OCPS | 2022-01-20 - School Board Work Session

001good afternoon everyone and welcome to the orange county school board's work session which has been scheduled today for the purpose of discussing the following school board policies kb parent involvement in education B, School Board Governance. B, BBG, Board Elections. BDC, Board Officers. BE, School Board Meetings. BEC, Executive Sessions. BEDH, Public Input at School Board Meetings. And BIE, Board Members Insurance Liability. The public will not have an opportunity to participate in this work session to provide public comment. Because this is not a regularly scheduled school board meeting, no action will be taken and there will be no pre-agenda period in which the public would normally address the school board on germane topics that are not related to the work of the board. I'm sorry, are related to the work of the board. Thank you so much

002for joining us this afternoon for those who are here. As a reminder, face masks are still required indoors on school property, which includes the boardroom and our lobby. All board members are not in attendance. Member Gallo, is Member Gallo joining us? Does anyone know? She should be on the phone. Member Gallo, are you on the line? Member Gallo is joining us by telephonically, and the rest of the board members are here, so we have a full board. I want to remind the public that the board members will not be engaging in outside electronic or digital communication during the meeting, so we can focus on the meeting itself. And to my fellow board members and district staff, remember that when speaking, please speak directly into your microphone. Make sure that it's turned on so that our

003YouTube and Orange TV viewers can hear you clearly. And we're going to begin our meeting with a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'll invite you to join me. to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we'll begin the meeting by turning it over to Dr. Jenkins. thank you madam chair this is an additional work session around our b policies which have to do with how the school board handles its business it has been they have been dealt with twice previously and school board members input has been included at this point this is your final discussion among yourselves before we then have to move it to a rule development

004workshop for public input and so with that we will hand it over to general counsel envo to walk us through the b policies well first we're actually going to start with kb if that's okay it has a b in it there you go perfect so policy kb i'm waiting um can somebody make sure that my powerpoint is Perfect. Thank you. Okay. So I'm not Sarah. She was going to, Ms. Corn was going to present to you today, but she is ill. So I'm going to do all of your policies today. We're trying to give you a little bit of break from me, but anyway, policy KB is titled parent involvement in education. And we're going to go through the red lines. We're going to talk about the agenda. We have an overview and then the

005timeline, a summary of actions, proposed revisions, next steps and questions and discussions. policy kb the purpose today is to ensure compliance with all applicable federal and state laws florida state board of education rules board policies administrative rules procedures and guidelines can you all hear me okay do i need to get a little bit closer is that better yeah okay sorry it's a little leaning but it works We went to cabinet on January 18th and today we're at a work session and I'm going to get through that. We do not have board approval dates or effective dates yet. I'm going to get to that in just a minute. So we currently have policy KB, which is titled Parent Involvement in Education. As you know, House Bill 241, which has been codified into Chapter 1014 of the

006Florida statutes, it consolidates all parental rights into a single statutory chapter and requires the creation of a policy outlining the Parents' Bill of Rights. So in our action summary, in addition to some few minor changes to the existing policy language in the first section, we are adding a new section. that is called Rights of Parents and Guardians and in parentheses, Parents Bill of Rights. So it's there. The changes to the policy do not change our district practices or procedures. Rather, the additional provisions to the policy provide a means for parents to access the information as required in the statute via a single policy and corresponding web page for transparency and efficiency. And as we go through some of the requirements, you're going to see that's all over our web pages. And we have actually created

007a one stop shop that has all your parents bill of rights components in it so that parents can look at it a little bit more so the reason why we are here also the new section the new statute in under section 10 14.05 provides that each district school board shall in consultation with parents teachers and administrators develop and adopt a policy to promote parental involvement in the school system so though district administrators have been involved in the proposed revisions that we have before you in the red line a survey has also it says will also but it already has been sent to parents teachers and administrators seeking input on the proposed policy revisions and based on that input received policy kb will likely be scheduled for a subsequent work session but we wanted to at

008least get it out there and let the public know what we're doing so they understand where it's falling so There are a number of things like the first section of policy KB is actually titled parent and family involvement. And with that, there's just some minor formatting changes because we were missing some commas and I'm the comma person, I love commas. and we added one one change at the bottom to section b that says the activity about the purchase the purchase of food using title one funds the activity is set a time when parents would normally eat a meal we change it from parents to families so that was very minor but moving forward with respect to the new section that's titled rights of parents and guardians and the parents bill of rights i don't know

009if it's going to be easiest for me to read this all to you so we have it for the record because it's kind of long but it actually tracks the exact language that's found in chapter 1014 of the florida statutes which is the parents bill of rights So I'll go ahead and start it. The new policy, it says, the School Board of Orange County, Florida, is committed to honoring the rights of parents and guardians and promoting parental involvement in the district. In accordance with House Bill 241, the Parents' Bill of Rights, which was codified in Chapter 1014 of the Florida Statutes, the board recognizes the fundamental rights of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children. accordingly the board establishes the following standards and expectations and then it goes

010through with section one which is called parent and guardian rights the board recognizes the following rights of a parent and guardian the right to direct the education and care of his or her minor child, the right to direct the upbringing and the moral or religious training of his or her minor child, the right to apply to enroll his or her minor child in a public school or as an alternative, a private school, including a religious school, a home education program, or other available options, the right to access and review all school records relating to his or her minor child, right to make health care decisions for his or her minor child unless otherwise prohibited by law the right to access and review all medical records of his or her minor child unless prohibited by law

011or if the parent is the subject of an investigation of a crime committed against the minor child and a law enforcement agency or official request that the information not be released The right to consent in writing before a biometric scan of his or her minor child is made, shared, or stored. The right to consent in writing before any record of his or her minor child's blood or DNA is created, stored, or shared, except as required by general law or authorized pursuant to a court order. The right to consent in writing before the school district makes a video or voice recording of his or her minor child unless such recording is to be used for the following purposes. One is a safety demonstration, a legitimate academic or extracurricular activity, a purpose related to regular classroom instruction,

012security or surveillance of buildings, grounds, or district transportation, and or a photo identification card. The right to be notified promptly if an employee of the school district suspects that a criminal offense has been committed against his or her minor child, unless the incident has been first reported to law enforcement or the Department of Children and Families, and notifying the parent or guardian would impede the investigation. And then this policy, however, does not preclude a board employee from acting in his or her official capacity within the scope of his or her authority. That language tracks the statute, as does the next section, Section B. Any school district employee who encourages or coerces or attempts to encourage or coerce a minor child to withhold information from his or her parent or guardian may be subject to disciplinary

013action and except as otherwise provided by law, a healthcare practitioner or an individual employed by such healthcare practitioner will not provide or solicit or arrange to provide healthcare services or prescribe medicinal drugs to a minor child without first obtaining written parental consent. Then we move on to section two, which is titled promoting involvement and it provides the school district shall provide parents and guardians with opportunities to participate in schools to improve parent guardian and teacher cooperation and such areas as homework school attendance and discipline Section B says the school district shall provide a parent and guardian with opportunities to learn about his or her child's course of study including the source of any supplemental educational material Parents or guardians will be able to object to instructional materials. and other materials used in the classroom based

014on beliefs regarding morality, sex, and religion, or the belief that such materials are harmful. Instructional materials means items having intellectual content that by design serve as a major tool for assisting the instruction of a subject or course. This may include other materials used in the classroom, including workbooks and worksheets, handouts, software, applications, and any digital media made available to students. sorry moving on subsection d parents and guardians can withdraw their minor child from any portion of the school district's comprehensive health education that relates to sex education or instruction in acquired immune deficiency syndrome education or any instruction regarding sexuality if the parent or guardian provides a written objection to his or her minor child's participation parents and guardians shall be notified in advance of such course content so that they may withdraw their minor child

015from those portions of the course and then subsection e parents and guardians shall have the opportunity to learn about the nature and purpose of clubs and activities offered at the and offered sorry there should be an at their minor child school on the powerpoint sorry so moving on to section number three it's titled requests for information again attracting the language of the statute in this particular subsection a a parent or guardian may request in writing from the district school superintendent and we have created a parents bill of rights at ocps.net email the information required under this section Within 10 days, the district school superintendent or designee will provide such information to the parent or guardian. If the district school superintendent or designee denies a request from a parent or guardian for information or does not

016respond to the parent's request within 10 days, the parent or guardian may appeal the denial to the district school board. the district school board chair or vice chair will place an appeal from a parent or guardian on the agenda for its next public meeting if it's too late for an appeal from a parent or guardian to appear on the next agenda the appeal will be included on the agenda for the subsequent meeting so i want to stop here just for a moment because that one's a lot of information and so as we discussed before we have a place on our website that is going to have all of these things so if they want to know about school choice there's going to be a question bar and the school choice information is going to be

017there it's going to direct them back to our website for each of those departments so that information is there and so it's kind of like a one-stop shop For parents so they don't have to go. Oh, I don't know if that's what is it curriculum I don't know what that is This is the parents Bill of Rights and they'll be able to access it right away So I actually think it's a good thing because sometimes our website is so loaded Everybody wants to put so much information on our website It gets so loaded and it's sometimes it becomes confusing for parents to navigate through so I actually think this is a good thing It's all going to be there in one location So moving forward, subsection B, the district will inform parents or guardians via,

018we have the parents, that's the address there, how to, number one, opt out of comprehensive health education. So it'll say, how can I opt my child out of comprehensive health education? Click here. And then it's going to populate how to do so. How to receive information about school choice options. That's going to direct them back to our school choice website so they can. choose from there how to exempt a child from immunizations what forms are required how to review statewide standardized assessment results it's going to go to that website how to qualify a child in gifted or special education programs and how to inspect instructional materials and how to access information relating to the school district's policies for promotion or retention your student progression plan including high school graduation requirements how to access a school

019report card and be informed of his or her minor child's attendance requirements how to access information relating to the state public education system, state standards, report card requirements, attendance requirements, and instructional material requirements, how to participate in parent-teacher associations and organizations that are sanctioned by a district school board or the Department of Education, and how to opt out of any district-level data collection relating to his or her minor child not required by law. So your policy KB was originally adopted in January on January 17th of 2012 and so once if this goes through the the survey process and moves forward We'll then add the revised date at the bottom there. So that was a lot for me to read I'm sorry I basically read the entire contents of chapter 1014 or the Florida statutes But

020it's important that you have that and once we get the survey results back. We'll take a look at those from parental input I believe a was it a connect orange um i'm going back to scott an email so an email went to all of our parents and staff right Thank you. Parents, teachers, administrator, email that with the survey link. And so once we result all those and compile all those, depending on what inputs provided, we'll bring back whatever revisions we need to make to this policy because we are required by statute to consider their input, which I think it's been very valuable. I can tell you a cabinet on Tuesday cabinet made some very good changes that we actually incorporated into it already. So I think that's a it's a good have input from all

021those stakeholders. I think it's important. So I did a lot of talking now. It's your turn Dr. Jenkins Anything else or shall you go to the board? Thank you member castor dental Thank You madam chair. Thank you. Miss em ball for that Recitation of the new policy I have a couple questions one is about what you just mentioned the the input you saw it from parents teachers and administrators. Mm-hmm Is that not our normal practice right now to solicit input from those stakeholders for our policies or is it just for that parents bill of rights? The parents bill of rights requires you to solicit that input and to consider it specifically. Normally we have that procedure already in place as soon as we have proposed red lines, as soon as staff has put together proposed

022red lines for policy revision. to the board we send it to the union for any input and it's also posted on our website we don't often get any input on that so to answer your question yes we do that but in this particular case we felt that the survey was the most important way to evidence that we really did reach out and we really want to consider what that input is with respect to this particular policy the public can always provide input we remember when we come back for policies we always come back to a rule development workshop and then a school board meeting at which the public has the opportunity to provide comment there has been times where the public hasn't provided any comment up to that point but at the ruled event workshop

023they say hey what about this and at that point we pull it off for consideration we revise it whatever and then we bring it back for another rule development workshop in a school board meeting Does that answer your question? It does, but it also makes me want to suggest that we continue to do that with our policies, that we solicit the input directly to the stakeholders. I know we normally hear CTA. the voice of teachers through CTA, but I think it's even more powerful to go directly to teachers. We have their emails and they get that information instead of having it come through one source that comes directly from us and comes right back to us. And I think that's a better bottom-up approach to really hear if, you know, not everyone's going to be

