School Board Business Meeting and Presentations 5_30 p.m. 1-22-24

001actually it's not a workshop but it is an awards presentation I'd like to call it to order it is 5:30 p.m. and welcome to the Joan idlet Jr Tec and this evening School Board Awards presentation I ask that out of respect for everyone please silence all electronic devices and at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order and I'd like to recognize the superintendent for a series of awards and presentations thank you madam chair our first presentation is not necessarily on the agenda but as you all know as board members this is board member appreciation month and at your seat of the dice you find a little coffee cup with little trinkets in it uh and Miss Maddox is now going to pass around a certificate not signed just by me but signed

002by everyone at the district office um just acknowledging your support your leadership your push at the end of the day uh you are the board that brought this system back to an A so we wanted to to celebrate and acknowledge you for all of your hard work all of the craziness that you put up with we truly appreciate uh your work and your push so from from me and my team thank you for all that you do uh and we truly truly appreciate you as our community's board members so give them a round of applause thank you thank you thank you m madx wants us to stand up do we hold it just away did all those signatures on there thank [Applause] you at this time I'll turn it over to our public information officer

003who has a series of present presentations and recognitions good evening everyone and thank you for being here with us tonight we have a few exciting presentations for you we'd like to get started with recognizing our casual for a cause Organization for December which was crossover Mission uh our teachers and students and staff members each month they have a chance to in exchange for a donation to an organization on our casual for a cause calendar they can dress down for that day and in December they raised $1,848 18 for crossover Mission and tonight we have prell Bonnet one of the coaches there and Triana Romero the development director and I'd like to ask them to come up to the [Applause] podium hello everybody I'm coach Pell nice to meet you I'm one of the success coaches

004and um trainers at crossover Mission and I'm trian Romero and this is so exciting thank you so much definitely thank you so much and um know we're just glad to serve the community we have over 100 students in the program right now and um it's just a blessing to help out students from fourth grade all the way up and um thank you so much again yeah we have um boys and girls about 20% of our enrollment are girls uh we're basketball training and um academic mentoring and character development yearound program so we are on 45th the 40,000 sqt packing house has now been converted to this outstanding Center for excellence and we have our kids um all throughout the county that come in four days a week they do an hour of academics with onetoone

005mentoring and then they do an um basketball training with our great coaches so and then also if you know anybody else that wants to give a helping hand and become an academic Mentor we strongly strongly strongly need more volunteers for that as well so if it's in your heart definitely so it's a great place and if you want to come see it and you haven't please feel free to contact us we're very proud of it and we' love to show it to Youk and if any of you kids want to think about basketball and like it then we'd love to have you thank so [Applause] much for the check out thank you thank [Applause] you next we have two videos for you that we're going to play back toback that we've been holding on to

006for a while because these videos are from December 6th when we had our superintendent art gallery and the state of the district event at the ver Beach Museum of Art it was a wonderful day we held both events in one day thank you to the ver Beach Museum of Art for hosting us uh we had several family and community members there student artwork everywhere and um everyone came to hear our District's message it was truly a wonderful [Music] day today is the superintendent Art Gallery we have over 200 pieces of art from our students districtwide kindergarten through 12th grade and we have a variety of mediums represented as well we've got three-dimensional art we've got paintings and drawings and digital art and photography as well we're here to celebrate all of the great artwork that

007is available by our students here at the Vera Beach Museum of Art we have hundreds of our students coming in today over the course of the next several hours have the opportunity to have their art displayed in in this beautiful Museum uh along with other famous artists it's absolutely an outstanding exciting event and then we'll have an awards assembly and acknowledge the students and their talents uh for being selected by their school and then be ultimately some of our community and districtwide winners research has shown that students who study the Arts they score higher on math and on reading students who study Arts they also have higher critical thinking skills and it also increases student engagement some of them this is the reason why they come to school if you just have the opportunity to

008go and see the faces of the students when they find their artwork hanging on the wall you see the pride in the parents you see the excitement in the students this is just not an easy competition to get into you submit your artwork you compete with the schools so it's a true honor and to represent your school in this space is absolutely outstanding my favorite part of the event is meeting all of our student artists and their parents and just watching them come on stage and how proud they are to receive their certificates and their Awards and I just love that the district is showcasing the Arts and their talents and I think it's just amazing [Music] today was an exciting day it was the opportunity at the state of the district to update our

009community on all the progress that we have made over the last four years it was an opportunity to engage in communication and celebrate the success ESS of our teachers our principles our administrators to our community acknowledging everything that has been accomplished it was also the opportunity to set the path moving forward to acknowledge the opportunities where we're going to be focusing on over the next several years to ensure we do in fact have a world class educational system for our community and [Music] students and a huge Shout out to Amy Brown and all of our amazing art teachers throughout our district and our talented students uh their artwork was amazing they were uh up in the Vier Beach Museum of Art hanging next to um some very impressive professional artists and their artwork looked even

010better than theirs in some cases I believe next I would like to ask uh Mr Bruce green our CFO to come up to the podium he is going to be doing our presentation for our schools with perfect audits when he calls you up if you would please uh stay up front so we can get a group photo thank you good evening so um one of the things we do each year is we have Financial audits on many many of our accounts and at our schools we have something called internal accounts and those are the accounts that manage all of your yearbooks and fundraisers and activities in sports and there are individuals on those campuses that manage those transactions all day long thousands of transactions from receipts to refunds and on our elementary schools those people

011we refer to them in this capacity as the bookkeeper but they're actually the administrative assistant to the principal and if you ask any principal in the room they're one of the they're the heartbeat of the school right they do so many things beyond that and one of the things that they do is they manage all of those finances for the school well out of those audits we get findings and recommendations and for last year's audit that ended June 30th we had four schools who had perfect audits not a single finding not a single receipt out of place not a single check unsigned not a single refund not refunded to a student for a field trip on and on and on so with uh no further Ado I'd like to uh call up those individuals and

012their principles if they're with them tonight so the first one is Beth Dunton um principal Tasha Jones good job go I be Mr tesy said Congratulations by the way um next is uh Liz Geoffrey from Indian River Academy and her principal kerly rayall well done again three the last I know I know three the last four years next is um Amy loler from Liberty magnet with principal Teisha [Applause] Harris and and we have Barbara Nera Herold from Treasure Coast Elementary with her new principal Jeremy King so anybody who knows these four individual ladies um personally know they are outstanding in both of their capacities and in this case um they've helped the school along with the other staff receive a perfect audit so we congratulate them for that that's hard to do congratulations job and

013for our final presentation we are recognizing our level up Champions at each school and I will ask assistant superintendent Kelly baser to come up and tell us a little bit about the level up Awards good evening esteemed board members and community members I'm thrilled to present a highlight of our work uh celebrating the remarkable accomplishments of our students and our teachers so providing some context for you uh the level up is a friendly little competition that we decided to enact or Implement leading into December our students in the State of Florida take three progress monitoring tests each year so we wanted to to raise the bar a little bit and have a healthy little competition from the first to the second uh progress monitoring so with that we proudly acknowledged two outstanding schools tonight and

01416 Educators who had the highest percentage of students make growth across the system so without further Ado I'd also like to invite up Kim Garcia and Anne Bieber to help assist me with recognizing these uh fantastic Educators so we'll begin with our schools we had one Elementary School and one Secondary School who who outperformed the rest Rosewood magnet school would you please come up to be honored Adam fa thank you okay we also have Mr Rob Riskin from storm or Sebastian elementary school or Sebastian Middle School sorry about that you've moved around so much Rob Riskin Sebastian River Middle School for the record surpris you sir okay our teachers we have Miss Tiffany Johnson from Liberty Magnet School Leslie clemency from Oola Magnet School Barbara Presley from Rosewood magnet school and the next person is

015representing two different grade levels from gford middle school Carol Taylor and I understand she may not be with us this evening but let's give her a round of applause anyhow we have Michelle McGoldrick from SE uh Sebastian River Middle School Jamie Connor from Bureau Beach High School and Shaina Adams from buo Beach High School so these folks represent the highest growth in English language arts we'll go ahead and capture a photo of them Kristen and then move on to our winners representing the highest growth in Mass [Music] math so in math we would like Caitlyn Embry from fsme elementary school to join us ail Glazer from Oola Magnet School Christy Jeff from Beachin Elementary School will Dolby from Liberty Magnet School Kelly Mahia from Citrus Elementary [Applause] School en nans from Storm grve Middle School

016martm Morris from also from Storm grve middle school and Kim augur from Sebastian River Middle [Applause] School let it also be known that of these folks standing up here uh Caitlyn Embry April Glazer and Christy Jeff had 100% of their students with the highest percentage so thank you very much yeah good J slide to the right congratulations yay thank you [Music] and I would just like to mention that um our staff at Rosewood magnet and um next week at Sebastian River River Middle received a level up breakfast this morning um catered by our food and nutrition Department to celebrate their school Success so I want to congratulate all of our our principles and our teachers you are the among the best of the best your your growth is absolutely inspiring we're not even halfway through

017the year but to see 100% 90% 87% uh of your students um making level changes is absolutely outstanding uh so congratulations and keep up the good work and Inspire others to others to be standing at this Podium uh in the near future Madam chair that concludes our presentations all right and with that I'd like to conclude our award ws and presentations for this evening the time is 5:49 joining us I would like to welcome you to the school board business meeting at the Joan idlet Jr Tec today is Monday January 22nd 2024 and I would like to call this meeting to order the time is 6: p.m. I ask that out of respect to everyone please silence all electronic devices also if you have any material you wish to share with any board member please

018give that to our executive assist Miss Mor she's over here at this time we're going to have the Pledge of Allegiance and it will be led by veral Beach High School's Air Force Junior Roc Detachment 043 under the direction of major retired Dean rasdale and senior master sergeant retired Shawn Roode please stand I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all right Face Forward we thank you students appreciate you being here all right we're to the adoption of the orders of the day but before I ask board members if there's any item that wishes to be moved to from consent to action I'm going to be moving item believe it's a correct Dr

019Moore ask you confirm a the not the leasing sorry uh D item D under consent right is that the one that we need to move that was no Madam chair may I if it's not item D if it's the meeting minutes excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me okay let me ask from the attorney I'd be 5A 5A okay and is that what you agree with 5A it is 5A but it can't be moved by the superintendent it has to be moved by a board making a motion so Madam chair at this time I'd like to make a motion hold on hold on one second Mrs Rosario I can move it I'm going to move it from consent to action okay I am a board member it I'm not asking the superintendent to move

