001good morning and welcome to the june 22nd regular board meeting of the pinellas county school board which i now call to order the invocation this morning i believe will be done by well let me see first is pastor oliver king of the restoration ministries in largo is he present all right our invocation this morning will then be done by ms pat wright it will be followed by the pledge of allegiance led by vice chairman mrs long and the national anthem will be performed this morning by st petersburg high school pitchforks under the direction of choral director david lawhead please stand and thank you for filling in this is right be also ready shall we pray gracious lord and father we thank you for our coming together today we ask that we have we know that
002we've come together for the deliberations and considerations for the betterment of our children we ask that you bless the work of our hands the work of our hearts that it may be done pleasingly and in your sight a well-done job this is our prayer to amen flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all what so proudly we have was bursting in that our flag was still there oh say does that star spangled for the land of the free thank you again and that was beautiful and i had not heard that rendition before very nice all right so we will now move to our video and this summer pinellas county schools is introducing a new summer bridge program
003that's kickoff to kindergarten students will engage in a variety of activities aimed at preparing them for kindergarten and making sure they start their school year ready for success let's learn more about this program from the early childhood education specialist gail ramsdale and other members of the early learning team so the rising kindergarten is an exciting new program that's available for children who will be entering kindergarten in the fall it can be students who have already attended the vpk program during the school year but it can also be for students who didn't attend the vpk program so they'll be coming into a school setting for the very first time we want children to attend the program for the opportunity to come on to a big elementary school campus we'll be working on social emotional skills so
004we'll be learning you know how to make new friends how to invite others to play how to handle problem situations using our words so it's all about the social emotional piece and helping children feel comfortable as they make this transition to kindergarten as well as the academic pieces so we'll be reading books and learning about the letters and the sounds that they make we'll be working on early numeracy skills counting comparing sets they will have experienced some of the routines that will happen on the first day of kindergarten lining up going out to the playground going to the cafeteria they will have already experienced some of those things so that they can really focus on having fun on that first day of kindergarten and feeling safe and comfortable so i'm really excited to be a
005part of a new program to be able to give this the children that are coming for the summer a little extra boost to get them ready for kindergarten right 19 down on your paper so if we can incorporate fun into their learning i think it's going to go with them into next year so they'll be more excited they'll be more curious they'll be able to investigate a lot more things just that love of learning hopefully we can get them now as they're young and it'll continue as they're older so rising kindergarten is for any child that will be going into kindergarten next year but we also have our summer vpk program and that's specifically for children that did not attend vpk during the school year and our summer program for vpk is much longer than
006the rising kindergarten program all right so what first what's the first letter i'm super excited about the new vpk program that they're going to be doing this summer because i know that kids need a foundation before they start kindergarten and this is definitely going to give it to them it's going to teach them lots of literacy math skills that they need in the upcoming kindergarten here they do a lot of assessments and i think that this will help build upon everything that they need to know to find out more information about either of these programs families can visit our website at w www.pcsb.org looks like a lot of exciting things are going on all right we'll now do the introduction of professional and community organization representatives with isabella mascarenas our public information officer good morning
007good morning good morning madam chair members of the board dr grego and staff it is my pleasure to introduce the following representatives of community and professional organizations joining us virtually this morning from the pinellas arts for a complete education coalition is victoria hegedorn the co-chair there are no members of the media in attendance all right thank you all right dr grego are there any amendments to the agenda yes i have a few amendments to the agenda under 7.3 as we prepare for the opening of the 2122 school year i posted these on the electronic agenda this past week but recommending the assistant principal michelle dew grand rut that's currently at leoman innovation to be transferred to the assistant principalship at largo middle school miss marty giancola principal at richard o jacobson technical high school to
008take over the reins and responsibilities of the assistant director of esser this is a position that this board and i went over extensively at the our last workshop and then jonathan marina who's currently assistant principal at largo high school to take over the ranks and responsibilities assistant principal at layman innovation also under 7.5 recommending a cost center change and that is the position of lucas hefty to be assigned as a mathematics supervisor not for the district but for the school of the jamerson magnet schools in math and science to to for have that cost center change so mr lucas hefty will be assigned to that school all righty i'm as chairman i find good cause to add item 7.3 they request approval of personnel recommendations administrative appointments for 2020 2021 2022 school year and 7.5
