001good evening I call this meeting of the Pinellas County school board February 28 2023 to order this evening's invocation will be given by Pastor Joyce Stone from Christ the Cornerstone Church in Pinellas Park the invocation will be followed by the presentation of the Colors by the Clearwater High School JROTC under the direction of Sergeant Major Lawrence finneran The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by School Board member cook and the National Anthem sung by Clearwater High School's choir under the direction of Sharon Adams please stand and remain standing until the colors have been retired and the color guard has exited the conference Hall Master Stone would you please share the invocation let us pray most loving God we come to you this night we ask your blessing upon this meeting we ask you God that
002you give guidance and wisdom to everyone who cares and educates our children and young adults I ask a blessing upon everyone who's gathered here this night and you God the god of love and compassion May each of us this night treat each other in the same way that you have treated us all with love and compassion Let Your Love permeate this place this night and we thank you for it now amen foreign carry most I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all right what's so proudly we held at the twilight's last gleaming Bright Stars through washed we're so gallantly stream and the rockets still there oh say does for the land
003of the free Ze thank you may be seated Miss Adams would you introduce our second song please thank you very much I'd like to introduce Celeste Loy so Akins and Kiera sweat and they will be singing stand up by Cynthia erivo laid on my shoulders I've been living in my God oh I got eyes in the back of my head just in case I have to run I do what I can when I can while I can't but my people why the clouds over back and the Stars please for the sun begins to shine moving it wasn't separated and on fire with the strength that I got until I die thank you foreign together with me together to a brand new here foreign for you thank you ladies that was beautiful thank you Mrs Adams
004and the entire group for the national anthem as well as the color guard for being here this evening give them another round of applause thank you now I'd like to introduce today's video as you saw as you walked into the conference Hall today the Visual and Performing Arts in Pinellas County Schools provides our students high quality experiences which I can say with absolute affirmation today's video is about the district's ignite choir one of the amazing opportunities for our elementary students so please take a look so the ignite youth choir is a community youth choir for students in third through fifth grade that serves all of Pinellas County Schools so any child in third through fifth grade who is a Pinellas County school student can enroll in either the North County Choir The Mid County Choir
005or the South County Choir and participate in an after-school choral experience and be a part of something bigger than themselves I get to freely sing and lets me better understand that music and learn like how to sing more like professionally it is awesome I mean like I was scared and nervous but then I mean like I found the confident in me I like it so at the ignite youth choir we are definitely aiming to have every Elementary School represented so if you are interested in joining or enrolling please do so do not be shy you can reach out to any of our staff members with questions because we really want to have that access for all and that representation from the entire County thank you so much that's incredible parents don't miss out ignite choir
006gonna get registered now we are going to welcome our public information officer Isabella mascarenas who will introduce our professional committee organizations who are in attendance this evening good evening Madam chair members of the board Mr Hendrick and staff it is my pleasure to introduce the following representatives of community and professional organizations representing the Pinellas educational support professionals Association or pespa we have Nelly henes president from the Pinellas classroom Teachers Association Nancy velardi president from the Pinellas arts for a complete education Coalition we have Sue Castleman present today we have a presentation from the student rights and responsibility committee please welcome students Sophia Acevedo Tyrique Tripp and Cameron Cook from Clearwater High School and their principal Eric Krause thank you hello my name is Cameron Cook I'm in 12th grade and this is my fourth year
007attending Clearwater High School for me the reason I've continued to attend CHS is because of the opportunities the opportunities I mean as a student in the Ace Program are not only able to take challenging classes but also challenge myself and take it as far as I want to with regards to classes I've been able to take a large and balanced amount of AP Ace and advanced courses that not only satisfy High School requirements from Ace literature to AP economics but also consists of electives that I'm passionate about and interested in such as Ace drama and AP music being able to do that in addition to theater cross country and track and choir makes for a challenging but not overwhelming High School experience so here are a few bullet points about Advanced education at our school
008last year Clearwater High received a seed designation seven points away from B from the state of Florida we have a 95 percent graduation rate and an 88 acceleration rate with 98 of the senior class getting at least one college credit this year's senior class is trending above 90 percent for our accelerated curriculum and regarding acceleration among Traditional High Schools we've led the district in this regard for five years our school has embraced the concept of open access for all students to take rigorous courses and as a result not only can all of our students take AP and dual enrollment courses they also have the opportunity to take Ace courses if a student receives their Ace diploma and they have the volunteer hours required they automatically qualify for the Bright Futures scholarship regardless of their act
009or SAT scores we had 593 students who took 1 230 Ace exams in June of 2022 and gave 361 AP tests of our students who participated in the Ace curriculum last year over 70 earned the complete prestigious Ace diploma taking and passing seven tests into three required subject areas again all students at the CHS had the opportunity to take these Advanced courses on their campus and we are extremely proud of our academic accomplishments now here are a few things on the Performing Arts we have at our school our performing arts program such as band chorus and theater continue to excel as they rebound from the pandemic our thespian Society did extremely well at districts and qualified to perform a state all three of our programs look forward to presenting the musical play Anything Goes which
010will be presented the last week in March I've got a lead role of Billy Crocker gotta go both our abandoned course programs will have or had students participating in the Pinellas all-county performances this spring our tornado marching band performed at several competitions and received an overall excellent rating at this year's marching FBA assessment thank you for opening the College and Career Center at our school it is a great resource for our students to learn more about post-high school opportunities and it transcriteria and scholarships we have hosted multiple events in our Center and again thank you for providing this program to our school this year during college application week our school counselors helped over 250 students with their college applications and scholarships finally we are really excited about our school's renovation and rebuild watching the different
011buildings being constructed has been amazing like you go outside at six period and you see this crane with this giant thing coming down but you know sorry Clearwater High School is over 100 years old and we've been in our current location for the last 66 years a big thank you to all of us from our CHS family for your support and thank you for letting the tradition continue good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I am Sophia Azevedo I'm a junior at Clearwater High School and I'm proud to be involved with some of the many extracurriculars that my school has to offer I currently hold the Billet of executive officer of our Marine Corps GRTC program in which I commend our regulation drill team that in late January placed first at the regional level I also started
012our School's First all-girls wrestling team that just finished a very successful first season in which we placed third overall at pcacs and I got to earn District champion next year will be my fourth interest thank you next year will be my fourth and last year attending CHS during this time I'll be applying for the United States military academies with the confidence in knowing that I have the most dedicated and supportive administrative staff behind me with that being said I'd like to discuss some CHS points of pride all of our academies were designated academies of Distinction by the Career Education board through the Pinellas Education Foundation our cake program has also been engaged in a Virtual Enterprise Capstone project in a previously won second place in the nation competing against other schools in their online virtual
013Pho businesses we're excited that our cake program was able to take their seniors on their annual New York City trip last week for the first time in three years and our juniors are excited to travel by train to Savannah this year to visit the financial district ports as well as the maritime and railroad museums the underclass students in the program are able to attend field trips to the Port of Tampa Ybor City and Universal Orlando already this year our ELP has begun in all subject areas and students and teachers are meeting during lunches and after school clubs like the live free Club GSA safe club and others up and running and meeting regularly our Marine Corps JROTC program continues to represent us well at numerous events throughout the district and state we're able to present
014the colors again this year at the annual Pearl Harbor luncheon our Marine Corps GRTC program has again presented the colors for all of our football games this year as well our Marine Corps JROTC academic team Advanced to the second division and will compete in late February hoping to advance to the finals in Washington DC only 710 Navy Marine Corps JROTC Cadets Nationwide out of 90 000 plus Cadets either the department of the Navy's Office of Naval Research Naval stem Horizon scholarship 17 CHS Marine Corps JROTC Cadets are roughly 3 percent of the Nationwide winners came from Clearwater High School these essays Encompass cutting-edge stem topics such as environmental science aerospace engineering Optometry autonomy oceanography all of which are influencing the future operations of the U.S Navy and Marine Corps each winner received a cash word
015of two hundred dollars again I'd like to reiterate that three percent out of all these winners came from Clearwater High School this year 33 of our Marine Corps GRTC Cadets competed in the Iron Bear challenge this featured over 18 units from around the State of Florida our Cadets performed amazingly and were able to capture first in repeat as champions again this year also our Marine Corps JROTC drill team placed second in the most recent competition in Atlanta Georgia where only two thousandths of a point away from first place we will travel to Fredericksburg Virginia this April for the United States Marine Corps Nationals and we look forward to performing at this prestigious event it is obvious that our programs continue to Excel and thank you for your contributed support we are extremely proud of our
016amazing extracurricular opportunities and thank you again for giving us the opportunity to share thank you how everybody doing today my name is tari trip and I'm in the 12th grade I'll be attending Monmouth College and I'm here to give you all the experience of Clearwater High School over the four year hard but working years at Clearwater High School I can truly say I know what it means to be a tornado out of all the years I've been there I could say the whole school has been the best it could be to the community athletes and staff members just to imagine like a real life tornado High brings everything in that's how our staff is they grab the attention of our students and they draw them in and from there it's non-stopping being a student athlete
017I could say that teachers coaches and administrations kept me on track with my goals in life and supported them fully I told my principal Mr Crosby and my counselor Mr Stanford that I want to be known for something and leave my Mark at this amazing place we call Clearwater High School it's hard for me my bad but I can also say that even though with me being a student athlete I'm also a part of 5000 Role Models CHS ambassadors and with that being said the CHS ambassadors meat club we are we will be attending Alabama we'll be attending what else we'll be attending my bad everybody we'll be attending Alabama Memphis Tennessee and Atlanta Georgia and let me tell you something about the CHS ambassadors Group which I'm a part of we the group we
018well part with the NAACP the city of Clearwater and maintain memorialization in the African-American Cemetery located in the school board property in Clearwater most recently our group has been participated in the city of Clearwater MLK breakfast and parade as well as in the sixth annual night at the library in North Greenwood finally our civil rights ambassadors we are excited for our upcoming trip that I was just telling you about which is student-led project-based learning and opportunity like I said we will be visiting Atlanta Birmingham and Memphis in the past CHS ambassadors have been able to meet now President Biden Martin Luther King Jr and Jesse Jackson and Pete my bad boot tag and the late representative John Lewis just to name a few we cannot wait for the trip next week now onto the athletic
019standpoint last year our sports team had come had a combined GPA of a 3.149 and out of 16 of 22 sports teams we had a 3.0 or higher GPA I'm a football player so I would like to share the boys varsity football team has won the mayor Central cup versus Clearwater Countryside High School hashtag we are the best CHS but far as academic at the academic standpoint the staff has done their best jobs to help students understand their goal attack it and stand on top of it that they support the ones that they love to attend college and help out in ways that you wouldn't expect from a staff this year seven of our students received the Clear Water For Youth scholarship this is a this is an award with a combined of fifty five
020thousand dollars and I can truly say I am blessed to be one of those Scholars at the school and athletes I have earned over ten thousand dollars in scholarship money for my for the college that I'm going to I love this stuff oh I love this stuff because when I was just a freshman my counselor Mr Stanford called me into his office and he told me T you're at a 2.1 GPA I know you're better than that and you need more than that to reach the necklace level with me taking in the words of wisdom and he telling what he was telling me I knew the mission I had and got to work I overcame some adversities and if the way that I keep going next quarter I'll be out of 3.1 GPA yeah and
021speaking for Clearwater High Administration they love to see students that were struggling in the beginning understand what it took and be the best as they could be as the staff told me you definitely left your mark and that's what we need coming from the kids behind you thank you and go to NATO's presentation and thank you to the principal of Clearwater High School principal Eric Krauss for joining us this evening before you leave hey Miss hi I just wanted to I just wanted to mention young lady I'm a graduate of the of the United States Naval Academy trained in Quantico with the Marine Corps and served as an officer in our Navy I would be glad to talk with you and any of your classmates and come to your school about the work that you
022do I'm very proud of you and thank you for your commitment to service to our country thank you so much thank you we are going to move to 2.1 possible amendments to the agenda Mr Hendrick are there any recommended amendments to our agenda yes Madam chair there are two 7.13 request approval of the administrative appointment of the director of advanced studies and academic excellence and 7.14 request approval of the administrative appointment of the principal of a Nona Elementary School both were posted last week for the public and the board to consider thank you very much are there any other recommended changes by board members this is my thank you madam chair I would like to pull from item 7.7 it is actually bid number 23963-137 for discussion please and Miss Peters yes thank you I
023would like to pull from 7.7 bid number 23205-141 all right any further changes to the agenda seeing none thank you Mr Henry thank you board members as board chair I find good cause to amend the agenda as described by superintendent Hendrick with the recommendations for 7.13 requesting the approval of the administrative appointment of the director of advanced studies and academic Excellence for 7.14 the request approval of the administrative appointment the principal of anona elementary school as well as pulling from our current agenda as recommended by board member Meyer 7.7 bid number 2396-3137 and recommended by board member Peters also separating 7.7 bid number 23205141 for further discussion may I have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended I have a motion for approved by Mrs Hein and a second by Mrs cook all those
024in favor say aye any opposed none let's the motion carries with a seven zero vote all right and we are moving to special order of agenda number four may I have a motion to approve item 4.1 the presentation of the Proclamation desolating March as youth art month I have a movement a motion to approve by Mrs Meyer and a second by Mrs Edmund Mr Hendrick would you please introduce the item thank you madam chair I'd like to call Pre-K 12 Visual Arts specialist Mr Jonathan Ogle to the podium to talk a little bit about March and the visual arts in Pinellas County Schools good evening Madam chair school board members Mr hendricken staff thank you for taking the time to recognize the value of a quality Visual Arts education for all students in Pinellas County
025Schools through this Proclamation I have several highlights of the visual arts I'd like to share briefly as we get ready to celebrate March's youth art month last Monday the PCS visual arts department held its district-wide training for K-12 Visual Arts teachers at the beautiful Museum of American arts and crafts movement in St Petersburg besides informative and Hands-On Workshop sessions the teachers were given a tour by docents and inspired to continue taking their students on field trips to Art Museums to learn and view the amazing artistic and cultural Treasures right here in Pinellas earlier this month Gibbs High School hosted the 2023 Pinellas County art region of the Scholastic art Awards exhibition reception and recognition ceremony 438 Awards gold keys silver keys and honorable mentions were awarded to over 300 Pinellas County middle and high school
026students gold key awarded work has gone on to be blind adjudicated at the national level students earning national awards will be announced on March 22nd in the last seven years Pinellas has earned 83 National medals a testament to the world-class Visual Arts education that students receive in our classrooms across the district this evening you can see a sampling of some of the amazing Scholastic Art Award winners you can see the workout in the lobby here on easels I've heard from many folks this year that the from parents to art teachers to school leaders to even our art museum and Art Center Partners they've they've said that the artwork on display in their District exhibitions is the best that they've seen and I wholeheartedly agree we're looking forward to a brand new art exhibition a student
027exhibition called the K-8 state of the Digital Arts exhibition that will be at the Lipa Ratner Museum of Art later this spring the original work will be exclusively digital art short film and animations all of which were created by students using referendum purchase Digital Arts labs and creation software we're also looking forward to our second student show called Dynamic Dimensions K-12 exhibition sculpture short film and photography at the James Museum in St Petersburg from April 4th to April 13th a reception will be held on April 12th for students families teachers School leaders and guests last year it was a packed House people were standing all around the outside and sitting to see the show another popular student show coming back this year is called the K-12 exceptional voices exhibit and this is at the studio
0286 20 in St Pete the show will be April 8th until April 28th with a reception for students and families on April 8th we deeply appreciate appreciate the commitment and support of our many art organization partners and of course our school and District leadership finally the visual arts department looks forward to having a live level up virtual enrichment event called painting with pixels for students in grades first through eighth this Thursday March 2nd starting at 6 p.m the focus will be on how to make digital art using PCS connects devices on behalf of the visual arts department and all of our districts K-12 Visual Arts Educators I thank you for supporting this Proclamation read the proclamation yes it's my pleasure to read the proclamation for a youth art month whereas the study and production of
029art leads to Fuller more meaningful life and whereas art education provides substantial educational benefits to all elementary middle and high school students and whereas art education cultivates students creativity develops problem solving and critical thinking skills and brings to life what is learned in other subjects and whereas art education teaches sensitivity and Beauty order and other expressive qualities as well as provides a deeper understanding of many cultures various beliefs and history and whereas our national state and local leaders have acknowledged the necessity of including art experiences in every student's education and whereas our local Art Museum centers and organization Partners work with us to expand opportunities for students to experience and be inspired by artists and cultural Treasures found here in Pinellas and now therefore the school board of Pinellas County does hereby recognize March of
0302023 as youth art month and we encourage all residents to support the art and the youth in our community in their intellectual development through Artistic Endeavors and offer support to our committed Visual Arts Educators signed this 28th day of February 2023. thank you very much is there any discussion from the board seeing then we have a motion by Mrs Meyer in a second by Mrs Edmund to approve item 4.1 the presentation and Proclamation designating March as youth art month all in favor say aye any opposed then the motion carries unanimously thank you so much Mr open thank you may I have a motion to approve item 4.2 presentation of the Proclamation designating March as music in our schools month I have a movement for approval by Mrs long and a second by Mrs Hein Mr
031Hendrick could you please introduce the item thank you madam chair with art we bring the Performing Arts and I ask our Pre-K 12 Performing Arts specialist Mr Jory Spencer to present this proclamation of course good evening everyone evening each March the National Association for music education supports the National Music in our school's month celebration this year's National theme is music is all of us a powerful message that music education should be available to us all music is a unique way of bringing us together it shapes the way our students understand themselves and the world around them nurturing creativity curiosity and self-discovery music is all of us during the month of March we are celebrating the strong music programs that are thriving in Pinellas County Schools Pinellas County school supports and promotes music in our schools
032month in many ways including the following celebrating the completion of the first five of our all-county Music Fest series and I've seen many of you at those thank you for attending choral programs are being featured right now in the Florida vocal associations music performance assessment later this week Orchestra programs will also be featured in their District music performance assessment as a result of referendum funding Pinellas County continues to work to grow Orchestra programs in our secondary and elementary schools band programs will later in March be featured during the Florida band Masters Association District music performance assessments the performing arts department for its own way to celebrate music in our schools month continues to dedicate itself to the furthering of music education understanding that music is crucial as a component to the development of children and
033as part of a complete education thank you for considering this Proclamation thank you Mr Spencer Spencer yes whereas the study of Music contributes to Young people's development through heightened skills and listening reading self-expression and creativity and whereas music education in the schools includes a broad range of types of music and active musical experiences and whereas music and the other art significantly enhance the morale and quality of the school environment and whereas it is the stated objective of the public school to prepare children for productive role in our society and whereas the National Association for music education has designated March as music in our school's month focusing on the theme music is all of us now therefore the school board of Pinellas County does hereby recognize March 2023 as music in our school's month and endorses
034this observance as an opportunity to support the purposes and practices of music education and encourages teachers parents students and all citizens to participate thank you very much for being this morning thank you we have a motion on the floor by Mrs long for the approval of item 4.2 presentation of the designation of March as music in our school's monthly of a second by Mrs Hein all those in favor say aye any opposed none the motion to approve item 4.2 carries unanimously thank you so much next may I have a motion to approve item 4.3 the presentation of the Proclamation designating March 6th through March 10th 2023 as a newspaper and education week a movement from approval by Mrs Hein and a second by Mrs long Mr Hendrick can you please introduce this item thank you
035I'd like to call associate superintendent for teaching and learning Dr Dan Evans to come up and talk about our long-standing partnership with the Tampa Bay Times and newspaper and education week Dr Evans thank you and good evening school board members Mr Hendrick and staff we're pleased to bring forward this Proclamation this evening each year during the first full week in March newspaper and education week is annually celebrated I'm joined today in the audience by Miss Sue bedri Sue could you stand okay come on up soon as the newspaper and education development officer for the Tampa Bay Times and a great partner of our school district the Times newspaper and education program is a Cooperative effort between our schools and the times to encourage the use of newspapers as an educational resource nie serves Educators and
036students throughout the Tampa Bay Region by providing print and digital newspapers teacher guides educator workshops and many resources to classrooms at no cost to our schools to our teachers or to our students during our last school year 21-22 nie served 337 teachers in our district across 137 schools and as part of his teacher recognition program we've had several winners through the years and I'll recognize she's not here with us tonight Seminole High School teacher Elizabeth Crawley because she's been honored twice in recent years in 2018 and 2021 is that right Sue students who learn using the newspaper as an educational resource become lifelong readers and grow up to become more informed and engage citizens we thank sue for being here in the times for its continued partnership and we thank you very much for your
