001good evening everyone thank you for being here this evening's invocation will be given by Father Bill swagnos from Saint Ignatius of Antioch Roman Catholic Church the invocation will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice chair Laura Hein and the National Anthem sung by Osceola fundamentals high schools choir under the direction of John Campbell please stand and remain standing until the conclusion of the national anthem father swagness please share the invocation with us gracious God we praise your name and we thank you for all of your blessings for our children young people and their families for our teachers and staff and for all those here and those who are watching who support the education formation health and well-being of our young people we ask that you set our hearts on fire fill us
002with your wisdom and understanding patience and kindness as we discern how best to serve you and your children May our decisions and deliberations tonight not only bear fruit in our time but in the ages to come we ask this in thy Most Holy Name amen and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all oh what's so proudly we 've had and that's why why stores foreign for the love and the home of the prayer thank you so much maybe seated Mr Campbell would you please introduce the second song I would be happy too thank you Oasis next number they will be singing is titled you say by Miss Daigle Lauren Daigle and the arranger is Heather Sorensen foreign thank you once again because I need
003to know when I can feel the things please strong when I think I am yes yes I believe are your feet tories this is that was so beautiful so beautiful and thank you so much that is the Osceola fundamental High School choirs thank you Mr Campbell thank you for being here now I would like to introduce today's video the Hollins High School robotics team Nirvana headed to Houston last week to compete against other teams from across the U.S and the world in the first which stands for for inspiration and recognition of Science and Technology robotics Championship they placed 19 out of 48 teams in their division so let's take a look at their preparation for this worldwide competition I mean going to Worlds as a second year team is insane it's really just amazing to
004see how far we've come and that our all of our hard work is paying off the publicity from going to Worlds just around the school has already gotten more people interested more people are asking oh you're in robotics what's that like you guys are going to Worlds that's amazing and I think that'll Inspire more people to join the objective was to pick up a cone and place it on top and build a robot that could efficiently do that so we would spend lots of days after school and on weekends working together to build the best robots possible the big difference this year to years in the past is that we have some students who are very willing to stay after and put in the time and they're very interested in what they're doing so they
005take the time at home to find out more about programming or find out more about the electrical wiring they're doing they take the time to ask the mentors you know how could we do this better or how could we do this differently and I think it's that inquiry that really makes a difference between oh we have a team who has a bot and we have a team who has a competitive model and it's really important to me as a teacher to see the students succeeding in a real life application of the things that we try to teach them in our classes I learned that I work really well around like-minded people such as these guys I've also been about myself that I like to Tinker with a lot of things and you know besides all
006of the technical knowledge that I've learned I think that teamwork is another crucial part of this it's truly incredible I always thought that there was a chance that we would make it this far but I knew that it wasn't a certainty gradually making those strides and then eventually all the culminating to what we have now has just been truly like one of the most incredible experiences of my life wow there's an incredible team of students so we will bring an update when they return from Nationals as well but that's how they're doing right now and so our now we will introduce our public information officer Isabella mascaranish and she will introduce our professional and Community organizations that are with us today welcome good evening Madam chair members of the board Mr Hendrick and staff it
007is my pleasure to introduce the following representatives of community and professional organizations representing the Pinellas educational support professionals Association or pespa Nelly henya's president from the Pinellas classroom Teachers Association Lindsay blackenbaker executive director and Nancy verlardi president representing the North Pinellas League of Women Voters Nikki Ameren Titus from the Pinellas arts for a complete education Coalition Maria athanasoulis and Sue Castleman today we have a presentation from the student rights and responsibility committee please welcome students Abigail dressback Eli stoop and Courtney Bennett from Osceola fundamental high school and their principal Michael Bonet all right hi my name is Elijah Stroop and I'm grateful to be here today to talk about osceola's fundamentals academic standing Osceola is a school known for its excellence in plenty of areas but one of those that attracts plenty of people is
008its academics after all it's what primarily brought my family and so many others here as Osceola has been an a-rated high school for 12 consecutive years Osceola currently offers 28 AP classes and plans to add AP pre-calculus next year this is a phenomenal academic resource for students as those motivated enough will take full advantage of the plethora of APs provided to them and can potentially save a lot of money in college as I myself will have taken 15 8ps by the time I graduate graduate allowing me to have plenty I'm allowing me to have the same amount of credits as an undergraduate Junior and college saving plenty of time and money Additionally the school personally encourages every student to take an AP class throughout their High School career through their counselor ensuring a certain level
009of care that not every academic institution could obtain Osceola also also sorry also offers several on-campus dual enrollments courses for both Saint P college and Pinellas Technical College such as the unique dual enrollment culinary program students can take in later years these courses prove extremely viable to students who do not feel comfortable with ap but still want to earn college credit for taking an equally rigorous course however I feel it wouldn't be fair to praise the academic values of Osceola without mentioning its staff every single teacher I've had to be my 28 plus classes has had an impact on me and the other countless students that have had them in their academic career molding us into adults throughout the past four years on top of that our school would not be completely managed without the
010Fantastic work of Mr Bonet former former assistant principal Mr Schmidt deal who is now the principal of East Lake high and the new assistant principal Dr Smith who I'm sure the students of Osceola will get to know and appreciate there's still a lot more positive things I could discuss such as the certification opportunities Osceola provides but I'm sure I'd be here for a lot longer than any of us with demon reasonable I'm committed to the University of Florida and I plan to major in aerospace engineering with a possible minor in computer science thank you for your time and I hope you all have a wonderful evening thank you good evening my name is Courtney Bennett and I'm a senior at Osceola fundamental high school as I look back at my time at Osceola fundamental I
011am just astounded at all the things that I have accomplished ofhs opened doors for me to be a girl State 2022 delegate a seminar for tomorrow's leaders delegate and Beyond this student's rights and responsibilities committee I have been a member of the international thespian society and try a music Honor Society since my freshman year and I can confidently say that the Arts at ofhs have molded me into who I am today I have always loved theater and when I started taking theater classes I learned how to speak in front of people which is a significant life skill for one to possess theater gave me the confidence to join the National speech and debate Honor Society participating in dramatic performance of which I am a national qualifier the Arts are crucial to Student Life at ofhs
012and bring people together ofhs is one of few schools to have a culinary program a student-run theater program a superior rated marching band and chorus and numerous levels of Photography 2D and 3D art Osceola is a place where people support one another so many different activities happen each day and yet people still have time to do what they enjoy for example I myself and try and president District 4 representative for thespians Oracle liaison for National English Honor Society and a superior rated thespian and musician but I am only one person Eli is swim Captain a dual enrollment culinary arts student vice president of the coding club and is in the top 10 of the senior class Abby is class president cheer captain a director and flag football captain we see each other as one thing
013clubs academics and up in the Arts but ofhs students are so much more than that we are involved we are warriors and even though I become a bull at the University of South Florida in Fall of 2023 majoring in mathematic education I will always be a warrior I would like to turn it over to Abby thank you for your time hi I'm Abigail dressback and I have the honor to be here today to talk about Osceola fundamental High School's athletic programs and touch on our honor societies and clubs in my four years of Osceola I've gotten to participate in our soccer program cheerleading program and flag football program I've also been grateful to be a captain for both the varsity cheerleading team and the varsity flag football team our schools known to be an extremely
014well-rounded school and for good reason however our Sports programs are one of our greatest strengths this year alone our football team was District Champs our boys swim team was District champs for the seventh year in a row with 14 total swimmers and divers going to State including Eli who spoke earlier speaking of State our girls cross country team was state champions as well as District Champions Regional Champions and pcac champions our boys soccer team was District champs as well our boys basketball team and our boys lacrosse team were both District runner-ups our girls track team our district Champs our thinkable team we're pcac Champions and we are still making a run at regionals starting tomorrow almost every single Athlete on these teams are not just known as athletes they're also known as Honor Society members
015thespians Club presidents members of the warrior Pride band singers in our School chorus Student Government members AP students anchors on our school show O-Town where we broadcast our information to the entire School yearbook staff online news and so much more along with my athletic titles and participation I'm in NHS nehs and AHS rocappa nths international thespian society and on the board of directors for that I also directed an in the round show with my best friend Kaylee I anchor on otown and help behind the scenes I run four social media accounts for Osceola I'm in bus buddies Key Club women in stem and last but not least I'm also the senior class president I would not be able to be as involved in my school as I am without the amazing staff and support system
016of it though it may seem that I'm involved in almost everything Osceola has more than 50 clubs in honor societies therefore I'm only involved in a little sliver of them we have all these extracurriculars available to students because our Administration cares they care so much so that if a small group of students is immensely passionate about a topic and wants to form a club about it they will then help them form that club there's such a surplus of opportunities at Osceola that have truly resulted in myself and my peers getting the best high school experience as possible I will be going to SBC and then USF St Pete to major in digital Communications and multimedia journalism after all of the time and involvement I've had with my school I can confidently say that Osceola fundamental
017High School really is the home of academic success and Warrior Pride thank you thank you that was excellent wow you are busy thank you all so much thank you Osceola High School and to the Osceola fundamental High School principal Mike Bonet for being here this evening thank you all thank you very much now Mr Hendrick are there any recommended amendments to the agenda this evening yes Madam chair there are three these were posted last week but they are 7 17 7 18 and 7 19 they're all administrative appointments for next school year so I shared at our Workshop we wanted to get those done as soon as possible to give schools the opportunity to plan for next year seeing none as board chair I find good cause to amend the agenda as described by superintendor
018superintendent Hendrick to amend item 7.17 7.18 and 7.19 may have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended I have a movement approval by Mrs Hein second and a second by Mrs Meyer all in favor say aye any posts none the motion carries unanimously seven to zero thank you and now we will begin our special order of agenda and we are going to be we will begin with our special agenda with item 4.1 which is the recognition of the 2022-2023 outstanding School volunteers and board members will be going down for this item to greet our volunteers Mr Hendrick will you please introduce the item while we do that thank you madam chair and I'll give a second for our board members to make their way down it's our pleasure tonight to recognize our outstanding School
019volunteers we had them for a luncheon not too long ago at Feather Sound Country Club and recognize them with some of the members of their school family and their personal families but tonight we recognize them in front of our board and our community these are outstanding service oriented individuals in our community and I'm going to call up Dr Seymour Brown our director of strategic Partnerships who's going to explain more but we have categories for students for traditional volunteers and for seniors and we're pleased to recognize all of them tonight Dr Brown thank you Mr Hendricks Madam chairperson board members Mr Hendrickson staff greetings April is National volunteer appreciation month and the office of strategic Partnerships is proud to present Pinellas County's 2022-2023 outstanding School volunteer honorees here tonight as you know volunteers play a vital
020role in the lives of students in our schools each year and can have many different roles including chaperoning field trips mentoring and tutoring students working in our College and Career Centers working in our front offices greeting visitors assisting teachers in the classroom answering phones working one-on-one with students and many other tasks need it daily in order to improve the efficiency of our schools the office of strategic Partnerships is proud to have a record number of active registered volunteers this year Pinellas County Schools has been blessed to have over 31 000 registered active volunteers this year of which 14 000 are level two cleared these volunteers have accounted for more than 430 000 volunteer hours to put that in perspective for Mr Hendricks if we were valuing their work at minimum wage they would have earned
021over 6.5 million dollars this year through the work of our district volunteer coordinator Mrs Sheila Kane who is here with us tonight our school's family community Liaisons and our schools College and Career coordinators the office of strategic Partnerships is committed to continue to increase the number of Volunteers in our schools by improving the experience through training recognition and on the onboarding process today I'm proud to be able to recognize the 15 area winners of Pinellas County Schools outstanding School volunteers with us this morning and just to tell you a little bit more about the program the outstanding School volunteer award is presented annually to volunteers who have shown outstanding dedication and commitment to Quality education in Florida this recognition serves to highlight and Inspire strong school and Community relationships including Innovative approaches to improve the
022academic performance and resiliency of students honorees today were selected from over 100 submissions and represent some of our finest Volunteers in our district I am proud to present the following winners in a web call your name please come forward area one for youth Alexander Miller Forest Lakes Elementary School adult Natalie I think okay adult Natalie Putnam Eliza Nelson Elementary School foreign Brooker Creek Elementary School maker Osceola fundamental High School adult Brenda George Osseo fundamental High School Deborah Lance Frontier Elementary School area three Ella Frye Orange Grove Elementary School adult is Lauren Esposito Pasadena fundamental Elementary School and our senior Nancy Rose Starkey Elementary School area floor area four youth is Hannah lietler okay Nina Harris ese Center adult Jill favor MK Rawlings Elementary School and senior Peter yelton Northeast High School and finally for our
023transformation Zone we have Layla desibo John M Sexton Elementary School under for youth for adult as isana latito Mount Vernon Elementary School and Senior Linda Frank Lehman Avenue Elementary School our district winners who will represent Pinellas County at the state competition are youth Alexander Alexandria Miller adult Brenda George and Senior Peter yelton congratulations to all of our volunteers who were nominated for this award so thank you thank you another receipt thank you for being here thank you thank you for being here and just in closing just for the board members we want to thank you for your support of the volunteers and the mentors over the years we are providing through a collaboration with you with business cards to have a QR code for registering volunteers and mentoring so we have provided for you to