009to request approval of the personnel recommendations of support services for the 2020 2021 and 21 22 school year as stated by dr grego i find good cause to add those board members are there any items that need to be pulled all right then i will entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as amended to adopt the agenda okay mrs long exactly and a song by mrs edmund a second by you want to sing a song a second by miss edmonds all in favor say aye aye aye opposed say no and it passes 7-0 thank you all right we'll now move down to presentations from the audience presentations from synergistic energy stewardship award dr grego yes madam chair and school board members you know we have a long term relationship with synergistics and perhaps one of
010the more successful relationships in the united states and i want to say publicly thank you to mr herbick and all of our principal leaders and all of our individuals who take energy conservation such a major task in this district but they're here to to really present to this board so let me turn it over to mr herbeck and introduce our special guest that we have here with us today it is i'm sorry good put it on again there we go sorry again thank you dr grego and madam chair and board members it is with pride that we have this award being shared with you today i know we are very proud of the district of all the work we've done with synergistic not just with the energy savings but with the positive impacts we've had
011on our schools we're also very proud of the three energy star recognitions for partner of the year but this award is special because it really recognizes the work that everybody has done from our teachers from our plant operators to our principals the entire district it really recognizes that the efforts of everybody and so with that i trust that we'll be equally as proud of this award as we have been with all of our other work with synergistic but i would ask regional vice president for synergistic steve jones to come to the podium good morning good morning thank you mrvik superintendent madam chairwoman ladies and gentlemen of the board thank you for having me here this is first i want to thank you for your public service i was a public servant for 28 years before
012i retired from montgomery alabama i never went through a pandemic so my hat is off to you i my brother teaches at auburn his wife is an elementary school teacher and she said something to me one time she said i think if there's a good that comes out of this pandemic is that people understand that public education is not just a right it is a privilege to be able to send your children into a classroom and get that education so i like to publicly thank all the all the board members when i get a chance this is one of the favorite things i do i've been with the company about five years i hired synergistic when i was with the mayor's office in the city of montgomery looking to do exactly what y'all were looking
013to do find some funding that attrition didn't take care of or other places and it did everything that they said they were going to do when i hired them and i when i retired it was almost like the hair club for men it was not a it was not a hard decision for me to go to work for them because it is a company that stands by what they say i'm going to introduce the energy specialist here cindy bennett sam harris and carlos rodriguez jen cumberback is not here and i'm sure you're aware of the program as we hire full-time energy specialists but we hire them locally we don't bring somebody from bayonne new jersey into central south florida to try to change behavior we like to find those men and women that are in
014this area erica johnston was an energy specialist here that has moved up because of her unbelievable talent and expertise with our company she couldn't be here today but we all thank you as good stewards of your time i just dr greger you said something there that just resonates with me usually when i go and give awards i have to read the accolades pinellas county i know them by heart i mean this is the tip of the spear when you said nationwide we have probably 1500 partners throughout the country higher ed k-12 municipalities we always go back to pinellas call clint if you don't believe what we do call mr herbick find out the things that they're doing and what i'd like to applaud the district on that to me is special to me it's not
015just the dollars we're talking almost 40 million dollars of cost avoidance since this program started in 2015. some people may argue that cost avoidance is not real savings i will argue against that had you not had the program and been as successful as you are you would have paid that money to a utility company it was able to be put back into your budget no doubt about it in my mind but the student involvement what y'all done here with getting i saw this kindergarten video which we've got a slide when we talk to other districts about what we do that says just imagine 50 000 junior energy managers running around your school district teaching these children at a young age what it is to be good stewards of the environment what it is to be
016good stewards of of the community y'all have led the way on that there is no doubt and then the financial i mean the environmental impact that you've done and i've got a few numbers i'm not a mathematician so don't ask me how to extrapolate this into something else but you have reduced your cost per square foot in six and a half years is that right six and a half years clint by 35 percent you've reduced your and florida's such a great state because you have to report what your energy spend is to the department of education it's out there pinellas is leading the way it's amazing 108 energy star buildings what energy star buildings means it's not just the sticker on the refrigerator at lowe's it means that you're in the top 20 or 25
01720 percentile of all other like facilities in the country it's it's a and you have 108 of them energy star partner of the year three times in a row that's the department of energy pointing at pinellas county and saying you are the leader you are the tip of the spear and then the co2 reduction i'm 55 years old when i was a kid my parents had a car that was about the size of this room and we just drive all over the southeast and could care less about the carbon footprint we did it just was not a thing today that is a thing your co2 reduction since this program started is over 208 000 metric tons that's a number what that actually means if you if you extrapolate it out it's the equivalent of planting
