OCPS | 2022-06-28 School Board Meeting

001good evening welcome everyone thank you for joining us today is tuesday june 28th 2022 and i appreciate how quiet everyone got so quickly all of our board members are attending in person so i won't need to take a formal roll call as a reminder face masks are optional in the school on school board property i also want to remind the public that members of the board will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting so if you're trying to reach one of us during the meeting we obviously won't be monitoring our phones and ipads so you won't get a response from us to my fellow board members district staff and members of the public who may be speaking let me remind you also to speak as close and directly to your

002microphone as possible so that your sound is picked up and you for the youtube and orange tv viewers again i thank you all we have a good sized crowd i thank you for for turning out this evening we're going to begin with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance and i invite you to join us and now for the of pledge and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we get into the formal business portion of our meeting we have some recognitions that i'd like to acknowledge first i'm honored to recognize ocps's public relations department for receiving five digital media and publication awards from the national school public relations association the public relations team is ocps's strategic communications arm that's

003responsible for solving communication issues through marketing graphic design public relations and other methods since 1935 the national school public relations association has been providing school communication services and training to school leaders throughout the united states and canada the organization awarded ocps with the following five awards which you can see on the screen above awards of excellence for the ocps 2025 strategic plan and orange peel employee magazine an award of merit for the district's 21 22 annual report and honorable mentions for the 2021-22 pocket guide and superintendent summit the public relations team will be recognized during the ensra and sprawl national seminar in chicago next month congratulations to our public relations department and thank you for all you do to enhance and protect the brand and the reputation of orange county public schools i'd also like

004to congratulate assistant assistant public relations director shayla kennedy who recently accepted a chief of communications office position with charlotte mackenberg schools today is her last day where is where's shayla yes we are going to miss shayla terribly i have given her three years three years to go in training in that position and then she needs to come back come on back to central florida and find and get back home to us can we have scott can you come up here and join us and can we have your team stand up and take up bow i'm gonna take the picture take pictures somebody's gotta take a picture oh that's so unfair oh we also have a special recognition regarding the naming of stonewall middle school to roberto clemente middle school last fall roberto enrique clemente walker

005was a former professional baseball player from puerto rico who was the first caribbean and latin american to win a world series playing for the pittsburgh pirates in 1960. the hall of famer didn't call orlando home however he was a humanitarian who worked to promote accessibility for latin americans he died after his plane crash in 1972 in route to nicaragua to deliver relief supplies following an earthquake so he is to all of us quite a hero the process of renaming the azalea park middle school included input from the school's faculty students and school advisory council and the community and i will tell you it was a very long and drawn out process and it took a lot a lot of persistence from the community and we appre applaud and appreciate you for your persistence students also

006conducted research and wrote essays on suggested names the next step was a community survey that included the three top names school names which included roberto clemente receiving 70.2 percent of the votes overwhelming love to have that in an election 70.2 percent of the votes that is remarkable turnout roberto clemente middle also is the only district school that is named after a person of hispanic heritage again i want to say that it is our only district school named after a person of hispanic heritage now please join me yeah i think that's a round of applause thank you now please join me in welcoming non-profit organization ali allianza's interim executive director zulma velez estrada who would like to recognize the school board for its integral role in renaming the ocps middle school in east orlando welcome thank

007you thank you very much for me it's a pleasure to be here in i'm substituting our loved teacher johanna lopez johanna lopez that has been a very successful teacher teacher of the year loved by their students by the community by everybody that deals with her you feel comfortable and i appreciate the opportunity to come here in this recognition moment to this special person she's not only a represents the constituents of this her district too but also she's a woman that has fought for women in problem with problems with women that has been going through violence for people that are in need for the homeless she has been very tied to different churches to help the people in need she has been someone that has that has put students first even first upon her family sometimes

008because they needed to be a coach there's so many stories that johanna has helped so many students and so many constituents but on this special moment we want to recognize her fight the good fight for having renamed the jackson stonewall jackson middle school into roberto clemente and not only that also the good fight to have the street name roberto clemente so for this allianza center the whole staff and in the name of marcos miller who cannot be here today and the senior staff thank you very much for you for what you have done your legacy is incredible you're going to continue your success but we need to give you this special gift we recognize it's a big sign but it was given with love and care to you to keep it because it's your legacy

009too thank you very much thank you to all the reborn members thanks thank you so much and let me call member lopez remember lopez thank you madam chair i would like to take this opportunity to we have an interpreter that we never used and i would like to have him as a translator because i would love to speak spanish at this moment and so he can translate in english so everybody understand what i'm saying i never this is the first time that i'm gonna do this i think let's try mucha gracias thank you very much to everyone all of you guys especially alienza and everybody lives in the district too everybody i mean this fight would have never been possible if i didn't have the all the support from everybody in the school the school

010board the school so without every member of the school board we would have never been heard tambien super intended especially and also to the superintendent who hurt us and understood the how valuable it is to you know to be inclusive with afro latinos and include roberto clemente what satisfied me the most throughout this process was that all the students developed and did all the homework and was more the ones that decided who decided who the persons were going to be taking i mean the you know roberto clemente was the one that chosen so they feel represented by roberto clemente and so they feel very represented by spanish now it's not easy so the students feel represented with a person who looks like them yeah and the students feel represented with the person very very represented

011attitude thank you very much from the bottom of my heart and we're going to try to keep on pursuing all the technical the ethical you know yeah the inclusion of the diversity not only throughout lcbs and not only because of the ethnicity but also for other reasons we are a very diverse community and we respect and respect every differences it's so beautiful to see that we are a collage of different people with different colors different ways of speaking our lgbtq community as well everybody woman men we accept everybody in orange county public school and thank you so much for everything that you're done and thank you so much for this recognition it's not only for me it's for the student for the community and for all of the people that are here all my colleagues

012and school board members that i feel so proud and very supportive thank you so much member lopez that was that was absolutely beautiful dr jenkins do we have any recognitions of newly appointed members of the administration we do madam chair we have wendy michelle de russo who will be the new assistant principal at oak ridge high school we have douglas guthrie who will be the principal at walker middle we have grisel luis jean who is going to be the new assistant principal at winter park high school thomas francis o'brien will be the ap at okoye high school jonathan rasmussen will be the principal at castleview elementary gina marie warkentine will be the new assistant principal at spring lake elementary joanne marie doris will be the principal at bay meadows elementary georgia galbrath will be the

013principal at ivy lane elementary alyssa mora will be the assistant principal at winter park high school and robert walker ii will be the principal of chain of lakes middle school that is it madam chair absolutely and now i'm going to give anyone who wants to leave an opportunity to do so we're going to get into the formal business part of our meeting you're welcome to stay and join us for the rest of the meeting or you're welcome to excuse yourself dr jenkins do we have any changes to the agenda that need to be noted we do madam chair first of all we added item 1702 request approval of the orange county classroom teachers association contract for 2022-23 salary increases and contract language changes for instructional employees subject to ratification and then i would add madam

014chair if it is the board's pleasure i'd like to switch 1702 with 1701 so that i might cover that item for the introduction and any discussion and then if i might just give two brief reports and then i will exit as you take on item the new item 1702 which is the selection of your new superintendent okay before we take action on that on my oversight we'd like to get a picture with alianza johanna you should go down front go down here yeah go down oh yes no just you no well no you stay up here johanna go down with the sun can you hold the sign you should be right behind the middle of the sign come down this way yeah you guys move down yeah that's proper thank you thank you thank you

015father rodriguez so good to see you i am i am up this time yes i am running yes thank you of course thank you all right we get good down there the chair will entertain a motion to amend the agenda as announced by the superintendent is there a motion to amend the agenda motion by member gallo is there a second second second by vice chair all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously and we do have a number of public comments first item on the agenda is approved the consent agenda for me and we do not have any item any public comments on the consent agenda so with that i will take a motion on the motion by member culbert is there a second second by member lopez all in favor