024hand out when you meet members in the community who want to be engaged with Pinellas County Schools so thank you all thank you Dr Brown and to all of our volunteers and the 6.5 million dollars worth of their service so far this year to our students our adults and our senior volunteers and we'll kick it back to Mrs Kane our board chair for the next portion of our meeting foreign thank you very much we're gonna be willing to agenda items members of the public have three separate opportunities to address the board when we gather for a business meeting the first is public comments 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
025each opportunity for public input board members are here to 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 stability 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 and assisting us and maintaining a civil and constructive environment 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 with the board through our email board at pcsb.org or by calling the board office at 727-588-6300 zero thank you Mrs Hawk are there any speakers on agenda items yes Madam
026chair board members Mr Hendrick we have four speakers for agenda items the first two are Bob Dixon he's speaking to item 8.1 and Angela dubaugh speaking to item 8.1 look at me I get to start this thing off I'm a teacher Paul B Stevens I've been in the school system for I'm sorry I'll try to do this a little better I'm a teacher Paul B Stevens I've been in school system for 32 years last 10 years has been at Paul B you guys have a item for you to change our Bell time for the third time in 10 years the last two times it's been pretty ineffective right now we have students who need medication they get they get seizure medication around five o'clock they'll be on the bus when that's supposed to get that
027medication we have 48 MBA teacher assistants assigned to a building we are 20 short right now many of those have left because buses cannot get there on time and I know this move is supposed to fix Transportation but all dismissal time for buses is 410 they're supposed to be pulled out we have staff members there to 5 30 6 o'clock Some Nights to make sure our children are taken care of because we can't just leave all students on their own all administration's a really good Administration they're doing all they can we have a teacher today took a position at a different school because of this proposition you guys are doing because they simply cannot deal with their children and get to their own child at home we have many assistants who are we looking for
028other jobs because of this and it's not a simple matter of we'll get Replacements because all year you have not done that and we've tried I know if at least one bus driver said they would not bid on a route if you move the time is counterproductive to students it's not what's best for students and I don't understand why we're going that direction my proposal if you guys will at least look at it I'm not saying any commitment but at least look at the fact that at the there's three tiers of buses that you guys have proposed and at 9 15 9 25 you have one school slotted for buses that would benefit all students all behaviors increase throughout the day because the medication again and I deal with the most violent kids in all
029school I spent 19 years at Hamilton distance so for basically my whole career I've been attacked by students and these decisions go hurt students let's go hurt staff and it's not in the best interest of students and what you do with the other schools I don't know what their needs are but we're begging you we need help and you're the only people who can stop this please do not move our time later in the day because if you do you might as well close up the school talk to the stakeholders talk to staff talk to the administration talk to the parents because these conversations haven't taken place I got nothing else thank you I agree I'm also speaking on 8.1 and I know your intentions are good but I think these early start times are
030a bad bad idea especially for Middle School I understand the current bills that are going through session right now will be signed into law July 1st for the next school year but this bill won't be signed to become effective until the 2026 school year so I feel like we do have some time to maybe come up with some Alternatives here because think about this middle schoolers you're what starting at 7 15 so you would have to be at the school by seven so they wait in the dark at the bus stop at 6 00 a.m the earliest which means they have to get up at 5 30. I have trouble functioning at 5 30 a.m I'm pretty sure 12 year olds do too so not only will they be waiting in the for the bus
031in the dark you're going to have them also waiting alone in the dark with 17 year old boys so we already we already had one student that was killed in I believe it was Matt Matt Crossman his uncle talked to you guys about that he was off to also at the forward Pinellas safety transportation meeting that I went to a couple months ago in Clearwater and he showed the video his his nephew was killed at 6 40 a.m in the dark at the Bel Air bus stop we already have one we don't need another one I really encourage especially a Carol you and Stephanie because you're both on that committee maybe reach out to them and speak to them table this for now I think you should you two should absolutely vote no and talk
032to that team since you're on the boat on the board and finally I'm just asking all of you to actually vote down I think it's it's a dangerous period And like I said we already had one student killed because of this and we don't need another one vote now please thank you the next two speakers are Renee Chia speaking to item 8.1 and Mark clutho speaking to item 7.8 and 8.1 good evening I'd just like to mirror the comments that have already been made about this agenda item I'm urging all of you to vote no table this and rethink a solution I don't think that the very early start time and merging the middle and high school bus times is going to be a very good idea we have seen all the pictures of Ethan
033we've discussed this at the safety meetings multiple times I know the goal is to try and deal with the busing issue that you have and the short staff on busing and the transportation but I think that should be looked at in a different way I would suggest looking to contract out at this point because as the gentleman said earlier you've been trying to solve it all year so far and it has not been solved it's still a major problem so I would I would highly recommend you look to contract out to expand additional Transportation ability to get these kids to and from school on time so that's all I have to say please vote this down Mark Luther Largo 7.8 another boondoggle 58 million dollars for the Seminole High School four million 256 000 going
034to Jensen architects replace three chillers two cooling towers and three pumps you're going to identify any old HVAC equipment that has reached the end of its useful life and replace but the buildings fixed no no that's unheard of isn't it sick like your Clear Water building you have oriented the wrong way you don't get the high performance passes solar notion embedded in your brain it's just too tough isn't it I mean there's a long list of all these things you're doing 58 million dollars worth but with the headline reads world is heading in the wrong direction on climate change and a rapidly warming Arctic rain where it used to snow there's a thing called cause in effect your stupid buildings play A Part again if you don't make the high performance passive solar building and
035you keep belching the carbon with stupid things like what you're doing at Seminole High School you get this result Einstein said something about that if you recall Madam chair there are no more speakers for agenda items giving to the consent agenda may have a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended for approval by Ms Meyer and a second by Mrs Hein all in favor say aye aye any opposed the motion to adopt the consent agenda has carried unanimously seven to zero that brings us to item 8.1 the request approval of the estimated School opening and closing times for 2023-2024 school year and the authorization of the superintendent to make additional changes as required by the statute or factors affecting the length of the instructional day do I have a motion for item 8.1 approval
036by Mrs Hein a second by Miss Edmond Mr Hendrick could you please introduce the item yes thank you madam chair as a reminder we brought this to two workshops to discuss transportation and bell times the most recent one with the every Bell time for every school but also back in January because we wanted families where we were changing the bell times to have an opportunity to know that as they chose their schools for next year if that was part of our district application program so like Mr Herbert our associate superintendent of operations to review those changes for this coming School Year and thank you Mr Hendrick Madam chair and board members as we discussed in the workshop there are several things that Transportation had asked to kind of pursue over the last year or so
037and we want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to explore some new options in our routing system and the way we design our bus routes and what you see here in front of you today is kind of a result of starting to put those pieces together there is no one answer in Pinellas County there may be one answer in a small District somewhere else but not here there's a lot of different moving pieces so what you see in front of you today is a combination of us being able to change the way we do arterial stops for our magnet and for our special application programs or District application programs and what we're looking to do there is reduce the number of arterial stops from over 300 to maybe somewhere around 50 60 or
03870. again what that's going to do is shorten the bus runs and able to get our buses from one stop to the next much quicker we're also doing what districts across the State of Florida and across the country have been doing for years and that's combining levels putting middle school and high school students together we've actually done this in Summer Bridge and very successfully did that last summer and have plans to do that again this summer for Summer Bridge combining multiple levels in this case what you see this year is combining two middle schools Bay Point middle school with Lakewood High School and then combining East Lake Middle School with East Lake High School we also are embarking on a ridership campaign in which traditionally in Pinellas we have always granted a seat and designed
039our routes around the fact that everybody who's eligible we designed our routes around them as if all of those people were riding again what we've been learning recently across the state and our all of our neighbors close to us do this as well they reached out to parents and they ask will you be riding a bus next year and if the parent says no at this point and they change their mind we'll give them a bus ride next year but what we're able to do is really refine our routes and take our buses only to those places where there's a need and not have routes going all over the place all of those things together help shorten routes and what the issue that we're having this year as we've talked about before is that we
040have a sort of a shortage of bus drivers and by shortening those routes what we're hoping to do is how have those drivers be able to pick up more students on their runs get them to school and get them there on time and that's the number one goal that we have so what you see here and for the public when you open up this agenda item you'll see a several page PowerPoint but on the first page you see the first tier schools most schools in the first tier are not changing times the ones who are we are introducing East Lake Middle School and Bay Point Middle School to the first tier and again they are partnered with the high school and the high schools that they're partnered with and that Middle School have almost exactly
041the same runs that their High School partner has we're also moving the newly renamed Pinellas High Innovation to the first tier it not only works for transportation but it also reflects that school is now going to start incorporating High School age students when you go to the second tier which is traditionally again been our elementary school tier you see no changes one thing that you may see though and I should say this is going back to the first tier what we want to be able to do especially in this second tier is be able to adjust the times either a little bit earlier or a little bit later than what you see printed on the paper here in front of you traditionally we've always brought a very Standard Time and the times that you approve
042at this meeting have always been the start time and the end time what we're asking is that we use these times see you see printed here before you today as an approximate time as Transportation Works through the routes over the summer if they're able to start any of these second-tier schools a little bit earlier as much as 15 minutes earlier they will if they need more time to get a bus to the school then the time that's printed on here and if they need to start the school maybe as much as 15 minutes later we're giving them leeway to do that with your approval of this today what we will not do is start any of the first tier schools any earlier than the time that they're printed and we will also not start a
043middle school and a third tier any later than what is printed on this sheet today however if there's an opportunity to start a middle school a little bit earlier we would love to be able to take that opportunity and do so over the summer and so when you go to the third tier you see the list of traditional middle schools you also see Nina Harris and Paul B Stevens I know one of our speakers spoke about Paul B it is moved 10 minutes later this year if there's an opportunity as we go through the summer and we're able to move that a little bit earlier as it was this year to a 10 o'clock start we will definitely take advantage and do that and again approving the schedule the way it is presented to you
044tonight gives us the opportunity to do that but again we would not start that school or any school in that third tier any later than it is right now so again what we're asking you to do is to pre approve these proposed kind of approximate bell times and again with those exceptions of high school any earlier in middle school or third tier any later give us the flexibility to move those times 15 minutes one way or the other especially in that second tier we would be able to do that and we would be able also we would share the exact start time with parents before July 1. foreign is there any discussion thank you yes boy transportation's been tough this year hasn't it on us and certainly on all of the parents and I have
045a middle schooler who takes the bus and it's been tough on us as a family as well and hundreds of children every day getting to and from school on time it is our job to get our students to and from school on time and safely and we take that job very seriously and it's something we talk about regularly and this year has been really tough there have been a lot of students that have chronically missed first period classes over and over again who are chronically getting home late over and over again and it causes significant issues now a couple a couple of things I think that this shift to the reducing the arterial routes from 300 to that 50 or 70. I think that's smart it's more efficient it will help with achieving kidding kids
046to and from school on time and home it's going to be a major change for families and so I know at our Workshop we talked about communicating early and often I know we said July I don't know if there's if it's July 1st or July 15th or what that date is but we need to let parents know because they are changing your bus stops are changing your bus stops are changing not just that not just the three schools that have time the time shifts in here but also bus stops will be changing and so we need to let them know where those new bus stops are and what time your children need to get there because you potentially will need to drive them to their bus stop for that and so to be able to
047make those to be able to make those plans I think that the ridership campaign is really smart I wish we thought of it several years ago and to ask people if they are not going to take the bus and make the and make the plants around that you know I think one thing that's really difficult is we've been working on later High School start times for a few years and as you can see in this presentation with these couple of schools we're going the wrong direction and that doesn't feel good and it's where we are it's where we are when it comes to the number of bus drivers that we have and how to get these 80 000 students to and from school and home safely so I know that we are committed to getting
048those start times later as well and I just want to mention that I think that the reduction of the articular routes the ridership campaign number one that is going to help us get all kids to and from school on time and that is our priority at the moment and safely and then number two we're also hoping it creates a little more space and maybe next year we can shift those start times a little bit better and a little bit later but we have to see first before we is that a true statement yes ma'am so that's that's still a it's still a priority for us so those are just a couple of things I'm I'm I'm prepared to vote in support of this but I just wanted to make clear those those couple of pieces