037consideration of this Proclamation thank you Dr Evans and Tempe times Mrs Edmond could you please read the proclamation yes newspaper and education week whereas pardon whereas research demonstrates that the best way to help children discover the joy of reading and become lifelong readers is to involve them early and often and whereas helping a child learn and love to read improves a student's trajectory for success in school and Beyond and whereas research shows that students who learn using the newspaper as an educational resource are more likely to become lifelong readers and informed and engaged citizens and whereas newspaper and education is an international program that encourages the use of the daily newspaper as a living textbook for students from primary through adult education levels and whereas for more than 40 years the Tampa Bay Times newspaper
038and education program has served Educators students and families by providing classroom newspapers companion materials and instructional support and whereas newspaper and education week is commemorated and celebrated annually during the First full school week in March now therefore the school board of Pinellas County does hereby recognize March 6th through 10th 2023 as newspaper and education week and encourage students to read the newspaper daily in school and at home to enhance and enrich their lives sign this 28th day of February 2023. thank you very much is there any discussion from the board seeing none we have a motion on the floor by Mrs Hein and the second by Mrs long to approve item 4.3 the presentation of the Proclamation designated March 6th through the 10th 2023 as newspaper and education week all in favor say aye aye
039any opposed none the motion to approve item 4.3 designating March 6th through 10th as newspaper and education week carries unanimously thank you so much moving forward may I have a motion to approve item 4.4 the presentation of the Proclamation observing National School breakfast week also March 6th through 10 motion I have a motion by Miss Edmond and a second by Mrs Peters Mr Hendrick can you please introduce the item yes thank you madam chair we just talked about food nutrition at our last workshop and I'd like to call up our director of food nutrition Ms Karen uwari who's going to talk to you about our breakfast program so much for allowing us to be here to celebrate National School breakfast week we're so excited for everyone to join us in inviting all of your grandkids
040your kids and your cousins or anyone else who attends Pinellas County Schools to eat breakfast next week and continue to eat breakfast for us because we serve over 4.5 million on breakfasts throughout the year we want to continue to increase that because we understand that not only with reading a good newspaper that a good breakfast goes hand in hand so thank you so much and we would like to invite you to come out we all have our purple shirts which means unity and we dig School breakfasts where we say thank you come out and encourage each and every one of your students and anyone that you know that attends our schools to please come out and help us celebrate National School breakfast week as we continue to feed the students and do well as far
041as their education it goes hand in hand thank you so much thank you so much is there any discussion from the board no thank you I would just like to say thank you and the food and nutrition staff for everything that you are doing to provide high quality meals to children and those who eat breakfast and lunch at our school so thank you're welcome and we will continue to do more to increase the participation to increase the variety of products and just more because guess what our students deserve the best they can have thank you thank you Miss orari for all that you are doing now Mrs long could you read the proclamation whereas today's children are tomorrow's leaders they amaze us with the resiliency and Inspire with us with creativity and optimism and whereas
042Studies have shown that meals provided at school not only contribute to the National needs of students but also significantly increases and enhances their ability to learn and whereas the school breakfast program has served our nation admirably since it was permanently established in 1975 and is dedicated to the health and well-being of our nation's children and whereas there is evidence of continued need for nutrition education and awareness of the value of school nutrition programs now therefore the school board Pinellas County does hereby recognize the week of March 6th through the 10th 2023 as National School breakfast week and encourages all residents to become aware and concerned about their children's and their own nutrition habits in Hope of achieving citizency for citizensry for today and the future signed this 28th day of February 2023. any discussion of
043the board sorry that was the correct place to say that so we have a motion on the floor by Miss Edmond and a second by Miss Peters to approve item 4.4 the presentation of the Proclamation observing National School breakfast week March 6th through 10th 2023 all in favor say aye aye any opposed hearing down the motion to approv item 4.4 recognizing National School breakfast week carries unanimously because we will now hear item 4.5 the recognition of finalists for the 2022-23 teacher of the year recognition program board members we will be going down for the next two items to greet our amazing staff members Mr Hendrick will you please introduce the item thank you madam chair and through our audience very excited tonight to recognize our top 10 finalists and our emerging finalists for teachers of
044the year Mrs Texel our associate superintendent for human resources is going to come up and introduce them but as we await the board to come down I just want to thank the public on February 8th for coming out to Mahaffey Theater it was jam-packed to celebrate the education profession and to celebrate our top 10 finalists they all did a tremendous job I've been in each of their classrooms they're each worthy to be teacher of the year for their school and for our district and we're so happy to celebrate them individually this evening Mrs Texel thank you very much good evening Madam chair school board members Mr Hendrick and staff I am truly honored here to be here tonight to recognize and present to you all our top 10 finalists for Teacher of the Year our
045winner as well as our emerging teacher of the year as well so I also want to thank our professional development department our Communications Department as well as our Pinellas Education Foundation for the work that they did as Mr Hendrick just mentioned putting on such a wonderful event at the Mahaffey Theater just last month and I do know that we are already thinking about next year's event so we don't ever rest on that but I do want to present to you our finalists for Teacher of the Year along with some of the principals or supervisors who are here with them our first finalist is Rebecca Byrne a first grade teacher at Azalea Elementary School thank you Jerry Cantrell science teacher at Seminole High School with his principal Jane Lucas Amber Holmes third grade teacher from Melrose
046Elementary with her assistant principal Jennifer Smith Dana Inga bretson a science teacher from Boca ciega high school with her principal Jennifer Gill Rachel maida PE teacher from Sandy Lane Elementary with her principal Kelly Austin Jacqueline Reyes library media technology specialist from Cypress Woods Elementary with her principal Kim Hill Shelly Sorensen science teacher from Osceola Middle School with her principal Derek Kron Nicole sidlowski Ela teacher from Seminole Middle with her principal Michael Moss Courtney Thompson autism teacher at Nina Harris exceptional student education center her principal is actually in Kentucky with their our national ESC teacher of the year so she is being represented today by Aries superintendent Mr vigyu and our final teacher and our Pinellas County Schools teacher of the year who has already submitted his application for the state teacher of the year or
047program Adam Zales a math teacher Azalea Middle with his principal Susan Alvaro and we are anxiously awaiting to hear our finalists for the state program and look forward to hearing those results as well I also wanted to take a moment and recognize our emerging teachers of the year and this is an award that we started a few years ago to recognize our early career teachers and we have our both our elementary and our secondary Representatives here tonight our elementary emerging teacher of the year Floyd house a fifth grade teacher at lealman Avenue Elementary School with his principal Kim Duffy thank you and our secondary emerging teacher of the year Fawn baldizzi a reading teacher at Tarpon Springs Middle School with her principal Ronald Mason foreign and if we could give all of our teachers one
048more round of applause for the work they do each and every day our second item item 4.6 is a recognition of our semi-finalists and finalists for the 2022-23 support employee of the year recognition we'll give them a moment to come up we did recognize them in a formal ceremony on December 2nd at Feather Sound Country Club where we named our support employee of the year as well and I'll pass it back to Ms Texel to introduce them all right good evening once again and we're going to get right to the to the most important thing which is recognizing our wonderful employees and we really could not run our schools without the wonderful job that not only our support employees that are being recognized here tonight do but all of our support employees throughout our district
049so we are just very proud to have them with us here tonight as you know we have various categories and so I might mention the category along with their either being a finalist or a semi-finalist so in the area of clerical our finalists in that category is Gary Byron our school office clerk two at Focus Diego hi with his principal Once Again Jennifer Gill and in the clerical section as well a semi-finalist Melissa Worthington school office clerk one at Lila David Leela Davis Elementary with her principal Bill Durst in the area Food Service I know we heard from Food Service just a moment ago our finalist is Christina tomorrow nutrition manager 3 at Largo Middle with her assistant principal Miss Roberts thank you another semi-finalist in the area of food service Amanda seidenstecker food and
050nutrition assistant at Frontier Elementary with her principal Gina Owens in a classroom support category semi-finalist Mandy Smolka Braille transcriber and she is with principal Kathy Wicket from cross Bayou in the area of Transportation our finalists in this category is Barbara gray bus driver relief along with her supervisor Kami weeks and our 2022-23 Pinellas County Schools support employee of the year Nicole Martone head plant operator at Richard L Sanders Exceptional Center who also will be moving on to represent our district in the state competition along with her principal you can come on up go ahead Heidi d'ambrosio and once again we do thank all of our support employees for the work they do each and every day and we appreciate being able to recognize you all this evening thank you ask our board to come back
051up and we'll move on to our last item on the recognition agenda thank you Miss textile board members is there any discussion on of our acknowledgment for items 4.5 and 4.6 that we just had magnetically will now hear item seven or 4.7 presentation of the 2021-2022 independent citizens referendum oversight committee icy Rock annual reports the Pinellas County school board and citizens of Pinellas County Mr Hendrick will you please introduce the item thank you madam chair it's my pleasure to call up Dr Dan Evans associate superintendent of teaching and learning as well as Corey Givens who represents coqus as one of our seven members of the icy Rock committee it always bothered me when the superintendent took my thunder when I introduced this item in the past so I'm not going to say much more other
052than to thank our citizens for the referendum and to thank the members of icy Rock who meet each quarter to oversee this process Dr Evans thank you sir and thank you board members Mr Hendrick and staff of course we're pleased to provide this annual report to the board and our community it was in November of 2004. if you can believe that Pinellas County virtuos first approved the referendum to support our public schools and the voters have since renewed that referendum four times most recently as we well know in 2020. the school board established procedures and priorities for spending those funds with 80 percent dedicated to teacher salaries and 20 percent of the funds of support reading the visual arts the Performing Arts and Technology since the referendum's Inception the board established the independent citizens referendum
053oversight committee which we referred to as icy Rock to function as an Advisory Group to the board icy Rock meets quarterly to review referendum expenditures and ensure that initiatives are following the intent of the board and the public icy Rock includes representatives from the Pinellas Economic Development Council concerned Organization for the quality education of black students Coke webs the legal Women Voters Pinellas realtor organization arts for a completed education Pinellas County Council ptas and the Pinellas Education Foundation each year a member of icy Rock presents the annual report to the school board and the public and it's my honor to bring welcome tonight to icy Rock Vice chairman Mr Corey Gibbons Jr thank you Dr Evans to the board Mr Hendricks thank you so much for having us it is my pleasure to present the
054following highlights for our examples of his initiatives supported by this year's referendum excuse me last year's referendum 2021-2022 a total of 37.4 million dollars were allocated in 2021-2022 school year towards recruiting and retaining high quality teachers this is about 5 375 dollars of every teacher's salary which was funded by the referendum this is a 144 dollar increase from the 2020 to 2021 school year over 9.4 million dollars was allocated to support the Arts reading and Technology in the visual arts category every teacher every art teacher excuse me received discretionary funds to purchase classroom materials and hundreds of teachers benefited from enhanced professional development courses the referendum also supported the return of in-person field trips to local art museums and art centers for over 7 000 students some Enrichment Services were also continued through the enrichment
055program referendum Services which were offered for summer art programs and the Performing Arts category 60 Elementary School classrooms receive funding for instruments and Equipment new teachers received enhanced support to ensure successful starts to their careers and high school band uniforms were replaced at two different schools in partnership with the Florida Orchestra funds supported the Florida teaching artists initiative additionally referendum funds also supported All County events and banned course and Orchestra in technology and digital learning the long-term goal of outfitting every classroom with interactive technology through smart boards and other devices has been successful allowing a shift from Hardware to Software referendum funds provided the opportunity for the district to purchase additional software programs to increase student engagement and individualized instruction in addition to providing training as well for teachers in support of reading the referendum
056supported every school with funds the purchase and well-needed materials for their classrooms funds to continue to support targeted programs for grades K through two hundreds of teachers attending training specific to the needs of their students in the state standards and a virtual student literacy Conference was held for secondary students finally reading referendum funds also supported efforts to improve scores on both the Act and the SAT in the 2021-22 school year the charter school allocation was approximately 3.8 million dollars Charter Schools used referendum funds on teacher salaries specialized staff Performing Arts costumes Visual Arts supplies and equipment students stem clubs technology purchases reading programs and act and sat student test prep in closing as we look towards continued referendum implementation I see Rock will remain steadfast in our efforts to provide oversight of these invaluable resources
057and keep the school board in public informed of the district's progress thank you for having us here tonight and I defer any questions to Dr Evans thank you thank you Dr Evans and Mr Givens is there any discussion from the board members thank you very much for bringing this update to us thank you good evening all right we are going to move forward to number five public comments on agenda items members of the public have three separate opportunities to address the school board when we gather for a business meeting the first is public comment on agenda items the second is at public hearings most of which are policies and the last is after our meeting when speakers May address the general business of the district at each opportunity for public input board members are here
058to listen to you this is not a time for interaction but the board will take your comments into consideration before it votes on agenda items the board is committed to a standard of Civility and decorum in conducting our meetings this includes refraining from clapping or making audible noises during or after a speaker's comments We Appreciate You assisting Us in maintaining a civil and constructive environment for all lastly please note that this meeting and all public comments will be broadcast live on the internet and the video will be publicly archived members of the public may always communicate to the board through our email address board pcsb.org or by calling the board office at 588-6300 thank you Mrs Houck are there any speakers for agenda items oh yes Madam chair board members Mr Hendrick we have two
059speakers for agenda items speakers who have signed up to speak to the public hearing will be called at that time the first two speakers are Renee Chia and Mark clutho good evening I'm speaking to agenda item 7.6 the NEC I would like to know who's the responsible party in the district to review this and ensure compliance with hb7 and HB 1557 that's my only comment on that on agenda item 7.7 number 23963137 regarding Avid I've spoken to the board before about my feelings on Avid and I think that this should be reviewed very closely and possibly workshopped which I think it may be in the future and on item 23205141 Civic literacy Excellence initiative I would like to know what fresh new woke hell this is and I mean that in the literary use of
060the term last year after the governor signed hb7 and HB 1557 I was told by this body all the reasons and excuses why you couldn't take a proactive approach to reviewing materials for compliance with the law and the leading excuse being that the Florida Department of Education does the curriculum review for you and you pinky promised to follow finally follow the law at that time in his due course well interestingly we just completed a review of the submitted curriculum for social studies and the results were abysmal I trust the state will take the results and recommended curriculum to the district's the curriculum they move forward to the districts will be in line with the law rather than the abysmal review so what does the Pinellas County Communist Party otherwise known as the district do they
061asked for 250 000 to implement a contract to print their own books and supplemental materials from Xanadu what does a three-second search about Xanadu reveal their commitment to The Bad Touch version of diversity equity and inclusion and their commitment to corporate social responsibility initiatives which is code for we fund the CCP and Global woke agendas you might want to rethink this one unless you're prepared to have every material printed and used by this contract being on continuous pra requests to review for compliance because we will be doing that so thank you more clutho Largo 7.7 strategic Direction effective and efficient use of resources this is for the request of approval of purchasing items in accordance with bid policies and procedures well you know the proofs in the pudding and look at the buildings that we
062get such as that new building up there on the Clearwater High School campus that's effective and efficient not that is squandering resources and for over 20 years I've been here giving examples of how resources have been squandered science ignored as Winston Churchill said we shape our buildings thereafter they shape us and yeah the end result is a study just said climate change is worse than we thought now it said old laddage cause and effect and that leads to 7.8 request approval of the Apprenticeship Training Program agreement with Associated Builders in contract the Strategic Direction is for a career in college readiness not again you're on the wrong track you aren't applying the right science because look again at that Clearwater building thank you we have no other speakers thank you we also have no items
063under unfinished business under six so we're going to move to seven the consent agenda I mean I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended it's an agenda as amended thank you I have movement for approval by Mrs cook for the amended consent agenda and a second by Miss Edmond all those in favor say aye any opposed none the motion to adopt the consent agenda as demanded carries unanimously now may I have a motion to approve the first pulled item item 7.7 bid number 23963137 by Mrs Meyer do I have a motion second I have a motion and a by Mrs cook and a second by Miss Edmond and now for discussion Mrs Meyer would you like to lead the discussion before we do that could they should tell us what page out
064of the 62 yes that number is oh I didn't write that down it's 40. 40. thank you Madam chair fellow board members I wanted to pull this item because first of all I had a number of questions about it and as I was going through and asking questions and I want to also thank Dr Evans for taking my multiple phone calls and kind of walking me through some of this I still have a lot of questions about it and in looking at this professional development Institute through app for through Avid that is held annually over the summer I just have a lot of concerns over the price tag really I mean we're talking a thousand dollars per educator 356 Educators a lot of my questions about who would be in attendance have still not been
065answered whether they have attended before or they're all new and then that brought me further looking into the program itself and while I agree that there's a lot of benefits to the program right career and college readiness organizational skills for our students Cornell note taking binder checks all of these things that do prepare our students for life outside of school this year we've allocated 1.9 million dollars for this program and to me these items and these what this program offers I think are essentially just best practices these are things that we should be doing for all of our students these are things that should be offered to every student in our district not just B and C students or students that qualify for the AVID program and quite frankly I think that you know we
066like Mrs Heinz said at one of our recent meetings our leaders in our district our teachers are the experts and we could put together a program like this within our district we have the tools we have the knowledge this is a program we've had since 2005. again when I asked questions like can you please show me evidence real hard data and statistics that this program has you know benefited our students in a tangible way since 2005. I really I'm only getting anecdotal evidence so the bottom line is I want to see that 1.9 million dollars in the classrooms right with the supplies that our teachers need I want to see though that 1.9 million dollars in the paychecks and in the pockets of our teachers because I think this is a program that we can
067create on our own like we've done in a lot of other instances and I think and I would like to see us in the essence of effective and efficient use of resources that we table this we Workshop this and we talk about this as a board before we move forward with this program Miss Peters thank you madam chair fellow board members I also had many questions about this as well so thank you for for pulling this thank you Dr Evans and also Mr Smith for the questions that I also asked and had answered so I Echo everything that miss Meyer has said I have the same concerns and also confidence in our district we have been Avatar in 2005 so that's 18 years of that we have been implementing these strategies into our schools and
068to you know starting in just one School in 2005 so we've been implementing and expanding the programs and in asking Financial questions and so on so forth as well I really believe that our district you know we live up to where we have the advantage of having actually I have a question I don't know if this can be answered here or not but do we know if avid's students who are enrolled in the AVID program are taking Avid courses when they go to fill out their college and career career Readiness applications do they have any advantage over other students who are enrolled in AP courses when they fill out those applications is there something to some benefit to a student who's filling out the application and has Avid AP or or college courses versus a
069student that has taken a conventional student who has taken APR college courses is there is there a spot on an application for that when they're filling that out I would say every College treats that differently so certainly Advanced coursework is supportive of that but colleges have a number of factors that come into play so to say that Avid or band or another one it would depend on the college okay thank you and Okay so with we have let's see sorry about that so we have several programs in place already in our school district one that is actually new this year but we have students that are in the Bridging the Gap plan and I did notice in one of the surveys that was sent in regards to another board member's question in an email so
070I'm so sorry public we were able to email questions to our different departments and then they send us all the questions and all the answers right before the board meeting so one of the questions basically asked what you know measurable outcomes were so in in one of the surveys provided that was provided with measurable outcomes they did a survey where they screened several students that were in Palm Beach County that were enrolled in the AVID program versus conventional students it did the survey didn't state if they were AP students or just regular conventional students so that was one Nuance that I would like to see in a little bit more detail on but I did notice that 79 of the students that were involved in the program in Palm Beach in the AVID program in
071Palm Beach were on the free and release lunch program I don't know if we have a similar percentage of avid enrolled students enrolled of students enrolled in the AVID program that are also on the free and reduced lunch program if that's yes disproportionate number of students I mean Avid the elect of course and I can speak a little bit more when you're done but the elective portion definitely works with students who are in the academic middle right who typically have their parents have not gone to college and so it's preparing them to take these courses to go to college for the first time and so there is a disproportionate number of students who have free reduced lunch okay and so with that I would it be reasonable to to Guess that a lot of these
072students are also in the Bridging the Gap plan these same students that enrolled in Avid that are on the free reduced lunch program are they also falling in the Bridging the Gap program some but not all okay okay so we do have the Bridging the Gap plan we have Naviance edocs we have a newly implemented position in all of our high schools now of the College and Career Readiness school coordinator which if I understand correctly is also in every single high school in Pinellas County District that's correct okay and then when I looked at I'm just making sure I understand everything when I looked at the job available the available careers for Pinellas County Schools which there are a lot so I encourage the public to also do the same thing and consider working for
073our district I did not see any open positions for that particular position so I can assume that they're full that's correct wow that's awesome all right so now we have we have that position in place in every single high school we have option other tools that we use to help ensure that our students are College and Career ready we have amazing staff aside from you know that particular coordinator position and I think I agree with Miss Meyer that we are at a point now where we can take that 18 years of experience we have proven within our district that we have improved graduation rates we have so many things that we have implemented within our own District that are unique to our district and I would like to also see that money go to and