020it I'm moving it it cannot be moved like any other item there has to I I understand that let me hold on I've got taing right here if it is desired to resume consideration of a main motion along with a series of motions that may be adhering to which lies on the table this one will lied was laid on the table at the last meeting so it can be proposed by means of a motion to take from the table that the motion or series beginning becoming pending again a main motion is said to lie on the table if it is laid on the table earlier in the present session or the last previous session with no no more so I'm making a motion to move this to action can I get a second second thank

021you Dr PCA is there any other item that a board member wishes to move from consent to action um I would like what what we did not what you did not do was or what you did was you moved minutes that were edited or or redlined that were never approved by the board those should have been bifurcated so one item should have been moved to um agenda which is the minutes as it was originally placed on the table unedited and then the other edited red lined should be deleted or removed from our agenda altogether okay Mrs Rosario when we get to that item we'll discuss it and we can bifurcate it then okay I right now I'm just calling for adoption of the orders of the day okay that's all we need to do right

022now when we get to that item we can hash that out the way it's supposed to be done I'd like to talk to the attorney should that be done now or can that be done at ex action I created this mess because uh ordinarily this would be an item that would have been tabled and would be picked up off the table this time uh I was asked by Dorian whether we should do that and I said in light of the contents uh we should notify the public that we are making changes but ultimately we would have to uh basically uh put it on action take it from the table and and uh and vote on it as it had been discussed for Amendment the last time uh I would suggest the cleanest way would be

023to bifurcate it now and I okay we can do that yeah but I I'll just say that that's wholly because I was looking at going out of the ordinary order and I apologize for creating the confusion by by doing that in order to make sure that the change was shown right I just just want to make sure we're following Robert's Rules and doing it correctly so we we'll I'll amend my motion and make it a bifurcated vote and we'll have uh the item 5A separately from the redline item is that how you want it is that the way it works best that that would be fine okay so um I'm Mak I'm amending my motion I need a second second thank you Dr PCA all right any other items that need to be moved from

024consent to um action um I'd like to uh I it we have not formally adopted the agenda yet so I just request uh a dele of the November 13 2023 Schoolboard leasing Corporation and business meeting redlined minutes that doesn't need a vote it just needs for the board chair to just delete it and and through the chair again apologizing for having the best of intentions that would work okay we'll just delete it that's fine then we don't need to bifurcate it so no you did we did okay we haven't voted on the bifurcation that's my point you have to actually vote on that I'm trying to get there okay anyone else all right um yes okay I'd like to move um item 7A which is the approval of the out of Field Report um oh

025I skipped one and 6E which is approval of the health insurance advisory task force recommendation moving those to action yes okay anything else anyone I'd like to add a discussion item okay you guys are challenging me okay add discussion item and your discussion item salary study Dr PCA anything don't look at me all right uh well then I'd like to call for a motion to accept the adoption of the orders of the day as amended with the bifurcation and the elimination of the of the red line item all those in favors oh I need a a motion so uh got a motion for Dr PCA second second Dr Jones all those in favor say I I I any discussion okay it's a 40 vote oh we don't have um is Mr bare coming on teams

026okay does he want I I can't see him technically okay yes okay all right I'm not sure can we allow that vote anymore I know there was a change in the in the law going back from Co about that I thought that was only as to Executive session correct okay all right so we're good 5 vote there we go moving on all right so at this time I'd like to uh recognize Dr Moore for any presentations thank you madam chair I do have a update to the board regarding where we stand in the middle of the Year also kind of looking back at our district strategic plan uh taking a deeper dive in terms of some of the systems that we have uh put in place over the last several years that um really yield

027uh the results that we've been seeing and we continue to support these systems so as the presentation comes up um we will talk about sustainable impact coming in we had one very very clear expectation to make the school district an a district and then move to ensure that every single School in our district um is in fact an a we've accomplished the one goal uh for one year meaning the school district is in fact an a right now um but I will tell each and every single person in the sound of my voice maintaining the a is going to be significantly harder than getting the first day and it's going to take uh the collective effort of all in order to ensure that we continue uh to maintain the a some of the systems that

028are in place did I turn it off it was going really well next slide did I do that yeah or did Ronnie do that okay well I look at you fli it look all right so I'm going to talk strictly about some of our district systems and the alignment of those systems with School site systems uh We've made a significant investment in terms of District coaching support this is the opportunity not just to oversee or to look at what's taking place in schools but to send our instructional coaches that we have trained into schools to provide side bys side support during uh the school day working with instructional coaches working with teachers helping to create lessons this is these are individuals who are in our schools each and every single day over the course of

029the week in order to help build capacity supporting teachers our distri district instructional status meetings that is the opportunity for me to sit with key staff members on a weekly basis to ensure accountability that we are doing what we say we are doing and we are following through uh with the needed support whether it is support to uplift an expectation uh or to hold how a a level of accountability towards an expectation really having those conversations not just at the midyear point but consistently each and every single week uh this is problem solving at the absolute highest level instructional impact reviews these are instructional reviews that take place at school sites with District team with our instructional coaches with the administrators where we're looking at the reality of every content area their school Improvement plan

030that has been developed and during these instruction reviews we problem solve with the principles and Leadership teams uh regarding what are the immediate next steps that need to take place over the course of the next seven or eight weeks one of the things that you'll see that is significantly different in Indian River County in comparison to most counties across the state is that we have taken a ous Improvement model that is developed by the state of Florida that is implemented over the course of an entire school year and we do it in seven weeks because we want to absolutely Define what urgency is uh and we want to focus the energy of the instructional coaches the teachers the administrators on the things that absolutely uh move the that needle at each particular School the needs

031are different at each and every single School uh these instructional um impact reviews are the opportunity to review the impact that the adults are having on kids in problem solve in real time where the shifts or modifications to enhance the impact we are having on kids and then District uh targeted School support which basically means we will deploy individuals at schools uh at the district office to provide support whether it is daily whether it is weekly uh whether it be in a common planning session which we'll talk about next um but we're just not here at the district overseeing what's taking place in schools we are see ourselves as partners with our schools our evaluations are all tied to the outcomes of the schools that we individually support we're all on the hook for the

032same outcome uh and we need to work collectively together in order to hit that specific outcome I just clicked to the next slide and there you see that these are School site uh in systems that we have created and spent a significant time investing in school shite leadership team meetings that seems very straightforward but that is the opportunity when the leader comes together with his assistant principles or her assistant principles and they evaluate the data they have conversations about what the reality is and they deploy resources or change practices based on that conversation if we as a district can't build leaders who understand how to facilitate those kind of conversations and have the ability to drill down to the absolute root cause issue address the one thing that's going to have the highest level of

033impact on all children significant investment in building those facilitation uh skills with our principles um collaborative planning that's pretty much the exact same thing where we have spent the last two and a half years uh working with teacher leaders working with teachers working with instructional coaches to ensure each and every single week by content area uh that we are planning uh very meaningful lessons we are no longer dependent on one teacher going into the classroom and designing one Lesson by herself it is adults working together who share a grade level who share a Content area really looking at what is the most effective way to create the lesson to differentiate the lesson and then debrief the impact that specific lesson um we probably set the pace across the state in our elementary schools on this

034model when you look at our our elementary data it has been soaring um for the last two years and continues to soar uh and that's because of our teachers coming together uh problem solving together defining uh where they're going to shift uh their instruction based on the data that we have available um for them instructional leadership classroom walkthroughs once again that has been investment for the last 3 years uring when a leader walks into a classroom they have a deep understanding of what quality instruction looks like they know what should be taking place uh they're just not randomly looking at feedback before they walk in the classroom if they're walking with me or any member of my cabinet uh this is the teacher that you're going to see this is the lesson that you're going

035to uh see this is kind of the instructional activities that should be taking place when we walk in that's before we walk into the classroom and then we debrief we're debriefing was that what was planned uh was that instruction differentiated to meet the specific needs was the data that was created to allow you to differentiate instruction was that being used so it is really using our time to ensure we have instructional leaders that has been one key ingredient to this system success investing in our instructional leaders and then instructional coaching cycles and professional learning that is the opportunity when you move to the next slide where everything comes together and we're Lo using everything that we learn at school sites uh to feed how we provide professional development we're just not providing professional development in

036March because it's math Department's turn we're looking at what instructional strategies do teachers have to do in the upcoming month let's provide development in that key area uh as an example right we spent most of December and early January uh unpacking our data so a lot of our development in December was on how do you use the dashboards what are the dashboards telling you and then how do you link the data to instructional practice uh to design your plan moving into your instructional review that we're just now in the middle of at the end of this week we will have a process which is called called Datacom Datacom is the opportunity for me to sit with cabinet uh key District staff as well as the principal and really have an open and offest conversation about

037what the reality is uh and demonstrate uh that absolutely everyone in that room is on the hook for the outcome and if a principal isn't getting what he or she needs from a Cabinet member I'm going to make sure that principal gets what he or she needs uh if there's a position that's been lying open for weeks uh at this meeting the principal can make the request of me in order to immediately provide that resource eliminating some of the bureaucracy of a public school system the red tape that often gets in way gets in the way when you're the largest employer of the county we want stream we want to streamline decisions it is a point of accountability um it really pulls our principles and District support team together because they want to make sure

038everybody has what they need Ensure in order to move the needle when you look at the next slide that we're going to move to this is just a holding place where I can acknowledge uh our assistant principles our principles in terms of the system approaches that they really have taken for continuous Improvement um one of the biggest differences between us and other school systems is a lot of the processes I just discussed other systems um would discuss but or would share but this these are living in breathing in our school system we are absolutely 100% uh always focusing in on the systems that absolutely matter the most uh our ability for principles to talk through data and Link that data to instruction is uh grown leaps and bound and they are a key uh ingredient

039to our system being an A and if we're going to continue to be an a uh we need to make make sure we're providing the highest level of support to our principles when you look at our District's strategic plan uh there are a number of uh exemplars that I would like to share whether it is the Florida threat uh Management training completed with all schools are 90 by9 uh which is increased students math engagement specifically in our Algebra 1 uh Middle School courses and we'll talk about that data uh the use of power questions SLT meetings that is the specific development that we continue to have a touch point with our principles on how to facilitate and Lead conversations uh that lead to success uh really embedding technology with our parents uh through uh parent

040Tech evenings uh or District supported 101 session with schools which is really going in uh and working with the data to ensure uh everyone and that leadership team meeting uh isn't just going and leaving campus but we're side by side coaching on how we actually use that specific data so when you look at our midyear data uh this is pm1 to pm2 this is this year's data and it's important to note when you look at pm2 that's a real in realtime assessment so uh in previous years the state would assess what's the projected number of students that are going to be proficient at the end of the year that's no longer how they do the assessment those students at when you see pm2 3 plus on that day in December they were already proficient uh