049yes thank you very much for this presentation and for for laying all of this out for us I did want to make actually ask a question I know that we started the ridership campaign recently what has been the response of that if if you could share that with the board please I don't have the latest numbers okay yeah okay thank you Mr Henry sure as of 4 30 today we had 13 245 responses remember there's about 33 000 eligible for transportation about 22 000 ride and so over half of those that are currently writing have responded and we'll continue with that throughout the month of April and then by about mid-may thank you very much Miss Edmond your light on as well thank you Mr Harvick in the transportation team and staff for the presentations
050as well as working hard to provide Solutions I know at the workshop I asked a question related to routes that share schools and if there would be an assistant on those routes can you talk about safety measures that are going to be in place as well as the fact that there would be an assistant on the shared routes yes there will be an assistant on the shared routes we had one on all of those last year in Summer Bridge with absolutely no incidents whatsoever we'll have another assistant on our this coming year Summer Bridge routes but there will be an assistant on those bus buses next year and what the assistant really does is to make sure that the needs of every child are met whether they need assistance getting onto or offer the bus
051but also to help the driver maintain a little bit more focus on the road as opposed to you know dealing with students and whatever issue that they may have so there will be assistance on those combined routes and then as it relates to safety we talked about this in the workshop as it relates to the arterial bus stops what it's being done to ensure that the stops are safe even though they might be further away from the normal stop that a family may have yeah there will be no changes to our safety rules and safety procedures with the arterial stops there'll just be fewer of them and so the same safety measures that we have now at our current stops will ensure that they are in place with the ones that we are creating and
052the good news is that the majority of the arterial stops that we will be using next year are our own sites they're going to be middle schools they may be elementary schools they may be high schools we're really targeting our element our middle schools and some of our service centers and so we know those sites are safe they already have bus lanes and we'll take advantage of those bus lanes as well and in addition there'll be school district personnel there preparing to open school and being able to help again with student needs as they arise thank you cook thank you I'm I'm looking at the times for Nina Harris and Paul B Stevens I think there were some valid points made with when medications these are our most medically fragile students am I correct in
053understanding that they started at 10 o'clock this year yes okay can we make every effort to get them back there or or even Nina Harris's needs may be different than Paul B I've already agree we could have some conversation with those schools before we give them a finalized time yes because I do think their medication schedules are very important and so I'd like us to really try and work on that I think and that's the beauty of being able to bring a plan like this without a static time that we'll have the advantage or the opportunity right to make that adjustment okay thank you Miss Peters hey Mr herbeck I know we've had actually two workshops on this and much much discussion I do appreciate all your hard work and I also want you know
054all of our parents and families to understand we know we received so much communication from people who are struggling with Transportation other children to and from school and then also the concerns with with change time so we do hear you we are just trying to find the best solutions that we can as a district for at this time I do have a question can you please speak to concerns that families might have regarding having multiple so we may have middle schoolers riding with high schoolers and so forth can you speak to the concerns of families regarding those mixed do we have a on buses now we do we have it on it occurs right now and we have and I understand for our families it's new to us but we've spoken with Pasco County and
055Hillsborough County who's been doing it for years and they really don't have any issues and they do not have assistance on their buses either it's the driver and that mixture of all age groups so I think that would be one of the things that I would share with our families is that until we're used to this until our families and our kids and everybody else is used to our bus drivers as well we will have that assistant on there and it may be proven to be something that will do permanent permanently but we definitely will have an assistant on that bus okay thank you very much Mr Henry yes I just want to add a little more information because it's come up so first thing in terms of bus stops changing it is the arterial
056stops it's not the neighborhood stops so those arterial stops are designed to change every year based on where students sign up for our magnet programs so they could change every year we've not done that for years and that's caused incredible inefficiency so families know that those arterial stops can be two miles away from their home anyway if they're going from say St Petersburg to Largo for a magnet program so it's not the neighborhood stops that are changing just the arterial I do want to just mention it was going to be in my report later but Senate Bill 1112 and House Bill 733 which have the start time changes we don't enjoy having school start any you know at seven everybody wants an 8 15 start and we'd love to do that but obviously we have
057to have three tiers of Transportation because of our size and our magnet programs if and when the law gets signed in which we anticipate it will be it will require us to flip and we will have to move high schools out of that time to one of the other tier years and so the only tier that can start early is Elementary I mean that's just the reality and the districts that have done that Hillsboro did it two years ago Elementary will have to be first and then either middle or high school will go second and third as I mentioned earlier when we looked at these changes to begin with we wanted to make sure we gave families the opportunity for next year to know what their times were even in January when we brought that
058to the board at a workshop and the ones that we were changing we were very vocal about I want you to also know it was mentioned back in January that we did survey the staffs at these schools that were having the significant changes in in bell times the response was overwhelmingly positive for them to change we even considered doing it in the middle of the year because of the efficiencies it could create and the number of other routes that could get students home we chose not to do it because of how disruptive it could be even though it was only going to be a handful of staff and a handful of families but our principles at those schools also work with their Sac their PTA and others to gain input on that so it's not
059going to be perfect for every single family but most said yes very much and it's important to note that both schools are at the far ends of our district which are the hardest to become efficient at in terms of routing transportation and I've been at both at the end of the day and the late buses is just unacceptable we know that we've worked and worked and worked but this will at least make it better for those schools at least for one year until they potentially flip in terms of the legislation and the Sleep research we absolutely would love to be in that place and we'll have to get there and these are some steps to get us in that right direction let's cook thank you there was one thing that I wanted to mention that
060this would be a time for people who are taking the bus to get with their neighbors and get with friends so that they have an adult covering those bus stops we're responsible for the students once they get on the bus but the parents are responsible and we do as much as we can to keep the students safe however if they can start talking with neighbors and making sure I mean rotate times somebody does it on Monday another one does it on Tuesday to just make sure that there is an adult at the bus stop with them I think that would help a lot I mean we've got a lot of parents who want to be involved and they want to be supportive of what the students are doing so this is one of the ways
061they can do it and I think if they start that conversation now it would be very helpful question just for clarification you know parents this is a very significant issue particularly in schools listed as even getting out of those schools that late time of day during rush hour has been very difficult and caused a lot of late disruption and drop-offs and a lot of the middle schoolers from certain schools are not getting home sometimes until six o'clock which is really unacceptable so I think that the change will significantly help due to geographical location but also can you speak a little bit because I with the change in the start times and having the arterial stops at middle schools middle schools most of them are starting significantly later and some of those stops will be very
062early in the morning potentially 6 30 in the morning will there be staff on the premises that those are stops and who can you speak to what staff members might be there during those hours of the morning it could be any but I've almost guaranteed that had plant operators will be there they get there quite early to you know get everything turned on other plant operators food nutrition staff you generally have a school administrators as well and some teachers come in some of them choose to come in early on their own but there will be staff there will there's not going to be an assigned person there to stand there at that bus stop but there will be staff there in case somebody needs you know student falls and has an injury or something like
063that happens somebody will be there very much any other questions or comments from the board seeing any more lights with that being said we have a motion by Mrs Heinen a second by Miss Edmond for the approval of item 8.1 the estimated School opening closing times for 2023 all in favor say aye any opposed hearing none the motion to approv item 8.1 the approval of estimated School opening and closing times 2023 2024 school year and the authorization of the superintendent to make additional changes as required by the statute or factors affecting the length of the instructional day passes unanimously seven to zero moving to new business are there any items to be introduced by the superintendent thank you madam chair I wanted to First bring the board and the public just an update on our
064board policy 2250 which has to do with instructional materials and challenge materials and let the board and the public know that over the course of the last several weeks we've had several school-based committees meet as outlined in policy 2250 and also the library media review team which was outlined in our administrative procedures obviously the board voted on this policy back in January but the procedures and the policy were Revisited at the March board workshop and wanted to let you know that those committees and the review teams have been occurring we'll continue to implement those and our current policies and processes but also for the benefit of the board and the public know that we'll likely need to update our policy as House Bill 1069 may impact classroom materials or other Library collections in the future
065and we'll make adjustments and also learn from the things that we've done this year to make policy improvements from what we've learned I want to thank the board today they started this morning at Pinellas Technical College with a showcase called LS together we hosted an event with St Petersburg College Pinellas Technical College the Pinellas Education Foundation and the college's Board of Trustees and Foundation to visit our schools today we visited elementary middle and high schools in seven different tracks from the Arts International Baccalaureate medical and wellness programs technology education student experience and so each of our board members were on a minivan heading out to schools with a number of members from the college and other folks and the goal was to bring our systems together and as we look at education for all of
066Pinellas County and really work on Workforce Development issues for our County and our one million residents I want to thank president Dr Tanja Williams for being there with her staff and also working hand in hand with us as we build a stronger Pinellas County for all for the board and for our parents and especially for our students the Florida assessment of student thinking our new assessment this year we started progress monitoring session three or the following or the final 101 the window opened for pre-k through grade 2 yesterday and will do so for the rest of students next week our schools have worked very very hard to prepare our students for this new assessment and we are happy as part of this new assessment that parents get nearly immediate results so within a week which
067is much much different than the past when you may take two months to get those results and so those specific assessment dates are on our website and certainly schools have been informing parents and students as was mentioned already the legislative session is well underway committees are winding down the budget conference began this week and lots of news coming out of Tallahassee today on that but I wanted to just mention a couple of other bills that are relevant particularly house bill 1537. just recently that was added to the special order calendar for today and it has to do with high school graduation requirements the class of over the last three years our students in high school have had different requirements for the exit exam going from the class of of 2020 which had those waived because
068they couldn't finish the year the class of 2021 and then the class of 2022 2021 had them waived 2022 had the previous ones back in play the class of 2023 who's scheduled to graduate in less than four weeks have had an increase in their graduation rates in terms of the exit requirement I have petitioned our legislators from our delegation and the board knows that on your behalf to ask for the same requirements that were in place for the class of 2022 it is fair for the students who are graduating this year many of which took algebra in ninth grade who did not finish the course did not have an opportunity perhaps to test in their 10th grade year and all the issues that came with quarantines and everything else it's been a difficult time for
069that group to get here and graduation rates across the state will dip significantly if there's not changes made in these concordance scores that have been in place for previous groups of students that's not to say that our students haven't known that this was a possibility or have not been working feverishly to achieve that but it is not fair to them and we've been petitioning the state to allow that to happen a couple of other ones I've already mentioned the school start times I also wanted to just mention for the board House Bill 1259 which has to do with capital outlay fund and sharing that with Charter Schools would also fiscally impact our district in a negative way and it's important that we continue to weigh in on that I already mentioned the transportation ridership campaign
070for those families who have children that are eligible for transportation you can go to your child's Focus account to log in and make your selection for next year and you can also find more information on our web page about that lots of good news happening in the district and I want to share that this year we were the Statewide winner for the Florida College Access Network FAFSA challenge that means that our students applied for financial aid in college our seniors currently at a greater rate in terms of improvement than any other District in the State of Florida I want to thank our students and their families for pursuing College Technical College St Petersburg College traditional four-year programs but this is possible in large part because of our College College and Career Centers you know that
071we put those in at our schools starting four years ago they're now in every single one of our high schools and those College and Career coordinators have done an amazing job connecting our students to scholarships and financial aid recently Pinellas County was named a best community for music education in the nation for the fourth year in a row that's a great designation only six districts in the State of Florida receive that designation from the National Association of Music merchants and we're thrilled to be able to highlight the Arts in our district and thank the community for their continued support of the Pinellas County Schools referendum which helps impart to fund our programs last week we had Pinellas Technical College's national Signing Day for Career and Technical education I happen to attend the one at Clearwater
072Mrs Peters gave a speech there and we had over 100 students in place there another 100 down in our St Petersburg branch we continue to have more and more students accessing Pinellas Technical College thank you Mrs Edmund for giving the speech in St Petersburg and we've done a great job connecting our students to our technical colleges the first annual transformation Zone math Carnival was held last week we had on Friday night across caddy corner from the Rays stadium while the Rays game was going on we had over 600 families there engaged in math it was fantastic I want to thank our transformation Zone and our teachers who are out there educating our students and parents on Friday night last weekend the commissioner's academic challenge occurred the 36th annual commissioner's academic challenge our students our academic
