School Board Leasing Corporation and Business Meeting 6 p.m. 11-13-23

001evening everyone for those of you just joining us I would like to welcome you to the school board meeting this is our business meeting in the Joe n Idol at Jr Tec today is Monday November 13 2023 I would like to call this meeting to order the time is 6 o' in the evening I ask that out of respect for everyone please silence all electronic devices at this time also if you have any material you would wish to share with a board member please give it to our executive assistant Mrs Moray she's over here thank you thank you at this time I'd like to ask Mr Fagen to please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance a we get to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands

002one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all pleas for March the Pledge of Allegiance was led by Vero Beach High School Air Force Junior Roc Detachment 43 under the direction of major retired Dean rasdale and senior master sergeant retired sha Roode thank you at this time board members um I'd like to call for the adoption of the orders of the day are there any items board members wish to move from consent to action I would Mrs Rosario um item 7A which is the approval of the 2023 2024 4.5% salary increase for all non-bargaining employees to action okay anything else any other board members all right I'm going to call uh for a motion to accept the adoption of the orders of the day as amended I move for the adoption of the

003ORD of the day as amended Dr Jones first second Mr Barefoot all those in favor say I I anyone opposed it passes 5- Z all right I'd like to recognize Dr Moore for any pres presentations that you may have tonight thank you Madame chair um we will Begin by introducing to you our just announced assistant principal and principal of the year for the year 2324 so Friday we had the opportunity to surprise um our assistant principal of the year we met in the lobby and we drove over to Vero Beach Elementary School where we had the opportunity to surprise Miss Sarah van Brer who is the 2324 assistant principal of the Year insert Applause it is always an honor to be selected in any system as the assistant principal of the year or principal of

004the year what makes this a little more special in our district is they're actually nominated and voted on by their peers uh so not only is she representing us uh it was her colleagues who are also assistant principls who said she's absolutely uh the next one to serve as assistant principal of the year so Miss Sarah van Brer can you come up here let us applaud [Applause] you I'm gonna ask Miss van Brimmer just to say a few words we're going to give her a plaque we gave her a plaque on Friday but but we forgot to sign it so now we're giving her a signed plaque so miss van Brer the floor is yours thank you so much really an hon to be recognized in a system of such high performing leaders and so

005it is just an amazing OPP to shine light on all of the great that are iniver County and so thrilled to be a small part of that thank [Applause] you congratulations I just want to personally thank uh miss van Brer uh she served as a quasi principal when um the principal was out on maternity leave she's worked uh backtack Summers ensuring that our moonshot initiative is in place uh always a smile on her face always willing to figure out um how to get something done in a true instructional leader and that's what we need in a school system instructional leader so thank you and congratulations and now for our principal of the year which was a true treat when we went to surprise this principal we ended up in the courtyard in the entire school

006was in the courtyard so my first question is how does a principal not know the entire school because she's got because she has the best AP ever um and if you ever needed to be reminded as to how powerful uh the role of principal is all you have to do is see the Love on the faces of the children as they shouted shouted shouted uh the principal's name so miss Rachel finin can you come up here and be acknowledged as this your's principal VI uh I'm deeply humbled and honored uh to be representing the school district of Indian River County as this year's principal of the year uh a huge thank you to sha o' Kee for his nomination and to my colleagues for selecting me as principles we instructionally lead for the best interest

007of our students our future to me being an educat is the most fulfilling career in the world and I have three sitting in the audience today Lucas Lance and Ella so I'm so proud of you for being here this evening as well to support one your brother who's speaking tonight and Lance for your role in the community this award is a true Testament to the work of my administrative team teachers staff students families and Community Partners my school team's dedication determination and passion creates an educational environment where we all ride the wave of success together to support our students so they experience the best educational Journey possible at Beachland thank you for this opportunity for me to represent a group of principles to Spotlight our work our enthusiasm and our school team's a achievements to

008be best by the children of Indian River County thank you right in the middle thank you con just once again just both Rachel and Sarah outstanding uh leaders and our community they go above they go beyond always willing to uh problem solve and figure out what needs to be done to be in service of our children just very excited for them it's congratulations now we have to give you this big old packet you got to fill out all this extra stuff uh and we look forward to you representing us at the state level I think you both have outstanding opportunities uh to go to the next level our next presentation is on Veterans Day and what you'll see is a slideshow that we'd like to just um run through so over the last several days

009starting Thursday Friday um and as well as today our schools were very strategic and providing opportunities to connect our veterans to our students and we had problem solved with our veterans uh Association to make sure how do we make sure that we really honor and connect our veterans on Veterans Day so it was extremely powerful our veterans probably gained 15 pounds over the last three days because they had so many different either lunches or breakfasts to go to uh and it was an opportunity uh to connect and just so proud of our principles and being Innovative and creative um in celebrating our veterans when I was at gford middle school I had the opportunity to run into Lucas woo who's a student on my student advisory uh superintendence Council and while he was at the

010event for gford middle school he had the opportunity to read a essay that he wrote um for a contest from from VF W we're still waiting on him to be announced as the winner but the fact that I I asked him to be here today syney uh to read his poem honestly to inspire all of us uh just by listening to his words that he put uh pen to paper and write down as I listened to him I was just so excited um for what he stands for and how he put together this essay so Louis Lucas if you can come up here and let us have it we would greatly appreciate it right there right on the podium good evening my name is Lucas woo and I'm a student at the giord middle school

011I would like to start by thanking the members of our wonderful School Board my principal Dr bacon and our superintendent Dr Moore thank you during our English classes here at Gord each student was asked to craft an essay on how America and inspires them these essays were then entered into a national contest held by the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization I would like to read you my potentially winning submission yeah there is no normal in America there's no image of the absolute American America's culture does not lie in its tradition or stereotype it does not lie in the color of one's skin the way of one's upbringing or the similarities two share America is built upon a dream a dream that somebody can be part of something bigger than themselves and pursue their own happiness

012in a shared empty canvas where no one picks the way that you want to live this is why America inspires me my father was born in Peru of Chinese descent while his birthplace will always be in Peru he never felt that he was as accepted there growing up in grade school he was known to his peers as the Chinese kid he did not fit the tight cookie cutter mold of the stereotyped individual from that region it was only when he came to America that he saw mixed people like him they were being seen as themselves rather than some cultural exception to a mold meant to define a country America's molds cannot be seen from the outside simply put America's mold is what an individual holds closest to their heart the values of capitalism individualism equality

013and the will to make their dreams the success in a nation of dreamers America is an empty canvas where you have the freedom to paint your own path and find others who share a similar Vision like you now while I hold this value of meritocracy extremely close to my heart America also inspires me by the special calling it has to be a force for good around the world America is a true model democracy for other countries that graciously receive our humanitarian and Military assistance in times of need perhaps this balance between individualism and unity is what makes America so special this balance is what it means to be an American and more importantly why America inspires me thank you thank you so much Dr Moore for this opportunity thank you so much I don't know

014if counts but he wins and thank you for timing that perfectly with our slideshow that was not planned thank you Lucas we appreciate you coming did you know we were going to put music to hey you know what why don't we make an exception why don't you come up here with us you deserve it would you like to would you like to chare the meeting put him in the center great job [Applause] well so Lucas uh is like this all the time he is one of these students who's on my uh superintendent advisory Council and we have opportunities to meet four or five times a year and during the this is his first year at gford Middle School on the on the council uh and he came to the very first meeting when he found

015out he was going to serve on this committee uh with a full-on PowerPoint presentation where he set up I'm not even exaggerating um at lunchtime asked students you know what things do we at gford Middle School need to focus in on because I'm going to go and and meet with the superintendent we met just last week so I'll be going uh to his school to meet with the principal uh and a team of students that he's actually leading to bring about positive change at gford middle school so not only is in the classroom so as you look at this room it looks a little bit different um for this meeting uh we have yellow notes that are scattered throughout the entire room uh today is the national day of kindness and we thought as a

016system let's celebrate this by asking our students across our entire school system what kindness means to them uh so what you see around you are the words of our children K through 12 sharing uh their words of kindness so as we move throughout the meeting today uh and you're standing and waiting Fe please feel free to read uh some of those inspiring words we are going to have a presentation on on kindness this is National kindness month and I'm going to ask Rachel story if you could come to how I do okay on the last name pretty good um if she can come to the podium Rachel is currently a senior at Viro Beach Senior High School she is the founder and president of the school's student L creative writing club that aims to provide

017a welcoming and inclusive environment for high school students to share their passion for creative writing even at very young age Rachel has always loved to write poetry and short fiction and she hopes to inspire other teenagers uh to do the same so to kick off our presentation on National Day of kindness and kindness in our school system and around Indian River County uh Rachel is going to kick us off with a poem that she wrote hello everybody so going after that is just terrifying when you run for president one day I will vote for you so happy National kindness day everybody to celebrate I wrote a poem that's half about my mother's addiction to watching those inspirational speeches you see on Facebook and half about how kindness is something everybody can give it doesn't matter

018where you come from or who you are you can always always the kind so this is my poem to be human my mother upon hearing that I was asked to write a poem about kindness urged me to to watch a speech she had seen where a man stepped up to the podium and said to be human is to be kind but I disagreed surely kindness could not have come from the same source as the war torn Wasteland as words regretted as damage done as the unforgiving fist of man kindness could not have been human but I did not know where it had come from so I rifled through the history books for an answer and there it was scribbled in the footnotes of humanity in the first sign of civilization a healed femur or in

019the volcanic ruins of pom the mold of a mother desperately shielding her child from Death itself or in the short phone calls from flights during 911 how every last message was three words long and when I looked around I saw a tired nurse visiting the lonely patient and a single mother feeding hungry kids and a phone call made to a far away friend a quick how are you the three-word message so maybe that speaker was right that to be human is to be kind but what he did not mention was that there is no guaranteed kindness in in great Humanity it is us who makes kindness human again thank you another one my goodness there we [Music] go more got some more come up she's like why didn't he let me come up here be

020part of the teamk so in order to set up this presentation around national day of kindness we do have a video that we'd like to to play right now as the school district of Indian River County celebrates World kindness day students from the superintendent student advisory Council shared with us projects they have been working on to spread kindness in their schools and Community we had a kindness project that we've been working on for the past few months um specifically throughout October which is anti-bullying month we wanted to just spread some love the way that we came up with to do this is after we met with our principal Mr Cummings we decided that we would hand out lollipops with affirmations connected to them to people and it was a great way to get a lot

021of smiles I think it was a really great way for people to just know that there are people out there who love them and even though the world can seem like such a scary and hateful Place sometimes that um there are definitely people who still have kind words for you no matter who you are it can sometimes be really challenging in such a busy world to find time to spread kindness but it's such an important thing to do and I'm really glad that we got that opportunity our kindness project for the first quarter was to make a pledge to help people with ALS and any person or family afflicted by this disease and we made this Pledge on a poster and we brought it to one of our homecoming week events and we had people