041so that is absolutely significant it's also significant that we took that assessment in December because we wanted absolutely as much time as possible to evaluate where we currently sit and modify the systems of support needed to maximize the outcome the window for the State of Florida hasn't even closed yet and we're on the verge of February I don't know what other districts are waiting for as soon as we uh they close the window the district will be the state will be able to provide um where the rest of the state sits uh currently there's absolutely nothing on that screen uh that surprises US based on what we see in schools are there opportunities to improve yes but there's nothing glaring at us uh in in terms of where uh schools currently sit this is elementary

042schools uh this year as you all know um our big push is to build capacity and the improve the quality of instruction in our secondary schools uh and you see improvements from 31 to 36 33 to 39 um if you recall even though the scale scores have changed from last year to this year so we can't compare pm2 last year to pm2 this year the rate of growth for our middle schools uh is really really trending in the right direction as an example I at the end of the year gford was 36 they took this assessment in December and already are at 36 I think the other school that's already um at the same number they were last year is uh Sebastian River Middle School um so that is significant they still have another five

043months or four months before the assessment and they're already where they were at the end of the school year and 10 and 14 percentage points respectively at our middle schools um so we're proud of what we're seeing in there humongous investment in our uh in our secondary schools in terms of Shifting the quality of instruction um in order to maintain what we see in our elementary schools now when you look at mathematics very similar Trend um very very proud of of of where we're currently at we will have data come as I said this Friday that will be the last opportunity uh to shift and modify support and then we will as a school system work the the plan now proportionately where you see a the growth from pm1 to pm2 uh you just can't

044double that growth from pm2 to pm3 typically the growth from pm2 to pm3 uh is going to be at a higher rate so we have to improve in proficiency because we have to improve in learning gains and we have to improve in our lowest 25% uh now either you're really good or you're seeing me click or the clicker is working one or the other um this is our math in our second schools once again significant investment in math um moving at a good clip it's important to note that in we are a district that pushes all of our students to the most rigorous courses they can possibly be enrolled in so any eth grader who is a three or above is not in uh included in these um in these numbers because they're in algebra

045one so when you look at the next slide this is a historical perspective and I'll spend a little bit of time here our goal is to to be in the top 10 in each and every single category and you look through each of the assessed areas by the state of Florida you can see significant improvements 31 to 19 31-7 36- 15 uh across the board two key areas for us to maintain the the a is uh Civics US History Civics and US History although we have seen an improvement of 11 and 26 we're not where we need to be that is a standalone component for our district grade uh also uh English Language Art grades 3 through 10 specifically even though we've moved 12 State rankings our key area of focus there is in fact

046our secondary schools improving um the instruction there will continues to move us forward uh you may be asking why not algebra and why not geometry they are 24 and 29 but once again uh the dist most of the districts that are in front of us aren't exposing their students in eth grade to the higher in seventh seventh and eighth grade to the higher level maths which inflate uh those numbers but when you do push children to the most rigorous courses they can possibly be in uh this is the kind of result that you're going to see um and this is middle school math in 181 19th we were 56 of 67 in Middle School acceleration the state understands and the state wants to say we're going to hold each each and every single District accountable

047for making sure students are in the rigorous courses by making it a single component of the district grade we were 56 of 67 we were ignoring it we saying oh you were a level three we're going to put you in regular math and basically you're cutting that student short when he gets into high school or she gets in a high school because they can't take the advanced level maths they can't get into the appropriate College they don't qualify for the appropriate scholarship we no longer do that uh and then when you Pro provide the systems of support that I just referenced this is the kind of result that you have you go from 56 to third uh an outcome of 87% of our students passing uh the acceleration course they were in middle school which

048is the third highest third highest in the state um so that is significant and that is a number that we want to continue to maintain uh the next slide is hot off the press is about 35 minutes prior to walking into this meeting um we got an email from the Florida Department of Education and graduation rates were released our graduation rate is now 96 It was 95 which is the third highest graduation rate in the State of Florida we miss second by 06 um so we'll celebrate the two that are above us um but ultimately a graduation rate of 96 is something we all should be extremely extremely proud of uh once again outperforming every District on the Treasure Coast similar size District Charlotte is at 86 the state came in at 88 Martin is

04990 St Lucy 92 Bard 90 Oola 85 those that's every County that surround surrounds us we at 96 when you dig into our subgroups finally we're getting some subgroup data from the state of educ education when you look at our black subgroup in 2122 it was 90 it improved to 90.4 when you look at surrounding districts significantly better when you look at Hispanic it improved last year from 93 to 97.7 Improvement of 4.6 um our economically disadvantaged students Grew From 91 to 93.9 our ESC students still maintain ging above a 91% graduation rate although last year it was 93.4 and our elll students um went moved from 85 to 97 an improvement of 11 percentage points and we are very strategic on that that's using data to drive instruction in real time what that basically

050means is we don't wait for students to be seniors we're looking at them when they were in ninth grade and 10th grade and 11th grade and when they get behind in a course we provide that support then so leads to graduation uh our graduation rate continues to grow uh getting above a 96 is going to be extremely complicated uh but we're also growing the overall number of students who are graduating our number our graduation rate is increasing because we're graduating more students when you look at the next slide uh this goes back to the system as a whole in 1819 with no barriers no obstacles uh no challenges of a pandemic or cultural Wars or anything of that nature only only 21% of our district schools were in a 26 so uh 47% A's and

051B's uh and 53% uh of the district schools were grades that was the the numbers that made me wonder what is going on in Indian River County uh we are continuing to shift that narrative uh where're only 32% are now uh a c with a remaining percent significant Improvement going from 26 uh BS to 42 and from 21 to 26 in terms of a so uh we look forward for that number to continue to improve the next one uh this is the last four years of progression uh we all have celebrated being a a today we celebrated graduation rate of 96 uh percentage points um but it is significant um and there's no other way to talk about the school system other than its absolutely continued growth connecting to some of our practices within our

052District's strategic plan next one uh these are very very key areas that I just wanted to acknowledge whether it's cognia acknowledging us uh for the systems that I highlighted today when they came in and evaluated us uh they saw a very unique system that thought differently about providing support to teachers and held itself accountable to providing that support that's what you um allowed them to acknowledge us with one of their two Statewide recognitions uh updating our school security cameras including zero eyes uh adding the heat monitors and making sure we have the lightning detectors um held our third annual state of the district making sure that we're acknowledging and speaking to our community about where we currently sit um one of the things that we spoke about this morning as we were doing uh the

053legislative updates was micro micr credentialing uh really using that across the system uh we've been using that practice for for for two years uh kind of investing specifically at voo Beach Elementary School micr credentialing uh teachers around the high yield strategies that we know yield results uh so we will serve as a model to the rest of the state on how to use uh credentialing to push and increase instruction or outcomes across the district and then maintaining a a fund balance in what is a non um Esser environment which means we no longer have the additional funding of of Esser as this year comes to to an end uh so we have some some flexibility based on our historic perspectives on how we've managed our money um so that is my update um ladies and

054gentlemen of the board I will send all this information to you as the state locks down its assessments for this upcoming school year I'll be able to provide you of the rest of the uh data as it becomes available thank you madam chair oh thank you Dr Moore Dr Morris I just got back from Tallahassee and I was with other board members across the state and I don't know how many came up to me congratulating um your work and wanting to know if you were available so not available yeah I told them no all right so thank you um at this time we are ready for our citizen input and I'm going to read the guidelines for citizen input according to our Schoolboard policy 01691 each statement made by a member of the public shall

055be limited to 3 minutes in duration I will be recognizing in the order in which the requests were received this time shall speak when the speaker is at the podium and the public information officer will be the official timekeeper as you will see the time clock is visible to my right your left and you will hear a beep at the end of your three minutes each person may speak for up to 3 minutes at the beginning of a business meeting during citizen input as indicated on the order of business and for up to 3es minutes for each action item during the action agenda and each board member discussion item as indicated on the order of business if a consent item is moved to an action item when you come up to the podium you may

056either speak at that time to that item or you may speak during the presentation of the action item itself people may only speak once about any given item the time period may be extended by the presiding officer and only individuals submitting a speaker form is allowed to address the board time may not be yielded to other speakers during the meeting please refrain from clapping or Outburst of any sort so that we can proceed with dignity and decorum and by not infringing on any individual's First Amendment rights I need to remind everyone to direct all comments to the chair not to individual board members or to the superintendent board members may or may not address any citizen input statements at the end of the citizen input uh comments as board members listen listen to citizens without

057interruption citizens are asked to give board members the same respect as per Florida statute 001 372 subsection 3 the presiding officer of any District School Board May order the removal from a public meeting held by District School Board of any person interfering with the exped expeditious order process of a meeting provided each officer has first issued a warning that continued interference with this order process of the meeting will result in removal the first warning to everyone is at this time no personal attacks no inciting and no disrespect please I will be calling you up two at a time the first person will be called to the podium to speak and the second person will be in line to speak speakers shall not engage in personal attacks or abusive language the chair has the right to

058terminate any speaker's privilege to address the board if this rule is violated if you have anything to give to board members or the superintendent please do it through our executive assistant Mrs Moray it is clear that the board has taken action to comply with the law regarding instructional materials including library books if you are here to express your opinion regarding HB 1069 on materials in school libraries we would ask that you visit staff in the lobby to in initiate the challenge procedure on and process finally the school district supports First Amendment rights of speakers and rights outlined in hp1 69 regarding Library materials as such some individuals may choose to exercise these rights which may include reading material with language or content that is not appropriate for all audiences knowing this please make a viewing

059decision appropriate for you and your family all right at this time I'm going to recognize citizens in the order of the forms being received and timestamped so the first Speaker we we have is Anthony Stewart and on Deck will be Thomas Kenny good evening board I uh haven't been here in a while but um the last time I was here I think I CAU you all uh about the allowing the attack on our democracy I call two names I call Victor oror and I call Christopher rufo since then there has been a a a local attack I think that somewhat come from the school board I I was watching the news last Friday and I saw one our ex school board members uh Miss Tiffany Justice and she was on Joy Reed's uh show and

060they was discussing the first book that they had taken out of the library that book was named all boys aren't blue and this is the cover of that book and while she was interviewing Tiffany Justice she asked Tiffany Justice did she know the author of the book Tiffany Justice said no did she know the writer the author the the the main character no Tiffany Justice didn't know anything about this book that she was taking off she did know that there was a black face on the cover and that this person was LBGTQ she knew that and I wanted to say that these conspiracy propagandists they are anti-government movement Killers their groups intentionally spread disinformation and advanc misinformation Tiffany jusus is a co-founder of mons for Liberty the other one was Bridget uh zler Bridget Zigler

