you can check that out and they just fill out the form online or whatever and the very next day the child has the book so it's a minute delay if we do it that way versus If the child reads the book they'll never get that out of their head if it's something that they shouldn't have read according to their their parents so that's the only change I think y'all have done an excellent job

112that's the only thing I would like to see the board's opinion on whether we should maybe move in that direction may I interrupt yes hard to wave my hands when you can't see me I agree with what you were saying that's what I was going to say earlier and I had it written down I do think that the rating of books can get quite cumbersome and that would take a whole different type of when when you look at the way movies are rated that's a I mean I think that process has been in place since the 60s and they've had to evolve over the years so that could just be really cumbersome on the district but to put that parent advisory on a book that has been challenged as some sort of a warning I

113think would be a great idea I agree with that and I also agree with your second statement about kids who don't come in without a book signed treat it as though we cannot allow them to check out any of those books that maybe have that label on them and until further permission has given so I just wanted to make that clear that I did agree with that Mr chairman if I made just a point of clarification and Dr spire and Timothy can please assist with this I do believe that when the ad hoc committee is reviewing one of the options for them is to be able to say that this book for whatever reason needs parental consent and that's why we have those parental consent forms that if a child if it's labeled that way

114and then a child wants to have it checked out they have to go get their parent to sign off on so I'll I'll have Candace address that and then the other thing with regards to I just want to make sure Mr chairman that I'm clear with regard to the access form you're speaking only on the portion that deals with the challenge materials for the opt-in but I think the access form should basically say for either challenged or parental advisory if it's not signed the child does not have access to either of those I mean it's tough because some people are saying Challenge and parental advisory almost in the same context but I guess there are two separate things the book is first challenged so but yet we're letting some kids have access to challenged books

115if they filled out the form was that am I correct on that so maybe Miss elevator if you can just explain a little bit in terms of what the outcomes of the ad hoc committee could be sure thing so a couple different decisions that could be rendered is that the material is suitable for the media center anyone can check it out and it's suitable for instruction so that would be the book goes back in play available to all students then there is it is only available to Media so when it's reviewed it's one of those books that's only available to Media it doesn't tie to any of our benchmarks therefore it shouldn't be utilized instruction we have some books that are for instruction only and this really pertains to some of our Advanced courses these

116are materials and which have been deemed to be appropriate in our Advanced courses require parent permission on them because of the content in there but they're not available in media circulation then there's the ones and we can use killing Mr Griffin for a second since you brought that one up that would be one if it came back before the ad hoc committee because when it was originally challenged not the appeal on it but the original challenge to killing Mr Griffin was due to pornography so when the ad hoc committee reviewed that book underneath the statute and the lens of pornography it was found that it did not violate any of those pieces if that book was to come back around to be challenged for a different reason and the ad hoc committee determined this is

117a book that would require a parent to approve before a student checked it out that would be the parent permission form on the left hand side that is in the media circulation but due to content that is contained inside the book the ad hoc committee has decided that it requires parent permission we also have books though we'll use another book in which was challenge was the bad guys and the one that book didn't violate any state statutes the ad hoc committee decided No Parental restriction needed to be on there however it's on our district public facing page as a challenge material so the form the way it currently lays out is a parent could say I don't want my child to check out any of those challenged materials whether it's one that has a parent

118permission form attached to it or it's one that had been challenged but was put back on there so that one that umbrella had really encompassed all but some of the feedback you're providing us allows us to go back and consider if maybe we need to update the language to be a little more clear as what some of the decisions come out of the ad hoc committee thank you and again it's my main concern is whether it's an opt-in or opt-out type thing so I just don't know where the board Mr Fisher thank you chair once one of these microphones I got one of these days can you explain what you mean by just to educate me on Parental Advisory what would that mean from your concept oh from mine yes it just means there's it

119was a book was challenged and there's something in it that a parent or a majority of parents probably would find offensive but not all I mean for instance like the examples the scenarios I gave a book with the f word all throughout it to me that needs a parental advisory okay I don't even want to see it once on in a book I'm reading the n-word you know if it's been challenged and that's why it's been challenged yeah and the one that was brought up a lot was Huckleberry Finn as inward in it that's a classic book okay I had to read it but there are people that do not want to read that book and I think it should have a parental advisory if it was challenged and then the parent would say why

120was that challenged why does that have a parental advisory and you should be able to click and it says it you know has the n-word in it or killing Mr Griffin has violence or whatever the plot so I think that's up to the committee or it'll be up to the board when it's brought before us not me and not one person to decide as a majority if that book should have a parental advisory on it versus we're going to ban this book you know we're not that's I agree with Mr Fisher he said we shouldn't be banning books that's not really our job yes thank you for that clarification I just wanted to understand what that meant first off again I want to thank the academic team the legal team you're really having to thread

121a lot of needles here and you have a lot to deal with so we truly do appreciate it so I know you in a short period of time so that means a lot just a couple things the form as I said I'm on board with parental advisory I'm open to to listening on it my only concern well there's a couple concerns with it first off is you know if it ends up let's say five eight thousand books get challenged they all get parental advisories on it is it just noise at that point it's kind of you know it's why I'm not on board with the ratings I understand what you said Miss Juvenile and I completely you know agree wanting to be able to protect children that and I'm fully on board of that same

122with you know my own kids in school but when I look at the moving ratings for example I mean it just I don't think they have much correlation anymore there's a difference between for example violence in John Wick versus Saving Private Ryan so that's why when ratings come to me that's you know as it says noise that'd be my concern with it I'm not on board with the rating system and Miss Langford Fleming had already mentioned that would be a lot of resources a lot of time again I don't know how that affects on a local and then a state level I appreciate the idea parental advisory I'd like to see a little bit more formation or understanding as I said I'm open to listen that one be open to to possibly going that route

123but again I just want to make sure that you know as I said if you know again I know this is a legal thing if it's you know 70 have the books or a parental advisory or I mean at that point does it really I'm not saying it's get that part but so but I'm open to that so but thank you it's juvenile I wasn't saying rate reading every book in the library that was what Miss Fleming said I didn't say that in fact I said if the book is challenged then at that point the reason why it was challenged and rated at that point because it still could have content that wasn't appropriate to whatever age group it may be perfect for and fine for children 13 and over so it's it's the content

124and then the appropriate age and only if it's challenged we cannot inundate our staff to to rate every book that would be I don't even I don't even think that's even feasible nor there's even time for that so I don't believe that at all but I believe that once the book is challenged there's a reason why it was challenged and we need to know why without having to read it because maybe I don't want to read it but but if if the challenging was inappropriate content or foul language that's all it needs to say it was fouled language and that is probably for probably I guess middle school and up these days so I mean I you know that's that's what I meant by rating something not certainly not every book that was Mrs Fleming

