OCPS | 2023-03-28 School Board Work Session & Rule Development Workshop

001good morning everyone and welcome to the Orange County School boards work session and rural development Workshop the work session has been scheduled today for the purpose of discussing proposed revisions to the following School Board policies IJ instructional materials ijl Library materials selection and adoption and kec challenged materials policy look will not have an opportunity to participate in this work session to provide public comment because it's not a regularly scheduled board meeting no action will be taken and there is no pre-agenda period in which the public would normally address the school board rule development Workshop will come next in the SEC which is the second part of today's meeting which has been scheduled for the purpose of discussing proposed revisions to the following School Board policies e BB accident prevention and safety program IA student progression

002plan and jic code of student conduct and the 2022-23 code of students contact which contains assessor changes only the school board will be hearing public comments on these three policies because this is not a regularly scheduled bullet board meeting again there will be no pre-agenda period thank you so much for joining us this morning as I mentioned board members well actually all of our board members are here in person which is a delight and I want to remind board members and the public that we won't be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so that we can focus our entire attention on the matters before us to my fellow board members and staff when speaking please speak directly into your microphone make it sure it's turned on so that our YouTube and

003orange TV viewers can hear you clearly and now I would invite you to join us for a moment of silence followed by 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 foreign first up is School Board policy IJ instructional materials work session and it is suggested that I turn it over to our general counsel Nissan ball thank you madam chair today's work session portion of the meeting will cover proposed revisions to policies IJ ijl and kec all relating to instructional resources and Library materials we have considered your input over the past few work sessions and have Incorporated them into the proposed red lines that the team

004will be going over with and with that I will turn it over to Allison Kibby and Maurice dragon so much good morning chair board members and the superintendent so as noted we will review today policies IJ ijl and kec we'll do a quick review of the timeline and then a summary of the actions and the proposed revisions and next steps and throughout we'll have questions and opportunities for discussion just a quick review of the tentative schedule we are almost coming up on our one year anniversary of reviewing we're having a little hard time hearing you can you pull the mic in a little closer certainly as I found you just about have to be touching it to be heard well so thank you no problem so we're coming up on almost our one year anniversary

005of reviewing these these these policies we began with a work with the cabinet review and then the work session in July of last year we had rule development in August and then a workshop a work session on in January we'll have the work session today and then we have scheduled rule development on April 4th board approval on May 9th and then the effective date of these policies will be upon approval so the three policies we will review today are IJ instructional resources and materials ijl Library materials selection and adoption and kec challenge materials policy I'll now turn it over to Allison KB who will start off with IJ good morning everyone policy IJ is being revised to include language from Recently enacted laws and to clarify the process by which a parent or a resident

006of the county can object to the board's adoption of instructional materials revisions have been made to the existing policy language to include content formatting and terminology edits consistent with statutory language I'm just going to go over the highlighted changes for today if you scroll to the second page of policy IJ you will see that we added some clarification regarding who can be on the Review Committee specifically selection of Review Committee members one or more of whom must be a parent or legal guardian of a child enrolled in a district school who is not also a district employee foreign towards the bottom and section three we made some additional changes and added some statutory references there so pursuant to section 1006.28 of the Florida Statutes the board is responsible for the content of all instructional materials

007used in a classroom or otherwise made available to students whether adopted and purchased from the state adopted instructional materials list adopted and purchased through the district's instructional materials program under Section 1006.283 floor statutes or otherwise purchased or made available the next change that we made is at the bottom of page four and at the top of page five the degree to which the material would be supplemented and explained by mature classroom instruction as part of a normal classroom instructional program for purposes of this policy mature classroom instruction is defined as instruction suited to the student's ability to comprehend the material presented and appropriate for the grade level and age group for which the materials are used or made available letter C or item C was added as a kind of a parallel to policy IJ

008the superintendent or designee may temporarily remove a challenge material during the pendency of a petition for objection to instructional materials if the superintendent or designee believes it will be disruptive to the student learning environment if the challenge material were to remain available or if the superintendent or designee determines the materials contain pornography or material that is harmful to minors or obscene foreign then we made some small changes that were really just semantics on page eight there were some inconsistencies with our use of shall and must and so we chose Xiao and were consistent with the use of that word throughout the objection area one additional thing that we added at the top of page nine is regarding the hearing officer within 30 days after the board receives the hearing officer's findings and recommendation the board

009at a public meeting will consider the petition the hearing officer's findings and recommendation and any evidence presented to the hearing officer and make a final decision on the petition the board has the authority to reject findings of fact unless such finding is objectively verifiable the board May review conclusions of law using a de novo standard and those are all of the highlighted changes that we made to school or policy IJ based on your feedback all right thank you we'll take board feedback I do have one question on the bottom of page eight excuse me it says within 30 days I think we may have discussed this maybe it was in some other area it says within 30 days after the board receives the hearing officers findings and recommendations a public meeting the board at a

010public meeting will consider it makes it sound to me like we have to have the public Hearing in 30 days which I think is the intent I had concern about the possibility of something unforeseen natural disaster or some other reason why we were unable to agenda that and unless this is statutorily required which could be it is okay it is doctorally required that concern we did address in the other policy say that again we did address that concern with the timing and the other policy in ijl yeah I didn't remember somewhere we addressed it okay yeah I always hate absolute deadlines like that but okay thank you any other board member comments let me go to Vice chair Gallow thank you madam chair I just have a couple questions so under I think it was

011under four it was on page four and as usual I just write down notes and then I have to go back and figure out what I was trying to say it says oh it says the classroom instructional program for purposes of this policy mature classroom instruction and it defines it and then it says instructions suited to the student's ability to comprehend the material presented and appropriate on grade level and age group for which the materials are used and made available so while we're defining mature classroom instruction in my mind it's still not clear on who's going to determine that the material presented is appropriate and is on grade 11 grade grade level so who is going to be making that determination and how do we make sure that determination is consistent across the school district

012that is part of the responsibility of the selection the Review Committee one of the things that they have to do is they have to complete a training regarding all of the statutes and requirements for instructional materials follow-up absolutely go ahead so I guess my concern is it's if this is already in the classroom this material and it's not going before a Review Committee then how will individual teachers Define this and understand it and how do we make it so that it's consistent because there's a lot of confusion amongst our teachers and there's a lot of angst on what they can and cannot allow so how do we make it as clear as possible to eliminate that confusion and angst amongst our educators so I think when we're speaking specifically about about books we now know

013that by Statute that the when materials are coming in library materials or even its materials that are going to be inside of the classroom Library we still can't hear you is there anything we can do with the mics anybody you know because I'm I have room volume almost that's okay I'm going to really project you were never planning to be an opera singer you thought about it but decided your mom said no yeah you're you know me too well with materials that are either coming in through the classroom library or they are inside the media center those materials have to be first reviewed by the library media specialist a certified library media specialist at this at the school base level for any other materials that classroom teachers are going to use as part of their

014lesson plannings the classroom teachers have that classroom autonomy to use the state standards and then appropriate resources inside of inside of their instruction but specific to library materials we do have that review process and then we have with the state adoption those resources have also been reviewed so the majority of resources that teachers are going to use are resources that have already been reviewed and then they will then have classroom autonomy for any other resources they want to use go ahead oh okay and I appreciate that thank you for that answer I'm still going to kind of double down and ask okay so who is making it consistent for our media specialist so that this is easily defined my issue and last week we've saw examples of this how unintense unintended consequences happen when we're

015not extremely clear in our policy what our policy means how our policy can be implemented and how it needs to be I guess implemented is communicate it thank you so what are the things that we have been working on internally as a team is especially with the review of materials is we are working on making sure that we have a consistent system of capturing the resources that are either being stored in classroom libraries or inside of inside of the media center which we already have through through Destiny but especially in classroom libraries and then if there is a decision that's being made at one site to say that at the classroom Library level this is a resource that we would like for review part of what we're looking at in the system that we are

016exploring is a way to then have that communicated centrally so that we can then look at it overall so that's going to be part of the steps that we're taking to make sure that there is some consistency so that we don't have materials at one school that some some folks are looking at and saying we don't think it's appropriate and then no one knows at another School site all right we'll come back yes all right I'll get back in queue thank you thank you member Felder Q and good morning all right okay I think it's on page five I just need some clarification because I'm always being stopped about the first thing I get stopped with the question are we not going to be able to teach black history you know that so here on

017page five come into day nine include only instructional materials that accurately portray the ethnic socioeconomic cultural religious physical and racial diversity of our society including men and women in professional career and executive roles and the role of contribution of the entrepreneur and labor in the total development of the state and the United States my concern that's the corrected one right you really mean you corrected it right yes ma'am okay I guess my concern is again as board member Gallery said in many of the board members feel and know that many of our teachers and parents but teachers more than any not they're concerned that the maturity that they're going to teach if it's going to get criticized for for being indoctrination and sometimes it's hard to teach any type of historical occurrence in America without

018sharing the thought process that went into this particular occurrence how people were thinking when they did what they did and then of course students will make comment because you want commentary because that's really when learning is when it happens you do your Socratic circles that's when the learning takes place not so much as the dispensation of material but when children interact so my question is how are we going to measure whether or not that particular teaching is indoctrination I know we have words to proceed once you're involved in dispensing that material teaching your children and you're involved you're teaching the material and you're allowing the feedback but some students or some parents seen a lesson May accused to say the teacher is doing you know indoctrinating the thought process of their their children so I

019we I have a concern also that across the board we need to have consistency I know it's easier said than done and sometimes we don't want to micromanage people but I think if we don't maintain consistency in what we're doing we're going to have some serious problems down the line so my question again how are we going to measure this teaching because teaching I know you know teaching is an art it's an art and I and it's creative it's very creative sometimes it's creative as you grow but it's mostly creative and I just want to make sure the consistency stays and we're gonna tell me okay how am I gonna do that so every teacher is provided with the same instructional materials throughout the district every single teacher has access to the same textbooks for

020their student based on their content area so they have access to those things in the same way they can teach them in the same way they need to to be consistent when you say teach the same way I'm sorry what do you mean they have access to use them in the same way they have curriculum resource materials that they can consult as well that are provided by our department that they can find lessons that are ready made so that students throughout the district can have the consistency in using the instructional materials that are referred to here in the policy so I guess doing administrative evaluations when they come in and watch teachers or so forth they'll be able to pick up and decide whether or not the teacher is being consistent with the district policies

021is that what you that's how we're going to measure that consistency and to make sure that it's occurring let me go to the superintendent to respond okay thank you okay thank you madam chair and if I understand the question and concern that both board member ghoul and now board member Felder have expressed has to do with more of the instructional materials that teachers have had the leeway to select materials outside of what has been adopted by the district and so in order to ensure that teachers are teaching to the standards which is what our team that's what they focus on the instructional resources in order to ensure that the teachers then need to restrict themselves to either using the materials that have been reviewed and adopted at the district level or if they are choosing

022to use a resource that has not been reviewed then they need to reach out to content experts to be able to indicate whether those are aligned to the standards and can be used the only way to ensure that consistency is that you restrict to only what's been approved and adopted by the district and as part of lesson plan reviews as planned as walk-throughs principles and assistant principles are able to monitor the implementation of the standards and the resources but teachers have for as long as I've been a teacher an employee of Orange County Public Schools had the freedom to select materials outside as long as they deemed it was appropriate okay well if they're able to do that then you're still running the risk that it's not approved by the state and that it doesn't

023allow for teaching to the standard if you're leaving it strictly up to the teacher doesn't mean that they are not able to make that decision but people have different interpretations and that's why we go through a process through a committee that includes a variety of individuals including content experts to be able to determine that the resources are aligned to the standards and can be used okay I appreciate the answers we're going to have to come back oh yeah okay we'll come back okay thank you actually I'm up next so let me just make two brief comments well actually a follow-up question on that superintendent I'm not sure if I it seemed that what you were saying is that teachers are still allowed to use outside materials but at some risk that they that is correct

024teachers have the ability to determine what resources they are using to teach the standards and we have always allowed them to use their professional judgment to make that decision the concern that I'm hearing from the board is now the consequences that could be tied to an individual teacher interpreting materials to be appropriate and then when reviewed by a Content expert or doe that's a different interpretation so superintendent I don't want to single anybody out but there was recently some material that was brought to my attention I know I shared it with you about something that was read to our students that clearly I did not think was appropriate the board ultimately is responsible and the board has no control over this so I am concerned about the issue of consistency and I am concerned about

025the responsibility that we bear that we have no authority over unless this changes I'm not trying to to tie the hands of our teachers but under the law is the way it is currently written I think we may need to revisit that right the second issue I wanted to mention briefly if board members noticed that we start out by talking about we're selecting not adopting materials and then throughout the document we are adopting materials and sometimes selecting materials and sometimes doe is adopting and sometimes they're selecting so I did ask Miss emval if we could do a search and replace and be consistent and in case anybody else had that question I just thought I would give the answer she gave which is that language is straight out of statute so in order to be

026consistent with statute that's why we have the inconsistency in our policy but I think we all know from now on that adoption and selection is apparently synonymous the other one comment I did want to make member Felder you were talking about can we still the confusion about whether or not we're still we can still teach African American history and it's very clear to me that we can but it's good to me but the people no I know it's not clear to everybody but you also mentioned about teaching the thought the thought behind and the one concern I have about a couple of things that I have seen in terms of material that was recommended is material that in infers a thought process on historic figures and I think what we should be teaching is facts