061and they both got caught up Tiffany jesser taking these books off the shelf that she don't know nothing about Bridget zler is caught up and admitted to involving herself in a manah whom her husband is caught up now and charged with rape who also was the Pres the chairman of the Republican Committee of the state of fla my advice is the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4 and14 be not tossed too in Fr and about by every strange wind of Doctrine he gave you an eternity to it if you ever fall in love with the truth see the stats that I saw there was two schools on that stat was the lowest in this County that was gford high school and Dodgertown Elementary we got problems here but y'all don't want to see the truth

062I brought you the truth back then but you didn't accept it and now look what you've gotten yourself in thank you and have a good day all right thank you um Thomas Kenny is next please do not clap thank you that's your warning okay uh Thomas Kenny is next Jennifer Pippen is on Deck how y'all doing uh before I get started if you watch Tiffany Justice's interview she did mention George Johnson that was the first book by the way that was removed from this system by uh at the time assistant dean of instruction or curriculum uh Richard Meyer because he was just disgusted by the content so he just removed it anyway we'll move on I want to talk to our uh 2023 year in review and just talk about what we've done together monster

063for Liberty was worked with and got 18 education bills past last year that we used today and locally we've had members on our uh curriculum committee and on the Cod of conduct committee and then Jennifer herself turned uh served on the state committee for the cut scores the scores we reviewed here today and so as a result Monster Liberty recognized her nationally as a policy leader and gave her the Abigail Adams award and so those are just good things uh we also added two more executive board members to our chapter that previously ran for school board I be in one of them um and let's see what else here and we currently are in our second year of donating pocket constitutions to schools in our County uh this is the second year in a row

064though that the SDC has rejected it these are donations from the 9917 society we help distribute them that's all we do so kids in e8th grade can have a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution apparently though uh after the first year that we did this and board member Barefoot said that this was too political the school system hasn't done it so I hope that changes this year uh m4l established H secret meeting locations for their uh membership because um there a lot of progressives in the county that seek to dox businesses that host our meetings it's been very successful we've actually we just had our 2024 meeting first one this year and we had about 60 people out there members and guests which is an all-time high for us it's growing like

065as some people would say Wheats so that's really cool we also did a Christmas float in Sebastian for the second year and we started giving teachers and staff of the month for our chapter in November so we've done one November December and January is coming up so that's really good and finally let me see finally finally finally oh my gosh I think I got it all so I just want to say it's fun working with you guys and helping serve the community in such a manner for parental rights and I yield back okay Miss Pippen is next and Michael Marsh is on Deck good evening my name is Jennifer Pippen and I'm the proud chairman of the moms for Liberty chapter here in Indian River County and uh thank you Thomas for all of the

066uh highlights of the last year and it's our third year with moms for Liberty and third year in this County um and I did want to um make a comment about the the books because you guys know that's my baby right um I wanted to compliment the curriculum and instruction staff that have been working so hard with these Google challenge forms the process the followup I'm not going to call them out by name because I don't want them to get death threats or you know get doxed after this meeting so they know who they are I just want to say publicly because I tell them privately all the time thank you and um to the gentleman that brought up the George B Johnson book that was the first book that was permanently removed and um

067it was removed for um masturbation of a minor child and their adult cousin and also a anal rape scene between um two people so that's why the book was removed it had nothing to do with the lgbtq content it had nothing to do with the color of the author's skin it had to do with the content of the book and also we had one book removed in uh 2021 one book Perman excuse me eight books permanently removed in 20221 books removed in 2023 and that was after the um legislation session and 34 was was at that August Schoolboard meeting and the others proceeded for sexual content pornography after that um 106 books were weeded post that legislation when the media center specialist went back and reviewed to see what was in appropriate for children in

068our schools and um currently we have 50 pending approximately um 39 were challenged um since October 22nd to current with our new Google Google Docs forms um three of which were CRT four were pornographic 25 were sexually explicit four were gender IDE ology meaning they were talking about um hormones you know changes for children cutting off healthy breasts cutting off um healthy penises and things like that from children and many of these books were in middle school so it's our you know middle-age students um and again that is specifically against the law so that's why those were challenged um one was challenged for age appropriate itness and um so um we are still reviewing some of the books that were challenged over the past couple years years just verifying the cited Works um a lot

069of them were in the Sebastian um High School library that were boxed up and now they're out of boxes so um we have our team working on um putting sticky notes on those challenged Pages for the District staff to review and make sure that content is in those books and they're being permanently removed so I just wanted to give an update on that because there's been a lot of Mis um information and I'm hoping that this year is better than the last and it continues to get better in the district thank you okay thank you uh Mr Marsh and you are our last speaker Mr Mars personally known what do we have here it's the $112 that took months and months of this school district to give back to me but how do we get

070to here I haven't cashed it yet cuz I'm waiting for my attorney to tell me if I should or not but let's talk about how we got there in October I did a public record request to a board member that board member thought she could intimidate me with a cost estimate not this guy you know what I did I challenged it and the amazing Schoolboard attorney told me he's right but that was in the first week of November that attorney Sid said give him back his money I didn't get my money back till a week before Christmas almost missed Hanukkah it was terrible I tell you but I got my 12 bucks but that makes me wonder how many more public records requested that board member try to intimidate me with an estimate stay tuned

071public records department we're going to find out now we shift gears to the scary CRT that we still can't find you know why we can't find him in the library he or she or they could be either or or whatever they want to be because there's no clear direction under house bill 7 or House Bill 1069 let's talk about real facts and real facts are that there's no clear direction matter of fact through that amazing Public Records Office from your Schoolboard attorney he made it clear to Dr Moore let's talk about what he made clear but before we get to that do you not many parents give access to the kids in in a scary Library about 98% how many petitioners do you you have H one this is what we're doing allowing one person

072to be the voice for all the children but the school board attorney made certain after he was tasked to revisit CRT in the 1031 memorandum in particular a definition of CRT and a reanalyze to determine whether CRT review under the above noted Authority applies per se to library materials spoiler alert if the Florida attorney general and federal courts interpret statute 101 .42 to be limited to classroom instruction than the parallel CRT language in Statue 10342 appears to be so limited as well what does that mean no clear direction we are in compliance here in the great school district of Indian River County your challenge forms are a joke to some petitioners they can't figure out how to fill them out matter of fact the amazing cni division has to say multiple times this ISBN isn't

073the same of what's at the high school they don't even know cuz they're following direction from the rest of their clan members and lastly to quote an amazing former C and we have a great cni division now Mr Rick Myers once said so eloquently he looked at a board member and to someone in audience and said you didn't even read the book somewhere along those lines they're not reading a book they're getting direction from their other little chapters saying here's the ones you go after next let's stop wasting the time and I can't wait for the committee to come on out and my 12 bucks thank you Dr Moore I got it okay thank you so we are moving on from our citizen input to our consent agenda I'd like to call for a motion

074to approve the consent agenda items as amended so moved Dr pcz first second okay Dr Jones is second any discussion all those in favor say I I I I I Mr sario oh I sorry that's 5 vote and we are now moving to items pulled from consent to action so the first item that was pulled was 5A the reason why I pulled that item is because under Robert's Rules when you table an item from the last meeting you need to address that item on your next meeting or the item is dead and so I decided since they were minutes that the chair should pull those because that's officially part of the job to make sure you're running the meeting so I pulled that item just because of that reason um we bifurcated it so um

075at this time is there any discussion on that item before we're going to um actually let me ask for a motion I'll make a motion okay Mr Rosario second Dr Jones any discussion on that item yes okay this is 5A all right so we need to we're just going back to the regular discussion basically essentially that we had in December and the item itself was sorry sorry sorry hold on we have a speaker thank you you're throwing me off again Mr Marsh sorry go ahead thank you uh Mr Marsh Chapter Chair of Mike for Liberty and we have 5A right Madam chair yes okay thank you uh yes the approval of the 2023 minutes I'm so glad we bipoc the vote thank you very much okay go ahead Mr raria um so let me go

076back to the original minutes here all right the original minutes um what I mentioned in December I will mention again now the original minutes do not capture accurately the discussion that happened on 11 on 1113 of 2023 during our business meeting um as you read these minutes it looks like it says that Mom Ms for Liberty dictates what is taught and determines our curriculum it also uh the way that it's written states that moms for Liberty in general engages in Banning critical race Theory books um all negative responses were provided by Dr Moore uh but it's just not clear enough and that is actually not true there were only two questions that were um asked of Dr Moore regarding moms for Liberty the first question was does Mom for Liberty dictate what is taught or

077determine our curriculum and has the district uh of those two um do they dictate what was what is taught in our district and do they determine our curriculum both of those answers Dr Moore said no to um and then the next question was has the district banned CRT books not has moms for Liberty banned it so this has to be rewarded um I do have a recommendation for how it could be rewarded but it definitely needs to be rewarded to um better reflect what the that part of the conversation was okay um question did uh Dr Moore this is um sent to you did you or someone on your staff specifically watch the video to see exactly what was said because changing minutes just be after the fact um it shouldn't happen that way it

078should happen of whatever was said was said do the chair yes we went back and watched the the video but the say as I listened to what M Rosario said it accurately the statements she just made accurately reflects the conversation that was taking place okay so actually if I I can continue because there were there were just there's another sort of like Part B to those that question so um the first question was does moms for Liberty dictate and what is taught or determine our curriculum Dr Moore said no um the next question was has the district banned CRT books or engaged in book Banning Dr Moore replied no to that question the next question was does the district curate books based on legislation Dr Moore answered we weed books aligned to State Standards that's

079that would though how I stated it should be um accurately reflected in the minutes okay so do you want to make a motion yes I make a motion to unless there's another discussion sorry another discussion I do so um after what Miss raro just said are we going to see that in writing because I want to see it in writing before I approve it I just don't want to hear it verbally well yeah would you like it to be in writing it's exactly what I'm saying I I don't know how you want it to be in writing before you approve it I mean it's going to be in writing before it comes back to us next that was my question yeah I just wanted to make sure I saw it in writing so I mean

080it's got to come back to us right we have to approve the minutes once amended so what we're doing right now is just approving them to be amended it's it hasn't even been approved yet to Beed we're only approving them to be amended so that they can come back to us and they can be voted on yeah I mean the other thing is we can vote today I mean that could be an option and of course our attorney can confirm it could be an option for us to amend and approve based on the amendment tonight either way is fine okay I'll defer to the attorney go ahead you can do it either way um Dr Jones would you like to see that in writing then I would yes okay so um then but it has

