School Board Business Meeting 6 p.m. 1-26-2021

001it's january 26 6 o'clock and i'd like to call the meeting to order we'll begin this evening with a short prayer led by mrs rosario father god we bring to you this moment this time and we ask you that you would bless us in the work that we do as a board bless our community lord god we ask that you would bless the children in this community keep everybody safe in jesus name amen amen it's with a heavy heart that i share with the board members staff and audience the loss of one of our own mrs sherry mcgeary media assistant at oslo middle school passed away this past weekend he joined the school district of indian river county on october 25 2017. at this time i would ask that we have a moment of silence

002to remember her and her family thank you the pledge of allegiance this evening will be led by sebastian river high school's navy junior rotc under the direction of lieutenant commander james landis u.s navy retired and master sergeant michael hussey u.s marine corps retired face breathe ladies and gentlemen please join the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all march salute ready to post march right face forward march up we now move on the agenda to adoption of orders of the day are there any items board members or others wish to move from the from consent to action just as a reminder as discussed today uh item 6a pomp which is

003the agreement with palms garden assisted living facilities that we will withdraw um that item right i need a quick question item 7d i know we're going to discuss here are we going to discuss that after consent or do we want to move it for discussion to action with the will of the board my understanding is we would add a presentation which would provide us the opportunity to review mr graves address to the board earlier today during workshop i'll set that item up regarding why it's being presented what the item is and that gives us the opportunity to respond to it within the presentations so i need a motion to approve i'll make a motion second i second signify by saying aye opposed motion carries 5-0 i would also like to add the action items there

004may be some confusion as to if you're going to submit an email under citizen's input exactly what the process or procedure will be so i would like to add that to the action items later on in the meeting and we can clear up or clarify any misunderstanding and have have a vote taken going forward can i have a motion to add that to action items i'll make a motion oh second all right all in favor aye aye aye motion carries 5-0 next is citizen import the offer the public may offer comments by appearing in person such persons will be placed in the meeting room subject to space available availability um i think you're going out of order presentation um shiny star awards first okay shining star awards next excuse me if we could it's actually

005the series of presentations there there are several presentations tonight right but the shiny star one is first yeah i know but that's not only there's gonna be the rest of them all right uh presentations sorry absolutely uh our first presentation um which typically is our shining star award where we typically honor a school uh employees so i'm taking a little bit of liberty because timing is key and tonight not necessarily truly is a shining star but this is a certificate of appreciation signed by the board chair and myself and this is the opportunity for us to acknowledge a the accomplishments and the contributions of an individual in our community who has given significantly this individual born and educated here in the school district of indian river county dodgertown elementary gifford middle school and graduated right

006here from vero beach high school she was and i am speaking of miss marshawn green who just entered the room has served as our equity chair for the first two years so november 18th through the year august 2020. and let me just set up that this is just not volunteering this is guiding this is facilitating this is a commitment to ensure we as a system are problem-solving around our work in equity ensuring that all students regardless as to where they reside or the community that they live in are afforded the opportunity to engage in a school system that empowers them to achieve their or maximize their their full potential ms greene has done that work in a valiant way she has facilitated uh difficult and complex conversations over the course of two years miss green's

007work is is sought after and the city of orlando has captured her interest and she has taken on a position in which she will serve as the equity officer for the city of our orlando so i'm not saying that correctly please make sure that i am so we are super proud of her accomplishments and the work that she is going uh to do in orlando but me personally uh on behalf of of the district and system wanted to take the time to acknowledge uh miss marshawn greene for her work and her contribution and forging a new path and being the first chair of our equity committee uh in its first two years of existence so before we present this i'll open it up for any board members who may wish to provide comment dr moore

008uh just a very special thank you to merchant i met the green family when her brother mickey was a student at gifford middle and got to know that family very well your professionalism your action your listening skills were excellent to begin with us in this very very important endeavor of our african-american achievement plan and following the dsag order and many other things so i want to thank you personally for what you did for this district thank you you're welcome mrs barinborg yeah thank you um thank you miss green for everything you've done for giving to your own community and i know now you're going to go and do much more bolder things and to a bigger community which don't forget us and don't forget to come back and help mentor the the person that's going

009to replace you so thank you you're welcome mrs rosario congratulations thank you i know this is going to be a wonderful opportunity for you and as we continue to receive emails from you i'm sure from you know your grasp here in indian river but congratulations to you thank you and finally um gosh so much i could say at this moment we have journeyed this path together closely for the last three years um i know you still have me on speed text i still have you on speed text but i want to tell you how much you have inspired me and you have moved me by your passion for this community your commitment to this community and not simply because you speak it but you walk it and i have an expression that i'm sure is

010not unique to me but don't watch the mouth watch the feet and i watch your feet and your feet walk your talk you stand up for what you believe you hold us accountable you make us better at what we do and i thank you not just for your work but i i so deeply and profoundly thank you for your friendship it has carried me through a lot of tough moments as you know and i am so grateful for you for your work for your presence in this community but most of all and most deeply for your friendship thank you for being here tonight don't forget us we'll be in touch and i love you back well let me offer my congratulations as well and while we don't know each other that well the thing i'm

011going to miss most is wondering what kind of a hairdo you're going to show up with at the next meeting at any rate congratulations i try to keep it interesting [Laughter] so um i i can say to michonne coming in the first year in the first year of a superintendency is um extremely complex and one of my goals was to be true to who i am and address equity and as i said many times publicly the fact that we're under a joint order was something um that i relished in terms of having the opportunity to take it on um in my very first my first time in the paper but my second time in the paper was a big picture of me and rashawn green when i was actually introducing myself to her and the

012caption read that we were arguing or or we were in conflict about something and it's literally me saying nice to meet you um that reporter is no longer here [Laughter] and we're all thankful for that um but having the opportunity to be committed to equity it isn't easy it's complex and just to give a little context merchant uh served in a role as facilitator between the school system the naacp in a federal court order and that is ensuring that we're understanding we're receiving uh we are working together and navigating those conversations is extremely complex um works not done and merchant will probably speak to that um but the foundation has been created and we continue to build momentum um for the next several years as we move forward and continue to do this work so

013as you uh begin to take on challenges in in a big city i couldn't wait to get out of a big city and you're going into one um so let's see how that works out um but so proud of you um for what a what you've accomplished here the contributions you have provided and the work ultimately that you will do so i'll allow you the opportunity uh with the indulgence of the board to speak and then we'll give you a presentation i just want to just thank you all for the opportunity to serve in this capacity initially when we came in it was a lot of frustration just really trying to develop the infrastructure for the equity committee what does this committee look like what are we asking for what are the expectations and we

014worked together which came to be interesting because i realized that i did not realize that i was going to be the point person for everyone's problems and and then they would watch the meetings to make sure that i communicated their problems concerns and what they said and if they did not and if i did not communicate it then they would catch me at the grocery store at the gas station wherever to say hey i watched the meeting and you didn't say what i told you you know or you let them off easy you know so it was very interesting in this role i did learn a lot and in this role in orlando i think that what i learned i can also contribute here so i'm not going i would say i'm not going anywhere

015but i won't be in your face like before um and i was surprised to be honored tonight because i have given dr moore hell uh my entire tenure his day one here and um he has taken it like a champ and still communicated with me i have ran mara off from time to time she takes her breather and then she comes back when she's ready to communicate with me again and um sperenborg has handled it a lot better you know she's just like okay what are the facts i'll get back with you you know i get to harass mara a little more because she responds in a way that really just draws me to continue talking to her but i just want to thank you all and um i did not watch the workshop but

016i received the call saying that the chairperson um i guess that position was extended and i guess there was a miscommunication because i communicated with mr barefoot both about chairperson and the district position there are five people that reached out to me on facebook about the district position saying that they did not know that it was open and they wanted to apply and had not applied and that's what i reached out to mr barefoot about extending the district because there's five that was asking where so if if you all could communicate where they can apply then i will communicate that as well but thank you all for just for the opportunity thank you for taking um equity serious in our district and committing to have more conversations with the naacp with the community about this

017issue because it is very important to us all it affects our households and as the district progresses so will our students in our community and i'm just grateful that you all are making it important so i thank you for that thank you that i'll i'll present you with this plaque and then we can take a picture i need my mask um is they won't let me wear florida state so yeah this is thank you [Applause] okay for our second presentation i will turn the microphone over to our public information officer miss christomatics hello good evening everyone um we have a very special night today tonight for multiple reasons obviously to say farewell to ms green and to recognize our law enforcement officers not only our sros but all the officers that support our schools were

018invited if they support our students or schools in any way we ask them to please attend tonight so we are very happy to have several of them with us tonight and we have a plaque for them in appreciation of their service to our district and to our students and we also have a bag that was put together by someone who shall remain anonymous and a very special pen it's a safety hero pin because we know that on our campuses you are our safety heroes but not only that but your friends to our students your mentors who are positive examples to everyone so thank you so much for the way that you serve not only our students but everyone in our district so can we give them a round of applause and this month is actually