027what actually happened as opposed to what we think somebody might have been thinking when they did something and I raised this not just historically but I think most of us who have served in a public office very long have had that experience where you made a decision and then people ascribed to that decision motivations and thought processes that are often not accurate and then and then we read it all over social media why we did something and I've always found that I don't know what the term is just offensive and wrong to assume a motivation that may not be correct so I think when we're teaching history although I will acknowledge that history today and what we believe to be faxed today might be very different than what we believe to be facts a couple

028of years ago and we may determine that the facts are even different in the future but I would caution against getting into the minds of his historical figures and saying why they did something when we don't necessarily know yeah all right with that said let me go to member gold thank you know we must follow the law we must make sure that we make it as easy as possible for our teachers where where I have fears right now is that this is so difficult to maneuver that it is taking the experiential and excellent learning opportunities away from the masses of our children yes and that is that is what I'm concerned about So when you say teach the same way does that mean all of the content has to be delivered and this may be

029more for the superintendent that it is for the team that the that all the content has to be delivered in the same lecture style using the same because we knew when we did Marzano and we had to have everybody saying the same thing walking down the hall that did not work it did not work for our kids and it did not work for our teachers so that's one question let let me get them all out current events that is timely information unfortunately many current events and many what so-called reporters are really pundits that are giving opinion but should our kids not be talking about those World topics as long as they're given both points of view historical artifacts coming into the classroom or testimony like the song Amazing Grace which was a slaver who understood

030that what he was doing was wrong and clearly wrote the words from his perspective about it being wrong Jefferson Franklin Hamilton all have perspectives during that time that are very well documented in their own hand so you know Uncle Tom's Cabin is another one written in that time frame are those things that can be introduced into the classroom under this legislation so the simplest answer I have is that you teach the standards and if you are in doubt as to whether a resource can be used that you reach out to our content experts to be able to help make that decision always for the last 10 15 years focused on teaching the standards and if the resources mentioned are part of the standard that and do not violate current rules and legislation then the teacher

031will be guided to use that resource I will be very honest that lends itself to interpretation and so we're very fortunate that our team does have a good rapport with content experts up at the doe and they reach out when there are questions regarding resources and content that we are not sure of but in order to have a consistent message we are teaching the standards and the resources that teachers are using whether they are those that have been adopted and incorporated into the district's list of resources curriculum materials or if a teacher is choosing to use an outside resource that has not been vetted by the district follow-up yes so I hear that clearly and thank you I know that our team is doing the absolute best in in trying to interpret what is very

032confusing because when you talk to legislators they say oh no no that's not what we meant but it kind of is when we see things that are happening in in the severity of it have we added staff to be able to coach our teachers because this is also a retention and recruitment issue it's a huge one because it's not just the money it's it's being able to come in and Inspire students and we're making it so difficult to have those aspirational and inspirational leaders in our classrooms so the answer to that is maybe it's according to your interpretation and so part of the reorganization is significantly reducing the ratio of principal supervisors to schools which allows for greater interaction and conversations additionally we are looking at Personnel that currently sits in the chief academic office

033to actually work directly within those learning configurations to be able to have more direct support we certainly can look at more staff I can tell you the chief academic office has been advocating for additional staff however we are trying first of all to have the reorganization be cost neutral and additionally we are looking to save as many dollars for possible raises so I will defer to the board for which way you'd like for me to proceed as it relates to additional staff all right member Kester Dental thank you madam chair and thank you to Allison Mo for all of your work this is not easy navigating this bureaucratic mess I appreciate it and of course we can teach history in our schools and I have a little I divert a little bit with saying that

034we must only teach facts of course we teach the facts of history but you don't separate that from the context of History you don't separate a variety of perspectives you still include that you still allow students to have discussions Guided by their teachers and you look at the causes and effects and this is a great time to teach critical thinking and the importance of our history to our future as well and I think when we just tell people stick to the facts and don't do that anymore research and don't do any more interpretations that's indoctrination that's what we have to avoid when it comes to the outside materials in our classrooms we have to allow teachers to use those resources that they have used to supplement the discussions the lessons because as great as the

035district is with providing resources sometimes you have just the perfect book to go with that lesson to make the case to teach that standard and they're not always these esoteric books that you find somewhere on some bookshelf high up high but they're commonly used books teachers share materials and I think the district needs to take the burden off the teachers and when the teachers have their list of books their classroom books that are posted if they're posted then that should be a sign that they've been approved they've been reviewed and that they may go forward with any of those books we've got to provide some kind of assurance that what they have in their library is okay I don't know if that's by simply posting their books they are they have that permission to go

036forward I we need to take that fear away it is even with teachers who've been teaching a long time who are who know that the value of the resources they have they're still questioning what other people are interpreting as inappropriate and it's really affecting how well our teachers can teach so I hope that there is some way that this the district takes the responsibility and relieves the teachers so that they're not fearing risking their certification and maybe if they add more books to their library or their resources during the year that there's some kind of review process where they just look and say is this book reviewed district-wide as okay is there a way to go and find that so that we give them that reassurance if that book is not there is there one

037person they can go to and say check this one book just a simple process so that we're not left wringing our hands and I've seen the discussions between the teachers and the Librarians Librarians don't always know they're just as nervous as well so this is a very tenuous time it's a difficult time to be a teacher and whatever we can do as a district to take on some of that responsibility I'd like to do thank you thank you member Caster Dental remember Della thank you so I do have a couple of follow-up questions is my Micron okay so I think in number c I think it was on page five we alluded to either the superintendent or designee can take materials off the shelf as it's challenged so would the designee be one person would

038there will there be a destiny at each school what does that designee look like and I'll get through my and then you can come back and then I this is me but de novo student standard what what is that okay A little explanation on that please and then see Palms are our teachers use C Palms all the time and the material that content material I believe is approved and placed on there by the Department of Education so if there's something on Sea Palms that a teacher downloads or use teaching the standard and then is deemed not appropriate whose fault is that is that the department of education's fault for not doing a good enough job vetting cpalms or is that the teacher's fault because I'm worried about that and just to make a little comment

039I the I Echo with some what my fellow board members have stated I'm really concerned about the teachable moments with our teachers just that really kind of basic instruction where you get into these deep conversations and that's what makes learning so much fun and it what makes teaching so much fun so I am concerned that teachers are really going to be nervous even with student-led discussions which we believe are allowed to be had right because again as we saw last week what we thought we know and we thought we were following the law we were told we were in fact not following the law and people are going to get in trouble and I don't want any any of our employees to come under Fire because we believe we know what we know and then

040we find out about what we thought we knew isn't what we knew at all okay member bird I'm sorry okay I thought I was waiting but I was like nobody's saying anything so for the first item the superintendent or superintendent designee and if that would be one or multiple that is a discussion that will have with the superintendent to determine de novo is I'll take it okay go ahead members of the board de novo is basically a legal standard but what that essentially says is you review it Anew you don't give deference to the finding of the committee down below that's that's what that means so you all will come at it with a fresh eyes sometimes in the wall you have to give deference to the findings Down Below on a legal conclusion de

041novo means you don't have to give that deference and as for the question on Sea Palms certainly if it's in a state approved material and it goes out the teacher has a ready built-in defense to say the state has approved this material I should not get in trouble for utilizing a state approved material foreign thank you thank you so much thank you madam chair thank you member I'm sorry member front now that I've waited so long I got to think of what I was gonna ask I know I wanted to get back to hold on I think it was page four what Gallo had mentioned regarding the hold on I'm reading my notes just the I think it is more that we're looking at the supplemental material so same that she was saying if because

042I've seen this firsthand where a teacher selects something that she felt was okay and it is more of pushing one view instead of allowing two views to be shown so that students make you know learn how to critically think and so who exactly maybe that's the superintendent then who exactly is checking that when you say the content experts who would that be that student or that teachers are going to doctor so content experts could be individuals at their particular school like the curriculum resource teacher the reading teacher the media specialist it would also include individuals in our district offices that are in teaching and learning that they email and reach out to perfect and then just one quick comment about the I think black history has been a huge one I know this is more

043about you know resources and the curriculum so not necessarily books but I have heard a lot of talk about you know not being able to teach black history or removing Martin Luther King books or amazing books that show us black history so I think as a board or even you know as a county I think we need to make it very clear that obviously we want to teach black history the issue is when teachers bring in or topic you know the discussion begins in the classroom that points out that certain kids of certain races so for instance that white kids would be born inheritantly racist and that has been brought up in classes and discussed and I think we just need to make sure that teachers are not pushing that on students but more saying

044this is what happened in history how can we make sure that this doesn't ever happen again so just my thoughts member bird thank you chair okay hold on I've got a lot of notes here let's go back to page four I kind of piggybacking on what member Gallo said about number A3 that whole statement there to me is just a little confusing and I understand like kind of this the process behind it but I believe that when we're talking about supplemental materials that we pretty clearly state in here the guidelines you know that it's age the age of the student should be taking into consideration the educational purpose which pretty much covers the gamut as far as I'm concerned is there an educational purpose we're relying on our teachers and their expertise as professionals to

045be able to decide if something they're bringing into the classroom is appropriate for has a purpose an educational purpose I don't really know that we need another whole section that says we just said that but also it needs to be part of a mature conversation and this is what we're saying about defining mature maturity I feel like it's just too much and not necessary if we are relying on our teachers to be professionals which I still think that we have an obligation to do as member member Gould said you know this is a retention and recruitment issue it's it's just it's very vague and I feel like it just I don't know I don't I don't yeah it's redundant thank you and I just don't like it and as far as the chair said you

046know we do have a we are held responsible for the materials in our classroom but I think the way that we are held responsible is by having a process for a parent to go through if they object to something that a teacher brings into the classroom and that's you know we have objection forms for that exact that exact thing and it's in this policy objections to instructional materials so that's the way we're holding our teachers accountable by allowing parents to bring forward these objections because the bottom line is you know we've got 25 000 teachers in this District there will there are 25 000 teachers every day doing the right thing inspiring these kids every day with discussions and not just reading lesson plans because that's the last thing we want because I'll tell you

047from my experience as a student and I'm sure all of you with the same way the lessons you remember from school are not the ones that you know anyone came in the classroom and just read lesson plans you know the lessons you remember from school are the ones that inspired you with ideas and made you think and made you work with other students and have conversations and we don't want those things to stop because that's where real learning takes place so I think I think that we have to be really really careful about making sure following the law and that's what we did here we're saying you can't you know it needs to be age-appropriate has to have educational purpose cannot contain pornography and if a parent doesn't like it this is the means they

048take to object to it and so that would be kind of my kind of my take on that there will there will always there might come a time when a teacher when one particular teacher maybe does brings in something that may be questionable and that's why we allow parents the option to of course as the law says object so that's my concern with that one thank you thank you member bird member Salamanca thank you chair I do want to Echo that I think I always fear creating policy by having the exception be the one that does that right because we have ways for parents to challenge and for parents to speak out about something that they feel is inappropriate but my biggest concern is to double down on teachers times and give them more work

049to do when it comes to telling them exactly what they want to teach that's incredibly disrespectful to a profession that is already not paid what they should be and I think there there's you know there's ways in which other districts and sometimes even universities deal with something like this which is there's sometimes a very clear syllabus at the beginning of the semester or of the year that highlights all the reading materials that would be presented during the class and that's a opportunity for parents and students to to review and challenge ahead of time an opt out of that but I think that's there's there's probably better ways we can approach that rather than just be reactive on you're being told to teachers what they have to teach exactly same materials and no supplemental so I

050think there's maybe other ways that this board can consider an actual implementation of this policy but I think from the policy perspective itself I think we're abiding by what state adoption looks like and what district adoption looks like and we're doing the best based on the feedback we've had over the several work sessions and the statues but I want to make sure it's a good balance an actual implementation between challenging and not telling our teachers for Freedom what they have to be teaching all the time thank you member Salamanca member Felder thank you chair this has been quite eventful conversation I think was designed for that purpose listening to member Byrd and ghoul and all of the board members gallo and salamonica and of course would board member farant's concern you know in the late

05160s a man by the name of Jerry Butler made a song called ain't understanding mellow you know I think that this district has been blessed with a plethora of talented teachers which I was wanted one time and I do believe that we have to trust that the teachers that we have and with the a board such as we have right now to support and superintendent support this art of pedagogy that we're going through we have to know that if there is a concern and that a parent can come and talk to the teacher and they can they can he or she can share the lesson I can't remember a time when I taught that I didn't have a pre-set syllabus and when they came to open house I put it on the board with pictures

052and visuals and all of that to know exactly what I was going to teach and I've had out of the years maybe one or two parents who didn't want me to teach about Martin Luther King I said when I'm teaching Martin Luther King and Benjamin Franklin I'm teaching them all teaching everything this is literature but for the most part I think that the retention is a concern and as a board I'm confident that we will adopt a policy that we'll be able to do something to make sure that we're following the law of the land in terms of what we're supposed to do and that our teachers will not feel intimidated and leave that they'll want to stay that they'll want to share what they have because our students need the opportunity to think they

053need the opportunity to think and my last concern is this how does one determine one's motivation I mean how do you do that you can't do that so it's my hope that our teachers will never feel that they are not in a position to inspire we can't get so bogged down with rules and policy that we forget this whole thing the art of teaching and learning so that's my concern I've listened to a lot and a lot of what you've said I agree with I don't need to repeat it but I'm coming back to my teacher teaching this to send me they cannot lose what brought them to the career of teaching thank you member Felder so I sense that there is a disagreement that isn't is more of a misunderstanding so let me Circle