081to be on a vote Yes right I understand majority I no no no I'm talking to the attorney so right now majority so if there is a motion on the table to amend it as is is that's the motion to amend it for the amendment then there would need would there need to be a second motion to bring it back to us or a second motion to approve it tonight I mean that would matter the motion as I understand it on the table is to make the modifications as you propose and Dr Moore is confirmed that's the initial motion and under Robert's Rules it's either unanimous or if there is an objection then we would address it uh as a an objected to Motion in the ordinary course how we would handle it once amended

082would be absolutely again up to you all I mean it it it could be vote on it as amended tonight vote on it um next time when it comes back and it's absolutely the will of the board okay um I board members I I don't have a preference on this I'm okay with it coming back at the next meeting it's really I I'm just more concerned with getting it right right so if I can if you'd like me all to restate my amendment I would how it so um Dorian would know exactly how to word it in there if not I already said it so uh go ahead restate okay um so I make a motion to amend the minutes to state in this area here in this bullet does moms for Liberty dictate what

083is taught or determine our curriculum Dr Moore replied no has the district banned CRT books engaged in in book Banning Dr Moore replied no does the district curate books based on legislation Dr Moore replied we weed books align to State Standards okay so we have a motion on the table um would you like to second that okay we had a motion before though um as amended so we just had her clarify so we're okay with keeping Rosario and uh Jones as our second all right um I call for a vote all those in favor say I I anyone opposed doc did you vote no you're opposing correct okay you don't want them amended that's all we're voting on to amend them and bring them back to the next meeting amend with what with m rosaro

084just said yes okay I'll vote Yes then okay are coming Mr Barefoot are you on yes okay do you vote Yes all right so um what we voted for is those to come back as amended with the suggestion and then we will vote on whether or not to accept those amended minutes at the next meeting so they're tabled yet again no it's not T I know I'm just teasing him all right they're not tabled officially don't change don't don't don't okay so we are now to um item 7A Miss Rosario that was the second item you brought up oh okay hold on sorry actually it was your first item the second item that we have it was 7A from consent I have a speaker Mr Marsh yes Ma I to wave that thank you you're

085going to wave that okay Madam chair can I yes sir go ahead bring that is the approval of the out of Field Report Mr Bass will present that item okay thank you yes good evening um we each year in September and January we bring our Outfield report to you all uh required by Doe that we bring that to get approved uh second semester we are looking at 151 uh instructional positions that are out of field 45 of those 151 are Esau this is one more uh out of field teacher than it was second semester last year uh first semester we had 165 so we are down relatively 14 there um that just you know if if if you have um this is where this is a a quite a science and art when you build

086your schedules and place your teachers in different positions to be able to teach uh what we need for our students in some situations you may have a teacher who is certified in math but we also need a science course covered um just that one course that they are put in for science is makes them out of field so you've got that in place um we also have um I wasn't able to count them up but probably 25 or so guest Educators listed there um guest educators are teachers who or individuals who have a four-year degree they are eligible for a certificate from Department of Education they've applied for their certificate and are either waiting to get that temporary certificate in or are still looking to pass that test so um a lot of a lot

087of the teachers we got this year came from other states they were certified in the other state but it was not a reciprocal certification in the State of Florida um I I think we all are aware that it is getting more difficult each and every year to hire teachers um you know we are our moving Target right now we're over 80 new teachers hired this year uh we have 15 classroom regular classroom positions open um I know that we've we've got some in the queue right now that are coming in to be printed so I mean it is a moving Target it's not like the old days where all right you have all your teachers filled to start the school year and they would stay the whole year it it's fluid it's moving um it's

088it's difficult and you know I like to come in our principals and our our HR staff as far as getting the teachers in that we've got in because we're in a lot better shape than other districts um just two stats that I remember off top of my head from a meeting I had a couple of months ago uh University of Florida this past summer at their commencement ceremony had 51 one people graduated from the school of education with their education degree LSU last spring had 15 those are huge universities um with with big education departments so um you know that that's my report and one other thing I wanted to point out and I and I sent you all an email we we tend to always run stagnant with individuals completing their Esau um our

089cni team has developed a uh program in which teachers will be able to work at that at their own pace rather than taking a strict regimented course in the past um Miss baser I don't know if you want to speak to that too what you guys have developed through the chair uh we recognize that taking the five Esau courses to satisfy that uh endorsement requirement uh can be a scheduling struggle if you're a a working parent and then you go home and you have children at home you know between weekends and evenings it just becomes a very tricky scheduling situation so our uh professional development team has worked on creating um an aty own pace Esau course for the F courses for the five courses so that maybe instead of having like the scheduled constraints

090we've opened up more access to the course and that's not out of line with some uh place places out there where they sell the courses to our teachers we are just doing it for them for uh for free so we're trying to help problem solve some of these these ways to help our folks get in in field thank you any questions okay Mr Rosario yeah how long does it typically take at your own and what is the the minimum timeline I I don't know who wants to what is the minimum timeline from the moment that you're notified that you're out of um a field to the moment that you have to have that for Esa is three years and then for the the other subject areas um you know this is where we could be

091a little more stringent if we wanted to um you know I I can think of a certain situation where a teacher has been asked to teach us one class out of field for two years and they know next year that they will be fully INF field so it's like do they do they they start trying to take the courses or whatever to do that and you know I would say if if we were 10 years ago and there were plenty of people out there to be hired as teachers I think we could be real stringent and say yeah if you don't get it done within two years one year then you're you're not going to be rehired which we have had several individuals who are teachers who have not done anything toward their certification and

092we have non-renewed them but you know we're kind of in a catch 22 now if you know how stringent do we want to be we've got somebody that's qualified they're a teacher they're in fied in some areas do we want to you know remove them and then we have nobody to replace them with that so I mean we're we're really in Peril right now with that y we are so um t i I had a question about something that you mentioned you and I wanted to just clarify did I hear you correctly when you said that some people on this list are guest Educators as well yes so even the guest educator not the long-term sub but the guest educator for a day here a day there no ma'am the long the guest educator that

093replaced the terminology for the long-term sub okay so that's what that is yeah so so and just to be clear and for the public that individual does have a four-year degree and they are eligible to get a certificate from the state of Florida for teaching so I just don't want them to think that we're just putting anybody in there yeah so a sub traditional So for anybody just listening right now a traditional substitute is the person that comes in for a day replaces the teacher because this teacher's sick you know the substitute is not the person that we're talking about we're talking about the person who's replacing a long-term ill a teacher who is out for a long-term illness or you know family you know medical leave or you whatever the emergency is for a

094while and then that person comes in so those are the people longterm are the ones who are also on this list correct okay that's new I I think I don't think we had that last year unless we we we changed that terminology last year so is it possible no not the terminology that we're including them in on this out of field list we we're we're required to by Department of Education did that change recently because I don't think I remember hearing them on the list previous years I believe three years ago doe sent out that you know you guys have got to put those on there and it wasn't just our district it was a lot of districts that weren't putting them down okay um cuz when we when I look at this there's no

095way of me you know able to differentiate well we have 20 long-term Subs that are on this list versus you know maybe having five um and then I always have and every year I say the same thing and I know you all know you know Esau esol is like the biggest issue that is always on an out of field list um as the the the item that's you know the subject area that is most out of field I I just don't understand why you know when you graduate assuming that the majority of our teachers are graduating from teacher education programs that should be a part of the graduation requirement that you you know get that ESO certification or that endorsement but if you don't then you have to get it on your own so it

096it's it's always so baffling to me because the skills that you learn in the esol endorsement or you know in this area is so critical to every other area I mean you can you know apply those skills across the board to students who are not English who are native English speakers um it's you know it's not a loss it'll only you know enhance a teacher's skill that's my understanding anyway okay Dr Jones um thank you for what you're doing for Esau that's always been a struggle so hopefully they can do it from home Mr Bass you're 100% correct I read an article the other day about not only teacher education uh numbers low they're shutting down some programs too so the ones that we used to be able to grab from Miss baser how is

097the alternative certification doing I know I was very active with Miss Beckham a few years ago and how are our teachers doing there where they didn't go into education but they had their field through the chair yes we have a very uh robust ACP program because uh contrary to what we believe many of our teachers do not come out of teacher education programs anymore uh and so to miss Rosario's point they used to come out with these things already part of their certification and part of their uh really their toolkit but we're getting folks who are coming to us with four-year degrees and knowledge but not out of teacher prep program so the ACP program is is definitely a pathway to help them uh maintain or or achieve the certification that's required and I've seen

098it be um absolutely outstanding in our cies when I was a Sebastian River High School as principal I mean coming right out of the field and just going right in there in teaching and then the certificate that they receive through Career Tech and um how successful they can be okay so we're still going strong there okay Dr B okay um two comments I have um How long is certification taking from the state when you apply that's that is a loaded question itself um we're seeing anywhere now we're we're still about 6 weeks out so some of these individuals that we have hired November October they they're probably still waiting for their certification they're listed as a guest a guest educator on there and and the reason why I asked that is so all of our

099guest Educators and have applied so they have temporary certificates that's what they're waiting on the tempor okay cuz when I pull up the charter school one there are comments on here of not certified do they are they allowed to have not certified people or do they have to have temporary certification at least that that's probably going to be their guest educ their terminology as guest educator I'm not sure why we put it on there or why the charter school turned it in that way okay so we may want to reach out to them and let them know uh or find out whether or not they're allowed to have noner cied people um because if I were a parent I'd want to know if somebody's not certified teaching my child so um to be fair to

100every parent I think parents need the right to know and um maybe they just use the wrong terminology so let's get a right if it needs to be changed yeah well I mean we'll let them know I mean and just to be clear we don't govern them but we we'll definitely let them know okay all right um could we get a motion for a vote yeah I I wouldn't mind but um I the last time that I recall um all the parents are supposed to get notification anyway right there's supposed to be a letter that goes home that says XYZ teacher is out of field just so that you know to the parents so parents will get that information anyway but but my point is it says not certified that's different than out of field

101I understand that means I don't have a certification at all I didn't apply well there should be indicated on the parent form then that there's no certification there we'll we we'll reach out to char school tomorrow okay and seeing that we're responsible for some of that I think we need to okay could we have a motion please yes I I make a motion to approve the out of Field Report second okay any discussion all those in favor say I I any opposed I okay that's 5 all right item 6 e Mr zaro's item but Dr um Moore would you like to te that up I'll refer to Mr Green thank you Dr Moore Madame chairman this item is for the approval of the health insurance advisory task force we commonly call High's recommendation to enter

102into contract negotiations with a provider um named proactive MD to manage our District's Health and Wellness Center um a little background um The District in 2014 established a um health and Center on site the district is a self we are self-funded we have an insurance fund and that is funded through employe contributions as well as a benefit from the board um in the means of board contributions towards that um insurance premium that site provides um care for our employes and their they can get a family plan and dependence as well that's been been in place for 10 years now a little bit over 10 years and 3 years ago prise Health acquired care here the management company and they have been managing since that contract expires this summer last summer and I believe you had

