OCPS | 2023-08-24 School Board Work Session

001good morning and welcome to the Orange County school board's work session which had been scheduled today for the purpose of discussing School Board policy dfaa use of surplus funds School Board policy JRA student records and social media as it relates to school board members the public will not have an opportunity to participate in this work session to provide public comment because this is not a regularly scheduled school board meeting no action will be taken and there will be no pre-agenda period in which the public normally addresses the board on relevant topics that are related to the work of the board thank you so much for being with us this morning board members are attending in person with the exception of chair Jacobs we are still waiting for a few board members to arrive and we

002will welcome them when they get here I want to remind the public that board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so we can focus on the meeting itself giving our attention to the matters immediately before us should you want to contact us please continue to do so before or after each meeting to my fellow board members and District staff when speaking please make sure your microphone is turned on and speak directly into it so our YouTube and orange TV viewers can hear you clearly now we are going to have a moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance if if you would be so inclined to pray for the UCF Knights as they start their football season for health this season we would appreciate it thank you enough

003for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to its Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all come on sure all right Dr Vasquez thank you madam chair today we will begin our work session reviewing policy dfaa the use of surplus funds we have our CFO Doreen conkolino as well as Steve Compton that will be doing the presentation for the board this morning good morning chair Gallo board members on superintendent Vasquez today we bring to you the proposed revision revisions to policy dfaa use of surplus funds the agenda includes the timeline summary of actions proposed revisions next steps and then questions and discussions the tentative schedule is as follows policy dfaa was brought to Cabinet on August 21st today

004August 24th is the work session the rule development Workshop is scheduled for September 14th and the board approval is scheduled for September 26th the purpose policy dfaa is being revised to include updates to the safekeeping custodial section by a third party custodian as it relates to Securities that are purchased by the district the action summary revisions have been made to the existing policy language to include content formatting and terminology edits consistent with the Florida administrative code and now we will review the redline version of policy dfaa this past may we were notified by our current custodian that they were no longer going to provide custodial services to clients custodial services are provided by financial institutions by holding Securities in our name they also administer the monthly principal and interest payments that we receive several Banks

005were contacted in order to find a replacement custodian and as part of the discussion we provided a copy of our policy to make sure that they could abide by it numerous Banks had reservations about the language and the safe keeping custody of Investments section of the policy this section was originally adopted in 2010 and the industry has had changes since then here is a summary of the proposed policy changes which begin on page 7 of policy dfaa the first change is to section 16a the original policy states all Securities with the exception of certificates of deposit shall be held with a custodian we are adding local government investment pools and money market funds that do not have to be held by a custodian these are classified as Securities although not individual bonds and treasuries however

006it is unrealistic to have these funds under a custodian we have direct access to these funds and move the money as warranted additionally in this section the definition of third-party custodian was removed as it is encompassed in other sections the policy will read all Securities with the exception of certificates of deposit local government investment pools and money market accounts shall be held with a third party custodian and all Securities purchased by and all collateral obtained by the district shall be properly designated as an asset of the district the Securities must be held in an account separate and apart from the assets of the financial institution the custodian shall accept transaction instructions only from those persons who have been duly authorized by the superintendent or designee in writing no withdrawal of Securities in whole or in

007part shall be made from safe keeping or shall be permitted unless by such a duly authorized person in section 16b the superintendent or designee can enter into agreements with a custodian and doesn't require board approval the policy will read as the superintendent or designee shall execute all third party custodial agreements such increase such agreements may include letters of authority from the board details as to the responsibilities of each party method of notification of security purchases sales and delivery procedures related to repurchase agreements and wire transfers safe keeping and transaction costs procedures in case of wire failure or other unforeseen mishaps and describing the liability of each party the last change to this policy is in 16c to streamline the language the policy will read as the custodian shall provide the board with safe keeping receipts

008that provide detailed information on the Securities held by the custodian security transactions between a broker dealer and the custodian involving purchase or sale of Securities by transfer of money or SECU or Securities must be made on a delivery versus payment basis if applicable to ensure that the custodian will have the security or money as appropriate in hand at the conclusion of the transaction Securities held as collateral shall be held free lastly on page nine section 17-d formatting edits were proposed to remove the letter s the addition of quotation marks as well as the removal of a comma now I will turn it back over to the superintendent thank you Doreen and members of the board we are prepared to answer any questions do we have any questions member front just for people who are watching

009who maybe aren't versed in all the lingo can we just have a description of what the custodian and maybe that was described in the beginning but just one more time just so they know it's not somebody who's cleaning yes yes well I'm just going to read the description again a little bit I'll put not working yeah I'm not is it working yes yes we can hear you I'll kind of paraphrase for everyone then so when we go out and buy Securities bonds or treasuries being that we don't actually hold the coupon actual paper bond with us that's held at a what we call a safe keeping custodian relationship they administer all the principle and interest payments that we get they provide us reports statements basically they're the middle person between the broker and us since

010we can't we don't have direct access to the bond market we have to go through a broker they hold the paper for us so they're basically the middleman yeah thank you any other questions see none do we just need Mrs involved do we just need consensus from the board to move forward with the red lines we already have deadline she went through the timelines with you so yes as long as you're okay with that everybody's okay moving forward forward wonderful thank you thank you so much we're going to do a little switcharoo with the presenters so it's going to be easier for John and I to talk to you they are then sitting up here so okay so our next policy is policy JRA student records and we will hear from both our general and

011Deputy Council on proposed revisions to this policy thank you welcome Mrs involved Mr pomerini thank you thank you so we don't have a formal is this one can you hear me okay so we don't have a formal presentation like you do for policy dfaa for this one because this is the first time this is coming to you just for you to take a look at and I believe there needs to be some discussion on directory information from the board so we did take a look at this and because we have a new rule that was effective as of yesterday we have some additional language that's in here we are also taking out we're adding some additional language to be a little more clear that's required by the ESC policies and procedures so the first section

012is called confidentiality of Student Records this is a proposed new section required by section B8 of the exceptional student education policies and procedures that's required by the fdoe the Bureau of exceptional student education it references all those a lot of this stuff is already in your ESC policies and procedures that's in your student progression plan but it's buried and so the recommendation is to add it to the Student Records policy so it's clear and all in one place because you know your student progression plan is pages and pages long and it might get lost so this additional language just tracks what's required in the ESC PNP do you want me to read it to you are you okay with that yeah okay thank you all right moving on the next section under legal name of

013student this section 2 is being added we had rule 6a-1.0955 Florida Administrative Code that was effective yesterday and it says the new provision says the district must make Provisions for parents legal Guardians to specify the use of any deviation from their child's legal name in school apparent legal guardian who wishes for a child to be called a name other than the child's legal name shall complete a form provided by the district giving School Personnel permission to call the child by a name other than the legal name a child be called by the child's legal name provided upon registration if such form is not completed by the parent legal guardian and this is the new form that we have implemented for this year because we did have the draft Rule and we kind of assumed they

014were going to approve it so we have already implemented that this year the next proposed change that we just have some minor formality and Technical edits there so you can scoot down there to section seven we added that the annual notification that's required every every school every year we and it's in our code of student conduct we provide parents legal Guardians and eligible students the annual notification of the right to access Student Records the right to copy it the right to waiver of access right to challenge information contained everything that annual notification is found in the code of student conduct you have a whole section in the code of student conduct I believe it's section one that is specifically devoted to the to FERPA and so all that information is in there so we just

015added specifically to policy that the annual notification is in the code and also Student Records I'll be confidential and exempt so we're just making sure that language complies with the section with the statute we're not sure if school does not issue a handbook we're assuming they all issue them but if they're if they issue they have to have the same language in here and so if we can go back to directory information in a minute I want to go ahead and add the other two things that we've added and then we can talk about directory information under the access to Student Records section the following persons have access to Student Records to the extent the district has determined these persons have a legitimate educational interest in viewing those records has been added that language is

016consistent with FERPA and then section two has been added and that is parents legal Guardians are presumed to have authority to inspect and review records relating to the parents legal Guardians chat children child children upon verification of parents legal Guardians identity this is just so they understand that they do have the authority to inspect we do in limited circumstances sometimes we have where parental rights have been terminated and parents do not have the legal authority to do that it's rare but this is a presumption that if we don't have that court order then you can go ahead and you have access to your children's records and then it's a provision this is also part of the ese spnp that we did if a student record includes information about more than one student the parent legal

017guardian may only review the information relating to that parent legal guardian's child children other student information was removed or redacted this is a practice that we have always done we're just putting it into policy same thing for this one consent from the parent legal guardian or the consent of an eligible student who has reached the age majority must be obtained before personally identifiable information is disclosed to anyone other than officials of the district described herein or other party with a legitimate interest in the record or specifically authorized by FERPA in section 1002.22 Florida Statutes the consent must be in writing and must specify the records to be disclosed the purpose of the disclosure and the identity the identity and identify sorry the part of your class to whom the disclosure may be made this is

018already something that we do in practice we already have a FERPA form that parents can fill out we do require that they provide like let's say they're out of state we require that they provide us with a copy of the driver's license so we know that we are actually sending that personally identifiable student information to the proper party as it pertains to students with disabilities the consent must be obtained before personally identifiable information is released to officials of participating agencies that provide or pay for transition services and each School shall keep a record of third parties that access a student's record when the third party is granted access as provided here in or as provided by FERPA third parties are people other than the parent legal guardian or authorized staffed referenced here end the records

019shall include the name of the third party the date access was given the records accessed and the purpose for which the party is authorized to use these records again it's something that we already have in practice we're just putting it into this policy so it's not buried in our student progression plan we added section a b c and d a response from the district school for I'm sorry the parent Legal Group wait oh sorry sorry starting with section four as it pertains to students with disabilities as defined under the individuals with a disabilities in Education Act idea parents legal Guardians are permitted to inspect and review any educational records related to their children that are collected maintained or used by the district school without unnecessary delay and before any meeting regarding an individual education plan

020individualized family service plan or education plan or any hearing related to the identification evaluation or educational placement of the child or the provision of a free appropriate public education to the student in no case more than 30 days from the request we try to do it quicker than 30 days sometimes hearings come up quickly so we do accommodate our parents the best we can the parent legal guardian has the right to a response from the district school for reasonable explanation interpretation of the records B requested District school provide copies of the records of failure to do so would deprive the parent legal guardian of the right to review the records and C have a representative of the parent legal guardian inspect and review the records a lot of times if they have like an advocate

021with them or if they're represented by a council we require the parents to sign off that person can also see the records again this is all procedure that we have but we're putting it into policy recommending to put in a policy and then request a list of the types of records and location of Records relating to the paralegal guardian's child or children in the statute the district can charge the parent legal guardian for a fee for copies of the parents legal Guardians records so or apparent the child's records so long as the fee does not prevent the paralegal Guardian from accessing the record so a lot most of the time our schools will give them free copies of everything but it's when they ask for multiple copies that's when it taxes the resources of the

022school so sometimes we'll charge them for additional copies what's different from a public records in the next session you will see that a search or retrieval fee by the district may not be charged so when it comes to our records of our students with disabilities it's not a like for public records we actually charge a service fee for the time it takes to gather the records but in this case we don't charge that service fee I want to make sure that was in policy as well and then so we have had in place for a number of years for actually for as long as I can remember a ability the procedures that the way that parents can contest the contents of a student records and so before we just had a general statement but we

023decided to that would be a good idea to probably put this into policy so parents were aware of the process the procedures for challenging Student Records as inaccurate misleading or a violation of students privacy rights must at minimum meet the following requirements the district shall hold the hearing with a reasonable time after it was received has received the request for the hearing from the parent legal guardian or eligible student but a no event more than 30 days after receiving such requests for a hearing the district shall give the parent legal guardian or eligible student notice of the date time and place reasonably in advance of the hearing the hearing may be conducted by any individual including an official of the educational agency or institution who does not have a direct interest in the outcome of

024the hearing and the district shall give the parent legal guardian or eligible student a full and fair opportunity to present evidence relevant to the issues raised regarding whether or not I'm sorry regarding whether the student record is inaccurate misleading or a violation of the student's right to privacy the parent legal guardian or eligible student may at their own expense be assisted or represented by one or more individuals of his or her own choice including an attorney and then the district shall make its decision in writing within a reasonable period of time after the hearing but in no event should the decision be issued more than 21 days after the hearing the decision must be based solely on the evidence presented at the hearing and must include a summary of the evidence and the reasons for