125so I just want to clarify that thanks just for clarification I did understand that this is giovannelli I was also referring to the books that were being challenged also for clarification I don't know if the team can address this a little bit but one thing to keep in mind is those challenged materials as they are being processed they are available on the website so if anybody wants to know why this particular book was challenged they can actually see the challenge form itself it's accessible to any constituent so yes so Mr chair if I can weigh in because I do believe I still need some clarification and if my team will provide me slide 29 again and keep slide 39 happy and close by I think I think I'm receiving some input regarding this particular form

126so let's take challenges out of it let's be a parent registering for school and filling out their focus portal and going through all our forms so they get to the clinic form in the clinic Forum if they want their child treated in the clinic they have to fill out yes I would like my child to have Clinic Services right and then that child has access and we worked very hard last fall to ensure that we got all this information out to our parents we have a process already been in touch with comms this team has already been in touch with comms but we worked very hard last year to get as many of our parents to understand that if you need a Band-Aid or an aspirin or or you need your child to take their

127medication at school you're going to have to fill out this form so we were very successful into Mr spiral's Numbers about two percent of the parents never filled out the form that's two percent too many but it's it's a pretty good number and the reality of it I think to your extent is we saw it as you're correct children being treated in by a medical professional without parental permission is a problem right so and I agree with that conversation so shift with me to this particular form this particular form is also located in the same Focus system it'll be part of reviewing the code of conduct all the other forms that parents fill out we are asking parents to either allow full access with no limitations which is a parental choice and a parental right

128the child is not permitted to check out books at all from the school media center which is also a parental right or the child is not permitted to check out books from the school many that have been formally challenged using the school district Lee County's challenge to instructional material form again that can result in a in a book going back to the shelf and being available it can that challenge can go back and say it needs parental advisory to get to some of the labels you provided but it's a stop Gap to say if the child wants it we're going to need more information from the parent before before we would give it to him or her the question here is what do we want it to default to so a parent is part of

129that two percent that does not fill out the form right now as the team has made the recommendation to you those individuals not filling out the form those students of those individuals would have the ability to basically work with that First Choice by not filling out the form my child has full access and limitations to check out the other option that we're asking we're asking for a decision or some clarification on not a decision because we're not voting today but some clarification on is that should the default be in that case that the child is not permitted to check out any books no number three not permitted to check out the challenged books the third choice would be is what we're saying what I'm saying okay so it's not in you so that's what you're

130saying so there's a third option on the table one is the default is if you don't fill out the form you get access to the media center one is if you don't fill out the form you have no access until the form is filled out and the third one is the default is if the form is not filled out that child is not permitted to check out any challenge books or books that require that parent permission form which was on Slide 39. that in order to brief on Tuesday sorry Monday sorry Community again we're meeting on Monday we really kind of need to hear more from the board in terms of of what the preference is yeah my preference is on three Miss Jada Fleming do you have a preference Mrs Fleming are you still

131there all right she's not chimed in Miss giovanelli I would agree with you on the they wouldn't have access to the challenge folks Mr Fisher option three Miss Morgan I don't agree with that and I don't believe we should giving Direction with two people not here I really think we need to have this conversation on Monday because this is this is real a really important discussion and but I think there are two people who are not here who would really like the opportunity to weigh in before recommendation is made to the board Mrs Morgan I'm not sure that those two individuals will be available for the board meeting on Monday and we're going to go ahead and decide on their behalf okay the only reason I press the decision and I will defer to Legal

132is we have a school year getting ready to open in law to comply with it doesn't mean that anything can't be Revisited but we have to begin to give our schools and release the focus portal for our parents to get their permissions and everything appropriately aligned for the start of the school year and just to ask that we do need to do the training that goes along with this as well so may I interrupt I'm sorry I did three thank you I am hearing then is a recommendation to bring back to the briefing the position of the if a parent does not if parents fill out the form then their choice is on if a parent does not fill out this form for a particular reason then the Restriction would be that the child would

133not be permitted to check out those books that have been challenged and that includes those that require a parental advisory so go back to 39 for me that would mean all the books that were challenged as well as any book that has been challenged and requires parental consent I believe I have enough to to work with the team to move forward on that issue I still have a couple other things but it's up to the chair sorry Mr Fisher real quick question on that I and I asked this before just if if legal could research this a little bit more just for the briefing just if if we go with option three that would make more company on that thanks and again that's just a temporary hold if either way it's temporary the way you

134all were doing it at any time they could have said oh I don't want my child to read this and I'm now selecting to opt out of having my child you know but my only problem was the harm that it could have come before that so it's not a permanent thing like they'll never be able to check out a challenge book if they didn't fill out the form just asking and then what we will do in implementation is we will then press on those individuals who did not fill out the form to get them to make a choice same way we did with the clinic materials last fall a couple of things I think there's been some really great thinking forward I do believe at some point if if you want to look into a

135crystal ball mine broke a couple of years ago and we had an infectious disease but if you want to look into a crystal ball looking forward I do believe if if all of us are old enough to remember when music didn't come with labels and then there were labels that were attached to music I think eventually Publishers may feel the pressure somewhere to begin to label books maybe like a movie I do appreciate this board's position on the individual seated to our to our left and the people they represent that if we were to go into a rating system of books without some state or national guidance I think we might be stepping further beyond what the law expects for from us at this point the critical component is for parents to know where the

136challenge books are to ensure that all of our websites are exact in their wording and that everything's located in the same place to ensure that when they look for challenged materials those folders are labeled and appropriately easy for a parent to understand if they're looking up a title that begins with a they would they would be able to look up all the titles in a through F if they wanted to look up a title that became began with the word Vanishing they know they would go through the to the v file I think it's really important to try to create as much access as we can in ease and I know the team's been working really hard on this the websites are being updated there's a difference between similar and exact and what I'm pressing

137on our team is for exact that if they look for our district they find our district in some cases some of our school websites say District right we have to be similar I've already asked Dwayne and some of the team members to come back we want to review those expectations this provides us what we need and I want to thank the legal team for helping us with the appeal process in the course of the conversation I think it was stated that you know the decision of the board would then be rendered your decision has been rendered but if the person challenging the material would like to go further there are additional opportunities for them to go beyond this board and to attorney Huffman thank you for the clarification you're in a sense in those public