024interested in this policy development, but those who are, I'm sure, appreciate. That being reached out to and being asked and same with parents as well. So if we could consider some increased level of solicitation of input for future policies, I would I think that would be a good thing another question the Email address parents bill of rights at OCPS net I know that's not going directly to the superintendent's email. How do we know who's going to be monitoring that? I think that's an operation issue that we have not yet decided. i i think it's going to be similar to the way we have some different i will tell you like that we had the 2021 rac at ocps.net that went to legal services and then it also went to the people that were on our

025reapportionment advisory committee our staff because a lot of those questions were to them so i think logistically we have to figure out internally how that's going to happen okay and um because we have to provide that response within 10 days i mean it's pretty the response is going to be thank you so much for your email here is the website that you can go to because i i don't really know logistically how that website's going to be advertised or flashed or you know because we have to comply with our uh website guidelines but that's really uh i think the superintendent probably has an answer all right thank you so i just wanted to um madam chair if i may i simply wanted to alert the board to another piece of information so um We are

026probably one of only five districts that are even moving forward with trying to come into compliance with the statute. And so a lot has not been worked out yet. I certainly want to commend General Counsel Inville and her team for... untangling all of the detail and putting together that prototype website but i will tell you it is so fresh and we believe at last count maybe five districts were even approaching this level that we are in right now but a lot is still to be determined building the bicycle as we ride it thank you member gold my my question is really about my computer just went dark um about the the last one the opt out of any district level data collection relating to his or her minor child i know it's going to be

027on that one site but will the things that they can opt out if they go to look up say character lab or any other kind of assessment that we may do will that explanation website also have that out direction or initiative on it I would have to defer to my experts um that's i mean that again that's an operational issue but i think if that's if that's the direction of the board um we can certainly like are you are you saying for like number 11 or whatever we decide to title it how do i opt out of any district level data collection and then there would be like a a menu from which they can choose yeah either put it there on what it is or as we add things with the description and character

028lab comes to mind because constituents that choose not to participate in that in my community. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to learn how to have their child opt out of that if they want to. So I just, I think redundancy in that case might be helpful just so that it makes it easy and they don't have to go hunting a policy that to then, you know, yeah. Because if I'm thinking about well, I need to find out about character lab I'm not thinking I have to go to my parental rights page and now go to the character lab pit right see what I'm saying Yeah, I do If I can out of order here just for a minute take vice chair for a comment. I was just gonna Let

029member Gould know that it is on there if you a search character lab is in the character lab page comes up It says to remove your child to participate The norm on all of them that be the norm for anything they can opt out of because there's yes, there's the photo consent and there's yeah, there's all kinds of That the health okay, so it just makes it easy So I do hear the superintendent over there typing and that is usually my indication. She's taking copious notes So to the extent this is an operational issue the superintendent is obviously clearly taking note of that. Let's go to Member Gallo. Member Gallo, you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I just want to echo really quick what Member Gould and and number four we're just talking about

030on character lab i know that the last time that we administered a character lab survey we did notify the parents that the character lab survey would be administered in their class um the following day or the following week whatever the timeline was it would be great if if when we notify parents that this type of survey is coming if we could also include where they could find on the website to that they choose to opt their child out as we're reminding them that their survey is coming for those parents who would like to opt them out thank you member gallo so i just wanted to throw that out there and and personally i agree with that um suggestion as well member cobert um this is a this is an overarching general question about where we

031could come in conflict with the state or or doe requirements on number one the right to direct the education and care of his or her minor child i envision there there could be a situation where a parent wants to opt out of testing or other required instruction that the district is required by the state to do in that case or conflict what happens i think we already have procedures in place for that particular because i believe that has tried parents have tried to do that in the past we already have those internal procedures and those aren't going to change this is just a place for all of that stuff to be put in one location right yeah and we have had that but we did not have this codified in statute and i just i

032think that that sentence is so broad that it just raises a red flag for me that that we could end up with issues regarding that circumstance and something i think we need to just be aware of right now maybe we have maybe we need to have some conversations with the doe like what will we do in that circumstance um because i anticipate that's something that could happen thank you member cobert member gallo thank you madam chair so i do have a few questions um on 2a and i'm trying to find it as well in the current statute. Would it talked about parents and guardians working together for the academic improvement of a student? If a parent wanted an ESC parent, a parent of a child with disabilities, wanted to observe their child because there was

033behavioral issues. They were having specific issues in a classroom and they hadn't been able to pinpoint why the student was behaving in a manner that wasn't consistent with their behavior. under the new parental bill of rights would the parent after consulting with the teacher and the principal be allowed to come into the classroom and observe her child or their child or his child so that they could determine you know what was happening with um their child and be a true collaborator in in their their learning who who wishes to answer that dr jenkins or miss embo Ms. Anville, you want to answer that from a legal standpoint? I don't think this changes any of our current procedures. I believe we have a union provision that if someone's going to come in, there has to be

034an agreement between the principal. I'm paraphrasing here. I might be asking my friend over here. There has to be. I mean, like the visitation doesn't change. And I'm not exactly sure what the intricate procedures are with respect to that particular aspect. member gallo i have a problem thank you madam go ahead um so if we could find that out because i know you know and we do need to make sure that as we're looking to codify its information or this new statute that it doesn't um conflict with any anything else that we have or any mou or contract language that we have with the union or anywhere else on our website because one shouldn't conflict with the other um but if if we're truly promoting parental involvement it would seem that as long as the

035proper channels had gone through that the parent would be allowed to come into the classroom setting to observe their their child so that they could come up with a plan on how to address any issues that are having so that the child would be any better for their mind to learn so i mean if we don't have an answer today that's fine i'm just throwing it out there member gallo if we can pause here for a minute you can't see but i don't think you can mr pomerini is at the podium and i'm hoping he has this is an excellent question by the way so if we can hear from him before you move on to another topic could you hold with us a minute and hear from him absolutely thank you thank you thank

036you madam chair members of the board so under our contract with cta it says as follows both parties agree that interruptions of the instructional period are sometimes necessary but the administrator will attempt to keep such interruptions to a minimum however no visitation to a teacher's class except by school system personnel shall be allowed until the teacher has been notified of the visit and purpose in advance and if you go down a little bit further in that provision it says parent patron visitation shall be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time between parent the parent patron and the teacher subject to the prior approval of the principal member gallo um thank you thank you mr pomeroy so what in this instance and i guess i understand we're building this as we fly um we do have this

037new parental bill of rights that we have to put on our website that we had to adhere to and it sounds like there could be times when when what you just read to me and what i'm reading would be in conflict with one another so how are we going to remember for some reason your voice is kind of muffled and we're having a little bit of trouble understanding if you can go back to the beginning of your remarks after mr pomerini spoke absolutely hang on one second um so i had said i had asked if we basically can we review that because it appears that some of these parental rights may be in conflict with that language and that contract and so before the next workshop and this came to me from a parent um

038earlier today so i'm sure that it's going to be part of the the survey that we get from our parents and so if we could just look at that and and try to provide some clarity So, Member Gallo, I'm re-looking at the statute in question. I don't necessarily see specifically a right of a parent to enter into a classroom under the Parental Bill of Rights. If there is a conflict, of course, between state law and the contract, state law, of course, will control. But as I'm looking at the statute, and admittedly I'm doing it right here on the fly, I don't see a right of parents to enter a classroom under that statute. But I will look closer. Okay. member gallo can i suggest on this issue um if you and mr pomerini this is

039something um i i think is really very important for there not to be any confusion over but if you and mr pomerini could get together offline and then decide if they if you've come to the same conclusion or whether we need to bring this back for board discussion i know i'm sure the whole board is interested in knowing what you think mr pomerini remember gallo remember gallo anything else i don't want to cut you off yes Yes, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So under, I think it's like B3, and just some clarifications. When we're talking about immunizations, and I think that this has been discussed, but a parent who wishes to opt out of an immunization, it has to be for a religious reason, right? There's still language that's in statute that dictates the

040parameters to which a parent can opt their child out of immunizations? That is correct. Yeah, except for COVID. Right. No, I understand. And then in five, in that same, it says qualify a child in gifted or special education programs. Can we, I'm sorry, can we clarify that it's not just religious reasons, but also medical reasons? Aren't there medical exemptions? Yes, there's a whole statute and I would have to, I don't have the statute off the top of my head. There's a whole statute that governs exemptions for minimization. It includes religious and or medical. reasons and that that stat to me when you're looking at our website where this says underneath that question it would be here's how to exempt your child here's what controls because we already have all those procedures in place we have

041had for years okay and before i um turn the floor back over to you member gallo i just want to reiterate member miss envol said it but because we never know who's tuning in and if they tune in and miss a sentence before we are talking about immunizations that have been previously required for entry into schools we are not talking about covid 19 immunizations that is not a required immunization for any of our students anywhere in the state of florida i'm not sure if it is anywhere in the nation but it is not here and that's not being complicated member gallo back to you thank you thank you madam chair and then finally um number five it talks about qualify a child and gifted or special education programs is that something that we we currently

042do that's something that's currently available on our website can you ask the question again the number five under section um b three it says qualify a child and gifted or special education programs Yeah, it would be helpful if we could speak. That might be easier. Sorry. There it is. So I think this, again, goes back to operational. It would go back to staff. I believe, and I would be, Dr. Shuler probably can help me out a little bit more. I believe on our ESE website, we have the methods by which someone qualifies for gifted and or special education. And to me, this would be a place where that information would be linked so the parent can go there directly to see what those qualifications are. Did that answer your question, Member Gallo? One more question,

043Madam Chair. So this doesn't change the qualifications. It's just it's putting it in one centralized place. That's exactly correct. Yes. because it goes back to a parent who's looking to see hey i think my child's gifted what do i do and if they don't reach out to the school and they're like oh i'm going to find it on the website it might be hard to find on our website and i think this parents bill of rights gives us it's kind of like a frequently asked questions but encapsulated into chapter 1014 of the parents bill of rights the questions that the parents ask the most often and so i think it's actually a good thing for us to put that all together and so that's where they would go but you are correct Thank you. Thank

044you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member Gallo. Member Lopez, you recognize? Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question on number six, inspect instructional materials. So can you provide more feedback on that matter? So this would go back to our policies where you can, and this falls under Dr. Bixler or Rob Bixler's area, I believe. It goes back to where they can access all of our instructional materials that we have and take a look at them. We have procedures established for parents to say, hey, I want to go ahead. I know you guys are talking about evolution of the pink elephant family. I want to go ahead and see what the instructional period. materials are going to be on that pink elephant family so we already have procedures established district y are in the district for

045that and that's what this would entail this would be a link to where they can they can inspect those instructional materials and we have the whole instructional materials policy and how we adopt them all there's a whole website on that so the the purpose of of that is so they can recommend or opt out their children to participate in certain type of classes? Yes, that's correct. Is there any type of policy when the parent opts out their children or complain about the material? So we do have there's there's ways to challenge materials. There's policy KEC that you have and policy IJL. And both of those explain how to challenge those materials. And on the district website, we have under I'm not sure which department exactly it falls under, but we have a way that shows

046here's. here's how you can access those instructional materials i don't know if that answered your question i to me that's more of a internal procedure kind of operational thing so i don't have a specific answer except for the general knowledge that i have okay thank you thank you member lopez member felt member felder i wanted to also uh kind of get a better understanding also Miss Inville regarding the instructional materials because I need to be clear because I'm speaking from a teacher's perspective. as long as, and you can help me out with this, if they're following the standards, because there may be material that the teacher chooses to teach and is following all of the standards, but the parent may not necessarily like the material. And I'm trying to also think about the rights of

047the teacher in terms of how they are teaching a concept. So could you give me, I guess I need to go back and look at that policy again. uh is am i talking about the same thing is this something different hello simba i i don't know if i know the answer to that question because there again i'm not sure okay i'm looking at revision of policy inspect instructional materials right extended what member lopez was saying because sometimes you know as a parent you you you want to monitor the material your children are learning and i do appreciate that and i do understand that but also Sometimes because you may not have the full-bodied understanding of the material as a parent you might not Want this particular material taught and I'm thinking about the right of

048the teacher To choose material is as long as it falls in line with the standards Am I talking about something slightly different than what you're talking about here on this revision? To policy. I just want to make sure the rights of teachers are kept and maintained if they want it because We may not agree or particularly like a certain piece of material as a teacher because normally teachers teach material they like to read, they like to talk about because they can become more involved in teaching the lesson. But it might not necessarily be a chosen piece that a parent may not like. At the same token, I... I just want us to make sure that when we're looking at policy in terms of material, instructional material, that we allow the freedom. the teachers to have