025the decision if the district district decides the information is inaccurate misleading or otherwise in violation of the privacy or other rights of the child the district will amend the record accordingly and inform the parent legal guardian in writing if the district decides the information is not an accurate misleading or a violation of privacy or other rights of the student the district will inform the parent legal guardian of the right to place in the record a statement commenting on the information or setting forth any reason for disagreement with the district decision the parent legal guardian statement will be maintained by the district as part of the student's record as long as the district maintains the record of the contested portion of the record if the record is disclosed by the district to any party the explanation

026must also be disclosed in accordance with our ese spnp we also recommend adding a new section called destruction of personally identifiable information the district will inform parents legal Guardians when personally identifiable information is no longer needed to provide Education Services to the student this information must be destroyed at the request of the parent legal guardian a permanent record of the student's name address telephone number grades attendance record classes attended grade level completed and year completed may be maintained without time limitation and I believe that's the last part yes now we want to go back up to directory information do you have any questions about what we just went over I know it was a lot of reading I sent it to you ahead of time yes we do have several members wishing to speak member

027Salamanca thank you chair so my question was on the student's name the part that's in the code of conduct I've got this question from two parents which was does what can work constitutes different name like if it's Robert Bob Bobby the specifics of nicknames and things like that do we have is it as far as our how specific are we talking here okay is this on yes it is the rule itself States quote any deviation from the student's legal name so any deviation is I wrote the memo on it and I used my son as the example he was thrilled when I did that sometimes he's called Rob sometimes he's called Robbie his real name is Robert so the form would require that if we were going to call him Rob or Robbie that they

028this be filled out and approved by the parent got him okay thank you for that clarification yeah I think I think some parents weren't sure how like specific they had to be about nicknames as well and it sounds like they should be specific yes and any any means any so if it is any deviation okay thank you thank you oh I'm sorry Dr Vazquez thank you madam chair I want to make sure parents know that's not on any any legal documents ads or transcripts everything else will have their child's legal name because there was a question tied to that as well that is correct thank you thank you to add to that if parent wanted to make a change to the legal documents they would have to go to court and get a legal name

029change in order to effectuate that if we're presented with an order of the Court effectuating a name change we will in fact utilize the change name is ordered by the court but unless until we have that all the official documents we have will reflect the legal name it was provided when the child enrolled Elder morning thank you chair I have a question and maybe you explained it but I just need some clarification okay the records I think it was page five we talked about the Student Records okay in the event that the parents give the school permission to refer to the child by the name other than the birth name I see all of that has to be in the record what do we do about the previous records like before these laws were put

030in say when y'all first start going to school in kindergarten okay I started school in what 62 and maybe now I've changed my name because I have a gender change or whatever how how do we how are we how are we going to keep the records accurate this is the same person the reason why I asked that question is because records you know your attorney's records follow you even after you die your record follows you so I'm just wondering why we're trying to and it you know appease our parents and and children students what how do we know that John now was really Jamie how is that going to be care how do we keep up with that student okay student number I I'll start so the records are accurate at the time they're created

031so John may have started as John in school there may have been some subsequent name change or or whatever later on a court document and so that will be in the record and it moving forward would be the same we do not go progressively backwards and change anything because at the time the record was created at the time John was John was told in kindergarten John was John he was later Jamie or Jonathan or whatever okay so board member cassadella just said to me that we have a student number so that I know I still know my student number from high school so it maintains okay I was just concerned because I was just wondering how were we going to be able to keep up with that but the student notes that means we're gonna

032have to do our part to make sure that portion of the child's identity is accurate and it is kept up because you can imagine the confusion okay that's all thank you thank you member Felder member of Castor Dental thank you madam chair I would like to hold until we discuss the directory information is that coming up next we're going to go into that more so want to hold okay that's fine member Gould two things if you'd go to page eight this is this is the only sentence that gives me heart yeah this is the only sentence that gives me a little heartburn having had many not many more than I wanted cases that have come before us when parents are appealing the decision must be based solely on the evidence presented at the hearing and

033must include summary of the evidence and reasons for the decision it's the solely that I have trouble with because we have had instances where things have come to light that were not included and I understand we're in a quasi-judicial but we are not judges and we have the ability to listen to any evidence we want to and so I do have an issue with the word solely in there that I'm sure I can I can address this yeah let's go at it again this issue will never come to you all it's the district administrator who's doing this so I can tell you in the 13 years I've been here I've been the hearing officer both times we've had a challenge under this rule okay so it will be in our conference room the parent will

034come up there they will present all of their evidence to me as to why the record was misleading inaccurate at that time and so it is based solely we're not talking it's not like the situation where you have a discipline with a child and you all will typically say I want to know what that child you know is there any record with the child etc etc it's not like this we are talking specifically about a record that may or may not be misleading or inaccurate so they will present their evidence and I will tell them okay tell me why you think this document is inaccurate misleading or violation of your students privacy rights and they will tell me stuff and they will present documents and I'll say is there anything else that you would like

035to say on this and they'll keep going and they'll say is there anything else and I keep saying is there anything else until they say no we've told you everything we wanted to tell you at that point the records closed in front of me and this is coming right away out of the regulation yes okay so I don't like it I of course do not comment on whether I like the regulations yes I just think it when when parents and here's why it's not because I don't trust our process I want to make that clear parents don't know our process they don't live that every day so whenever they're bringing a challenge forward they don't know what they should have done till they've done it and then they have that you know 2020 Vision looking

036back and the insights of the process and they're like oh my gosh I forgot to include this I didn't know I didn't have that and that's why whenever there's a language like solely in anything that we publish it just gives me a little bit of heartburn but if it's in the regulation there's not a lot we can do about it just wanted to Sarah kopesky's in the back and she deals with these issues as well we have a lot of times this will never get to the hearing stage because if there's something inaccurate our principals have the ability to say okay the record's inaccurate and a lot of times this will get solved at the school level before it ever gets there mechanism to remedy without it being yeah concrete wall there is a recent

037example where that the school was identified as the wrong School the student attended to look back through it was the wrong school yes the principles can change the so it's the correct school okay that makes me feel a little better so then you were talking about the all the records would get destroyed and I know over the years that's been a real concern especially if a child made some wrong decisions at their in their life how do we communicate that effectively to the parents is it is it in writing to them at some point I just feel that gives them a little bit more Comfort when they've had to maybe course correct because let's face it they are especially our teenagers our teenagers you don't need to Define it any farther and they don't always

038make the best decision so how will that be actually communicated to the parents or Guardians yes do you mind no go ahead there is just so everybody's aware and also with us today is Les Vaughn who is our records management person so he him and his team have there are certain rules that we have as far as how long records are retained it's called the records retention schedule so by law there are things that we have to maintain certain records for a certain period of time so for example disciplinary records unless please tell me if I'm wrong disciplinary records have to be maintained up to I believe it's three years from the from when you see saying yes okay good three years from the date of the offense so at some point at that point

039we can take care of records and not maintain them anymore and less can certainly talk more about the actual process but to your point I mean we could put out communication that says under the Florida records retention schedule we have to maintain your your cumulative file I think we have to maintain permanently for up to 50 years or whatever the number is right come on oh it's a category I know enough to know when I'm over my skis yes thank you there are two portions of the of the student record the category a and the category b side category B which most of the district commonly referred to as a cumulative file that is three years and that's all the supporting documentation the category a portion is the permanent record that is the information we

040keep in our student Information Systems okay is there a suggestion maybe if they have had something come into their case that it's embedded in a letter with that schedule and how that's defined so that they know that does that's within the three-year this is the you know lifetime record just so that it's clear to the parents because that's often the follow-up I get once something's kind of gone past its yes ma'am the category b side which is where the discipline would usually fall in the cumulative piece that does get destroyed that doesn't kept is not kept permanently okay the only time that would some disciplinary records may have gotten imaged for transfer but those also get extracted and destroyed when they meet their retention that leads me to another question what if there is a

041litigation or an arrest associated with does that get kept for long anytime there's a legal hold or our general counsel will notify us and we'll segregate those records until we have authority to destroy those from our general counsel okay thank you that's a thank you member bird thank you chair actually can I follow up on that whole line so maybe don't leave or I don't know maybe you do I'm a little confused then on number one when it says the district will inform parents and Guardians when personally identify identifiable information is no longer needed and then it says this information must be destroyed at the request of the parent of guardians but I thought from what I understood it gets destroyed after three years is what he just said so why does it say must

042be destroyed at the request the information that the permanent information is basically the directory information the information of the student and that's what's kept the cumulative record we must keep by Department of State guidelines for the three years and then beyond that we do follow the guidelines pretty closely so usually we'll keep the student record for maybe a year after that for audit purposes if there is any audit or any question so at that point they are destroyed this portion of the JRA that's been changed our general counsel has inserted this piece in there that just reflects the changes in the stat in the administrative code so I think we're going to need to add this is why it's a work session we're going to add some more detail into that so it's specifically clear

043so that we can that's why we like to have these work sessions because when we look at it we're like oh yeah that looks great you know we copied it from such and such it's you know whatever but I see where the there's it's a little they're crazy yes okay we'll make that more clear because we are going to bring this back to you again okay thank you and then going back to page eight again with King with the parents contesting something could you give an example of other than obvious ones that we get like discipline and obvious if it's you know a record that's wrong like a school could you give us an example of when a parent would come to you with something was misleading or a violation of privacy I wish I

044had more than the obvious but the two cases I've been that I've done involved the disciplinary record okay yeah it hasn't gotten beyond that I'm sorry no that's okay so but a discipline record if a parent typically if they weren't happy with a discipline and they came to you to express that and to deal with it then they sometimes come to us for the same thing yeah yes that's correct so and a lot of times or not a lot of times because I've done two of these I think one of them was after the discipline process had went through and the discipline had been upheld and I don't I don't remember if it came to you all or not but obviously if the discipline would have been upheld and there was no Challenge and the

045board didn't overturn it then to come back on the back end and say the record is misleading and inaccurate part of the explanation is well you had a disciplinary process to challenge this and you did not challenge it or was not overturned and therefore it's not a misleading or an accurate record because we made the findings now of course remember parents aren't happy with disciplinary decisions under this regulation they have the right to say to append something in the student record to say we disagree with this decision and here's why but and give the explanation so that could be an Avenue a parent could utilize to make sure if anybody's ever looking at the record and they feel that what the disciplinary action wasn't correct the parent can say we disagree with it and here's

046why on the names and superintendent cleared up about the legal documents I just want and I think this is more a question of practice but I had this question as well for I'm assuming diplomas obviously are a legal name in practice a student can a student request to use their requested name at graduation be called as opposed to their legal name if it deviates from what's on their diploma it's probably a superintendent question I would assume from our perspective we do not have an issue in doing that they actually fill out cards where they put their name I would defer to council if it would be elite any legal issue if a child's parent has not filled out a form and they are choosing to use a different name so this rule is relatively new

047I don't think there is a legal issue if we have a form filled out that says Robert is Robbie for that to be called out at a graduation ceremony but the diploma would say Robert the legal name okay good I just I think that's a concern for our trans students so thank you for that clarification thank you member bird all right I have a few questions we'll stick with the with the where where is the form where can parents locate the form and what does a form look like that they have to fill out for consent of a name change so it's on the website we will Amy will be looking for it while we're talking here to pull it up the form was sent to all of our principals at the beginning of the

048year and said here you go go ahead and use it I can tell you when I had meet the teacher at my child's School some of the teachers had already had the form ready to give out to folks it's wonderful to parents it certainly will be available at the front office if a parent wants to go in and do it and it's on our website if we can figure out how to run the interwebs we'll figure out and do that yes so we can so I mean we I think it's certainly prominently placed on the website but if not I of course we'll leave that to superintendent I found it yesterday and provided you the link but you did in the email and that very long email that you said in that email I tried

049to do a short one so I will yeah it wasn't that long it was only one page look look look look how small that writing is well I believe it's on Skyward Parent Access it's on Skyward through their portal they go on Skyward that's where they have the Forum about the pictures the video the release of information so I know for sure it's and here it is too so if you go to oh there's current families and new families if you go to current families on our website and scroll down to parental rights click on that and then it's in a blue box right at the top of the page because I promise we have a lot of grandparents we have a lot of parents that don't know how to access Skyward it is on

050our it's on the parental rights page there's a there's a box for it yeah so and I know that we have open house coming up as well yeah we do it there will be obviously and I think they're still trying to make sure that it's working in Skyward as well as far as last I heard on it's up and we're running okay yes it's up in fact it is working because it changes everything and a parent was concerned that now all other legal documents I forgot with the daughter's nickname was that they were also going to be was it Ella yeah Ella so it is working we can certainly remind principals that during open house that had the parents have access or have a hard copy of the form if they need it to be

