OCPS | 2023-05-09 School Board Meeting

001welcome to the Orange County school board's regularly scheduled meeting for this Tuesday May 9th 2023 and thank you so much for joining us tonight we have almost a pack Chambers and it feels wonderful to see all these a lot of smiling faces and an awful lot of people here we are proud of and excited to recognize we have all board members participating in person and I'm looking to make sure they're all at the dice I believe so I want to remind the public and remind the board that board members will not be participating in outside Electronics or digital communication during the meeting so that we can focus our attention entirely on the business before the board and on recognizing you to my fellow board members District staff and members of the public when speaking into

002the microphone please make sure it's turned on and speak directly into it so that our YouTube and orange TV viewers can hear you clearly and now we will begin with a moment of silence and then I'll invite you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance and now for the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening and again thank you for joining us this evening we have many remarkable recognitions to share with you tonight first we have a very special one for the school board in ocps 13 years ago former board member Rick roach championed an idea that turned out to be a tremendous incubator for Community involvement the leadership

003orange program developed by our public relations department has given more than 320 students citizens a chance to experience firsthand what it takes to educate nearly 209 000 students every day for our communities and within multiple business circles that means we have created informed Advocates on the important subject of public education in Central Florida the 26 members of this year's youth of this year's leadership class came from all over the district representing many unique interests and diverse backgrounds and identities for the past eight months class members have spent one day each month visiting elementary middle and high schools the West Orange Campus of orange Technical College and even Pine Hills Transportation Center they learned everything that they could about our building program School budgeting teaching and learning community engagement exceptional student education and operations which included

004getting behind the wheels of a school bus and just to put your mind at ease no there were no children in those buses this evening their Journey ends but certainly not their involvement with the school district as some of the most knowledgeable citizens on the subject of public education in Orange County I hope we hear from them often participating in our efforts to be one of the top school districts in the nation former leadership orange members have participated in selection committees for our Stellar Awards and Hall of Fame and two of our current school board members member gallo and member Caster Dental are former leadership orange members so maybe so maybe one of the 26 we're honoring tonight will be sitting up here in the not too distant future throughout the program you've learned many

005things that can help you connect Orange County Public Schools to the community and through your leadership and influence you can make a difference in any number of schools for hundreds and even thousands of our students some of the feedback you've given us is very telling here are just a few excerpts from comments you've shared over the course of the year I found this program to be one that I would recommend to so many other people just knowing the depth of the district the daily Monumental decisions that have to be made the inner workings it's amazing I feel like a true ambassador of ocps now well you are thank you for taking an interest in and spending the time to be in our leadership orange class I'm impressed by your commitment and I hope you will

006refer others to participate in future classes I would also like to thank the dozens of ocps leaders and staff who shared your expertise and your experience with our class so that they might understand the complex undertaking that you all have and that they might also see the passion that the leaders here in Orange County Public Schools from the top to the bottom from our from our teachers to our superintendent to our bus drivers and to everybody else that works here in Orange County there is so much passion and dedication and commitment to our students it is frankly breathtaking and inspiring so we will now begin our graduation commencement ceremony and I will turn it over to ocps public relations director Jason Smith thank you chair Jacobs I'll ask all of the board members to come

007down to stand in front of the chair so that you can have an opportunity to shake hands with all of the graduates as we call everybody up you know while you're coming down I'll just say that this is one of the most fun aspects of of my job this class has been a great class you know it's always rewarding to have community members come in and for us to be able to share what it is that we do and I thank you all you know one of the things that the eight days that you've given to be part of this program we realize that your normal life and your normal jobs don't go away while you're here doing that so it is we're definitely appreciative of the fact that you've given that time to come

008and learn about us so with that I will start by calling your names and you're going to come up and you'll shake hands you'll get your diploma on the other side so number one for this class is Tia dejana and Corey Juliet Childs Miriam Clark James Dean taji if you will if you will stand behind and we'll do a group shop at test group shot at the end so thank you Ali demaria oh you can't hear me Karen depriest Carol Edie Langford Mueller Lindsay Fogerty Hayes Chad Jones Leslie and Jones Susan cassarick foreign Siobhan Miller a lot of work Michelle Ramos Karen Revels thank you he rocked and well Annette shamp thank you Fade To Alaska and last but not least Nancy Welch oh CPS teacher of the year thank you congratulations thank you foreign

009foreign foreign thank you in the back road put your cracks up high over your head so you look excited let's get cheers hey okay I don't know how helpful that was don't leave quite yet member Vice chair wants to say something thank you close lock the doors we're never gonna let you leave no thank you madam chair I just want to congratulate everyone who was part of leadership orange again I was part of it Karen and I both did it remember Castor Dental I was in the very first class so the evolution of being in that very first inaugural class to what it's transformed today is far different we learned like a lot of things along the way and it's even better than it was that first year if if possible they made it for

010a longer period of time back when I did it was like nine to twelve our name tags were so tiny that I you couldn't read my name and I'm still bitter about that because you all got the really nice name tags and it was the first year so it was a who's who of like Orange County there was some Heavy Hitters in this room and then there was me and I remember thinking boy if someone could just take a picture of me sitting at this table with all these people they'd really think I was something and I was I was I was a PTA Mom thank you for all the PTA that participated this year we're so thankful for you and I just learned so much and I was really the biggest cheerleader for ocps

011out in the East because of the knowledge that it brought me so I just want to say thank you again thank you for your time commitment thank you for all that you do for ocps and congratulations thank you and you still can't leave yet but just for the record you are always someone and everyone is someone so let's hear from Member gold so I also wanted to extend my congratulations but we were member bird and I were kind of at the end when there was a backup with the pictures so we were asking people what they got out of the program and what their favorite things were and it was across the board so to hear that because usually when I ask people that it's always the best now we got the bus for sure

012but we got orange Technical College a whole bunch of times the ese program learning about our infrastructure how hard it is to get a calendar together you really get us so thank you for really getting what the school system is doing and trying to do to make this a much better place and a much better future for our students so thank you for participating and thank you for spreading the word about your Orange County Public Schools thank you all right now you're now you're free to leave if you want to all right our next recognition let me make sure I'm on the right page here because we have a number of folks we're recognizing our next record recognition I'm honored to recognize a real life superhero I'm not kidding about this you may want to

013stay for another minute Rosemont Elementary fourth grade student Jake Salas King four weeks ago a fourth grader Kian Calvin Burton choked on a piece of candy while in class his teacher aletheia Dixon had difficulty clearing kian's Airway while she and if I am saying these names incorrectly when when you have a chance you're going to correct me publicly while she called for assistance Jake quickly jumped into action and helped his classmate by using the hemlich maneuver to dislodge the piece of candy that was stuck in his classmate's throat thankfully Kian is feeling much better and is with us tonight Jake thank you for your quick thinking and courage you displayed in assisting your classmate your heroism reflects well on you your family the entire district and it's an example for all of us that if

014you just take the time to get certified you too can save a life so take that seriously let this fourth grader inspire you to do what some of us don't do and that's take that little extra time and now I want to call on I think I wanna where's the principal okay are you coming up to say anything are you are now well we know we need to understand we need them to come forward I don't want to see him to stand I want to see him up here we want to say hello take the mic and I need to know correctly how to say his name this is Jake Salas King he's a fourth grader he's in Miss Dixon's class this is the this is missing coming up here yes there's Miss Dixon okay

015this is cayenne and I said it wrong the whole time that's okay I'm so sorry and so basically Miss Dixon saw that our friend was in trouble she went to the phone or she tried to assist she saw it was not going to is not working so she ran into the phone called the front office got assistance and Jake jumped into action while she was calling for help and came and provided support to his friend and actually saved his life Miss Dixon was very very afraid would you say concerned but tell him I didn't want that stain to be at our school or even in that moment I didn't want to witness that and I was like I'm trying everything and it's not coming out but Jake said when I went to the phone to

016call the front office Jake said something told him to go and help this boy and do what he had seen me doing Jake is also a kid who likes to do research so he had some prior knowledge so he made that connection and thank God when Jake said something told him to go this girl beside him said that wasn't something that was God so we want to thank God that cayenne's life was spirit because in a twinkling of an eye things can change in one moment we could have had another story but thankfully it we had a happy ending thank you how did you feel that moment and where was it stuck to tell our community our village it was stuck like flat across and I felt like it wasn't gonna come out so that's

017why I was jumping to win somebody Yay good move yes everybody was on their white sky and jumping around what's wrong with him but I thought something was not right but again that was God himself because on that day Jake was not supposed to come to school right Mom it was three times he said I don't want to go mom woke him up you gotta go oh my God Mom has to do something for her younger daughter she called her friend the community we're talking about the village the friend said I can't go I'm not even going my daughter is sick I'm not going she said you have to go so I'm talking about when your steps are ordered come on up here Mom we are so proud of you we know he wouldn't have

018had the tools if it wasn't for you if she didn't push them to come to school and cayenne great move because a lot of people what they do is they get embarrassed and they run like to the bathroom thinking maybe they can cough it out and they're in the bathroom and nobody knows they're choking so you did the right thing by staying where you were and getting attention that was really important and Miss Dixon you calling for help that's the other thing they teach you the first thing you do is call out for help and that between the three of you knowing what to do and doing your role we have a young man hear yourself thing I did was to I don't know Holy Spirit told me dude I didn't even know this boy

019was joking I just knew something wasn't right so the first thing I did was to start the Heimlich and it wasn't working for me that's when I went to the phone but this young man here Jake Salas King remember that name and remember Cayenne Burton they're both going to be something special I believe especially after this event and I'm just grateful every time I think about it I get goosebumps and the students we've all been drawn closer as a class and as a Rosemont community it's just been quite amazing and I'm just happy Jake that you were able to step in and to help Cayenne the way you did thank you so much and we have Tara is here to cayenne's mom is here I know you're oh where's Christian's mom she's gonna have a

020baby coming up oh congratulations oh congratulations all right we have a couple of school board members before you sit down that want to say something Vice chair thank you Madam chair congratulations that must have been very scary for you was it scary and you still you still managed to get someone's attention I'm so proud of you two boys you both of you represent all that is good within our youth and all that is good within us and so I just wanted to give you akudos and thank you for being so self-aware and so quick on your feet many adults wouldn't be able to react in such a quick manner for fear of maybe hurting or doing something wrong and you didn't you just jumped right in so I'm just so proud of both of you