049so that they will not have to be so bogged down. But at the same token, as a parent, you do reserve the right of what you want your child to be taught, but sometimes they don't have the full understanding of the material. So I just want to make sure that within our policy, and if it's not, is there a way that teachers, along with parents, can come in and sort of challenge the policy because we are living in a time now that a lot of things that are being taught may not have been taught when I was in school. Well, when you were in school, definitely when I was in school, a lot of things that we're teaching now did not occur, but learning still took place. So I'm concerned about that. So there's could

050you give me that policy? I can look it up and make sure that they're protected. I think you gave a number. Huh? Ms. Enroll? So are you looking for our challenged materials policy? Yeah, it says inspect the structural materials. And I was just trying to not necessarily piggyback, but kind of extend what Member Lopez was talking about in terms of the material. Because I believe if this legislation passes that the governor is trying to introduce, there may be some issues with some material that's going to be taught. And I'm thinking about the protection of teachers. Dr. Jenkins, can I recognize Dr. Jenkins? Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly acknowledge what Member Felder just conveyed. Some of those same concerns have been discussed at cabinet level, some concerns over what may be implied. Unfortunately, it is

051now statute. And so the language that Ms. Inville and her team have put together is what is currently in the statute that is required of us. i suppose our recourse would be to try to get the statutory language changed or at least clarified in some instances clarify you might not necessarily have to change it but clarify so both sides can you know be amenable yeah we can we can certainly one another we can certainly look into that i just wanted to make be clear the appeal wouldn't be to the board for the policy because the policy is directly out of the statute but i i think our um comment our feedback might go through our local delegation okay um i i think you'll notice from this there that some things that were intended sometimes have

052unintended consequences like the five hours of my student council talked about the five hours of mental health training required good intentions i reassure them adults trying to do good things for our children without considering some of the unintended consequences and that may be the case in some of this particular detail as well i think we can have conversations about that and certainly try to approach it legislatively okay and member felder to your comments i i remember reading the um the legis the staff analysis for house bill 241 i don't remember that being specifically discussed so i will have to take a look back at that again and i can forward you all the house the analysis the final staff analysis that came from the legislature with respect to 241 i don't remember that particular aspect

053being discussed i mean it's going to at some point it is going to be i'm sure okay thank you member felder and if there's no further comments or questions from board members then dr jenkins um want me to go back to miss envault directly so i call on you to thank you are you ready for b policies we're ready for b policies to start with b okay so hang on i gotta switch switch notes here all right so i'm going to go to a second just bear with me Can I ask for some technical assistance to pull up the policy? I thought the B policies were on here, but they're not. I want to go through the red line. So I need to get to the board agenda, if that makes sense. And while he's

054doing that, I'm going to give you a little bit of background as to where we are. the seven b policies that you have before you it's b bbbg bdc be bec bedh and bie we have already come to you this will be our sixth work session on these policies it started back on december 1st of 2020 member miss fernandez presented them to you then we came back on january 5th of 2021 february 16th of 2021 march 23rd of 2021 september 21st of 2021 and then today january 20th of 2022. so i'm looking for the b policies So they are what what what's on the agenda is your B policies that are all in red line format. And we've gone through these extensively. I watched our two and a half hour work session on September 21st.

055And like I said to you in my email, it is one of the most productive policy work sessions that I've ever had before a local government agency. So I love policies. You all knew that. So but I was very, very happy to go through there. And so. These B policies are a culmination of your policies. This is different than like policy KB that we just brought to you that actually revisions are made by staff. These are your governance policies. These are what govern you. And some of them were last adopted in 1993. So some of them are a little bit outdated. And so I think it's really important that you guys have spent so much time on these to make them beautiful. And we have the red lines. So thank you. Let me go here.

056And there we go. Red line, yes. So. this is a 27 page conglomeration of all of those seven policies like what i've done before i have made the change and put it in a yellow so you can see what the most changes from the september 21st work session until today's work session and i think we had a lot of discussion some of some of it you left me to craft language and some of you actually crafted the language which was actually very helpful so starting with policy b which is school board governance um you had at the beginning um it was you had c to it and you asked that i changed to ensure that the orange county public schools and it's those things there is it easier for me to read this all to

057you or just go through the yellow line because we've seen it many many times yes okay um you asked in section three to add and the strategic plan so we have done that in that particular section Under the second section titled Governance Style of Policy B, the only change was instead of motion and vote to waive the requirement to monitor and discuss the board's process and performance at an annual board accountability assessment meeting, you changed it to consensus. and please stop me at any time you have any questions there were no changes from our september 21st 2021 work session regarding the board job description at that work session in september we had added language and remember we had the assure and ensure discussion and we decided to add endeavor to ensure so those are those

058changes there we had quite a bit of discussion on the next one where it says clearly versus generally so is it all coming back to you now i loved that that was my favorite i love that work session anyway um the next section is the board established advisory committee principles what you asked me to add at the bottom is the school board shall then approve any committee membership changes and this was because there might need to be a committee like a cove committee change and we want that person to start right away and then you would just then I think that was one of the ones that we had as an example. You just then approve that committee membership change. i took out the word on my own i did this on my own collect

059when it said collective bargaining units i just put bargaining units because remember we're doing collective versus collaborative and i thought it was i didn't want to have to go back and change the policy for one word so i went ahead and changed it for collective and you're going to see it down further too i made a couple more changes to implement so make sure that we don't change the policy if something changes their next title was board subcommittee structure the only change At the bottom, you asked me to add language. Nothing herein shall restrict the board's ability to participate either as a whole or as a subcommittee in a joint committee with another agency or entity such as the bargaining units. That would be like your joint safety committee, those kind of things. Under the

060annual agenda planning section, you asked me to add the planning cycle will start with the boards. with i'm sorry with the joint review development or update to the strategic plan under the next section board members code of conduct instead of business-like you would ask that it be professional conduct which makes more sense i think kind of update we're updating the language a little bit too so it's not so old And then in section A, subsection two, although all board members are, it's what obligated to register difference of opinions on board issues at the board level. You had me change it to, although all board members are encouraged to register differences of opinion on the board issues, individual members shall direct their differences of opinion in a respectful manner to avoid undermining a decision of the

061board. I think that was a better, it was just wordsmithing, but I think that worked out better. So I don't know why there's a little number there, but I'll have to take care of that. That's a Scrivener's error there. We had quite a bit of discussion on this next section about no board member may become directly involved in solving a parent or individual complaint at the staff level. If you remember this, this took about 20 minutes of your time in September. so language was added board members shall not be deemed to be in violation of this provision if an issue is brought to the board member by their constituent and the board member brings the issue to the attention of the superintendent and the appropriate cabinet member remember we had that whole discussion about did

062you want the superintendent's email clogged with everything and i think she said yes and that she went through them so we okay with that provision uh if i guess ma'am oh i'm sorry member felder Or that was from before? Okay. I have one concern about, I know what we were intending, and I want to make sure this gets that point across. As I understood what we were talking about, we were saying that if we, for instance, got an email, and it was about a parent-teacher relationship, and we forwarded it to either the superintendent or to the area superintendent, that we would not be in violation by forwarding that. and asking for them to investigate, look into it, follow up, whatever. but if we just drop it that we wouldn't be in violation if we contact

063them i want to make sure that it doesn't i don't have that i don't have the ability to have the language right in front of me because i don't have the computer screen but i want to make sure that this isn't interpreted by someone in the future as i can intervene directly as long as i've let somebody know so i see I see Mr. Larson in the back there. So it's one of his schools. It's one of his teachers. I've heard about it. I've told him about it. Now I go down to the school. I meet with the principal. I meet with the teacher, and I bring the parent in. But I've told him about it, that the language is very clear, that once you have alerted him, then your role there is over. Is

064that clear in the way we've written it? Or that that's the only thing that you're going to do in terms of... intervening so i think with policy you want to keep it broad enough to allow you some wiggle room but narrow enough to understand what the intent is so i think the intent is i think goes back to the first sentence no member may become directly involved in solving a parent or individual complaint at the staff level i think as i recall listening to their september 21st work session comments um it was the intent was that the superintendent didn't want you directing her staff what to do right you just answered my question the the the first half of this sentence i think very clearly addresses it that you can't do this. Right. But if

065you're doing this instead of that, then you're not in violation if you're doing that. So just in the instance that you provided, you know, you have to let the superintendent and her cabinet member and it would be an area superintendent associate member know what's going on that that's a not that's not a violation. We asked you to read the yellow. And so I heard the yellow. Yes. But without seeing. I'm sorry. I should have started at the beginning. The whole sentence. When I see the whole sentence, it's very, very clear. That first sentence. Getting directly involved. Right. And by handing it off to the appropriate person is not us being directly involved. Right. Totally agree. Because you're not going to not respond to your constituent, but at the same time, you're going to help them

066out. I'm sorry. I've wasted the board's time by not seeing the beginning of the sentence. It's okay. It's okay. Thank you. I'm sorry, Member Felder. Yes, and I'm glad you did go back to make sure that we're clear because sometimes... The problem, Ms. Involve, may be a teacher or problem with the teacher and a staff member. And that teacher could be a member of your constituency or the administrator could be a member of your constituency. So they could be telling you on both parts. But I think I appreciate the clarity that we are not in a position to direct. Cabinet members as to what to do about the situation. That's because we have enough issues We have to deal with anyway, but I'm just saying once we have Alerted the superintendent of those parties involved

067of the issue of the problem Then we must allow people to operate in their calling operate in the position that they have their in you must give them that so i'm i'm glad you did bring it up uh chairperson because we do need to be clear because this is a gray area and it's easy for you to misstep so i need i needed to make sure i said it over again so that i can understand you can alert the proper people of the situation and then as a board member you must allow them to do their job exactly thank you and member felder for me this was this is the most difficult part of of being a school board member probably is for y'all as well but at the county level i got a lot

068of emails that were complaints but almost all those emails were they were concerned about a vote that we were going to have on land use they were always writing to me about something that we actually controlled and voted on An employee never wrote to me and had an issue with their management. They didn't do that. That was for the mayor and his administration. And there was that very clear demarcation. So there was never this issue of getting flooded with emails that based on our governance structure, we have really no control over. Almost every email I get is operational. And it's very difficult to be in an elected position where you can't address the concerns of your constituents, but almost all of them are writing to us on something that the superintendent and her team needs

069to deal with. So it's very, very awkward. position to be in but i want to take just a moment to say something positive um mr lush is in the back of the room and just this morning uh when i went to look at my emails when i come in at 10 o'clock last night and i will oftentimes at night just check through my emails to make sure that there's nothing really alarming happening that a parent or a teacher is very distraught over that maybe i could send a quick email and bring their blood pressure down a little bit by letting them know that they're heard. I didn't get to that one at 10.09 last night, but when I got up this morning and I checked my emails, Mr. Larson had already contacted the parent, had

070addressed the whole issue. And anyway, so I just, I did send you an email, but I want to just probably say great job. I can't imagine how many emails they get directly and how hard that is to keep up with, but I can tell you it was a, it's very helpful. when you have to answer to the public to have such responsiveness from your administration dr jenkins so let's go to member gould and then we'll probably move on remember gould um you know i think what you all are talking about brings up a point and and it's been something that we've struggled on way before i even came on the board and that is the clarity of our role and the things we can influence the things we can actually make decisions on and the

071things that we can either support the communication or foster the and facilitate the relationship to get solved and that is the hardest part about this job and It's never been easy to communicate. And if anybody can figure out a way to crack that nut, I'll take them to dinner because it is absolutely the hardest thing to have a member understand. You know, rezoning is always one of those things. We decide the policy, we decide on the zones, but how it happens on a day-to-day basis with operations is operations. So if there's a transfer request, we can facilitate it, but we don't make the decision. And there's so much, that's just one thing that is so confusing to people. We set the parameters of the policy. We can change that. Our employment and how much time

072have we spent this year on how people are reviewed through PREO. But we don't do the day-to-day. And again, I'll take you to dinner if you figure out an easy way to communicate this on a chart or in an infographic or whatever. Well, I could communicate it, but if you've ever paid much attention to my writing style, it'll be a book. I'm right there with you. Because it really is in the public's best interest that we don't do that. The very thing that I think people most fear about elected officials is it's about who you know, and if I know the right person, my child's going to get special treatment, and that should never, ever, ever be the case. Every child should get equal treatment. We all believe in that so strongly, and that intervention