051filled out my understanding is that the students that would like to be called by a name other than their given name not necessarily nicknames but like a transgender child they are filling out the forms they're they're aware of that process and then it's up to the teacher if they want to use that name or not use that name correct that is correct I know that a member Castro Dental has a quick question so I'm going to go to her and then I'll come back to me I would think that a note from a parent with their legal signature would also suffice it doesn't necessarily have to be this legal form I would think that a note saying my child can be called Billy Bill William Will honey whatever they want they can list all those

052and sign their name and that would still be considered a legal document that would accomplish the same thing is that right yeah it would still have the same legal effect we did the form just so it would be easy for parents to fill out but if they wanted to handwrite or type a form out and say I want my child to be you know called ex or any of these names are fine and signed yes that would be legally sufficient all right that makes it easy thank you I'm still looking for the form apparently we're having some Wi-Fi issues I'm showing up on his too but so while we're waiting for the form to come up so the going back to the records I have just a few clarifications or questions so the only appeal

053process if a parent disagrees with your ruling Mr pomerini is to put a note into their records right like there's no other type of appeal process and now nothing comes before the board unless it's full exclusion so the board won't get to see or hear any issues unless it's full exclusion yeah so I want to make sure everybody understands the scope of what I'm doing there I'm not retrying the discipline case there is a discipline process for that right right this is after the fact this is after this is after the fact I am not if if I ever got a case that says the record was misleading or inaccurate and it was in the middle of a disciplinary process meaning the DTM was still going on there's still time to appeal to the hearing

054officer to this board I would say I'm deferring this and putting it in a bands until such time as your disciplinary process is done I would never get in the middle of that discipline would take precedence over that so and then if it's a discipline record we can destroy the record after three years is that correct that's what I heard okay what happens so we have this new portal that's coming on board where if it's a level I think three or four in certain situations it's going to get put in the portal which will go into the Department of Education so can we can destroy the record after three years but it's not being destroyed it'll still be housed in the department of education is that correct yes and I'm not sure if they've adopted

055a change to the records retention schedule to address the portal or not but yeah they would have to maintain it in accordance with whatever the records retention schedule would be for the portal but I suspect they're going to keep it longer than probably we will have it you know as part of our records they being doe sorry for the pronoun so say we have a student that decides at 25 they want to go into the military and the military comes back and wants access to all cumes they would just get the Q minus the discipline record because we would have already destroyed the discipline record is that accurate I'm going to turn this over to Mr Vaughn but I think that's accurate because that I'm just that wasn't my understanding yes ma'am the category B

056information would have already been destroyed if that by that point so what they would get is basically the transcript and the category a records that reside in our student information system discipline records and the associated documents supporting documents would have already been destroyed by that point yes and that would be the same for any type of security clearance that one of our former students would go through with with the government yes okay I don't know that parents like realize that like a lot of their concerns is what if my child goes in the military what if they have a security clearance this is going to be on their record it's going to harm them to get a job I don't I didn't know that the discipline records would be destroyed after three years so I

057don't I think a lot of parents probably don't have that understanding that part of it gets destroyed which I think is helpful because I mean it's good for parents to know I wanted to note there is one exception with the new changes in our retention schedule before by the Department of State and that is for discipline records student discipline records sexual harassment assault those records are kept for a hundred anniversary years assaults a sexual assault sexual assault well that should be correct that's the only that's the only one that we keep that's the only exception that's brand new and that's brand new it's brand new okay okay remember felder's question was is sexual battery the same thing as sexual assault it says sexual harassment and assault but if it's a battery I could we can

058be rest assured that it's going to be covered by that rule by battery I mean sexual battery not just a fist fight I'm sorry I just want to make it 100 clear okay all right I'm still we're still waiting for the form so we're working on the form well I think member Caster Dental you still want to wait till we come back to the next part right which okay then by all means remember accidental I have a question about when you say that you destroy the discipline records after three years what that actually constitutes and if it's at the end of their when they are no longer enrolled in our school district or if it's when they're in second grade and now they're in fifth grade there's no record of their discipline can you clarify

059absolutely the way the retention schedule is designed is three years after withdrawal graduation right leaving the school district so and once those are done they're kept at the school for two years and then they're transmitted to the district office to our district archival Center and at that point we keep them for an additional year plus the audit year and at that we put an accumulated list and anything that has a legal hold we segregate those and then we securely destroy them through a vendor all right follow up real quick the discipline record consists of all of the statements that someone might make or the investigation and evidence all of those records are what you're talking about all the supporting documents included but yes okay thank you thank you and we'll come back to you and

060remember we'll do you work next so what happens when a child develops a nickname during school like my oldest got called Oreo because he loves so I think that goes to the same thing my son was Nathan and he is sometimes goes by Nate so I think we would feel they would fill out the new form okay so is that clear and that came up from his friends at school and then the teacher started calling him Mario because everybody else was calling him Oreo at school and it was just in fun but I didn't even know it until we were at a football game that he was being called Oreo I didn't care but I mean it wasn't you know it was something that happened organically at school because he would have Oreos every single

061day and so how how to do the students know that they need to do that is that something the teacher has to catch and then a parent has to send in a note saying it's okay to call my son Oreo so first of all we have plugged in the form and we have now displayed it up on the screen for you all as we envision this is for you want me to okay I'm scrolling so that's the that's the guts of the form the rest of it up top is the students identifying information so when when kids have nicknames for each other I don't think the purpose of the rule is to police that I think the purpose of this rule is if you want the teachers and administrators to deviate from your child's legal

062name then they would fill out this form right so I don't think that the parent has to fill out the form to give kids permission to call yourself but what about the I mean the teachers just know they can never use that nickname that's right the teachers under this new rule the teachers would know that I'm authorized to call the child by the child's legal name or anything this parent has filled out on the form you know I wish this rule would have been in place for students I would have avoided the nickname of chia when I was in high school which is ironic given my hairline now yeah I would have avoided that yes not so much anymore that's a that's a nice little tidbit of information yes thank you Mr Pomeranian yeah you

063know I debated to do it but I might as well use myself as an example as opposed to my child this time so yeah this form applies to our personnel and what they call the child not what other students call the child so that to me is some of the unintended consequence of really setting culture in a school when laws are so restrictive and in the classroom like this that's kind of a shame because it was it was cordial it was fun and he kind of felt special when it was being used so all right thank you member Gould real quick since the form has come up well first off I want to say that some kids are having fun with this like there's there's a kid I won't name the high school that their

064parents ask that they be called beast mode beast mode their new name is now beast mode which I find hysterical so on this form and I know I've talked to Dr Vasquez about this would it be possible just to add a line that says is there anything else you would like us to know about your child or is there any any other information that would be helpful to us can we just add a line to the form that says that Matt I'm going to defer to the superintendent to speak first so we have had discussions about that the problem that we see is that they may put other information there that may not be able to be addressed by the person who gets it or that it becomes very lengthy as a like my child

065has allergies my child is and my child may change transportation from time to time and so it would be additional work at the school level because now that we have that information we have to address it and so the recommendation from the folks that we have spoken to is to leave as is if the parent asks or the parent wants to include for example because I know I've had conversations where it's particular to the pronoun if the parent wants to include that on the form you know they can but again it's up to the teacher or staff to be able to determine whether they will use that pronoun or not thank you wait wait hang on but if a child's name is legally changed then we will use that legal name correct yes if it's

066changed in the courts then we will use that name and your question is your point is well taken board member Gallo as a teacher what I would do and many teachers do that the first week of school I pass out index cards and I tell them that this is for my personal use if you would like to put on here any of your allergies or something that you things that you can't do in terms of physical inability and it was personal and proud because a lot of times when you send them all those insurance papers that we do to the first week of school they don't do that they don't fill it out even if it's on canvas they won't do it but if you just give them a card but most teachers most teachers

067they already have all that personal information about their the students in their class example I had a kid every day after lunch she was sleeping and I found out she was diabetic so I started eating lunch with her she would be ordering french fries and potato chips and that's it so when I started eating lunch with her I should have followed my own rule with her but anyway I would order food for her and I'd sit and have lunch with her because I couldn't understand why she was so tired and so when I looked back at her car I realized she was diabetic so you know teachers are doing that a lot of teachers are doing it they're looking out for the children thank you thank you member Felder member bird thank you I want

068to go back to the discipline records and just clarify because I think I found this out last year it's any any Title IX accusation or like investigation stays like for an extended period of time correct I'd have to look back let me look back on that and get information that there are different requirements for Title IX and there are with respect to Florida's General retention schedule but I don't want to give you wrong information well and it may have been in actual harassment because I remember talking about a particular case and I want us someone it was a college a college student was trying to be recruited to play football and because he had the Title IX investigation on his record that was still in there and went with him to college it affected all

069of that and so my at the time when we were discussing this and I don't even remember who I was discussing it with on staff but I was saying that I think that we need to make sure that we are sharing that information with students and you know we have a lot of kids that think sometimes that comments that are construed you know that are inappropriate sexually they'd end up with Title IX things and they say things they think are funny are not funny and can end up staying with them for a very long time records is seven years we're required to maintain those for seven years seven years okay yeah I think I think in this somewhere we need to make all of the all of that information a little more clear because I

070think that's something students really need to understand especially our little adolescent boys that think they're being so funny sometimes and they're really not so that was my one question oh parents oh I was going to ask about the form the nickname form how are those forms being inputted when a child brings that form to school is it like who's inputting that information into the system at the schools do we know that I am not aware but we'll find out typically in the past things that were put into Skyward with the field were done by the registrar but I want to confirm okay so there is what what we were working towards is if it since the form is on Skyward there is a there is a field that says name AKA also known as and

071the purpose of doing it on Skyward was to allow that to automatically populate that field now I have to make sure that's in fact what is happening but that was the intent of of putting it on Skyward to do that right and they are working on finalizing it is not on Skyward but the team I just was informed the team is working on completing that so that it does then parents have access to it through Skyward and then it's self-populated that would be that would be much easier because parents already have to go on Skyward at the beginning of the year to do all those required forms so it would be a lot easier if that nickname form was right on there and remember bird in the interim period what I've gotten that question a

072few times I said make sure you keep the form in the for now until we get that situation and then inform every adult that this child has to deal with that this is the preferred name or the nickname that the child is authorized to be called so okay and then a little quick commentary so a staff member does not have to use the name that a parent puts on the form for the preferred name according to this new rule and I just find it ironic that our state is boasting parent rights yet not all parents have rights that was just my little commentary on that it's very it's very disturbing to me that a parent could go to a school and say see I can't even talk about it makes me so upset could go

073to the school and say this is what my child is going through this is who my child is this is their name and then a staff member can just say well I'm not comfortable with that so I'm not using that so anyway sorry just had to get that out thank you member bird and I 100 agree with you're still waiting on the data correct Karen member for Aunt Europe thank you madam chair I am definitely in agreement with a lot of the different changes I think everybody's brought up great points I did want to just discuss the legal name I think just making sure that teachers understand that if a child comes to them and says I would like to be called by a different name and they don't have that form that teachers can

074reach out to the parent and say hey your child wanted to be called by this do you mind filling out that form or sending a note in that's a really quick easy thing to do also how are teachers being notified if there is a name change or if that name is maybe they're legal a new legal name is there a way that parents are or excuse me teachers are being notified of that I don't know is that Dr Vasquez no no I can't answer it so if the name is changed legally we'll get the order and then what we will do is we'll update Skyward to reflect that the name change has been completed that will notify our teachers automatically because they'll see a change in the records that they deal with that says okay

075this child's gone from Robert to Robbie or whatever the name changes so from that standpoint once the legal change is made in Skyward it automatically updates the records until we automate fully this form that we have like I said what we've advised is for when the administrator gets a copy of this form they ensure that every teacher that touches that child in elementary that's going to be your classroom teacher maybe a special ed teacher and specialist teachers would be notified that this child's name his preferred name is X whatever it is and once this gets on made it fully that name AKA field will be automatically populated with the parents preferred nickname or whatever it is and they'll be informed that way perfect and then also just a thought when their parents are filling out

076the forms there's seems like there's always so many forms in the beginning of the year but you're filling out their name and address and all those type of things who the legal Guardians are in that they're also and this has always been there's a place that says preferred name this has been since my kids have been in the district for however long 11 years and even then I have one one of my kids goes by their first and middle and I would put first and middle in that preferred box and some teachers called in by that and some didn't so I think just I mean you can it is what it is but I think we need to just make sure that okay also just my own commentary I have a friend whose daughter was

