001meeting to order school district of indian river county on august the 24th first order of business is the pledge of allegiance would you please join me in a pledge of allegiance to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all so the first order of business tonight is the adoption of the orders of the day dr moore through the chair we would like to request to move item right for it uh eight a which is the the name of the item is to approve the collective bargaining agreement between the school board and the communication workers association cwa immediately to follow uh presentations prior to citizen input all right um uh can i have
002a motion to approve that there's another item i was going to get to the other oh sorry all right and another item you want to move another item yeah usually we approve them all at once the other item is to add legislative platform additions as an action item okay and i believe all board members now have a copy of that edition that was written after the workshop today anything else can i have a motion to approve the orders of the day move moving sorry yes too quick um what i don't see here is the unitary status sustainability was that pulled dr moore where am i missing it hold on it is it is here okay i'd like to pull uh 9a for discussion or rather for for action rather for action sorry all right anything
003else any other changes you have a motion to approve those changes i'll make a motion uh mrs behrenborg a second second dr jones all in favor say hi aye opposed motion carries 5-0 all right dr moore turn it over thank you through the chair our first presentation tonight is a long-awaited presentation that the board and myself have been working on diligently for quite some time now it is the presentation of the fsba master board training presentation and for that i'll ask april griffin to from fsba to step to the podium good evening um it gives me great pleasure to come and to present this certification for you my name is april griffin i am a former school board member in alachua county and i am also past president of the florida school boards association and
004we know that there's a direct correlation to the way that the school board and the superintendent work together which is the governance team correlates directly to student achievement and positive district culture and as superintendent said we started this three years ago and then we had to take a break for covid you've completed the training and i think that this shows your dedication to professional development and your willingness to learn how to work better together as a governance team so i have a plaque for you and i'd like for y'all to come down if you don't mind for a picture so yeah yeah [Applause] thank you very much good evening uh i'm filling in for kristen maddox tonight and one of the things i love about indian river school district is we always capture a lot
005of exciting things with video and this uh starting the school year is no different we have a first day of school video that started off with a bus send out with dr moore at 5 30 in the morning on the first day of school we the team the public information team went around and visited many schools caught a lot of the excitement and activity the students returning back to school along with staff i just wanted to thank our community partners who helped welcome kids back and the first day of school was a success so if you would please turn your attention to one of the monitors [Music] right here [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you mr bass and it was an absolutely outstanding first day of
006school um a lot of effort a lot of hard work partnership went into making such a successful opening of school so just very very thankful that we're able to return our students back to brick and mortar 100 percent and really hit our sweet spot which is teachers in classrooms filled with kids doing exactly what we know how to do the best which is provide standards aligned instruction the next item is that is concludes presentations the next item is the signing of the contract with cwa so i would appreciate it if maureen i don't know if if mike would hobble up here or not if it's appropriate so you board may remember a few months back we began the negotiation process with cwa and it was an opportunity um as they came to this podium and
007spoke into that mic about honoring and acknowledging the work that they've done and there were comments made about the contributions that they made in their level of flexibility and their ability to respond to crisis as we've navigated through a pandemic um and i can tell the two of you that you drive a hard bargain but every single cent and then some is absolutely worth it for being the glue that holds the school system together uh all of the behind the scenes things that no one knows gets done but magically just get done when the teachers show up or the level of cleanliness in a school or transporting students to school which are true heroes so i cannot acknowledge um at any higher level the quality the professionalism the high expectation uh you have for for
008me and your willingness to to push and advocate for those in who you represent so i afford you the opportunity to speak uh to the board now prior to signing and after that maureen we will sit and sign your contract thank you good evening my name is maureen weisberg i'm the president of the local cwa 3180 this evening i wish to express my gratitude to dr moore and his team along with the cwa bargaining team for their hard work and dedication on may 24th we asked the esteemed school board members to show courage to these amazing workers who have given and still continue to give so much to our schools and community on august 9th the cwa held elections for the new contract with the 93 percent approval rating this evening we ask our school
009board members to ratify the cwa contract for the 21 24 school year on behalf of the cwa we wish everyone a happy and healthy school year [Applause] good evening board members my name is mike murray executive vice president of cwa local 3180 i would also like to thank dr moore and the board uh for their willingness uh to work with us it was a hard bargain it was um kind of things that we didn't want to talk about and do but we all came to a mutual agreement and um thank you for your appreciation to us our dedicated workers thank you [Music] prior to signing if we could have a motion and second in approval of this contract uh would be greatly appreciated i'll make a motion i'll make a motion mrs rostario a second
010dr second all in favor aye aye motion carries unanimously [Applause] more legal oh yes i need to hand out pens like the president would be souvenirs thank you very much thank you congratulations [Applause] [Music] the next next order of business citizen input this evening we have people wishing to speak to of which will speak specifically to an action item i'd like to remind everybody that please try and refrain from clapping or births of any kind that would be very much appreciated the guidelines each statement made by a member of the public shall be limited to three minutes duration persons will be recognized in the order in which the requests were received persons may speak for up to three minutes at the beginning of the business meeting during citizen input as indicated on the order of
011business and for up to three minutes to each action agenda item during the action agenda and each board member discussion item as indicated on the order of business persons may only speak once about any given item the time period may be extended by the presiding officer and only the individual submitting a speaker's form is allowed to address the board time may not be yielded to other speakers and a process that mrs behrenberg started a few meetings ago seems to work well i will call the first speaker and announce who's standing by to be the next speaker so we can keep things moving as quickly and as efficiently as possible so the first speaker this evening ezra havacosta and the next speaker who's on deck and the next speaker is jen freeland we have uh ezra
012have a cost here you can't reach hi my name is ezra havklas i'm a third grader at osceola math at school i want to talk about masks and why i think everyone should wear them my little sister nora was exposed to someone with colvin on the first day of her school she had the quarantine for two weeks and i had to cancel my birthday party she had a mask on so she didn't get sick even though kids in her class that weren't wearing her masks did wearing a mask isn't a big deal it doesn't hurt and it can keep you you keep you your family and other people safe and healthy i have sensory processing disorder and adhd sometimes i don't like the feel of clothes or other things like the belt i have to
013wear every day for dress code but i wear it because it's the rule i wear my mask because i care about myself and other people please make masks a rule for everyone i don't want to go back to virtual school mass don't have to be forever but we should wear them now to help take care of each other thank you thank you for speaking thank you and happy birthday a little late next speaker jen freeland standing by ariel garretts good evening dr moore and the board i am jennifer freeland president of our indian river education association there is so much going on right now with the startup of school masks and the such but i wanted to stop the chaos for a minute i want to recognize my treasure coast elementary family and let them
014know that i am saddened for them and myself we lost one of our own this past thursday to covet blair most of us called her blair she called me freelance so i guess it's okay blair was a bright happy soul with a great love for her students she had a fun spirit she loved bright colors and flamingos and although she did not catch covet on our school campus it doesn't undo the fact that she was young her children are young and many more young people will not get to benefit from her knowing her where she got the the virus doesn't change the fact that her children will never feel her hug them again or have her help them through the pivotal moments in life nor does it change the fact that she can no longer
015do the things she loved or that we can no longer do them with her blair was a friend a teacher a sister a daughter and a mother we currently have 97 and the count is still going 97 other teachers 97 people out due to this nasty virus as of today i know personally of four children just in the last week that have lost a parent or close family member to covet these are children on our in our classrooms and on our campuses now so as we start yet another heated conversation over what is best and who should decide what is best can we please just stop and remember that it is not just the well-being of your children but of everyone's children we are all someone's friend sister brother daughter son father or mother ircea
016has not and will not be part of political peacocking bickering or name calling we will do what we're supposed to do we will do our very best to protect our teachers ircea is behind keeping the students and our teachers as safe as possible so that we can all go home to our families the best we have right now is to look to those who have dedicated their lives to studying infectious disease and to follow those recommendations though blair is a memory now she will be deeply missed long after this meeting excuse me mr barefoot yes can i request a moment of silence please in recognition of miss blair join us in a moment of silence please thank you uh next speaker ariel garrett's and on deck is ryan blade sorry i'm really nervous again um
017hi okay so i wrote this whole thing but sometimes some you know just some of it just i don't want to talk about um let me start off nobody wants to wear a mask i mean like let's just be honest they're annoying they're uncomfortable and we don't even we it's frustrating nobody wants to do this we're doing it for the public we're doing it for those who can't who can't wear a mask i can't get vaccinated for those who have immune problems those are that's why we're doing it you know i just want to pre-face with that and um teachers don't want to enforce it i mean that's the hardest you know that's hard to enforce a mask but we have to because it's for the public and right now we're in a public health
018crisis and i'd rather er on the side of caution and enforce the masks and like you uh suggested for for a few weeks to see if it helps and i think that is very smart and um i did see that you guys decide only k through eighth um the problem is even though we have students or you know that that are of age of getting vaccinated it's hard because right now parents aren't comfortable with vaccinating and it just i believe that masks should be all throughout you know all grades um i just jumped around i'm so sorry and i know i've sent emails and i want to thank and i don't know if you guys are doctors or miss or just by miss i want to thank miss jones i want to thank um miss
019beringborg and miss schiff i'm sorry for pronouncing it wrong for responding thank you for that because i know not everyone did and um i do want to give some anecdotal evidence of my own about depression and masks i know that you had asked that and so i have a child who is who is clinically depressed he has been baker acted and wearing masks does not make that worse it doesn't make it any worse than the other day because he knows why he's wearing a mask he's doing it for those who cannot i also have two other children in the school system none of them have problems wearing masks i have an adhder and he of course it's you know a little more difficult but he wears it because he knows why he does it now
020i do have a child who is immune compromised she was born 15 weeks early she has a trisomy so we wear a mask we protect ourselves for her for us because she cannot she's under one she has oxygen problems she can't um actually she's want to apologize so that's why we're protecting her and people like her people who have the same problems and okay so i want to end with this and um do you really want to wait for a kid to die before doing anything about this shouldn't we be proactive instead of reactive whose child are you willing to sacrifice i know i that one person on the board has child in the school system are you willing to sacrifice their child before doing something about this there's so much more here than just
021mortality rates thank you very much for your comments next speaker ryan blade uh on deck john karapi my name is ryan blade i'm president of the city of sebastian and a member of we the people indian river i'm going to say right off the bat given that hp 241 has been passed no more mandatory masks now do you have a choice to wear a mask absolutely if you're going to wear one i wear on sale with some hero wearing can 95 mask i actually happen to know a nurse who's a family friend of mine that had actually talked to me quite a bit about the safety protocols that people have used through things like tuberculosis cove 19 and if you're going to wear any sort of mask it definitely needs to be kn95 but you
022have to toss it out after so if you're actually going to wear a mask properly at least for a case wearing a mask it would have to be disposed out each time i don't think we'd be able to really have enough resource for every person in society to be able to reasonably wear a mask one that we're protecting even then as i mentioned previous score meeting are you going to have negative pressure have ever gone up in special protective suits am i just nurse i spoke to she's previously treated people with tuberculosis which it from my understanding pretty much follows the same protocol but if you have somebody in the hospital code it pretty much follows a similar protocol you know and there's some psychologists i've said and mind you it affects everybody differently with
023psychological issues that some have had negative effects with wear masks others can do perfectly fine with it it varies on person person which is why it needs to be made optional but yes that opt out's got to go now if it however and some are going to probably disagree with beyond this if that opt out is there because the tort law i'm curious to see what the school's attorney would say about this i would say contact our state legislators or upset aaron brawl center mayfield and governor desantis to get a law passed saying that you cannot sue a school system if they take out a mass mandate that's my understanding is why an opt-out of the mandatory mask is currently present as for the vaccination i want wouldn't go mandating this you know the fda
024actually flagged one of the vaccines for heart inflammation i know i won't get it because i'm probably highly predisposed for heart attack i have a grandfather died 65 master heart attack i according to blood tests have a tissue timer it's a bit higher on average than what should be so i don't think i'm going to want to go get in that vaccine on a no my other set of grandparents i'm my grandmother i'm one of only two grandchildren i'm not gonna want to mess up my fertility because i'm one of only two grandchildren i don't want to probably my mom my grandmother being grandma great grandma respectively and there's other issues on too and there's also plenty of therapeutics that are out there hydroxychloroquine regeneron ivermectin and i actually know one person that took ivermectin
025not vaccinated and they recovered now granted yes i understand that everybody's buys different people autoimmune issues now whether or not person gets a vaccine you have to do your own research that's up to you but i think some of our scientific community i think there's been you know really error on their part with getting this information out of breaks if really if the scientific community is working at its most efficient we would not be having this debate as well or not do you wear a mask do you get the vaccine which is really a shot from what another person that's working medical has told me so these are some thoughts to ever think about thank you thank you mr blade mr crappie on deck dr michelle huasioni [Music] good afternoon um i have uh listened
026to the workshop this sport this morning and a lot of good a lot of good information there that you guys put out there one thing i think you didn't uh put out there and it's from directly from the cdc itself is uh is the the new csd i don't know what anybody knows that knows what that stands for csd covered stress disorder and that's what that's what we're going to prolong we keep masking these kids up the cdc on their website what are we know about suicide and depression for kids during the 2020 the the popu the population of mental health related emergency department visits among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years increased 31 percent compared with that of 2019 in 2020. in may 2020 during the covet pandemic ed visits for suspected suicide attempts