022sign it to basically pledge that they will be there in support of these people and then we also did the day of caring on homecoming week on October 21st and we did a school beautification project for our kindness project we did a Hawaiian day because we did on September 15th cuz September 16th was International Coastal cleanup day so going along with that everyone dressed up on Hawaii day they paid a dollar so then the fun goes to the school as well and like it spreads out to different clubs I think had a lot of people participate even teachers participate which was great along with that we passed out like Coastal cleanup papers and we had students participate the next day in coastal cleanup to support the ocean and get like all that nasty stuff out

023of the water life is too short not to be kind and like when you are kind it makes the other person feel good and it makes you feel good and the more kind you are you get kindness back too and it's just good to be kind being kind is important because it's like you never know what they're going through at home or like personally you just really never know during the last superintendent's student advisory council meeting Rabbi burnol spoke to students about spreading kindness and shared a new CommunityWide campaign we came up with viru Beach kind how do we spread kindness in the community and our first part of this messaging campaign is the spread Sunshine not hate campaign we have stickers we have a website we've been giving out cards the perfect outcome would

024be to see lots of people wearing the te wearing the T-shirt or having the sticker but the perfect outcome would be to see more people as much as we want it's to spread the campaign but it's really to spread the value to see that person to be out in the community and to see somebody in one of those moments of conflict or one of those moments of Challenge and to say wait a second to see them stop and pause and take that breath and say I don't want to live in the world that [Music] way so in creating the the superintendent advisory Council I asked our secondary principles to give me the leaders give me the individuals who have influence over the students and the attent really is to work with them to create and

025refine their leadership skills but at the same time Focus their work on creating a positive culture in their school uh during our first meeting uh we came to the consensus that we're going to focus in on kindness at each each of our secondary schools um so what you saw in that video was our second meeting for the second nine weeks the second quarter of the year uh it did take place uh those students had the sneak peek of the New Media Center at Sebastian River Senior High School which we are going to unveil next Thursday Thursday at Wednesday this this Wednesday it it's Wednesday um but I would encourage you to come it is state-ofthe-art there is everything those students would want uh to get them into that space it's beautiful uh but that's Wednesday's

026presentation um that was the opportunity for them to refine problem solve and design what their um activities are going to be for the second nine weeks so to see this uh intentionality around kindness spreading against all of our secondary schools was just an absolutely uh rewarding experience now the rabbi was mentioned um in the presentation um and as I am working with our students he is working in the community uh along the same vein to continue to shine a light on kindness uh and I asked him not only to a come and speak to students who are sharing uh the effort around kindness but I would ask uh R bookal if you can come up here and just give us a few words regarding the work that you're doing in our community uh which is

027100% aligned to the work that our students are doing in our schools uh I would greatly appreciate it and you will you will notice the fine fashion statement that we are making with our shirts um and I have to say wait you had to re offer your beautiful poem after you offered your beautiful essay now I've got to come up here and follow the two of you how awesome and how incredible that is last month I stood at this Podium to offer acknowledge a proclamation for Holocaust Education week and last year my family and I my wife is a teacher here in Indian River schools my three children all grew up here in the school district we had the opportunity to go on a family trip to Europe we found ourselves in heidleberg Germany and

028one of the things that we were interested to see if we would find are something called stumbl stones or these little bricks that are inset into the sidewalk and say a Jewish family lived here a Jewish family was taken away during the Holocaust this is where that act of hatred happened and remember a Jewish family was here and we looked we were walking through hi highberg and we looked all over we looked all over and we didn't see one until we were walking back to our the apartment where we were staying and there at the house next door to where we were staying happened to look down onto the sidewalk and got a little glint of metal in the dark and turned on my flashlight on my phone and there happened to be a stumbl

029stone of all of the places in all of the miles we walked it was the house next door to where we were staying that had that Monument that memory and said a Jewish family had lived here and were victims of the Holocaust now I will say that as I saw that my wife and I were crying at that point of all of the places that that place of Brokenness and loss and memory we were on the train the next day we looked a little closer at the plaque and we were quite surprised that it didn't just say that they were taken away to a concentration camp it did then say they escaped a year later and went to Switzerland which was the route my family took so it was just it was this really incredible

030experience I share that with you because here I am a month later getting to talk about kindness and just like we were walking around Europe up saying do we see that stumbl stone that reminder of this was the place where the Holocaust that act of Senseless VI violence to an incredible degree happened here this month I get to spread sunshine and not hate how incredible is that it is it was amazing to hear from the superintendent that the student advisory council is working on kindness projects even as after a rash of anti-semitic literature I had reached out to The Wider community and said do other people want to stand up against hate and not just stand up against hate but spread kindness to spread sunshine to bring the positive as much as we stand up

031to the negative and so many if you start looking around the room so many people have start have come forward and said we want to be part of this and what we offer to this community what we bring here to our school district is not another organization and more presentations it's a messaging campaign just like we were looking for those stumbl stones how powerful it is for all of us whether it's with stickers whether it's with t-shirts whether it's with Hats whether it's with little cards can put those messages of spreading sunshine not hate out into our world and it's more than just the message it's a sign and a reminder as people meet you that's the value you're carrying into the world but more important and echoing so beautifully in your poem which was

032absolutely incredible is how hard the work of kindness is we have been finding and I have some absolutely amazing and incredible Partners they send me up to be the spokesperson for all of this but I assure you there are a lot of people spreading sunshine and not hate how surprising it is to us that it's not about telling someone else to be kind it's about reminding ourselves to be kind when we have those moments and you heard it in the video of conflict and challenge it's a beautiful interview with Stephen insk on NPR and he's been reporting on what's been happening in with Israel and with Gaza and he was talking with one of his neighbors she was a typical soccer mom she was Jewish she grew up here she has family in Israel one

033of her Rel relatives as one of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th so she was very sensitive she was out at a soccer game how many of us have been to India River Soccer Association on a Saturday morning to watch soccer all so many of us we have been in those spaces and somebody was saying something that really upset her something that was anti-israel and she went over to give him a piece of her mind and she found herself at her children's soccer game they're cursing and angry and frustrated and she stopped herself she took a step back and she said wait a second that's not what I want to bring into the world that's the hate that I want to stand up to and she went over to the people and she

034apologized she said that's not what we want to bring in the world she showed the picture of her relative and said this is why I'm so upset and it turned out that the father who was the most vitriolic was actually from Lebanon and he was then telling her his story they had to stop and listen to each other they ended up in tears and hugging with each other it doesn't fix all of the problems in the world it doesn't end War it doesn't take care of everything but how many of those interactions where we're reminded to spread Sunshine not hate that we're REM reminded to stop and listen to each other stop and give each other space stop and take care of each other do that powerful work of making bringing out the kindness of

035our Humanity how many of those things can we do here in the school district of Indian River County in our whole community of Indian River County to really start to change the world and so we come with a challenge we also come I think with baseball caps for the school board to see how far we can not just spread the message but spread the value to give people a way to stop and act differently in our challenging World in these challenging times to really spread sunshine and not hate and bring make viru Beach and all of Indian River County a place of real kindness so thank you so much for this invitation and wear these hats proudly and wear them in good health and wear them with lots of kindness in your heart thank you

036thank you I was going to say get them a picture now yes should we wear a hat yeah I'm throwing my hat on oh wait a minute good job was going to get on barefoot's dead but looks [Laughter] like I have some hair you don't I know Bo boom boom let's not go there need to inside the got more thank you all thank you so our next um presentation I'm actually going to take um item C before Item B it's going to be a a tough one um the first conversation I ever had with this individual um was when he came up introduced himself and told me you know my name is Mr Ron Fagan I'm your Chief Financial Officer uh he had been here here for about a month month and a half maybe

037before I got here and he says for every dollar we received from the state of Florida we're spending about $137 we are in grave danger but as a result of his leadership his unwavering commitment uh to put the needs of children in front of all other things uh grit determination uh the will to work until is absolutely right uh Mr Fagan has led the way to improve all of our financial ratings from negative to positive uh we are in a place where we have the highest fund balance in the history of our school district where just five four years ago uh we are on the verge of financial bankruptcy uh Mr Fagan is a problem solver Mr Fagan is a true leader uh a man of integrity and when you do great things people notice

038uh they notice the the commitment the stability of our school system uh so bigger districts that got more money um come in and and get you to come back home um one of the most interesting things uh not most but inspiring things about Mr Fagan um in some ways I feel like I had to push him to go because of his commitment to this community um but ultimately um they're acknowledging Mr Fagan Mr Fagan will be leaving us and returning to duvol counties where he will serve as a chief financial uh officer for I think for the 20th largest nation in uh 20th largest school district in the nation and that says something uh to Mr Fagan's skills and ability so this is going to be hard but your staff is going to read uh

039a proclamation for you proclamation in honor of Ronald a Fagan November 13th 2023 in appreciation for his service to our district whereas Mr Fagan has served as the Chief Financial Officer for the school district of vyan River County since July 15th 2019 and whereas Mr Fagan had a profound focus on increasing the level of fiscal transparency with the budget process and financial reporting and whereas Mr Fagan introduced and implemented the staff allocation model to provide informed Equitable focused adaptable and responsible budgeting of staff at each School site to provide resources to meet the needs of all children at that location and whereas Mr Fagan was instrumental in the upgrade in our standard and pores rating from AA minus negative to AA minus stable and maintained our ratings of A1 stable and A+ stable for Moody's

040and fit respectively and whereas Mr Fagan provided leadership for the one toone student laptop Initiative for every student K to 12 and whereas Mr Fagan develop Financial strategies that increased our fund balance to 26 million at the end of 2023 and whereas Mr Fagan negotiated single-ear vendor contracts into multi-year agreements protecting the school district in a volatile and everchanging market and whereas Mr Fagan identified and implemented enhancements regarding key processes for internal controls and accounting procedures and whereas Mr Fagen in collaboration with District bargaining units and District leadership was able to provide for pay increases for all employee groups now therefore the school board of Indian River County hereby proclaims November 13 2023 as Ronald a Fagan day adopted this 13th day of November he's got a lot of girlfriend so you expect me to

041follow that so it was a Bittersweet decision that I did leave but I've enjoyed every moment here my team is outstanding and incredible it's a wonderful place to live and work not only did I get to be the CFO but I got to dress up as Papa Smurf one time I dressed up as the bopo banker and I got dressed up like a turkey outside for some reason I can't remember why but Thanksgiving Day lunch thank you so not only did I enjoy myself tremendously but I hope I was able to make a positive contribution even though this complication has my name on it it really belongs to my [Applause] tee picture are you g to make him take a picture with us all he's got to get the hugs in all right girlfriend can