054back to the concern that I had and to member Caster Dental comments you made about context I completely agree that when you're teaching history you have to teach it in the context of what was taking place the issue that I had was with particular material that stated as fact why as historic figure did what they did as opposed to stating as fact what they did and the context of what was going on in our history I think that we've talked about critical thinking I think that is a perfect opportunity to say this is what was going on this is what this person said this is what this person was doing and then have the dialogue with the students why do you think they might be doing that not I'm going to tell you what was

055in their mind I'm going to tell you what their motivation was remember Gould went through this just a Week Ago by sending out a social media post about wanting input what was her motivation on social media a lot of people defined what it was and stated as fact that it was this and other people thought it was that the reality is nobody but member Gould knows what her motivation was but is it a good exercise for our students to be presented with the facts of what happened to the best of our understanding and then discuss what might have been the motivations I think that's the critical thinking where I where I think across the line is to say I can tell you why they did that's because they were bad people and they were dishonest

056people and maybe there was a different context member Gould was trying to accomplish something positive and worthwhile but that was not the motivation attributed to her and it's happened to me I'm sure it's happened to all of you I could say that about Orange County Public Schools when it comes to ceas I could say that when I came here they weren't fully calculating the cost of building schools I could attribute that to all kinds of Nefarious motivations none of which would be accurate and so in telling that history I think the history is this is what happened and allowing kids to debate and discuss the why is where that critical thinking comes in but never stepping over the line and stating something to be a fact when it is your opinion of what somebody else

057is thinking and I don't know why it's such a big deal to me maybe it's my life experiences and the number of times that I have seen it happen to me and to others and I push back really hard even myself when I see people in high places and I'm so certain I know why they're doing what they're doing but I constantly remind myself I cannot know for certain another person's motivations I can only think I might know them but I can't State them as fact so that was the primary difference in terms of the opportunity to think that's exactly what we need to be doing we can't expect our kids to just well we used to do that we used to expect them to just come in and memorize that's not teaching them how

058to think and so I am in like agreement with I think everybody up here although it doesn't feel and sound like it right now because I don't think I articulated very well the first time what I was thinking so I and we can disagree at the end of the day you know y'all make just think she's nuts on that one she's just dead wrong and that's okay too but as I'm listening to this I don't think that we're on that different of a page I just think sometimes sometimes communication falls short and I think mine did in that case I also had a note here oh and one other thing I do want to comment it is just for the record it is my nature to play Devil's Advocate I do it with everything I

059do it constantly with myself so if from time to time if you hear me push back on something that doesn't necessarily mean I disagree it's sometimes for the sake of putting out another perspective because I think it's helpful if we're all on the same page I will sometimes throw out another perspective because more perspectives I think help us make better decisions so if you got inside my brain you'd see it's sometimes a very difficult place to be because I'm always arguing myself with that said you're recognized so thank you chair this is the perfect example of building understanding of listening to one another and also building empathy right and one of our biggest challenges right now not only in our schools but in society but especially in our schools is empathy and if if this

060seems too demonstrative and too difficult to navigate these critical kinds of discussions and conversations and true listening will not happen and we will lose empathy and I understand what member ferrant was saying about the guilt but is how do you define the delivery to build empathy without understanding that there were winners and losers whenever you're talking about oppression and that's anywhere in history if you're talking about the Egyptians and the Jews if you're talking about the Romans and the rest of the world you know how do we not blatant I know there's always the one-offs that there is blatant because you're white you should feel this way and because you're black you should feel that way but that's the exception not the rule and I'm I am along with member Salamanca that I'm very worried

061about all this language and making people feel like they're in such a box that we are not building the kind of value-based empathetic citizens who can actually think on the job because we're restricting so many things that they can be exposed to and discussed whether reality or perception but perception is reality so that's it and that's what's making this job so difficult I think for all of us and especially for the superintendent and the team is this ability to stay within the law and not put teachers and principles and even other parents Under Fire but really have a robust learning environment and I know I'm I'm just repeating at this point but I think empathy should be the Benchmark with which we look at this we have to have a benchmark on how we're going

062to measure this in some way and that would support our discipline issues it would support our learning environment and maybe maybe there's even tools to teach teachers to deliver that in their professional development through an empathetic eye because then you're always presenting more than one point of view right because you're trying to get an understanding of motivations you may not know them but you're trying to understand them so anyway I'm done thank you member Gould superintendent thank you madam chair I do want to clarify a couple of comments that were made by board members and by staff and so lesson plans are reviewed they're not read and so my comment about us being able to monitor how teachers are implementing the curriculum is that as part of lesson plan review which varies from school to

063school they can see if there is anything that is maybe raises a brow that they could have conversations about the teacher to ensure that what's being used is appropriate the second has to do with the supplemental resources there's a plethora of resources and certainly We Trust every one of our teachers what I have been hearing is that they want more structure so that they are not put in situations where there's a threat of their certificate being revoked and what we have seen is that despite processes and interpretation doe can pick up the phone make a phone call and say we are looking into this matter my understanding and I will see clarification from the commissioner is that when we are made aware of a possible resource or lesson that it has been taught or is

064going to be taught that we are given the opportunity to review it talk with the teacher and then make a decision about whether to proceed with that resource or not and I have I have every belief that is still the direction that Department of Education would like for us to follow that they are there to help guide us when we are uncertain and the problem that we're facing is that there is a great deal of interpretation we have a situation right now where there was an inappropriate attack an inappropriate book that was used it was reviewed embedded by the media specialist who deemed it appropriate and so that that puts our teachers in a position of uncertainty and so to be able to have a procedure a process for them if they feel that they

065need to reach out not that we are questioning their expertise not that we are questioning their judgment but to give them the choice I'm not sure who can I go to to make sure that somebody else has looked at this the vast majority of what's being taught in our classroom is fine I would venture to say that you know 98 of what's being delivered in the classroom is not questionable to anyone but there is a lot of room for interpretation there's also a lot of avenues for our parents our constituents our community members two voice concerns it's not just through our process they can email doe and then doe reaches out to us and so I want to make sure that teachers understand that we are not questioning their expertise we want to be able

066to provide them as much support as they feel they need so they are not put in a situation where they feel I can't I can't I don't have someone that I can go to to just make sure this is okay and then we are certainly not asking people to teach the same way we are saying that we teach the standards and I will say that day in and day out we are here to teach our students the standards how you teach it the style that you use the techniques the strategies that's all up to a teacher and their experiences and how they believe their students are going to best receive that knowledge so that they retain that information as part of the learning process so thank you madam chair attendant remember Vice chair Gala thank

067you madam chair so that leads me I guess to a concern shared by the entire board through this whole process because this isn't the first time we've seen these policies is the consistency so if we had a book that the chair believes should not have been read to a class it was vetted by a media specialist to be appropriate where where's the consistency could another media specialist said no that's not appropriate and we would have at one school not another so again I'm going back to how are we consistent how do we make sure that if one media special specialist deems it not appropriate that's communicated so that it can go to a higher process because I don't feel that should fall on one person I don't think that one person within our district without

068transparency should be able to pull a book for the entire District or really for that school I think any book that's deemed and I'm not talking about the ones that aren't used that they pulled I know that we've done this since the beginning of time where we've vetted books in our library I'm talking about the books that they say this is not appropriate material for this age group that has to go to a higher level than just that media specialist to be vetted because if it's not appropriate for that age level at that school it might not be appropriate for any of our schools number one or two that media specialist could have just gotten it wrong and it is appropriate so where the checks and balances have to be in place because the last

069thing we want to do is through fear and the lack of trans transparency create an environment where we are restricting the flow of material to our students that's the last thing that we want because it is so important to have two sides to everything to have that critical thinking and we're not you know I don't I didn't run for office to be the literature police I went for office to create good policy so that our children can receive a high quality education so I am concerned about that and I've been clear but my question is and I guess this is to Dr Vazquez we've had a lot of conversations up here about me included about what I've heard from teachers that they're afraid of what is the general consensus from our teachers what are they

070saying are they are they afraid are they rolling with the punches like what is the general consensus with our teachers out there like how worried as a board should we be with the State of Mind of our teachers over some of these policies okay so that's a difficult question to quantify because I don't have a an exact number I can tell you that in my conversations with teachers through my visits through my meetings and my conversations with Clinton McCracken there is definitely an increase in the concern amongst our teachers about resources that they use and the interpretation of the content that they are teaching we certainly can you know put out you know a survey and I don't know if Clinton has done that as part of a survey he was he I think recently

071put outer is going to I can tell you that a lot of our teachers are doing their thing they if they have a question they're talking to their principal it is not an angst that we see across every school an example would be when the information came out about the books and having a list of the books and so we had you know a flurry of questions that we were able to answer and push out consistent information and we were also able to give schools some advice as to how they may be able to accomplish the task by using volunteers or using some staff at the school as long as they've had their training we talked about students being able to earn community resource hours but you know for listing the books so we were

072able to work with our classroom teacher Association to hear concerns they were hearing alongside what our staff and I was hearing to be able to send out clear communication about what what was and what wasn't I can only say that I think the more clarity we have and consistency in our communication the more at ease they will feel our staff certainly has done an incredible job of trying to respond in a very short period of time to the number of requests they have received but as you can imagine with over 14 000 teachers and while they're not all calling at the same time there has definitely been an influx in the number of classroom teachers that are reaching out for guidance and for advice as for the consistency our staff is working on the process

073we have been asked by Doe to submit a list of the books that we have currently pulled we suspect that Doe is going to give us a list this summer as to books that have been pulled and they may make a recommendation that these books be pulled from all of our libraries I don't know that for a fact but we are looking at a process whereby we also then monthly reach out to our schools and ask them what books have been removed whether it was for pornography age-appropriateness or other and then review that to ensure that if they're especially with pornography and age-appropriateness that if there is a school or schools that have deemed a book to have pornography that we don't have that on the west side but we've removed it on on the

074east side so staff is working on that process we're waiting to hear from doe as well are they going to are they going to continue to ask us that is it going to be a yearly event so that we're consistent and we're not going back and forth so that is how we are trying to make sure there's consistency in our schools but currently I just want to make sure the board is aware and general counsel can correct me if I'm wrong they do have that ability to remove a book and we currently are not collecting that information we can go into Destiny and see if books have been removed but we currently are not collecting that information we're waiting now to the end of the school year so that we are able to do everything

075at one time as we're waiting for more clarification from Doe remember gold does this policy this is more of a technical question does this policy cover artificial intelligence and use of the chatbot ability to help build content curriculum conversations no that is not addressed in this policy so that may be something that as that becomes more widely used that we want to discuss or even provide some training on not to limit their ability but to understand that if you don't put in all the keywords you want you're gonna get a lopsided return so bird thank you I like the idea of having the resource for teachers at the district level and I would be in favor of helping out with the hiring because I know that they must be overwhelmed but I think that's a

076really important resource for teachers as they you know are concerned and worry about you know they just wonder if something they're using supplemental is appropriate or not it would be nice if they had like a hotline or you know could easily get a touch of someone at the district to give guidance to that so I am all in support of assisting that in whatever way we can and then the question about you know one media specialists you know weeding a book from their collection I know that like you said they do have that prerogative as they do every year you know to take books out of their library but we're in a different you know time now and if they remove a book I agree that it needs to move up you know if a

077book is removed for the reason of you know obviously inappropriateness in any way that maybe there's a way instead of waiting for the district to come once a month maybe there's a you know system where they can submit that book that has been they have removed because they felt it was inappropriate put it into a database and then that would move up through like a committee to get reviewed district-wide because I also have the concern although I realize every Community is different so maybe for one school a media specialist might seem like this is inappropriate for her community but at another they may not so that gets into a whole other thing but as you said if it's something that is obviously very inappropriate we certainly don't want we want to be careful and we

078want to protect our s too and the whole thing is it's so difficult I'm it's so difficult unnecessary also the supplemental materials for classrooms you know we've said that many teachers do a syllabus at the beginning and teachers share resources maybe we could have a you know a district-wide list of supplemental resources like for let's say I don't know American history you know here's some outside resources that teachers and teachers can add to it you know here's a good resource I found that teachers can go in other teachers can go in and look at and that way it might make teachers feel better if they see that other teachers are using it also I think this was brought up at some other at some other time about hearing from our CTA representative during these kinds

079of work sessions or not like public comment but as part of the discussion to be able to hear from him because I think that would be really great to be able to answer member Gallows question you know I mean he's in the audience we could have him share his interpretation I think it's really important for the board to be able to hear that as well when we're trying to make these decisions so I would just like to bring that up again I know that I think we have discussed it before but I'd like to bring that up again Dr Vazquez did you want to restore so I do meet monthly with Mr McCracken and I also meet with Mr Pollard once a month and certainly we can include in that conversations about policy or we

080can have a separate meeting to gain input on the pause because I know we do share that with them ahead of the work session or rural development just like we do with board members so we certainly can can work on that thank you I have a follow-up question superintendent several board members have mentioned that because we have a process by which parents can challenge the materials we're using in our classrooms or in our libraries that's that addresses the accountability and that as long as we've created this process that neither the media Specialists the teachers the Lisa was I this is what I think I understood a couple board members to believe that kind of took everybody off the hook because there's a challenge process I would like to hear from Doe on that because I

081doubt that's the way they will actually view this especially in light of recent events I have a feeling that if there is material that is blatantly inappropriate that the fact that a parent appealed it won't and there was a process for them to appeal I don't think is going to stop the doe from questioning and possibly trying to find a way to reprimand whoever allowed that material I'm not trying to create false fear I just think it would be good for us to know what doe is likely to do in those situations so I'm sorry may I yes please yes so my opinion is that they would look to the superintendent and the board to ensure that we're doing everything possible to ensure that we're following the rules and statutes that are in place certainly

