OCPS | 2022-05-31 School Board Work Session

001good afternoon and welcome to the orange county school board's rural development workshop which has been scheduled for today for the purpose of discussing the following school board policies dfaa use of surplus funds die audits and financial planning i'm sorry audit financial planning ebb safety program jic code of student conduct and the 2223 code of student conduct handbook jica student dress jk discipline of students j k a corporal punishment jkb detention of students j l i a supervision of students and ee a ec student on buses students on buses the school board with the hearing public comments on the aforementioned school board policies the school board will then conduct a work session on the legislative update at which no public comments will be taken since this is the opportunity for the school board to meet with

002staff to provide direction on any proposed revisions board members are attending in person or telephonically so i'll take a quick roll call beginning with member gallow good afternoon madam chair good afternoon member lopez good afternoon good afternoon member covert good afternoon chair good afternoon remember gold good afternoon good afternoon ma'am vice chair elder member we're off to a good start remember felder i'm present thank you remember cast your dinner good afternoon chair vice chair bird good afternoon chair and i'm kind of here i want to remind the public board members will not be engaging in outside electronics while we're in the meeting and now for those of you here i want to thank you all for taking the time to join us those who are members of the public that are taking the time to

003be here with us we are going to begin our meeting with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance and now for the pledges one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all look at this all right the opportunity for public comment to participate in this rule development workshop to provide public comment is as follows members of the public provided public comment via email for the school board's consideration at this rural development workshop by 5 pm on monday may 30th the emails that were received at that time were compiled by the staff and provided to each member electronically emails were received as part of the permanent record telephonically public comment for members of the public who wish to address the school board during the public comment portion of the meeting the

004telephone line is 407-250-6270 and the time to get into the calling queue is between 12 45 and 1 o'clock do we have anybody that called in no madam champion and then we are taking also public comment for those members who wish to attend in person they were directed to fill out a comment card intern and in to the information desk in the lobby between 12 45 and one do we have any comment cards no madam chair okay all right let me also mention we are one of the policies that we are taking up is well i'll get to it when we get to it let's go ahead and begin dr williams thank you chair jacobson board members we will start with a school board policy d-f-a-a doreen good afternoon i'm providing you revised policy dfaa

005use of surplus funds dfaa is being revised to update language on authorized investments and electronic transfer of funds revisions have been made to the existing policy language to include content formatting official name changes and procedural measures as well as to update the statutory authority authorized investments section 13. this proposed revision adds the small business administration sba and the governmental national mortgage association ginimay authorized investments against section 13. proposed modification reflects the name change to the florida public assets for liquidity management fund florida palm and the addition of the florida surplus asset fund trust florida safe and the florida cooperative liquid assets security system fund florida class the above language has also been added or modified in subsection 14 e through g again authorized investment section 13 this proposed revision adds egan jones ratings ejr and

006dominion bond rating service dbrs electronic transfer of funds section 17. this proposed modification now reads emergency procedures if they arise should still follow the dual control approval measures however if the chief financial officer is not available to approve the templates the senior director of finance the senior director office of management and budget or designee can approve them all right thank you all right let me check and see if we have any board members with any comments at this time and do we have any comments from member covert or member gold all right seeing that no thank you chair thank you all right we'll move on thank you the next school board policy die audits financial monitoring linda lindsey welcome good afternoon okay policy die currently deals only with responses to audit findings requiring the superintendent

007to ensure the district responds to and corrects internal and external audit findings in a reasonable period of time the proposed revisions expand and clarify the expectations when it comes to internal and external audits the actions requested and the proposed revisions add a requirement that the school board internal auditor be notified of all audits be included in entrance and exit meetings and receive a copy of the final report and management's response also a requirement that a corrective action plan be developed and implemented following the issuance of each final report and that the school board internal auditor will track and report on the resolution of audit findings and recommendations to the audit advisory committee and to the school board the title of the policy is being recommended to be changed to read audits excuse me it reads

008audits and financial monitoring now and we're requesting it be changed to internal and external audits in the section titled response to audit findings we are adding a revision that the superintendent shall ensure the school board internal auditor is notified of all audits including audits initiated by internal audit excuse me internal departments to assess compliance or to improve efficiency effectiveness and or performance and external audits by cpa firms state and federal agencies the florida auditor general and similar entities secondly the school board internal auditor shall be included in entrance and exit meetings related to any of the above audits and receive a copy of the final report and management responses in the same section continuing following the issuance of each final report whether conducted internally or externally the cabinet official shall develop and implement a corrective

009action plan to resolve audit issues in a timely manner and present it to the superintendent's cabinet and lastly the school board internal auditor shall track and report on the resolution of internal and external audit findings and recommendations to the audit advisory committee and the school board and then we have added specific statutory authority where none was in the existing policy and i should make a note that these requirements really codify pretty much what existing practice is okay any questions any question from board members all right member felder good morning and thank you oh well good afternoon thank you so much for the report and the question i'm going to ask probably i don't know whether or not it can be handled at this level of our discussion or maybe some other level but i need

010you to know and i need to go on record my concerns in terms of auditing when as a board member if there has been a concern or if there is a concern regarding finances that are supposed to be given to a school and the money is not there it was there but it's not there do i speak to you specifically or how is that addressed because there have been some requests i've made since october regarding some of the schools in my district that needed some financial help in terms of fixing some things up doing some things and it hasn't happened and the principles were told that the money is not there so my first question was we need to do an audit of the finances of of the people are responsible for putting out you

011know paying for these things that we need to have done but we have an audit department you're over it here and so far it has run where my limited understanding but i'm it's a learning curve for me it seems to be working well but i do have a concern if the money was told it was if it was told that the money was there and it's no longer there and principles have been told that we don't have it but it was reported that it was there who does that follow up do you do it or do we do as a board do it well i would say initially the first inquiry should go to the budget department because the budget department is responsible for allocating funds in budget line items for schools and departments to

012use for whatever the intended purpose is at first i thought you were asking about money that was actually missing and i was going to say yes we do help the professional standards department with those types of investigations i don't know that it's actually missing i at one point from what i was told it sounded like it was missing but what i'm going to do again i'm going to go back and do my research again because i have some notes that i took down when i was getting this information and it was very disturbing to me because i mean we seem to follow everything to a t you know i went to the financial workshops over in holland hill in orange county this district compared to the other districts in the state based on the paperwork

013that i saw we were one of the few districts that every dime every penny every half a penny was accounted for but i'm getting some other information and so perhaps i may need to talk to you but so that i can remain transparent i wanted the board members to know that i have a concern about this and i'm going to follow it because it could be a budget problem and if that's the case then i will make inquiry to the budget department but if it's something that requires auditing as a board member i will suggest that particular department gets re-audited because i can't understand if the money has was told that it was there and the principals and some of the schools were told they had it and then the next go round when it's

014time to do it's not there and the answer was well it's not there i had a problem with it okay let me go to dr williams first for filling his feelings for doctor if you don't mind afterwards if you will work with me the names of the schools i'll i'll work on that if you don't mind thank you so much you're very welcome and thank you thank you okay thank you all right thank you remember gala thank you madam chair so i do i have a question and i don't know maybe general counsel can answer the question i know that in statute it states that the school board auditor can report to the board or report to general counsel as a board we decided to have the auditor report to the general counsel when or

015what is the procedure if and member felder brought up a good point if a school board member wanted a specific audit to be done i know we do have one-on-one meetings with you where we can we can share with you concerns that might be of high risk but if we wanted an audit to be done is it within our authority to request an audit can i clarify one thing that you said the auditor does not report to general counsel well the auditor reports directly to the board the auditor from an administrative standpoint the administration of the auditor's operation does report to should i why don't you try yes and by the way we are also this summer we are changing the org chart to better reflect that relationship which is something we talked about doing

016last year but we will take care of that this year you want to explain how this works and then you can answer the rest of the question certainly i'd be happy to thank you we report functionally now functionally means with regard to the practice of our internal audit department to you folks as a body through the audit committee who you appoint administratively i have a dotted line reporting relationship to the general counsel who looks at like my travel requests our department's picard when an outside approval is required things of that sort my leave when i when i take a vacation day and so forth because we don't want to be asking the audit chair to be doing those types of things but functionally with regard to our practice we report to you folks through the

017audit advisory committee with regard to your question about requesting an audit much as much like your general counsel or your superintendent the other appointed officials i report to you as a body you might remember when you requested the ese audit we came together and we collectively discussed what the scope and the nature of that audit would be and you as a body authorized and directed us to go forth and conduct that that audit which we actually broke into four pieces so i don't think it would be appropriate for individually you to direct the work of our department but very much we work for you and would respond to a discussion from this body and move accordingly does that answer your question it does thank you so much so if i wanted and i and i

018and i had mentioned an audit previously from the dias so if i had one if i would like an audit into a specific area within the district i would need to discuss it at a board meeting and get consensus from my fellow board members to move forward on said audit yes ma'am and we would normally do that towards the end of the meeting when i ask are there any policy level issues that would be a perfect time to bring up audit issues i don't specifically say policy or audit but that'd be the ideal time to bring it up okay and i would also add that we are just wrapping up our audit planning process for next year in fact the audit committee will be reviewing our proposed audit plan at next week's meeting i just

019sent this morning their agenda materials to them and each of you were copied on those materials as is our habit so that will be discussed at that point in time if in your perusal of those materials you don't see something that you would like to have addressed let's let's bring it up for discussion as chair jacobs suggested and we'll try to get it into the plan from the beginning but even if we don't much like we did with the ese audit we can amend it in at a later time okay so the next scheduled board meeting i can bring up absolutely all right all right thank you let me also if i can go back to member felder's question because when things come up and such as a school district thought there was going to

020be money and then they can't find the money if anybody is watching that leaves a question i think in the public's mind as to what happened to the money i like you i know that the organization is very very careful with monitoring money i think it would be helpful though from a transparency and credibility standpoint that when we have an answer that the answer come back to this full board at a public board meeting probably i'm sorry i think she'll probably be able to clear up some things lynn of course has always we always spent a long time talking but i needed you all from a board's perspective to know what has been on my mind and i want to be transparent about my concerns i've had these concerns for a while but we hadn't

021had this time to right now so once i get a clear understanding i will come back so that the public will know that i made the inquiry and i've i received a solution or an answer that i believe is satisfactory but i need to get one that's going to be satisfactory okay thank you so much i understood and i do also do want to clarify while we haven't had this subject on the table obviously you are free at any point in time to reach out to either the superintendent or the budget department on our acting cfo and ask those questions so don't feel like you have to wait until we have an item in front of us and have any lingering concerns in your mind or a school's mind about funds that they yes in

022this case it's both but it could be one or the other about funds that they thought were going to be available to them that aren't so absolutely absolutely okay remember covered or member gould i don't want to leave you out if i don't hear from you though we'll move on okay we'll move on and the next school board policy policy ebb safety programs brian holmes and attorney collins and i do want to mention where this was already scheduled to be a policy discussion in terms of policy language i have asked the superintendent via the deputy superintendent for an executive work session on safety so that we can discuss what happened in texas and wanted to give chief holmes and our sheriff and others a little bit of an opportunity to get as much information as

023possible because we do know that i'm going to use the term errors were made i think that is safe to say at this point in time and from a from leaving a door open to the way the response was handled and i wanted to have that opportunity for the board to hear both from our chief the sheriff chief of police of orlando whoever else wants to opine in terms of their thoughts on this but also want to discuss our own protocols and how certain are we that they are being practiced and enforced and how do we monitor that i know obviously we have safety drills but that's a different thing than ensuring protocols are being followed so i think that is going to be extremely important i'm already hearing as i'm sure you are from

024parents who are concerned about that very issue so that will be coming up in the very near future chief holmes madam chair members of the board we're going to go over ebb our safety program nothing's more timely to talk about right now and is what we're currently about to discuss so i'll read through it and if you have any questions please purpose ebb is being revised to include legislative updates and updates required by the state board of education through the florida administrative code revisions have been made to include legislative updates content formatting and terminology edits consistent with statutory language and the florida administrative code to ensure transparency the information contained in the policy the proposal is for the policy to be renamed to accident prevention and safety program the facility site administrator shall be responsible