042we respond oh absolutely before he comes up yeah yeah you change your shirt I'm just Kidd we had Jack Mar that's everyone yeah like the entire cabinet certainly get in Middle [Laughter] monkey in the middle one more over all right ready one two and three awesome hav take a photo [Applause] right and Mr Seymour will present yeah I'm sorry go ahead um I just wanted to say thank you for everything I remember how the district was before or at least the department was before you came and um I don't know know who in the world cries reading a proclamation over the work of finances um and how well you managed our budget and then there are tears um that is not about the money it's not about the numbers that's about the love and the

043care and the attention that you have given to each and every person that you have come into contact with everyone um for me I didn't work with you on a daily basis but when I did it felt as if it was every single day your tonight celebrating kindness couldn't have come at a more perfect time you are the exemplary of kindness you are going to be missed terribly uh most people don't know that um we really didn't have such a great relationship with our Charters um our Charter Schools you know before you came along and you have managed to even close the gap there and Men fences where I get incredible I've shared this with Dr Moore incredible um compliments over how um professional and how kind and how willing you are to work with

044them and to build relationships and um I just I cannot say any more wonderful things um you are going to be missed you are going you are loved your department I know how much they're going to miss you you've turned that department into just a functioning Department surviving um to a family I mean even to the point of walking with them during lunch that to me is leader that's a servant leader so congratulations our loss is their gain but you will be missed terribly okay anyone else you just exemplify when you establish a relationship and make that connection everything is just a little bit easier because of the personal connections and thank you for your service everybody um we're going to vote on the proclamation but before that Ron um before you came it was

045you know I was just on the board and we were going through all kinds of things and one thing we were going through a lot of was the financial issues I appreciate everything being cleaned up um but I appreciate how much you brought that team together I would walk into that space and see a lot of really sad people and now I see people that are sad because you're leaving they're sad again Ron darn you but I know uh that you've left your imprint here and we appreciate that very much thank you and we wish you well so at this time we'd like to do um our vote for the proclamation I don't have the actual vote here but we'll wing it so I'd like um call for a motion for the proclamation so second

046uh so moved Dr PCA and Dr Jones um all those in favor with a resounding yes say anyone opposed it passes unanimously thank you you won't get to dress up like you did here and Deval so so now i' like to Mr tesy and Mr Seymour to present the resolution of the adoption of the Statewide Mutual Aid agreement right before Mr tesy I'd just like to say too uh this is a vet uh he gave his speech today Veterans Day in uniform and uh we got to give him a round of applause in addition to that while he started his speech if you know what jets are from pay a lot of money for these to F22 raps flew over at the exact same time that was big thank you he coordinated it yeah I

047wish I could say they were there just for me but they were they were there for all veterans at Storm Grove Mr Taylor and his staff did a wonderful job today for for Veterans Day but uh that'll be one for the record books I don't think we'll ever top that one um so good evening uh Mr Seymour and I would like to share the uh resolution for the adoption of the Statewide Mutual Aid agreement agement um I don't think either one of us will be crying during this Proclamation uh that's a tough act to follow but we'll do our best because it is very important it does allow us Outreach with the state and other districts to come to each other's Aid in times of need for natural disasters and hurricanes and we're very close

048to exiting hurricane season so we will keep our fingers crossed that we do not have to utilize this for the resolution for adoption of the Statewide Mutual Aid agreement resolution number 202 24- 07 whereas the State of Florida emergency management act chapter 252 authorizes the state and its political subdivisions to provide emergency aid and assistance in the event of a disaster or emergency and whereas the statutes also authorize the state to coordinate the provision of any equipment services or facilities owned or organized by the state or its political subdivisions by use in the affected area upon the request of the duly constituted authority of the area and whereas this resolution authorizes the request provision and receipt of interjurisdictional mutual assistance in accordance with the Emergency Management act chapter 252 among political subdivisions within the state

049and now therefore be it resolved the school board of Indian River County that in order to maximize The Prompt full and effective use of resources of all participating governments in the event of an emergency or disaster we hereby adopt the Statewide Mutual Aid agreement which is attached here to and Incorporated by reference okay thank you gentlemen all right so we have a resolution for adoption of Statewide Mutual Aid agreement ment number 20247 I need a motion to approve a motion please second all those in favor say I I I anyone opposed we pass this 5 Z thank you gentlemen we appreciate it very much thank you for your Serv thank you that concludes presentations okay um at this time we are to Citizen input 3A guidelines for citizen input each statement made by a member

050of the public shall be limited to 3 minutes in duration I will be recognizing an order to which the requests were receive the time will shall start when the speaker is at the podium and the public information officer no the attorney will be the official timekeeper oh you are the official timekeeper okay Switching that up here we go uh as you see the time clock is visible to the uh our left of the Das your left of the dis and um you will hear a beep at the end of your three minutes each person may speak for up to 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 and each

051board member discussion item as indicated on the order of business if a consent item is moved to action item when you come up to the podium you may speak at that time or defer to speak during the presentation of the action item people may only speak once about any given item the time period may be extended by the presiding officer only the individual submitting a speaker's form is allowed to address the board time may not be yielded to other speakers during the meeting please refrain from clapping or outbursts of any sort so that we may proceed with dignity and decorum by not infringing on any individual's First Amendment rights and to be kind I need to remind everyone to direct all comments to the chair not to individual board members or to the superintendent board

052members may or may not address any citizen input statements at the end of 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 1000 1372 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 the expeditious or oops or or orderly process of such meeting provided such officer has first issued a warning that continued interference with the orderly processes of the meeting will result in removal the first warning is to everyone at this time I will be calling you up two at a time the first person will be called to the podium to speak the second person will be in

053line behind that the speaker shall not engage in personal attacks or abusive language please the chair has the right to terminate any speaker's privilege to address the board if this rule is violated if you have anything to give to board members or the superintendent please do so through our executive assistant Mrs Moray it is clear that the board has taken action to comply with the law regarding instructional materials including library books if you are here to express your opinion regard regarding HB 1069 on materials in school libraries we would ask that you visit staff in the LI Lobby to initiate the challenge process finally the school district supports First Amendment rights of speakers and rights outlined in HB 1069 regarding Library materials as such some individuals may choose to exercise these rights which may include

054reading material with language or content that is not appropriate for all audiences knowing this please make a viewing decision in appropriate for you and your family all right at this time I'd like to call up the first speaker and um call the second name as well Valerie Brandt Wilson is first speaker and Christina Simmons is on Deck good evening good evening and thank you for allowing me to speak today I Valerie Brandt Wilson stand before you as NAACP parental rights Comm committee chair and a proud member of ada8 Omega chapter of alpha cap Alpha Sor Incorporated we Al with our members students and parents ask that this body not adopt American history standards that teach black Americans benefited from slavery as a direct descendants of enslaved people we find this statement offensive and a mockery

055of what our ancestors had to endure to gain their civil rights in the country where the pre and the Constitution have Merit in 2022 Governor Ronda Santa signed House Bill seven individuals Freedom into law which restrict how topics of race can be discussed in K through 12 classroom the law requires African-American history instruction not to be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view as parents and community members we do not want our students to learn false information we only want Factory history and books that allow our students to think today we also ask this body not to allow the members of mom for Liberty to dictate how education is taught in our schools especially on banding books and how African-American history is taught on October the 23rd 2023 I sat

056behind Jennifer Pippen she proudly wore a t-shirt that said I don't want government co-parenting with me Miss Pippin we don't want you co-parenting with our parents the word public means that it's accessible to all people this mean an open invitation to learn an educational system with diverse environments where children come from single parent two parent same seex Jewish Italian Irish Hispanic Viet Vietnamese Chinese native American Latina and yes black American Homes the word public also means having an open view respect to tolerance to all people to respect all people and the teaching environment must allow all books to be used in the curriculum in a controlled climate open to various opinion students want to learn AP American history should not be Deni this right students who wish to understand the dress Scot decision and why

057enslaved people were denied the rights to read and write must be taught in a factal context do you know that learning to read and right was considered an act of resistance for black Americans like today black lives matter is regarded as a form of resistant if the LBT I'm out of time Florida is ranked number two in the nation in books banded the law allows only one parent to inhibit the ability of a student thank you thank you appreciate it all right Christina Simmons is next Alyria Lester is on back good evening to the board and superintendent Moore thank you for allowing me to address the board today because I strongly believe that our students deserve to know their history there are many who refuse to acknowledge that racism bias and in in inequity exists

058teaching should always teach the truth in history of America these include the history of all people and the injustices that many faced and continue to face are we truly teaching our history if we choose to leave part parts of it out slavery will never be perceived as a benefit to the African-American people but it is part of American History too many black people suffered died and sacrificed their lives for the true history of the true story of History not to be told African-American history is more is about more than slavery is it but it encompasses tremendous challenges contributions and accomplishments experiences that should never be overlooked or forgotten slavery benefits the slave owners not the slave students such as myself should be educated about the true experience of African-American people because it because it is

059part of the foundation of America to conclude students deserve to know our history knowledge about our past and the history of this country good and bad is power the power to understand and create change the knowledge that includes appropriate curriculum and lessons focus on historical figures events and the impact knowledge that also include social emotional learning empathy and self-awareness we must teach the truth of change thank you thank you alyia Lester is next and Jeff is it leak or leaky sorry if I mispronounced names good evening to the superintendent in the board African-American for me what does that mean you see my skin color and here I am speaking to each of you I honor those who have made the sacrifices before me so that I can be here to stand in front of you

060this evening a straight A student at real Beach High School please take a moment to consider this if this curriculum is approved children like me will learn that slaves benefited from being enslaved this is an extremely offensive remark that could lead to conflict in the classroom and within Society slavery had a significant impact on history and helped to form modern day America we deserve to learn the truth did slavery benefit the slaves no being kidnapped transported bought sold enslaved beaten raped castrated Lynch share crop Jim Crow and disenfranchise did not benefit the slaves we had had money systemically robbed from us during slavery when brutally racist oppressors violently forced us to labor 365 days a year without any financial compensation whatsoever from 1619 to 1865 slavery was the engine that propelled Europe's and its American

061colonies to rise to power slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution moreover as documented by the Gilder lman Institute of American History by 1840 the South grew 60% of the world's cotton and provided some 70% of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry thus slavery paid for a substantial share of capital iron and mag manufactured goods that laid the basis for American economic growth David blight an American history professor at Yale University revealed that by 1860 there were million more millionaires living in the Lower Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in the United States in the same year the nearly 4 million African-American slaves were worth some 3.5 billion making them the largest single financial asset in the entire us e economy worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined if we lose the history of

