001we have no rotc tonight due to the school just starting and um i believe three of the students were out sick today so i hope they feel better um mr bass would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr bass all right we're going to adopt the orders of the day but i believe the superintendent has a change uh yes madam chair policy 2520 will pull from the policies that are being approved uh this evening for to be sent to public hearing and i will schedule additional conversation in our upcoming workshop okay thank you as per our conversation we had in our workshop that item is
002being pulled two minutes ago yes okay are there any items board members wish to move from consent to action and did we lose mr barefoot he's not on okay all right if that's the case we will move on i'm going to call for a motion to accept the uh adoption of the orders of the day so move okay dr jones second dr schiff all those in favor say aye aye aye anyone opposed okay 4-0 vote and at this time i'd like to turn it over to the superintendent of schools to talk about the presentations of introduction of newly promoted principles and assistant principles all right thank you madam chair and happy new year to everybody as we are off to a brand new school year we do have a number of exciting presentations we'll be
003highlighting our very very busy overwhelmed new principles and assistant principles so we want to take the time to acknowledge and accelerate their professional success and we also will be doing a presentation or a proclamation for attendance and we have a number of students who are here this evening who have had absolute 100 percent perfect attendance all of last school year so we will be excited to celebrate them as well and i'll turn it over to our public information officer miss maddox hi good evening thank you for being here with us tonight first up we would like to recognize our new principals and assistant principals and when i call your name if you would please stand up and come to the front we'd like to take a nice group picture at the end i know i
004see your face is already it's okay our new principles we have mr christopher taylor at storm grove middle school and mrs jennifer norris at osceola magnet school our new assistant principals mrs ataba patterson from daughtertown elementary school miss chelsea castillo from glendale elementary [Applause] [Music] mrs anitra cummings at oslo middle school [Applause] dr kelsey whalen at pelican island elementary dr nicole garrick at sebastian river middle school and she could not be here with us tonight but mrs dawn bennett campbell is the assistant principal at ir prep soaring up academy but we have the principal mr darielle brown back here representing the school mr richard morgan from vero beach high school freshman learning center principal craig kinsley at oslo middle school [Applause] miss juliette tulisma vero beach high school freshman learning center [Applause] and miss megan
005teach out vero beach high school main campus everyone give a big round of applause to our new principals and assistant principals thank you and congratulations congratulations [Music] [Applause] next we have our proclamation for attendance awareness and like dr moore said our students that we have here with us tonight had perfect attendance last year we are very very proud of them but first i'd like to introduce miss pam dampier our assistant superintendent of strategic planning the stamp here [Music] [Applause] good afternoon as you know we're so excited to have a focus on attendance this school year we have lots of activities planned throughout each quarter to celebrate perfect attendance as well as attendance challenges for our staff as well as our stu as well as our students for our students tonight i'm going to ask dr
006lewis the director of student services to come up and present the proclamation along with six or seven of our students who had perfect attendance last year and we had more students than that but we selected students from the elementary middle and high school to come up and read the proclamation so let's give them a round of applause [Applause] [Music] good evening are very excited to launch a year-long attendance campaign at the start of this school year this campaign includes key messages on the importance of attendance school-based competitions and district-wide competitions dr moore and his team will be presenting an attendance trophy every two weeks to the elementary middle and high school with the highest daily average student attendance for the prior two week period the winning schools get to keep the trophy for two weeks
007until it is passed on to the next winning school the first winners will be announced the week of september 5th september is attendance awareness month regular attendance is vital for student success when students attend regularly starting in kindergarten they have an opportunity to achieve academically and thrive research shows that when students are chronically absent missing 10 or more of the school year or 18 days over an entire year they are less likely to read proficiently by third grade achieve in middle school and graduate from high school we have some very special students here tonight to read our attendance proclamation each of these students had perfect attendance last year not missing excuse me not missing any days this is an incredible accomplishment allow me to introduce our perfect attendance representatives please join me at the podium
008as i call your name jocelyn barbara seventh grader from gifford middle school [Applause] destiny wright she's a fifth grader from osceola madness school jesus madrigal is a fifth grader from citrus elementary [Applause] carter dunkley a seventh grader from gifford middle school [Applause] johnson a 7th grader from oslo middle school [Applause] [Music] rebecca garan a seventh grader from oslo middle school as well conrad sylvester and 11th grader at sebastian river high school andrew bickel an 11th grader from vero beach high school and last but not least ashley ferguson a 10th grader from sebastian river high as well let's give the students a call [Applause] now they will read our attendance proclamation now bear with me we may have some missing students so we're going to do the best that we can and just to balance it
009off don't be shy okay i'm just going to start right here i'm going to start in order whereas chronic absences missing 10 percent or more of school for any reason including excused and unexcused absences or just two or three days a month it is a proven predictor of academic trouble and dropout rates and whereas showing up for school is an opportunity for students to build routines that can create a sense of safety and belonging increase engagement and develop trusting relationships with peers teachers and school staff that increase engagement and motivate them to participate in learning and whereas improving attendance and re reducing obtain teasing takes school families and community partners working together to identify adjust factors contribute contributing to students missing school and whereas improving attendance and reproducing reducing chronic chronic abscesses and taking commit
010collaborating in tolerated approaching approaches to particular challenges and strength in each community and whereas chronic abstinences predicts lower third grade reading proficiencies course failure and eventually drop out and it weakens our community and our local economic and economy whereas chronic absences can be significantly significantly reduced when schools parents and communities work together to monitor and promote good attendance and address hurdles that keep children from getting to school and whereas promoting attendance requires noticing as soon as possible when students are starting to miss too much school in order to engage students and families identify and offer need needed support and early intervention resources and now therefore be it proclaimed by the district school board of indian river county florida that the district school board designates the month of september 2022 as attendance awareness month the district
011school board school school board urges the community to commit to focusing on reducing chronic absenteeism to give all children and children an equitable opportunity to load to learn grow and thrive adopted by the school board of indian river county florida on this 29th day of august 2022 signed on behalf of the school of the district school board of indian river county florida by and this is by our school board members we will have them signed individually terry byernborg our chairman brian barefoot dr mary schiff dr peggy jones jacqueline rosario and dr david moore yes okay thank you all right i'm going to call for a motion to approve the proclamation as read could i have a motion make a move um make a motion okay mr rosario first second second dr schiff all those in