019law enforcement appreciation month so we just really wanted to highlight highlight tonight all of our officers so we have first of all sergeant bailey oversees north county schools our school resource officers and deputy deputies if you come up here please okay sergeant bailey if you would stand up here with me if you don't mind while i recognize the officers that you oversee here from beechland elementary school detective charles mcfarland and if they are not here tonight we wanted to make sure that we just included everyone so we will get their items to them oh we're hiding out in the multi-purpose room there you go there he is okay from dodger town elementary deputy andrew dean and you know what if you guys would like to just sort of start lining up back there that would

020probably be best so we can get a good picture at the end from feldsman elementary deputy ian mckay from gifford middle school deputy carlos negron from fellsmere i already said that one from liberty magnet school deputy ladell young north county charter school deputy greg stanley pelican island elementary school officer al rosemond st peters academy deputy teddy floyd sebastian charter junior high off officer eric rapp [Applause] sebastian elementary school officer shawn daly [Applause] there you go right there thank you thank you sebastian river high school deputy carrie crawford and deputy r.t williams are you here tonight sebastian river middle school deputy anthony is it maraca i'm a music major i want to say moroccan is it moroccan yes maraca deputy anthony maraca storm grove middle school deputy david ragley treasure coast technical college deputy anthony beecham

021treasure coast elementary school deputy eric carlson and wabasso school deputy scott burke okay and sergeant partee can't make it here tonight to be with us but he oversees our student resource officers and deputies at our south county schools so for the alternative center for education we have deputy mark howder citrus elementary school deputy palvo manoose glendale elementary school deputy sean negron imagine charter school deputy david parton i promised my kids i'd give him a shout out because he's their favorite person on the planet deputy partner deputy david may indian river charter high school deputy pat newman osceola magnet school deputy robert bonby oslo middle school deputy roderick smith rosewood magnet school officer randall slattery saint edward school deputy todd cleveland st helens catholic school officer hector hurtado vero beach elementary school deputy mark bertel vero

022beach high school freshman learning center deputy shannon dean vero beach high school main campus deputy tiffany mcmillan deputy mike snow hill and we have a substitute deputy andrew siebris lieutenant anthony savita and captain tony consolo one moment while we catch up on our plaques do we have i know we have um please chief curry here tonight thank you so much for being here from vero beach police department we have um chief acosta no no i know is he back there no he's not here tonight well we wish you well um do we have chief touchberry here tonight no okay share flowers let's give chief curry a big round of applause then and i have to ask is there anyone that was not on my list who is here tonight [Laughter] we have a safety hero

023pin just for you i promise chief curry okay so let's get a nice group picture would all of our law enforcement officers please make their way to the front to stand for a picture should we sit and stand in the front with them in the back thank you please one two three oh excellent and who did i not acknowledge back here in uniform gentlemen chief curry would you introduce the people from your department who are with you awesome excellent thank you and sir excellent thank you for being here tonight and a special thank you to the officers who were involved in our stars of the year gala last night we had a huge parade entrance um they were there providing security for everyone just thank you for being there and being so supportive of my

024crazy ideas to have that big parade but we really appreciate it so um next we have our final presentation it's our casual for a cause presentation dr murphy would come up to the podium please our casual cause for a cause organization in december was a salvation army do we have elaine and captain would you please come to the podium they have a special trophy to present to one of our schools but we have a special check to present to them because in the month of december our students teachers and staff members we raised two thousand eight hundred and thirty two dollars and fourteen cents through our casual for a cause initiative and here's a giant check i guess i'm behind you that's weird and i believe they have a special trophy to present to the

025school who raised the most money through the virtual kettle campaign the red kettle campaign all right there you go thank you my name is captain ryan mayo and my wife and i were just transferred here um right kind of mid-year in june to be the new corps officers for indian river county so we direct the uh spiritual and social work of the salvation army for for this area and it's an honor to be here with you tonight um and so since the pandemic just kind of changed the world that we live in um earlier this uh in 2020 our team at the salvation army of volunteers and staff and donors just pivoted to meet the changing needs of the community and they have served thousands and thousands of families here in indian river county through

026our social services and our programs for youth and folks who are experiencing homelessness so and our services have increased over this past year as you'd probably imagine by an order of magnitude i mean across the board from grocery boxes and our food pantry to financial assistance in the form of rent and utilities and even through our youth programs we've seen growth there as well and many of the families who are served were your students your students and their families so we thank you for partnering with us on such a year as this has been to serve those folks so this year's winner of the the red kettle award goes to beechland elementary who um and y'all have been such a joy to work with like your enthusiasm just oozes out and it's so obvious why

027you guys won they raised over 1200 in the red kettle so we have um we're trying to think how we can best honor you guys and we thought a nice shiny trophy for your trophy case would you could display with pride to your students and and remind them of what you've accomplished together um so congratulations from beechlet for to beachland our runners-up were actually the sebastian river high school who raised over 500 in their virtual kettle i don't know if you know you could do that but they have virtual red kettles and that's how they um they raised theirs this year our clubs uh between the wrestling clubs and the uh the honors society and all them they raised over twelve hundred dollars all together so our grand total for the in school district of

028indian river county you guys helped us raise over fifty three hundred dollars to continue in addition to dress for a cause so thank you for that um the schools and leaders of the school district of indian river county have once again demonstrated their commitment not only to the academic success of the young people you serve but also the development of their character and and helping them become all that they've been created to be and for encouraging the young people in this community to see the last lost and least of our community as being made in the very image of god and encouraging them to think that way so we thank you so much for for your partnership and uh god bless you don't forget your big check thank you congratulations this is three four times

029um as established during the consent agenda we do have one additional presentation you'll find on the consent agenda a donation that is being made by the graves family this is a donation to accept the land across from vero beach senior high school this was land that the graves family made a commitment to buy in honor of their son who life who lost his life uh three years ago there was a presentation made by joe graves today that captures the spirit the generosity and the overall purpose of what we can do when we come together and collaborate to create a space for our community a facility for our community to provide a revolutionary not a a transformational track and facility field for our students a walking path green space for our community this is the opportunity

030of partnership during that presentation dr schiff had the idea which is endorsed by all to highlight mr graves remarks to the board that took place earlier today and uh there is a picture of us on the screen now with the graves family so this time i'll ask staff to play that video good afternoon on december 4th 2016 our family suffered an unimaginable tragedy our sweet and beautiful son jimmy was taken from us jimmy was everything you could ask for in a son he was loving energetic bright and a student and extremely gifted in athletics he had an empathy about him that caused him to care for others he had a heart for the less fortunate the less popular in kids that needed some help whether it be in the classroom the athletic field or just

031needed a friend we have heard countless stories about his kindness his witness and his heart for the underrepresented jimmy loves soccer football and track in soccer he played on a travel team out of tampa and when that coach left to become the director of soccer for mississippi he selected jimmy to play on his olympic development team in mississippi in football jimmy was selected to the usa under 15 football team two years in a row and had the honor and privilege of playing in the att stadium in dallas on two occasions he played freshman football at vero beach high school and was brought up to the varsity team in the in the playoffs vero beach high school retired his number number 11 two seasons ago in track jimmy ran with the youth team in gifford and

032ran some of the best times in the state in 100 meter and 400 meter races and he planned on running track at vero beach high school in running track with the youth team jimmy was concerned about the facilities available to him and his teammates oftentimes the kids would literally run in the dirt at gifford park once in a while they would get on the track at the vero beach high school to train later we all learned that vero beach high school did not have a regulation track countless kids have either graduated or did not participate simply due to the school not having a regulation track the issue became important to jimmy as well as our family and if he were here he would surely say dad let's try and help when jimmy passed our family

033was devastated and we wanted to do something significant for this community that helped raise our this community that helped raise our son and took us into their arms at our time of grief we inquired about purchasing the 16th street ball fields which the county had announced they intended to sell the county graciously sold us the land our intent was to build a public private partnership for a community track that would be accessible not only to the vero beach high school student students but the community as well in the time that we have owned the land we have invested additional sums of money to clean up the land remove dilapidated field houses and fences and antiquated lights we've also installed five acres of sod that hosted countless youth sports including a flag football league this past

034fall we have literally served thousands of kids however it became apparent that we could not continue this venture alone in spring last year we were approached by a developer to buy the land a representative from the jimmy graves foundation reached out to many organizations and nonprofits in our community but there were no viable partners after about 60 days after receiving the contract we signed it after we signed it i was introduced to brian barefoot with whom i was not previously acquainted and i remember sitting on a sidewalk in north carolina while on vacation talking to him about his vision for the fields he had ideas that were very exciting and he planted a seed in my mind that day weeks later i asked the developer to allow us to cancel the contract based on that