027began to increase among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years especially girls during february 21 through through march 20 2021. suspected suicide attempts e.d visits were 50 percent higher among girls aged 12 to 7 years during the same period from 2019 to 2020. those are pretty high stats for kids that are attempting suicide because they're having to wear a mask and social isolate and have coveted stress disorder now how many kids have died of coven in our community how many kids have attempted suicide i think dr mark mentioned that he treated kids for attempted suicide and social isolation more than he ever had before i think i brought that up last time i was here how many kids are going to have to go through that before we decide to decide what the masks don't work
028and they keep kids isolated they don't do anything for them does protect them from kovid it's not protecting the delta variant which by the way doesn't have a test there is no test i've called the hospital i've called many places there's no test they just assume you have covit they just assume it if you get co if you got you got covered 19 then you have you have the delta variant they just assume it that's what that's what kind of medical dashboard you're getting is just assuming that they have the delta variant so again how many kids are going to be be treated for this csd keep it in mind because it's happening and the longer you prolong this the longer you're going to have more kids future the future of our country the future
029of this planet is the children and you guys say you're protecting them you're not protecting them you're putting them in isolation they're walking into school with mastoid not smiling i watch it every day don't you see it you see it on the video you show the first week of school maths are optional everybody's wearing a mask in the videos we don't need kids to die from suicide because they're not dying from coven so wake up and realize that when you're voting because if you're voting for masks you're voting for coveted stress disorder you're you're you're voting for kids attempting suicide in the future and on medication remember that when you're voting for mask again don't follow the lead of all the other counties don't do it thank you mr crappie next speaker is dr michelle
030quanzione and on deck of samantha fowler hi good evening my name is michelle guancion um i'm a mom i have two children eight and five and um this is completely unscripted i came here last minute so this is just yourself i'm all over the place i apologize um not to mention just a little nervous but anyway um talking about the masks you know this past summer it was okay for the kids to go to camp everything was normal my kid could go to the skate factory and be there with hundreds of kids it wasn't an issue over there there was no covet um they can go to birthday parties they can go to play dates they could go to the country clubs they can go on vacation which we went we can go to the
031water parks ninety percent of the people are not masked we had a normal normal summer and my daughter also does competitive cheerleading now that is a 12 month sport and when last march when the schools shut down her cheer gym did not that went through the 80 kids in the gym and you know it's not like cheer where they're sideline cheer they're like stunting and and close no social distancing in competitive cheer and not one child and to my knowledge not one parent or a coach got covered this entire time not to mention that we went to orlando tampa daytona um where else there's one more i can't think of right off the top of my head with tens of thousands of people there 450 teams of kids all around florida and and other states
032and we're walking around these convention centers like cattle walking down the hallway to get to your little area where your kid's gonna come perform and i said to my husband i said boy if we don't get covered here we're never gonna get it and like i said i mean i don't know for other people that were there but it was never shut down and you're talking close quarters in these places we went to hotels we i mean it was normal now all of a sudden school starts and we have to go backwards you can't tell me that that some of these these people that are here that want masks didn't go on vacation didn't go to the water parks didn't send their kids to camp because they did i see it on facebook they're all
033there without masks and it's normal now all of a sudden we go in the classroom and the kids got sniffles and and they're saying that they you got to stay home my daughter told me this today sniffles so the the the coveted stress disorder thing that i think that's true because now when a kid gets sniffles they automatically think covered thank you thank you doctor thank you next speaker samantha fowler on deck nicole campanelli good evening my name is samantha fowler and so i'm really nervous i'm not very good at public speaking um i have a kindergarten and i have a second grader and i get my kindergarten out last year because she was definitely afraid to wear a mask now because i wore one my little one but because my son came home every
034day covered in pimples covered in sweat you don't if you're a nurse or anybody else you change your masks four five six times a day these kids sit with these masks on for eight hours a day eight hours a day and it's not fair i'm if you want to mask your kid go ahead but don't force me to ask my kid that's that is coming home and pimples and covered that's not right i moved here five years ago almost six years ago from st lucie county i'm originally from south africa and we moved here because the school system here was better but the last two years i have opened my eyes and it's not and it's scary it is political and it shouldn't be these are babies these are kids they want to see your
035face they want to see your smiles when you walk in when they're and they're five in second grade okay maybe the the high schoolers that understands and is more like all of us completely but the little ones that's sitting there that needs to see the sounds of their teachers faces it's okay for you to walk in a restaurant and take off your mask and sit down and socialize 10 15 20 parties or go to resorts i've been all over i've already had covet my kids have had covet and we survived you know and you can go sit in a restaurant i'm a server but not one time does any person ask did you wash your hands before you touch my lemon that goes into my water or the drink i ordered did the server wash
036her hands before she put that lime in your drink not one time so it's okay for you to plaster something on your face you can't see somebody's eyes or mouth or the instruction but you can go sit in a restaurant and order a drink from it from a server do you ask if the cooks have washed their hands i'm telling you that most of them don't even wear gloves when they touch your food i've worked for over 20 years as a server i see it i see these new kids come in they don't wash their hands they touch all of your stuff that you eat that everybody eats but you don't ask that question but you're more concerned about these little ones sitting there and it's okay have it optional i am not discriminating against
037anybody that wants to wear one but the little ones don't understand they're five six seven and eight so i thank you please thank you next speaker nicole campanelli on deck megan knowles [Music] good evening my name is nicole campanelli i can't believe we are living reliving last year and yet here i am um your possible official order or mandate to remast the children is not a law but h.b 241 the principle of rights is a law and was signed into law in july section 101 4.14 states all parental rates are reserved to the parent of a minor child in the state without obstruction or interference from the state or any political subdivisions any other government entity or any situation so by law you do not have the right to undo um the uh i don't
038know right to undo the opt out for the masks um sorry i just lost track the executive order states that parents have the right to make the decision that's best for their families regarding masking this virus will never go away like the flu it's always going to mutate we've had alpha beta gamma delta and other variants are lingering and they always will will we continue to play pandemic and sacrifice our children for the small percentage of people who usually have co-morbidities which is the result of their death it's funny on a facebook thread someone stated that all the anti-mass people will be leaving their children as orphans it's been 18 months and we're still here and my house had coveted it was absolutely bearable i have natural antibodies which i will test again to check
039in a few months i didn't test my children but they're with me 24 7 because i'm their caretaker and no one had a sniffle but nobody talks about that just mask up we will not muzzle our healthy children they will stay home if they are sick like we did in the days of 2019 and before do you really want to be one of the counties at the fire governor's executive order if we allow the government to break the law because of an emergency they will always create an emergency to break the law i'm so confused on why we are still counting the cases the pcr test has been deemed unreliable you can't trust the numbers children literally have a zero chance of dying from covet unless they have a severe underlying condition like cancer per
040a study by harvard more kids die from influenza and nobody freaks out flu season children need to have their immune system challenged by germs it's how the immune system gets stronger and creates antibodies this is probably why so many children are getting sick with rsv because the majority of the world has masked and isolated their children for 17 months in my house we never isolate it we schedule two to three play dates with friends a week throughout the pandemic we take vitamins play outside and never mast we kept our immune systems healthy even my immune compromised child whose body is literally attacking itself daily we live by faith not by fear think of how many times a child touches the mask then goes to the bathroom touches the mask forgets to wash their hands touches
041the mask they are a sweat-filled petri dish sacrificing children's mental emotional and physical health to give adults some false sense of security is the most selfish thing i have ever heard thank you ms campanelli next speaker megan knowles on deck larissa pacquiaon hello my name is megan knowles and while i teach people to talk for a living i passionately don't enjoy talking into a microphone so if you understood the level of passion of me trying to avoid a microphone you would then understand the level of need that i felt that i needed to come address you tonight about the mask mandates i do have two children in the district and one of which has a medical condition that causes her to pass out frequently she can't maintain her body temperature her blood pressure or her
042heart rate but you can't tell that by looking at her from a distance both of my kids actually wanted to be here tonight but like good students they had homework and they could not come to address that so here i am i'm not here to debate on if masks work or don't work i'm not here to change your viewpoint on what matters in covid and what doesn't matter i'm here to discuss a mandate to require every single child on the campus of every single school in indian river county to do the exact same thing now the last time i bought a dress that was one size fits all it looked hideous it i looked like a sausage in it it was loose in some places and tight in others one size fits all just doesn't
043work as a board you understand education we have differentiated instruction and we implement that to help children that learn at different paces some go faster some go slower some are just different therefore voting against a mandate would say that every kid can fit in the sorry let me say that again so vote against mandating that every kid fits into the exact same box vote against a mandate that is not saying that you wouldn't wear a mask it's saying that you can't say that every single kid needs to do the exact same thing voting against this actually means that you understand this is a really complex issue it's really difficult everybody has a different opinion on it but you coming in and saying that your opinion is the only one that matters by creating a mandate
044for everyone is just not okay so please continue to think about that and vote against one size fits all thank you miss knowles next speaker larissa pacquiaon on deck chris allen good evening my name is larissa peklin and my son is first grader i hope this board and school district will start talking about education not about health because school is obviously not a health facility it's an educational facility and i'm very surprised that we are against here talking about mosques so you made a rule last year you might mandate that every child should wear a mask at school and even parents do not agree with you they send their kids with the mask now there is another rule a low the law that governor de sanchez signed that parents decide will their children view a
045mosque or not please obey this rule obey the law do not agree ignore parental rights because parents are important and they know what to do for their children or not i understand some parents want their children to be a mosque and totally fine but they cannot come to me and tell me to put mask on my son because i'm not going to their grocery bucket and not mandating them what to eat or what not to eat health issue must be individual every parent deciding for themselves and for their children whatever to do or not i know this board likes so much following cdc today i open cdc website and i see they recently posted new information how to promote in schools covet 19 vaccination so if this board will promote covet vaccines if the schools
046will promote covet vaccines we'll set up vaccination clinics we'll make lessons this you can all check in the cdc website every it's very available everybody can look it up if in this school will be lessons events and um teacher will teachers will be promoting vaccines to kids i'm not going to be part of it i ask this board to be transparent if you follow cdc requirements or whatever it is or whoever it is if you do this in schools i'm not going to be part of it i'm not going to be my son is not going to be part of it i will pull out my child from school and i hope other parents too so please be transparent with parents this school year let every parents decide whatever is good for their children because
047masks are optional so parents who want these masks they will their kids will continue wearing them and please let's start talking about serious things about education not about health issues that must be untouchable thank you so much thank you miss pacquiaon next speaker is chris allen followed by uh robin how helmet how maybe excuse me for my mispronunciation hi my name is chris allen and i'm one of the co-founders of we the people in denver county and uh vice chair for months for liberty indian river florida by the second day of school we heard of two students being discriminated against over vaccines as of today it's five instances that we know of these miners are being called out for their vaccine status or preference this is a parental rights issue and the school board needs
048to highly consider doing an emergency training session for teachers instead of worrying if they're wearing masks or not maybe direct them to the parentalrightsflorida.org to see what they can and can't say around children and we have booklets here if you want to look through them because of these instances i've had to teach my child what to say when they're confronted over this this is a seven-year-old and i have to teach them what to say whenever if a teacher decides to be meddlesome on what their medical preference is is this really the environment you want to produce for children and their parents aside from this happening the day before school started dr moore sent out a facebook video to tell parents that they must opt out via a form or note to not have their children
049masked what's the point of an opt-out form if he was the first one to suggest mandatory masking in schools mandatory masking is a violation of executive order 21-175 which references the principle of rights and emergency ruling by the department of health both point to parental bill of rights and say that the school must allow parents to opt out doesn't mention anything about a form for it and if you read it doesn't also it doesn't mention anything about a reason to opt out it says they must provide an opt-out not can or should must even um this one of the unions on our website mentioned that we don't know the future ramifications of the opt-out form contrary to what ms schiff jones and mr barefoot say the state board of education elect said that elected officials
050cannot pick and choose which laws they follow mischief when that when asked if you were partnering with parents in your decision you immediately yelled out no so this is based on your rationale your opinion and what you believe is right not about following the law mr barefoot i saw you at the country club yesterday you weren't wearing a mask you were not social distancing and you seemed to be pretty quick to yell at people even though one of the mitigations for covet is to keeping your voice normal and the only thing i've seen in the form notes being used for statistics in the school and because of that one of the pro masks groups mask irc has pointed this out and some of the things they've said about us is sadly many of these children
051are likely to be orphans at the end of the school year the parents are the problem i don't understand the lack of intelligence and i don't mind if they separated the two groups within classes masked and unmasked is this what the point of the form is like why do you have to have a list and tell people what percentage it is and that's really all i have to say thanks for listening thank you miss allen next speaker is uh robin helmedy and uh followed by jennifer pippen good evening my name is robin yemelby i have a student at the flick and i have another son that used to attend vera beach high school but i relocated him out of the state it killed me not to have him out to miss out on his high
052school experience here but i had to do what was best for him you see it wasn't covid i feared it was a high school environment that i feared you have one in four students self-reporting 25 in your middle and high school self-reporting that they are vaping nicotine and marijuana on your school campus in the first week of school i received multiple phone calls and one day about a fight that was out of control that it ended up disrupting the school day those are the things that i wish you would focus on those are the things that i fear more violence and drug use in your schools and academics should be your focus this is where your responsibility lies where it ends is that my medical decision making for my child right now my kid is
053quarantined he was super mad he has all a's in his classes and he knew that missing school and trying to keep up online is going to set him back the teachers are burdened with trying to do in school as well as manage the kids that are at home because of quarantining frankly the ball is being dropped at the expense of those students by the way he's already had kobit so quarantining or masking him at this point was pointless at this moment he's running around actually doing his regular activities just not in school i was told if he was vaccinated he would be allowed to tend your policy kind of doesn't make sense because it shows that the that you're not paying attention to the science you would know that natural immunity has proven to be