082the parents ability to appeal is one way the media specialist being able to review that but we already have an example of where we had a media specialist that approved something that then came back as maybe questionable and so we I would do everything in my power to ensure that we have processes in place including I love the idea of having like a hotline where our teachers could call it really is a matter of supporting the teachers and it is monitoring it is ensuring but this really is about making sure our teachers feel that they have the supports necessary if they have a question if they feel comfortable about it then that's fine but if there's someone that is questioning and maybe it's a new teacher maybe it's not our seasoned teachers but some of

083our new teachers who may not be sure can I use this excerpt that they could reach out quickly and say could you take a look at this and let me know if this is age appropriate I think that would be welcomed I don't think we are looking to add more to their plates I don't I don't want to require anything I want to be able to give them resources that they can choose to take advantage of if they feel it's needed and again I want I want to reiterate that when we met earlier in the fall my impression was that if we are it's brought to our attention that there's content or a book that's inappropriate that our response is to be able to look into it and then act accordingly whether it is appropriate

084or not and that consequences will not be rendered at that at that time it's if we don't act that there there would be consequences so I hope that I think that answered my question so if we have processes in place and if we do find something that should not have been used and we take appropriate action that you don't think there would be consequences associated with that okay even okay thank you member Caster Dental thank you madam chair I don't want to belabor this discussion past what we need to for this one policy because we still have others but I find it striking that even on this board I sense fear and I can hear it in our word choices I can hear it in the way we are tiptoeing around and we are fearful

085of the DOE and what a sorry place to be that we can't trust the agency that's supposed to be looking out for us and I worry about the direction we're going I don't think we should be checking with the doe on our processes we are elected by our community to look out for the interest of our students and our teachers this question of what is appropriate of course none of us want something that's inappropriate in our classes the question is who gets to decide and we have processes in place because we are public schools and our community has a say as well and when we circumvent those processes that we have in place we are allowing people to just say I'm going to email the superintendent I'm going to notify her that way she can

086remove it for us and that is inappropriate itself talking about what's appropriate what's not you cannot just circumvent our processes that we have in place for our community to participate for our teachers and parents to know what's happening and I think we need to stand firm and know that our we are going to support our teachers we are going to support the freedom to read we're not going to like they're talking about in Tallahassee they want to ban Elementary School girls from talking about their periods richer as if we don't have girls that start their periods in elementary school when you're talking about a book that has some crudely drawn Doodles of middle-aged people to show you what a naked body looks like and it's meant for older kids in a health class that's not

087inappropriate that is not erotic it's the opposite of erotic it is not meant to titillate it is meant to instruct and we have to know the difference this is where trust in our professionals comes from trust in educating people about life this our the path we're going down I'm I worry about what our graduates will be what what information will they not have what are we Sheltering them from someone might think that a fifth grader reading a book A Bridge to Terabithia is inappropriate because a child dies and we have to protect our kids from that knowledge but this happens it happened in Nashville yesterday we have to allow our kids to read about reality can't protect them from everything we have to allow our high school kids to read about rape it happens they

088can learn about how someone else deals with it doesn't prevent if we if we keep this book from them it doesn't prevent that from happening to some of our students and we can't just start making a list of inappropriate topics and ask the doe for their permission and I am I'm very upset by this discussion and what's happening to our role as board members and our responsibility and I think we need to have a different focus of our discussion bird there's not much left to be said after that thank you Dr Castro Dental for saying everything I was thinking I just had written on my paper when Cherry understand I thank you for clarifying and I think what you were saying was accurate and that you know the concern For What the for the what

089the doe will do but my note I wrote down on my paper was it's obvious that we have no way of knowing what the doe will do after last week I think we all saw that we thought we were following the law we thought we were doing things right and apparently they said we weren't so I don't think there's any way to be sure that we are going to be out of the hairs of the doe other than to put in place what statute says which I think what we is what we've done in this policy into have the support that the superintendent has said that our teachers will have and I think that we're on the right way but I think that Dr Castro Dental is right that we have to do it in

090such a way where we are still showing our teachers that professional respect that they've earned by being Educators that have been to college to become Educators to do this job there's a reason that they have to have certification to do it you know I mean these it's such an art form to be able to be a good teacher and to really reach kids and I'm afraid that if we keep doing the things that we're doing and if we keep putting them in boxes and scaring them that we're going to lose all of them we were my husband and I were in a cafe like I don't know a while back about a month ago and we overheard a couple teachers talking about leaving the State of Florida they're leaving they're leaving the State of Florida

091because they don't want to teach in the State anymore right right and I think as a district that Dr Castro General is right that we just have to be brave as Brave as we can do what we can to be the school board members that we have been elected to be and follow the law that's what we're doing in this policy it's in the law Provide support for our teachers the best we can and allow them to be the professionals that they are thank you thank you member bird well said Dr Vasquez thank you as far as the process for reviewing books we have staff and several board members not just one that have brought to our attention inappropriate books and so our staff when board members bring to our attention concerns we look into

092them and so I want to make it clear that the only we do not have just one process as to how we review content for being appropriate and inappropriate if the board to ask me not to take board members considerations and questions into account then I certainly I will follow that direction second I want to be clear I will not put any employee in a position to lose their certificate and if that means that I call Tallahassee or Tallahassee calls me to give me guidance I will continue to do that now if our employees choose not to follow that guidance I leave that up to them but I don't think it's fair that we not Advocate and provide them with the information they need to continue making their decisions and we have always communicated with

093Tallahassee we've always reached out to them on several topics not just books or curriculum we've done it with safety we've done it with mental health it's part of what we do it's supposed to be a partnership sadly recent events have led us to believe that we not always have the right information but I want I want everyone to understand the reason we have those conversations is so that our Educators our staff doesn't isn't blindsided and all of a sudden they're faced with your certificate is being pulled what decision they choose to make as a result of that is totally up to them but as a superintendent I believe it is my responsibility to give them all of the information we have so that they can make an informed decision thank you Dr Vasquez and I

094personally appreciate that I think that the point that member bird was making about teachers leaving the state is a reality but I also firmly believe that the superintendent is correct in making sure that they know when there is a risk of losing their teaching certificate because I don't want to lose a single teacher from the school district but I would rather lose a teacher that can go on to teach someplace else than have a teacher loser teaching certificate and those are two really bad options to choose from so I think I think a lot of board members have expressed and I just want to close out with this is a very difficult position for our teachers to be in and I agree with all the comments that have been made about professional role they play

095the important education that they have had that few people that are making rules have ever walked in their shoes or have any idea how difficult it is and that it is not something that can be done effectively through regulation there's just too much that takes place in the classroom in terms of connectivity in terms of inspiration and while I believe there are many good intents to make our classrooms more predictable places I think that we as a whole are underestimating how good our teachers are how valuable they are and how much flexibility and freedom they need to continue to be successful so with that I think we're ready to move on to our next policy Miss envel are you in charge can I am well just very briefly can I get clarification on this paragraph

096that's highlighted in yellow I know we heard from some school board members they were not comfortable with it can I get clarification from the board moving forward whether to keep it or to remove it so that when we do advertise it's there or it's not can can you tell us whether that's statutory language this is no this is something that we came up I believe I have to refer to my teammates here I believe this is a this is a definition that we came up with based on individual feedback from you all and so that's kind of it's it's it's not statutory it's where we came up with it input remember Gala thank you madam chair I know the lights are faint so I would be comfortable with the paragraph and I know that I

097initially brought it up as long as the communication to our staff and the directives that we give to teachers is very clear on what it means so there's no confusion with them my concern with that paragraph is the confusion that it creates with our Educators so if there's no confusion amongst our Educators I don't have a problem leaving it in but I'll defer to the rest of the board any other feedback from board members remember gold I think there's a lot that still needs to be worked out and that we have to kind of continue to flex and respond because there is in the statute alone so much interpretation you have to make just as you pointed out with the two words right so I am not for really putting anything additional in to the

098policies until we really know where the rules are because I don't think anybody knows where the rules are because they're being made up as we go I'm for keeping this I think you know any additional Clarity is great and I think it's the policy is what we create but we would you know the superintendent is the one who would be taking this and explaining it to the teachers and staff I think it's fine the way this active does that give you any direction I don't think it does a little bit so the first sentence of this particular provision is in the statute they actually use the phrase mature to classroom instruction the purpose of expanding that so that it made a little bit more sense was so that we had an interpretation to give to

099our teachers and the public which is the feedback that we receive from you individually so that was the that was the discussion that we had amongst ourselves as we were adding it in because I think a lot of you individually spoke to the team there and said what does mature classroom instruction mean and because it's not defined by the statute we wanted to give as much guidance as we possibly could to our teachers so that's why it's there if I remember huh all right do we have consensus with the board to leave this language in recognizing that if we get more clarification from the state at some point we will come back and modify it but to provide some guidance okay I think we have consensus on that thank you all right moving on to

100policy ijl the changes are going to actually be a lot of the discussion that you just had is going to be relevant to ijl so I think it'll be a little bit easier to go through we actually contemplated doing ijl first but but here we go back to miss Kibby and Mr Dragon thank you all right so ideal again is being revised to include language from the recently enacted laws to clarify the process by which a parent or resident of the county can request reconsideration of instructional materials in libraries and to incorporate language from policies IMB and kec and the revisions have been made to the existing policy language to include content formatting and terminology edits consistent with statutory language I'm gonna scroll really fast to get to the right page at the bottom of

101page two we added some additional language at the request of the individual conversations that we had with school board members to include some more clarity so the two highlighted sections here were taken directly from the Florida Department of education's online training materials for library media Specialists from slide seven so any picture photograph drawing sculpture Motion Picture film video cassette or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct sexual excitement sexual battery bestiality or sadomasochistic abuse and which is harmful to minors or any Book pamphlet magazine printed Printed Matter however reproduced or sound recording that contains any matter defined in section 847.001 of the Florida Statutes explicit and detailed verbal descriptions or narrative accounts of sexual excitement or sexual conduct and that is harmful

102to my nurse as additional clear criteria for media Specialists to consider members members of the board just for clarity that's directly out of a 47.012 so that's not Doe's language that's just a straight reproduction of the criminal statute thank you yes ma'am can you repeat what you said Mr pomerani I said this language is directly out of 847.012 and I heard the question is this the question is this a criminal statute the answer is yes all right in the next section when we discuss selecting books and what considerations should be made the media specialist shall determine whether donated material shall be accepted for inclusion in the collection this is a sentence that we added after removing another section of the policy that many of the school board members commented on as being redundant in the

103challenges to Media Center materials and other reading materials sections so where we have absorbed kec we received feedback from several board members about this Preamble here at the top it introduces procedures but the procedures don't actually start right here so we move this preamble to the bottom here where the procedures do actually begin so it was really more just a formatting change the following procedures shall be applied when the appropriate nest of media center materials or other reading materials is questioned here and after challenge material this does not apply to state adopted textbooks and use in the classroom Talent materials shall not be removed immediately such material shall be available for student use pending a final decision and from there it goes into the request for reconsideration process and what that looks like one of

104the additional things that we added based on the school boards feedback is this here at the at the top of page seven if the superintendent or designee determines the materials contain pornography or material that is harmful to minors or obscene the superintendent or designee shall permanently remove the material from the collection additional changes that were made throughout the policy were minor and a nod to the reorganization that's happening instead of using the specific titles we changed this to say appropriate District level designee rather than the area superintendent associate superintendent and or chief of high schools and you will see that throughout the policy I'm chair Jacobs you brought up earlier the timing constraints one of the things that we added here is the Endeavor to meet within the working days that we have put throughout

105here as these working days are not Guided by statutes in at the bottom of page nine for item G we added additional statutory citations here into the text and then this determination shall be reviewable after five years instead of valid and we made that change in another section as well again District level designee District level designee District level designee multiple times throughout here and then once again the Endeavor to meet within a specific time frame and then additional statutory language added here and overall referring to the district level designee rather than a specific title and those are the changes to ijl all right Dr castadino thank you madam chair thank you for that update I have two issues one is a question first with the first thing you talked about I guess it was further

106definition of pornography that one so on that first highlighted part when you talk about any picture photograph drawing or sculpture image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct the nudity part I know that again the statue of David is in the news because a principal was fired when a parent complained that their child was exposed to the statue David are we including that are we preventing our students from seeing anything like that in art class High School so this the last part of the definition is the important part of the definition which is harmful to minors under the statute it's not harmful to minors harmful to minors in obscene is the same definition under Florida law and the obscenity definition and harmful to minors definition includes does

107the work have some artistic Merit and in this case obviously it is a classical work of art so in my opinion that would not meet the definition of harmful to minors and therefore would not be banned by the statute Okay so to follow up the key word there in the last line is the word and which is harmful to minors so can we add which and which is also harmful to minors or make the word and bold so that it is when someone is reading it they truly understand that it isn't just a drawing or a classical art but and which is harmful to minors that is key we have copied this directly from statute so I would like to Mr Pomeranian Miss unwell for advice regarding that it's six and one and a half

108dozen of the other if you want a bowl that you can if you don't the words have the same meaning regardless of whether they're bolded or not but if the board wants to emphasize it that is certainly a decision the board could make clarity can I agree with you can I get a quick read from the board yeah yeah I think that's important underline okay I have a second question thank you for that when it comes to the process for a challenge you mentioned by a parent and by a Community member but I would also like to put in there some kind of wording about challenged by a board member okay because we do have a process that includes the community challenge where it starts at the school and then has we have a district

