Superintendent's Workshop 1 p.m. 5-25-2021

001afternoon fellow board members and dr moore and associates absolutely call the meeting to order at one o'clock on the 25th of may 2021 and i'm going to turn it over to our illustrious superintendent who can take it from here you appreciate this is a superintendent's workshop we do have a a lengthy agenda but i think some of the items will move um very smoothly first three items on the agenda at the request of dr jones uh were placed so i'll turn them over to her dr jones thank you dr moore and school board members uh before i begin talking about this please know that dr moore and i have talked about the subject after our two last equity meetings and one of the follow-ups to a previous equity meeting was placing an action item on

002the board to get the recommendations approved from the equity committee and this board did it with a 5-0 vote and i was very proud of that in a little history bear with me a little bit here but the dsec order's been with us for over 53 years and i have been in the district for 41. as far as my experiences as a principal for 17 years i knew it was my responsibility to recommend african-american teachers and i was pretty successful there i did not hire them because they were black i hired them because they were well qualified teachers and then these teachers were mentors for our african-american students and also role models for the students all students and because of the african-american american teachers many students then had a mentor one-on-one with these students and

003therefore our discipline went down graduation rate went up scores went up and i was very very proud of all that we all know that academic achievement is probably the largest goal we have with the dsec plan closing the gap our graduation rate hasn't increased and we should be very very proud of that but we still have some work to do now as academic achievement when i was a principal we had test scores come in to us after the test fsa and fcat and they would usually take weeks and you we would use that for scheduling next year but now we have live data on power bi and other scores much more quickly we are data driven with progress monitoring it's very very important because it helps our teachers now with power bi we have never

004looked at it like we're now doing it with dr moore and we have impact reviews which have i have seen personally and they're great feedback for our principals and teachers so there's been a lot of movement with data and progress monitor monitoring but still in 2021 after spending a million dollars on partial unitary status we now have a mandated court equity committee in our mediation with the naacp if you remember the transcripts from the october 2019 meeting mr brown said that we spent all that money instead of talking to them on the three components that we have had for a while support staff facilities and administrative staff and as a taxpayer i was very upset with that expenditure the new board came on in november 2020 and within four months we adopted the recommendations given

005to us by a previous equity committee was given to them in october 2019 and as we all know this year a little bit off with our coven and students being here we're going to have a baseline for our students i believe about 58 of our african-american students began the quarter first quarter and now i think we're up to around 78 and now with the wraparound that we're doing with our after-school programs ms emerson leading that i'm a little bit a part of that with mcann we have a lot going on on and before school so yes we are moving forward but when there are changes on the board when the superintendent is gone i believe we have to make a commitment through policy that we will continue to work on these recommendations for our african-american

006students and that it is sustainable it will have some teeth we have our african-american achievement plan which is part of our strategic plan and when dr moore came the african-american plan was finally fine-tuned with progress monitoring and was data-driven and it is being implemented in our schools because our principles are held accountable for this and so is our student and sorry so is our superintendent so we're all for this so why talk about this now i think we have to show the naacp our equity committee we are committed to this work going forward by setting it in policy to me this is a really good sign of faith from the school board not spending a million dollars but doing the work and as i said at the last equity committee meeting some dsec plans reach

007unitary status and then they kind of just fall backwards and i don't want that to happen as someone who's been living in this community for many many years so dr moore i know they'll have discussions with the board but i'm recommending that you the team you choose along with mr brown and the naacp and if you want to bring in other people that's fine if you both agree on that to work on a policy bring it back to the board so that these recommendations in this commit commitment is here to stay that the work will continue i know our districts up for this commitment from our teachers our staff our administrators and district staff and as all board members know we are here for each and every student let's show good faith and put it

008in policy thank you so we i'm sure would like to have a response very well done dr jones dr schiff sure um 98 yes yes and yes um what were the three two 98 two okay the only thing that i would like us to be able to have a discussion about and you somewhat alluded to this in your comments um at some point presumably we will achieve unitary status right presumably that will happen at some point when that happens think about how i want to phrase this i might through the because of the structure of the litigation the primary entity with whom we deal on these issues has been the naacp there are many um voices in in the african-american community um some agree some don't agree some um there's a variety of voices with