012favor say aye aye aye anyone opposed all right okay it passes 5-0 thank you all very much for coming a little bit over this way thank you certainly congratulate all of our students uh for having perfect attendance i would say make sure you're in school tomorrow but they've already proven that they will be in school tomorrow and congratulate all of our assistant principals uh and principals for the promotions uh they are doing an absolute outstanding job of leading and inspiring our children each and every single day and with that madam chair that completes our presentations for this evening okay i know some board members want to make a comment i just want to congratulate all those that are newly appointed assistant principals and principals and also thank students for their participation tonight and also i
013know how hard it is to come to school every day but especially when you're in high school so i commend the high school students that were up here because i know that that's amazing for them uh dr ship yeah it's it's okay i uh when the principals and assistant principals were in the room i just wanted to acknowledge how that makes my heart swell and in the words of my ancestors it actually makes me fell for them and if you don't know the word look it up but vel is a yiddish word that just means i'm so proud and i look at them and these are the moments i'll miss when i step off this board those are the moments i'll miss when i look at the outstanding display of talent we have and i
014get to celebrate them that i'm going to miss as well as the students this is my first year in nearly 20 years not having a parent not having a student go back to school this year and i look at students and again it reminds me of all those years it also makes my heart swell i congratulate all of you and i'm just incredibly proud of all of you and to be here so thank you before i'm sorry and i see her sitting in the back and we must have neglected to read her name so definitely not last but at least dr jessica keaton [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay dr jones go ahead uh congratulations i had the privilege of working of three with three of the aps who are now principals and um only problem is
015they keep getting younger and i look at that and i think but as dr schiff said man that we have this kind of support and um talent in this district we are very very fortunate and i'm so glad attendance is one of our focus areas this year as a high school principal 90 wasn't good enough you've got to get there every day that you can be there of course we don't want you there when you're ill but just know that it's very very important because that instructional delivery and student engagement that's what i think really really makes an impact on our students so thank you to all those students who are doing their best in attendance and congratulations to our aps and principals okay anyone else okay okay all right moving on citizen input so
016i need to read the guidelines for citizen input those of you that are speaking tonight each statement made by a member of the public shall be limited to three minutes in duration persons will be recognized in the order in which the requests were received and the time shall start when the speaker is at the podium and the school board attorney will be the official time keeper you will hear beep at the end of your three minutes she has the time right there persons may speak for up to three minutes at the beginning of a business meeting during citizen input as indicated in the order of business and for up to three minutes to each action item during the action agenda and each board member discussion item as indicated on the order of business persons may
017only speak once about any given item the time period may be extended by the presiding officer only the individual speaking submitting the speaker's form is allowed to address the board time may not be yielded to other speakers during the meeting please refrain from clapping or outbursts of any sort so that we can proceed with dignity and decorum by not infringing on any individual's first amendment rights i need to remind everyone to direct all comments to the chairperson not to individual board members or to the superintendent board members may or may not address any citizen input statements at the end of all citizen input comments as board members listen to citizens without interruption citizens are asked to give board members the same respect as per florida statute 1001.372 subsection 3 the presiding officer of any school
018district board may order the removal from a public meeting held by the district school board of any person interfering with the expeditious or orderly process of such meeting providing such officers first issued a warning that continued interference with orderly processes of the meeting will result in removal with that being said we will start with our first speaker i'll read the first speaker's name and the next person on deck if you'll just come up behind them so we can run through quickly and that way everybody has enough time to get up to the podium we'll start with ron is at rumpen and after that will be don cobb is ron here is he out in the lobby am i way off on the name r o m p either u or o t okay we'll hold
019that one to the end don cobb next after dawn is cindy gibbs hello good evening i've decided to spend my birthday with you happy birthday anyway happy birthday no i am thankful for the opportunity and i'll keep it brief and i i take this very seriously my daughter's a member at the vero beach cross country team recently they terminated their coach and i just observed something this is nothing sensitive in ahr manner something i think we could do better in our county through the whole process uh being an outsider you know and being new to this area and being a former cross country coach i could have seen what was going to happen a mile away started you know so what i what i observed in this situation was um it was similar to how
020you'd handle a four-way stop without stop signs you had all these competing interests and it was bound to come into the intersection and cause a great crash and all the injured people were from the parents the coach just the whole um all the competing interests and the thing that i observed because i'm a process person i'm a software developer and i've helped companies go public is and we do something called socks and it's a great it's just we're audited beyond belief the one thing i did observe as i asked the principal the ad questions about the process and the policy and how things were decided i was very alarmed that it was just a moving target so what i would want to implore the board to do so we could avoid this next time is
021to is to take undertake this process knowing there's competing interests and have a clear recognizable policy that's what i told the principal that day as a parent i don't i don't have a you know i'm not the jury and my child will be fine i was a former cross-country coach um she'll be great i we know how to handle the situation but i'm worried for the others and i'd like to avoid this because anyone who observed this as a parent on the team could see this coming that there was no clear recognizable policy so it's left one athlete feeling like an outsider it's left one group of parents feeling like they're the you know they're the problem it's left a bunch of gossip and the sad part is they miss state by eight seconds last
022year and these kids i observed them this summer they made great strides this coach she did a camp she they she got him a free weightlifting membership they showed up and in their first meet after she was terminated they all ran personal records better times than last year so the things that all the innuendo the gossip things that weren't facts were all just hyperbole and that's why i think with good policy that's recognizable like i mentioned to the principal i think we could avoid this okay because i think there's a lot of victims here and a lot of misunderstanding and i implore you they have a better team than last year they can make state if we would just give that some special care and i would i'll help in any way thank you appreciate