103a workshop on August 28th as well last summer High along with our insurance and Risk Management Consultant Aon um started the process of looking at the market to say what's out there can provide um better services at lower cost to our employees in that same onsite Clinic uh model so um Aon on our behalf working through high The Advisory task force issued an RFP to eight um of the most um prevalent and leading in the US onsite Care Clinic management companies those eight then were asked to respond to the RFP one of of the providers was non-responsive um my premise Health which is our current provider um did not meet the statutory requirement and our RFP requirement for 45 days to pay invoice their was at 30 days so they were non-responsive and were not

104included the other seven went on to be considered um actually this is an example of the committee's work each committee um went through an extensive process led by Aon to review those particular management companies um their financials their um their promoter scores if you know about a net promoter score um proactive MD MD ended up with a 90 net promoter score which is um a customer retention survey from clients who use that particular provider um on December 13th that um recommendation from the subcommittee was brought to high and it was unan unanimously approved to um bring forward to you tonight for consideration um for the district to enter into negotiations with proactive MD as the management company that would start on July 1st of 2024 and that's what your item is it's not a contract

105with them it's um to give us the authority to enter into the contract negotiations which U by the way and just to clarify you do in your board policy under uh procurement of Commodities and purchased Goods health insurance medical providers um they are exempt from the competitive bidding process so in all reality um this process was due diligence is what I will call you it was not a requirement we could have entered a negotiation with any one of these vendors directly per board policy and um state board rule so um this was an extremely thorough process that was started um with Hef and Mr Fagan and the board over the summer this is coming to a culmination where now if it's approved tonight on the agenda we will enter into negotiations and um I know

106many many employees um we've been under a cone of silence the cone of silence will now end when you take action on this item and if approved then um we'll be able to educate the employees about what's happening and um our goal is to retain the staff that we have at that clinic this is about replacing the management company of our onsite Clinic um and with that I'll take any questions um before that we have a speaker Mr Marsh no thank you okay any questions board members Mr I just wanted to say thank you I pulled this item only because it is not a routine item so I just thought it would be appropriate to put it on action and um at a cost savings I appreciate the due diligence and I appreciate um all

107the steps that that um um you all went through to bring this to us today anyone else just again a thank you um especially when talking to many employees here doing our best to keep that staff and keep everything consistent that would be wonderful and nice to have cost savings so we appreciate that all right um so would you like to make a motion Mr Rosario sure I'd like to make a motion to approve uh the health insurance advisory task force recommend ation second okay all those in favor say I I I I I I all right it passes 5 all right so now we are to our action agenda bring that up okay uh Dr Moore you have an item here to authorize superintendent to develop a timeline regarding potential impacts of new SC

108school start times would you like to discuss that I know Miss Rosario would like to as well this is actually miss Rosario's item we did discuss it at the not today's Workshop but the previous Workshop this is just following through on that discussion okay all right so we have a speaker Mr Marsh thank you madam chair it's always great when the parents are included thank you Dr Moore I just want to highlight the section the superintendent will develop a timeline to include communication marketing and financial impact on requirements for new secondary school starts times according to House Bill 733 we must always follow the law uh some of these perent information should include the full cost analysis budget impact Transportation impact driver impact bus routes survey plan the cost parent community staff potential impacts on

109wraparound Services sports clubs activities safety concerns local law enforcement crossing guards County Commissioners Street signage and a communication plan via town Town Halls marketing uh potential Bell schedules and simulators and possible start time so uh thank you once again for always including the parent Dr Moore and good night okay thank you U Miss Rosario um board members if you recall we had this conversation um at our last meeting at our last Workshop actually um and so this is no different it's no particular charge other than what the superintendent uh requested and what based on board member feedback it is for him to come back to us with a timeline which is what we originally requested of him but within the timeline you know some of the items that were important to board members are the

110items that are listed here uh to include within that timeline so that we have an idea of when he is going to bring these items back to us to include primarily the communication marketing and financial impact of the requirements for um House Bill 730 33 um for parents who are just listening now um the uh House Bill 733 has made requirements for us to change our uh middle school and high school start times beginning July 1st of 2026 and so it takes a while for the district to actually begin those changes um and that's what this is this is the beginning or starting that work allowing the superintendent to start the work and then uh begin opening up conversations with board members and stakeholders on what that would look like moving forward um the oh

111go ahead all right um would you like to make a motion discussion I know motion first yes um I'd like to make a motion uh hold on I'm sorry let me pull up the item as it as it's right here I'd like to make a motion to authorize the superintendent to develop a timeline regarding potential imp impacts of the new school start times okay can I get a second second okay now we're in discussion thank you madam chair um this is going to be a huge impact on our parents and our community Dr Mo have you talked with other superintendents just talking about this I mean being a former middle and high school principal so what time then would our elementary school start just just estimates I just want to talk about it through the

112chair I think that's the importance of creating the the timeline so each district is different as um Martin County they had to move their start times 10 minutes and mission accomplished um we have a significant rate of movement because our secondaries our high schools start um probably about an hour and 20 minutes earlier than the required start time so uh creating the timeline will allow us to look at what are the what is feasible um and how we would actually communicate it because at the end of the day the the concerns uh look at child care typically there is a high school student who would watch his younger brother or sister when they get out of school that may may no longer be the case um a lot of organizations provide before school or after

113school care uh that that care may have to be extended in the morning and reduced in the evening or vice versa so taking the time now to to fully communicate to our community we do in fact H have a plan and in that plan is seeking information and guidance from you uh before we begin to implement in August of 26 when I think in our last discussion we talked about the time that we need in between for our buses was that around 45 minutes Elementary Middle High School that's currently where it sits with the number of routes that we're running so uh uh one of the things that we have to study is if we added bus drivers and buses obviously we can reduce the amount of time in between start times um that is

114a significant impact on our budget so where do those resources come from or the better way of asking that question is what do we stop funding to start funding those those resources that's why this is critical to begin this work now and I think the last few years how many buses have we bought I think it was 10 at one year and then so what what do we look like for that how many more buses we have a a nice Fleet of buses a great Fleet of buses in comparison to other counties I think we just purchased eight this year uh the previous year we bought 10 the year before that we did not buy any uh so in terms of the number of buses that we have we could in fact increase the number

115of routes that we have one of the strategies that we've currently implemented which is an efficiency strategy is we move from 84 routes that we are running or was it 80 86 routes that we are running down to 76 routes 74 75 he's Mr Bass is Whispering and I can't with a twang he's got 77 but we have drastically reduce the number of routes which saves US money and we're still able to deliver on time uh to school and and home um so you know the other thing that we the elephant in the room is we drastically increased bus driver salary um a few years ago to bring them up to speed um surrounding counties have responded in tow to to increase their salary so as we uh we're going to have to look at

116that salary as as well moving for it which will impact the number of routes or buses that we actually have um just one last comment I I don't know how they reach all that I know our our high school start too early that's boy oh boy I wish um middle and high school have been switched I used to be Middle School principal and we started at 8:30 8:45 and um I know a lot of the high school kids go off to work and watch their their siblings so this is huge impact on our community it's it's huge and one of the things that I think is unique to Indian River county is the volume of participation and after school activities um um I think our families are fully committed to engaging their children in after

117school activities and when you shift that for elementary or Middle School um it it's going to move a lot of people's cheese and and they're not going to be happy if they impacts um what has become a family tradition in our community um when you drive by you you will not see storm grow field whether it's LaCrosse or BAS they're they're always there most counties don't even have Middle School sports so we have to be sensitive to the needs of our community um which means we have to listen and take the time to create something uh to let people fully digest it while at the same time meeting the intent of the law and one last question I'm sorry madam chair who will be involved in helping you work on this well pretty much everyone

118at this table in front of us right here it will require uh Mr Bass uh and his team are are looking at Transportation Mr Seymour does after school activities uh Kelly's team does a lot of the before school after school uh Services um Beth's GNA have to work with principles uh Kristen's GNA have to inform everybody and Bruce you're G to figure out how to pay for it so and Dr J is gonna keep everybody on task so all of everybody okay Dr Pusa I got nothing more to add you got nothing more to add um it's interesting in this um statute they talk about sleep deprivation right which is interesting because you know I've had high schoolers in my home they stay up forever and yeah they want to sleep in but it's interesting

119that there is a bill that was filed this year that says to remove the um the time right now an employer can um they can employ middle school high school kids but they have to stop working at a certain hour that's going to be lifted AC according to this bill so here we are moving School times back but yet allowing kids to work all night doesn't make any sense to me but um I I find legislation to be very interesting um sometimes it's great and sometimes they go back and they go yeah we got to tweak something and I guess this is The Tweak I I'm not quite sure why that bill was filed so we'll keep an eye on that bill as well I don't know the number off the top of my head

120I just remember hearing about it when I was up there anybody else yes yeah I do um part of I just wanted to follow up it's not in here um part of the discussion at our last Workshop um included and I don't remember who asked for it there were three this is all goes to the fsba um one of the workshops actually discussed this there were three panelists um and I said that I would come back with the counties so that you could probably um reach out to them because they already did their surveys I'm looking at Dr Mor they've already done their surveys and so rather than recreating the wheel if you reach out to them you might be able to take a look at their surveys and maybe we could kind of model

121their surveys if it is possible so um it is uh some well who who is yeah suner suer Suter Sumter uh valua and Hillsboro those are the three uh panelists that for sure have already gone through this process um and then the um one of the um somebody from the room uh board members actually said that the Staggering start times because we talked about staggering start times as well that staggering start times um were actually a blessing because the bus drivers um would take would you actually um go to multiple routes or you have multiple routes so you'd have less bus drive D and I guess we're in a small town so it would affect us likewise less bus drivers for longer periods of time so they you know they would work their day would

122be longer um but it it worked out um and I'm going to guess that that was someone from valua who made that comment so just to kind of help guide some of of the work um the other thing before we vote on this Dr Moore is that what is not on here um is when you should bring this back to us so I know that this is a timeline you could probably put together a timeline tomorrow um but to do it right when do you suppose would be an appropriate time for us to expect this back to us it's not on here there's no date by which you should bring this back to us it would be no later than the the March Workshop Mar March Workshop yeah or whatever your preference is and that

123would include surveys the well it would include the the timeline in which all of those things would be completed okay uh it will identify all of the objectives over the course of a time period what the expected outcome typically when we task out work like this is what I would call by by now we should have this done by now we should have um the these things done so yeah so by the mar March Workshop yep um let me do we know let me pull up the calendar um is that the 11th no my calendar right here that is the 18th March 18th there you go okay all right so um it hasn't been adopted yet I'd like to amend the motion to include March 18th Workshop as the date in which the superintendent will