009a variety of perspectives and opinions about how that work should move forward and while i don't as i said you know 97 or 98 i don't disagree what i would like to do is be able to build a policy moving forward that is not necessa that looks to the future that looks to the to the time when as you alluded which is the point of this policy we're beyond unitary status we're beyond litigation this is no longer driven by litigation but is driven because it is a natural part of the work that we do as it always should be should have been should continue to be with that in mind i'd like the policy to be inclusive to in some way address while you said that between the naacp and the superintendent we consider other

010people who may want to be involved or other entities whatever that may be i'd like that to be represented in the policy um that this is a broad reaching initiative that there are many uh both children affected by it adults affected by it groups who have a vested interest in it and i'd like that to be as broad as possible my concern is is by no means that i disagree we should work with the naacp but i'd like to see the naacp and a variety of other entities um to whom this work is equally important thank you doctor that's good mrs barenborg you had your hand up yeah i'm curious as to what other entities you're referring to um my concern i i don't have specific entities in mind but i do know there are

011many entities and just for example the gyac works a lot in that community right they do a lot of work in the community they serve a lot of kids in the community they host events for the community um i don't know enough about the legal and corporate status of all of the entities to be able to name names at this point um but for example there's there's many after-school programs there's um there are different groups in the gifford and broader community who also might want to have a voice in how this work goes forward so i don't i'm not saying we should include this group or that group or another group what i'm asking is that the policy read as broadly as possible to not um simply limit our work to only being with and

012through the naacp but actually includes as well something broader than that okay mr gresta dr schiff brings up a good point the uh plaintiff the naacp and the school board are the two entities working with the dsec plan so if we move forward with the policy would there be any issue bringing other people in just for the sustainability let's say we we have unitary status and we're rolling this type of a post-unitary status policy would typically begin discussions with the parties involved in the litigation but there is nothing that would prohibit the people having this discussion to include other perspectives and there's nothing that would prohibit you from that forward thinking what is our community going to look like in 10 years or 15 years we want the policy to sustain that so there's nothing

013wrong with that forward broad policy perspective thank you um the only only thing that i would add i mean i think this is the challenge that we face in all elected bodies have the same challenge uh every time there's an election you bring new people in yeah exactly who have perhaps a different perspective or don't have the context that those who have been around for a while and i think the idea of trying to figure out how to um to to solidify that with policy makes a lot of sense it's going to be a challenge i think to figure out the right wording but the objective is exactly right and i think to dr schiff's point and we had this brief comment a few weeks ago i understand that the i'm focused here on the

014achievement gap some of the other issues are more easily addressed not easily addressed but easily measured easier yeah recruiting discipline those transportation those kinds of things and i had this conversation uh just with dr moore not specifically um the thing that's bothered me since i've become more aware of it public education in the state of florida and specifically in indian river county is that when you compare the state of florida overall with other depending on how you measure which is a big question we don't look so good you know we're below we're somewhat somebody says we're 42nd 35th states out of 50 states i don't know what any of that means but we certainly should be better than we are and then you bring it down to uh indian river county and the last statistic

015i saw as we ranked 37th out of 67 districts well if you compare if in fact we're below average statewide and then we're below average below that average district-wide when you put our kids up against the rest of the country we don't look so good and it's not just african-american kids it's all kids and i don't know how to to dr schiff's point how can we make it more exclusive yet specifically have it come from the litigation that we're in the middle of um the real opportunity here for us and future school boards is and for dr moore and his team is to keep this focus on this for a long time and i know when dr moore was hired and three of you hired him but i was here for those interviews you know

016his goal was to have instead of it saying what what it was what you're saying when when you when you drive into indian river county it says literary capital literacy capital florida of america of the world whatever our math scores are really bad relative to that and they've fallen even further behind and has all over the country it's not just here but we start my point is we start from behind to begin with relatively speaking and somehow or another and it falls on the superintendent and his staff it falls on the principles it falls on the teachers and ultimately from a policy standpoint it falls upon us and future boards to somehow or another having the policy higher standards than it's just acceptable to be to be in the top half or the top third