077attending school and the mom was aware that the daughter was having gender confusion and notified the school that they were not going to go ahead with any kind of they were not going to affirm the confusion that the child was going through and just loving on on this girl and caring for her the same way that they always had and a teacher decided and took it upon herself to change that child's name and began calling her by a boy's name and the parent had no idea and when the parent realized it was because the daughter was suicidal and that's when she went to the school that is why this rule is in place and I think it's to make sure and protect children just make sure that there is that communication between parent and the

078school and I think that's we can always use communication and discuss and if a parent is having trouble maybe there is a teacher who isn't comfortable maybe there's a way to change their class or to discuss and have a discussion where a parent can go to that teacher and discuss with them and I think communication goes a long way that happened in Leon County I believe not in Orange County I just want to make that very clear and they could have solved that in Leon County without creating an entire rule for the entire State of Florida that's just my opinion Mrs remember Felder thank you chair Gallo I just have just a quick concern and you probably have already addressed it but this keeps coming back in my mind you have a five-year-old or for

079y'all and they touch another four or five-year-old in an inappropriate way genitalia all right and we have to follow the appropriate procedure in terms of how we deal with that child so there are five or therefore so they may remember or they may not so when they turn 16-17 is that still following them and let me just say how I feel about that and you can tell me about the rule again I just it just I have concern that if such a thing follows I had a situation at one of the schools I taught in this kid they were in a art class and they were making pottery any this student's stood behind another student and mimicked a sexual gyration he put it on they put it on Facebook or SnapChat whatever that thing is

080and so the kid the child was extremely embarrassed and the father came out and we had to the district suspended the kid or whatever but they lay he was 16. and they labeled him as a sexual predator so now he's about 25 now that label is it was wrong it was fully embarrassing to the child but I just need you to talk me through this and the kid was a pistol but I mean he was my student and I just felt like what happened to him he was labeled as a sexual predator and so I just got an issue with that he's I'm not trying to change I just want you to understand as a teacher how I felt yeah he was that was wrong he should have been dealt with but to have that

081label follow him he's yeah I just I don't I don't know what to do with that I have a problem with that thank you so this is it falls into the category of when the legislature passes rules and when the Department of State passes rules because they have our records retention schedule and unfortunately it could have negative consequences for a child and it seems like labeling a child like that would have negative consequences now I think the countervailing thought is I think they want to today being the folks who had this records retention schedule to ensure that a kid is not who is a predator is not turned out into the general public without folks having knowledge about that child's Acts you know I think there is a difference between a 17 year old and

082who does those kinds of Acts in a five and six year old who does those kinds of Acts most of the time with five and six-year-olds that they have no mental understanding of what they're doing when it comes to that but a 17 year old would and so unfortunately I think if we make a finding of sexual assault or harassment under this rule that the unintended consequence is if it's a five and six year old who we make that finding on we're going to have to keep that record for 100 years and I think they're yeah and I think there should be some sort of differentiation taken into account the student's age but unless and until the Department of State passes a different Rule and changes that up we are going to have to maintain

083those records for 100 years thank you thank you Mr pomerani thank you member Felder all right I believe we are ready to move on all right so I think this is a section that member Castro Dental wants to talk about so in accordance with FERPA your current policy says that we have the notification section but the current policy defines directory information to include name address telephone number if listed participation in officially recognized activities in sports weight and height if an athletic team member name of the most recent previous school or program attended dates of attendance at schools in the district diplomas certificates and honors received date of graduation and date a place of birth and information described in subsections 1A which is your name d which is the participation in sports and activities e which

084is your weight and height if athletic team member F which is the name most recently school or program attended and G which is the dates of attendance those are published routinely by the board in conjunction with press releases so usually related to sports or or maybe theater or you know some other kind of thing about school activities honor roll achievements athletic events and other school related activities so that's where those are in there directory information may be released without the consent of the student or the student's parent legal guardian to persons or organizations defined in section 1002.22 that is our other partnering agencies most of them we have an agreement with with respect to data sharing and directory information I'll not be published when a student's parent legal guardian submits written notification to the principal

085within 10 days of distribution of the code of student conduct failure on the part of the parent legal Garden to advise the student's principle within the time frame indicated shall be deemed a waiver of any right to preclude release of such directory information pursuant to the Florida Statutes or federal laws and then we have a provision here we're changing the statutory reference there are certain names and directory information pertaining children of Law Enforcement Officers or investigative personnels of DCF firefighters justices those are not necessarily automatically released unless the parent says it's okay so I think we're coming back now to what directory information is and I think I'll just let you all discuss and I think member Castro Dental is probably the first one that wants to discuss it and then Madam yes so I

086just wanted to remind you all of an example that we have so say a charter school comes to us and says we want the directory information for all of your students remember we have to come back to you all and you all have to authorize the release of that directory information so that is that with any outside commercial entity before we release directory information your policy requires a vote on that so I just wanted to throw that out there too it is not if a commercial entity outside of this District wants that directory information unless it is something like you know a group we contact the group that we do class rings for the groups that we do photographs for that would be within a contract about saying okay you can contact students in order

087to let them know you're providing that kind of service and that would be in a contractual relationship we have but if it doesn't come before the board Mr cummery don't know if those contracts specifically do or not but that we have contractual relationships with outside groups that do that stuff but other than that if it is a commercial entity it will you all will vote it vote on it so thank you member Caster Dental yes thank you for bringing this up I have a couple different concerns about the directory information one is that currently parents have to opt out of the directory information if they don't want it shared and I don't really believe that parents fully understand what directory information is and how it's used and I don't think that consent by default by

088not signing anything is actually a true consent and I would also like to look at the individual elements of of each those a through J pieces of information that we have and reduce those I'll go into a little more detail but also I want to clarify what what constitutes I guess the directory information use and what it doesn't I know that there is some confusion when schools want to put out a program for a play they sometimes have asked are we allowed to share this information and this I want to make sure that we know the difference that it's not we're not restricting information that is produced by the school district necessarily but we're restricting it based on outside entities that can collect this information and I hope we can kind of strike a balance

089between the ability to share information about our students and also protect their personal privacy as well should I go ahead and list what I the concerns when it comes to the different elements I would think that the contact information of the students their name or the address and telephone number and email is not included in those I don't think that's necessary to share with anyone else outside of our district and I'm not sure that the date and place of birth is necessary and I think that actually could be used against them so those are like my first level of information that I would like to remove from the directory information the next ones are like my category b or level B would be the name of the most recent school or program attended and the

090dates of attendance at the school and dates of graduation I just wonder if that information is also could also be used to kind of develop a profile of students and their age when that information is used in conjunction with other information that's already out there and digitally and there are some areas that I think we could still allow which would be maybe the students names diplomas certificates or honors and then I'm still would like to discuss more about students participation in recognized activities in sports I know students who are involved in different teams and sports frequently have their matches and their information broadcast on TV and in the newspaper and they I think that's a part of being an athlete for public school but I'm not sure about some of the other activities if if

091that should be accessible to all I don't know if club membership should be allowed I just find that could be detrimental to some students so I can see the need to be able to share some information but I want to also protect students information as much as possible and when it comes to like things that are I'm not trying to restrict would be like the use of a student's name on a school Marquee like if they're an award winner or spelling bee winner and they want to celebrate I don't think that's necessarily something that we have to restrict and of course law enforcement would have access to a lot of this information as well and then I had a question also about a public records request if that falls under the same directory information if

092someone could request any of this information regarding a student or if any of that is or all of it is automatically redacted so those are just some of my concerns also Mr palmerini mentioned the example of allowing like a school board or yearbook or class rings and those kind of companies that do business with our seniors I'm not sure that giving the companies all that information about how to contact kids is necessary there are other ways I think that we can allow those companies to still serve those objectives without giving away our information we could have them advertise in their School emails I know that the yearbook classes they set up tables and promote it they can send out flyers there are other ways that we can give information to the families where they can

093reach out individually we're not giving them all that information so those are just some of my thoughts thank you member Kester Dental Mr pomerini or Miss involved one of you like to respond to our questions so with respect to public records requests if it is student identifiable data that is being redacted out of those records we do not provide that in response to a public records request so the rule with respect to directory information is and it's 34 CFR 99.37 it says the agency May disclose directory information it's not I just want to give the parameters here it's not a shell so if the board wanted to say we would never disclose directory information we're choosing not to disclose it that is an option right however it does do some things where it comes into

094like sports participation football programs you know Billy Bob the offensive lineman is six three in 11th grade weighs 270 pounds that's the normal standard type of information that we would put out in a in a program and if we didn't to allow disclosure of directory information we wouldn't be able to do that because that would require parental permission because remember directory information is information that we can disclose without parental permission under the rule as long as we give the parents and by the way the regulations are very clear and opt out not an opt-in to disclose it you have to give them an opt out so it's presumptively able to be disclosed if the agency chooses to disclose it and the parent has the right to opt out but we can't reverse it and do

095it the other way so I'm going to look here at the other list so class rings yearbook senior regalia the only other thing is with respect to class rings yearbooks and that kind of thing sometimes parents may not get that information may not make it home like say we could have we could put in an advertisement we could have it be passively distributed where a kid can come and pick it up not all kids are going to come pick it up and a parent may not have that information about how to purchase these things if that information doesn't make it from the student all the way home so I think that's a lot of times why we want to why we allow entities to have the addresses that do those types of services so they

096can ensure the parents get it and choose to either partake in those services or not so I hope I answered all of it if I missed it please tell me what I miss and I'll be happy to address remember Castor Dental yeah thank you for that I don't know if your response is fully addressing all the different elements that I mentioned like the request to restrict other information contact information and so I'm looking at the regulation this is 34 CFR 99.3 it says directory information includes but is not limited to student name address telephone listing electronic mail address photograph date and place of birth major fields of study grade level enrollment status undergraduate graduate part-time full-time dates of attendance participation in officially recognized activities in sports weight and height members of athletic teams degrees honors

097and awards received and the most recent educational agency or institution attended so it says directory information includes but is not limited to so that means everything in that list is presumptively directory information under the regulation and you could add more and then if you go to 99.37 it says An Education Agency or institution May disclose directory information if it is given and it says may disclose if it has given public notice to parents and students in attendance of the in attendance and algebra students and attendance at the agency the types of personally identifiable information that the agency has designated as directory information so you all have authority to designate certain classes of directory information if you so choose so okay I think so we can restrict it yeah so it lists what is presumptively directory

098information if like somebody were to sue us and say you can't release a name and address and we continue to release a name and address as directory information if they sued us we could point to the regulation and say that is presumptively directory information and we're not violating the law if we release it under that area you all may then turn around and say but you know what we're choosing as an agency as an entity not to release names addresses telephone numbers dates in place of birth so that is a choice you all have the authority to make okay follow up yes I don't believe it's our information to give and I'd like to err on the side of student privacy and student rights so I think it's fair to not release their address and

099their phone number and email there's so much information that's already out there it can be misused it can be abused and I think protecting students information is a responsibility that we have even if FERPA allows us to share it and we assume that parents are giving us consent I don't think that they truly understand and we truly give them an option to really opt out so I'd still would like to see some restrictions I'd like to hear what my fellow board members think thank you thank you thank you member Castro Dental I'm actually cute in next and I have I have some questions so on this list we have a through J could we only have like could we limit it to just three items are we allowed to so we are allowed to restrict

100it so we are allowed to basically build this list or not build this list as we choose yeah absolutely okay so my next question would be so unintended consequences like for example I was just talking to Dr Vasquez what the mayor Corps are coming in and they're tutoring our Pre-K students for free and they're good they need access to like just information when they're on campus not they're not taking it home with them just on campus so that they could do their job in the tutoring these programs are vital to our students because they help them make sure they save their cohort that they're learning that you know they're proficient in Reading what unintended consequences would it have for a program like that if we were to alter this if any so usually our agreements

101with Americorps and some other I'm trying to think of other groups that come in to provide services with our students we have a specific agreement with them and we usually require them to get a specific sometimes they want attendance records and those kind of things to monitor we require them to get parental consent to participate in those particular activities so that's additional on above and beyond this directory information but those that those agreements wouldn't come before the board for us to approve the release of those records right because you're getting parental consent right like there would be no reason for those policies to come need any type of board approval no so that's so you might have 10 kids that participate in the Americorps I mean you're more than that and if only five get