138hearings you're acting as a as a Judicial board a quasi-judicial board and you will have protection at the Appellate level as long as you made the best decision you could based upon the information that was provided to you so I think that is I think that is where we're headed I believe we have enough direction from the board to get ready for the briefing and to ensure that we have the opportunity to and bring it back for that and then I think most importantly for the public again that briefing is on Monday and we can take public comment and see how we've landed amongst the hard work that this team has done in engaging not only the curriculum Community but the larger Community sorry the curriculum Council but the larger community in this process and

139hopefully by people listening in today they have some additional time to provide some feedback to all of us which I'm sure if they either agree or disagree or have concerns they will be happy to do that to us Mr chair thank you for the opportunity to make a comment yep thank you and thank you all for presenting today I was an excellent presentation foreign the next item on the agenda is the year the 2024 budget update so Mr chair has the amazing CFO and her team make their way to the area another lighthearted presentation on its way nothing too serious just our operational our operational budget for the 24 sorry 23 24 school year I know that you provide been provided the materials I know that you have been previously briefed I know that this

140remember this is not the end of all the briefings working towards a final budget and keep in mind also we are still working on the actuals from this past year so all these things come to a head right at the same time so we appreciate your continued space within your brains to continue to crunch numbers and work with our CFO Amy dustmore and her faithful executive director Haley Letcher so thank you and thank you to the team thank you good afternoon Dr Bernier members of the board we are here to give you an update on the preliminary budget we had our last conversation a couple of of briefings back we have some updated information to that in advance of your approval of the tentative Budget on Monday July 31st so that being said Miss Letcher

141please so I just wanted to go over where we are right now right now after we've received the second calculation the budget that will be moving forward to you next week is sitting at about 2.4 billion dollars 1.1 billion of that is in the general fund which is 47 of the total budget capital is the next biggest piece at 36 or 876 thousand dollars I wanted to kind of go over with you our year to year growth and where our growth is I know that's with FBS scholarships and things happening so as you can see over the last multiple years how our numbers have grown and where that growth is and this year of course is projections and the 2223 number is as of the fourth calculation and we just got preliminary numbers in the

142other day and we were over a hundred thousand it looks like for what will come out as our final for 23 but we're sitting at a total for projected next year at 104 000 88 000 of that being in our district schools in our lead virtual Charters will make up 12 000 of that and scholarships are three thousand of those students so just going over where we were last time that we met just so we can kind of see where we were and see where we what has happened since then so when we met on I think it was June 26 I think we were studying with a 72.8 million dollar increase in the fefp 7.5 of that increase was due to the teacher's salary portion and other categoricals were about 2 million so about

1439.6 of that was set aside for categoricals our Charter School the growth in there was taking up about 5.3 of that family empowerment scholarships went up about 13.9 million it was the estimate and then we had to set aside another two million dollars to maintain our contingency where it needed to be so that left about 41.8 million for district needs as we went through that 15.9 of that was growth in our traditional schools the Florida retirement rate increased which took us to 8.3 million for that our dependent Care Health Insurance increase was hitting about 10.9 million our board Insurance increase was at 8.3 and our property insurance increase was at 12 million which was an increase to the budget of 55.4 million which was more than we had seen so we just kind of broke

144it down right here which left us in a deficit of about 13 million dollars and the things we still didn't know about was salary increases for staff and an fefp Our Florida education Finance program probation I will tell you that we've received the second calculation and we already had our first proration it's 819 000 we haven't even counted one student yet so it's interesting to see so that was a recap of where we were when we last talked to you related to the budget at that point in a deficit so what has happened since then in order to help us balance the budget so first we were able to finalize the property quotes and the estimated there was an increase but it was a less estimated increase than the increase was less than what we

145estimated if I can get that out so that we were able to basically add 7.1 million dollars back into our calculation because that property increase was not as high as we had originally anticipated then we were able to identify some more really look at the expenses that were budgeted in each of the different funds we were able to move some expenses to better utilize the funding source based on what was allowed within each funding source and that allowed us to save about 3.4 million in general fund as well and then we also revised our salary budgets or that is looking examining what we had budgeted in the budget for salaries and knowing that we do anticipate some vacancies we reworked what our estimates were related to that and we were able to Garner five million

146dollars there and then within the second calculation that we received from the state because they did rework they certified our tax roll as of July 19th sent us a new calculation of the fefp and we had a conversation related to the tax roll at our last meeting and there was some some surprise or some question based on what the level of the tax row was at that point that it might be too high when they certified it on July 19th they came certified even higher than what we had discussed at our last briefing so that resulted in additional funds in the general fund of about 4.3 million dollars so that being said that gave us close to 20 million that we could add back into those estimates that we worked with at that time which

147gave us about a 6.2 million dollar alignment or a fund balance to add into the fund balance for the budget and thereby helping us to balance the budget that you will see at the tentative so just going back over the tax roll for a little bit so on the conference reported their first calculation we were sitting at about 138 billion dollars and then when we met in June we were looking at the preliminary numbers from the property appraisers about 142.8 billion and when it finally came in and they certified at 145 billion so that is an increase for us so when the tactile goes up of course that generates more dollars for the required local effort portion though it does not generate any additional dollars for us because as soon as that amount goes up

148the state portion of our funding in the fefp goes down so that doesn't generate any additional dollars for us however the discretionary millage does that's the 0.748 Mills that you all Levy and that will generate another five billion dollars and that's where that number on the previous one that's a million that's a billion oh sorry million I wish it was that's a very important distinction thank you thank you for touching that's where the difference here is the 4.2 that is the 5 million dollar discretionary increase less the paration that already hit us so that's where that 4.2 comes from and in our Capital outlay that's another area when the tax roll goes up that we do see an increase that's going to increase over our conference report of 10.2 million dollars just to remind us

149a little graph of when our tax roll goes up the required local effort portion comes down we will be bringing forward to you all for our local dollars at 3.182 for the required local effort that includes a prior period adjustment of 0.018 the 7.48 discretionary the 1.5 cap capital for a total of 5.43 meals was what we're going to be bringing forward to you on Monday we also want to talk about some legislative wins that happen at the session this year for Lee County there are additional dollars that you will see accounted for in the budget as well for career and tech programs our expansion at Cape Coral Technical College additional funds for safety technology to maintain safe environments at our schools some funding to help support after school programs families being able to access

150those through scholarships and then also additional help for Hurricane Ian in terms of recouping some of the losses that our County experience to financially through that disaster so on the slides the ones that you see highlighted or in the orange color those are Appropriations that were specifically for Lee County that we will access in this budget year and then the one in in blue was a Statewide effort in which we will and we have and will apply for some portion of those funds but that has to be approved or not at the state level so that's the distinction between those two the capital budget you do have within your information we had a tentative 10-year plan or a draft 10-year plan in your in your materials at this point that is just for some additional