021both of you contributed so good job thank you the member for aunt I too just wanted to say thank you and I'm so proud especially to you Jake just for listening to that voice because a lot of times we hear that voice and we say no I don't want to listen to that but don't ever forget to listen to that voice even when you're an adult you listen and I'm so proud of you for jumping up for saving a life and sometimes we think that our little actions aren't going to do much but it shows that you truly are a hero that you jumped up and you were able to save this amazing young man's life Cayenne gets to witness his sibling being born and we get so many so many more years and so

022I'm so proud of you a teacher for jumping up and just being a support in your classroom and bringing the class together and as like a family what an amazing amazing School amazing class so proud of you all of you foreign member Salamanca yeah you know I just I Echo what you heard here today you know that little voice in your head that sometimes sometimes gets you in trouble because you move too quickly and you know you're telling that you know it's slow slow things down in times like those I've always makes you incredibly powerful and you know part of growing up is listening to that voice that's out you know telling you to move quickly and everything's super important and Urgent and then deciding when it's it's really really important and when other times

023it's like you know I can I can wait but you two are on a great path to listening to that voice and deciding when it makes sense and I'm just so proud of you and you know we're so lucky to have you in our schools and you're lucky to have each other and this teacher and these parents and just in general this is this is your community and we're here to to take care of you and make sure that you're safe as well but you're part of this community as well and you contribute as being each other's support and help as well so really really love to see you my motto is it takes the whole village and it will always continue to be my motto another great word that I like as well which

024applies to the whole village is Ubuntu everybody say Ubuntu I am because we are because we are okay we want to get all of you all up here for a picture and if cayenne's Mom can join us would you join us for a picture and I've got my 280 do we have any siblings and Dad if we have dads siblings and the aps we have the siblings too the whole village thank you oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my God just cuteness overload happy enough each other the cuteness the cuteness cuteness overload s oh it's so much fun is the superintendent out there what happened yeah wow all right didn't you wish you could start every meeting that way yeah okay one last reminder if you haven't been trained in CPR take a lesson

025from these kids also lcaps is it's perfect to appreciate our nurses today and all that they do for our students we're looking forward to celebrating them during national school nurse day tomorrow this Proclamation is for this very special day and will be read after our student recognitions this evening before we read the proclamation I'd like to acknowledge Ivy Lane's Elementary's third grade through fifth grade students who had the privilege of to learn nursing skills at an unusually young age during an eight-week program provided by the central Florida Black Nurses Association of Orlando an organization organization I'm very familiar with and very very proud of I want to say that again third grade through fifth grade students learning nursing skills see that's so cool foreign a and you can figure out that stands for Central Florida

026Black Nurses Association nurse Judith Clark and other nursing instructors thought the students or they taught the students CPR Right On Target and additional life-saving techniques the course also provided the school children with a chance to receive Hands-On medical training while learning real world science I'd like to invite Ivy Lane Elementary principal gorsha Galbraith to the podium to tell us more about this amazing nursing program and these young nursing students thank you Miss Anderson good evening everyone good evening good evening chair Jacobs Miss Felder board member Felder and Dr Vazquez and all board members thank you for having us I need my amazing assistant principal to come up because as Miss Dixon shared from Rosemont we cannot do this work alone so this is Miss Anderson my amazing assistant principal and over there is Miss Irvin

027our parent involvement coordinator so I'll be brief when I got to the Ivy Lane where smart is cool in a place of excellence in the summer Miss Anderson said hey Miss Galbraith we have some nurses that want to come volunteer and work with our kids I'm like okay because I say yes a lot especially if it has to do with the kids I almost always say yes so the previous year we had some donations from the Black Nurses Association but this year they wanted to go a little further and because of the shortage based on the pandemic you know they wanted to get kids more involved so we had an eight week program as you shared before during their voluntary time so hi parents thank you for signing those permission slips we have a lot

028of support we're very blessed at Ivy Lane to have a lot of support from our families so we had students from grades three four and five that volunteered for eight weeks to go through the program they learned about CPR they learned about diabetes new nutrition they learn how to help others and we are looking at Future nurses from the mini nurse academy yeah so at Ivy Lane we're big on service and a whole child right and we're always working on providing diverse Pathways right to lead our kids to success because we know that they are a future we won't be this young forever so we need future doctors nurses teachers lawyers Etc so we have this amazing opportunity that we would love to continue that Black Nurses Association provided everything from resources to their uniforms

029and you'll see them when they come up they provided everything all we had to do was provide a space and supervision that was the easy for me so tonight I have the honor of Samaya Quincy Jocelyn zakaya Jacob salali Siri Aviana Delilah jaziah and Yuri these are our 12 mini nurse academy partition kit thank you I also want to publicly thank Miss Irvin and the instructors that volunteer their time their patients and their expertise and also to my boss Mr Bond for allowing me to do whatever is best for kids on my campus so thank you to everyone that's supported and is pouring into our children just look fancy sitting in here yeah it's so cute okay are we ready so hang on hang on hang on whoa whoa whoa don't anybody move nobody move

030parents how many parents do we have in the room with these kids yes bring the village yes and siblings families siblings yeah find your child good good good that's everybody correct good look happy stay there look happy again one more look amazing perfect okay well nobody whoa whoa no no no guys whoa yes hang hang on we're believe it or not we're not done we're not done okay we want to hear from Member Felder who represents the school and I think she has something else she wants to present it's not a car but it's good yeah first of all I'd like to thank Dr Schuler she called me early one morning she says I need you to come over to the island I said we'll be doing or not she said Vicky just come I

031want you to meet the little nurses I said okay nurses I said oh okay so I got there and I saw these children little babies with little scrubs and little white jackets and stuff and Scopes and the blood and all but it was really candy but I mean all of that stuff that nurses have and just this is so elated and you know I felt so good about this District because the day before that was a shooting a block over in Pine Hills and the News covered that all day long and it was an awful thing but the next day a block back children were learning about nursing and medical things in Orange County that didn't get comfortable but that's okay because when these must get older and the Temptation or the suggestion comes because

032it's going to come they can look back at these pictures and see themselves and know I will have license to sell Pharmaceuticals I have the right jacket and the stethoscope I will use to save Mamie big mama or the lady down the street from a heart attack a dying let me tell you something you live in my neighborhood in District Five where the talent resides I am so grateful for the principal the Black nurses Guild and my sorority sister my Sora Yvette Clark and black nurses and AP that Ivory Lane that you all thought are not robbery to engage these children I remember my first day of school at Eccleston and now I'm six to six you will never forget this day you will always remember this day and I'm I'm so thankful for this

033district for the vision of our superintendent who wants children to learn at any cost I'm at any age I'm just so grateful and I just wanted to tell you guys that we love you and don't you ever ever forget this moment ever thank you so much no wait I all right so for the grown people quickly Garcia the principal I want to give you this yes you're so welcome it's all right Judith Yvette Clark I want to give you this get in your phone and get in my phone okay sorry fine camera that's it and Denise Hardwick yes thank you so much now for the little winner there sorry okay right here Jacob Fisher yes do that for each one oh okay desire Fortune all right tea salami March did I say it right yeah

034Somalia Anderson all right sorry okay Siri Harry everything Delilah Joseph congratulations let's click this way run back run back yeah look at me though buddy thank you Allen thank you all so much foreigners actually yeah thank you oh wait are we doing your whole food thank you are you trying to do a picture back here or no I think we just move we're Mosey and that's what I was thinking but look at the other two I will remember are we doing a picture Yeah by your favorite School Board member good call hold on look amazing now this was your official rainstorm rain so everybody everybody else has gone except you and you're in the middle so all the other adults thank you thank you thank you okay okay all right we're not finished we are

035not finished okay last but not least certainly not least I'd like to recognize University High Junior no did I miss no that I don't think they're I don't think yeah I don't think they showed up I think so we are recognizing University High Junior Andre Graves for receiving the Congressional award gold medal the gold medal is the highest Congressional award a youth can receive the Accolade was a was established by Congress more than 40 years ago to recognize the initiative service and achievements of young people the Congressional award also provides opportunities for youth to unleash their potential by achieving personal goals focused on volunteerism character develop development and fitness I'd like to invite Vice chair Gallo to tell us about Andre's accomplishments and receiving the Congressional award gold medal Vice chair thank you madam chair

036thank you sure Jacobs first I want to say how proud I am of Andre for this huge accomplishment I actually had to look up the requirements of of what this entailed and boy so impressive so I'm going to tell you a little bit about Andre and what he had to do to get this very deserving honor he had to work hard and he spent countless time and energy putting into putting into receiving the Congressional award gold medal in order to achieve this award he had to complete requirements in four key areas including voluntary Public Service personal development physical fitness and exploration for the past two years that's a commitment two years Andre has completed nearly 500 volunteer Public Service hours more than 250 hours of personal development 200 hours of physical fitness and explored Peru

037during a two-week trip I would like to thank University High's magnet and advanced placement coordinator Wanda Alvarado and biology teacher Linder Houston and jadi for guiding and helping Andre achieve this amazing accomplishment they couldn't be here this evening but I wanted to recognize them for all they have done to encourage Andre will be presented with an award during the 2023 Congressional award gold medal Summit in Washington DC this June he plans on giving back yes let's give him a big Applause foreign he plans on giving back by becoming an advisor or mentor to other Congressional award program participants he will help them create an action plan for achieving their goals along with helping others improve themselves and their communities we are so very very proud of you Andre and your parents are your parents with

038you okay can we have the parents and Andre and Mr Ott come up we're going to do a photo and I have a little something for Andre but we just wanted to say this is just congratulations what an honor wow that is so wonderful way French congratulations congratulations relationship I'm very proud congratulations congratulations we all want to shake your hair yeah congratulations can we just adjourn now yeah yes not yet no we have one Proclamation then we'll adjourn okay no no no he's not yeah all right how fitting that we are now proclaiming May 10 2023 as national school nurse day in Orange County Public Schools and I'd like to call on Dr Michelle rutilius director of health services to come forward and read the proclamation on behalf of the board thank you thank you