016of the motion to approve the consent agenda please please say aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously second item is as i understand it's going to be and dr jenkins i think we do have one comment on 1702 has to do with the cta 1701 so we have mike armbruster oh i didn't even see him right there i did semester on brewster there he was hiding lobster in the house yeah that's right where when i retired i wasn't ever coming back but here i am again sorry about that thank you just helping you out good evening madam chair board members and superintendent jenkins my name is mike armbrus and i reside at 527 north boyd street in winter garden florida three four seven eight seven i serve as the executive director for the orange county association

017of school administrators representing more than 300 active members who serve in principal and assistant principal roles throughout our k-12 and post-secondary campus with me tonight are ocassion board members sorry ellie vasquez diana greer amy sorry amy mchale my writing is so bad i write the right name matt turner okay a few months ago we came before you to share some concerns regarding the treatment of school-based administrators and the discussions of salaries and benefits but as it turned out you had shifted positions already to ensure that administrators were treated as we had hoped they should have been we were quick to come to the board room that night when things seemed somewhat awry that evening you shared some wonderful comments regarding principles and assistance principles as we all know though action speaks louder than words so

018when your recent actions showed that your words meant what you said we wanted to come just as quickly to say thank you as we did to share our concerns thank you for your considerations during this year's salary discussions and thank you for making this happen as quickly as you have done i know there are still votes to be taken and things be worked out by other groups but know that administrators are appreciative of your faith and your efforts to make sure that they feel like they are an important part of the team that brings our students to success again thank you thank you very nice yes it's days like this that you love okay so dr jenkins on 1702 i'll turn to you thank you madam chair and thank you for adjusting the orders so

019i can speak to this item we are so pleased i want to congratulate both our cta bargaining team members and the administrative team for coming to agreement so swiftly it has been some years since we've been able to administer raises over the summer it equates to about a six percent raise average for our employees cta being the first to go through the process they will need to ratify this actually is a resolution where the board affirms that agreement pending ratification meaning that all of our teachers not just members but all of our teachers will vote on the ratification and it is strongly recommended by the union that there be a yes vote so on the july 26th meeting to dr arm brewster's credit we are planning on bringing both ospa and our administrative team for

020the pay raise that is being offered tonight for our teachers certainly excited about it i want to congratulate wendy on her way out that we have come to the conclusion of the last contract under her tenure i don't see clinton here i know he's been extremely involved as well so congratulations to the entire team and thanks to the school board who did affirm that when we have money we want to reward our employees at high levels so that is the resolution before you madam chair members of the board all right thank you with no further comments from the public i'll entertain a motion i bet there's going to be a lot of them simultaneous can we have eight who would like to offer the motion i will offer the motion member caster dental second by

021member gallow yes absolutely all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously wonderful all right dr jenkins we are on seven that deserves a clap out of order i know it's worth it you could thumbs up wasn't going to cut it for you huh okay we have next up we have comments on the superintendent search and we do have i think we have 10 public speakers so before we take that up i do want to oh i'm going to call on dr jenkins for some comments and i'm going to call on bridget our chief of staff yes to outline how we got here dr jenkins you're recognized thank you madam chair because i will be departing when i finish my comments this process my chief of staff dr williams has always sat

022in this chair and she is ready to take my seat tonight very important work that you have to do so i will be very brief in my comments so i can get out of your way two things one i want to assure the board and anyone in the community that might be listening that we are reviewing all of our digital device policies in particular those fines that were administered this year for damage to any laptops be reassured that we have mark shanoff in place now that is his project we will be reworking the entire process and improving it before the start of this school year one of the first things that mark is working on for us is actually getting protective devices or covers for those laptops the best way i can describe it when

023i saw the cover is it kind of looks like the otterbox you know the least sexy cover for your iphone that's what it looks like and so we're going to have those protective covers we're going to make sure our students are assigned a single device for their three years in middle school or their four years in high school and we've got some other things in line that we will keep you apprised of i want to make sure the board understands and certainly can share with your constituents when you get concerns that we are reworking that process and will be bringing it forward for your information in short order and then lastly if you weren't here during the pre-agenda meeting i do want to mention we sent out a news you can use that had clarification

024on items from our legal camp that clarified we do not have specific guidelines and rules that have gone out to administrators there were discussions there were hypotheticals but there has not been direct guidance yet and we are hopeful that we'll get information from the state well last night sometime after 8 pm i believe there was information that was sent out it is not guidance from the state it is actually the state's pleading in a lawsuit equality florida sued ron desantis and other defendants and because we were one of the defendants we got a copy of the pleadings late last night and we did determine madam chair members of the board that we can post the document it is considered public that was asked earlier we will post that document it's rather lengthy but i can

025tell you there are some encouraging clarifications in there that answer some specific questions that have been rumored to be a part of the law such as can i have a photograph of my spouse if we happen to be same-sex can i have a photograph on my desk and according to this they have specifically answered that is not in violation of the law and they actually clarified a few other rumors as well it will be posted on our website we will keep you posted it is at least positive direction there is so much more that still needs to be clarified as well and we will keep you posted madam chair wonderful thank you okay next i am gonna as soon as dr williams has a chance to get up here i'm going to ask dr williams

026to walk through for the benefit of the public the process that we have used to get to where we are today tonight we are going to choose a superintendent to replace dr jenkins who is retiring at the end of this calendar year dr jenkins has been in the drop program she did not decide to retire because of covet i do want to say that although we have lost a lot of a lot of superintendents across the nation because of covet but this has been her plan for a number of years dr williams if you can walk through the process thank you chair jacobs board members dr jenkins announced her retirement on february 8th 2022 this was not a surprise since he entered drop years ago the school board met during a work session with the

027florida school boards association fsba as they re-essa searched consultants on march 3 2022 to discuss the timeline and related activities the school board held another four work sessions over the period of time from march to june to discuss superintendent search activities a superintendent search advisory committee comprised of 15 citizens and staff met three times to formulate questions for a community survey and to provide input on the superintendent job description and qualifications an online community survey was conducted march 28 through april 12 resulting in more than 13 000 responses fspa facilitated nine in-person and virtual input sessions including a student focus group and a community business partner focus group advertisement for the superintendent position ran from may 2nd until may 20 15 applications were received three semi-finalists were named on may 25th thereafter each semi-finals provided

028answers to written and video questions which was posted on our website two finalists were interviewed june 22 21st and 22nd first by the full school board and then one on one interviews a hybrid meet and greet with the two finalists were held on june 21st and feedback when those interactions were shared with the school board on the morning of june 22nd additional input was received through the weekend leading up to today's meeting thank you chair jacobs and the board thank you all right we have a number of speakers before the board considers and discusses any action on this so i will take them in the order that we received them i'm going to apologize at the outset to this first speaker because i'm having a difficult time with the last name i'm having a difficult

029time with the first name as well so i am really going to appreciate it when you come to the microphone if you will help me with your first and last name pronunciation welcome thank you the name is nessa shuttergoodly i'm the general coordinator of the farmworker association of florida first of all i want to thank some of you have already been to our offices we're in apopka and on this issue i just want to ask that you all consider that whoever takes the position of the superintendent understands and is at least willing to learn about the disadvantages and challenges that a farmworking community faces sometimes you know a lot of them come from other countries they don't have the documentation that they need to prove their their residence sometimes they have to live in extended

030households and so not everybody's name might be on the lease language is a barrier just you know we want whoever to take that position to to understand that farmworkers have just they already face a lot of different challenges and just know that we are there if you need somebody to talk to and that we are willing to provide some guidance about the needs of our communities and also again you are all invited to come visit us at our office in in apopka i also want to thank you chair jacobs i know you were there last year johanna lopez commissioner we appreciate your up i mean fortnight we appreciate your coming out and being willing to learn from our communities thank you so much thank you and we very much appreciate you offering to be a

031liaison for the district that's that will be very helpful for us to know thank you sustaining invitation thank you thank you all right our next speaker is stephana farrell hi everyone stephana farrell i wanted to speak today about your choices for superintendent i believe both are very qualified candidates and they'll do a good job with this district i do have concerns with both and it is mostly because of what has happened recently in regards to hb 1557 and taking it upon themselves as a leadership team both in palm beach and here in orange county to put out guidelines early spoken in regards in palm beach it was the questionnaire to go ahead and start pulling books that might raise concerns these actions again represent the most conservative reading and interpretation of the law and i