062slavery what other parts of History will vanish in the future a curriculum that claims that slavery was beneficial to Slaves is conceited idiotic and inconsiderate I hope that all in this room especially the board will support students like me teaching the history of our country includes everyone's history let's focus on creating creating Equitable and healthy learning communities where every student feels seen validated and acknowledged thank you thank you thank you all right Jeff is it leak or leaky silent okay leak and uh Gregory Ross is on Deck thank you and good evening and what a great way to kind of start out American Education week which is what the first day that we're in right now honoring students determination to learn recognizing the professionalism and dedication of our teachers support staff and other Educators and

063thanks parents and members of the community who help students succeed and rededicates the community at large to Quality public education for every student I want to thank all the Educators and support staff here in Indian River County for their dedication to helping students learn and for broadening student Horizons even as others seem to Delight in making that task ever more difficult speaking of dismantling public education there's the clan Karen Hood with all the censorship and none of the Liberty according to an analysis by Media Matters moms for Liberty benefits financially from right-wing funding and ties to political figures who work day and night to create confusion and distrust in our Public Schools deepen divisions among parents and make it more challenging for schools to to educate students we know that book bands and censorship violate

064the principles of free speech we know that extreme positions targeting children for exclusion and bullying are unacceptable concerned citizens and parents must do everything they are able to do to stop the extremist whose real aim is to remove literature from school libraries dismantle public public education and impose their world viw on others true indoctrination let's take heart and learn from the election activities that led to success last Tuesday when voters in five out of Six States stood up against the extremists voted them out of office and elected real public education Advocates join with others who oppose m forl two possibilities to keep you informed stop moms for liberty or moms against moms for Liberty two organizations that are out there as concerned as I am about what's happening with moms for Liberty don't wait for

065the next election cycle get involved now step up to protect real public education thank you thank you sir um Gregory Ross and Cindy Gibbs is on Deck good evening board thank you for this opportunity to speak I am here this evening once again to address this board and the citizens in this room on the extremism bigotry and hate that has raised itself in this County from the Slime that is Christian nationalism I am here once again to provide support and Good Will to the school board members faculty and staff of the school district of Indian River County who are pushing back against against the ignorance of a vial a vocal minority I'm here once again to encourage the reasonable members of this board and the real Patriots in this room to continue doing what you

066do in the face of Evangelical extremism and what is it you are doing what is the action I speak of Simply it is doing the right thing so I say to you when extremists demand to ban books to push their religious biases do the right thing and reject this attempt to rule by religion and discrimination when racists demand to remove consideration of diversity equity and inclusion from school policies do the right thing and reject this attempt to return to the days of Jim Crow when authoritarians demand to Armed teachers in schools do the right thing and reject their attempts to normalize weapons in schools when bigots demand to segregate Ese and lgbtq students from their classmates and friends do the right thing and reject their attempts to divide us as a community when extremists demand

067to ignore Public Health measures do the right thing and reject their attempt to weaken us as a society and put others at risks when racists demand to remove relevant and accurate statements about racism from textbooks do the right thing and reject their attempt to belittle the experiences of minorities in America when authoritarians demand that underserved students be removed from public schools and sent to Alternative Learning Centers do the right thing and reject the attempts to return to the days of segregation when fascists rally around parental rights do the right thing and reject their attempts to lower educational standards to the lowest common denominator lastly when you are faced with political pressure to do the wrong and immoral things the extremists push for remember this their influence in day in the spotlight will pass as can

068be seen across this great nation during the recent election ction extremist candidates endorsed by moms for Liberty moms for America and the 1776 Foundation were widely denounced by the electorate on November 7th 2023 the Turning of the tide is here hope reason logic and empathy is present in public education here in Indian River County though it is harder to see soon it will return to the Forefront of public education over the hate ignorance and irrationality of these extremist groups to all of you real Patriots listening keep doing the right thing I and many others support you thank you Mr Ross Cindy Gibbs next speaker Debbie padnick is on De good evening if you were very ill and were seeking a doctor to treat you and heal you would you want the doctor who just showed

069up occasionally on a PR status or do you want the Highly Educated highly qualified doctor of course you want the leader in their field with the latest proven information and methods to help you to get back on your feet we've lost eight teachers to resignation in the last several weeks how many students does that affect how many kids with special needs does that affect our substitute teachers briefed on IEPs and learning plans for the kids in their classes how many of our kids could reach their highest academic potential if only someone at school cared enough about them as a person to get them there instead when teachers are leaving as they are doing frequently these days we take the good teachers and we move them to the higher achieving classrooms and leave the lower achieving

070kids with substitutes sometimes a different teacher every day for weeks at a time who is writing these lessons who is checking in on these classrooms we need to remember that even in the midst of powerbi and data-driven results we are teaching children living breathing people who deserve to be treated as such and not as statistics on spreadsheets while we're on the topic of humanitarian assistance let's talk about lunch how can we make sure that every kid who needs one gets a hot lunch at school are we making adequate attempts to get kids who need it signed up for free or reduced price lunch I've heard that there's a new fund forming in the memory of our beloved teacher Tim Fela whose family wants to be sure kids don't have who don't have the money don't

071get stuck with the dry cheese sandwich that nobody wants trust me they throw it out is it possible to get a system in place that Bridges the gap between a kid lacking a free or reduced price lunch and a hot tray of food and not in front of the cash register when all of their pairs are standing around them I'm aware that the cafeterias are a for-profit system but hungry kids can't learn thank you for your time thank you Debbie padik is next Angela bowling is on Deck hi um I'm a grandmother of two young women in the Indian River County School System and I have opinions what this messaging campaign that I thank you for presenting tonight Bureau Beach beind is about reminding me to express those opinions with respect and to listen to

072others and I want to thank you for the opportunity to do that tonight and to spread sunshine and stop hate thank you thank you Angela bowling and Anthony Brown is on Deck hello everybody I am a member of the American Association of University women and a proud new member of the NAACP also a proud parent of four children who graduated through our public school system at ver Beach High School um after our September 25th school board meeting I I felt inspired by some of the comments that were made by the school board members and I wrote a letter to each of the members with a suggested letter that could possibly be agreed upon by all the board members to send off to the State Board of Education expressing your concerns about the African-American history standards

073especially the one that has gotten the most focus and um disagreement with I only heard back from one of the board members and so I came tonight to re askk that you agree upon a letter that could be sent to that to a to agree to send off to the board of education and our governor um quoting one of the members from September 25th it was said the truth is that none of the people who wrote this standard want it taught in schools that slavery is beneficial and no one on this board wants it either and we're not going to let it be taught in our schools that slavery was a positive thing for anybody I have a hard time reading The Benchmark clarification in question that said says instruction includes how slaves developed skills

074which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit I I can't read that and think that it's not saying that slaves sometimes got personal benefit out of the instruction that they the skills that they were developing as slaves so since you all seem to agree on that state statement that they didn't that you don't want to say that they benefited from slavery please reconsider writing a letter together the the um the board members who perhaps have not already sent a letter off to the Board of Education could construct a letter you could use the one that I suggested to you as a model and um and then agree to that because we really do need to support our African-American students and help them be seen and heard and supported thank you thank you

075Anthony Brown is next and David Flint is on Deck good evening board Anthony Brown uh tonight I'm once again conflicted uh through the chair I know the superintendent understands that there are many documents that our students parents have to sign that they are holding to uh that they have to abide by or they'll be expelled uh discipline contracts and other things my confliction is that board members you signed a ethics agreement that you're not living up to that sends a bad message being that you are custodial have custodial care of our children you too must be responsible another thing is African-American standards something in it is good but the majority is bad so don't throw the baby out with the bath what whatever but I want to go somewhere where you have parents Bill of

076Rights and banning books among you are some board members who are adamant about banning books so I would go into parents Bill of Rights and use it to help us understand how it can be used for us as African-Americans if you're going to ban books I say start with Thomas Jefferson I would implore all African-American females when anything with Thomas Jefferson has brought up to go to their principles and say they are offended any women thommen Jefferson kept sadly Heming a child in the basement for his sexual pleasures a child a African-American child he exploited her he was a pedophile he was a sexual predator so when you're reading books if we're going to ban anything let's start with anything relative to Thomas Jefferson he was no good but I guess because we didn't have

077any worth and Sally Hond was a slave and she was property I guess it didn't really mean anything but when you go down this road of banning books be careful because we're going to use as is already been done these tactics that uh parents Bill of Rights are using we are in reading them we're getting an understanding of them and we're going to flip them right back on you because I'm going tell all the black children go to the principal and say I'm offended and they have that book removed so be careful how you move forward and addressing the needs of african-amer these two beautiful young black young ladies who came up here if you didn't hear them I feel sad for you thank you thank you Mr Brown David Flint is next Thomas Kenny

078is on Deck good evening school board members uh chairperson Baron Borg thank you again for your willingness to serve congratulations we appreciate uh your service my name is David Flint I'm a father of multiple children currently enrolled here in schools in Indian River County uh today is November 13th World kindness day you guys already figured that out um the first world kindness day was celebrated on this day in 1998 a world kindness day is to highlight good deeds in the community focusing on POS the positive power and the common thread of kindness kindness is a fundamental part of the human condition and bridges The Divide of race religion politics gender and location the theme for this year is be kind wherever possible kindness is the act of being kind deliberately doing good for others the

079word kindness is rooted in various different tongues in different ways is been taught for thousands of years kindness appears in the Bible over 200 times it's mentioned in the Quran over a hundred times Buddha exhorts kindness through the wish towards all people in glad and in safety may all beings be at ease or at peace the word literally translates as loving kindness to care for to be a blessing for others it's a primary ethical virtual uh virtue in judeo-christian teachings kindness teaches us to lift up each day to make that day special by performing acts of kindness for others even those that do not practice Faith even those who have no spirituality know kindness when they see it we we've talked a lot about what kindness is in the proclamations and a little bit of

080History here but what I see going on in the community right now is opportunities where kindness could be served and it's not when I see books being banned on the basis of CRT when they're not contain books containing CRT when I see posts being made on social media that are supposedly satire trying to be funny and even after being made of How Deeply offensive they are no apologies no taking it down but doubling down on the hate we need to do better we need to stop attacking marginalized communities there's no law against kindness against goodness or against love so my plea today for this board is to stop accepting the bigotry from a few small-minded community members who' rather espouse hate than kindness thank you uh Thomas Kenny as next Michael Marsh is on Deck

081Thomas Kenny uh policy and media from amster Liberty on kindness day being called a hate group it's pretty interesting but anyway I'm not going to talk about any of this stuff because um there's other important things you guys had today a discussion about a DSO and starting a foundation here at the school um I want to speak to that because it sounds like a great idea we have a $370 million to $400 million school system starting a foundation to raise funds that sort of concerns me and here's why um in Michigan there are a lot of dsos in their school districts and Kellogg managed to give them $31 million and moved a bureaucracy in and totally transformed how schooling was done there was a issue today about being specific or general and uh the person

