001foreign to order of the school board Awards and presentation in the Joe and idler teacher Education Center Dr Moore we have a lot of great presentations the floor is yours thank you madam chair and as you as you can see the room is full so this is exciting so I will turn it over to our public information officer who is in mid conversation but look at that she turns around and there she is uh to begin our presentations [Laughter] thank you Dr Moore it's so nice to see everyone here tonight we have a full house we have a lot of students to recognize tonight and I was just working out some last minute Logistics with Mr Tuttle who I will invite to the podium right now we have some very special recognitions about our um
002Christmas card contest Mr tuttles great thank you thank you um for the past 21 years our Law Firm has had a card contest for the exceptional student education students in elementary schools in Indian River County and each year we pick one artist's drawing to go on the cover of our law firms holiday card and this year Kristen tells me she invited a bunch of people we recognize first of all this year we had the most entries ever we had 151 students enter our contest every student who enters gets a ten dollar gift card to the uh Vero Book Center and some of the teachers I see a couple of familiar faces here tonight some of the teachers turn it into a class trip to go get the books the books and always make sure that
003they have books that they can get for that price so we had 151 entries this year we recognized that the classes that have the most participation so let me mention the class is Christian said she wanted people to come up for a photograph we recognized some of the teachers and we were the five classes with the best participation were Mr sandgren's class from Citrus Elementary Ms eisenmann's class from Vero Beach Elementary Ms Erickson's class from Osceola Magnet School Ms Schneider's class from Beachland Elementary and Ms seaworth's class from Pelican Island Elementary the third place winner was jakoria Green from Beachland Elementary the second place winner was Lincoln McLean from Citrus Elementary Lincoln's brother won Lincoln's brother was our winner last year wow that's a talented family and this year's winning artist is Lucia brizio from
004Vero Beach Elementary School thank you okay if we could have our first second and third place winners please come to the front I love her dress congratulations there you go all right [Applause] him how do we need to stand up here [Applause] for our Administration [Music] [Laughter] look at that thank you now if we could have the classroom teachers and the students who are here from the classrooms with the most participation if you would please come to the front I'm standing I'm awesome hey everyone you're right home awesome people want to take your picture where do we look [Laughter] congratulations to all these students thank you okay thank you Mr Tuttle okay everyone next uh we have our next large group of students here which are our athletes from the high schools tonight we will
005be recognizing our state finalists for Vero and Sebastian River High School and Mr Seymour regrets that he cannot be here tonight he would like to thank the sdrc athletic directors coaches and our outstanding athletes for all of their hard work so I would like to welcome athletic director from Vero Beach High School Mr Lenny Jankowski to the podium please thank you well thank you thank you for having us thank you Dr Moore and and school board members for uh for having us here tonight and recognizing and getting an opportunity to celebrate our wonderful student athletes um we are going to recognize to start with and and uh and celebrate talk about our boys golf team um this season unfortunately tonight was their their athletic banquet um you know they they uh they had another great
006season finished in the top ten this this year and we've got some some great slides here thanks Ms Maddox for putting this together but um you know here on the on the team first of all our wonderful coach coach belinagi um he does a great job he's uh you know probably recognized in the community I'm sure a lot of you know him um he does a great job not just with Vero Beach High School golf but but golf youth golf in the community so we're very privileged and proud of him as our coach um but uh the the members there we have uh we've got James Hassell Peter Natoli Jackson Hiller um we've got Blake Reed and Parker Parker Hennessey and the golf team this year finished uh in the top 10 like I said
007they finished eighth overall and uh James hassle finished seventh he had a top ten individual performance finished seventh in the State uh and may may forget or not recognize that his sophomore year in 2020 James was also the individual state champion so a very very talented group like I said they they per they had a great season and finished in the top ten uh in the state this year and we're very proud of that group so congratulations to uh [Applause] next I think on your list we have our I'm going to introduce coach Jeremy pole and he's going to come up and talk about our girls bowling team [Applause] my name is Jeremy pole I'm a teacher of Vero Beach High School I'm also the boys and girls bowling coach this year we have two
008benchmarks two best that we've ever done as far as girls bowling our girls bowling team went 11-1 for the season the only time we lost was the first match because we didn't have enough uh players to field a team so to me that's an undefeated season also for the first time in school history maybe any River County history but I don't know how to look up those records the girls bowling team won the district championship out of 12 teams and we went to States and uh got a a few days out of school which you know which I didn't want as a teacher but the uh students uh they uh student athletes enjoyed those so that's the wrong list I shouldn't need a list with the girls names on it but I wrote them down
009anyway oh thank you because there's only six of them but uh we have three Bowlers that couldn't make it due to obligations Lilly Hill Skyler Cade and Samantha Baldo we have three that did and as I introduce them if you don't mind coming up Jasmine Williams sophomore Caitlin Vargas sophomore and Anjali a tie day another sophomore and First Team all area bowler last year the list should come out over the holidays so we'll see so I'll spare you the long speech and we'll just say congratulations girls uh they're all coming back next year so hopefully we can repeat thank you [Applause] laughs thanks girl good job coach Paul probably didn't uh you may not know this but he's actually revamped our bowling team had had gone away just for lack of participation and lack of
010interest and and uh coach Paul has recruited our hallways and and done a great job of both not just with the girls team but the boys team as well and in the last uh four to five years we've got you know obviously a bowling team that's that's thriving and on the up and up so thank you coach Poland for all you do and thank you to the to the wonderful girls that uh had had a great season all right next we have our swim coach coach Holly McLean this is coach hawley's first year with us and she's done a great job so very excited to have her and introduce you to her thank you for having us thank you for being here it's wonderful um obviously yes Lenny says my first year so getting experienced
011and learning all these new things especially talking in front of all these wonderful people so thank you for being patient with that we had two swimmers this year make our State team and they were had a great season one of them was a district Champion Regional runner-up and also Henry was also runner-up I'm going to introduced first Henry Hazel he's a junior this year foreign at the state meet he had been on relays in the previous years but this year he finally cracked it in the hunter backstroke and was 21st overall so we're very proud of him he did great um our second recipient our state finalist was Madeleine Shields she was a senior this year [Music] Madeline was a district Champion a regional runner-up and then she qualified for two events at the swimming
012Championship she was in the 50 freestyle where she placed 12th overall the best time by over half a second which is a lot in a 50 freestyle and she also was ninth in the hunter butterfly her time overall would have placed her sixth but in when you go in the morning you can't jump into the top eight at night so she would have been six but she was the fastest six but she ended up ninth overall these are also great student athletes Madeline has a 4.3 GPA Henry has a 4.4 a little closer and I just like to say as far as swimming goes you know these kids train up up and over 20 20 hours a week before school after school on the weekends dry land on their own time all for you know
013comes down to 20 seconds 30 seconds 40 seconds so it's a lot of hard work and to get to this level it takes a lot of a lot of training and courage so I'm very proud of them and how they did this year so congrats guys [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right next for Vero Beach High School we have our boys and girls cross country teams both advance to the cross-country state meet this year and we have Coach Amy Estes here and she's going to tell you a little bit about both teams so come on up coach thank you [Applause] good evening thank you all for having us today um I actually started teaching at the high school the day before students came and then within a week I was asked to coach cross country So
014Not only was I doing two preps chemistry in biology I was also coaching and I could not ask for a more wonderful group of kids and parents these kids we've bonded so much we spent a lot of time together our girls this year our varsity team was made up of a lot of freshmen which is unusual but was awesome for me because I have them the next couple years but um we made it to State this year for the first time 12 years 15 years 12 or 15 years for the girls to make it to State and this year our girls placed 7th in region which qualified US for state and our girls I'm gonna go ahead and start with who we were LED with freshman laws we have Lakin Hoffman come on up Laken
015Lakin is a freshman secondly for a freshman we have Gracie Fleming thank you our third freshman I actually coached at imagine um fall of 21 and this girl is determined and she doesn't always give her best but at State she kicked butt so Jordan Starr one sophomore that couldn't be here is Anna Cobb and she was usually our second or third Runner and she is a sophomore and she's a charter and then another Junior that couldn't be here tonight was uh Liliana Elliott and she was usually our second runner if it wasn't Anna and lastly one girl that is kind of like me for cross country you have to be headstrong you have to be determined and you have to be intrinsically motivated um I'll tell the kids push the pain I ran across country
016in college so I do know where they want to go but this girl signed with University of Miami and she was our top Runner the entire season she kind of got put out because uh two weeks of that chest congestion but our sole senior on the girls team Ava basura and I have to thank all of these girls and their parents but Ava is right now stepping up and mentoring some of our younger ones which is what we need so thank you Ava for that let's give them a round of applause foreign [Applause] [Music] now for our boys team our boys team man those boys um what can I say about those boys the boys always rode with me in the van so um I got to know them even better than sometimes the girls
017because the conversations we had and the music and being the mom on the team but tonight we had one fresh one senior on no he's a junior on Varsity he's not here um Mark ghosts villarre did I say Marcus Marcus we had a Marcos and a Marquez Marcos villare he is not here um our other Varsity Boys I'm trying to start the youngest ones but I'm not gonna do Keenan first um Luke crumbacker is not here he is a junior and he couldn't make it tonight but then we have a newcomer to Varsity this year is Samira Metta Samir had some injuries and he didn't realize you didn't realize you're gonna get Varsity this year did you we do Varsity I do Varsity by that effort in practice and then there are race Toms from
018the preceding Race So Samir made it after being out injured for about three weeks so that was a very good job there next is a newcomer this year Evan Dunham come on up Evan foreign was our consistent third Runner and if you don't understand cross country they take your five top Runners how they place and usually third helps fourth and fifth help so with these all these kids helped a lot but Evan usually ran what sub 17 most races 1710 so good job there my last two guys that are here tonight is Sage Morrow and Keenan wheeler come on up here too um I'm gonna go ahead and then come on up Phineas Finn and Fire come on fire I didn't see him in the back [Applause] Phineas was our fourth or fifth Runner and
019like I was saying those positions count so much in fact One race we had to go to our sixth Runner because we were at a time so those were even though they may not place the top five they do help eventually if we are out of top position now our two boys Keenan and Sage they competed the entire season one would be first one race the other would be first the next race Keenan in fact at pre-state in Tallahassee which is a very tough course had a 1601 which was a school record for us so that was an amazing job then at regionals and no at districts sage in the middle one right one for Vero Showdown Sage one our districts this year which is incredible and our boys finished fourth in region to take
020us to State this year so good job boys [Applause] you know [Applause] all right and last but not least for Vero Beach High School we have our Unified sports teams and this this is the Boeing state champs and this is coach Steven Byrd come on up Stephen Hey Stephen all right how we doing tonight all right um just want to say thank you a big shout out to the girls bowling team and especially coach Paul he doesn't realize like um once a week we would practice with them and like that really built the confidence with our team and it really helped us not only like just in practice he would show us pointers but like we'd also compete against some and we never beat them but we we got better we got better and uh
021we went to States it was I'm not gonna say a breeze but it was much easier thanks to his help and his team helped both boys and girls team so thank you coach Paul um unified if you're not familiar with it it's a mixture of students with disabilities and without it's like a little branch of the Special Olympics so um to qualify as an athlete you have to have some intellectual disability and then partners are considered just students without disability and they compete with each other on the same teams and we play against uh teams all around the state this year we were in Boardwalk we're actually the day behind the girls were there for States and we competed uh the the same place at fhsa is going on and it's uh if you've never
022been to a bowling event it's uh it's very intense and I think baseball and football parents are crazy bowling got them beat by by a long shot it's not even close some of those parents no offenses bowling parents in here but they are they're very uh they're very spiritual I'll give them that um but it's a lot of fun and uh with unified um our school they don't have to Fork over a dime other than a substitute here and there they um unified Special Olympics pays for everything so it's uh we're very grateful to have that so now I want to introduce our team I'll start off with the Legacy first we got Noah Molina [Applause] Jace Bart Miley thank you Tyrell Baskins [Applause] his older brother Marquis Baskins Paul Paris foreign also in unified
023we have another coach we don't have a head coach we got two assistants or two heads it's uh Mr Todd wood big big shout out for Mr Todd wood and uh he's a little late because he was uh we have a big basketball game tomorrow we're playing the defending state champion Hamilton counties um so he was actually at the doctor give helping kids get physicals he wasn't doing it but uh to um the wit gym tomorrow at Veer Beach High School at 11 o'clock make sure you check in the front office and get your pass but we will be playing Hamilton County and uh I think we've got a pretty good pretty good shot to win tomorrow and I know Mr wood has some words so I also want to take uh thank our Administration