102get parental consent those consent forms filled out only those we the district only provides that information for those five students that have parental consent does that help yeah I'm just when we look at things like this it's if we look to restrict it if we look because it's I agree with everything going on right now the less information that we allow out in the public I think is better for our students because this could get in the hands of somebody who could harm a child but I also recognize that there's also sometimes unintended consequences and I'd like to know what those unintended consequences might be if we have any idea that we haven't thought of if we do this or what solution there might be to those for example you're not going to have a

103football mom not be I mean all football moms they do the little the little cards the baseball they have the baseball cards weightlifting you have the little cards it's on they do posters that are all over the football field and it has their number their name if you're weight lifting your weight your class your RBI or whatever if you're a baseball player so I just want to make sure that we're not we wouldn't make it more difficult on those parents can or and maybe it would be by just the coach going here I need you to sign this I don't know I just I'm curious Dr Vasquez so we do currently have agreements in place and now speak to our agreement with Paramore our agreement with travel and Leisure where what we're getting does require

104us to release that information to them not it's not all of this but it is some of that is directory information so it will have an impact on some of the programs that we have and yes we can ask the parents to opt in but as we have seen with our just our medical forms it's very difficult and so for many of these Partnerships that we have that provide Scott let's say scholarships they are wanting for us to be able to share the data with them and they use that for research and they use that to continue to get funders that benefit our kids thank you Dr Vazquez so I guess it's it's in those areas we don't want I'm in agreement that we should limit this and provide as little as possible but I

105don't I don't want to do anything that would cause a student to get a scholarship that they otherwise might get or cost money or or do anything like that's my personal opinion but we have more people up to speak so remember Frank Madam chair before I'm sorry Mr Pomeranian just wanted to make there is an exception in the law it's called the Solomon Amendment which allows the military notwithstanding FERPA if they request for us to get name address electronic mat mail addresses and telephone numbers we have to provide it notwithstanding what FERPA says so I just wanted to make sure we had that exception military has access to everything yeah yes and that information is all on your yeah I know you can't see this but you're a code of student conduct we have one

106page for parents about notification of their forever rights and then the other page specifically sets forth what is directory information talks about the military recruiters and it specifically says directory information which is information that is generally not considered harmful or an invasion of privacy If released can be also be closed disclosed to outside organizations without a parent's guardian's prior written consent so it has that information in there but if you were to limit this then we would also change that in the code okay thank you member front thank you I definitely agree with the making sure that parents are well notified the 10 days to opt out what happens if a parent comes two months in and decides that they don't want their child's information what would happen then we would absolutely tell the school

107to honor that request and to no longer release it now if we release directory information in months one and two before the parent came to us nothing we can do about that right but subsequent to that we would say absolutely honor the don't release directory information request okay so the wording here is just saying that after the 10 days it could be shared can we put something in there that says unless apparent or it could be shared if you decide after 10 days you want to have your child's information redacted or not shared you would need to do so in writing or something like that just so parents know that it isn't just they 10 days and done because it does seem like it's always when you look back and you go oh my gosh

108I didn't realize I only had 10 days and that beginning of school most parents are they have like a fire hose in their face anyways trying to figure it all out and then also just with the different things being notified all the a through J I can see all the different sides where you do want to protect but as you stated earlier is that then if if we were to share this with outside this information with outside entities it would come before the board yes prior to doing so I think when it comes before the board we look at it and we see okay is this something that we need if it were to come before the board and we see okay this these people don't necessarily need an address telephone number or contact information

109a weight or things like that can we redact it then so when it comes before you all you all can say the I would assume that the agenda item would say we're going to release directory information in accordance with what the school board's policy is JRA is so at that point you all can say no we're not going to allow the release and vote to do it or you could say we're going to allow the release of this this and this but not that that and that now the one thing I will caution you is if for one entity you release this and this and for another entity you don't release this and this then that could be problematic as far as treating different entities differently and it could give a rise to some actions

110that could be filed against us but yes you all can have the discretion to say when it comes before you we're not voting to release all the directory information to this entity I mean unless we're required to do it by law like with the military and you could say I'm not we're voting not to do it because again we may disclose directory information we do not it's not you shall disclose directory information which is a requirement so it would be something that you know when we get there we would probably go over this again when you all would have questions yes you can limit which directory information you're going to to provide in this instance however going forward if we get other similar requesters we should release the exact same information you all vote to

111release tonight okay with that being said is there a way then that we could put in the policy if it is school related such as getting a grant or some sort of scholarship something for higher education that this information would be given like any of the information that's here that would be necessary but if it's somebody just wanting I don't even know an example but an organization that would be wanting the information of our children but it isn't related to any kind of grant that we could have it like separate where if that's the case if it isn't for a scholarship or something that would benefit the child then only the name and whatever information we decide I don't know if that's something that we could do just to have it on paper so we

112could craft the policy language that's that reflects that I'm not I don't think we're going to be able to think this through in Wordsmith right now we would have to go back and look and look at some language and craft it but yeah we can do that says you know if it's something that's going to benefit the child as far as financial aid whether an institution of Higher Learning will release this type of information and apps and that we will not we can craft language like that and then just one last thing I wonder are we able to maybe make it a little clearer to parents so that they understand exactly I think somebody else mentioned this already but make it very clear what exactly directory information is and maybe even that could be something

113where parents can well that might be too much opting in and out but where parents could say I'm fine with their name and this and that but not all this other stuff I don't know just said that yeah yeah your language and your code of student conduct right now mirrors there's bullets in there and I know you can't see that but it mirrors what you have listed as directory information already there and we know the reason why we put in the code of student conduct and made it its own separate section is we know for sure that the code of student conduct goes to every single student at the beginning of every year so we know this is a publication they always get as opposed to some districts have it just on their website or

114whatever so we want to make sure that they got it but we could amend this page to match what is in your new Revised Code once we figure our policy once we figure out what that is thank you member front just to be just so that we're we're clear contracts that the district sign that give this data to those entities do not come for the board or do they the contracts would but like for scholarships would like that scholarships that type of information because I was under the impression that not everything comes before the board no there are certain contracts that are below the threshold amount and the superintendent wants to speak so oh okay that's here and directory information basically the agreements that come through legal and procurement if there is a data request

115associated with it we review it we push back on personally identifiable information that's requested because most of the time it's being requested in a very summery fashion saying that they are a school official and therefore they're entitled to receive the data as part of administering the program most of the time when you delve deeply you can accommodate the vendors needs by not providing them pii aggregate data will cut it so if it is de-identified data and that document does not have to come to the board for another reason it's a multi-year agreement it's in excess of fifty thousand we do not bring those agreements to the board it is only if there is specific student data that is being requested that we're told is inherent to the program that requires board approval and it's over

116a certain threshold correct no no even if it is a voluntary program if they are coming along and they're saying we need to do names we need whether English is their first language we need socioeconomic data things of that nature in order to implement a program and they say it's inherent to their program then we have either two routes we can either get parental consent or we can get you all to approve it under the theory that they are a school official and sometimes there are school officials sometimes they're not the consents have a problem because there is an administrative issue associated with the consent historically you do not get full classroom participation if you need a parent to opt in versus opting out and then you run into the problem of what if you

117get a parent who says I want my child to participate in the program but I don't want to share the data so if the vendor is telling you the only way we can provide tutoring Services is if we get consent then now you have a student in the classroom who is not getting the same Services as other students who might benefit from the tutoring program so we do try to reach a compromise with the vendors and most of the time they understand that they can get where they need to go without pii but sometimes they insist on it as inherent to their program okay thank you right sorry yeah she answered it member Salamanca but would it be possible for the board to get access to our most commonly requested information provided by vendor type

118okay like are most of these FERPA requests by educational institutions or some of these like I just I just want to get a sense of like if we get more restrictive here who are the like the higher percentage of I will tell you most of the time the agreements that come through procurement that let's say our software type agreements the vendors are only asking for student name student ID in order for the student to gain access to the program that we are purchasing so those are not really high risk type agreements and a lot of the agreements come through the research Department because there is a research component associated with what a vendor might be doing or a vendor may be providing us a survey but there is a research component to it I can

119certainly work with research so you can see some of the types of requests that we get but in my experience research is very effective at getting an understanding of why the data is being requested and saying we can give you de-identified data or we'll give you all these data elements minus the student's name and we'll give you a dummy number that we have created so you have everything that you want regarding that student other than yeah yeah I think my concern here is I don't want to have unintended consequences where folks who use this data to provide services or scholarships or anything for students no longer have access to it and so but I don't think I have a clear sense of where like the concentration of some of these photo requests are from would

120it be helpful on the agreements that need to come to the board if as part of the resolution there is a data component section which says here's the reason why we're asking for approval of this agreement as part of this agreement the following student data is going to be shared and the basis for sharing it because it might not necessarily be obvious when you all are getting a line item on the agenda as to why we would be sharing yes I think I think that would be helpful contract yeah because I just the existing list we have up here what was that do we have the reasoning behind why something like weight and height is on there so the health department no go ahead good health department and we have been intentional in limiting the

121number of research that we are approving limiting the number of new programs that we are bringing in to the district last year and the year before we were having conversations with the Department of Health because they want access to some of our data and based on what we're currently doing we're not able to provide it because they were trying to help us with the vaccinations and getting more of the families to be aware and come in so it I believe that we need to take a close look at what type of data we are releasing especially with the impact that AI is having both both good and bad but for some of our kids that may not be aware they are tar they can be targets I do believe there's a way to allow for

122a process and I love the idea of including in the resolution what data we are releasing as part of this agreement so that the board can then if there are concerns you know address we can address them or we can end up not not moving forward with the agreement but I can tell you that we have been very intentional in limiting the release of student data over the last I would say last three years I guess it would be helpful to have some staff guidance on this list and what are some of those that are helpful to have access to versus not like I think there's probably a reason why each of these are on there I don't think I can fully appreciate the why or the how of most of these and it would

123be really helpful to get an understanding of why the current list is what it is if staff feels like this is too much not enough or there's areas where there's some friction points where we think we're you know not getting information of folks who want to help us on education scholarships whatever so typically a lot of the commercial vendor Agreements are surrounding caps and gowns photos student photos things like that where the services are going to be provided on Moss throughout the district and therefore we share the type of basic information that's included in that FERPA disclosure in order to give the vendor access and to send it out we've also had local universities and colleges request that information for let's say 11th graders or 12th graders who are graduating and they want to reach

124out to those graduates the compromise that we've typically reached is that we do not provide the data to them we then share the data with let's say a third-party mailing type entity and then that entity sends out whatever the University or the college wants to send to 12th graders who are graduating that may need help navigating with you know college prep okay thank you but but I would be happy to work with you member solomonka and kind of give you a sense of some of the requests that we get and how we navigate through them thank you member Salamanca okay you're good I know I see you remember Dr Castro Dental so that what you just mentioned raised a question for me about those tutoring services if they're not directly asking the district for that

125information are they getting it from someone else that we've given that information to so if they are if we are sharing that information about 11th graders for our colleges that are requesting that right does the mail house use that and sell it to a Tutoring company we typically will only give it to a male house that we have an agreement with and that mail house generally will agree to maintain confidentiality consistent with the I.T standards that I've been given to safeguard the information and that it's not supposed to be sold it's only for that intended use and that's how we try to sort of navigate accommodating our Community Partners that really want to try to to do something for our students without handing them a list of 12th graders who are going to graduate and

126not really knowing what they're going to use that list for once we give it to them okay I know that when I've had students in in high school we get lots of marketing for them and I wonder where does it originate I know it could be anywhere right it could be there's lots of information out there and ultimately my concern is how are we protecting our students information now so that they're not fully swallowed up by all that's out there in the digital world and have their whole profiles established by the time they graduate so that they are targets of marketing and commercialization and everything else so I know that there are legit companies that serve a purpose but I worry about having just access giving access when we aren't sure what happens to that

127data I mean there could be a breach there could be an unintended breach there could be you know someone could be a Bad Apple so that has negative consequences the services that we pay for as a district have standard Provisions in the agreements which basically say that the vendor is only to use the data for the service provided so let's say it's a math program to assist students who may need a little help in math it's not meant for third-party use they attest in the contract that they're not selling it to anyone and they're only using it to administer the services we then ask the question of well what data are you collecting we realize that you're only going to use it for the intended purpose but what are you collecting the vast majority of