151information and for later conversation because of the fact that the capital briefing that we had scheduled for today was postponed so that we could have all of our board members here for that important discussion and so we'll hold off on most of the discussion of the capital plan we do have noted here though within the revenues that we have in the capital plan what our assumptions were of how we estimated those revenues over the five years and then some important points that we know we're going to have to come back to is you know a five year and a 10-year plan is constantly under review as things change within the plan and they will will keep you updated but the plan is a point in time and our best guess of what would happen at

152that point we will definitely have to work as and talk about when we get to our the details of our plan to have an appropriate balance of revenue and debt and those things that we're able to fund in the plan which will leave us in a conversation of talking about a need that is unmet within the plan so we will or or that is items that at this point wouldn't be able to be funded based on our estimates of Revenue that we have and we will be getting more into detail on those when we reschedule that Capital briefing so the timeline for what we have left to do or the things that are coming up in short order you will see according to trim or the truth in millage requirements of the state an advertisement

153in the News Press on July 28th those are advertisements that are formulated and proved by the Department of Revenue and has details about the tentative budget that you all will be set to approve on July 31st so those advertisements will arrive in the paper on July 28th we will come together again on July 31st for the FY 24 tentative budget hearing in which you will hear all of that information at that point you all have I believe in your possession now the tentative budget book and the presentation or in terms of the recommendations that the superintendent will be asking you to approve on July 31st and Then followed by the final budget hearing on September 6. so just a preview of all of the things Yet to Come related to the budget process I just

154want to clarify for you the information the tentative budget book and all of the documents are in the board docs for the tentative budget hearing that should have been posted for you to look at if you would like one sent directly to you please let me know we don't have a hard copy we just have the electronic right now and Mr Dr Bernier Mr superintendent will you turn it back to you environments I want to thank the Chiefs that are present within the room let me start all over again I want to thank the team I don't have a lot of comments at this point to this I'm interested in the board's discussion of the questions you may have for me and our financial team I would like to thank our CFO and our director

155of budget as well as the Chiefs that are in the room as well as not in the room because there has been immense amount of work to continue to to continue to find the dollars for the things that this board wants to commit to I'm happy to see that some of the questions that have been asked of me recently regarding cost of insurance and how much that's how much that increase is those are increases that would have been passed off to our teachers in the past and our other employees for the upgrade from the employer contribution as well as the increases of what we call Medical inflation this board is once again absorbing those costs in this particular tentative budget and not passing those costs onto our Educators support professionals and other employees so I'm

156looking for your discussion and any questions you have for me or the team we'll start the other end today Miss Morgan thank you okay Miss Langford Fleming not sure she's there right I have none thank you thank you Mr juvenile thank you so much so I do have a question last year's budget how many what was our total students in in the our budget amount for those students like I loved how you separated that out and just for the record that I was curious about that and then do we know how much money we're saving with the proximity plan in transportation I was just curious thank you so you were asking last year's students in the fefp so last year students according to the fourth calculation or that is the last one that we would

157have received in February that was that we were our FTE count was at ninety nine thousand nine seven nine so just under a hundred thousand students last year at the calc fourth calculation or in February this year is a little over 104 000 so that is a difference of about 4 400 FTE thank you and then I'm sorry you had a second question would you repeat it please oh the budget the budget last year was I think similar it was 2.4 right or was it not quite 2.4 last year's budget the final budget that you approved last year was 2.1 billion or 2.1 thank you I couldn't remember the other question was related to transportation it's in in the board update regarding The Briefing related to the regular agenda that's so true well I will

158share it then but I will share it now since the question has been asked right now we know several different things about our new proximity plan well we know a second what we know for sure is that the proximity changes have reduced the need for drivers from 729 to 600 that still means because of the number of vacancies we have every single driver is still employed it reduced the number of daily route Miles by just over 15 000 miles per day if people want to get out their calculator because because this is a rough estimate well our buses get about four miles to the gallon and I don't want to quote the current price of diesel because I don't know it off the top of my head but it is not what we you would

159pay at a pump because we buy it in bulk and we buy buy it differently it appears that's going to reduce the length of all of our rods pop out 15 minutes per each route for elementary we have some projections that are in the millions of dollars but rather than releasing a number specifically today we would like to continue to work with Transportation see how the first few days of school goes and then and then make sure we bring those projection to you I can tell you that both our CFO and her director are deeply involved with Transportation having conversations with them and looking for those cost savings because that's remember we did proximity to get students to school on time but one of the intended consequences of it would also be that we would

160have more operational dollars because remember Transportation feeds off the general fund that is the same number that goes to teacher salaries teacher benefits support professionals so the more cost efficient we can be in transportation the more ability we have to transfer those dollars to the board's priorities and I'm Sorry Miss Gianelli if I can correct something I just said you asked about last year's final budget it was 2.4 billion dollars my apologies I was talking about the final results from the year before it was 2 billion 412 million versus what you're seeing now the 2 billion 444 million thank you thank you apologies all right Mr Fisher are you yeah okay first off thank you to the team thank you Dr Des Moines and Ms Lecter I appreciate it thank you for all your hard

161work and this has been very enlightening I have a question that's probably more for Dr Bernier with this it's more of a it's both budget and philosophical question in regards to the budget without getting into any specifics in the future or any kind of bargaining in the last the million dollar question where else can we find I guess really is one where else can we find more dollars within the operating budget in regards to helping us with teacher and staff salaries in the future we're committed this year to find additional dollars is why I talk about the hard work that's going on with the team myself the CFOs and the entire team we want to come to you in early August for an executive session which would give us bargaining Authority and we plan to

162bring a number four to you that we not only know that we can meet going into this fiscal year but the critical opponent is sustainability over all of the future years so I know that people are interested in what are we going to get paid how are we going to adjust this district is committed to our support professionals and our teachers and in getting with their unions as quickly as possible and providing them a compensation package that hopefully they will find acceptable but first we can't get ahead of the board's authority to take those dollars to our unions and have that discussion okay thank you appreciate that's all I had I just want to again thank you for the presentation looking at it was sort of shocking is just how much both property insurance and

163health insurance those costs have gone up this year and understandably so they're going up for all of us at our house and our personal lives the fact that we are absorbing the additional costs for the employees on their health insurance is a sizable number which we'll probably put out later but it's that's almost like a race because just about everybody else I know they're saying oh we're giving you this much raise and by the way your insurance is going up this amount of money I know that's what Social Security does so you really don't see much of anything but again thank you that was I have no other questions all right I guess our last thing is the agenda there are a number of questions Mr chair that came in about the agenda I think