074we also do provide make our own professional development for our teachers as well in some cases so I would like to see us do that for our district in place of AVID for or at least up for discussion I don't know all the you know all the details obviously but I have confidence that our district could do that and that we can help craft that in a way that will once again show that Pinellas County district is a leader in not just the State of Florida but in our country so we just wouldn't have the Avid brand name potentially on things but I don't think I mean unless there's something that I'm not aware of I think that's something that we could certainly accomplish and at a fraction of the cost thank you Miss Cook
075did you speak so would you like to go first sure if you don't mind thank you madam chair just a few things first just about Avid in general and then we can speak to this item in particular first of all when you implement Abbott in a school you're not implementing the course so every student in the school benefits from Avid so there are systems leadership instruction culture that are the focus of each and every Avid training and so you build systems in your school to support students for College and Career Readiness you build instructional strategies across the curriculum so not just in the Abbott elective but in every course a student takes they're getting the benefit of those instructional strategies You're Building leadership skills so that leaders understand how to implement College and Career ready
076systems across their campus and learn from others to do so and then you're building a culture of success in so doing so when you implement Avid in a school it's not about an elective for a handful of students it's about a system for all students in 2005 when Pinellas County Schools began implementing Avid it was one teacher in one school and it's grown to every secondary school so this particular item is actually as part of our district strategic plan number 5.3 that the boards previously approved was to direct the district to implement Abbott in all secondary schools that requires training of our teachers on an annual basis not every teacher every year but new teachers to the program or in particular new teachers to advance coursework how this program is funded is through the F
077weighted FTE that comes in when students pass those Advanced courses so when you put new students into advanced placement into IB into Ace into dual enrollment for the first time they need support and so that training gives the teacher themselves the support within the class but then the Abbott elective gives the opportunity for students to get additional support in the Avid elective that then generates the FTE which then allows us to do this training if you go back to 2005 or if you look today we have over for example 22 000 college credits earned by our students last year if we go back to 2005 that number is probably about five thousand so the additional benefit of FTE which is 0.16 FTE on every one of those college courses is reinvested into teachers and to
078students for professional learning in order to make this happen in the elementary schools right now we have 25 elementary schools implementing Avid that's not even a quarter or a little bit over a quarter in between that and a third of our elementary schools that program is only school-wide there is no elective course it's all students in every single school it is as you mentioned Mrs Peters part of our Bridging the Gap plan and a key strategy to do that and so I move recommendation of this item to the board and would fully support the implementation of avid in our schools let's go you know just as we all know that you don't wait for high school to start talking about preparing children for college the same thing happens with Avid and so giving them the
079organizational skills so that they can be successful when they get into middle school and high school and starting in the elementary school and moving forward is something that I would support I've been in several of the classrooms that have had it there are students if you ask them has anybody in your family gone to college and they'll say no and there they ask a lot of questions about college this motivates them now will they go into a career instead possibly but they will have the study skills that are necessary they will have the organizational skills no matter what they get into any kind of job they're going to need organizational skills and I have I have seen seen the program expand and been very pleased with the outcomes and the things that teachers and principals
080are saying about the students that have gone through this the other piece is we are we have National notoriety with this because we are demonstration sites and people from all over the country come and see what we're doing in our Avid programs I don't want this watered down because we decide to penelicize things we have done that in the past and we've lost some really good some good pieces that make programs successful let's just put it that way so I would support keeping the AVID program wholeheartedly and would vote in favor of it sedman thank you Don into the questions that were presented Hendrick for giving a lot of detail about the importance and how the district has used Avid when I worked at Woodlawn Elementary we used Avid and those the skill sets and
081techniques and strategies that students learned at an elementary level will help them continue as they go to middle school and high school and most recently I had the opportunity to go to Tarpon Springs which also is implementing the Avid strategies and have has plans of making it more school-wide I again support this and I think it's crucial and critical to the development of our students in our investment in our teachers is investments in our students thank you Miss Lowell thank you I remember when Avid was introduced in 2005 I was a teacher and the year it came it came out one teacher was trained but they came back to the school and started showing us the different parts of avid and how we can use it in our classroom I saw students get more engaged
082they were excited they were loot they were learning a skill that probably were never they never saw at home let alone in the classroom it really helps students you know I didn't know how to do Cornell notes before that because back in the dinosaur days they didn't teach it in college but Avid I've seen it work I travel accounting I know at Osceola Middle Avid is just amazing what they're doing and I support this purchase I'd like to make a comment before I come back to Mrs Meyer this program I will we've heard from the teachers we've heard from other board members and while this may be anecdotal I'm a parent of two children who've been through Avid and I've seen the effects that has had on their academic success and the systems and the
083management strategies that are utilized in Avid while we model those in our home having them reiterated by teachers by staff and by school officials has only furthered and helped my own children to achieve a better academic success and so while I've seen it personally in my home how these academic opportunities have helped I fully support the district reaching out to continue to grow in our model of systems management to grow with what what is happening and changing in our world and I think we need to continue to reach out to other organizations to Other Well organized and successful organizations so that we are making sure that the students who graduate our schools are ready for the competitiveness of the business world the competitiveness of the college world and how things change over time and it's
084these kind of connections and these kind of opportunities that help us to continue to be on the edge of what is happening now and not what has happened in the past but continuing to keep our students relevant so that when they apply for colleges they are ahead of the game and they are ready to go and they're ready by 11th grade and so I fully support this program for academic achievement as I have seen personally at home what is done for my children and for friends of theirs and families that I've I've seen and known through the years and some I think to your point is it something we could do for potentially less money I think that's where we would have to look at that and potentially in the future that's something we could
085look at but it may in fact cost as much or more in order to do a program such as this in our own district and to start it from the ground level up without the correct training and trainers and models of achievement we would have to create all of that which could in fact cost more money than what we're asking for this training currently also I think that would take an incredible amount of time and not something that we could turn around and Implement in six months so with that I'd be interested to hear potentially more information in the future but as of now for this particular agenda item I think it's important for our district to continue to move it forward and so I'm going to go ahead Mrs Meyer had her hand at
086the second time thank you madam chair I wanted to make one more point because I want to clarify first of all that I'm not saying right now let's make this decision let's to not have avids Okay because I think I did point out that there are multiple good things that I have seen that I think are great for our students and they do prepare them for College and Career Readiness my question is really more on this agenda item one of the things I didn't mention is that there is a training that is put on by Avid that is done for particularly for leadership it is 199 dollars per person versus a thousand someone I think just made a comment Mrs long I think it was you made a comment about how that one that one
087teacher came back and trained the whole school I am trying to be fiscally responsible and 356 thousand dollars is a lot of money and so I'm not saying let's today not have Avid I absolutely you know that was kind of a Down the Road let's Workshop it let's talk about it but what I am saying is I think that there's potentially a better way to make sure that this training happens this summer and maybe we send all of our principals and assistant principals for the leadership and then they can bring back those strategies and Implement them into their schools and also tailor them to the needs of their students because we know that all of our schools are different so I mean in the in our strategic plan our strategic direction is effective and efficient
088use of resources and I want to see us do that more often without taking things away from our students Miss Peters you had your hand again yes thank you madam chair I actually have a question I think probably for Mr Smith in the budget status summary I see a balance of zero three zero zero that you sent me the purchase service for it yes sir it says balance amount for 495 821.89 is this coming out of that amount is this 356 000 250 000 coming out of that amount where is it coming from on this sorry the request that you gave to me earlier today was for last year's budget which is the 20 122 school year that amount would have been a budget balance that was left over at the end of the year
089and I would have carried forward into this year so that would become part of the base budget for this year and yes that would that 359 000 or so would come from that budget so that item is already accounted for and we've already budgeted for it is at this point for this training okay it wouldn't be reflected on that because that was last for school okay I see thank you okay so I also I don't want to take anything away from our teachers and students either I'm trying to I see a lot of money being spent on a program that I just I want to make sure I understand I want to make sure we're looking at it with a new set of eyes with with the things that we have implemented in our schools
090the amazing people that do work in our schools our teachers and staff and I just have confidence that they these things should be being implemented anyway all of these skills and these that they're learning I would just need to see I'm also not advocating for you know not not for stopping Abbott that's not what I'm going for here but I just think that we need to be looking at it with kind of a new a new set of eyes again based on what we have already achieved in our district and the potential that we have within the staff that we have in our schools if we're already implementing these practices as we should be then I just think that we need to to take another look at it thank you it was long okay as
091school board members we have to look at public opinion we have to especially listen to our parents and our teachers and then our administrators yes some children need a whole lot more than others this program and the techniques that we're learning they help all teachers yes kids are benefiting but teachers are putting more Tools in their toolbox and as we you know we're moving to a time where instruction is almost personalized in our lesson plans we have to show what we are doing different for each child this is one successful program that I've heard from teachers helps them and that as a school board is what we should be looking for what is best for all let me repeat that all students the extremely gifted the average student and the students that are struggling because
092if students don't get an education it's you the taxpayers including me that are going to have to support these kids if they can't get a job we don't want that for our County we want our children every single one and as a teacher you don't ask who students as they come through the door whoever walks through your door I don't care the color I don't care what the parents you know their political views you accept every single child and you work your tail off to help those children I didn't teach for 37 years and know that was the number one thing who ever walked through my door I accepted those children I learned to build a relationship with them and love them and give them every single ounce I had to help them and that
093should be our mission just a reminder to the audience members that as a chair I already noted there are no audible noises thank you so that we not only can have efficient debate up here but when speakers come they can have their time as well thank you and thank you Mrs long as an educator myself I agree I absolutely agree what we do here is important work and I would like to put emotion forward for us to can I do that at the moment we already have that can we can we because this doesn't have to be decided until I believe I looked at the deadline I believe it was just before May 1st can we come back to this at our next Workshop can we talk about this in leadership and look at this
094as a board before we make this decision Madam chair yes yeah yeah that's right I just want to clarify that right now they're the main motion is on the floor to approve the item as recommended by the superintendent a board member could make one of a variety of motions at this point including a motion to postpone okay so that's one that I know the board has done in the past a motion to postpone either to a date certain or to postpone indefinitely and that is just a simple motion can be debated needs a second and then we would handle that it would need to be voted upon a simple majority would pass that motion and then you would move on to the other main motion so Mrs Meyer you may make a motion to postpone
095it if you would like and I think we all you know have I think we there's a lot of things that we all agree on on this agenda item and so I would ask for a motion to wait to vote on this item because we have time where we can talk about it together you know in the sunshine at our next board our next Workshop which is next week the emotion to that would be a motion to postpone just to postpone until next week okay so I have a motion to postpone this agenda item for the workshop do I have a sec we have a second by Miss Peters all those in favor say aye aye all opposed the motion fails with a two to five vote two two four and five a post and
096moving back to the original agenda item we had a motion on the floor by Mrs cook to approve this bid number from 7.7 and a second by Miss Edmond all those in favor of approving the item say aye aye and a post no and two opposed so the motion carries with a five five in a grandson to a post for agenda item 7.7 bid number two three nine six three one three seven it carries thank you and now we're going to go to the second pulled agenda item which is 7.7 bid number two three two zero five one four one this is on page 44 if you are looking at the agenda packet and Miss Peters I'm gonna send it to you to open the or I'm sorry I need a motion to hear the
097full agenda item so I have a motion for this we have a movement by approval by Miss Cook and a second by Miss Edmond and now I'll hand it over to Ms Peters thank you madam chair so I just have what I think is probably an easy question I hope it's an easy question this is a bid for us to print for 250 000 fifty dollars to print some Civics curriculum for 9th through twelfth grade when will the board see the curriculum when will the curriculum come before the board for us to approve it I see that we're getting approval to print it when will we see the actual curriculum Madam chair so the materials for K through 12 not just 9 through 12 and just for some background this is a grant from the
098Florida Department of Education a Civic literacy Excellence Grant which was given in December of 21 it will expire in September of 23. it's part of the Esser ARP and so the Department of Education has passed down these funds to us and our job is to purchase funds off of a list that they've already provided and that's the customized piece that we're asking for approval on so in terms of what are those topics I can call it Mr Matt bloom or Dr Dan Evans to speak to the list and where we can find that list but essentially it's in an expansion of the list that they've already provided to us this is Mr Edmonds thank you all we appreciate it join joined by our excellent 612 I search study specialist Mr Matt Bloom and we are
099committed to building as best we can a world-class Civic literacy curriculum and this is part of that effort but to be specific in to the question I'll turn over to Matt so we can really understand what we're looking to purchase or to print really ultimately which are primary source documents aligned to the expectations of the state Civic literacy standards Matt do you want to add to that good afternoon so a little bit of history since I'm a social studies teacher in 2019 the governor signed into law HB 807 which was a standards review for civics and government and that called for that review ended up calling for a revision of our standards which goes into effect in the 23-24 school year so next year as part of the governor's Civic Excellence initiative there was a
100number of facets to that included Civic literacy coaches and captains at the state level the recently released Civic seal of Excellence endorsement course along with a number of other things that included grant money for districts to be able to enhance their Civics and government curriculum in light of these new academic standards that schools will be implementing and so what we're bringing forward to you is something that we had previously sent to the doe as a proposal to ensure that we were in alignment with the expectations of both the Grant and of the of the new standards and so we received that approval to move forward and share this with you all when will you see the curriculum it's going to be built out from primary sources so it's not something that we are buying as
101a package that's one of the nice things about this particular organization is that we get to customize what we are actually going to purchase and put in place to support our teachers in their instruction of the Civics and government standards and so from a high school lens what we're building is a Civic literacy reader that will contain primary sources that we've excerpted to be able to Target specifically the new Civics and government benchmarks and their align clarifications so something like excerpts from the Republic by Plato so that we can Target student learning directly to ideas on republicanism or we might look at something on natural law and separation of powers by reviewing excerpts from the commentaries of law by William Blackstone to the second trees the government by John Locke and what we're really aiming
102for and something that has been as I've engaged in the Civic seal of Excellence endorsement course is a deep understanding of core documents that influenced our Founders ideals and influenced our founding documents so we'll be able to use these primary sources to further develop students historical thinking and historical talking skills by reading these documents firsthand like a historian would with the ultimate goal of them engaging authentically in these core texts and deeply understanding those principles throughout the course or courses you can add one more thing to that conversation is that this company is ultimately a print it was going to just print and provide for us the materials that we just described so we could clean copies they also have a copyright so they can get us clean copies of these documents so they're easy
103for our kids to access and use but it is a primary source resource for us as Matt described so what are we printing is it just a list of primary sources or you go ahead so specifically for high school what we'll be doing if you if you look at the purchase for that there's really not a lot of money in physical printing we'll be printing a master copy of this Civic literacy reader for the high school teachers to have so that they can make clean copies from and engage students in text marking and things like that so there's only two thousand dollars of that are that are of this purchase for that purpose what we'll be doing with their system is controlling the edit and the building and the addition of the primary sources they'll
104have some Xanadu has some of these documents already there but we get to customize the types of questions for reflection or discussion that we want to ask teachers so we're really building this with our new standards in mind for the benefit of engaging students deeply in this content so it's not like we're buying something that's already pre-packaged that we just have to take as is we get the chance to build it and look at that and give the input on what we really want to see to ensure that a hundred percent of the resources that make up this it'll eventually become they call it a book but in in for our practical purposes moving forward because we'll own this in perpetuity it'll be essentially a PDF or a series of PDFs that our teachers would
105have access to to design lessons for okay and so I'll ask me a different way when do we get to when does the board get to see this material that you're that you're going to be using for this well again we will we are sourcing the materials so we have ownership of the materials that we're selecting we're selecting materials that would be aligned to what the state has already provided for and allowed for the primary source documents that Matt's referencing are well articulated within the state doe benchmarks and guidelines and so we will be following those so we would procure those those materials specific to that list we wouldn't be looking to procure materials outside of those that's the scope of what is in the standards and what's on the state list is that correct
106Matt yes I think she was asking is when when will those materials be compiled and completed the timeline review yes the timeline you want to speak to that so if this is approved then we'll begin working in March and then obviously the goal is to have this ready and available for teachers if not over the summer for for professional development purposes to ensure that they that those teachers understand how to implement these materials it would certainly be before the beginning of the next school year is when we're looking to have this all complete okay yes okay thank you and so this would be then implemented for the 23-24 school year correct so okay well I look forward to seeing all of that work thank you thank you is there any further discussion on bid number
10723205141 seeing then I misspoke a moment ago so just a correction for the minutes this was a motion to approve bid number two three two zero five one four one is that correct Miss Cook yes and the second by Miss Edmond yes and that was to approve it I said it was for the discussion but it is for the approval of the bid item and I want to correct that for the minutes with that we have a movement for approval by Miss cook in a second by Miss Edmond to approve bin number 7.7 or sorry agenda item 7.7 bid number two three two zero five one four one all in favor say aye any opposed hearing none the motion passes unanimously and bid number 7.7 bid number two three two zero five one four one
108is approved unanimously I think that concludes number seven we are going to move to non-consent at this point movie first item is 8.1 the public hearing to receive public comment on the recommended instructional materials for the school year 2023-2024 there is and Mr Hendrick will you please introduce the item thank you madam chair as you talked about earlier one of the opportunities for the public to hear about what's happening in the district is when we adopt materials so tonight we're bringing for the public hearing the adoption of English language arts materials for grades three four and five we previously did the adoption for grades K through 2 and 6 through 12 last school year so I've called Dr Dan Evans up again to introduce this and Megan Frye who's our coordinator of instructional materials is
109here and Mr Mike Feeney who oversees our elementary curriculum is here as well in case there are questions Dr Evans thank you board members Mr Hendrick and staff yes we are pleased to bring forward the English language arts three to five instructional materials for consideration and for the opportunity for public comment as you know it's the responsibility of the Pinellas County school board to adopt and provide adequate instructional materials to all our students in the district as mandated by Florida statute a hearing is required to receive public comment prior to board approval public access to the recommended materials must be provided 20 days prior to the scheduled public hearing this hearing here tonight online access was made available to the public on February 3rd and we will extend the opportunity for public review on our
110website through March 7th which is beyond the required 20 days the instruction materials are posted as I mentioned on our district website for the Publix review just a reminder to the board that and to our community that we have new state standards that have been recently implemented the state best standards for ELA and we are required to purchase materials that align to those standards as a district we've been preparing preparing for the release of the new state standards for several years now so just to give us a little bit of historical context in 2018-19 if I can take us back a couple years in anticipation of the release of the new state standards the district conducted a curriculum audit of our Ela English language arts reading materials at that time and feedback from that audit
111from the external auditor and our internal feedback from our teachers was for a more enhanced writing centered curriculum in our early grades more foundational literacy skill development was an Ask of that audit and more student consumable materials fast forwarded to 2000 2021 we went through the formal adoption process at that time we formed our review committees and considered a variety of ela materials from the state adopted providers and giving their input our schools voted for their preference and a clear majority of schools at that time asked us to move forward with a customized curriculum in alignment with the audit findings in 2021-22 which have been last year the board approved the purchase of and the contract with PCG public Consulting Group which is a state approved provider and move forward with the development and approval