039thank you madam chair good evening school board members and superintendent Vasquez I would like to start with the proclamation for national school nurse day whereas students are the future and by investing in them today we are ensuring our world for tomorrow and whereas families deserve to feel confident that their children will be cared for when they are at school and whereas all students have a right to have their physical and mental health needs safely met while in a school setting and whereas students today face more complex health problems and that requires care while in school whereas the covid-19 pandemic has emphasized the essential role School nurses play in student health and academic success and whereas School nurses have served a critical role in improving public health and ensuring students academic success for more than 100

040years and whereas School nurses address the Home and Community factors that impact students health and whereas School nurses act as a liaison to the school Community families and health care providers on behalf of Children's Health by promoting wellness and improving Health outcomes for our nation's children and whereas School nurses are members of school-based teams to address the school population and whereas School nurses understand the link between health and learning and are in a position to make a positive difference for children every day now therefore be it resolved the school board of Orange County Florida does hereby Proclaim you could do it okay you do it Wednesday May 10 2023 as national school nurse day in Orange County Public Schools will you come up here representing nurses so we can get a picture with you thank

041you great job I think you should be our official Proclamation your hair is on point it should look amazing good job thank you remember gold did you want to say something remember good you're recognized so I wanted to thank you for reading the proclamation but especially highlight School nurses I ended up running for school board because of the partnership between Health Central Hospital and Orange County Public Schools to put registered nurses in 26 schools in West Orange County and I have a passion for getting registered nurses back in every school Clinic that would be one thing I would like the legislature to actually give us select money for and you said it very well in the beautifully written Proclamation but the nurses in our schools are really part of the safety net as well as

042the heartbeat and often the ones kids will go to to share things that are difficult for them or if they're not just feeling great and they lift their spirit so not only do you lift their health but you lift their spirits and I know many a time where the School nurses have literally saved a faculty member's life at the school so it is a blessing to have people dedicated to our students and our schools so thank you Dr Vasquez do you have any newly appointed administrators to introduce no Madam chair all right now we're into the serious part of the agenda so are there any changes to the agenda foreign yes Madam chair we will be putting we will be pulling three student discipline infractions involving student with initials LR listed on agenda item 6.02

043off of the agenda and it will be brought back at a later time all right thank you Dr Vasquez is there a motion or I'm sorry there chair finds cause to amend the agenda is there a motion to amend the agenda as recommended by the superintendent motion by Vice chair is there a second second by member Felder all in favor please say aye aye motion carries I'm sorry any opposed motion carries unanimously okay let's move on to public we do have public comments I believe so I do need to read a statement in order to provide governmental transparency as well as reasonable opportunities for the public to access and participate in the decision-making process there are various message by which the public can provide inputs to the school board those include coming to speak at

044the school board in person using the call-in options and via email in advance of the meeting these methods are all published on this the district's website and in board box miss emball you did indicate that we have speakers yeah that is correct we'll take them up at the time we reach the item on the agenda so if you're here to speak just be patient with us and we'll call on you when we're on that item so that whatever you have to share with us is fresh in our minds this week as we move forward so we're going to begin with public hearing 3.01 and Dr Vasquez I will call on you I will call on thank you school board members this is the Public's second opportunity for public comment on the proposed revisions to policies

045IJ ijl and kec which are all related to instructional resources and Library materials this has been an extensive review process for those these proposed policy revisions and it's occurred over a year's time the revision team was considered and Incorporated your input over the work sessions and the proposed policy revisions were presented to you at last month's rule development Workshop these proposed rule changes have been properly advertised in accordance with chapter 120 of the Florida Statutes and the proposed red lines for these policies are posted on board docs we did make a couple minor tweaks to some scrivener's errors this morning and they've been posted on the district's website on the policy revisions page and for efficiency purposes the timeline for the proposed Visions for these three policies is as follows please bear with me because

046like I said it was a while and on March 1st of 2022 we had our first work session where we gathered School Board member input we went and went to Cabot on June 6 of 2022 again went to Cabinet on July 11th of 2022 back to another school board work session on July 12th of 2022 then to a rule development workshop on August 16th of 2022 and at that time School Board directed staff to wait until the doe training was released it was released on December 29th of 2022 so we brought back you the proposed policy revisions additional proposed policy revisions on January 17 2023 we sent notice to the CPA CTA in oespa on March 15 2023 it was advertised on March 19 2023 we had a work session on March 28 2023 ruled

047event Workshop was April 4th of 2023 and we are before you today on May 9th 2023. your first policy under 3.01 is policy IJ instructional resources and materials those proposed Provisions are before you and now we have some public comment and discussion from board members I believe you have two members of the public that want to speak on that all right thank you we do so let's take comments from the public first we have Jeanette wise followed by dementia Barton hello again can you hear me yes we can I'm sorry I'm a little shorter than where it was so thank you I just wanted to take a moment as I am starting to get a little bit more involved with these really extensive efforts that you're obviously here to do and I very much appreciate

048all the time and everything because there's I can only imagine the plethora of everything that you all have to cover with the HB 1467 ocps board Implement implementation the 3.01 the request of approval of revised board policy IJ for the instructional resources definitely in support of this one as well as the 3.02 especially binding some of the details such as ensuring age appropriateness in addition to a grade level helping kind of keep those connections there are really just you know kind of starting to get involved and see these types of things and that type of granularity is really important so I just wanted to step up and say thank you for those type of items and you know not brush past such details because they are important to everybody and what it is that they

049have on our campuses so thank you thank you Ms wise Mr Barton welcome sir all right hi how's everybody doing today good why don't you pull that up also we can hear you okay can you hear me better much better thank you all right thank you this is a thank you I was at the workshop on the fourth and you remember we had to hold laugh about well age and like man is it what whether or not you had gotten guidance and I must admit after reading through I was very pleased the guidance came or or you came through it is definitely with inside of the rulemaking I will say Thumbs Up When It's thumbs up so it's definitely a thumbs up on that thank you very much for that and just want to let

050you know I really appreciate it I as I went through the 1467 house bill and I went through what we actually had what was actually written I was very pleased there was some very good thoughtfulness even down to I'm not going to go ahead and read that one but it's just like it was a lot of thoughtfulness so I appreciate it thank you and one thing I do hope to do is one day not too long for an obviously we have more of this stuff come up being a part of some of the Committees it actually where these are coming up and just so that we can really be a good a part of the whole group of our community developing what's best for our kids thank you Mr thank you thank you all right

051any comments from board members before we consider action on this item member Caster Dental thank you madam chair I know we've worked on this for a long time and as we've been working on it the laws have often changed or there's more discussion in Tallahassee about this so I want to thank the people who have been working in our district on this policy for so long and trying to work with the concerns that the board members have and trying to figure out what the legislation is saying and I thank them for all their efforts I was a teacher for 15 years and my two kids have gone through ocps and I just want to say that parents have always had and still have the ability to notify the teacher and the media specialist if there

052is an issue with a book parents can simply email the teacher or a media specialist if there are books they want to restrict for their own children but now we find ourselves trying to determine a way to restrict books for everyone else's children initially this began with an effort to hunt for pornography on our shelves and no one on this board wants pornography in our schools but it didn't stop there now books representing topics with lgbtq characters African American History Civil Rights history the Holocaust and others have been challenged and are pulled around the state sometimes these are coordinated efforts with book lists being shared among various groups to Target in each district this has caused much distress by adding just one more straw on the backs of our teachers and our media specialists and

053some are leaving the classroom as a result and some are even choosing to leave this state we are not we are in a teacher shortage this will only hurt our students in the classrooms this policy asks for a priority list but it does not limit the number of challenges by one person one person who may not have any connection with the students certainly should not be able to exploit and come up the works of our staff like they have in other districts this policy I believe is incomplete it favors those who wish to ban books the Challenger is allowed to request an appeal to the district Literacy Council if they don't like what happened at the school level but there is no process for a parent or a student to appeal the school decision this

054again favors those who wish to ban the books so because I feel like this policy is still incomplete and is not going to be applied fairly I am going to vote against it today thank you all right thank you member Caster Dental Vice chair thank you madam chair so we've had and I guess this question is directed to general counsel to Mrs inval but a couple of things number one I know that there's been more recent legislation that's passed in Tallahassee will the recent legislation that's passed will this impact I'm sorry will this impact this current bill will this be need to come before us again for further revision that's my first question yes it will but it would be very much helpful if we have a revised version upon which to start I think

055the changes will be less extreme because as you look through both these policies IJ and ijl they're pretty much redlined because we kind of had to start over but yes we are going to have to bring back further revisions for you this summer based on the legislation which we haven't started on those yet and then there's is in in this policy there's there's language about that we kind of refer to the Department of Education and their approved curriculum for our textbooks but it occurs to me that with what's going they're having a hard time approving materials and we have to sometimes move faster than they're able to move and we also have a committee that vets are material so there's going to be instances where we may put textbooks or curriculum in place as deemed

056appropriate by our District Council or committee that we that reviews it that may not be that then the Department of Education may be like nope this isn't on our approved list so does this policy address that and what our process would be when that happens because I'm sure it's going to happen because I think I think social I think social studies we're going to have an issue with so I was just I was curious yes and we're going to have to we're gonna have to work through those issues when they arise because where I have to check to see what what's on the list and what's not on the list and go ahead follow up definitely so what we have to tweak this because we have to be transparent so will we need to further

057tweak this policy above and beyond what the legislation changes are to kind of address that or does this policy address that I think this policy sets a good framework for you okay and then we'll just have to figure out what's coming and how quickly they move at the state I knew the answer to it I just wanted you to answer quickly all right thank you so thank you so much all right and member Castor Donald did you have follow-up yeah thank you madam chair I have a question for you are we taking all three policies at once or are we doing that individually individually okay my response were directed at ijl thank you thank you for that Clarity okay so I will entertain a motion regarding item 3.01 which is the request for approval of

058revised board policy IJ instructional res and resource and materials is there emotion emotion motion to approve oh yes motion to approve motion to approve by member farant is there a second by member Gould all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed motion to approve I'm sorry policy IJ is I'm sorry is approved with all members voting in the affirmative except for member Castro Dental okay let's move on to item ijl and Miss envel yes the same the same timeline that I presented to you at the front applies to policy ijl and for this particular policy I believe we have 11 speakers all right thank you I'm hearing from our speakers first let me begin with Corey Hill followed by Ted Larkins welcome Mr Hill let's talk books or the way things are going