073by us directly is exactly what undermines that confidence, even if we do it with the best of intentions. So it's a really good. Practice it absolutely is but you're right when somebody wants something done right now And you can't fix it is very hard to start talking about governance processes Yeah All right. Back to you, Ms. Semble. I think also to wrap up this particular section, I think the last sentence that you added also is helpful because you had added in a previous work session. I can't tell you which one, but you had added the board member shall be kept informed by the superintendent or designee of how the issue is resolved. And that goes back to your issue with your kudos to Dr. Larson. who copied me on that response right and had not

074copied me i would still be feeling like i needed to do something with this i needed to get it to him and anybody else on there we would have been all tripping over ourselves but i was copied i got up the next morning and and i think i think staff does a very good job of keeping you informed of your issues that you bring to their attention and you know so i think that's a good thing okay sorry next time i'll read the whole provision so scrolling down I think we had no changes to process for addressing board member violations. Okay. Moving on to policy BDC. Just as a recommend as just to put it back on the record again, it's recommended that policy BBBG board elections be repealed after the provisions are fully incorporated

075into policy BDC board officers, since that's the broader title. As we are going through our policies, my goal is to eliminate the policies that we don't need that are one or two sentences and those one or two sentences can then be incorporated into another policy since we are following the nsba classification system which will be in your next batch of b policies that we discuss there are a lot of there are a lot of lettered policies in there and sometimes the titles don't adequately reflect what's in them and so we need to have a policy discussion later on but as um in my job description i'm supposed to bring policy revisions to you along with the superintendent and so i think to consolidate and to make things more transparent like we did with policy kb

076with the parents bill of rights i think that's what is going to be helpful to you if it's clear to you then it could be clear to you teachers and staff and constituents and parents and and students so as as our office facilitates the revision policy of process we keep that in mind you know where where is it where is it best to have some of these policy revisions go in where does it make the most sense it's kind of a puzzle piece So moving on so if we do if you the board eventually does repeal BBBG board elections and Just implement those provisions into BDC. This is what BDC will look like Want to make sure I have Okay, so this section that's called membership of the school board, that was previously contained in

077policy BBBG. And so the language from this section has been revised just a little bit. And then it's going to be added into BDC. So it's going to be there. So that's the portion when we're combining two, we want to see where they came from and where they're going to. And I have no idea where that information came from. Sorry, that was really weird. Anyway. So membership of the school board, you just had some minor changes that we made months and months and months ago. This language here in six, so that we're talking about it. Are you guys not seeing my red lines? Oh, okay, okay. It's doing funny stuff there. I know, when I went down here, it did some little like bullets, like that, right? Here we go again. I have no idea

078where that came from. But anyway, I will not hover my mouse down there because that's what happened. it's those gnomes in the computer um section six likewise we're going to uh bring we're going to bring a recommendation to you the recommendation is that policy bie also be repealed and this section six is essentially what bie has right now it's very small and so um it's recommended for repeal because now it's in policy bdc so that's where that language is coming from moving down to organizations and officers i added two sections that were not uh this is what i did on my own when i when i do my policy revision i look to make sure that all of your statutory citations are correct and i found two that were missing so i added them in

079here so they're there um yeah i know again something probably i'm only looking at but you know there's that okay so this is be is our next one that was had some pretty um not significant changes but just some additions that you add asked me to add from september 21st i added the dates and times of meetings here at the top if it's easier i can read it to you The regular meeting of the school board of Orange County shall be held on the dates and times adopted by the board at its annual organizational meeting, by the board at subsequent meeting, or by the chair and the superintendent to ensure the needs of the district are met. The regular meeting dates may be changed by action of the board at any previous... at any previous

080meeting provided that such member is notified by letter email or by distribution of the minutes showing a record of the change this tracks statutory language that we talked about remember we talked about it hadn't really caught up to our our new technological age when a meeting date is changed the superintendent shall take appropriate action to inform the public we post the notice we put it on the website this language is new you asked me to add a provision about 10 o'clock so it reads in order to ensure that decisions are made efficiently and effectively meetings shall end no later than 10 o'clock pm unless otherwise voted upon by the board in the event a meeting is ended prior to the board addressing the items on the agenda the meeting shall continue the next day at

081the time designated by the board at the time of adjournment so this was a very um you want to be fresh you don't want to be all hours in the morning you had some pretty extensive discussion on that i hope this language captured your intent are we good okay yes nope member um member castrodentil member cobert member castrodentil first thank you madam chair um i just have a question um i know that we had one meeting that was a friday night um so when you're saying that we would meet the next day We can do the next business day. Would that help? Yes, I like that answer. Or determined by the board, I guess. So it doesn't lock us in to that next day, the next business day? True. The next business day and or?

082Member Kester-Denton has a good point. We could have a meeting on a... We could have a meeting on a Wednesday and have already scheduled another meeting on a Thursday so her point also was to say the next business day or Such day is designated by the board at the conclusion of the meeting as soon as I mean I think the intent here is also to do it immediately To continue so as soon as possible or practical okay so without making sure that it's exactly right my notes would say the meeting shall continue the next business day or such day and time as soon as practical thereafter designated by the board at the time of adjournment it might look prettier than that but is that good okay anything else member castrodental good catch member cobert all

083right uh thank you member castrodental that was one i had the exact same concern on that the other this may be a little technicality unless otherwise voted upon by the board does it need to be a formal vote or no can it be by consensus as we've done in a few meetings previously so i don't believe without looking at the statute i'm going to look at it but i don't believe it requires a vote um because you're going to continue your meeting that's i mean it'd be different if you're saying we're having a new meeting and we're talking about this that would that would be different um let me look into that for you i don't think that there's a requirement i recall we've had a few meetings where we've said you know the hour

084is late how do you feel about continuing or or pressing on tonight and we really did it by consensus not by a formal day so just another technicality before we move on perhaps um broad language like approved by the board which doesn't specify how we're how it's approved because it's not something that you would amend the minutes to to discuss it's it's just an operational issue it's a ministerial act if you will so under 286-014 you wouldn't need to take public input on it but it's a ministerial act because you want to continue the meeting as soon as practical thereafter um i think we had to do that we did that during our mass discussions i believe we we stopped on wednesday and continued it on friday or stopped on tuesday and continued on thursday

085so could also be agreed upon yes yeah okay um moving on okay um the next section subsection a i added including emergency meetings i believe that was member castro dental to add special meetings um this is the discussion that you had that was actually pretty extension how if if the superintendent if it's not set by the board the superintendent doesn't set a meeting or the board chair doesn't send a meeting your discussion was how do we as members of the board call our own meeting and this language was added basically shall be held at the time designated by the superintendent board chair and or upon the direction of five board members who notify the superintendent individually and we talked about how um you know maybe there was two people that contacted her but not all

086five or not all seven or not all whatever so we talked about that does that language capture what your intent was or do you want it more specific or i want to offer a suggestion and i don't want anyone to take this um as directed at the superintendent, but looking at all potential future possibilities and looking at my past experience actually and times when a board member wanted to bring something to the table that the person in charge of the agenda might be the very person that doesn't want it brought. And the... concern that board members might have if they're bringing it say they're bringing it to me or they're bringing it to superintendent we could bring it ourselves neither one of us is bringing it do they know if they're the only ones do

087they know if there's five i think bringing it to you instead would be a better approach since you're not in control of the agenda but then you know when you have five and then at that point on behalf of the board you would call the meeting i mean you're calling the meeting but you would right acting on behalf of the board i'd be calling the meeting does that make sense again it has nothing to do with where we are it does have to do with a little bit of my previous experience and the times when board members struggled to get something heard um dr jenkins i was just going to recommend uh for whoever is sitting in this chair i think if they notify both the general counsel and the superintendent that would be more

088appropriate thank you and the chair I'm just kidding. So I might have some concerns about. No, absolutely. Yeah, because if you notify the superintendent, the superintendent is going to notify the chair anyway. I was kidding about that. Okay. And I can tell you just procedurally with Dr. Jenkins and myself, when we know that one of you has indicated something, we share with each other. And so that makes sense. Dr. Castrodentil. Thank You madam chair, I have a Concern about the part that says the five board members who notify the superintendent individually if They don't each know about why a board member would want to notify or call the board meeting But we're not allowed to discuss it with other board members then we are relying on the superintendent to wait for five people to reach

089out to the superintendent or is this something that if we notify you as general counsel you could pull the board member i mean is there a way that you could do it without um revealing you know what it's about you're not being a conduit but how do we i just don't think that one board member who has important concerns should be waiting around for someone to just kind of understand that um through osmosis and wait for the superintendent to reach out to them i just see that there's there's needs to be another step in there dr jengis So I understand that concern. I'd like to be able to do a little bit of research on there. There is a board that suffers significant dysfunction from a single individual who is doing that on a regular

090basis. I'm not talking about people sitting here. I'm not even talking about myself or Ms. Enville, but for future generations. I think we need to have a little more discussion and perhaps some research because we've seen some dysfunction with a single member who repeatedly is amending the agenda. So give us some time to look at that. Present company excluded. What is the best? administrative technique to make sure that the board still functions in a in a way that is efficient so i'd like to do some more research because i just had a flash of that one individual and and he's basically tearing up every board meeting so let us do some research on that before we actually add it to the language okay well this this comes up in our later discussion as well so

091that same language would apply in our later discussion because you asked me to put that same language below so we'll get there all right hold on let me hear from member gallo sorry Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I share a member, Dr. Castor Dental's concerns, just with the process. If someone's making a suggestion on a special meeting, nobody else will know about it due to sunshine. Would this particular policy allow us to discuss it at the dais? If a certain member wanted to bring a special meeting? Could it be discussed at the end of a regular board meeting about the dais and then five board members at that time could direct the chair and the superintendent to call a special meeting? absolutely there's nothing I mean that's what you want to do I

092think the language that we discussed here as I recall our conversations was maybe um when we have like in December we only have one meeting and so then you have to wait almost a month before you can bring something else I mean we're not there in December let's let's try July when we usually only have one meeting because by statute you're only required to have one meeting per month but maybe there's something that's of importance that you want to bring up before then and so I think um like you can always discuss it on the dais and that's why we have that provision on the policy at the end where it says bring up policy yet you guys routinely are very good at communicating that but i think this is for the instance when we

093don't have a meeting and something has to be addressed before the next regularly scheduled meeting anything else member gail got it i remember now yes i remember i remember that discussion now thank you so much and actually we had we had that um and I'm trying to remember member Kester dental it was something that you wanted to do it was right before the opening of schools in 2020. I think it might have been mandatory mask and then I came into one of the meetings and said I would support I think it was mandatory mass before school opened and I think it was member bird who was also in support whatever it was and so there was three of us and then we put it out there that if there were two more board members that

094contacted you we would there would be sufficient number to bring which did i think happen we brought it back but we yeah we played out that process here and that worked i think it's good to have it clear though that it might it might be that we have two weeks between meetings and it might be something that is of an urgent nature and there should be a way that board members in between such time could reach out for a special to be honest with you there's plenty of times we're all getting a lot of the same emails um i can think of a couple right now that i would like us to talk about sometime soon and um so it wouldn't surprise me that some of us would be all reaching out on something saying

095can we get this on the agenda so in between all right member felder yes thank you um and i this bring this brings me to my point earlier i think i mentioned to some board members that we may need to have some discussion we have so much business so we need to partner business we need to handle and get through but then there the emails and concerns that each of us get from members of our constituency that may require board discussion that's not really on the agenda. I appreciate the fact that if you are a board member, you do have a concern that you're able to at least express that there's a need for discussion. And then at that point, because we can't talk by ourselves because of Sunshine Law, but... that you can allow

096a board member to have this discussion because many of us, well, most of us have some of the same issues, but some of us don't. We have situations that are pertinent to our constituency, and it's a little different, and we may have some times that we need to discuss, and I certainly would like to be able to. Not necessarily bounce off, but to share with you my concerns. And as a board, that we come together and talk about it. Because, again, we were elected to be the voice of the people. And if we don't allow ourselves to voice their concerns, and I'm in full understanding of Superintendent Jenkins, when you have this one person just constantly, you know, we will be here forever and a day. And we can't do that. Uh-huh. What'd you say?