017that's great that's an improvement but personally i don't like being in the anywhere but at the top and it doesn't have to be number one but it's got to be in the top and if you think about from a from a business standpoint when you think about if you measure the performance of money managers for example they all set standards they use a benchmark it can be the dow jones it can be the s p 500 and you and you're supposed to outperform your benchmark which typically is the market so part of this policy i'd love to figure out if we can set a benchmark and the goal is to be at or above that benchmark going forward and it can be specific to math it can be specific to steam it can be specific

018english whatever it is i guess what i'm saying is that if we can craft something like that maybe it's got to be two policies i don't know but it's one thing to say that that we want to continue this but i think we have to figure out how to put some sort of standards in there to measure whether in fact we are performing as a district or the specifics of math language i mean reading etc etc so that's the only thing that i would throw in there not making it any easier and it's not going to be it's not good but i think gyac boys and girls club they run a great after after after-school program um i understand that um in the in the reorganization uh this eighth period that's been freed up uh

019or created i don't know whether it's freedom or created for the teachers great opportunity to continue to have focus and maybe that becomes one of the benchmarks to have focus on particularly math because we're so the kids are so far behind um so that's really what i just like to add since you teed this up uh yes miss rosario um thank you we already have benchmarks um the superintendent has already prepared and put and and presented those benchmarks in the form of baseline data to us he also provides us with updates on the baseline data as of july of 2020 he presented with us targets for up until 2 20 25 in the areas of academic success equity culture and climate target target 25 and there are several other pages that go on and on

020and on with his targets using a baseline data and then there is target up until 2021 and then there's a target to 2025. i know that there are other benchmarks that have been created and presented that right now i could not pull up in front of me immediately dr moore can speak um specifically to where they are located but i know that he's already done that work so we're there already which is which is a good thing how those data and benchmarks can be fine-tuned i believe is something ongoing as we get our results obviously from the fsa testing this year at the end of this year and some of the other um bench line some of the other baselines or benchmarks rather that we are waiting for the results to come in um i'm

021sure that's going to be presented to us i believe in july when dr moore gives us his uh end year evaluation or we give him the end year evaluation and that's a conversation between board members and the superintendent um my i think this is a this comes from a really um a heartful place i i can hear dr jones wanting to do the right thing and i know that we all want to do the right thing with a sustainability policy my concern is that i think that we might be putting the cart before the horse just a little too soon i don't know if right now is the right time to do this i do believe that something should be done but i'm not so sure that creating a policy right now would be the

022uh the timely thing to do and here's what i mean about that the commitment is there by all of us we already have this commitment to do this work in our strategic plan and i think that we're forgetting that our strategic plan is supposed to guide every single decision that we make every decision in terms of budget every decision in terms of classroom management every decision um down to the the paperwork that is submitted you know from parents to admit their children into school and everything up until graduation our strategic plan is the plan that we should be using and that is to be used for every decision and so our efforts to do the work of equity um and culture it's already in there so we have it and i think that we often

023forget because we may not have it in front of us or it's not you know an item that we're referencing immediately but everybody should have it in front of them at all times to be honest with you it's kind of the um the driving force of the district so here's what i think about that why i think that it's a little too soon is because we're right in the middle of mediation we don't know what may or may not come out of mediation we also don't know what may or may not happen between now and the end of the school year i mean between now and the end of december going into this annual year just before requesting unitary status we don't know the steps that we would be making hopefully great steps in in

024in the direction of progress um and i and i mention all of this because if we're going to craft policy i think it's important for us to reflect on where we are at the time of crafting policy right now because we have the commitment already in our strategic plan in our african-american achievement plan we have it in our probably five other different plan in our in the targets that i just mentioned crafting a policy now not knowing where we will be in october november or december or just prior to requesting unitary status might not be beneficial to us because we're probably going to be here later re revising the policy i'd like if we were to create a policy to know where exactly we are just before entering into the courtroom and asking for full

025unitary status i'd like us to then think of an opportunity to at that point say in good faith because we don't know what the what the naacp will think at that time the naacp may think that we're not in a place of going for full unitary status but at that time if we were to craft policy we might in good faith tell them look we are going to go for good for full unitary status but here's our commitment to you at that point the other thing is my concern with being inclusive in without other agencies or other entities crafting our policy that worries me because then when do we stop we have been the elected officials to craft the policy for the school district if we want to include other people in the crafting of