112of the first of these materials which would have been the K2 materials at this time last year after public review and feedback the board approved the K2 materials right around this time last year it was in February of last year so now as we head into this school year we are beginning the implement the implementation and the assessment for the first time of the best Ela standard the state standards for grades three to five so in doing so we have developed the materials before you today in collaboration with our textbook provider our district grade level experts in ela and reading and of course our teacher grade level teams have been great Assets in the development of these materials these teams have worked tirelessly to create revise and improve the materials through an ongoing feedback process
113that we went through with the board at a recent Workshop to that end I want to thank our elementary education division Mr Mike Feeney and his team for their great work Miss Megan Frye who's been introduced our program coordinator for instructional materials for her great work as well and most especially to our dedicated teachers who have worked with us to make these materials so it's so outstanding after tonight's public hearing we expect to move forward with board approval next month per our timeline and we thank you again for your consideration tonight Sprite thank you well there is no vote for this item this evening but rather as an opportunity to hear from the public as described as a reminder as we begin the public hearing opportunity board members are here to listen this is not
114a time for interaction but the board will take your comments into consideration before it votes on these agenda items the board is committed to a standard of Civility and decorum and conducting our meetings and this includes refraining from clapping or making audible noises during or after a speaker's comments out of respect for not only the speaker and their time but for all the other speakers here this evening so we ask and we thank you for your respect in advance We Appreciate You assisting Us in maintaining this civil and constructive environment Mrs Houck are there any speakers for this public hearing yes Madam chair we have three speakers for this item the first two are Mark clutho and Anna Breedlove Mark Luther Largo I'm going to be brief but I think that for these youngsters I
115believe you should lean to a woke agenda get them on the right path Anna Breedlove the next speaker is Dr Christy Faust Dr Christy Faust hi there so yeah I am Dr Christy Faust I am a former high school teacher in Pinellas County Schools and on on this topic I just want to say Once Upon a Time Pinellas County Schools hired me so you do a pretty good job of that you hire experts in your field you hire really qualified education professionals and as far as adopting this curriculum I fully support the decision of the district and the recommendation made by the district to adopt these materials I also support any resources that uplift the humanity of all people all students All Families and resources that embrace the lives and contributions of the black community
116and the LGBT lgbtq community so yes fully support adopting these and trust your trusty experts that you hired for this purpose thanks so much Madam chair there are no more speakers for this item so you know more speakers is there any discussion by the board members nope we're going to conclude that portion of the meeting next may I have a motion to approve item 8.2 the approval of the settlement Proposal with Jewel Inc and jewel-related defendants in The Vaping litigation movement for approval by Mrs Edmund and a second by Mrs cook Mr Hendrick Lee please introduce the item thank you madam chair as you know you've been in you've heard in a workshop many years ago about vaping in this litigation but it continues to be an issue in our schools but this particular settlement
117I'm going to pass to Mr kapersky for some background on this and this final settlement thank you Mr Hendrick Madam chair and board members you have in front of you a request of approval the tentative settlement involving a multi-district litigation related to vaping and electronic cigarettes so as superintendent Hendrick said in 2020 the school board voted to join what is known as a multi-district litigation it's a legal term it's sort of like a class action case but instead of a class action case with one lawsuit and many members of the Class A multi-district litigation are many different lawsuits with usually just one or two plaintiffs in each case but all of those cases are heard by one judge and they're Consolidated and the judge and the steering Committees of the plaintiff's attorneys and the defense
118Council the goal is to try to seek an appropriate settlement and usually there is one or more Bellwether trials so that the parties can determine what a jury would do with these various cases and in fact in this case which is venued out in California there was a Bellwether trial and there was a return by a jury of a multi-million dollar verdict and that I believe helped push the defendants along into the settlement negotiations and so this board as I said in 2020 had hired plaintiff's attorneys who we normally do not work with but who are located out in Kansas City and then our local Council if you want to call it local is out of Orlando Florida so in this case there were 1461 school districts around the country that each filed individual lawsuits
119in this one Court in addition there were other educational agencies around the country and then a few dozen counties and cities but you may also have read in recent months there was also a state 's took action the Attorneys General against Jewell Altria and other related corporate entities relating to the vaping epidemic in their in their states but this one is primarily specifically related to Public Schools and so the plaintiff's councils and the defense Council have been negotiating for close to a year on a settlement informed greatly by the Bellwether trial that occurred and came back with a jury verdict and based upon a formula that was used depending upon how many students you have when you filed the lawsuit what states you were in how many of your schools were high school middle or
120Elementary the formula came down for Pinellas County Schools to be offered a settlement in the amount of three million one hundred ninety six thousand seven hundred sixty one dollars in a gross amount after attorney's fees which we took the case on a contingency fee basis with no cost out of pocket plus we had many costs of the litigation that we needed to share in the reimbursement of of the plaintiff's attorneys we recouped about 68 of that as a net return so we stand to gain a net value of approximately 2 million one hundred seventy four thousand dollars and so each individual plaintiff needs to take a vote on whether they accept this settlement if you reject the settlement then we remain in a litigation and we would be heading towards a jury trial most likely
121in 2024 sometime because that jury trial and the result of it is uncertain as in is any litigation plus the fact that we would have additional costs and staff time and resources needed to get dedicated towards that jury trial and a few other reasons listed in the agenda item it is my recommendation as your Council that we accept this settlement proposal I would note that we even if we accept it this only relates to Jewel Labs Inc Jewel Inc and some other Jewel related defendants there are still other defendants in the case and so you may see in the future additional funds coming as a settlement from those so we will still remain in the litigation but we will be settled with the primary defendants thank you we have a discussion from Miss Hein thank
122you and thank you Mr kapersky for your explanation tonight and also your explanation at our workshop last week all the documents that you've provided and answers you've questioned on this thank you I do support us taking this settlement in this case and I'm happy to answer any questions to that effect I do want to take the opportunity to ask our community to support our children throughout the county in this epidemic when it comes to vaping across our community our schools are doing everything they can everything they can I mean you can imagine what smoking in the bathroom was like right many many years ago that was what teachers were facing this is very different if you've ever seen these vaping cartridges Etc the way that they innovate and modernize them so that they can be
123hidden all those kinds of things as well as additional drugs aside from nicotine so this is an issue that we all as a community including our County Public Health Department our Board of County Commissioners State Health Department Etc we need a massive public information campaign and we need families is everybody involved in trying to cut this epidemic for our children so I ask for your help I thank our teachers for the work that they do every day trying to curb this it's tough so thank you for that help thank you well said very well said we have a motion on the floor by Miss Edmond in a second by Miss Cook to approve item 8.2 the approval of the settlement Proposal with Jewel and Jewel related defendants and vaping litigation all in favor say aye
124aye any opposed seeing none the motion carries unanimously 8.2 carries enormously thank you very much moving to new business we have any items introduced by the superintendent Mr Hendrick yes Madam chair I wanted to First tonight we heard a little bit from our Clearwater High School students about Athletics and it's the end of the winter sports season and I wanted to congratulate some of our teams and wish some best of luck who are still playing so first our Palm Harbor girls and East Lake boys won our pcac soccer titles those are the Pinellas County Athletic Conference and the Palm Harbor girls team Advanced to the State final four for their only loss of the year in penalty kicks in overtime I was a rough loss to Boca Raton High School I want to congratulate on
125basketball Clearwater High School's girls and St Petersburg High School's boys teams on winning the pcac titles the Clearwater girls team Advanced all the way to the final four in Lakeland last week and lost in the final four and then I want to wish best of luck Thursday to two of our boys teams Gibbs High School Advanced to the final four by beating Kissimmee Gateway and they will take on Modern Lakes Academy from Miami at 10 A.M in Lakeland and then St Petersburg High School will play at 4 pm they defeated Naples Baron Collier and they'll take on Daytona Beach Mainland at four o'clock on Thursday so it's a Pinellas County Schools Takeover in Lakeland on Thursday go out and support our boys as they try to pursue the state championship it was mentioned that we
126have some individual students boys and girls going to the state championships for wrestling I want to congratulate our Palm Harbor University boys team in broca ciega high school girls teams for winning the pcac Championships and in Middle School our Middle School track season is underway our North Central and South championships are coming up next week and the county-wide championship is March 22nd and our first ever county-wide flag football season for both boys and girls starts on March 27th so we're excited about those Pinellas County Schools will begin our accreditation process our re-accreditation in the 23-24 school year Pinellas County Schools was first accredited district-wide in 2015 prior to that each individual High School sought their own individual accreditation and as a former High School principal I can tell you that everyone rejoiced when we went
127district-wide and did it as a full District instead of 17 times individually since 2015 the district has remained in good standing with what was then Advanced at is now known as cognia and in 2020 our accreditation was renewed for four years without formal review our formal review is coming up in 2024 and we'll be preparing those materials this year and engaging the board and the community in that accreditation process last week we hosted the superintendent's Roundtable I want to thank the Pinellas Education Foundation for supporting that and especially Pinellas Park Middle School for opening up their doors to Business Leaders from across our district who came and saw a couple of programs in action our Innovation Foundation science curriculum as well as the tb12 health and fitness curriculum student ambassadors from Pinellas Park Middle School
128led the community through we had about 50 attendees it was great great and I wanted to thank the Education Foundation of Pinellas Park Middle for showing off the best of our students recently the Pinellas school counselor Association recognized elementary middle and high school counselors with their counselors of the Year designations this year's winner selected by their peers across the district were for Elementary from Perkins Elementary Kimberly stickles for Middle School from Oak Grove Middle Caitlin pellen and for high school from Eastlake High School Kaylee bordenkercher congratulations on those High honors our early childhood education team has been out in the community working to enroll students in pre-k for next year it's not too late for families to enroll they were recently at the Tampa Bay collard green Festival on February 18th with a community organization
129Thrive by five to help enroll more families in VPK the festival took place near the Carter G Woodson African-American Museum and was held in cooperation with the Jordan Park Community I want to thank our team for being out there and continuing to have folks in enroll in VPK for next year and as I mentioned you can enroll on our website we conclude Black History Month today the last day of February and it's been my pleasure to visit our schools across the district this month and see great activities in action in our schools I want to thank the Clearwater library system and the City of Clearwater for a great event last Friday night that they invited me to serve as the keynote speaker on the experiences of segregation and desegregation and integration of schools in Pinellas
130County and in particular was highlighted Pinellas High School in Clearwater which closed in 1968 with integration it was a great time to see the members of Pinellas High School graduating classes and one of the speakers was retired Pinellas County Schools administrator Ed Baldwin who shared his story on integration we've had lots it was mentioned earlier by Mr Spencer five all-county music performances I've seen the board at almost all of them and I want to celebrate the Arts this month and look forward to the last couple of Performing Arts All County events including guitar and Jazz coming up in the next couple of weeks it is celebrate the Arts month and I want to thank the arts for complete education who are here tonight I know you're hosting a breakfast for our principals coming up in
131a week we look forward to that as well all of those performances by the way are live streamed on our website and available for parents grandparents and others to see afterwards but judging at the audiences a lot of them saw it in person coming up on March 2nd this Thursday is read Across America day we've been doing that for many many years and I know board members participate in that as well I remember several years ago showing up at Sandy Lane to read and saw one of our board members in full Dr Seuss outfit with her children Mrs Kane so I'm looking forward to seeing you out and about here on Thursday coming up this Saturday is a free FAFSA event the free application for federal student aid which is required to get any kind
132of college scholarship our students this year with our college career centers are already ahead have already filled out more FAFSA forms than all of last year so we're proud of our students but we have a long way to go in those efforts and so we're hosting two events this weekend at our College and Career Center is open to anyone any senior in our district at Clearwater High School and at Gibbs High School and I wanted to mention that it's also College acceptance season the University of Florida rolled out their acceptances last week and through these new processes and programs we have we're able to track the number of applicants to every one of our state colleges and really any University Across the Nation we've had over 1500 students apply to USF but on Friday 1289
133applied to UF and we're looking for those applications and so we're proud of our seniors and look forward to that two other events to look forward to one as the Pinellas County school spirit night with the Tampa Bay Rays we thank them for hosting Pinellas County Schools and honoring Educators you'll see Dr Adam Zale there being honored as the Pinellas County Schools teacher of the year it happens to be on Saturday April 1st which is just the second game of the season so get your tickets now as it will likely sell out and one that everyone is looking forward to spring break coming up March 13th through the 17th yes lots of hands in the audience finally I want to as I always do acknowledge a superintendent standout nominated for exhibiting one of our core
134values by their co-workers across the district and this meeting's acknowledgment is Jennifer cosio a fifth grade teacher at Curlew Creek Elementary School who has worked at Curlew Creek for eight years and her colleague says Jen always goes above and beyond in her work but I recently had the opportunity to collaborate with her as she created a stem challenge to better engage her students in math and science and was blown away by her creativity skill and excitement for teaching rather than settle for good enough in a review of a lesson she instead created a highly engaging collaborative activity that Blended solar system content with rigorous fraction math word problems even though it took extra time and planning she designed and executed a lesson that was meaningful effective and enjoyable for all of her students thank you
135for all you do and keep up the great work to both Jennifer and all of our teachers thank you madam chair do we have any items to be introduced by the school board attorney Mr capersky you do not have any items to be introduced by the school board attorney thank you any items introduced by the board Miss Cook yes earlier we had a couple of proclamations as well as our report from the Independent citizens referendum oversight committee and rather than making comments after each one of them because they were all kind of wrapped up together I wanted to take this moment to thank the community for supporting the referendum and making it possible for us to have such outstanding art and music programs you heard things that they were saying about all of the recognitions
136that we have I would put our arts and music programs up against any other in the nation and we've had for years and Max actually Sue Castleman is here today and she's been one of them that has been recognized nationally as well as Gene Reynolds being recognized nationally for the programs and for the things that they have done it's continuing they trained people well to step in and take their place and I just really want want to congratulate the teachers that are working with these students and creating such phenomenal artwork you can see it throughout the building on every floor and every office and again thank the community for supporting it we could not do all of this without your help and without your support so thank you very much I also attended and I
137represent the board on the Hispanic achievement committee rather than going into a whole lot of detail about what it is I'm going to send you the Powerpoints that were there phenomenal things are being done for the Hispanic community and we're seeing more and more young children going into Pre-K and you know and getting a good start which is something that this committee focused on but the work that has been done not only with our staff but with community members and members of the University of Central Florida University I mean St Pete college and the University of South Florida they've all been working together to help us move forward the transition from various schools is working very well so I'll send those PowerPoints for you so when you see this thing arrive from me that's what
138it'll be in reference to so rather than taking any more time I'll do that later Mrs long thank you this is Kane as the board as the board members know I had a total knee replacement six weeks ago the healing process is slower than I thought I have developed a serious infection this is my first time out of the house except for doctors and being in the hospital again the doctor gave me permission to come tonight for about two hours so after this meeting is adjourned before public comment I have to I'm going home I have to but I promise you after I do my treatment at home I will set up the rest of the night if I have to and watch public comments I thank you all and I'm sorry that this is
139how it works for me thank you Miss Peters We Wish You a speedy recovery thank you and it's nice to see you back thank you I actually had I've had the opportunity to attend I've been invited to attend and tour several schools within our district by teachers and principals and staff and it's been really amazing that's probably one of the most fun parts of the job I last week I was invited to speak at the Hollins High School young Civics club and this is a club that is a student-led club and they a couple weeks in a row have invited different politicians from the area to come speak at their at their at their Club so I just I was very impressed it was a packed house it was us they had to it was
140during their seventh period so they had to actually they had to have a ticket and they had to you know they gave out tickets it was a it was a packed room it was sold out and I was very very inspired by the level of Engagement I mean the first kid raises his hand asked the questions and then it just you know goes crazy in the room and so it was very inspiring the diversity of of the questions the willingness to participate in front of their peers and teachers that were in the room and you know it just it gives me it just inspires me to know that these students are willing to put themselves forward ask questions be engaged in their Community efforts and they were very in very intelligent questions so I was
141very impressed so I'm very inspired by our the young people going through our district especially I did want to make just one little note we the district here we have received a lot of emails phone calls and messages regarding the bus stops and so what I want to say to that is we do hear you we do hear you our transportation department is working very hard on exploring so many different options I encourage you to actually listen to our Workshop from February 21st where we had a very extensive extensive discussion with our transportation department and they just brought forth a lot of amazing Alternatives and ideas and Innovative and so we have Solutions coming I just want to let everybody know that we are here we do hear you we understand your frustration both our
142staff that are our bus drivers and our parents and our students so and then the teachers of course who I know are missing students in their first periods because of the shortage so but we are working on it again I encourage you to listen to that Workshop so you can hear that discussion so thank you the sign good evening good evening everyone I first wanted to start off by apologizing for being a little bit late at the beginning of the meeting I had the joy of helping to chaperone our third graders field trip to Kennedy Space Center this morning it was amazing and I want to say thank you to Mrs laskanic the teacher who planned and mobilized and organized that and all of the parents who volunteered to chaperone to make one of these
143great student experiences come to life field trips matter and people need help putting them together so ask your teachers how you can help PTA in our Workshop this week we had the opportunity or last week we had the opportunity to review a policy around PTA and it just reminded me that this is the time of the year when there's lots of spaghetti dinners and there's also calls for nominations for board positions in your schools ptas and I just want to encourage you to raise your hand and volunteer for that it is incredible work and not just in elementary school when our kids are super cute and little but also in Middle School in high school they and their teachers need us even more so Marcy yeah us I will volunteer for next year so let
144me know how I can help so thank you for everyone who gives so much passion through our ptas they make a difference Midtown Academy I wanted to say congratulations and thank you to principal Victor and assistant principal maker from Midtown Academy your Black History Month celebration was educational and inspiring it brought tears to my eyes watching the kids sing the song Lift Every Voice and remembering my own children sing it's just beautiful so thank you for uniting your school community Through History and Beauty in the way that you did National History Day thank you to Michelle Anderson and all of the teachers and students and community volunteers who made that student experience also come to life my colleague Mrs Meyer and I had the opportunity to participate and see firsthand in one place so many
145good things about our schools every day and so you know I just wanted to share with you that somehow in the last week of all these different spaces that I've been in I've been been deeply inspired it seems that everywhere I am hundreds of people raise their hands to make this world a better place whether it's in our schools it's at the Little League field it's in Scouts it's at our church all the places that our family engages but certainly so many more places throughout this community I believe that our county has an incredible Spirit of service and community and I found myself looking around particularly at the ball field with these hundreds of families all volunteer run little league and just wondering why why'd we do this why do we raise our hands and
146why do we support each other and you know I think it's an insatiable desire for our children and neighbors to thrive and to leave the world when we do leave better than we found it and with that I just want to tell you and our whole Community thank you for all that you do every day to make our community a better place and I want to affirm my commitment to you to do everything that I can to support strong Leading Edge stable public schools that I can be proud of not only for my children but for all of our children throughout Pinellas County and please please be in touch anytime thank you Mrs Edmond thank you to everyone that is here today investing your time in understanding and learning how the board operates it really
147takes a lot for you to go to work or come here and speak with us I would also like to thank the people who are watching online or who have emailed the board I read the emails and I value your feedback and input your voices do matter and today is the end of black history month but we need to continue to celebrate and honor black history year round and I'd like to share a quote by Maya Angelou the more you know of your history the more liberated you are so thank you again for being here see no further comment thank you to everyone Miss Woodford would you please review any board requests Madam chair I did not note any board requests today me neither thank you is there any further business for this meeting foreign
148we will perform our board meeting evaluation or before we excuse me before we perform our board meeting evaluation we will join the meeting and move to public participation and so with that I had joined this meeting we will now move to public comment on General business of the district please note that the views and comments of the public speakers are their own and not endorsed nor sponsored by the school board or District we cannot ensure the accuracy of statements made but will review concerns that are raised and take appropriate action which may include clarifications or the referral of speakers to the proper staff for assistance additionally please note that although board members or the superintendent Hendrick may leave the Deus briefly there are speakers in our back room and we will continue to be able
149to hear your comments throughout the meeting the board is committed to a standard of Civility and decorum in conducting our meetings and this includes refraining from clapping or making audible noises during our after a speaker's comments out of respect for their time your time and those in the room we appreciate you assisting us and maintaining a civil and construction and constructive environment thank you we can take a five minute recess and come back for public comments so five minutes everyone if you need to take a minute to stretch and stand up for a moment and we're back we are going to go ahead and begin our public comment portion Mrs Hulk do we have any public speakers yes Madam chair board members Mr Hendrick we currently have 56 speakers for public comment I will call