032sent you all timelines time stamps from the senate floor debates that went over every single one of those things that's in that dismissal this is not something new we knew gsas were not a part of it we knew that they were able to display pictures of their loved ones we knew that it was going to be limited to classroom instruction and that kids could use a harvey milk book to have to give a presentation on a historic figure this was all discussed on the floor and yet your legal teams and your superintendent teams are taking the most conservative interpretation of the law and that is disappointing so my ask is that whomever you pick today you make it clear as a board that regardless of what your legal team is going to say to protect

033you from lawsuits and to protect you from the desantis administration that you as a board and the superintendent need to make student-centered decisions in every facet and you need to do something about the teacher morale you need to make sure your teachers and your students feel supported and that's their number one goal and i think if if you set that example and you keep that up what will be successful either way thank you thank you stephana okay i kind of lost control of the use your hands to show a sign of applause and it is in fact remember gould's fault so if you guys can help me correct remember gould thumbs up two thumbs up wave your hands thumbs down i hate those they seem disrespectful but if you really gotta do it okay jen

034cousins good evening you probably know what i'm going to ask of you when you select this new superintendent the most important thing for me and the new superintendent is somebody who is going to work their ass off to protect our lgbtq students they need we already knew that they needed protection before desantis and his republican cronies passed don't say gay and now they need it more than ever you know this law is putting children's lives at risk trans and non-binary youth face a one in five suicide attempt those numbers are so disturbing and it's going to get worse thanks to what they've done now in tallahassee so i need you to all be crystal clear that whoever you pick tonight protecting those students is in the top three of their priorities and that is what

035i ask from you tonight thank you thanks jen rita harris welcome back ms harris hi good evening so yes in choosing a superintendent i also request that you choose somebody who is going to look at the most lenient interpretation of the law also if it doesn't affect things like speaking about your significant other or using historical figures like harvey milk then i think that there needs to be a push to have gender affirming language and policies in place as well it's not tolerance we're not seeking just tolerance we're seeking inclusion and i think the superintendent has a lot of of complicated waters to navigate it's not just making sure that the lgb qti a plus community feels welcome it's also navigating the anti-crt bills and also what's going on with gun violence i mean there's

036a lot of stuff and i think that we also need to make sure the superintendent isn't dead set on making our schools look like a prison these poor children are so traumatized as it is and our teachers are going through it they're told they can't talk about their loved ones but they got to stand in front of students and protect them from somebody with an assault rifle so i think going through this process we need to make sure that the superintendent is up for the challenge and can take on what's going to be before them and it's going to be tough i bet i know that they can do it but like i said if if like stefan said if we center students and we center teachers and we center doing the right thing then

037ocps will be successful and so will the community because students are i hate to sound like whitney but they're our future right and we need to protect them we need to be there for them and we need to make sure that the people who are teaching them are also protected as well thank you thank you all right eric grimmer hi everyone feels like it's been a little while since i've been here but it's good to see everybody again talk to you tonight three big decision the board is making tonight though you might have a pretty good idea at this point you might be selecting i want to offer a couple comments what i'll be looking for under the new administration two traits i'll be watching looking for empathy and an advocate public education is under

038attack in tallahassee and by certain segments of our own community our kids are under attack including lgbtq plus students and students of color new laws that are meant to shame and silence them not allow their stories or their full histories to be told our teachers are under attack underpaid and underappreciated empathy from our new superintendent is the bare minimum we should expect equally important is their will and their ability to communicate that empathy do so effectively and do so with every opportunity the new superintendent cannot change the discriminatory and hateful laws that have been passed in tallahassee however they can make clear in no uncertain terms and publicly that they stand against these laws and will not do one thing more than what is necessary for minimal compliance the new superintendent and this board must

039have the courage to ensure that minister to ensure this minimal level of compliance is the goal as a fellow attorney i understand the urge of legal counsel to avoid even the appearance of non-compliance it's in our nature but this caution will result in an overly restrictive guidance which i believe have already seen with camp legal the new superintendent must have the ability to consider the advice of legal counsel but not treat it as gospel if it added voice conflicts with their own empathy and moral code we also need a superintendent willing to be a public advocate for public education and the teachers we entrust to instruct our students while the new superintendent will have one of the largest districts in the country to run on a daily basis we also need someone willing to lead

040and be publicly outspoken on behalf of our school system and all of its employees i have heard and i know this board has too that teachers do not feel supported while the new superintendent and this board might be somewhat limited by the state in terms of the financial appreciation that they can show the superintendent must take daily steps to ensure that the teachers feel that the district supports them the new superintendent should also be wanting to be public about the premium we place on our teachers and the actions that should be taken at the state level to retain and reward our talented teachers i realize i'm putting a lot on the plate of this new superintendent but these are challenging times and we need a leader that will rise to accept the challenge and i

041want to just want to build up one thing that rita said and echo that also about affirmation our guidance needs to not only should not only say what they can't do but also should encourage what they can do tell teachers if they're allowed hopefully as they should be to display photos and stuff about their family encourage them to share with their students and build those relationships that will affect their education moving forward thank you thank you eric all right next up we have gretchen robinson gretchen robinson orlando esteemed members of the board i am an educator i've been an educator in ocps for 12 years now the gentleman recognized at the beginning of this meeting brought up the fact that it is affirming and uplifting for students to be presented with images of those who

042mirror their identity whatever that identity might be we all know as educators that the antidote to fear and ignorance is not to cave to it ever but to educate people the very word educate comes from the latin educate meaning to lead out as to lead people out of the fearful darkness of ignorance i applaud and appreciate ocps's ongoing commitment to honoring and celebrating diversity and exhort the members of this board to ensure that the incoming superintendent will rigorously defend the wonderful diversity of our students families and staff particularly against the effects of the ex executable weaponized ignorance and fear-based legislation which passed this spring ocps must follow the law but in the case of bad faith ill-conceived laws such as these not one step past the absolute least harm-producing interpretation of these laws must be

043taken and crystal-clear guidelines must be provided to all in writing ocps must stand by its principles because students lives are quite literally at stake here i have a close friend whose 11 year old daughter took her own life five years ago because she was being bullied in school we must not allow our children families or educators to be victimized by the bullies driving this type of legislation thank you stephen hesselmann wilson welcome steven members of the board nice to be here i will echo of course the absolute most important thing and a superintendent right now i am thinking of james baldwin to talk to teachers where he compels in the civil rights movement in a different chapter you are living through revolutionary times and you have to face that whatever may come in the near

044future we don't know it's a very volatile world our politics it's it was a pretty ridiculous day if we're being honest and i don't know where that's going to go or what a superintendent is going to have to do but there is an attitude associated with that and there's an importance of community and familiarity with community and built up trust that we've gone through a pandemic and we've rolled up our sleeves and done things different ways that we didn't think we would have to do i emphasize that community part that whoever is appointed needs to have the backs of our lgbtq students of students of color of staff of all those different groups too that is absolutely the short term 100 percent what you have to have on your mind long term just in case

045the way that we've built up our administration systems if that progress monitoring if that third time is not the charm you are going to have to have creative individuals who are willing to break old habits that just aren't serving us anymore and may even be at the root of some of our superstitions that lead to some of this extreme false clarity that people end up coming to that i think it is rooted in our schools and the rigidity that some of our structure is set up for the long term but again that trust that's built up we need to know whoever that superintendent ends up being they're going to be willing to speak out they're going to be coming with an attitude appropriate for the times that we live in and we'll hope for the

046best with all the trust that we've built up in this community thank you thank you and our last speaker is wes hutch thank you madam chair school board members it's good to see everybody it's been a little while i'm going to just do this first i would like to say thank you to scott hoat who came out and spoke to us about the one mill tax increase with the orange county democratic party where i represent them as the chair and i'm happy to tell the incoming school board superintendent that the orange county democratic party will be supporting the one mill tax increase so we hope to see that go to good use specifically in supporting our teachers and staff with meaningful respect in the form of adequate financial compensation also i want to what can