035conversation so they could give us another try and then the election happened brian barefoot as well as dr jones have taken seats on this board and the comments that were made by miss berenberg and the other members of the school district we listened to those and we heard them and we heard your discussion while you're making them and we are greatly appreciative originally when i met with dr moore and mr barefoot i wanted to sell this property and recoup our investment i thought there was no way our dream for these fields would ever come true after speaking with mr barefoot and dr moore i learned of their vision of a community track i became excited the stars aligned this is what we've been fighting for for four years i went home after our last meeting

036at the fields and i prayed about what we should do after much thought and reflection carol and i were led not to sell the property but to gift it to the school district we do not want to be mere bystanders but we want to be involved in making this happen in our community my wife taught in public schools almost 20 years summit sebastian with dr jones and since we purchased the property god has blessed our family with three more children who are here today our older girls are married and live out of town and couldn't be here emily our oldest is in atlanta teaching violin and going back to school to be an engineer is a proud graduate of vero beach high school sarah our middle daughter is a teacher in her first year and

037is literally in the classroom right now in alachua county what are you here to start sophia is here she's a student at charter high school and rachel and steven are students at gifford middle school and we are so blessed to have them our entire family stands here today honored and blessed to be a part of this we appreciate the indian river county commissioners for giving us this opportunity i appreciate their willingness to work with us during this time when i purchased the land i made a promise to them to safeguard this land for the community today i fulfill the promise to do the right thing by giving this land to the indian river county school district i want to thank the members of the school board dr moore and mr barefoot and i want to

038thank god for blessing our family and giving us the opportunity to make this gift i am grateful for the community and the strong leadership that we have on this school board you are all truly making a difference and i appreciate your willingness to serve our children thank you very much so i don't know if it could be said any better in which it was just said but this is an opportunity for us really to work together to collaborate and provide a amazing space for our students so that those are the presentations for this evening all right let me just move on so the next agenda item is citizen input i appreciate my coach here being a rookie at this i get a little bit out of off schedule a little bit at any rate the

039public may offer public comments by appearing in person such persons will be placed in the meeting room subject to space availability additional attendees will be placed in areas outside the meeting room and invited into the meeting room at the appropriate time alternatively the public may offer public comments by emailing the school district prior to 12 pm on the day of a meeting guidelines regarding the amount of time an individual has to address the board each statement made by a member of the public shall be limited to three minutes duration persons will be recognized in the order in which the requests were received persons may speak for up to three minutes at the beginning of a business meeting during citizens input as indicated on the order of business and for up to three minutes to each

040action agenda item during the action agenda and each board member discussion item as indicated on the order of business persons may only speak once again once about any given item the time period may be extended by the presiding officer and only the individual submitting a speaker's form is allowed to address the board time may not be yielded to other speakers we have several speakers who want to address the board tonight and we also have seven emails which will be read when we finish with the public the first speaker this evening is mr todd holden good evening my name is todd holden i'm a 7th grade civics teacher at oslo middle school i stand before you today heartbroken we have lost one of the hearts and souls that have made oslo the school that it is

041sheri mcgeary was the human embodiment of best buy kids always kind and generous willing to do whatever needed to be done for what she called my kids it's going to be some time before oslo gets back to whatever passes as normal in today's environment my dear colleagues death brings us face to face with a harsh reality there is no doubt that the virus is running through our schools and then mrs mcgarry contracted contract of the virus at oslo in the last two weeks we have had seven teachers diagnosed with covid many having significant if not severe symptoms and as i've already mentioned one death i come face to face with over 300 students every single day at oslo i spend classroom time with almost 150 students over two day period of time of course the

042virus is running through the school to deny that or suggest otherwise is to live in a place other than reality the only thing that has kept at least a portion of your workforce intact is the persistent insistence of mass squaring if i were paid by the number of times i told a child to pull up their mask or to put it on you would not be able to afford my salary to imagine mrs mcgarry will be the last school employee to die of this virus contracted at school is also a fantasy the bottom line is that we the people who love your children are dying in order to teach them and we are in crisis what can you do as a board i'm glad you asked in an article today the press journal said it

043was going to take at least six months to work through every person 65 years and older here on the treasure coast in that period of time i wonder how many more of us who are on the front lines are going to die the united states military and the federal government have recognized teachers as front line workers who should be moved to the front of the vaccination line the va has already started giving shots to veteran teachers i implore you as a board to reach out to whoever it is that you can reach out to the florida department of education the florida department of health the governor the federal department of education the federal department of health even the president himself if necessary to move heaven and earth to have the state of florida make the

044same decision as the us military and declare us frontline workers and get us the vaccine as soon as possible unless we do something of this sort we will not be this will not be the last time that our hearts are broken over a school employee who has contracted this awful virus at school there is no telling which of us will be next as it is clearly running through oslo in our district most of us are willing to give what president lincoln called the last full measure of devotion for these children but we should not have to thank you second speaker this evening lamar dr giacomo thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight i knew sherry mcgarry and she will be sorely missed i feel very bad for her son she's got a

045teenage son i don't know exactly how old he is i used to work with her at publix and she was just a great and kind generous and giving person and so i too grieve the loss of sherry mcgary and for her family um however i also want to and i no matter what i say is going to sound insensitive tonight because of this recent death and nobody here is in denial that covet is real i had it my husband had it my son had it my brother had it it is real covet is a real thing however i will point out that um five children again i said this last time five children in the state of florida it's on the florida department of health website anybody can look it up five children under the

046age of 14 have died from and anyone can look that up the survival rate from covid19 for ages 0 to 19 is 99.997 percent from 20 to 49 is 99.98 percent 50 to 69 is 99.5 percent and uh 70 and up is 94.6 that is on the cdc website uh cdc survival rate from covid19 so um that's all i have to say is that there's no logical or scientific reason for our children to be masked all day every day and it serves as a constant reminder that it just creates fear in people's minds and i believe that our children may end up getting ptsd from it because they're a reminder every single day of kovid when they need to be just allowed to be children so i would encourage uh the mask mandate to end

047thank you very much thank you next speaker chris allen hi my name is chris allen i'm an indian river county resident i have a chart here from japan there was a big news article from the new york times that said hey japan massed and it worked and they ended it here they didn't seem to want to look past it to where the numbers for cases are still rising up and this is as of january that the mass didn't do anything this is in ireland where they have where different mass mandates started being applied one is in public transport which as you could tell by the chart they started it where it was already at the bottom mask indoors and then in busy or crowded outdoor spaces you know again they started to do it at

048the lower part of the um the graph and towards the end it didn't really help much at all either and this is also around january i have another one from from the cova tracking project the road to 68 000 covet cases per million as you can tell this is california texas and florida they all reach the same numbers towards the end and this is around january 7th and you know one of the reasons california is so low is because remember they're still in lockdowns like you're not allowed to do pretty much of anything well at least until biden got inaugurated then they decided to open up and um yeah so i wanted to um you know there's a lot of because of the death you know i i wouldn't wish it on anybody but there's

049a i've been hearing a lot of teachers that they're just they want to start getting the kids in trouble for it and i don't know whether that comes to like detention or just um being punished for it in some sort of way but it's just a mask and obviously it hasn't helped stop covent because people are still getting coveted in school and it's a virus it's gonna run its course as you can tell by the charts that i've shown you um let's see um faushi himself has said that the virus is starting to plateau and um so hopefully that helps other people realize that it's it's been almost a year a virus is going to act like a virus it has a low gets to a high and starts going down again so and i

050know that um a news reporter who was in here misquoted me and but one of the things that he wanted to mention to you guys is that you know wait till the children are vaccinated but just so you know this vaccine is still experimental it's an mrna vaccine that hasn't been tested in children and in fact that's actually going on now to see um how well it works or if they're affected by it and you know even for that they still caution adults who women who are pregnant and i've heard that some have even told men to freeze their sperm because they don't know what's going to happen there's a question of whether it'll make you infertile too thank you next speaker carolyn klein kleinpeter hello my condolences to the teacher as a widow myself

051i can attest that sometimes the death certificate is not correct so regarding the mask i would like to remind the board that the cdc has guidelines and i would also like to remind the board that the cdc is the same department of health that performed the tuskegee experiments to study the natural history of untreated syphilis in the hopes of justifying a treatment program for blacks which they are still compensating the families today so this is an another example of the corruption of the cdc and the crimes they have committed against humanity there is much research opposing the use of masks and one is bacterial pneumonia as i mentioned last august when i stood here and that is by causing that is rebreathing the bacteria and toxins you exhale as god has designed us to do

052we also live have lived years with the flu in schools and did not go to the extreme of covering up what god has miraculously designed us to keep us alive if you if you recall last august i brought up the fact that elizabeth smart was abducted and was in public with a mask over her face yet no one recognized her even though her face was on national television constantly and that is a problem this week i was invited to listen in onyx symposium with guest speaker kathleen fernandez rundle state attorney of miami-dade county now last august i also informed you that florida ranks number three in the nation for human trafficking a few of you on the panel and some are gone laughed i have some more info to share a victim of human trafficking