150two at a time the first two are Renee Chia and Michael bugby as I have said before and I will say it again the woke policy positions always begin with a false premise in this case banned books kids are using this term because our public schools have failed to teach them actual history radicals using this term want to invoke an image of government Bannings and book burnings where if you are found with a copy of said book you go to jail or the government comes to your house goes through your bookshelves and removes books they don't want you to have and burns them in the street usually followed by beating and or killing you and your family is that what's Happening Here is it now that we all agree that is utterly ridiculous let's begin
151a rational conversation shall we the conversation here is really about what is appropriate for children to be assigned in public school when I was in college our anthropology department head once told our class if you want to call yourself an educated person there are three books you better have read the Bible the Quran and the origin of the species his reasoning was there are no other three books in the history of humankind that have had equal impact or equal distribution throughout the world how would all of you here today railing and gnashing your teeth feel if the New Testament was assigned reading in public school as history has shown us you would lose your minds at a level that exceeds even today interesting isn't it the Bible one of the top three most read books
152of all time cannot be taught in public school but you feel the righteous responsibility to defend violent incest rape content as appropriate for public school children this movement is a cult ideology from a cult is not appropriate reading for public school I keep hearing people comparing pornography incest rape and sexual fetish books with classic literature what's wrong with you seriously I hear people saying this specific rate book is so important because it teaches your child about life and reality and you argue that it's culturally important and relevant teaching your child about the nastiest most shameful and violent part of human nature is not culture it is a vile reality we all must face at some point however over 18 in college not in public high school is that point as our criminal laws have well
153established I think both the district and the board for abiding by our laws as a cultural Anthropologist and literature college graduate I can assure you there are thousands of titles out there that can give your child the experience that you claim to be supporting without the rape and incest you don't want the Bible taught I don't want your cult fetishes taught since we are talking about public school don't you agree it would be sound policy to find one of the thousands of books that we can both agree on to be the assigned reading I think we can Madam chair school board members and superintendent Hendrick and others greetings and thank you for having me be able to speak here my name is Michael Bagby I'm in my 40th year of teaching and 17th year in
154at Ridgecrest Elementary in the gifted program and very proud representative of the school for pcta our wonderful organization that protects us and fights for us I also like to say that I'm a proud woke member of the progressive Democratic Party and I want to say a few words about that if women fought for rights why did they get the rights we woke up if Native Americans got the rights that they fought for it's because our society woke up immigrants gays child labor laws the disabled all because the society woke up to the problems of the past and the problems of the past need to be looked at Square in the face and I am speaking from an elementary school perspective I have spent my entire career in the elementary school in public schools even ecology
155why do we have ecology laws right now because we woke up to the fact that we needed those laws to protect our environment if you would have told me that libraries would be covered a couple years ago in different districts in the state I would have laughed at you what no that would never happen well it's happening Pinellas by the way and you represent Pinellas County is not a red County it is not a blue County it is a solidly purple County that went for Biden in 2020 so you need to remember that you're representing people that are diverse a diverse population that really believes in the rights of people and people knowing about the history of our country if we give in to this idea that we can't teach about the past if we
156give in to this idea that we have to protect people's feelings I mean I don't feel guilty for women's rights because I'm a man but I'm sure glad I learned about the fight I'm sure glad that I read Richard Wright as a child and learned what it meant to be a black boy it didn't make me uncomfortable it opened me up to reality diversity creates opportunity and diversity drives our Evolution both in the culture and in our species we have to continue being diverse I was prouder of my country when I learned about the actual history because we changed if I had never known that history I wouldn't know anything we need to know our history and we need to know what made us who we are today but right now frankly I'm afraid to
157teach for the first time in my career afraid to talk about the next two speakers are Jennifer Bond and Kevin Bond together can I start St Petersburg High School failed to protect my son School often speaks about the importance of mental health including depression anxiety and suicide when provided with credible evidence of inappropriate behavior by coach Robert Woodard towards my son they failed St Petersburg High School failed miserably in protecting an outstanding student athlete and this is not the first time they have failed to protect a student athlete it appears the school uses kids like my son as props when they when it suits them but when my son needed help they dismissed him my name is Jennifer Bond I currently have two sons castle and Kingsley Bond attending the St Petersburg High School IB
158program and playing for the varsity soccer team Saint Pete High trusted Castle to be their representative regarding students rights and responsibilities presumably he was selected because of his honesty integrity and academic performance however when he came to them about being bullied and abused it was his word against everyone else's and nothing was done and the coach and the teammate involved were not punished our family met with Miss Lebo and Mr Otto to discuss coach Robert woodard's inappropriate behavior we provided detailed accusations and also referenced the numerous violations of the Pinellas County Athletics policy in our written communication just a few examples of Mr woodard's Behavior include the coach in one-on-one meetings calling my son a little a simple-minded not good enough liability to the team and two reasonable and rational among many others many of
159the above statements were in response to Castle bringing to coach Woodard detention a physical assault against him by a teammate an investigation was apparently conducted by Mr Otto and certain students were questioned during the soccer season well coach Woodard uses play time as a weapon so do you honestly think these athletes are going to speak the truth during that time my husband who's an attorney will speak in detail regarding the incredible lack of meaningful investigation inappropriate investigation protocol and the lack of any response by Administration when informed in writing my son was experiencing significant mental health issues while the investigation was ongoing I'm here today to ensure my son's courage in bringing these claims and issues up means something I want student athletes to be better protected in the future from bullying abuse and reprisal
160you something say something protects student student bullying but what kind of protection are is there for athletes when they're bullied by their coach I am confident you would be implementing a better better system to protect student athletes if this happened to your child coaches are supposed to be role models and advocates for the athletes not abusers and Bullies this time the result wasn't catastrophic but what happens when the next time what happens when this happens and a bully goes too far thank you Mr Bond if you don't mind me to to advise the board on one thing before you begin and that is traditionally our public speaking policy does not allow the public to speak about ongoing investigations of employees and that is because the board may need to sit as a neutral judge in
161determining whether that employee may be disciplined either terminated or suspended without pay but we have confirmed prior to these speakers coming up here that this matter has been investigated and there is no ongoing investigation I just wanted to clarify that to the board and to the public thank you hence why we waited my name is Kevin Bond as my wife just indicated this the father to Castle and Kingsley and also had a daughter graduate from Saint Pete last year from the IB Program I'm not going to get into the allegations my wife did I'm going to talk more about the investigation and the issues I have with the administration and also Ops and just touched on a few of the points I've also handed out packages to all of the members you can look at
162in more detail that go in chronological order the first deals with the allegations and many of the many of the instances of verbal abuse between the coach of my son happened on a one-on-one meeting the administration's response to that was they couldn't corroborate one-on-one meetings when I asked them should my sons have expected to be abused and brought a recorder into the meetings they said no when I offered at my own cost for my sons to take a lie detector test to prove the veracular allegations they didn't want any part of that with no explanation when I ask if if a student had ever been disciplined based on abusing a teacher in a one-on-one scenario yes or no no one answered that question it's a simple question yes or no they couldn't answer it their
163silence meant they answered it less than 24 hours after a fellow parent sent the administration allegations which in part corroborated several of my son's allegations I received an email from the administration saying they concluded ours when asked how could that be given this new information they said and I quote those allegations quote emanate from my son's allegations I think the principal misunderstands the definition of the word emanate versus corroborate at first they couldn't corroborate it when there was corroboration then it emanated this wordplay doesn't work I'm a lawyer I know how word play works right my wife touched on Mental Health we explicitly told Administration my son was suffering from panic attacks at school because of the abuse what was their response silence did they offer mental health counseling no did they offer guidance counseling
164support no all of this is in writing in the packages I provided lastly the administrator who is responsible to investigate my son's allegations recommended in three separate instances restorative counseling during the investigation recommended that my son sit with Coach Woodard during an investigation to mediate the dispute every single time I asked them how could that be appropriate I was met with silence only after the investigation closed did the principal tell me Pinellas County recommends restorative counseling during an investigation if my daughter accused the teacher of rape would they recommend restorative counseling during the investigation hell no they wouldn't fortunately for my sons and family I got the time resources and professional expertise to not let this go tonight is not the end thank you our next two speakers are Brant Robinson yes that you please
165not make audible response for out of respect for our speakers and fellow speakers in the room thank you so much for respecting others Brant Robinson will be followed by Elizabeth adringa good evening Madam chair members of the board superintendent Hendrick and staff my name is Brent Robinson and as you know I'm a proud teacher at Dunedin High School this is my 26th year teaching social studies in our district and as always I am so humble and so grateful to be here tonight I know I speak for superintendent Hendrick a world-class teacher and every teacher in the room when I say there are certain mantras certain phrases certain Expressions that we use throughout the year and one of the ones I use often in my classroom is you don't know what you don't know I say
166that to my students in the first week and I ask them raise your hand if you're pretty sure there are things that you just don't know and they all raise their hand and then I ask them raise your hand if you're pretty sure there are certain things that you're comfortable just knowing that you don't know and they all raise their hand and they ask them raise your hand if you're pretty sure that there might be something you learned this year that might make you rethink something else you thought you knew when they raised their hand and I ask this of you guys because about two years ago I addressed this board and I always do so with respect I came to inform to educate to possibly Enlighten about an issue that was taking hold across
167the country called critical race Theory and I want you all to sit with this for a second do you know what it really means only you know the answer to that question if you're a person of Integrity because critical race theory has now been bundled it has been conflated with equity and restorative practice and it's all been bundled around something called woke and I want you to understand how harmful and how dangerous this is because we don't indoctrinate our students and again I'm here on a school night I'm going to do a teacher training tomorrow after school I'm surrounded by people with integrity and with exhaustion and hunger and I'm here because what I want you to understand is that we are not indoctrinating our students we're not grooming our students we're not teaching them
168to hate America we're here because we care deeply about our students we want to build relationships with our students so they understand that they're going to become future citizens they're going to become the Vanguard of our democracy regardless their ideology and their political party if like me you believe that public schools are the foundation of our democracy I think we all owe it to each other to acknowledge what we don't know critical race theory is not being taught in any public school in the United States it never has been critical race theory is simply a framework that was developed in the early 1970s by a small group of legal Scholars to examine the impact of systemic racism critical race theory is nothing to be feared and if I were actually having this conversation with my
169students in my classroom they would prove that to you each and every day students can handle learning real history and as always I want to invite anyone here in the public to please come sit in my classroom I know I speak for all teachers here you're always welcome and members of the board I hope you'll do the same as well thank you so much for your time and thanks for the opportunity in advance for Saint Pete Pete's been fostered by coach Woodard my husband and I have been unhappy for a while and lately there have been too many issues to ignore I have four points that I'd like to address today the first one is aggression coach Woodard likes aggressive players my husband witnessed the coach giving a motivational speech to students encouraging them to
170Barrel through the other team even if it's not to get the ball or if it draws a penalty when students get Rowdy he turns a blind Blind Eye during tryouts this year my son witnessed one student grab another student by the collar and throw him to the ground the student who was the aggressor was not not only made the team but he was appointed co-captain of the team and was on the starting line for every game my second point is discrimination and bullying Behavior coach Woodard actively condemns what he considers to be weakness he told my son that he doesn't like IB students because they think too much for their own good and they aren't aggressive enough my son has heard coach Woodard call the students and on countless occasions coach does not stop the
171other students from calling one another names on the contrary he laughs there was one occasion this year when a student yelled at the referee during a game that was some it was loud enough for the audience in the stands to hear but coach Woodard said nothing Madam I'm sorry we're going to pause your time for you're at a minute 30. I just want to warn you and the rest of the speakers at the school board policy on public speaking prohibits obscenity and profanity from the podium thank you thank you it should also be prohibited in the schools there is no speech about the importance of sportsmanship or that not using offensive language he was silent and this was after the investigation took place and after the school said that it was fixed my third point
172is on reprisal my son was interviewed as part of the school investigation they asked him if he was afraid of reprisal and retaliation and he said no when I asked him if he was afraid that the coach would hold it against him or limit his playing time he said and I quote yes of course he would never let me play again it's easy for a person to talk themselves out of being a victim and I am extremely disappointed for the school for not asking better questions the fact that they didn't phrase the questions to be appropriate for children indicates that they were not looking for the truth my last point is about shutting out parental oversight I created a parent account on remind and joined the team using a parent code coach Woodard told my
173son that if he wanted to stay on the soccer team he needed to get his mom off the remind Channel negative culture is fostered in the shadows and parental oversight should not be shut out in closing it's the responsibility of the administration and the school board to ensure that faculty acts appropriately and our children are protected thank you the next two speakers are Sarah wood and Jason Saxon my name is Sarah wood my son Carson graduated from Saint Pete high in 2022. he now attends the University of Florida Carson played basketball from the age of nine he dreamed of playing ball in college and he took his dream serious typically the first one to practice and the last one to leave others would tell you that he wasn't just a hard worker but he celebrated
174others hard work aside from basketball he was a standout kid and student while in high school he spent four years working with autistic teens coaching their basketball team he became much more than an assistant coach he was their friend and mentor in school he was a voting member of Sac and sat here with you on the student rights and the student rights and responsibility committee I begin with this because it speaks to his character and his willingness to give back and whatever he does and in whatever he does and I tell you this because I want you to understand that this young man had pure evil done to him at St Pete High before the season I laid out my concerns about the boys basketball program to the principal this would include theft recruiting retaliation
175felons on his board treatment of players the coach arriving 45 minutes late to every practice the list goes on at the time of the meeting I was a Teen Mom my son had started every game his junior year and he was now Captain following my conversation with Libo I would step down after stepping down my family and my son would endure a basketball season of retaliation via the coach three days before senior night Carson was removed from the team take your school board hat off my son played basketball for nine years he skipped social events woke up many early mornings to shoot he destroyed his body with breaks fracture strains because he loved it and yet here we were three days before senior night in a gym that felt like home and he would never
176play his last game do you have any idea what that does to a kid before being removed by the from the team Bay News 9 was shut out from coming to do a story on him even as we watched a story being aired on another player the coach would tell Carson or would tell the team that Carson had quit which was untrue he would block his access to his stats and take away all of his highlights he would also block our family from school social media sites attempt to remove Carson from the basketball yearbook pages and give his uniform to a JV player which now hangs in the gym as a Regional Championship even though Carson played all but one regular season game this is pure evil this evil is allowed at St Pete High
177it is allowed in our County it is not investigated there's no discipline there's no support for the student and in this case the coach he remains in play you have parents standing before you today whose children's lives were forever changed in this Administration is at the helm the fact that they that they did not that they ignored my son's treatment so little was done that even the coaching certificate which was expired two years ago is to date still expired that is how little they have done to investigate this coach I hope that you hear us today and I hope that you will do something to help John Saxon or Jason Saxon the next two speakers are Shelly page and Owen McCourt hello I'm Shelley page on February 14th I spoke to you regarding felons playing
178in high school sports as a reminder my daughter was killed in a boat accident in October 2020 and the student driving the boat was convicted was convicted as a felon in homicide this student returned to Osceola fundamental high school and was allowed to try out and get on the lacrosse team and was even named captain I requested a school board Workshop conversation to amend the requirements of student athletes specifically not allowing felons to play school sports I also followed up with an email to the board with only one response I would like to point out that the code of conduct has a provision under Section 6 for a violation of the code called felony charges and convictions for off-campus conduct a felony is not only a violation of the code but should result in a
179school hearing with an outcome of suspension or expulsion shouldn't a major violation of the School Code of Conduct such as a felony prevent a student from participating in school sports especially at a Fundamental School like Osceola fundamental High School under the guidance of principal Mr Michael bonnet parents must sign and return to the school the code of conduct acknowledging it and its guidelines I hope this information encourages you to reconsider discussing at your next workshop and begin implementing a plan to eliminating allowing felons to play in school sports thank you hi my name is Owen McCourt and I'm a sophomore in Hollins High I've been in public school for my entire life and I feel that my experience has been in a pretty solid one I fully expect to be ready for college when the
180time comes public schools have provided me some great accommodations and services for example through the use of school funding I'm able to use Adobe products for free which is so helpful I'm learning a lot in my AP photography class in my film class because of this I'm also taking Ace and dual enrollment courses and because of my ADHD I'm given extra time on my tests all things I'm not guaranteed at a private school almost all the teachers I've ever had were exceptional in their field and dedicated to the education of their students however since the start of the covid-19 crisis I've seen more and more of my teachers vanish to mid-semester this year due to low pay being overworked and some other weird laws and that have been passed in Florida the addition of the
181new bill hb1 proposed by the Florida legislature is trying to defund Public Schools if this bill is passed it will allow all students to apply for a private school voucher effectively taking money out of public schools to pay for their tuition to private schools the voucher system is supposed to be addressing problems such as bullying and denied access to special needs services but the funding schools is not the way to achieve this I've been lucky enough to have a good public education for most of my life but the foundation of the public schools in Florida is steadily being eroded I'm concerned for my sister who is five years younger than me and has dyslexia the schools I attend all had excellent teachers in administration right now at Hollins High School I'm in the Cambridge program
182as well as the Academy of entertainment arts program the school the education that I'm receiving is really good but as programs and services are being taken away and more teachers and bus drivers are quitting the solution to problems that we're having with the public school system is to fund them more plus when we offer a private school voucher to a student that's banking on the assumption that the private school has a much better Administration and better teachers and from my perspective I don't think that's something we can count on I want you to thank me I want you to think I want to thank you for letting me speak today and appeal to you from my little sister who is counting on all of you please go to Tallahassee and Lobby against hb1 for our
183Public Schools thank you the next two speakers are van McCourt ostrand and Mark clutho foreign hi my name is Van McCord Austrian that was my kid I'm here to advocate for members of the school board to Lobby against the hb1 school choice voucher bill as a parent who has had one kid succeed in Pinellas County Schools and one kid not quite fail but definitely struggle I wanted to tell you my family's school choice about your story I'm a big proponent for public schools while I don't think there's a perfect School experience my oldest has definitely received a solid education he has had his struggles but he received a 504 for ADHD and once his accommodations were in place he was able to work to his potential my youngest was that sweet baby who never cried
184and when she got to school she was a free-spirited preschooler in kindergartner always ready with a smile I thought for sure she would be my laid back easy kid it turns out there's no such thing however as her brother really started to find his flow in school my daughter really lost hers it took us a while to figure out what was going on but once we knew it was dyslexia I put on my mama bear suit and tried to advocate for her if this sounds familiar it's because I've been at this Podium before what I didn't mention the last time was that when it didn't seem like things could get better at her Public elementary we felt it would be irresponsible of us as parents to not try to look at the private options something
185we never thought we would consider partly because we really believe in the power of public education as one of the pillars needed to hold up a democracy and partly because it's not in our budget so we applied for the voucher it's an online application process we had to prove that our daughter had a diagnosis that would qualify her and then we just had to wait in the meantime we found two schools who said that they were exactly what we were looking for both schools by the way would only have been about one-third paid for by the voucher the other two-thirds was on us still not really affordable but we kept chugging along hoping we would figure it out what hadn't actually occurred to me was that these schools could just turn us down out one
186school said that they had enough incoming fifth graders already and the other school said that they didn't feel like she had enjoyed her Shadow day and maybe didn't want to go to that school after all then we qualified for the voucher and had nowhere to use it so what good was that these vouchers are not necessarily the fix that we might think they are they certainly weren't for us My Hope in sharing my story with you today is that one or more of you will find your way to Tallahassee before it's too late to tell the legislators that what we really need is actual support for our Public Schools thank you so much for your time Mark clutho Largo long said educator educator that's a law it's an educator and you're supposed to be leading
187a school system and the chair says and we're back no you're just back you don't put the and there this is bad really bad when you don't even know how to use the language how can you run a school system do you get what I'm saying a bunch of idiots oh this is pathetic really pathetic here's the headline climate crisis gets worse by the day CO2 level highest in human history study climate change is worse than we thought and the climate future is now and as I said earlier we shape our buildings thereafter they shape Us Winston Churchill Time Magazine September 12 1960. you don't embrace the science of high performance passive solar building you put clear story windows in buildings the wrong way you don't Orient the buildings the right way so the planet