073team competed with all other school districts from across the state and we finished fifth in the state with our students doing a great great job representing Pinellas County the finals were on Sunday and they came in fifth overall there have been lots of awards and recognition programs lately I want to thank the board for being at an innumerable number of those in the morning in the daytime at night I'm just going to mention a couple our turnaround Awards breakfast our state take stock in children's senior celebration where we gave the final scholarship dollars out to 211 take stock in children recipients that's 3.7 million dollars in scholarships and just to remind the public Pinellas County has more take stock in children's Scholars than any other County regardless of size in the state and that's because
074our business community and donors continue to support those so thank you to our Education Foundation for those scholarships we celebrated leadership you a graduation ceremony for Pinellas County Schools Employees recently had a number of board members attend that and I also want to mention our Pinellas Road to recognition event which was last Saturday at USF St Petersburg honoring 700 7th graders that challenge themselves in seventh grade by taking the SAT test that's a challenge for anybody but certainly for a seventh grader high achieving students who took that test in March received their results last week and their parents came out to learn more about that path to potentially being a National Merit scholar which by the way will honor over 60 tomorrow morning at USF saint Petersburg in our honors breakfast and finally as I
075do each meeting I want to celebrate our employees and one of our superintendent standouts today is Sarah Alvarez a College and Career Readiness coordinator at Northeast High School she has been with Pinellas County schools for three years as a College and Career coordinator first at Gibbs High School and now at Northeast and this was written by the principal at Northeast who said her passion for College and Career Readiness has been evident from the first day she stepped on campus she coordinated a fantastic College and Career Fair our students were thrilled with the opportunity to meet with and investigate various colleges and career opportunities there was a buzz in the air she also serves as the volunteer coordinator and conducts tutoring sessions for small group interventions with students and goes out in the community and finds
076volunteers to help with our students she generally cares about the future of our students and its shows thank you Mrs Alvarez and all of our employees for their continued great work thank you very much Mr Hendrick items to be introduced by the school board attorney Mr speaker I have no report thank you thank you and any items to be introduced by the school board all right thank you for Miss Woodford is there any requests in the meeting and I'm sure I did not note anything foreign thank you very much is there any further business for this meeting seeing down we before we perform our board meeting evaluation we will adjourn the meeting and move to the public participation portion of our meeting with that the meeting is officially adjourned we will now move to public
077comment on the general business of the district please note that the views and comments of the public speakers are their own are 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 member for assistance 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 or after a speaker's comments We Appreciate You assisting Us in maintaining a civil and constructive environment additionally please note that although board members or superintendent Hendrick may leave the Deus briefly there are speakers in our back room we will continue to be able to
078hear your comments throughout thank you Mrs Hawk would you please introduce our speakers yes Madam chair board members Mr Hendrick we currently have 33 speakers the first two are Brant Robinson and Michael Johnson good evening Madam chair superintendent Hendrick members of the board and staff I hope you guys are having a great day I'm so grateful to be here with you guys I'm so honored I'm so humbled and I'm so privileged I want to say thank you a few weeks ago many of us in the room and you'll know who they are because they're going to be nodding we attended the listen and learn session and I'm so grateful for the opportunity superintendent Hendrick Mrs long Ms Edmund staff thank you so much for all your hard work I'm so grateful because for those of
079you who weren't there what was modeled there that night was something that we call Fair process last semester there was a similar listen and learn session and I was delighted when you gave the opening remark superintendent Hendrick to let us know that you've taken all the data you've taken all the feedback and you gave us an overview of what the comments and responses were and you were already kind of actionizing what you thought might needed to be done that's what we call Fair process that continued that night when we were all given an index card we wrote down a lot of questions and you guys did an amazing job of answering every single question that's what we call Fair process before we left that night there was a gallery walk we could walk around with
080sticky notes and give more input the reason I'm suggesting that we make this more of our way of work is because we are a district that's committed to restorative practice we know the challenges in rolling out that initiative but I think all of us here believe in it I went so far as become along with my wife and many people here that are part of pcj we became licensed trainers because we felt so strongly about restorative practice but the Cornerstone of restorative practice is called Fair process Fair process is all about creating a way of work that involves the width and I want to leave with a suggestion let's think about this imagine every faculty meeting on campus with the superintendent's nudging imagine every faculty meeting having a way of work in which teachers input
081was sought at every faculty meeting and then the next faculty meeting that input was Revisited in our classrooms we're always assessing our students with a little a we get feedback from them we modify and adjust it's what we do well in our classrooms we need to make that more of our way of work because when you do that when you take input from your stakeholders when you take input from your professional teachers and then you validate that with follow-up everybody feels like they're part of something going on that's special it's Transcendent it's transformative it involves the width so I'm not saying it has to be done at the first faculty meeting next year I'm just saying consider a way of work in which everybody was always feeling validated feeling valued and feeling part of something
082special you guys thank you so much for the opportunity hello my name is Michael Johnson he him I'm here with two teachers on my fifth grade team to examine changes to teaching over the past year since I am a fifth grade math and science teacher I'm going to speak to this issue through a fifth grade science lens we organize our thinking in science using scientific inquiry and that has certain steps that we take the first step is to make some observation of the world around us the observation I've made is teachers are stressed out teachers are starting to crack I'm going to use myself as a control for the scientific inquiry because I am a cisgendered straight Caucasian man and I am from a very Catholic very middle class background last week I had a
083panic attack all I was doing was preparing for the fastest coming up I was making lessons I was getting review ready I had a moment so I decided to take a look around me and look and see how other people were doing there are other stressors in other people's lives that I don't have to deal with and I'm fortunate for that if I look at the independent variables things that we can change about my situation and then measure those outcomes or the dependent variables we start to notice something I have noticed that a non-bye non-binary teacher friend of mine is looking to leave the profession because they are losing their minds over politicians who are responsible for writing our laws calling them demonic and a mutant a transgender friend of mine is leaving the state
084altogether because she fears for her safety black teachers are chafing because any reference to their pain and struggle is scrutinized they have to fear that it might make a white student uncomfortable teachers have to be fearful of parents searching through their own libraries just in case we are in possession of subversive text public school money is being redirected to Charter and private schools so parents can then re-segregate their children and the children from those lower education lower income families are not no longer receiving a quality education I have had two Mentor teachers over my seven years quit our wonderful profession and the evidence is showing that our job is only getting harder for the conclusion statement of my scientific inquiry I need to say that is important for teachers and parents to stand in solidarity
085against a wave of bigotry that is sweeping through our Public Schools as a final comment I would just like to address the difference between the definitions of nice and kindness being nice is speaking in a calm even toned voice please don't mind as I strip you of your dignity thank you for sitting down and being quiet in the face of Oppression being kind is standing up for the marginalized screaming passionately that we will not allow you to Rob us of our personhood or dignity in times of inequity and tyranny it is our duty to resist thank you the next the next two speakers are Jacqueline Giddings and Shannon Hoff good evening my name is Jackie Giddings and I have worked for Pinellas County schools for 35 years and counting all at the same school this
086is my first time coming before you which should indicate How concerned I am over the traumatic situation my second grade class and myself have had to endure this year I am here to ask you to fix the mtss process for Behavior this is not a school administration problem but an mtss process problem we have been exposed to profanity and inappropriate gestures throwing of objects such as rocks the size of a fist throwing scissors into the Gathering area missing a student's head by an inch as well as numerous other objects and yelling out derogatory remarks at students and myself especially during my teaching on a daily basis for the first two grading periods of the school year I have a binder full of documentation daily of these disruptions there has been improvements since the first two
087grading periods but the actions continue sporadically this has been an ongoing struggle The Bullying verbal emotional and physical abuse we have had to endure has created a toxic environment in our classroom this is detrimental to the well-being of the entire class and the loss of instructional time is great this is not the least restrictive environment yet the mtss process has given no relief I spend an enormous amount of instructional time dealing with these disruptions several parents have called the school administration and the area superintendent to express their concerns over this situation the only option they are given is to have their student removed to another class that is not an equitable solution I have been given the option to have the disruptive student removed to another classroom but I would not do that to another
088teammate or expose another whole class to the that abuse the mtss process does not work for Behavior there needs to be a better process that allows for students needs to be met when it is clear it is not the least restrictive environment We have dealt with the same concerns for years and the teachers can prove the loss of instructional time is great there should be a process that allows for a safe learning environment for all students this is not happening in this situation teachers are having to be medicated since there is no support in the classroom for disruptive students there is a psychiatric nurse practitioner that has expressed concerns over the number of teachers she sees in Pinellas County that has increased over the past several years due to getting no support for disruptive students
089she is willing to write to you a letter or speak to you about her concerns over this increase I have been informed by your behavior supervisor Amy Victor that we follow the data in a if a student can be non-compliant and disruptive an average of 61 times a day last year and then I get them down to 12 I've made a data good evening Madam chair school board members Mr Hendrick and staff thank you for allowing me to speak this evening my name is Shannon Hoff and I'm a parent of a PCS student and a library media and technology specialist here in the district it is as an LMT that I come to speak to you today you can ask any District LMT how we are feeling right now and I can almost guarantee you
090that a lot of us if not most are feeling we are exhausted we are tired of being undervalued and underappreciated we are tired of having last minute projects thrown on our plates we are tired of being asked to do things that are the responsibility of other departments we are tired of having to defend ourselves to outside groups that really have no idea what we are due we are just plain tired the district needs to do better stop having us do other departments jobs for example the pinging inventory project that we are currently being asked to work on having us track down laptops turn them on log them into the network for inventory purposes is way more work than just having the property clerk scan the asset tax for inventory which they have done in the
091past and which is their job when the email came instructing us to complete the pinging project which by the way we had no idea this was coming we were told this was being done because and I quote to reduce the property control Clerk's footprints in the schools and alleviate the burden of physical verification of this group of assets this project is not doing that I am still having to physically verify a group of assets where it is stated that this was to alleviate that exact burden yes it reduces the property controls Clerk's footprint in the classrooms but it's increasing mine I am having to go into classrooms constantly during this critical time of the year for instruction interrupting lessons asking teachers to find laptops when this could have been done in two to three days
092with a property Clerk and a scanner also not to mention we were given no advance notice and I was given 10 school days to track down nearly 300 devices that didn't ping with this new system when over 50 of them have been waiting on the warehouse to pick up for Surplus since May of 2022 and over 60 are waiting on parts to be fixed and I just want to say I'm still working on this so in conclusion please do better please have our backs Librarians do have value in education either aside from just tracking down laptops we don't just read books thank you the next two speakers are Carol Robinson and Karen Donnelly Madam chair superintendent Hendrick members of the board and staff John Lewis said when you see something that is not right not
093fair not just you have to speak up you have to say something you have to do something I would like to speak up about some of the things I have seen that are not right in the county that in which I have worked for 29 years as a science teacher and trainer in the TTD program that's transition to teaching there are certain practices that are in place to raise the graduation rate and GPA statistics for our students in Pinellas County these these practices do not serve the students of Pinellas County well first I'm going to talk about a program called Apex this is used for credit recovery ideally it's a program that's monitored closely to make sure the students meet all the standards and get the credits and graduate on time I in reality there
094is no Fidelity in the application of the program the result is that students recover credits years worth of credits in weeks with apps on their phones like brainly or photomath that allow them to answer any question instantly if they can't figure out how to add these apps to their phones counselors will jump in and do it for them teachers have to compete with this instant Class Credit versus real school Apex teachers are replaced if they don't pass everyone banned phones or even try to stop practices like gambling in their Apex classrooms to raise the GPA there's also a practice in place if a student fails an elective class even after the final exam has been given the class just disappears from their records attendance another issue is voluntary in Pinellas County there are no longer
095any real consequences for not coming to school teachers are told when a student has missed 40 50 60 over 100 days what have you done about it referral numbers in the county are down and disciplines where instances are down because referrals are not processed I've had two APS tell me their names don't want to be given we have that they have orders not to process most referrals the teachers at my school Dunedin High School have not been given real referral forms since February the disciplined reasons have been recoded or Rewritten if they have are if they actually are processed finally there is no real accountability for the abusive behaviors of some administrators being the lead you thank you good evening my name is Karen Donnelly I'm a retired teacher from Pinellas County Schools I'm also