059in the Free State of Florida the conspicuous absence thereof I think if we're going to look at local policy we also need to take it in the context of what's Happening Statewide throughout Florida and nationally the Florida Department of Education announced proudly today that they've censored dozens more books releasing a list of elementary and middle school textbooks that have been altered at the demand of that body what do they remove references to social justice represents to George Floyd according to Manny Diaz the goal was to provide quote materials that focus on historical facts and are free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric with the fascist censoring Florida's textbook every accusation is a confession they decry indoctrination while every move they make is designed to further their right-wing agenda make no mistake the targeting of Education in

060particular history and sociology is deliberate by depriving people of the ability to truly understand the past we strip them of the ability to act meaningfully in the present the last time I was here the primary subject of comets from the crowd related to the cancellation of a popular event at Boone High School Dragon Donuts one of the members of this board was a leading figure in the cancellation of this event a fellow traveler with Manny Diaz in the DeSantis Administration in silencing lgbtqi voices I want to remind everyone of what many of the students said that day if you are so concerned about our safety why aren't you looking at the hate speech we've endured in the hallways if you are so concerned about our well-being why do we ignore the fact that the number

061one cause of death for people under the age of 18 in this country is gun violence at first glance and based on the reaction of some of the people in the crowd I think some people might be confused what does one have to do with the other as the beneficiary of a pre-censorship Florida education I was given the ability to understand history and to think holistically the same forces that want to ban books are the same forces that want to strip trans people of Human Rights the same people who want to ban books are the same people who demonize immigrants the ism that keeps me up at night isn't wokeism it's fascism it's racism it's white nationalism and this is the real threat to our children in fact the real threat to all of us

062I know my history I know that the people Banning books are never the heroes and I know that what starts with Banning books Never Ends there I don't think we should be removing books from our schools I think we should be removing fascists from our school boards all right let's take our next speaker and that would be sorry Ted Larkins thank you hello hello school board thank you for having me honored to be able to speak here with you all my name is Ted Larkins I have two if I may say wonderful children attending Winter Park High go Wildcats bobbin following the book Banning and I've been looking at it of course and I've done some of my you know some of my own research into what's going on with it book Banning to me

063is a as an older person in this in this room is something that only happened in Nazi Germany not here in the USA and so I've been very curious of why our society would even go down that path one of the arguments for book Banning that I that I picked up was they say that by removing books that may propagate ideas that clash with our core values we create a harmonious environment that Fosters unity and mutual respect I say board members whose core values are we protecting and who are you or anyone to determine my or anybody else's core values so book Banning I think under undermines the very essence of Education intellectual growth by denying access to books we deny our youth the opportunity to expand their Horizons and develop develop critical thinking skills

064book Banning stifles creativity and hinders the development of empathy and by Banning books we rob our students of the chance to explore diverse characters and narratives that can shape their understanding of the world please on behalf of the kids who will one day be adults in need a rounded full education don't ban books thank you thank you Mr Larkins let's hear from Lily stallman followed by Nia Larkins sorry I'm a little bit shorter than this okay perfect good job hi I'm Lily stallman and I'm a ninth grader at Winter Park High School go Wildcats and as a little girl I couldn't read not even at the age where little girls were supposed to be able to read I was stuck my family and I figured after I figured out after you see after a series

065of tests that I was dyslexic and due to that I avoided anything with words I underwent years of tutoring the first chapter book I ever read with the help of my mother of course was Charlotte's Web are we starting to get why my mother and all of those around me loved books so much after reading that wonderful story now I'm a little older a little wiser and I know for a definite fact that I am not alone board members if you continue to let books be banned by the power of the so-called review by parents then you were doing a great Injustice to kids like me for those who long for a place to belong in this crazy world by Banning books you're robbing children of a chance to figure out their true identity soon

066students should have the ability to give input on the books they want to have in their Library notice how I use the pronoun their Library not the parents I do believe in parental rights but I do not believe in having my voice quieted and by allowing books to have the ability to be banned in our district district you are silencing us what is more important the parents that threaten you or the students all over the county and whom you serve your job as elected officials is to hear us out and to advocate so I beg all of you to do so and make real change for the school district fascism is not something that's that someone can see from miles away it just creeps up on you until you are stuck just like all the

067students in this County and across Florida I ask you that you open your eyes to what is in front of you thank you thank you all right let's hear from Nia Larkins hi good afternoon I'm Nia Larkins I'm 15 and I go to Winter Park High School go Wildcats I am here just to talk to you I don't have a speech I don't have anything written I just want to speak to you I want to know why you think that banning books is making kids not learn about certain subjects like sex or gay people I guess I don't understand why you think that this is preventing them from ever hearing those words but you know that so many kids are giving given iPhones these days I know seven-year-old who has Tick Tock who just kind

068of watches it and she knows about all this stuff because she hears it from sources that are not educational that are not good and that are not safe for kids to learn about we need to teach our kids about sex in a proper way and these books that you're Banning are books that talk about these subjects in ways that are delicate and helpful to these kids minds and to help them grow and by taking this away you stop them from learning from sources that are actually valuable and now they learn about things from other kids online and it doesn't make any sense and I just I need you to stop and think for just one second about what this means and why you're actually Banning these books and it's because you're uncomfortable it's not because

069these kids are uncomfortable no kid has come up here and said these book these books are making me uncomfortable these books are not okay for me that's not what's happening we us kids are standing here telling you this is not making us or any of our peers uncomfortable it's making you uncomfortable and is making it the parents who don't know what their kids are going through uncomfortable it doesn't make any sense that's all I'm here to say thank you all right thank you all right Iris Iris I'm going to have to ask for your help with your last name and then will Larkins hi welcome my name is Iris vernoy I'm a student at Winter Park High School I love to read it's one of my favorite hobbies I've been reading since I was little

070obviously books provide an outlet for children to be able to work their imaginations and build up their own view of the world without this outlet they turn to other sources of information phones specifically right now social media like Tick Tock Instagram and whatnot without these books they don't have anywhere to turn to they are misled on current issues and important distinctions in things like what consent lgbtq issues racism what are they finding online books at least they have to be published they have to be looked over edited and put into schools chosen by teachers and Librarians in order for kids to choose them in the first place if a parent does not like a book then the parent can request their kid does not read the book or look through what the kid gets from

071the library that is up to the parents discretion in their own household not the parents discretion for the entire school and everybody else's children allow individuals to be able to learn and discover their own world view from what they can see and find around them through good sources of information like books and not weird websites or social media Outlets thank you thank you all right will Larkins will followed by stefana Farrell hi members I'm back my name is Will Larkins I'm an 18 year old senior at Winter Park High School go Wildcats and first off I wanted to start by thanking the members who are defending our right to read and to learn 30 people have died in 19 school shootings since the beginning of 2023. anyway let's talk about book Banning there are currently

072three books spanned in Orange County Public Schools this book is gay genderqueer and let's talk about it all three books are about lgbtq people being gay and non-binary I knew that I was different from a very young age I was very different from the other boys in my class and I never knew why it's because I'm gay and non-binary I was never taught about my existence by fourth grade I'd come to the conclusion that I was broken I'd come to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me and I fully believe that this is a very common experience for lgbtq people I grew up seeing every Disney movie every book was about heterosexual people I did not know gay people existed exposure to my own existence would have saved me so much suffering and

073for others it would have saved their lives because queer teens are four times more likely to die by Suicide than their straight counterparts I'm about to make y'all uncomfortable gay sex happens and it happens among students in fact I knew people having gay sex in Middle School I was never taught about gay sex in schools I wasn't really taught about sex in schools at all but we definitely weren't taught how to do it safely properly how to avoid STIs how to avoid HIV or the existence of prep and pep sex is a fact of life we should teach it as such I got my sexual education from the internet and as you can imagine it was not correct but like the other students have said these books have been reviewed they have been edited and

074they've been fact checked to make sure that that they're correct and these These are educational materials that we are removing from schools and they're all about gay people why are all three books about gay people one more thing I applied to be on the district Literacy Council to review books myself as a student who is a student right now and I was denied because I was a student so I asked you to please make sure students have a voice when it comes to our own education I and following following the expansion of don't say gay to 12th grade and the expansion of these book Banning bills I want you to know that from conversations that I have every day in school where I attend every day students are afraid teachers are afraid and they're afraid

075that you're not going to defend them they saw what happened with dragon Donuts they saw that the students event got canceled and that the teachers were not stood up for that they were allowed to be bullied down by the legislature I ask that you all please support students and parents in this our students and teachers parents everyone in this very scary time in Florida thank you so much have a good day thank you will stefana Farrell followed by Jacob Oshua was shut up so I kind of arranged my comments just figuring that this was going to pass so I'm going to make some requests for amendments as I've said from the very beginning of this review last March IMB is about teaching about controversial issues that should not be in the library policy and now

076more than ever we need a policy that IMB is supposed to accomplish right now it's just a reference that the Bible should be in our libraries as you're incorporating it in but our teachers our parents and our students all deserve a fully fleshed out policy around what kind of conversational issues are going to be discussed in the classroom when parents have the opportunity to opt out you know what's expected and where does that line cross from having a healthy conversation to possible indoctrination all of that needs to be thoroughly outlined to protect conversations to protect our resources in our classrooms to protect our libraries I don't know if you guys saw it today but Wakulla County actually removed a book on the Little Rock Nine and they said it was they were removing it because

077the concept was not age appropriate for third graders though the book is written for third graders it's a graphic novel and instead of leaving it in the library for fourth and fifth graders they instead said well we've got some high schoolers reading at a third grade level so we'll move it up to our middle and high school students and it is a book intended for that 8 through 12 age yeah 8 through 12 age group and so all this to say we've got teachers and principals that are you know you've got a policy that the first conversation happens with the principal no book should be removed without that reconsideration form filled out and so that first conversation that a challenger has with the principal that should do you could resolve it via a parent opt-out