053has their identity stolen when they are rescued they go through education on self-sufficiency medical services trauma counseling life skills art therapy and work study they re they receive help to excel to to have good lives and basically they start their education all over again where do the kids begin their formal education in the first place the school it's a big circle 61 of kids stolen in miami-dade are community kids and they're recruited through the schools currently the schools are masking up the children with a virus that has a 98 recovery rate and currently no more flu statistics are being tracked by the cdc and i wonder why i ask you why is the school taking the identity of the kids away whether it be god-given gender identity and now covering faces and taking away individualism

054this is a social experiment numerous gender identities in florida began in miami-dade broward and palm beach counties in the mid-2000s as our superintendent is probably well aware and how do i know my late husband spoke out at the school board meetings against it and i saw the curriculum in the school office i believe your board is allowing mass clinical research on the children of this community under the guidance of the cdc who i believe is guilty of crimes against humanity so let's stop this charade and research the tri and the research tracking projects that you have going on with our children thank you next speaker rick allen hello i'm rick allen and i just want to say that we need to put the choice of masking children back in the hands of the parents the

055parents do have the right to decide what's best for their children and when to wear a mask when not to wear a mask we've seen a lot of parents come in here whose children are having severe problems whether it be health related problems mental problems or just academic problems all as a result of the mask there's a lot of fear going on right now in schools and rightfully so it is something that people need to be afraid of but not not to this extent not with a 98 survival rate please put the control back in the hands of the parents let the parents decide what's best for their children in the schools thank you thank you next speaker jennifer pippen good evening my name is jennifer pippen and i'm an admin for the we the

056people of indian river county and also the chairman for moms for liberty here in indian river county and i know i said this last time most importantly i'm a mother of two children in your school district my daughter just turned 15 so i've been with the school district for 10 years my son turned 12 in november i know that you guys are not allowed to say anything because of the lawsuit that we have going to court on friday unfortunately it brought us to that point and in the news on social media everybody says we're a small loud group but if you can remember back to october 750 families 48 percent of the school district voted to do the optional masking so it's not small but loud it's almost half of your families that wanted it

057and it could even be more now so i resent when i hear that because the numbers don't lie from the survey that you put out in october you school board members you work for the people you have responsibilities to the school district but those responsibilities do not give you the power to decide when and how parental rights are recognized and respected not with a virus or whatever could come down the pipes from here on out and my regards go to the oslo teacher that lost her life i myself looked at the department of health website because i wanted to do some more investigation on this and there is no proof with her passing it was a loss absolutely that it came from a child she could have contracted it from the public she could have

058contracted it from family or friends and nobody in this room wants anybody to pass or be sick nobody unfortunately people do pass and it is very unfortunate but there is no solid information that said she contracted it from a child and pastor the virus in our schools and everybody's still asking what is the end game with this a lawsuit aside what is the end game for a vaccine that is not even fda approved is that the end game for our school system to unmask our children to let them breathe freely we're not going to give up this is the not the last time you're going to hear from us many people cannot come up and speak because of their profession or because they're not public speakers or because they're scared of public ridicule like we

059constantly get but let me tell you something like i've told you from day one we're not going away because our children are most important and parental rights will never end especially with the virus thank you thank you next speaker speaker vivian bryant good evening i was here on uh december 7th regarding a matter that i had spoken with the board about and i had also uh sent an email to dr moore and you didn't respond sir but god bless you anyway uh i want to thank two people that did try to intervene by your directive to help me that's mrs hofer i don't see her here and mr seymour but they've been circumvented from doing so by the powers at vero beach high school and i hope that you'll intervene and speak with them about

060that issue the issue is it's an academic thing that people need to understand if there's a glitch in your system that has to do with testing of students then that should be investigated thoroughly so it can hopefully circumvent an additional problem courses like geometry various mass these students have to pass those classes in order to graduate if those students who had the same problem as some people that i know took those courses and were not cognizant that this issue existed and were never notified if they fail they have to be really worried about graduation or take the class again i don't think that should be happening you know we are talking about adults and i appreciate every teacher i appreciate every administrator but every student is a person too they have the same stressors in

061this pandemic as we do and they have more stresses because sometimes they have to navigate sports life you know life in general and the academics and some of these things are not so easy i didn't have to take chemistry but i know my grandson and others do but i want to thank every teacher that and administrators that helped them navigate this process so hopefully dr moore you will have further conversations with mrs hoper because mr uh eric seymour is my cousin and he could not intervene and i thank them very much for that i have to say one thing about mrs hofer mrs hofer was the principal at oms a very helpful person a very fair person who would engage you and try to help at any juncture even if she didn't like me she

062never showed it and she was very fair but she was supportive of her of her staff and therefore i think that's more important i do want to say and i'll shut up in a minute that i think all of my grandson's present teachers dr mora people like him who go over and beyond the call he's very efficient in putting grace into focus like so we'll know where they are academically we have um coach coach bethel that threw me off oh coach bethel and other teachers i can't go any further and also the teachers at oms for my granddaughter i just want to thank you all for taking the time but communication is key for all of us and if you will communicate with us and take the time to listen and the teachers and give

063them some training in that equity not only in the equity sir but also interpersonal communications because if we don't get feedback the children don't thrive thank you absolutely not ask mr bass to have a conversation so we can make sure we follow up thank you next speaker don wilkerson good evening dr moore school board members thank you so much for having me tonight my name is dawn wilkerson my friend lamar tonight pointed out the amazing survival rates with this virus i was going to talk about that also and my numbers were exactly the same as hers one thing i do want to say is that if you do take early treatment this is a completely survivable virus i'm so sorry to hear about the teacher and her passing um that saddens my heart greatly also

064sadly if you are at the end of your life or if you do have multiple underlying conditions this virus can take your life but also so can the common cold or other viruses or other bacterias or pneumonia according to dr james lennon weiler ph.d and president of the institute for pure and applied knowledge if you're not if you're not over 70 years old you have less of a chance of dying from coronavirus than influenza thank goodness our reaction to this virus i think really has been worse than the virus itself and i think our children are paying for this this virus essentially does not really affect young people so i think it's irrelevant to have them in masks for eight hours a day i would ask that you please allow for optional masking and for

065personal health freedoms i've done hours of researching the effectiveness of masks and here's the conclusion wearing masks will not reduce sars cove too masks may confuse that message and give people a false sense of security if masks had been the solution in asia for example shouldn't that have stopped the virus before it spread elsewhere let's talk a little bit of science the size of the particles a friend was telling me about this and i looked it up in a wildfire is between 0.4 and 0.7 micrometers the size of a virus is 0.1 micrometers the cdc says that cloth masks do not catch small harmful particles in smoke if that's the case how can a mask catch virus particles which are smaller than smoke particles it's almost like picking up a handful of sand and throwing

066it through a chain-link fence it's going to get through particle size really does matter the british medical journal did the first randomized control trial of cloth masks and found penetration of mask particles was 97 that's pretty astronomical keeping people in fear for the politicalization of this virus and the promotion of a vaccine i believe really has been the goal did you know that the corona i'll say vaccine is in the investigational stage only by the fda it's an experimental biological agent that uses mrna which has never been used in humans before and i'm almost done just i asked please do your research on this vaccine i'm really worried about the infertility for women a lot of bad stuff that i've seen in this vaccine the most responsible thing that we can do for our children

067our children our teachers our staff and parents is to allow for optional masking and please allow for parental choice let's pursue what's best for our children's physical social and mental health i'm really worried about their mental health right now thank you so much thank you next speaker nicole campanelli good evening my name is nicole campanelli so you are the people who are supposed to be looking out and thinking of not only the teachers union which i know is the top priority but it would be nice if you looked out for the children in your school's best interests it's disgusting that my son with his autoimmune disease comes into school after not wearing a muzzle all spring and summer and the nurse is calling me three to five times a week because suddenly his blood glucose

068is spiking super high or it's dropping dangerously low well we now have a medical exemption for this mask because his health is my responsibility and his blood sugars being a ping pong is unacceptable and it's dangerous to his organs now as well as in the future but the principal didn't let me have his face free and he has to wear a shield when my doctor's note clearly states he is medically exempt from wearing a mask or face covering because it will exacerbate his type 1 diabetes resulting in headaches labor breathing and low blood sugars so why is my child's health not even being considered i know the people who want mass mandate in this county really want vaccines mandated for everybody because they're under the impression that mine won't work if you don't have yours

069and these are the people that act like science is infallible i don't get it the whole trust in the science as if they've forgotten what science actually means which is lots of tests and hypotheses because it's constantly changing therefore trusting something that's always changes and acting like it's always a solid state is actually quite foolish there are studies showing no asymptomatic transmission of covet but mainstream media won't tell you that and none of you bother to read your emails but for you to force behaviors on others while traumatizing an entire generation of children because you're scared of getting sick is absolutely selfish and wrong and if you want to continue to try and force mass and possibly force vaccines but you won't acknowledge your unhealthy lifestyles your overweight frame with decades of pre-existing risk factors