047i interrupt you just a minute oh i'm sorry it's it's not an increase it's a renewal renewal yes my apologies okay thank you thank you thank you fair enough yes words words have meaning and that's very important yes my apologies the continuation of the one mill tax there we go my apologies but also i was very encouraged to hear what we the discussions earlier about roberto clemente middle school and the pride that the children took in studying about him before choosing that name and i want to challenge a new superintendent in this board to cause a little bit of good trouble to do some civil disobedience while we may not be able to be woke or say gay we can certainly start naming our new schools as they come online after people like july perry

048zora neal hurston mary johnson mabel butler sister ann or even concepts like unity and love inclusion diversity and pride we should use our schools to honor the women the black hispanic and lgbtq plus leaders of our community by honoring them with schools you see freedom is something we should all celebrate however freedom does not come at the persecution of others thank you thank you and laura vale hi hi laura this is too tall hi good evening laura vale 32812 i have a rising second grader and i wanted to speak on the superintendent i urge you as the board to choose the candidate who will not give in to external pressures surrounding hb 1557. as you heard during pre-agenda speaking comments we need a superintendent who is willing to stand up for what is right in

049the face of bigotry racism and discrimination ocps is facing real problems affecting our community there's not just a teacher shortage but there has been an exodus and now with the content of what we've heard from camp legal more teachers will probably be driven to leave the field i want a superintendent who will focus on solving this issue i've watched the impasse on youtube in the past and just speaking as a parent observing from the outside it seems like district leaders council and teaching staff are on opposing sides which is a bit confusing because shouldn't we all be working together to find a solution to keep our talented educators i want a superintendent who will make raising the reading proficiency rate in ocps a priority we have high graduation rates but our reading proficiency rates are

050nowhere near what our graduation rates are and that's concerning i want a superintendent who will push back against the increasing focus on high-stakes testing and progress monitoring i want a superintendent who shows that their commitment is to our students and our educators i want a superintendent who builds bridges with our community and makes themselves accessible to the people that they lead i and other parents are entrusting our children to their care i want a superintendent who will do right by them by us i urge you the board to follow your gut with this decision and don't fall to any pressures or bureaucracy that you may be facing this is your opportunity to make our schools even better please don't throw that opportunity away thank you thank you miss vale all right that ends our public

051comments and we have a number of board members queued up to speak so let me take them in order beginning with member covert thank you chair first i want to tell the public this is one of the most important decisions that we are going to make as it affects the future of all of our employees mostly number one our students but our community as a whole i also want to thank florida school boards association for their assistance in this very complicated process and we have listened to you and we've had both public and private in-depth conversations with our candidates we are very fortunate to have landed with two fully qualified high caliber finalists and dr lacada and dr vazquez in effect we can't go wrong either way and we've spent weeks talking with community members

052parents teachers administrators even students about what we need and what we'd like to see here at ocps we've had an extraordinary amount of public feedback and i can assure you that i have read every single one and it really was about equal in both scope and volume the feedback on these two finalists clearly ideally we would benefit from having both of these candidates in our organization and if i had the magic wand that's exactly what i would i would do but for me one of the candidates identifies with both our most fragile students and our highest achievers one candidate has walked in the shoes of nearly every instructional position administrative position and leadership position in a district dr vazquez is homegrown but she represents a new beginning has promised to re-evaluate our systems our climate

053and our culture at ocps she has promised to listen learn and lead and i believe her my belief is that she will lead this district with compassion grace and understanding therefore i'd like to lend my support to dr maria vazquez for our next superintendent thank you member cobert member bird thank you chair i want to first start out by saying how incredibly impressed i was as well with our applicants that we received all of them were amazing and our final two that we selected were as member coburg said just top of the pick i mean they were just their their qualifications alone were fantastic so i want to thank the florida school boards association as well for your help and this you really your ability to make this seamless transparent and very thorough was so

054helpful to us as a board it really was great having you thank you when i say that this was that i was incredibly impressed with both these candidate finalists i mean it this past week i've been reading and re-reading and watching and re-watching interviews and application documents and public comments and just really working at reviewing both candidates because this decision was not an easy one i wholeheartedly believe that either one of these candidates could easily slip into this position of superintendent and lead our district to further successes as member covert said that is what made it so difficult in my opinion both candidates have tremendous attributes as should be expected in candidates of this for this position so i really had to dig deep and think about where we are at this moment in time

055what we're going to be faced with in the future and where i want to see this district in that future so this is where i landed our school district is not a floundering school district that needs saving with a whole new reboot in fact it's quite the opposite districts and school boards from around the state and the country reach out to us all the time asking for advice and consultation because we are a very highly successful district but we do have a big problem we have a significant morale problem that needs immediate attention in my opinion so the question is who can keep us on the successful track we're on yet tweak the culture in a way that positively impacts our staff and i too believe that dr maria vasquez is that person i have

056worked closely with dr vazquez over the last couple years and i know from those interactions that her knowledge her drive her attention to detail would make her an excellent superintendent but i also did have some concerns like what i've heard from some constituents that if we went with someone from within our own district that nothing would change in the culture so i addressed this very directly and very bluntly in my one-on-one interview with dr vasquez she is very aware of the issue and has a very clear plan to tackle the problem when you read her her 100 day entry plan she acknowledges in the opening paragraph that we've made incredible progress over the last decade yet we faced some we faced some challenges the common theme throughout her plan is listening and learning she frequently

057reiterates her desire to listen to all stakeholders including community members parents administrators and teachers and school staff she emphasizes her desire to be present invisible in schools talking to and engaging with all staff members throughout her plan i also spoke to a few of her colleagues who i respect immensely and know very well and they have their colleagues that have worked with her in the past and their words also quieted any worry that i had because every one of them told me how she is warm compassionate empathetic a great listener they spoke about how they loved working with her and she always made them feel important and valued and those are all qualities that we have been asked for in our next superintendent and then i thought about what we've faced over the last couple

058years with the state and the attacks on public education and many of the issues that have been mentioned tonight and i fear that those issues are just getting started i really believe that having a new superintendent that doesn't have to take six months to a year to gain the knowledge of all the working parts of this enormous district will be a huge benefit to us because we're going to have to be ready immediately for the battles that we are facing and that are on our doorstep right now when i envision where i want this district to be in the future i envision a district that's still considered one of the top performing districts an innovation leader a place where schools are happy places for kids and staff every day and in her opening paragraph of

059her 100-day entry plan dr vazquez states i want to refocus our efforts on creating vibrant centers of learning let me be clear i would not be making this recommendation if i was presented i'm up at the very end okay okay if if i was presented with just anyone with from within ocps this is not a ocps loyalty decision i came to this was this would not be my decision if i felt like dr vasquez was just going to be handling business as you as usual and did not have very clear goals and to make changes needed for the recovery of our culture and our morale with that being said i do not think we need to build a new road but i believe but i believe if we travel on the same road we are

060on but do some re-paving where there are some potholes we can all reach the destinations we desire so it is my desire tonight that we work with dr vasquez as our new superintendent thank you vice chair member felder good evening first of all i'd like to thank fsba for your help i know for a fact that i called you consistently to ask for help and assistance being the newest member on the board and then realizing you know that this was going to come up later on after i've been on the board i'd like to thank my colleagues for your very kind remarks about the person that you are interested in seeing in this position too much is given much is required the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of

061comfort and convenience but where he stands at the times of challenge and controversy i'm that woman at this point this truth my fellow board members is the mantra that has become more real to me now more than ever leadership indeed is a clarion call and we have been given that responsibility it is incumbent upon us as leaders to do and work to the best of our ability to work with governance and i have faith in us that we will leadership is not a title but rather a destination even though i know we may not agree on some things but i want you to understand as i express my concern that you have my respect as i know i have your respect in the decisions that i will make we produce the link between the orange