078you could say that hey we've talked about it the book's going to be retained or hey here's the form let's move to the next level it should not be allowed to be removed without a form being filled out the other thing you guys all asked for the harmful to minors definition to be added to the policy instead they got labeled as I've seen the definitions are the same in 847.001 however the important factor is that harmful to minors is actually defined because that's the reason why you know in 847.012 it's the and harmful to minors and the reason why you asked for the definition of harmful to minors to also be included in the policy is for that reason and so to label that policy or that definition as obscene versus harmful to minors it's

079confusing and it should be harmful to minors and then as others have mentioned the appeal process we should definitely have it available so that anyone can appeal a decision on a book and then just in general we know what kind of books are being targeted we know that we need protections we know that we need to make sure that one person can't censor our entire Community thank you Miss Farrell Jacob Jacob you'll help me with your last name then Maria Ellis it is Jacob washuda first of all I'm a student at Boone High School a sophomore Boone High School go Brave I'd like to read an excerpt from a song and then a little something else that I wrote they say there are strangers who threaten us our immigrants and infidels they say they're a

080strangeness too dangerous in our theaters and our bookstore shelves those who know what's best for us must rise and take it from ourselves this is a Witch Hunt according to the 2021 youth risk behavior survey administered by the CDC 36 percent of Florida high school students have had sexual intercourse this is the real world there's not an ounce of literacy content that one cannot access by simply looking online this is the real world you are not restricting student access to explicit content by forbidding books that you deem to adult within School environments you were simply knocking at the door of fascism by letting our right-leaning status quo deem which books are suitable for children the expansion of the House of House Bill 1557 or the don't say gay bill as it is widely known was

081a prime example of the claim that we are protecting children is just a front to push conservative political Dogma into educational environments if this broadly cast net was equally applied far more books would be forced off shelves book books which if removed would enrage many of those who support these Un-American book bands in order to read a book you must desire to do so no one can force the words into your brain books cannot be indoctrination they are simply information the real world is complicated and often a terrifying place we should not keep the ability to learn from students especially not high schoolers who are nearly adults themselves we teach teach sexual education in to Middle Schools or in Middle Schools this is the real world we encourage the use of contraceptives and abstinence to

082lower rates of unwanted teen pregnancy this is the real world the censorship and metaphorical book burning we are witnessing is an embarrassing display of right-wing extremism that doesn't that does nothing but show the general public the true intentions of the Republican Party book Bans are hypocritical and Un-American I understand that many of much of what I've spoken about today is not at fault of this board having said this it is their responsibility to act accordingly in in the best interest of ocps students I'd like to ask or I'd like to lastly ask for students to have an opportunity to appeal books that have been banned as this would at least give us some say in what we are permitted to read thank you board thank you next we'll hear from Maria Ellis followed by Jeanette

083wise hi hi my name is Maria Ellis I am a ninth grader at Winter Park High School and I feel like I have to say go out cats I don't have a speed prepared I've really came in here not thinking I was going to speak and then I signed a card anyways all I have to say is that books are essential to kids it's part of our education it's part of our childhood and just book Banning is just keeping minorities in the dark okay and you're Banning books about different races different sexual relationships we're also writing books about for different religions not every kid is Christian not every kid reads the Bible and those other religions aren't over here saying well we need you know our religious texts in the library too or no they

084can't have theirs in there because we don't believe in it and that's just not fair if if I wanted different parents perspectives in my education I would let them homeschool me but they don't have the qualifications to do that so why are we letting them in our education why are we letting them have an opinion with what we're learning education is supposed to be objective I'm not here to learn what my friend's mom wants me to think or with the kid down the Street's dad thinks that we should be learning I don't care I am here to learn a standard I'm here to learn objective education we're books are being banned for the fact that they're not factually correct even though that is so not true it's just a way to push other opinions down

085and to keep like I said before minorities in the dark and that's just not fair for the different groups of kids that are going to school and if I'm just saying if we want to learn a book that is factually correct maybe we should start teaching 1984 by George Orwell because that's where our state and nation is going thank you thank you Jeanette wise followed by dementio Barton Jeanette oh Jeanette left thank you all right well thank you again okay on igl ijl rather a media center materials program this one was a little bit more interesting I saw this one comment as I was reading that I'll just read for everyone here and it was one of the comments a4r3 whatever else it does in the context of school library books the First Amendment does

086not require a school board to leave on its Library shells or purportedly non-fiction book that contains false statements of fact I was I was listening when I read that I was just looking and I was just thinking like why are there ninth graders on that board why aren't there why aren't there why aren't why are our teachers required to graduate from High School go to college why if we don't need adult supervision adult training wisdom from those who've come before us to come to us if we don't need it why can a kid with the money not be in your position or your position or anybody's position up here or even a superintendent of schools why did why does a superintendent I saw what you went through that was a lot why can't a kid

087just come in there why can't a kid just say I have bright ideas I'm brilliant and they may be brilliant they may have bright ideas but it doesn't mean that those ideas are the one should that should rule their world there are some lessons learned by those who've come before us that are not meant to destroy us but they're meant so that we don't fall in the holes that though our predecessors have come before that have they thought they fall into themselves we when I look at a lot of what's going on I respect the right of everyone to have a choice and decide different things but there are things that we are supposed to do for our kids to keep them from falling into the problems of the past we don't want to have

088new world wars we dunk on well better have learned from the previous ones we don't want the industrial problems we have when we have kids working in factories and they were being destroyed if we don't learn from the past we will repeat it I love the fact that the youth are talking and they are speaking but when they talk and say that the parents are like fascists because because of their wisdom they're trying to help them not to fall into traps at that point I say do what any wise adult would do and stand even if they do not agree thank you all right that completes public comment member Felder you're recognized no okay member Caster Dental thank you madam chair and thank you for everyone who who spoke the Silver Lining I think to

089this whole discussion is that this culture war that has been flamed in this board meeting and all the different board meetings has created a generation of students who are not afraid to speak up and claim what they deserve they are well reasoned they are articulate they are brave they come up to the mic without any notes they speak from the heart and I think the kids will save us so thank you member front yeah I would like to say as well I'm definitely appreciate everybody who came and if you've been here a while you know that no matter what your beliefs are or whether you agree or don't agree with what is going on I'm always very appreciative to everyone who comes and speaks because I once was a parent who would come and share

090my opinion or my thoughts and so I appreciate it and I know that it takes courage to come and speak so I do appreciate that I do want to just address a few things as you I'm sure already know everyone seems to know me here so I'm definitely for all of these I do want to just make a public statement that book Banning and by saying book Banning whether you're a board member you're a parent you're a faculty your student the term Book Banning is just a way to Gaslight book Banning is a way to Gaslight those who are just wanting to make sure that there are boundaries and that there's protections for every student that is in our schools and what is happening right now is we're just wanting to make sure that kids

091are reading quality books of what wherever whoever I wouldn't want heterosexual content with graphic sex there's a book that I actually just was looking through and came up called forbidden that I'll be looking into and it is actually about a boy and a girl who are brother and sister in fact and they're raising their siblings because their parents are alcoholics those two brother and sister decide they're going to start having sexual relations and so the entire book discusses the sexual acts and explicit that is called perversion and those are not the windows that I would want any student having to look into and see and so I wouldn't I think we can have diverse characters and narratives without having the sexual content for me it always has been about sexual content and I think there's

092people of this board that can see I've said from day one it's not about gender it's not about race and it's not about religion it is about making sure that books do not contain explicit sexual content the argument that we should allow these books because you know kids have iPhones I've heard that a lot the books those are our responsibility iPhones would be a parent's responsibility so that when my kids have an iPhone that's my responsibility as a parent to make sure that those are protected if you're a parent you don't care if it's they have any kind of boundaries no problem that's up to you but when it's coming from from the public school I think we do need to have boundaries and then I'd love to discuss the topic of Dyslexia and the

093fact that we do have a 50 literacy rate in this County right now and I do believe that yes ma'am 50 that's it I know I was shocked myself because that means that 50 of our kids are not reading on grade level and so I've actually been working with members of the board specifically member Gallo to try to really make sure that we are we are honing in on those students who are dyslexic we have many parents who have pulled their kids from public schools driving them 45 minutes or an hour to make sure that they get the education that they need to hone in on that dyslexic or any kind of reading disability that they might have and I want to make sure that we get them we get that here and so you

094know something that we are working with is Orton Gillingham and I think that is phenomenal I'm super excited about it but that's for another day and then I'll just leave with I know not everybody may be in agreement with this but I do think that we can just continue to stand and make sure that our kids have quality books that don't have explicit content by sure girl there you go I want to thank all of the students and everybody who spoke tonight we appreciate we appreciate you all so much and I just want you to know we hear you we hear what you're saying and I and I do think and I've said it publicly before that students should have a voice I think that there are a lot happening in the world right now

095where adults are making decisions on on their behalf and we have parents in the room that are here speaking out on behalf of their children so they understand what their children are involved in I when I come in every day I see parents dropping their students off so that they could talk at pre-agenda or they can talk at the meeting so those parents are engaged with what their kids are doing because they know it's important to their kids so it's important to them so there's if there's a silver lining the good news is there's a lot of discussions happening at home right if a parent is taking time out of their day to drop their child off so they could speak to us as a body can you imagine the discussions that are happening at

096home about books and content and stuff that maybe before a parent wouldn't have that discussion with a child and now they're having that discussion with a child and that's that's a good thing because those the students that we're hearing from the most are marginalized students who are frightened by some of the recent laws that are passed by are frightened by some of the decisions that are made and I hope you all know this if not I'm going to let you know we're committed to making sure that y'all are safe and happy and educated and loved and valued because every child is valued and loved in ocps and it's just important that you hear that from me so in regards to the policy there's some gaps and I agree with I agree with stefana i there's

097a lot of fear within our classrooms with our teachers about losing their certificates and with our and with our staff and so I think anything and we've we've said this all along we've vetted this thing out for a long time but any any guidance that we can provide and I and if if it's not in the form of policy because we need the leeway to change it faster than the board Canon policy maybe it's in the forms of procedures so that they know what's the difference between instruction versus non-instruction what is appropriate if it's student-led versus teacher-led so they don't get in trouble so any guidance that we could provide them and make that guidance public so that our community is aware of the guidance that we're given to the teachers I think would be