070and you won't acknowledge the inaccuracies of the testing or the dangers of this rush vaccine you won't acknowledge the inaccurate infection rates and death rates or even just acknowledge the absolute terrible diets and generally nutrient void foods that the majority of this country's eating don't well quit projecting your fear just because you're scared and unhealthy doesn't mean the rest of us should be scared and unhealthy with you and until the government wants to do something right for once and mandate vitamins organic food elderberry syrup and get rid of all the garbage fast food joints and mandate quitting smoking and alcohol then i will be taking no advice from them we do not want this crazy new normal we want our old normal back and it's possible because you have the power to change things and

071move towards making those children your top priority i'm sick of the conditioning and suspect conditioning of society to think that because i'm standing up for myself and my children that i'm selfish no freedom over my body is my god-given right optional mass would be really great for the 48 population of the survey the survey that you seem to don't really care about thank you thank you that concludes the public comments i understand that there are seven i believe emails that were received and as i stated earlier there seems to be some degree of uncertainty that we in fact voted on specific language that needed to accompany an email request to be presented before the school board we will address that the action item so miss maddox or ms millemon if you could read those seven

072emails we would appreciate it thank you this is from robert shaver please get rid of the mask requirements in schools leave it up to the parent and the child please stop quarantining healthy children thank you robert shaver this is from kelly ann please unmask our school children and stop quarantining healthy children thank you kelly b from kerry tankersley please unmask our school children and stop quarantining healthy students and staff masks should not be made mandatory if a person wants their child to wear one then by all means allow them to do so but to make a blanket standard is irresponsible parental rights do not stop simply because a child is attending a public school many families do not have the option of home school virtual learning etc and are being forced to comply the numbers

073and science do not add up and continue to not add up please make masks mandatory from janice malesic to whom it may concern please unmask our school children it is unnecessary to step in on behalf of parents and govern our children let this decision be made by the parents and the respective health professionals this should this should an option made by the parents not a mandate made by our local school board also please stop quarantining healthy children the only children that should be quarantined is the ones that are sick from any sickness not limited to covid if anyone feels unsafe with unmasked people around them they have the option to stay home to feel more safe with virtual learning thanks for your consideration this email is forwarded from jennifer pippen from her son hunter pippen

074hi my name is hunter i'm in sixth grade middle school my birthday was november 17th my friends and people in my class and me are done with masks i can't breathe with my mask good and i have to repeat myself a lot and it's hard to understand my teachers sounds like humming sometimes my teachers don't like them either i have to wear a mask all day even if i'm by myself to wear a mask my mom bought cupcakes for my class today for my birthday my friends were really happy when i told them that i was bringing cupcakes so they could actually take off their masks and eat in class that never happens we get to take them off in the cafeteria but not in class i like that i get to chew gum in

075class helps with the mask because my throat hurts sometimes and it's annoying i'm really mad we still have to wear masks i hate it sometimes my mom puts this mint stuff on my mask so i can breathe better smells like peppermint please tell my mom when i don't have to wear a mask anymore okay i don't want a mask anywhere but i don't wear a mask anywhere but school tell my mom okay thanks hunter this email sported by jennifer pippen from her daughter summer jinx hi my name is summer and i'm a freshman at the flc vero beach high school i was quarantined two week in october and i had no teachers to teach me when i had to stay home last quarter i had all a's and b's this semester i have three f's

076one d and also one c and in my eyes those grades are horrible i cannot catch up i was just quarantined again the day after veterans day and now i'm even further behind i email my teachers on canvas and sometimes they get back to me and sometimes they tell me that they will get me the work when i go back to school how is it that i have to wear a mask all day at school but i still get quarantined if masks work why do my friends and i get sent home we have no teachers teaching us and we get behind we aren't sick none of us are sick i emailed at the last board meeting and told you that i was failing and i got quarantined again do you care that i'm failing i

077cannot go to work or my activities do you care i missed homecoming week in the football games i thought the adults were supposed to care about the kids what happened i had to go to mr hart's office with my parents and he said he would help me get my work thursday friday monday nothing nothing from my teachers or the school like i don't even matter my friends and i may have to do homeschooling not public school if this continues we aren't sick we were never sick sincerely one of your high school students who is quarantined twice and failing because of the system i'm not sick this is from larissa pacquiaon every parent have a right to decide for their children what to wear what to eat where to study to have vaccines or not to

078wear a mask or not and etc to cut children's breath at school by absolutely ignoring parental rights is the worst thing that you can make in your community this is unconstitutional and this is against basic human rights the school district board members who is not value parents and parental rights shouldn't be working for the children and parents remember you were elected to work for our community children are not going to school for you forcing young kids wearing masks and pretend that this is normal is tyranny that's all thank you moving on with the agenda for the evening the next agenda item is approval of the consent agenda i need a motion to approve the consent agenda i'll make a motion second second from dr jones uh all in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries

079five to zero the next is the pulled consent agenda items the first one dr moore pulled agenda item 6a you're completely withdrawn all right i proposed to propose a vote we had a lengthy as you all remember a lengthy discussion at our last meeting about how to handle email public information that came in and we discussed but but evidently didn't take a vote specifically so i would like to propose a vote on the following procedures if you will for accepting emails during public discussion time and mrs esslin has a copy of what i'm about to read all public comment emails must include a completed citizen input form similar to what people that show up in person present available all emails must have the completed citizen in input form attached or the public comment submission will

080not be considered all emails containing public comment with a completed speaker's form received by 12 pm on the day of the business meeting will be provided to all school board members prior to the meeting and will be appended to the meeting minutes that is what i would propose that we put in his policy on email presented public input and i welcome open it up to any comment discussion uh dr schiff yeah i have a comment but uh are are you proposing that or are you presenting it as a motion i present well i'm pro that that's the wording i'm presenting it as a motion so does it have to be presented and seconded before we can discuss uh i'll second thank you okay there you go um thank you just trying to keep up terry

081so i don't mess with writers i totally understand um i am i'm not against this so i don't want this heard as being against this my concern is only that the way it is on the website the way we put it for this week albeit with some confusion is in a pdf format which makes it difficult for student for people to interact on that format they have to print it out fill it out scan it upload it all of which is really difficult to do and i don't want that to be a barrier to people's public comment my request is that we have it in some form other than pdf or some way that or something either directly on the website that they can fill out so that it doesn't because p pdfs just don't

082work that way and if people don't have the electronic or technological capacity this is a barrier so i'd like to figure out how we can address that but i i don't have a problem with that we should have this information and that they should designate exactly what items they want to speak to which is the purpose of this mrs rosario um mrs uh mrs or dr moore is it possible to have or ask mrs esplin to create a form the way that we did with the application where it's actually typeable it's editable is that a word um fillable and that is that's a absolutely reasonable request that we can fulfill okay and that and that form that can be completed directly on can be done right on the website and then submitted with their public

083comment or they can in some way take that form and attach it to their email we have to figure out a way to do that the process as as is being described and i'm just summarized what i'm hearing it would be a fillable form saved attached and then the content could be within the body of the email or within the form in which they attach so it's really just a form that you would save there's no printing so if you can get on a computer to fill it out you have the technology or the ability both with a tablet and device to be able to submit that information and it would look exactly or it would look like the form for yeah it would be a very very similar to affiliable form it would have

084the text boxes overlapped which you can enter the information and there would be a text box for the the body of what you want to say or you have to do a separate email you can do that in the either or is fine you can do it in the context of the body of the email um the body of the form our our goal and desire is to ensure that staff has the opportunity to vet and improve so we're following the exact same process that we use during the day we follow electronically uh therefore you know as we read information uh the board has a level of confidence that staff um has done his due diligence to ensure this person exists this person is who they say they are and we're not reading our owner's

085his emails may i ask um would we be able to have on our on on the website the option for someone to choose either to download it as a pdf or create a pdf and or i mean or the fillable form this way other people have an option i i think we can do that i think the fillable form is we're going to get 99 of the time but we can provide the option now i think that's wonderful but from your phone for example if the fillable form something doesn't show up on a phone or an ipad form someone will be able to access the other form as an option no i agree okay that's a good point uh dr jones did you have a comment well um just as long as there's no barrier

086for anybody to do that just easier it is for people because we do want to hear from everyone right um mr parent board fine i'm fine with that i think i'm looking at a copy that was made this evening that mr holden filled out and there this is a piece of paper it's you could create the bottom half of this form and there you could put your email and just save it for your own records and and send it off to uh mrs esplin but as everyone said i think there's probably a fairly easy way to address the issues that you all raised so there's a motion on the floor we have a second uh any further comment or discussion mr barefoot i think you'll have to either withdraw your first motion or amend it

087to include the fillable form or the pdf she's career it's the roberts rules of order patrol i withdraw my original motion and amend it to include what i said before but include hang on i'm sorry i'm going to be robert's rules patrol she's got to withdraw her second yes she does me yeah i will yes that was terrible oh you okay i got it sorry yeah so i am i amend the motion as as stated with the addition that it has to be there will be a fillable fillable out form included on the website that will enable the person sending the email to write their email on that form uh and then submit it to uh mrs esplan or i'm sorry or pdf the email they posted email on the agenda so there's a different