024and Coach Jay for uh anything we've ever asked from from Bowling to track to flag football to um basketball they've never hesitated to say yes you got it whatever you need we're here for you they provide AJ the trainer they've tried they provide facilities whatever we've ever asked for they've been open arms so thank you coach James Administration thank you and I do have one final thing and of course of course Dr Jones for being one of the founding members of bringing unified to the State of Florida so thank you Dr Jones and all our school board members thank you all right [Applause] we got um we fundraised and we provided uh rings for all our students [Laughter] thank you thank you congratulations to all of our Vero Beach High School athletes thank you congratulations
025next up please welcome to the podium Sebastian River High School's athletic director Terry Amy good evening thank you everybody for having us here and congratulations to all the athletes that are out here I know how much time and effort is put into everything that they do day in and day out especially with the coaches everybody that supports them the parents and I'd just like to thank everybody for coming out and supporting all these kids and all that they do all the time thank you to the board for having us here and Dr Moore and our first team that I'm going to call up was pretty accomplished this year we have one senior that's leaving that I know uh our coach coach Barlow is going to miss because uh that he's very accomplished swimming for us
026and Scott Barlow is coming up with our state um swimming team [Applause] good evening I'd like to uh thank Dr Moore board members thank you very much for having this event that's great for these athletes to get recognition they don't always get a lot of recognition so when it comes it means a lot to them and the end of the coaching staff um I also like to thank Terry Terry Amy our new athletic director she's done an absolutely incredible job this year um I know she's been affiliated with the school for years but it's a big role to step into and um she gave the swim team a lot of support this year and I wanted to thank her personally so thank you Amy um as far as our season uh one of the best
027seasons we've had both girls and boys we ended up overall our girls team uh was I think placed 29th overall there's about 60 to 70 teams that compete at the State High School swimming championships our girls team we had five lady sharks that participated I would like to bring them up right now first we'll do the ladies so if you can step up here in the front then I can ask you to step forward as I recognize you we're waiting for your name so we had um basically this is the most girls we've had qualify for state in quite a few years we've we've always had strong teams uh We've we've kind of circled back and forth between guys and girls uh but this year we were lucky enough to take 10 athletes total um
028so our girls we had relay teams uh that basically went this year our girls 200 medley relay was consisted of Zoe keppel if you want to step forward Zoe and Lexi Solomon Mary Toomey Paige McLean and Mia Harrell was our alternate as I stated uh the girls 200 medley relay finished 13th overall the girls 400 freestyle relay finished 18th overall individual qualifiers we are here so many swimmers I lose track of them but um Mary was this was her second she's a sophomore married to me if you can step forward Mary's a sophomore she made it to state championships last year so this is her second year back and she finished 17th overall in 100 breaststroke and she finished 18th overall in the 500 freestyle now our other individual qualifier was Zoe keppel and Zoe
029this was her she's a junior this year and this was her first time she qualified for the state championships and she actually ended up 20th and 100 backstroke this year so great accomplishment okay I'd like to uh have the girls just if you can maybe just slide down a little bit and have the guys come up and we can have the whole team if the gentleman would like to approach the stand please foreign we had a phenomenal year we broke several team records this year and we have a very very good history of swimming with Fast Times and fast swimmers so to break team records is a pretty big accomplishment um our boys team won the district championships we were third place at the regional championships and we were Seventh Place overall at the state
030championships as a team [Applause] so swimming is kind of a unique sport in the essence if it's an individual sport but it is a team sport so we do all those points add up when you get you know we only took five guys to the state championships most schools are taking anywhere from 10 to 15 swimmers and we took five and still ended up seven so I think that speaks volumes on on what they've accomplished um we'll start off with the relay the relays we had um Jace dumpster if you could step forward Nash Fuller Mitchell Ledford and Lewis St petery all right that was the 200 medley relay and they finished third overall with a new team record and if Lee St Peter even if you want to step forward uh the relay team
031the 400 freestyle relay team of Mitchell Lee Jason Lewis finished sixth overall so top finishes there okay you guys can step back and I'm gonna call out the individual qualifiers we had three excuse me two individual qualifiers this year for boys um this year this young man was the first time he ever qualified for the state championships he was so close this last few years and I'd like to introduce Nash Fuller to step forward Nash ended up 17th in the hunter breaststroke he just missed qualifying for finals at night uh by three one hundredths of a second so that's how close it is in swimming sometimes it makes a difference but uh he did a great job for us on the relay and and the individual event so congratulations Nash all right our next young
032man if you can step forward I'd like to introduce Mitchell Ledford and this was Mitchell's fourth trip to the state championships uh he's qualified every year not only has he qualified every year but he's been a finalist every year um I believe his first year was third or fourth and then he was like third or second a sophomore year last year he won the state championships in the hunter butterfly but this year he had to one-up himself he uh he was a double state champion in both of his individual events a All-American in both of his individual events he also LED off our 400 freestyle relay and his time that he swam because leadoff when you when you lead off a relay it counts so his lead off counted towards an All-American swim too so
033he had three All-American swims that joins seven All-American swimmers that we have at Sebastian River High School over the last 15 years so congratulations Mitchell okay make sure you can step back I just want to wind this up by saying a few words this was a very very special year for me uh the team bonded so well and everybody was just really on at the regional meets and the state meets and so I mean you've got to taper at the right time you've got to click everything's got to come together on the relays and these guys just put together a performance that made me smile smile smile so you guys very proud of you so I mean we have a unique situation all these these kids trained with the Vero Beach High School swimmers too
034um not only that but my wife who was up here earlier Holly coaches Vero Beach High School team so it was kind of like having the Hatfields and McCoys this year with the whole city you know uh but you know there was peace in the household we all want what's best we all want the kids to uh to succeed on the highest level so it was really a fun special year for for me uh knowing that you know the crosstown rivalry was was uh was somebody's very special to me so um congratulations Holly I like to just shout that out as well and to wrap things up uh we do with our club team and Madeleine Shields who um she will be she's a senior this year she's going off and she will be swimming
035and uh continuing her swimming career at Tulane University she just and and uh Mitchell will be continuing his swimming career as well uh just as a tidbit I'm not sure if you know the the extent of the accomplishment that this young man has done not only in the high school round but he was a national champion this summer for 18 and under out in California for the hunter butterfly last summer he made the Olympic trials and he also made an international travel team to Vancouver last summer and was on Team USA junior team so I mean the accomplishments go on and on and he's going to continue his swimming career at North Carolina State University and and as Holly said these kids put in a lot of time a lot of effort a lot of
036cold mornings to dive into the pool when it's five o'clock and it's dark and uh not only that but all of these kids standing up here have close to 4.0 or higher GPA so not only do they excel in the pool but they excel in the classroom which is what we're all about so congratulations very proud parents [Applause] um I know we're running a little bit late because there's a lot of athletes that we're recognizing um our next coach is our Cross Country Coach who coached the boys and girls and it's um Miss Marianne day [Applause] uh good evening thank you so much for this opportunity to recognize these young men and I do one of them is late for a 4-H thing so I do have to make it fast I think I've been
037coaching at Sebastian River High School for four years it's been such a great honor to work with these uh young student athletes and I just have to just say this real quick because when I came in four years ago you know we average like for there's a 5k that we run so we averaged about a 2135k and now these boys are averaging like a 17 25k and that came through their dedication and hard work it's unbelievable we have a problem with with um lightning up in Sebastian and our little alarm goes off all the time so you know they started saying you know we so we got canceled for a lot of practices we started coming at five o'clock in the morning to practice so that is their hard work and dedication has really helped
038um so this year um out of all of our competition all of our invitations we brought home four uh championship trophies uh and two Runners up so I was very proud of them for that um we're also the Treasure Lake Conference champions for the second year in in the row last year we made it to States for the very first time since 2004 and I it was just so exciting and this year we made it back and we came in 13th out of the state Caleb Wilkinson came in 22nd in the state and I also have to say something about Caleb because he broke our school record three times this year so and that record had held I think I can't remember what year two I think it was 2004 as well but it was
039for a very long time our our drive up to Tallahassee was a little bit crazy and after Mr Toad's Wild Ride they also proved to um be able to not only tolerate the unknown but no food no sleep no water and still go out there and give us a good race so I'd like to call up um our champion or our team and that is uh junior Caleb Wilkinson come on up soft sophomore Colton Rosano uh junior Noah McMahon a senior and our captain for the past two years Colin McAdams who's been really important to this team uh senior Alex Perez Junior Ethan payment and Junior Connor McAdams [Applause] um one last thing I wanted to say about Alex and Connor are two um they were both really kind of new to the team this
040year uh because of covid they had some issues with their grades last year I hope you guys don't mind me saying this but I'm so incredibly proud of this so they didn't make the team last year because of grades they never missed the practice however they continued to practice with the team the entire year and this year they not only did they make the team but they ended up going to States and getting this whole team to state so I'm very proud of all of you but that was amazing how you did that thank you and the last thing I do want to say is I do want to thank coach Amy because we've been through a few um A.D since I've been there and you have been amazing the support I mean it makes
041such a big difference when you have the support of someone who thinks your team is a rock star you know rock star as well then we begin to believe it and prove it so thank you very much foreign [Applause] okay again congratulations to our all of our athletes we do have just a couple more presentations tonight and we would like to recognize our organizations over the past couple of months that we have uh honored with our casual for our cause fundraising the first organization is the youth sailing Foundation of Indian River County and I know I believe tonight we have Stuart Kyler executive director and Julia Butterworth Linus associate executive director are you in the audience with us thank you come on up and um our students and teachers and staff members together raise two
042thousand four hundred and eighteen dollars and ninety two cents to donate to the youth sailing foundation so thank you very much we have a big check for you back here that is a Keepsake for you and we will take a photo thank you very much for being here with us tonight and uh Storm Grove Middle School had the highest total of donations at 406.60 so thank you and our November casual fur cause was the veterans Council of Indian River County with our special guest Cynthia Ryan the executive director she's here with us tonight yes and our total donations uh from casual for a cause for 1912.32 cents for the veterans Council of Indian River County if you all would like to come up and again Storm Grove had the highest total of donations with 368.70
043you know [Applause] get the get the real check that's right okay next I would like to invite Miss Ginger Bernal to the podium for our Florida school counselor of the Year presentation [Applause] good evening everyone good evening Madam chair board and Dr Moore I just want to say a few words before I invite Miss labreck to come up um this award is an incredible honor is designated to the professional school counselors in recognition of outstanding contributions and promoting the role of the school counselor in the State of Florida so what this means is how does one become the Florida school counselor of the year school counselors from all around the state you must be selected to be nominated first in order to be eligible for this process you must have been in the job and
044currently working the job full time for at least three years you have to have multiple letters of recommendation and not only that you have to put your money where your mouth is you have to be able to have the data to support your school counseling program you will submit your your data and your written responses to the state Review Committee and along with all of the other applicants for a review before the committee makes the recommendation based off of a point system so it's a pretty lengthy lengthy process Miss um Dr Rebecca Schumacher could not be with us tonight but when I reached out to her this is what she said about Miss labrack in all aspects of School counseling from the support of Student Success and academic achievement to development of the life skills
045and Advising for career Pathways her work has showcased What A Difference Maker she is for the students at Indian River Academy it was evident from her work and results that she is committed to her students and that she works tirelessly each and every day to ensure students are successful and prepared for the next chapter of their lives the Florida school Counselors Association was so pleased to name Miss Donya lavric as the Florida school counselor of the year so I would like to invite Miss live rack up and while she's coming to the podium what happens next um what's happening is that at this moment the Florida school Counselors Association is submitting Ms lavric's name to the National the American School Counselors Association for her name to be placed in nomination for the National level of
046school counselor of the year I don't know like how many times can I say but it huge huge honor because next fall we'll find out Miss lavric will find out if she is a national finalist and if she is selected as the ASCA national school counselor of the year she will be invited to National speaking engagements so at this time foreign I'd like to present in recognition to you as our state representative Miss Donya lavric the Florida school counselor of the year thank you very much first I just want to say thank you to the board and Dr Moore for having me this evening I'm truly honored to have received the award for Florida school counselor of the Year this award actually really also belongs to the 430 students and families that I serve at