098well received and would have alleviate some of the angst that's that there is amongst our students and our staff so I would be in big favor for that we're going to have to to bring this back because there's changes that there I mean a law just I don't know I think the governor signed it where we have to remove every book that's being challenged so we need to make sure that every book that we removed is being is being challenged and that the appropriate paperwork is filled out by everybody including us on the board when we come across books just for the appearance of transparency I wanna I wanna point out that if you if you look and I pulled it up on the website and thank you for that by the way for putting

099it on the website which was very easy for me to find today and I looked at the books that we have removed and the books that we haven't there there are books that went through the process that we didn't remove books good books that y'all have advocated for us to keep on our shelves two of them are still on our shelves because it went through the process and we have them there so this board is not about banning books I think member Kester Dental said it the best nobody wants pornography in our in our libraries no none of us none of the none of the members on the board want pornography in our classroom but it is important that we make sure that everybody is represented and everybody feels represented when they have access to

100materials in our libraries I was an Avid Reader when I was in elementary school it was a place for me to escape when when life got a little too tough or things weren't going my way I would crawl into the library and this is when Elementary went to sixth grade and I'd pull out Beverly clearly or I pull out Judy Bloom and I would just sit there in the corner and I could escape and for that 30 minutes or that hour that it took me to read the book or however long I had peace in my life I had a place to go to escape where I was happy and I was content so I recognized the need for everybody in here to have that same access and that same ability to escape and to

101learn and to feel represented and it's important to us so I just wanted to say that we will still be working on this we recognize that there's gaps we have to get this approved so I will be supporting it tonight for that reason but I recognize that it's going to come back to us very soon and we'll have an opportunity to to correct some of the gaps in the policy thank you Vice chair member bird I think I think everything was just said that I wanted to say so I do want to take just a minute to thank our staff and I see some of them in the back that I know have just worked tirelessly on this and it has not been easy because it wasn't like it was an easy law that was

102just passed one day and that was it and it was very clear and it has just been ongoing and changing and more and it's just it's so confusing and not knowing what was going to happen from the doe from day to day it was it is just as someone up here said clogged up our system and our district in this department that I'm looking at right now for over a year and so I just want to take a minute to thank thank all of you that worked on it because I know it was not easy and our legal team really collaborating with them I'm frustrated by that because that right there is what frustrates me because we I have so many things we have so many things that we need people like that those Minds

103working on that are affecting our kids every day it's not the books I'm telling you it's it's their 24-hour access to everything and everyone's opinion and everything that's out in the world that they are inundated with constantly it's not from them opening books I hate to say it I wish more of them were opening books but I don't think a lot of them are like they used to just because of their access to Electronics so this is not a problem it never was but it was easy it's easy to bring a one bad book into a board meeting and rally up a whole bunch of people that support that so that was what this all was it was easy it got support it you know and the problem is the effects of that is it's

104now taken a year out of a school district's time and we're not the only one it's 67 districts across the state who have been rambling trying to get this these policies up so that we could you know not be in trouble with the state so that's frustrating to me you know I'm trying to work on anti-violence in my community I had two shootings at schools this year there are such bigger things that we should be spending our time on so I'm frustrated by this whole thing but I will be voting for it because I have to because we have to have a policy for this law and so I agree that there are some gaps and there's some things that need to work on but I think this is a really good starting point I

105think that we I really appreciate the staff listening to input from community members and from the board and making changes when we ask them to and I think that there will be more changes to make but I think this is a good start thank you remember Salamanca thank you chair no share a lot of the same kind of concerns that we heard up here today I mean we need to have a policy we've had so much time resources and staff's Minds focused on this and this book issue is such a red heron from what really this is about right and I think you know yes it's not where our district needs to be spending all of its time because we need to be focused on reading and math and mental health and all of these

106things are very very real but we have to acknowledge you know our media and State's obsession with books right because it's a red herring that wants us to you know we are creating a map you know I think one of the really good things that come out of this is yes today we're voting on this very poorly written policy from state that we're trying to improve here in Orange County but I assure you that the students who are being told what not to read or believe will now have a map on where they should go and look that this will create a backlash from a generation of student leaders who are now going to wait until they are in power to feel safe against guns to feel like they have to be told and what

107to read we're not going back decades you know I was a student in this District I identify as lgbtq I didn't have any of these books telling stories about my narrative about my character about who I was I did not have exposure to my own existence as some people said here this wasn't that long ago I was in school very recently I graduated Timber Creek 2011 and I had you know I came from immigrant parents moved to the US when I was seven very Catholic Family and who I was and what I was dealing with was not accepted in my home it was not a safe space for me my safe space was my peers my teachers my parents like my other parents and friends and it was my books it was the books that

108spoke about what it felt like to feel different it wasn't about sexuality because those didn't exist they just they weren't in this they're very new phenomenon where we have books that speak to these different identities and stories and experiences and it kills me to know that all of a sudden these books have started to become part of our libraries in the past couple of years and here we are getting them rid of them when they've been around for so little and I agree with some of the stuff the students said today the folks who get rid of books are not usually on the good side of history when you look back and when we find ourselves getting rid of things that we don't agree with in our values usually it doesn't go really well for

109a nation I think you know it is a bit patronizing to tell our students that we have the wisdom of the years of generations before us because if we did have the wisdom of these Generations before us we wouldn't be repeating these mistakes that we have had for centuries and what it means to get rid of books so clearly that wisdom didn't pass on through in the new generation picked up on it a lot faster than we did so I will be supporting this policy today I will work with this board to focus on the things that matter which is reading and math and mental health but I'm not going to just ignore the fact that I know that these books are Banning these books are a trojan horse for not talking about issues that

110our society suddenly feels very uncomfortable with even though we just became accepting that we exist I'm here I'm not going anywhere I'm in a position of power and these students who are being told today that who they are in these books are not acceptable they're not the values that we want our other kids to learn they're listening and they're hearing and they're organizing and it's going to get only harder because they're not going to give up and so I am happy to have them in this room today I'm happy to continue to have them and give them a platform and listen to them and I just hope that the oh so wise older Generations listen to them too because there are Future Leaders thank you member Salamanca member good I would say we have spent

111well over 100 maybe even 200 hours on this and here's what I wish we had spent 200 hours on teacher retention promoting education careers skills-based learning earn Learners to earners the challenges of our discipline as kids came out of covid who had been isolated the growth in our community resilience and mentoring for our students and our community and connecting them to positive opportunities with adults school safety Community involvement creating more internships exposure to the career path programs More arts more Athletics more after school programs more ways to be productive citizens that's what I wish we had spent all of those hours talking about and that's what I wish the major topics of this state were but they're not and this is law that we have to figure out how to make it work within our

112district as best we can I would love to see this group of kids and the group that of of folks over here really find the ways to improve our community and come together and focus on some of these issues to get educations back and I don't mean push education back I mean hold them up and help I don't want things that are inappropriate age or developmentally inappropriate in school I want to get that on the record that is not what I'm saying but we have major issues where we are going to fall behind as an economic power if we don't invest in our education system and that's what I wish we were talking about but we're not so I will follow the law that we have to figure out how to implement and I will

113vote for this but I do want to clarify something we've talked a lot about how to get books off the shelves but how do students families ask to put them on and I and I don't think we've lifted that up it's in there but it's it's kind of so buried in the other language how do we let people know that they can it say a media Specialist or a teacher is fearful and makes a judgment call on a book where they don't think it should come in I want to make sure that everybody knows how to get a book on the Shelf too if it's possible or get it into the review it is written in there but I don't know that we've lifted it enough to kind of stop talking about just the negative

114but how do we get some of the positive conversations going about books we may want to see on our shelves thank you member member Felder thank you chair foreign this reminds me of my attitude as a youngster when I was at Jones High School in 1971 to 74. and they were trying to close my school but the district was and how adamant my white friends the Jones are only a handful of them and black kids how we in the district was located on Tampa Avenue how we walked out of Jones High School 1400 Cypress Street that was the address that's now the back of the school and walk down there and demanded that our school needed to be needed to stay open when I hear young people fight for what they believe in also this

115whole issue about the Banning books and different kinds of literature not being taught and this attack on people reminds me of the Civil Rights Movement when the attack was on colored citizens negro citizens African-American citizens black Americans they were targeted and we had to convince people that we were worthy and we should demand some respect my first consideration when I think about the fact that we are fighting to keep teachers and if I have the choice between getting rid of a face as opposed to getting rid of the nose I get rid of the nose before I get rid of the face when when I'm being told that licenses may be taken a people may lose their livelihood and I have to choose I want them to keep their licenses I want them to keep

116their livelihoods what what do I have to do I thank God I don't know where my position would be if I was still a teacher probably I would be before the board and probably be recommended for firing because I would be teaching I would be teaching I love my little principal the last principle I had Dr Shana he can concur I would be teaching those books that would probably would be banned or questioned but when I look at the whole picture we got to keep teachers we got to keep administrators and if I have to make that choice it's a bad choice I don't like having to make that choice and I do remember I understand this whole assault I'm 66. I lived through it I know exactly what you're feeling but I have to

117look at the whole picture if it's going to keep a teacher's license or principal because as a school board member I took a oath that I would govern and Institute policies that was in a was aligned with legislation you'll be voting soon some of you can vote right now I need you to show your power that's all I must say show your power thank you thank you member Felder yeah I want to thank all the students that are here member Salamanca I want to thank you for your leadership and your representation I know if I were a student right now I would not probably believe I would probably not believe anything I'm about to say I am terribly sorry that we are where we are I do think there is a way for us to

118have books in the library that represent our children our youth our teenagers who are gay who are lesbian who are bi who are queer who are transgender I think there's a way for us to have those books and comply with the law it's a narrow line that we have to walk but I think we can walk in this board has asked the superintendent to look at every time a book comes off the shelf because it contains those subjects that some people in Tallahassee too many of them find offensive and some people in our community it's clear when I look at the lists of books that have been challenged they're almost all about the lgbtq community and that's really sad it is especially sad when this community lost 49 impulse less than 10 years ago for

119no other reason than that they found a safe place to come and be welcome and be safe and be respected and for that they perished and yet right here in our community we have adults if they're really focused on pornography and I do agree that graphic pornography or content that is not age appropriate should not be in the library Elementary School is one thing Middle School is another thing High School is another thing we should be able to figure that out but when I see the books that are pulled I can't ignore the fact that there are still too many people right here right here in Orange County where I thought we were so much better that are pulling these books and they're not pulling the other books the heterosexual books that contain the same