026a policy then why not later on consider a proclamation a proclamation of good faith to the commitment of this work that's something a little different that i think maybe we can think of you know later on i just don't believe that now it is the right time uh dr jones well before i make a statement i'd like to hear from dr moore what what he would envision this to look like so there are a number of districts that am i on here yes there are a number of districts that have uh sustainability policies following unitary status i think the creation of a policy uh drives the work of the superintendent it drives the it exceeds any one particular superintendent it exceeds any particular school board member so it becomes the the driving force of the

027the public school system creating a sustainable plan really to ensure as dr jones mentioned the research is clear it's not an opinion uh very typical when a district obtains unitary status the movement that allowed them to attain that status quickly goes back to where it was prior to the attainment that's that's just a a simple fact i think we need to create a policy uh prior to obtaining unitary status i think unitary status is something that shouldn't be a debate or discourse or disagreement i think in the appropriate situation the school district of indian river county says we deserve unitary status the naacp says we deserve unitary status and i say we not the district the entire community uh members of the community say yes we deserve unitary status and i think we've done uh

028taken tremendous strides forward in obtaining that work but by no means do i think that we are done uh and when we attain unitary status by no means do i think we will be done so working with the naacp as school board attorney mentioned they are the plaintiffs in the case uh creating a policy the at the end of the day the policy would be would come through my office to this board for review um and working with or opening the the doors dr schiff to to extend conversation on on the input on the creation of a policy i i think that's something that we can work with the naacp to say what what does that look like and i do have a question on that if it is the creation of the policy or

029is it within the policy itself to continue to grow the conversation on the um so it's just not the naacp in the school district after we attain unitary status so if it is the creation of the policy i do think we could work with naacp and say let's not do this in isolation but let's do this in partnership and collectively agree upon um individuals who could sit at the table haven't had that conversation with the naacp um but i think that's that is reasonable that we come to agreement on the court the case that that we are within and then the creation of the policy i'm equally comfortable it is to ensure that we create a policy that really takes um unitary status um and blows it out for across the entire system in terms

030of what we're doing which include multiple voices i agree that policy should should support that understanding i just want to add to that thank you for all the comments personally i don't think this is too early i think it's about 40 years too late because let's say it takes us four more years to get unitary status or we get it next year that doesn't mean that we're not going to keep working on the work which is what our teachers and administrators support staff everybody does on a daily basis and i really appreciate dr schiff saying bringing in other people i think i think that'd be great because it's a community it's a community and it's also a deseg order we've dealt with for many years but that waiting until unitary status to me does not

031does not make a commitment and i think something like this is something that we just must move forward with again we spent money where are we we're back in mediation you know we're back at having court issues and i just i just want to move forward and it's not to me it's not even about the unitary status to me it's about what are we doing for these kids every day every single day and we um and they have faith that we want to make it happen go ahead dr chef so i'm a little confused i've heard sustainability policy i've heard unitary status i've heard benchmarks i've heard strategic plan i've heard sustainability and i'm getting a little confused in what's the purpose of this and so what i'd like to hear is like the elevator

032speech is the 30-second elevator speech what you envision this this saying or writing or codifying because because i i actually agree with mrs rosario i think the benchmarks are in a different place and i think that that's important but i think that occurs somewhere else i think policy is not just about the specific measures but it's um it's creating a commitment and that commitment is is being codified that's what i hear so i want to be really clear in this exactly how you envision this obviously you don't have the language right now obviously that has to go through a variety of steps yes but what's kind of the the short version the elevator speech about what this says and codifies so that so that i'm really clear about it so as i understand it and

033and review it strategic plan um created annually by the superintendent and staff approved by the board um the african-american achievement plan once we attain unitary status that's part of the joint plan uh can go to the wayside goes away uh equity committee after three years of attaining unitary status goes away can go to the wayside uh this looks at the specific sections that we had to address to obtain unitary status and creates policy making to ensure within each of those specific areas we continue to grow in those specific areas so it's looking at the sections within the joint plan within the the areas that we need to address to obtain unitary status in creating policy to ensure or directs the superintendent that there's policy in place that those specific areas continue to have a focus