124um come back to us with this completed item okay so we're going to vote on the amendment first all those in favor I I did we get a second on the amendment oh yes we did okay oh on the amendment on the amendment sorry thank you second on the amendment second okay all those in favor of the amended motion i i i i i and now we need to vote on the main motion all those in favor of the main motion of having Dr um Moore bring this item to us I I I I I okay they pass all right moving to uh discussion Dr Jones you have a discussion item about salary sches before you do that though we have a speaker oh okay okay um I brought this up at a discussion in

125a workshop about a month ago and um I've also talked to Mr Green and Dr Moore and um Mr Bass privately you know one thing that we're very proud of is our graduation rate and a rate and in order to do that we need to have the right people um this is our last year with Esser funds we know that we're going to start um working on that millage uh later this spring to get ready to share with our community and our salary schedule which is in Bor dos um is effective July 1 2023 through June 30th 2024 and I guess the one thing I just wanted to add is that um Dr Moore or Mr Bass whoever will be doing this you know one thing we want to do is um not only recruit

126good employees but retain them and how do we do this moving forward I was at an event last weekend and I I received a flyer from rcwa asking people to help them get a um salary where they live in this County um I think we all know that valuing our people is very important but there's only so much money we have so I know we haven't had a salary study in the district for a while and I also know when I looked at it specifically um we have some people that are uh 12 months coordinate I'm sorry 12- month directors evaluating people making less than a coordinator at 10 months and I know that wasn't under your tenure but I really really think we need to look at it and open it up so the

127board also understands it so whether we do an outside company which is probably expensive or we even look at it internally I'm just asking that we really somehow I'm not going to put a deadline on this but somehow take a look at this for our employees you know when I saw that at a event the other day I thought holy moly um but we've heard several people from the CWA talk about a living salary and um I know that we're looking at even looking at teacher salaries and increasing teacher salaries but what happened last year with our F when we had our first year teachers they were making as much as sometimes six and seven years so that compression is important too um so just asking you to think about that um as we move

128forward and Dr Moore your your comments please thank you um and through the chair we we have reached out to fsba they are identifying um individuals that we can work with to help us conduct the salary study at no cost a service that they provide um as one of their members uh so they've identified a few different uh organizations they're looking to finalize who that individual would be um the focus mainly of that specific study is going to be the District staff and the employees um right those are the ones in which we have we're we're way off in terms of building capacity and losing it uh in terms of other units we we will continue to look where we have the capacity to evaluate those salaries across the Treasure Coast and other like-sized districts

129um we feel as if we do pretty good in terms of of comparisons um and you're right it's a very very difficult time what we were able to do uh in the last four or five years the State of Florida has been committed to raising teacher salary where they give you very specific dollars that can solely be used for teacher salary and then they fold that in into the student-based allocation right so student-based allocation may be going up this year but it moves from a different piece of the budget into the student-based allocation to cover what is the previous year's increases for teacher salary um Esser um which we used extremely strategically to build capacity to provide uh Services um for our students is is something that that is going away uh we are in

130and will continue to have conversations regarding choice and the reality is we're not the only game in town and if we don't have the best options and the best programming for our students uh they can parents can choose other schools whether it be a charter school uh or a private school currently right now in our County we have really really good private schools and really really good um charter schools and they don't have additional space at the current time to increase their enrollment uh but at the end of the day as Choice continues uh there may be folks from the outside of of Indian River County who who choose to come in and start a um their own private school which ultimately uh hopefully would be an organization that has a a high expectation for

131what's taking place in those classrooms um but at the end of the day a parent may choose whether it's good good or bad um and we would pray that they're all be good um which would ultimately impact in enrollment so you know conducting a study we just can't look at the current reality we have to uh do this or task time out over years to determine where we're have these checkpoints where we're looking at what is our enrollment we cannot increase the money that Mr F would always say you're going to get the number of dollars based on the number of students that you have we can't go out and increase that the only thing the only way for us to make more money is to have more students right um and that that is

132it so um the next several years are going to be very very very uh strategic and tough um we have cele we have celebrated what we've done over the last several years in in terms of being ready for these for for this times in terms of building up a fund balance but at the end of the day um you know our projection and our fund balance cannot be dwindling away away we we can't spend a127 for every dollar we bring in which was the reality four years ago thank you um thank you for reaching out to fsba um we are definitely in a competitive market very proud of this district for our a grade and graduation rate and I know teachers ncwa are bargaining um and I certainly don't want anyone to make less money

133but um we have to work hard to keep those who are working hard for us and just do our best just wanted to bring that up that's all anybody else want to comment on it no um I do I want to just say a couple things you know thank you for bringing this up it's important that people understand that you know there's only one pot of money and we want to do the best by our employees and our teachers to make sure they get uh a living wage and um you know hire the best the brightest and keep them because there are other counties out there that are right north and south of us that want them do um so we need to make sure that we're taking care of our our people and doing

134the right thing so um I appreciate the fact that we're going to do this study and it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it I do know that um it's a priority for the governor this year to have an increase in teacher pay and employee pay and talked about compression so that's a good thing um we're not just talking about initial pay which I think is was the push in the past so we appreciate that all right um at this time then we'll School Board member matters who would like to go first Dr P I don't yeah whoever um the only thing I want to bring up today is we did have um another incident where a student did bring in a firearm today into uh Vero Beach High School and I think

135this has been the third instance of a student bringing a gun into that school since I started about 13 months ago um we've had a lot of discussions about Safety and Security security and we've we've made some changes and improvements in our schools and we've shortened some timelines to improve things um but you know certainly there's more work that we need to do um I I've stated you know pretty aggressively and clearly in the recent months my perspective on how we need to allocate money and prioritize Safety and Security and I see um you know this is the number one issue in the school district um if a student brings a firearm into a school and doesn't use it um it's what you would consider in Risk Management as a a sentinel event so nothing

136the the outcome wasn't bad we found a gun we removed it from the school but it tells you that the outcome could happen that the gun is used so we had a sentinel event and now we need to do something about it and this is our third Sentinel event um and what what needs to be done is we need to reduce our Avenues of entrance into the school Dr P I'm going to stop you right there um that's I'm not going to discuss anything class okay you I'm aware of what we can talk about um so we need to reduce our entrances into the school um we need a hardened Al Cove so they can't leave that entrance way um and you know the the people who are there to check people in um they

137need to be behind bulletproof glass and safely behind a locked door that the person entering the building can't access um and I think that specifically we need to incorporate metal detectors um the only way to stop these students from bringing the weapons in uh is to scan or search these bags and their persons this is the most efficient and cost-effective way to do it and if we reduce the number of entryways we would need to metal detector systems and then we would need to hire more people to operate them during the day and um you to me this is the number one priority I feel so strongly about it I would recommend ripping up the turf selling it and buying what we need because I put needs over wants um but this is in my

138opinion an emergency it's not a 5year plan item um can I can I stop right now um Dr more when is our next safety meeting so we can discuss this as a team and not have a one-person discussion because we can't respond to that right now through chair Mr seamour I don't do you know the the date it's probably in the next six weeks but I'll look and I I'll notify the board and we'll be able to um craft a plan accordingly okay thank you appreciate that anything else Dr PCA that's it okay um Miss Dr Jones no I'm not we we we can certainly respond we can respond and say it is an important issue and we need to address it okay right now I'm going to stop you Rosaria we are in discuss

139we are not in discussion we are in Schoolboard member matters that is when a Schoolboard member can say what they want and then the next school member talk so right now it's Dr Jones's turn Okay and then when it's your turn you can talk about whatever you want okay go ahead Dr Jones U thank you Dr PCA I think I as a high school princi princip as by m nightmare I didn't have to experience it I would just say whenever that safety meeting is Mr Seymour move it up move it up okay and I did follow up with the principal today just to you know let them know I'm here um my board member matters um the MLK parade in floats in the park were a great event uh we had a um district and

140Schoolboard float was a a lot of fun rained a little bit but still had some fun um thank you for listening to me on the salary study uh before Christmas I don't think we talked about this because it was after our meeting the inclusion program at sebas River High School was great um they're having a snowflake Dance come up that's sebas River High School and Vero Beach High School with inclusion that's coming up Dr W uh and his wife attended this and I was aided I'm a member of AAW it was a poverty simulat at up against poverty and um Dr Moore was on my team uh and it was absolutely a wonderful simulation of how people deal with poverty and the money that they have coming in do they pay their mortgage do they

141pay their electric and when we talked about this one of the things that affected me the most is the number of homeless students we have and the last average was around and when you think of homeless you're not seeing them on the street but you're seeing them in hotels couch surfing at a cousin's house in a car and it was absolutely overwhelming um to see what they had to do in order to make it work yet send their kids to school and make sure that they're okay and school was one of the best places for those kids to be every single day the dinner at Captain High rooms last Friday for our teachers and employees of the year was wonderful thank thank you to our attorneys nap here and Rollins they I think their eighth

142year supporting us and then we look forward to semester for high school this Thursday and we'll be honoring all our teachers and employees of the of the year and announcing the winners um one thing I'm going to bring up too again and I should have brought it up during the discussion on minutes just talking about minutes and um the school board policy on minutes and the state statute on minutes so we can take a look at this um as a board to say maybe we could we don't have to do this but we should do this but that's a whole other topic and I didn't bring it up at the right time um Mr Bass track at the um Jimmy Graves complex go buy it quite often are what are you thinking as far as

143are we going to get one track meet in this year or not oh yeah that that's our goal I I met with um um coach Kowski and indicated that you know I feel like we we've pushed this thing and and made it happen in a hurry yeah we did that you know all the facilities there the restrooms the concession area everything won't be ready um by the end of track season this year however we could still hold a small track meet there just like an inaugural track meet um you know maybe one or two other schools small schools just so we can see it the community can see it and more importantly these kids who are seniors this year will be able to have a home track meet before they graduate and that was all

144on funded through private donations the track private donations and also through the State dollars yes sorry thank you that's all I have Miss Barbor okay M Rosario yes I 100% agree with Dr PCA and uh what Dr PCA is saying I think it is incredibly important for us to address um as a board as a district um and and have the open conversation for the community to hear that we are discussing this issue um around kids and having fire weapons or any weapons essentially on campus it's one of the reasons why I fully support openg gate at all of our entrances and and exits and um wherever a student can get on to campus or whenever an adult or anyone gets onto campus they should be able to get um scanned through open gate as