025for maintaining safe conditions for their respective orange county public schools ocps community the superintendent shall designate a school safety specialist for the district the school safety specialist must be a school administrator employed by the school district or a law enforcement officer employed by the sheriff's office located in the school district the school safety specialist must earn a certificate of completion of the school safety specialist training provided by the office of safe schools within one year after the appointment and is responsible for the supervision and oversight for all school safety and security personnel policies and procedures in the school district is not advancing school resource officers sro are sworn law enforcement officers employed by a law enforcement agency who have successfully completed training in accordance with section 1006.12 florida statutes school safety officers sso are sworn

026law enforcement officers employed by the school board of orange county florida board who have successfully completed training in accordance with section 1006.12 florida statutes safe school officer means a school resource officer a school safety officer a school guardian or a school security guard as identified in section 1006.12 florida statutes review school district policies and procedures for a compliance with state law and rules including the district's timely and accurate submission of school environmental safety incident reports sessor to the florida department of education pursuant to section 1001.212 subsection 8. provide the necessary training and resources to students and school district staff and matters relating to youth mental health awareness and assistance emergency procedures including active shooter training and school safety and security serves as a school district liaison with local public safety agencies and national state and

027community agencies and organizations in matters of school safety and security in collaboration with the appropriate public safety agencies as that term is defined in section 1.171 florida statutes by october 1st of each year conduct a school security risk assessment at each public school using the florida safe schools assessment tool fssat developed by the office safe schools pursuant to section 1006.1493 florida statutes based on the assessment findings the district school safety specialist shall provide recommendations to the superintendent and the board which identifies strategies and activities that the board should implement in order to address the findings and improve school safety and security the board must receive such findings and the school safety specialist recommendations at a publicly noticed board meeting to provide the public an opportunity to hear the board members discuss and take action on

028the findings and recommendations the school safety specialists shall report such findings and board action to the office of safe schools within 30 days after the board meeting the school safety specialist shall coordinate with the appropriate public safety agencies as defined in section 365.171 florida statutes that are designated as first responders to the school's campuses to conduct a tour of such campus once every three years and provide recommendations related to school safety the school safety specialist shall develop and implement safety and security procedures for all district schools all district schools and charter schools shall immediately or as soon as practical notify the ocps district police communications center if the safe school officer is not present on canvas for coverage as required by section decimal 107 florida statutes excuse me the school safety specialist will coordinate with

029the appropriate law enforcement agency and or the ocps district police to provide temporary law enforcement services until the deficiency is rectified the deficiency must be resolved by the next school day the school safety specialist must notify the office of safe schools within 24 hours of any deficiencies related to school safe school officer coverage and any instance of non-compliance that is determined to be an imminent threat to the health safety or welfare of students or staff the notification must contain particularized facts beyond non-compliance with rule or statute that explain the imminent threat the school safety specialist must notify the office of safe schools within three days of any instance of non-compliance not corrected within 60 days the school safety specialist will notify the superintendent or designee of any deficiency in safe school officer coverage which requires

030notification to the office safe schools school administration is responsible for determining if safe school officers are needed for extracurricular activities and after school events when determining if a safe school officer is needed school administration will consider the number of persons present the ratio of staff members to students and any other safety and security measures available the school safety specialist in consultation with the learning community and or chief of high schools may require schools to add or implement additional safety and security measures for extracurricular activities and after school events upon identification of an instance of non-compliance with a requirement of rule 6a dash 1.0018 florida administrative code or other state law or rules related to safety the school safety specialist will provide written notification to the district school or charter school governing board of the identified

031non-compliance upon notification of an instance of non-compliance the district school or charter school governing board will rectify the non-compliance and provide written notification to the school safety specialist if the district school or charter school governing board fails to rectify the non-compliance the school safety specialist must notify the office safe schools within three days of any instance of non-compliance not corrected within 60 days the school safety specialist will notify the superintendent or designee or the charter school governing board if applicable of any instance of non-compliance which requires notification to the office of safe schools pursuant to section 1002.33 subsection 16b 8-14 florida statutes charter schools and their governing boards are responsible for meeting the safety requirements set forth in section 1006.07 florida statute and rule 6a dash 1.0018 florida statute excuse me florida administrative code monitoring

032of safety requirements for a charter school is the responsibility of school safety specialist pursuant to rule 6a dash 1.0018 subsection 4a florida administrative code the school safety specialist shall review charter school policies and procedures at least school personnel must be provided access to the florida safe schools assessment tool fssat portal all charter schools must cooperate with the school safety specialist request for information and access it is recommended to remove the word school to ensure the policy is applicable to all property owned or operated by the board the proposed revision of the title is this section reads toxic substances in work areas the school board of orange county florida board recognizes that potentially hazardous substances may be used in daily operations insofar as possible the superintendent or designee shall minimize the quantities of potentially hazardous substances

033stored on property owned or operated by the board back to you madam chair thank you chief and we have a number of questions let's begin with member gallow thank you madam chair in the requirements for the safe the school i'm sorry the school safety specialist are they required to be a law enforcement officer they're not they have to be a school administrator minimum you can see they've made an allowance in there for a representative for the sheriff's office to be the school safety specialist and we have included that here in this policy as well do we currently have a school safety specialist we do and who is it i am appointed as a school safety specialist for the district yeah well i'm okay with that because i think i think that and i understand that

034we're going by the statute of florida but i think in laying out the detail that you did for the requirement of this job for orange county public schools it should always our school safety special should always be a law enforcement officer they're dealing with with so many different areas of this between i mean you have to know the link like you have to know the lingo you have to know what's going on if you're going to be in schools and you're checking out schools like there's a certain level of expertise that would be required to do this job that i believe should only be done by a law enforcement officer so i don't know how the rest of the board feels i just i believe that our requirement for this position should it definitely needs

035to be a law enforcement officer so i'm i'm happy that it's you so i'm i'm good with that but i think it should be in policy or somewhere that is a law enforcement officer thank you madam chair all right so let's just pause on that for just a minute obviously we want to complete these policies and we're on the last stage of this you've heard me say this before but there is nothing to prevent us from immediately coming back with revisions so and i am hearing from my right from my left i haven't heard from the two board members but i'm i'm nodding a lot of nods i think we're all in agreement that we want that person to always be a law enforcement officer so i would direct the staff to bring that back

036to us as a or direct miss envel to work to bring that back to us at the nearest opportunity in the meantime it would be the board's expectation that we continue as we are with that position being filled by a law enforcement officer is that right if i comment on that yes sir this is a very complex safety and security program here it's okay if you agree with me yes ma'am it's very complex it does involve quite a bit of lay eyes on work with our local law enforcement agents we have nine law enforcement partners to provide sro services to our schools and the fact that i do happen to be law enforcement smoothes that out significantly i think for the conversations that i have with them i think it helps with our negotiations with

037them when it comes to the sro agreement as well but i'll leave that up the general counsel office and my partner in that kashara cowans and roberto and roberto checko or pacheco our chief operations officer to comment on if they if they were to but that said it's very complex there's a lot of aspects to this and i appreciate your perspective on that of course and we appreciate your perspective as well and i think that's we're all in agreement on that and so let's let me move on to vice chair bird my question it kind of follows along the same lines because i'm i'm i'm feeling like this policy was is crafted just to re put in place what the statutes say which in my opinion are kind of the bare minimum and actually in

038our practice in this district are the bare minimum we often have gone above and beyond what the state requires and so while i agree with what member gala said the other issue i have in here is in let me see where it is it's under the school safety specialist shall on page three of the policy number five says safe school officers all district schools and charter schools shall immediately or as soon as practical notify ocps district police police communications center if the safe school officer is not present on campus for coverage as required required by the statutes then b says the deficiency must be resolved by the next school day and you know i obviously have a problem with that and i'm sure that is not our practice so my question to you is what

039is our practice in the district if we have a school resource officer or school safety officer that is sick has an emergency has to leave what do we do go ahead john okay josh thank you madam chair this is getting into an area of operational functioning and exposing how and what we do with security i would advise that we not have that question answered in this form and that would be more appropriate in the closed session that we're going to have on bargaining we do have provisions with how we replace officers that's part of contracts that we've negotiated we've also had numerous discussions but in order to not give anybody out there who would want to do our school's harm a tactical advantage of knowing what and how we replace officers i don't think it

040should be done in this forum just to protect that safety so mr pomerani may i offer this suggestion you can tell me if you have a concern with this that after we have that closed door session if there is a desire to strengthen this language in any way that when we come back to look at the other change we discussed that might be the opportunity to do it yeah absolutely i think that would be appropriate i think we would help craft language in such a way that we it would get what you guys wanted to do without giving up any operational or tactical strategies that we employ thank you thank you anything else my sure no that's it thank you all right member felder yes thank you so much for your report chief holmes i

041just have a question i was making inquiry about positive pathways i got some information that student was tased and i just want to understand do is that something that we do the school board police officers do you do that is that part of our protocol i'm not sure where you see that information no it's not seen here i was told no i'm not sure where you had who you received that information from that's not accurate it's not accurate okay i will do further research and then i'll get back okay so you say that's not accurate that's not let's hear it for a minute from dr williams if you don't believe that once again you and i can work together definitely with chief holmes and we'll look into that do some research and i'll get back

042with you asap is that okay okay all right thank you member fellow oh you're welcome chief i am on the school safety specialist shall and i'm on 2 d and under 2 d it states that in collaboration with the appropriate public safety agencies as that term is defined by october 1 of each year conduct a school security risk assessment at each school using the florida school assessment tool developed by the office of safe schools based on the assessment findings the district school safety specialists shall provide recommendations to the superintendent and the board which identify strategies and activities that the board should implement in order to address the findings and improve school safety and security the board must receive such findings in the school safety specialist recommendations at a publicly noticed board meeting to provide this

043is going to give you some heartburn i know john to provide the public an opportunity to hear the board members discuss and take action on the findings and recommendations the school safety specialist shall report such findings and the report and the board action to the school safety off the office of schools safe schools i'm sorry within 30 days and i say that i'm no i don't say that in just i am i am interested in how you and your colleagues your the your fellow chiefs and sheriffs are looking at this language of performing this by october 1st and giving this presentation to the board i don't think it should be a problem of performing it by october 1st i am a little concerned about public presentation and anything that might be aired in terms of

044any kind of weaknesses we might have in any of schools that we obviously want to know and correct as quickly as possible but not at the expense of our students that are at those schools so your thoughts on this holding the these assessments between now and then and producing this report on october first well the assessments are required they're underway right now we're doing our annual assessment the schools participate in completing their fssat florida safe school assessment tool my staff is engaged and involved along with some of the other different departments to provide information to them that they wouldn't normally have access to to make sure it's all consistently completed and accurately filled out that said it goes on in there to talk about once we have those reports done we do an evaluation of

045the reports come up with some recommendations that we feel are consistent amongst them not only that we take into consideration the tours they talk about in here are public safety tours information that they we receive out of those take those recommendations evaluate it we try to overlay if we have any grant money available if it's consistent with our strategies for providing safety and security to our schools could be a physical security measure it could be other type programming it depends on what comes in on the recommendation and the evaluation process then we bring that back to you when i do that presentation to you on an annual basis and i've done this since 2019 you've received that usually in the month of october which i'd love to do a little bit earlier this year let

046me just put that on the table but sometimes we're just trying to line it up with your meaning what seems to make sense and i talk about these on a very high level prior to those meetings we have had executive sessions or immediately afterwards we've had an executive session in the past we've also had one-on-one meetings with you prior to us having that meeting me giving you an overview of what i'm going to be talking about and then more detail get down into the nitty-gritty detail what are we talking about what are we actually doing with that money how are we going to spend it how do you think that's going to benefit the safety and security of the schools so it's worked in the past you know how we do it this year depends