188Burns the future is dim more than two decades I've been bringing this science and I'm afraid things are only going to get worse you know like I say that clear water building up there at Clearwater High School I mean today that should be an example of the best thank you the next two speakers are Andrea panarelli and Megan Summers don't go okay I apologize it's been a long day I have been doing things from the district since about 9 30 this morning I am a school social worker at one of our schools so I thank you for using your time to allow us to speak I would firstly like to thank all of our teachers our student services staff our support staff for their continued efforts to support not only our students but our families
189each day I would like to thank our pcta slash p-e-s-p-a for advocating for the needs of us of our employees in the district the school district's vision is a hundred percent Student Success meaning that each child who attends Pinellas County Schools is supported so they can be successful in college career and life I want to bring a light some current situations that are taking place in our district right now currently we have 4 000 students who are currently homeless in our district some say with family some safe with friends and some unfortunately are living out of their vehicles we have students who are arriving to our campus roughly an hour or more late to to school due to the shortage of available bus drivers to get them there yesterday some of my students arrived in
190second period they should be arriving between 9 25 and 9 35 every morning so far this year and I see something say something application we have received roughly 1446 tips regarding students who are in a mental health crisis this isn't tradition their addition to our countless work that our school social workers and school guidance counselors do to support our students and families every single day in regards to mental health and getting those resources for them all of these concerns are only a brief overview of what students and families and staff are experiencing each day I as a school social worker probably could find more instances needed to be cited but frankly that would be a whole entire meeting in itself so I finished my time with this I want if we want to bring our
191students to 100 success as then we are as a community community need to be re-centering our focus on these students does my actions my words my ideas support the districts student support of a hundred percent of students being supported success for students is not defined of our own success our own agendas or the agendas of others so I call upon all of us to examine this question and reflect deeply prior to action on it because our students future the students that we are to serve are the ones that are most important thank you good evening my name is Andrea panarelli and I'm and I am a founding teacher at East Lake High School I'm also a registered Republican a member of the pcta a former fire commissioner for the East Lake Fire District and I
192currently serve on the Advisory board for the East Lake Community Library my purpose here tonight is to request the superintendent and the school board hold students who film fights involving teachers and students accountable for violating School Board policy for the past 35 years I have devoted my life and career to helping East Lake students expand their knowledge and to strive to better themselves I've been proud of my students past and present I have been so honored to be a Soaring Eagle that I cannot put into words how I really feel for my home away from home but today today I am ashamed today I am broken today I am disgusted by the East Lake students who blatantly stood by for almost three minutes videotaping and watching while my friend and colleague was savagely beaten by
193a ninth grade boy a boy whose violent tendencies were who had violent tendencies prior to darkening the hallowed Halls of my school never at East Lake has this happened before and it should never be allowed to happen again as an elected as elected board members it is your duty to serve the parents students faculties and staffs of Pinellas County Schools and you are failing to do so all of you have the power to hold parents and students answerable the power to do it but not the medal and for that you should be ashamed it is no wonder why our state legislatures legislators are promoting privatized education private corporations have no trepidation when dealing with litigious parents and their predatory students while on the other hand Public School boards and officials seem to cower and Cave
194to their often frivolous and Petty demands as was his duty to protect his students around him my friend and colleague detained that boy and did so by never raising a hand against him as a matter of fact he even apologized for possibly hurting him so I beg you stand up for your teachers stand up for your support staff stand up for the good and decent parents and students of Pinellas County stand up and do your jobs thank you the next two speakers are Beth Weinstein and Catherine Hubbard thank you so much members of the board thank you for your time today I wanted to speak to you about funding in our schools while we have people who are trying to engage in fear-mongering for political clout taking incidents while disturbing and material that might be
195considered upsetting to some that we want they want you to believe that there is a rampant crisis in our schools and propose criminalizing children instead of providing them with the resources that they need to prevent School violence that such like we've heard of we can prevent School virus we need to acknowledge that some of the inappropriate behavior we see from people who stand up here spouting missing information insulting teachers and openly calling for their dismissal and yelling at school boards is spilling into our classrooms children mimic what they see at home and as adults we all need to do better education is the backbone of any society and public schools are supposed to be provide every child with an equal opportunity to learn grow and succeed in life however we have seen a disturbing Trend
196in our schools more resources are being alequated towards hiring officers and arresting children instead of investing in education it perpetuates a school-to-prison pipeline but disproportionately affects children of color and children from low-income families in our districts instead of providing these children with the resources and support that they need to thrive we are criminalizing their behavior and pushing them out of school and this can have lifelong consequences for all of us as a criminal record can make it harder for them to find employment and contribute to society investing in officers and law enforcement Personnel is an expensive proposition that diverts resources away from education hiring Officers Training them and providing them with equipment and support is a costly Endeavor instead These funds could be used to improve the quality of Education in our Public Schools this
197includes hiring more teachers and counselors providing them with better training and equipping classrooms with the latest resources and Technologies Studies have shown that schools that have officers make children more afraid and create a hostile environment we need to rethink our approach to public education we need to allocate more resources to improving the quality of Education in our Public Schools we need to ensure that every child regardless of their race ethnicity or economic background has access to a high quality education that prepares them for success in life let us work together to create a brighter future for our children one where they can Thrive and achieve their full potential thank you Palm Harbor IB student in the AP Literature class from which The Bluest Eye was removed from the course of study and a graduate of
198Dunedin elementary middle and high schools I am here today to ask you to reconsider your decision on The Bluest Eye I think I'm not wrong when I say this decision was most likely made in haste and in an environment of fear and that is understandable it is scary when teachers and principals are threatened with felonies for doing their jobs when lawsuits are part of the equation when careers could be in jeopardy I do not envy the position you are in and I know that you are seeking to protect the Educators and students who you serve and that you are seeking to comply with the law regard regardless of how confusing or politically motivated it may be the complexity of the circumstances here cannot be overstated in the face of this I ask you to do
199what's in the best educational interests of the students in this particular situation in this IB classroom being Guided by this exceptional teacher the case the students made last meeting was a strong one I think few who heard it could disagree with that it will be remembered as a testament to the undeniable success of the IB program at Palm Harbor given the case that stands now Let The Bluest Eye be evaluated with all the other books in the new process you will Implement to comply with the law let this teacher follow through on his lesson plans for the year the student whose mother complained who I understand was 15 and homeschooled for most of his life can opt to read the alternative book which is what should have happened anyway in my opinion you are already
200on record for taking the new law seriously you can reevaluate given new information that has come to light and act in the best interest of the students first then take it step by step to address the related issues as they arise it's not too late to make this right what lesson do you want the students to take away about what strong leadership looks like in the face of fear the next two speakers are Nancy velardi and Sarah Bannon govadanin thank you sir good evening a few weeks ago I shared with you pcta pespa's Vision which was Employee created and outlines an aspirational view of what Pinellas County Schools should look like I have received some very positive feedback from you on the goals that we've set to work toward and the assurance that we are
201indeed on the same page as the district in our vision for the future I hope to hear more feedback on that Vision excuse me pcta has worked diligently to be a valuable partner to the district and we hope that we can continue to enhance this partnership successfully through the coming years as you are aware there are outside attacks specifically targeting educator unions and we're counting on you as our partner to be supportive of us as we navigate our way through this difficult time we have worked side by side with you through the messy entanglements of covid we share your core values and we will stand with you unfailingly to assure that our students are always given the world-class education they deserve we fully expect to see the same respect and commitment to this partnership that
202we have demonstrated when you respect our voice you respect your employees voices our Educators have made daily sacrifices to dedicate themselves to the nurturing of our students providing them with the tools they need to claim their dreams and reach their personal goals Educators understand that they can earn more in the outside world of Commerce since their highly educated and creative beings but they have followed their hearts into this profession and here is where they wish to remain I myself left the corporate world and a high salary to become a teacher seeking to give my life richer meaning and spend my days doing what matters I never regretted my decisions except briefly momentarily on payday and I never looked back in my 25 years of teaching in all of my interactions with other Educators I found
203that this powerful devotion is a constant our educators are the last group of professionals who should be targeted and face losing their voice at the table where decisions are made we ask that you support their right to have their opinions matter pcta and your many devoted educators will count on your continued support for them in their important work for their unions who Elevate their voices through a true mutually committed partnership thank you good evening both thank you for providing me the opportunity to talk to you I'm a parent of three police County school age students me and my wife both work and as you can imagine we're pretty hurried a lot foreign depend on the Department of Transportation to provide us with all our needs for transporting the kids recently we moved and we were
204applying for change of address and asking us to give us new bus stops and for one of our kids stay denied saying it was within two miles and me being an engineer I just went in and tried to get a feeling of how much distance there is with using Google Maps and Google Earth resistance came up to 2.2 miles and I looked up to your record section and it said within two miles to be denied but 2.2 miles should be outside an arm so I'm trying to kindly requesting a rearrangement of that and asking them to reconsider and here's my data backing that up so like it really would be great if you're getting please reconsider the decision of the transportation board my wife is a physician and she really can't go and pick up
205the kids in the afternoon I'm the only guy who can do that and I'm also work so it's hard for me to manage three kids and pick them up and drop them off in the evening so thank you very much foreign excuse me the next two speakers are Laura McCullough and Wendy Castro they said your name first good evening my name is Laura McCullough Madam chair board members and Mr Hendrick thank you for hosting this at the beginning of this meeting every person in this room stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance we put our hands on our hearts I assume that people meant that the last phrase of the Pledge is the phrase with liberty and justice for all if we are not having liberty and justice for all then we need to rethink
206what we're doing and please don't put your hand on your heart and say that unless I mean it's a very serious thing to say I think the policies of our current government to me are terrifying for a politician to decide what books should be read is wrong on every level for a politician to decide who gets medical treatment as an ER nurse I see what's going on he's decided that people that accept Medicaid cannot be treated for their transgender treatments and it's so unfair it's wrong and I think the suicide rates are going to go up as far as the books as an ER nurse I know of a little girl a few years ago who came to the ER because she did not know that adults are not supposed to have sex with children
207until she read a book by Maya Angelou describing that so you know people that are afraid of that I mean books can Books open our worlds I mean thank God she read that again if you don't want your child to read a certain book don't have it in your house better yet talk with them about why you disagree with the books and if as a parent you are so afraid that your child will go down the wrong road for reading a certain book you've already lost the fight I just implore everyone to please really think about the words in the Pledge of Allegiance liberty and justice for all and I just I just do not understand the policies of this Administration our governor the things that he's doing to the people he decides he doesn't
208like a certain College he's going to change what they teach at a college I mean come on I don't understand why we're not all not flooding Tallahassee and having him removed from office I just don't understand it thank you hello everyone my name is Wendy Castro or Senora Castro if you're one of my Scholars unless you're one of my students who insists on calling me Miss casserole miscarriages are really hard like really hard but they're even harder when you can't afford your co-pays and you don't have sick leave when the receptionist told me my co-pay was fifty dollars I smiled at her but I knew that was all the money I had for the week that week I had three different co-pays fifty dollars each I was worried about the baby I had lost but
209more importantly I was worried about surviving until payday you see long-term subs don't get paid time off or the same pay as contractual teachers despite doing everything a contractual teacher does and sometimes more all always more I'm left counting pennies every check I was out of work for a week and a half and lost my half my pay and dealt with the trauma of a loss I can give you the long story of my deep poetic journey into education but that's irrelevant teachers are synonymous with disposability when you fail to give them the voice and the protection against these self-serving policies teachers are Mental Health Counselors Guardians and in some cases in some sad cases for students their targets it's time we become a priority instead our classrooms are not your Roundtable discussions they are
210kids struggling to keep afloat and learn the material there are teachers barely afford to live in the cities they helped cultivate their support staff who work day in and day out to ensure Scholars are successful in order to develop the importance we not only deserve but demand these policies must be voted out I know it's scary to talk publicly as a teacher especially when your livelihood depends on it the most influential people however channeled that fear into change and sometimes that's what it takes lastly you are not our target audience it's deeper than that you don't get to invade our classrooms and claim stake over our Scholars and our lessons through no sick leave unfair pay and unreasonable policies your hands are not tied this is bigger than you will ever be this is about
211a generation who will not get to enrich their minds because you're afraid to be confronted by your own Prejudice and fear of the unknown our children are not your sheep together in a flock of personal interest they are Scholars of the world and they deserve to learn from the world we are all a part of I'd like to think I would have been a good mother I'd like to think that the baby I lost would have grown into a home to be nurtured and loved I'd like to think that they had the space to to become our Scholars need the space to become and with that as a Spanish teacher and as we say in Spanish sorry if that offends some of the people here for apparent Liberty the next two speakers are Bronson odechoff
212and Daniel Powell oh hi good evening I you know I find it very interesting how many people over the last several meetings have come up into to to speak at the meeting I think it's a combination of two things I think it's the right decision to to to to resume streaming of the public comments and of course there have been some controversial issues that have have cropped up here and I think the culmination of those two has created a lot of of interest in the community and I think that's a good thing during these couple of meetings I've heard a couple different things and I want to talk about those one of them is the politization of our schools and the other are parental rights so when you think about the politicization of our of
213our schools you're you're thinking about you know are we pushing Democrat you know certain party political party views but I don't I don't think it's really simple as simple as that what we're really looking at is differences of ideas and really it boils down to what you know difference in views of government you know what is what is what is our view of of government you guys know this but you're you're part of the government you're you're a government of a body that is responsible for governing our schools and you know what is that responsibility really what should we be teaching in our schools and so unfortunately a lot of those ideas generally fall along party lines but they're they're important to have and so when we talk about what kind of History should we
214should we teach about you know American history we had a couple people here talk about our democracy but we have a constitutional republic that should be really something that our schools focus on you know we had a you know several different ideas that were that were put out here but another one that's important is what is the role of the actual School Board should you guys pull things in and debate them and talk about them and really dive into issues so you understand what you're voting on or should you always agree with the administration of the school board those are really important and the other thing that we need to talk about are parental rights and what does that mean I love teachers I think we don't do enough for teachers and I think we
215should support them more I also know that the parent is the number one educator of a child and parents should retain that right to decide sensitive subjects and when and if they're taught to their students it shouldn't be something it's not the role of the public school board and you guys are making the right choice and restricting since Daniel Powell the next two speakers are Andrea Dort and Jack Wallace good evening as one person recently said I've been up since I know I've been up since six you know I'm a high school teacher my name is Andrea Dort I know most of you I appreciate you all thank you for being here and staying tonight to hear what we have to say 1933 do you know what year that was we weren't around but my
216dad you know he was he wasn't even born yet he was born in 1936. 1933 is when pcta was formed that's amazing 90 years 90 years 1960 what was it 1968. that's the year when 30 000 teachers walked out so that we could have a in our state constitution that we have bargaining rights with a bargaining unit like pcda and you know we just love pespa that's p-e-s-p-a and we love our bus drivers Union and we love our maintenance Union and we like our cafeteria Union but the state is targeting education unions let's get rid of them that's the bottom line that's a message that Tallahassee is giving to our constituents here so I just want to let you know I appreciate that you work with all of the unions that you hear us our
217support staff our cafeteria workers we did we did we had a cafeteria recognition tonight I love music I love theater that's my you know first degree was you know theater and education so but I teach reading and tomorrow there's an SAT I got to be prepping for because I'm giving my juniors SAT test so I just wanted to let you know thank you I want you to be aware public needs to be aware of how long our Education Association in the State of Florida and in this local has been here and we need that I don't want to have it disappear and end up with a one-page document where I don't have things that I need I need a classroom I need chairs I need desks I need supplies and I need the support staff
218to help us make sure that our students like we've all been saying are educated to the best of our ability with an equitable education that's also in our state constitution public education needs to be Equitable think about that one if we're giving State funds away to private schools gotta got to be on top of the State Constitution guys and I know the state constitution is being a adapted and changed for the last 27 years that's how long I've been teaching so thank you so much thank you for staying here tonight and I'm going to go home and get some sleep so I can be ready in the morning thank you hello my name is Jack Wallace and I'm an organizer with the Tampa Bay PSL and I'm here to speak in support of the demands
219of the many teachers and support staff and to reject the fascist agenda coming from Ron DeSantis and the moms for Liberty Group the school board is supposed to represent the will of the people and the people want high quality public education schooling for all children this is directly in contradiction with the privatization agenda coming from the moms for Liberty and from the state government when corporations get their grubby hands on pieces of public sector what happens how is a private medical system helped you how is the private housing market helped you the answer is the answer is that they haven't when things are privatized that means people go without people go without health care and they die people go without housing and they die these people are fighting for a school system where the poor
220go without education or people of color and kids are discriminated against and where queer kids are outed and ridiculed as an example as we've heard there's a new bill that the state government is pushing called the teacher's Bill of Rights sounds like a good thing right well that actually strikes out and Strikes on all of the teachers support staff unions and actually all public sector units in the state the bill wood among other things change the qualifications unions need to be certified it would decertify many of the public sector unions across the entire State meaning their pay benefits and their working conditions working conditions would be on the chopping block the far right is attacking one of the most organized parts of the working class our public sector unions for a reason they want to
221crush any sort of organized worker resistance and this is one of the last places they can look towards this School Board needs to fight against the book Banning fight against the prosecution of queer kids and crucially fight for the improvements of the working conditions for our teachers and support staff they need higher pay they need smaller classroom sizes more flexibility in what they're able to teach and much less focused on testing and much much more we need to look back at our history to the movements that fought for Progressive change in this country in the 60s and 70s there was Coalition of students teachers parents and the public they stood together demonstrated in the streets and attended school board meetings just like this they made demands and won many great reforms whom they right to
222an abortion to several civil rights bills which I know a couple of our board members would prefer not to teach we ultimately need a new economic system one that guarantees a living wage for all one that guarantees affordable housing for all and one that actively Works to fight against the social ills of society like racism sexism homophobia and more and that system is called socialism the system where the workers are the ones who decide how the workplaces Run unions Community organizations and members of the public must stand up and get into the fight against the scientist's fascist takeovers of our schools and fight for extended benefits thank you the next two speakers are Jake Geffen and Robert Ewing hi everybody my name is Jake affon I'm here to talk about a few things in my
223experience Growing Up in Pinellas County Schools the absolute like sorry sorry growing up with a 504 it was incredibly difficult to feel comfortable in my classroom it was incredibly difficult to get my work done and to feel not anxious in my school my teachers constantly treated me like I was an issue and like I needed to like like I was someone that should feel like a burden when I was at Azalea Middle School the school's policy was to not let kids have Electronics in class my 504 let me type my work on an iPad and the school my many of my teachers and the administration fought me tooth and nail we had the same issue at sanderlin and we brought legal a help in and spent thousands of thousands almost tens of thousands of dollars
224ruining the financial state of my family at that time just to make my little brother and myself who I have a 504 and he is an IEP get just the basic care that we need and like the basic attention that we need in addition to that as a Jewish person in the Pinellas County Schools I was made to feel like a burden again when the holidays of my people interrupted our classroom's typical schedule when you know I went to a private Jewish school until third grade where I was supported by my community and felt safe and then I go into these public school system and sorry just to bridge that in with another issue I had like Monster Liberty people here talking about wanting the Bible to be in school Jewish people we have a
225thing called tefila it's morning prayer we did it every day at my old school I am a religious person I wanted to do it my teacher said we was a public school so I couldn't go into the back and silently do my thing moms for Liberty wouldn't care about that issue because I'm not trying to teach the Bible I'm not trying to put the Bible in schools you know I just want to be able to do my thing for a minute but Monster Liberty doesn't care about that because they are representative of like a fascist and white supremacist wing of ignorance that really doesn't support or show for many of our students thank you very much for giving me my time and I want to thank moms for liberty for sending their number one worst