054more effective than vaccining and the sign shows that the vaccine right now has a 53 percent efficacy rate for the delta variant and that's why they're recommending the boosters um current studies have indicated that the titters elicited by the chrono vaccine are much lower when compared to the natural infection as far as masking a study toted by the cdc shows that with optional masking 3.8 students out of 500 were positive for copen where mass were required it was 2.4 out of 500 that's statistically insignificant the county parents have spoken i when i drive up to the school less than 25 of the kids are messed up that is fine that little boy that was up here his parents chose for him and it worked out for them and that's awesome that parent has a right
055to direct that child to mascot the teacher the teachers are at more at risk they have the right to mask up distance themselves and vaccinate all these mitigations should allow our students to have a year focus on learning and not having to deal with the distractions of mass disciplines let's be honest the phone calls home telling me my kid wasn't wearing his mask correctly we're a waste of teachers time and mine you know if we look at the numbers we have almost 80 percent in this county vaccinated you had 68 students in the middle and high school test positive for covid so far out of ten thousand five hundred two students that your percentage is point six percent less than one percent meanwhile according to the sense awareness survey in irc you have eleven percent
056of those students vaping and fourteen percent marijuana your assessment scores were failing 50 if you look at the math in the english it was over 50 percent those smith numbers were produced last year to scare me more than kova does and thank you for your time thank you very much next speaker is jennifer pippen on deck debbie morgan good evening my name is jennifer pippen and i'm the mother of two children that attend school here in indian river county i'm one of the co-founders for we the people indian river county and the chairman here for moms for liberty indian river florida many of us parents have placed ourselves in danger the past year and a half to one degree or another as we have stood up and advocated for our children public ridicule one lost
057their job we had to file a lawsuit in october of 2020 against the school district for the same information and reasons we started telling you in march of 2020 that the governor for the same reason has made masks optional in his order 2021-175 last month the judge at the time didn't agree with our case but we knew then and we know now we were absolutely correct in what we had to do we place our children and grandchildren in gr even greater danger if we do nothing we have no state masking mandate we have no county masking mandate no cities in our county have a masking mandate but you want to talk about mandating it for our children again there are teachers who got vaccinated because they didn't want to have to wear a mask we're
058advocating for those teachers too because they absolutely should have the right just as parents should for their children per governor desantis's order it's not the government's job to protect my health nor the school district to protect my children's health it's the government's job to protect my rights it's my job to protect my children's health and my own health when you trade liberty for safety you end up losing both if we continue to allow the government to break the laws because of an emergency they will always create an emergency to break the law if the government and elected officials truly cared about the health of their students and staff they would recommend not smoking or vaping adults not drinking in excess not having poor nutrition and eating habits not having lack of physical activity or exercise
059but yet day in and day out all we're badgered with is to wear a mask and get vaccinated if you have to be persuaded reminded pressured lied to incentivized coerced bullied socially shamed guilt-tripped threatened punished or criminalized to wear a mask or inject yourself with an nra injection you can absolutely be certain that's not what being promoted in is in your best interest it is absolutely your choice to wear a mask or wear two masks or to get the injection but for the rest of us when there is risk there should be choice for the adults and the children we must be free not because we claim freedom because we practice it and you all if you make masks mandatory with no option to opt out mark my words you're defying the governor's order it
060isn't a request it's an order thank you miss pippen next speaker debbie morgan susan meal is on deck good evening my name is debbie morgan i just found out about the meeting at four o'clock so i just felt it very important that i come and stand alongside other parents i am definitely against any forced mandating more shock though i am more shocked that this board would consider setting an example for thousands of our students to defy a governor's order and parental rights law that's just unbelievable but that's the example you want to set for the students that you are trying to teach in this county parents have gone through the proper channels to have their voices heard and parental rights laws have been passed executive orders have been put in place about masking our kids
061and you're encouraging breaking the law you've taken an oath and we expect you to follow the law why do you say parents can't defy a mandate order as of last year and all the hoops they went through yet this is what you're discussing doing yourselves in regards to the um to the lawsuit that jennifer alluded to i also have information i don't and i'm happy to send it to all of you this is probably equally important for the parents sitting here but i do know that in the district court of appeals over in alachua county there was a lawsuit that was one that sets the precedent in several counties 32 counties but sets it in certainly the district courts of appeals and the and that they did say that the there is the florida constitutional
062right to privacy and the courts did uphold that and it sets a precedent so you know i can see that going forward i know that in our district because of our fourth before the because we're in the fourth court of appeals that that could be an issue here with another but i just want to make sure that y'all are aware that that precedent has been set in the courts so i would just encourage you to take your oath seriously take the law seriously our parents have fought hard for their children to allow all children and parents to have equal opportunity to mask or not mask and the decision doesn't fall in your hands anymore it's already been stated thank you morgan next speaker susan meal followed by maria mcdaniel well once again i seem to
063be upstaged by the mask issue i came to talk about curriculum but i can relate it in my research on curriculum and the education industry and what it's been doing i found a study called the project follow through back in the 60s 60s it was commissioned by the federal government and it was to test and review the various teaching methods to determine which method was best for teaching reading language spelling and mathematics to students in k through 3. in fact the project was done for the head start program and the focus of the study was the teaching of a disadvantaged and at risk children the three goals of the project were to increase basic knowledge and skills to improve cognitive and problem-solving skills and to promote a self-con positive self-concept or as we call today
064self-esteem in 68 when the study began there were a number of methods being used to teach reading one of them was the old tried and true method a lot of us are familiar with called phonetics and there were also some or what we used to call saying sound out the word and there was also a method called uh the whole word method and a number of others in phonetics the kids learned a set of phonetic sounds and related those to the letter or letter combinations they represent in our language with the whole word method students were required to memorize whole words and then recognize them later i would add that phonetics with a mask on could be really difficult the study tracked students abilities for nine years from 68 to 1977 and it tested thousands
065of disadvantaged children across the country and involved control groups the directs direct instruction method another word for the phonetics program and the basic skills program was found to have the best results the basic skills method showed the greatest improvement in the scores of disadvantaged children moving them overall from a 20 tile range to a 50 percent or closer to the national average and the self-esteem portion increased greatly success breeds pride so i'm suggesting today that you as a district if you want to fill that gap if you want to short shorten the gap reduce the gap between minority students and the rest of the population that you ought to be looking at every curriculum you have and determining whether or not it is based it is supported in this study and we're in basic skills
066we're at phonetics and learning how to sound out the words and i suggest we stop blaming parents and teachers and systemic racism and looked at what has been proven to work thank you mrs mcneil next speaker maria mcdaniel on deck cody holcomb [Music] hi my name is mark mcdaniel and i'm a freshman here at vero beach and and i would like i'm so sorry and i would like to say wearing a mess is just easy as wearing the dress code i would love to go to school without the dress code but they're there for a reason and i understand why we have to wear them it is the only reason people are fighting this right now is because they are putting their comfort over their health their kids health the teacher's health and their peers
067health kids cannot get any vaccines as of now and the only thing that is protecting them from this deadly virus are these masks and the right the right thing to do would to keep the masks because i'm so sorry i'm just nervous okay i'm just gonna restart okay let's get that also as a child myself i have never seen or felt what is called the covet stress disorder and the correct definition of the csd is being afraid of what's coming into contact with the virus or something that could have the virus or the effects of the pandemic and i believe that's the real reason sorry thank you miss mcdaniel next speaker cody holcomb followed by don wilkerson good evening everyone first of all i'd like to say i'm a parent and a husband i'm a
068parent of a five-year-old son he was enrolled in kindergarten in this county they started out with no mask mandate no opt out fine by me do what you want it's your kids then they did the opt-out we immediately signed the opt-out five days later mandate must wear a mask i'm here to tell y'all i'm an indian river county resident i pulled my son my wife and i's decision we pulled our son out went to st lucie county they have optional we're parents i'm not a doctor i'm not a lawyer don't even claim to be i'm not going to sit out here and spew facts to you guys or opinions i'm here to tell you i'm a father most important job i will ever have in my life one of the things i'm trying to instill
069in my son is grow up and be a man contribute to society be a leader not a follower stand up for what you feel is right there is no right or wrong guys there isn't with the mask mandates there's no right or wrong it's a parent's decision at our new school we're at today was my son wyatt's first day his class was about half and half no bullying no picking on each other kids with masks ran up and hugged my son without a mask big bear hud welcome to your new class wyatt we hope you like it here so i implore you do not go down this road promise you i'm not the only parent willing to pull his child out and drive to another county to put him in a school that lets the
070parents sit in the driver's seat and control what happens to their children as far as a mass mandate or vaccine is ever concerned again i'm not a lawyer and i'm not a doctor i'm just here speaking my mind as a father of a five-year-old boy who is scared out of his mind right now we actually turned off the news all tv to our house called dish network here's your equipment back we don't want it we're not sheltering in place we're not hiding from it but he just doesn't need to see it he doesn't need to know politics he's five i think there's an old saying i can't remember who said it let them be little let our kids be kids until it's time for them to be men and women quit cramming all this down
071their throats politics have no place in school thank you so much for your time thank you mr holcomb next speaker don wilkerson on deck donald baldwin good evening my name is dawn wilkerson and i just wanted to say that there is no scientific rationale for forcibly masking our school children governor desantis signed an executive order prohibiting forced masking of children in florida schools parents are the ones who should make medical decisions for their children if you defy the governor's orders and try to mask our kids again then parents will defy you and send their kids to school with no masks a local pediatrician told me that what we've done in masking our kids last year is lowered their immune systems and now there's a huge rise in respiratory infections there are consequences to your actions
072and our children are the ones who have suffered because of them they have also suffered academically and psychologically quit quarantining our healthy children too they have no place they should not be quarantined if they're healthy we the people and we the parents have had enough thank you miss wilkerson uh donald baldwin is up sandy campaglia is on deck [Music] my name's donald baldwin and i grew up being cocoa cocoa tigers used to be a big adversary of the vero beach indians but while growing up uh i developed uh respiratory problems and i didn't know what was happening but i'll tell you had i been forced to wear a mask i would have been hospitalized found out a number of years later that it was due to allergies to furry animals to pets so but my
073wife and i go out walking and we walk by a school every morning and we see masks all over the place we know the kids are going into these schools they're wearing masks hours and hours and they get frustrated and they come out and some of them just pitch the mask wherever these masks are going into our canals and out into the indian river lagoon and you better believe they are killing the manatees so um i just have one more question if uh with the finding that the virus can pass through the rectum would you are you to mandate a mask a rectal mask [Applause] thank you mr baldwin next speaker sandy compaglia on deck katie swigart i might need to break so hello good evening my name is sandy campiglia and i live in
074vero beach my son is 80 years old and he goes to citrus elementary i'm sure a lot of you are aware of what happened to him last year four weeks eight weeks into the school year he developed an infection in his mouth from wearing a mask so um he had to stay out of school for three days i'm a single mom i had to take off work for three days and um he had to be on a medicated mouthwash for um two weeks and it took me a little bit to get him out of the mask and into a shield which was a lot better um so with that being said um my son will not go back in a mask being that he was developed you know he developed the medical condition he does
075have ptsd and anxiety so he will not be going back in a mask every child is different every child is unique some children cannot wear masks should not wear masks and some should but this is a decision again that needs to be based be made uh based on uh the parents we we shouldn't have to co-parent with the government we should be able to make decisions on behalf of our child especially when it becomes to their medical well-being and another thing i know there's been a lot of talk about the delta variant so i wanted to very quickly the last couple seconds here um play a quick video of a phone call that i made to cleveland clinic okay not only did i do this to cleveland clinic in our county the cleveland clinic in
076broward county jupiter medical center but i called to find out if they test for the delta variant there's not one hospital in this state that tests for delta variant and you will hear the lady tell you this on the phone not only did you talk to er hi there um i was going to find out um i have already had covert before and i've been sick now for about a week and i was wondering if you guys have a test for uh the delta variant tells me the same thing so again you heard what she said they transferred me to covet unit they say the same thing okay in addition to this my mother has stage four lung cancer stage four lung liver she's i've been in cleveland clinic for the in four weeks for
077almost 20 days she's got double pneumonia um i've already had kovid and um i'm i've been sick now for about a week and on antibiotics and stuff but it's not going away i was wondering do you guys have a test for the delta variant do we have a test yeah i have not heard of that yet okay okay so you don't all right so just be a regular covent test i'll just be the regular kid all right thank you anyhow so my mother's been in cleveland clinic now um she was just hospitalized last week four seven days and then prior to that end of july for five days the hospitals there's not beds in the hallways there's not overflow of all this stuff i took videos and recordings the staff is telling us what's going
078on your time sucks can you wrap it up please yes i can and so my mom like i said stage four lung cancer liver cancer she just got double pneumonia no she didn't test positive for cova but pneumonia is pneumonia she's surviving she's 63 years old she's home now and she's surviving our children do not need to be wearing masks eight hours a day and my child most certainly will not be thank you [Applause] next speaker katie swigard on deck paddy sullivan good evening please do not take our rights as parents every month with the fda vaccine approval and all the different mandates i feel like our hands are being tied tighter and tighter as parents let us hold on to a little bit of freedom that we do have left and let us decide
079as parents if we should mask our kids in the schools my children have all had covid two of which were deemed higher risks for covid and they had very mild symptoms less than a cold it lasted a day and we all had it we're fine and i'm not saying that it doesn't affect other people i'm just saying the kids seem to not be as affected so they all have antibodies now and i feel like i would almost be punishing them to put a mask on because according to the science people with antibodies are not likely to spread the virus let our children be free let them see the expression in the people's faces and their teachers so they can greet them with a smile i dropped my kid off at school every year last year