047on the pleasure of the board and of course the superintendent how the next superintendent i believe is going to want to handle that and we'll go from there we talk high level though when we do that i talk the big picture stuff so the public understands that we have a very comprehensive program here based on layers it's you know prevention early intervention strategies it has to do with physical security measures i can go on and on i can talk about this stuff for hours and you know that so i try to keep it maybe 20 or 30 minutes when we do that particular presentation but it i try to make it thorough so the public does understand that we're all about it here at ocps and we're working very hard on making this happen for

048our students our staff our teachers our administrators our community this language also talks about conducting those school security risk assessments with the appropriate public safety agencies is that done already that's the tour i'm talking about they yes we do that once every three years with law enforcement local fire they come out to the schools i think we're on the fire service right now they're going around doing the assessments and so they'll meet at the school with an administrator and they'll walk through we prepare a form for them to be able to fill out so we have it in a standardized format it's just not you know pitched at us we have some questions that we ask for them to take and consider and then we get that feedback and we assess that we try to

049compile it so it makes sense and what i'm talking about is the is the assessment that's supposed to be done each year now by october 1st that's the florida safe school assessment tool that provides by school yes ma'am with our city partners that would be responding to our school they have input that would go into that yes okay now i have more detailed questions but we'll talk about that okay at another time okay thank you remember lopez thank you madam chair and thank you for this productive conversation i have a question on slide number 15. well first i have a comment with the change of the of the terminology safety program to accident prevention and safety program i love that but based on the accident prevention did we transform or enrich the content of this

050policy based on prevention based on the experiences that we are just watching across our nation or just changing the terminology and just leave everything the way it is okay a lot of it's based on and i was reading statutory quotes and straight out of the administrative rules that have been developed and adopted at the state of florida it's in the florida administrative code now we have these we're inserting them into our policy based on the florida administrative code now we do have some procedural language that we put in there the one comment that's in there about the safe school school safety specialists will i have come up with some where's the language give it to me it helps me if i'm reading it straight off i don't want to quote the school safety specialist shall

051develop and implement safety and security procedures for all district schools that's language that i ask to be put in there so that we can come up with and then implement into the school safety and security program supported by the policy those type of procedures okay and also in the same slide when we talk about the facility side administrate the second i think it's the second one yeah the facility safety the facility the facility site administrator should be responsible for maintaining safe conditions to their respective orange county public schools community only one person or that is a group or that person is kind i don't know for legal reason as well you know only one person in charge of the of the you know responsible of maintaining the safe conditions is kind of questionable for me

052it is can you please explain a little bit more sure the principal is responsible to make sure he carries out the safety and security protocols of the district at a school so which one is that person is it that's the facility side administrator it's the principal only the people at a school it would be yes so it's the principal of that school yes well i think that we should have you know only the principal for me is kind of i don't know challenging i guess maybe you know the principal has a lot of trainings and responsibilities but i think that somebody else should be with him something like somebody like you for example in terms of safety i don't know if the other school board members agree with me on that one only have the

053principal well that person would still answer up to the principal so i'm sorry that person would still answer directly to the principal if they were there working at the particular school so the principal will make sure that person and everybody at that school should be about ensuring it's a safe and secure school okay okay and the other concern that i have is in slide number 17. it is about the active shooter response training i received an email from a parent describing the training for active shooting for students and what she described was the same experience that i had when i used to be a teacher so the the shooter training it was hiding turn off lights hiding behind the list remember lopez i don't want to get in i don't want we can't get into

054a specific operation if that's okay describe what we are having but what we are having for what we have the experience on a national level is not working while we have certain type of drills in other counties are doing another type of drills and we can even see drills online based on what we are experiencing in the nation so the type of drill that we have i don't know i would love to have more conversation maybe in an executive session with the rest of the board because i don't think and i'm not an expert but when i read the email it was the same drills that i had when i was a teacher and you know situations still happening so i recurring with that's that's a concern that i have at this moment with the

055and i don't know you know how it works with because i think like and thank you misembo to to stop me keeping describing what we have as a drill but i think that if we're talking about prevention and we are just having shooting in you know this type of violence in the school against our staff and students we have to be more current and more aggressive in the type of grill we do we're doing but you know i would love to have that conversation with the with the other school board members i don't know how the chair can help me and can help us to talk about this so i would also love to know how can we address this concern from parents and let let me let me assure you that the purpose of

056this is to have a wide open conversation with as many questions as board members have a presentation first from chief holmes and as i i think it from my standpoint i think it makes sense to have the sheriff and it makes sense to have chief of police for orlando but i'll be interested in your take on that because we have several different chiefs of polices of different cities so you may have a different take on who should be there but i anticipate we will be there as long as we need to be there and i would anticipate this will be several hours and you can ask as many questions i've like i said i've received several questions from parents and some of the questions at the end of the day we may not be able

057to answer them publicly and some of them we will and but the more information we can safely give to our citizens without putting our children at risk i think the better i think we need to be as transparent as we can without slip without crossing that balance to putting our children at risk so that our parents know that we are prepared as prepared as we can be with me in that meeting i would i would request that we have representation from our facility services asset protection team our safety and emergency management who are engaged and involved in drill development and training all associated with active assailant and a whole variety of issues when it comes to drills so we'll have other members represented there as well we work together on these issues and items and

058they're experts in these areas as close as you can get to one and i have full faith and confidence in everybody that's on our team i'm very pleased to be associated with the team that we do have here including our legal services that provide so much support and hand-holding so to speak when it comes to these kind of issues to make sure that we're within the law and we're in compliance with the rules and everything else that we're doing and we also want to be in best practice i want to be with the best practice so i think what you're trying to tell me is maybe we ought to transition to a more dynamic type drill yeah but you know i just want to hear what you're saying and i'll just leave it at that

059i'll try i'm trying to divide it i think that was it and we'll go from there yeah sure thank you so much for your response and also because in the in the slide 17 that said provide the necessary training and resources i don't know i would love to you know to to hear more feedback is this is the necessary training aligned at across the state or is just aligned by district you know do we have that local authority to develop certain type of training or is just a state level decision or recommendations the state tells us how many times we have to do it but not what we have to do but not exactly what we have to do now they do encourage us and need to say again back to best practice what is

060the best practice now i think you're all aware that we have adopted standard response protocols from i love you guys foundation and we work off of that so i don't want to go any more detail than that okay and we'll just talk about an executive session i think that'd be best perfect thank you i also go ahead no please on slide number 20. thank you so much for this feedback on on slide that is said add and implement additional safety and security measures so the school safety specialist in consultation with the learning community and our chief of the high school may require schools to add or implement additional safety and security measures for extracurricular activities and after school events what are the measures that they're taking in consideration what are the aspects that they have

061to take in consideration all right that's the type of detail that we really don't want to discuss at this meeting i'm glad you're asking him want to know but i'm i don't think it's a good idea to lay that out here it can go to staffing levels and things of that nature but any more detail than that i think would be inappropriate at this at this type of meeting so can we have these type of answers and this type of conversation individually how it works either you know i would like the answer to that as well i think that's a great question so dr vazquez is raising her hand over there dr vazquez thank you madam chair what we would like to do is get with each of the board members and have questions submitted

062ahead of time so that we can address them when we meet in closed session and then if you have additional questions at the executive session we can also answer them but it will help us if you submit questions that you have directly to dr williams and then she'll make sure that they get to the appropriate personnel that would be brian and mr pacheco dr vasquez if i could i was going to suggest that but i held back for a second and i just want to make sure that we've thought through this so those documents all become public records and as much as i believe in being open would those not be public records no they do not okay we'll close we'll keep those confidential because they deal with safety and security and that's all exempt

063under 281-301 well they're just questions they're not answers so i wasn't sure if they were we'd have to evaluate it depending on what we yes and that may not be an issue because it's only questions on the other hand questions could just the questions themselves so i just want to make sure somebody was thinking and dr vazquez i didn't mean to be insulting when i just said what i said that somebody was thinking through that legal lens but i was insulting i didn't mean it that way but i just want us to make sure that we're very comfortable having us ask those questions in writing understood and no insult was taken thank you okay general account i'm sorry remember lopez anything else thank you your question i think we'd all be interested in the answer

064general counsel chief holmes actually identified why i pushed my button but i think it's really important to understand that we do have this delicate balance of you all know what's going on schools know what goes on parents know that we have something in place but we can't provide them too much detail because we can't you know get that out there so there is that very delicate balance and so communication is probably also going to have to be looked at as part of that process it absolutely is and one of the things i will tell you just from the few emails that i've received i don't mean it's a few but i mean already i can see the value of parents knowing what protocols should be on one hand because they're part of telling us when

065things aren't being followed so i think that we're going to have to think very very carefully about our communication strategy and where is that again where's that balancing line let me go to member felder remember felder you're recognized thank you i meant to ask when i was on the mic earlier i don't know the number on the slide we talked about the toxic waste or whatever that oh yeah here it is toxic substance in school work areas okay so insofar as possible the superintendent of destiny should minimize the quantities of potentially hazardous substances stored on property owned operated by the board i'm not particularly talking about some this store but this is a experience that i had at one of the schools i worked and sewage was flowing he's doing and i'm i'm sharing this

066on so i have a question about that during school school had already opened it must have been about we opened school with 7 17 7 12 so about 8 o'clock changing from first to second period class and one of the custodians on the yard was desperately trying to combat that and i remember passing through the way i said i said is this how is this waste because we smelt the sin and to me that's toxic so that's why i'm bringing it up and i said if you don't notify the district and they say well yeah but they're not they're not able to come out so my question is we talk about toxic substances i know you're talking about something that's canned or bottled or whatever but i'm all i'm speaking of when there's a problem

067with the surgeon is running out what is the time frame and i know it's hard because we have all these schools and you know i know in in realistically you know you might i could come right then but this happened two to three days at one of the schools i was working and i won't call the school and nothing was being done so i'm asking you the question support nothing a kid nobody got hurt or nothing got all out of hand you know but because the custodian that was there they were desperately the custodians they were desperately trying to stop in it and do what they need what they had power to do so my question chief holmes is the timeline and they school continued to be let in and kids kept passing and going

068and we tried to tell them to avoid that area but there was a serious stench over the school so my question is what is the timeline i mean why would it need why would two days pass before something was done well we haven't identified a timeline in here on that you know this is an individual situation that i'm not aware of and usually not involved in it with the exception of it could have been reported to our communications center our communication center reaches out to facility services and says you've got a sewage spill at this particular school and gives them that information our experience is a very rapid response to that type of situation but now we did have a situation where the bathrooms one time in one of my schools and immediately you know

069it got fixed and some chem lab went off and the water system and came right quickly but this was something from the ground like buildings and ground something that was going on underneath and my concern was even though we had kids already in school we couldn't send them home you know and we don't hold them in class five hours or whatever but i'm just trying to find out like are we low on staff or because i know it was reported cause i called i made one of the calls i called the district no i called district and i said i reported it and they i can't remember they just child on my call but the reason why i thought about it because i'm looking at the toxic substance and i understand you're talking about vital

070things and things of that nature but i found i believe that to be toxic because it was coming from the ground at the executive session you may have an opportunity to talk to the faculty services people rory sambian may be involved in that i suspect specifically tell you exactly what it was in the closed session okay my imagination is running wild i think i got dr williams mine too thank you i will follow up with maintenance or facilities department on the timeline for that so i will take care of that okay all right i will check into that thank you chief all right with my former hat i'm really wanting to know what it is me yeah when you're a teacher you see a lot i know i'm just wondering well well okay i'm just

071wondering if it was it on the school property that it was it was okay okay okay i thought maybe it was an off-site okay oh boy okay thank you chief we're done for now yes john just for the board's information there's i guess there's two separate questions here on toxic substances and hazardous substances one if we do it before we construct a school on a site we have to do due diligence and do environmental testing and all of that to ensure safety that has to be done before we build a school on a site to the extent we have like a sewage main breakage or something like that's more of a maintenance issue that's not necessarily a toxic substance but we're not locating schools on hazardous sites because state law specifically 1013.365 prohibits us from