164that has to do with summer vacations the inability for us all to connect to each other like we normally do so if you'll permit me this will be a probably longer report than I've given in the past but before people step away I'd like to thank the CFO and Kelly Ledger for their attention to this matter and look forward to them returning my first question came in regarding the approval of the service agreement with Stepping Stones group Salient Health Procare therapy Community Rehab Associates do we have contracts that are not funded with the Ida Grant the services in these contracts for we don't have the question did you send them to us yeah she's got them in her hands I apologize I assumed you had them all right well thank you all right two pieces

165of candy now so under the consent agenda for academic Services the question was regarding the approval of the service agreements and Stepping Stones H4 the question was how many other contracts are not funded by the ID Grant these services in these contracts for these Services the answer is no there are no other contracts that are not funded by Ida we choose that very specifically again like we were talking about to preserve general fund dollars because they are our most flexible funding so when we can use idea appropriately according to the federal standards we utilize those funds in order to ensure we're not expending General funds for those these purposes for the purposes of this these dollars I think it's important to say that these positions even as employees are paid through the Ida Grant the

166positions continue to be advertised per Union contracts will be filled with employees if able to be hired this is a way for us to go into the fall to ensure that the national shortage regarding individuals who do these types of services are available to our students so we can be in compliance with their IEPs so approval for the other question was H5 approval a service agreement with Darla betlack this is the same question I asked in cabinet is this actually one person is this actually more than one person the answer to that question is no this is a very specific contractor that we have used contracted therapists are assigned to schools that do not have the employee therapists are contracted provide services during the times that students are present up to 7.5 hours per day

167they do not work on professional development days the number of schools depends on the number of required hours in the IEPs to service our students and this can and does change throughout the school year so we're able to hire employees supplement services and react to enrollment changes this particular contractor will be used in four particular schools this particular contractor is not new to the district it was the questions I asked because I wanted to know why specifically this one individual somebody we've used somebody we can trust somebody who gets the job done for us and I appreciate that so the contractor again will provide services as indicated on the IEPs they also complete evaluation plans of cares meetings and progress notes in an all IEP meetings both both the student and the parent obviously and

168clearly have a voice if the district needs a change change the school assignment this person is employed in a way that makes them flexible to be changed and if an employee is hired and found the district must provide a 30-day notice to the contractor prior to ending service another question related to the same area was do we have OT contracts that are not funded by Ida not at this time so the second question is not applicable what is the starting salary and what schools are they supporting the contractor is paid an hourly rate and which is included in the contract for they provide services indicated in the contract of 51 an hour the current openings this contractor is supporting are at Cypress High James Stevens pinewoods Elementary and Spring Creek Elementary as indicated above and

169prior at any time depending on the district needs enrollment of students this individual can be used and be changed and shifted to any other school that we might need the question related to the same Grant is I see this grant is only for one year what's the plan after that Ida is an entitlement Grant it comes from the federal government which each year supports the extra costs of helping to educate our students with disabilities it is there's a reasonable expectation that idea would continue to be funded from the federal government however if for any reason the federal government stopped funding idea we would no longer be able to use these Grant dollars because they wouldn't be here we would have to use general fund money and the responsibilities because we must comply with IEPs would

170become the responsibilities of the school district to fully fund fourth School I got Cypress high pinewoods pinewoods thank you the question was what was the fourth school I just want to make sure everybody got that into the record please explain H6 please explain the reason for a purchase of a new copier and where will the copier be installed this is for the title IV part A student support and academic Services enrichment again this grant notice the date very carefully it was for 22-23 we received an extra appropriation that has to be spent by July 31st so The copier specifically will be used in the curriculum Department to prepare materials for various activities such as teacher training and Student Activities for this for schools throughout the district is this part of the LCL bid and is

171this is this the bid for the Lee County School District this is a piggyback bid that we've used in the past for the procurement Department the Lee County Sheriff's Office is the original owner of the bid and then we procure their bid in order to do our work so is this also do we have a contract with the vendor for the copiers yes this is our copier vendor it's JM Todd and again all these in all these questions will be provided to you in the answers in writing is this the best price this is the best price based off of the bid with our vendor do we have separate bids do we do we make sure we do the right and due diligence the items were purchased by multiple the items were purchased by multiple

172vendors in effort to get the best best in Pro product at low cost at the lowest cost we always get quotes for everything that is purchased but it's not always required for us to come to the board depending on the cost but we are responsible for otters to show our due diligence related to checking with multiple vendors who could deal with the same service and while you don't always have to pick the cheapest you have to have a rationale for who you selected and we make sure we comply the federal government is very involved in ensuring we spend this money accurately and correctly sunblocker and shade house for purchase the question is sort of resolved around why did we buy some shade houses the purchase of these items is the support outdoor classrooms for the

173school garden programs the intent is to give students a shaded area to work a location for plant germination and to support the schools in growing produce for their cafeterias during the hotter months of the school year when it normally won't grow so this is a pretty consistent expense and also it gets our children out of the sun when they're out working in the outdoor Gardens some quotes appear to have expired in April and June any of the quotes that had expired the vendor was contacted to verify that they would still honor their bid and the bid was updated before obtaining their services or their item did we already purchase these items as I mentioned this grant will run out this is additional money that's been provided by the federal government it is not unusual in

174Grant situations like this for districts to go ahead and purchase these materials before the grant closes on the 31st well that's one of the reasons why I think long term we have to have a discussion about other board meetings in July I know the board likes to have just one but tomorrow on Monday night we are going to we're going to appoint a number of assistant principals that have not been able to serve at their school because we have not been able to appoint them and once they're appointed we'll have other vacancies to fill so just long term I think we may be in a workshop with our chief strategy officer we can figure out a way for item J I currently do not have an answer that I'm comfortable with I will give you

175the answer that I was provided that the expenditures for this grant were a year-round program but it was very specific as to our invoices for forty six thousand dollars under the amount approval for the superintendent but the in the total amount is much more than that so they wanted the total cost of the two-day event there was no one two day event these monies were spent throughout the entire school year but I would like more of an accounting when I provide the final answer to the board what happens to the items after the event or after purchase the all these items are remain with the school district or the schools for which they were purchased so there's no returning of property if the grant monies are expended and we have property it stays with us

176item age seven approval of the title for part a support student academic enrichment for 2324. the question was I see academic recent Grant requesting 2.5 for the program costs including 95 000 in indirect costs and no additional direct cost to the district the purpose of title four is to improve School conditions for student learning and improve the use of technology in order to improve the academic achievement please advise what are indirect costs indirect costs are those costs that are set aside by the budget Department to be used in support of the indirect costs related to the management of the Grant in most cases this is a program the word just evaluator in order to ensure that we have spent the money correctly most federal grants require us to have a program evaluator that looks at