034in on them there's a structure a structure within the organization to continue to look at those specific areas so that would be you know ding ding door elevator door opening that was a long elevator speech i lived on the 31st floor [Laughter] um so to be clear first off to be clear the african-american achievement plan is driven by the joint order i thought it was driven by somewhere else can you i thought that was driven um i'm not i thought it was driven by something else that the joint plan the equity committee all of that yes is driven by the litigation the african-american achievement plan i don't believe necessarily goes away i think that's down to us um that's one thing but two so what i hear you saying and it is part of the

035joint plan the african-american achievement report is part of the joint plan we did not have an african-american achievement report before the joint plan is that true no there is an african-american achievement right because if it's driven by the joint plan then it wasn't in existence prior to 2018. right we've had that for a long time it's driven right it's it's right but we've had it for a long time it became a part of the joint plan but was not driven by nor mandated by the joint plan right yes all right let me let me have the lawyer respond please in 1994 it was part of the joint plan so it's been a part of the joint plan for many years it was reinserted in the 2018 joint plan it wasn't done away with it was

036reinserted so it has been in place for a long time that requirement so is it true then that if we if we achieve unitary status then the african-american achievement plan goes away the 2018 joint plan has a requirement in it for an african-american achievement plan each year to be approved by the board once the 2018 joint plan goes away or we attain unitary status then the obligations under that joint plan go away but how the superintendent and this board determines to operate the district you can certainly do something else something similar something right so that then is embedded in that's the reason for a sustainability policy not just that but that's part of it so the notion of the sustainability policy is to say when we achieve universe unitary status and these obligations go away

037we're still committed to doing this work we will ongoingly be committed to doing this work we will direct the superintendent to do this work and that may occur through a variety of things like an equity committee um a community panel i for lack of a better word the african-american achievement report and that would be built into the sustainability policy am i correct yes equally tall building but yes yes say what equally tall building but [Laughter] no no 23rd floor dr jones yes i am and that was very well said dr schiff and at the last two equity meetings too we talked about the sustainability because there was a few questions in dialogue about that you know where are we going to go and again when we get unitary status absolutely wonderful but this will help

038us sustain in policy because unless it isn't policy specifically it has been known to just kind of go by the wayside and i want our community to know whether we're not whether or not we're federally mandated to do this we know it's the right thing to do you know for like i said 53 years you know here we are we've got to make a commitment you know the the the i think in corporate terms because that's the world that i lived in for a lot of years a strategic plan is a living breathing document and a good strategic plan first of all it's never more than three years you can forget about the out years because the world changes every year if not sooner and certainly the world has changed because of covet so i

039think reference in a policy to the requirement there be a strategic plan that's updated appropriately a strategic plan should be reviewed every year and the out year should be adjusted according to the environment you find yourself in technology alone almost forces you to change your strategic plan and it certainly uh forces you to change the measurement standards you use in order to determine whether in fact you're making progress so i think if you've both said sort of the same way a policy a policy if you're a board of directors of a public company you're going to approve a strategic plan but you're also going to have a policy and call it the bylaws you're going to have a policy basically that requires you to have a strategic plan and you can be a specific subsets

040there can be subset there can be an african-american component to a strategic plan you you're going to have you're going to have financial measurements because a strategic plan that you can't afford isn't worth the paper it's written on so it's got to be realistic from a financial standpoint all of those things can be incorporated into a policy without the specificity that ties in any one particular thing because the world's going to keep changing let's hope mr rosario i'm kind of shocked to hear that the african-american achievement plan and um would just go away and some of the other things that you just mentioned after we go for unitary status that has never been a part of any discussion that we have had not publicly not even would go away could difference could or would either

041way has that has never been a a discussion neither private or public so that this that's very it's very shocking to me to hear that the commitment minus the proposal for policy has always been to continue the work even post unitary status and in our 2018 joint plan there is even a a clause or caveat or an agreement in there that even if at the end of the three-year period the parties agree that the school district is entitled to the declaration of unitary status in some or all remaining areas the equity committee as part of the work will continue to exist and monitor equity issues for at least two additional years i.e the equity committee will exist for a minimum of five years now i know that only talks specifically to equity committee but to