072doing that and requires us to engage in due diligence before we purchase a piece of property and build a school on it thank you mr pomerani and next we have school board policy jic code of student conduct and the 2022 22 code of student conduct handbook good afternoon so we had a really good discussion i think at the work session back on may 17th on the code of student conduct we got some great insight from the board and we made some modifications to the current code or the current proposed code all the changes are included in the powerpoint and in the red line located on board docs as well as online at ocps.net however since we've already presented all the changes at the work session we're only going to review the modifications that we've made

073since the work session as a reminder anywhere you see the underlining on the powerpoint this is either an addition or modification of the current policy language and although the current policy is contained within the slides oh sorry i already said that we're only going over the actual revisions in addition we've updated the vice chair in the code itself on the second page but since that wasn't a substantive change you won't see that on the powerpoint but it is in the red line and we'll be also updating the table of contents and summary of changes once the code is adopted by the board there were no changes to the policy jic itself and so with that i'm going to hand over the presentation to ms joyner to go over the few modifications that we did have

074in the code of student conduct all right good afternoon on the acknowledgement page secondary fighting we've updated the self-defense definition and it reads i understand that fighting is not allowed i also understand that if i am unable to leave the area of a pending attack i can project protect myself by using self-defense is described as an action that is necessary to protect myself or someone else from serious bodily harm self-defense may include asking an adult for help restraining or blocking the attacker shilling myself or others from being hit or pushing to get away from the attacker however retaliating by striking or hitting punching slapping kicking a person back or choosing not to leave after i am able to get away may be considered as fighting next page again under the acknowledge page secondary on the

075fortified florida we've added the word knowingly and it now reads i understand that if i normally submit a false tip to fortify florida using my ocps device the ip address of the device will be provided to law enforcement as required by law and i may face criminal penalties next slide on the next slide we've updated the self-defense definition for elementary students it reads fighting is not allowed but if someone hits you or someone else instead of hitting back you can protect yourself for getting badly hurt by using what is called self-defense self-defense means getting help from an adult holding or blocking the other students so they can't hit you or anyone else covering your face or body from being hit or pushing the other student so you can leave and get to a safe place

076however if you hit such as punch slap or kick the other person back i'll push them away and don't try to leave you can get in trouble for fighting also for elementary we've added under fortify florida if you report things to fortify florida that you know are not true you might get in trouble so we've added the word no next slide all right on section three student notifications fighting self-defense again we updated the self-defense definition which i just read that matches the one in secondary under section 3 student notifications student parking and school locker search we've added the word end or found and it reads a student is responsible for all objects found in the car the student drove on campus and are found in the student's locker next slide under student i'm sorry under

077section 3 student notifications detention we've added the transportation provision and it reads if a student is assigned detention on a non-school day then the detention shall be no longer than four hours unless their principal or destiny parent or guardian agree otherwise prior arrangements shall be made by principal designee trying to ensure the student has transportation before detention can be assigned on a non-school day all right section 3 student notification restorative practices we removed the sentence according to the international institute of restorative practice it is an emerging social science that cites how to strengthen relationships between individuals as well as social connections and communities excellent all right section four disciplinary code for secondary post secondary level three fighting again we updated the self definition which i read earlier on the acknowledgement page next slide sorry i

078okay i'm sorry again we've updated the definition for self-defense for our elementary students and again i read that earlier on our acknowledgement page and that concludes all of our updates for policy jic in the code of student conduct all right member felder thank you so much we seem to be going through these student code of conducts throughout the board year but that's okay just two questions the first question i think you went back to look at it with elementary school it seems like it might be sort of easier for elementary school kids to kind of push and run and get help i don't i think that may be more difficult for a 6-4 225 pound football player to push and move because in high school there's usually a crowd you know and it may be

079difficult for them to push away because if they're pushing away they may get pushed back in and then i'm just wondering would that be some kind of adjustment because i could see a little a kid six seven years old 40 pounds pushing and trying to get help and being able to get that help but i just don't see how a kid that tall or even some females who are just kind of just you know fighting fighting fighting will they be able to push away so i'm concerned about how that pushing away and the other second thing i'm concerned about is the detention set it's an hour prior to someone some principal designate calling the path the students home to make sure there's transportation suppose they can reach the guardian of the parent or assigned person

080to make sure the person will have a way home and if they can't reach them then what happens to the detention does the student no longer get the detention or what what's in place correct you have to get permission 24 hours in advance to you assigning that kid detention so you're not going to if i get assigned detention today someone needs to reach out to my parents saying mika has attention tomorrow before that detention is going to be assigned okay so they can't reach anybody so what a sign until you reach the parent so that kid won't get punished not at that present time no okay and i understand why that's important because you do need to make sure children can get home safely i think that we need to find some other alternative with

081that and i don't know how because if you take them out of school during the day that's learning that they're missing i don't know when i used to have detentions i didn't figure it out to later on my students started planning to stay in the detention because i had them writing we were reading articles and discussing and they found it like was a after school program they started gathering saying let's get detention and ms fell so we can finish this discussion so you know i had to find another way but at least they were trying to behave you know my detentions seemingly were detentions kids wanted to come to but and i was punishing them i thought but they were learning so i'm just wondering guys if what happens because after a while you know

082if you wait so long to punish a child they don't know why they're still being punished you understand if it's not immediate so and i again i understand that we need to find a way for them to get home and not just keep them but sometimes the numbers we get are not right numbers sometimes parents are out of the out of town out of the country can't speak the language would have anybody there to communicate in their language so what happens i mean to that what what that kid has done to rectify that what you did was incorrect and we need you to know you can't do that again so that's the concern i have because then it just goes out the door well i ain't nobody gonna be able to come give me that

083gonna answer my phones i don't have no detention you understand and we failed in terms of disciplining dealing with that discipline of that student okay and then you heard me say about the elementary school situation compared to high school and middle school i don't know how that's going to work because some of the kids in our high school are very big very tall and pushing i don't know if they're going to be able to run away so those are the two concerns i have thank you could address that thank you can i respond to self defense okay so for the self defense definition pushing and getting away is one form of self defense but we've also included let's see asking someone for help restraining blocking shielding or pushing to get away so that's one option

084the student may have in order to practice self-defense but they can also block or shield or basically restrain the other the attacker from hurting them so i understand what you're saying where elementary students may be able to push and get away and high school students they are a little bit larger but you also they also have other options they can do as well besides just pushing and getting away okay you're welcome and again do you want to attempt to answer the second question regarding non-school day detentions and the potential for not being able to serve them at all to me that'd be a school-based decision so i'll defer to ms joyner on that because that's more of a practice in place and i believe we would have to get with the principal destiny at that

085school to see what they will have in place because i'm sure they have come across that situation so we would reach out to the principal or principal designee to see what they have in place thank you because they need to have something in place that was my point i wanted to have something thank you chair something needed to be in place okay thank you okay remember caster dental thank you madam chair i wanted to just comment on the elementary student code of conduct and the explanation used it is such i appreciate the difference it is so child friendly it's almost like it was written by a mother or someone who speaks to young children often but it really does go a long way for kids to actually understand when you defined self-defense and gave examples

086my question is as i'm i'm sitting here trying to think like a child when you're when they're hearing the code of conduct explained and what's allowed and what's not i think there needs to be more of and i'm maybe this is in the works i know this is just the written code but for kids to know the difference i think there needs to be very explicit examples and non-examples given whether they i'm not going to say they act them out in class but but somehow that they understand truly what the difference is whether it's i don't know if you do a video and have them identify what's appropriate what's not i don't know but i think that in order for the kids to truly understand the difference they're going to have to see a difference

087so those are just my thoughts we did create an activity book for k-2 last year that gave examples and i was just in here thinking we could probably create some additional pages that deals with some of our new topics or are the way we i guess the reworded it to give them some more examples so we can look at doing that creating some pages to show examples of the possibly how to use self-defense thank you and then schools also do a review of the code of student conduct with their students and so i know last year the area administrators worked on a script for teachers to use with the younger kids and for teachers so that way they knew kind of what they needed to cover and so that's something else that we can add

088to the summer training that we do make sure you review what this looks like maybe not obviously practicing on a student but just so that way they know the difference so we can definitely add that to our training as well thank you all right remember lopez i think that sometimes based on the places and the and the circumstances a push can be with your legs doesn't have to be with your hands and let me let me explain you know i used to have a fight in middle school somebody tried to to hit me and the other a nice and you know in puerto rico in middle in middle school you can have 15 16 and if you fail you're still in the middle school i hope that change and i remember that very tall guy

089that is going to come to me a bull in the school everybody was afraid of that person but i was sitting down thank lord and my only safety circumstances that i have is pushing him with my legs i did not fight but i push him with my legs imagine a fight in a boss do you think that the person is if you have a high person and you're a really tiny person sitting down can you push that person it is stronger than you i don't know i think that we try to be very specific but we have to be more flexible in terms of how to defend ourselves doesn't have to be with your hands you can push with even with your legs you can even hit with your head you know we try to

090be very rational and i understand but when you are surrounded by people when you are in a bus when somebody else is holding you and the other person is hitting you it's your life against the other person so why we cannot be more flexible in terms of the way you know we defend ourselves you know they defend their selves their children i don't i don't know if did we ever have i'm sorry that conversation you know but but i think that we have to be more flexible with the way we push people for example to defend ourselves now i'm thinking about my granddaughter today i'm saying oh my god i have to teach her how to pooch because if something's just tiny she's skinny so you know maybe i have to put a pillow with

091rocks to see you know i don't know thinking out of the box i want her to push people you know if somebody's gonna bully her but i think that we have more to be more flexible with this description and i'm sorry that i did not think about that before during the description of the policy but i don't know i would love to have that conversation because i think that there's so many ways of pushing people remember lopez that was the exact situation that i described and not using your hands but using your feet but then it's kicking and the other person i know now i see the language and i'm like we still have the language however the language does say kicking back can we pull the language back up and it's a small thing

092to hang your hat on but self-defense may include may include asking adult restraining bloody blocking the attacker shielding oneself or others from being hit or pushing to get away from the however retaliating by striking or hitting punching slapping or kicking a person back so to me the operative word when i read this was back and i'm hanging my i know i know john paul marini and i could have arguments about how important that word back is because that's what we do when at some point in time a child uses their foot to push somebody away from them when they're being pummeled and it's the only way that they can get away is to use that foot to push somebody away which is the same as kicking and the question is that called kicking back and

093we are here at the 12th hour now and we're still struggling with this language which is why i hear remember lopez saying that she's wanting the language to be broader and less specific and i think that's going to be the key to this from a legal standpoint what is the intent if we could have language that goes towards the intent if the intent is to defend yourself and remove yourself from the from the fight rather than to defend yourself so that you can come back into the fight that's really what the purpose of self-defense is right and you'll see some emails back and forth between sarah myself and john that we actually discuss the fact that you can push with your feet so and if i may go ahead please so coming from a discipline

094standpoint we have to be very weary of what we put in there for self-defense because that is always the first thing a student says when they get in a fight oh i was using self-defense and then we're asking administrators to actually sit down and look at someone's intent and determine make that determination whether they intended for self-defense or whether they were intending to fight so that is a concern from the discipline standpoint as to letting it be more broad and more lenient and i will say i think the language that we have here where we say retaliating that's going to be our key word so did the student and it's a case-by-case scenario i wish that there were a black and white situation but there really isn't and i think we're going to have to

095trust our administrators to know the difference between was this student really using self-defense or were they just engaging in this fight and i know level four situations do come to the area administrators to review and so now you have a team of people looking at the most egregious offenses as to whether something's self-defense or not levels one through three do go to the principal however within the code the parent can then appeal that to the area administrator so again it goes back to a group of people that can review that and really make a common sense determination as to whether something was self-defense or what was it i just cautioned the board against making it too broad because then i worry that will be the number one excuse from every student if they get in