177the grant make sure that we're spending it correctly and prepares us for the eventual Federal audit while schools are received what schools are receiving the sport title funds support all schools by providing funding to departments for supplemental programming that otherwise would not be funded examples could include sending students to academic academic events art and music competitions additional equipment and supplies for stem programs and art programs the money is fairly flexible as long as it supports student achievement one more question on the academic h24 approval of the State of Florida Readiness provider contracts all schools have the ability to apply is the answer so how are these schools chosen the schools are mirror Lakes Ravi pardarf Franklin Park and the Early Childhood Learning Center all schools have the ability to apply these schools apply and were

178selected was the answer I was provided that is not adequate for me so I will be getting additional information as to how and why these schools were selected I've already asked for that from staff consent Business Services approval to accept the internal audit report for 2021 School internal funds Hal repeat multi-year issues of the same schools being how are multi-year issues from the same schools being addressed a little bit of context for the community these are annual internal audits of our school bookkeepers and our school principals as to how they spend internal funds the request specifically identifies those areas where over a course of years these same error is being made for locations with repeat issues Business Services works with Administration and the bookkeeper for a better understanding of the applicable rules and regulations to

179address and eliminate future findings we also have a bookkeeper support specialist who performs reviews and helps newbie new bookkeepers shortly after they begin employment in order to help address the issues in early process before anything becomes a finding in addition training provided out the through provided throughout the school year reduces findings for all locations in addition each one of these schools must submit a plan for how they will eliminate these errors as they move forward in the past those reports did not necessarily get to the principal supervisor it is incredibly important that our supervisors and our bookkeepers and our principals understand that multiple findings year after year is not acceptable those those plans are now being reviewed by our executive directors and are a point of conversation with our principals as we talk about performance

180the board member I yeah thank you I I just want to make note that 21 of our schools have material weaknesses ten percent of our schools had material weaknesses over a period of time and when we had a problem with the booster clubs we went out we created made certain that we had protocol or practices aligned with policy I'm just concerned that we don't have documented processes and that the staff responsible for them aren't well trained I think this is a significant problem I think talking about fundraising cash disbursements cash receipts I apologize no it's a serious concern a very large concern of mine in fact like the previous question these were questions that I asked at cabinet these were the areas that I've asked my team responsible for training bookkeepers and training principles in

181these issues to do additional training which we will do to review the processes and procedures that are expected by an audit and then also find a manner in means by which this is included and when we talk about performance reviews these are issues that people have to be held accountable for thank you consent item from Human Resources was the approval to adopt the revised the job description really is adopt in a small revision to the executive executive services and administrative division which is the engineer broadcast Communications position that particular position keep in mind is for behind our walls eventually all those media boards are going to be replaced that processing is underway and once done we are going to need if we're going to stay live on the air and be able to tape our

182meetings and send things out live we're going to need somebody back there who has a skill set so the question was around their salary or what their potential salary could be the HR team and compensation has reviewed the job it looks like it'll land somewhere like 29.81 per hour which is at the 40th percentile of market rate so there are 60 percent of the people who have the same job that are paid more than that and only you know 39 below that and that's where we try to keep our market rate well is to have the impact of the budget no impact until the position is filled benefits retirement FICA this is a recommendation for the approval of the job description this item has been noted by our CFO she knows that we may need

183this position coming in January so we have identified it in the budget but those cost savings dollars while it remains unfilled will will revert back to the general fund so if this job is vacant for six months half of that salary will revert back to the general fund to be utilized for other issues consent of an operations approval of the designated school bus routes for the 23-24 school year what is the status of Transportation pick up in AM and PM a drop off at school day cares We are following the board policy Neola 8600 school buses shall be purchased housed and maintained by the district for the transportation of Resident students between their home areas and the schools of the districts to which they are signed parents may use a Stop close to the daycare

184if a if it is permanent and on an everyday basis and if there is an established route with an established stop there are spaces of the end there are space available on the bus this is a change in a business model for us and for what we were talking about in just a moment when I talk about have there any been any early predictions as to additional cost savings for the district our first priority is to get all of our students to school on time we understand that parents have daycare and day care providers I have been calling some of the daycare providers who've written me directly and I've shared with them that this is a shift in their business model as well they collect lots of money from our individual parents and there is

185no reason why they cannot provide transportation to our students at their cost I've been the Principal of many schools where a daycare boss came into the parent pickup Loop and those we know those students who got on that bus or that van and they were delivered my daughter is one in particular who went to a karate studio from the time she was in the fifth grade and all the way through Middle School she was picked up every day by the karate department and transported to that I guess they refer to it as a dojo this is a major shift for us but it's one thing we talked about in the proximity plan and if we want I guess what I say is we're hoping to save just over 15 000 miles a day to get

186our students to school on time parents can still use a designated stop that is close to and then have in one case we've worked out a situation where when the parent realized that she picked the stop that is already on the route and the daycare has agreed to come up and meet the student and walk them you know the one block to where they need to be we just have to work through these cases individually but it is a change in the business model both both for the school district and for us moving forward but I also go back to the idea of four miles to the gallon every time we rewrite a reroute a bus for four to eight miles those costs begin to add up and they add up quickly but the more

187important piece is we lose time and if you're a middle school educator listening the LA the thing you want to see most out of Elementary proximity is the pickup times for our middle schoolers to get much more close to the expectation of when our middle schoolers should be picked up and what I'm asking from Mr Lloyd is consistent communication like last year as to when our last student is dropped off we have to get better at that the average of that is well after when middle schools end because you know it's for the community tier one is High School High School runs pretty well because their first one's out of the gate then in the morning then we run to our elementaries this Elementary proximity saving 15 000 miles a day should get us a

188better on-time percentage with our elementaries than getting to our middle school bus stops at a timely timely frame if you really look at the communication from a year ago most of my emails about children not being picked up were at the middle school level then the opposite occurs in the afternoon we're very much ready for afternoon of high school release and then we go to elementary but the elementary releases at a time where if we get a thunderstorm which we never get any of those in the southwest Florida area or we get lightning that delays in elementary we can't fix that but we can fix that as soon as those hurdles have been cleared we have all the buses to then start arriving to our middle school so in regards to proximity for elementary schools