109review process as well then it comes to the board if they appeal the board will weigh in at one point but I don't think it's appropriate for a board member to circumvent that process I think it's it's a shortcut and there are other procedures in our in our district where the board members do not get to weigh in that we let the staff do that with it whether it's procurement vendors contracts and I see this as similar that we can weigh in later but I don't think it's appropriate to for a board member to launch a challenge or a reconsideration without going through the same process as everyone else because why I think that's important is because it needs to be public when a board member makes that challenge directly to the superintendent you don't

110know that's behind the scenes that's that's not out in the open and I think any time we have a challenged book we need to have a public process because Banning books is not something that we should do lightly or in the dark there needs to have a community discussion or notification so I would like to see that a superintendent or a board member also has to follow that same process that's it comments directly on that member Gallo Vice chair yes thank you madam chair just quickly member cancer Dental was referring to what was in statute that Mr pomerini detailed as directly out of Statute the criminal statute can we also since we're we're pulling and defining what's in statute can we pull the definition that's in Statue of harmful to minors and include it so

111that when we look at the end that will now be bold that harmful is also clearly defined to give more clarification to not only our community but to our educators I by Body Language I think there's a large agreement with that Mr palmerini or is that a question from Mr palmerini or was that a question for the board eight four seven point zero zero one no that one yeah it has both harmful to minors and obscene in the definition statute a 47.001 code copy and paste it into this policy but then the issue is if the pulse if the statute changes and we'd have to change our policy but there is that anyway the definition section we'll figure out how to add that in there thankfully that definition has come from a United States Supreme

112Court case so hope I think the statute will probably continue to track that Supreme Court case as long as it's still good law yeah yeah okay I thank member Castro Dental is looking for feedback on the issue of board members going through the challenge process is there feedback on that issue in particular I'd like to speak group member for on because I'm sure you're talking directly to me maybe to others as well okay because I have challenge books I am one of the ones that brought this up a year and a half ago when I brought up books that were in our schools this isn't just about you know a little you know peck on on the lips or or whatnot these are books that have so the issue is so personally I have put

113in challenges and it goes through the review process just like a parent and just like I did when I was a parent if there is a book for instance like let's talk about it that one I did show the superintendent and they said hey I just want to let you know that this is in some of our books how would you like to proceed it was I mean pornographic is exactly what this definition States so whether you want to believe that or not doesn't matter to me I know what the statute says and so that I did show her and I asked her and she took note of it and she does what she does best so I think you know if we want to put in there that you have to go through a

114review process but I don't know any board members who are circumventing that but we can put that in statute or in the in the policy while we're still on that subject if I can speak to that because actually it ties in with the one comment I was going to make and that is that we have this language here on as number two and then at the bottom I think we have like a d or an e scroll down to the bottom if we say the material is going to stay in circulation and then later on we say if the superintendent or designated term is the material contains pornography or material that is harmful it shall permanently it shall permanently remove the material so my understanding of this is the first part says it's going to

115stay on the shelf till it goes through the process this part I thought the purpose of this is that if the superintendent without it going through a lengthy process reads see some material and says okay stop hang on we have a problem this violates statute it's not going to stay on the shelves is that the intent of this language okay if that's the intent of this language I think I mentioned this last time I think the placement of it is if not improper not as clear as it could be if it were addressed at the beginning because we make a statement it's going to stay on the shelves and then if you read all the rest of this you find out that it might not stay on the shelves and I just think that the

116part where the superintendent may pull it immediately needs to follow right after it will stay on the shelves unless I think then people understand that the superintendent does have the authority if she sees something that she believes violates the law to take it off the shelves immediately having said that if we reached that agreement that it needs to be more clear what the superintendent's Authority is then that would also apply to a board member going through the process board members going through the process anything that's going through the process that rises to the superintendent's attention and is in her opinion clearly in violation and doesn't need to go through the process or could go through the process but needs to be removed in in to be cautious that the state does not realize that we've

117had a book on the on the shelves for six months as we go through this process while the superintendent already knows it's improper so I think that would satisfy I think some concern as long as we are abundantly clear that the superintendent can circumvent the process to protect us and protect our students protect us from from being in compliant with the law and protect our students from being exposed to material they're not supposed to so that was in response to that issue member Gould on that issue and then I promise I'm going to get back into the cycle here so I first of all I like the idea of putting putting the school board member in the definition because I think it lends to the transparency that we want this board to be perceived with

118so I like that thought on on what you just said I I do think that the superintendent because she is qualified to understand what is developmentally appropriate and what the curriculum is I do support that but I'm not sure that even she should be able to randomly circumvent that public process that member Castro Dental was talking about so even if she pulls it I would want to make sure it still follows all of those other steps and it's ratified that yes that was the right decision and she made that decision because it was not age-appropriate developmentally or it meant that she thought she was sure it met the definition of the pornography that we've just put into this policy for clarification just to make sure I understand your point superintendent would have the ability to

119pull it immediately it would still go through the process to ratify or reject her recommendation correct okay so that is always the public always has that ability to know what books are and are not being pulled But ultimately that process ends and it does come back It ultimately could come to the board it does but if you shorten it and she just pulls it then that goes back to the opportunity member Castro Dental was talking about I do think there are things that pop up as they did that most recently that need it in our Collective understanding that book may not have been in the right appropriate area so but it doesn't mean that book shouldn't see the light of day again even if it never goes back on our shelves it should have that

120same process for in public scrutiny opportunity thank you just wanted a clarification on your perspective member gallo thank you I'm having trouble with this mic today so I agree with just a circle back with member gold I think that it's extremely appropriate for the superintendent to pull books that should have never been in our library out of our library immediately so that we could follow law once that happens and there and I've been honest there's been some books that we have pulled that I 100 agree with that were not appropriate to be in our libraries but then there needs to be the TR there needs to be a process so for transparency sake so that the community could have input that it could truly be vetted once we pull it for Content it should still

121go through the channels that was mentioned that's just it's kind of like checks and balances and more importantly as member Gould mentioned for transparency sake you always we always want to be able to give the community the opportunity to have a discussion to let us know where they stand and to be transparent about what we're pulling I understand that everything that we pulled we have to send to the Department of Education so it's it's available for everybody to see but they shouldn't have to go looking for it we should we should let them know what we're pulling so I support that process and I'm and I am concerned with things that we're dealing with in Orange County and I know that we have pre-agenda but pre-agenda is very prescribed and it's 30 it's only 30

122minutes and when there's a topic that the community really really wants to discuss we don't really give them the opportunity to do so and this is kind of I think this is germane to the conversation that we're having and I'll tell you why we're we as a board talk a lot about transparency and about Community involvement and the need for us to be as clear as possible and when things come up that happened last week or things like we're removing a book we need to give the opportunity for the community to input and right now that only looks like 30 minutes during pre-agenda because it's not going to be on our agenda so how do we with Fidelity make sure that we're hearing from the community as a board as a whole how do we

123give them more than 30 minutes to discuss with us things that are happening in our community that they are either happy with or not happy with so that we can hear from from our community does that look like we'd create a new policy where maybe as a board a majority of the board we can add something to the agenda that maybe we're not voting on that would still allow the public to come and discuss it with us it would still have to be my majority maybe it looks like a different policy but I think as a board we need to figure out a way that we can hear more from from the community because with everything that's going on right now with all these laws that are being passed we're confused they're confused and we

124need to make sure that we hear from the public now more than ever so I don't know I know this isn't a discussion for now but I would like to challenge the superintendent and the board to come up with the way that we're hearing from them more than just 30 minutes on a pre-agenda all right should I Circle back around with everybody else and come back to you okay member farant and then remember Solomon salamonica okay so page three all right so three seconds seven okay for donated material are we keeping a record of who donated and when and maybe that's something more of a procedural but is that something that we need to have in policy that states we're keeping a record of that Madam chair I'm sorry superintendent you recognize thank you are

125you speaking I'm sorry specifically to books or or well yes just because this is the I guess book the library material policy where it's saying determine whether donated material shall be accepted for inclusion in the collection are we keeping a record of who's donating and when I think maybe can we have something in our policy that would State or something that would direct them for that because I know the public is going to want to know if we're doing transparency then who exactly is donating that so a couple of thoughts on that so that to me is more procedural so maybe not in a policy okay but again I just wanna I'm not disagreeing or agreeing but now we're putting more on the teacher who's receiving donated materials or the school principal to then keep

126track of when and who donated them so I will follow the direction of the board but I do think it's more procedural maybe even just a form that if somebody wants to donate they got to fill it out and they keep that in their their file the other thing was on page nine E2 I have on my notes Here to okay do we have if we're going to add the Endeavor to is that just for what was the point of doing that the that was to the point that chair Jacobs was making earlier in in case of natural disaster or other extenuating circumstances where we wouldn't be able to for sure be able to meet within those 15 working days that we would do our absolute best to do so do we need to have

127something then in there that says but you know within 15 days but no no later than because otherwise I mean it could drag on for weeks and weeks like what happened with I mean for me genderqueer that took a year and a half for something to come about but I think we need to have something where there's more of a specific that would be that's it can well since I raised it is it all right with the board if I respond one of the concerns that I had is if we are heading into the summer and people have vacation schedules and we suddenly are unable to have a quorum in 15 days and so while I'd like to have a definitive time frame if they try another 15 days and they still don't have a

128quorum I think we would either have to have some language in there that allows us to lower the Quorum or has language like Endeavor that doesn't Force our hand to do something in 15 days that we literally may not be able to do we just can't force people to come to a meeting so that was the reason I had that concern because this is a committee made up of individuals who aren't you know necessarily working for the district and it could be during summer when they're not on duty so that was that was the reason for putting more broad language okay all right remember salamonica thank you chair I think I wanted to back gallo and member Gold's concern making sure that the process for anyone that removes for whether or challenges at the board

129or at the superintendental level goes through the same process of transparency I think it makes perfect sense for things to be temporarily removed when they're brought up and challenged and I understand that there was a lot of attention in this topic particularly that we get from the media as well as the Department of Education when these books come up but there's a difference between temporary removing and permanently removing something and I think that should meet the threshold of a transparent process where the public gets input so just expressing my support there and the other one was I don't know how many note of this I was going to back the adding the definition of harmful as well so if that would be really helpful if we could add that in here as well and yep

130that would be all I think I think you know we get a lot of oh Gallo's point about public input and generally creating a more space for that I think what has been really challenging is when something like what happened last week occurs all of us get emails from different sides but just because a parent sent us an email doesn't mean that they represent the entire community and I think it's really hard as a board member and as a representative of my district to scope out really where the majority of people are feeling and that can be very difficult when it's just a few that send emails and I think an additional forum for folks to come and communicate and Community leaders to come and award their Community concerns would be really helpful I guess

131the other thing about this policies is there are some counties in the district that are having an upward number of 300 books being challenged On Any Given month and so I don't know that maybe the policy discussion is the right way to go but I think there is a discussion to be had at the board on at what point is too many books too much for us to be okay being off the bookshelves of our students and is there an expediated process or committee for when x amount of books are on hold because it becomes you know it's the difference between having one and two books on hold that we are waiting 15 a whole summer to discuss but I'm afraid that if what's happening in other counties where we have 300 500 books being

132questioned at the same time we that timeline might be a little bit more important to experience so just a thought thank you Patrick last question did you want to respond directly to that I wanted to comment that it's so I understand and I am wholeheartedly in agreement and actually when we do look at a book it's been asked the district team looks at the content and makes a recommendation but I believe six eight weeks ago staff might be able to correct me wrong doe came out with I don't know four books that they said were pornography and so is the board expecting us to also go through the challenge process when the Department of Education is stating the books contain pornography and should be removed that was my point I know I'm just trying to

133think I have the whole board is lit up for totally different reasons nobody's expecting that question right now but those of you who are signed up to speak I'm going to take you in the order we're in and then we'll come back I'll leave you there I just want an answer on that and then we'll come back to what issue you wanted to discuss are we okay member fell do your first step thank you yeah you I was going to talk about something else but when you said that okay okay we're just on that right no okay so we do have a planning meeting scheduled the chair has a schedule next week into your concern remember Gallo I think in that meeting we should use that time to talk about this whole idea of transparency

134and I'm in agreement we have so many issues going on and these people the people that elected us they elected us to be their voice and an advocate and we in turn must allow them to have a voice so I think we'll have an opportunity in that planning meeting to discuss you know that this desire to the extra time and so forth but I think because of the times in which we're living and what occurred on last week we must have this discussion we must as a board have this discussion and we must come up with a policy to address these issues that are plaguing the members of our constituency now I just wanted to sort of add my two cent for lack of a better term this book challenge that's a lot and I

135don't want us to turn into a dictatorship but it does take a lot so we're going to have to superintendent really look at how we deal with the book challenges that are being taken away because I know I don't want pornography taught on any level I think that's a mom and dad is position to do that however I do know that we're living in ever-changing society and life is full of Swift transitions so we have to address that but I just wanted to add that I am in agreement I think a member Gallo suggested that we do need to reconsider how we handle allowing the public to to share their input whether we agree or disagree we must allow them that time to share all right that's all I wanted to say for right now

136so I need to come back though to the question the superintendent asked and their question was Department of Ed has identified four books that they have determined are pornographic and therefore either pornographic or harmful to children and harmful in some not permitted period the question the superintendent had was are is she supposed to honor that pull the books off the shelf or is this board expecting it to go through the process of that we have in our policy is that your question it is and I want to make a point of clarification we do our website is up so at any book that is removed for pornography or inappropriateness will be posted and currently the ones that we've pulled off the shelf are listed on there so as far as transparency and people knowing what