096a fight yeah thank you for pointing out the retaliation i do i agree with you that's the pivotal word here that you're looking to see if this effort by a student is appears to have the intent of retaliating or or protecting themselves go ahead back to you remember lopez you raise this is the policy taking consideration when it's bullying because when it's bullying i think that psychologically speaking even in the adults alive people reacted differently so can you because they are they feel fear they are afraid so the reaction is you know this person is going to hit me again so i have to do something immediately to get rid of that person and just run i don't i don't know how it works in terms of bullying because i don't see anything in the

097policy that follow up with a case of bullying remember lopez can i ask a follow-up to make sure we're understanding you because i remember you brought this up last time are you asking do we have is bullying an extenuating circumstance that might mitigate for a different outcome from the different from the district so if i am in a fight but i've been bullied bullied bullied does my reaction in that fight is that in some way discounted or considered differently is that your question yes okay yes because after you know talking with the dean talking with the teachers they and i can identify a lot of cases as a teacher on having the student in the classroom staying away from the bully then the bully with a group of people just hit that person and the

098person now have a no contact contract but now when the person get upset because the person is gonna hit him again or hit her again the person is going to react so that's why i'm asking if we're taking in consideration the bullying cases because psychologically speaking there is an effect after being bullying because you react in terms of no let me block myself let me you know you get tired you know and that's why when and you know i'm not an expert in law in the law but when we see outside people this is premeditated or not this is under the this is a passionate crime or not so you know i don't know we are dealing with kids and sometimes we have to be on one side or the other one when we have

099a lot of students facing bullying and we're not doing anything for them they don't want to be in school they want to withdraw they want to be absent they are in depression they commit suicide so are we doing something in the code of conduct to address that girl i don't know this is raising her hand over dr vasquez thank you madam chair we do have we do address bullying in the code of conduct and we have specific steps that are taken and it's documented reported it's a very thorough process i think we need to be careful when we are finding reasons why we would excuse or lessen a consequence for a fight the investigations at the schools are very thorough they are reviewed by the area administrators if there are extenuating circumstances such as bullying

100those are taken into account but safety is our number one concern when it comes to fighting and the consequences that are assigned for such offenses so i have another question then if that dr vasquez is that person you know is that student that it was bullying defend himself try to defend himself let's say punching punch back the student is going to have the same consequences of the bully that is already you know up in a lot of situations so both are going to be suspended 10 days out of school suspension that will depend on the extent of the fight and the circumstances that may have been in place as a result of the bullying if there was a no contact contract in place if there had been previous incidences that were reported and were dealt

101with it's not a black and white response and that's why i'm saying that at the school level there is a thorough investigation when it is related to bullying and any offenses that may be tied to bullying and again they are reviewed by the area administrators and so it's not a black and white yes or no it depends on the circumstances and previous consequences or incidences that occurred thank you i'm glad to hear that thank you remember lopez remember gallo thank you thank you madam chair and i i agree with everything that's been said and with what remember lopez has seen cna we're in we're seeing the side effects of what the pandemics caused on the mental health of our kids and kids are angry and we're seeing them lash out and we're i'm concerned about

102that it's going to continue happening which is why i think it's it's very important that this language is clear because as remember lope has pointed i mean if a child is on the ground like my daughter when she was put she was on the ground and she shoved probably with her knees and the way her knees and her hands to get the person off of her so that she could get away so as long as it's not black and white and we're using our best knowledge that we have or we're doing the best that we can to make sure that someone who really is just trying to get away and not get harmed doesn't have to isn't treated the same way as the person that is fighting or the person that attacked them i have

103a question about i just needed to explain to me it but it says self-defense may include asking an adult for help i'm just curious if you're asking an adult for help like when you're on the ground when someone's punching you are you screaming for help how how are we asking for an adult for help in that situation that's a little confusing to me kind of like to think you didn't have to ask at that point if there was an adult right there but there was a adult right there then hopefully you wouldn't you wouldn't have to do anything that comes after that the adult would step in and hopefully pull that the person attacking you off of you but so what would that look like like are you yelling like i'm just i'm confused as

104to why that's even in in here as enlisted as self-defense because i that wouldn't automatically come to your mind as a self-defense i have a theory you do because i asked the same question in my mind i have a theory that in drafting this language the thought was what a what is the what do we want students to do first option ask adult for help and so i think this kind of i i wasn't there drafting it but i suspect that's the first thing we want we want students immediately go to an adult get an adult ask adult friends i'm just not sure it's not self-defense in my opinion but and how if someone's attacking you how do you ask an adult for help if an adult's around then hopefully they're already stopping the attack

105so i'm just trying to figure out in what instance as a self-defense mechanism would we be asking an adult for help you want to you want to answer that sarah yes so exactly as you said that's one of the reasons is we want to think what can a student do if someone's coming at them and they need they understand that they're about to engage in some sort of altercation we want them to yell out for help or ask someone for help i agree if there's an adult in the in the area that's witnessing it we're hoping that maybe they're intervening but what if it's in a locker room and the coach is around the corner in their office and perhaps the coach isn't right there and so now they're yelling for the coach to come

106help them so i think the thought behind this is exactly as chair jacobs had explained it was what can a student do to get away from this situation how can they get out of this predicament that they're currently in where they're facing you know imminent harm from somebody and so we want them to yell out for help we want them to block we want them to run away we want them to maybe a friend comes and restrains the other person so that's really where the thought of that came in and again if an adult is nearby but maybe they don't see it because they're around the corner or something they can yell out for help at that point some maybe that should have been so maybe the word yelling should be in there versus asking

107for help because if our if our intent is for a student to scream for help or yell for help so that an adult will then come and intervene and help and help a student out it might be better to be more clear because self-defense may include asking adult for help that i don't know that's kind of a benign word that if you're getting attacked you're not going to be like yo hey can someone help me like you might want to yell or scream you might do something a little bit more than just ask am i but i do appreciate i wanted to say that i really do appreciate all of the input that y'all took from the board in creating this language and i know we're kind of picking it apart a little bit only

108because we really want to provide something to our students and to our staff that is easily to understand and so that a child can remove themselves or get away or or push or do something so that they're not harmed i mean our intent here is really not to have any child harmed because of their fear of being suspended or expelled but i do appreciate the amount of work that you all have done and really really taking what we've said to heart so i appreciate that but yeah that ask and i don't know i it seems out of place with with everything else that's in that sentence when we describe self-defense i know we're at the end in terms of this process and the question is can we live with this language and come back and

109revise it and i think we're going to need to make that decision at the next meeting when this comes to a vote i think the better way to do that would have been to make two separate sentences the first effort of a student who sees a fight or is fears they're about to be in a fight is to ask an adult for help and then go into what is what is self-defense and i and as member gala said i appreciate also because the more clarity that we can put into this the more we give a tool to administrators when they're looking at this to say okay what what does this mean and how am i seeing this behavior so this is important language it's important work some things we have to we have to get

110done and come back and revise i will i'm not asking for direction today but we will obviously need to make a decision when we come back for a final vote on this are we taking a final vote on this oh we are now we're going to have to make june 14th okay june 14th well we can we can adopt this language as it is we can come back and revise it again and what i'd call a glitch bill is the two is the option that we would have on the 14th yes ma'am question madam chairs because this is a student code of conduct if we were to come back and revise it wouldn't get revised till the next school year right because i mean we have to we have to have this ready to go

111for the beginning of the school year so when would it come back before this board there is there any reason that we can't revise the student code of conduct i don't know what time we have left no you can revise the code of storing kind of in the middle of the year i mean because we do have a couple provisions in there where like if something changes it will be revised but if you want to get it out and get training on it ahead of time over the summer i don't think there's enough time left to advertise and get it back if we were to change it if you were to change it right now that's just why i'm saying before the beginning we can live with this language i think the change that we

112are talking about making is a small enough change that we could make that change and implement that during the school year i'm fine with that okay all right so at this point we're going to keep we're going to keep moving forward that's as much as i'm going to say on that all right next dr williams do you want a break or do you want to leave dr vasquez in the okay well i think i think the other ones are really it's just like we did last time we have policy jake jica jk jka jkb j-l-i-a and e-e-a-e-c and as we discussed last time those are being recommended for repeal and so as long as we get a little head nod and consensus to move forward with that we don't need to go through the rest

113of the policies because that's all they're saying right they're all rolled into something else and then we'll decide what you want to do just for clarification they're being rolled into they are they're all contained in policy jic and the code of student conduct yes that's correct all right good and i'm looking for scott howard for the legislative update and jason the gosh there's jason thank you ladies thank you yes thank you for your patience with us today mr lagash welcome sir thank you i'm sorry it should be in the board docs i'm looking for right now is it in board docs do you know i don't know if it is or not actually you're right i see it's on board docs but the presentation is not in board docs if it's not they're now happy

114to make it available as soon as we're done here thank you army yeah is there a way to make it available right now sure if we take a break we can work on that i feel like take a break i think we can take a five minute break that's a good idea work on that okay let's do that and that way it'll become available for everyone yeah i'd need some oh oh questions 30 seconds all right let's go like a certain dress code for legislative dress code legislative dress code my mic should be on okay okay sorry i might have started a moment before our it folks are ready for our video services video services yes sorry thank you mr howard mr lagash welcome thank you good afternoon madam chair board members thank you yes

115today we're going to be doing the 2022 florida legislative session review we'll go over many of the bills that were passed during session and there are some that are that are part of the presentation are on board docs but below the question so if their questions come up about a couple of bills that maybe aren't in this presentation they probably are below and so we could certainly address those as well also as you're moving through or as jason takes us through the presentation think about the priorities for for next legislative session and obviously there's a lot of things that will happen between now and then including a primary and a general election but as we look backwards and look forwards to look looking at what those priorities because normally we start having those conversations in

116june and august as we prepare for that for the legislative agenda for the next next session so having said that thank you i will turn it over to jason lagash senior director of government relations jason thank you board members i will start the presentation just briefly with a few notes on the budget i know you all received a in-depth budget presentation i think two weeks ago now so i won't be labor that information but i did just i think it's worth highlighting a few points from the budget that were particularly noteworthy and so just quickly total fefp funding so that's the primary primary source of statewide funding for for our school districts was 24.3 billion dollars for the upcoming year that's a 7.5 increase over the current year within that number is the base student

117allocation so those are the flexible discretionary funds that districts receive on a per student basis those were increased by a little over 214 dollars per student or 4.9 percent and then we also saw an increase in the teacher salary increase allocation by an additional 250 million dollars so 800 million dollars total committed to address teacher compensation in our districts and then we saw additional allocation funding increases for safe schools mental health assistance reading instruction and transportation as well two policy related issues within the budget the first requires school districts to pay each and every employee at least 15 dollars per hour beginning october 1st of 2022 and the second revises eligibility requirements for the school recognition program so it moves the program outside of the fefp and changes the eligibility requirements by limiting funds to

118those schools that were not found in violation of emergency rules promulgated by the department of health related to face covering mandates during either of the last two school years so regardless of individual school performance such criteria would likely exclude as many as 12 school districts across the state including ocps and i think it's worth noting that of those 12 dis those 12 districts account for more than half of the state's public school students on to the legislative summary so the 2022 legislative session formally ended on march 14th since that time the legislature has convened two additional special sessions to address a narrower scope of issues but during the regular session there were 3685 bills filed between the house and the senate of those 285 bills passed both chambers and have either gone to the governor

119for action or are pending action with the governor so this presentation as scott said will focus on about 20 or so bills with the most significant impact to public education in the state and ocps operations specifically i've presented the bills in an ascending order based on bill number so that leaves us with house bill 7 related to individual freedom the bill provides that it is discrimination on the basis of race color national origin or sex to subject a public school student or employee to instruction or training that espouses promotes advances inculcates or compels students or employees to believe certain specified concepts so some of those concepts quickly include that members of one race color national origin or sex are morally superior to members of another race color national origin or sex and that a person

120by virtue of his or her race color sex or national origin bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions in which the person played no part committed in the past by other members of the same race color national origin or sex the bill also requires that all instruction and supporting materials used to teach required topics in public schools be consistent with principles of individual freedom and those principles are similar to the concepts i just mentioned the bill does specify the discussion of these concepts as part of a larger course of training or instruction is not otherwise prohibited provided that such instruction is given in an objective manner without endorsement of those particular concepts the bill requires the state board of education to develop a stories