189do we have an idea generally how much the routes have been reduced and the length of time for each route I shared that earlier the proximity changes have reduced the need for drivers from 729 to 600 however we still need bus drivers somewhere in HR today applying changes reduce the need for I'm sorry we also reduce the number of daily route Miles by just over 15 000 miles 15 481 as we're currently calculating it and reduce the length of the bus ride bus routes by 9.2 minutes overall or more than 15 minutes for elementary routes on the elementary routes is there an approximate amount yes there is an approximate amount but as we get into negotiations and other things I want to be sure of that amount and I want to make sure it's reflected

190in the budget presentation that will be forthcoming approval of the new item approval of the phase one pre-construction busting estimate for nnnn high school this is sometimes referred to as the Joel Road in Tuckahoe when was this site briefed to the board this board this particular board probably has not received a briefing specifically to this the school district's former capital plan identified the property the intersection of Tuckahoe Road and Joe Boulevard currently slated as n n high school that piece of property can house both the high school and a middle school it was purchased in particular in order to be able to do this work on the east side of town to provide relief to our high schools and middle schools where we need seats for both of those both of those levels of schooling

191that had been briefed before the board on several occasions there was a 2017 board decision to proceed with this area I am operating under that decision but your Capital plan as Miss decimal our CFO referred to that Capital plan is coming back to you to be briefed and we would have an opportunity to revisit that the property the 2017 board decision between this site and the Gateway High School was made there was a property strategy presentation and capital project updates that have been done regularly nnnn has been in there but it really hasn't been a topic of conversation until it starts to get real I will tell you that as I'm back in just a few years ago the community in the process of preparing this to go forward was in support of this school

192they saw a need for it but now as we get closer to building it we are feeling some of the angst from the community but it is the appropriate place so that's why the next question is have alternative sites for nnm to be explored there were two other sites that could have accommodated the high school seats in the East Zone another is a smaller property just for the high school on Joel Road in comp in a comparison comparable site entice choosing the Tuckahoe Road Site was the most appropriate data-driven decision based upon what's going to happen in the future as Babcock Ranch continues to move Southward and then eventually will cross the border into Lee County those students even though they live in another area where the main entrance may be in another County those

193individuals were siding across the line will impact our enrollments in that area so that's why the area was chosen if so pros and cons associated with the selection an assessment of all the alternative sites by planning view the acreage and population density current and projected that made nnnn the best site if the board would like when we go over the capital plan in just a few weeks the board would like us to come back and revisit and have a deeper conversation with that your superintendent always stands at the ready to provide that to the board there were several questions on the agreements for the City of Cape Coral city of Sanibel City of Fort Myers and the Lee County Sheriff's Office for our sros have any substantive changes been made with these contracts compared to

194last year's contracts the only change is adding an additional SRO to our K-8 schools to Mira 1K through eight school that already has to those schools impacted will be the alpha School based upon being a K-8 in size North Fort Myers Academy of the Arts same reasons and Veterans Park Sanibel school already had two sros and was one of the reasons why the other police agencies felt based also upon size that arcades could use to as well the Lee County Sheriff's Office the Cape Coral Police Department and Fort Myers Police Department did make an increase to their cost per SRO from last year due to contract raises for their employees this was not the same this was not the same sizeable percentage that we paid a year ago it's a very in comparison a very

195minimal amount of money but the cost of business continuing to provide rsros to provide safety to our students is rising as well l29 was the approval to increase expenditures for ITN number n197367es proximity student enrollment District plan what was the act the question is what was the actual total budget for the proximity plan the ITN for proximity enrollment District plan was awarded on January 14 2020 to Davis demographics and planning the board agreed to compensate 280 thousand dollars for phase one elementary school phase one is the elementary school part of the project to additional phases were noted one for middle school and one for high school and they were to be compensated in the amount not to exceed 150 000 for each phase subject to the undertaking and completion for each phase this approval is

196to activate the expenditures for the middle school phase so Elementary proximity overall and looking at the entire proximity plan prior to my arrival was 280 thousand dollars the 150 000 is what we agreed to not to exceed and that is to begin the pro the process to work for 24 23 24 to be ready for Middle School proximity in 25. right now this current superintendent and I've received no direction from the board has no plan at this point to tackle High School proximity at this time since we mentioned it I thought it was worth the clarification the second question around this agenda item is specifically for a one-time approval to increase the board's previously approved amount by fifty six thousand by 150 000 for a total up to 206. funds will only be expended within

197the existing resources of the application please explain the need for the additional funding this increases the again this increases the activation of the optional middle school phase the reference payment of fifty six thousand was payment related to the elementary school phase of the project I saw a question I'm sorry it doesn't compute I do something do the other board members are you following the total package and the various pieces and what's been expanded at one point all of these expenditures came before the board this one is to related the elementary phase of the project I will get clarification from our new director planning Adam Malloy I'll get you better I'll get you a better more concise answer thank you the next question was about the approval of school bell times for the 23-24 the question

198is what is the plan for Bell time changes for 26 I know some districts have already made changes starting this school year when do you plan to make those changes let me Begin by saying I will not make those changes the board and I will make those changes you will have multiple work sessions community and town halls and lots of wonderful opportunity but now in 2026 to the public who may not understand what we're talking about there was a bill passed this year moving element again moving middle schools could not stop start before 8 A.M and high schools cannot start before 8 30 a.m that is a major shift in the way we currently do business in my work with the Florida associate of school district superintendents after getting this question calling some of my

199fellow superintendents no District that I have been able to contact has actually made these changes some didn't have to make make them because they were already doing it St John's is one Henry County is another so very large District very small District but all of us are looking to it so we've had the preliminary discussions about the impact of the required changes to our build time and we're looking at our transportation options and what I would share with you is this is a cross divisional Endeavor it's going to take department heads our community our advisory committees that this is a Year's worth of work in order to be ready for 26. so if you can think about things starting sometime in November December going through the spring so that our community is not in a

200shock and awe situation related to what do you mean my high schooler is going to go to school at 8 30 in the morning we need to plan and then our plan is to have these changes enacted by the 26th school year I don't see a need to rush this right now because I think the community deserves to have a lot of input and understanding of the medical research the why and to express their opinions not only to all of us but maybe to some of their other elected officials yes comments Mr Fisher yeah I just wanted to follow up on that it was my understanding I thought when we were doing proximity for elementary that we were perhaps and this is a while back I guess not as much as I thought but that

201we're considering moving at least changing before this Bill had come out the high school start time not for this Academic Year but the next one I thought that was on the table at that point I have no I'm during my tenure I have no recollection of us talking about a change in high school time for the 24-25 school year I think the research is clear as to why it's important and having been in a district that did it prior to this legislation I think I have some good information to share with all of you related to what some of the arguments will be but this is now codified in state law so I don't see another path for this school district other than to comply with the law unless the Law changes and I'm the