0183.4 million trees for the next 10 years of what you're doing for the carbon footprint and sequestering that carbon it is the equivalent of the exhaust the exhaust that has been generated by an average car driving 510 million miles you are doing great things for the environment i know that the culture in florida with clearwater with saint pete it's just you've embraced this and it we're proud to be partners with you and extremely proud dr grigor that you let me come down and give you this award because i promise you i brag about pinellas nonstop when i'm out talking to people so thank you very much i'm going to leave this in in the interest of social discipline we have a plaque here i think you've already got one i've also got a clint knows
019we've got a banner that's coming that we can move around to different schools because it's just not the administration that made this program what it is it's the custodians it's the facility men and women it's the teachers it's a it's a group effort so we wanted something that we just couldn't hang statically somewhere we want something that we can take around right so i'm going to ask mr herbick to come down and receive that award from because he's been the head cheerleader for this and now that we can get closer together we're going to do that he's going to come out this door there you go oh yeah there you go all right we appreciate your time and thank you all right now we have public comments on agenda items members of the public have
020three opportunities to address the board when we gather for our meetings the first opportunity is to speak during public comments on agenda items the next opportunity is when there's a public hearing most of which are policies and lastly when the meeting is adjourned we will remain for public participation when speakers may address items pertaining to the business of the district during all opportunities the public has been given and will give input board members are here to listen this is not a time for discussion or debate we will not take any formal action unless it is an agenda item however the board and the superintendent may clarify statements refer speakers to the proper person for help throughout or refer them to the proper staff person for help through their concerns the board is committed to a
021standard of civility and decorum in conducting our meetings please assist us by maintaining a civil constructive environment by confining your comments to the business of the district and refrain from profanity intemperate or rude comments thank you miss simon eddie do we have any speakers on agenda items board members and dr gregor we have one speaker today on specific agenda items mark clutho will address consent number 7.21 7.22 7.24 7.25 and 7.26 mark luthor largo well here i am at the lectern this is not a podium i didn't take a step to get up here and when you don't know about the construction of this you can't make any judgments about constructing a building that's for certain now the 22 23 24 25 all wrong i just drove by clearwater high school yesterday the building is
022not oriented the new construction not oriented correctly and you can't be energy star if you don't have the building oriented correctly off 90 degrees energy specialist that's a farce energy conservation aren't the right words it's energy efficiency that is what you want students your intern opportunities huge changes needed to keep nature earth okay well i had this article here giving aging buildings a green makeover now see those internships aren't telling the students what you do here to cut the utility bills by 80 percent and your new buildings should be doing even better than that but that's not what you're doing i mean what i just heard here was all a bunch of lies which you continue to constantly do this is a big rip-off that's what it is a flagrant rip-off i mean you people
023just don't have any shame i just i you know more than two decades here this is getting way way thank you that's it correct all right we have unfinished business the public hearing to consider the amendment to policy 5500.01 our code of conduct parental responsibilities 5500.05 in the code of conduct student attendance 5500.07 student code of conduct discipline 5500.08 code of student conduct misconduct that requires specific consequences 5500.09 code of student conduct conduct on the buses this is the second reading so do we have a motion emotion okay mrs long do you have a second all right mrs kane dr grego yeah thank you ma'am madam chair and i want to first of all thank leanna eisen who will be presenting this also dr heinz who really took the lead on this student code of
024conduct this year and he's not here with us today but i want to recognize leon eisen who a director of strategic planning and policy who will briefly go through what this board has gone through over the last series of months actually in workshops and reviewing the changes modification student code of conduct this is all in preparation again i know i sound a little bit like a broken record and prepare for the printers and our 21-22 school year good morning good morning madam chair board members dr grego staff and community today we present the second reading of five policies within the code of student conduct as dr grego said the district team has presented these amendments during the april 20th board workshop as well as the may 11th board meeting and today we recommend approval of
025the following policy amendments as we shared at the workshop we end at the last meeting dr heinz and the district team have engaged a variety of stakeholders representing districts school-based staff families the student rights and responsibilities committee the pinellas county council ptas and the pinellas county teachers association for input and feedback on the code of conduct and we do that annually simultaneously the district team reviews the code in alignment with current statute and the proposed amendments to the code are the result of both of those processes the input and the review for statutory alignment so the pro we are also intending to provide greater clarity to the language throughout the code of conduct so the summary of the amendments are for 5501 parental responsibility to update the language to positively encourage parent engagement and clarify