023it all right um next is cindy gibbs and on deck is maureen weisberg good evening i'm cindy gibbs i live in sebastian as a former teacher myself and the parent of two kids who go to our schools i'd like to personally thank every teacher in every school for showing up every day in their classrooms to care for our kids and to teach them using the state-approved curriculum which is written in alignment with the state-approved standards our teachers and our support staff live here they're our neighbors and their kids go to school here they want what's best for our kids and again i say thank you to them i also want to say thank you to the special brand of teachers who have been clinical educator trained to mentor our newer teachers whether they're new to
024the profession because they have just finished college and joined us or whether they have served in another capacity as a member of the military or some other specialty and i really hope that our mentor teachers are properly supported and encouraged by their leadership because we know the single most important aspect of a child education when they are at school is the teacher if our mentor teachers are supported and encouraged they can support and encourage our new teachers who can then support and encourage our children because that's what school is really all about creation of relationships of trust and respect between teachers and students and their families so our kids can learn with as few distractions as possible as a professional development specialist myself i'm very interested to learn more tonight about the professional development that
025our teachers are receiving and will receive it's important to be honest and clear with our community that high quality professional development for our teachers helps them to continue to teach to the state approved standards as they have always done facilitating a deep study of literature discussion of factual historical events and their effects on the world an authentic study of mathematics and science with a healthy dose of hands-on practice of why these skills are so important and essential to a strong economy we seem to be off to a good start this year we need to continue to hold up our teachers and our support staff when they're confident our kids can be too and finally i want to take time to recognize the importance of our before and after school programs the extended day program that
026provides a vital service to our kids and their families for those unfamiliar the extended day program gives the kids of hard-working parents a safe and reliable place to go between the end of the school day and when their family member can get to them after work also before school the kids get snacks they get drinks they get mentored they get help with their homework they're encouraged to learn a new skill with an art or a craft or a sport and they are generally offered protective services throughout the rest of the day until their family can get to them it's a service that our our families must pay for but it is reasonably priced and it fills a great need in our community that otherwise might not be there because of our public schools thank you
027and thank you again to all our teachers thank you all right next up is maureen weisberg and on deck is jennifer pippen good evening dr moore esteem school board members my name is maureen weisberg president of the cwa local 3180 tonight i would like to share an email titled farewell my sebastian river high school friends hello my friends i hope this finds you rested and refreshed at the end of your summer unfortunately i will not be returning this year i have recently come to the sad realization that i am one of many that are coined as being pushed out of paradise i am financially unable to remain in florida if i wish to own a home as some of you know i fell into the issue as many floridians with my rental housing being sold
028last year luckily i was able to move in with my mother i have now made the decision to relocate to alabama where my children's grandparents live and the cost of living will be affordable i am a sixth generation native floridian of indian river county and this is a sad situation for me as well as for so many in this challenging times i will stay positive and know that my alabama family will be excited for me to be so close to them but i love my hometown i have thoroughly enjoyed this working environment and the fantastic people at sebastian river high school who welcomed me into my position and became my friends as you all truly embrace each other with sincerity and i hope to hold you to these relationships i appreciate your understanding regarding this
029difficult decision that i feel was not in my life plan i surely envisioned myself retiring with the school district of indian river county at sebastian river high school thank you for all your support crystal rooley rn sebastian river high school health assistant 3. sadly miss really is not the only support staff making hard decisions about staying in indian river county some of our support staff have had to drop health insurance coverage to make ends meet the cwa is requesting an inflation bonus to help offset the rising costs that has crystalled some of our support staff thank you jennifer pippen is next marcos valoria is on deck good evening i know that there are some children in here so i'm going to ask the board if those children could be removed for from this speech please
030can we do that are they able to leave no because we can't direct a parent if somebody came here of their own free will we can't direct them to leave okay good evening my name is jennifer pippen and i'm the chairman for moms for liberty indian river county florida and the co-founder of we the people indian river florida suppression of speech that is deemed uncivil profane or obscene violates the first amendment rights of speech with viewpoint discrimination if the school board exercises viewpoint discrimination i'm deprived of the right to speech in violation of the first and fourteenth amendments to the united states constitution the speech i offer is intended to protect our children from the questionable choices that have led to inappropriate obscene and pornographic materials placed in the school libraries i want to exercise
031that right by accurately reading the library books aloud at our public meetings by reading these books aloud i am able to inform parents and in elected officials responsible for the safety and well-being of our kids about the illicit material when the material is available in our schools that's read aloud the audience including elected board officials will hear the jarring unsettling and graphically sexual words in their original medium this school library material is vulgar and has no educational value i will remind you attempting to suppress my speech as viewpoint discrimination express essentially when quoted from available library books and other school materials and again i i wanted to read these books but with children present i don't feel comfortable reading these books what i wanted to do today was read two of the books that a
032parent who did the parental permission slip form that said they did not want to have their children read sexually explicit books in schools and checked off on their parental permission slip form as well provided by the district that they did not want their child to read any challenge materials i'll give you an example this book here was challenged by moms for liberty last year it had no movement it stayed in the high schools and this parent's child brought this book home and again i don't feel comfortable reading it with children present but this book is sexually explicit in nature and again i don't even want to give a summary of what this book is and you can see it has all of this is not a book i purchased on amazon this was from the
033library and if anybody wants to see this after these are all these sticky notes in here are all sexually explicit content in this book it's over a hundred this book i purchased on amazon for four dollars this is currently in our book in our library same thing the parent opted out of sexually explicit content and challenged materials her student was able to check out these two books thank you can i have the titles of those two books it's um sold by patricia mccormick it's in all of our high schools here and tricks by ellen hopkins and same thing it's in the high schools here thank you thank you okay um marcus valoria and diane parentella on deck hi marcus hello my name is marcos valoria and i've been a cross-country and track athlete for more