047Indian River academy and our district school counselors because they are doing an amazing job at all of our schools here from the time I found out that I won this award I felt an array of different feelings gratitude Grace recognition and appreciation I am truly inspired by the unlimited potential that all of our students have their hope to dream big strive to achieve their goals maintain resilience and become our district our Future Leaders to change our world I'm excited to represent our district and state and I hope that this empowers other school counselors to always advocate for the role every student deserves a school counselor that always believes in them thank you [Applause] to join us they'd rather take pictures of her we will make sure the photos get out don't worry I'd rather have
048you in the photo block up congratulations Dr Moore will turn the very last part over to you for our video on District initiatives and I will actually yield the mic to Ms Rosario who's going to present um this month's initiative previous month um yes so this um item I just wanted to um recognize that according to Florida statute 1003.42 on required instruction the second week in November is supposed to be dedicated for a holocaust awareness um instruction week in the State of Florida and uh Holocaust Education week in Florida um really it coincides with the anniversary and a major and is a major turning point in the persecution of European Jews by the Nazi regime this year our students participated in classroom and campus activities provided by the Florida Department of Education Commissioners task force
049on Holocaust Education which taught our students about the Holocaust in the manner that was clear and concise for students parents and teachers to understand and provide students with a deep understanding of anti-Semitism to help eliminate anti-Semitism altogether as a district we will continue to recognize this week each year and ensure that our students are fully educated on this historical time period Holocaust Education week in Florida is held annually during the second week in November sdrc students learned about the Holocaust and the dangers of hatred in bigotry through stories and class discussions we will continue to teach our students to have compassion in empathy for others foreign [Music] that concludes our presentations and it was a longer than the typical 30 minutes but there's just so much talent here in the school district in River County
050we just had to celebrate our coaches who came out I'm going to adjourn this meeting and we will begin the business meeting in five minutes at 6 31. thank you one I'd like to call this meeting to order today's date is Monday December 12th the time is 6 33. we are in the Joe and idle at teacher education center and would you please stand at this time with the pledge and colors real Beach High School Air Force Junior ROTC president I pledge allegiance to the father of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all us foreign [Applause] you very much Vero Beach High School all right we are now on the adoptions of the orders of the day I
051did have two a number of items based on today's Workshop uh if we can please remove item 10B which is the South Sebastian River High School fencing project uh item 10g which is a land leasing agreement for Singular Wireless and I would request to move the superintendent's presentation which is item 14 to immediately follow the adoption of the orders of the debt all right thank you Dr Moore MB 10g and moving yours right after adoption okay are there any items board members wish to move from consent to action oh okay okay calling anybody okay no I just want to add a discussion item anyone from consent to action um I I wanted to add I wanted to before adding something Madam chair before Adam adding something to discussion I just wanted to see if Dr
052Moore would address those items in his presentation because then I wouldn't have to add it to discussion if that would be okay well I'll leave that up to Dr Moore but I know they said at the workshop today he was notified it wasn't put on there so Dr Moore what is your pleasure on that but he doesn't know what the items are yet yeah I don't know um so it was the attorney's evaluation update just the update on that where we were so I can add that to a discussion or you can include it as a presentation I'm okay with either way just to give us an update absolutely and um the other one is the NAACP work group update if you can give us an update on that again I can add that as
053a discussion or you can include it either way I'm okay with that so I can do both during my presentation awesome thank you Madam chair yes go ahead mrenberg could you add safety as a discussion item that's what I was trying to say thank you NAACP meet Wednesday night all righty any other changes all righty thank you very much and now we are at the citizen input and I'm going to read I'm sorry have a motion go ahead I'm sorry motion to uh amend uh the orders of the day with our discussion items I'll call for a motion okay a second second thank you Miss barenborg and Mr all right going to read the information on citizen input hello I'm sorry I take a vote I'm sorry all those in favor say aye aye aye
054any opposed thank you all right go ahead oh go ahead with your presentation all right so thank you for allowing me to move this item up I want to begin the presentation by acknowledging a number of principals who just had their item or will have their item pass on consent it is the findings of the annual audit once a year an outside individual comes into audit School sites these are the internal funds um from extracurricular activities Sports things of that nature um we had a absolutely outstanding audit we want to acknowledge two schools that had absolutely perfect audits uh one of which is Indian River Academy and also uh also happens to be our principal of the Year by the way a lot of the years at uh Indian River academy and our second school
055with a perfect audit uh principal Faust from Rosewood Magnus and the numbers continue to improve we also had seven schools that as Mr Fagan calls honorable mention just with one finding uh which is significant improvement from where we were pre-pandemic uh and those are and I'll read them off from Citrus Elementary principal Jones somewhere um from Osceola magnet principal Norris from Sebastian Elementary principal heart Treasure Coast Elementary Mr Simpson Vero Beach Elementary Mr O'Keefe Vero Beach City High School school don't worry Vanessa High School nothing changed um IR prep Mr Principal Brown and from Treasure Coast Technical College principal Shields now if I gave the principals the opportunity to come up here and speak uh they would all acknowledge those who are actually keeping the book so principals if you have any of your team
056members that are actually doing this work and you stand up and acknowledge them Mr Simpson I see your point could you stand up and acknowledge your team RC crime room who does a little bit of everything and she did it all last year the shields [Music] [Applause] Christy Bradley is our secretary I certainly thank the principals oh we got one more oh and we have one more oh [Applause] all right so I'm gonna begin my my update this is our quarterly update uh to the board regarding our strategic plan uh our African-American achievement plan and some other updates that Miss Rosario just asked but uh to be added but I want to begin with a very brief presentation from the superintendent I'm sorry from our state of the district so just last week we had
057the opportunity to engage in conversation with our community acknowledging all of the efforts um our people come in from the outside and provide support to our district as well as provide additional information to the community as to where we stand as a school system what we have accomplished and where we have to go and this is a very short video that acknowledges uh that work and what was a absolutely outstanding day [Music] so today was the opportunity not only to share information about our school district but to connect as a community and build relationships on how we can work together to ensure that we have world-class education for all the students here in Indian River County we have so many Heroes that are in our town who are giving to our community to our students
058they do it out of love of their heart sometimes they do it with absolutely no compensation so today was just one opportunity to highlight their impact they're having on students so to bring them into a beautiful space really to acknowledge what they're doing in the lives of children it's just one small way of saying thank you on what will be a lifetime of impact on the children in which they serve [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] and we had to move last year we we had that same presentation and we did it at the um where the County Commission has their meeting and we were jam-packed in that space we had over 300 people at this event so it was absolutely uh a great great uh program and a great great way to engage in our engage
059our community so as soon as Brooks gets this up all right so as we go through this presentation um that's not that big I'm gonna even an update unlike other updates I'm gonna I'm gonna bring a second update in January that will have some data we are in the middle of assessment window right now it just started last week as you know we are in the middle of a a new system being implemented by our state uh which is a progress monitoring system our our students took a benchline a benchmark assessment at the beginning of the school year they took a mid-year uh and they're in the middle of taking a big year update right now and then later in the year they'll have a third assessment so this is a baseline year as the
060state would call it giving us the opportunity uh really to gauge and create this assessment and do some regression studies going into next year to determine how we would have learning gains apply so it's important to note we will not have learning gains as part of this year's great component we're solely looking at proficiency graduation rate which will come out in January we're going to hold off on that but we expect to have some very good news to share there our acceleration component so if you look at it Elementary There's 7 100 points of a school grade 400 of those points come from learning gains those 400 points won't exist the only grading them on 300 points so there's a great deal of work to do with a new assessment and with a new assessment
061what that means is the bar has been raised and we're going through really defining how high that bar has been raised so as we have those new standards we anticipate some corrections the state is actually looking at a model and which is going to provide the same number of a b c d and f schools across the state they're going to provide the same number of schools some schools may actually improve but the bar goes down therefore lowering their grade or the bar goes up so one of the the issues that superintendents are advocating for is just to apply those percents at a real rate and not harm schools if there's an opportunity to justify all or to celebrate the work that a school has done simply saying we're gonna have the exact same percent
062of schools may not be a true representation across our entire State regarding the true progress of schools so I thought today would be a good opportunity to talk about the things that improve educational outcomes for students so as you know we have an integrated system for building capacity what some of the Investments that we made are around planning time you've heard me say the state of the district and continuously our teachers have more time to plan than most teachers across the state because you cannot plan lessons to meet the needs of all children without time to do it we have invested significantly in collaborative planning which is a model of support in allowing teachers to come together who teach common subjects to work together breaking down the old tradition of one teacher gets their keys
063goes in the classroom and I'll see you at the end of the year building relationships and Partnerships really to ensure teachers have the connection to other adults and they're building meaningful lessons each and every single day our summer school leadership teams as you know they come together and we begin the planning process process over the summer not the week in which teachers come back we go through an exit process at the end of the school year and then over the summer we create begin creating their plans to ensure that we do have meaningful continuous improvement taking place throughout the year we are always monitoring so we're looking at what we call impact reviews those are opportunities for the support team to go in work shoulder to shoulder with the school support teams and really look
064at the reality of instruction and problem solve in order to ensure we are daily improving the quality of instruction our dashboards as most of you have seen are down dynamic in nature we probably have 60 75 different dashboards we have data at your fingertips and allows teachers School site teams to make decisions in real time we have not waited just to get these results that we're taking in December we're assessing students and making Corrections and modifications based on what we're seeing District School site visits by District leadership team just not visits but aligning shoulder disorder to help and support in doing the work and then District data reviews on a monthly basis I'm sitting in well two different meetings a month once with the senior cabinet and cabinet themselves really looking at the data as
065a whole looking for Trends looking to shift or modify instruction in the same time individually in looking at deeper levels of data to ensure that we are consistent in implementation we are all about support instructional coaching Cycles which are going to talk a little bit about data coaching new teacher mentoring leadership academies moonshot accelerate our acceleration team really we as a district have shifted from uh what I would say I gotcha approach to to this work is hard this work is complex and how do we do it together in an environment that allows us to explore the complexities of doing this work ultimately to ensure at the end of the day every student is allowed to maximize their full potential so when you're looking at our district coaching snapshot this to this point of the
066Year 162 full coaching cycles that is Soup To Nuts from the planning of the lesson the observation of a lesson the co-teach of a lesson feedback of a lesson this takes a teacher all the way through the entire process with an instructional coach shoulder to shoulder gradually releasing the responsibilities to build the capacity of that instructional coach many coach many coaching Cycles may be on one specific strategy I need help in doing my whole group I need help in doing the different rotations so it's a a piece of the class time a segment of the class time or a strategy that's woven throughout the instructional lesson and then 778 teacher assistants that may be with one specific strategy or one transition so we're looking at in monitoring the things that bring about change in terms
067of classrooms and really ensuring that those things are happening we know at the end of the day the quality of instruction is going to improve the outcome for children is going to improve when you're looking at our data walk through snapshot tool this really looks at the amount of effort that we put in so we've got 181 uh review walks 407 informal observations 588 walk through observations this is evaluating uh what we're seeing what we're looking for here at board is those high yield strategies that are in fact 100 percent connected to our district strategic plan so when you look at some of our areas of strength collaborative planning learning environment standards-based instruction are we teaching the standards established by the state we're still looking to enhance the level of monitoring which is continuous uh