080and until this year i never even knew what their teachers looked like none of them and so seeing all their faces was like oh that's what you look like it's good to see a face and i want my kids to see that too i don't want them to go in and see a mask in only eyes every day when they go into school um a majority of the children at my kid's school do not wear a mask and i think that that should speak to you guys that that's the parent's choice that is what the parents want um as a mom of three kids i'm just begging you guys to please let us keep our rights let the parents that want to mass mask that the parents that do not want to mask let them
081or that do want a mask let them ask their kids and i thank you guys i know this is a lot of opinions and i thank you for listening thank you mr sweegart next speaker patty sullivan on deck lamar talk notes on our giacomo good evening my name is patty sullivan and i've lived in indian river county for 10 years and for the last nine years i have served as the state coordinator for parental rights florida which is a state division organization of parenthoodrights.org which was founded by michael ferris who is now the president and ceo of the alliance defending freedom we are very aware and i am very aware that this is not just about a mass issue this is not just about critical race theory this is not about gender theory which that's
082the big one that's getting ready to come as well we have not forgotten that one for the last three years when i went to tallahassee to sit in on committees to listen to representative grohl at other sponsors sponsor this bill i could see the opposition from within and without by the questions that they were asked and i've heard these talking points from this board as well when the bill passed and we will not forget that so we made this booklet to make the law that was just passed into common language because we should not be attorneys to understand what the law is and whether or not the governor signed the executive order the law was already in place that parents have the right to determine what is in the best interest of their own children
083in regard to their upbringing their education and their well-being which is including their medical care so even with he used the executive order he used the bill the law hb 241 as the legal underpinnings for the executive order even if he didn't sign that executive order it was still a law that parents have the right to make medical decisions for their children and so i want to just agree with what miss morgan said earlier to defy the law to defy the executive order the example that you're setting for these children and these families in this county is appalling and we need to allow parents to make these decisions our we are encouraging parents to be in it for the long haul we are just beginning because we saw the resistance all through the committees as
084we fought for the bill to be passed and thank god it was passed and we now have a law in the state of florida that puts parents right it affirms parents rights and not only put all the uh rights under one umbrella but it actually took a court case and codified it whereas his parental rights are a fundamental right and government is not the parent we are the parents and we need to allow parents to make those choices for their children thank you very much thank you ms sullivan this is the last speaker under the public the other two speakers will be speaking to one of the items that was pulled good evening i'm lamar notre dame and i am a grandparent of two children in indian river county school system and i'm here to
085advocate on behalf of not only my grandchildren but all children in indian river county i just wanted to remind everybody of some comments that dr fauci made lost in the firestorm over what dr anthony fauci knew about the possibility that his agency was funding research that might have allowed kova to escape from a chinese lab was a bit of a bombshell the nation's preeminent infectious disease expert never really believed that mask wearing was effective in an email to former health and human services secretary sylvia burwell on february 5th 2020 as concerns over the new coronavirus in china were just starting to make their way to the united states fauci assured her that wearing a mask was unnecessary masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected
086rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection he wrote the typical mask you buy in the drugstore is not really effective at keeping out virus which is small enough to pass through the material a little more than a month later he said the same thing publicly in an interview with 60 minutes so what's my point my point is that science is science until a group of elites with a bunch of fancy letters behind their name decide otherwise and that's not okay the science says and the florida department of health statistics say that eight children in florida last i checked and i checked several times and it was still eight i haven't checked in a couple of months but eight children in florida have died from covid where hundreds have died from the flu in the
087past in 2019 it was over 156 i think if my memory serves me correctly so the point is that the science does not uh reflect that masks help prevent the spread of covid and children are not dying from covid and we're teaching them to live in fear we are raising a generation of children that are afraid of everything they've been told by greta thundberg that we're all going to die in 12 years because their grandparents and their parents didn't care enough to protect the environment we're raising a generation of kids who live in fear they're not learning facts they're learning fear i know emotionalism and fear sells but it's not fact and we need to be teaching our children facts so let's get back to education because our scores are dropping precipitously in our county
088and let's get back to educating our kids and let's get back to real science and let's teach them the truth thank you thank you uh that that's the end of the public input i'm sure that that many of you would like to respond to uh comments that were made um dr moore is there would you like to comment before we open it up to other board members uh my recommendation would be is that we move to the item that was the majority of the speak speakers spoke to so we can address it all all at one time okay uh this is bearing board yeah there there was no there was no item on the agenda for this yes there is it's on the action there is it's not on the action agenda it's on the
089updated action agenda that happened today it's about the mass policy not printed i i don't i didn't look at the printed but it was updated after our meeting this morning okay all right so i want to talk about um the vaccine concern that came up um i don't see her in the room but there was a parent that said that kids there have been four cases where kids were bullied or something about vaccines i would stress to that parent to please contact the superintendent or the principal and get to the bottom of that right away that should not be happening in our schools all right at this point we move for approval of the consent agenda can i have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second um uh any further comment all
090in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries five zero all right now we move to those items that were pulled from the consent agenda the first being item 8a dr moore that was your item through the chair i item 8a was added this amp cwa we've already approved it so it is okay we did that the next item that was pulled is nine nine eight five eight mrs rosario oh my gosh i'm sorry um earlier today we talked about the unitary status sustainability policy um it kind of got held up in um because of time and the recommendation was for any one of us to be able to pull it to continue that conversation um so i i just thought it appropriate it would be appropriate i didn't see it on the agenda unless it
091was added here um which i don't see but um so we i i think i'm i'm gonna actually allow the superintendent to talk a little bit about it and then of course board members if we can just can maybe continue or summarize our thoughts on it where we are um i know um uh my well i'll i'll send yeah i'll i'll talk i'll hand it over to dr moore and then um thank you mr rosario i will present present the item this is a policy that was uh in may brought forward by board member doc jones requesting that i engage in the work with the naacp regarding the creation of a sustainability policy sustainability policy was to focus in on the areas within our desegregation order surrounding our joint plan so the joint plan was
092a three-year plan that was agreed upon uh by the school district of indian river county as well as the naacp that is the contract that has been signed between the two entities to implement action the district would implement action over the course of a three-year period and then if they implement that work over the course of that three-year period they would have the opportunity they being the district to obtain unitary status in preparation for unitary status whether it is achieved at the end of this calendar year or whether it is achieved in five years from now is the creation of a sustainability policy that ensures that the district the leaders of the district the school board members the superintendent of schools continue to ensure it is a priority of those individual leaders the research has
093been clear which was the driving force behind the item when a district obtains unitary status it quickly returns or regresses back to the data points that led them to having to seek unitary status having to desegregate a school system that's what we're doing uh in the year 2021. so this is a proactive uh approach uh staff engaged with with a a number of meetings to create this unitary the sustainability policy with the naacp uh we believe we reached consensus we wanted to work through this policy and then engage in additional work moving forward on sunday evening we received information that the naacp would no longer want to be connected or in or support as it was written the sustainability policy this sustainability policy empowers uh a committee specifically called the superintendent's unitary sustainability work group
094this would be five members of our community that have the opportunity over the course of five years to continue in a public place which would be a school board meeting to provide feedback on the progress the district is continuing to make or what corrective action would be taken this policy directs the work of the superintendent this policy requires a super majority to make any modifications to the policy prior to its sun setting over the course of five years this is a policy that protects this very important work and ensures whatever unitary status is obtained uh the district continues to put its focus uh on that work in order to ensure that it does not regress as a result of the request from the naacp i did make two modifications to the policy that is posted
095first of which is to modify it um and i'll read it this is kind of getting in the weeds but it's how you present an item i guess we shifted some language and it basically says all requirements associated with the joint plan have been fulfilled so what that basically means is once the district obtains unitary status whenever that would be the current equity committee which is already seated in doing their work they are the entity that was agreed upon by the two parties in this lawsuit to evaluate and monitor the progress of the implementation of what was agreed upon in the joint plan that committee once unitary status is achieved continues to function for two additional years now this committee would kick in two years once that that equity committee has been in place for
096two for two years we also uh recommended who would be sitting on this board and the recommendation now will be five individuals who would be elected uh by the school board at the organizational meeting and that would afford me the opportunity to create procedures uh a nominating process a submitting of a resume a letter of interest in regards to why individuals in our community would want to serve and monitor the implementation of this work over the course of a one year period which would be in place over the course of of five years so i think this policy is groundbreaking work i think this policy provides a great deal of authority to the individuals who sit on this committee it charges them with great responsibility the responsibility of ensuring the district continues to move uh
097a body of work that had been ignored for far too long um and that is that is the item what is being proposed this evening is to send it to public hearing so as we are creating a policy we're not approving that policy tonight so my recommendation is that we set it for public hearing uh we are very aggressive in sharing this policy the purpose of this policy through social media on our web page uh in the speaking that i do throughout the community uh really just not posting it in a paper but being intentional to have the entire community weigh in on this policy that public hearing would take place in a board meeting 30 days after we set it for public hearing so it would be posted opportunities to view the policy and
098then after 30 days it would come back and this would give the board a level of comfort regarding the community's input on what would be a policy in the future that would be driving this very important work and at that time if there are any modifications or changes based on the input that came to the board the board would have that action i will be clear this is a policy this is a primary responsibility of the board this is the board's work this policy is the board's work so that that is the item uh maybe a lengthy explanation but i think that brings everybody up to speed thank you dr moore one of the reasons um why i pulled it is because um well we didn't like i said complete the conversation earlier but i
099still hold to originally i was in support of this policy for today until hearing the response from the naacp pulling out of this collaborative work one of the reasons why it's so important to take that into consideration board members is because the purpose of creating this was to show the courts that we're working together that we we are um in this together that we are striving to achieve unitary status and that after unitary stat or rather this then would be submitted to the courts so that the courts would see the work that both parties have agreed to um after eunice full unitary status is achieved um but at this point that's not going to happen because the naacp pulled out so then i come back to the idea the question then then what's the purpose
100if you look at the written policy of the unitary status as it's written it's very similar to the current joint plan that we have there's not very much different it is also very similar to the work that we have we're in obviously in our strategic plan what is different here as dr moore mentioned is the work group the sustainability work group which essentially looks just similar not just which essentially looks like the equity committee so it would supplant the equity committee correct just that one question sorry through the equity committee if we reached full unitary status sorry the equity committee would continue for two years and this would then take over after the two years or would this immediately supplant the work that this would take place after the two years of the equity committee
101would be monitoring this work that was agreed upon in the joint plan that was signed almost three years ago what this does in the body of work is not going to be done in two years or three years or even 10 years it ensures regardless who is sitting at this diocese who has the privileges serving as superintendent that the work continues and it continues in a very public public way making our practice very very public where we continue to have that so the intent of the creation of this policy and we did research and looking at what other districts were doing this is much more aggressive this is much more uh it's bold and what it's charging the then school board and superintendent to do is really solely about continuing the momentum memorializing the effort
102under the leadership of this board to ensure it continues and this is about the the children and this is about creating a community in which every single child feels safe feels embraced and knows when they walk in a classroom they will see others that look like them they will see others that care for them and they will receive a quality education have complete access to the resources and sports and activities and clubs um that they deserve to have we don't want to see any regression in that i don't think there's anyone on this diet that would even fathom that not taking place but this is a not necessarily i i i wouldn't say this is for the courts i i don't think it's for the courts i think it's to really memorialize the work moving
103forward to push it out and have the same level of authority that we currently have we're under a joint plan through a a federal court uh we want to keep that same level of priority once we obtain unitary status to continue to build upon it so that work would continue anyway that work would still be in place anyway through school improvement plans through the strategic plan through our efforts on a day-to-day basis the work of the district still moves forward i just don't see a reason why we should rush this this is a policy that would be greatly enhanced if we had the collaboration of the naacp and i think that we're doing this a little too soon i think we need to allow dr shafty to continue to work with dr warrior as they
104have they just begun the work to build trust to build consensus we are moving into the third or the fourth report being that needs to be sent i think fifth six the sixth report that needs to be submitted to the courts um i believe that's in september am i correct with that and then we have a joint meeting in i believe november so we still have some time to build consensus and to really get where i think we could be collaboratively i don't want this to be work that we are doing in isolation i really want us to be able to work together and get everyone on the same page as much as much as possible again even if this were approved today it's not going to take effect for the next until the next
105three years essentially maybe uh depending on when we reach unitary status it may take us another two years to reach full unitary status we don't know that um hopefully not but the idea is there's no there's no rush for this right now i think that we could hold on to it it still stays as is i'm not asking to change anything in it i'm just hoping that we can hold it until our next report end or november's meeting collaborative the collaborative meeting with the equity committee and the naacp where we get the full um recommendations from the equity committee it would be nice to get some feedback from them even on this and we also haven't heard from community members on this either so that's where i stand board members so let me let me