088email that we use word docs agenda not on our website but it will be on the website it's where they access it well they get to board docs through the website but it's actually on board docs it's not on the district website i'm sorry to be picky i just don't want there to be any confusion i don't think there is any confusion and i accept the suggestion that or pdf or pdf i'll second it all in favor aye aye opposed the motion carries five zero all right where were we the proof of appointment right the next uh agenda item or action agenda item is the approval of appointment of two employees to the equity committee dr moore uh this item um as presented and discussed today um there were two individuals who submitted the information

089just to summarize this conversation that we had this morning uh posted of the course of 11 days using the district collaborator that is the system that we use to communicate with all employees the joint order requires these two members to be employees in addition to the collaborator and email was sent to all employees regarding this particular opportunity as a result of that all call across the system using our standard communication method we had two individuals who submitted um letters of interest uh we discussed each of those individuals this morning uh this action item calls for the board to select one of those two individuals as well as take a vote to continue the services of ms lavon walker who served in the equity position last year and willing to continue that particular role all right

090at this time ms lauren walker has expressed interest in remaining on the equity committee representing the school district convening river county for another year if there are no objections to this i would like to call for a motion to renew miss lavon walker for one year i make a motion second second second i make a motion dr schiff second uh any further discussion um all in favor aye aye aye aye opposed motion carries five zero for the second equity committee member representing the school district of indian river county we received two applications prior to voting there is one open seat and i would like to open the floor to my fellow board members to discuss the applicants yeah mrs barenborg yes um i believe dr moore made it comment that we discussed them earlier i

091don't think we did discuss these two individuals earlier so now is the time what we have in front of us is just basically it looks like you know an application with what they've done in the past which they both are very very well versed in i think understanding what it takes to be able to be on this committee having looked through this and seeing that one is an assistant principal right now which i'm sure is a very very busy position uh one is uh i believe a teacher right now correct interventionist literacy literacy coach literacy coach right another busy position um and um i've only met one of them i haven't met the other one but um i will say that i'm pretty impressed with the taba patterson i think that she's done an outstanding

092job at vbe and everything that she's done there so again i don't know kendra foster as well but um i just looking at what ends up in front of me and the fact that i think everyone deserves a chance to have leadership opportunities i think i'm kind of leaning towards ataba patterson dr schiff i have two things i raised it this afternoon and i won't belabor it but i am a little concerned i know that things went out ms green mentioned that several people reached out to her i'm concerned about what may have been any miscommunication about how this went out i know we had this conversation earlier i'm not going to completely belabor it but i want to be aware that we heard um ms greene's comment that people have reached out who for

093whatever reason which i i don't know why they didn't come through this portal but i'm concerned about that i i don't know that we're going to be able to go back and do it we had that conversation earlier but i'm con i'm concerned about that if we are not willing to go back and consider the people who seem other people who seem to have reached out in a different form for this um then i would also prob go with um ms berenborg's suggestion of ataba paterson mostly because i know she's been recognized at the state level she's been recognized for some of her activities in this district but i think the state recognition and the access to state both information and decision and policy making in this issue is an asset both to both at

094the state level and at the district level but i am concerned about on people who have expressed interest and and why that didn't get to us and i don't understand why that happened so um dr jones did you want to comment yes um i know we talked a long time about this in the discussion and it was posted 11 days and went out the collaborators so obviously it went out to our our teachers and students i'm sorry teachers and professionals and the two ladies who have applied i know kiandra a little bit more than i know ataba they both have a good good resume and i think they both do a good job i think that i'm still thinking about what miss green said i if there are others out there obviously we know this

095is no pay a lot of work very very important as far as what we will do with the board and the naacp and our committee and then they will select a chair but i have a little bit of a concern about doing this right now but i'll go with whatever the board wishes right now i'd probably go with ataba at this point just because of policy but i also know kiandra would do a good job thank you mrs rosario um um we have dates uh dr moore when is the first date in which we have scheduled for the first equity committee meeting february 16th i believe it's the 16th february 16th but i i that was a communication sent to the naacp waiting for confirmation from there so that was the conversation we had the

096initial plan right february 16th and then to get the committee members ready for february 16th what is in what is entailed in that training um the um sunshine law a a body of work that has taken me a full year to understand just being honest it is complex it is um very very convoluted in the terms of a african-american achievement plan a joint plan i i will say this as the executive officer of the organization we effectively communicated and put information out the only way we put out information and there is a process there is an expectation and there is a procedure on how we as a system so to organize and get information um and if information didn't go to myself or other individuals in this system who i represent the school board so

097when information goes out other ways i understand but in all sincerity um this is a heavy lift we want someone who is organized willing to do the work um and is proactive in seeking out the opportunity so you know we've done everything um on the up and up there is no other way in which we communicate as a system um and if there were opportunities that individuals wanted to seek you know you should you should look within that system to fill that position um dr moore so thank you for that um so if looking at our calendar if the position were extended or if we were to post this even just one week more the board wouldn't get together again until february 9th at that point we would discuss and possibly vote on a new

098posi new to whomever we wanted to fulfill that position and then it would take then based on the calendar there would only be one more week before february 16th if the february 16th giving you only one week to prep an entire year's worth of work with the new board members um so therefore that would mean that that would either be impossible for you and your schedule and their schedule or the february 16th meeting would have to be pushed back if the february 16th meeting were to be pushed back or forward um it might be possible that the equity committee wouldn't actually get started really started with the work until march um my worry there is that we would already be almost a quarter into the year and the equity committee would not have had any

099opportunity to really meet and dive into the data and really get things done i trust that that we have you know put it out there and at this point i just like for us to move forward so that we can um so that we can make we can vote on the person to fulfill this this one position that's available um mr uh barefoot yes were you going to say something oh no i was just going to say in addition to what you just said that equity committee has to elect a chair yeah that's the next point and the chair can't be you don't know who the chair is until that meeting right and uh the the the four members of the committee two from the district and two from the naacp they will know who

100the candidates are for chair and they've got to vet and you know those people before you even get into the matter that you all are discussing the year's worth of work and and the background in the history although i will say that miss walker representing the district and the incumbent from the naacp are two of the four members will have been through this for the past year but i think you're right we're up against the timeline plus we owe the court a response that would be submitted by the jointly by the district and the naacp which you know we promised uh they'll get it when they get it but the sooner the better i'd like to make a motion i'd like to make a motion that we um vote on atopa patterson to be our

101equity committee member our board selected equity committee member i'll second it by terry um any further discussion i i i do have another comment one more comment um this afternoon we didn't have that information miss green that um five more people had shown interest and said this afternoon dr shift did bring up a concern that maybe it wasn't advertised enough and we did vet that out a lot it does concern me that we only had two people however when you're looking at this they're both really qualified so if they weren't qualified i'd say okay let's throw it back out there but i also think that you know people need to be cognizant and aware when there's an opportunity jump on it and i think it's only fair to move the process along that we we

102go ahead and vote tonight otherwise i would say yeah let's let's go ahead and make sure that everybody gets the opportunity but it was advertised 11 days just like every other position so i hate to keep dragging it on and i don't think it's fair to whoever we vote on not to give them the time to be able to really go through all the documents and everything else as you know how much paperwork there is dr jones you wanted to make a comment did we how long did we extend the chair was it a week i can't remember right now we we were going to we were going to repost the chair this afternoon dr moore how long would it with the brief post till the end of next week or the end of this

103week through the chair i will continue to get feedback from no i'm sorry the posting of the chair nancy that would be posted in the paperwhen i can get it in tomorrow's wednesday thursday's paper so to be posted in thursday's once again posted on our own particular website and the information that we're lacking is the confirmation of the actual date so the individual knows you know the individuals are submitting their application understand this is the date in which they would need to be present because soon as you take the chair position you then begin to facilitate the remainder of the meeting and how and what is the date on the advertisement that they need to respond by is it is there a specific date specific we would do it i think we said the meeting

104was the february 16th so it would be one week prior to um the um the close would be one week prior to the actual meeting so that would be the ninth okay so we would know at our next meeting uh who the candidates are besides the ones we've already received yes sir and we also agreed uh that as we received those um submissions we would forward them both to the naacp and the board so we can be as proactive as possible in terms of reviewing that information in addition to that now that we have four equity members or well have four equity members uh as i receive that information i'll be able to push it them to them as well so they have ample enough time to review as well all right so there's a

105motion on the floor with a second uh to appoint with patterson to be at the second district representative any further comments if not i'll call the question all in favor aye aye aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 uh one other question for for dr moore will we we will reach out to these individuals presumably all the candidates provide them with whatever information they may have and to the extent that they would then attend the equity meeting one of them is going to be selected but i don't know how actually either either mr brown or myself chair that meeting until the person is selected as the new chair much like you chaired the meeting until one of us was selected chair well those individuals i don't know how it's worked in the past perhaps my board