097Okay. But I'm just saying, but I'm glad that we do have the opportunity, and I want to make sure that I'm able to do that. So I just want to make sure I'm clear. Thank you, Member Felder. I'm going to call on Member Gould in just a minute, but Dr. Jenkins, do you want to respond? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding. My concern is that your policy reflect what can happen for future. boards this board is high functioning that is not our concern here but we have had instances and other boards have had instances where all it takes is one disruptor and the board becomes dysfunctional because you can't get the business done but i want to be very clear ladies on this dice function at a

098very high level i'm very pleased to work with a high functioning board your policy has to at least contemplate future boards well said Member Gould. It's not in this policy section, but I also want to remind my colleagues that we have other tools in our tool belt. to be able to have discussion. One, we can post meetings with one or more of us at any time. And we have subcommittees that not everything fits neatly into, but it often is a better forum for true discussion anyway than this kind of dais model. So don't forget we also have those other... tools to be able to use um everything we have we do needs to be in the sunshine and allow people to come in and listen but this is not always the best forum for true

099and genuine discussion all-out discussion just because it's we face this way we don't even look at each other without craning so yes all right back to you miss embalm okay so scrolling down a little bit further um i added section 286.0114 into this particular section to specifically provide we changed remember there was a provision before we changed citizen to individual so that was in here as well but i specifically added the reference to 286.0114 so that people know there there are parameters within that statute that allow members of the public to speak on a proposition before a board and that doesn't include ministerial things so um moving on to copies of agenda i believe that i added I added the title copies of agenda a while ago. We had this discussion that it was a

100little odd that it said that they could copy shall be made available at least seven days before the event by any person in the state who requests a copy and who pays the reasonable cost of the copy. And we cited back to section 125.25. John provided that for us. um because that's required by statute so it was a little odd because it doesn't seem to be in keeping with technology but that's where it is and that's where it's required so that's why it's in there um and you had me add agendas shall be posted to the district website we do that anyway we have been doing that for years and years but it's good to have it in policy too because that's where people go to the most i would think um scrolling down for

101some more yellow subsection 10 we had a whole discussion about conduct at meeting and in this particular one because it is about board policy school board meetings you had me add the notification of conduct at meetings and this is the language that the chair reads that they have to follow board policy kfa and they can't disrupt the meeting so i just add the word notification of so time out for a second so based on this that means every single meeting i need to read this statement not every single one i would say that um if if i mean because sometimes it's the temperature of the meeting i would say once and i think we drafted that language for you if if a meeting is going in a way that you're losing control and you cannot

102conduct your original business that's when you would say the public is reminded that you need to act in accordance with our code of civility and um those that that would be the notification that you would put them on because the statute requires notification prior to removal so right and i understand why we it's a two has to be a two-step process i just want to look more carefully at this language because i think this could be interpreted as the public shall be informed and it is off-putting i found the other day it was very off-putting to a group of people to start reading this statement um so in this language doesn't have a caveat depending on the prior i could probably add something like prior to removal or something something like that sure in the

103event of a meeting become disruptive something like that Uh-huh. Or prior, I like prior to, because it's clear that I can't do B without doing A. And maybe we can work on wordsmithing the language a little bit, but boy, I tell you what, reading it the other day, I just felt like. It's, it's odd. Yeah. I really want to, at that point I was like, can we find somebody else to read this? Because nobody in this room is going to even want to hear from me after that. And that's not a good way to run a meeting by putting people. okay so i made that note i'll work on i'll work on that a little bit okay we're almost there okay we're over halfway remember yes ma'am i just had a quick question about that

104um didn't we talk about making either signs or having it written right it's in bedh that we're getting to okay um yeah because i think that that kind of answers her question too i mean if it's if it's stated somewhere written then it doesn't necessarily need to be said by her correct i mean You agree that this language that is in here, the notification, could be accomplished by the written notification? I'd have to read the actual language of the statute. I don't think it has the word verbal in it. I'd have to look it up and see. But I think your notification, you have that language already on your protocol. I think we have it on the website in the agenda. So I'd have to look to see. where that is that is a very

105good question and we have a conduct of meeting conduct at meeting section down below in bedh and so i think that language will have to they'll have to mirror each other okay so we ready to move on to bec okay this one is executive sessions and closed sessions um i added and i did not highlight it i added collected slash collaborative bargaining because if we go back to collaborative i didn't want to change the policy because we don't have it and i didn't want to just leave it as bargaining because that may not be as transparent so added that and then you had asked under a section it's the c it's just the way they came out but section c says a closed session on collective or collaborative bargaining or on security and fire safety

106systems may be called by the chair the superintendent and or upon the direction of five board members who notify the superintendent individually so this is that language again um that we talked about notify the superintendent and or the general or and the general counsel And this is the one that she said we were going to do a little more research into. And I don't think there's any other things in that particular section. Policy. Okay. So BEDH. Remember we're going to, I think it was the suggestion of Member Cobert, that we're going to call it public input period, which is the prior to pre-agenda. and on non-agenda items we added that language in there and then we're going to have the public comment period which is directly related to agenda items so it's going to be

107a little vernacular change for us in our terminology i think we're good so i added the word non-agenda items in the in the title so people know these are items not on the agenda we had had a big discussion on the word germain and the board had directed to use the word relevant instead so i did that so this particular section now says note that the public input period is not required by law but is rather provided as a means by which the public can address the board on topics that are not on the agenda but that are relevant to the work of the board yeah Okay. Little wordsmithing, but it works. Also added a second sentence to this particular section to talk about the public's opportunity to be heard does not apply to an

108official act involving no more than a ministerial act, including but not limited to the approval of minutes and ceremonial proclamations. That's been added to our yellow cards as well. um a lot of time for speakers i think i had there's a little note there that i had for myself oh it says the yellow cards have been amended or will be amended to include the provisions of this policy i wanted to make sure i knew that and blue cards as well so this one i added the public input period i was trying to not be redundant in the policy but i thought it was important to be consistent throughout the policy so that they know the public in period prior to pre-agenda meeting so that's or that's what it always is and I added the language

109that you had asked me to do in order to accommodate, this is your, the one that's not required by law, this is your pre-agenda public input that we're going to call it now. In order to accommodate more speakers, the chair may reduce the amount of time for each speaker because there is a time limit on the public input period prior to pre-agenda meeting, members of the public who wish to speak may not have an opportunity to do so. So this is the instance where you have, let's say you have, It's easy when you have 10 people. You have 30 minutes, right? Three minutes each. But let's say you have 15. Can you bump them down to two minutes? Yeah. Two and a half minutes. Yes. Let's say you have 30, you know, so then you

110bump them down to a minute. We had a pretty robust discussion on this on the 21st. Does that language capture what? the intent was okay um i added just for clarification during the public comment period for items on the agenda i did the same thing and this was where we had we had originally put it as tier but you asked me to do priority priority one is reserved for parents and legal guardians and employees priority two is reserved for individuals who reside in orange county priority three is reserved for individuals who do not reside in orange county And so does that capture what you all remember as well? Yes. Yes. I buzzed in, but she stepped out. So I'm calling on myself. Please. I just thought we also discussed students. Can we just add students

111to priority one? Priority one. Absolutely. Thank you. Yep. Students and employees. Yes. Okay. Good call. Thank you. I think moving down. Okay. This one we talked about allowing the call-in option because you know that's not required by law but it's something that you have implemented at COVID because it was just make an easier way for the public to be able to participate in our meetings. Added language that says by motion and vote of the board a telephonic option may be made available to the public to provide input during any public input period prior to pre-agenda meeting or public comment period for items. on the agenda the board by motion and vote may discontinue the telephonic option does that capture what your discussions were again not required by law but it was just a way for

112the board to say yes or no because i do believe that when we have had previous discussions the board was kind of split yes member covert So this comes across to me that we would have to make a motion and vote to allow it and a motion and vote to discontinue it rather than just continuing our practice that we have currently, which is to allow it. But this comes across that almost like every meeting we would have to vote whether or not we're going to allow it. Does it look like that to you all? Okay. So I think the intention from my Water Remember discussion was, you know, you can evaluate maybe six months from now, maybe next week. I don't know, whatever it will be. Do we still need the call-in option? Is there

113still COVID? Is there still whatever? And then the board can say, let's evaluate, let's talk about it, see if we're ready to not use that feature anymore. I don't think the intention was ever that it's at every single meeting. right so it's it's an ongoing and continuing practice that we have right now this this piece just comes across to me as a lay person or for future generations of the board that it would be required at each five meeting so if if we added limiting language at the beginning that says as i don't know i'm trying to think as a practice or I don't know what language you think might work. I don't have the answer. I know. That was my first reaction to the language. Because it would be a practice moving forward. You

114would say, you know, let's go ahead and implement the phone and call and let's not use it anymore. Moving forward until then it's changed again. Madam Chair. That's you. yes superintendent so you so so you might add a sentence before that final um sentence there highlighted in yellow that such practice shall remain in practice until such time that the board by a vote removes it yeah something along those lines that makes sense to me or remain in place until right yeah and so in the case of the board currently it is in place it remains in place until such time that the board um yeah ongoing practice until such time or unless the board votes to discontinue it i'll work on that that's a good observation thank you I certainly did not mean for you

115to motion vote for every meeting. No. I'm trying to make it easier for you. Right. That is absolutely not our practice. But again, when a board 10 years from now is evaluating the policy and says we're not following our policy by taking a motion and vote each time. Right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Dr. Kester-Denton. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you go back one page, number 22? Back to that priorities right there, right? I I don't have a problem with the priorities listed but the paragraph before it No, no, that's right about in there So it says the time limitations for each speaker shall be as follows if one of 20 speakers have signed up Then you go on to if 21 to 40 speakers have signed up to speak each would be

116a lot of two minutes And then we would only use the priority categories only if we have more than 41 speakers. I don't know if that should be 30 or 30. I don't, I don't, yeah, it could be throughout as well. It could be priority even if we have 10 speakers. So I'm also thinking operationally how staff can control that. I think, I think that's a good discussion to have if you want that priority to be for all. I think the intent was if you're going to have 100 speakers, you want to hear first from, and this is what you had discussed, you want to hear first from people that this policy is going to, or whatever proposition before the board is going to affect the most. And so that's why you wanted to put

117that priority in place for parents, legal guardians, students, and employees first. You want to hear from them first. And then individuals who reside in Orange County second. And then... individuals who do not reside in orange county third and i think the discussion was when you have multiple like over you know many many people that just that sign up but i don't have a i don't have a preference either way um if i can follow up it says if one to 20 speakers have signed up to speak each would be allotted three minutes and that would be up to an hour but we've only allotted 45 minutes oh that's on the agenda Yeah, so agenda item, you'll have an unlimited. So for your pre-agenda, that's where you've already limited to 30 minutes because it's not required

118by law. For items that are on agenda or propositions before the board, you can have unlimited number of speakers, and they all have to be able to come and speak to you. And so I think the intent of if you have 41 or over speakers, the intent was to not make it so you're sitting here for eight, nine hours listening to testimony. I don't know how long that would be. okay um i see the difference um what about for the public input period could we also use that priority system too i think you could um but that one that one's a little bit easier to control because you only have 30 minutes but you would have to it would have to be the first i think that's going to be harder for that one because

119that one is not unlimited you can only only the number of people that speak up to speak during the pre-agenda meeting within that 30 minutes will be able to speak you to institute the priority you would have to figure out how many people are speaking and then organize them in that order i don't know that time constraints would be able to do that during pre-agenda during that 30 minutes okay um don't we also have 45 minutes for our public input period no is it 30. so the meeting usually start our pre-agenda usually starts at four and then a regular school ring starts at 4 45 with the intention of you might have a little break in between sometimes you don't depending on whatever has to happen during pre-agenda but the intent was that so you

120had a little bit of breather because if you just made it a half an hour if anybody goes over or the time in between speakers i think that's why we had it you're right thank you for clarification i get it it makes sense i don't i don't need to change okay thank you remember cobert i had the same concern i think you clarified and answered our question thank you okay remember our vice chair bird um I'm still a little confused on this one because forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like I remember this coming about from the 30 from the pre agenda meeting because we had had people who were coming to speak to us that were not even residents in Orange County that spoke before our own. people in Orange County. Specifically,

121I think a student came to speak and didn't get to speak at some point. And I think that that's where this whole discussion came from, was making sure that the students and parents within our county got preference before someone who doesn't even live in Orange County would. So my concern is still with that 30 minutes of the public input period and figuring out how we can. Make sure that those people are being heard first, but I could be wrong But I thought that that's where this all came from. Well, I'm perfectly queued up because now that you said that I Remember distinctly that is when it first came up What if we on the public input comments and on the public comment? Cards, I'm sorry public input cards and public comment cards if there is