128the time they are collecting the student's name the students email password and then if the student is taking sample tests or sample lessons on that platform they are retaining that information but contractually they are saying that they are not selling it to anyone if there is a data breach they are agreeing to comply with the Florida data breach process which would require them to alert us that there has been a breach within a reasonable time of them discovering it there are a lot of free platforms out there that we can't control what students access I know the Department's vet programs that we use and in each category we have multiple ones so if an issue arises with one we can pivot students for another program but I don't I don't have a means of controlling

129the free platforms other than if we really are concerned about a platform to maybe issue get a message to parents that we don't necessarily recommend a particular platform quick follow-up yes I mentioned you know how do we know these companies don't turn around and sell the information but they could also like like my insurance company say but we can use it for all of our other entities that are in our umbrella do we also restrict that extended use if it's we restricted to the extent that their controlled companies need to use it for the delivery of the services so if I if we sign a com an agreement with a vendor and the vendor tells us that they have a subsidiary company that does a certain portion of the curriculum service we have to give

130that entity access to it but that entity agrees to all the terms that are negotiated in the document okay thank you I appreciate that thank you member Castro Dental are you good number four okay perfect member goal so I absolutely agree that we need to always make sure that we're documenting what the expectation is with our vendors I do want to make sure that in fear of the minority because let's face it every time those kids are off campus and they use tick tock there's a lot of data being captured every time they Google there's a lot of data being captured they don't use Facebook but you know you get that you get the gist of all those social media platforms so it won't be I think our utilization is minimal compared to all those

131other things they freely partake in in building their profile and I and I only say that because I want to make sure we desperately need our partners to help us lift our students knowledge and provide mentorships within our schools and I don't I want to make sure that you know programs like boys and girls club and the YMCA and our faith-based partners and you know all pro dads and I mean I could go on and on with that list of of much needed partners that we're getting we want them to scale not to retract because of worrying about the one situation and we know how painful that is when legislation is made based on single inappropriate uses of things so I think we want to make sure that our partners are vetted we want to

132make sure those mousse are in place so that we have recourse if we need to but not stifle involvement with us in Partnerships with our Key Community advocates thanks thank you member Gould and I agree with with member Gould and I know that we are strict with the data that we give because I had to get involved with the Americorps trying because we were trying to get them in the school tomorrow and they wanted information we didn't believe that they should have and I know that we've worked it out so I can first because sometimes I'm as a board member I'm getting frustrated I'm like we're trying to get Volunteers in our classrooms that can help our kids and they just want to help our kids and they're struggling because we are so sensitive to

133the data that we release so I can say firsthand that we are good stewards of this information and we don't release it willy-nilly for the lack of a better term so I think do you all have guidance I know that there's going to be some language revisions do you guys have the guidance that you needed to move forward to move this policy forward is there anything else that you need from the board before we move on again a proposed Red Line perfect is there anything else before we move on board that you would like to discuss with this topic Madam chair may I yes yes Mr Emery I just wanted to make sure this is going back to the names discussion we had earlier and I just want to make sure it was clear for

134the record so in the memorandum we put out with regard to this and this is once again where I use my son so I apologize to him in advance if the legal name is Robert and the person and the parent fills out a form saying I want my child to be called Roberta we would call the child Roberta but our teachers would not be required to utilize the she pronoun if Roberta is actually born a biological male I just wanted to make sure that was clear for everybody because I just wanted to thank you Mr pomerani because there was discussion at the board and we were under several of us were under the impression that if there wasn't if if Robert wanted to go by Roberta and a teacher didn't feel comfortable calling Robert Roberta

135that they didn't have to so what you're telling us is if a parent says my child's name is Roberta we will use the child's name as Roberta the teacher if uncomfortable just does not have to use pronouns if pronouns are requested so I'm going to go ahead and I have the memorandum here I just want to read it just to make sure everybody is clear with respect to our transgender students a parent may fill out the form allowing for the usage of a transgender name as an example if the student's legal name is Robert but the student identifies as a transgender girl and uses the name Roberta the parent May authorize a teacher or other Personnel to call the student Roberta however while the teacher and other Personnel would utilize the name Roberta when requested

136by the parent under the recently adopted House Bill 1069 a teacher or other Personnel may not may elect not to utilize the pronoun she slash her when referring to Roberta I have one question I know what if if so they would also be be considered a pronoun like if if a parent set up refer to my child as they or y'all or what if they just said refer to my child as their last name gallo and don't use any pronouns at all they could do that so they could say refer to refer to my child as Roberta I don't want you using any pronouns of my child yeah and that would be appropriate yeah okay the guidance that we've given I've had questions that have been asked from various administrators when they're they're concerned about

137the usage of pronouns I've said If the child if the parent says the child's name is Roberta just use Roberta and the whole pronoun thing can be avoided just use the name that the parent has designated for the child that is the easiest way to do it does two things it respects the house bill 1069 with regard to pronouns it also respects the parents right to designate what they want their child to be called under the rule and we've notified our teachers and our administrators that guidance we've oh yeah that guy shared published to everybody before the before the school year that makes me feel they make you feel better member bird thank you thank you for sharing with us because there was some confusion up here and we weren't clear on what what so

138thank you we really appreciate that all right so we are now Dr Vasquez back to you we are moving on our last order of business for today is around our social media and request by board members to look at a social media policy today the purpose is to begin the conversations so that staff may have direction to draft a policy and then bring that to the board as part of a work such and so I'm going to turn it back over to miss envel and Mr Paul Marini so you we've we've talked about social media for a while now and you all received I think we had a planning session back in May I provided you a nice long documentation about social media at ocps the district is not run or control school board members

139social media pages that is all left up to you where no District resources are expended you all each have your own First Amendment right to speak free speech and you maintain your own social media accounts I think right now if we were at first I guess I need to see what you all are looking to do I would make sure that we would not want to run afoul of any First Amendment rights when it comes to a social media policy but maybe you want to have some guidelines or things that you're going to agree upon or I will just let you all kind of discuss what you want thank you Mrs invol so I actually did queue up first so here's my thought process on on the social media I know that at one time

140we had discussed having each board member place a disclaimer on their social media that basically says this our viewpoints are our personal viewpoints and are in no way shape or form reflective of ocps or any policies within ocps I would support that disclaimer I am not interested in having anybody control my social media I feel that's a burden that does not need to be placed on our Communications Department they have enough that they're trying to do as is and they're doing a fabulous job with that little car karaoke was quite cute wasn't it I was teasing Scott about that yesterday like it was cute it was great I think people enjoyed it I think that's I think that is the stuff that they need to focus on and put out into the community I think

141anything that is board members we choose to put on our social media that's that's on us and if people like or don't like what we publish they can inform us of that if we continue to do it and continue not to like it they can vote us out at the next election that's their that's their option as well so I would I would say I'm fine with the disclaimer past that I don't think there's anything we could do and I'm not interested in having a policy that is unenforceable just for the sake of having a policy is kind of my personal opinion but I would love to hear from the rest of my board members and so next up is member Salamanca thank you chair I am also in a very similar page to member

142Gallo it I would be supportive of having something saying we highly recommend that we make it clear to everyone who goes on our social media that we use our own and when we are also kind of amplifying the districts and our position on any given point but we are elected officials and people elected us because they agree or like us and our views and I find it very difficult when it comes to our first amendment for the district to one tell me what to say or how to say it or to to control my social media I also do not personally want the district or the government controlling my social media and I do believe that voters have a way to check this through the voting booth but I would I would definitely be supportive

143of having a strongly recommendation just because I do think it can create confusion for folks because they don't understand what is a candidate or like an elected officials page versus The District's page and so if there is language that we can put on our pages that says you know views are my own for district obviously views or policies please go here I am more than happy to add that to my social media and yeah I think that's those are the main points that I would have thank you thank you member Salamanca member Dr Castor Dental thank you madam chair I currently use my own Facebook page for personal thoughts and opinions and it doesn't say that other than in the information about me that I'm on the school board and I know that there are

144constituents who when they see a Facebook page that says School Board in it in the title they believe it is an official representation of the school district so I'm not trying to ask anyone to change what they say or alter what they post I just think for the Public's sake it's important to clarify because there is concern I've I've had to field questions like is this what the district is doing and saying and I have to say no they'll say they saw it on another member's page and I have to say that's their own page so there's just a moment a reason to clarify another concern I have is the use of student photos on those Facebook pages if we I just don't know if it's a good practice to include students of schools where

145we visit at least their faces anything that's identifiable and I don't know if the student photo release form is supposed to cover that use on a personal Facebook page so those are some of the things I just want to discuss and help clarify and the same with our official email that we use does that photo release also cover those uses of students in those as well so those are my concerns thank you member Caster Dental so would anybody like to answer member Caster Dental's question I think John's pulling up the media release yes I believe it applies only to official School Board Publications like our official ocps site I do not believe it applies to social media pages yeah I know for me myself personally if I post a picture at a school I try

146to do the back of the kids head so it's blurred the only time I ever post and that's just because I'm scared that there won't be a release the only time that I will post pictures of kids if if I'm sharing a tweet from the school like if I'm if I and it includes me in it then I will reshare it because I figured if they put it on their site then I'm probably covered and allowed to share that picture but that's just my practice otherwise either I try to blur their faces or get the back of their heads or something just because I'm paranoid that I would that I would get a nasty email from my parent John so I've pulled up the form and it says as follows and you can tell a

147lawyer wrote it for an inconsideration of benefits to be derived from the furtherance of the educational programs the school board of Orange County Florida I we personally and on behalf of student name do hereby consent and authorizing Grant permission to the board and ocps and their respective members superintendents agents and employees and representatives of each to take a photograph video footage or likeness with or without sound collectively images of the student and do hereby and do further consent that such images may be broadcast or published in perpetuity by all public media known and in the future including but not limited to local newspapers sorry for interesting you can do it there we go get rid of this there we go so it talks about also the internet websites online or any other type of social

148media or duplication as for the purposes the board and ocps deem appropriate what is intended when we do that is it's a collective usage of the board as an entity rather than individual board members and the district as a collective entity so that's what the purpose of this form is that's what it's intended to do obviously if with respect to the question of individual students going up on your individual Facebook pages unless and you're sure that student has you know filled out the internet release I would not do it as a practice because you know you could have a very upset parent coming back saying I've specifically opted out of this and then that's a problem but you know I think what member Gallo said is or chair Gallo said as far as you know

149taking the photos of the back of heads that's not personally identifiable so you won't have to see a student that way if you get a face of a student I mean you can do things with the photo with respect to you know having somebody blur the face out if that if you do get a random face in there but if you don't have this release on file I think you're going to be it's going to be very problematic if you post it on Facebook if a parent gets upset or any other social media I'm old I use Facebook so quick question we have a wonderful photographer Frank I think he's no longer in the building but I know that he followed us around and took some great pictures and those pictures are generally shared with

150the board in a Google Drive if we receive those as part of a Google Drive can we make the assumption that we are allowed to share those pictures since they were taken by our photographer on social media because no I would not make that presumption just because you don't know if those students have filled out the release or if some of them have opted out of it so we what we would have to do is we would have to get the photo we would probably have to take it back to the school there's Frank's back yeah yes okay all right so we then we probably do need clarification on that because I would have like and I haven't but if it was like sent to me in a Google Drive like I'm assuming that I

151can use those in my newsletter I don't know that I would necessarily post them online unless I was looking for something but I would assume that I would I could use those in a newsletter that goes out to my constituents like I would I would feel like that would be appropriate because they were sent to me and it was taken by the staff photographer so I would probably say that 98 of the time when we're out visiting and they select the classrooms that we're going to those students the classrooms that they're taking us to the forms have been filled out however when we're walking like on the first day of school we walk through the cafeteria or we had breakfast or lunch those probably unless it's the back of their heads so what we can

152do is we can communicate to our schools that when we're visiting that they please make sure that the classrooms that we're visiting the students have completed the release form because pictures may be taken and we will be sharing them thank you Dr Fresco and even I know we're all starting to do our visits to our schools many of us have brand new principles that will be like visiting so just when board members visit the school if we're asking to be walked around that same thing applies correct I'm sorry yes whether it's I thought us yes us I just want to clarify okay perfect doctor that would that would that would help with that issue and Dr Armbruster can put something out in the deputy's newsletter so that it goes out and then we can make

153sure it's shared right I'm going to I think member Castro Dental is not finished and she has something to add so I'm going to go back to member Caster Dental thank you madam chair I guess I'm still I still see a difference in the official board member newsletter that they put out with photos of students with that permission but I see a difference on a board member's personal social media even of that same picture even with the kids having a release I don't think the parents are truly again consenting to the use of our personal Media or social media for that picture so I just think it's if it's not a policy then it should be a practice that we avoid showing those pictures of students we can take pictures of our you know our