026responsibilities based on feedback from the parent group and since the first reading per the board's discussion during the last meeting we've also clarified the language around the responsibility and conduct of safety at the bus stop for 5505 student attendance we've clarified early sign up procedures and completion of makeup work during a suspension and updated the language to align with the driver's license related statute language 5507 discipline we've clarified the district's process for referring students to mental health services due to misconduct including the addition of information on how to locate resources for mental health services we've updated the definition of cell phones and electronic devices to reflect current technology we've added appropriate use of electronic devices in schools and in response to the board workshop discussion we've clarified that any criminal penalties imposed for specific misconduct
027are done so under the authority of law enforcement agencies and it changed since the first reading and to better align with senate bill 590 school safety which we anticipate to be signed by the governor is an update to include the definition of petty acts of misconduct and the expectation of law enforcement's involvement in such acts in 5508 misconduct that requires specific consequences we've reformatted that for better legibility and understanding we've updated the statutory language on firearms weapons threats false reports and reflect to reflect changes to florida law we added a section on computer crimes we made the same clarification about mental health services and mental health service resources and since the first reading again in alignment with senate bill 590 we've specified that violent misdemeanors and felony criminal offenses will be reported to law enforcement
028and in 5509 conduct on school buses we've added information about how parents can sign up for transportation notifications and we've added guidelines that allow students to carry roller skates skateboards and curriculum required cutting instruments on buses as long as they're contained in the appropriate cases throughout in addition to these substantive changes we've also made modifications to reflect gender neutral language throughout all of the code of conduct policies but these are technical edits that don't require board approval but we wanted to make sure that we are transparent and share that information with you that concludes our presentation of the second reading and recommendation to to approve the code of conduct policies any board discussion okay miss dr carr thank you here you go nope i'll do it there you go you got it at the same
029time the i want to say thank you to for the group's input and work on the on this and express appreciation for collecting our input during board workshop especially related to the clarity on which concerns or disciplinary infractions result the need to be reported to the police and the additional inclusion of mental health resources with 2-1-1 so thank you very much for addressing those concerns and i'm also grateful that the gender neutrality is reflected so that it there's not bias within the enforcement of our code of student conduct so thank you very much for your time and for working so collaboratively with a variety of groups to gather input and amend things along this long process thank you okay any other discussion or comments all right we have a motion by mrs long a second
030by mrs kane madam chair yes there are no speakers today thank you thank you no speakers all right so now we will go on to the vote yeah we have a motion and a second already for to consider amendments to policy five five zero zero point zero one five five zero zero point zero five five five point zero zero point zero seven five five zero zero point zero eight and five five zero zero point zero nine all in favor say aye aye all opposed say no and it passes unanimously thank you and we move on to the consent agenda do we have a motion okay mr dudley do we have a second second and mrs long seconded all in favor say aye opposed say no and it passes unanimously let's move to non-consent request approval
031of the state of florida's voluntary pre-k pre-kindergarten education program statewide provider contract with the early learning coalition of florida of pinellas county do we have a motion mrs long do we have a second okay miss hein seconds it dr grego yes ma'am chair and school board members i want to ask gail ramsdale to come up to the microphone and and have a discussion on this and the reason why we're pulling this and having this discussion first of all thank you very much for our communications department for making that video on the on the rising kindergarten we this board has had a tremendous emphasis on the early childhood status of our community and i want to say thank you there's bits and pieces of it that are working just tremendously and i don't want us to
032lose sight of that yesterday and i want to thank mike feeney kevin hendrick and teaching and learning for really promoting the rising kindergarten program with one of i don't know of another county that's doing this to the magnitude we had over rising kindergarten students come to first day of summer bridge program yesterday so i don't want to get off topic but i know this is an agreement with the early learning coalition but it's all a part of the emphasis on early early learning vpk even beyond that so thank you very much for your leadership gail and you want to describe to the board this partnership with the early learning coalition good morning good morning madam chair members of the board dr grego and staff i'm happy to be here today to present for your approval
033our annual agreement between pinellas county schools and the early learning coalition of pinellas county as you know the district enters into this agreement with the coalition each year the gr agreement permits us to offer voluntary pre-kindergarten otherwise known as vpk at our schools across the district and also allows us to receive reimbursement from the coalition while the agreement involves the same requirements as years past i do want to highlight a couple of changes to our programming for next year next school year the district will be supporting 25 elementary schools so vpk students and families at these schools can attend a free full-day program the vpk funding from the early learning coalition also known as the vpk voucher will support students for the first half of the day and the district will support students for the