034than two years under vera beach high school's cross-country coach throughout my running career i've learned that she's a very kind person and she uses all her abilities to help guide us as student athletes into success she truly dedicated herself to training us in a way that didn't make us hate running but in a way that would we would enjoy it so in the middle of a school day when i heard that she had been fired i felt distraught and confused how could such a caring person be fired just like that our coach tried her best to make us all feel included in everything we did she made us thrive while running she also wanted middle schools to have this enjoyment too as she helped build cross-country teams and middle schools of this district she even
035planned out an entire running camp to let us enjoy this sport and strengthen our team that was bound to go to states but she did it all for nothing as she was fired less than two weeks later how is that fair this woman has trained extraordinary athletes and created a community of runners through her sweat and tears not only was her removal shocking to her it was devastating to 40 of us athletes she made many impacts in our lives and taught us to keep going even if it's related to athletics or not but do you know what stood out to me the most about her the way she made me feel important the way she made me feel like i belong in a group that cares about me like i belong in a family our
036coach always made everyone feel important and allowed us to radiate our success at the races regardless of our speed age or other superficial features she genuinely cared for each and every one of us and always treated us with complete respect in my two years with her i've never felt or seen anyone else feel left out or disrespected in any way her never-ending care and unwavering dedication to seeing the ultimate success of this team is what truly has made her the best coach i have ever had and i know for certain that several others others can say the same it honestly saddens me that the athletic director and other administrators have removed such a great person from our athletic program as a student athlete who has been benefited by the coaching of her please find justice
037in this unfair process of her removal thank you thank you marcus diane parentella is next uh raquish mehta metta is next good evening as i contemplated and reflected on the message i wanted to convey to the board tonight i was reminded via my facebook news feed of a quote by mr rogers that has truly resonated with me he said quote human beings are not born with self-control we have to learn what to do with the mad what that we feel learning to control ourselves is a long hard process it happens little by little in fact it's something we work on all through our lives learning what to do with the mad that we feel there are many people who come to this podium each meeting expressing their anger but how do we move from reacting
038to their anger to responding to the anger how do we join together proactively to partner and problem solve moreover what message are we sending to the children during these tumultuous times tonight you were set to adopt a policy related to book challenges i understand that's been moved however as a media specialist it is my hope that soon this board will consider creating the new policy related to purchases of library materials as a result of new legislation librarians are not able to purchase new books or other materials until a training occurs complicating and prolonging matters is that the training has yet to be developed by the state and is not slated to occur until at least january of 2023 to date our school libraries have been unable to purchase any new materials since march i come
039before this board with a resounding echo best buy kids in my mind this is not best by kids our children are missing out last school year i purchased a subscription to pebble go a curriculum content hub with ready-made activities and informational articles that my students were able to use to do research it boosts engagements and fosters independent learning in core subject areas the new best standards include standards related to conducting research last year during disability awareness month students accessed 17 articles related to different conditions and disabilities through pebble go we also read a book just asked by supreme court justice sonia sotomayor i receive very positive feedback from a parent whose child has diabetes as that was what the book was about she appreciated that her son would also enjoy books about other children with
040a disability there's a new book out by justice sotomayor but i can't buy it during hispanic heritage month my students also did research last year they researched over 13 247 articles in pebble go and pebble go next they checked out 11 481 library books last year thank you i appreciate it all right raquish is next and samir is after that hello my name is rakesh mehta and i'm a junior at vera beach high school i participate in cross country and i'm here to talk about my coach who i believe was wrongly fired from her job to myself and many of my teammates and friends our cross country coach was more than just a coach she was not only extremely dedicated to our team but she cared about every single athlete on it she came to
041our school events and awards ceremonies whenever she had time when teaching us about nutrition and hydration she offered to provide meals to any kids who weren't provided with enough food at home over my almost three years running with her we've developed a special bond in this time i've also created so many meaningful relationships with my teammates who are now my closest friends the experiences i've had with my coach have shaped me into the person i am today i've become a better version of myself not only in this great sport but many other aspects of my life and i would not be this person if it was not for the amazing coaching and teaching of this coach thank you thank you appreciate it samir and after that uh tony metta uh hello my name is samir
042meda and i'm a vera beach high school cross country runner as a kid me and my me and my brother would always run local races with our dad my dad loved running and would run all sorts of races which is the reason why we got into it as i got into high school my dad brought up the idea of doing cross country i wanted nothing to do with it the thought of waking up at 4am on saturdays for cross-country meets and having practice every day in the hot florida heat was nothing was nothing it was not something i was up for after a while of going back and forth with my parents i finally decided to give it a shot i was still on the edge about it for the first couple weeks of summer
043conditioning if it wasn't for our cross country coach i probably would would have stopped running she helped me see how how much fun and exciting running was she was so kind and welcoming to everyone and saw the potential everyone had when coach told the team that at the end of the summer we would go to tallahassee for a running camp i was so excited as a kid my parents would never would not let me and my brother have lots of sleepovers and sleep and go to sleep away camps but because of the bonds and trust that we've made with coach over the last three years they were perfectly fine with letting us go coach is not only the best coach i've ever worked with but also one of the most kind-hearted people that i know
044thank you all right next is tony metta after that is alyssa johnson good evening uh board members uh my name is tony mehta and i appreciate the opportunity those are my boys here and you know when when something happens uh the ability for them to come here and express themselves i really appreciate that you you've offered this opportunity to them um i too you know i'm upset by the situation that that's occurred one of the most frustrating things as a parent is the lack of communication that we've had about the situation so it was kind of abruptly when i can't answer to my kids what happened that makes it a very difficult job to to be a parent i'm also the booster club president for the rio beach high school cross country team uh and
045um i've had you know an honor to get to know this coach for the last couple years and i echo what my boys have said and others have said this is a great coach she's looked out for the athletes and i can tell you working with her she's looked out for the district one of the things so far right now it's been a very disruptive period this year so far for the kids and parents we have a meet that was supposed to be held this coming weekend second annual last year the district made five thousand dollars in revenue that meat is cancelled and if the coach was still here that meet it would have carried on and the district would have incurred probably more than five to six thousand dollars in revenue so i think