122they're putting their address If there is a checkbox that either they check or our staff checks, it's very easy for us to look at and go, oh, they're in the priority of they are a resident of Orange County or they are a student or they are. You could say student, parent, resident of Orange County. Or just it doesn't check anything and then that means it's none of the above and they're not in the priority categories The other category that comes to my mind is it's a redistricting If it's a redistricting, the people we'd want to hear from first would be those people who are affected by that. But that's not generally a problem because that's pretty much the only people who show up. So disregard I said that. I think if we could make that

123card with a checkbox at the top that makes it very easy to figure that out so that we're not sitting here during the meeting trying to shuffle the deck, but it gets shuffled before we start. so so the logistics of that from a staff point is we would have to figure out how many cards remember we said we're going to go ahead and pass out as many blue cards as people that show up with the understanding that if every person has up to three minutes so if they just have a 30 second hey y'all rock you know then you're gonna be able to hear another two or three people so i don't know how we would unless we capture all the blue car like and it's also it was like a first come first serve

124kind of thing as well um so unless we had a set number of speakers that you're going to hear and then we can prioritize them that way i mean it's such a it's such a short window of time it's the 30 the 30 minutes but i think you want to make it fair to everybody so here's what i'm envisioning maybe i'm just thinking this is simpler than it is but the the cards all look the same everybody's filling out the same card there's big box on the on the top that says student parent teacher resident and Deborah whoever's up there getting it they real quickly they go are you a student? Are you a parent your teacher and or you're looking down there a resident? Okay, then those get sorted into those groups and then

125at that point when we're calling them out the first 30 or that was not 30 First 10 that we get or however many we get we're taking from the parent, guardians, employees, whatever groups, and maybe the parent, the guardian, the student, the teachers are all one priority. Okay, so all of those go into one group. Resident goes into group two. Other goes into group three. They get stacked that way, and I'll just take them, or you'll just call them in that order. Gets a little bit more difficult with the people on the phone, probably. Maybe we get, never mind. yeah the phone i i just don't want to i don't want you to complicate your pre-agenda public comment that's not required by law because i don't if we're right now we're doing first come first

126serve you know the first 10 definitely get in but then if there's more time there's those so if if we prioritize them all and they have them checked staff would have to be able to collect them sort them and hand them off so we could start the meeting right away does that and if they're in order received what if i'm number 31 but i'm a student does that mean i get to jump the line for people that have been waiting and they got card number one yeah it does but the problem is that really the only place we've had this problem i think has been pre-agenda where people have come from somewhere else in the state or out of state on this issue Yeah books Go ahead. Yeah, there have been a number of them.

127Yeah, there have been a number of time we had a group in the back and they and There were people who wrote to me and said I got there. I sat in line I thought I was going to be able to speak I'm a parent and you didn't hear me, but you heard all these other people and They had a valid point is why we're trying to solve it doesn't happen often So we're creating a bureaucracy around something that doesn't happen often but yeah i don't have a solution but i think i can talk to dr williams and her staff to see if we can somehow logistically make sure there's there's a big time constraint too because we actually accept cards up until the start of the meeting so to accept i mean as they're

128coming in they can certainly put them in different categories in different piles but there's a um I just don't want anything to be missed or someone, oh, I signed up that I was a student and you didn't take me and, you know, because at 30 minutes it's going to expire. By the way, where are students on here? I stepped out for a minute. I don't see students. We're going to add it. Sorry. Okay. Okay. I hear what you're saying. It's got a little work to do to figure out if we can pull this off in a way that we can consistently do it and we don't have people constantly accusing us of not following our rules. understand the challenge we haven't landed this plane yet remember covert just reinforcing the conversation so this actually was

129related to the public input period if you recall we had a meeting where several callers from around the state not orange county called in about defunding the police so it was not relevant to our work and they jumped the line for parents employees students who were sitting here so if you know they may come and be first in line but they're we're putting them on notice that this is our priority to hear from the people in orange county and this is how we prioritize so if if they don't get in then they don't get in but we have we have a time certain and i think it can be done so i think that when you call in Those who call in I don't know how that's done. I know the procedure I don't know

130if you rate it make a card for them or whatnot But the same boxes can be checked off parent guardian employee student and it can be prioritized Yeah, do a card form for those who are calling in that's priority one priority two would be resident Yeah, and and this is a this is important to me that we prioritize the people that we serve First to be able to be heard by us really interested parties okay um my um i want to keep calling your vice chair number gold so i am in favor of everything you're saying i'm wondering though by making this such a process if we set staff and us up to fail that's my only concern Because does that mean if I come in before the time certain of submitting the card, I

131came from a school, do I now get to still submit my card? And the policy says I'm a priority, so why wouldn't you bump that? I just, I'm worried about creating, our intent is good, but creating a lot of hostility unintentionally. because we've made it a cumbersome process to manage. And it may not be that cumbersome based on what you're saying. And maybe we need to try it to see. But I just, it can be, you know, and especially when we're not in COVID, there's a lot of people in here because we're doing recognitions. We're doing the administrators. It's not. as controlled as it has been since most of you were elected recently. There's just a lot more public here, and I don't want to set up our staff to fail, and I don't want

132it to reflect on us like we're controlling the narrative too much. Good points. Member Lopez? I also agree. with board member goal. But I also have questions because I agree to a certain extent with the comments because how can we guarantee the transparency of the people that are calling saying that they are from our district when we're not sure? How can we verify is that information is true or not? So if we don't have that type of accountability, It's better to be more simple and just... you know, have in mind that it's not mandated by law, but we have to also be careful that we're living in a democracy. We cannot stop people to talk about certain topics that they feel that are very important, even though it's not part of our news at that

133moment. For example, I remember a mom talking about his son from the LGBTQ. She was crying. It's not related to that day, but, you know, she felt that it's... the right day to speak up about you know the amazing things that ocps um did for his son so i don't know you know i i don't want to to be in a spot that um control the the public um the pre-agenda you know but that's my point of view and i respect all the comments that have been said okay um i'm actually luckily queued up and i think we're about done but i have to comment that Those are excellent points your observation about We don't know for sure if people on the phone. We don't even know once people understand the process is if you're

134a parent You're going to speak first or if you're in resident you're gonna speak second Somebody's gonna fill the card out and we don't know that that's accurate So we are creating something that may not even work and the control thing. I Am amazed at how many people think that we sit up here and do things that we do because we like controlling. I don't even understand where that idea comes from. I can't comprehend it, but I read it often enough that when you say that, it really resonates with me. Remember Lopez, I think there are really good observations. So I don't know. I think coming back to, I'm not sure we're ready on this too, but it can stay in there. We'll bring it back the next time. I just don't know. i'd love

135to be able to bring this back to you for rule development workshops so we can get a lot of these policies adopted and i'm not saying i'm just saying i'm not sure at the end of the day right what we're going to do on this one right but this is the value of this discussion oh yeah agenda is yeah agenda is different because you have to hear from everyone that signs up on a proposition before the board for that for reminding me member what page we're on today um but i think we're trying to do it at pre-agenda probably not a good idea i my personal after i came in believing it was advocating for it was but after hearing member lopez i think i remember gold i think maybe maybe not all right if

136no further comment we'll go so can i get cl i'm not sure where i need to go are we going to leave it as is or do you want me to do something else because i have i see seven of you here and one on the phone and i just need direction okay is it easier if i say Member Byrd. I just have a clarifying question. Is if we were to, does this have to be in policy necessarily? If we want to ask staff during the public input pre-agenda meeting to make sure that if there are any students. that are present to speak, that they speak first or that they, their card is first. Is there, is that, does that have to be in policy or is that just something that we could do as

137a practice? So I wouldn't want you to change everything on the fly and do things differently at one meeting versus another meeting because then it could be seen as a restriction of speech, even though this isn't legally required. So I have concerns about changing it on the fly and having it different for each meeting. So that's my input. Dr. Jenkins? Let me try to land this plane. So I believe the board would probably be amenable to having the language in place for the discussion that is provided during the meeting for items that are on the agenda that is doable at this point. At this time, delaying adding the same provisions for the pre-agenda speakers because of some of the logistics issues, knowing full well that we can come back later on and add it if

138we work it out. I see a few heads nodding. I'm in agreement with that. I think it also gives us a chance to pilot this. Yes. And it will be much more difficult to implement it with that short window of time than it is in a regular meeting. So if it's cumbersome, we'll know whether or not we can pull it off. I see a lot of nodding head. Any no's to that? member cobert you look like you tried to press your button no i i concur i'll leave it as it is now let's see how this goes and if we feel that we need to make a change then we fix a problem that we actually have okay good deal thank you dr jenkins do you want to see if member gallo i don't remember

139gallo are you with us yes madam chair and i i agree with the rest of the board okay thank you all right we're almost there okay Moving on down to I'm going to work on that language there for the telephonic option. Signing up to speak. We had a long discussion about Jermaine versus relevant. Jermaine has now been changed to relevant. And so subsection B. speakers wishing to address items or issues on the regular board meeting agenda will be asked to return and address the school board during the public comment period for such regularly scheduled board meeting for the agenda item in question so this is for instances when they come to pre-agenda and they say hey i want to talk on the agenda item we do that already but sometimes staff is able to capture

140them so we i don't remember what the discussion exactly was about this but that's why that language was added in there and then Here was the next part. Subsection 11 was conduct at meeting. And this is the same language that you had before in BE, I believe. The public shall be informed that is unlawful to knowingly disrupt or interfere with a board meeting. You had asked me to add this in there too, and it mirrors a language that's in the notification of conduct at board meeting. And then you also had asked me. district police and or local law enforcement are authorized to assist with anyone who disrupts or interferes with a board meeting and we put a reference into policy kfa is this something we want to change now and like we did for before

141where i was going to add some limiting language that said remember we talked about whether it was going to be posted or whatever i'm going to look into that issue so i'll also keep that language here too Yes, so my thinking is based on the conversation that we had if we had something that said that clarified that that notice could be in writing You were also going to check and see if it has to be done verbally if it has to be done verbally I what we wanted to do Was not have a requirement that we have to note say that at every single meeting. Mm-hmm but that prior to removing somebody from the from a meeting or whatever prior to that at all, they will be public there will be um notice public no

142I don't know it's your it's your it's your first your warning you know please note that we can remove you from the meeting yes right it's kind of like your yeah the question is if it has to be done verbally you figure out the language to say prior to removing somebody or citing them or whatever yeah it has to be verbal otherwise let's just be able to do it in writing yep all right and then the full answer because you weren't sure if it had to be a verbal right i don't think the statute says verbal but i check right you're gonna put it in or not so no what what we had done is if you if you bear with me we'll scroll back up to the top where it said it was in

143b e i believe we added it to there it is that was called conduct meeting we did notification of and so those two provisions will match i have notes to make those provisions match okay so and then the last thing that you added asked me to add in bedh was entry into the board chambers the board reserves the right to restrict entry into the board chambers for those individuals who have disrupted or interfered with board meeting that's pretty innocuous so but it's in the policy and we're on our last slide this is bie remember back up before we added the language into bdc so this would be recommended for repeal amber castrodent Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you go back again? I can. One more? That one, entry into board chambers. The board reserves the

144right to restrict entry into the board chambers for those individuals who have disrupted or interfered with the board meeting. Is that forever? So we would. I think it's reserving the right to do so. It can be for a time certain. It can be for a period. It's similar to a trespass. I have some legal concerns with respect to keeping people from a public meeting. But I believe the discussion last time that you just wanted it in there. in practice would we do so it depends on how egregious it is i mean if it's egregious enough to where we actually trespass them from the property then that's what would happen um okay so i'm i'm i'm kind of uh kind of split with this one but i wanted to make sure that i put it in

145there because that's what the board discussed the last time okay but i'm good thank you anybody else okay okay anything else i think we're good we'll bring it back for a ruled event workshop hopefully so we can land those first section and then we'll work on our next section of b policies after that and actually madam chair if i'm if i might on that on the two questions that were still in under discussion if we can have those covered in the one-on-one meeting so that is actually settled before the rdw yes right thank you that would be very very helpful all right if there's nothing dr jeng is anything further for work session all right for this portion of the work session we're going to come back um we're going to take a brief recess

146is that correct okay you want to come back it's 306. give me a time 10 minutes is fine. 15? 15, okay. Thank you. I just know how that goes. All right? And besides, I need about three minutes, okay, of your time right now. are back in session there's one last item that we added to the agenda for today's work session titled discussion only school board special impasse hearing format discussion the intent of this discussion is sitting as a legislative body to discuss how you all wish to conduct you all wish that i conduct next week's special impasse hearing with respect to some of the outstanding logistics issues Our general counsel and I both thought this would be a good idea to have a conversation because we spent an enormous amount of time at the last