120the same sexual content and that's just not okay I guess I shouldn't get so completely down because still a small number of people but I felt so good about this community when it responded so overwhelmingly supportive of lgbtq plus the youth just a few years ago I felt so good when I was mayor of Orange County and I flew the Gay Pride flag from the top of the County Administration Building A government building and I thought all hell was going to break loose I knew I was going to be barraged by you know attacks and nasty emails and death threats but it didn't happen it didn't happen I got two emails and they weren't even all that harsh and I felt so good about where we are and when I joined this District I felt

121so good that this District understood how important it is that every single one of our children feel safe because a lot of you I know I know because in my generation my friends that were gay or lesbian we didn't even talk about transgender but the ones that were gay and lesbian they couldn't talk to their parents they couldn't even talk to most of their friends so I know how important it is for you to be safe and welcome and cherished and loved and I know that's not what you're feeling right now and I know we're not helping you feel that way when we tell you that we need to vote for this but we need to counter it by making sure that we're adding the books that we need to add so I've asked the

122superintendent to pull the list of books that we've added and if it doesn't meet the expectation of the board we are going to hunt for those books that we can add into the library we are going to fight with with positivity we're going to fight with love okay and we're going to win we may not win instantly but we are going to win but we're going to do it together I love you we need to do a better job I think of communicating with our GSA clubs I did reach out to them after this all started I think we need to reach out again and make sure that they know that we're not the enemy you've got enough enemies I surely didn't run for office to be your enemy foreign we need to change the

123language moving forward because there needs to be a counter appeal process there needs to be a counter voice and the way we have it set up right now we don't have that ability if we have one school that has a committee with an agenda and they Prevail there's no way for you or even me to counter that and we need to fix that so and we are not going to fix it today because we can't change it right this second because there's a state law that says we have to go through this long process but if we don't follow that process it just all goes out the window and I would give up my seat in a heartbeat if I thought I could change any of this I would give it up yesterday but the

124thing is if you lose the board members that you have that are fighting for you The Replacements you won't be electing them they will be appointed by the same people you're fighting right now so hanging with us Let's Stay Together let's stay strong let's be as positive as we can be and let's keep working on this until we Prevail it may not be until you all are sitting in these seats or more importantly in those seats but we don't give up okay and board thank you for letting me go over my five minutes now thank you all right do we have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the gavel nobody could gamble me we have emotion a reluctant motion no I'm I'm proudly well a motion to approve this I don't think we

125need to lead with where we're creating more fear I think we lead and say we love every one of you we love you we care about you we every one of these board members has sat here and said that they do not want explicit or pornographic content in our books same as me that's it and so I motioned to a proof is there a second hi second Ed by member Gould all in favor please say aye aye opposed motion carries with all members voting in the pot in the affirmative except for member Caster Dental last one is policy kec concerns about instructional resources and it's being recommended that the school board repeal policy kec concerns about instructional resources as the current version of the policy has been incorporated into policy ijl and this is a

126final policy for your consideration tonight there are no public speakers on this particular policy all right thank you board members comments I don't have a comment but I will move to approve the repeal of kec we have a motion to approve the request to repeal is there a second a second second member Salamanca all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously if you'll give me just a minute yes so we had one more item that has been pulled permanently we have the consent agenda that we have not voted on is there a motion to approve the consent agenda motion moved by Vice chair seconded by member Caster Dental to approve the consent agenda all in favor please say aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously non-consent no I'm sorry we don't have

127anything on non-consent I don't believe and I think we're on to sorry I do think we have one more thing or is it just a ction no committee reports superintendent do you have a report for the board I have a very short report short would be really good yes it'd be great and it's really great news so I'm really very pleased to say that earlier today the governor signed the bill with a new concordance scores that's going to allow over 800 of our seniors so we are very grateful thank you Jesus secondly for the seventh year in a row our district has been named best community for music education by the National Association of Music merchants and that speaks to our commitment to the Arts and so we're very thankful and last but certainly not

128least I want to point out there was an article that came out yesterday I believe highlighting the work that has been done in Orange County specifically by our student services team under the leadership of Kathy Schuler and Mary Bridges where we are the only District that has dropped has lessened the suicide rate by 13 percent while other states across the nation has gone up and in the State of Florida there was only a one percent drop and I am so incredibly grateful to the work our student services team has done and continues to do to provide resources support training that is so badly needed in our schools and so I just wanted to publicly thank them for their hard work that's the end of my report thank you and natural best was I Echo your

129comments about our incredible staff I do also and I will be recognizing next week our Mental Health commission and I also want to recognize I just want to call attention while we're on the subject to the people that have volunteered their time and their expertise for the last two two and a half years to supporting the work of our entire team here to help our children deal with it the difficulties the trauma that they've experienced through covid but also the trauma that many of them experience at home and just I just think we're very lucky to be where we are with such dedicated committed people and with a district that understands that mental illness is a real thing it's not it's not a character weakness it's a physical ailment just like cancer is and I

130just there's so many things I am proud of in this district and that's one of them too so do we have a report from from our general counsel okay let me call on Vice chair thank you thank you madam chair so I was in Tallahassee this past week for my daughter's graduation she graduated her master's very proud of her but I'm I met with the Department of Education to talk about attendance because I've been I have a non-profit it's a Florida attendance campaign for Student Success it's called facts where we're trying to get some movement in the state to Define absenteeism and to Define chronic absenteeism to which Orange County Public Schools is not non we have a big issue in in our County so I wanted to see and I don't know if this

131is a policy thing but I want to bring it up to the board but I would love to see some education around absenteeism our tagline for for ours is every minute every student other used everyday counts every minute counts but I don't know if maybe we could challenge the students a part of your advisory Council to come up with some type of educational programming that we could share with other students just to let them know the importance of being in the seat what happens when you are as a second leading indicator of student outcomes our attendance and so when we start talking about literacy rates and other items like that and it should have been on Pam's list of the things we should be focused on but that's okay but we have to focus on

132attendance and that starts with educating the parents and so parents understand what chronic absenteeism is and it starts with with defining what chronic absenteeism is in in Orange County because we don't have a state definition of chronic absenteeism and we don't have a state definition of what being absent is that's consistent across all 74 districts so it would be great if if we could look into those two things like can we Define it is that something that's defined we by the way have four pages on attendance on our website which is fabulous it's far better than any others that I found from other districts but if we could just Define chronic absenteeism and the universal definition is really 10 of the school days so if you we go to school for 180 days that would

133be 18 if you miss more than 18 days or 18 periods that your chronic absent and the indicator for that and what that does to our student outcomes is a lot so I was just one to kind of challenge the board to see if where where we could take this does it need to be policy what we what could we do but at the very least I really do think we need an education piece to our parents to let them help them understand why it's so important for their child to be in a seat in a in a classroom thank you Vice chair may I superintendent yes so we are already addressing our plans for this upcoming school year because of the issue that we have with a chronic absenteeism part of it includes adding

134some social workers to our student services team that will actually be going out and making visits for students that have beyond the 60-day absences and we also have a component there about educating families through the parent Academy so we can certainly add this it fits right in cool range of topic I wanted to publicly thank and celebrate the ocps team the many women mentors and the generation wow Organization for coming together and having a very inspirational aspirational and positive day with over I think it was about 700 students sophomores and juniors and a few seniors sprinkled and they snuck in who had been before to the generation wow program and we highlighted some of the most amazing women in our community and I think that we made some connections I know that we can do

135more to connect our young people with great leaders and great citizens who can help them now and for always one of the things that is always said in that room you take these phone numbers now and you can call in a year a day or 10 years from now and somebody's going to pick up the phone and talk with you and to know that you have that kind of a network is so powerful with young people who may not even realize that they have that ability to have a resource like that so thank you to the team that put that together it take talk about taking a village it takes a lot of people in Lake Buena Vista did an amazing job hosting it and we had the most Rock and DJ at lunch oh

136my gosh they're just incredible DJ at lunch that highlighted the positive and the powerful so thank you to everyone for your support of this great tool that gives girls the tools for success in their future thank you and thank you for your leadership in initiating that and staying with it every year member Felder thank you I want to go back to board member goal I've been having all of these meetings both board member bird and I with our communities and one of the suggestions about this chronic absenteeism we always have something to do to punitive you know when children are absent and one of the parents or somebody made a suggestion it could have been somebody in the district I don't know but they said positive things that we could give like if if a

137kid we know that's chronically absent or skips all the time we have these little like kind of like play dollars or whatever and say you know what today you went to all of your classes I know that seems minute but listen you went to all of your classes today here's a little tiger dollar and that tiger dollar could be like you know a hamburger thing at McDonald's or something you know I know it just seems so you know wild but we have to find ways sometimes to not show the negative side when when they're bad but say just when they do it you know and I'm sharing this because I had a student who was having some real serious mental issues going on and she was in my class and she lived on Lee Road

138she missed her bus because she had to do her little sister's hair and she ran to Edgewater and by the time she got Edgewater she was drenched and so we had about 15 minutes left in second period And she said Miss father Miss Fowler she said I didn't want to miss your class I didn't want and this is a kid that was really deep I just got to say it like that and I said honey it's okay she said you want to go get it I said I said and she was dripping wet I said look let me let me let's get your pass go to the bathroom wipe yourself I said I didn't want to miss your class I said and my point is this she had been a kid who had been chronically

139absent but it's I don't know what it was something she liked in my class that she needed to get to that class and sometimes instead of us getting at them because they're not there because they do something wrong and I you know I applauded her and I told her I said thank you that you thought enough so maybe with the chronic absenteeism I don't know how we can do it but we can find some ways when they the ones that are always absent if you can come two weeks or come all your classes through this day all of your classes this whole week here you've earned a tiger dollar you know a Viper dollar and it gets them something so that's something I'd like to implement of think about doing it in some of our

140schools and then go back to Pam Gould I was at the wow oh my God Dr Schuler now I know I had to drop some weight honey because I danced for a while I truly oh my god oh that was the most wonderful experience I never been anything quite like that and I just so enjoyed it and it was such a wonderful thing to happen in the middle of the day just before school gets out you know for students you know I'm really happy about ocps I know there are a lot of things that we're trying to correct and I've learned a lot a lot of things about the district since I've been on this board that I wasn't really privy of as a teacher maybe I was just too busy teaching and being mad