034second half of the day this free full day program will create an incredible opportunity for families at 25 title 1 elementary schools the district also will continue to expand our vpk programming by adding an additional 40 new vpk classrooms across the district 24 of those classrooms will be at the free full day schools and the other 16 classrooms will be housed at other elementary schools where we identified a need for expansion as a district we will go from 116 vpk classrooms this past school year to 156 vpk classrooms for next school year these additional classrooms will create approximately 700 new vpk seats for children to learn and grow with pinellas county schools i'd like to thank the board and dr grego for your steadfast support of early childhood programs and for investing in the education
035of our youngest learners well thank the board for your investment and continued encouragement because those numbers of going from 116 to 156 is a monumental task so it is something as we continue to grow and see the return on this investment i will see that we'll see that for years to come so thank you gail any comments from the board or questions i don't see any so i would like to make a comment we have all had long discussions about how it's so important for our students to be able to enter kindergarten ready and so this is so important and i'm thrilled that we're able to go this way and thank you for your partnership on this we know that these children that have high quality pre-k will be students that will do well in
036kindergarten and they'll do well in first grade and be able to move on so thank you very much and i'm pretty sure with head shaking that i'm speaking for the whole board when we say that so thank you very much and i look forward to passing this item any other comments all right so we have a request to approve the state of florida voluntary pre-kindergarten education program state wide provider contract with the early learning coalition of pinellas county all in favor say aye aye opposed say no and it passes unanimously thank you thank you right so we will now move to items introduced by the superintendent yes ma'am chair and school board members last week we received the results of our third grade ela scores and how we did and i want to say first
037and foremost thank you to everyone who produced in every elementary school well over 95 of our students who came in and tested and i would love to see that comparison in the state but i'm not sure it's going to be compared but i'll certainly find out i haven't found anybody with a higher percentage so it is so important as we stated in the very beginning that we're going to use the fsa as a benchmark as a starting point to ensure that we're going to be able to fill the gaps the ela mathematics science gaps that might have occurred the thing we saw in third grade and we'll continue to examine i'll continue to report to the board is that our students performed about as well as they did two years ago so we had about
038a 1.6 1.7 percentage drop of that i didn't know what to expect many districts was four and five percent but let me warn us all that also depends upon the percentage of students who are who are sitting and administering that assessment some districts were perhaps around 80 85 percent maybe 90 percent so the key here as we come out of this pandemic is to ensure that all students are engaged in our assessments and we the teachers and administration is able to springboard forward with that as a result we were able to leap forward into summer bridge we have record numbers of the right students all students are the right students but over 60 percent of the identified students that teaching and learning have have said we really want these students in summer bridge because we
039see a potential learning loss those students are arriving and they're there which is the highest percentage of those identified students ever in the history of summer bridge which i'm thrilled about we have over just about 20 000 students in the past we've hovered around 15 or 16 thousand so parents i've seen we visited every single elementary school staff did yesterday parents are excited students are excited i think that everyone was really desiring to to kind of get back to a different flavor it's a it's a light it's a lighter flavor without a doubt that it's a little bit more relaxed but still a lot of learning is is going is going on our summer bridge as i mentioned started yesterday and where we had a debriefing meeting on monday and we ironed out a couple
040of things but like mr herbeck back to him we were feeding students in the morning we're feeding in the afternoon as you know you saw buses on the road yesterday i first when i saw my first bus i was alarmed like what are we in and i remember that we're transporting students we transported just under 5000 students yesterday i believe that we'll examine and learn a new way of doing business we're using s for funds we're using a lot of these funds as even as demonstrated from the full-time programs in vpk we're needing to close that gap and we're not going to wait to do that we're going to be extremely aggressive to do it so you'll continue to hear updates from me and from teaching and learning from the area superintendents on our summer
041bridge program so somewhat shorter as you know but longer hours during the day and our transformation zone is even longer so i just want to say thank you to the commitment of our teachers or administrators for really taking on after a difficult year picking up and coming back and really doing a great job i know mrs long i believe you were there but also tarpon springs had had an announcement made on june 12th since last time we've met that they will be marching in the 2022 macy's thanksgiving day parade this parade is seen by over 50 million people worldwide and each year the macy's band committee looks for bands that have a stage presence and a musical expertise that captivate millions of viewers across the country and across the world tarpon springs high school outdoor