042the work of equity it still continues post-unitary status at least by this joint plan for the next two years following um so i i'm i'm really surprised to hear that that was even mentioned because the work should not indeed say go the potential for it to go away is 100 factual my desire or any of these board members desire for that to go away uh absolutely isn't isn't the intent but the strongest most powerful uh move a board can take to protect that shock that you have right now is the creation of a policy that says it the desire we making an assumption that that that good work would continue isn't the best course of action to take saying let's solidify it in policy policy is the driving factor of a school system that ensures

043the work continues and there's many elements that would you you're right need to continue on and ultimately grow beyond and and across the entire district that need to be solidified through policy um and now the last thing that i was going to mention um um you mentioned that there was another or the african-american achievement plan was in place before there's two different african-american achievement plans there's a or african-american achievement report there's a african-american achievement report that is where data is collected and submitted to the doe annually and then we have our african-american achievement plan which was created you know to for the the joint plan so maybe that's where we're getting confused there are two different because i've for years for the last two three you know i got confused on both of them but

044there are two different reports with the same name believe it or not so just for a level of clarity through the chair there is a report that all 67 districts are required to complete it's one of those fill-in-the-blank reports uh requires board approval we bring it to the board each year uh it's very straightforward in terms of a a number-driven approach african-american achievement plan established in 1994 renewed in 2018 first approved year before last when that was one of the first actions i took was to create that specific plan yes ma'am thank you when i first read this item on here i will say i had a conversation with you and the first thing i said is what a great idea thank you um the reason why i said that is because um i have

045seen where first of all we've been through this for so many years and the worst thing that could happen is we achieve status and then something falls by the wayside and we wind up back in court like some other districts are going through and i don't think any of us want to see that um i don't think now is the time to sit here and talk about all the details i think now is the time just to make a decision on what's the best timing for when to create this policy because i heard timing is an issue and i think um at that point when it comes back to us is when we can say okay is there an african achievement plan part of this is you know it related to the strategic plan that's

046when we i think really pick apart what we think needs to be in there i think right now we're putting the cart literally in front of the horse so i think we need to just decide on timing and whether or not to go forward with this yeah i think the issue is are we in favor of going forward with it i'm i'm hearing that's part of what i'm hearing most of us are with some objections so either we come to consensus to go forward with it and obviously it'll come back before the board with specific language um or the board says not to go forward with it but that's not what i'm hearing so i i agree with you i think it for the most part there's agreement to go forward with it we see

047the merit of it let's decide that and let's let's charge our superintendent and school board attorney with bringing back language that's very sorry dr moore you you have a question for you you mentioned earlier um that the that other districts have created policy after attaining unitary status what were the reasons for creating policy after obtaining obtaining unitary status versus before i can't say at what point in their obtainment of unitary status it was created uh only did a a cross check to see are there similar policies that we could use as a starting port as a starting point as we created them so um completing it before or after i i think completing it before is the appropriate process um with enough lead time to really engage in the dialogue about um what is embedded

048and captured within the particular policy so i also i'm sorry if i can add to that i think that's also part of the point of it is as dr jones was mentioning to put it in place before we achieve unitary status to demonstrate we're committed to the work irrespective of whether we've got unitary status or not the point is the work not the legal charge to do so correct i'll agree with that correct well well said thank you very well said okay i have my dr moore i um not my item but but i i think as written um i think it allows us to do that work it does provide a three-month when i think it comes back august 10th so as we engage in the work um if i need additional time then

049i would let the board know thank you okay i'm sorry just to clarify you said you're going to bring back language on august 10th is to bring back for your review which i would probably bring it to a workshop saying this is the progress that we've made regarding the policy it would include something regarding each of these sections of the plan it would include how we would monitor and review and ensure that we're continuing to grow each of those specific areas it would include something when we're not continuing to grow we identify a deficiency what the appropriate course of action would be by the superintendent to get back to where it was when it begins to fall so a check and balance policy basically and and just to clarify i assume the reason that you're