141about it but sometimes but nevertheless I enjoy I miss teaching I really do but you know there's so much we do and that I that was just such a refresher I just did not expect anything like that the middle of the day before and it's not Senior week or anything just in the middle of the day so I hope that continues with our young people but I just wanted to share that with you guys thank you so member Felder I'm not going to comment about you dancing I'm sure it was absolutely wonderful and I'm I'm sure you dropped pounds but I was going to comment on you know we are very fortunate to have you and member Caster Dental who have both spent years teaching and your comment about not knowing what you know from

142this lens is so helpful in how in Bridging the Gap you both have the opportunity to bridge the gap that I can't Bridge because I haven't walked in your shoes and so I hope that we will continue to have you on the board member casterton on the board and you all will continue to help be that bridge of communication I do want to bring up something that happened at the last meeting that I chaired before I left for my son's wedding member for at the pre-agenda meeting there were a number of comments directed at you and I heard from a lot of people very upset with me that I did not stop those comments and they felt that I owed you an apology and I apologize to you publicly for not stopping them but I

143also want to clarify that the meeting started with the language that I read is that you can you are not supposed to reference the names of individuals or specific positions personally I've always taken that to mean our employees and I've never felt as an elected official that I could ever tell somebody that they couldn't publicly say something negative about me I've my whole time in office people have said negative things about me and I felt like that's what's expected of us but what I what I struggle with and I want to just bring to the board's attention is that if I'm not going to let people say something negative I can't let people say something positive so I went back and I and I listened to the whole pre-agenda meeting twice and this is going

144to sound crazy but there are exactly the same number of people who positively identified you including your husband at the very beginning and praised you either your name or the position as there were that said there were four people that specifically referenced you and praised you and for that criticized you one of them actually used your name and I had gaveled him to stop before he used your name so I apologize to you if I did not pay you the respect that you or your constituents feel you would do but I need moving forward to find some clarity on this board on how we're going how I'm supposed to manage that in the future because it's it's hard to tell somebody you can't say anything nice about us there was the one person who said

145something nice about me and if you remember she didn't identify me until she was all done and her time was up she did the same thing and she walked away so I'm not asking for direction now but I just think we need we need I want everybody to give some thought to this and then I think as a board we need to figure out what is the right approach I just say like of course of course absolutely first of all thank you very much I never ever asked you for an apology so I really did not no you did not but I've given a lot of thought and if I yeah if I failed you publicly I owe you a public rather than a private Paul to be really honest it doesn't bother me if

146somebody uses my name so good or bad and it is what it is we're here we're elected knocked on seven thousand doors to do this so I think it's just confusing with the way it's worded so I think there's people who are feeling and then if we are allowing some and then not others and then stopping some and not others yes because either we just say if it's an elected official up here and you want to go for it I mean whatever they do it online they do it in my face if they do it here it's it is what it is it's part of the job so for me it doesn't bother me whether they say something negative or whatever but then it would just be across the board on elected officials I guess

147but then specific teachers or principals I don't want to I don't want any fast decisions fast fast thinking is I've often learned not very good I think we should slow think this so because it needs to be something that the majority of the board feels comfortable with I do want everybody to Think Through the ramifications of telling of putting ourselves above criticism publicly I can't publicly say some of the emails that I've gotten they're they're really bad and we all get those but we'll come back we'll schedule a time to have a conversation on this but just everybody give it some thought okay you actually have a perfect opportunity I know a week oh disability because your code of Civility only references making disparaging remarks about any individuals so it doesn't say anything about kudos

148so the script says that's always been a script I think we ask that specific names of individuals or specific positions not be referenced and usually that's been to protect our employees about in you know things that may not be true or that may not be completely accurate so I think that's something we can discuss next week yeah and I would rather I would I just want everybody to think about it rather than putting everybody on the spot when we were not expecting to have this conversation okay but I also wanted to clear my conscience all right member bird and then member farant thank you for that chair I appreciate you bringing that up because I had some questions and about that too but we'll talk about that next week I want to kind of add

149on to what member Felder said real quick about I think she hit on something really key about the student that didn't want to miss her class I think as we continue to develop all these mental health supports that we're doing within our schools and also the positive behavior plans that schools we're really trying to work on culture and environment I think that makes a huge difference especially I can tell you personally from being a mom of of children that have had anxiety disorders when they're in classrooms or environments that are negative or they're in classrooms where there's you know a lot going on that's misbehavior and it's distracting and it's they get they would get very anxious and there were days where it was a struggle to get them to go to school and we've

150had this conversation before I've talked to many parents it's the same thing it's not that it for some kids it's not that they just don't want to go to school it's that it they seriously are struggle with it because of the environment so I think as we continue to work on all these positive things we're doing with our schools I think that's that's a real key piece and what I think might be interesting too to see is maybe some schools that don't have real high absentee rates or maybe we all do maybe they all do but maybe there are some that seem to be doing something right let's try to find out what's going on there you know I always think that's a good idea to look at who's doing it right and then I

151wanted to just take a minute to talk about my one of my favorite subjects what kind of a culinary magnet I know you guys probably get so sick of hearing me talk about it but today we Dr Vasquez and there's some pictures for you I think Dr Schuler was there no because we ate it all they I excuse me but I invited all of you so I don't want to hear any complaining this was their they see these walks here in this picture they got these stations with the walks that fit down into them they got it through a grant through Duke a stem Grant through Duke Energy and they worked on their they did a oh yeah I made a I made a wonton apple dumpling yes it was so much fun but anyway

152it was the Senior Walk Expo these were all seniors and they were demons they had different cooking stations they had delicious food I mean yes it was it's better than oh yeah they had orange chicken Mongolian beef it was better than any restaurant I've ever been to as always in fact I told Chef Bates that he has to bring those walk stations down here and cook a whole thing for us so he's agreed to do that but anyway it was just a wonderful time and I have to real quick brag on them because they went to two different National competitions this past month they did the pro start competition in Washington DC and out of 18 000 students competing the team came in 16th Nationwide yeah and then they did the NASA hunch competition in

153Houston again where they tried to develop a recipe to go into space with the astronauts and they again came in second but I talked to this part of the I know it was great but they wanted to come in first this year so I talked to them and they said that's okay because we can't take it all now the Juniors have something they can strive for next year so but anyway it was just wonderful and I just wanted to thank all the staff that came out Dr Schuler was there Meredith left Takis is there and Dr Williams came so it was the mayor of Apopka was there yeah it was a lot of fun it was great what some people won't do for food huh right oh wow it sounds incredible and they're oh and

154Chef Bates is awesome and the whole the best part is just the kids and that's what they're so engaged I mean they were telling us they were telling me history about the food and they can tell you the science and how they have to oh the chicken like melted in your mouth and it's because the enzymes you tell them what they talk right they marinated them in I forgot what the some type of water and it changed the pH of the I was like whoa this was really impressive study deep like all the science of it all and you know they're growing their own peppers for their hot sauce and it's yeah yeah it sounds awesome all right remember for rant and then member Salamanca all right thank you I wanted to a quick touch

155on the absenteeism I have I was at one of my school visits so Weingart Elementary something that they do every week they go around I think member Felder you were talking about the little coins or things like that's what they do they go around I thought it was really cool they have Community Partners that partner with them with candy or little treats or different gifts that they'll give and so if the kids are there all five days for the week they get either a coin or candy or whatnot so thought that was really cool I think it's great that it's being brought up I do want to see is there a way that we could get data on our apps in like the number of absentees I don't know if that's too crazy or big

156but since 2018 that 2018 2019 just to see what it was like before covid and then after I think we sent the board something earlier in the year with the comparison we can give you another one I'm just giving you a heads up it's it's really not pretty data oh right right okay no no it's it'd be good just to see kind of what's going on what's that probably before we joined yeah probably before we joined I don't remember seeing it anyways I appreciate that it'd be interesting just to see what it's like before or after kovid the other thing I wanted to just touch base on was I know the last meeting we talked about how we're suing the social media companies I wanted to see if we're doing anything actively right now to

157help mitigate the issue currently so instead of just waiting for to see what happens if we sue them and whatnot are we I do think if we if we were to enact some sort of cell phone policy where kids aren't allowed on the cell phones during the day that could really help I know in a lot of the schools at least in District 3 who have done that have seen a great deal of their discipline issues diminish and then another thing somebody in the community was talking to me this week about at their spouse's work they actually block any of the social media apps do we do that so I can I was just gonna say oh there's just the bill that we are going to be exploring that because there's a bill that requires

158us so we do have some filters in place already so we can't get up students can't get on on Tick Tock things like that on their devices but right we are exploring that as well because I know at some of our schools even like we saw Howard they're getting on Tick Tock that type of thing so just if we can that'd be awesome so that's good news perfect thank you all right remember Salamanca no yes you were here and you're gone okay yes one quick no I've had a couple of community members tell me that the YouTube channel that does this live that we don't have Auto Translate enabled on our YouTube so if you're trying to listen to it with captions in Spanish it's not on so it's a quick fix on YouTube YouTube

159does it for us we just have to enable it on our account all right I see Mr Howard in the back just in case like I'm not sure see me on TV so Spanish good I'm just kidding but no really other people have brought it up not just my mom I know there was a level of we had to have a certain number of people following us in order for us to have it yeah so it auto generates captions yeah but then you can also enable different languages okay yeah but yeah it might be an accounting so we something to look into okay definitely something to look into all right anything else one more go ahead I'm sorry I guess got a board member bird I guess you and I both have these things but

160I just talked with a superintendent and my little School Millennium Gardens they have an echo system where they grow vegetables so about a week ago they invited me to dinner from the vegetables that they prepared the tomatoes and they grow strawberries so I guess we'll have to just get together that's right a little cook-off these are the little ones and yes and enjoy their cooking but I was so proud of Millennium Garden they it was just wonderful what the little children are doing and growing the vegetables and learning how to eat correctly so I wish it was 20 years ago I hadn't met them but nevertheless so I wanted to talk about them give them a shot I'm so proud of them thank you so much absolutely absolutely all right if there's nothing further then

161this meeting is now adjourned thank you foreign