147special impasse just before we actually got to the meat of the issue discussing this. So I really did want to involve the board and get some feedback. There's a couple of issues that are still outstanding between the parties. Start time with the union suggesting 4 o'clock and the district suggesting 3.30. time allotted for each party to explain their positions. And in that case, the union is asking for 90 minutes. The district thinks it can be done in 30 minutes. I had suggested 45 minutes, not because it was in between the two, because I didn't know what they were suggesting, but because the last time we had four issues, this time we have two issues. So dividing the time we had last. And also this time we have really three sentences that are recommendations of the

148special magistrate that have been rejected so we're really dealing with three sentences um time not subtracted from answers to questions that's been resolved all parties agree we should do like we did last time board members have questions the time isn't subtracted by anybody's time if either party has a rebuttal to the answers that time is not subjected sorry subtracted i would suggest that If the answers or questions are fact-based, that we clearly communicate to both parties that we want fact-based answers rather than opinions. And if they're fact-based answers and questions, that the rebuttal should be based on fact rather than opinions. Next item is in-person or call-in option. Again, this is resolved. We're going to do as we've always done. We'll allow call-in parties. I do have some suggestions, which I'll come back to later,

149that I think might make this process a little easier. Because it was very It was clunky. It was difficult on mr. Richard mr. Richards and it was difficult on our end Not having him present in the room him not knowing when to interject so I have a couple of really I think Simple suggestions that I hope will make that process better. We'll come back to new witnesses This is this is kind of probably the big one of all of them new witnesses or documents, evidence, and rebuttal being entered that wasn't already in the record. And if there is going to be new witnesses, new evidence, new documents, presentations, should those be available to both parties in advance and should they be available to the board? And I do, I think that along with those witnesses,

150we need to have a conversation if there are going to be additional witnesses. My expectation is that would be as part of the presentation period and not in addition to it and that the any witnesses any evidence all stays GERMAIN TO THE TWO ISSUES THAT ARE IN DISPUTE AT THIS POINT AND NOT THE OTHER ISSUES THAT HAVE BEEN TO THE SPECIAL MAGISTRATE AND BEEN SETTLED. THAT WOULD IN MY STRONG OPINION WOULD NEGATE THE ENTIRE POINT OF GOING TO THE SPECIAL MAGISTRATE. I THINK A POINT THAT MEMBER BIRD MADE SO WELL KIND OF AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE LAST MEETING. SO WITH THAT, I WANTED TO START BY KIND OF OPENING UP FOR DISCUSSION ON START TIME. 4 O'CLOCK, 3.30 OR SOME OTHER TIME. ADVICE FROM THE BOARD? input from the board starting with member bird

151um i think that it's i think it's pretty it's just the 30 minute difference so unless there's some compelling reason why we can't start at four then i don't really see a problem with going with four if that's what they need member gould i am fine with before i actually push my button on something else okay okay i'll come back to you in a minute um member caster dental um thank you i I personally don't have a preference either way, but it does make sense to allow people to get home who want to view it from, you know, after work or or attend. And I think a 4 p.m. start is reasonable. OK. And nobody else. I'm going to come back to those of you who have pushed your button on other things and try

152to keep track of this. But member Gallo on this matter. I'm sorry about that. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm in agreement with the rest of the boards. 3.34 o'clock, either would be fine with me. I would... I would just say it really, in my mind, depends on the length of time we're given each party because this is an important matter and I'd like to make sure that we can conclude in one afternoon. So really, I'm fine with three or 340 unless we're going to give a huge allotment of time and then it would force us to be deep into the night again. That's my opinion. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. And going through the roll call that's up here, Member Cobert on this matter. I agree. 30 minutes is not a lot of time.

153I would be fine with the 4 o'clock start time if we also incorporate some provisions as to the length of testimony, whether that's, as you suggested, wrapping any additional witnesses into the presentation time or that those witnesses might submit in writing ahead of time. This is not necessary for this to be another 16 hour meeting and we want to wrap this up and have this result All right. Thank you member Lopez. I agree with board member Colbert, I believe that for will be great if we can make arrangement with the Position of the teachers and and the testimonies. I believe that for provide more time to all of the people that are going to participate to not run into the day you know we also want them to be safe here and i think that

15430 minutes is not a big of a difference all right thank you and member felder on the issue uh we have near unanimous right now but four o'clock okay with you and the comments i've heard kind of consistently is contain the um The meeting to the germane point so that we do we are able to conclude the same day So, okay. So four o'clock it is let's move on then to if it's alright. We'll take them in or no I'm sorry Let me go in the order that you all have asked to be recognized and then we can come back to this member Gould So mine was going to be on the next one anyway I think both parties should be able to present in 30 minutes I also love the idea if there is

155testimony outside the 30 minutes, if they want to supply it in writing ahead of time, that we then can take in all testimony. I like that very much, Member Cobart. And if they stray when we're answering questions and asking questions off the topic, it does get deducted from the time. Oh, okay. because I feel that we all know this subject well and that needs to be respected and that we stay to the points of the discussion thank you member Gould let's go to member Gallo member Gallo if you're commenting on time that would be ideal so we can knock these out in an orderly fashion but you're recognized thank you madam chair um I think 45 minutes since we only have the two items versus the four that we had at the last impasse hearing

156is appropriate. So I would be fine given each council 45 minutes to discuss. And I like Member Cobart's idea as well and Member Gould. Any information, testimony, ideas, issues that they have, if they could present that to us ahead of time so that we could review it, we could look over it, I think that that's appropriate. I know that there was some um confusion last time that we kept calling on mr pomerini for numbers and facts and it was really due to our district had the facts and those numbers and we weren't given any facts or numbers from from the union which we would have been happy to review so any of that information that's been disclosed any facts that they would like to share i would also ask that that be given to the

157board in a written form as well thank you all right so we've had um two or three comments on written form let me ask simultaneously because um i know right now i'm i'm in the process of reviewing the transcripts i've gotten through everything else the transcripts are Lengthy, but it gives me a better understanding of kind of the whole content. So I'm gonna be reading that most likely Into the weekend. I would really like to have anything that's written I want it sent to us in a timely fashion because getting it for instance getting it on Tuesday when I have a board meeting on Tuesday means I'm don't know about you all but I'm not gonna be reading it and at this point falling behind on emails as well just trying to get through this

158process with With these hearings and making sure that we give the attention that we need to so we do need to arrive at a time frame to receive this information My original suggestion had been no, I don't think it was mine. I think it was actually a district had suggested five days and the problem Which yeah that the problem that I saw with that although I liked the fact that it'd be Friday and we would have and I don't think it's just the district again, I think this board more than the district needs that information so that we can consider fairly but if we're going to get it On Friday, that means they would have to send it tomorrow. So I did ask Ms. Anval to let everybody know ahead of time that that was

159a possibility so that both parties could be prepared if they have new information to get it to us by end of day tomorrow. So I have put that on their radar screen, but I would like feedback from the board whether that's reasonable. And if not, what is a reasonable period of time for the board to have this information? So if I can go backwards to Member Gould and then Member Gallo, and then I'll move forward. on time frame to receive written material agreed with what you just stated member gallo i agree as well madam chair all right great let me then move on to member burke um am i talking about the time now i'm confused well we're right now we're on time and if there's going to be written um either presentation or testimony

160if we're going to receive that what time frame to receive it i agree with you that yeah we definitely need to have that before the weekend if we can to read i totally agree with you because there's already a lot to read um and then for time frame i think that 45 minutes is more than generous considering it's really everything does is not looking to be rehashed it's really just these um few sentences in the beginning and so i don't really see why we would need so long so i agree with 30 or 45 minutes whatever the board all right 30 or 45 minutes um moving to member cobert I have to agree. I've thought through this. At the last hearing, there were four issues, three of them really meaty, but four issues. Divide that

161into 90 minutes. Each issue had about 22 and a half minutes. So I do think, given that there are two issues and really only three sentences, I think the 45 minutes is sufficient. I also think... chair and the board were very generous last time when there was any discrepancy in time or going back and giving any additional minutes i i think i think the board will continue to be fair we want to hear both sides of this issue we want to hear those presentations um so that's that i don't think that's limiting i think that that's fair all right thank you and written material you suggested it i i did so on the issue of uh additional evidence or witnesses we had this discussion the last time and precedent around the state from what i

162have seen normally because we're not re-litigating this normally there is not additional evidence or witnesses we also were very fair and generous and in the last hearing and allowed they had one or two additional witnesses and some evidence and we allow that but i don't think we can get out of hand on this so my suggestion is any additional evidence or witness testimony if it can be given to us ahead of time in writing then we absolutely have the opportunity to read that absorb and weigh that uh before the presentations okay so what what i hear you saying is in terms of who presents it would be And who we're going to hear from the day of, your suggestion would be it be the same parties that participated with the special magistrate. Any additional testimony

163would come to us in a written form. Correct. Understanding that. Correct. I'm going to circle back around with that more detailed suggestion. Member, okay, did you just clear yours? Occasionally, occasionally you all don't clear, and I don't always clear. Member Gould, are you back up? Okay, I just need to clear you all. All right, so let, do you see this? Do you see this? Every now and then, it's doing its own thing. It's a ghost. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so we're close to having a consensus. No, we're not. We haven't landed. Let's go through with the rest of the board members. Member Lopez, 30 to 45 minutes, your preference. 45, and I agree with Board Member Colbert. So 100% agreement and who haven't I heard from member Felder time and suggestion. Yes, 45 minutes and

164what. Remember Colbert suggested. I concur with the 45 minutes per side and I'm asked for the additional information or presentation. We are a different audience than the judge So I don't mind having an additional information But I would prefer earlier than later. So I would think that Having any extra information that they have or presentation in writing No later than the 24th two days Beforehand, but if they can get it to us sooner It would serve them better the sooner they can get it to us Ice Let me go back to member Gould the suggestion that we have from member covert that we have that they provide the same lineup for presenters, but additional Testimony would come in a written form agree or disagree. I agree with that. Okay Member Gallo, do you agree with

165that? And then I'm going to come back and talk about the time frame for having this material Yes, Madam Chair, I agree. Okay. Member Byrd, are you in agreement? Okay. All right. The one concern that I have with a Friday deadline for testimony from teachers, I think that it's reasonable that... Mr. Richard and Miss Eva have put their information together. They have an idea of what they would be sending us if they have something new. For instance, the last time there was an additional survey that we weren't familiar with or aware of, I frankly would have liked to have seen that survey ahead of time and would have liked to have known a little bit more about who was surveyed. And there wasn't a lot of new. And the questions in the survey, I didn't

166think. was something that rattled me or surprised me. I think one of them was teachers doing way more than the time and day they're paid for. It is a sad reality that I think most of us are familiar with. But for them, having a due date, a time frame of the end of day tomorrow, I think is reasonable. I'm not sure if there are going to be teachers submitting testimony. that the end of day tomorrow is reasonable. At the same time, I will be honest with you, if it's the 24th, I don't see how, and if we get 100 letters or more, I don't see how there's time to read that. So I want us to figure out what is the right time frame if it's testimony from other individuals, whether that be teachers or

167somebody else. What is fair to those individuals and what is reasonable in terms of the board's capacity to absorb that information? Member Lopez, your thoughts. We can also ask for no more than two paragraphs, for example, or, you know, I don't want to control, but if we want to really read so many emails or maybe create a... a different email not directly to us so we can have all of the documents in maybe in a file or something in our drive but just you know maybe two paragraphs or maybe control the the amount of of sentences i don't know if that would be a good idea or not i would love to okay to hear from the rest of the board okay remember bird remember lopez's comment or yeah i'm gonna um kind of switch

168my position a little bit i'm a little more i'm sitting here thinking about it i'm i'm just kind of concerned with um asking for more new witnesses more evidence being given to us in writing and this is why because there's already if you look at the file from this from this magistrate um These proceedings there's already a lot of information in there and a lot to read I mean it as member Colbert said it's already been litigated. The whole thing was already litigated. So My concern is we're gonna have all we have all that to read and then we are gonna I'm afraid that if we say send us Yours send us new stuff that we're gonna get all new information about topics that are have already been decided in the in the MOU that

169we're talking about and have already been agreed upon that are really unnecessary for us to hear about. I'm just afraid it's putting way too much that this is way simpler than what we dealt with last time. And I think that maybe we're making it a little too complicated. Thank you, Member Byrd. Good point. Member Castrodano. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't mind having the different sides present us with additional information. And that if we do receive it, then we all have to receive the same information. They don't just send it to one person and not the other. But I don't really see the benefit of just emails from employees. I'm more from their sides. If there's additional information, not... not just reiterating the same information from more people so i'm not asking for an inundation