154visits to schools with principals with artwork the staff they're adults they you know you can ask them can I share this on my social media they can give you that permission without a problem it's the students that I'm concerned about and that whole consent even when parents again sign the release they may not be imagining all the different ways that we may use that photo so that's my concern so Madam chairman I mean yes thank you so that we could do one of two things I guess what we could do is we could and it wouldn't apply to this year because that form's already gone out and been signed or not signed or we could revise the form to say included but not limited to the usage could be on individual board members social media

155or we could say you know what we're not going to revise the form that way and then everybody understands that to the extent that you're using photos from a school you shouldn't be using the image and likeness of a school so I'm not going to get into which way I think is better because that's a you all question rather than a me question but I think we could revise the form to allow individual members to use it on social media or we could say well no what we're actually going to do is say we're not unless those unless you have a release from those particular kids you're not going to post it on your social media thank you Mr pomerani is that it Dr Castro dinner for you okay member ferrant thank you I am

156in agreement with quite a few have already discussed that having some sort of a little statement at the top of a a school board a Facebook page or if it's Twitter or wherever you're using your social media just to communicate with parents and your constituents so just stating something that this is your personal beliefs or personal opinion whatever we want to however you guys want to state that in writing and then we would just all have that on our pages I think that is fine I agree I don't think we need to have the state or a or Orange County Public Schools dictating to any one of us how we need to be posting sharing those are that is our First Amendment right and again like member Salamanca had stated our constituents know who we

157are they know what we stand for that is why we got voted in and so I believe that's it is our right we didn't we don't you know check our First Amendment right at the door when we are elected so I think that is fine I think discussing the photos I think that's good those are things that as a school board a new school board member and even some that have been here for a while we're not aware because like was mentioned photos that were taken by our district photographer at a school event with the superintendent the same photo is posted on the orange you know orange counties the ocps Facebook page or Twitter or whatnot and then if we use the same photo you're then saying that would be not appropriate because we are

158different than because we are more of an elected official than is that what you're saying or am I wording that differently because what I'm hearing then because I use the same photo so is that not okay what I meant to say is that it has nothing to do with the board member if if we've posted them on our social media then the assumption is that they've checked and that the releases for students have been completed and we can share it I believe board member Galileo mentioned that there's a Google Drive that has some of those photos and that maybe not all of those we verified and so that's where we're going to make sure principals know that if the board member is visiting or you know staff is visiting there's pictures being taken we want

159to make sure that parents have given release so that we can you know share perfect okay thank you so much that definitely clarifies I definitely want to make sure that we are in alignment with parents and I wouldn't want to share something that if a parent hadn't given permission so I do appreciate that I think this is a good discussion although I would rather be honestly discussing other things like how to help kids read and write and do other things but it's good discussion thank you member member Gould so I don't mind the disclaimer but I don't think we are acting in the norm in the way that this is structured as elected officials so I have some concerns about confusing our constituents I have a page that is branded to the school board page

160I have my personal page where I might put opinions of things but on the school board page I am reposting feeds that I think the overall Community needs to have and they have lots of pictures in them from from my schools from Orange Tech from a play we went to from a recognition I've done with a teacher in their classroom and those kids want to be in the picture when I recognize teachers so I think there's a base base protocol we need to have a discussion on not about our first amendment rights but about our role in communicating what's going on within the school district to our community because we are that resource and that liaison so I and we're mixing it up the other elected officials have both they have and it may only

161say district one on their page or District Four or whatever it is and then it's branded to them and they are communicating Community meetings events you know parent academies whatever that is and I'm using that as an example you can look at the County Commission or the city commission pages and it's the same thing they are communicating that Public Work information there and then on their private Pages they may be communicating their opinion about that whatever that topic is but they are disseminating the facts of the information so my question to our board is what where are you disseminating that information that comes out of our board meetings or comes out of our schools that's pertinent that is they can't they can use that as their reliable source for you as the elected official and

162then where are you combining those I don't combine those I never have because my opinion is my opinion and when I say it's my opinion I say I am not speaking on behalf of the board this is my opinion or what I want you to know and I don't put that on my school board page because those same people often are my friends or have followed me there or on LinkedIn or in a hundred other places especially at Twitter and that kind of thing and again I don't tend to use that platform for the any of those platforms I tend to use it as a communication tool to make sure the constituents and especially my families and my students know what's coming up what they need to know about Community meaning last night was a

163perfect example of that I didn't put my opinion out there on how that meeting should go there I shared to make sure everybody knew so that I could hear what their thoughts were whether they were thrower or against the stadium moving back onto the luckily even the neighbors want it there but just want some accommodations please and but you know I would like to hear from the board members how they are communicating those vital pieces of information that their constituents need to know to be engaged with us thank you member Gould so Master Pomeranian so I just legally versus what you all practice are two separate and distinct questions where we get in where we as the school board and as an entity and the district get into an issue is if the school board

164staff and School Board resources are being utilized for a personal page my understanding is the school board staff and School Board resources not being utilized for any of your social media right so now from a district and School Board as an entity liability that's that's off of us you all may legally choose to have a Pam Gould School Board member district 4 Page and then just Pam Gould you may also choose to say School Board member Pam Gould District 4. and not have a personal page but again since it's your personal resources and no District staff is going into it that's not official government's ocps action that doesn't it under the distinctions the law make so I need a follow-up there yeah when when we are sworn in as constitutional officers of the state we

165are in an official capacity correct you are yes okay so if we are mixing the information as constitutional officers that we are supposed to be sharing and making sure the community at large knows on behalf of Our member districts that is a legal representation is it not not according to the 11th circuit it's not if you if it is a private page even if you identify yourself as Pam Gould candidate School Board District Four or camera no I understand that it's but but you see we're in this conversation I understand that and that's why I'm wondering I don't want the district to have to control the page but should there be a page provided to every board member to operate with a disclaimer on it saying that this is used as the official page of

166this and still have that same disclaimer but we have to have a place in as many ways as possible to to communicate with our constituents and I think we're we're mixing apples and oranges in this discussion and not separating them and that's I don't know that's just as a constitutional officer that's my role is to disseminate information so that we can engage all of the public in conversation then me as Pam Gould I only want to talk about x y and z yeah so I can tell you if the if the district were to create pages for each one of you the official district one two three four five six and seven and chair page then the district becomes responsible for the content on it we would have to do the vetting none of that

167is what any of I'm seeing in your heads none of you want that to be done right yeah I don't want that to be done so if it's not that and that is how those other constitutional officers operate their page they don't ever post anything themselves on those pages I try to stay off of it as much as I can when I see a government posting I don't look at what they're doing no but I mean take any one of our commissioners right who you use that page and they'll post the community stuff which is really fed through the reshare or posted but but then they'll also go out and take pictures with their constituents and show we did a groundbreaking we are going to have a community meeting to come up and everybody in

168my district needs to come to that no matter what your opinions are because we're representing all the people once we take that oath we're not representing the ones we like right so this is my confusion on on this blending and I can see why our constituents all of them are confused so I will try to State it as clearly as I possibly can unless the district is operating your page like District staff is being utilized the district's you know equipment is being utilized to do it the law thinks everything else is your personal page whether you identify yourself simply as Pam Gould or whether you identify yourself as Pam Gould board member district 4. I understand that and what you're saying about the law I understand it but follow-up so I'm reposting lots of things

169that are on my school's pages orange text pages they feature students so I can no longer do that no no no no no because no because you're also remember when that gets posted out there it is in the public domain at that point so once it's in the public domain then you can repost that yeah gotcha well I got confused about that because I thought I heard but then I thought I heard in another sentence even if we go into the classroom we should not be the first to post that so I'm clear now I'm clear all right thank you and I think everybody like I think everybody up here does social media differently like I have I only have one official account on Facebook that will say Angie Gallo district one and then on

170Twitter and use and Instagram those are the only ones I'm on I do use my personal account and I do share a lot from my Instagram or I like an Instagram you just like I liked a lot of the ocps and I do retweet a ton of stuff that I see on the on the ocps news feed and it is my personal it's UCF Alum so it is my personal and the old and like the only other thing you will find on there is me being snarky during football season but it is my personal account and I'm not gonna make I'm not going to make an Angie Gallo district one Twitter or one for Instagram because then you have to recreate all those followers all over again and it's just too much to manage that's

171just yeah I do because I it when it comes to football I'm gonna yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna communicate thank you chair I probably I don't have very much to say because everybody I've been listening to all the board members in terms of your thoughts about the social media but I do have a newsletter that comes out my assistant Arabia does a very good job with the newsletters and most occasions when all of the occasions I've been at schools the principals have asked can we take pictures and you know would you put this in your newsletter I say yeah and I take pictures of it and I've had this picture that Bridget the last year two years ago first day of school over at Ace the Pre-K one of my former students her last baby

172he was that she's four so she said oh miss founder come take a picture with my baby so and the little girl she reached up and I took a picture last time I put it on Facebook she said okay it's good and Bridget got me an eight by ten so you come to my office you see me with this little four-year-old time the new Nana but I'm just saying I'm glad we're talking about this because sometimes you don't know and you post people's pictures and parents may not like it but I have just kind of put it in my newsletter and most of the times you see pictures of me with kids with people at school they've asked me to take the picture and are you gonna post it because most friends they want to

173take a picture with the school board member they do they want to do that the kids are true but we do I don't the only time I go on the my Facebook page is District Five when I'm running I learned that a while back member ghouls I had when we were doing this thing with the mass some disparging things was sent to me and Boardman mcgould said and I got angry and I responded she said Vicky now you got to put it on something I had to do to make sure Sunshine covered so now I don't even go in there because I don't know what kind of Madness is gonna come but yeah the transfer that I would not get in any kind of trouble so my personal page is my personal page I don't

174I very rarely look at the board page because I'm not in campaigning yet but when I do get a campaign season I will look but now I'm sure understand about the picture thing but I always ask always ask because I know people are very personal about going on Facebook and I don't I don't you know my campaign Pages you just me I'm just talking different just talking about voting for me and I do have a newsletter that most of the pictures in the newsletter the people want me to put it in there because they know I have a newsletter so all right I just want to show you that thank you thank you member Felder remember bird thank you I think I think you said it best Mr Pomeranian when you said there's the legal

175side of them there's and I remember what the other term was used but personal legal and personal personal right okay so to me that the this is more of you know a kind of governance issue than it is legal issue because listen the bottom line is you could win that election on Election Day get sworn into office and then you could sit like a bump on the log for four years and not do a thing not not inform your constituents not be you know not do anything and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it until the next election to vote you out unless perhaps the governor moved it from office but you'd have to do something pretty bad but you literally could not be a great communicator with your community you could it doesn't

176really that's the bottom line there's nothing legally that can be done so I don't know that go working I agree that we don't necessarily we don't need a policy on it because it's really just a governance issue and how how we choose to govern as a school board member we might want to think about bringing our school board governance policy I just I haven't looked at it in a long time I just pulled it up and you know there's a lot of statements in there that I think might be worth looking at again and reviewing and I don't know if maybe adding a statement in here that I and I think the difference here is that school board members are not employees of ocps and I think that's a distinction that we need to make

177because that's the comment I've been getting a lot about social media is how can how come a teacher can't post something or you know like a administrator and I think that's the distinction we need people to understand we do not work for ocps we are not under the same employment guidelines that employees are so therefore we have no way to discipline a board member for something if they do something that we wouldn't allow an educator to do so I think the possibly adding that verbiage into that policy might be helpful to have people under try to help the public understand the difference between a board member and an employee and then as far as you know my social media I have a separate social media I have a separate Facebook page for when I'm campaigning

178that is Melissa bird for Orange County School Board and then I have my separate Orange County School Board member page and you know obviously I don't use anything from the school district on my campaign Facebook page so I have those two separate ones for that reason then I have my personal Facebook page but I do I do post a lot of pictures and I'm with member Felder when I go to schools oftentimes they'll say can we get a picture with the debate Club you know and it's all the kids and they want to take my picture and they want me to put it on my school board member page so I like the idea that the superintendent had let's just leave that to the schools to make sure that when they we are at the

179schools visiting and we're taking pictures or at a football game and you know with the cheerleaders or whatever that they've already covered that they know who has those forms and I think that I think that any parent that knows that has agreed and knows that it's going on social media knows that if the school board member for the school is coming and has puts the picture on social media that's all part of it I will say that I only I try to only use my Facebook page for disseminating information but I do I do recall a few instances where I have where I have had to use my Facebook page or wanted to use my Facebook page to solicit information or or viewpoints from my community my constituency when we've had hot topics like one