096currently a small business owner in St Petersburg I basically have come here tonight to say how much I love our teachers I want them to know there are many many of us out here who know what you do and how hard it is for you to do that and how many obstacles are in your way and how much our legislature has hurt you how much billionaires who have funded think tanks that Supply the bills to legislatures in this CA like a Canon who have hurt so many so many of our Democratic institutions and I really just want to say how my heart aches and breaks for the people who are serving our children and trying to show them how to respect each other and to acknowledge in full their history and to challenge them to
097become empathetic and good citizens and kind and to nourish the community with their Knowledge and Skills and accomplishments I love you all and I respect you all God bless you the next two speakers are Riley Reddington and Lee Bryant all right friends we're going to settle in for an Abridged read aloud of don't touch my hair written and beautifully illustrated by Cherie Miller says I'm Arya and my hair I love my hair it's soft and bouncy and grows up towards the sun like a flower actually everyone loves my hair too when I walk Excuse Me Miss Riley I'm sorry we've stopped the timer so as to not use any more of your time but our rule is that if you're speaking you're addressing the board oh sorry we apply that to everybody so feel free
098to read it to the board but we apply that rule equally to everybody thank you so many compliments it's great that people love my hair but some love it so much that they want to touch it I don't like this they're so curious about my hair that they try to touch it without even asking for permission I get very good at avoiding hands I have to start looking for ways to hide my hair I tried blending in with the scenery but I'm quickly spotted I try hiding underwater but that doesn't last long tries going to the Jungle to a far away Castle all the way to outer space but it doesn't seem to matter finally I find a place where no one wants to touch my hair but after a few hours I get lonely
099decides to go home eventually she's had enough and she says that's enough don't touch my hair this is my hair it's great that you love it I love it too but please just look at it and don't touch without my permission the next time someone wants to touch my hair they ask now it feels great to walk down the street without anyone trying to touch my hair people still ask but if I say no they listen so I read this book with my class of kindergarten and first graders and it led to some really fruitful discussions about personal boundaries how to respect others and yourself and ultimately unprompted the kids went around asking if they could hug each other and most of the replies were yes now this book is scanned as is currently being
100required by our library media review team would likely be determined to be in violation of Ron's stop woke Act when talking about this act he States we won't allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other the disconnect here is clear what else is clear is how this has nothing to do with dismantling hate in everything to do with centering white guilt our legislation may have never learned how to Grapple with their privilege in a productive way and they now want to ensure that our students are never able to either that our students are never given the chance to have these discussions and to learn from experiences good evening my name is Lee Bryant my pronouns are he him and his to my lgbtq plus friends
101and family colleagues and students I see you and I will not let you down the other night at our prom young man came up to me about 20 minutes into the prom sought me out I was at the door chaperoning and he came up and he said I just want to thank you for making me feel accepted and welcome in your classroom and we got the little bro hug going it was beautiful thing I loved it I have the privilege of being elected as the next president of the pcta I look forward to the opportunity to take care of our Educators for the next three years I also look forward to working with the board superintendent superintendent Hendricks and the staff at Pinellas Schools to make sure our students are safe well and supported we
102can do that if we take care of our faculty and staff at our schools to make sure that they also feel safe well and supported our state government is placing uneven unneeded burdens on our Educators and the education unions around our state it wasn't that many years ago when governor Scott signed into law the requirement that education unions must have 50 percent density within their counties a simple majority of the workers I can understand the number even if I don't agree with the law now the state is digging up and moving the goal post off the playing field and into the parking lot requiring a super majority of members is undemocratic at its core the lawmakers proposing this bill say they just want to make more people join the Union and the unions talk to
103more people and yet they add restrictions to our unions being able to talk to the educators those lawmakers are speaking with a forked tongue and remarkably enough they have Exempted firefighter police and correction officers from the same requirement it couldn't have anything to do with the voting records of these groups and the perceived voting records of educator unions could it couldn't be a little patriarchal poisoning could it I mean the police firefighters and correction officers are male dominated professions and education is mostly female I encourage our Educators and support staff to get into their unions now meet and beat their attempts to disband your Collective voices sixty percent while not fair is doable and finally let me say that Liberty for thee but not for me or not for we is not what we can
104call democracy the next two speakers are Julie Russell and Lisa Erasmus okay hi good evening thank you I just wanted to read for a moment about or talk to you a moment about introducing challenging thoughts and diverse materials into our classroom I want to read an excerpt from an interview with shakima silveri she's a high school teacher in Georgia on her experience using The Bluest Eye in her classroom she said teaching novels like The Bluest Eye helps us break down barriers with students after reading the book I had a student who said she is the product of incest I've had a student who said she was molested by her uncle books allow us to help them heal in ways that we as Educators couldn't help them heal on our own further I would like to
105add that banning a book does not mean the ideas contained inside cease to exist schools have a responsibility to reflect the diversity of human thought and to teach children how to navigate challenging and difficult topics thank you thank you for allowing me to speak I would like the board to consider the following in its deliberations regarding the future of Education in Pinellas County parental rights means that the parent has the right to decide what their child has access to not what anyone else's children have access to books and films such as the Ruby Bridges film should never be eliminated because they tell the story of our history for good or bad it is telling that in the Ruby Bridges case the story may hit too close to home because the people who didn't want a
106six-year-old to have an education screamed at her and berated her a way similar to those who have expressed views against the film and books and films like that those who have been Educators for decades like me 34 years and I'm sure the ones who are newer to the field have only encouraged students to read and access material that has helped them to see the world as it is and gain the skills necessary to succeed in that world as good citizens who care for others and bring peace to their interactions with each other please stand with our teachers and support them in their great work of educating the future of our world the next two speakers are Jan dahm and Ginger bringle thank you for allowing me to speak I'd first like to thank all the
107Educators in the room and you know since it's on TV in the district for all the incredible work that you do every day with all the different types of challenges you show up you stand up and it makes a difference I'm also quite grateful that The Bluest Eye and Ruby Bridges will be returned to use and I hope going forward that the district and the school board will safeguard access that represents all Parents Choice not just one education is in large part about promoting literacy and literacy includes exposure to facts ideas cultures diversity all opportunities for not only critical thinking but also stories that may touch a heart students should be able to have a chance to see themselves represented in books that are available and not removed kids watch what we do they pay
108attention to everything even when you think that they're not so thank you good evening everyone tonight I would like to brag about the wonderful ways your library media Specialists celebrated National School library month one middle school held a literacy fair with over 30 families participating that LMT was also able to hold first chapter Fridays where she read to every class in in the school one Elementary LMT read a funny story to her kindergartners called what if Pig and they made Pig puppets to take home and retell the stories to their families other cool activities include having third graders use Charlotte's Web Minecraft to calculate the area and volume of Charlotte's area Wilbur's pen templeton's Troff and so on and then they transfer that information into a Minecraft Charlotte's Web scene and built the items using
109their calculations I also received reports of book talks scavenger hunts and even a zoomed in author talk tomorrow I'm looking forward to our annual poetry slam which always draws a crowd of students eager to share their original poems yesterday we held a reception and our newly Read Sign fiction section students explored the books enjoyed some popcorn took selfies with our new mascot created book spine poetry stacks and completed a survey about Library usage the survey results proved one long-standing theory of mine if students are given the chance to read for fun they will when asked about reading 87 percent of the students surveyed said they enjoy reading for pleasure with 70 percent wishing they had more time to do so an overwhelming 95 of the respondents wish they were given more time in school to
110visit the library I don't know if you are aware but in the secondary schools reading teachers have been told not to bring their students to check all books and not to allow them time for free reading even the research consistently reveals reading and writing scores are better for students with scheduled visits to their libraries and students who are economically disadvantaged black Hispanic and students with disabilities benefit the most from these visits which brings me to my final survey question about holding a public library card only 25 percent of my students have a library card those who claim books are not banned because they are available elsewhere simply do not understand that our students cannot get to a public library one of the core beliefs of librarianship is access all resources should be readily equally and
111equitably accessible to all we would have loved to have sponsored more events this month but unfortunately as you heard we have been overwhelmed with an excessive amount of extra duties that were pushed upon us this year as well as preparing for testing right now we ask that the district consider ways to remove some of these items off of the lnt plates so that we have more time to reach our students improve their literacy skills and support their quest of 100 princess 100 success just imagine what we could accomplish together thank you for your time the next two speakers are Cara Morrell and Nancy velardi good afternoon my name is Cara Morrell and I'm a parent of two teen daughters and a teacher in Pinellas County when I heard there was going to be a board
112meeting I debated on whether to speak or not as I was mulling it over the following quote kept playing in my mind it's from the movie The Green Mile with Tom Hanks and Michael Clark Duncan Hanks plays a prison guard Paul Edgecombe and Duncan plays an inmate on death row John Coffey who turns out it is innocent Paul asked John how could he ever justify killing an innocent man before God John tells him not to worry he reveals that in addition to Healing he can also feel the pain of all the others around him he does not wish to continue with such pain and darkness in the world he said I'm tired boss tired of being on the road lonely as a sparrow in the rain tired of not ever having me a buddy to
113be with or tell me where he's coming from or going to or why mostly I'm tired of people being ugly to each other you know what I'm tired of I'm tired of the silent majority sitting back quiet thinking that others will speak up so I'm speaking up I'm tired of the loud minority being so loud that the media picks up on it and tries to make the world think that they are the majority when in fact they are not so again I'm speaking up as a mother I'm tired of the loud minority trying to take my parenting rights away from me you have every right to decide what your child can or cannot read however you do not have the right to take that decision away from me and my child you do not have
114the right to take that decision away from the students who are of legal age to make that decision for themselves you do not have that right to assert my parental decisions just because you do not like them especially when my decisions are not hurting you or anyone else I'm tired as a teacher I'm tired of the loud minority telling me how to run my classroom I'm a good if not great teacher I teach respect fairness compassion diversity and equality to my students along with the core subjects I teach my students that for every action that they make there is a consequence either good or bad depending on the action they took when there are disagreements I listen to both sides impartially and we come up with a solution together the loud minority does not have
115the right to try and bust my union because they do not like that people in education field stand up for what they believe you do not have the right right to lie to the public again through media Outlets telling the masses that this crack of a bill is protecting staff's paychecks you think that I'm so ignorant that I don't know what is being pulled out of my paycheck you do not have the right to tell me that diverse books have no place in the classroom especially when my classroom is probably much more diverse than your neighborhood I'm tired as a mother and a teacher I'm tired of the loud minority in power not respecting their positions of and being poor Role Models people in power should be impartial they should not be starting or even
116liking drama on social media you should be acting like the professionals you are hired or voted to be I'm tired last but not least I'm tired of the loud minority acting the Hypocrites by expecting the silent majority to respect their opinions not respecting theirs you do not have the right to preach to me and the silent majority but then refuse to listen to my side good evening last time at this Podium I mentioned some problems that were reappearing in our schools after some conversation with District leadership I'm happy to say that I do believe these issues will be resolved important changes do not occur overnight but we are well on our way to modernizing Pinellas and retaining our amazing Educators latest research shows that today's Workforce requires personalized approach to management a one-size-fits-all style fails
117to account for individual needs strengths and challenges effective leaders adopt their approach providing tailored support and guidance to help each employee reach their potential traditional hierarchical structures that limit collaboration and creative problem solving are a thing of the past by fostering a more horizontal and inclusive workplace culture any organization can benefit from the diverse perspectives and experience of all team members encouraging open communication and shared decision making builds trust and leads to more effective outcomes encouraging cross-functional teamwork and knowledge sharing can improve overall productivity and problem solving capabilities our evaluation protocol should be followed precisely or it will not give a true analysis of an employee's performance the pre and post-conferences are critical to the result of the observation they must not be overlooked this approach helps employees understand their progress strengthens their motivation and
118develops the relationship between management and employee in today's competitive market employers are increasingly prioritizing employees well-being creating psychologically safe workspaces reduce burnout Fosters productivity micromanagement can stifle creativity discourage autonomy and negatively impact employee morale empowering teachers to take ownership of their classroom Fosters trust and collaboration it's crucial to recognize and discard outdated rules that hinder progress and productivity by adopting more flexible inclusive and supportive practices Pinellas County Schools can create a thriving environment that promotes employee well-being collaboration Innovation as we continue to adapt to the evolving landscape of work it's essential to stay informed and agile leaving behind practices that no longer serve our modern world or our students I hope that is the direction we are going in thank you the next two speakers are Mark clutho and Tracy McConnell more clutho Largo Winston
119Churchill September 12 1960. we shape our buildings thereafter they shape us so the headline reads will the world we live in today still be habitable tomorrow of course this article here is not good climate change at the Earth's poles threatens planet and here's from October 5th 2022 Republicans talk about rebuilding but not the cause of climate change this of course is after Hurricane eon and here's the headline climate crisis gets worse by the day Earth's carbon dioxide levels highest level in four million years Earth is nearing The Tipping Point for a hot future alarm and un report death scientists Florida dump Black Rock and woke e s g investing well on the wrong track here the problem is ignoring science for over two decades I've been bringing the science of high performance passive solar building