226kellyanne Conway impersonator thank you hello everyone my name is Bobby Ewing I am a substitute teacher and I'm also here to you know talk about the just you know unprecedented attacks that are happening against public education you know other people have spoken here about the so-called teachers Bill of Rights which just restricts teachers and all public sector Union and workers rights to organize we've also seen you know hb1 with the voucher program that would defund public schools and then we've seen you know bills like the stop woke Act and the don't say gay Bill and you know these are all part of a concerted effort by the far right and they're wealthy donors in this country to wage a war against public education and against against lgbtq students and all students and people in this
227country and it's you know it's not a coincidence that they don't want us to to learn the history of the you know the real history of you know this country and you know racism and the struggle against it because if people you know when people learn that history we realize that every everything we have in our society every right that we have won wasn't it didn't just fall from the sky we had to fight for them and win them and we're going to have to continue to do that and the only way that we are going to be able to do that is to come out to these meetings and fight and organize in your workplaces and in your communities and yeah that's that's just what we have to do so yeah the next two
228speakers are Carla Correa and Nancy Liu good evening everyone thank you for having me I'm Nancy Liu I am a mom of two in Pinellas County school I have a mom of two two kids in Pinellas County Schools and I've been a librarian for 10 years so as you might expect but I'm talking about books I want to begin by commending the local high school students present at the February 14th board meeting those students bravely came forward to defend their right to read to learn to see themselves and their friends reflected in the books available at their school library standing up for what they believe in is one's right and Duty in our free democracy I myself have two biracial kids and I want them to have access to books that reflect them in their
229libraries and in their schools so where are we today according to the 22 2022 pen America report Florida has had the highest number of book bands in the in the country Pinellas County alone has removed 11 books from school shelves since the summer and I'm just wondering if this is something that you think we should be proud of I don't taking away from books from students who actually want to read something in a book and not on their phones should we really be micromanaging our selections from teachers and Librarians who spent years building their classroom libraries I don't think we should there are reasons why people want to ban books but there are even more reasons why we shouldn't we shouldn't be banning books just because we don't like the ideas within them books should
230not be banned without a public discussion that includes a variety of perspectives so the school board to me has that responsibility to make sure that any challenges to Books available in school libraries or through the curriculum within the school district are properly reviewed based on recommendations by the American Library Association and acted on removing The Bluest Eye when no formal complaint was filed removes a procedure that exists evaluate the legitimacy and potential consequences of removing books if parents want to police what their kids read and they should police what their own kids read please don't allow the voices of a few to limit access to books for everybody else I would like to take a moment to remind you of your mission the mission of the Pinellas County school board is to provide the best
231opportunities for all students to success to succeed by adopting policies that ensure continual and continual Improvement of highest student achievement Banning books does not achieve this Mission students achievement and learning means being challenged by difficult materials if we fail to do that then we're failing our kids removing and banning books from libraries and schools is a slippery slope to government censorship and the erosion of our country's commitment to freedom of expression so I'm asking you as the school board to hold the line on intellectual freedom for our students and academic freedom for our teachers so if you can do that we need to stop micromanaging our teachers and just let them get back to work and do their jobs thank you Carla Correa the next two speakers are hajar kadavar and Anna margiota good evening
232I am here as a parent of two children in the Pinellas County school system and also as a physician I'm here to talk regarding my concerns about the implementation of policies and rules that are removing books from instructional materials as long as as well as our school libraries I am an American citizen who was raised in a country under religious rule where women today are still fighting for their rights I was shocked to hear that Educators in this County due to working in a climate of fear and retaliation are looking at removing certain books from their curriculum such as I am Malala this is from an English curriculum within the sixth grade this is being done preemptively due to thoughts that parents may possibly have some concerns this book is an autobiography written by a
233Nobel Peace prize-winning activist who at the age of 11 the same age as my daughter started speaking publicly for her right to an education and at 15 was shot in the head by the Taliban her story is the story of Courage endurance and compassion in a country that Prides itself on freedom and justice I am shocked to continue to hear stories about the removal of books such as these it is clear that a disproportionate amount of these books are specifically being targeted that are written by or about people whose identities and stories are underrepresented and are people of color women lgbtq individuals as a physician I bear witness to the stories and to the lives of my patients patients who struggle with mental illness who struggle having had sexual abuse and assault who struggle with
234isolation due to their identity one in seven children have experienced abuse or neglect just in the past year within the United States removing books like The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison a Nobel prize winning author again and it deals with such topics abandons the lived experience of children who are and have been harmed we need to be uncomfortable about the reality that exists in the world ignoring a problem allows it to persist we need education about our history and literary stories that cause us to question our own personal biases and our cultural understanding we need books that allow all of us to be truly seen and represented and ask us to do better foreign I'm Dr Anna margiata I use lay them pronouns I'm a graduate of Pinellas County Schools and a first year teacher
235at St Petersburg High School before this job I was a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Northern Colorado for six years and my bachelor's and my Master's in chemistry and my PhD in chemical education the topic of my dissertation was equity in chemistry instruction in January of this year I was published I published part of this research and Sage research methods cases I'm saying all these things just to like I have some credibility I know what I'm talking about a little bit when I talk about Equity my job's really hard it's very very difficult I think it's harder than doing my PhD my PhD work we have a teacher shortage we can do things to change how hard my job is and we could do things to change the teacher shortage many teachers in
236our County struggle with large class sizes for students to be treated with equity and fairness they need individual Attention our friend long before she left she said I wrote it down she pointed out that some students need more from us than others doing that giving the students who need extra help help is equity if a teacher like me has 33 students in a 47 minute long class that's a minute and 26 seconds per student per class how do we give that individual attention if we want teachers to attempt to address achievement gaps we have to allow them to time the time to focus on students individually standardized testing separates students from teachers again Equity requires individual attention there are too many standardized tests and as a qualitative researcher I'm worried about the validity and reliability
237of these tests those validation studies are not necessarily easily accessible and instead of focusing on accountability through assessment we should just focus on the ability and expertise of our teachers if we want good teachers if we want people who could address achievement gaps while teaching to standards we need to pay them I need somewhere to live I can't afford to live near where I work and then finally I just wanted you to know that as a trans person and a teacher being a Floridian in this whole anti-work climate and coming to speak to you all is very scary people don't want me specifically to exist I'm standing here saying I exist I'm a trans person I'm non-binary I'm a teacher I love my students and saying all that together in the settings sort of makes
238me feel like I'm in danger but I gotta be here and I gotta say it anyway thank you the next two speakers are Ivy Lynch and Luke Hammond I come today to speak about the unethical and illegal Banning of books an attack on queer and specifically trans youth I stand before you today as a trans woman but more importantly a human being concerned about the future of our education desantis's agenda of anti-woke as a direct attack on not only mine but the youth in my community anti-woke is just a fancy way of saying anti-trans and anti-queer desantises so far banned books on racism gender identity and expression and sexual orientation saying that he's protecting kids when it has always been the complete and total eradication of queer youth desantis's banned gender affirming care for those
239that are 18 as well this restricts life-saving access to hormone replacement therapy the department of psychology at Columbia University states that 54 percent of young people who identified as trans are non-binary reported having seriously considered suicide in the last year and 29 have made an attempt to end their lives earlier this month DeSantis asked to see a breakdown of the medical data of students who received said gender for men care from public entities and universities this is a complete overreach of power and violation of HIPAA law and just today DeSantis has introduced Bill 1223 which targets all grades in every institution and directly states that it is false to ascribe a person a pronoun that has not correspond to such person's sex the effects of desantis's Oppression in our community is horrific I personally know
240many trans and queer people and they are terrified they come to me in tears asking me why does DeSantis hate us so much why is he doing all this to literal children I want our youth to feel accepted represented and seen and desensis is taking every step he can to ensure that does not happen one book at a time I'm telling you to reject every step of desantis's attempts to instate Fascism and anti-quearness in our schools and to try and destroy the foundation of Education I ask you all as well as everyone else in the rest of this room what are you going to do to help us whether you like it or not we are here to stay we refuse to submit we will not be silenced DeSantis will not stop us the law
241will not stop us no one will nothing will we are resilient vibrant and beautiful we will exist and no amount of book Banning or oppression will change that but I am begging you to please reject DeSantis attacks on education thank you and trans rights hey I've come here to today to ask for help and to bring some news from the Science World so the species for survival Commission has announced that fungus is a kingdom in nature joining the ranks of plants and animals so scientists agreed internationally that we need to teach as much about fungus as we do plant and animal life in schools to be effective they've come together and made an international effort new curriculum materials were made in a world-class curriculum is available online for free so I'll be providing my contact
242information at the end so that you guys can have access to it's hard to post a link while I'm standing up here so this has come after many recent discoveries and as far in recent years and this has gone as far as to turn the terminology from flora and fauna to flora fauna and funga so this isn't going anywhere there's been as far as I can see and there's a ton of future business applications for our kids a ton of jobs in the future I myself am a Mycologist who's recently moved here I'll be hosting a free seminar for parents and Educators at a point in the coming months and that's going to be for you guys to learn a little bit more about what's coming I've reached out to Nancy narves Garcia the K-12
243science Specialists and she's the state level curriculum director so it's it's handled on a state level the curriculum it can't be brought to individual schools so I ask you for help and bringing her these curriculum materials so that she can designate them appropriately I've gone through the curriculum myself and there's a there's a ton of just really good information for the kids it's really going to get them ahead and that's all I have today so I'm going to respect your time and retire thanks the next two speakers are Brennan Pickett and Johnna Holloway good evening on a regular basis my students tell me they haven't read a single book in their entire lives my response is usually you just haven't found the right book I didn't come up with this on my own though I
244had a teacher named Mr Tim Waller over at Seminole High School when I was a senior and 2010 and he taught that school for decades and I had the pleasure of being in his English class before he retired Mr Waller taught English for honors he focused on British literature and although I found a new love for brittlet later on as an English teacher myself at the time I couldn't really care less about the curriculum I definitely wasn't a model student actually I had fallen out of love with reading as a child English was my favorite subject but throughout my secondary years leading up to high school I began to resent traditional curriculum that I found irrelevant to my life and sometimes this plain boring of course no offense to the classics of course but I
245just wasn't interested in subjects and genres traditionally taught within the standards however Mr Waller was a unique teacher to me he took an interest in my life and he asked questions about my hobbies when I told him I didn't love to read he just told me I haven't found the right book yet at that point in my life I was fascinated in film Stanley Kubrick David Lynch Clinton Tarantino they were all well known for highly violent and sometimes sexual movies and I would consume these regularly with my mom's Blockbuster card Dollar Rentals and I would study them because I wanted to make films just like them I can only imagine how things are different now considering that most kids have access to unmonitored streaming platforms available at all times I remember telling Mr Waller about
246one particular movie that I was obsessed with at the time by Stanley Kubrick A Clockwork Orange and how cool the violence was in the filmography and all of that I was 17. instead of pushing aside my opinions he started questioning me he was grilling me on the different themes presenting the novel ideas of reformation morality ethics and it was then it occurred to me that I had never really thought so deeply about this before he didn't show patience towards my ignorance instead he went to my school library and he grabbed a copy of this book from the shells and he told me to read it and come back when I finished it I did it was a challenge but it was something I had to prove to him we began to build a relationship off
247many lunch conversations and these conversations were centered around the books he is signed in class because I respected him I would read his books and the supplemental literature he gave me because he felt it was up my alley and almost every single time he was correct this went on until I eventually graduated but I didn't stop reading and Mr Waller awakened something of me and we need to make sure that we are trying to protect books in our libraries and making sure kids have access to these books thank you hi my name is Jonna my name is Donna Holloway there's a couple of things different subjects first I'd like to request that you fully support school-related unions second I keep hearing Florida is now more free I don't see it Banning books is anti-freedom not
248teaching Real History is anti-freedom not having equality and inclusion is anti-freedom third I'd like to speak again against increasing the voucher program hb1 which will take away public school funding which is very needed in conclusion the Santa says Florida has a huge budget surplus pleased Man part of that Surplus go to our Public Schools fund teacher and support Personnel salary hire more counselors and teachers to reduce class size in all classes and not just the core classes thank you the next two speakers are Stephanie Cox and Dan amend hello foreign Cox I have a lot to say but I will I will start with the basics I am a former substitute of the year for Pinellas County Schools I am a former area volunteer of the Year former PTA president of the year a former
249parent of two children in Pinellas County Schools who are now no longer in Pinellas County Schools I would love for them to be in Pinellas County Schools but right now we don't have this Staffing we are focusing on Banning books when we can't keep our schools safe we don't have enough guidance counselors we don't have enough AIDS we don't have enough esol teachers we are talking about culture wars from moms for Liberty when our schools are falling apart none of this is okay I resigned from substitute teaching after last year rescuing two classes at Shore Acres Elementary when their teachers resigned mid-year because they were overwhelmed by all the issues at that were happening in those classes there were students that needed more help than this District was providing I resigned in November because I
250was targeted by someone on this school board and my in privacy was invaded my online privacy and I pulled my kids because I do not trust that my kids are safe I've seen over the past couple of weeks pictures private pictures of students bulletin boards in your schools blasted out all over Facebook I don't know where they're coming from but if my students picture was blasted out by moms for Liberty there's gonna no this is not okay we need to stop this we need to support our schools we need to support public education in this community I've got a kid in private school right now and guess what he wasn't accepted at every private school my kid with an FSA of five my kid with perfect Behavior because he's type 1 diabetic and not every
251school will take a type 1 diabetic kit the school he's in has a wait list of over a hundred children so this whole privatizing education it's not going to end well thank you Dan amend the next two speakers are ginger brengel and Jennifer Young good evening everyone since 2010 I have been the coordinator of the AVID program at our school I was also an avid teacher for several years Avid is a nationally known program being held at over 8 000 schools with over 2 million students served each year it has rigorous requirements for certification which we are currently in the middle of right now and all of this information is easily located at my.avid.org including plenty of statistics Avid takes students who will be the first in their family to attend University or have other
252adversities that may prevent them from attending post-secondary schools our average students are required to take AP and other Advanced courses and then our Avid class provides additional support through tutorials so that those students are successful taking courses that they would have never taken without our support Avid students do have an advantage when they apply to college it is a question on most of the major college applications in the state and around the country and many scholarships will also ask if they are an avid student for example the Dell full ride scholarship is offered every year to only Avid students and every year we have at least two students in this County that receive this and one of mine is about to graduate from Florida Gulf Coast University over the years I have watched our Avid
253students transform from shy freshmen to confident seniors infused with life skills as well as academic skills one of the bonuses of being an avid is taking trips to college campuses and I'll tell you what the first time we did that in 2010 I had a bus load of students going to UCF and we crossed the Howard Franklin bridge and they were taking pictures out the window of Tampa and the bay and I said what are you doing and they said we've never crossed this bridge before students we are helping with Abbott we are giving them opportunities they would have never had and how dare anyone question this fabulous program that is a thinly veiled attack on a program that has previously sponsored culturally relevant training because heaven forbid I have the same initials as CRT
254which by the way that training is the best training I've ever had the Avid summer Institute seems pricey but if you look at conferences that's how much they are and it's not a four-hour Leadership Institute it is a three-day immersion it's a fabulous fabulous conference I love it and the teachers come back ready to use that information and those skills immediately and it impacts our students it isn't that what we are here for one last thing you call us experts who don't need the Sabbath training but we're not experts when it comes to picking out books or instructional materials right thank you hi my name is Jennifer young my son and I are both alumni of Pinellas County Schools and my son was a better student because of avid I've lived here my whole life
255and I care deeply about public education I'm here tonight as a therapist in private practice here in Pinellas County I've treated sexual assault survivors and victims of domestic violence for 25 years as our kids have said at the last meeting and tonight you have no basis for Banning the book The Bluest Eye the fact that you identified two pages of a book that tells the story of a young black girl from her perspective not yours and since those two pages detailed a sexual assault then the book is banned for pornography is telling what this tactic of banning books really shows is your fear your fear of young people thinking for themselves learning for themselves and demonstrating the wisdom and strength and fortitude to stand up for themselves one in seven children are sexually assaulted as
256we heard tonight but let me add that two out of three victims of child sexual assault are between the ages of 12 and 17. we could continue on the and that's according to rain.org continue on the path of hiding these truths not talking with young people and not empowering youth to be better or speak up or protect themselves and we could cover up these issues as we have always done or we could trust our highly educated highly trained Educators to guide our young people through the reading of quality literature what I think you don't want is for our youth to rise up you must be terrified scared of losing your power the power that many of you and groups who lift you up wield whose goal is holding on to power that pushes a closed-minded
257hateful agenda ignorance it's an agenda that never made America great this school board is responsible for preparing young adults for life this big beautiful hard life and you can yell about parental rights all you want but ultimately you are accountable to these kids be very careful what you try to ban from them they are very often much wiser than you and finally I would encourage you to use critical thinking skills when making these decisions decisions you cannot stop something if you don't talk about it and I stand with all survivors of sexual assault those that I know those that I've never met and those that I will truly understand not understand because I have not had the experiences that they have had how dare you I stand with the kids and I stand with these
258teachers the next two speakers are Paula Stevens and Ramsay Aziz good evening Madam chair Mr Hendrick and board members thank you for pushing on through this evening I know it's been a long day for everybody when I first came to the board this or to this meeting this evening I wasn't really sure what I was going to talk about but I knew I needed to remind you that we still have 93 job postings for instructional staff and 152 support staff openings in our schools we still have 10 weeks to go one more week till spring break I also want to share my son is 22 and he is a product of Hollins High School and he was able thanks to Avid be able to work on his study skills in order for him to go
259ahead and be part of the dual enrollment program by the time he was a senior so you know it is worth Avid does and I am actually at Eisenhower Elementary and we started Avid two years ago and it was just for the intermediate grades and this past year we put it down all the way to kindergarten and it looks a lot different in elementary school but it is still working on helping kids to organize it's helping the teachers get common language that goes across to help our students and I would just encourage you to spend some more time out in classrooms and see for yourself what is going on in our classrooms at Avid schools not just for high school but in elementary as well what I'd also like to advocate for is for each
260and every one of you to take a stand to support public schools and public education if I'm not mistaken about 40 million of our school budget went towards scholarships and funding for vouchers this past year which had doubled from the year before I can't imagine how much money is going to be sucked out of our school budget should Senate Bill 1 pass through because I believe it's going to be way more than 40 million for next year so please the advocates for your students in our schools and your Educators thank you good evening members of the school board my name is Ramsay Aziz I'm a first year teacher at St Pete High I and I teach AP Psychology AP European History anthropology honors and Humanities honors and I have been up since 4 30 a.m
261a month ago I spoke in front of this board to State my complaints about the current administration at the state level as well as Ron DeSantis policies regarding education today I am here to demand a call to action we need the members of the school board to lobby for us to defend education teachers and parents are working double and triple in order to take care of the needs of their students of their kids and to take care of their own lives as well as to defend education I'm asking every single member of this body to go to Tallahassee and to speak up for Pinellas County right now we have potentially an authoritarian Administration in Tallahassee and for the members of the audience who do not know what authoritarian means it means government that uses strong
262central power to preserve the political status quo who is trying to dismantle and dismantle education by driving teachers and support staff out of Florida as members of the board alluded to with the amount of openings we currently have in the county placing appointments at universities such as recently at new College hand-picking school board members in other counties dismantling teachers organizations such as the union and attacking school programs such as advanced placement Etc do we want a school board in Pinellas that was not chosen by the people do we want our children our students to not get the quality education they deserve I am going to Tallahassee to Lobby to defend education in the State of Florida the union is going to Tallahassee to Lobby to defend education parents are going to lobby for their kids
263we need you the school board our elected officials to join the fight to lobby and defend education against intrusive government currently as things stand Florida is going to be on the wrong side of history but Pinellas County does not have to as well and I want to remind all members of the board you do not work for the state you work for the students the teachers and the parents okay before I concede the rest of my time I wish to remind you why I teach I teach so that my students can strive for their Will To Power the will to power meaning the strive for betterment so that they can become so absolutely free that their very existence is an act of rebellion and with that I can see the rest of my time thank