068feedback and really at a school site level as well as differentiating instruction at all levels for all students those are two opportunities for us to continue to improve but when you look at learning environment you see an improvement uh what was observed in August to October from 53 to 75 that's significant that's looking at the instruction holding an individuals accountable for the support that's being provided and we expect to see growth in that key element and we're seeing that growth and also evidence of collaborative planning going from 57 to 77. that is significant those are two key areas that ensure that instruction is going to continue continuously improve when you're looking at student discipline so one of the things I did last year one of the most uncomfortable meetings I I had was with the
069the Union's executive board where we sat and we listened to where are opportunities to improve some of those opportunities to improve was feedback provided to teachers in real time regarding disciplined procedures and ensuring that the discipline is aligned to the con to the behavior itself and I gave that promise to that executive board which uh that those would no longer be issues and we're seeing significant significant improvements what you see on the screen now is the what is what is the word that we use now return to program remember we had the recidivism debate uh we changed it to return to program so detentions which is a low level infraction for a low-level Behavior 16 of those students are returning to that detention program that progresses into a higher level of discipline Aspire which is
070our alternative to suspension program only 10 of those students are returning and then return to program percent which is the uh all the Altos which is the students um in the um suspended uh zero percent but that number would probably grow as we move move forward but we do hold a expectation in regards to behavior it is absolutely zero tolerance students are reminded on a daily basis there are too many people in a building that love you that care for you that want to see what's best for you uh get the help get the support that you need because there will be consequences for behaviors that are not appropriate as you know also connected to our district strategic plan has been shifting how we do community involvement just not expecting the community to come to
071us but for us to go where the community is so these are some of the events that we have gone through over the course of the year and you're looking at some of those events we had three ELC which is environmental Learning Center Fun Day activities where all of the elementaries over these three different events had the opportunity to come in Connect engage spend the day at the environmental Learning Center get a discounted membership for the course of the Year apps is absolutely outstanding events we've had seven faces events many of you have been to these events this is the opportunity really to connect parents at a school site to outside organizations who are supporting that specific school and we've done three downtown Friday events we do every Friday that comes up except for the
072last month because we were on we were on brick ourselves and uh and looking at our instructional staff representation this kind of connects to our African-American achievement plan our desegregation order which I'm going to touch on in a minute uh even in the midst of a teacher shortage we're still able to maintain 11 as you recall that number was significantly lower in years past that we've been able to move that up which is one of the requirements within our desegregation order and we continue to hold that we are one of the districts with the fewest percent of openings in comparison to other districts I say that in speaking to the other superintendents during the conference last week we should really be proud of our retention rates um to this point in the year in comparison
073to other counties when it comes to fiscal and organizational responsibility snapshot in addition to the principles that we just celebrated uh 100 compliance with required safety drills it's just not negotiable you will conduct those drills you will be ready you will be paired and you will do them uh the compliance on the Florida safe schools assessment tool once again not negotiable you will do them and the competitive grants we set a annual Target I think of three million dollars this year this board was aggressive anticipating what could be a re a recession coming in the Ford we moved to grant writer positions those one of those grant writers is here now under the leadership of Miss Emerson uh 2.5 uh million dollars to this point in the year so we're very excited about that work
074that work is truly paying off and some uh student performance accountability systems this looks at each year at our um the different elements of our district strategic plan also would be my evaluation supporting the additional implementation of the moonshot acceleration team at Vero Beach Elementary School that's a significant investment and we're really going to leverage that support as a model for all other districts in terms of professional development so some of the things that are happening at Vero Beach Elementary School not only will we those students have the opportunity to reap those benefits this year as a system as we're accelerating those high-yield strategies to full implementation matters full implementation uh we'll all be able to reap the benefits of that the attendance matters campaign I have reported to the board on a couple occasions
075we have improved the students with 90 or above attendance by 10 percentage points in comparison to last school year that that is significant we've only improved by two percent those who have what we call chronic attendance problems so those who we need to connect to the most uh we need to be a little bit more strategic uh so we're seeing in significant increase in overall attendance but as you dig into the data there's still a number of students that we want to connect to uh as we just highlighted we did our second annual state of the district which is a great opportunity to recognize Our Community Partners increase time for instructional planning for all teachers really looking at giving them the time to create those specific lessons and we've established systems to monitor uh discipline
076and referrals ensuring that our teachers when they unfortunately have to write a referral because just the behavior that is being displayed they don't have to wait any longer than 48 hours to know what exactly was the discipline uh that took place so those are some things that we have in place I want to jump to miss Rosario's items I think they naturally flow in the opposite the opposite order in which you presented them as you know uh we have a federal case in double ACP that is a federal court case uh moving towards unitary status we signed a joint plan in 2018 that that plan expired as the board knows we have been in mediation for a lengthy amount of time we are happy to report that we no longer are in need of the
077mediation we're moving back to the standard meetings or the regular meetings and really begin to look at each section of the joint plan to determine uh where compliance has been met so it has been a significant amount of work it is a priority for us as a system as you know this board adopted a a student achievement policy to help support Court when when eventually the unitary status is accomplished so we're proud of that work we're proud of the commitment Doc Jones has represented this board an absolutely outstanding way so the the fact that we're moving back to open meetings is an absolute sign of progress um so we're excited about that and then the attorney update I know I promised the board that I would have that back in December um and some board
078members said well don't rush yourself get it get it right and I may have bitten off more than I chew we've had the opportunity uh the chief of staff myself and Molly to review uh the structure that board discussed some tweaks and modifications will be coming back to you probably tomorrow um for just one one more meeting with Mom that will come back to you we will discuss it during our board briefings and then have the opportunity in our January workshop for public discussion if you guys choose choose so so you have that process established and ready to go I'm going to close this presentation uh with the superintendents Art Gallery um which was the the day it's been a busy a busy month but this is a very very powerful month uh and this
079is a very very powerful activity as well just seeing how the children and the families came to this event uh was truly truly special and it really signifies everything you saw here tonight and everything uh that this county is all about [Music] today we are here at the superintendent's art show we are featuring artists from kindergarten through 12th grade including our charter schools we have two-dimensional artwork we have three-dimensional artwork photography digital art paintings Ceramics you name it is represented here [Music] in partnership with the Museum of Art we have the opportunity to put all of our students artwork on display in a beautiful place to observe such beautiful artwork [Music] I believe that art is very important to a child's education because it allows the child to have to be able to be creative
080and allow them to be themselves and they can express themselves in ways that they couldn't maybe in a math class or a reading class [Music] I think when they had the opportunity to come in here in a museum that is absolutely beautiful it just makes them feel so proud they their art is in display in a real Museum so it's really really cool to see some of the artwork that our students did personally I think it's a little bit better than some of the artworks on display that's just me [Music] we look forward to doing this again next year uh hopefully here at the Vera Beach Museum of Art they were very kind to allow us to have our show here at this amazing venue and to allow the kids to be able to say
081that hey my artwork was being shown at the Vero Beach Museum of Art [Music] foreign [Music] I know a lot of our community has left and I have been here for three years now but I I really hope everyone understands the presentation for all those athletes that's not the norm um when you had the opportunity to go to prism that is definitely not the norm but the first time I went to prison I reached over to Ms Madison and I said there are more instruments in this room than they're in all of Miami-Dade County Public Schools 326 schools and I I would hold that to be true um that event it's it's not normal you're cutting art programs across the state left and right looking for ways to cut back PE teachers are shared across
082schools uh the extracurricular activities the uh Arts the music uh the Fine Arts that are in schools the Athletics is something I know this board is fully committed to uh and man what a difference it makes so that is my presentation uh and I will be back in January with some additional data as the students are taking that now thank you madam chair thank you Dr Moore any comments questions concerns Miss Rosario yes Dr Moore thank you so much for all of that information with regard to the NAACP work group or the work group update you said it would return to what we had before what we had before was an equity committee does this work group remain the same members as it was in mediation are we changing member makeup what does that what
083will that look like so the the makeup a little bit of a back story we went to collectively together we went to the court uh because of the equity make the equity committee makeup was not finding success for either of the two parties we collectively agreed to move to a worker group structure which includes executive board members from the NAACP and members that I appointed Mr Seymour Dr shafty and representing the board is Doc Jones that structure is still in place so I apologize the structure is different it is a work group meeting uh you'll you'll find that these meetings are are much more focused in on the work and working together in order to look at specific issues so I'm proud of that that work so it is different it is a what it
084Still Remains the Same it is a publicly noticed meeting uh it is in the sunshine the in the sunshine which is in the sunshine because it is part of the joint agreement so we both we need to honor the agreement that we made thank you appreciate it any other questions or comments and Dr Moore you're going to wait on the safety one until the end for discussion right the one that Miss berenborg had yes I had the opportunity to discuss that with Miss barenborg uh briefly while we were at conference and I think I'm going to let her lead that conversation but I fully support the conversation we're going to have thank you now I'm going to read the guidelines for citizen input and then I'll be calling you to the podium each statement made
085by a member of the public shall be limited to three minutes duration persons will be recognized in the order in which a requests were received the time shall start when the speaker is at the podium and the school board attorney will be the official time keeper you are here you will hear a beep at the end of your three minutes persons may speak up for three minutes at the beginning of a business meeting during citizen input as indicated on the order of business and for up to three minutes to each action agenda item during the action agenda in each board member discussion item as indicated on the order of business persons may only speak once about any given item the time period may be extended by the presiding officer only the individual submitting the speaker's
086form is allowed to address the board time may not be yielded to other speakers during the meeting please refrain from clapping or outbursts of any sort so that we can proceed with dignity and with decorum by not infringing on any individual's First Amendment rights I need to remind everyone please to direct all comments to the chair not to individual board members or the superintendent board members may or may not address any citizen input statements at the end of all the citizen input comments as board members listen to citizens without interruption citizens are asked to give board members the same respect as per Florida statute 1001 372 subsection 3 the presiding officer of any District School Board May order the removal from a public meeting held by The District School Board of any person interfering with
087the expeditious or orderly process of such meeting provided such officers first issued a warning that continued interference with the orderly process of the meeting will result in removal and finally speakers shall not engage in personal attacks or abusive language chairman has the right to terminate any speaker's privilege to address the board if the rule is violated okay I'll call the person I'll tell who's on Deck first Speaker we have is Jennifer freedlin followed by Christine miletto good evening I would like Jennifer Freeland irca president I always forget that part um good evening I would like to welcome our newest board member Dr pasca and congratulate Miss Rosario on returning to the board thank you thank you exciting I normally use this time to bring you the teacher's voice sometimes for good sometimes bad sometimes it's
088just simply news from the Halls sometimes it's to give you thanks and although there is much work to be done and a lot of discussions to have yet tonight just seven days before we go to winter break I want to wish the board Dr more in his cabinet the happiest of holidays and the warmest of wishes in a new year I would like to wish our students lots of love and fun loads of fun my holiday wish to our parents is time time to spend with your children and time to spend with families and the patience to enjoy it all to our teachers and non-instructional staff I wish you all of the above happy holidays warm wishes love fun time and patience but I wish for you to just let it all go for a
089few days don't set an alarm and I wish you lots of long naps with no interruptions Merry Christmas Merry whatever you celebrate and happy New Year yet I'm just saying Missy moleto and then we have Thomas Kenny um so I find those statistics that you posted before a little bit concerning to me as they don't meet what I'm getting back from the teachers in the classroom as we just had a kid throwing out a window at Gifford Middle last week and a teacher that was taken to the hospital because she was hit so hard in the chest that she went to the ER so I want to discuss discipline and safety especially since we just had a recent incident at Vero Beach High School that left the entire community in complete all I think because