120you have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars building dumb stupid buildings that result in these kinds of headlines the future's Den the sad fact is there's never been a peep from the teachers to say why not give our students the high performance passive solar building that's the healthy environment A Better Learning environment they've never spoken a word that's a sad commentary what my name is Tracy McConnell and I'm a third grade teacher at Pinellas Central Elementary School as well as a proud Public School parent I love teaching school I do not like being upon in some ridiculous political scheme all this drama surrounding classroom libraries is absolute nonsense I want to thank Pinellas County schools for being a leader and not doing away with classroom libraries the way some counties are I realize the book
121scanning is worth it because it keeps books in the hands of our students it's not our kids fault that they're being used as part of a political agenda when I first started teaching parents still had rights if a parent didn't want their kids to participate in a book or a movie they would just let the teacher know and the teacher would give them an alternative assignment I did this one year for five students whose parents didn't want to participate in a holiday activity now it is like the whole state of Florida and county of Pinellas has lost their ever loving Minds when someone doesn't like something they take it off all students this is a real problem I have real concerns for my own children's education how will they be able to compete with kids
122from other states where students still have access to a wide variety of educational materials we like to call this parent rights this has nothing to do with parents rights if it did then it would take into consideration how all parents feel and it doesn't why should my children lose access to a novel because of another child's parent what are they trying to protect kids from anyway kids can get anything they want in two seconds on their phone or computer it's way worse than anything they'll read in a book I wonder how many kids use their phone on campus to access porn but please whatever happens don't let them have access to books please know critical thinking for our kids imagine if our government listened to Common Sense and let people who are college trained choose
123educational materials for classrooms we could use all the money that is going for computer programs material and manpower to scan books on buying more books for our classrooms in all seriousness what teachers need from all of you in order to do this scanning nonsense is technology that works I cannot go through the motions of scanning books and only scan 25 books because of tech issues I have already used 50 minutes of my time and I am nowhere near done when we scan we have to pray that the books are showing up in the system also there are good books that do not have barcodes on them unfortunately teachers do not have time to hand type in ISBN numbers to keep the books we do not have time for that those war on literacy the next
124two speakers are Paula Stevens and Jack Wallace right good evening school board members Madam chair Mr Hendrick I just want to remind you that we do have currently 131 support staff openings still unfilled and 28 MBA positions I always like to tell you that every month because those are our neediest children that are not being served serviced appropriately I'm actually glad that I'm following Tracy McConnell because I just want to give you kind of a little demonstration of the classroom scanning system I'm about one-third through my classroom library and I already have 251 books in and that's been to planning periods and about an hour after school so far one bin these are book bins for anybody who hasn't been in a primary classroom so the books are leveled according to students reading levels I
125teach first grade so in my room I actually have about 32 of these bins this is a blue dot bin okay before I came here this evening it was actually in two and I weeded it which is good because actually there were books in there when I taught first grade 20 years ago that were still in here and they really needed to go so in that aspect it is getting teachers to kind of weed out the stuff that's a little outdated pretty worn so now comes the fun part let me get your handy dandy scanner which I'm fortunate I believe I'll be honest I don't know how many the districts sent to each school I heard about two but the staff at my school decided that we asked our principal to order some extra ones
126so that there was at least one per grade level and our media person actually purchased one so you plug it in and it's going to beep and then you just go whoops oh wait can't can't scan yet I gotta go in here and tell it that I'm adding books now I'd already pulled up my library but now I have to go in and add my school so I'm glad I you know Eisenhower is pretty up close to the front of the alphabet then I have to let you know if it's my Personal Collection or classroom so this is school provided then grade level okay make sure I'm clicked in where the ISB goes and now I can go so sometimes it'll go by itself and you know you can get going pretty good especially if
127you did it ahead of time and actually turned them all facing the same direction but then you're going to run into oh here we go doesn't have a barcode so then you have to take the time whether it's in the front or the back so I know only got seven seconds left but anytime you all have some extra moments please come visit a primary teacher we can use the help hello my name is Jack Wallace and I'm an organizer with the party for socialism and Liberation I'm here today to talk a little bit about some of the different things that are going on in our Pinellas County Schools one of which to say that the school board you know like some of the speakers that have come before me have talked about the the right
128wing billionaire funded groups unfortunately some of which who have gotten school board members onto this Council and you know the school board should be standing up to these people should be standing up to this tiny right-wing minority that is trying to push a culture War onto and criminalize our black and our queer studies and our students the school board should be standing up to that because the teachers are the support Union staff is they're doing the best that they can to not be criminalized in their own classrooms and the school board should be fighting and standing up to these right-wing billionaires who are trying to fund these groups in order to delete delegitimate delegitimize our Public Schools we've already seen with the charter school and the voucher expansion that this is partially working the the
129public school system is being attacked and its reputation teachers are being attacked for their reputation so support staff are being attacked in order to make this justification to privatize Public Schools what happens when there's a privatization of a good we've seen it with housing we've seen it with water we've seen it with food that means some people go without and that's exactly what's going to happen here in Pinellas County with this expansion to the charter school programs one of the other things I wanted to sort of touch on today is that on the consent Agenda One of the one of the items there was talking about the Joint use agreement with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office I just want to talk a little bit about sheriffs and police in our schools you know there's an
130incident in September of 2022 down at Boca ciega High School where a young student a 15 year old girl who was assaulted by a police officer there you know she said that she was pinned against the wall and put her the officer put her in handcuffs she was dragged into the media room in the library where there are no cameras quote he slammed me and then I had hit my forehead on the divider of the door and cut my forehead open then as he was bringing me into the library he slung me onto the ground that's how I got cuts and bruises on my face and on my shoulder this is what Sheriff's the sheriff's department does in our schools they criminalize our black our Brown our queer students and that's exactly who is going
131to be unfortunately arresting the teachers and the support staff who stand up to this tiny right-wing billionaire class that is trying to fund this discussing attack on our public schools and I just also wanted to plug the Pinellas common good campaign that the union is doing making calls to get union members onto edu's April 27th May 23rd the next two speakers are Sarah wood and Carol McNamee two months ago I stood here and I spoke to you about my son who was removed from the basketball team at St Pete High three days before senior night he was the team captain his removal would occur following a difficult season where the coach had bullied and retaliated against our family I went to the principal with concerns regarding his program and then come the end of the
132season Carson was removed the last time I spoke I left each of you with a packet of information regarding the case and the lack of an investigation into the coach I Then followed up with an email and to date the only person I've heard from on this board is Stephanie Meyer as much as I would love to go on a tangent here to discuss how these elected officials never took the time to respond to me I'm going to use my time here to spend on what I believe is the most critical issue this county has no safe space for a student athlete that is being bullied coerced negatively influenced or impacted by their coach zero there is no place for them to turn except for the principal and in our case the principal at St
133Pete High has an extensive history with the basketball coach and she has protected him his decisions and his job she has protected him despite evidence of theft bullying retaliation and unethical recruitment she has protected him even when Ops found that the past three years there were six to seven unauthorized events held each year that were not approved by her it has always made me wonder why she would be willing to put her reputation on the line for him in our current system there is no place for a student athlete to turn except for the principal I know this because I have tried every single angle for the last year if a student will he's a student we have a hotline there's an individual an unbiased individual that investigates that case but when an adult in
134our school system takes part in bullying a student there is no hotline there is no protocol for an investigation and our recourse is go to the to go to the principal which completely exposes the student as it did in our case in this case she opted not to do an investigation not only did she opt not to do a thorough investigation but she brushed off the coach for not listening to her when I went to her and told him that she had my son removed or he had my son removed from the yearbook her response oh I told him not to do that he did what he wanted and he attempted to remove Carson's High School memories from print when I told her that all of his stats had been removed her response I'll talk
135to him to date we've never received his stats back in addition in addition to not listening to her here he had an unauthorized 18 events in three years at her school all largely cash events I keep questioning why she would be willing to put her career on this line on the line for the coach but maybe if we had a process of Investigations in this County we would have those answers you have the responsibility to protect to protect students in this County do not have reports of course please do something good evening it's appropriate that I follow Jack Wallace I didn't coordinate with him but what he had to say is similar to what I think you know I'm gonna when he talked about the billionaires who are behind a lot of Elections and I
136said I'm going to speak about the books while I respect the right of parents who wish to monitor the books and the media of their children read and view I asked for that same respect for parents who have different points of view regarding the educational curriculum and the text and media those parents who have been emboldened by governor who use this double talk to describe his proto-fascist agenda such as calling his authoritarian education agenda parents rights now if you don't know what Proto fascism is Google it means all the things that happen before the authoritarian gets elected such as Mussolini such as Hitler I always used to wonder what were the good German sinking now I know I watch it removing books that the majority of parents approve of is not honoring the parental rights
137of the majority I say his agenda is driven by this Fascism and when what I just told you what it means it is it refers to the direct predecessors predecessors ideologies and cultural movements which we see all over the place that influence and form the basis of fascism I've been saying this for a number of years that's where we are and anybody doubts that just notice your history you can always check with Brant because he's a real good history teacher in other words people are actually doing the thing before they elect the authoritarian leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler and I recommend that if you're unfamiliar go do some history and this is so serious that I can't say it enough it's it this PO this politics of having wealthy people funding people who may
138or may not be qualified is very serious there's actually a think tank in California and I should have looked it up that has created the blueprints that they give to the Republican Governors to do the bills that's it thank you the next two speakers are Carter huesley watts and Samuel Hutton Mr hughesley wants you may begin thank you good evening my name is Carter Hasley Watts I'm a senior at Osceola fundamental High School and I'm here advocating for students a part of student advocates I've come to speak with common sense and some stats regarding your exam exemption policies I've spoken with hundreds of parents I've even been responsible for the form that's been going around the district regarding exam exemption I've spoken with them about how they feel and what they think would be of
139more fair policy and an overwhelming majority between parents employees of the district and students is that it's not suspicient and it should be raised the number of days required and some leeway with the policy I personally have a compromised immune system and over my four years I've missed 695 periods or 339 days because of medical reasons from pneumonia the flu to covid and Beyond I only get sick during school years surprisingly and after speaking with students a lot of them show up when they are sick because they want to be able to exempt which is spreading illness to not just students but teachers and administration and people back at home that live with their elderly you can speak with any physician and they'll let you know that this is a bizarre policy to only allow
140four days a semester to be able to exempt your exams I've also learned recently that the board has discussed removing the same exemptions altogether which considering how public education as a decline with people turning in work and even participating you're giving students even less of a reason to show up do work and feel rewarded for the effort that they do during their school years I've also come with a reference from the Florida state 1003.22 communal disease and infection which can be transmitted and excluded from schools are not allowed to return to school until they are no longer present a health hazard yeah students with covid and the flu and other very contagious illnesses are still showing up and still coming to school spreading it which goes directly against that but they are punished for staying
141home if they are sick you are not excused when you are sick you're not excused when you're having a surgery and you cannot even move if you miss those four days in any two per quarters you're no longer eligible to exempt I've also come with some statistics from Florida State themselves 141 out of 157 schools have an 80 attendance rate during covert year AKA when ex when absences weren't even counted against you 94 of all schools had 75 percent attendance rate which is not great good evening and thank you for allowing me to speak here tonight my name is Samuel Hutton and I am a current Master's student at the University of South Florida myself and my colleague Joseph bars are here tonight as during our coursework this semester we were tasked with creating a
142Civic proposal that would improve the health of our community we are proposing a after-school Beach cleanup program run through run through one of the County's high schools partnered with a non-profit so that high school students can have better access and ease of getting their bright their Bright Futures at worst we have identified five potential High School high schools for a pilot program Palm Harbor University High School my alma mater Dunedin High School Tarpon Springs High School Lakewood High School Boca ciega high school and Gibbs High School we chose these five high schools as they are in a near distance to bodies of water facilitating the need of travel this program would help the county in three ways one it would allow students to better engage with their institutions too it would improve the health and