264you the next two speakers are Philip belcastro and Carrie Boucher good evening thank you for having us allow us to speak my name is Philip belcastro I teach English Ace General paper and internationally recognized college level course from Cambridge at St Petersburg High School an A plus School I have two bachelor's degrees one in my field of English professional writing and another in Spanish language and culture in addition to my years of experience and expertise in languages writing and specifically teaching and educating children and the public in a variety of settings and formats I also have completed many professional trainings and multiple certifications to add to my credentials I'm a licensed professional educator in the State of Florida with completed college coursework and education over 300 hours of completed esol coursework for endorsements to teach
265speakers of other languages I am certified in youth mental health first aid for children in crisis as well as basic first aid and life support I'm also a published researcher in the fields of socioeconomics and government policy as part of my work with the city of St Petersburg and my degree from USF from which I earned honors and Magna come loud before becoming a teacher I dedicated my professional adult life to serving the most vulnerable people in our community Through public housing and food Security Programs when I leave and take my skills and expertise out of Florida it will be because this state and subsequently school districts all over are openly hostile toward public education and professional educators while career politicians in Tallahassee continue to meddle in local Affairs and manipulate manipulate and micromanage the
266noble profession of public school teachers while career politicians in Tallahassee continue to undermine the democracy and equalizer of communities by taking money away from public schools money away from resources and experiences which are the right of children and instead push for privatization and crony management while career politicians in Tallahassee and at the federal government do nothing to control the historic inflation that's destroying the purchasing power of the working class of educated dedicated professionals like myself and forcing us to leave our jobs leave our homes and leave your children in the classroom without a teacher or more often just a sign on the door that says go to the gym what are you going to do about it commit to protecting your teachers commit to making noise at the Capitol commit to working for the public
267to being public servants elected to represent those of us who cannot go ourselves because we're working two and three jobs because we can't take time off work because we're too physically and emotionally drained to constantly keep defending ourselves and our profession and our qualifications commit to fighting for us and we will fight with you I run in arts or Arts Outreach organization that works with thousands of PCS students every year I want to thank the board for unanimously supporting designating March youth Arts month a little bit of history in 2003 budget cuts at the state level threatened arts program Statewide fortunately Pinellas County voters from all backgrounds recognize how important the Arts are for our children since 2004 voters have been United in supporting the referendum to supplement the PCS Arts budgets with the intention
268of assure ensuring that all PCF students continue to have access to the Arts programs in receiving this support we need to be intentional in how we frame the value of the Arts yes we can be proud that PCS students produce award-winning art but equally important and I would argue more importantly it is also in the art rooms the music rooms the theater programs that students who are struggling in other areas of school and life can find what at times becomes life-saving support students who learn or process information differently whose home or life situation makes it difficult for them to arrive to school ready to learn who are being othered or ostracized by peers or unbelievably and unfortunately in the current political environment by adults those students can find in the art room a place of
269connection and belonging and for some it's one of the few places in their lives where they feel they can feel successful the Arts are uniquely suited to nurture environments where children can be themselves the fullest expression of themselves in whatever way that presents itself I'm grateful to live in a county that values the Arts and can continues to Endeavor to support all students in this way so again I believe our primary framing of value of the Arts should be rooted in the human benefit and not in the subjective product that is created and because I have a little bit of time I just want to add a footnote that every year thousands of PCF students are taught by PCS teachers inside the Pinellas Regional Juvenile Detention Center many of those students wind up there for
270the same reason I mentioned the same reasons I mentioned above learning differences difficult home life and situations being ostracized by peers and families and while they are being taught by PCS teachers the state is charged with determining their curriculum and the structure of their day as a county who sees value in supplementing our PCS budget to ensure that all students have access to the Arts I want to remind everyone that while students in that Facility have an 8 AM to 2 P.M Monday through Friday School Day art Music Theater Etc are not included in their curriculum and not a penny of the referendum money goes to provide extracurricular art support there so if we frame the value of the Arts and put in the potential human impact we can see that we must consider which
271students might be thank you the next two speakers are Shannon Vincent and Kelsey Donegan good evening my name is Shannon Vincent and I'm here as a parent and an English teacher with the district for the past 20 years I am here to implore all of you to go to Tallahassee to say no to hb1 unfortunately the State of Florida will go down in the books as being on the wrong side of history with its anti-woke campaign and its expansion of the voucher program but Pinellas County does not have to go down with it this County could choose to fight against these exclusive moves by going to Tallahassee and reminding our lawmakers why public education matters the passing of hb1 will defund dismantle and Destroy public education we can't take any more away from our Public
272Schools we need to properly fund schools so that our children can learn already teachers are over burdened with so much responsibility that good teachers are leaving the profession my son has been without a language arts teacher for most of this school year and now he is without a history teacher he receives his work through canvas messages delivered by someone who is not his teacher while the sub of the day allows the class to play on their phones and by the way that's not all subs but he just gets that one we talk about removing books from ourselves my son has not read a book for a class and discussed it with a teacher for more than three years that's unconscionable somehow he'll have to pass the test at the end of the year regardless of
273his lack of a qualified teacher vouchers are partly to blame for his lack of Education the money that continues to drain from public schools and into Charter Schools is putting too much burden on the individual teacher causing them to leave the profession and this experiment with putting a kid in front of a laptop is not working instead of instruction he is told to read excerpts out of context and answer questions he needs a teacher but at this ugly moment in time it is really hard to encourage people to go into teaching because in this state teachers feel like criminals for doing the job of getting their students to think we need to stop the attack on teachers and begin recruiting more people for the job our young people don't want to become teachers anymore because
274they see the abuse that teachers endure repairing the damage that has been done will cost money giving more money to charter schools that are not held accountable for teaching our kids the standards is wrong all we need to do is look at the failed voucher experiment and other places to see that is a system that does not work for the good of having an educated populace if we allow this bill to pass many of our children will get left behind we need to fight to save public education it is the Bedrock of a thriving democracy please go to Tallahassee to fight for the future of Education in this state so that all of our students have a teacher to teach them oh good evening my name is Kelsey Donegan I am a first year teacher
275at St Petersburg High School I teach pre-ap English one and two last month I listened to miss Edmond and Miss Long argue incredulous that the motion regarding controversial materials with its vague language and several typos should not be passed a motion that effectively banned almost every single best standard approved text they unfortunately lost that vote tonight I held my breath as I watched board members suggest diminishing the funding for avid I have students who can't do their homework because their group home doesn't have internet I have students who tell me my class is the best part of their day because I listen empathize and show genuine care in their ability to learn and master the skills I teach them I have several students who don't speak English and have to translate readings write their answers
276in Spanish then re-translate their answers back not just into English words but English syntax and grammar structure please don't ever again suggest the idea to reduce funding towards programs that help every child like Mr Hendrick said earlier the problems many children face are systemic and multifaceted we can't make sure that every child is given the same opportunities outside of school but we can do our best to mitigate the damage those systemic issues cause to many of our students we can do our best to make sure those kids are given the best opportunity we can offer at school I would like to the chair to consider I would also like the chair to consider a practice from Hillsborough County school board meetings where educators are given an earlier time slot to give public comment this is
277not so that we can say whatever we want and leave early it is so that members of the public who level egregious dangerous and unfounded accusations against us may have the opportunity to hear our concerns and convictions before they leave Florida has a massive teacher shortage that Pinellas County is suffering from the anxieties about being labeled groomers being personally sued for accurately teaching history from the voices of the oppressed and the vague absurd limitations on our curriculum is driving teachers out of the state rapidly if you want a state full of charter schools with religious curriculum taught by unqualified people that have a gun but no relevant degree do nothing that's the path hb1 has set us towards thank you for your time the next two speakers are Kathleen Cron excuse and Lily barmona good
278evening and congratulations you're all still awake and you're all looking like you're listening to us and I think you are thank you so much for being here and doing such a wonderful job in a very very difficult toxic environment your dedication comes across loud and strong and it's wonderful to see you Carol I know you have worked very hard for this school district for many years my child was a student here from 2000 to 2013. she got a world-class education and I thank you for that I think what my feelings have been so eloquently expressed by so many people I just want to regarding accident free access to education integrity and education intellectual Freedom the people who have the boots on the ground have my complete admiration the only thing I can think to say
279is we had a quote from Thomas Jefferson you all probably know this that democracy cannot long exist without Enlightenment that cannot function without wise and honest officials which you all are that talent and virtue need it in a free Society should be educated regardless of wealth birth or other accidental condition that other children of the poor must be thus be educated at common expense thank you for being Americans good evening I just want to say thank you for letting me speak and last year I was a senior in high school taking AP Literature in preparation for the AP test my class read both The Awakening and The Bluest Eye when the test came both The Awakening and The Bluest Eye were on the exam as books to write our final essay about and the fact
280that I was able to read them in a controlled classroom setting with an educated teacher and classmates who were encouraged to be inquisitive and critical thinkers I ended up getting a five on the test and them being accepted into colleges all over the state with an AP honors award to my name which benefited me financially in ways I still can't wrap my head around I believe that by taking these books out of the public school curriculum students are being put at a disadvantage on a scale larger than I think people realize the knowledge that comes from reading these books don't only make them a more knowledgeable and well-rounded human being as they enter the professional world but also the skills that come from reading texts like these actively work towards succeeding in AP and sat
281two programs and tests that have undeniably played the largest factor in my college career whether we like it or not the material in said books that might be discerned as graphic or accurate and real narratives and characters on a level that exceeds academic advantages these texts have brought me I've seen the real world affects these stories have had on my peers and myself to move forward we must encourage students to learn about people and stories that are different than themselves school has on one school has on more than one occasion being a place where I felt the safest and bravest due to the encouragement I've had to be unafraid to ask questions and unafraid to explore the real world as someone who has just been in high school I wouldn't wish the financial academic Collegiate
282or personal blessings these tasks most specifically The Bluest Eye have brought me to be taken away from anyone and I plead you not to either thank you the next two speakers are Thomas Hallock and Aiden Cooper Heim hi my name is Aiden Cooper Osceola High School class of 2022 and currently a first-year student at USF as most of us are here to do I'd like to say a few words about the Banning of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye The Awakening by Kate Chopin and Anthony Burgess is A Clockwork Orange from Pinellas County school libraries first of all the obvious suppression of literature regardless of message or content is suppression of Freedom we live in a country where we're free to express ourselves however we want and literature is such an expression Banning books is essentially
283censorship plain and simple the books being banned now the three I mentioned earlier carry important messages for all people I read several books while a student in Pinellas County schools that at one time or another were banned titles like Fahrenheit 451 To Kill a Mockingbird Things Fall Apart A Thousand Splendid Suns and George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm we read and discussed these books in the classroom and I think and I think I'm a better person for having read them reading these books brought New Perspectives for me to be aware of while growing up perspectives I would have remained ignorant of if we had not discussed them in the classroom I have two sisters enrolled in Pinellas County Schools currently and I hope they will receive the same instruction Banning The Bluest Eye The Awakening
284and A Clockwork Orange will prevent students like myself from experiencing the world from different perspectives as a side note I work in a local bookstore and sales for all three titles are up in response to the news of the Banning so if anything your decision has led to more awareness about the books you're trying to suppress overall I'm just disappointed to see an institution I've spent most of my life as a part of an institution that I respect doing this it's embarrassing that one of the leading school systems in the state if not the country is falling into this trend of suppressing literature this isn't about protecting children this is a political statement it's Un-American and it's just unethical frankly to put political agendas before public education because this is very much a political statement
285don't think we don't see that thank you my name is Thomas Hallock I am a professor of English at the University of South Florida one of my great privileges to be a teacher of teachers also I'm there Professor it's great pride I'm here because I read what a couple weeks ago that the Blue Sky Clockwork Orange and The Awakening had been removed from schools or were going to be removed it really hit me like a blow because I thought I thought about the Awakening I brought my copy can I present it to you can I come forward or no all right I'll just show you I have my copy from 1986 my paper on onion skin with the typewriter y'all remember this changed my life I'll ask people how many have had a book that
286changed your life raise your hand ask the board has a book ever changed your life yes or no has a book change your life if a book has not changed your life raise your hand no abstentions yes no press Corps has a book ever changed your life not allowed to say who's to say what that book was it Walden was it the Bible was it the color purple was it Heaven help you the art of the deal who's to say what books belong in the shelves and what books don't thank you the next two speakers are Brad rosenheim and Scott Shapiro thank you members of the board for staying so long to hear us out I think we all are happy that we're being heard I'm a professor also at the University of South Florida
287and I came here tonight to use one of my favorite sayings the world is full of bad accountants when I heard the discussion about avid I heard folks constantly pointing to a number wanting to cross it off The Ledger that's one side of a budget that's one side of accounting and I was very pleased with board member long for bringing up the other side of the Ledger how we benefit from it's often very hard to work both sides of the Ledger but if you're only willing to cross off a number on a sheet of paper you're being a bad accountant and that leads to my points about Transportation I came here earlier with my son because he can't take the bus we would love for him to be on the bus but it drops him
288off a mile away from our house he has to cross 4th Street North and 9th Street North we pay somebody to take him home from school so we can stay at work this week that person was sick so she couldn't do it that meant that I had to take off early today pick him up and then of course take him here because my wife had to work late it was way past his bedtime when a friend brought him home I fear that with the upcoming decisions on Transportation that we will see another round of bad accounting if we only look at who is not using the bus system instead of who would use it if it were reliable and have better coverage I think we'll be making really bad mistake and leaving people out of
289it we would love to use the bus system but I don't want my seven-year-old Crossing 4th Street North and 9th Street North by himself finally along the lines of accounting again if all of you were to scour the history books and look for one governmental entity a monarch a dictatorship a democracy who came out on top for withholding information from its citizens you wouldn't have to lift a single finger it has never happened please don't be bad accountants when it comes to providing information for our students thank you Scott Shapiro the next two speakers are Anna Breedlove and Dr Christy Faust all right hi I'm back so Dr Christy Faust she her pronouns former PCS teacher South St Pete resident so I do have a point I'll say I'm going to start off a little
290rambly so I'm from originally from Northwest Ohio my parents were high school graduates and my mom was a teen mom actually and you know Public School educated all the way through and my K-12 education laid the foundation when I first went to school I got into good chemical engineering program I did end up finishing that through but ultimately that laid the foundation for a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from University of North Florida and a PhD from the University of South Florida in biology so I'm very proud of my public education everything from back when I lived in Paulding Ohio to you know living living here now and finishing up in USF Tampa but since I went into the stem path after I graduated high school really the only history in Civics I really
291got in the Ohio system was in my K-12 education because they put you know once you get your major they really stick you to the classes that fit that and my K-12 education was also heavy on old white guy literature so in northwest Ohio I'm not very diverse too my cultural education we'll say was pretty limited for many years and then just life commitments and things I mean I was a reader but my commitments kept me from digging too much into that so much later like really deeply like into my 30s really is when I started I won't say just started but like is when I started thinking more about these things and thinking deeper and digging deeper and I realized in my K-12 as proud as I am to come from that Heritage and
292you know I feel like I did get a good education in many ways I felt lied to I realized that knowledge and power was kept from me by elevating these stories about these land-owning white men who saved the so-called saved this land from so-called Savages into indigenous people and built the country through their own sweat obviously completely ignoring the fact that this land the country has been built was stolen black labor and it's on Stolen land and that might sound negative but I felt like I feel lied to not learning that earlier and I wished I'd learned all of that and I also wish that I had learned all of the beauty and joy that those cultures bring to our country like and I continue to learn that now and so I think of our
293youth now right someday they're gonna learn if they don't learn it in school they're going to learn it some more they're going to start looking around looking for Anna Breedlove the next two speakers are Sivan peacock and Lindsey Blankenbaker foreign my name is Sarah peacock sorry Pinellas County didn't give me that great of handwriting I'm here to speak on behalf of my stepdaughter Aurora from John Hopkins Middle School on the topic of District provided tests in the classroom I recognize that compared to many of the topics we've talked about today this may not seem to have the same weight however I've decided to speak anyway for two reasons firstly I think it speaks to the overarching and deeply entrenched lack of care given to student level experiences second it's such an easy win for you
294I'll start with what she's written and given to me Aurora says I think the test provided to students are flawed in many ways either the curriculum or the care put into tests needs to change it's clear that very little work and review was put into them they're littered with typos poor grammar and confusing language several of my tests for important subjects like science have mistakes in spelling they have questions on points that aren't present in the curriculum or questions that simply aren't written with enough information and the answer had to be given to us now for me I think she's articulated herself perfectly so I don't have much to add I have heard from her repeatedly that these tests seem to be written by someone who has only second hand knowledge of the subject this
295seems like it could be easily resolved I hope I'm not naive and thinking that you sought your position on this board in order to support the education of children in this District these students and this community need and expect you to fight for us this is only my second meeting but it's hard to miss all the back padding and complementary language that begins these events I want some of that enthusiasm for Quality to reach actual students I hope you'll oppose hb1 and sb202 I hope you'll support our teachers unions and I hope you'll serve the students to whom you're responsible thank you I'm Lindsey Blankenbaker I'm the executive director of pcta in pespa and I am so tired and I am having a hard time I'm going to have a hard time being articulate tonight
296I'm tired I'm frustrated maybe it's a number of things maybe it's the fact that we've all been here for a number of hours maybe that's after a very long day of very hard work and I acknowledge that I thank you all so much for giving your time to be here maybe it's because anti-educator Union bills finally drop today while we were sitting here maybe it's being incredulous at the lack of voices in Tallahassee to stand up against all of this Injustice to stand up for public education to stand up for us to stand up for our students they could learn from the overwhelming majority of speakers tonight thank you thank you so much it's important to remember that our constitution our contract our only valid if they're enforceable if there are people organizations agencies unions
297to enforce them maybe it's any of these things maybe it's all of these things but and I really hated to add to the list of speakers I really did but I had a hard time sitting through some of it because and this is just a point of personal privilege through all of tonight's glowing speech deservedly so around our public supported referendum I cannot understand why pcta our teachers union our teachers union one of the teachers unions under attack exclusively under attack by the way has never been mentioned I don't understand it before my time at pcta our Union we funded and staffed the referendum campaign leading to this celebrated support of the Arts in our schools and of course over five thousand dollars in each Pinellas teacher's salary our president Nancy velardi spoke on our
298Union's partnership with the district spoke to our need for a true partnership under today literally today this afternoon's attacks on us not police not firefighters not EMT unions us but how can we be partners if our name is not even uttered if our Vital contribution to Pinellas Schools goes unspoken undefended I've seen this happen before in my home county our neighbor to the east our Union drove and secured the County sales tax referendum labor that was quickly spent and unfortunately as quickly forgotten last year the trust a true partnership between the district and the union could lend was lost and it failed costing the district Educators schools millions of dollars annually that trust was gone and it cost us Millions I don't want any of this to happen here none of it to prevent this
299we have to stand up and thank you the next speaker is Riley Knowles that's correct I was not planning on speaking but a lot of topics that are close to Smart came up so I'm from Tallahassee and I could have gone to FSU like all my friends and family but instead I chose to go to USF Saint Pete because it has a very welcoming community and that's something I like and I've had my friends be discriminated against I've had friends who were raped I've had many friends who've killed themselves and these new laws will not help this or make it better in fact I think it'll make it worse it might be obvious but I'm someone with very severe social anxiety and in my public high school I read a book about a girl's social
300anxiety and it saved me just as many books that are getting banned might save someone else of a different background and because of this book and others that I read in my high school I decided to major in English literature and I just think it's important to ask ourselves do you want to lose more children to Suicide do you want more people to just hate themselves for a reason that they should not do you want more children to be ill-prepared for the world because they are not learning about topics that they should at an age where they are appropriate and if parents disagree with this they can teach their kids that why they do not and let them decide for themselves that is freedom and I think that books are a way for adults and
301children alike to find pieces of themselves to feel seen and banning books is Criminal for taking away that from people who need to be understood and feel understood and Madam chair we have no more speakers thank you all very much for being here this evening thank you we will do our board evaluation