062county public schools and the citizens of orange county i say this i spent time over the weekend and i came back to the district sunday night and looked at some of the surveys and read some of the comments that members of the community made as it relates to the choices that we should make as superintendent and because i was put in this seat by members of my constituency because they trusted that i would be their voice and i would speak those things that they didn't have the opportunity to speak i must speak on their behalf because they've asked me to do that this district does demand excellence and we have regardless we have been chosen to do a good work and i reminded my members that our purpose is to legislate policy and do governance

063when i looked at both the strengths of dr peter lacada i found that he said all voices should be heard from the school and the community community he talked about long story long-term sustainability willing to change the legislators and his greatest potential for improvement acceleration past pathways to access access focusing on underperforming schools how how are we measuring the student achievement and even though change sometimes may not may be better but it might not necessarily need to happen and your best decision might not be the right decision when i looked at dr vasquez some of the things she talked about she wouldn't have to have any time to think about decisions of of her her staff because she could come in running because we know her she's been here she pushed safe classrooms where students

064thrived she started creating a mental health plan i received some emails regarding that was a great plan but it had not yet some of the schools had not yet had not yet been actively executed i asked about her the success for the first four months got greater feedback from her and as some of my other board members have said i wish we could hire both of them because i do believe we've had we have a great combination here but because members that i have talked to and those that have sent me emails their concern was they did not want business as usual they felt like we needed a fresh start a fresh beginning my concern with that sometimes if you get something fresh how you know that's going to be the best of the right

065but then what looks like the end of the road could very well be the beginning so i have to look at what i have been told and shared with by my constituency that they're interested in doing something new having something fresh and i would put my vote out for dr peter lacotte thank you so much all right thank you member felder member castro dental thank you madam chair under dr jenkins ocps has achieved so many areas to be proud of we have a variety of magnet programs and academies career tech a high graduation rate strong business and community partnerships acceleration options for our students emphasis on equity for all our students competitive athletics strong arts programs beautiful new campuses and renovated older ones ocps has strong fundamentals and we have the best employees and families

066to work with to make it so successful i was eager to start the superintendent search eager to see who would put themselves up to lead the district which already has so many excellent programs how do you make a strong district even stronger i want to thank our search consultants for your guidance and involving the community and determining where we go from here we sit here today like my colleagues have said with two worthy candidates both have the required qualifications and proven records of success and i have no doubt that both will make great superintendents the challenge for the board is to decide what sets them apart from one another and which fills the needs of the district going forward as a former teacher of orange county i've experienced the difference between that role and my

067role as a board member from this vantage point on the board things look pretty good but you must know that my most recent teaching assignments were difficult in fact those experiences influenced my decision to run for the school board my ability to do what was necessary for my students was often overly controlled and unrealistically demanding my decision today isn't based solely on my experience but also on the input of the teachers who remain my decision is also informed by many conversations i've had with community members as well as people who have worked with both dr lakota and dr vasquez i strongly believe that we need a shift in our culture our top-down approach isn't bad in and of itself but it is when the actions of others are so tightly controlled and monitored i believe

068we need to recommit our efforts not with better relationships but with equal relationships where every person no matter what job they have or which school they attend has the same worth culture is difficult to describe because it's intangible one of my professors used to say culture is the way we do things around here though it's invisible the culture directly affects our ability to achieve our mission of teaching students it directly affects the level of job satisfaction of our employees i don't know if we can get to the next level if we keep the same approach it comes down to the culture and it's extremely difficult to change the culture when you're in the midst of it when i look at the candidates i see that both have the potential to be great superintendents each emphasizes

069the direction provided by our strategic plan both shared a three-month entry plan that outlines similar processes to transition in the job both value building strong relationships dr vasquez comes to this process with a built-in advantage in that we know her and respect her but i remained open to the input from the community i represent who strongly desire a change at the top dr vasquez shared some ideas i really like like subbing in classrooms and creating a teacher advisory committee but i believe her leadership would essentially keep the top-down approach firmly intact dr lacada sees areas to develop and offers a fresh perspective those words were reinforced in the feedback from the community after watching the interviews and the meet and greet i agree i believe we need a fresh perspective you member caster dental member

070member gold thank you i also would like to thank the community for having a very active role in this and thank you to fsba for creating such a wonderful framework to make sure we could capture all facets of our community i have a little different experience because dr vasquez kind of grew up in my district she was a leader at both metrowest in windy ridge and through the west orange district and i have experienced developing programs with her since then dr locato was impressive he definitely hit my shiny things that i like when we talk about cta and skills based learning that is very important to me because i do believe that it is important for our students to be able to have a pathway to skills-based learning whether they go on through college to

071get to their career or get to 12th grade and decide to have a job steak and lobster that was from mike my experience you know in it's really hard to separate the styles of the two and how they present without looking behind that style they both come with the right pedigree there's no question i see dr licotta is as very personable and outgoing having great experience and is a great visionary and you can see the passion just roll off of him when he's talking and it's very easy to get excited when when he is speaking dr vasquez has that same passion in fact i would call her fierce with a lot of empathy and care which i think this district needs we need the fierce with the empathy and care because i think we are

072not done with the challenges as our my fellow board members talked about since i've been on this board we have gone to a high-stakes testing model that is so intensive that it has crushed our children in many cases we have had the health and well-being completely challenged at a at a one school level to a entire district we have had school safety issues that you know could have been preventable we had been raising flags about mental health and the pressures in our community for years we have false rumors on what's being taught in school we have new legislation which will we don't see as my colleague said foreseeably stopping i think fierce empathy is exactly what we need to move forward we need someone who will listen someone who will not be a pushover but

073make sure that even when they do not agree with the other side they hear what the other side is saying because there is value in that and we are of a country that is because of sometimes polarization that we actually come together as a great nation and i think that is the core of what we need even in an organization experience capability vision communication creating relationships clarity of purpose execution of tasks accountability to students parents community staff the board all need to be taken into consideration and it really is how we pave that road as member byrd said and i don't think it's a new road no matter which superintendent we pick quite frankly i think it is improving on the road because you would be crazy to come in here and abandon what has

074been successful and not try to maintain that and move while moving forward what we need to be able to lift in our community so my current choice is dr maria vazquez all right thank you member gold i like each of you well first thank you fsba for this incredible process i have gone back and watched both of the interviews gone back and read everything that has been sent in and found this to be a very difficult decision because they both have unique sets of strengths and i think you articulated it very well in terms of their different style so i then decided to try to be a little bit more analytical about it and i looked at qualifications and on qualifications we are a very large district we're the fourth largest district in the state

075the ninth largest district in the nation and i realized what i had expected us to get for an applicant would be somebody who had already been a superintendent because the role of superintendent is unique in this in any organization the role that dr vasquez holds his deputy superintendent second in charge when the superintendent is not in charge at the table for every decision that gets made aware of every budget decision that gets made and having input into every ounce of those decisions dr lacada is a regional superintendent which is equivalent to an area superintendent for us and our area superintendents are extremely valuable to us and i don't want any of them to be offended but the role of an area superintendent and the decision-making level is vastly different than a superintendent it's not it's

076it's not a junior superintendent it is a different job entirely where a lot of the decisions are already made at the superintendent level so i found from an experience standpoint there is a very big difference between the two and potentially a large learning curve from an education standpoint i know we had hoped to have someone with a doctorate i was surprised that the degree that dr lacada has is in philosophy which is i'm sure a wonderful degree but okay than education so it knows so he knows more about education it's just a higher degree it's a higher degree i was i was personally thinking somebody would have a degree a doctorate in education since this is the education field it is it's an education field okay well thank you for clarifying that okay well thank

077you for clarifying that when i when i think about the personalities what i know from dr vazquez and similar to remember gold i have had the benefit of knowing her for many many years i know she is a person who cares dearly i know she is a person who doesn't mind showing that she cares i know she is incredibly responsive and that gives me a lot of confidence what concerns me with dr lacada is some of the comments that he made about i want to say never being satisfied but always looking to advance always i don't accept where i am i always want to be someone who has a larger role in impacting children that's a good thing but for this district i personally want a superintendent that's going to stay around for a number