143continue and continued health of our beaches one of the County's most vital resources and three it'll encourage students to continue their higher education through the Bright Futures funding in the some of the finest universities in the nation state of Florida universities my colleague Mr vars will be discussing the funding in more detail and I yield the rest of my time thank you the next two speakers are Joseph vars and Anna margiota all right hello everyone thank you for having us especially to member Edmund who came to our class back in February down on the University of South Florida I myself am also a master's student and historian out of the University for this proposal really is kind of neat for us so background as I went through the Pasco County School System so it's been
144very neat to kind of see a lot of the inner workings of over here in Pinellas and through that this is a good way for us to be able to potentially have other students give back to the community in in a similar way for this project the only real Financial strain on the school system would be through the currently allocated Transportation budget through extracurricular activities we were attempting to do a little bit of research just to see how much specific funds were either divvied out per school or per Transportation versus maintenance cost of the buses that was not easily accessible but we were trying to break it down a little bit so that way we could potentially look at some potential grants either offered through the state government or just different non-profit and local organizations
145as well and depending on the funding source for this through how the county chooses to proceed I'm sorry the school board chooses to proceed will help us determine some of the best locations for this if we are keeping it in County we could be looking at some County beachfront Parks namely Fred Howard but if we are able to get some State funding and can jointly work together with some of the state organizations then we might be able to expand that to the different state park beaches honeymoon caladisi Fort Desoto and so on and in doing so through this it really is a kind of a multi-faceted benefits for everyone because the county gets cleaner beaches students get their bright future hours as well as you do instill a lot of Civic leadership and environmental stewardship
146with a lot of these students as well of course and they're already going to be working on a bunch of similar skill building projects and endeavors as they are working through their senior year so this adds just a little bit of extra kind of benefits that you would receive from this and we will gladly share some of the information we have with you also thank you much able to my time as well foreign I'm a high school chemistry teacher for high school in our County I also graduated from Pinellas County Schools also Palm Harbor University I am a non-binary and queer person and I use they them pronouns I'm going to Hype myself for a second I am a product of our schools because of our schools I graduated high school with 44 college credits
147because of that I got my undergraduate degree in two and a half years I also have a master's degree in chemistry and I have a PhD in chemical education I spent four years specifically studying how to make chemistry instruction more Equitable I constructed a theory of equity in chemistry instruction something that did not specifically exist before the teacher shortage is real and everything about this state is screaming at me to leave don't y'all want me to stay I want to feel wanted as a trans person in the state I want to be able to address my Stu evidence with the pronouns and names that they prefer I want my students to feel safe and loved I want trans children to survive into trans adults I decided I'm going to be co-sponsoring the GSA Club at
148my school next year I'm excited and a little nervous about it especially since a colleague mentioned that the moms for Liberty have some kind of list of GSA sponsors I hope that I will be able to continue to stay in my job and feel comfortable enough to support my students in the GSA Club and here's where I just have some bullet points we talked about the bus routes a lot and I really don't know anything about that but I know that they're being reworked because of the bus driver shortage and I suspect that it is literally laughable to suggest working on this by getting more bus drivers that's like why it wasn't mentioned right I know teachers need a living wage and we aren't really receiving it now I wonder what it is like to
149be a bus driver I haven't heard any of them speak here before I hope you talk to them and are working on making the lives of these people better I think that would help with the route issues and then I also don't know much about the apex program but I have a quick little story and it's going to sound a little harsh at first there's a category of students sometimes referred to as do nothings it is nearly impossible to get these kids to do work in class and they aren't incapable one of them is a very bright young man who will talk to me about the writings of philosophers I know nothing about last week when I asked him as I often do if he was working on his classwork he told me very frankly
150that he had given up on this class and then he bragged to me that he got a whole semester of English done in a day through Apex I told him that made me sad and when he asked why I told him that it feels like he is being robbed of an education he told me but I passed the test that's all that matters right this is it's super depressing it's what they know they could do nothing they can make it up in a day pass a test here and there and get pushed through robbed the next two speakers are Elizabeth Weinstein and Greta patenaude good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for having me I wanted to address what I believe is a violation of the Sunshine Law by two of the board
151members so I was recently sent posts from the moms for Liberty Pinellas group where a comment was made about Brant Robinson and the first comment on that was Stephanie Myers that said angriest people go back and watch the public comments since John and I made it available it's not moms for Liberty that is angry and threatening also I would show up unannounced thread that both Don Peters and Stephanie Meyer commented on which means that they are talking about school policy with a group of people it now violates the Sunshine Law so what I'd like to know is how the school board is going to address the fact that we have school board members who are colluding with people who are threatening to show up at teachers homes harass them get them fired contact the media
152and make their lives a living hell that is really not appropriate for school board members and it is not what our children deserve so I'll be sending these to the school board and they are available publicly and there is no expectation of privacy for any comments that are made in private Facebook groups this is a legal precedent that has been applied so I think we should address this as soon as possible thank you and have a great evening okay all right good evening my name is Greta patnod patnaud I'm a Pinellas County resident and I'm a former Pinellas County educator and pcta member but I left teaching in June of 2021. my current certifications include English German reading easel history biology and a few more in addition my nieces are current Northeast High School students
153and I assist in some tutoring my Florida education includes Shorecrest prep Saint Pete High Lakewood High School graduate UF bachelor's and USF master's degree in secondary English education but I'm here tonight to speak against all book Banning a group of anti-liter ideologues are attempting to convince this public school board the school public school board deny all of our students access to ideas they personally do not want to confront and I take the position that in our schools with certified Librarians and certified college educated teachers this is exactly where we want to expose our children to challenging ideas some of which make us uncomfortable and others which validate our perceptions about ourselves in this world the purpose of literature in an educational setting is to engage students in complex topics and learn to analyze empathize and
154enjoy stories that bind our human experience and these topics include intimacy race manipulation forgiveness hope violence gender roles profanity and other topics demonstrating the richness of our Human Experience excuse me these topics may be harsh sorry within the schoolhouse Educators guide students to learn how to experience these novels we look at author's purpose and literary techniques and how the authors use language how the reader responds emotionally and reconcile and reconciling these experiences within the text and Society at large it would be unfortunate to censor students from the richness of learning empathy from others with a story that is different from their own we read about challenges and all of our lives have challenges and we should learn about them and study one another's navigation through these specific challenges literature is not a titillating tweet but
155rather a world to enter over an extended time period to afford a period of reflection and consideration don't take any stories from the reach of all of our students because when you censor a book you've denied access to every student in our Public School System we need to read about in The Bluest Eye the struggles of pikla who lived in a different time under different circumstances and who is A different race than I we also need to read Lolita which is not challenged obtainalize the perspective of a pedophile in order to understand the protagonist's complexity and his disturbing nature okay if the standard is not to teach our students to Grapple these things all right thank you I was trying to use my teacher voice the next two speakers are Martin flaxman and Ramsay Aziz
156put it right there all right good evening members of the school board my name is Ramsay Aziz I'm a teacher here in Pinellas County the recent legislation that has been passed by the state is an attack on education not just teachers but on parents and students especially those coming from lower income households and members of our community who identify as anything other than heterosexual I understand that you must follow State policies but as you Ponder upon the policies you will Implement for the next school year I wish to remind you all the needs of the members of the community that are just not your benefactors and I mean not just your benefactors also I want to note as an advanced placement psychology educator I have to discuss content such as gender identity abortion bodies dysmorphia
157and gender dysmorphia this type of content falls under the life development unit it is tested upon and with the new ban on such Topics by the state and potentially the removal of AP as an institution offered by the state we need this body and its members to stick up for the teachers who are supposed to be the Professionals in the classroom to conclude when you make your decisions for next year whether it's putting all students into apras classes Banning books placing restrictions on material or establishing School slash bus times please do not make your decisions solely from the lens of behaving in accordance to what Mr DeSantis desires or following the philosophy of make more money but think of the parents of the community who have voted the majority of you into office the teachers
158who work in the district who put in hours overtime to ensure their students have an opportunity and chance to succeed I myself I got to school today at 6 a.m I didn't leave until 4 pm I had to stay two hours for tutoring we have our AP psych exam next week I lost where I was okay the support staff and administrators who make all the work in our school possible and most importantly the students who are our real bosses who without them this profession both yours and ours would not exist thank you for your time I concede the rest of it Martin flaxman the next two speakers are Philip belcastro and Bruce heinke good evening and thank you for having us my name is Philip belcastro I have been a teacher in this school district
159for three years now as I consider my options for next school year and what to do when the lease in my apartment in Saint Pete is up in July I want to speak tonight on the many positive changes here in Pinellas that I've seen in my short time so far because I don't know if this will be the last time I get to speak with you all I want to thank the school board for these past three years including members who have since moved on for working with teachers like myself and for listening to the community to thank the board for working with Nancy velardi and the pcta for negotiating our new contract including a pay raise and maintaining our level of health coverage I will always be grateful our state constitutional right a rare
160one indeed to collectively bargain for our Union and our members I want to thank the board for listening to the community and making the right choices not because they are the ones that I agree with but because they are virtuous and will be remembered for being on the right side of History compulsory public education is one of the greatest achievements of this great nation creating a standard of Base knowledge a central location within communities to establish Arts Sports culture and to grow young minds turning them into upstanding and forward-thinking members of society to maybe someday become Educators and Defenders of the people themselves has always been our goal our goal my goal is the same as yours and it always has been I am a servant of the people I serve at the pleasure of
161the public as do you never forget that these walls around us tonight and indeed the walls I teach within every day are paid for by taxpayer dollars parents and grandparents all over this County fund both mine and your salaries never forget who you work for I may yet still choose to leave the state leave the profession or stay just one more year to see some of my favorite students graduate with the obvious risk of meeting even more new favorite students whatever the case you have my sincerest thank you for what you've done continue supporting teachers continue listening to the community and continue to be better and the best and always remember the students are your boss hi my name is Bruce heinke I'm a long time resident of Pinellas County and had had three kids
162go through the Pinellas Schools and I just wanted to I it's alarming what is going on with our schools here with the Civics program in particular that Santa says instituted in conjunction with Hillsdale College Richard Corcoran in Tampa Times said that education is a hundred percent ideological which is why picking leaders is so critical he added that leaders need to be strategic and quick when in implementing policies to make sure that they have impact education is our sword and that is our weapon our weapon is education and basically these training seminars you know I'm hearing this third hand but some of the emphasis is that the original Founders didn't believe in separation of church and state they just wanted to make sure that people could worship and you know other factors with slavery that slavery
163wasn't as bad as it was it was more prevalent back then in trying to soften the message on slavery and in our schools Civics important thing is registering these kids to vote kids 16 and 17 can pre-register and in nor other counties Osceola Orange County other counties League Women Voters and me voter Familia I'm not sure if I got that right but nonpartisan group can go in and but that's not permitted in Tampa Bay area in Pasco Hills day Hillsdale Hills Hillsburgh County Hillsborough County and Pinellas don't anybody to go in and so this last is just an anecdote of we went out to register last Friday as Democrats walk out to learn was taking place on Friday in protests of don't say gay and stop woke Act and the principal came out and from
164Countryside High School and said maybe and this is ladies in their 70s a couple of us in our 60s and said that maybe we prefer to hang out at the elementary school and so you can take that for what it's worth but it's strange to see q and I the next two speakers are Dory Larson and Barbara mamazelos good evening as a parent of two students in Pinellas County Schools I'm speaking in support of keeping books in schools books in books transcend our personal experiences and allow us to see a perspective that's not our own books challenge us to be critical thinkers tragically not all of our children are raised in loving nurturing homes books help kids who have grown up safe with their needs met the ability to hear adversity others experience making them
165more compassionate and better citizens I cannot imagine removing critical thinking from our Public Schools my older son is going to UF soon on a full scholarship through both Bright Futures and National Merit Scholarship money so I'll see y'all tomorrow morning he's an IB student who has read The Bluest Eye and several other challenging books I'm eternally grateful for the teachers he had at Dunedin Middle School CGS and at Palm Harbor University High School who expanded his world view taught him to think critically and have respectful discourse learning about difficult topics challenge us to grow and expand our understanding even if and especially if it's hard to do free speech and the exchange of ideas is a Hallmark of democracy I can't understand the perspective of those who want to Snuff that out so I'm here
166today to remind you that our children our parents and our families deserve the freedom to keep books even those that some find objectionable in our Public Schools those that object have the freedom to keep their children from reading them that's the beauty of Freedom it's a two-way street thank you Barbara Mama zello's Proud 38-year educator for Pinellas County Schools retired seven years ago I Echo exact Sentiments of the previous speaker she is my daughter those are my grandsons she was talking about and I am seriously considering starting a Grassroots movement I own called Grand moms for sanity I yield the rest of my time the next two speakers are Brennan Pickett and Donna Grace good evening since we're approaching the end of another school year I like to share my recent reflection on a district