090we didn't think it would happen here I've received a lot of Outreach from teachers and the lack of support that they get inside their classrooms kids being sent out but sent back and then the teachers are asked well why can't you control your classroom I think that's unacceptable if a teacher is telling you that they need help in their classroom it is our job and we should have more staff for them to provide a safe environment for other children I said the students at this point is what I'm getting back is they know for a fact that there are zero consequences coming from any higher authority in the school district and the administration anywhere in the school and what's happening is the zero tolerance that was stated I call BS sorry because I have a
091friend who was her daughter was threatened at the Freshman Learning Center that he would if if he blew up the school he'd shoot her in the face first you know what happened to him he was moved to another class unacceptable there's a parent here whose daughter was threatened to be raped to be beaten and it's to the point she her kids no longer in the school that's not statistics doesn't don't mean anything to me unless you're showing me what's really happening and those statistics are not what's really happening what's really happening is kids are on their cell phones all day in the school they're videoing tick tocks and Snapchats and we're watching violence in our schools unfold and nothing is being done so I'm asking you so what are we here for why are we
092here if a kid knows we're not going to fail them because we have statistics to meet there's no consequences because we have statistics to meet because of funding so you're willing to put those statistics on the board and compromise a hundred percent of our kids safety in our school district I have a serious problem with that especially since mine are in the school district I need you guys to be the adults we are the adults we are the we are the adults how are these kids running the schools I have teachers telling me that there's middle school kids during lunch five to twelve kids during lunch roaming the halls with not enough staff to get them where they're they're supposed to be how please thank you Chrissy Mr Kenny and then Cindy Gibbs hi everyone
093on February 28 2022 the first board member to vote on the books Mars Schiff said quote yes to accept their recommendations of the committee citing quote legal sufficiency if only it were true that the process was legal it wasn't at the next meeting on March 14 2022 after public comment was made the chairman of the board at the time Terry berenborg said that because the committee was a fact-finding committee did not require adherence to Sunshine laws on page two of the Florida Sunshine manual 2021 it states a limited exception to the applicability of Sunshine Law to advisory committees has been recognized for advisory committees established for fact-finding only in determining furthermore reads in determining whether a committee is subject to Sunshine Law the actual function of the committee must be making a must be making
094function by sorting through options and making recommendations to the governmental body thus if an advisory committee has a decision-making function in addition to fact-finding the Sunshine Law is applicable the committee that was put together violated Sunshine Law and as a result its decision is void from its Inception according to remedies on page 54 of the manual also in that March meeting when Jackie Rosario pointed out the nature of the policy p09130 and its procedure AP 9130 as binding the superintendent disagreed because as he explained his position as quote CEO gives him procedural rights to change procedures which he called quote outdated board lawyer Molly Shattuck followed up by saying the policy did not follow the administrative procedure Act first to Shattuck po 9130 and AP 9130 were derived based on Florida statute 1006.28 which clearly
095states in section 2 each district school board must adopt a policy regarding an objection by a parent or resident of the county to use to the use of a specific material which clearly describes a process to handle all objections and provides for resolution the administrative procedure act clearly reads a grant of rule-making authority is necessary but not sufficient to allow an agency to adopt a rule a specific law to be implemented is also required that bn1006.28 an agency May adopt only rules that Implement and interpret the specific powers and duties granted by the enabling statute 9130 is legally binding administrative policy and procedure the superintendent called the 2014 procedure outdated one of its requirements for Sunshine was to use Robert's Rules of Order and to have minutes taken of the committee Robert's Rules was first
096published in 1876 and its construction is on the basis of previous American parliamentary procedure dating back to the Continental Congress the board uses the proper rules to conduct its business thank you very much I will send this over to you thank you Cindy Gibbs followed by Christy polakowich good evening I am also concerned about my children's safety and the consistency of their education according to our policy 5512 an environment free of tobacco smoke and Vapor generating electronic devices part A students are prohibited from possessing using consuming displaying or selling any tobacco products tobacco-related devices electronic smoking devices imitation tobacco products or lighters at any time on school property or at any off-campus school-sponsored event I'm lucky to have kids who want to share with me what happens at school and I'm also smart enough not
097to jump to conclusions about some of the things they tell me however for example my 10th grader tells me that she frequently can't get into the bathroom in the downstairs Wing at Sebastian River High School because the entire bathroom is loaded with girls who are vaping you can't get into a stall and she doesn't even really want to be in there because as an athlete she doesn't want to damage her lungs by breathing in that crap she showed me a photo the other day that had been airdropped to her at school as one of the Sebastian River High School security guards was holding a vape pen and of course it was dropped by a student so the caption on it read that the security guard was vaping on campus however upon further investigation it turns
098out that the security guard had actually confiscated The Vape Pen and the kid got into trouble the kid who was that got into trouble snapped the photo in an attempt to implicate the guard how can we say that we have safe schools if so many of our kids who are minors have access to vape pens and vape cartridges which are illegal it's a tier three Advantage intervention of the code of conduct and when we look at Power bi we can see the type and the number of the violation but not the specifics so without violating anybody's privacy I'd love to know how many of these tier three infractions are a result of substance use and what are we doing to stop this the only people who benefit from all this vaping are the people who
099sell it how many of these kids are smoking pot at school instead of just the run-of-the-mill Vape juice do we have data that shows that the ripple effect or whatever intervention they're getting actually does anything I know we saw those numbers but I don't know if it's specific to this the vast majority of our high school kids are minors so it's truly alarming to me how many of them are in possession of items that are and substances that are illegal last month we had a young man at Vero Beach High School show up with the intent to injure or kill because that's what guns are for hurt people hurt people so I can only Wonder as the parent of teenagers myself what is going through that boy's head to premeditate all that and again what
100are we doing about that our local culture doesn't help we have a lot of people traveling around our County with profanity and hateful words on their shirts and their cars and how can we expect our children to do anything other than that if that's what they're being modeled by the very parents in their families we're surrounded by negativity and then it's highly likely we're going to be negative ourselves so I'm grateful to any adult at our schools who's trying to combat this by creating a culture of pride and respect and kindness thank you Miss Gibbs appreciate it Christy palakowicz and then Jennifer Pippen I want to talk about safety issues I realized some political groups have challenged books and are concerned about their own child being greatly harmed by the words printed in some books
101on a shelf in a library where kids don't even go it's their right to challenge those books and prevent their own child from accessing ideas they feel offensive but it's my right as but it's my right as a parent to allow my child and for you it allow my child access to literature that May challenge their World Views religious social or political um if every student's First Amendment right to read and access books in our school libraries I do have some fears my fears are the impacts of Code Red drills and what years and years of multiple traumatic active shooter drills are having on our children some students have curled up crying in the corner because the adults outside are role playing and banging on the door sometimes students didn't hear it was just a
102drill and they're scared for their life we know these are traumatic and everyone should be outraged we do these drills from kindergarten to 12th grade multiple times a month where are the outrage concerned political groups I'm also disturbed about the mass resignation of teachers and the increase of substitute teachers how can students learn and feel safe in an environment where the adults they grow to trust are leaving and changing every week another safety issue we should all be focused on is bullying kids are being bullied at the bus stop on the bus at school and online via social media every student has a phone and we aren't addressing the content that they see and share on the on those devices when a fight breaks out they video a videotape it and airdrop it to everyone
103on Instagram the Instagram The Tick Tock reels that they share are inappropriate violent and often extremely graphic creating incentive to engage in those activities in order to gain attention online so as a parent with rights too I'm concerned about these real life issues happening every day on campus and I know other parents share these concerns and have experienced negative effects of them from them as well so I encourage parents and students to come and speak and share their stories and share Solutions and we can tackle these real problems with real life consequences thank you enjoy your holidays Jennifer Pippin and then Mara Schiff good evening my name is Jennifer Pippin and I'm the chairman for moms for Liberty Indian River Florida first off I would like to say that I sent an email to the
104school board and Dr Moore this morning there is a national news thing going around I believe Mr Barefoot shared it with you through somebody because of sunshine recently so I did want to mention that I did write a rebuttal to that article that reporter never reached out to me or the other parent in the doe work group so I just wanted you to know the facts and I also put on there the last work group meeting so you could see where that article came from and how it was skewed I also wanted to update you on the Department of Education work group we were supposed to have a meeting tomorrow virtually but they moved it to the 19th and we're going to do an in-person in Tallahassee and that should be the finale for the
105Department of Education work group and then at that time it is going to go to to the Department of Education board Jacob Oliva and his cabinet are going to finalize that training and then they're going to push it out on time to our Librarians for the State of Florida I've had a lot of librarians and teachers and school board members across the state contact me and say that they want more information included in that including some people in our district so that's where the kind of controversy is now 90 of the work is done that other 10 percent is the additional information that people are asking to have added into this training so once these Librarians and certified Media Center Specialists are trained there's no wiggle room and there's no problems like we've had in
106the previous year um I just also wanted to say too that this legislative session is going to be very very very important for this work that we've been doing with the curriculum and library books as well you're going to see a lot of changes made um because the terminology is so vague and I've been a component from that from day one listen we need definitions we need um you know anything where there could be an opinion we need the Attorney General opinion and I'm not getting that so I'm hoping that maybe in this final Department of Education work group we do have some kind of representation there that we can get our questions answered and again I've met with people in this district and they're asking for the same thing and across the state so
107I'm hoping we're able to do that and finally um there is a lot of politics in this absolutely and one of the things that I emailed you guys that um the group was talking about possibly doing an opt-in and opt out as a possible reference and again I sent you that information but I mentioned the glorification of support of certain things that we have in our libraries here such as like suicide and things like that to be a possible opt-in um but we're not going to be doing the opt-in or opt out for the doe so thank you thank you Miss Pippen Dr Schiff and then Lamar let me tell you how nice it is to be on this side of the day yet so I want so I didn't know that everybody else was
108also going to be talking about school safety tonight so I'm going to join that bandwagon but from a slightly different perspective we all have concerns about school safety especially in light of last week's incident on campus but if we can't find a hospitable engagement if we can't create a hospitable engaging and safe School culture more kids will be showing up to school with loaded weapons like happened last week or the week before school safety is not simply about whether there is one more or less SRO or SRD in school whether we have one more or less backpack searched or whether we have school Guardians school safety is fundamentally about the relationships that students teachers and everybody else has with one another on a school campus whether they feel safe supported and have someone to go
109to when they're mad sad angry despondent or whatever every research report article or document I have ever read on this and I have read a lot concludes that a key factor in school safety is the culture and climate on campus how P how connected people feel whether they can approach and talk to one another whether they feel valued included and welcomed and Every Act of severe violence that's been committed by someone in a school has been committed by someone who did not feel those things either from a school or a local community rather they felt bullied ostracized marginalized or excluded and they were angry about it so if you want to keep schools safe build scaffolding that identifies includes includes supports and engages those students not simply structures that surveil oversee punish and otherwise exclude
110them more sros won't change that more school Guardians won't change that you know what will change that teachers who stick around long enough to build strong relationships will change that teachers and administrators who stick around long enough to really really know their school culture climate parents and Community teachers who feel welcome supported valued respected and appreciated by their students parents and communities teachers and administrators who have time to connect and build relationships strong guidance and mental health and other counselors and support I guarantee you that school safety is not not simply addressed by more Target hardening approaches like fences and metal detectors and video cameras and other surveillance it's addressed by culture and community of care where people watch out for each other because that's the expectation and those are the values we adults set