046that's a loss as well um there's also loss to the kids you know all the kids used to be able to go to every meet now the policy has changed and the kids aren't allowed to go to meet that's very disappointing late last night we got a message that the practice times have changed uh without again any communication you know sunday night after 5 p.m being notified that the kids are no longer going to go to cross country after after school that they've been doing for last two years now it's from 4 to 5 30 in the evening that was very disruptive again no communication late last minute um i appreciate that there's an investigation that's been started i want to thank you for that and whatever the outcome i hope there's an opportunity uh
047for the administration to meet with the parents to let us know kind of what happened uh we appreciate and hope that it's a fair process if you determine that there was a just reason for this then we will have to live with that and i will have to explain to my kids what happened however if you find that this was an unjust decision we really hope that you reinstate this coach because as my kid said this is a great coach and uh and the kids deserve an opportunity to continue with that leadership thank you thank you sir all right alyssa johnson is next and ben dunham is after that good evening good evening my name is elisa johnson and i would also like to sing the praises of the former coach of vero beach cross
048country team my oldest daughter joined cross country as a freshman and was lucky to run four years for rivera beach high school's cross-country team she was instrumental in helping my daughter achieve the opportunity to run at state her freshman year as a physical therapist she knew better than any teacher how to work with runners to improve time without risk of injury her workouts were meticulously planned to take into consideration all levels of runners where they were and where they needed to go she implemented team building events to strengthen not only their physical health but also their mental health during kovid she upheld all district requirements making sure the athletes knew the seriousness of breaking protocols outside of coaching she worked to strengthen the district's middle school cross-country programs and it is because of her that
049my younger daughter runs for her middle school team she is one of the greatest coaches our family has known i'm disappointed in the school's decision to let her go and i don't think they realize the huge impact she has had on the cross country community and how her loss will be deeply felt thank you thank you our last speaker tonight is ben is it dunham that's right okay i'm ben dunham i have uh four children in the school district here i'm also speaking about the cross-country situation at vera beach high school four children one three at vero beach high school two are in the cross country team one at beechland elementary i also have background in the sport i ran in at in miami in high school and i was at the university of mind
050running across country and track and field for four years um i've gotten to know everybody involved in this situation i know there's an investigation going on and i hope that that goes to conclusion um i know that the parents that have been involved the the coaches and and the um as well as the athletic director all good people i think there's really a really bad uh case of communication bad collaboration i think we talked about this earlier and i hope that the investigation can find that help us get through this i do think it's the best interest of all the student athletes to be able to reinstate this coach this coach was someone that has dedicated a lot of time i've seen a lot of good coaches through my years my my coach from the
051university of miami was just inducted to the hall of fame at the university of miami just recently my teammates are now coaches at university of south florida here in the state of florida the coach has done a great job of training these athletes i've seen many great coaches and i think the the way that this coach has been able to train the athletes the process that she goes through has been above and beyond um that of many other coaches that i've seen i've been very thankful for the coaches that have stepped in to help this process more recently but that being said i am worried about the the ability for these student athletes to achieve their full potential without the coach being reinstated so thank you for your time thank you did you want to
052speak um yes thank you madam chair in terms of the cross country as as referenced there is an investigation so on the personnel front um there's not much we can comment on until that has come to conclusion uh but every assurance that it will be a thoughtful thorough comprehensive and fair review uh and we will do in fact what is best by children i can tell you there will be operational opportunities to improve practice communication with a little bit that i do know there is clear opportunities to improve the communication and connectivity between the parents and students that we serve with the program as a whole and we will identify those learn from that and move forward in terms of the the challenge material first jennifer uh we always don't see eye to eye but
053i i want to thank you for making the decision that you made tonight and not read not read the material i appreciate that material that is being challenged is uh not chap information that was challenged previous it would be current information so all challenges that have already taken place they have been done the board has taken action on those specific items so if a parent has selected challenged materials as we're checking out that and as we're looking to check to ensure that we're not providing information that a parent doesn't want we're looking to see in that check there's no material that's currently being challenged as we're in the process of of creating that um you know how we're going to review materials uh in terms of the selection of material um that is a that
054is a hard one that is a tough one um and i think it was part of the conversation that we had at our board workshop really creating a process making sure that we do protect our teachers through informing them our media specialist by informing them of what is the state's expectation what has become clearly defined in statute as well as state board rule we are seeing progress in terms of the state conducting rule-making meetings so we are hopeful that we will get that information sooner rather than later so we can get that information and material out to our educators so they can create media specialists that encourage students to intend and participate those are my comments i'm sure okay i'd just like to say too first of all thank you for being brave enough students
055to come up here and speak and you did a great job my students my two boys were in cross country in high school i agree with you they didn't want to get up early and run so i applaud you for doing that um thank you to all our speakers for coming forward and for board members to be able to get this information we appreciate that okay yes okay so board members we are on to consent items i'm i do have a question okay they leave you have a question sorry don't leave yeah don't don't leave yet i just i have a question for the superintendent um dr moore considering the situation here what's going to happen with the upcoming meets are we going to ensure and provide a substitute in the meantime i mean i
056if we're going to be best buy kids we have kids that are waiting in the wing trying to figure out what to do next so i don't know if you're looking at my notes but that is one of the points of connectivity so we'll reach out to the school to see if if something was canceled the the reality is as tough and as hard as this is we you are 100 correct we don't want to impact cancel or modify anything so i just learned that so we will be following up this evening with the school summit but we do have coaches in place correct yes coaches are in place um what spending for me is a meet that was scheduled and which we generated five thousand dollars which is now not taking place well i
057don't want to make the decision based on just the financial part i'm thinking about the children who are you know desiring to meet who are desire desiring to practice and play no i i understand i just got to get the information to see what the impact was and what decisions were made madam chair i think the dad had a his hand was up if you do you want to come back up and answer that question it's up to you i can't have you give a give another speech but you can answer the question certainly uh thanks for the opportunity tony mehta um so this was the second year that vero beach high school was going to have this meet at the fairgrounds and it has now been cancelled has been removed from all the all