167push on South County high schools I feel the college acceleration initiative being forced on South County high schools is inappropriate and at times Criminal I'm going to elaborate what I mean by this is that traditional courses such as English 3 and 4 are being removed and replaced with either Cambridge Ace programs or AP many Juniors and seniors are finding themselves without any other options besides a college level course for example I currently teach Rising seniors who will have the option between AP Calculus and AP statistics why do we feel that every student must be forced Kicking and Screaming into courses they have no interest in taking why does a district feel that this is appropriate when not every student wishes to become engrossed in student debt and attend a college or university it's inappropriate for
168several reasons but I mainly want to focus on the issues eyewitness first and second hand number one AP and Ace programs are considered electives and they do not have to follow the law when looking at the class size amendment I started this school year with class sizes all over 30 students my highest AP class at 40. they leveled out to around an average of 30 six more than the 24 by law for core classes when the only option to get an English credit is through an AP course it is no longer an elective two if AP stands for advanced placement why do the majority of my students consist of level 1 and 2 readers and ell this problem persists through all college Advanced courses to make a sports analogy here would you put a high
169school athlete as a D1 starter for a university the curricula cannot be taught as number three the curriculum cannot be taught if we're forced to teach and reteach foundational skills that's why we had English three and four if a student can choose to fail an AP course and retake it as an English three or four credit on apex in six weeks why should they come to school at all five rigor standards and Equity does not mean college level our jobs are to meet the students where they're at not to expect in the B College ready at 16 years old whether they like it or not six this strains our resources to fulfill accommodations and in some cases leaves them unfulfilled completely if public schools are to be the primary institution to recognize 504s IEPs and
170ell Services we need to be the best at recognizing them not overwhelmed please consider looking closer at this and giving the students the opportunity to have a say about their education AP classes are not bad I in fact love my AP classes I also love the curricula for AP classes but students just need to have this say about what is their education thank you hello my name is Donna Grace and I just am so impressed with all the people that have been speaking today I think that I hope you're listening they're saying some really good things to me I'm up here because it's horrific to hear about Educators having to deal with book Banning in their classrooms it breaks my heart to think the children are not able to grow up with books books have
171always been an important part of my life and I ask you to please not be flippant about deciding to ban a book I encourage you to take seriously your power to decide if a book should be taken away consider the immense benefit reading a book gives to developing critical thinking skills this is not the same as CRT it's not that at all I'm afraid that banning books will make Florida students less smart and the Florida government seems to be pushing to reduce our ability to compete with other states in our nation thank you very much the next two speakers are Stephanie Roselle and Andrea Dort good evening members of the Pinellas County school board my name is Stephanie Roselle I'm here to address the issue of teacher shortage in our County one of the main
172reasons for the teacher shortage is the lack of competitive salaries Florida is the 48th in the nation teachers are not paid enough to meet the cost of living and this has led to many teachers leaving the profession for higher paying jobs or leaving the state entirely also teachers are not only responsible for teaching but they also have to deal with administrative tasks grading and lesson planning as well of communication with students and their caregivers teachers spend a significant amount of time outside of their regular working hours to accomplish all expectations placed on them for me that's pretty much losing every Saturday since the beginning of the school year where was I this extra workload can lead to burnout and dissatisfaction with the profession there's a growing concern that teachers are being willfully positioned as Pawns
173in the culture War this disturbing trend has emerged in recent years where teachers are being targeted and are being used as means to advert Advance certain political agendas which is making the profession less attractive to potential teacher candidates it is also a dangerous Trend that undermines the important work that teachers do in our communities teachers are highly trained professionals who are dedicated to educating our children teaching them to be critical thinkers and problem solvers as well as innovators and preparing them for the future we should not allow teachers to be used as Pawns in the culture war or subjected to political attacks instead we should pay them competitive salaries conduct a truthful analysis of time needed to accomplish all expectations placed on them and support them to do their jobs effectively such that our children
174receive the best possible education by doing so we can help to attract and retain quality teachers and ensure that our communities thrive I have a little PS here I know that HP 271 is in the Florida house asking for 65 000 starting salaries for teachers I hope that the entire School Board would find that interesting and would support that and Lobby for us also I want to send a shout out to all students of yes all students teachers and our administration at Saint Pete High I love that school and I love teaching there thank you good evening ladies Gentlemen of the public County Schools board and staff Andrea Dort good to see you again this month I want to encourage every single one of you to go to the f e a w e b
175dot org backslash action backslash tell Dash legislators Dash 2 Dash vote Dash no dash on Dash HB dash one four four five backslash I know you guys know this but Ms Dort thank you I just want to remind the public I let you finish there but our this is a limited public forum it's not intended to promote outside organizations or websites so just for the future thank you very much thank you FEA is the Florida Education Association and as a Pinellas classroom Teachers Association I am a member of the Florida Education Association they help with lobbying and with promoting what our teachers here in this District like to do we like to bargain our rights to a fair and Equitable contract not just for our teachers but for our staff our staff being our support
176staff our maintenance staff our cafeteria workers and goes on secretary's data clerks everything so I usually spend tonight making the phone calls and emails to my legislators about the bills and this bill obviously is going to be about the sisters and brothers and public labor unions that are not supporting the fact that we have a constitutional right to bargain in this state so I urge you to contact your house representative to vote no on House Bill 144-1445 on a happier note as was mentioned from our last speaker Nea also a member National Education Association the labor union that represents teachers and staff in the America sent me the latest results of teacher pay in America and as was stated before Florida ranks number 48 in the nation but number 15 for starting teacher pay gone
177up so the pay gap between veteran and new teachers is 48 cents on the dollar so remember the goal of our state government is to decompress pay where we get less experienced people earning as much or more than long-term experienced people unfortunately legislators have not addressed the education budget yet so with that thank you the next two speakers are Shannon Vincent and Dan amend good evening thank you for listening to my comments today I have been teaching with Pinellas County schools for 20 years as a teacher and a parent of two public school children I implore you to consider a district-wide mandate on smartphones and cell phones most of our children are addicted to the instant gratification these entertainment devices provide and they simply do not have the willpower to put them down because these
178smartphones are way more expensive than a deck of cards teachers have been instructed not to take them away from students but we cannot teach the material to a kid who is watching a show or playing a game or engaged in a heated argument with their group chat since we can't take them teachers plan exhausting game of whack-a-mole reminding kids to put their phones away because as soon as we turn around the phone is right back in their hand how can their brains focus on the material with this constant switching from the content on their phones to the content that they need to learn our students insist that they can scroll on their phone while learning complex Concepts but that just doesn't work the students who can't put down their phone are struggling and phone calls
179home restorative conversations detentions and referrals are not curbing the issue teachers really need District help this is a district-wide problem that needs a district-wide solution as a parent I want my children's School experience to be productive I want them to learn I think that's what all of us want but without a consistent hard line on the use of smartphones in our classrooms I think we are going to discover too late that our kids spend all that time in school not really learning anything thank you Dan amend the next two speakers are Sarah peacock and Kelsey Donegan Kelsey Donegan foreign I'll go first my name is Sarah peacock I'm a Pinellas County Parent former Pinellas County student and daughter of a retired Pinellas County teacher I'd like to thank the board as a whole for doing
180the right thing and keeping The Bluest Eye in Ruby Bridges in schools I know there will be more removal requests in the future and I hope you'll give future materials the same individual consideration and protect our students from Fringe Fanatics who insist on interrupting our children's educations I would also like to encourage you to allow teachers and students to have the first opportunity to speak we just talked about earlier start times well not just because I wrote this at the beginning of the meeting just talked about early start times and long bus rides in the morning these the most valuable members of our education Community should have their voices prioritized I believe I'd like to remind the board and everyone here that we need to be advocating for the voucher money provided by our Florida
181Congress to be separated from State funding for our public school budget so I know if some of us have talked about Universal vouchers that money is not separated and will be coming out of the State dollars that come into our budget so I would encourage you to call your representatives and Congress people and anyone else whose number you can find because it affects every District every County every student in the state and they should all be forced to hear you tell them about it I'd also like to encourage the board to be including our teachers in every way possible teachers know the educational needs of this County and its students better than anyone else better than Administration better than you and likely better than many parents teachers are educated and licensed experienced and highly motivated
182they care deeply and deserve your support many of you campaigned on a promise to talk to teachers and understand their needs and I challenge you to put that into practice on the topic of bussing I would love to hear from the board about increasing electrification of school buses to reduce diesel fumes and decrease maintenance costs to our Fleet perhaps that money could go towards more bus drivers I'd like to reiterate the concerns for bus drivers I can't imagine what it's like to be a driver underpaid and expect to supervise children and simultaneously navigate traffic I would like to suggest we don't have a driver shortage just like we don't have a teacher shortage we have a shortage of concern for the people who actually interact with kids on a daily basis I know you don't
183have control over the legislature although I should hope that you Lobby them more than you do I know you can't raise a tax but I also know that you can rent out facilities and Lease property I wonder if there's anything that you could do to bring dollars into the budget in a way similar to this or get creative and do a capitalism for us lastly and most importantly I'd like to hear you talk about what you're doing to make sure that you have people in your lives in the communities that we're asking you to protect I wonder how many of you have close friends or family who are LG tbqia or people of color and how many of your friends in these communities do you think that you trust enough to have hi good evening
184thank you for your time I'll try to keep this concise first I'd like to say how grateful I am to be at St Petersburg High School under the administration of Darlene Lebo and all of our APS as concerned as I am about the policies coming from our Administration in Tallahassee I'm very grateful to feel safe and well supported at my a-rated school I'd like to call attention to two issues I've brought up here before because I believe they are important and need to be addressed the first is that our class sizes are too large past what they're supposed to be in a 45 minute class I cannot adequately address the needs of 34 kids a plant single planning period is laughable in terms of time to grade and plan for this many children particularly in
185ela classes I actually did laugh when I received a form to get paid for work done outside of contract hours up to 15 hours for the year I hit 15 hours in my first two weeks and I'm sure that's considered Amateur hour by many of my colleagues the second issue is the absence of a dedicated time period at school board meetings to hear from teachers before the opening before opening the podiums to the public Hillsborough County and many other Counties have seen success with this and it enables the board and the community to hear directly from those who are in your our classrooms every day and finally I would like to also address the behavior of some of the school board members at these meetings you are incredibly visible on this board and as elected
186officials are both highly influential and very open to scrutiny members from all degrees of the political Spectrum speak at these meetings and I have noticed two members rolling their eyes at many of the speakers these members have rolled their eyes at me before and I don't believe I've said anything particularly aggressive or controversial it feels disrespectful both to your position and to everyone who takes their time to come out to these meetings thank you again for your time I hope you all have a great night the next speaker is Lindsey Blankenbaker believe it or not and I'm sure this will come as a surprise to some of you I regularly work with I almost never plan to speak in these meetings it Thrills me enough to see all of the Educators and Community Advocates who
187do but I took the opportunity to scribble down some thoughts tonight so often situations develop and information arises on which I feel I must speak out while listening tonight I was also informed of and sent screenshots of two sitting board members Don Peters but primarily Stephanie Meyer participating in and accusing in making accusations against PCSB teacher Brant Robinson in a private Facebook group of the Pinellas County chapter of moms for Liberty I'm sure you remember Brant right he was first to speak tonight right after the Monster Liberty swiftly exited the room as they are want to do before our community shows up in full force in support of our Educators like Brant and as we've heard tonight among other slander Mr Robinson in this group is called a loser a predator a groomer with comments
188and likes from Miss Meyer and Miss Peters additionally they threatened to weaponize classroom visits which Brant has repeatedly invited them to make spoiler alert Miss Peters canceled her planned visit before 5 a.m the day of now I know that I am not the only attendee to speak to this tonight I deeply thank the community supporters for speaking up for him tonight in the same way Heek daily stands for all children but I'd like to add a union perspective on Miss Myers and Miss Peter's participation and encouragement of harassment of a long time devoted employee of Pinellas County Schools your employee this actually violates numerous provisions of our pcta instructional contract and multiple PCSB policies you may look forward to our grievances formal complaints and every other Avenue of advocacy pcta can provide on Brandt's behalf
189but while that news those remedies don't often rise to Broad public awareness these School members aggressive or passive aggressive conduct against Mr Robinson begs it so here in this public forum I asked the two board members PCS Administration Mr kapersky for your stance on this behavior and what you plan to do to correct this dangerous and destructive course against our employees we await your response publicly equal to the harassment to which Mr Robinson has been subjected yet he persists no one expects any of you like any of us to be perfect but you are expected to refrain from active harm public parents and employees please take note thank you Madam chair there are no more speakers with that thank you all for attending today's meeting and have a wonderful evening thank you