082miss nup the D dor of development said you know the Gates Foundation might not want to give you money if you're being specific well that's because a lot of these foundations don't do it with altruistic intent they do it to superimpose what they believe you should teach or how you should teach or why you should teach which removes government because it becomes very uh bureaucracy Central control it removes the government of the school system from the locality and so we have issues like that here in our County already on much smaller scale than say the Gates Foundation through institutions like the Learning Alliance I want to pass this out to you guys real quick if you could pause my time I forgot to give this thank you thank you thank you T thank you ma'am'

083yeah I'm sorry Mr onb I don't have a paper for you what you have in front of you is on top you have the third grade FLD doe uh Ela scores for our school district and on the bottom you have three through five and at the very bottom you have 2003 I managed to get some of these because I've been looking at some of the stuff regarding the desegregation order we have yet to return to where we were in 2003 the highest set we've received here in third grade is a 60 last year 58 or last recorded year which is 2122 we haven't gotten 22 23 but what's really bugging me is level five it's losing points 9 to six it's going down level four a little bit stagnant it's went up to a high

084of 23 back down to 20 we're all focused on average here in our school district we need to be focused on getting the work done and making Excellence a priority thank you Mr Marsh um after that is May aseneno good evening boy as tough as it is I had changed my whole speech and I tell you boy it it is God from above because tonight I want to talk about sunshine violations and where my check was but I'm not going to do that I'm going to S an email later on kindness kindness is when a local attorney Miss Chestnut wakes up on Christmas morning to make sure those marginalized kids that we talk about have Christmas kindness is when the hope for Family Center doesn't close at 5:00 p.m. because that family has to wait

085until Monday to seek shelter kindness is when our friends at Kona Ice make sure we have to go plates for 1100 meals that we will do on Thanksgiving Day kindness is Dunkey Donuts saying you got a couple felonies I'm going to give you another chance kindness is when Indian River County Sheriff's office has goats yes there's goats at the jail kindness is when Captain Jones says these inmates need clothes when they get out kindness is the Salvation Army when they open up their kitchen so we can prepare those 1100 meals kindness is when Community Church opens up their kitchen so we can feed the entire indan River County kindness is when my friend Shayla from Treasure Coast girls Coalition says let's do 500 burgers at the shelter and make sure all kids get a little

086snack on Halloween kindness is when my buddy Dale rivers in a Vero Beach Police Department comes out on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas kindness is when my buddy Michael Paige from the Indian River Shore said can you just sit down somewhere and form a charity before they kill you kind that's funny for many kindness is when on Valentine's Day your director of Transportation says let's recognize these amazing bus drivers and everyone over there at Transportation kindness is when those individuals at Boys and Girls Clubs sees that there's a need for some kids and make sure they have it kindness is when love to serve make sure there's clothing for all these kids throughout the county kindness is when Rosie stubs from recycling Club make sure these teachers don't go in their pocket when these kid kids

087need school supplies kindness is Adam from orc services to make sure that turkey Bowl gives out thousands of meals kindness is when OTG liquidation says here's some soap to make sure the homeless have something to put on their hands kindness school district of Indian River County through the chair is when Dr Morris says let's have a thankful Day of Service that will be this Friday kindness is when board members and assistant superintendent come to a golf tournament to support domestic violence victims kindness is when Dr deia from Ireland Pediatrics saw this single dad in need in 2016 and said let's Supply Christmas to those beautiful interracial Queens on the back of my shirt kindness is when this CFO told my beautiful interacial Queens you have a great dad good night thank you Mr Marsh uh

088May asencio is next and Lance Lansford is on Deck good evening board I'm sure um all of you are aware of how fast artificial intelligence is infiltrating our everyday lives so fast in fact that our local state and federal laws are not able to keep up with it it's the reason that Tom Hanks and other celebrities have appeared on videos in social media but in reality it was not them someone was able to duplicate their image using Ai and have them say whatever they wanted but I'm not here to talk about celebrities children is the focus of this topic there are other examples of recent news stories where AI has been abused to exploit children but let me speak about one in the news recently is the story of a 14-year-old high school student in

089New Jersey her mom is fighting to change laws regarding AI because her daughter's face was used to generate a fake nude image and circulated among her classmates by another student this happened to her and several other female students at Westfield High in New Jersey this mom is taking her fight to her state representative and Senator to get legislation regulating AI passed at the state and federal level incred incredible that AI has exploded as quickly as it has and that laws do not exist to protect us especially children or that determine accountability right now in New Jersey it is not a significant crime to take a person's face and attach a pornographic image to it only a few AI bills or resolutions were introduced uced in Florida in the past couple of years but I could

090not find anything related to education or children this technology is evolving much quicker than laws can be placed on the books to protect our rights and that of our children's privacy but I tell you this story today to make the board aware aware that um this is a potential and of course very serious issue that may come up in our own schools and we do well to be proactive and prepared and think of solutions before that happens School distri districts around the country are dealing with challenges and impacts of AI and other technology available to students at any time and anywhere so please board ensure that Indian River County has safeguards in place to prevent this from occurring on our Network and school issued devices please ensure that there are clear guidelines for this new

091technology so it is used responsibly and now more than ever it is crucial that we enforce our code of conduct cell phone policy to not have cell phones out in schools and also please review the code of conduct cell phone policy to see if any changes may be warranted in light of this new technology an awful Trend thank you uh thank you Lance Lansford is our last speaker it's very tempting to make the best for last joke but I won't do it members of the school board first of all congratulations Miss barenborg as the new school board chair and Dr Jones was a pleasure to work with you over the past years as your in your tenur chair I'd like to thank the board for the productive relationship we had last year at the taxpayers

092association as many of you know I've had the privilege of serving as the chair of our school district committee and I like I'd like to quickly recognize two of our committee members Susan air and Rob McCallum for their service in keeping taxpayers informed on the issues of the school district being as this is the first Schoolboard meeting after the annual organization meeting that you all had I usually don't like to speak at a Schoolboard meeting or a public function if I don't have something to say I was an economic student so of course you know supply and demand the greater the quantity the lower the price so but I do have something to say this evening and I think it's probably the most important question anyone could ask why are we here I would offer

093it's because at the Crux of what we do is the belief that every student every citizen has a Divine spark of value within them and therefore each citizen each student has the capability of transforming this world and having a profound destiny that we all must respect that's a pretty inspiring Mission and the framework I would offer for how we and in this community and the school board should go forward is obviously the superintendent and his administrators are focusing on the business of education but as school board you are public officials Beyond just School individuals Beyond just Educators you are leaders in our civilian community and as far as our work is concerned in preserving and respecting the taxpayer dollar and advocating for that we want to establish the same productive working relationship going forward and

094I would say that beyond what you've heard tonight in the spirit of of kindness I've spoken before this board on the subject of Civility I would say that Civility and kindness are great values and we should aspire to them in our personal lives but those values without action mean nothing to sort of make an inspiration off of the banner behind you it's like a flower that doesn't Bloom and so I would say we should go forward not just to be Educators and make and bench and Achieve benchmarks and statistical analysis that we typically conduct when we go before these things we should look at it as trying to create a Visionary education system that prepares students for the 21st century not just the 20th century I look forward to working with you all I look

095forward to working with you Mr Baron Borg and your capacity as chair and I would say let's do great things to do and achieve in our community and respect and cherish the taxpayer dollars that empowered this board and this these administrators and these schools to do great things thank you very much thank you Lance all right um board members anyone want to uh Dr Moore would you like to speak just a a few comments so the schools district currently L has 14 openings uh in terms of teacher vacancies we've never had over 14 from the very first day of school we have over 1,200 teachers uh you do the math on that percent just last week I was asked to actually I was asked to have Miss christop Foley come and speak regarding the work

096that we do to have such a uh high percent of vacancies filled she was uh actually out of town so I I went and and problem solved with superintendents who are having a hard time filling those spe specific positions uh in terms of looking at teachers moving from one class to teach the good kids versus those kids um that's not going to happen so we do use data to drive instruction it helps inform the decisions that we need to make to evaluate the impact of instruction but gone are the days in this County as long as I am here uh in which we're going to say uh the the those who have the highest skills in teaching need to teach those who have the highest need for Quality teachers and we have a decision Tree

097in place and we hear to that on a daily basis terms of free and reduced lunch uh we continue to grow that number uh and be very strategic and making sure any child who does need a free or reduced lunch doesn't feel impacted or shamed uh regarding that opportunity to to receive that hot meal and the truth of the reality is that may be the only meals they have um so we are going to make sure that we work with those families um in order to make that happen the this is my 29th year in education and I've never seen a group of teachers across the entire system who care more about their kids because those kids in their classrooms are their neighbors they go to church with them overwhelming high percent of our teachers

098graduated and went and walked in our Halls uh in terms of third grade uh proficiency or scores uh we were 31 of 67 31 of 67 in 1819 uh and that is something each and every single person should be ashamed of uh currently we're number seven in the state with a reading proficiency of seven uh of 60% um for the State of Florida that is significant growth uh we're 10 percentage points above the State of Florida in terms of its overall percent uh to so to move from 31 to 7 uh really speaks to the depth and the quality and focus of what we're doing to ensure that we do have third graders reading at 90% and why is that so important not only does it is a great predictor for their future success having

099students proficient uh and in third grade is one of the most coste effective ways to run the system it is extremely expensive to remediate a student but if we can get them uh at 3 4 and five uh um by third grade the their projectory changes note taken the percent of level fives and level fours needs to grow that needs to grow drastically we should not and will not teach to the middle if you're a level five in third grade you better be a level third in 10th Grade uh because you've defined that you have the potential that is ensuring that we have the ability to differentiate instruction on both ends for the high achieving students and the students who need uh the additional support I think that summarizes my remarks Madam chair thank you

100Dr Jones I have a few um to miss Gibbs I I do agree recruiting in retention is a key issue here in the district I just talked with Mr Fagan um a couple days ago as I saw an article from Duval Kami how they're looking at um raising the teacher salary so that uh we can keep these teachers and it's very very important that we do that I just talked with Dr Mora today about the GoFundMe for U Mr Valia from osel middle they have raised over $112,000 and uh I want to continue to recognize that here at the board and his IAL talk with his daughter the other day um he wanted to make sure that no student didn't have a lunch and what we have and I saw it from a middle school

101principal to a high school principal will have a title one middle school but when they get to high school they don't fill out the form they don't fill out the form because they don't want people to know and I witnessed that every day as a high school principal and we would check on that and uh a lot of people gave money to make sure that those children ate and so I want to make sure that we recognize that because they just wrote a $6,000 check I believe to Sebastian Middle and then osel middle okay um thanks to all who spoke about the African-American standards Miss idet I don't know if they're in your Upward Bound but um they were fantastic and yes ma'am we listened to them it's very much public record that I wrote