042performance ensemble was selected for more than 100 applicants as one of nine only nine selected bands that will be marching in the 96th edition of the annual holidays spectacular spec spectacular and we want to thank and recognize the leadership of kevin ford and also principal lisa fedolides so thank you to all of the folks who came out what a wonderful celebration that saturday the students the parents and think about they had their new band orientation that day what an orientation if i'm a parent or a student coming in in ninth grade and joining this band that in 2022 you'll be marching in in macy's thanksgiving day parade i also want to recognize kenisha garcia of lielman innovation academy the principalship of principal who received the 2021 principal achievement award for outstanding leadership for pinellas county
043schools this award was established in 1988 the principal achievement award for outstanding leadership recognizes exemplary principles for their contributions to the school and their community it honors individuals who spearhead initiatives to increase student performance promote safe learning environments and establish partnerships with parents and community members principal garcia has led lillman innovation academy since 20 20 20 2016 and during that time she has spearheaded so many changes positive changes in every sector of that school she initially focused on teacher recruitment and teacher equality and has doubled this teaching staff in three years she's embedded a school-based professional development system has grown teachers from within the school building and with the use of a tiered academic coaching support that she provides her teachers so congratulations to kanisha garcia i know you'll lend your congratulatory comments when you
044see her but we're so proud of her and we're proud of the vision that lilman innovation academy had that we set forth when she took the principalship of that school i want to also thank the board members and the pinellas educational foundation for recognizing the commissioner's business awards that we just did last night last evening the district business partner with the pinellas county schools the medical team of doctors that you had the pleasure of meeting and and talking with yesterday or last evening the middle school in high school the secondary business partnership partner award went to raytheon for their work at azalea middle school and then the elementary school business partner the browns backers of pinellas and people ask what those browns packers that's the cleveland browns and the there's their support of nina harris
045so we're very appreciative these folks represent the hundreds and hundreds of business partners that we cherish and we value across the district but certainly thank you to dr beyer for her recognition and taking time to have a live event face to face and person to person and thank you for that recognition i also want to share i did share with the board but i want to publicly share that our school district was invited we were invited and called up to join the national post secondary strategy institute network national network this is a national team networks that look at districts across the examine districts across the united states to see who are the leading districts for college and career readiness and what that post-secondary next step will be i'm thrilled that we were recruited we called
046filled out a very short liana eisenfield at a very short just bio application to this and when they called us and recognized our progress that we're making our college and career centers with naviance with so many of these other initiatives they didn't put us in the beginning class but rather they catapulted us into the second tier of school districts across this country with denver and everett and fort worth and in indianapolis michigan city schools new york and many others that have been doing this work for several years and when they caught on what we're doing and how we're doing it with our college and career readiness they not only invited us but we're excited to be supported on the national front with with our college and career readiness i also want to say thank you
047to sandy hook promise this is an organization that this board went into partnership with prior to the marjory stoneman douglas douglas tragedy and i want to thank donna sicilian for her work and many of the other social workers throughout our school district sandy hook promise has been an exceptional partnership and has had tremendous results likewise we are also we're congratulated that we've that we've had many a save clubs that's the students against violence everywhere s-a-v-e and we were recognized with six schools out of i think 36 schools throughout the nation six of those 36 are pinellas county schools lakeview fundamental elementary rollins elementary san jose elementary tarpon springs elementary safety harbor middle and holland's high school the thing i like about this is that we cover all grade levels it's not to say the others
048aren't doing anything they are these schools just won this award at all levels from for pinellas county my last comment is one that doesn't affect us maybe immediately but it certainly is nice to reflect on the talent that we have in our district those of you watching the olympic trials will recognize that trayvon bromell from gibbs high school won the hundred meter race the other evenings qualified for the u.s olympic track and fields he didn't only win it but he had the second fastest time in the world of 9.80 he has the fastest time in the world in his possession of 9.77 so we look for great things from him trayvon in in the winter in the olympics at in in tokyo so please watch out for him we're proud graduate of gibbs high school
049the other proud graduate is bobby fink who's a countryside high school graduate he won the men's 800 meter freestyle at the olympic trials last thursday night to earn him a spot at the olympic with the united states olympic team this will be the first olympic games that include the 800 meter competition and bobby's certainly first appearance at the olympics so congratulations not only to our present graduates but to these graduates who continue to make us proud and continue to have a home in pinellas county that concludes my comments thank you all right do we have any items introduced by the school board attorney i have no report thank you all right fine thank you items introduced by board members is there any any items anything to be brought up mrs edmund i don't have any