106just clarify then i'll give it back to the chair my recommendation would be you set it for public hearing allow the 30-day window be aggressive in marketing and advertising um and conduct that public hearing and let's see if we can't energize the entire community to come out and give us feedback on something that's so important and maybe leveraging this as an opportunity to cast out to the entire community because this should be a priority and i think that it is for our entire community maybe the feedback received to this board charges me to go back and recreate the policy based on some of that feedback i agree with you timing is not a a issue in this particular arena but allowing going out to get that feedback does charge me to take the very next
107step in terms of you know there's an entire community out there that should be afforded the opportunity to give feedback on something that is so important i'll just finish with one thought we could still do that we can still put it out there we can still leave it out there without without the 30-day window and and we can still receive feedback we haven't heard back from the equity committee on this either i mean that can still be done on many other policies i have heard the board and youth um dr moore who have said why should we approve a policy if we're just going to revise it in a month or two or down the line if we're going to do it let's do it right let's do it right the first time so that
108we don't have to keep revising policy all right dr jones if it's okay i'd like to hear from mr seymour just a few minutes on your thoughts here um i think the one big difference is yes this is part of our strategic plan our african-american achievement plan is part of the strategic plan what the expectations are we're talking about here clearly but if this goes ahead and we wait 30 days and then have public input this would be policy so there's a lot of difference just not in our strategic plan or african-american achievement plan this is policy which is one of the largest things that we do as a board so mr seymour i know that dr shafty and dr warrior worked on this and just your thoughts in general about moving this forward or
109waiting or what do you think to the chair um yes it is a lot of work that has gone into it and um sometimes that we know that there are things that are tough to talk about but i believe the work that we put into it has opened up those doorways where we can have that civil conversation and of this sustainability policy many of the things that we have discussed uh and we continue to discuss we know for a fact that it's going to be you know a lot of work to make this really happen but in saying that we have opened our doors to that communication and hopefully have gotten the feedback that we thought would make this manageable and um and also thinking back when dr jones mentioned that you know this is
110in good faith effort it is a good faith effort to continue that dialogue in a positive way where all agree that we are working in one direction to you know achieve those attainable goals so um i um it's hard to say but i know for a fact that we're going to continue that work and that dialogue and i understand miss rosario's um concern after we got that email i think it was sunday night but i just want to reiterate what dr morris said this this is for the children in this school district haven't been here since 1967 but when it was revised in 1994 i certainly have been here since then and i think that i will say when when we do get unitary status that with this is ready to go and again after
111the 30 days we may have some input that you want to change some things understood and as miss um berenborg said earlier this shouldn't just be something we put in the paper we need to make sure it's out there we need to call community members hey take a look at this please come and give input at the public hearing so we can move forward and i just think that that is the way to go at this time and then if we have to regroup or take a look at a couple other things i think it's a great great thing that no matter what happens this this will be good for our children because if you look at the desegregation order if you look at all the information on the joint plan they specifically are naming
112that here in policy and i think that's so very important so this will live on in this school district thank you dr schiff sure to clarify my understanding and this is for dr moore my understanding is that it is possible that we may apply to the court for unitary status this december is that true through the chair this school board approved an item earlier in the school year aligned to the joint plan in the joint plan the authority at the direction of the school board can be given to the equity committee to conduct the implementation and monitoring and provide feedback to the courts whether we met the criteria within the joint plan to obtain unitary status you made that decision to give that monitoring and creation of the report to the equity committee you the
113uh the adverse would be creating that report with the naacp the route that was taken by this board is to have the equity committee do that which was jointly agreed upon that's the process in which we're taking the equity committee um will begin to meet review each of the sections within the joint plan look at the criteria that was defined by the judge and agreed upon by the two entities to determine has the district made progress in those specific areas and they will make a you know a recommendation based on that progress or lack of progress within those areas aligned to the joint plan that report goes to the judge if the equity committee believes we met the criteria in each of those sections then yes that would be the appropriate response that would be
114the time to seek unitary status if we do not receive it in one two three or four of the different sections then the joint plan directs us to work with the naacp uh to advise the court on what the next steps would be that next step in in my mind would be a brand new joint plan a recreation or modification of the joint plan uh a dif a a a modified time frame the joint the initial joint plan was agreed upon by the two parties if there was a need to continue it would need to be collectively uh determined in the joint plan defines that we inform the judge um what the next steps would be so what this revised policy does so we we have been working with the naacp on the joint plan
115for a little over three years now this policy as i understand it was developed in collaboration with the naacp who originally as i understand it were in support of it and then withdrew their support according to the documentation we received so upon their having withdrawn their support we had a decision to make about whether to move forward with the policy and expand community input and engagement and shift the way that the role of the equity committee would continue beyond the joint plan and unitary status by expanding that to a board approved um process as we discussed earlier where members of the community would be select would have an application process and would be selected by the board in order to ensure that the work continued so while the work will continue in the district well
116there's the african-american achievement plan and there's the strategic plan and all of the things that mrs rosario mentioned what a board like this does or what a committee like this does is to serve as an oversight body for the district because we will continue to do the work what we are building in in this policy is a way to have additional eyes on the work that are not simply the eyes of the district and and we invite the community to do that we invite the community in to view critique witness support and if necessary reject what it is that we're doing so to me to move forward with that is a valuable b we're not approving a policy tonight what we're doing is saying let's put this out to the community to see how they
117feel about that and invite them to comment in writing or in 30 days directly to us and then make a decision about whether we approve the policy whether we amend the policy whether we table the policy or what we want to do at that point so i would be in support of setting this um for public hearing tonight okay uh mrs barbour any comments um yeah the con the concern i had again was um when we create policy or put policy out there sometimes we open it up nobody speaks close it vote this is an important one this is one that's going to move us forward forever hopefully and i think it's important that we do if if we are going to vote on putting this forward tonight that we make sure that was my
118biggest hesitation we make sure that is well communicated out there so people do have a voice so people can come and tell us either in writing ahead of time or in person but that information needs to get out there and if that's the case then i'm willing to do it understanding that if somebody does come forward with something that we consider that revise which i think we we would do anyway in a policy so i'd be okay with voting on that as long as it's well advertised all right the the only comment i would make well in some respects is disappointing uh that the naacp uh pulled out maybe the good news is it's now not specific not viewed as specific to the naacp but to everybody um and in many respects uh even better
119obviously it would be inclusive of the naacp and any other group of students that in one form or another uh would be would be covered by such a policy so i'm i'm in support of moving this forward as well so can we call the question can we call it and vote call the question oh move to approve the uh putting the sustainability policy out for a public hearing i'm sorry what did i say that right the agenda item includes two policies not just a sustainability you're right oh so do we is there any discussion on the other one i guess we have to there's um what's the other one that was mr basses payroll deductions there was what pardon me the other one is payroll deductions if we had any it was from mr bass
120i think unless any questions no no questions okay so i move that we put these two policies out for a public hearing uh and a second second dr jones um all in favor aye aye aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 all right we now move there there have been two items uh added to action uh item 13 b and item 13 c item 13 b is approval of face coverings within the school district of indian river county this is an action item and i would invite we have two members of the community would like to speak to this tiffany justice you are up thank you good evening members of the board superintendent moore i am the mother of four children in this school district masks are hurting some of our kids parents are being forced
121to watch their children suffer from sub clinical harms from masking we have been coming to this school board making you aware of this issue for over a year and a half i submit that it is an act of malfeasance to require children to wear masks against the informed judgment and consent of the parent i respect the right of every parent to choose whether or not to mask their child there are and 6935 days in your child's life from zero to eighteen as a mother you make medical decisions for your child every day we are the expert of our own children and we stand united in our defense of our right to direct the health care of our children with due respect to the school board attorney i believe by requiring mandatory masking in a medical
122form you are subverting the plain language of the department of health i served as a board member in this district from 2016 to 2020 and from the time i raised my hand at this podium and swore in the oath of office to defend the constitution of the united states of america and the constitution of the state of florida until the last day i served on this board never was it acceptable for us to violate state statute or the rule of law as board members you are required to follow the doh's guidelines and not doing so is illegal florida statute 112 311 requires public officials to uphold the constitution of florida in its entirety florida statute 768 section 28 covers sovereign immunity and when a public official might be personally liable for legal fees and monetary
123damages simply put when you stop acting within state law you may lose the protection of the state and become personally liable for damages is the school board attorney going to advise the board that they have the legal right to defy the governor's order contrary to the state constitution as an officer of the court do the board members understand that sanctions have been unanimously approved by the state board of education which could remove include their removal from this board per 768-28 are the board members aware that when you act outside of the law you may not be entitled to representation by the government we want to partner with our children's schools but we do not co-parent with the government give every parent the right recognize the right of every parent to direct the health care of
124their child thank you [Applause] other speaker is jennifer i'm going to heart oh she did no hi hi my name is jennifer oganowski i just moved here with my family three weeks ago my husband and my three children from connecticut i sold my house i quit my job of 23 years we left our family and friends to come to florida because i was very much in favor of governor desantis's advocacy of parents rights to make decisions for their children and i didn't necessarily have that where we were it was very attractive to us enough so that we would leave our life to come here i have a daughter who's a senior in high school she was really looking forward to a normal school year for her senior year i just would implore you to please
125leave our parents rights where they where they stand and adhere to the governor's order thank you [Music] [Applause] um all right so this item um and the motion that um i would read that we can then discuss and make a decision on approve approval face coverage be mandatory for all students in pre-k through eighth grade while indoors when social distancing is not possible and while utilizing school transportation parents have the opportunity to opt out their children from wearing a child or children from wearing a face covering providing documentation from a medical provider for example florida licensed physician physician's assistant psychiatrist or psychologist or due to needs outlined in their iep or section 504 plan indicating that they need this accommodation students who received an exemption from wearing a face covering during the 2021 school year
126will automatically be granted an exception for the current academic year these requirements will be fully implemented on monday august 30th the outline requirements will will expire on september 15 2021 unless extended prior to that date so i will open it up to discussion to not it was discussed at at length today dr moore i don't know whether you have some comments and then we will have the other school boards for the chair i think that would be uh appropriate and as i look at the reality in which we're currently in for me it's about um one thing and that is ensuring that we have the opportunity to provide a free and appropriate public education and what we are currently implementing if we do not change or modify relatively quickly you will see closure of classrooms
127closure of grade levels closure of schools and there is no one more more committed to honoring the right and responsibility of a parent and they're as a superintendent to create a recommendation or ask you to support or approve a recommendation um that is so controversial is hard to do but i believe it's the right thing to do i believe we are in a time in which we need to quickly respond to our reality based if the trend continues and the trend continued today so as we had the debate and discourse we had an additional 21 staff members identified as being positive an additional 20 students as being identified as being positive the one week period is surpassing three in four weeks of what we experienced last year um it is something that we need to
128respond to so as a superintendent i want to keep schools open i want to have parents to have confidence so we looked at attendance and as described today there are parents making decisions uh because they're they do not feel safe sending their young children to school um based on the number of cases at a school attendance is 78 in the 80s in some of our elementary schools and our secondary schools specifically our high schools the ability to manage and operate those schools is much easier to do based on the volume of people that are there the teachers who can cover individual classes students move from class to class to class one-eighth of the teachers are available to support that instruction the data isn't at this particular point saying for us to respond there what this
129recommendation does is allow us to honor the exemptions that were in place last year with a great level of ease allow the time for individuals who need to require obtain that documentation the time to do it and then implement it and then come back to this board at its very next meeting which would be september 14th that would give us the time to evaluate this reality to determine if any modifications or changes uh or if we could be more clinical in terms of looking at rates and where they currently are by by school site but right now in the midst of this particular time if we're going to keep schools open this is a necessary step is it a forever step absolutely not is it a step that we want to do for an extended
130amount of time absolutely not but when you look at the data and you talk to the medical professionals it is the recommendation that i think we should be following thank you all right thank you dr moore uh other comments from other board members yeah i think i'd like to ask suzanne um to to uh not repeat your the everything that you said this afternoon but if you could highlight some of the legal issues that i think that would be helpful um i'm sorry ms degrasse i shouldn't use your first name of course thank you and um and i will try to not be as lengthy as i was earlier today as we know the um the governor did pass an executive order um directing that state agencies adopt some emergency rules so let's be clear
131the governor's executive order doesn't direct school boards to do anything the executive order is directed at state agencies to adopt emergency rules and those agency stages did that the department of education adopted two emergency rules which are really not under discussion this evening and then the department of health also adopted an emergency rule under the chapter 120 of florida statutes emergency rules are good for 90 days unless the agency takes action to adopt the rule as a typical or irregular through regular rulemaking so the emergency rule that the department of health adopted is good for 90 days and that particular rule does include one sentence that says that if masking is going to be required i'm paraphrasing that there should be or there shall be a parental opt-out now we school boards have dealt with