058the meat schedule and not only impacts our local kids here at vero beach high school but sebastian and saint ed's but there was 33 other high schools i believe that were planning to come to this meet so it's impacting all those schools an economic impact to having all these school kids come from other places as well they're losing an opportunity for me so you know with the new coaches in play right now maybe they didn't have the opportunity they didn't have the time one of the reasons i heard is that the fairgrounds where this meet happened last year was was not ready for construction i work for cam for the county utilities department i've spoken to the project manager a month ago and even recently the fairgrounds the contractor was aware of this race they
059were going to have everything ready everything was going to be moved out of the way so that the race could be held at the fairgrounds and but i just feel that the new coaches may not have had the time and the experience to put put together a successful meet had this coach not been removed i think we would have had to meet uh this coming weekend it's too late now but but i don't think all the parents have been even informed that this meet has been cancelled so so that's again goes back to communication uh so there is saint ed's is planning to have a meet at the fairgrounds later this month i i believe they're going to continue and carry on that meet so it could have been done by again vero beach high
060school had the you know the leadership uh maintained thank you thank you thank you can i just follow up on that for a second um thank you for that it sounds clearly like it's too late for this weekend but the question then is whether it can be rescheduled for a subsequent weekend where all of the other schools will have time in their own planning as well to get here once we've sort of sorted out whatever it is that happened but because it didn't happen this weekend let's um be hopeful that we can sort that out to have an upcoming weekend as soon as possible absolutely from our media specialists who talked to us today dr moore i think she said that um as of last october they could not order books so it'll be a
061year in october correct i want to say march march okay all right okay still a long time though and we're looking at uh the committee i guess getting rolling around january and getting some information on that so we are literally attending and observing the the state board meetings in which they're conducting those that rule making process so some rules are starting to show up on the agenda at state board meetings in october so that is encouraging so as soon as the state board ruling uh is a decision is rendered at one of their state board meetings we'll be able to quickly act i think one of the things that we have done as a school system has really been we've acted extremely swiftly regarding even the policies that we're approving tonight um we'll be one
062of the first districts to have those in place so we're not we're not sitting on our hands we're not waiting uh as we're acting as swiftly as we possibly can uh with a level of caution in order to ensure that we do in fact protect our parents protect our students and protect our staff in terms of giving them the guidance to make decisions um that keep everyone in a space in a place in which they can feel comfortable in terms of what they're doing in our classrooms with our children right now we need parent permission for any child to check out any book it must be from parent permission on our focus so we we did push that out through focus um so the answer is yes there's a level of um access parents can
063give us to absolutely you know no issues in terms of renting books or books that are currently under review or books that have been required parental permission so it there's a lot of freedom in which the parents can sit in the driver's seat and make those selections based on their level of comfort within their home and last year when we were looking at all this i just got some information from our secondary libraries and this goes back to the question we talked about earlier with instructional material vero beach high school has um 19 500 books sebastian river high school 23 000 freshman learning center 15 000 storm grove 12 000 sebastian middle 13 000 well seven thousand in gifford middle school eleven thousand i did not get to the elementary so when we're looking at
064instructional material for books in order for a child to check out a book and i i already had some calls from parents on this after the workshop is that book going to have to review are we going to review 103 000 books in the secondary libraries so that is part of the policy in which we just pulled and i think that's part of the bigger conversation for us to have as a board so we all understand regarding what the state is expecting in terms of as well as what this board uh is expecting as well so it is having a conversation so before we're all on the same page and one other thing i want we had it at a workshop in me it was very good um it went over the secondary libraries and
065how many books are being checked out other than s-a-t-a-c-t dual enrollment ap and ib i think it was 32 books at sebastian river high school and now so the bigger picture for me obviously the parent has the right to say what books a child will read that's not the issue the bigger picture for me is making sure that our students are reading and getting to the media centers and using them appropriately and that we continue to look i think ms wall put this out ways to design that for our children so that they are coming to libraries i don't have the elementary and i know diane talked about how many books were checked out there and when you look at the high school there's a real difference we want our students reading we want them
066reading what is appropriate we know that's a parent's choice and they have to approve that through focus so i think there's a lot of discussion we need to look at here absolutely thank you okay i think it was good that we pulled that item then yeah well that well the item that was pulled does not specifically outline what the process is for vetting the instructional materials for the library and the media center which was my original concern prior to discussing pulling it why we don't have we don't have something in writing that clearly outlines the process for vetting the instructional materials via or that are available through the media center the library or the media center um this one that was just pulled really talks about the process for the adoption of textbooks and for
067the process of those textbooks or materials that are not recommended through the textbook adoption process again we don't have anything so what was identified for us uh just so that it's public record that the new rules from the florida department of education on these library materials it came to the school district it was received at least it was dated the letter was dated june 3rd um through the superintendent to the board members and it's really specifically talking about this entire issue this discussion about library books and how to vet them and what we're supposed to do moving forward it um references house bill 1467 it came to us from jacob jacob oliva and it has a whole bunch of different bullets on there one of the bullet points um specifically regarding this entire process um
068is the responsibility of school boards to to adopt procedures which we don't have what we have tonight um that i think was a little confusing for um mrs parentella because she mentioned that the what we're pulled tonight were the challenges for the library books that's not what's pulled tonight tonight what's going to be approved are the challenges to the library library books that policy the challenges for the library books that's going to be approved tonight hopefully what is not approved and what was pulled was the process for the um vetting of the library books for new purchases so that's what we need to implement that's what we need to where we need to get to we kind of did it a little backwards because halfway through this letter the doe also not even halfway at