102a letter to the governor the commissioner and the State Board of Education like Mr Brown said don't throw the baby out with the bathwater to have these specific African-American standards if you look through them it's a very long report some are good but the one regarding um the clarification in the Middle School saying that uh there is a personal benefit uh thank you to miss barenborg for writing the letter I didn't get a letter back so I called the doe and the social studies Guy Mr duel we had a a good conversation we both listened I don't think we moved either one but I'm if I believe in something I'm going to fight for it and I ask everybody else and the students thank you thank you for your personal feeling about this because it

103is important as Lance said in his speech you have to Value everyone and that is key we are a diverse Community I am proud of the diversity in the public schools and um we want everyone to be successful for the 21st century we've got a lot of work to do Mr bar your um speech on kindness was to the point there are so many good things going on and sometimes we don't talk about them I look forward to seeing you on um Friday when you pick up things I still have to do some shopping but I will get there um Mr um Flint I have visited the African-American student council of ver Beach High School twice I have been to the lgbtq um Club at Sebastian High School I worry about our marginalized students I

104worry about the rules and the laws so I want to make sure that every child in this District feels value and never feels marginalized why I went to the lgbtq group at Sebastian I saw him at the homecoming parade and they said how are you doing Dr Jones these new rules make us nervous so I went and listened to them and I think that's important that they see people who represent this County this school board this community that they are there so I think it's very important um I'm sorry I had one more thing so and and Mrs bowling about your letter um you know we have talked about that as a board I don't know if that will happened but um even when I spoke to the doe um social studies Guy Mr dubell

105again we didn't agree on some some but he understood he understood where I was coming from I understood on some of the things he said because again some of those are good but you know we as a board representing um these students our public school students our Public Charter School students it is important that everyone feels value thank you anyone else some questions I have some questions for the superintendent um there were some uh concerning statements that were made um and so I just want some um I have some clarifying question or some questions that I'd like you to clarify Dr Moore um number one have the African-American standards already been approved by the doe through the chair they have been approved to be implemented next school year to I'm sorry to be implemented next

106school year yes okay and you once said you recently said we do not teach the clarifying statement can you confirm or has that changed you said it at a board meeting we we teach the standards and they do provide clarifying statements that help you understand the depth of the standard so by by teaching the clarifying statement you are in fact teaching the standard I know but you said at a board meeting we don't teach the the clarifying statement that was your quote but in that is correct because it stands beneath the standard the standard does not you have to take the standard in consideration a clarifying statement is clarifying what exactly you would be teaching but you start with the standard and you use that to get a deeper understanding in terms of what exactly

107does that standard mean I I understand I'm just asking you to verify to clarify what you previously said about the clarifying statement um I have another question does uh moms for Liberty dictate what we teach we we know the answer to that can you answer the question please of course not okay does moms for Liberty determine our curriculum not on my watch okay no just in general too even from all of your okay thank you have we engaged in um Banning critical race Theory books no have we um engaged in book Banning in general or curating our libraries based on legislation we we do we um books but everything is aligned 100% to State requirements thank you anything else all right I'd just like to thank um everyone for coming forward and speaking and being

108kind when you speak let's continue this Mantra I I really like that um we've gone through a lot all of us as a community um over the last couple years and I think we need to reach out and be more kind and listen to each other um not defend so much but to listen and um try to re reach out with that Olive Branch um for the AI um comment um where'd she go Mrs CIO okay I'll contact her about that um because that sounds like something for a legislator so I'd like to listen to that and bring it up as a legislative issue up in Tallahassee all righty um we are moving on so at this time I need an approval for consent agenda items um I'm going to call for a motion to

109approve consent agenda items as amended I make a motion Mrs Rosario second all right who got it who wants it Barefoot got it okay and um any discussion all those in favor say I I I any opposed okay that's a 40 vote um Dr Jones you came in right at the end of the vote um approval of consent items would you like to approve yes ma'am okay five of vote thank you thank you for leaving quietly we appreciate it all right um approval of 2023 109 super tendent Workshop minutes um I'll make a motion thank you second so we got Dr PCA on the motion got the second by Dr Jones uh any discussion all those in favor say I I okay 5 and approval of the workshop minutes from um October 23rd sorry oh

110thank you yeah yeah the way that this is is here thank you thank you thank you I appreciate that thank you yeah we we'll talk about how to organize these makes it a little easier all right so yeah thank you so now we're to pulled from consent correct let's see let me get down to that yes okay so item 7A was pulled from consent um Dr Moore would you like to present the item and U Mrs rosar pull the item uh before we this is before we go to the item that was pulled from consent Madam chair um we already approved the um Personnel recommendations Dr Moore would you like to announce the new position for CFO so we do well thank you Mr Rosario um thank you Mr Bruce green who who is with

111us will be joining us uh as Chief Financial Officer uh and I'm sure he's extremely nervous after in the presentation for Mr Fagan today so we welcome him to the team uh Dr Moore in the past you've had cabinet members come up and speak would you like to do that you put his man on the spot would you like oh yeah always get used to [Laughter] it wonderful he's used to it he's done this before long time thank you man Madam chairman uhu Dr Moore thank you very much um I think it was a perfect evening to be here um all I'll say is good to be home and uh I look forward to uh continuing the work that uh Mr Fagan has uh done which has been outstanding for the students in this community

112and uh kindness speaks volumes so that's what I'm looking forward to there's relationships and uh continuing that work so I appreciate it and I look forward to getting started right away and thank you so much welcome back to the team all right all right Mr Bass if you to present the item yes sir yes sir thank you Dr Moore through the chair uh the item is a 4.5% salary increase for all non-bargaining employees uh that would be administrators and protex staff confidential managerial uh positions this uh mirrors the 4.5% CWA got this year as a whole in their negotiations uh impacts 267 employees um and we are excited to bring this to you and in efforts to help raise the pay for these people keep these people and also attract additional people as positions by

113open okay thank you for the information you provided and now call for a motion so moved okay a second Dr PCA Mr Rosario you do have a speaker M we have a speaker on this yes hold on one second okay uh 7A Mr Marsh shocking go ahead Madam chair it's nice this night that's not nice that's not good evening just want to say uh in full support anytime there's a salary increase for these amazing individuals it's a shame it's not 14.5 but you know it's a good running start and uh for time sake I will say good night be kind okay thank you sir that's all I have for that item um and now we're to a um this has discussion and then vote but I believe we have to recognize the board member that

114pulled the item before we vote we'll get we'll get this order all right Mr Rosario I I just pulled it because it's not routine it should have been in action um and so we needed to pull it and bring it into action it's in action go ahead no that that's all I don't have anything else to say about it all right so I'll call for the vote all those in favor say I I I any opposed it passes 5- Z all right appointment of let's see where we are yeah we need to get this this in order all right appointment of the president vice president secretary treasurer of the leasing Corporation so the P purpose of this action item is to officially designate the chairman of the district school board as president vice chairman of

115the district school board as the vice president and the superintendent of schools as the secretary treasur of the leasing Corporation as per the bylaws of the corporation chairman calls for a vote to accept president vice president secretary treasur of the leasing Corporation so move okay Dr Jones oh I'm so sorry hold on what item am I on 10 10 I don't have a speaker for 10 oh no I'm there okay I'll wait it's blank pause my time it's it's a it's there very first she's got top okay I'm looking over here got it I'll get that's okay I'll know form sorry this is a new form all right we're good yeah we're good you sure okay got it I see where we are now all righty we are to um I got a motion from

116Dr Jones I need a second second M rarel um all those in favor say I I any opposed four it's 50 V okay let me look I'm on item that's the other thing I can't see the numbers all right 10B we have um this is the approval of appointment of citizen to the Indian River County Metropolitan planning organization M County citizen advisory committee for a transportation and an alternate for this voting position this is a volunteer position that began on September 11 2012 the term of this position coincides with the board's organization meeting the CAC meets every other month at 2 p.m. in the County Administration Building B conference room b1-- citizen to serve I call for names of citizens to serve as committee members and Alternate before we do that we have a speaker

117Mr Andros good evening board my name is Jeff Andros um how does it say uh longtime listener firsttime speaker say on the radio um I submitted my application in time uh according to board docs nobody else has I did some public records requests after I submitted and checked and apparently there's a there's some controversy with me being selected and the only one who put it in so I'm here to say I follow the rules and um curious see what the problem is thank you okay thank you sir all right so I'd like to call for names of citizens to serve oh sorry ouch it hurts Mrs barenburg it hurts got it okay Mr Marsh yes ma'am my name is Michael Marsh and I speak to item 10B uh first off I have a little question

118there uh for my time proudly serving as no I remember we had to do these reports so I I don't see that on board dos um uh through the chair I'd like to do a public records request for the report that got submitted um from the individual that served on the no uh because I know there's a report that's attached to this so I look forward to getting that whenever public records gets caught up um also I remember there was some controversy on the alternate position so I have a little question there's no alternate I would proudly serve once again if you like me to be the alternate um I would I would love to just in case Mr Andros is busy I I'm here to put in work so I I know we mentioned

119a few times do we need to have an alternate I do not believe that this board has um deleted that position so I believe there's still room for an alternate um so since there's there's nobody else I'll come back it it was great you know no work was good work will continue to be good systems in place um so that's all I wanted to say I wish everyone good luck that applied um deadline is the deadline we follow rules laws statutes and so um I look proud to serve as your alternate thank you so much thank you sir uh Scott Keith is also a speaker hi there hello my name my name is Scott ke and I am a um uh a resident of Vero Beach and um the father of uh uh school age

120children and um I would like to speak to the um these uh appointments I understand that there's only one person that submitted their application and I um had been talking with some friends we want to get involved with some of these committees and get more involved with the schools and um we didn't know about the um the deadline um and um we were not able to get applications in and uh on time and so I was wondering if the board would consider opening it up uh I understand there's one applicant that applied to all the board positions and it would be um I would think a good idea to cast the net little wider I'd also like to point out that on the third committee um the the value adjustment board committee uh it does

121have a requirement that the person must own a business occupying commercial space located within the school district and the question is whether the applicant uh that's applied to all these positions um SA specifies that requirement that's not this thank you okay thank you for your words all right um so at this time I'd like to call for a motion um the the motion is because sorry um let's see the citizen that applied for the position was Jeff Andros and there were no other applicants correct Dr Moore that's that is correct okay um so I'm going to call for a motion for us as a board to um put forward Jeffrey Andre's name I'll move that discussion we have the discussion after the motion and I'll second it all right so all right hold on Mr