078of years superintendents on average have a tenure of less than four years and i have confidence that dr vazquez will be here i'm not sure if dr lacada will be here or if there will be another opportunity i know that the superintendent has been offered quite a few positions just in the short time i've been here just in the three years i've been here and so i know that once you get to this level there are a lot of other organizations that are trying to pull you away and i would like to think that whoever is in this position is going to stay with us for a period of time to the points that have been made here tonight i do want to share what i know about maria vazquez and that is that when

079i came here and wanted to issue an lgbtq proclamation and i wasn't sure how this organization would respond to that and when i talked to maria vazquez the answer was absolutely and when i talked to her about wanting to form a mental health commission because of the concerns i have about the suicide rates in our schools and the stress our students are under she not only said absolutely but she's been at nearly all of the meetings and has been an incredible supporter of that effort so i have confidence and i know her well i like dr lacada a lot and i would really love for us to hire both of them because i think we would be phenomenal because there are some things that he would bring that i do think would benefit the district

080greatly but we don't currently have that choice so my vote would go with dr vazquez at this time with a very strong interest in dr lacada in another role in this organization and with that let me go to member gallow thank you thank you madam chair i'm as nervous tonight as i was when i got sworn in four years ago and for those of you who know me i was sweating bullets and i'm district one so i'm the first one to speak and it didn't dawn on me that i'd have to speak until i pretty much set up here so to say that i was like nervous is an understatement and i feel that way right now so if my words don't come out as eloquent as i would like them i apologize in advance

081i didn't prepare a statement tonight because i really waking up this morning didn't know what i what my decision was going to be i did a lot of research i did a lot i talked to a lot of people down in palm beach county i did due diligence i watched the videos i looked over the 90-day plan the 100-day plan we had our one-on-one i asked very specific questions in my one-on-one because as member caster dental pointed out i hear you i received the emails i saw i saw the results on the questions that people had after the group interview with both candidates and i saw the need for change the morale of our teachers is bad it's it's hurting out there we're losing teachers at an alarming rate and it's not it's not just

082specific to orange county it's like that across the state and across the country i do believe that we are a strong district i think that we have a lot to offer as a district and we get so much right here we have great programs we do a lot of good things a lot of student-centered things in in our school district we get some things wrong too and i think we saw an example of that last week we do get some things wrong and the board we've talked about transparency we've talked about communication we've talked about the need to do better we do need to do better in in certain areas so i want to just go through some things that i liked about each candidate because i want to share with you my thought process

083and where i am currently i want to thank fsba this process has been seamless it's it's been i would recommend them to any any other districts that's looking to hire a new superintendent because it's been a smooth process and they've made it very difficult for us to determine who we want as our new superintendent so that means they did their job extremely well so for that i'm angry and appreciative so thank you this is a big decision and it's important that as a school board we get it right the future of ocps and of our community is depending on us making a good decision and we are very fortunate to have two very very qualified candidates there's no doubt in my mind that either one can step in this position tomorrow and do a great

084job for ocps and lead us forward we have the structure the framework in place currently that anybody can step in and lead and i want to point out because i don't think it's been pointed out before that the superintendent isn't going to operate in a silo and they're not going to operate in isolation they have eight bosses and those eight bosses who hear what y'all are telling us about change also want change we understand that there's a need for it and moving forward we have to raise teacher morale we have to operate better in the community we've got to get be more involved in our community we've got to get more engagement from our parents so what i loved about dr lacada i loved his enthusiasm i found him to be very inspiring i loved

085his his cte in the way that they've been able to grow that program down in palm beach i think there's a few things that we can learn and grow our program here in orange county we always do better when we share best practices whether it's from each other or from different districts day one in my one-on-ones interviews day one he said i asked some very pointed questions about his role how he believes and i asked this of both candidates how what what role do they believe that the school board should play and he said from day one the school board will be side by side we will work side by side together we will be inclusive when we work side by side and that spoke to to a need that i have he talked about

086team he talked about you know family empowerment how it was there's less students family empowerment down in palm beach versus here they also have more charters which might be the reason why they have less students and family empowerment and the most important thing and i think he said in the group interview he says we don't we don't raise the floor by lowering the ceiling and that speaks to academic games and that is so true and i've been saying that for four years and i feel like sometimes when we look at the achievement gaps and we look at how we narrow the achievement gaps we're nearing those achievement gaps because we are lowering the ceiling we are not raising the floor and here in orange county we must we must raise the floor to to look

087at those achievement gaps dr vasquez i loved her i loved her statement on equity she said it from the very beginning that when we when we provide equity to our students that we're not doing it by making it making other students have less we're doing it by making by lifting those students up who need it the most that's what equity is we lift up the students and we give we provide the needs that they need we provide the resources to those who need it the most it's not about taking it away from anybody else it's about making sure that everybody has an equitable and equal education under the state law she's very knowledgeable i actually liked her 100-day plan better i thought it was more detailed it was more precise i love that she's bilingual

088we have 43 of our population here in orange county is hispanic and to have someone that can speak both languages speaks to our community both both candidates are community community-centered they are student-centered they both spoke to teach morale so for me it really boiled down to who's going to bring about change who who would bring about the most change here in orange county for for our community for our teachers for for what i'm hearing everybody say as a board member we have the distinct honor of being able to work with with the superintendent and the deputy superintendent and those within our organization so we get to see a side of them that others don't get to see we've worked alongside with them so we get to see their heart we get to see their intent

089we get to know who they are and their beliefs and i will say that dr vasquez was instrumental in our strategic plan i also got a call from equality florida and i talked about the superintendent search and equality florida is supporting dr vasquez for the next superintendent they were going to se i don't know if they did they would come out sending emails to the board just so that they know that who who they supported and that weighed on me i do think i do believe that dr vasquez can be the agent of change that we need i think that she's heard it loud and clear i think she's heard it through the comments that were made after the interviews i think she's heard it from the board and most importantly when you look at

090the survey and there's thirteen thousand responses that survey and when you look at empathy and you look at social emotional learning she there's nobody that embodies social emotional learning more than i believe that dr vasquez does and wants to push it forward i think it's extremely important to her and i think that she understands that we need change and i think that she can be the change that y'all are looking for and i think that she can provide that to our community to our teachers and to our students and she's extremely student-centered and i know that at the end of the day every decision that she will make will be for the best interest of the student and for that reason i would throw my support with dr vasquez thank you thank you member gallow

091i remember lopez thank you madam chair and also thank you to the fsba and the team because you're doing you know you did an amazing job outstanding on every single step i did not imagine you know i can imagine if you are not present during this process because i think because of your knowledge and expertise and professionalism the transparency of this process is guaranteed so i think that you know i would love to emphasize you know the process we had workshops to find consultants we have the superintendent advisory committee we have an online survey survey we have the search and you help us you know dr messina help us to do the right search so at you know we have the advertisements as well in our website and other websites we have finalists that we

092interview as a group as an individual and i remember when karen recommended the individual interviews and i said oh my god it's gonna be longer but i highly appreciate that recommendation because we have another perspective on on each candidate and both are amazing i think that we are so honored to have that opportunity to to meet dr licara and to also have another finalist like dr vazquez in this process and also the meet and greet i think it was very emotional because i did not know so many great things about their personal life so make us closer to both candidates i think that at least we build relationships with them not only with us but with the community and meet them you know as human beings in different you know leadership positions you know so

093that i think that it was it was great okay we are we are humans and so i was i did not write anything either i even prayed for this and i was i am so nervous too because i even trembling this is a historical moment and when i was listening to the to the public comments you know to the to the comments on during the agenda when i heard the united farm workers i remember that we did a private forum with dr vasquez and spanish speaking on every department to help the united farm workers because they feel that they want to to meet how it works how to navigate the system so i remember basket was sitting close to me and she said oh my god i didn't know that you know thank you so

094much you know this is something this conversation is to happen more often so i when she told me you know that the conversation needs to be more often then after i said you know what i'm gonna follow up with this to see if she's you know in communication with the farm workers because i'm very into that because it's our students every student deserves to to feel welcome and included so i remember the president of the association casino you know women that are farmers as well they have a group and she said no she gave us her phone number so i said oh wow that's great so today i was just thinking while i'm listening to everyone student-centered decisions for example from laura i think was laura who said that then advocacy and empathy and i