111that tone and we need to be responsible for that and stop setting a climate and as adults and a public tone of disrespect bullying and inclusion exclusion on another note I have 15 seconds I'm not going to get to the other notes so I'm going to leave it there and say that I hope we do not follow the guidance in Brevard County where the sheriff said that students now know because they're not going to be given after school detention they're not going to be suspended expelled or like in the old days they're not going to have the cheeks of their thank you Dr Schiff torn off please let's not follow that example thank you Lamar and then our final speaker is Rebecca siplak sorry I have to read something with fine print okay so um
112I am so grateful that people from both sides of the political aisle are addressing the issue of school discipline and uh safety where it seems like the school board goes overboard for PR purposes in the ignoring the elephant in the room and I just got a call from somebody on Friday about this very thing about a situation at Rosewood magnet but the parents are afraid to speak up because they're afraid that their students might face even more bullying so um I've I've asked Caitlin Purcell to come up and stand with me because um she's had she has four children in the public school system and she's already had to take one out and and possibly one more she's going to have to take out of the public school system because they are being bullied this
113is real it's not me it up I'm hearing the stories personally I'm hearing things from my own Grand grandchildren and I'm hearing from other people please help me I don't know what to do so you guys you know restorative justice is not going to solve the problem we can't enable people who are committing violent acts against other students I recommend that you have a zero tolerance policy just like you do for drugs uh and and the bullies need to be removed from the school not made excuses for uh and so this is why I asked Caitlyn to come up here and thank you Caitlin she's a real person with four children in the public school system and they're facing extreme bullying and it has to stop now no excuses the other issue that I wanted
114to mention briefly I don't know if you want to sit down but um as uh since we're talking about books in the school system I wanted to mention um sorry um racist anti-racist baby and I'm just going to mention one of them because I'm probably going to run out of time the illustration on the page depicts a dark-skinned man with his fists in the air his carrying a young girl and a carrier on his chest has her fist raised in the air there are four people in the background holding protest signs which read we demand Justice Equity now black lives matter and climate Justice is racial Justice and I just want to read this from marxist.org from a conversation with two leaders of the Communist Party Marxist leninist of Ecuador Marxist they were talking about
115how raised fists uh the Fist of the Marxist leninist communist must also smash left adventurism The Offspring of modern revisionism so it is a communist thing and why is this in our Public Schools if parents want to teach their kids communism let them do it at home thank you Lamar I appreciate it thank you okay before board members respond Dr Morgan oh I'm sorry I'm so sorry come on up the Sip black hi good evening my name is Rebecca siplak I am a resident of the city of Vero Beach and I'm the owner of a small Landscape Company here um I'm here to speak uh to an item on your consent agenda the approval of Grants and specifically the Gifford Middle School Garden Club Grant my friend and fellow volunteer Linda Urban and I wrote
116the grant to benefit the Gifford Middle School community we were inspired by the hopes and dreams of assistant principal Misty subligen to create a safe and comforting Garden space to facilitate nature awareness which in turn will promote stress reduction enable clear thinking and engender positive attitude we've been meeting with students in the Garden Club led by teacher Mr Jean and have been heartened by the young women's enthusiasm and commitment to attendance I know right now we only have young women but I'm told that there have also been young men involved in the past as a volunteer on this project I'm inspired to see these funds used well to create a mutually beautiful zen-like garden space at Gifford Middle School that will bring joy and calm for students and staff for years to come thank you
117very much [Applause] all right before any board member who wishes to respond to Citizen input Dr tomorrow I'll give you the four for anything you'd like to say thank you madam chair just stay a brief follow-up this work is hard and it's complex and it's not shying away from what the reality is and it's not trying to create any kind of quota for any kind of Number the truth is the truth and when we decide to engage in conversations about the reality of what's taking place in schools uh collectively is when we'll see continuous Improvement we as a school system have a high expectation we collectively as a community and I think one of the things you do point out is is there maybe varying political beliefs but we can all agree on the expectation
118of environments in schools and what we need to be able to provide our schools our children on a daily and consistent basis and we are coming off a Time unlike any other time in our nation's history as it relates to the pandemic and the impacts that it has on has had on children we are in a process now we're beginning to look at our our code of conduct and I would engage every single person whether they are are here tonight or listening or watch it on playback to get involved and have those kinds of conversations um we do have a a code of conduct that does have Progressive discipline we do have a code of conduct that provides resources and support to help students identify which behaviors lead to success not only in the classroom
119in the real world but the conversation really has to be about all kids just not those kids and we as a community need to understand when those kids disrupt it impacts my kid and we can't look at this problem which is not Indian River County across the state and Across the Nation uh with this is just one thing that we're going to have to do and I have said it in my state of the district I honestly believe at the core of me and some of these people are leaders in your community sitting on different sides uh if you can't see the audience they're sitting on different sides um but we could set the example on how we work together to set an expectation as to how we act as a community in those collective-wide
120expectations uh are enforced across the entire school system so there is there is no BS there's a reality and I will gladly I know yes and I I know you will and I don't want to I know I'm not oh oh I'm breaking my own rules no I'm broken I invite anyone to go on a field trip with me uh to go and to go and see that okay so that that let him speak that is and I only say that to say that we're we're won't be the district that says we're going to excuse away or talk away or Justify what isn't perfection and when I say perfection every single student walks into a classroom feels safe feel comfortable and can Embrace in their learning that is the Utopia of where we want to
121get no one's there no one's there I believe this community because of how passionate you are collectively as a whole we can figure out how to get that done it isn't placing blame it's talking through the complexities of a rapidly changing community in the impact all children have on our own individual children that's the work that we want to do that's the work we want to engage in so I'm excited as we come back into the new year you can look on social we pushed out information again our code of conduct to give that feedback let's engage in a conversation let's fix it and there are some parents Miss christopholi can you make some connections and follow okay all right thank you madam chair thank you we'll start with um Dr posca hello just talking
122to it can you hear me hello there you go um so yeah discipline Safety and Security um on my first day orienting here at the school district that was the first thing I spoke to the superintendent and his team about and that's because when I was meeting the community that was the number one complaint from parents the number one complaint from teachers and from school resource officers that I met I didn't talk to all of them so clearly it's an issue to them you know you can look at numbers numbers oftentimes do not capture every incident and every problem but certainly I think the public perception as it was the number one issue was safety security which is intimately tied to the discipline policy so I definitely you know I hear what people have said
123today I want to take a close look at these issues you know I take that very seriously for me it's the top priority that a kid goes to school a parent lets them you know leave their home they get on a bus they go to a school and you expect child to be safe there you know so that is the number one priority and I also heard people Mrs Gibbs mentioned vaping you know that's a big issue as well and it also ties into the disciplinary policy we obviously have a policy against vaping and tobacco use but I think it's been difficult to enforce so far that's something I have an appetite to enforce so I think that's also something we need to look at thank you Miss barenborg um yeah thank you for raising
124this this is why I asked to have a discussion about safety today so I'll reserve my comments for that just to say um on my walkthroughs of a couple of schools last week um it's evident that we need to look at some things so um thank you for speaking today very good Mr barefoot it's really nothing much to add I my um concern has has always been improving educational outcomes but one thing's for sure it's very difficult for kids to learn if they if they don't feel safe so it's what comes first and they're both priorities and I think that whatever the needs to be done has to be done you change the perception of students or the reality their reality uh the educational outcomes I'm sure will follow so I'm fully behind whatever initiatives
125need to be put in place to address this in a much more serious manner perhaps than what's been done to date I've been talking about discipline for a long time and clearly you all have heard me mention zero bullying tolerance policy we have a policy that says that we do not tolerate bullying but we do not have a zero tolerance bullying policy it's different when you don't have when you say that you're not tolerating it and then there isn't there aren't practices that actually follow through with zero tolerance zero is zero like there's no Second Chance third chance like zero is zero Because by the second and the third chance kids are getting jumped and hurt kids are getting really really beat up and attacked and harassed and all kinds of things it really only
126takes that first time for you to recognize that a bully is not just the bully the first time but has been bullying other kids repeatedly so it's really not rocket science for someone to actually do the research and it shouldn't take that long to get back to parents and let them know that this you know repeated action has been happening or that something is happening with their child which is also an incident you and I have talked about where parents are not getting you know called immediately um and so uh that I I would absolutely support a zero bullying tolerance policy and talk about that I mean if we can move on that right away I would love to just go ahead and do that the other thing is for constituents which would be all
127of you on Wednesday January 11th there was there is on our calendar discipline code of conduct Open session for constituents so though I was waiting for a response to see it was that for board members or just for the community it is on the calendar that way so Dr Moore can you let us know it's from 6 PM to 7 P.M on Wednesday January 11th it does say open for constituents I'm assuming that's all of the community who can come and share their feedback on the student code of conduct yes through the chair that's the opportunity for our community to come come in and provide feedback very similar to what was provided tonight that will be the first of a number of opportunities to engage and I think that's something have we we have done
128in the past we have overhauled our code of conduct over the last three years and now that we've been implementing that code of conduct we've have the the research be able to go back and look and get feedback so there'll be the opportunity for me to bring in staff who make recommendations to you to create not only staff but you know principals teachers representatives to to look at these systems that are being implemented so I think it's a first of a number of opportunities in order to seek feedback on making sure uh the systems that we have in place both Progressive discipline as well as support to help students identify what behaviors need to change are both aligned and being done in a way that everyone can send their their children to school as Dr
129paska was saying without concern um so I I might suggest um extending the time I don't know if an hour is going to be enough for uh constituents to come in I mean clearly we just had a presentation with students um I'm afraid that if they're over an hour are we going to cut people off and I don't want to cut anyone off no that's and I know you know this you know we'll be here all night so we're if it is too much well we can extend the time but as I said that's just the first bite at the Apple we're gonna have feedback from that Opera from those conversations where there's changes or modifications to bring that back and and continue to kind of go through a problem-solving process to have what will
130be a code of conduct that allows us to uh uphold the reality of what's taking place at schools while the same time creating environments and relationships that really allow kids to excel in school okay all right just a few things I'm kind of all over the place taking notes one thing I said I met with every student at special for high school the first day freshman sophomore juniors and seniors and the one thing I said to them was you do not have the right to disrupt a classroom or this school in any manner and I meant it now the things that we have to make sure that we're doing is Dr Moore with our principles is to make sure that they know we support them obviously students have due process we know that nobody's coming
131up there and not having that issue but they have to know that we support them talked about the phones I agree 100 they were just coming out and the state statute said the students could now have phones a lot more issues on phones than we think a lot more issues well I'd love to see a parent group on that one because these are the issues our students are dealing with on a regular basis another thing I was talking to someone today on their emails at the school and how the students are emailing students during the school time I mean they can think of anything in everything to spread information so I think we have to get in the real world on this and make sure that we are doing our best together best citizen input
132I've heard in two years best citizen input um our parent from Rosewood I'm sorry you had to go through that and I'm sorry you weren't notified immediately but the first thing you should do is go to the principal if that doesn't work you go over there and if that doesn't work you come over here so these are the things that we have to do together at the same time we talk about parents rights they're also parent responsibilities is it the school's fault the kids are vaping I mean let's take a look at this let's let's put the ownership on what is happening that student is a parent even understand what's happening I don't know but we have to come together because you know every day when I woke as I woke up as a high
133school principal I said dear Lord keep these kids safe every single day in every school in America and throughout the world but we have to have that communication a lot of parents said yeah we want to do this and then when it comes to their kid they'll say wait no that was that we're okay you know so we have to bring it together and I I'm glad Ms Rosario talked about that day because I'm going to attend to I want to hear where we are in the code of conduct but we have to set the example but what Dr Schiff said is very important too it's not all about punishment we know that punishment doesn't change Behavior 11 years as a high school principal we said that climate and culture and you know the only