122bar yep got it all right Jones all right we'll have discussion go ahead Dr P sure I'll start um I have a little bit of concern about this um my understanding is is uh Mr Jeff Andros you can't hear my understanding is Mr Jeffrey Andros uh runs a political Consulting uh business where he represents people who run for office in this town um including our school board um and you know I think one concern I have is if we have members of this board who have paid that individual money um to represent their campaign and other school board members who have run in the past or maybe running in the upcoming election uh nominating him to be on a committee um you know it looks a lot like preferential treatment or potentially garnering favor through

123this process at the end of the day politics is about favors and power so when he goes and advertises himself as a political consultant to other young budding politicians in this County um he can brag about how he's on various committees and roles in the district and look at how much power I have and how connected I am um and I think you know while we are probably not breaking any rules if we go ahead with this um I I think it really clearly to me is improper that literally there's people on this board who have used him to run campaigns and probably will again and we're gonna give him a position in our district it seems improper all right thank you um I'd like to actually ask the attorney to weigh in on that

124comment please your policy on conflict of interest is essentially tracks the voting conflict statute under 112314 4 three and what it says is a board member shall not vote in an official capacity on any matter which would inure to his slash her special gain or loss hold that term special gain or loss or to the special gain or loss of a principal by whom he she s slash he is retained or to the parent organization or subsidiary of a corporate principle by which s/ he is retained or to the special gain or loss of a relative or business associate if what you're saying is accurate um the applicant may be a business associate but what a special private gain or loss is under the ethics statute is quote an economic benefit or harm that would

125inure to the officer his or her relative business associate or principal and then there's a whole bunch of exceptions um it would have to be a direct economic benefit and you're talking about an application for a essentially an advisory committee for the noo and you whatever the concerns might be I don't think it falls under the special private gain or loss under the statute or the policy okay so the board member does not have to recuse himself is that what you're saying not for that okay anyone else Mr raria yeah I have concerns um and it it's not necessarily towards uh Mr Andros uh as a person as a as an applicant um but over the process of how the district uh moved forward with noticing these vacancies there are a lot of um what

126I was told is that the applicants or the positions were posted on the website and that we received um these notifications or the vacancies in a um in an email to us um uh but that's it so not everyone in the community goes on the website not everyone in the community understands that these POS what these positions are and how they um how they could benefit the community and so we did not do this year what we did last year and one of the things that is missing this year that we didn't do last year was publicly state it and publicly notice or make an announcement at our business meetings and our workshops that these positions were uh going to be available on X date and the applications are out there and please apply by

127a certain uh date if you are interested you know that kind of brings to the table you know a lot of community members who might be interested in holding these positions and applying um I don't think that we did a a fair job at that um I know we're not can can we actually because what I'm going to also mention is um the or something with the the the VB which is a comment that um um can we discuss that one when we get to that one well I think it kind of goes into my point good is you know we're we're missing we are and I'll get there when we get to the VAB is that we are going to be short one person and an alternate and it's not appropriate to just you

128know solicit people uh you know at the whim at our board meeting without giving proper notice to the entire Community um of of people who might be interested um and so I really have issue with this it should have been been much more uh forward- facing and we should have been much more transparent with it so Madam chair if I yes right I was going to ask if you would like to respond to that so Mr Zar is right we did not do what we've done in previous years we did much more uh in previous years it was advertised for about 14 to 16 days uh this year was advertised for 21 days uh it was also placed in the newspaper as well as our web page it was also placed in the weekly email

129that sent the board members uh which is entitled talking points typically board members would use those when they're out in the community talking about uh whatever is going on in the community um also in preparation for their upcoming radio interviews that they do typically Bob Seuss I I know Doc Jones um spoke about this specific POS these positions because I heard it on the radio so did I um so we did do significantly more than we had done in the past in terms of the link L of time as well as uh communicating it to board members to spread that information when they're with their constituents um in terms of the number of people who have applied historically over the course of The Last 5 Years uh We've unfortunately uh only had one applicant pretty

130much every year going back to 2018 with the exception of last year where we did have uh two or three individuals for the um the positions that we're discussing now um interview or apply sorry okay thank you for that all right I'm going to call for a motion I'd like to say one last okay hold on we got one more last comment go ahead did you want to say do Mr bareford did you have a comment he had the no he was gonna do the motion yeah okay no I would just say that I I'm not an attorney and I can't disagree with you sir um but my simplistic view of this is politics is power and connections and if we have board members that are paying money to a political consultant consultant and then

131that political consultant is getting positions and committee uh positions that they can use to show their political power that's a direct gain um and this is just the wrong way to run a government agency it's wrong it's how you run a pharmaceutical company or a bank this is the wrong way to run a government agency okay I'd like to make a comment about that um if if it was a bunch of people that appli and we are choosing one person over another I could see that argument but we have one person that applied and they applied by the rules and we're always a stickler for the rules on this Das so we're going to stick to the rules um I'm going to call for the vote all those in favor say I I I all

132those oppose no hold on you went too fast I'll say I okay 41 congratulations Mr Andros you get to volunteer Madam chair can I just make a suggestion sure stick to the um you need the mic Brian oh sorry about that perhaps to avoid this in the future uh we might ask uh the attorney and the superintendent to maybe review uh and maybe be a little more specific so there's there's less uh subject to interpret ation let's say if that's possible for any of these positions um because I the the point that uh Dr PCA raised is is in some people's minds it might be a valid point and I just don't want uh any individuals uh who volunteers his time or her time to serve in one of these positions uh to be denied

133based on on um not to be denied but let's let's say to have their uh credibility questioned because of of something that's perceived uh as a as some sort of a conflict and I don't know whether maybe the uh the statute and the the policies are clear enough uh but if there's any ability to clarify further clarify so that we don't have these kinds of concerns expressed I would be in favor of that I'd like to add one oh yes go ahead Dr Johnson um just in response to that because I am running I have paid no money to a political consultant ever okay um we are on to 10c this approval of appointment of citizen to the Indian River County School planning citizen oversight committee um we had one applicant it is Peter Robson

134was he was two speakers I'm sorry two speakers I know oh okay okay okay I need to finish my statement here um Peter Robinson has served on the committee since its Inception in 2003 as the citizen member and Augustine Curran as the alternate first year the purpose of this committee is to monitor implementation of the interlocal agreement and to report to participating local governments the district school board and the general public on the effectiveness with which the interlocal agreement is being implemented the committee meets once per year on a date and time to be determined Mr Robinson submitted a yearly report and agreed to do an additional term board members will vote on this appointment we do have a two speakers Mr Andros good evening again clarify a couple things uh this gentleman back here

135said I applied for all positions I did but I pulled back when I found out there was some someone in this position we're talking about now so not money in the waters thanks um to clarify what just happened before Dr PCA does not speak for me Dr P does nothing about my business Mr Andrew I have to have you speak just to this item sorry well I I did apply for the item so it's it goes against my speak to this item okay absolutely I was going to stand on so I own three businesses that are all licensed and insured I have no school board members that are that are clients of mine if I did it's none of your business but I'm thinking about opening a fourth business tomorrow maybe I can help certain

136people who are unsuccessful become successful give me a call thank you okay um Mr Marsh would you like to speak that's who you guys vot yeah I that's not that's not appropriate Mr Marsh no thank you I okay thank you that's unbelievable all right uh we are on 10 C I'm going to since we have one applicant did we vote and not yet um there is no alternate it says yes okay call for name of citizen to serve as Committee Member and or an alternate so it can be and or doesn't have to be both we had one name I need to read the information in the public content I think I already did that correct you did all right that doesn't say public content we'll we'll go over this all right so I need

137to call for a motion someone give me a motion make a motion on Mr Robinson being um approved as the appointment of the citizen to the Indian River County School Board uh planning citizen oversight committee I make a motion I second second Dr Doc Jones can second okay Dr Jones Dr Jones all right any dis other discussion all those in favor say I I I anyone opposed it passes 5 Z okay we have item D 10 D approval of appointment of citizen to the county commission's value adjustment board bab for this voting position I need to reference Florida State Statute 19 194. one5 the value adjustment board is an independent Forum created by the Florida statute chapter 194 to provide Property Owners with an opportunity to appeal their property value or denial of an exemption

138classification or tax deferral the committee meets each year as needed the appointment will be effective upon approval by the County Commission Augustine Curran was appointed by the school board last year the position is for a calendar year tax cycle the applicants were one we have Jeffrey Andros that applied no others um I need to call for a motion Mo okay second all right Mr Barefoot and Doc Jones any discussion on this item yes Mr Rosario you were recognized yeah Mr Andros does not um qualify for this position by Statute uh the position uh states that must own a business occupying commercial space located within the school district and on his application he said that he does not own a business occupying commercial space located within the school district okay Mr Rari I'm going to stop

139you I'm sorry um I do have another speaker okay we're on D Jeffrey andreos is our first Speaker sorry sorry I'll get this do better we have new forms that I'm not used to oh no worries I was going to clear this up anyway that question's asked on every form not sure why but I do own three businesses I have three business licens three business Ein I pay taxes and insurance on all of them the county has a thing through zoning where you pay I think it was $150 they let you run the business out of your home they change the zoning but they don't and uh it's all filed it's all public record I am not disqualified from this thank you okay Mr Marsh Home is not commercial good evening uh Michael Marshall Mike

140for Liberty uh we just like to proudly endorse Mr Andros good night all right Mr Rosario yeah um so it does say occupying commercial space not that you don't that you uh and this is the statute the law not the um local ordinance so commercial space is a physical building or physical place within the school district not an online business or something that you're doing from home um so commercial space located within the school district and on the application it says that he does not qualify for that so okay hold one second I'm goingon to defer to the attorney can you um refer to commercial space please or give us a definition so let me just step through this the statute was amended in 2008 the statute authorizes two citizen members of the board previously

141it was three BCC to school board members qualif ification for the citizen from the county is that they own Homestead Property the Schoolboard rep must own a business occupying commercial space located within the school district there's one attorney general opinion the Attorney General opinion um 6 hits every Point except for uh the commercial space definition it stated that uh a person to own a business because ownership was not defined they deferred to dictionary ownership rightfully have or possesses property business couple of of definitions one a commercial Enterprise carried on for profit what they noted was uh there was parallel set of Attorney General opinions regarding the um CRA statute which was very similar and the CRA statute uh community redevelopment agency uh talked about being engaged in business uh saying it's slightly different from ownership

142but there is also uh an ago and this is the problem with using local standards I think it was to the city of Castleberry where the city of Castleberry asked a similar question which was can we require an applicant to show that they have a business to have uh to demonstrate that they have business licenses locally and the Attorney General said that's outside of what the actual requirements are of the statute you cannot you cannot ask for these additional which may sound counterintuitive but it's what the AG did so I then go to Websters to try to Define commercial space as did the other agos and it doesn't really match well when you parse the definitions there are terms of commercial space in both real estate and legal terms which mostly talk about commercial space