095am this you know as a school board i call the superintendent and to the superintendent even on sundays i don't know if you do the same thing and sometimes oh my god you know this is an emergency i don't want anything to happen so you know i this is maybe because i am so passionate i used to be a teacher so i try not to do it but it's hard for me because it's a life and i always receive a response from dr vasquez and from dr jenkins as well so what i see when i have the conversation with vasquez is that you know sometimes i'm not in favor of what she's responding to me and i say you know what i do not agree on that one so can you please talk again with

096that principle can you please talk to that our superintendent and i don't know because it's not fair to dr likada because i don't have another way of comparing comparison and i think it's very unfair if i do you know do that but my experience is that i feel comfortable to question her decisions through my conversation with her so i don't think that i'm gonna feel any type of fear or any type of you know i'm the boss or not whatever no because i already did it and i'll do it in every conversation and she said okay let me go back okay just a moment lopez so i have that type of communication i don't know about the other you know school board members so you know after having group around individual conversations i believe that

097the right candidate is one who understand central florida better and that's why i'm going on supporting more the you know dr vazquez i think she knows more central florida i also see in her more experience in the in the educational field in terms of individual attention with the student likara has it but i think that she also has you know eso ell students esc you know so you know as a teacher in elementary school also as a as a leader so they have a lot of things that are very similar but the one-on-one instruction is more in dr vasquez than in dr licara that's the way i see it and maybe i can have more conversations and you can you know explain more to me if i make mistake because i'm not perfect so that's

098the way i feel in terms of the conversation with about you know which doctor's degree or whatever you know as a teacher i see a lot of teachers that have a doctorate degree in chemistry and not necessarily are great teachers maybe i have a chemistry teacher with a bachelor degree and maybe achieve more with this with their students so in terms of how high is the doctor's degree i don't think for me in my personal opinion and i respect everybody's opinion i don't think it's a good way to go and i don't think it's it's fair you know to blame on dr licara or blaine on dr vasquez the type of culture or morale they're having in their educational system because after the pandemic all of us have a lot of challenges personal challenges in

099the classroom we can talk with teachers and you know everything is different so we have to be careful on make assumptions based on what we're leaving with superintendent jenkins because it's the same thing with dr licara i cannot judge dr licara because of the leadership of that superintendent so i think that i know i don't know i feel kind of i would love to have more conversation about that i i also want to share an experience as a mother and i remembered when i was a teacher i have this situation with my daughters in the school system you know how it is so any places you know we know any place is perfect but we need to navigate the system to achieve our goals with our children and sometimes we don't understand where to go

100and how to go as a single mom hispanic it was difficult to me so i make a big deal in this elementary school that you really don't even know and you don't want to know so i said i have to make a complaint as soon as possible because this is not fair and i have a very confrontational convert conversation with ex-principal and i remember receive a call from the deputy superintendent dr vazquez she you know she was explaining to her what happened blah blah so i explained to her and i said no absolutely you know and she made the arrangement to do the fair decision on top of the principal and even the principal called me back and she said i don't know what did you do i want to do this but i still

101believe that t-shirt so so i think that she's center in the students and listen to parents based in my experience i wasn't teacher of the year was you know i wasn't schoolboy i was just a single mom from the low-income district too okay so i just want to share that and i just want you know to to end it saying that i am very very honored to meet dr likara and you know to be part of this process with this amazing school board members that even though we think differently we respect a lot we respect each other i cannot imagine being in another board school or without different perspective and different expertise without them i couldn't even grow either so thank you so much and i don't know if this is the moment because i

102think i'm the last one who spoke i moved that the school board offered the position of superintendent to dr vazquez and authorized contract negotiations to begin led by sher teresa jacobs and general counsel amy envel with the understanding that a finalized employment agreement will come back to the school board for approval okay we have a motion remember you had pressed your button do you want to speak to the motion or did you want to second them i can second and then in discussion say what i do like to say so i'll second the motion and then for for our school board members who are concerned about change i just wanted to give some first-hand knowledge about dr vasquez and then also ask you to look at styles dr jenkins who we love has a very

103particular style and way that she carries and the way that she leads i have seen and heard from parents community members business leaders about the experiences they have had with dr vasquez in addition to what member lopez just said dr vasquez went into a school that was absolutely hostile at one point and talking about becoming a charter and turned that entire atmosphere around by by that fierce empathy i mean i just see her that way and was able to not only deflect the hatred is probably a strong word but but the displeasure of that community but then brill builds the bridge to make it in a k-8 school so that says a lot and for those of you who have lived through the growth of my side of town you know that's no easy feat

104so that's just one example and i could give you others but i don't think with her style that i have seen in action with her personality that we will have anything else but change but also sustain what is so good about our district right now so i wanted to share that before we called the vote remember bird thank you chair i just wanted to kind of say again that i do understand some of my board members concern for change because you know i read all those comments too and i had that same same exact concern but as i sat here listening you know to the comments i it occurred to me that and i think it was remember lopez that kind of referred to it that i don't think that it's fair to judge judge

105either one of the candidates based on the leadership of the superintendent in their district and it has been said tonight a couple times about a top-down approach that we have in our district and i would challenge i would challenge you to think about how how would a deputy superintendent working in that kind of leadership be able to show anything different do you see what i'm saying so you know with the lead with a strong superintendent that has you know a very a very formatted way of doing things i don't know how a deputy superintendent would be able to show that her leadership could be different than that other than these types of little examples we've heard and i just wanted to mention one as well from my community the hope community center which sister anne

106is a part of and i know that wes mentioned sister ann we love sister anne she's amazing but she mentioned to me just about a month ago at an event in apopka that they had just had a wonderful conversation with dr vazquez about the difficulties that families were facing registering kids for school that were undocumented and what a struggle it is for some of those families and dr vasquez was actively putting together a plan to address the issue and i believe it was a long conversation and then someone else i remember months ago told me the same thing that she was on the phone with dr vazquez for like three or four hours talking up through an issue so i've i think under under the umbrella she's been under she's managed to make show her

107true ability to be empathetic and be child-centered and be an advocate for children so i just kind of wanted to throw that out a little bit thank you thank you vice chair member felder thank you chair i've listened and i've heard my fellow board members and let me say this i thank you for your offerings and because i've learned in sitting on this board that we are we are diversified in some of our opinions but what i love about this board that we have learned to agree to disagree i think that's so important and i always talk about the fact that we all wear glasses so we have big brains and we're smart and pretty but this is what i want to say what i want to say is this remembers of my constituency it

108was my desire and on purpose to express what i believe you expressed to me and i also want you to know that i was in prayer i've had people praying and i was in prayer sitting up here but i got a piece let me tell you why i got a piece because i prayed whatever the outcome i'm not the only person praying for this district i'm not i'm not the only person that loves the district and sometimes what looks like a calamity or wrong or the end of the role could very well be the beginning and what i can trust with the members on this board is that we can't have conversation and angie gallo kind of said something that sparked in my mind whoever the superintendent you know is and they got eight bosses

109that is something to navigate eight bosses dr jenkins has done an excellent job in learning us i was the last one she had to learn but we've been friends so she kind of knew me but that's that's more than a notion to navigate intelligent women so i want my constituency to know that i am still your advocate i will always be your voice and to new superintendent we have to work with them and have to share and i also noticed what board member byrd said it's hard to see what a person can do when they're not in the superintendent position but then you also can you got to look at history of things they've already done and see how that's working out but my fellow board members i thank you for sharing me sharing with

110me your thoughts and in the members of my constituency i do want you to know i appreciate your vote of confidence you need to keep keeping a vote of confidence in me because i am working for you and i will not stop i will not stop thank you member felder remember gallow thank you madam chair and thank you member felder i just you know i wanted to reiterate that this wasn't an easy so i think someone at the mic tonight said you got to make the best decision not the easiest decision and i think to some it will this will be perceived that this was the easiest decision and maybe not the best decision and we knew that going in when we had to pick a superintendent there's always going to be a winner there's