132other regulations from the department of health in the past usually with regard to vaccinations or other health issues with students and the department of health when it does adopt its regulations also adopts forms and specific information that must be included when they're looking for these opt-outs but for this particular emergency rule we don't have those details it just says an opt-out it doesn't say that it's an unfettered opt-out it doesn't give any details of what can and cannot be included in that opt-out it just says an opt-out we also are familiar with eight other school boards in the state of florida who have adopted a variety of policies or protocols or procedures with regard to students and masks and they're all a little different but of the eight that we're reading about in media coverage
133there are specific policies or protocols being adopted which require masks of students allow parents to opt out with certain documentation provided and the two that have made themselves through a process with the state board of education both broward and alachua those policies required some form of medical documentation in order for a parent to opt their student out of a mask the commissioner of education sent letters to both of those school boards advising them that he believed that they were in violation of the department of health rule and the state board of education convened a meeting in order to discuss the findings of the commissioner of education and the state board of education subsequently issued an order to both of those school boards declaring that they were that their protocols or policies as explained at the
134meeting were in violation of the department of health rule and it was mandatory masking of students unless there was some form of medical documentation to provide an exemption for the student those orders went on to say that the under the authority of state law the state board of education was going to be withholding funding from those school boards in the amount of their salary allocation for school board members the orders went on to say that there would be specific reporting requirements of those school boards and of course these requirements could change over time depending upon actions or inactions of the school board the the legal authority of the state board of education is set out in statute the state board of education is a state agency essentially and so their authority comes from a statute
135and there is a statute here in the state of florida that allows the commissioner of education to oversee all public education and it also allows the state board of education to take certain financial actions in the event a school board fails or refuses to comply with a law or with a state board rule a state board rule so when we look at that statute and authority of the state board of education certainly they have the authority to take a look at actions or inactions by school board members and they have over time and over the past several years they've done that in this particular case the the orders that were entered with regard to broward and alachua and i'm not i'm not going to presume that similar orders will be entered against the other six
136school boards that also have kind of done something similar we're waiting to see what action is going to be taken by the commissioner of education to start the process um the the the the authority of the state board is they need to declare either the law or the state board rule that is being violated as i mentioned a few moments ago we are talking about a department of health rule not a state board rule so that part of the statute doesn't seem applicable in this particular case so he would have to look solely for a law and the law that's referenced in the preamble information to the emergency rule adopted by the department of health is the parental bill of rights the parental bill of rights doesn't talk about face coverings right so it's not
137going to be that specific the parental bill of rights does talk to the issue of making medical decisions or the ability to control the medical decisions of a particular student resides with the parent and that's kind of the the legal issue that lawyers are going to love arguing for time memorial in the first district court of appeal i think one of the speakers earlier mentioned the first district court of appeal and the alachua school board or the alachua county litigation that resulted in the first district court of appeal issuing a ruling saying that face masks were a medical device that's the first district court of appeal indian river is in the fourth district court of appeal palm beach county had a similar lawsuit and the fourth district court of appeal back in january issued its
138opinion and in the fourth district the court held that face masks were not considered a medical device or a medical treatment so what a mess we've got two courts that disagree with each other and so typically in this situation these opinions would be put up to the florida supreme court and the florida supreme court would decide it for us and we would get that guidance back and then the entire state would know what to do but at the moment those counties within the first district court of appeal to the northern part of our state those counties in those school districts are under an appellate court decision which says face masks are considered a medical device or medical treatment those counties and school boards in the fourth district court of appeal which is where indian river
139is are under a an appellate court decision which has come to the conclusion that face masks are not a medical treatment or are not a medical device so what we were discussing earlier today is there are differing interpretations of the law but the the only thing the state board can do according to its statute it gives its authority is define a law that a board is violating or a state board rule that we're violating in order to hold us financially responsible under that law the other possibility is the governor under the florida constitution governor desantis also has the authority to remove elected or appointed officials school boards would fall in this category under the florida constitution and if the governor believes that board members have violated the criteria as set forth in the florida constitution
140the governor could remove a board member and if that board member wished to contest that removal it would result in a hearing in front of the senate the governor has exercised that authority since he's taken office he's exercised it a few times so that is always a possibility but we are essentially looking at differing interpretations of one sentence and department of health rule and how boards will they'll implement that rule in your individual districts did i miss anything i don't remember if i was thank you and i appreciate hearing it all again um dr jones did you want to comment you can come back to me well in our long discussion this afternoon we brought up a lot of of items i guess dr moore the one thing that i want to ask you about
141is why is this just k8 and not 912 for consistency thank you to the chair because i am trying to be consistent and as i evaluate the the data i'm looking at where we're having struggles to maintain the operation of schools and maintaining the operation of schools and and three close to four of our elementary schools is very very hard to do as i mentioned today mr meyer's entire team has been deployed ms dampier's team is on standby instructional coaches are in classrooms media specialists are in classrooms we are making every effort because it's the right effort to make to ensure quality instruction is taking place in the midst of what our reality currently is we're seeing we're not seeing that in the two high schools for for a number of reasons a they're very
142large the the exposure rate just isn't there so to do one sweeping thing for all when the data right now isn't currently telling me that is the my response to your particular question now in 10 days from now where whenever we come back to this next board meeting if the data is telling a different story we'll we would have that recommendation if the data is telling us a better story at the next board meeting in response to what we see in our schools now uh we can provide a different recommendation my goal or my intent is not to be in masks the you know the one person who dislikes the masks that's definitely me as anyone else here um but it is it is very very very hard to do it's fine it's fine big
143boy it's all good so 100 100 willing to to make a recommendation uh based on the information that we have in being able to maintain the operation of schools and providing quality instruction to our staffs what we're currently doing right now is not working you can compare us to the other counties and we fail miserably okay parents are choosing to keep their children at home based on the environment in which we are providing that's the truth that's something that we cannot allow to have parents are going to say ah free and appropriate public education not for my kid not today because i can't trust the environment is safe and secure and that is that is the truth only reason i said that is because um you know when this hit is in march and we
144had to cancel everything as as you know the problems graduation so so many things which was horrible for our students and then when we went back to school last year we mandated mass throughout the year and we had a pretty good normal year we had our graduations we had our problems you know coming out of the box on some things but we had a pretty normal year and as a high school principal you do your best so that um you try to have a year without interruptions and i hope that we don't have to i really do but as far as for the safety of our students and and staff i think the three weeks is a good is a good thing to do that we look at it come back continue to monitor it
145and and do the best we can for our students and staff thank you um okay this is bearable yeah um i'm not gonna go through all of the data i don't talk usually in brief um this afternoon i went on and on and on because i had done so much questioning and research and i know we all do but it was information i wasn't sure if you all had known about or received that's why i went on and on anybody wants to see it can watch this afternoon i question whether or not the numbers we're getting from our hospital are correct i question a lot of things but i go back to the oath that we all took and that oath said basically follow state law follow school board rules and last year i voted
146against what people wanted which was take mass off kids and the reason why i did that is because we had an emergency executive order from the governor and i take that seriously that we have laws in place and we have a governor that says when you call up there call the doe doe says follow cdc guidelines and that's what we went through for all last year every time i called that's what i was told so now we have another law and we have a different executive order you know just just a sideline something i thought of when i was a principal you make decisions in emergencies when parents aren't available to make that decision in this case parents are available to make these decisions and i'm a little frustrated with the fact that you know
147last year [Music] i was worried because none of us knew what we were getting into and again something i said this afternoon is here we go again with delta and now what happens when lambda comes because here we go again we're going to have this issue you made the comment that you hope it's not for an extended amount of time that's what we're told last year and it went on and on and on and on and on to the detriment of children so i i understand and concerned that people have a concern with you know they want all the kids masks because it's not easy to tell your child to take keep a mask on when the other kids aren't masked i get that i get i want other people to have a mask on
148to help protect my child well you can double mask i do that on a plane i'll be real honest with you i've been done doing that for a while on a plane because i know how planes work in the recycled air and i don't want anything anybody's got on that plane so i'm going to tell you that that's something i choose for myself to do we do need to take some sort of action to help our community i get that i get why we're here but none of us know if this is the right action to take but i have issues with continuously taking decisions from parents i went along with it last year because we had an emergency order from the governor and the governor saying you know i need you to protect the
149health and welfare of your community and your kids we were under something unprecedented before now we've been dealing with it for a year or more so my vote is not against mandatory masking it is against not partnering with parents and lessening the potential penalties from the state school board the state school board has already initiated penalties against other districts i'm one for standing up i'm not worried about getting de-seated or whatever i'm old i can retire that doesn't bother me what i want to do is write to make the right decision for our kids and for our community and it is hard to make this decision it is not an easy one mr barefoot you said that this afternoon it's not that easy because everybody has an opinion everybody tells you oh you need to
150do this you need to do that you won't believe how many emails we have on both sides i have been told and i know you all have been told that um if a child dies it's on us how unfair is that when your child is going all over the place you know that sort of thing that's bullying tactic we're trying to make the best decision we can here with the data that we have and with the information that we have this is not an easy decision if it was an easy decision i'd say sure let's mask everybody let's go this is not every vote against the executive order takes more money away from our school district you might say well it's one-twelfth of a uh of a salary of a board member it comes out
151of the board's budge or the school district's budget not our pocket but i thank you for at least putting a three week time span on this so we can at least if if i can read the room this afternoon if we if we have the votes to vote for this then i implore you in three weeks we need to rever revert to looking at data please because at this point you know we have loss we need to partner with our parents i know some parents want us to say put masks on kids on other kids not their kids so my question is now are we practicing medicine by doing that and i have a real concern with that because again we have two different rulings on that we have a ruling to the north saying
152that is practicing medicine we have a ruling to the south saying it's not practicing medicine so our judges can't even decide what that rule is that's why this is so difficult so i can't i can't support doing this because of the oath that i took and that i understand that parents have these rights to what is best for their children okay mrs rosario thank you um so we are not in a state of emergency we are not in a state of emergency in fact the department of health rule states given and this is a quote given that a majority of schools will resume in-person learning for the 2021 to 2022 school year within the next four weeks there is an insufficient time to adopt the rule through non-emergency process but they're not saying that we
153are in an emergency they're just saying because the time period in which this discussion of course what they were trying to come up with and what they did come up with in the rule and the time that schools were beginning in the districts then that's how they that's the reason why they they worded it that way but we are not in a state of emergency we are also not medical professionals so we should not be making medical decisions the department of ed the department of health neither of them are telling us to make masks mandatory those who don't want to mask are not saying no to masks in general what they are saying is no to mandating masks they are saying if you want to wear a mask wear a mask but don't force it
154on me so earlier today there was a discussion about masks versus no masks and i i want to caution us not to use that phrase because it's not masks or no masks it's masks and no mandating masks so there is a big difference there um how we are going how are we going to monitor the the mandating of these masks is a very serious concern of mine we already have many students who don't wear them correctly we have students who wear them below the nose we have students who take it off to talk to eat who's going to be the mask police in the school district if we mandate it dr moore earlier you even used the words and said that it's just a play on words to use mandating verse highly recommended so i'm
155i'm concerned about that with our students i'm also very very concerned about the opting out and asking parents for a medical exemption or a religious exemption the executive order 21 is very clear that is the executive order from the governor and it reads in section one in part working together this is the florida department of health and the doe working together to immediately execute rules pursuant to section 120 0.54 florida statutes and take any additional agency action necessary using all legal means available to ensure safety protocols for controlling the spread of cobit 19 in schools that a do not violate floridians constitutional freedoms b do not violate parents rights under florida law to make health decisions for their minor child and see protect children with disabilities or health conditions who would be harmed by certain
156protocols such as face masking requirements it's very clear section 2 of the executive order any action taken pursuant to section one above shall at minimum be in accordance with florida's uh shall be in accordance with florida's parents bill parents bill of rights and protect parents rights to make decisions regarding quote masking of their children in relation to covid19 clear as day executive order the department of health order because the executive order tells us that we're supposed to work with the department of health on receiving guidance which is another issue that i have the department of health rule states in and i will pull it up here all the way on the bottom i believe it's 1 b it states that of course you know students should be encouraged to practice hand washing we know that
157students should stay home if they're sick of course but d is interesting d students may wear masks may not should not must but students may and this is the department of health rule the department of health i'm sorry not yes rule students may wear masks or facial coverings at a mitigation as a mitigation measure however the school must allow for a parent or legal guardian of the student to opt out of the student for the student from wearing a face mask it doesn't say to opt out with a medical exemption it doesn't say to opt out with a religious exemption it doesn't say to opt out with a little note it says just to opt out plain and simple i think it is a blatant violation in this particular case with the wording that we