069the end of this letter the doe says that there even though this is supposed to take place june 1 july 1st of 2022 there is still a deadline here that no later than june 30th 2023 the superintendent has to provide the fdoe with some certification and then the doe is also saying that in january of 2023 there would be a deadline for media center specialists to get specially trained so there are all these kind of deadlines and i think that's what the superintendent is suggesting i will however agree with mrs parentella and say we do have access or i would i would say we do have the ability to create a process in the temple you know until that time comes until a rule making comes from the doe that says don't do this do
070this you know whatever we have the ability right now to create that process so if the board would agree then we can get together and we can come up with a process for that i mean we've already got now the challenges so all we really have to create is what would it take the only thing that is necessary we already know what is not supposed to be in these books it is very clear that it is written out that these books should not contain pornography or anything that is prohibited in um statute 847 which is the obscenity statute and that this needs to be um [Music] age-appropriate and grade appropriate so the only outstanding question that seems to be an issue is what is age appropriate i don't see how that's a controversy i mean
071age-appropriate two-year-old you know you just don't give a two-year-old a trigonometry book right yeah mrs rosario what we'll do is we'll put this agenda item on for next year i think for discussion yeah um because right now we're just at the end of citizen input so that's okay we're getting i think a little too into the weeds here i'm going to call for a motion for to approve the consent agenda items second dr schiff dr jones all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed all right okay 5-0 with that understanding what we just um approved i'll wait because we have some noise um is that policy she was just talking about all the policies except for the one that we pulled were just approved along with four donations and i do want to thank
072people that donate to our district we had mid-florida credit union fraternal order of eagles and fellsmere frogleg festival that made large donations but we had one very large donation this time that very large donation was express real grinding for nineteen thousand seven hundred dollars to vero beach high school so we appreciate that very much okay we had nothing pulled from consent to action so we're going to move to action first one is action 13 a approval of small school district council consortium participation resolution fiscal year 2022-2023 boy is that a mouthful all right um i'll call for a motion so move okay dr jones second dr schiff any discussion on this all right we have to call for a roll call so uh miss esplan will you do the roll call dr schiff aye dr
073jones aye ms rosario aye mr barefoot aye mrs barrenborg aye the vote passes 5-0 okay thank you all right moving on to action item 13b approval of resolution 2023-06 tax anticipation notes series 2022. this is hard for me to read um a call for motion approval second dr schiff dr jones any discussion sorry go ahead i just want to say um for anybody who's watching this who did not also watch our workshop um these these several items were discussed at length in our workshops so the appearance of having no dialogue now is not because we haven't considered or discussed them it's because we actually already did it a few hours ago and i just want to clarify that mr rosario yeah um we really need to have these conversations in the public because we i
074mean this this this one needed to be had if you have not um watched or heard or listened to our earlier discussion i really encourage you to do so the tax anticipation note timeline would really addresses um not having enough cash flow um for a short period of time because of the tax the property taxes coming in the timeline just doesn't match up with the cash flow that we have in order for us to pay our bills and pay salaries and all that kind of stuff um really you can get for anybody who wants an in-depth understanding of this please um listen to the earlier conversation in our workshop um you'll you'll hear all board members comments and and concerns about it and it's important but i do want to say you know thank you
075mr fagan for for your work in this area and for really turning that department around from what it was to what it is now as i mentioned earlier it is pretty disappointing to hear that we would have to go for a tan right now but i understand the concern and so where i would usually say i would usually be a no vote i i'm i will support it thank you okay i'm gonna um actually correct a statement you just made mr rosario you made the comment that we did not discuss this in the public we did discuss it in the public we discussed it at our workshop okay i think you meant to say we should have discussed it at the business meeting yes business meeting that is an open meeting anybody can come to
076the workshop you're right i just want to make sure that that was very clear everybody knows that we discussed it in the public you're right thank you for the clarity i don't want to be in trouble all right um you know how i feel about the tan i don't think our taxpayers should have to um foot the bill for everything and then have us lose money just because we're trying to um make sure that we don't have a checks bounce basically and it was brought up today how much that is costing us 144 000 to be able to do this so i think again i'm going to stress that we need to talk to our legislators legislators and continue to do so i know i have in the last two years but i'm going to
077continue to do that and the only way you can do that is strengthen numbers and we need to work with the other districts that are in the same boat okay enough said um we'll call for the roll call vote mr splin dr schiff aye dr jones aye mrs rosario aye mr barefoot aye mrs behrenborg hi the tan passes five to zero okay thank you uh 13 action item c public hearing and adoption of school board policies from 7 25 2022 this item deals with adoption of school board policies dr moore have you documented this public hearing was properly advertised in accordance with state statutes i have we are now in recess this meeting to conduct the public hearing is advertised the public hearing is now in session dr moore are there any written responses to
078the advertised public hearing to be read at this time not at this time okay did i scare him sorry the public is invited to address this issue at this time is there any individual representing an organization or his own personal or public interest who wishes to speak the chair concludes that the announced public hearing on the adoption school board policies has been conducted pursuant to notice and that ample opportunity to address this issue has been provided to all see none the board meeting is reconvened at this time i'll call for a motion move approval doctor dr jones any discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye anyone opposed okay that's a 5-0 vote superintendent's report dr moore uh no report this evening sure no report discussion all right we have nothing for discussion school
079board member matters who would like to go first i'll go okay seems like a long time since we've been here but um first day of school with the buses at 5 45. we started the year with jennifer idolette um ms dampier mr heiser mr bass miss baycera dr moore and miss berenborg i made it to every school in the first two and a half weeks and i had the pleasure and the privilege of working with elementary principals on the drop-off and it was wonderful first few days are always a little exciting but they seem to get it under control within the first week and i love most parents that i love you and be kind i thought that's a great thing to say as your students leave the parent engagement at rosewood with mcann with
080being at the school i talked a little bit about that in the workshop today that was absolutely fantastic and i think that's the way to go looking forward to the next one football games sebastian's home next week volleyball everything's getting started within our athletics and i certainly hope all the teachers and staff members have a great year i know this summer we were dealing with some new requirements with law and heard from a lot of teachers heard a little bit of trepidation but we just want you to continue to do what you've always done and that is teach our students the standards you know when we look at what is being taught and i say this for our parents if you go to c-palms dot org see the letter c palms dot org you will