106colleagues uh are they do they get an opportunity to speak to or are they just going to fill out the form so just to respond to your question i think it's my responsibility to provide information to any individual who applies which is an overview of the roles and the responsibility it's one thing to see the opportunity to be in service but i just like to share the information the number of meetings review the joint plan so as individuals submit those letters i just take that upon myself to ensure those individuals fully understand um the impact of the work the importance of the work uh and also the depth in which we um collectively uh want that work to be done so i i do share um with those individuals as i receive those and i

107know this afternoon it was discussed i think miss rosario race maybe everybody did but i know cesaro did that you know why do they want to do this that was in in the the cover letters that we've received outlined why the individuals who have applied thus far want to do it so that's becomes obviously a key piece of information for the equity committee to to choose their next chair all right the next item this relates to adoption of a school board policy this item deals with adoption of revised district school board policy dr moore have you documented that this public hearing was properly advertised in accordance with state statutes yes sir i have i'm going to call a recess meeting to conduct the public hearing is advertised the public hearing is now in session dr

108moore are there any written responses to the advertised public hearing to be read at this time no they're not the public is invited to address this issue at this time is there an individual representing an organization or his or her own personal or public interest who wishes to speak the chair concludes that the announced public hearing on the adoption of the revised district school board policy has been conducted pursuant to notice and that apple opportunity to address this issue has been provided to all the board meeting is convened at this time uh may i have a motion i'll make a motion uh mrs barenborg and dr schiff no mrs rosario mrs rosario i guess we sound alike all in favor aye aye oh i thought you could speak to your motion first okay you want

109to speak yes okay okay um we did have a lengthy discussion about this and about policy and i appreciate the attorneys i'm getting involved in helping us make sure that we follow the best practice for policies and not get in the weeds and and do too many details i think as it's written right now i'm fine and comfortable with it because i think that's a good starting point of what we need to do to create a foundation let the foundation give us an opportunity to see what names they want to come up with and their vision and their mission so thank you anybody else care to speak all in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 thank you uh next agenda item is a report from the superintendent uh dr moore thank you sir

110i did not envy the the chore that the board members had don't maybe a lot of the chores the board members have um selecting whether between whether it be ms foster or miss patterson and miss uh patterson is here this evening ms foster i had a previous arrangement so she could not be here um so i just wanted to acknowledge uh tabitha patterson um did you just come to the i don't wanna put you on the spot um but but thank you for your your willingness to um serve in this role um and on behalf of the board and if they want to say something i'm sure they they will um we're all engaged we all take this work as a priority and more than anything as you engage in this responsibility advocate in the

111best interest of children in order to ensure as a community we're growing our equity agenda so thank you for your opportunity and willingness to serve on this committee thank you i was almost out of here and um i was caught at the door um i'm just very grateful for the opportunity very excited about the work there's we've made some um gains but there's still much much much much work to do i'm excited to be a part of it i'm ready to make and build trusting relationships throughout the community so thank you again for the opportunity i appreciate it can i can i dr chef sure thank you before you go yes um since we have you here for the moment can you give um with the chairs indulgence um just a a sentence or two

112can you give us a a brief hit on what your work at the state level has been through that that committee that you were appointed to sure um last february i was awarded the excellence in education award by the governor very mind-blowing experience and because of that award i was contacted by the department of education to help the task force in brainstorming ways to implement and embed african american and cultural studies into a curriculum so just drawing up a lesson plan a unit plan and seeing how that would work what that would look like we know that's also a very important work for us as african americans to see ourselves but for the community to see each other we're really trying to bridge gaps bring about unity all through knowledge and understanding if you don't

113if you don't know better you don't do better so it's a part of that work so very excited to be a part of that as well thank you can i follow up for a sec yes um also just because we have you here and as as your work moves forward on the equity committee um i also invite in that work um for to look through and be aware that we have a racial equity policy a board policy that involves us looking through an equity lens at everything that we do and i i want to invite and engage the equity committee to be consistently aware of that policy and to support us as a board in making sure that that policy is followed um absolutely and so much of that policy is about how we implement

114this work but also to make sure that we don't violate any of our commitments and that we do what we do consistent with how do we implement african-american history and awareness throughout our curriculum that that work of looking through that that lens also is consistent with our board policy and i want to make sure that that is always foremost and present so i thank you for what i know will be your support of that absolutely 100 thank you thank you thank you thank you again thank you miss patterson uh very brief presentation and i just wanted to highlight um the opportunity we had yesterday evening at our stars of the year gala it was an event when it concluded last year i was very much looking forward to uh this year and then kova hit

115and we didn't think we're going to be able to do it um but under the leadership of miss maddox we've figured out a way to have that celebration and that recognition and as a result we were able to honor 21 teachers of the year from each of our schools as well as 24 employee of the years from their departments and schools we also recognized our uh extremely energetic and effective principle of the year ms kim garcia and has she had the opportunity to speech uh and miss hepburn felicia hepburn from treasure coast elementary our assistant principal of the year also gave remarks uh and was absolutely outstanding and powerful in her words that she spoke as well i want to thank mid uh florida credit union uh for stepping up in a really really big

116way five thousand dollar uh to our teacher of the year and twenty five hundred dollar uh donation to our uh employee of the year and that is always going to be helpful uh dyer auto group uh provided five very very shiny brand new trucks to drive in our teachers and support staff of of the year and at the conclusion of the evening we were able to name ms catlin harris from storm caitlin harris from storm grove middle school as our teacher of the year and rebecca rebecca o'donnell from vero beach senior high school as our employee of the year so it's just an absolutely outstanding night of celebration when a time when we all as a community and ultimately as a nation um continue um to celebrate and honor the the work that that's being

117done so that is our presentation uh for this evening thank you thank you um board member matters would you like to start mrs richter i would love to thank you so much um one of the items that we had on our agenda tonight which is now officially a policy was let me pull it up here interscholastic athletics policy two four three one one of the items on the second page b all secondary schools shall offer two opportunities each year for student athletes to obtain their required athletic physicals at their school such athletic physicals offered at the school will include an optional ecg electrocardiogram screening this is important because mr barefoot and dr jones you were not on the board when this came before um the board members the previous board to approve it um i

118am i just wanted to give a and i know that they are watching uh kurt easton and sean sema of who we play for a big shout out for helping us draft and support and and move forward with changing our policy to allow ecg's at our schools for our athletics from middle school through high school at this point dr moore you're going to dr moore what happens from this point to ensure that this uh rollout occurs um seamlessly thank you and it's a great question and it's worth highlighting now that it has become policy um we will begin the the planning which we quite honestly already have begun as it states it is a physicals for this year at the school sites have been concluded both the first and the second one uh so we

119have plenty of additional time to plan to ensure that we're rolling this out at the school sites and the policy is being 100 implemented as you just read so uh looking forward to having that out we'll do some branding around it when we have that first opportunity so everyone understands uh the proactive steps that this board has taken thank you i'm very very happy about that we often have our children have physicals for sports events but we neglect the heart and now we have an opportunity to encourage families to get a heart screening it is something that when my child when my son is there i'm actually going to seek it out myself for him to have that heart screening at the appropriate time so i'm very very happy about that board members who supported

120this thank you very much dr moore and your team thank you very much mr bass for working with who we play for and anybody else who needed to be a part of ensuring that this would be policy on my agenda last tuesday i went to pelican island and there was a wonderful opportunity to support their school in receiving a grant let me see if i can pull it up here i have so many notes um coastal connections um was the partner in which pelican island um or rather pelican island partnered with coastal connections which is has a mission to protect coastal habitats and what they were trying to ensure was that pelican island would receive a grant to install new water fountains with sensor activated automatic automatic filling machines for water bottles and if there

121is an actual counting a counter on there so that every amount of water that filled up to the amount of a water bottle would be calculated and ultimately saving our lakes and our fit our our waters saving the plastic water bottles from entering into our environment so it's a very very uh nice opportunity to support them on that the county board of commissioners i listened to their meeting last week and i know dr schiff you had talked about getting together a community i mean a committee together so that we can have more input as to what our what other governmental agencies are doing locally this is something that it's really not anything to really brag about except that they extended their mask mandate through their masked ordinate ordination ordinate ordinance it's just a mask for

122me till july which i think is a little too extreme but i just thought i'd mention that in case anybody has not heard about that um the learning alliance webinar was on thursday that was really wonderful the initiative of the reading of the reading moonshot moment is still a goal for the learning alliance to help our children reach 90 percent reading proficiency by third grade so i just wanted to say thank you to barbara hammond and ray oglethorpe and everyone who is a part of the learning alliance for partnering with us continually i know dr moore spoke at that webinar zoom meeting and it was really a wonderful opportunity to see all of the faces at one time you don't always see all of the faces but when you see the view you know of