158have to ask parents to opt out of something that clearly does not mandate or require or recommend that they do i think that we are opening up a can of worms that we really should not do i will continue here on the doh rule number six non-discrimination students whose parents and legal guardians have opted them out of the face mask of a mask or face covering requirement shall not be subject to any harassment or discriminatory treatments including but not limited to a relegation to certain physical locations that right there eliminates that safe space in the classroom where if you don't want to wear the mask for 5-10 minutes 15 minutes you can go in that little corner right there and you can have a little face break this that right there that violates what is
159here b isolation during school activities or see exclusion from any school-sponsored events or activities which anyone could argue quarantining healthy students does so all of the above all of that violates both the executive order and the doh recommendations if students are being questioned a parent mentioned and i think mrs behrenborg thank you mrs behrenberg mentioned it if students are being questioned or bullied for masks or with regard to vaccines they are eligible for the hope scholarship and if parents are listening if that is happening apply for the hope scott scholarship and you can take your child to a private school that should not be happening period end of story i want to pull up and i'll end here i want to pull up the letter the cover letter that came to um dr moore and
160eventually down to us that is from the department of education and of course a mrs d agresta referenced some of this with regard to the other counties that are facing disciplinary action of some sort or consequences or whatever you want to mention but i'm just going to read a couple of parts of it because that's important too it gives a little bit of context with regard to the reason why those counties i mean those districts are under radar it reads today the state board of education issued the alachua and broward county school districts with an order demanding that they comply with state statute and rule school board members of the districts have willingly and knowingly violated the rights of parents by denying them the option to make health care decisions for their children a blatant
161violation of the parents bill of rights which governor desantis signed into law on june 29 2021 i'm going to come down a little bit quote it is important to remember that this issue is about ensuring local school board members elected politicians follow the law these public officials have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of florida we cannot have government officials pick and choose what laws they want to follow said commissioner of education concurrent quote these are the initial consequences to the intentional refuse refusal to follow state law and state rule to purposefully and willingly violate the rights of parents this is simply unacceptable behavior and lastly as an initial step the florida department of education will then begin to withhold state funds on a
162monthly basis an amount equal to 12 of the total annual compensation of the school board members who voted to impose the unlawful mask mandates until each district demonstrates compliance mrs diagra that's what i was referring to earlier when i couldn't find it that's where it is if this entire situation occurred with a teacher or a staff member in our school who who blatantly wanted to violate school board policy that person would be disciplined a letter in their file or they would be fired when you directly violate board rules department of health rules executive orders or state statutes you act illegally we all know police officers here what happens when you act illegally i will not violate the doh doe board rules doh rules executive orders or state statutes i cannot and i will not support
163this mask mandate for any student i will absolutely support any option to highly recommend and let the parents until another emergency god forbid state of emergency comes down but i will not violate any one of those that these are clearly written with regard to face mask requirements regarding masking of their children related to covid19 those are the rights of the parents to make not this school board this school board is not above the law question for either mresta or dr moore it was stated earlier that the naacp has filed a suit against this ruling or governor desantis do you know anything more specific about that um dr jones the the naacp filed a direct appeal to the fourth district court of appeal and it's under the chapter 120 rule making statutory requirements for an emergency
164rule it's very technical they claim that the department of health did not follow the appropriate processes to adopt the emergency rule and it's a very narrow appeal provision um the affordable rule so it's probably ten days two weeks out before we'll hear anything from that legal challenge thank you of course any any uh further comments dr schiff yeah um i know at least five parents who couldn't be here tonight because they're chill their home taking care of their kids with covet which they caught in school i listened to our union president hold back tears over losing a colleague from kovid which while it didn't happen in our school affects our school and i've heard dr moore say um that what has happened in the first two weeks is equivalent to what happened and i think
165you said a month last year or what happened in a week i i don't remember exactly how you said it but a week was equivalent to a month of what we saw last year two weeks i can't remember exactly how you said it um the opt-out provision you're right mrs rosario it doesn't say with a medical exemption but it also doesn't say not with a medical exemption and and according to what ms degresta said um there's contradictory ruling on that you can boo me all you want go for it because we're going to disagree on this go for it right that's enough because i have been i have been misquoted i have been talked to and i will sit here and take all of it because that's my job but in terms of um what
166i see happening in our schools and in terms of what i see happening among people who are close to me what i hear from people in schools i think i answered 70 emails this week about about concerns about masking um and what i hear is that we can't keep schools open unless we take in unless we have some mitigation factor so if you want to use the hope scholarship and take your kid out absolutely as mrs rosario said i encourage you to do that if you want to keep your kid home i encourage you to do that because that's what parents are also doing now because they don't feel that their kids are safe in our schools and and that is as hurtful to me as i think it is to to dr moore i
167hear that there is um disagreement on the medical issue what i also hear is that when there is a medical opt-out it's not about whether the mass constitutes a medical device it's whether it interferes with the medical well-being of a child who has a condition that would be harmed by wearing a mask and i think we clarified that this afternoon so in an effort to keep schools open in an effort to keep classes open grades open our rates are increasing so rapidly um that i'm concerned about that and it is also my job on this board to listen to the advice of the superintendent it's that's his job he is our he is our cf ceo not our cfo um and it's his job to give us advice and and and to make recommendations to
168this board about what he thinks is in the best interests of our children in our community and our well-being and our ability to provide the education we're charged with with providing so for that reason um i i actually you know uh dr jones brought up why this didn't go through 12th grade and i i think we share some concern about that um but i know that there's controversy about this i know there's difference of opinion i know that kids in high school can get vaccinated if their parents choose for that they do not have the ability to to do it on their own they can only do it with parental support um we are not i heard some comments about collat where we're collapsing masks and vaccines we're not mandating vaccines we're not telling anybody
169to get a vaccine that's completely we have not told a soul to get a vaccine we have not told children to get a vaccine so um in the interests of what is best for our schools and moving forward to keep schools open and create as normal a school year as i can i support doing this for the next two to three weeks and then we will come back we will revisit we will decide what i am interested in knowing is what are and i know it's it's a little hard to tell at this point is what are the criteria by which we would determine because if if rates are going down if we see less incidents in schools and it suggests that our strategies are working does that mean we pull back on the strategies
170or does that mean we keep going with the strategies and i don't know that we know that yet so i'm just saying these are concerns in my head which i know you will bring forward in when you make recommendations on the 14th um but i am concerned about how will we will read that data um in any case you know we we've been going on about this since 10 o'clock in the morning um i don't know that there's a whole lot more to say mr barefoot hasn't had a chance to speak and i suggest that mr barefoot speaks and we move to a vote may i respond yes um we do have mitigation factors in place but that's the point they're not working no let me finish without interrupting please dr moore mr bass sent
171out an email on monday mandating every staff to wear a mask that is a difference of protocol that was not in place on the day one of on day one of schools that has been a change it was mentioned earlier why not give that a try and see how it goes it appears that our adults are getting sick so if that is a if that will help we don't know if that will help but that's one of the things that can we can use moving forward as a change in mitigation we cannot make decisions emotionally when you make emotional decisions you make mistakes we have to work on the data what we were told tonight is that 20 more staff members was it 20 more dr moore that you said just now 20 more staff
172members but how many of those are teachers i we don't have that data i'm not given that data we're not given how many elementary verse high school so how are we going to effectively make the difference between mandating it in elementary schools versus our high schools it's not okay for us to make decisions that are not data driven we need data driven information to make data driven uh in uh decisions and not emotional decisions all right so um obviously it's a very difficult decision obviously there's strong feelings on both sides um two weeks three weeks no two weeks this goes into effect august 30th and it goes through our next school board meeting which is uh the 14th of september between now and then it gives uh people if if this passes an opportunity to
173pursue the opt-out that the the that the motion identified it just seems to me i'd rather in my view be safe than sorry and over the next two weeks we're going to learn a lot more some of the data the the differential between staff and teachers or instructional personnel can be vetted the situation at beechland will be clearer um the other school where the numbers i think uh uh mr bass you quoted uh i forget which school it was but we had a 129 um uh kids out up from what 50 some late last week today was that number today or yesterday through the chair yes sir citrus elementary they have 129 out today on average around 50 in a non-coverage year now obviously we don't know whether those are parents withholding those kids because
174they don't consider the environment safe or because the kids got sniffles or what have you it could be quarantined so um i'm i'm in favor of this motion as presented k through eight um we will it will be monitored carefully and i would ask the superintendent to update us on a daily basis please i mean i know that the website gets updated sometime what midnight or five in the morning or what 5 31 5 31 a.m we will also have the benefit i believe you said misty aggressive there is a court ruling supposedly coming sometime this uh next week is it or this week potentially we have a ruling out of the circuit court in in leon county there is a hearing going on it started the evidentiary hearing started monday it lasted monday and
175all of today it continues tomorrow so they're not done yet so hopefully they'll finish this week and we'll get a ruling from judge cooper well clearly on the legal front and on the practice standpoint what's going on in our schools we're going to know more two weeks or come september 13 14 than we know today so having said that i'd like to call the question all in favor or first of all i will make the motion as stated to i will re i will read it again approve face pack coverings be mandatory for all students in pre-k through eighth grade while indoors when social distancing is not possible and while utilizing school transportation parents have the opportunity to opt out their chill child or children from wearing a face covering by providing documentation from a
176medical provider for example florida license let me finish please for example florida licensed physician physicians assistant psychiatrist or psychologist or due to needs outlined in their iep or section 504 plan indicating that they need this accommodation students who received an exemption from wearing a face mask covering during the 2021 school year will automatically be granted an exemption for the current academic year these requirements will be fully implemented on monday august 30th 2021 the outline requirements will will expire september 15 2021 unless extended prior to that date september 15th is the day after our next scheduled school board meeting which is september 14th so i will move that motion is there a second second dr jones is seconding it um all in favor aye aye opposed no no the motion carries three to two about it
177tonight [Music] two that's enough meeting yesterday all right the other action item which i've labeled 13c is the legislative agenda that uh ms dr jones and mrs berenberg raised ms spernberg you want to discuss this and this will be voted on based on this discussion yeah there were two items that i wanted to add to this i did speak to the superintendent this afternoon after our workshop about it and he put in the items wrote them up for me the way that i believe we need to present them which i appreciate you all have a copy of it do you want to read it dr moore i just want to make sure you had it but yeah everybody's got a copy now so there are two items up for discussion one is the revolves around
178establishing florida innovative learning pilot program in which school districts may propose to educate students in a manner modeled after the successful 20 20 20 20 21 innovative learning platforms used across the state the state board of education cell established criteria for students participating in determination of required district assurances to assure student success fdle will be responsible for the review of approval of each district plan to ensure districts receive full fefp funding for students fully participating within the parameters established by rule so what we're seeking here is flexibility uh to create uh very similar models uh to implement in other words we had virtual learning this past year that was uh supported um with funding from the state that has been taken away so this item right here is referring to that correct and this would
179allow us to continue to do it even outside of covet okay and the second item revolves is a mr fagan special increase the distribution of fefp funding two districts in districts total state funding is less than fifty percent of the growth state and local funding including the state uh categorical funds of discretionary lottery school recognition and class size ie forward funding upon receipt of any district authorization the department of education to distribute upon a maximum of 25 percent of state funds on or before august 31st of each year this is the item and to give us a level of flexibility from the state to avoid having to issue a tan right and this is an item i keep bringing up keep bringing up the reason why i brought this up tonight board members for us
180to vote on is because we do have a delegation meeting on september 8th or 9th and that is before our next board meeting so i felt like board members um to have the opportunity for all of us to agree we should actually vote on it so that these items can be put on our platform so that we can present them to um senator mayfield and representative crawl yes what are we doing i don't understand i don't remember i don't recall talking about this or i do recall talking about the item with the fefp funding i don't recall talking about the learning pilot program i don't know why this wasn't on the agenda before so that i could do research to prepare for this discussion to vote on i don't know what are we voting on
181okay i will remind you of what i said this afternoon if you want you can go back and watch it um the point i brought up that is just coming to light it was not too lightweight it was just coming to light can i finish yes you asked another board member not to interrupt you yes but we're having a discussion no i am talking could you please are you pointing your your pencil at me oh my god this is rosario please can i please state the matter you absolutely could but please don't point your pencil at me please don't point your finger at me there we go okay so this afternoon there was an item that i talked about and that is because recently we have learned that the virtual option which more students have
182now signed up for which you understand we have a virtual school right yes okay the funding last year for that virtual school was provided with us or money that has been taken away for the transitional model right and i'll let dr moore answer that but my concern was we should at least bring that to the attention of our legislators so they can help us with that that is not an extra item that i'm trying to do it's an item for us to say to our to representatives hey could you help us with this because we're losing funding for students that we are teaching dr moore is that only for transitional or is it also for virtual through the chair that would be flexible but initially as we done it here in this particular county that
183would be the transitional model so so the reason why i bring this up mrs rosario is because parents have complained when their kids are quarantined that there's nothing for them last year we were able to do a little bit more not a lot but at least have this virtual option and that funding has been taken away that is why i brought this item to the board tonight so that we can ask for that funding to continue so and you're asking for the fl for it to be called titled florida innovative learning pilot program no that's what it says establish the florida innovative learning pilot again i i asked for i explained to the superintendent what's the best way to word this so that it it directly talks about the program that you need the funds