145an example um the other thing I wanted to say publicly is thank you to Napier and Roland who sponsored Our Stars of the Year dinner again they do it every year uh at least for the last several years so it's just a wonderful blessing to have them uh support our teachers in this particular way I also wanted to to uh make an announcement for tomorrow um just so that uh in case anyone has missed the um the the announcement uh the district code of conduct meeting the second meeting is tomorrow evening and I believe it starts at 6 PM I'm not sure who who to look to for that that I believe it but that is that is correct Mr Seymour here in this in the Tec it starts at 6:00 pm. tomorrow for anyone

146who is interested in um participating you're more than welcome sir did I yes okay you covered it all right um so that is tomorrow again it's open to anyone in the community um who is interested it is the second meetings it's not the first one it is the second um I don't know if it's the last though are they going to have a third meeting after that do we know did I I'll I'll respond um it it depends on where the where the team actually is so i' I've challenged the team during the first meeting to take a hard look at attendance we were able to really receive feedback um during the first meeting regarding the aggressive changes that we made last year uh those aggressive changes have really um paid major dividends in terms

147of making sure when you walk our schools uh there is students not walking in hallways but in classrooms um we we've seen significant improvements the the cell phones that um we took a very bold or aggressive move in saying in middle school they absolutely will be away uh worked without a hitch uh now there are a number of students because the consequences are severe that have ended themselves actually in alternative education Miss Christoph what is the number of students as of today that are in alternative education because I'll have an update tomorrow there were 14 last week so 14 for a what is considered a continuous disruptive havior warning after warning after warning um which I I'm going to give credit to our principles um four years ago that was the number one concern from

148principles I know you have a code of conduct but someone comes to this Podium and they complain and then I have to not uphold the code of conduct uh or someone comes and and you know we're going to do what's easy for an adult um that no longer is is the case so we have made drastic strides in terms of that code of conduct but I will you know not get off the Soap Box in terms of attendance uh all the great instruction in the world if students are not in classrooms they cannot learn uh and it is a major opportunity for improvement for us we did see improvements last year we've kind of maintained or become flat in terms of that rate of improvement it's not improving um so it is something i' I've

149challenged that committee to look at so if they're able to come to consensus that they're able to bring back a recommendation to staff and ultimately uh to the board uh at the conclusion of that meeting then that will be it but if not uh they'll continue to meet thank you um yes sir just to uh let you know what the agenda is um there's going to be a 10-minute ice breaker um overview for 10 minute student advisory focus group summary for 10 minutes and review of suggested changes 15 whole group discussion 45 minutes and closing Five Minutes very good so um I spoke with someone who was on the uh who attended the committee last year and this year um and some other people have also said that this year there had there isn't a

150lot to discuss this is the feedback I'm getting there's not a lot to discuss because you're right last year there were so many great changes to the code of conduct that this year it's just like you know just tweaking little tweaks here and there and just um this this is the feedback that I'm receiving um so I I have always been in favor of zero bullying policy um you all know that um zero bullying tolerance and same thing with cell phones and some of the other things that are in the code of conduct if it's in there it's in there for a reason and there should be uh consequences for some of these actions um but um and I appreciate the changes and I appreciate that we're sticking with it I do appreciate the fact

151that um um that principles are following up with what has been changed last year for this year um but I have a concern that alternative might actually we might not have enough seats alternative is very small um so if we're getting 14 in one week not counting the others that are have already been there 14 over the course of the year for that specific Oh I thought you meant just last in one week alone oh gosh please don't was some point you know should we discuss you know the location of alternative just in in in in terms of having this open dialogue and saying where are they I don't remember the last time that we've had this conversation in fact I do remember though um several years ago alternative and Mr Green you might know

152better than I um alternative when alternative was created there in its location it was supposed to be a temporary site it wasn't supposed to be permanent and it seems as if it has been permanent I might be wrong in that but if that is the case and it was initially supposed to be just a temporary location maybe it's time that we start looking into and and you did your dissertation or your your your thesis on alternative Ed we know we all know that you know alternative education uh is something that I'm familiar with it's not the same as what we have here in this District the alternative that I'm familiar with gives students who are overaged and under accredited a second opportunity at a high school diploma not a place where if you have had

153a discipline issue that's where you go this is an option the one that I'm is an option for students to go because they just don't want uh they know that they cannot function well or succeed at a larger high school so that's different it's a different path um but what are your thoughts Mo and I would love even for you to just bring it back to us at some point just to have a thorough understanding of where we stand with that so through the chair and and that's a a absolute wonderful idea but I I can tell you the the shift in terms of what we do with alternative Ed for the last four years has been drastic um one of the moves I am the most proud of is the current principal of that

154particular School uh and the staff that he has brought into that space um they are doing God's work and that school and they are truly changing lives um we we have increased enrollment while at the same time increasing um the outcomes of children so we have the right people in that specific space who are committed uh to a unique group of students who need the additional support and ultimately the additional love uh to get them back on track uh in terms of space you know we're talking about students that we send there but we're not talking about the students who earn the opportunity to return to their home school so Miss christop Foley how many how many students did we just return back who've done everything we asked them to do and got to go

155back to their home school we had 17 transition at the semester yeah so that that's absolutely outstanding so we're sending back just as many as as we're getting there um so the program is is in fact working in terms of space you know every day I learned something new in the school district vending River County had never heard that that's a temporary space um it makes sense that it was identified as a temporary space uh but we'll definitely have to look at that we don't have an available space anywhere else but as we engage in conversations uh in our next Workshop we're going to we're going to we're going to have that conversation about uh schools and levels of enrollment so that that is coming to the board and a Workshop near you okay Mr

156Mr Bass may have something to oh chair just one more thing add I think it's significant to also point out we have had a handful of students and parents whose students have gone to the Alternative Center who have requested to stay there because of the environment I think that that also speaks volumes to what Mr Brown and his staff are doing just want to point that out that's exactly what I was talking about where it's an option for someone to stay it's an option for someone to say this is where I want to continue the rest of my schooling I want to graduate from the school I don't want to go back to the tradition I'm glad we're allowing St students to stay but think about how many other students that we have in the

157traditional high schools in R2 who don't have that option or or who have don't know that they can choose that I mean at this rate even if you had a 100 Stu you wouldn't be able to place them where they are right now but if they did have the option I'm certain that we would get quite a few students to say I don't want the larger School environment I'd like a smaller School environment and it's a no frills you know it's not you don't have all the bells and whistles it's just school as it as it you know as it's required and then they graduate it's kind of like Expediting um the the graduation requirements yes sir yes um just to piggy back off of uh what Mr Bass has stated I got to uh

158commend uh Miss chrisa Foley and U Jessica roas because they're are students that go beyond what is expected and at a certain point in time they seem to come around so that's when they have the opportunity to transition and so we call those meetings just to look at all of the students that have changed their pattern may have gone beyond the contract time and are given a time and a chance to come up and say okay I've done better uh can I go back to school now so that's how we transition a lot of those students mam chair hold on we're not yeah so the the last item that I have is um unless I'm okay with if you wanted to talk about this um the last item that I had that I had a

159question on um obviously the student artwork at the Vero Beach Museum of Art was phenomenal it it was gorgeous everything that they did um but how long did their artwork and I don't know who knows how long did their artwork stay up in the museum during that display so miss I I let me try to answer so I could be mostly correct um I think the artwork there was there for four or five days uh and now all of that artwork is in display in our in our office the previous year I think the artwork just based on the shows that they were loading it was there for a longer period of time Miss B how how did I do wonderful I was wondering obviously if there could be an opportunity for the very buo

160Beach um Museum of Art you know often times they have these long displays uh for for months actually not just uh for for a week um where every student in the entire District including Charter and school including private schools um might be able to submit um a piece of art that the uh Viro Beach Museum of Art would display as you know school art or you know whatever they want to call it in their uh Forum I don't know who would handle that or just throwing it out there I think it would be an amazing opportunity for us to Showcase what our kids do at a larger scale um but I just love that idea does anybody else love that idea it's nice we we love the idea but that art museum um is constantly

161loading shows so when I say they are bend over backwards generous to give us the time that they give us um they they they are they have been our partners in that aspect and we obviously um want to try to have it there as long as possible I I think they let them in for free uh during those two days as well as the weekend to come in and see that specific art show um and it is a it is a tough ticket in town so we're taking every inch on the wall that they would give us for as long as they would give us well maybe we can try for a few more inches did you want to say something because he stole the mic don't make a [Laughter] joke is that all yes

162thank you you go ahead um Mr Barefoot would you like to say anything uh I really anything that I be redundant okay um I just I on the sake of being redundant I I do want to say that you know MLK parade I wanted to thank District staff for being there in the rain creating the um float um thank you to Mr Barefoot and Doc Jones for being there with me I think it's important Bo board members be at those things and that's a big one is MLK parade um the teacher of the year and the employee of the year Gayla dinner I drove back specifically from Tallahassee just to make sure I was there on time again another thing I think board members should be at so I'd like to thank Dr Jones and

163Mr be for being there as well um thank you to Rand and Napier for sponsoring that yet again uh they do it every year and we had a heartfelt U message this year and it it was really moving so uh we have a Gaya celebration this Thursday at 6 pm at Sebastian R high school and please encourage all board members to be there to celebrate our employees and our teachers of the Year extremely important dress in your best Marty gr outfit well um um just suit and tie is fine okay suit and tie dress up um and then uh one I talked about um all the bills that are kind of going forward with education one that I forgot to mention that's kind of interesting is HB 1403 is the school choice bill that's up

164this year and it repeals the Hope Scholarship and I know some people are very worried about that um because the Hope Scholarship gives somebody that's been bullied a chance to take that money and go apply it towards another a private school or whatever um but that is not the case really what is happening is it's incorporating all kids and all scholarship opportunities so you don't have to be bullied in order to get the the scholarship that's what they mean by that so I want to make sure people understood that because people are already starting to get upset about the Hope Scholarship being removed but that's not the case in that in that respect also we have a lot of book titles on the wall what is going on here just curious it's really nice and

165this is um how we're kicking off this is literacy week so this is what we asked our lower grade students to participate in so they've captured and and Drew or wrote down the title of their favorite book and um as you can see we were able to pretty much fill the entire Lobby and boardroom um with all of the favorite books of of our youngest students great you know it's nice to see that and we appreciate that and it it makes the room a little homier and and warm and we appreciate that all right um with that I believe we have everything done I just want to make sure that I've got everything in order before we gel body project right now it's a science Old St science fiction won the science fiction Year award

166okay I believe we're done so at this time uh Dr Moore you have a superintendent's closing um uh everyone enjoy your evening all right with that I'd like to thank everyone for Vie or coming out this evening this time we'd like tojn the meeting the time is 807 thank you