050items to introduce however i just would like to recognize our students or scholars that earned awards at the dr carter g woodson museum by participating in the equal justice initiatives essay and art contest and partnership with pinellas remembers also last week was the substitute of the year celebration and a fantastic turnout so i'd like to thank staff for helping put that together as well as our substitutes that we value and i also wanted to highlight that june 17th juneteenth was announced as a federal holiday so that in itself is something to be celebrating and the rest of my comments regarding the fsba conference r club and the joint pasco pinellas community alliance report i'll discuss during our workshop all right good thank you anyone else all right so dr corbett do we have any board
051requests no matt i'm sure we do not okay very good all right so our board evaluation will be done after we adjourn the meeting and hear from the public for their participation and then we will do our evaluation so with that if there are no objections this meeting is adjourned all right so this is simon eddy do we have any speakers board members and dr grego we have four speakers today under general public comments our first speaker is brant robinson welcome hey thank you so much good morning everybody madam chair members of the board dr grego and staff my name is brant robinson and i teach at dunedin high school i can't believe i'm about to go into my 25th year of teaching but 24 of them wonderful experiences at done in high school so
052if you're like me as we come out of this pandemic there's there's a current of emotion that just seems to be right beneath the surface at all times and for me today that emotion is gratitude so i just want to say thank you to all of you i thank kevin in the back former colleague at dunedin clint you as well i can't thank you all enough for everything you've done to help us through the pandemic but today i'm here speaking as an individual about a topic a subject i know you're going to hear a lot more about critical race theory now the first thing i want to say about critical race theory is that the origins of critical race theory go back to the 1970s it's not history it's simply a framework that began with
053some scholars and professors in the 1970s in which all they were doing was examining the impact of systemic racism institutional racism on our legal system now over the next several decades critical racism expanded to examine other institutions employment the environment education but most importantly critical race theory is not being taught here in pinellas county in fact to my knowledge it's not being taught anywhere in the united states and it's important that we all be on the same page about that i earned my master's degree in african american history i teach the subject at dunedin high school i only just learned about critical race theory for the first time in late 2020 we're too busy as professional educators as you know just getting through all the material we're not here to indoctrinate students we're not here
054to teach our students to hate america and so what i'm asking you all to do is consider a joint statement from dr grego and members of the board making it clear that we don't teach critical race theory what we do is we teach our students to examine deeply the history of this country because we're preparing citizens to be functional wonderful citizens in a democracy that's what we do and so i hope you all will consider that and as we come out of the pandemic it's really essential that we remember that we ought to be honoring teachers and thanking them for everything we've done the pandemic not labeling and demonizing our profession so i just want to say thank you so much i'm really looking forward to next year and i hope we'll continue in our
055partnership in dealing with issues of course like restorative practice and equity and cultural love and teaching you know the real foundations of everything we do so thank you all so much and you'll be well welcome thank you i appreciate the opportunity to speak my name is rob sabursk i'm a resident of pinellas county living in safety harbor and i'm here to support brant robinson what he said was excellent everything brant said should be taken to heart but the reason i came was to present a potential ramification to this new law and with that i'd like you to take a moment in keeping with brandt's said keeping it in mind i'd like you to think about the time be before the school year begins and this new law is applied i'd like you to envision a
056florida legislator seeking to ingratiate himself or herself with the base of a certain political party and perhaps a certain lobbyist and in doing so sponsoring a bill that results in enacting a penalty provision for violations of this law yes a penalty provision for any member of the school system the provision provides for number one that the governor can remove the teacher or school system official without a hearing number two that the teacher can be immediately fined up to five thousand dollars and number three that the teacher can be exposed to an unlimited number of lawsuits up to one hundred thousand dollars in attorney fees furthermore the accused accused school system official cannot call upon a county attorney for counsel and that the fines must be paid personally by the official chilling isn't it you may
057be thinking at this point and i don't blame you that what i'm saying is outrageous that it can't happen but with that i'd like you to think about what happened with florida's firearms preemption statute enacted in 1987 and the penalty provision enacted in the year 2011. with what occurred at sandy hook at stoneman high school in parkland i suspect that each of you are familiar with these penalty provisions because they can affect you they can affect you if you feel there's a need to enact rules and regulations aimed at protecting students teachers and administrative staff from gun violence i assume that you're aware that a lawsuit was filed challenging these penalty provisions you may be aware of the fact that leon county circuit court judge charles dotson ruled these penalties unconstitutional and what i consider