143in context of uh a separate establishment that one leases or one uh owns not all of them say that but most of them say that honestly given the magnitude of the board that we're talking about and the fact that when you're talking about the definitions of the local code its commercial use rather than commercial space and I'm not sure that we can even use it my recommendation given the magnitude of a VAB and what the role is is that I be authorized to ask the Florida attorney general which is by law supposed to turn it around in 30 days what the definition is in their opinion because frankly it's clear there's a Schism in interpretations here and frankly the Castleberry case that or attorney general opinion that I mentioned previously was counter to what I

144would have expected which was of course you would look at what the local standards are it's a state statute we're interpreting and I would like to defer to uh General Ashley Moody's office if if at all possible okay so it's clear as mud I I but I recognize that I'm sorry all right um superintendent what would you like to advise this board um and your opinion to do well your attorney just advise you to uh have the opportunity to go get superintendent's opinion sorry superintend a legal opinion from the attorney general so I would table the item and allow him the opportunity to seek that guy idance and bring back uh to the board uh the Attorney General's um Rec recommendation or or feedback okay I move to take this from the table and we're

145going to table it until um next board meeting um I don't I was looking to see if I needed a vote on that I I don't know if you would Madam chair point of order does the does the chair make the motion for that or does she need a motion from the floor to do that I believe I can make a motion um motion to bring she can make a motion hold on I can make the attorney thank you all right and it says do not interrupt so there we have it there wasn't any Interruption it says we're waiting for the attorney it says do not interrupt when someone says I move to take from the table um I ask for a second second okay uh the debate is no amend no we need a

146majority vote um question was made do I have the right to make a motion as the chair too late now thank you no it's not we haven't voted all right so I'd like to vote to table this item and we don't need to vote right I want to just make sure I want to we do need to vote okay so it needs to be a majority vote to table this item to our next board meeting all those in favor to table say I I I I I anyone opposed to tabling okay it's 50 table we will see this on our next board agenda meeting meting all right hold for any discussion items I have a speaker but there are no discussion items Mr Marsh okay okay um but I will say that this paper was

147underneath every other one so it says public hearing adoption of policies volume 24 number two I'm trying to figure out where that was is this item something that we voted in consent tonight I didn't think so I don't know how this came up I've got a paper here that you put at the top of it it says uh citizen input speaker docket public hearing adoption of policies volume 24 number two but we didn't have anything on my agenda for that excuse me I can't hear you de December we're just proactive okay so you handed this to me for a speaker for tonight there's no date on it so I'm going to give it back to you okay all right not a problem we'll move on sorry Mr Marsh we have no item on that um

148member matters who would like to go first Mr Barefoot I'll I'll start um there's been plenty of uh coverage in in this relates to Mo um there's been plenty of coverage in the newspaper about everybody rights uh has offered an opinion at the last no meeting um uh it was quite um it was quite interesting I would say uh 95% of the voting members um were in favor of leaving the twin pairs alone rather than narrowing them there were uh very persuasive arguments uh I'll just speak for myself I raised the question one when the uh Transportation survey was done it was May a lot of the obviously a lot of the seasonal residents had left and it was also before bright line is sending 32 trains through here and while they may go through

149in 5 seconds the fact of the matter is uh the gates go up and down and it slows everything down for that period of time uh the other point that was made is that uh uh what's been discussed is parallel bar parking and you can imagine somebody's going along and I don't know how Adept many people are at parallel parking these days uh back when I had to get a license you had to be able a parallel park of you flunked on a hill maybe well but uh one can imagine that all of a sudden there's a spot and there are 51 spots allocated in The Proposal you can imagine somebody going down down all of a sudden somebody pulls out and the person that wants that space jams on the brakes and boom you've

150got a rear Ender or they manag to get into that parking spot without blocking traffic and they open their door to get out and the door gets taken off uh so um those were some of the more persuasive and Common Sense arguments against uh I think there's one more meeting at the community center coming up here shortly um this but uh for the for for those of you who have a point of view be sure you pass it along uh to the new Vero Beach city council and was interesting I asked mugno why do we have to why does the city have to decide now as opposed to do another survey before Easter when when when everything is crowded and the trains will have been running for several months and that was the Dead headline

151that the State Department of Transportation put on the city of Vero Beach in order to make a decision which seems to me uh the bureaucracy is alive and well um but uh uh for those of you who have a strong point of view uh I would encourage you to weigh in uh at the next meeting Andor message uh one or more members of the city of Vera Beach Council but it's an important decision I think and the one other point I would make there was a couple of comments made by some of the County Commissioners at that at that meeting that if the objective is to revitalize that section of Downtown Vero Beach uh the way not to do it is narrow the twin pairs it's a major East West Road in the State uh

152but the people who own those buildings the landlords or the owners ought to Spruce it up spruce up the community the there's some there's some uh stores if you're down there certainly a couple of the restaurants that are attractive but in general I can understand why it's not attractive as is Ocean Drive or maybe perhaps as the twin as the three corners will be once they get around to making those decisions so uh a lot of good conversation but the but the bottom line is unfortunately the city council is going to be in a position to have to take a vote here sometime before Christmas I don't remember the exact date uh so again anybody that's got a point of view please voice it thank you uh Dr Johnson have several things I visited a

153media center the pumpkin patch where they were uh all the students at aola decorated for a literary character was absolutely wonderful the proclamation at the County Commission that I was a part of with my husband with the veral Beach beind County Commissioners were um recognized this group and I thank them for coming here tonight the school choice Fair uh Dr Mo with all our school choice choices and nonprofits in our Charter Schools was really great uh wonderful attendance and having students perform wonderful um been able to visit two Charter Schools this year imagine and then tomorrow is the 25th anniversary for Indie River Charter School which my colleague opened Judy Jones and they are doing a um uh a presentation um went to the PD for media Specialists during our PD day and our three

154PE people Diane pentella Caitlyn O'Neal Sher white doing a great job of the collaboration with all of the um libraries speaking of libraries I've been to sebas high school twice I don't know if I'll get there for the grand opening but um this all began about a year and a half ago uh when Miss wall presented to us I think the radar committee is it Miss wall and the reimagining and I'm just so excited because no matter what we want to get the percentage of students checking out books up because it's not as high as we want in high schools and middle schools and I know they use different uh their iPads laptops and so forth but it is such a welcoming environment in the student advisory Council up there Dr Moore so cool um

155want to see when Rachel um spoke uh today the person who read the poem I met her at the poet laurates luncheon a couple weeks ago in the poet laurate of the United States 2000 to 2002 Billy Collins actually dedicated a poem to her so I wanted to make sure we mentioned that and so after she uh also wrote one of her original poems and read it at the lunch and I thought she'd be great to speak when we talk about kindness um football I think we know Sebastian River won their state championship in the sunshine Athletic Conference ver plays Treasure Coast on Friday away and um wish them the luck and I think that is oh you Unified sports we recognize them at the last um Vero Beach game I think they've won 11

156championships they were recognized again that's a a group of students who work together uh the mainstream student students and some of those who are not mainstream and they've won 11 championships and again when I was at the FHSAA I kind of facilitated that and for veral to do that as outstanding state championship yeah state championships I mean big and um Veterans Day I attended Sebastian Elementary for theirs uh with Mr Bass and then gford middle uh with Dr bacon where we saw the wonderful speaker and great great presentations thank you Mr raria um I just want to yes the I want to um reiterate how wonderful the school choice fair was it was just phenomenal um I think every year it gets a little bit better and there was um uh there was even an

157overflow parking lot because there were so many people who attended which was fantastic um the discipline committee uh or the code of conduct committee uh is coming up so if anybody is interested in that uh let me pull that up I don't know does anyone know that offand uh the dates for I think it's December starts in December yeah so I'll I'll wait um for that so that if any citizens are interested in sitting on the code of conduct committee um that is coming up soon um we made they made uh Great Waves last year and really uh revitalizing um our code of conduct and changing a lot of um what we had old to better mirror our statutes and the requirements and the the uh expectations moving forward yes ma'am oh meeting one is

158December 5th um and all of the meetings are held from from 5:30 to 70000 p.m. and the second meeting is January 23rd okay thank you so much for that and that that's on our website yes and that's that's on our website um in the gallery you can click on that and get all the information you need perfect and then um lastly I just want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving I know that we are coming up on a time where we can all spend with family and friends um and eat as much as your hearts content if you'd like um but other than that enjoy your time off and um have a wonderful Thanksgiving okay Dr PCA sure I just want to reiterate and expound upon what we did today uh at the very end

159of the meeting um we allowed a person to and nominated a person to a committee um where they have voting rights and power um that runs political campaigns in this County that's my understanding um in in fact they have worked on campaigns for people who have run for this board and potentially even my understanding is someone who was on this board currently and just voted for them um that that's my understanding and you know I think that if we think about politics is connections and power putting someone on a voting board in our County that gets to make decisions on the value of your house or something of that nature um that's clearly a material gain for that individual um because politics is power now we can ignore what happened and just move on but

160I'm going to say here very clearly my opinion that's wrong that's not how you run a government agency um maybe that's how you run a bank or a pharmaceutical company um but if you're running a government agency and you're giving people you have Financial ties to positions of of power locally um that stinks you know it stinks a lot like a big pile of rancid meatloaf um you know it smells like dirty small town politics to me okay I think we had the attorney addressed that issue before but you're welcome to make any statement you want during um members matter so thank you um I'd like to just reiterate a big congrats to um Miss Rachel Finnigan for being the district principal year and for Miss Sarah van brimer for being the ap of the

161year um I attended the veterans breakfast at um Gord middle school and that's where I saw Lucas speak I thought I was the one to invited on Dr Moore all right anyway um it is kindness time and so um I thank you all for the wonderful messages around the room and for all the people that wear the shirts and I think as a board and as elected leaders we need to be a part of of that and be kind to people um Learning Alliance welcome back and thank you I know um Mr Barefoot attended I attended uh it's a it was our chance to thank people that have donated and um have have a vested interest in what we're doing with education and so I really appreciated the fact that we were there there to

162thank them and and see how everything paid paying off but also moving forward you know keep going and so they're all committed to keep going which is great all right can I one one one last thing before we I want to uh one last time Mr Fagan on behalf of all of us you've done a marvelous job uh good luck in the future and to Mr Green good luck you're following a legend an icon uh but seriously you've done a wonderful job and uh have a great holiday season and good luck in your new job and if you need any advice just call up Mr Green and he'll be able to help you out a little bit Mr Fagan we love you and we'll miss you all right so with that um I'd like to

163uh adjourn this meeting unless there is an objection all right it is adjourned at 8:37