134kids I ever had an issue with kids that came in as a junior or senior they weren't with me for the three or four years that's you could that's data I could share with you so let's not pull apart on this let's come together because this real world right now it's tough on our kids it's tough on our parents it's tough on our teachers and principals so I am looking forward to that but we have that many and thank you again so much thank you again all righty now we're going on approval of consent agenda items and Dr Moore because so much was happening at the very beginning as amended you pulled 10B and 10g am I correct yes ma'am okay call promotion to approve the consent agenda items as amended I'll call for a
135motion miss berenberg a second second okay Ty any any discussion uh just like to say thank you to all the donations and for all the um grants thank you for our grant writers thank you okay all in favor aye yep aye okay five zero aye all right now this next one I've talked to Dr posca about it's done an action item but we didn't have this uh appointment last time for the city of Sebastian planning and zoning and I shared with Dr posca I've done felsmere for about three years and uh it's just by zoom and if I don't have the time open that day I watched the recorded meeting so Dr posca I'd like I can volunteer for that okay what time I can do that oh thank you please make note of that
136Dr posca said yes to the Sebastian Planning and Zoning thank you so much is there anybody else that wanted it curious okay we review poll consent to action item we did not have consent to action so we're good there all right now this is the one the action agenda approval of appointment of a citizen to the county commission's value adjustment board Mr Rosario and I shared that we go back and forth I've had the pleasure to probably be in on three or four of those meetings and we had to get information from uh Miss esplin because we had a question about Mr Heckman and that was in your backup material and then also we have Augustine Curran that was also in your backup material with the businesses that they owned there was a question so
137any discussion on that before I call for a nomination um is this a voting position and also is there an alternate needed I this is a voting position yes this is a voting position and then alternate needed or not it didn't say so on this one so but I know that sometimes I miss Rosario and I cannot make it they say well we need a we don't have a quorum so no that's the difference oh yeah it's for the citizens yeah I know that's different yep all right so do we have a nomination for either one of these candidates I make a nomination for Augustine Curran thank you a second I'll second that any discussion uh yeah I we we talked about it before I mean I know that um some of the comments with
138regard to Mr Heckman [Music] um said that he has been doing it but you know um just because someone's been doing something for a while doesn't mean we shouldn't give other community members an opportunity to get involved clearly we have an interest here and it would be um appropriate for us to honor the interest of another business owner to take this position I do believe this position is uh once a year position as well it's just annual yes it's not like the position is held every month so um I would hope that board members would support Mr Augustin Curran uh any other comments yeah I I first of all you have to thank Mr Hackman because he's done it for a long time yes I do think there's a value of uh giving other community
139members the opportunity to serve um and so I certainly support not because Mr Heckman wouldn't do a fine job he's done a fine job but I think it's a good idea to as I said to uh to support Mr Kern and get get another Community member involved all right we have a first and a second okay well all in favor uh Mr Curran please say aye I'm sorry any other nominations two just one yeah Mr Curran is we have a first in a second we've had discussion all in favor say aye aye aye okay five zero that's fine thank you all righty uh Madam chairman I'd just like to show the record that we certainly thank Mr Hackman for as many years of service let's not take that kind of commitment to our community for
140granted yeah he's been in the community a long time and the few times I've been on that board very informative when we hear everyone speak and Mr Heckman has a great knowledge of the community so yes we do thank him all right now we go into action agenda new agenda item there are no action items to present alrighty that was an action item yeah it was and you've already done the Strategic plan in Akron African-American achievement plan if anything else on that Dr Moore no ma'am okay okay all right now we are to discussion and the item that was brought up um Miss barenborg mentioned this at the workshop and it is on safety so miss barenberg do you want to take the lead sure um you know when we were in Tampa and we
141see the headlines of what happened here um in Vero Beach I felt like you know what's going on back home um it can happen anywhere anytime to find a gun on a campus um you know had had lots of conversations with security people and I had a lot of conversations with board members in other districts to say what are you doing there any questions you know what what's going on how you handling things I got some really interesting feedback and I want to be able to share that with board members um I have some concerns I walked on Vero Beach High School's campus the other day great day had a great time went into Mr Wood's classroom and Technology classroom wow got interviewed on the spot by the kids it was awesome um I also
142met the roaming reporter oh Noah Noah man he's good all right so I will say um I ask questions to the teachers when I'm on campus without an administrator next to me and I say if a board member could do something to help what can we do and I didn't just ask Mr would this I asked a couple of teachers as I was walking by I heard the same thing over and over again it was vaping that's going on in the bathrooms between Bell changes to the point where kids don't feel safe walking into the bathroom going the bathroom that's part of the concern about the three passes during class to be able to go I understand about the three pass thing because I did have concerns about that until I heard this details on
143it um that was number one I have as you know serious concerns about vaping but I have concerns about parents not understanding what it can do to kids I attended the vaping session that we had thank you Deputy he spoke and um it was eye-opening a doctor was there it was at the pack it was an amazing presentation there were six parents there six I was the seventh person in the audience that's sad because I don't think and it was well advertised thank you Miss Maddox I I know you advertised it well I don't think parents really understand as a matter of fact one of the comments I heard from the parent the other day was it's just water vapor I don't think they understand what's happening that they're getting laced with all kinds of
144things fentanyl for one thing yeah so it's pretty scary what's happening and I'm sure Dr poskey you can understand this so I think the education for parents is really critical on this but I also think education of our kids um but I think it's higher than that I think it's pushing legislation to help us control the sale of the Vapes we had that before and then when they stopped home rule in Tallahassee um it was like the wild west opened up I don't know if you noticed but how many vape shops opened it was crazy and now you go into a shop and you see I don't go into vape shops but I go into the like 7-Elevens and things like that and you can see it right next to Bubble Gum it's not behind
145a counter and the kids have to ask for it or show ID so it's pretty scary about that um that's why that's another item that I would like to put for the board to consider for a priority for our legislative priorities um in January when I bring background checks I'm going to bring vaping as well for us to discuss because it's a huge concern for me um thank you to the parent that showed me their phone at prism of the security officer standing there with a vape in their hands I was very concerned when I saw that and I thought oh my gosh security officers are vaping I went exactly where the kids went and then I found out the truth the truth was this child was in trouble so snap the picture and then
146because they have an iPhone they were able to drop load that airdrop it to anybody that was around I guess it went to a couple hundred phones so this is unfair to our staff as well so the second issue that comes down to is phones they're a huge problem I understand they need phone apps for certain things like HOSA they need apps for different things in schools they I saw phones being used in the classrooms for really good purposes I get that but when I asked what the procedures were for phones I was told that they can have them out during exchange of classes and at lunch and during free time I get that they're kids they have free time but it the exchange of of the hallway concerns me because again that's where they
147take the video Tick Tock boom we've got kids having their faces out on social media without their permission and if I were a parent of a kid that that happened to I'd be pretty upset so I have a concern about the phones we need to discuss this the weapons of course that's another discussion and I did have some interesting conversations with our other board members about ideas of things like that so what I'd like to ask for is a an executive session for the board to discuss Safety and Security because that's something I know that we have to discuss in the shade not in the sunshine thank you mrenberg just as a a point of follow-up I do want to thank Ms barenborg she was hunting me down at the conference really to have this
148conversation uh regarding uh the executive session I've had the opportunity uh to connect with the sheriff on a couple of occasions you know of getting a schedule so right now I'll be working with the board if it's the will of the board to have this conversation I think it would be the right thing to do in our previous sessions although they are closed and and confidential I think we all could agree there'd be opportunities to have more fruitful conversation during these during these sessions um so looking for dates in January to align to everyone's schedule that's not easy to do but I know it's a priority for all of you but I can get that scheduled in order to ensure that you all can have that conversation share out some of the things that you
149learned at the conference as well as problem solving order to ensure uh any corrections or modifications we can get done sure yeah so in order for kids um to be safe I think you know discipline is integrally tied to our Safety and Security other than just the measures of perimeter fences and glass and single entry and all this kind of stuff we need to have a disciplinary policy that creates a safe environment a respectful environment for teachers ultimately what it comes down to it is very much a multi-layered problem and the solution is going to be multifaceted just in the same way that our security plan is multifaceted our disciplinary approach needs to be multifaceted but I do think you know some things like if a student makes a threat like they are going to
150shoot somebody or kill somebody I think we need to seriously consider that they're not welcome back at our school I don't think we can really tolerate this any longer and I I think that if we don't take that approach eventually we're going to have a problem um so I mean that's uh one issue you know the vaping I understand I think the vaping is a huge issue you know vaping actually destroys your lungs faster than cigarettes um with even a few months of vaping uh if you have the uh predisposition to it you can get permanent lung damage and need a lung transplant this is happening to teenagers um so you know my solution is more on the approach of preventing use in the school system so whether it be Vape detectors Hall monitors increased
151monitoring approach I think it's going to be very difficult to try to pass legislation in any kind of timely manner that really restricts access to it and even once that does happen it'll just be a black market for vape pens um so and they are so small you know it's very difficult to see them it generally does happen in bathrooms um so we you know we may need to consider increasing bathrooms that have single stalls or some more out of the box approaches so they're not congregating in bathrooms but definitely having Vape detectors in there and I think you know supporting teachers you know they are experiencing disruption rebellious students in the classroom I think we definitely need to support them I think when a student is being very disrespectful and then they come back
152right back to the classroom I think it sends a message that maybe we don't really have discipline and we're not supporting our teachers and it makes the other students even more act out so certainly you know those are just a few examples of things that we could consider doing I think we definitely need to sit down and look at our entire disciplinary policy as a group I think there's like I said it's a multi-faceted approach there's going to be a lot of different ideas and things we can do to improve things and then I would agree under executive session looking at Safety and Security I have a lot of thoughts on that Mr barefoot anything else no you're okay Miss Rosario um it's not uh much different than some of the other things that I've
153mentioned on previous occasions um I I still support single stalls um I don't know how we can get there but I think that that would limit the number of students using the gang bathrooms um you get a lot of obviously the bullying and the fighting and The Vaping that happens in the bathrooms when you have your friends you're less likely to do it do that if you have a single stall that you are using I don't know if we can limit close down some bathrooms in some of those areas put a camera not inside the bathroom obviously we can't do that for legal purposes but outside it might be another deterrent I don't know I know that we talked about that just today so it might be something for us to continue looking into the
154other thing is a Anonymous reporting portal so there are I mean again we've talked about this there are teachers and and staff members who want to report things and and are fearful for retaliation same thing we heard from a parent who's fearful for you know to to report something because they don't want retaliation against their child and so having an anonymous Reporting System uh to keep you know um personal information that you do not want to share make that optional and then um have it where you know it there's just if they want to report to the board and wherever that email goes and then or report directly to you somebody needs to get it someone needs to get it who's going to handle it immediately because these are the the reports that we're not
155that we receive board member I don't know how you I receive on you know occasion um and uh just like the ones that we heard tonight um that seem to be issues and those are the ones that I'm afraid that we're missing on a regular basis a daily basis or weekly or however way that it is but um I know Dr Moore you supported that um I that's something that I I think we can start right away by just creating this Anonymous portal online somehow or another a link and then tell us what's going on if we could do that you know through I.T maybe that could be a good start for now clearly having that open session with um with citizens is is is another start move in the right direction to re-envision our
156code of conduct um but I I would support a closed session for sure I know that that's the request I just don't know if we're going to receive anything different in that closed session that we haven't already in just the recent um session that we had that was closed um okay you want to say one more thing and then I'll close this out um a couple things I agree with the multifaceted approach um Dr ship mentioned something that I think is important to include here you have to look at both things punishment and education you know we have to do them hand in hand if somebody's caught doing something of course they need to be punished but we need to educate kids that's what we're our job is I'm going to go right back to