123all the participants it's pretty interesting and today which is one of my favorite activities of the year i participated in volunteering to read to third graders at dodger town elementary which was wonderful and like always i take my favorite book which is the book with no pictures by bj novak and it was just so much fun so much fun so i wanted to thank dodger town mrs d benedette and mrs reed for allowing me to come into your classroom and read to your sweet children thank you um next dr schiff i don't have a lot um once again congratulations to all of our teachers of the year our employees of the year our finalists and our winners for their extraordinary work this year and i am i want to acknowledge their work but but i

124think i can speak for them and others in the district and saying um it's not just their work that we celebrate it is the work of every teacher and employee in this district that makes this district run so while the people who were celebrated last night are a subset of that they don't get to do their work without also the support of everybody else who encourages and works with them so it's a nice opportunity to celebrate that um i want to share my deepest condolences for ms mcgarry and her family uh the family of ms mcgarry we knew um when kovitz started that at some point we would have to face this day that it was inevitable and i think we've all been holding our breaths waiting for for this moment and so that tragedy

125has struck and and i am heartbroken and devastated i did not know mrs mcgarry um apparently i missed a real honor and a treat that i didn't know her and my heart breaks for her family her biological family her family of choice and her oslo family and her school district family so i'm sorry i want to just say and acknowledge that publicly um lastly we did something strange a little strange uh last i think it was last business meeting where we acknowledge the school board and and as embarrassing as that is i wanna just thank um a number of schools and kids sent us gifts that we found when we came into the office today that were just beautiful and heartwarming and humbling and i want to thank everybody who participated in that some of

126them were just warmed my heart so to everybody who contributed to that thank you so very very much it was it was an honor and a pleasure um and i'm humbled by it so thank you for that um i also did the the moonshot moment i won't uh where where dr moore spoke the other thing that happened on that day was the indian river county delegation the legislative delegation that was led by our legislative members and i attended that online and heard not only the legislative requests of the school district but of every governmental agency in this county um and so that went on for a few hours that was also last thursday i know i believe many of us were also on that call and i think that's it there are a few things

127coming up but we'll talk about those um next meeting i think that's all i've got so thank you all mrs barrenborg okay um i also attended the pelican island and coastal connections grant um meeting and um i did stay to the end to to really listen to the question and answer part from um the committee and basically it's an impact 100 grant and um very competitive local money we're very appreciative of people donating money but what is so exciting about it was wasn't just for pelican island they actually said let's do it for all this elementary school so looking at putting in those really cool water stations at each elementary school and every fourth grader getting a special bottle to be able to refill it so that was awesome hard work by people trying to

128put that grant forward so they should find out very soon if they're going to be one of the finalists and then from there then they're semi-finalists and then from there they choose their finalists i also went back to my home school daughtertown today and read to first graders i got to read to three different classrooms and i appreciate that very much they were very entertaining as always and we love llama llama and um that's one of my favorite books to read all the llama llama books so we had a great time with that last night's gala was awesome i'm glad i dressed up when can you wear loud mouth mardi gras shorts more than once then last week's star's dinner was awesome too and i thank you very much for the sponsorship for that they

129continue to help us on that law firm and notes from students well we did get some entertaining things and i i did grab three of them just to read because they're so precious one says thank you um for supporting our school students and teachers appreciate all you do in our school district we wish you a relaxed pay and continue with what you are doing school board members the next one dear school board thank you for everything you do especially for lunch i appreciate that you teach my little sister and i love the choices that you make i thought that was cute but here's one of my favorite ones and this one the the girl playground pointed to it school bus pointed to it very obvious because she's a good artist but then she writes um

130thank you for making our school better shouldn't we get a new playground [Laughter] so i like the fact that she's advocating for school while thanking us so i appreciate that um that was really sweet thank you for tho those notes and um those little things mean a lot i think because not that we need things but it is a tough job those of you that are always yelling at us and angry with us you know we are people and we take this job very seriously and it was hard to run for office if you've never done it go for it it's very entertaining um and it's tough to do but um i take it very seriously and it's not easy making decisions that we make uh um the delegation meeting was very interesting and very

131long and i know there's a lot on their plates they are back up in tallahassee and tallahassee is moving and grooving today also condolences to on the mcgarry family and to oslo i have met sherry a few times always pleasant always excited to see anybody come in and welcome you into the um into the media center there so that was a great loss for our school community so i just wanted to acknowledge that as well thank you that's all dr jones thank you mr barefoot thank you to kristen and her team for the fun we had last night and also at american icon it was really really a lot of fun both nights and i think we need some fun these days i've been visiting all the schools in the district thursday i will have

132visited all of them and i can tell you i make the appointment with the principal so he or she knows i'm coming and get into probably five or seven classrooms the students are on task there's engagement and the instructional delivery is there they are working so so very hard and i just want to say to everyone out there our teachers our support staff our administrators everyone in the district office thank you for what you're doing in this very very challenging year i read to fourth graders at dodger town today the book was fireflies and i had a blast i know we've talked about this and we'll continue to move forward but we now have our representative for our part of the equity committee i want to move forward get going with that i know we're

133all anxious to do that because we are here for all students and we want everyone everyone to succeed i was part of the learning alliance zoom meeting and also the bold idea four meeting and that's working with our after school programs and what they can help us do in the district it was a very very informative viral soccer game and of course the delegation meeting with senator mayfield and representative crawl again a lot of good things going on thank you to kristen and dr moore for the covet update so we know what's going on in our community and in our school district and i've talked to eddie robertson at oslo middle again our condolences to the mcgarry family to oslo middle this is a tough tough thing to deal with and we are here for

134you if you need us thank you very much all right well um i i never knew there were so many opportunities to participate via zoom in all these meetings uh but it is interesting uh i've i've been involved with the learning alliance for a long time so i'm very familiar of all the things they do but i found the the delegation meeting interesting um obviously the the stars dinner and gala was great a couple of highlights that are memorable one dr moore's jacket other the dancing abilities of my colleagues here on the board with dr moore out front you must have been a cheerleader way back when you had a lot of those you had a lot of those moves and it's nice to have some fun because as mrs baron bourke said sometimes you

135wonder whether it's worth it but when you can get out in front of all the teachers and interact with the kids i had a brief chat with one of the vero beach high school cheerleaders and i forgot how young they they these young ladies are i've got a couple of granddaughters about the same age but i have them in a different if you just view your own children or grandchild a little differently and then you see somebody else and you realize wow you know either that or i'm getting older um at any rate and mcgary family obviously from all the all we heard uh actually uh it it's uh i don't know how many people and of course i don't know anybody compared to most of you all but the comments that are made just

136sort of out of the blue people that interact with her how impactful she was in that gifford uh middle school community it's it's it's always a sad right always a sad occasion when you lose people that are viewed as leaders and are impactful and hopefully she her legacy will live on and that's really all i have for tonight and unless someone else has a last-minute thought mrs rosario had a thought you know this year has been so challenging for us on so many different levels but we often get these really sad emails of of obvious of bereavement of people who have passed away and you know i wonder does the district have in any way a sunshine committee or bereavement career committee or a fund that is put together you know i remember years back

137there when it was called sunshine committee but you know monies were collected from all of the members and then whenever something sad or very celebratory happened they you know monies were taken from this little bucket and and flowers were sent or card or you know something of good gesture to the family members of the person who have passed away or those who are celebrating do we have anything like [Music] that probably has something that functions extremely similar um and keeping it close to those specific schools communities and families is the appropriate way to go i can tell you coming uh into this new community the response and understanding that our our system provides um is something i i've never seen absolutely everybody knows everybody uh and when we face a tragedy um that we're in

138the midst of it impacts individuals at the district in a very deep and profound way um so those systems of support are are there um and of course as something like that happens we have a crisis team that is immediately there we were at the school friday we were at the school monday i was there monday morning as as well so it's it's responding in in both areas the the immediate need in terms of um mental health professionals there to help guy and then you know working through so you have the initial impact so we circle back uh three and four weeks you know after time because that's when it really really really hits um so we're very very sensitive and proactive in providing that systems of support but we don't have anything that you

139know would would we can pull from to buy flowers for a funeral or you know send flowers home to a family um we don't have that we don't uh and in terms of we are publicly funded so that's one of the things that we we don't have um but that could be something the foundation designates a a small percent to uh to be in response okay i think that would be a great idea i did email mr robinson and he said he would get back with me about you know what the family would need he was just trying to figure that out so i'm sure if he sends that to me i can send it to the board i think that is there's probably a number of things if we think about that that the

140foundation could provide the district and its employees uh under all sorts of circumstance from you know funding advanced degrees to uh bereavement and on and on and on and you know without before we close i i would like to thank once again the graves family i mean i think what five years ago when they lost jimmy and um the journey that they've had and as you know they've adopted uh at least two maybe three children um i mean it's wonderful what what they've done and this is a this is a they've now done something that kids in perpetuity in the county will have the opportunity as well as families to enjoy the fields and it will be incumbent upon all of us to come up with a design and then go out and raise the

141money privately to really ensure uh jimmy graves legacy so i'd like to again thank thank joe and his family and at this point in time at 8 19 meetings adjourned hang on sorry you