121of inspiration curriculum that consists of stories of american history that demonstrate important life skills and the principles of individual freedom the bill expands required instruction in the history of african americans for example it requires that african american history instruction help students develop an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice racism and stereotyping on individual freedoms and examine what it means to be a responsible and respectful person and lastly the bill shifts the character development requirements for grades 9 through 12 and the mental and emotional health component of health education into newly required education on life skills which specifies content intended to build confidence support mental health and enable students to overcome challenges house bill 173 relates to establishing individualized seizure action plans for students affected by epilepsy or other seizure disorders so a school would be

122required to implement one of these plans once a parent submits it to the school principal and to us in the school nurse the plan is developed and signed by the parent and a medical professional schools that receive such a plan must verify that each school employee who comes in regular contact with the student has completed training on the care of students with epilepsy or seizure disorders and a school nurse is required to coordinate the care including administering medication as outlined in the student's individual plan house bill 225 addresses charter school charters it modifies provisions relating to charter agreements between a sponsor and a charter school in several ways first it provides that a charter may be modified at any time rather than only during its initial or renewal term second it revises provisions related to

123consolidating two or more charter schools and third it modifies the procedures and notification time frame for terminating or renewing or non-renewing a charter so in those instances no notification to the charter school is required in writing and at least 90 days before the end of a school year prior to any proposed sponsor vote on renewal non-renewal or termination if such notice is not given the charter would automatically renew house bill 235 addresses the restraint of students with disabilities it prohibits the use of mechanical restraints by school personnel except for school resource officers school safety officers school guardians or school security guards who may use mechanical restraints in the exercise of their duties to restrain students in grades 6 through 12. devices prescribed or recommended by physical or behavioral health professionals may still be used for

124their indicated purposes and authorized school personnel are still permitted to use appropriate physical restraint as permitted by existing law and i understand that the district previously has prohibited the use of mechanical restraints senate bill 236 modifies the definition of a development developmental delay by extending the upper age limit for the identification of a student as having a developmental delay from age five to age nine which is the maximum age authorized by federal law or through the completion of grade 2 whichever occurs first a student with a developmental delay may be included in the definition of an exceptional student and eligible for admission to public special education programs and related services house bill 2 255 expands the definition of private instructional personnel to include a registered behavior technician who holds a nationally recognized paraprofessional certification in

125behavior analysis so rbts are authorized to provide applied behavior analysis services in a public school by assisting and under the supervision of a board certified behavior analyst rbts must be employed by an enrolled medicaid provider house bill 395 establishes the victims of communism day and requires the governor to annually issue a proclamation designating november 7th as such beginning in the 2023-2024 school year the bill requires high school students enrolled in the required u.s government class to receive at least 45 minutes of instruction on victims of communism day on topics of communist dictators and how victims of communism suffered under these regimes by april 1 of 2023 the state board of education must adopt revised social studies standards for the required us government course that incorporates the updated educational standards for instruction on victims of communism

126day house bill 461 makes changes to the eligibility requirements of the florida bright futures scholarship program so under current law awards under the bright futures program require a student to perform a specified number of volunteer hours to meet eligibility requirements the bill modifies the eligibility requirements for the program to include an option for students to use paid work hours in lieu of volunteer hours to qualify for the scholarship the paid work hour requirement is the same as for volunteer hours so including documentation in writing of paid work hours and a student evaluation and reflection upon his or her paid work experience through papers or other presentations senate bill 706 makes minor changes to school concurrency statutes first it provides that school concurrency is deemed satisfied when a developer simply tenders a written legally binding commitment

127rather than actually executing such commitment to provide mitigation proportionate to the demand created by development two it requires school boards to notify the local government that capacity is available for such development within 30 days after receipt of a developer's commitment three it provides that mitigation paid by a developer rather than being immediately directed toward a school capacity improvement may be set aside until an appropriate improvement has been identified senate bill 758 makes a number of additional changes to the charter school authorization and renewal process first it creates the charter school review commission within the florida department of education the commission would have the same powers and duties as that of current charter school sponsors with regards to reviewing and approving charter schools however a district school board is still required to serve as the sponsor

128of and supervisor for the new charter school so potential charter school applicant would be required to submit its application to the school district where the proposed charter school will be located within three days of submitting that same application to this new commission and then school districts would be allowed to provide feedback to the to the commission on the proposed charter school application the commission itself would be comprised of seven members appointed by the commissioner of education and confirmed by the senate those members would serve four-year terms additionally the bill modifies the criteria for non-renewal or termination of a charter to specify that a charter school must be under a deteriorating financial condition or financial emergency in order for a sponsor to not renew or to or to terminate a charter for fiscal mismanagement and it

129also removes the other good cause shown as a ground for the termination or non-renewal of a charter school the bill specifies requirements relating to charter school renewal terms in two ways first it requires that a charter must be renewed for a five-year term if a c graded school otherwise qualifies for renewal and it automatically grants a 15-year renewal if a charter school has received a school grade of a or b in the most recent graded school year which is a departure from current law which would require the such a grade in three of the past four years as long as the school is not otherwise in a state of financial emergency the bill prohibits a charter school from being subject to land use regulations which would not be required of a public school and authorizes

130a charter school to use a school district's interlocal agreements the bill also creates the florida institute for charter school innovation which would be located at miami-dade college the purpose of the institute is to improve the charter school authorization process by analyzing charter school applications and identifying best practices providing technical assistance to sponsors conducting research and training workshops and lastly the bill authorizes members of the florida legislature to visit any public school in his or her district without prior notice house bill 777 requires a local government seeking voter approval to lence at a general election it's worth noting however that the effective date of this bill is october 1. so the bill itself still awaits action by the governor but should he sign it the effective date is october 1 therefore it has no impact on

131the continuation of the one mill referendum that will appear on the primary election ballot on august 23rd house bill 817 broadens an exception to the general rule that medical treatment cannot be rendered without a patient's consent so under current law parental consent is required for a physician to provide emergency medical care to a minor unless the care is rendered in a hospital setting the bill deletes restrictions on location allowing physicians to provide emergency medical care to a minor at any location without parental consent similar to emts and paramedics however the bill does continue requirements under current law that the need for care be the result of a genuine emergency and that appropriate medical personnel first attempt to identify and contact the minor's parents house bill 899 addresses mental health of students so the mental health

132assistance allocation within the fefp is intended to provide funding to assist school districts in establishing or expanding school-based mental health care so under the billa school district's annual mental health assistance allocation plan must include policies and procedures to provide information on available mental health services and resources for students and their families specifically a district's plan must provide a parent of a student receiving services information about additional available behavioral health services through the school or through local community-based behavioral health providers the bill also requires school districts to identify a mental health coordinator that will serve as the primary point of contact regarding the district's student mental health policies procedures responsibilities and reporting and then lastly the bill requires charter schools to comply with involuntary examination data reporting requirements that were established by the legislature in 2021

133for traditional schools senate bill 1048 addresses the state's student assessment program it modifies florida's standard assessment standardized assessment program to include a statewide coordinated screening and progress monitoring system for english language arts in grades three through ten and mathematics in grades three through eight beginning next school year the new progress monitoring system must include a screening and progress monitoring assessment administered at the beginning and middle of the school year and an end-of-year assessment administered in the spring the results of which will replace the florida standards assessment and be used for accountability purposes in grade 3 retention high school graduation school grades and school improvement ratings assessments must be computer-based and able to identify students who have a substantial deficiency in reading or math including identifying students with characteristics of dyslexia beginning with the 2023-2024 school

134school year the assessments must also be computer adaptive the results of the assessments must be provided to teachers within one week and to parents within two weeks when reporting the results they must be easy to comprehend include resources to help parents understand the new progress monitoring system and provide and be provided in a web-based format for parents and students to access additionally the bill requires school districts to secure parental consent if district required assessments exceed the five percent test administration limits the bill also requires the education commissioner by january 31st of 2025 to make recommendations related to improving the new progress monitoring system in several ways i think most noticeably to assess the validity of using progress monitoring assessments one or two or both in place of using the comprehensive end-of-year progress monitoring assessment for

135accountability purposes the bill also provides a one-year transition period during which the calculation of school grades and school improvement ratings for the 2022-2023 school year are based on the new end of year assessment those grades will simply serve as an informational baseline for schools to work toward improvement in future years the bill provides hold harmless provisions relating to school grades and school improvement ratings during the transition so a school will not be required to enter turn around based on its 22-23 school grades but may exit turnaround with a grade of c or higher that year senate bill 1054 requires that beginning with students entering grade 9 in the 2023-2024 school year those students must earn one-half credit in personal financial literacy and money management in order to receive a standard high school diploma so the

136bill maintains the total number of credit students must complete to earn a diploma by reducing the number of elective credits students have available from eight to seven and a half house bill 1421 improves transparency around school safety and security and addresses student mental health by requiring the office of school safe office of safe schools to develop a model family reunification plan that guides family reunification when public schools are closed or unexpectedly evacuated due to natural or man-made disasters and it requires district school boards and charter school governing boards to adopt such a reunification plan the bill requires the state board of education to adopt rules setting requirements for emergency drills including timing frequency participation training and notification and it requires that law enforcement officers responsible for responding to schools in the event of an assailant

137emergency be physically present and participate in active assailant drills the bill requires safe school officers that are sworn law enforcement officers to complete mental health crisis intervention training and it requires safe school officers that are not sworn law enforcement officers to receive training on incident response and de-escalation and finally requires school districts to annually certify beginning in july of next year that at least 80 percent of all school personnel received the mandatory youth mental health awareness training house bill 1467 addresses two sort of unrelated issues the first is it establishes a term limit of 12 consecutive years for district school board members beginning with terms starting on or after november 8th of 2022 and excluding any time served before that date and then secondly the bill makes several changes to how districts select and review

138instructional and library materials the bill requires that each district school board that holds meetings of committees convened for the purpose of selecting instructional materials for recommendation those meetings must be noticed and open to the public and must include parents of district students district school boards must also provide access to all instructional materials before making any official action on such materials and the board must also select approve or adopt materials as a separate line item on the agenda rather than on a consent agenda and must provide an opportunity for public comment on library materials the bill requires a school district to adopt and post on its website procedures for developing library media center collections including a process to address objections by a parent or a resident of the county and provide for resolution the bill requires

139each district to also submit to the department of education an annual report that identifies each material for which the district received an objection in the school year and the specific objections and each material that was removed or discontinued as a result of an objection then the department is to publish that list of materials of the list of materials that were removed or discontinued by school districts additionally the bill requires that materials made available to a student on a library media center or included in a recommended recommended or assigned reading list must be selected by a certified educational media specialist beginning in july of next year school librarians media specialists and other personnel involved in selecting those materials must complete training developed by the department of education lastly the bill requires that elementary school library collections

140be published on the school's website in a searchable format that will also be developed by the department house bill 1557 requires school boards to adopt procedures for notifying a student's parent if there is a change in services or monitoring related to the student's mental emotional or physical health or well-being under these procedures district personnel must encourage a student to discuss issues related to his or her well-being with his or her parent and the bill prohibits a school district from maintaining procedures that require district personnel to withhold from a parent or encourage a student to withhold information related to a student's mental emotional or physical health or well-being there's an exception there though procedures may authorize district personnel to withhold information only for reasonable belief that disclosure would subject the student to abuse abandonment or neglect

141secondly the bill prohibits classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards third at the beginning of each school year a school district must notify parents of all health care services offered at their student school and provide parents the option to individually consent to or decline each service and lastly the bill requires a school district to adopt procedures for a parent to notify the district of concerns regarding provisions in this bill and the process for resolving those concerns so if a complaint is not resolved within the district within 30 days a parent then has two options they can request the appointment of a special magistrate to