157kids of Hope because they have they stress something called Aces and an ace is where a child at school should have an adult that they trust that they can go to and they can talk to every child and there's this Aces reporting system that they do through kids of Hope and as a principal I had it every child in the school and I knew exactly who their Ace was so if the child was sent to me for discipline problem I could call that Ace and say hey I need you to have a conversation with this child after because kids sometimes will be able to feel welcomed and part of the community of their school if they have an adult that they Trust if you look back on God forbid all the School shooters in the
158in the world that was the number one thing that they saw those kids didn't have an adult to talk to at the school so that was one thing I keep stressing about the aces the other thing is Vape detectors I brought it up a couple years ago about Vape detectors there was a study done in Michigan I thought oh great they you know they have these Vape detectors in the bathrooms right the kids broke them the first day it was a million dollars that they just ruined so if you have a camera outside the bathroom and only one person goes in and you know who broke it but during the change of classes they can't have one person going that's the problem anyway go walk a school go walk to school um it's a huge
159problem when I was in um high school we had bathroom monitors and that was a person that literally their job was to sit outside the bathroom I had to bring my pass even during change of class that person would stand in the bathroom during change of class and kids felt like they could go in go the bathroom and leave and do what they were supposed to do in the bathroom instead of being bullied or being pressured to smoke or whatever because back then we didn't have vaping but we had a smoking section for the school kids which that's another story from the 70s so I will say that um when I asked what do the security monitors do um I was told they walk kids to the bathrooms with passes but they don't go into
160the bathrooms during the change of classes why not through the chair I don't know why why they wouldn't so typically and I I come from a different kind of schools where security monitors were constantly roaming they did that during during periods for sure but it's the in and the out and when I say the end of the out you're walking in you got two minutes you got two minutes and you just simply put that adult presence there right it drastically changes Behavior so let me look at that because because quite honestly there's if it's a one-on-one situation then in that case I would get it but during the change of class you really only have four minutes to get from one side of the building to to to the next and those schools have done
161a good job of making sure we're getting kids moved from one location to to the next so I'll report that and the last thing I just want to say is about um you have to have legislation with this and the reason why I say that is we had it and then it came it was taken away and it exploded uh vaping exploded but the other thing is I shared a website with um Mr Thornton Deputy Thornton and a superintendent kids are getting these sent to their homes are being delivered to their homes and their mailboxes it's pretty sad that kids know which website to go to can I say a couple more things all right we'll go back to Mr posca and then I'm going to close it out I'll be brief I promise um
162this is a follow-up of um earlier comments you know I think that there's a lot of parents that don't know their kids are vaping they have no idea their kid owns 15 Vapes they don't even know that they have them you know this is a teenager they spend most of their day outside the house they can easily hide it they're very small so I don't think parents are aware of it that's one issue one potential you know solution for phones in the classroom because I think that contributes a lot to the disruptive environment you know the first thing I usually hear is you can't there's no way to enforce the policy there's two kind of basic things that you can mechanically if they don't need their phone they put it in a Dropbox as they
163walk in that's a possibility you know that we can consider another thing from a technical approach is you can jam their phones and have all the teachers IP addresses collected so their phones are not jammed and that would obviously be something we'd have to work with it and the Sheriff's Department um but you know there's a lot of different things that we can look at in this extremely layered problem that goes all hand in hand discipline safety security and I think it's all fixable you know we're not necessarily fixable but significantly improvable so I'm looking forward to working on this with you guys awesome all right one more and then I'm going to say so um I I mentioned that Dr Pasco recently not long ago about um having cell phone blockers in in hallways
164it doesn't interfere with the Wi-Fi connection if they're going to be on their computer it's just a a device that like on one hallway or in a classroom it can be a cell phone blocker I was told we couldn't do that I'd love to have a further conversation with that as the board um uh or whenever uh the I see he's grabbing the go ahead the cell phone blockers that's the FCC violation punishable by 120 000. per blocker I've looked into it well there's got the the other thing is Charter School does it Charter High School does it they have um it's not a box it's not a phone box it's any other uh like a bucket or I don't know some teachers have the shoe they have something whether you walk in you put
165the phone away and that's it you do not use the phone for the entire class um not even for classroom activities to my knowledge um and and it works and the kids leave they pick up their phone and they take it with them um I I don't know um why that could not be done um I don't know why that seems to be an issue the other thing I was thinking is why not close down the classrooms during the change of uh of periods don't let bathroom don't let there be a bathroom use during change of periods just go straight to class and wait when you get to class you ask for a um you ask for a pass when you get to the bathroom as opposed to using you know uh uh um inter
166changing time you know changing periods in between instead of using that time to use the bathrooms if those bathrooms are closed it's less opportunity for someone to go in and vape less opportunity for someone to go in and use um whatever you know any other substance or hurt someone just within the changing we want to protect instructional time yeah we want to make sure that we we are teaching Bell to Bell uh we have 50 minutes to cover a a one specific content period uh or content so if we can get the behavior right and we have to be careful of changing our behaviors uh because students are not displaying the appropriate behavior so we want to create the system and which we can simply enforce the expectation and I think there are ways in
167which we can drastically improve that whether that's the in and out with security uh the random in and out so they know that's specifically going to happen so I think there's opportunities a protect instructional time while at the same time fixing these six four minute periods or five minute periods um in between the change of classes alrighty I'm just going to wrap this up just a few words I think a lot has been said but I do believe um that session that Miss barenborg recommended it's a very good idea I think are all of our hearts skipped to be when we saw that what happened at Vero Beach High School you think about that every day as a principle um and I think it's going to have to really be and this is what I
168would see for Indian River County the parents teachers administrators board members coming together to make sure our students are safe and I think that along with the sheriff's department and talking with them about some of the ideas that came up tonight is very very effective and I think it was a really good discussion thank you Mr on board all right now we are on School Board member matters who would like to start I'll do it okay yeah there has been a lot um that has happened over since our last meeting um clearly we are heading into a wonderful season of uh being with family and friends and I know that for some it could be a very sad time of the year so I just hope and pray that everybody has a wonderful holiday and
169a great New Years and comes back for 2023 renewed and energized and ready to finish out the school year because that's when we start the countdown but I'm just I'm grateful to be here I'm grateful that we were at the fsba conference last week it was pretty interesting um I'm I I think I mentioned earlier how I felt about it so um I'm just grateful Dr posca is here with us this is his first night his first full well maybe the second but without being the the the the swearing-in evening um inauguration um so Dr posca welcome once again um and um I look forward to all of the other activities that are happening between now and the holidays Mr Barefoot um somebody mentioned prism before and I sat next my wife's still talking about
170it I can't tell you how impressed I am with the logistics forget about the entertainment just the logistics of all those kids moving around they've got it down and the percussion in particular I mean you got a headache for about 48 Hours afterwards but but but the band director uh the the person the assistant band director I guess who's responsible for the percussion I mean it's it's as good as it gets and these kids the amount of time that they spend on this I'm sure we heard about the amount of times swimmers training to compete I I suspect that the coordination of these right in front of us there was a group of four young men that one of the interlope one of the interludes all different kinds of percussion and I'm watching them and
171they have there's there's no music I don't think they missed a beat they went on and on and on I mean it's it's phenomenal uh the other thing that I would like to mention is part of what was approved uh tonight on the consent agenda was moving forward and it was discussed at length with the redoing the turf the Citrus Bowl and building a volleyball court I would just like to suggest all of you in the audience if you there is a naming opportunity so if if you have connections um that's that someone would like to talk to us about what it might take in order to get their name on the so-and-so Citrus Bowl I'm sure there's a lot of people who'll be interested in having that conversation with somebody you know if the
172Gillette company can put their name on the Patriots stadium or Sofi field which is the the LA uh the new La NFL or I don't want to say FTX because that was Miami and it's they that just got blown up but at any rate um spending 2.3 to 2.4 million dollars between those two projects if we could supplement or take some of that relief away with with some funding coming in it would be much appreciated and beyond that I wish everybody a wonderful holiday season thank you Miss barenborg sure um yeah prism was wonderful and this year I got to enjoy it with my three-year-old grandson um we brought his headphones just in case but he didn't want them because now he wants to play the drums so he talked about it for two days
173after that it was wonderful especially like Santa Claus it's the best part Vero Beach High School Mr Wood's class is a treat go visit it it's a treat um and then I went to Mr Bush's class biotechnology um yeah I want to talk to the grant writers about something for that class because they're doing some tremendous things tremendous things and I'd like to say thank you to our sros that help believe it or not they help behind the scenes get them things that they need um and you know no one knows that they kind of have a hand in in helping with some of the things that we need and we can't afford and they help us out with that so it's much appreciated Mr Bush can we clone him I mean he could probably
174clone himself he knows all that he's just amazing he is amazing and his lab is amazing the kids are amazing I was I was in a sophomore class I thought I was in a college prep class I mean a college level class it was impressive so um that was great the other thing I want to talk about is Donya lavarek who was the counselor of the year I was afforded the opportunity to be able to write one of those recommendation letters I've known Donya since she was five years old um she she is the real deal she cares so much for kids and I've seen us growing up and it's people like that we have lots of them in our school district kids people like that we need to value and support and thank and
175not tear down and so you know really give them the work that they're worth and you know give them the accolades and she's just one shining example of people that we have like that in our district so I'd like to say thank you to her thank you Dr Pasco sure yeah um so one thing you know sitting here reflecting on is um I think how amazing of a school district we really have I went to prison I should have spoke first because I was going to talk about prism it should have taken your uh suggestion um but I sitting there I was blown away I thought this these were all the best musicians from our whole district and I realized this is just one school and this is you know this is not uh normal
176this is a really special place and I think the education um that you know the board and the teachers and every staff member every parent every student has ultimately created in this County it really is special and exceptional and we have a lot to be proud of and I'm honored to participate in this and be a part of it and I want you to know that I'm going to be dedicated to keeping your kids safe and trying to help them and I'm just looking forward to being a part of this process thank you Dr Pasco just a few things check your for school activities the websites for all the elementary middle schools will give you up-to-date information on what's happening again thank you and congrats to all of our state finalists Athletics science fair is
177rolling along I know Mr Heiser is looking for judges as everyone said prism was absolutely wonderful I think I've been there 17 times now and it's just it just keeps getting better superintendent's Art Gallery was outstanding those are there still a display there aren't they they were up all weekend so okay okay just the information and the and the Artistry was unbelievable tomorrow board members of the weekend were going around to the five finalists for Teacher of the Year correct yes but we can't tell you where I know I know I know and then that's after the get more connected on our bios don't forget if you all turned your bios into Miss esplin okay don't forget that um Miss Maddox that's who gets always at mismatics I'm sorry okay we can edit it we
178can edit and thank you to all of our staff members all their hard work keeping our schools safe to the best of your ability and thank you to District staff who is always here late with these meetings and they're all starting their day around 7 30 a.m so we appreciate you those who celebrate Hanukkah happy Hanukkah happy Kwanzaa merry Christmas happy holidays very very grateful to all of you if there's nothing else Dr Moore anything else nope just very thankful for the opportunity to serve in what is an absolute wonderful place this is a very special time and uh school system life this is the only two weeks in which we are completely shut down so we don't have to worry about the phone ringing we don't have to worry about maybe the occasional vandalism
179or something like that but this is the one opportunity and school system life where you get the opportunity to truly disconnect um my team I can't thank them enough they bend over backwards to be in service of children uh as do our teachers our principals our administrators um there's always going to be work to do but I couldn't think of a better place to be doing this work with better people thank you Dr Moore and we appreciate you you're all your hard work all right it is 8 23 this meeting is adjourned