058a well-reasoned opinion but an appeal was filed by governor desantis attorney general moody and fdle commissioner swearinger with the first florida's first district court of appeal and they in that they appealed the second and third part of the penalty provision in that the first district court of appeals ruled in favor of the appellants we're waiting now to see if the first district court of appeals will certify the matters in this case another sentence going to continue or finish okay we're waiting to see what's going to happen if it's going to be certified as a matter of public importance and allow the florida supreme court to review it but i just want to throw that up as something that you may want to consider this is a law with ramifications potential ramifications thank you our next
059speaker is katie gatchell thank you good morning good morning thank you for the time and space to share some thoughts with you today around the fundamental lottery system i'm coming to you again katie gatchell i am a proud graduate of the pinellas county school system many years ago not an olympic athlete but certainly successful in in my terms but more importantly today i'm coming you as the proud mother to twin girls recent addison gatchell we were thrilled to be informed on june 10th that addison gatchell had been invited to attend pasadena fundamental which is a school i also attended and in the same moment we were baffled to find out that her twin sister would not be able to join her until at least next year with sibling priority meaning that for a whole year
060they would be separated through kindergarten and hearing the emphasis today placed on kindergarten readiness the efforts put in place i assume that the algorithm in the lottery system either was flawed or had an oversight to allow this dilemma to occur so one of the things i've been baffled with here is how is it that we don't have a way to use the unique identifier of home address to figure out how to logically group whether they be twins or just in a similar type situation with foster children or step brothers and sisters that we use that unique unique identifier of home address to group them logically i completely understand there's a finite number of seats so i'm not saying to expand the number of kindergarten students you can take just put them in an order that
061sequentially whereas my one daughter is in and my other daughter is number 40 doesn't logically make sense so just a little bit about their situation my girls are at pasadena community church preschool they've been there for three years finished vpk and they have a very special bond obviously as twins they started out as i call wombates and they when they actually heard that this might be you know something that could come to life they said you mean addison's going to kindergarten and i'm not and i said no absolutely not you're both going to kindergarten i'm not going without my sister so as a mom i'm here today and as i said also a graduate of the pinellas county public school system we do their father and i do have the means and i know there's
062other viable alternatives we could absolutely put them in private school and we are fortunate enough to be able to do that however as a product of someone who went through magnet schools pasadena was not a fundamental when i went to school but bay point middle i was in magus i was a salutatorian at bogosia high school under the center for wellness and medical professions and i have a career starting my 18th year with pricewaterhousecoopers so we are here as they say to build trust in society and solve important problems and i think this is one of them thank you for the time yeah if you don't mind first of all you're as important as the olympic athlete thank you very much for doing that and congratulations on a successful career yuri the area superintendent for
063that school is not here as i mentioned but mr vigue is there maybe you can get some facts and figures with this i will look into this too and i have sent emails so i know they're fresh to dr grego dr hines i believe was is the one over pasadena and i've spoken with danita moody the principal so she's aware she did ask me to send her an email i've done that so i just wanted to come here today it's just yet another voice because i know just solving my situation doesn't fix it right we got to get to the root because i don't want other families to have this absolutely thank you so much thank you thank you good thank you mr big if you could raise your hand katie thank you our final
064speaker under public comment is mark clutho mark luthor largo here's the book energy unbound this was signed at the energy conference that was held in tampa in 1992 by amy lovens the keynote speaker there for mark luthor partner in creating america's future he was one of the leaders of the white house of making the white house the pentagon more energy efficient and more recently the empire state building cutting the utility bill there by more than a third now he signed it for mark luthor partnering creating america's future prior to reading this book i read his book energy soft energy paths in 1977 and i've been studying the science of this important building technique passive solar which you continue to ignore and what do we have now we have these headlines huge changes needed to keep
065nature earth okay and more recently here's one a crisis at an iconic hoover dam nation's largest reservoir sinking to lowest levels ever and earth's carbon dioxide levels at highest level in 4 million years now this nonsense that i heard earlier about how wonderful you are and what a great job you're doing you know you're spitting into the wind it's sheer nonsense i mean it's not even close to what they're doing giving aging buildings a green makeover cutting the utility bill in these old buildings by 80 percent you aren't even coming close a joke thank you are there any other speakers all right with that then we will end the public participation thank you all for being here we appreciate it and make sure you catch with the person that raised their hand earlier with mr
066vikki all right thank you