180of them I remember when we were talking about school start times in the very beginning I remember on my Facebook page asking them to email me their opinions or how do you feel about this and I didn't go comments I didn't do back and forth I just wanted I wanted the input and the same thing one other time I it's only been like one time I've ever put my opinion about something and it was when we were going through the covid and the school reopening and I felt very strongly about my opinion and I think that those kinds of things are important in a way because I think it's important for the this is a governance issue though again this is not policy so but I think it is important for constituate constituency that you

181are representing to know what you feel and what your stance is because that helps inform them for that next election you know if they want to vote for you again or not and so I think there is room for those opinions I do think though that the disclosure on the Facebook pages is a great idea I think that the disclosure and then making it clear that we are elected officials and not employees I think all of that is just I think we just need to be a little more clear about all that but yeah that's it thank you great points thank you member bird member cancer Dental thank you madam chair and I'm so glad I get to listen to my colleagues on the board because I'm learning about ways to use my own social

182media I currently have one Facebook page that's a personal and I use it for personal and for Education topics and I send things out there and I try not to I try not to use it as an official page but I know people know that I'm on the school board so I think like member Gould was saying I think it's going to be important to kind of differentiate those two sides and roles so I don't think it's necessary for the school district to monitor our you know our Facebook pages but I do think it's important to have that separate page that does have that information that people can go to and I think that's an easy fix and my concern is still how we use student Info Student photos even if we have consent I

183don't think it's the best practice to put kids pictures all over the internet even it's already even if they're already there even if someone else has already posted it I just have problems with that I used to put pictures of my kids on there because they were so cute I wanted everyone else to see how cute my kids were and then I realized wait a minute my daughter's like I don't want you putting that on there I'm like oh okay so just because they have consent or a release form doesn't always mean that it that we should put their faces on so that's where I will remain today do you think you remember Pastor dental and I will say that I received a video from the human trafficking group and it literally took a child

184a picture of a child from social media and it grew that child up and Associated them like it was so scary as a parent if I had a if I had a small child I don't know that I'd give anybody the right to to use my child's image anywhere because of that but member Salamanca thank you chair I you know I keep my pages separate as well I have a personal page and then I have a School Board page and all things School Board are on there but I hear what you're saying John I get a lot of emails from constituents with the confusion between employee and school board and why an employee can but they you know we can and I think having Clarity on that is important and I think it's it's just

185a general tough conversation because we all operate under very different norms and protocols for what we think an elected official is supposed to behave like and that's something that is how we believe and our value system but that is different than law and it is something I try to communicate to my constituents all the time that just because I operate a certain way or someone else operates a certain way doesn't mean that the law says what or the other is better or not and it's our private pages and we get to do with it how we want we're elected folks and we get to interact with our constituents the way we want and it is as member bird said when you're elected there's actually very there's not there's a job description of what's expected of

186you and you have to do this to be considered doing your job it just you just get to be it and I understand the frustration that folks have and I it's unfortunate it's just where we are in this country that folks have made politics a big part of their identity and we're seeing it not just in school boards but everywhere else and it's just the reality of it I don't think us trying to control the school board's media page is gonna stop a lot of this Behavior it's just the direction we're moving and things are getting savvier in social media and politicians are getting savvier as well so while I would love for everyone on this board to follow for the protocols and Norms that have been used historically I know for example on Twitter

187the at POTUS basically gets handed down every single president gets that handle and then everything gets cleared and that's but it is managed by White House staff it is not managed by campaign staff or the individual and so that's right there have been best practices that unfortunately our law just doesn't follow so I would be supportive I'm having I think in general I struggle with this is what I tell my constituents to putting anything into policy that is not enforceable because what is the point of a policy if it's not enforceable then it's just a nice recommendation or a memo or like a nice Norm or protocol so I if if we as a district can't enforce something then it doesn't make sense for us to have it as a policy because then we find

188ourselves being in violation of our own policies and then it becomes an incredibly uncomfortable and kind of really bad place to be in as a district so I would love some guidance from you all on our views or my you know opinion or my own and if that's possibly to be enforced as a policy or not or if this is like something that we have to do separately as a memo internally so a couple weeks ago I sent you a disclaimer or language that you could put on your social media page I can recirculate that email again but I think just from a general perspective for all three of us sitting right here we do not in any way want a policy it brings us into the legal realm of people being able to to

189file claims under it and we just it would not be good I don't want us to be in a position where a constituent or somebody files a First Amendment claim saying that based upon your official ocps policy about social media usage this member violated it and therefore violated the First Amendment it is not a recommendation from any of us that we have a policy on this because it just opens us up to litigation where right now we are not one last question so in the in the case of if we had a policy that said views on my own and please include it in that and I Maria say I don't want to buy about this policy and you're actually validating my rights can I sue the district in that case there was a case

190in Houston that said a case I used in community college system that got to the United States Supreme Court on that and the board censured the public official for various misdeeds and he said no you're violating My First Amendment rights and the Supreme Court said well you can as a board Centrum because it didn't have any effect on his or her ability to continue in the job they still were a member of that governing board so it's not any tangible action could you sue us we would probably cite to that case if you did but at the end of the day we're all engaged in expensive litigation that we wouldn't otherwise not be involved with if we had a policy got it if we didn't have a policy excuse me then in that case it

191seems enforceable enough where I would be comfortable having a policy saying that you know school board members should have that I don't know if there's any other meat on this bone that we can really add here it seems like it's very light on our options unfortunately and you know folks you will get to vote behavior and if they approve or disapprove of how we behave and communicate with our constituents thank you member Salamanca and I agree there this does not come with there's no book that comes with becoming a school board member which is why we go to training and it's so important for us to get trained so that we know how to operate and we understand governance and we understand how to do our job member front okay thank you definitely a good

192discussion I do I think most of us then here have a personal page whether it's Instagram Twitter or whatever you're on Facebook and then we have one page because I don't know how anybody really could handle more than one page that would be there oh that's too much to to think about something I have personally had a lot of people questioning is like I shut comments off on Facebook for instance because once I got in it seemed a lot of people well maybe not a lot but certain individuals like to State completely false claims you want to call me names call me names you want to say you don't like me I don't it that I don't care that's fine but when you make false accusations those are things so in as part of sunshine

193I now have to leave that there it now looks like it could be fact I mean you don't know you know how everybody is they read somebody's comment and goes that happened and that did not happen and then I also have had people delete a comment email the entire board and say Alicia farant is deleting my comments on Facebook oh girl I got five kids and I got I'm trying to do school board and I got an orphanage we're building I got way too many things then to be looking and reading people's comments and deleting certain individuals comments so for me personally I decided to just shut off all comments and it is more like a active newsletter is how I have seen it and it's something where I just share my information and I

194always say in there if you want to get a hold of me here's my email and it just makes it a lot more it makes it easier in the sense that I don't have to be going back and going okay did somebody delete a comment did they not how do I capture that it's a lot more work for the requests records requests and all those kind of things so I think in that sense it's I do I like the fact that we do have that leeway as a board some may decide they want to keep their comments on somebody want it off some may not ever want to post some may want to post so I think if we had a policy I just think it creates more confusion and more like you were saying

195Mr pomerani about now you're opening a can of worms for people to come and say okay I'm going to use this against you instead of saying that's on you this is your this is maybe you could do a memory an mou that just says we would we would the ocps would like for all school board members to post this on their official social media account and there's nothing really that could nothing could happen we can't there's nothing legally that could happen but I think it would then it can kind of cover us to say hey we did inform them to do this but that's it I mean I think all of us would be in favor of putting that on our social media I don't think that's a problem but I do think I wouldn't

196personally have a problem having a policy because I just think you really I mean maybe you can enforce it but honestly we don't have the time the money we have way other way better things to be worrying about than you know policing people's social media accounts thank you member for art remember cancer Dental thank you madam chair I agree about not creating a policy but also clarifying like remember bird said about what did you say yes not employed the difference between board members and employees and also I'm glad that member brought up the comments I know that if you have a page I know people will comment but if you turn off the comments it helps I guess they'll realize when they try to comment but I have a question about if people are blocked

197on those pages if that's legal as a public official or you're not allowed to block someone from or how does that work if they're harassing you and it's so Madam chair may I absolutely so there is a circuit split with regard to that's going to the U.S Supreme Court if you have an official Facebook page like it's a government-run Facebook page for example if the school district were to run it the ninth circuit says you can't block people who are disagreeing with you being nasty with you have opened up the Forum the sixth circuit has says yes you can block people who disagree with you so the United States Supreme Court is going to decide that case next year you have the you have the choice it is always your choice of whether you open

198a forum you can choose to keep a forum closed and say I'm posting this but I'm not going to allow people to comment that is always going to be 100 legal the question the Supreme Court is going to decide especially since you all are public officials and while it is your personal private Pages you still post things about your duties sometimes on it the question the Supreme Court's going to decide next term is in that case can you block people who disagree with you and who are nasty or can you not so right now the question is an open one it'll get decided one way or the other next year and we will certainly update you all with that information once that case comes down because you're going to need to know it because I

199don't want you guys to get sued the safest way right now is if you don't want to have that kind of interaction because you know people are not the nicest on social media is that the euphemism for it to to say you know what I'm not opening comments and as a reminder everybody here has a public email address if folks want to get a hold of you because they have a question about something that's going on with the school district they can always email you that is an Avenue that's open I mean obviously they can come to school board meetings they can speak to you all in in either in public comment period if it's not on the agenda or about agenda items there are ways to get a hold of you other than social

200media so but your question is going to be answered next year one way or the other follow up so like bold style of communicating with the constituents I really appreciate that the way you differentiated those and it's not difficult and I need to do that I need to set up a separate ocps Facebook for Karen Castor Dental but that would be a considered a professional paid not necessarily an official page right so it's still personal but for my constituents and the community to help differentiate and make it easy for them to understand the differences between my personal and school related that seems to work and I know not everyone on the board does the same thing I don't use Twitter much every once in a while I'll retweet something from ocps but I don't think

201I have many followers I don't think it really goes very far I do think this discussion has been helpful and I do think that we don't have to put it in policy but it would be helpful I think to have it in writing somewhere even if it's just in a in the guidance for new members or even old members just maybe how others use social media and what are some of our options and so we can avoid some of these problems that we bring upon ourselves so that's just my thoughts thank you thank you Dr casser Dental so you're fine remember bird now I was just gonna say I'm reading more the board policy the governance policy and I'm looking at like the global government governance commitment and then there's the governance style there's definitely

202some bullet points in here that I think we have to readdress specifically one that says the board will enforce upon itself whatever discipline is needed to govern with excellence I'm not really sure how we do that so I definitely think we need to review it but the reason I cued in is because I think that we could probably include something clarification within this policy about communication because it does talk about it does talk about Communication in here now I don't know where it was but it does talk about will establish how the board will establish how they communicate with their with the citizens of Orange County blah blah blah so I think that this is definitely the policy policy bee that we could maybe come back and visit for that thank you member I think

203that's a great idea and maybe if it has to do with communication we could put the disclaimer language in there so that the public can see the disclaimer language because I think we were all in agreement that we're okay with the disclaimer language was there anybody that is uncomfortable with the disclaimer language no I'm not I'm just confused about where I'm going to put it like I'm looking on my page I'm like I don't know where it would go so maybe we could talk to Scott yeah maybe Mr Howard can help us out I would like to sit for the as a district we the district ocps Facebook page during certain times did shut off we shut off our comments too like we've shut them off so it's not just it's not just member front

204that has our comments on we've done it too in times when we couldn't respond in negative information and bad information was being shared and we couldn't control and make sure it was correct information so yeah just throw out there okay so do you Mr pomerani Mrs inval do you all have the guidance needed to move forward with some type of change to it sounds like our governance policy to add any anything else before we adjourn the meeting sure I was just going to say just in reference to where you would put that you can in the about section of on Facebook for instance there's a little section so you could word it in there and then you also can pin the posts so you could make a post and then you pin it and it

205stays at the top so for instance I have one that says contact info and it's the first thing you see every time so no matter what I share contact info is always at the top and it shares my email I also shared any of yours if they needed the superintendents legal I don't know who else they would need to get a hold of but things like that so those that's the last thing thank you for that put that head part again all right see no further business before the board we are adjourned so I feel like thank you foreign foreign