111going to be a loser and by no means is dr lakota a loser he's very well qualified and he's going to make an awesome an excellent superintendent and i was highly highly highly impressed with his resume and with his answers and with his persona and just what he brings to the table but for me this wasn't the i didn't go with the easiest decision not in my mind i went with what i felt was the best decision for our community based on the knowledge that i had and what i know and what i believe to be true with dr vasquez and i've seen everything that has been described up here to me and i've seen more because i do deal like remember lopez said i deal with dr vazquez a lot i've had some issues

112in my community there's been some issues and she's the person that i usually contact and i do believe i wouldn't have i wouldn't have put my support behind dr vasquez if i didn't 100 wholeheartedly believe that she would be the best person for this position that she will bring about the change that all of you that some of you desire i think that she can do that and i and i and i agree with what member lopez says that you one a person can't be judged on the current superintendent they've got to forge their own way they've got to create their own plan she has a solid 100-day plan i believe that she will be out in the community she will be engaging she will engage board members and she will be student centered and

113she will be teacher focused i think she will i think you're going to be very pleased with with how she moves ocps forward so i just want to add that thank you thank you member gallo and i just i think i want to echo your words i this was a very tough decision and like you remember felder if you noticed our moment of silence was a bit longer than normal as i asked not just for guidance for me but for guidance for the board for the right decision i ultimately came down to the decision of dr vazquez because of my confidence in her and i have known her for 20 years and that is a long time and enough time to really be able to judge what is in someone's heart and what they're capable

114of i think one of my greatest concerns about the decision is will this school district give her a chance to show us what she can do i think she has every intention of changing the culture and in order for that to happen everyone who works here has to give her a chance so my hope and my prayer as we leave here is that everyone will give this a chance and with that let me go to member caster dental thank you madam chair and thank you members of the board i appreciate this process that we go through with our deliberations y'all don't make it easy but at the same time it's pleasurable you know it's not antagonistic so i appreciate that it's very respectful but that doesn't make it easier it'd be easier if you guys

115were me yeah gnashing your teeth and anyway i've also had many sleepless nights this week yes and when i didn't think i had enough information i made more calls i went back and watched videos and re-read things and tried to decipher you know which one would be the better pick so then i went i relied on the community i relied on the feedback i relied on so many personal contacts who reached out to me and then if i didn't hear from a lot of people i reached out to them let me let me hear what your take is and it's similar to what we've all been saying about all of the great things about dr vasquez that we know personally and professionally but that the need for change and the morale is so heavy it

116weighed on me the most and to have dr lacada basically guarantees change without doing anything else and i'm not sure that i'm fully there yet with dr vasquez i think she's a wonderful person i think she can do great things but one like i said can guarantee change whereas the other we hope for it and i know that i'm not in the majority here so it's obvious to me which which person will be our next superintendent but i do hope that we fully take advantage of this moment of someone new and work together in guiding and coming up with ideas and involving our employees involving the teachers don't rely on what we come up with but our teachers have to be a part of this or else we're going to they're going to burn out

117we're going to lose more it's and we won't be able to achieve our mission of educating students and i just this is really hard i feel not only did i have trouble sleeping but i recalled all those times when i was in the classroom when the culture of how we do things around here was so evident and heavy and it prevented me from doing what was best for kids i appreciate that someone can have a conversation and fix you know problems here and there but we have to do something about that it's not something that necessarily is coming from the state because other counties are they find ways around this so maybe we need to reach out to some other counties as well but this is a serious a serious issue that even walking away

118from today i'm going to continue to carry that it with me it's not going to go away it's in the pit of my stomach so i hope that we can all agree to promise commit to really addressing that thank you remember lopez thank you madam chair i also forgot to explain one of the conversations that i had with dr vasquez about improving the relationship with the cta and anoespa and you know so she was saying we need to be you know more engaged with the cta having better relationships and you know always in every you know and now that i'm running on something else you know so i'm always trying to talk about the union to see what is the perspective in terms of the workers so i think that is something that maybe i

119you know is better to share in this public forum and exp you know and explain to you because i remember in that office she's she's telling me you know we have to do it and we have to improve our relationship with our cta and anuespa and you know what i what i still thinking that trying to saying that because we have to change the morale we have to be careful because it's not guaranteed that somebody is going to change it we don't know how is the morale in palm beach for example i don't want to to judge i guess it's a great district imagine they have dr likada you know has to be great but i think that we also have spaces to grow and you know we have to be careful in in in

120analyzing a person based on other leadership i have different conversations and i know that dr vasquez's leadership is different than jenkins but as as her deputy at the district deputy she has to follow of course the leadership of the superintendent imagine if we see you know a person not following the lead of the superintendent so i think that the deputy superintendent should be a representation of the leadership of the superintendent and i don't know maybe i would love to talk more about that but you know we're trying to to penalize is to certain extent you know one person based on the leadership is and i'm thinking about my daughters you know you are not johanna's lopez daughter you are gianna and you have to make sure that everybody understand that you are gianna you're not

121representing me you know so they want to have that individualized identity it's not joanna's daughter it's gianna and i think that this is the case you know when we were interviewing dr licara it was dr likara i did not think about anything surrounding him in terms of morale in palm beach and i have a friend i have a school board member that is my friend and i should you know call her and say but you say it's not fair for him i want to talk to him i want to meet him personally and he's very personal very professional i think he's great but maybe i was focused in being from central florida imagine he's gonna transfer from one district to another one now he needs to meet the district every district every place every and

122just thinking about my district you know how many different communities i have in my district and i can imagine in all of our districts so i think that it will be more challenging for him and i feel bad because i'm losing a great candidate he's great you know don't don't get me wrong i even said oh my god when i say this i'm not going to look at him that's the way i feel because he is great and when we when i was talking to him you know he used to be a coach i was to be a coach so we share a lot of things together about school so it's he's very personal and he's very charismatic i know that he's gonna keep he's gonna keep growing and maybe it's not orange county but

123maybe i'll see him in a very high position more than where he is at this moment because he is amazing and i want to make sure that he understand that i highly respect him and that i was very honored to meet you thank you member lopez member cobert thank you i'm going to start to begin to see if we can bring this in for a landing yes i am so grateful that we are able to have these very difficult conversations and i can say not only for myself but i know everyone up here respects everybody else's perspective and opinion and experience and we all really feel that from each other so i think something that we should all keep in in mind is that some of these priorities and if every one of us has

124talked about a change in climate and culture that means that's one of our board priorities our job is policy budget governance priority and oversight those are our responsibilities so if we make that change in climate and culture a priority we get to set the goals for the new superintendent we get to review the new superintendent and that's that's where we need to come from and hopefully that will give you some peace of mind that we can work together to achieve that as a team all of us sitting here together well said well i think that has come across loud and clear from each one of us that we want a significant change in culture and a change in leadership style and now it will be up to the new superintendent to meet that expectation member

125member gould and then we're going to call for a vote many of my thoughts have been said but there is one that member caster dental mentioned and she said dr lacada would guarantee change and yes that is true to a point but it's it's not always the change you think it will be when there's a highly functioning organization and someone comes in maybe wanting to not necessarily focus on the priorities that we've just said not that wasn't in his conversation because it certainly was but really make a mark which can be more disruptive in the highly functioning parts so it doesn't always work the way that you want it to is my only thing that i wanted to pass on and with that i think everything else was very well said about our role is

126to set those priorities with the superintendent and we can hold that superintendent accountable for those priorities all right all in favor of the motion please say aye i opposed motion carries unanimously thank you i know i am i just felt like like a wash of relief miss emval do you have anything to report i'm not following that no board members anything further no i have no i have a question please the report is all this published like the 100-day entry plan from dr vazquez and then the 90 from dr lakota did we publish that for the public no can we sense i know that we just picked soup dr vazquez but can we publish her 100-day plan so the public can see what her intentions are i think that would be good for the thank

127you thank you okay we get that answer yes okay very good meeting adjourned thank you ladies well thank you ladies thank you ladies and gentlemen you