081see all the standards that are to be taught in every grade in every subject area and if you take a look at it it is absolutely a huge responsibility for the teachers and they don't have time to do anything but that also if you take a look at our state statute 103-42 it tells you what must be taught in k-12 some of those things are the declaration of independence the constitution the republican form of government the u.s constitution education of the holocaust history of african americans conservation of natural resources women's contributions kindness to animals character development and patriotism we are teaching american history we are not teaching crt please take a look at these standards you know a lot of times we just keep going and putting our heads down and not saying anything our
082teachers are teaching the standards again i made it to every school the first couple weeks and that's just my first round when you go into those classrooms it is amazing what our teachers are doing and with house bill 1557 to our lgbtq students staff to our parents please know that you are valued please know that this school district does not discriminate and dr moore if there's ever an issue with that i expect you and the principals to handle it and handle it with care any student who may be transitioning in the school system you are valued you are safe and you are protected by title ix of the federal law k-3 we are not instructing anyone on sexual orientation and anyone who thought that was absolutely wrong we as board members have to stand up
083for our teachers we have to stand up for what they do on a daily basis as of last week and it might be a little bit lower now we're close to 4 000 teachers short in the state of florida we are lucky here still in any river county that we are doing a pretty good job of recruit recruiting and retaining and we're doing a better job of recruiting and retaining african-american teachers and we must continue with that in 1970 there were 300 000 graduates in education in this in this country in 2018 before covet we had only 160 000 graduating and i know it's less now with covet so you have to wonder why teachers are not going into it we must do a better job of enabling our teachers to do the job they
084need to do supporting them and if they're wrong we deal with it we deal with it but i just want you to know that we are here for you as a school board you know teachers were calling me this summer saying is there a bounty on my head if someone anonymously reports me for something i double check with dr moore i don't know of that in this state i hope not but again we must always be there for our teachers and our administrators and our support staff it is absolutely essential that they see us as someone that they can talk to parents if there is an issue with the teacher please talk to the teacher first you know your child i had three children they come home and they say well this is what happened
085i'll say well let me get the other side of the story and then we'll go from there but i just asked parents to i'm telling you as a principal when i had that parent support and parents gave me constructive criticism all the time you could do better on this doctor this got to change it is absolutely wonderful it is what makes us soar it is what makes students succeed and makes our district become an a district so someone i feel i could say this i've been here for 42 years probably put more into the system because of my age than a lot of people is that i am 100 percent absolutely a pro public school person and i think that one reason we work so well is that we accept everyone and when i say
086accept everyone not only do we do that on paper we do it with our heart so teachers i'm there for you parents i'm there for you and most importantly students i am there for you thank you dr ship wow um thank you and if that were a document i would co-sign it with you thank you for that statement i applaud you um ditto everything you just said thank you for that um other than that i have nothing thank you okay um mr rosario opening of school um this year was fantastic there were little to no issues um the buses ran smoothly we were fully staffed on buses correct driver's despair with drivers to spare i visited several schools and it was really just fantastic to see everyone where they need to be and parents were
087excited students were excited about the new year so um it is exciting uh i'm glad that the new year has gotten started without any uh major controversies and um uh everything is the way that you know the way it should be i do have some concerns though about um discipline and making sure that everyone understands the new bullying um the no bullying policy or the no bullying um push for our community to all band together um i would like us to really get the word out more aggressively if possible i don't know what students are doing in the schools with regard to this or what schools are doing with the students rather so i'd like to see a little bit more effort on that and to see if we can really get a handle on
088ending bullying i did go i did attend an executive roundtable session last week it was a substance awareness center safer coalition training for all executive roundtable members and communities and it was really centered around communities that care leader key leader community board roles and understanding of what that means and you know moving forward how that would impact our community our entire district and the community at large indian river county so there's really not much to say about that until the next training and we'll learn more about it um later on and i think that's about it okay mr barefoot just uh congratulations hope this if i'm in an echo chamber it sounds uh bad reception so congratulations say my remarkable next time in person hi thank you what is it i think he said congratulations
089to the um good opening and yeah i too got to go on a lot of campus visits i went actually right before school started and then i went on opening day of course but the reason why i wanted to do that is to check on some safety issues pointing out some things that i was able to see when you get to talk to teachers when they're prepping their rooms you learn a little bit more about some concerns that you have that you might not know when the kids are all in there so that was kind of a little bit eye-opening and i shared that with superintendent i also had a new granddaughter born last week and she's eight days old i think and i can't wait to go hold her again and um having gone
090through an election recently i'm going to tell you i hope bullying also is reflected with adults adults need to be leaders and models for kids and we need to start behaving as we want our kids to behave and that's all i'm going to say on that is ron rompet here who emailed it in that wanted to speak but i called out the name before didn't speak to say no okay all right i have one more thing yes go ahead i'm sorry i forgot to mention this but the jimmy graves complex um oh yeah opening uh mrs rosario and i were there on saturday and it was really good i'd like to thank brian barefoot ms emerson dr moore for really leading this and of course the joe graves family doctor more am i correct is
091it 2.6 we've raised so far 2.8 currently sitting at 2.8 and um i know the wilsons were there the wilson track will be there and that will be an eight lane track and i've already got a text into uh fhsa when it's ready i want the state tournament so we'll you know start working on that and just having those things we used to have softball here for five years in the old dodger town complex that's just great for the community and you know we make a little money and then the kids come here and see very beach but when i used to run the state tournaments um you know you try to get the best uh facility available and i know that will be one of the best but thank you mr barefoot for spearheading
092that thank you to the gray's family and thank you to cindy emerson and dr moore for really getting that aligned with what we want to do for our students a lot of kids grew up on that field thank you thank you for mentioning that i'm sorry that we forgot to say that uh superintendent's closing um that's it we are off to a absolutely wonderful opening of schools we're about 220 students up compared to where we were at this time last year which is a great sign people are understanding the quality of instruction that's taking place and our schools cannot thank our principals our district staff our teachers um very focused in on doing what is in the best interest of children continuing to problem solve i'm just looking forward to what is going to be
093an absolutely outstanding school year okay thank you with that we are adjourned at 7 31. you