137we've pulled that would that would be part of that all right so member Felder can you answer that question with a yes or no answer okay and if you can't that's fine you said whether or not you should make the decision of the board is that the question my question is if the example I gave doe came out with a list of or came out with four books that they said pornography and should be removed or it may have said they had been removed my question to the board is at that point do we pull them off the shelf and go through the process and then wait to what our the Committees say about the pornography in that book or do we deem that Doe has made a determination that it's pornography and we just

138pulled them off the book and post it on our website all right my okay I can't give a yes or no because that's fine that's fine I'm not sure that everybody no yeah I can't give a yes or no because let me tell you why because as a board we are to we're in charge of policy and the doe you know the Department of Education set out policies that we as a board support for the superintendent also looks to us as a board to support whatever it is decisions she makes and if it is in policy for us to do that so I can't give you a yes or no but I do think I can say this discussion needs to be made before any decision I think there needs to be some discussion I

139do thank you okay remember Caster Dell oh I'm sorry I remember Dello I'm looking I'm thinking she's up number one so now we're on number two she's not there go ahead remember Gallo thank you madam chair so I would say that do you know what offhand which four books they are does it matter now okay I would say that if the Department of Education has deemed them to be pornographic we have no choice but to remove them and they really don't need to go through the process I think putting them through the process is what's the point at the end of the day they're still going to have to be removed from our libraries because the Department of Education is telling us they have to so why put our people through the extra work when

140they're already overburdened of that process when the end result will be the same okay remember Castor Dental thank you madam chair just to go in the order that I have notes written I agree can we answer that one and we'll come back and I'll come back well sure so my thought it sounds you know kind of like it's not a big deal when it's just four books but what happens when the doe gives out a list of 500 books to pull hmm so I don't think that they're the ones that determine whether our books are on the shelf or not I think the fact that they have been deemed inappropriate can be part of the discussion that the committees have but I don't think we want to put that in policy or necessarily automatically remove

141them because we don't know what's going to happen in the future and I'm not just making a wild prediction I think it's it's actually possible that they would come out with a long list of books that someone in the doe deems inappropriate and I don't know if our standards are the same as theirs so I don't think it should be an automatic book removal thank you member Castro dental and I'm leaving you up here to come back around on the other issues member gold so I think we need to treat this differently I think any of the books that are pulled by the doe need to be designated that on the list that is on our website that it was a state level decision I also think that we have to give the community the

142right to have a discussion about those books and I don't know that putting it through the current process is that discussion point but there needs to be a point where that feedback can be shared and we have an obligation to share it with the doe good bad indifferent so that's and I know it's more burdensome but again if we want the community to have input even if we can't change the outcome in some cases I think we need to be that feedback mechanism in that sounding board similar thoughts to member Gould I think and I'm hoping I have remember our assemble's attention as well because it could be a legal question I think if we go through the process knowing that it that process ends with it coming to the board well first of all

143I do think it should come off the shelf immediately I like the idea of having some way of putting that in front of the public I'm not sure that going through this policy practice is the right one because at the end of the day a lot of people are going to spend a lot of time and it's going to ultimately come to the board and I think the board is not going to have a way of doing anything except for removing it I'm a little unclear about whether doe has the rule making Authority here to to govern this area but I also know from not too recent experience that if they don't they will very very quickly so I think we need to assume that they have that Authority by bringing the public to the

144table if it reaches the point where it is not pornography but it is wandering into a different area that let's say hypothetically most people would not see as pornography or harmful to students by having some sort of maybe it is a town hall type of process but some way of making the community aware and bringing them into that if somebody wishes to advocate for a change at the state level or challenge those decisions the public has that opportunity that we some of the opportunities that we don't have and I'm not saying that's going to happen I'm just trying as member Caster Dental was looking down into the future and thinking of an extreme scenario I think we should anticipate what would we do in that scenario so kind of taking a little bit of everything

145I've heard but I like that idea for that reason let me go to was that clear that was clear I think I can chime in right now so you know I mean the doe does have the ability to oversee public education sorry sorry and with that in fact I certainly value the time that could be spent on some of that kind of thing I understand the receiving input from the public and that kind of thing but I don't think it should I don't think it would change anything that you are all doing because the doe will tell us that and that would be something that you would want to follow and probably Mr palmerini will go ahead and expound upon that Mr pomerani article 9 section 2 of the Florida Constitution with the specific exact

146Choice agent the State Board of Education shall be a body corporate and have such supervision of the system of free public education as is provided in law so when they make a law they have the right the supervisory right to say we are determining this book is pornographic we are directing you to remove it from the Shelf they have that statutory and constitutional Authority all right so you're saying that this let the statute does provide that oversight in this area yes okay thank you member for on and again I'm keeping everybody's name in The order they were in member for on you remember the question I heard somebody say what is the question no I said okay okay I call them like wait did I push the button no I was just going to be

147in agreement with that I think we have to listen to doe and whether there's one or a hundred books unfortunately things have gone unchecked for so long that there are quite a few books in our schools that do need to get looked at and so I am in agreement I think we need to remove those books and that we would make that clear that it's you know on the website and it would say removed per orders from Tallahassee Dov remember salamonica thank you chair I think similar to the point you made earlier Dr Vasquez on I think we all stand pretty steady that we don't want anyone losing their certification because of books or materials or anything that should not be there based on what the doe says so I am supportive of the minute

148the doe says there's a list of books we should remove them but I am supportive of making sure that we gather the feedback on those books from our community I think it is coming out of the zoning process and my learnings from that it makes a huge difference when we have pages on pages of feedback from the community supporting or not supporting something that we can one have to stand up to doe whether they read it or not but also making it clear on our website what are those books that have been challenged by our community versus by the state and just redirecting there was a point when emailing us after a book has been removed by Doe we can't do anything once that has happened right they should redirect a lot of those comments

149to their house representative or Senators their governor and so I do think we play a little bit of a role in triaging and making it clear to the public when we remove a book and who you know we as a board stand by that decision and send the comments to us but if the doe is the one that removes the book direct your comments to them and we can gather a lot of that feedback too and share with them but I think it's really important for the public to have transparency because I don't think they usually will know the difference and a lot of that always falls on us anyway thank you member salamonica I'm Miss embell I have you down I don't think you want to speak right now well let me take member

150bird I agree with everything that member Salamanca just said so there you go all right assemble did you want to summarize to make sure you're I would like to yes I would make sure that the team and I are clear that we're saved okay so what I heard for with respect to policy ijl is that we're going to add in the and to the like Dr Castro Dental said we are going to add in definitions from the Florida Statutes with respect to harmful to minors and obscene we are going to have the books that the superintendent pulls that comes to her attention go through the process to ratify or reject we're going to add that somewhere in policy and then we're going to carve out an exception for the doe say that those are going

151those are going to be pulled but they're going to be separately I don't know if necessarily it needs to be like on the in the policy although I think it I think it should be somewhere we'll just figure it out how to do it but with respect on the website our process have those designated between what were pulled by the district and then when we're pulled by Doe capture everything the one thing I asked for I don't think there was objection is moving the tops of page seven that language up so it comes right under number two as a however however this language will change a little bit based on what we just discussed because we're saying the superintendent shall permanently remove the material and what I am hearing is the superintendent will remove it

152but it may not be permanent yes okay yep sorry that was I forgot to start that one but member Castro Dental thank you no no no I'm sorry did you just want to comment on that because I'm I got this circling around and I just got slapped this is about including all the notes I didn't hear anything about a board member having to go through that thank you thank you good okay Vice chair Gala I just want to say that I agree with with the comments made that it about removing the books and then making sure that the community has an ability to communicate to the board and we can share that information so I think that this has been covered already but I'm going to circle back just because we've kind of been all

153over the place up here so with that being said I first have to say thank you to to to the team for all the work that they've done on this policy because it's been I think almost a year in the making is that correct like I think we've been working on it for a year yes and there's been a lot of input from the board and we give you input and then we come up here and we question the input that we gave you to add to the policy and I just want you to know that we recognize that and so thank you for your flexibility and your kindness and for all the hard work that you've done and for listening as intently as you did to the board we so appreciate it and I

154know we've made this difficult on you and for that I apologize but it's really important that we get it right so on number two we talked about I know and I know this was discussed but we talked about the challenge materials shall not be removed they shall be available to the student use pending final decision are we just talking about the textbooks that are challenged in that sentence are all challenged books no this is specific to library media books so this challenge process and I guess books in classroom libraries but this process does not apply to state adopted textbooks this is just for library media materials so any any book that is challenged will remain on the Shelf until after the challenge process goes through that is how it is written here doesn't it shouldn't

155it be like an asterisk with unless the superintendent pulls it and that is the language that will be moved okay that's what you're yes okay perfect and then and we already discussed district-wide and taking input from the community again I think we do need to find time to make sure that we're hearing from the community on on all issues not just on books and then finally that is it I just want to say thank you and I already did so thanks okay wonderful member Castro Donald thank you madam chair I wanted to weigh in briefly about expanding the community Forum input when there is a need I agree with that when it comes to donating a books and writing the donors or including the names of donors I see that as almost unnecessary and difficult

156to actually Implement I think as a teacher I would have students who would donate the books after they read them to my library I would have people from the community drop off a book a box of books we didn't know they were we would have parents by books during our Scholastic Book Fairs and I didn't always know who those parents were so I think that is going to be a difficult task and I'm not sure how necessary although I understand the desire to be as transparent as possible I'm not as sure that it's as important to know who donated the books and it would be difficult to figure out an area that I don't think was addressed in the policy that I think we need to think about just when we're looking at what's happened

157in other districts in the state is the idea of a mass challenge because I know that there have been districts where someone challenged 300 books at a time and that's just not practical that's overwhelms our system it's kind of an abuse of the system as well I think if we were to consider putting some limits on how many challenges an individual may make at a time we don't prevent them from you know ever having a lifetime limit of challenges but at a time maybe we say no more than three challenges until those have gone through the process you can't challenge any others until then it's just a it's a way to make sure that our people and our staff are not being overwhelmed and abused by this process and I'd be interested to hear what

158my fellow board members think about putting some guard rails in thank you thank you member Castro Dental member Coolidge you happen to be up next do you want to respond to that and then what other comments and then we'll work our way around thank you let's get it all out get it all out get it all it's a short list anyway so I'll respond to that first I don't know what that mechanism is if if we are assaulted with you know a list of 300 books but if there's a way to sift and prioritize them in some way that it maybe have been on the reading curriculum in the past but they're not currently but they're being shelled maybe there is a process that makes it easier to sift through them but I think I

159don't I mean I don't have a solution but I agree that it probably could clog up the process and then hurt if a book does slip through that may not be age appropriate because it's way down at the bottom of the priority list because if they if they take them in order that's a different story so I agree it's an issue but I don't know but I don't have a solution or a suggestion for that I did want to also follow up on the donation of books I'm not clear on how when we're talking about the books themselves being the transparency portion why it matters where they came from and my concern is in my community I have a lot of organizations including rotaries including Observer media the hospital that do book drives on behalf

160of the of them they don't know who gives the book because it's a box and people drop the book in we would never know out of the hundreds of books who that donor was nor does it affect the review of the book so I'm I'm not sure it's that additional excuse the term but bureaucracy is giving any further transparency because we're always going to review a book we can't even if we think somebody's giving books constantly that they shouldn't give it's still got to go through the review process it can't be stopped and say oh well you gave a bad book last time so we're not going to take this book this time because it's probably a bad book they still have to go through the review process in order for it to be transparent

161in the community so I think it may put a burden and discourage people and we still have a budgetary problem and don't have enough books to lift literacy so I'm concerned that it would stifle good in many many many good intentions in good resources that's my concern about it thank you question was what was the question I'm sorry 300 yes thank you okay you know after what I have seen with public records requests I can imagine a situation like that and I think it is a good idea that you've brought forward that hopefully it doesn't happen that we have a procedure and that brings us back to that idea that something has to move forward in 15 days or whichever that was you can another great example of why that might not happen I think

162I'm not sure if we're ready to know what that looks like but I think they're at a minimum we should ask people that submit more than a certain number or any more than one that they prioritize which ones they think and that we determine a way if one person has 300 and two other two or three people come in with 100 are we doing the 300 is it you know is it first come first serve I just a little more thought than we can get into now and it may not be that it needs to be in policy it may be that policy directs us to establish a process so which we would have input into what that process is but wouldn't bind us to having to know all the answers right now so how

163does the board feel about that putting into the policy that the superintendent shall come back to the board with guidelines it's just a directive it's just it could just be a directive yes go ahead please so I would just and I'm fine with whatever the board decides I understand the need for guardrail so that we don't overburden over taxed our staff or even the board I would take note though that our the process for which we challenge a book the form that's in place that they have to fill out is lengthy in nature it's like two or three pages so it would take somebody a tremendous amount of time to fill up that form for 100 books or 300 books like so to get them I mean they would I guess you could right you

164could you could so I do support it but I just want to know that I'm what we have in policy what we require for someone to challenge the book we do ask for a lot of information like you can't just willy-nilly hand us a list of 100 books and say okay I want to challenge these you've got to tell us why you want to challenge them you got to tell us what page it's on that you find conflict with the book what rule that's kind of breaking within that form so there are some guardrails within the form but I understand maybe the need for more gun rails so I think we're about done on this and we need to take a break for lunch Miss emval if you could just give some thought to whether