184for that you lost the funds for that's what i asked the superintendent to write i did not write that so dr moore are we ask are i need clarity on what we're calling this are we calling it the pilot program are we calling it is that what the language here is that to establish the florida innovative learning pilot program for transitional so through the chair what we were charged to do was was create a legislative priority so using um the appropriate language as we would move through the legislative process and seek for partnership or to push with certain legislators the opportunity to support this particular initiative so this is nothing more very similar to what our legislative priorities would be i think what board member behrenborg is referring to is that as a board you
185now have a representative on the state on fsba representation and there is a convening of those individuals who represent 67 different districts and this would be the opportunity for dr jones to have consensus from the board regarding um at least two initiatives that came up so just a little bit of a backstory this came to us at our previous board meeting so it is kind of fast moving this is the first convening i think ms berenborg doesn't want um this board's representative not to go there informed with a consensus of of the board so this is a initial reaction to doc jones going to this particular meeting and having some information to share on behalf of the school board well i get all of that my concern is that we weren't prepared to have this
186conversation and i have other questions with regard to innovative learning platforms because one says it's a pilot program and then the next line it says innovative learning platform so if we could include in here somewhere or that it's that it's specifically for transitional or something to that effect because otherwise innovative learning platforms could be anything so are we going to use through the chair mr meyer might want to expand but we use the language that was used at the state level when we created this particular item so if i was to say transitional i think we're the only district that used the term transitional because we named it transitional because we wanted to transition kids back to covet as quickly as possible so we use the appropriate language that was used across the state in
187their documentation that we submitted to them mr meyer you want to the chair of uh dr moore yes you you hit the nail in the head the that is the language that the the department of education issued to us um districts were offered the opportunity to create an innovative learning plan uh during the fall we were given the opportunity to extend it in the spring and once the emergency orders went away we're now not able to do that so yes that's the language that they used so proposing it to be similar but it could clearly be called anything it has if it has the same effect of allowing us to submit a plan to offer an opportunity to not just do brick and mortar but a pilot program is a temporary program again that was
188a proposal that could be permanent um my experience is that they're more apt to do pilot programs to give them a shot and see what happens we're participating in one now right there's a number of those that they've established through the cares and so maybe more amicable to the state to do that of course the board you guys could choose to say make it permanent just trying to draft some language for consideration i think where a little bit of the confusion happened is that i presented the fsba platform and then we have the legislative meeting coming up on september 8th and um i think whatever we do on this is that um we aligned them so that our legislative meeting and our fsba platform kind of the same thing which we have done before because
189you look at the past priorities a lot of times the fads will be aligning with them a lot of different organizations and again when we when i take this to fsba they take a look at all of them i have to put it in by september 1st and then they decide their priorities but i could tell you number two is something we've been fighting for for i don't know how many years so i really like that one do you mr fagan that second one oh yeah land rich people poor sometimes our money's going up there but anyway i think that's where a little bit of confusion uh happened on that one but i think it is really good if if we approve these if we align them with what we're going to present to fsba
190because that's legislative priorities there and the more the counties want of the same that's going to be what they choose and i have a feeling number two is a priority for a lot so thank you any more discussion yes me yes um again i didn't come up with this wording this is what the state came up with um i saw and and sometimes mrs rosario other board members especi yourself included have brought up emergency items you can either vote it down or vote it up but i don't think everything needs to be vetted away ahead of time when it comes to an emergency and and timing and that's why i did it i did not mean to point my finger at you or point my pencil at you i had my pencil in my hand
191so i apologize for that part if that's the way you were offended and took it um but i wasn't done speaking and so that's why i was upset because you you admonished another board member tonight for stepping on your sentence so i just wanted to make sure that you know our feelings tonight are our nerves are frayed i get that everybody's on edge i get that but at least we can be respectful so i brought this item up because i realized wait a minute we don't have another board meeting until after that meeting both meetings yeah yeah and so this afternoon i mentioned that and that's why i'm bringing it up tonight for a boat you can either vote it down or vote it up i call for the vote so the motion is made
192by mrs behrenborg is there a second second who's the second either one of us okay pick one um all in favor aye aye aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 dr jones no actually i put down dr schiff okay dr all right where are we that was action i think we're done with action so we now move to discussion items are there any discussion otherwise school board matters we've had a lot of discussion i think we have superintendents uh superintendent is is superintendent you have a report uh through the chair i did not have a report for this evening thank you okay um there's no discussion items school board matters dr jones thank you i've had the privilege of visiting every school the first two weeks very enjoyable visits i was with dr bohr and miss
193berenborg at transportation the first day about quarter to six really excited to watch the bus drivers get on their routes and they are there for students because i'd like to go out and see kids quite a bit open to some football practices and went up to the sneak peek for the band at sebastian high school they had to cancel it that night with rain but i get i got to talk to band personnel and students and that was wonderful one of the neatest things i've participated in since our last board meeting is the inclusion playground with our county commissioner laura moss stacy klim one of our ese advocates and cindy emerson and again thank you to our district for our inclusion playground and they are looking to do that in our community hopefully at the
194spot right across from vero beach high school it's just in the beginning stages but we're going to bring the community around for that because they are absolutely wonderful several mcan and learning alliance meetings and dr mora as i told with you one time this is their 10-year on the moonshot moment and they're looking at leaders across our community to really grab in and bring it together again very complimentary of you on what you're doing as far as best buy kids and working with them to make sure that our students are reading by third grade as that is a graduation it looks good in third grade you're pretty good to graduate and again with the advocacy i'll be going to that meeting on september 13th and bringing back all the information on what the other districts
195are going to share and what their issues are and mr hart invited us to a felsmere meeting facts meeting on friday and that was absolutely wonderful i think it's very very important that we get out to all parts of our community and to see what their uh needs are especially hearing from mr e at fellsmer elementary and what they need especially in this covet era struggling with some things and making us aware was very very helpful so thank you on that and i think we're going back to the virtual school opening which was good with krista maddox and her team i know a lot of work went into that but it's really great to get out there and see our students and teachers thank you mrs behrenborg sure yeah first day of school was exciting
196i got to go to several schools it was almost felt normal so it was kind of nice executive roundtable has a golf tournament on october 30th and that is going to directly benefit our schools and our kids it is for kids of hope for funding for that possibly sending some of our administrators or teachers to different trainings so i wanted people to please support that endeavor we still need sponsors and prizes so extended day is looking for volunteers and i told them i would shout out to wherever i could tomorrow morning on the radio i will do that as well i know extended day just like when we're hiring teachers you can't invent people but you can at least ask for somebody to consider volunteering if you like working with children extended day could use
197you before and after school and then i went to planning zoning again last week we have you know for a while there my planning zoning meetings were once every other month once every three months and now they're almost every other week or weekly so it's been very active with our community as you can tell from all the building it's going to continue for the next few years i'm just telling you that's out there the growth is happening to the south a little bit to the west and up towards sebastian and this area especially this is you're not going to see any trees left over here um so that's something to keep in mind on saturday i went to the um what i thought was going to be a memorial service for one of our wabaso
198children that died over the summer i walked up and everything was locked up so i was a little confused i guess it got canceled the father was disheartened i don't think he could go through with it so um i happened to be there and the um ceo came up to the door and opened the door and said oh my goodness and it's a former teacher of ours kelly rowe who was at wabasa before she has now um and i have this for every board member there's a card of hers and one of the flyers and even though it's a for-profit and the reason why it is a for-profit is because during covid the other two centers which was goodwill and arc closed down and so a lot of our challenged adults those are 18 years
199old and older had nowhere to go during that time so she wanted to act quickly instead of waiting around for the non-profit way to go she did this and it's impressive please go at least look at it now the reason why i wouldn't normally you know really project something that's for-profit but i will tell you this we're always talking about sending our kids on to careers and to college how about these kids so we need to make that effort to look at where are our kids when they leave our high schools where are they going and this is a great alternative what she's doing there is remarkable um i did go to uh virtually um treasure coast council of local governments and the orca group presented and it was very informative um you heard a
200parent or a grandparent tonight talking about masks winding up in our rivers and out to our oceans that is part of what they're seeing they're seeing these masks going out into our oceans manatees are dying i don't know whether or not it's because of the mask but i'm going to tell you these masks are causing a problem their their presentation was on stormwater runoff and how important it is to educate people about what it is that's on your lawn that's going into your canal which eventually is going into the river which is eventually going into the ocean and so we are in the job of educating we need to make sure that our teachers are looking at stuff that's available to them which is the kilroy data if you don't know what that is go
201please to kilroyacademy.org it's very informative you can go there and you can see what's happening there are different uh i'm i think they put them on the buoys and they're taking in information about what's happening with the health of our um river and i believe some of the ocean too and then or you can go to teamwork.org and see all the things that are available for teachers to use or kids working on science fair projects to use i also um at that same presentation career source irc dot com they also did a presentation and they talked about a new tech program that they have out with looking for partnerships um with one of them being us so that's something to look into too is career source and just so people don't know we use acronyms
202all the time so orca is ocean research conservation association so i just wanted to put that out very informative i'm going to tell you that was one of the best presentations i've ever seen now of course i'm a science geek so i like that stuff that was at the treasure coast council of local governments and that's all i have okay um dr schiff sure just a couple things um i think some of you saw because you commented i had the great fun of doing an m-can video in the last couple weeks which was a little odd to talk to an animate but but inanimate fuzzy blue thing you did great well i thought it was going to be really awful and then i well really uncomfortable and then i just got into it and bridgette
203who who operates moonshot was so surprised she was like she got flustered and absolutely speechless on some tape because i just totally interacted with this thing which i didn't expect i would do but that was fun and i don't hate how it came out usually i hate myself on videos but but it was great fun and it was fun to support the organization and what they did and i know others of you i think have been asked or will be asked to do that um another thing which is a district thing i got a tutorial from ms kestenschmidt i know i'm going to say that name badly um and her colleague who's it's late and i'm tired and her name is escaping me pam you might remember sorry ms dampier is this ainge she's our
204district lead secondary counselor and her um mrs and they gave me a really fabulous tutorial on our new score system which is all about helping helping our students and in particular seniors but also juniors start i well and really working back through ninth and tenth grade when we get there um identifying their their interests for college their abilities their capacities getting all of their information together so that when they're ready to apply they have it in one place and they have some and the schools have these amazing videos i'm like i'm ready to go to gulf coast university because she made sure to show me that one there's swimming pools there's beaches um but as the parent of a senior looking at that was really helpful and informative and a really great system so thank
205you ms dampier and others who brought that to the district because it's a great system i have yet to convince my child to get on it with me um i would like that but but it was it was great um got to go to a few schools in the second week of school because the first week i was busy and missed um really interesting and fun to just be be at some of the schools see what's going on um look forward to doing more of that and as i think dr jones mentioned also at mr hart's invitation and coordination went to the fact meeting in fellsmere um if you haven't been to fellsmere or any of the meetings out there it is it is one of just the best little cities we've got going on
206here um so i love invitations to go out there so thank you for that um and that's it uh mr rosario yeah um same thing school visits were great on the first day of school it's exciting it was exciting to walk the campus and see all of the kids kind of organizing their book bags and their you know little trinkets and it was just sweet really really sweet the transportation cards mr bass is there an update on the transportation cards we haven't talked about that i know that schools have already begun that process can you tell us a little bit about that through the chair we are hoping to have it all implemented and in place and 100 working by september 1st we secondary schools are really using them well already elementary schools are phasing
207them in we have new students through the district that we've got to print their cards for them with everything that's been going on it has not been our primary focus as of right now but it seems to be going very well great the college and career fair i just wanted to a couple of announcements of some of the things when you go on our website they kind of get lost within the the scrolling of the flyers that are up there the college and career fair is coming up pretty quickly september 8th it's going to be at indian river mall i highly suggest anyone who is interested to go be there show up and of course what i realize is that the magnet and school choice applications are open now much earlier than they were ever
208open previously to my recollection i may be wrong but i think that is something to um to share and the marquis looks super great the new marquis on vero beach elementary wabasso fellsmere treasure coast elementary they look wonderful they really do what a difference what a difference a sign a marquee makes in terms of you know when you're driving onto campus that welcoming feeling um looks really really nice and i want to thank all of the teachers i want to thank all the administrators and all of the staff all of the school all of the staff as well for all of the work that you all put in over the summer we got we were able to stay home somewhat come in one day in july but everybody else worked right through the summer and
209i and i don't want to take that lightly i appreciate everyone's work and um obviously trying to get the uh schools up and running you know at the very beginning um so it's it's it's a lot of work and dr moore thank you so much for the work that you do i know that you are a workhorse a workaholic um but your passion is for this district and and i'm i'm happy to see that you've transitioned well from from where you were to where you are right now so thank you to everybody and i really do hope and pray that everyone has a safe um and happy and really successful school year this this school year i would did all that uh the only uh my committees did not meet in in august uh the
210um i did do a video as did doc or participated in a video with dr moore for the learning alliance the other day what they asked me to talk about is the benefit of public private partnerships and obviously we all know the learning alliance has made a huge difference in the lives of a lot of young people and our teachers that were coached over the last several years and they're thriving and and that's great so that's really all i have to report dr moore anything any closing comments uh no sir all right hearing none uh meetings adjourned at 9 21. you