202one that brought that up only because I must have set near those districts that have have made that change already had that change because they somehow it was in a conversation and I said hmm if they're ahead of a game like that I just wanted to ask and put it out there we needed to start talking about it anyways and that's really where I why I brought it up is it's a conversation that we're going to have to have a lot of so I reached out to superintendents that I knew in various districts I've had that conversations with questions been asked they have not moved I did reach out to another couple of school districts to have some conversation with them I was able to get some conversations they already had school starting around this

203time for instance in our world we really don't have to do much with Middle School start time we have to probably change when they start because we're going to have to make room to drop off all the middle schoolers and then get all the high schoolers but most of our high schools most of our middle schools other than our k-8s which start at 7 55 already start after that eight o'clock hour so technically we're in compliance but we can't have our high school starting at 8 30 and our middle school is going after that because they wouldn't start until very late so and what gets missed in this discussion which is worth at least putting out there is when elementaries will have to start and that's usually where the where the districts have approached it

204and I you know I have some experience with some some young babies in my life that get up awful early in the morning but they seem a lot more awake when they're headed off to school than my high school students did when I was sending them to school good point but there are things like Athletics there are things like jobs and practices we're we're going to hear a lot of input from our community and looking forward to that opportunity to again listen before we lead all right so in follow-up there's a couple of follow-up there's a couple of questions I need to get a better answer to the proximity I need to get a better answer as to how those schools were selected and then there was one other I will make sure that before

205the notes are delivered to you with the answers that you have everything and I have a better answer to those three particular questions Mr Langford Fleming are you have any questions we're the superintendent Mr chairman I don't think she's on the line anymore thank you Miss Morgan do you have any questions follow up through no no thank you well we'll go the good of the order I'll let you start I have nothing for good of the order I do have comments for member comments I guess I save those for the briefing on Monday okay okay Miss juvenile I'm nothing thank you Mr Fisher I have to be that guy sorry two two quick things one thing just out of amusement when I was reviewing the agenda my travels I came across that we're going to

206be voting on an ice cream contract so I made my kids aware of that and immediately their behavior has been much better towards me so knowing that we'll be voting on that so in all seriousness just I know not all of us are here so I just want to kind of put this out just briefly we obviously got the numbers back from testing and we're obviously there were some gains but obviously there's a lot of work to do with reading and math proficiency I know we've talked about this and I'm wondering maybe if I'm trying to think how to phrase this without I don't want to go there's many many reasons for that we all know that there's many things going on there's many facets for that and there's many things are going to be

207done about that I'm wondering either for a meeting either potentially a standing item or a board update and I'm not looking to create busy work but maybe discuss you know each week or every other week some of the initiatives that are going towards that to help the bigger initiatives as I said I know there's a lot of little things but I wanted to see the board's temperature and the superintendent's temperature on that if I can yes at the briefing on Monday we will have our first initial report of the scores comparing them to our performance sharing very plainly with the community where exactly we stand where some of the high points are and where some of the low points are at the same time that's going on we will be finalizing our goals and expectations

208for our strategic plan which will then get implemented and then at the last slide in that presentation will speak to the up coming briefings in board workshops as our academic Services team comes forward at those dates and you can change those dates at your pleasure clearly but if we're going to set out a schedule for briefings and for workshops so that you are getting the information as we move forward I will share with you that we focused on a number of different things this past year but I will make no excuses we have to do better on my Deputy superintendent knows that we need to do better her team is aware our principals and that'll lead me to my comments about our principles meeting tomorrow if the chair recognizes the superintendent so we're someone I'm

209trying to tell you Mr fishers on on Monday you'll have information about a plan to keep you informed and not only will we set the schedule for academic services to present before you but we'll also through the Strategic plan set a schedule for regular updates on the other pieces of the Strategic plan that are not necessarily related to the work of student achievement directly related Dr moner you have anything else just have a couple of things one I would just like to congratulate this board on your foresight this has nothing to do with your superintendent this was approved prior to my arrival today we broke ground to G Weaver hips for a 200 plus seat Pre-K unit to serve the children in East Lee County I'm very excited about the opportunity that is going to

210provide to us as we build those classroom spaces the PSAs are going out we're doing a couple right now one is safe walk safe bike safe drive everyone from the sheriff to some of our Mayors some board members as well everybody's been involved in creating those PSAs to help our children understand about safe walking to school safe bike riding to school and also to help educate our parents about behind the wheel they need to be looking out for our children looking forward we're also looking for an opportunity about responsible use of social media so if you've got your words in your mind that you'd like to get ready to record a PSA they would be shown on morning announcements into our high school middle school and Elementary School students we'd love to have you involved

211in that process and there are a couple of more more things coming the other one is about speak up listen up I just really think it's important from me from all of you from our other Chiefs and our other directors and other leaders to speak very clearly as to what that is and what and what our expectations are again the more we hear it the more likely we are to embed it in our culture and once it gets embedded in culture it'll be our way of work principals are gathering tomorrow the theme of tomorrow's Gathering is teeing it up it is a little bit of a golf theme so you can dress appropriately if you'd like to come our kickoff is around 7 30 in the morning I will start the day with some expectations

212for our principals I'd love to have you there if you want to be there or can be there and I think that's where I'll leave it at this time appreciate the oh I have one other point of order and I almost forgot it because I didn't write it down if you'll permit me Mr chair I'd like to recognize two people that are in our audience who've had no opportunity to introduce them before this point I'm seated all the way in the back highlighted by a beautiful light of Halo above his head is our new chief operations officer Larry Stevens Larry could you stand I know all of you I know all of you have had an opportunity to review his resume and see his credentials and I appreciate Larry more than he even knows yet

213for being on board when all those questions about construction and Facilities comes come comes to me he's he's been a great resource and he's working as quickly as he can so I look forward to you know you getting a chance to interact with him some more the other individual I would like to introduce is our temporary chro we've offered Hillary McLean a contract to be with us for a most significant but a specific period of time to help us with our human resource division to work with Mr dodig and the team to continue to grow the HR team Revitalize its processes bring us into the 21st century related to that work and to really work with what the team was already working on and just find somebody who could execute and then her major goal

214along with me is to revamp the ch Euro job description which will come before you and then help me recruit the chro so her job is to come here help us get our work done and then provide Direction and then help us find her replacement Hillary McLean thank you Mr chair all right our next meeting again will be Monday for everybody at this point having no other business come for this body and seeing no objection this meeting is adjourned the time is 303 pm