165or not we should have some language in the policy that identifies that there may be a process by which we determine which order we're taking challenges okay could we just get through kec really quickly because that's the quickest one and then we have a break I mean it's like literally a two seconds yes maybe maybe two minutes okay Mike's off all right KAC challenge materials policy this policy is being recommended for repeal since it is being incorporated into policy ijl I have one more slide for you the Florida Department of education's library media training people have taken it guides collection development policies for library media Specialists and the selection of Maintenance of library media materials for library media Specialists and in case you were curious 179 of our 181 media Specialists have completed the training

166the two who have not are out on leave due to some extenuating circumstances so we're doing great 179 completions member Castro Dental did you wish to speak I have a quick comment it didn't necessarily fall on the others but the language of challenging a book we also refer to it as reconsideration I'm not sure that's as obvious to people who I don't know those terms aren't always obvious that they're interchangeable just a thought over okay okay I just learned that lunch does not arrive till 1 15. so we're going to keep pushing on through we have one more I kind of make sure that you don't have any concerns with kec being incorporated into ijl anybody have any concerns I wasn't going to beg for them okay okay okay I did nothing lit up so

167I was feeling good okay all right let's move on okay we're moving on to the rule development Workshop portion of today's meeting this is going to be considering these these three policies policy ebb I a j i c and the code of student conduct they followed the following advertisements and Publishing date so they were all advertised on March 8th of 2023 rule development Workshop is scheduled for today March 28 23 with a school board meeting date of April 11 2023 and they have all been sent to the union so first up is policy ebb I was trying to talk so they could actually go through we're not doing a formal presentation but I have staff that's ready here to discuss because you already have heard all these in the work session policy ABB or ebb

168I'm sorry is the school Stacey specialist remember we added we added those school board's intent for the school specialist being ocps District police law enforcement officer we added the provision that within 24 hours or as soon as practical thereafter they had to know the safe school safety Specialists had to notify the superintendent or doesn't need about any notice of suspected deficiency received from the office of schools we specifically Incorporated language to call the ocps district police communications center with the phone number that when charter schools and district schools do not have a safe school officer present on campus for coverage and we changed this section there to reflect the proper statute 1006.112 and then we also included language in section 6 notice of on compliance that says outlined in Section 5 of this policy the

169school Space School Safety specialist must notify the office of State schools within 24 hours of any deficiencies relating to Safe school officer coverage and any instance of non-compliance that is determined to be an imminent threat to the health safety or welfare of students or staff we also have the line revised at the bottom of the policy and so staff is here to answer any questions you may have but we are at the rural development Workshop portion we have already gone to work work session on these policies okay any input at this point in time all right and the next step on this is a public hearing the net yes when we also for the record we did not have any public people that wanted to provide input during this world development Workshop the next that

170this is scheduled for our school board meeting final approval on April 11th at which the public will have the second opportunity to provide input into the proposed revisions to policy ebb which is accident prevention and safety program all right we have no comments from board members so we can move on all right moving on to policy IA yeah great great presentation oh yeah other people we didn't thank them yeah you're right we didn't thank them did you well collectively we didn't but they know they got our hearts because they sit here for hours with us yeah you did your point was good you said either we've already put it in questions but she's right you're right yeah okay okay we're ready policy IA is your student progression plan and the procedural history that I previously

171recited for policy ebb is the same for this policy based on your input at the February 21st 2023 work session the few changes that made to policy IA that are reflected in the red line that's on board docs essentially in elementary middle and high school sections we have had compulsory School attendance we added a reference to board policy je for additional information as the board directed that's page 12 41 and 91. in the middle school section we added we removed a section that was related to graduation because it only applies to high school students remoted in the required curriculum section under the middle school section which is on page 46 we removed a rule reference that's outdated and on page 74 and under procedures for maintenance and transfer of Student Records we removed a rule

172reference that was outdated in the high school section oh sorry timed myself out in the high school students we removed a rule section that was outdated on page 138 on page 156 in the exceptional student education Staffing we removed a rule reference that's outdated in the requirements for a standard diploma for students with disabilities via access points we removed the requirement that a waiver of the results of a Statewide standardized assessment is subject to verification for appropriateness by an independent reviewer selected by the parent Guardian is provided in section 1003.572 Florida Statutes as that reference is to private instructional personnel and section 1008.22 Florida Statutes does not require the approval or verification of appropriateness in order to Grant the waiver to the students and that's on page 159 some of the other General requirements for

173special diploma for students with disabilities entering the ninth grade from in 2013 to 14 in Prior years the majority of that section on page 164 to 165 was removed but there was one portion we were verifying with ESC that could also be removed and that section discussed students who are pursuing a special diploma progressing through phase a and phase B and that was removed in its entirety is it no longer in statute on page 165 under the certificate of completion for students with disabilities we moved a rule reference that is outdated and finally under the waiver of Statewide standardized assessments and end of course assessments we changed May to shall in the following sentence a student with disability as defined in section 1007.02 Florida Statutes For Whom the individual education plan team determines that the

174Statewide standardized assessments or end of course assessments cannot accurately measure the students abilities taking into consideration all about allowable accommodations shall have assessment results waived in accordance with Section 1008.223c to Florida statutes for the purpose of receiving a course grade as a standard high school diploma and it was the show that changed and that was page 165 and these are all things that we went over with you at the work session and so they are here we do not for the record we do not have any members of the public that have appeared in person or telephonically for input and so that goes back to you to follow this same thing this will come for you for final school board approval on April 11th which with which will provide the public the second opportunity to

175provide a comment on the proposed revisions all right thank you assemble I have one item that I would like for us to consider adding but not at this time because I think we need to adopt this and potentially bring it back if there's support from the board so and I think most board members heard from Miss angstadt who comes to our meetings writes to us frequently and often has very valuable information to share and great stories about our students that I always love reading about but in this particular case the question was in this policy the principal makes the final decision on retention and Miss angstadt had raised the issue that a child retained twice has a significantly lower chance of going on to graduate and that perhaps we should require that the decision to

176retain a student be moved up higher to the area administrator and I did have a conversation with Dr Vasquez on this yesterday and I think Dr Vasquez had mentioned to me that you know in third grade this is out of our hands so obviously we wouldn't be talking about where the state has dictated otherwise again I don't I'm not suggesting we make a change now but I wanted to get some semblance of is the board interested in an enough to come back and have a follow-up discussion or a work session on it so let's begin with I do want to make a point of clarification this would only apply to Elementary because in middle and high school statute addresses having to attain a certain number of of credit or completion of courses so it's only

177Elementary thank you for clarifying that so remember Vice chair did you want to speak to this okay please I think I think that it's a good idea and I would like to add to that the question of the parents I know that a lot of times the parents who know their children best have wished to have them retained in kidney Garden because they know that they're not either socially ready academically ready and that's less harmful to a child or even in pre-k although I don't we don't control a Pre-K prior to third grade so I just want to make sure as we're if we're going to do this which I'm in favor of that we also look into that aspect that the parent because parents have asked to retain children their children before and been

178told flat out no we're not retaining your child we can't and I get that there's you don't you don't you want to progress a child of the child's ability to progress but I just want to emphasize the importance of having that conversation with in conjunction with the parents as that decision is being made all right thank you member Gould I was going to say something similar and that if if we've identified a child that may be moving forward for other reasons but is and I know we do this already but how do we really both boost up interventions to help them succeed earlier and I know there's a bill right now being looked at for year-round school which I personally I don't think is a great idea for blanket but I do think we need

179an opportunity for students and it's especially for our lower level Learners and that doesn't mean bring them in and try to teach them the same way but try to find other innovative ways to make that learning more experiential so they grasp it and get over that hurdle of whatever is that roadblock for them in in that area so I do think it behooves more conversation it may even be a separate policy and placeholder than within here because it may need a whole other vantage point and I would also as part of that discussion like to learn where we've had successes where we've had a lot of resource such as in our at-risk schools and those who have been on the list where we have had that interventive successes because we've had the financial wherewithal to

180really make the investment that we needed to make in the right teachers in the right place thank you let me also mention when we're talking about parents input made me think about my own situation my firstborn was born on August 31st and so it was right on the cusp of the cutoff and then my twins were born August 12th and they were a boy and a girl and boys and girls often progress at different rates and out of an abundance of concern that one of my one of my children might need to be held back and one go forward for that reason I held them both back I didn't have any you know there wasn't anything about either one of them that made me think that might happen but they were so close to that

181cut off that I didn't think that age difference was going to affect them when they were in high school or middle school so I think another not that it goes into policy but another consideration I would expect would be what is their age or where is you know where is that breakdown because if they're you know if they're right on the cut off and it's early probably no impact at all I mean the fact that my kids were 18 days I don't think I broke a law on that and if I did I think it was no I was going to say may it was another state but that'd be lying it was here come to think of it but anyway it didn't it didn't hurt them at all and I'm I'm glad I did

182it but I think that's a consideration for parents as well so if there's enough interest we will schedule this to come back and Miss envel can you give us a rough date of when we can bring this back I can so with respect to this particular policy my it's our recommendation to move forward this is for the 22-23 school year over the summer the team is taking on an enormous task of revamping and reevaluating this policy because you know I think it's 163 Pages it is crazy it is filled with a lot of duplicative information and so the tap the team is tasked with making it a little bit more user-friendly a member of the board had suggested like a website where you can watch the progression and you know that kind of thing so

183we're contemplating all of those things and we also contemplate this policy would be kind of track like policy jic and your code of student conduct where we actually start looking at it at the beginning of the year of each calendar year so that the revisions can be made and they're ready and already implemented for the beginning of each school year at this time we're a little bit behind with policy IA because it's recovering it's this particular school year so I think the team can consider those that input that you just provided as they're doing it but the thought is to revamp this and make it a little more useful you need to follow so I know this is for the upcoming year but for this current year right right but in order for this to

184be effective for any retention decisions in the next school year we would need to bring this back to us yes sometime yes the plan is for the team to start looking at it now to revamp everything and bringing it back to you like over the summer I think okay over this is the plan yes okay thank you yes I just didn't want it to get no no we're we want to kind of run this concurrently with jic the code so that it's evaluated each year very good any other comments on this if not I think we're still eight minutes away from lunch policy anyway we have policy jic in Dakota student conduct and I'll just go ahead and I think I think I can go over the changes again not a presentation because we already

185went through the procedural history and the dates that I previously recited for policy ebb are the same for this policy as they were for IA at the outset I want to acknowledge that it's unusual to make revisions to the code of student conduct mid-year however the changes in the Fuller administrative code in the Florida Statutes prompted staff to bring proposed changes to this current the 22 2022-2023 code of student conduct in a work session on February 21st and in accordance with the school board's direction of the meeting the changes that were made for this year mid year Amendment to the Kodak art to the level four procedures and the assessor in according with in accordance with the Florida Statutes and the Florida Administrative Code we made then Associated updates to the title page the acknowledgment

186Pages updated to state that it's for the amended code the code is conduct summary page and the table of contents to reflect accurate information there's comments in this particular red line for jic Sarah you want to bring up the jic one if it's there the comments are in the red line so that the public can see what changes are being made and as was presented by the revision team at the work session some of the local codes were added as a response to the assessor changes that left holes in disciplines such as arson and igniting when we talked about that there's a summary of changes the code of student conduct on pages 11 to 12 on the on board docs there and then there's also a section describing the school environment safety incident report Sesser

187and that's on page 34 in the attachment the proposed amendment to the 2022-2023 code of student conduct eliminates Progressive discipline for bullying harassment threats and sexual harassment and that's all in accordance with the changes to Assessor we note I think it's really important to note that no changes have been made to the current language regarding the dress code or Progressive discipline for threats that we were talking about like hazardous language and things like that because they're not specifically related to statute and there's a level four code that's all encompassing at this time as we seek additional clarification from the office of schools and the doe and maybe some more administrative brainstorming whatever that may look like it's possible that Progressive discipline can be reinstated for the 2023-2024 code of student conduct and those revisions are

188we'll consider input from the community and administration and we'll cover other topics discussed at the February 21st 2023 work session remember we talked about cell phones and dress code District staff has conducted all the community meetings and they're currently evaluating the survey responses and from that input staff will continue to make proposed changes and bring those proposed changes to you in a work session or two over the next few months those proposed changes will also include any changes in legislation that the LED that the legislature is doing now and there's going to be new changes to Title IX and we also heard the title 50 to 504 they're expected to be issued in the May of 2023 so that revision process will continue over the summer prior to scheduling the 2023-2024 code of student conduct

189for a rural development workshop and final approval before the beginning of next school year so similar with the way policy IA is going to be looked at for revisions policy jic and the code of student conduct is also going to be brought back to you this is just a mid-year amendment that we don't normally do okay member Gala thank you madam chair this is coming before the board April 11th is that correct that's correct so upon it if it is approved on April 11th when does it become effective right upon approval on April 11th so it's a mid-year code change so the schools are going to have to go over those changes with students for the last month of school six weeks of school so I guess and that's my that's my concern is that

190it is mid-level it's time consuming which I understand that we have to do it but we're right in the middle of testing so my concern my concern is the availability of our Educators to communicate it effectively with students our ability our ability to effectively communicate it to our parents because some of these changes are massive and we're going to see a lot more expulsions we're going to see probably more arrests we're going to see a lot of things that in the past haven't happened because we have to involve an SRO under every code that is coded processor and so my concern is what plan have we put into place to make sure that we are effectively communicating this with our Educators with our parents and with our communities because once this goes into effect that