170of emails from employees i don't think that's going to affect how we make a decision but if there's something new or that each side would like us to consider i don't mind getting that information remember covert okay so we're talking about witness testimony we're not being taught we're not talking about being inundated with emails i've already gotten a couple of emails and which i have responded that i'm really not able to discuss the subject because of the uh the upcoming hearing so if it is truly witness testimony then counsel for the cta should be able to instruct those witnesses what what that should look like what are the what are the parameters that you're not it's not uh to rehash things that have already been agreed upon it's limited to these subjects so it must

171be pertinent so council should be able to instruct their witnesses so that it is so it is constructive for us and my suggestion in taking it in writing is is a way for us it is a way for us to really truly be able to hear all sides of the issue without relitigating it so to me it's a compromise between allowing 40 50 new witnesses to come in we can receive that and we can read all of that but it has to be true witness testimony and council can instruct them how you give witness testimony not what to say what to write but that this is to be witness testimony not opinion or rehashing of old subjects thank you member cobert i one cons i i I agree with everything you said about what it

172should be. I do have a concern that when you talk about health and safety, that if I am... I am out in a classroom and I have concerns about health and safety, that my idea of testimony is going to be concerns that I have about things that I'm seeing and whether I'm safe and whether the room is clean and whether I have PPE and all these things, which are very valid concerns, absolutely crucial concerns and should be dealt with, but are not testimony for the three sentences that we're being asked to decide. whether the MOU or, I don't want to get into the details, the three sentences that are on this board's agenda for next Wednesday. And so I am concerned that it's going to be hard, quite honestly for me even, to keep us

173narrowly focused on those three sentences, even with just the parties here. So while I completely agree with you that's how it should work, I'm not sure that's how it will work in terms of what we'll receive. And as I was suggesting that maybe there will be a later date, I'm going to reiterate I'm very concerned about whether or not that will be meaningful because as Member Byrd pointed out, there is a lot in the record already. So let me go to member Gould. I didn't really say much of anything other than I have a lot of concerns and I'm just coming into this knowing that any testimony that we take is likely going to be off. Some of it's going to be off point and I. really hate being in the position. It's my job.

174I understand that. But I hate being in a position of having to tell the people that I respect most in this organization, and that's our teachers, that that I can't consider because it's not on point. I don't like being in that position. But we may well be there next week. if depending upon how we structure this and how well we organize the structure so that we stay focused on the issues that we have to resolve member gold i i agree with you uh chair that it we and and what some of the other board members have said that we have to make sure we stay within the bounds of what we're here to do Otherwise, there's a couple reasons for that. One, we need to accomplish and get this settled for our teachers and our

175staffs. There's no question. Number two, the more we go into bunny trails, the more disorganized it looks. So it's really important that... the that whatever additional testimony data that is supplied by the council because they should be gathering those depositions and things is pertinent to the subject and um You know, as soon as we can possibly get it, I understand what you're saying about the deadline and wanting to back off on that. But I believe that they. know what that additional testimony is already. So I don't think that tomorrow's deadline is unreasonable by the end of the day, especially since you prepped them and said this might be a way that the board will go because it's going to be, you know, because we're discussing today. So I think. It is our duty and job

176to make sure we stay within the boundaries of the topics that we need to discuss. If there's things outside of that topic, they need to go back to the bargaining table and bargain that in the next cycle. But we need to resolve and get this behind us and resolved for the district, ourselves, for the CTA. Okay, if I can summarize what I understood we would Most likely still stick with end of day Friday midnight Friday We would ask that any additional Evidence any additional any testimony that's coming in be given to us in writing and that it would be the responsibility of both parties in submitting that to make sure that that's culled down to the three sentences that this board will need to decide next week. Okay, so that burden is on both parties

177that if they're submitting written testimony, that that testimony is on point. Okay, I like that idea. I think that that's, I think that's doable. Member Gallo. You're queued up next. Are you in agreement with the direction we're going at this point? Yes, I am, Madam Chair. I just have. I agree with Member Gould that any testimony or any information given to the board needs to be germane to the topics at hand. In thinking it through and in listening to Member Byrd, it occurred to me that we're here to, in a quasi-judicial... manner to be fair to both sides, to be fair to the union and to be fair to the district. And if we're allowing all of additional testimony or testimony to come in, which I initially agreed with doing, are we in essence giving

178more time to whichever party submits information than to the other party? And would that still be a fair process? Okay. Because we're taking it in written form. And we're going to bound them by a certain time frame. Yeah, I understand. And if we were limiting it to the 45 minutes that we're here in the chambers, it would be the same amount of time. I do think that if you're only looking at these three sentences, there's not a lot that you can add. to the positions. There's not public testimony that can be had that's going to be vastly divergent. So I think we're going to hear a lot of redundancies. If I'm going to, we're going to go back once through and pull the board again on whether or not you're comfortable with this approach. I

179do hear what you're saying. I know we have to be fair and impartial to both sides. At the same time, I think we all want to make sure that we are giving ample ear to everyone who has a legitimate input on these three sentences. So any disagreement from the board in this general direction right now? Okay, I think we're all okay on that. A couple of suggestions that I had for how we might move more smoothly. We had a great deal of difficulty because Mr. Richard was not here in the room. And it was difficult. I couldn't see his eyes to see if he wanted to be recognized. We came up with the idea that he would text Ms. Dormel. She would text you or wave to you, and then you would push the button.

180The only time we actually put that to use, the second I saw his name come up, I called on him. And he felt that I had... just dragged my heels and I can understand in the amount of time with this little relay thing we have going here how it felt and seemed that way on his end. So I'm going to suggest that as an alternative to that that we make sure that Ms. Dormall is right up here in the front and center and I'm going to suggest that Ms. Dormall, I'm glad you're here with us, that you have some sort of a big flag. Okay? And it can be a big flag. I'm sorry, like a big sign. Maybe it's I have a crossing sign out there that says stop, but maybe it should be

181a pause. And that as soon as you hear from Mr. Richard or Miss Piva, you would wave that. And that's my way of going. He wants to be recognized. Right. And if and what I do try to do is I do try to pay attention to whoever speaking. So there's a possibility with you waving this, I don't see it, although I think that's a remote possibility. Much more likely that I'm going to see that than this other is going to work. I've got on my left and my right two watchdogs. Between the three of us, we're going to see it. So I think that's going to give us a much more instantaneous. I want Mr. Pomerini to do the same thing. If he wants to be recognized, he's going to have a sign. He's going

182to hold up the sign. And we're going to do everything we can as a team up here to make sure that whoever wants to be recognized is recognized pretty quickly. If it is in the middle of questions or comments that board members are making. I do not think I'm going to be entertaining objections to comments that board members are making. So in all likelihood, I'm going to allow board members to finish their comments. If it is an objection to something one party or the other party is making, it should be in the form of an objection and not a rebuttal. So rebuttals can take place after comments are finished. So I think we need to be very clear on that, that if one party is giving an opening statement, that person gets that party gets

183to finish their opening statement unless there's an objection to something that they're presenting, which is highly unlikely, I think. But it's possible. It is not rebuttal time. I would also. So anyway, I think that's going to help us a lot. I'm also going to ask that Mr. Richard or anybody that's on the line mutes their mic when they're not. being spoken to because there was a couple of times I've gone back and watched about half of the first day. I don't know that I'm going to get through all of it, but it's painful. And there were a number of times when we were hearing interference on the phone and we're trying to decide whether to stop and whether somebody was trying to be recognized. So I think that that muting is going to be will

184be helpful as well. You only speak once you're called on. There's not anybody that's going to just interrupt. If I'm calling on either one of those signs, that's when you get recognized, not before. I think that one thought I had was maybe there should be a time limit on answering board member questions and time limit on rebuttal. We've placed time limits on ourselves. And when I have gone back and watched, there were times when we spent an enormous amount of time on a relatively simple question. So I wanted to float that out as a possibility. Okay. All right. Thoughts for amount of time for an answer. And I will throw out my thought, having been in a lot of debates. Well, not a lot, but a lot more than I wanted to be in. You're

185often given a minute for a pretty complex issue. I thought perhaps we start with a minute for answering questions. And then if more is necessary, then whoever asks the question can ask for follow-up or more clarity. And then the same for rebuttal, one minute. Rebuttal as I mentioned before and I'm hoping this woman symbol always takes copious notes rebuttal Answers to questions if they're fact-based questions or fact-based answers rebuttals have to be fact-based rebuttals if it's your opinion then it's your opinion, but if it's How much is this going to cost which was one of the things we had that it's obviously not relevant here I think if we could say a little bit more on task and more focused it'll be more effective for all of us. Member Gallo, did you want to be

186recognized? No, Madam Chair, I'm good right now. Thank you. Okay. Member Covert, did you want to be recognized? This is from before. You're recognized. Do we know if Mr. Richards is planning to attend in person or remotely? Do we know? Ms. Emble? I believe last I heard, and Ms. Storm will probably confirm, I believe he's attending telephonically. Okay. okay yeah and we come we completely understand and are happy to make that accommodation for him i i did just find i appreciate your suggestions on on the manner in which we conduct and to make this a little bit more organized because i found it very disruptive during the last hearing to be interrupted i mean just one question i was interrupted twice so i i appreciate your effort in developing a system where happy to accommodate

187him being remote remote but a way for him to be recognized and not to just disrupt a question or a thought that we're having so that we can be thorough in our understanding of this issue and i'm i'm happy with the time limit i like the idea of one minute but if a board member's question is not answered fully or they need clarification that they can can follow up all right thank you and um I know from our time here on this board that nobody talks over each other and nobody interrupts each other. And that was very difficult, I think, for all of us. I will, I do want to acknowledge that. If I am Mr. Richard and I'm remotely trying to participate and I don't know when it is I can jump in, I

188do in fairness to him, I think that's a very difficult way to participate. And that's where I'm hoping that either he's calling or texting, whichever is the quickest thing. It might be quicker for him just to call Wendy. I'm sorry, Ms. Dormel. And then she can waive that. And then he speaks once he's recognized as we typically do, as we always do here at the dais. any um did i leave out anything miss envalde and unsettled i would love to have a recap of the start time the time allocated and the witnesses oh thank you just for clarity i will tell you the start time we landed the plane on that at four o'clock the amount of time actually was between um 30 minutes and 45 minutes and at this point i did not have

189one It was going in the direction of 45 minutes, but do we want to take a poll one more time on that? Member Lopez, 45 or 30? 45. Member Coburn? 45. Okay. Member? 45. Okay. I'm not skipping the rest of you, but I think most of you had already said 45. Yeah, the rest of you had already said 45. That was my notes, too. I just wanted to make sure. And was there anything else that was left unclear in your mind? because we're going to be counting on you to communicate this in writing to the parties. Right. I'll do that. And I think I think for for what I heard was if there is any additional testimony or evidence or information, it has to be directly relevant to the two issues and the rejected recommendations.

190And those two issues are in case of a conflict between the manual and the MOU, which controls. And then the second issue is whether the CDC guidelines are going to be implemented. whether their guidelines or cdc guidelines are going to be like whether the district is required to follow the cdc guidelines um are considered or um required i think with the language in there um yes those are the those are the two issues and so we will take written testimony or additional evidence has to be by friday at the end of the day and it has to be specific to those two issues so friday at 11 59 is really it yes i think that sums it up and i i mean just as an aside as as as you know you already know this

191is a the the impasse resolution process is a creature of statute and though it provides you with you have to um forthwith hold a public hearing and then thereafter take recommendation i do think it is intentionally vague there's no other um procedural requirements or time limit because you are in the best position as a quasi-digital body to make those decisions for the organization and i think you're doing a good job by setting up for these parameters ahead of time it is your sole decision to make that's why i did not invite either side to participate because this is really your decision you are the legislative body and you have the ability to control that and yeah in retrospect obviously i wish i had started um with this discussion with the board before the last impasse

192hearing. I thought, given the impasse hearings that I have seen over the years, I just didn't see this situation being that difficult or complicated, but we spent a lot of time getting the groundwork in place. Member Gallo, you recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that was an old cue. I'm good. Okay, wonderful. Okay, if there's nothing further for the board, Ms. Semble, if there's nothing further from you, then we will adjourn. Thank you all very much for your time today and your guidance.