142resolve the matter or bring an action against the school district to obtain a declaratory judgment in this instance the court may award damages and must award reasonable attorney fees and court costs to a prevailing parent senate bill 2524 is the education appropriations conforming bill so this bill is intended to amend florida statutes to provide for specific changes in the general appropriations bill this year however the bill includes a number of additional education policy provisions that for a variety of reasons didn't otherwise make it through the sort of regular legislative process so i've tried to group these policy changes into general categories so on accountability measures the bill requires the state board of education to annually review the school grading scale and to adjust this grading scale when more than 75 percent of all schools of

143a specific school type receive a grade of a or b i think the only school type currently close to that threshold are combination schools so k-8 schools i think the number is currently 72 percent of those schools receive a grade of arb secondly the bill requires the department to collect annually data from school districts on the amount of instructional time spent on district and state required assessments and report those findings to the governor and third it requires that the decision to withhold information from a parent related to his or her child's well-being be documented and redetermined annually so this is a this is sort of a clarification of the provision that was included in house bill 1557 that we just discussed on controlled open enrollment the bill modifies provisions related to current controlled open enrollment

144processes and requires school districts to identify and disclose on their websites the capacity of each school by grade level and to update such data every 12 weeks there are a number of personnel matters that were addressed the first clarifies the teacher evaluation procedures are not a mandatory subject of collective bargaining the bill requires schools to use the agency for health care administration provider background screening clearing house to conduct all personnel background screenings and it establishes a criminal penalty for individuals who knowingly fail to report sexual misconduct by a school authority figure on student literacy the bill establishes a new world's reading initiative literacy micro credential to enable teachers to provide evidence-based reading interventions and it provides financial incentives for teachers who earn those credentials on student transportation it expands the use of transportation funds to

145include alternative vehicles and establishes the driving choice grant program to support innovative solutions that increase the efficiency of public school transportation and then on virtual instruction the bill authorizes an approved virtual instruction program provider to enroll students residing in the school district as well as students throughout the state subject to the controlled open enrollment requirements mentioned above and it also permits school districts to allow virtual students to complete a course beyond the 180 day school year and still receive funding house bill 7049 gives a governmental agency the option to publish its legal notices on the publicly accessible website of the county in which it lies instead of in a printed newspaper if doing so would cost less than publishing legal notices in a newspaper if an enemy chooses to publish those notices on a website

146instead it must give notice at least once annually in a newspaper that those notices will subsequently be posted online and i just wanted to highlight a few key dates some of those were are related to legislative action the first two so beginning more than two weeks ago now that we've entered into a children's books sales tax holiday that runs through august 14th there's a two two-week period before the start of the school year for the annual sort of back-to-school sales tax holiday and then the first day of school is on august 10th the august 23rd primary election followed by the general election on november 8th and then we'll have committee meetings and then the next legislative session will begin march 7th of 2023 so with that i'll turn it over for questions comments and discussion

147thank you first question or comment comes from member gala thank you madam chair well there's just so much to unpack so much to unpack with this last legislative cycle first and foremost i want to say i just and i think that remember castro dental would agree with me i just don't ever think it's a good process to legislate through a conforming bill i don't think that we should be putting policy in a budget and a lot of times tallahassee likes to do that because the bill's not moving quick enough or they're having problems with the bill so instead of it going through the correct avenues which would be both chambers them coming to consensus and the bill passing they'd like to shove it into conforming bill and we saw we saw several instances of bills

148that will impact this district being being put in conforming bills i know it has nothing to do with us but i was getting i just want to state that i just i don't think that's a good practice i don't think that's what we should we should strive for as an elected body so i have so the 200 million i i want to clarify there was 200 million put in in the budget it was outside the fe fp for those districts that have a rated schools we won't we don't we're not eligible because we're we're a part of the dirty dozen because the district mass for 60 days and i just want to say publicly that i'm very disappointed in that because our teachers didn't make that decision as a body we did and we're hurting

149teachers we're having teachers working in schools that could be a rated that are a-rated and they won't receive those funds so we're hurting the people the very people that may have disagreed with the decision this board made in the time of a pandemic and i just don't think we can't do anything about it we've got to follow the law but i don't think i just think that's harmful i think it's hurtful i don't think that teachers or our educational personnel or anybody should have to sacrifice or do without because of a decision this board made so i'm disappointed that that was made and now we have our educators will lose out on funds in our schools not just our educators because those money do go into the schools to provide resources for those schools will

150now lose out it was just it was vindictive it was a vindictive thing to do to 12 districts so i just want to publicly state that so hb7 you know in a lot of these bills that you went over hb7 14 what is it 1467. hb 1557. the devil's in the details and the language was very vague i don't like i don't know how do we define developmentally appropriate how do we define indoctrination like how how is a district are we going to be able to follow the law because that's what we're we're here to do we're here to follow the laws given to us without these things being defined i know that we're waiting on guidance from the department of education but i know that we're going to have a long summer and many

151conversations with with general counsel and with and with our lawyers on what this looks like for our students because it is vaguely defined and what we're seeing and what i'm afraid of is when something is vaguely defined we get very conservative in our approach because what you when you mention 1557 what you didn't say is in the back we mentioned it but in the back of the bill it goes before the magistrate you mentioned we have to pay for that we're responsible for that magistrates fees and then if the magistrate rules on the side of the district it then goes to the state board of education and they can overrule what the magistrate decides and we have a state board of education that is very conservative in nature so i am concerned i'm concerned for

152our students and i'm concerned as a district how we tackle some of these challenges to make sure that we uphold the laws we are required to do and we make sure that no child is hurt by by this legislation and so i'm not certain i'm not certain how we get there but i know that as a district we will do everything that we can 255 mechanical restraints we stopped doing those last year so i mean i'm thankful for that rbts i've been i'm i think this is a great piece of legislation i know others probably don't agree with me on this but hb 255 especially right now with the lack of resources that we have trying to find people to get into our esc classrooms this is another tool in our tool belt this is

153another another something else that we can use to help provide services to these these students that need services and by allowing parents to bring in their own rbts it not only helps the student but it could help the teacher with the modifying of their behavior and we're seeing a lot of behavior issues come out of covid 61 it is a great bill allowing allowing students to be able to use their work instead of their volunteer hours is just fabulous it'll help so many more students apply for that bright futures we have students that they have to work they're helping their their parents pay their bills they don't have a choice and it made getting that hundred volunteer hours very difficult so this was an extremely good bill and i was so happy to see it

154pass in the legislative in 706 how how will how will we set those dollars aside how what will that look like when we that capacity like do does it go into escrow like how will we set those dollars aside yeah i think that i think that they're just i think that they're withheld until i don't know what particular account those get withheld but they were held until there's a identified project that would address capacity issues so the developer would withhold it so it'll be changing the current practice of how we no no no we'll hold the dollars we'll hold the dollars we just hold them but we don't spend them right oh okay but so we hold them until okay and that won't be that won't be difficult for the district because there's already been

155a process similar for accounting for those dollars and earmarking them for a project awesome and then 758 on the charter so as a school board we no longer approve charters that will go through the charter authorization group no you can you can continue to approve charters in the same way it simply adds another avenue for charter school applicants to go to get their charter approved but the district would then continue to oversee the charter if and when it were approved by the commission so they can choose to go before this body or go to that group is it an either or correct okay but we're still we're still responsible mr palmer has a response as well john pomeranis mr palmer you recognize thank you madam chair this identical practice in 2008 was ruled facially unconstitutional

156by the first district court of appeals but the beauty is in the interim that school districts now no longer have the standing to sue under state laws so we couldn't even challenge it even if we wanted to because we have to presume the laws are correct thank you that's and then the other thing that's set up that's going to be in miami that is the best practices will that be like best practices that will be shared with the school board will that be best purchases that will share it be shared with this new authorizer do you know well i think yeah i mean i think they'll be shared in general with any potential chartered sponsors so district school boards universities that would have choose to do sponsors and then obviously with the new commission as

157well awesome and then 8.99 i just have to say that i'm very i'm very happy to see that charter schools will be included in the bankrupt bill that passed in 2021. i think that's imperative that we all are on this we're all public schools we should all have to follow under the same accountability rules i know in 1048 we're waiting for direction do we know about esa or excuse me fsa rights do we know if fsa writes will we be how will we be administering that since this is computer-based and no longer written form anybody know dr vasquez yes the team received information i believe it was last week and they're putting together a document that will share all the updates with the board regarding the changes to the new assessment the three times a

158year the duration and how writing will be implemented for all grades awesome thank you and then the five percent cap how how will that will we reach that mark because i know that we do district provided end-of-year exams for all subjects i forget what the acronym for them is right now what i'm sorry what are they done oh cfe so with the cfe would well will the five percent cap hinder us doing the cfes or do we have to review those those cfes yes we our team has looked at that and we are well below that threshold in fact doe has encouraged districts to continue with other progress monitoring in addition to the three progress monitoring that will take place at the state level we will not be doing that for this upcoming year we

159will be evaluating the data that we receive from the progress monitoring documents and if that does not suffice then we will look at what we can do for additional information so we are we are well within that five percent thank you so just so i want to make sure i understood you correctly the department of education is encouraging districts to in conjunction with the progress monitoring that's now in 1048 also do our own progress monitoring so instead of having three exams a year we would have six that's what they're encouraging districts to do they're encouraging them to continue to use their own progress monitoring and i believe iredi was specifically mentioned at foil and so yes that is they are they're asking that they continue and i believe part of that may be because they're

160not quite sure how the data is going to come out and how it can be used we don't know if they will require schools that will have certain designations from doe because they do not meet the criteria for essa the subgroups to have additional progress monitoring we're still waiting on further direction but as a district we will not be doing additional progress monitoring we're only going to use this state initiated progress monitoring correct and we will continue to use the pmas for those areas that we do not that the state will not have a progress monitoring for example fifth grade science we'll continue with the pmas for that okay thank you and then i just want to make sure that everybody's clear i don't know their face listening but so that because i've gotten a

161couple emails on this but everything will be computer-based so they're so in current state law i think it was k through sixth grade had to be in written form this bill changed that so now every everything will be computer-based there'll be no more pencil and paper test given in three through six and then i asked about that already how many how many seven and how many half credit electives do we have are we going to have to create more electives for 1054 because of the financial literacy like do we have an abundance we do of half credit electives okay perfect and then 1467 we do we have a media specialist in every school madam chair if i may we do not have a certified media specialist in every school we already identified those schools that

162do not have one they've been notified our team is looking at how they will provide the support for the upcoming school year since the materials and the collections have to be reviewed by a certified media specialist but they are also aware that for the following school year they will need to have a certified media specialist in every school that's going to strain our resources that's going to be my understanding is that every school is allocated a media specialist so the dollars are there they most of them have had a media clerk that has been functioning or taking care of some of the duties in the media centers but for the 23-24 school year all schools will have to purchase a certified media specialist okay so this for this upcoming year they just has to be

163one has to be assigned to the school well we're currently working through what that looks like but it appears that our district staff will probably take that role on unless the school is able to hire a media specialist for this upcoming school year and then i already talked about 1557. i did want to say that as a school district we've we've always wanted to engage parents it's always our goal we know that as a student is more successful they perform better academically they do better in school when a parent is involved so we've never not wanting to engage a parent any you know every step of the way parent engagement is pivotal to that student's success and we've always encouraged that so i just want to state that's all i have madam chair thank you

164i just i have one quick question and i know we discussed this during the session i don't know if the language in senate bill 2524 ever got clarified before it got approved but the language was very broad when it talked about the 75 percent rule that if you that to annually review the school grading scale and adjust the grading scale when more than 75 percent of the schools of any type receive an a or b and it didn't say whether that meant schools per district or schools per state that's a it's intended to be a statewide review it is state wide okay did they ever clarify that i mean did they claire for that language did they just i told you i think they did okay you're in the bill yeah okay well anyway glad

165to glad to know that's much better than district by district thank you any other questions from other board members yes oh wow as soon as i said that remember lopez member kester denim caster dental first member lopez thank you madam chair about the senate bill 1048 about student assessments do we know if we're gonna keep using what we have as like the progress monitoring assessments or i don't know it will be provided by the state doctor dr vasquez you want to answer that question yes madam chair the three progress monitoring assessments that the state will be conducting all of that will come directly from the state i believe there's no cost to the district we will continue to deploy our progress monitoring us activities for those assessments that are not part of the district's progress