191very next day they're going to start seeing the impact of that so we should be communicating that now with the anticipation that maybe it's going to get approved because if we wait till that if we wait till April I mean testing I don't know how we get this done prior to the end of the school year and do it appropriately so I don't know if anybody can answer that question I don't know what has been discussed at the community meetings I don't know if that was something that the discipline team went over at the community meetings that we were having potential changes I don't have that answer for you but I don't know if someone could just yeah it I agree member Gould it doesn't penetrate far enough but if we could just have a

192discussion on how it's going to be handled since this is the last stop before approval on the board meeting I don't know do you know anything else this time I don't I don't know if is it worth it no okay I mean I can speak yeah I don't have the information this morning sorry I don't have the information this morning on those Community meetings Miss Joyner just joined us so I believe that she would have information on how that would be communicated or if we do not at this time then we will I'm sure Mr nurse team will work too you know figure out how we're going to do that and I appreciate that I'm just as a board member until I know what what Prestige is going to be in place for something this

193important I'm hesitant to move it forward thank you I will share that staff has great concern about bringing forward this change at this time of year for the very same reasons that a board member Gallo has expressed and they have asked if we are able to postpone the implementation of the changes and have those as part of the 2023-24 school year of course remember Gallo so my question would be can we push this to the 20 22-23 and still 23 24 thank you member gold can we do that without repercussions from the Department of Education because I know that this was a direct not assignment but we were told that we needed to make these changes we weren't given a lot of time to do so if we are allowed and that's permissible I would

194be in support of moving this forward to give us more time to react because the last thing that I want is for a child discipline's a problem and I we need to make sure that we have discipline so this isn't about discipline it's about making sure that everybody understands the changes because it's not fair to our community to make sweeping changes such as this if we don't have the time to notify them and a plan in place on how to do so board member Gallo I can't state with any certainty that there wouldn't be any repercussions I do know that there are other school districts that are also making their changes mid-year because the statute does require that school districts adhere to the new Sesser codes so in terms of what the repercussions would be

195that's not something that we could understand but the administrative code does require these changes we did discuss if we move forward we would have to retrain all of our Deans assistant principals and principals we would have to start communication with our families relatively soon so they are aware of that additionally schools would have to present this information to their student body as well I do have a question for council could we adopt it and give a grace period and then move move forward I'm beer I mean I'm hesitant because I know it's Esser and all that we're dealing with office of safe schools but they've had the same conversations about consistency as we're still trying to deal with consistency with the current code of conduct pulling staff for training at a time where they are

196going to start up with testing but we're prepared to move forward because it was adopted mid-year are you referring to adopting it with a delayed postpone effective date for that provision yes if we're able to do that okay Mr pomerani I'm Sorry Miss Amber no it's all right so I think he has the same concerns I do I mean the rule went into effect in January so and rulemaking takes some time as we know we had to propose in a work session I would have some concerns that if we I don't know maybe Mr Palmer can express it a little bit differently than I want to am I on now yes you all have known me when rules go into effect and they have say they are in effect now I am always very hesitant

197to say let's put off compliance with it until some point in the future and I think it is a point of emphasis of the office of safe schools to have these codes in place and being applied in there so there's no answer in the statute that says we can bump this out I think as soon as we can adopt it is probably what the intent was when the doe passed the rule thank you and so moving forward our team will prepare an aggressive schedule for training given we have a four weeks before it is actually comes to the board again and then that'll allow us to provide the communication to parents for the last four or five weeks of school thank you okay so I just so we the board can anticipate some formulation of

198a plan prior to the board meeting so that we can understand how we're going to move forward with this aggressive plan to implement there there is a plan that there's a framework of the plan there will be a training schedule that we will be able to provide to you as well as communication that will be sent out to our families and the schools would just as they did at the beginning of the school year do a code of conduct review with their student body so that they're aware of the changes but we will we can formalize that in a document and present to the board thank you thank you Dr Vasquez remember gold in in follow-up to this and Miss enball and Mr pomerini if we have a schedule of a phased training approach for

199this we are going to approve I'm we assume we will approve it at the next board meeting because I'm not hearing any dissent not that we can because it's statute but if if we have a plan for a phased approach that maybe doesn't make it so intensive at the time where we could actually put student grades at risk because it would be distracting our Educators to be training on this and implementing testing and any reinforcement for testing because if students need help before going into a test and they're seeking their teachers administrators and so on and they are at a mandatory training session they will not be available to our students so I'm wondering if we could phase it and still satisfy you know showing that we are in good intention implementing but we're doing

200it with fidelity Madam chair I think that the fact that we're making the change to the policy mid-year right after the rules implemented which is not usually what's happening and you're going to have a planned approach for training and implementation I think you're much on much better footing than not doing anything at all it is the rule we have to presume that it's valid and we need to follow it I don't know what the phased in approach would look like with respect to training I know testing is coming up and that's a consideration I'm sure they'll take that into consideration when they're looking at it but we would this would require students to sign the new cover page again and go through all that so the communication is but you have to train the staff

201first so if there's X number I mean because you could start with staff that aren't as essential to the testing model I don't know I that's for you to figure out but I think if we are as long as we're taking steps forward and then can Implement as soon as possible the full process it seems that we would be meeting safe schools desires so I'll I'll ask the team to put together in writing because I know we've been having discussions about it so commit it to paper and then let's have a final draft that we can share with the board prior to the board meeting and at that time I'll be able to really tell you the extent because some of the my recollection is that it's not it's not going to be easy I

202mean even the paperwork has to be revised right and so and maybe that's part of the plan so you know within 20 days of the approval the paperwork will be revised within 30 so that we are not crushing our staffs right or our families because this could be this is going to be Whiplash all right well I want to make sure that we're doing everything that we're supposed to so there may even be parts of it or the more significant concerns that we can address first and make that By Priority the priority and then phase in the ones that are much minor later so we'll bring back something to staff I would say the Friday before the board meeting so you have the weekend to look it over and a couple of days thank you

203wait and then I had another question and not so much about what we're having to do right now now but with our discipline task force there is going to need to be another bite at this apple before school starts in August so you know it maybe we could get a little time frame on what that looks like to from the time that we take all of the input kind of chew through it and figure out what we can do now and and later just so that we have a sense because it's it's going to be a busy summer trying to prepare for the new school year with all of the new legislative rules plus our own work that we're doing at the community level so if that if that's something that maybe we could also

204get a little schedule and that'd be great thank you okay thank you madam chair let's see quick question so I had a concern come up and I don't know I'm assuming this is the time but for a code of conduct with regards to security breach is there currently a code that is for security breach I don't think so correct no so I had a principal bring this up where they had a student open a door for someone outside to come in it was ubereats and so came in I dropped the stuff off the student allowed the ubereats driver to come into campus are we saying ubereats drivers are going to do anything I highly doubt it but the fact that it was that easy to do that and so the principal had to issue an

205other and so the parent is like really my kid's getting a level four for other but if it was security breach and they got a level four the parent would be maybe more understanding so if there was a way that we could create our own that would be security breach I don't know how we could do that so if I may we've had several conversations with I'm sorry madam chair been a long morning it's not morning anymore yeah that's how long and Lunch is ready so we've had a lot of discussion with the office of safe schools and they really are wanting us to mirror the assessor codes and so we our staff could certainly take a look at that but we have really are moving towards the code of conduct mirroring exactly what a

206part of the of the assessor codes what we could do is see if there is a place for us to put that maybe other districts have done that I'm assuming they gave them other serious misconduct is what the code was right other serious misconduct and which I mean I agree with I agree with that determination but we are we're trying not to move away from what the assessor codes are and those levels in our level fours ancestor ironically has levels as well and most of their levels are in our level four which is confusing to to doe as well so we'll we can take a look at it but we're trying to mirror what doe has as part of assessor okay so this would be something that I would maybe need to take with you

207know our staff will look at it okay and see how other districts have done it and if there's a way because sometimes other we can even put in the description on the on the actual referral that might say security or security breach or something that's more like safety something compromising safety or something to that extent that would allow us to stay in line with the Sesser reporting system and still meet your needs so our team will take a look at that awesome thank you so much let's see the other the last one and this is I think just procedural but can we create an online form or way for teachers to report when there is a discipline issue right now they do it paperwork style correct or no right is there a way for us

208as a district I mean I think that would be helpful for teachers to have an online way to you type it in it gets sent immediately to the office instead of us having to do paperwork at the teacher level like stop the whole class and what with the teaching that's happening and learning to write everything out and then it goes to the office and then they also have to do paperwork and that's just my two cents if that could help I mean that would I mean go ahead that would be a question for Alicia Leonard when we first got Skyward we discussed going paperless and having referral and Skyward so that would be a question for her her Department to see if we can work through that you said that was Alicia Leonard Leonard yes

209we'll follow up she is our business process analyst that handles all all things Skyward there may be a cost associated with that and because my what I'm understanding is you really also want to be like a drop down so that they can it'll populate some of the things based on the information that's in Skyward yes yeah yes we'll we'll take a look at that probably we'll take a little bit of time yeah of course of course this is huge first I get it member cool follow up on the security breach question we have very strong policies on the hardening of our schools and everything going through our front desk so even if it's not called out on this sheet would that offense not be covered under our policies no it's it's covered my understanding is

210that the parent because we don't have things to have something that specifically says security breach was taken aback that they would get a level four and other can't we solve that by attaching the policy that says don't open up any other doors and let strangers in everything goes through the front office we have in the past as board members have given us feedback tried to tweak our code of conduct so that some things were clearer or they varied in what they were again the only angs I have and I'm not saying can't be resolved is that we really are moving towards being more aligned with the offenses the Cesaro fences and the way they're reported no and I and I totally understand that so that's why I think the concern was that the parent really

211didn't understand the other part as well and if we were to cite the policies that were broken maybe that would because we may get into a lot of issues that are not explicit there but our code of conduct issues because they are they fly in the face of our security and safety policies or vandalism or all kinds of crazy things is allowed as part of our food and nutrition policy either so yeah I do want to just add that Miss joyner's team's done an excellent job of adding examples into the code of student conduct in each section so where there is the other section that's not Sesser because there will now be the other for assessor and then the local code that does not cover what's in Sesser we there's a list that they are

212looking at for the code for the fall that could consider any changes those are all administrative changes that are not legal but those examples can be added in if it's appropriate all right member just very quickly I want to just kind of piggyback on what board member Braun said regarding the discipline and teachers being able to record it Mickey I don't know if that is possible but I as a former teacher sometimes the paper gets lost when the teacher writes a referral and it doesn't the top layer get because I had the same experiences so what I started doing I started giving the copy to the discipline officers and I kept the original because somebody got lost but if you put it in that computer if it goes heck nothing is ever deleted if you

213put it inside that computer teacher do a drop down even if the administrator for whatever reason can't find it or gets lost while she's given an assignment and they're looking at the laptop doing something she could very quickly put a referral in so I don't know the price of the cost of all that superintendent but if that could be worked out for teachers they'll have to stop to write a referral that is workable and I just want to set up for the teachers that works thank you anything else messenville Dr Vazquez I need to yes executive session yes sorry I'm reminding you yes thank you glad glad you said that okay so assuming we're included we conclude all of our policy discussion yes we did okay perfect okay pursuant to section 286.011 subsection 8 Florida

214Statutes and in accordance with board policy BEC an entity may meet in private with its attorney to discuss pending litigation to which the entity is presently a party before a court or administrative agency provided certain conditions are met including the requirement that a transcript of the executive session will be made part of the public record upon conclusion of litigation in this case I'm requesting the school board's advice concerning pending litigation in Bernice Rodriguez OBO Jr a minor of Orange versus Orange County Public School Board in case number 6-22-cv-00411- P G B lhp it's a federal case citation that will be Tuesday April 4th 2023 at one o'clock P.M the executive session will be a closed meeting held in conference room e at the ELC and will take approximately two hours I have two others to

215add but I first and a notice has been drafted for posting I need to list those in attendance for that particular case is going to be Teresa Jacobs chair Angie sorry Angie Gallo Vice chair Melissa Byrd School Board member I'm just going to go down sorry Maria Salamanca School Board letter Alicia farant School Board member Pam gold School Board member Vicki feldberg School Board member Karen Castro dinner School Board member and Melissa Byrd School Board member along with Dr Maria Vasquez Deputy or superintendent John Pomeranian Deputy general counsel and in that particular case it's going to be Gail bradfire Bradford who's our outside counsel and a court reporter following that executive session we're going to have one on Catherine Carnes versus ocsb in case number ca-000714-0 same time right after that Tuesday April 4th at

2161 those in attendance will be those that I mentioned already but instead of Gail Brad farther as Esquire it would be Michelle Morales who is our outside counsel following that executive session we're going to have one in the case styled as Association to preserve the Eatonville Community Incorporated versus the school board of Orange County in case number 2023-ca-005295-0 same thing Tuesday April 4th at 1 o'clock P.M closed meeting and Conference Room e and those unintensible the board school board members that are here John pomerani Deputy general counsel the superintendent and those outside counsel representing Us in that case is Chris Wilson and Jad Brewer staff attorney along with a court reporter that's April 4th at 1 o'clock P.M I believe it's all been reserved on your calendars from one to three there's three cases the

217first two I don't think will be take very long well actually I don't think there are any of them are going to take very long but we're going to go ahead and reserve two hours just in case so thank you madam chair all right with that thank you all very much for the presentation with that the meeting is done adjourned