166monitoring system that includes science i believe biology civics the state progress monitoring currently will only include mathematics reading and writing and writing will be for all grade levels for the fsa as you know the writing is only in the fourth the eighth and the tenth grade even the beginning one and the end of the year will be provided by the state with on the three subject that you already mentioned yes the state will be it will be administered three times a year but the one that will count for accountability school grades will be the third one at least for the first couple of years and we will use the information from those progress monitoring assessments to inform instruction and adjust resources and support to students who may not be meeting the standards based on the

167state's progress monitoring okay thank you emma castro thank you madam chair and thank you all for going to tallahassee so thank you for your presentation and all the information i have a request and i know this is a summary of the legislative outcomes from this last session it would be helpful to me even though i've been in tallahassee certain legislature i'm in the school and on the school board it would still be helpful to me given all that background if if you could provide a more detailed presentation or information regarding these bills and contrast them or maybe set up a comparison of what we're doing in practice today and how the bills will affect or what changes we will have to make instead of just this is what we'll have to do so for instance

168the school recognition program that we have the eligibility has changed that affects our district because we decided to follow the cdc guidelines and prevent further virus contagion and or contamination and people getting sick we were doing what was i believe best for our district and what the majority of our constituents wanted so our teachers are going to be the ones that suffer when they do not receive those funds so if you could tell us not just how much money that the state provides for that program but how it affects us specifically i think the maybe the last time we got this funding it was about 10 million dollars that went to our schools and maybe will this requirement be lifted next year will will our teachers and schools be eligible for this funding next year

169or is this just a one-year punishment i don't know i don't know if you have any more information about that yeah i mean the changes that were made are in the school recognition program statute so i would think that if you're you were having violated violated the department of health rules in those two school years you would be ineligible in subsequent years as well barring a statutory change to the program again so that information those other details would be helpful i think to our teachers to know as well and you know so any information like that you can provide like even our mechanical restraints we're not we've taken steps already to address the use of mechanical restraints but then how does it affect us specifically i know you're you haven't been here as long as

170you don't know a lot of the current practices but i know that scott knows this stuff inside and out but just if we could get some more details about i don't know how things are going to be changed does that make sense yeah we and i can speak on this because we've done this every year going through the legislative process while we provide the liaison with our legislators and work through this process and jason or i or in the past it's been cody or eileen who presented we also in the background have provided and jason did it this year did a great job of putting together an implementation chart so that way our folks who are implementing these bills because what we do is track and advocate and and try to move through the process

171and make sure we're advocating on behalf of the school district the school board as things move through once that happens the implementation becomes a little bit more complex because as we've mentioned before we're waiting on direction from the department of education technical assistance things that roll out so what we rely on and what jason relies on what i've always relied on is staff analysis what what they say the bill was going to do the effects of the proposed change after after the bill is implemented in a lot of cases you know these bills have been slow to roll out and be signed on by the governor and so we're not going to receive technical assistance until after the governor has actually signed it into law so that's delayed quite a bit of the specifics behind

172it but you're right on the on the school recognition piece it's been about 10 million dollars statewide that's been divided this is significantly more money this year it is a budgetary decision every year last year there wasn't any school recognition money because schools weren't graded we didn't go through that process in fact this year i don't the senate didn't even have school recognition money in their initial proposal the house had 9 or 10 million assuming that schools were going to be graded part of the compromise in taking the 200 million and moving it outside of the fefp so it didn't disequalize the funding formula but still provided some kind of reward or award to those districts that followed the the health the department of health emergency order versus those that did not and that was

173part of that you know that was part of that overall process so i believe that you know in the coming years or in the coming year they will address that and that's certainly something we could put in into our legislative platform to advocate for our teachers and our school employees because it's not just teachers it's all school employees that you know accomplished a letter grade of an a or moved a letter grade to a b or or up to an a so we can certainly address that in in our legislative platform i do think that jason put out a an end-of-year legislative summary that had summarized bills but also areas where you could click and links that would take you out to bill analysis staff analysis which is about as close as you can get

174to effects you know of of the proposed changes and what's going to happen moving forward so something that we can revisit and even send out for those that are interested in delving deeper into the staff analysis doing a presentation we could certainly be here all day going through every every bill and like jason said we went through 20 bills and there's a number of bills below the line that we've included so that way you knew they were there we've gone over those with staff but wanted to make sure that they were there and if you had any questions about those we'd be happy to address those as well so you said you're going to send analysis to us the end of the year analysis was send out the summary after week nine we could resend

175that and even include the bill summaries and i mean the staff analysis which would you know if you're interested could click and go into a little deeper dive into the rationale behind it and the fiscal impact and the constitutionality if it's listed in in the constitutional impact of the of the bills as well thank you i still have a question so the bill analyses are they're not always specific to our district so if there's a way though that it would be helpful i think to to get that information that about like how will this legislation actually affect our district specifically since we do things a little different than other districts sometimes or you know our you know like this will hurt 10 million dollars this will take 10 million dollars from our district it might

176be less for a different district but if there are things that you know like the charter review application you know where maybe it's anticipating some of the questions that we might have as well to kind of provide a little more detail this is great i'm just saying that from even from my perspective this is there's so much here that i'm not sure where how it affects us specifically dr castro can can i add something to your point there no ma'am he may not of course you can always yes please don't please help me if you're having some yeah the bill dealing with restraints would be helpful for the board to have at their disposal because for some of us that's we're real familiar with that for others aren't aren't that bill while a good bill

177doesn't affect orange county directly because we didn't have those we were no longer using those restraints that type of information is helpful to know the testing i mean we've been thinking okay there's gonna be some sort of less testing and the how that testing affects us when it's determined what testing we're going to keep and then the testing that's going to come on that type of information would be helpful so are those are just two examples that i can that i can think of the history they yes lay that information we it was clear about k through three i think how you handle that but if we had some more clarity as it relates to our district some teachers may have some concerns with are they within the law the status of the law they

178teach this or how and then because it says it's kind of cloud it says how a person may feel how can one judge well coming back to the crt you're talking about the interesting thing there in when you describe that bill is here's what you can't teach but what has not been said before is but here's what you shall teach and teach more of and why teaching about the history of racism in our country is good and healthy so i think you're talking about that and it really says that you have to be careful yes be sure that it doesn't have a negative effect so how a teacher teaching how can one judge its effect you see what i'm saying then they may feel that they are going against a statue or breaking a law

179so and i know you what you have done this is a lot this is a lot i should say you went to tallahassee thank you so much but the fact of the matter is and i think it's a board as a district i think we've very tried hard to be able to disseminate the information that was given to us from the state level but many of us sitting on this board we're former educators and we understand the need and this necessity of having the autonomy and freedom to teach information that you know so i that it's kind of cloudy in some areas you see what i'm saying so we have clarity as where we stand as a district and what we're going to promote in support of our teachers that would help us you guys

180you got to say what i'm saying you got a big job cut out for you from a communication standpoint and you are so right because the critical race theory i mean i think it's clear to me what they're trying to make sure that we're not doing and we're not trying to make every child feel guilty about what they didn't do but they also included language in there that you do need to tr to teach the history and that is helpful and healthy and our teachers aren't hearing that at all and if our teachers aren't if we're not putting out to them that you are supposed to teach what actually happened and it's okay then all they're hearing is that part that maybe you better not so same thing with the get don't say gay bill

181you know we keep hearing that and you if you don't hear it's just till third grade but then you here's the rest i don't know how you're going to communicate enough to our teachers because there's so much ambiguity in there already but i do know our teachers are a nervous wreck about what they can and can't teach and i got one sitting right there tiffany is sitting right here in the audience shaking her head one of those teachers that we know and love because she works so hard to get it right and right now it's so confusing what right is remember kester denna you had the floor yeah thank you i just to give another example like for senate bill 758 with the charter school review commission you give us the legislative summary language which

182defines everything and explains it but then if you could then provide like translate that to how we operate now like this florida institute for charter school innovation what is it going to be our charter school review commission now we would no longer necessarily have to approve so it doesn't tell us how it affects us orange county but so more details where you kind of translate what it means for us here would i think be helpful in really trying to digest these differences madam chair just for clarity i think a lot of the a lot of the detail and you know we talk about the devils in the detail and you say that really getting the direction from the department on a lot of these things and framing it because what we're doing is going through

183the legislative process we're saying a lot of times even to our legislative delegation we don't know what this does i mean what exactly does this build do or what will it do or what will it look like in practice here's what it says so we're asking the same questions i think for us to stand up here and pontificate on what this will do without getting the exact direction and i agree the communication piece as far as what teachers can teach and what they can and where that where they thread that needle where they're not getting into because on one hand they say you can teach it and on the other hand if you offend or do something then you're in you know then you could be it could be you know a lawsuit or in

184jeopardy i think getting direction from the department and absent that coming up with our own direction that legal would guide us on as to how to how to thread that needle and provide that guidance to teachers so they know they can stay within the frameworks of the law we talked about that a lot in tallahassee with our colleagues but you know for us to stand up here where half of these bills are awaiting the governor's signature and there's no direction from the department of education for us to sit up here and interpret it for you i'm afraid that would be premature and i wouldn't want to do that because on the record we're saying one thing and then it comes back and says something else maybe just on the really clear clear stuff if there

185is such a thing the clearest mud stuff that stuff that stuff well thank you i agree that maybe we need some more time for these to be settled at the state level and then come back and tell us more about how it's implemented and i know the district team when we push the information out through the implementation they're looking at the statutes and going through them or waiting for guidance i know dr vasquez just mentioned the guidance on the progress monitoring piece and then through foil they're recommending stick with whatever if you're using i ready to stick with that as well we question whether that's actually not reducing testing that's increasing testing if they're if they're saying to do that and we even made that same argument to our legislators as we were moving through

186the progress monitoring bill certainly in the long run if it peels back and we don't have a high stakes fsa at the end of the year and we have progress monitoring along the way and the first two administrations of that can count towards the accountability piece maybe we can start narrowing that in but that's yet to be seen i wouldn't want to stand up here and say that's going to happen or that will happen because there is a change in administration within the department of education and the same person who helped to craft and fashion the bill will be the same person that will be implementing that as the commissioner of education so we'll see what what he decides to do moving forward okay let's move to member gala thank you madam chair just to

187bring up what we were discussing and what remember castro dental said some of these bills and i know that we have to work through a lot we're looking for guidance from the department of education some of it hasn't been signed yet and we do not have clear direction or instructions from the doe it occurs that some of these could be in direct conflict with our strategic plan so i would ask that anything as we move as we move forward and we're going through these builds that any type of changes be made it should arise to the board level like if policies and not just policies but anything that might contradict or interact in any way with our strategic plan come before the school board and the school board have knowledge of anything that's going to

188take place in our schools prior to it taking place i think it's important that as a board we have that conversation because there is much confusion and we want to make sure that we follow the law as intended but we also have clear direction to our to our staff and to our constituents and that we make sure that anything that we're doing isn't in in conflict with with our strategic plan that's all i want to say good good point all right i think we are done folks it's almost 4 15. it's been a long session i'm sorry mr palmerini just one ray of sunshine on the school recognition program yes sir their status language in the house bill 5 5003 that says it expires as of july 1 2023 and reverts back to the old

189version of the school recognition program so it appears that this is a one-year enactment by the legislature thank you sir okay thank you and for some reason that was my understandings at some point here but obviously none of us were aware of that retaliatory move that was going to happen whether it was over the lawsuit or whether it was over the action whatever the case may be all right meeting is now adjourned no those were the yeah those are the pieces of legislation that i mentioned before that we dropped below if you had questions there are peop there are some additional pieces for you there's no more for us okay feel free to read on your own yes exactly yes session two is remember gallow the rest of you all are free to go home

190all righty thank y'all thank you madam chair you