050suggesting uh almost three-month window is to check policy in other districts to check legal status to make sure you know what's included in it you know all of those different things that you mentioned is is why you envision it would take three months to do that and opening schools as well and summer pd and you know and the assorted other things obviously that we need to do but assume meeting with the naacp would be one of those yes yeah yeah yeah i wouldn't be in a big hurry in terms of i mean if it takes four months you know you're talking about a broad policy that will satisfy the future not knowing what lies before is between now and whenever the future is so um yeah i think as long as as long as it's

051concise and can identify you know specifics to the extent possible it takes a little longer and you need to have a few more meetings we're going to be here for a while hopefully not today but we're at least here until the next election you're stuck with all of us so i'm happy dr jones the the next item is yours as well yes thank you yes um i just wanted this is really my personal opinion on agendas and being a first-time board member obviously we have two meetings a month and a lot of time goes into preparing the agenda for those meetings it's in our policy to get the agenda published on our website seven days ahead of time and we should it's the right thing to do so our constituents know what we're talking about

052or voting on dr moore talks about transparency all the time and each board member is giving detailed information on every consent item and action item i study it thoroughly and if my questions are not answered i will pull it from consent but i need that background information beforehand to research every item and just for the public to know i know board members have said this before but each board member meets with the superintendent once a week and cabinet to get our questions answered and concerns expressed and also sometimes debate and there are phone calls between those meetings if we need to add to the agenda we can do so with no problem forget it on time never an issue there for adding something to an agenda now in policy after the agenda has been made

053available change should be only for good cause as determined by the person designated to preside and stated in the record and i know special meetings uh require 48 hours ahead of the meeting an additional item can be added first with approving the addition with the orders of the day and then adding the item if it is for good cause now i know we'll probably discuss this and and talk about it but to me a good cause is somewhat of an emergency um we had those during hurricanes when i was principal we had to do a memorandum of understanding you know get things out so we just had to kind of move forward with that in other words we couldn't wait two weeks to the next meeting and i've seen emergency action items or when needed

054to happen that is why we have good cause i just didn't think it was fair to everyone listening to parents in the boardroom only i received several phone calls emails texts grocery store stops where they said i didn't know you're going to vote on this i'm sending my child because you do require mass so okay that's why i said i think we have to have a good cause two actions item were added last time optional mask and meeting room setup in my professional opinion not for good cause or an emergency and i voted against both children and staff are wearing master at the end of the year following the cdc protocols now inside and outside and i think we should honor that the superintendent in his cabinet run the district and should be the one

055sharing with each of us immediately when he sees we need to add something for a good cause and emergency and that is my expectation of dr moore you and your staff have the big picture and you know the details obviously board members must work together to have a meeting when the agent has been published in the appropriate amount of time and not bring up action on it after the meeting has started unless it truly is an emergency we are voted into this office by our constituents and we need to listen to all sides before deciding not just those who are the loudest i truly believe in trying to learn every day with fsba that we must be procedural develop protocols and do the business in a professional manner as they have said to us many

056times fsba we set the policy and the superintendent and staff run the day to day i think we have a very important job responsibility of the education of these students lies with the board we need to run the agenda as published and listen to all constituents we need to be ready to vote by reading all the information's given to us so when the next item is added after the agenda has been published i will be asking how this is for good cause and whether it needs to happen that's my opinion yeah this is very boring so so are you asking then for board members not to be able to add items absolutely not an emergency or good cause absolutely you can okay so i would consider a good cause when this when the governor makes

057a statement such as he did before our last meeting i think that's a good cause for discussion at a board meeting what was that terry uh he made a discussion about remembering exactly yeah yeah so i think that that's a reasonable request for a board member to bring it forward and for us to discuss at a board meeting i thought that that even though it did surprise me and even though it did come up the way it did and i don't know if you remember that i did amend it that um after mr rosario brought it up but i think that i'm not going to say because you directly made that statement so i'm not going to say that that wasn't appropriate to bring up because the governor had made a statement before that so

058i i did understand why a board member brought that up okay maybe i could we could hear the definition of good cause what everybody thinks about it mr zarya thank you well there are legal um definitions for good cause which i'm sure suzanne can clarify for us on many uh fsba conferences um in in many workshops with them they are very clear that the agenda is the superintendent up until it is posted between the time of posting which should be seven days prior to the meeting up until i think it's that the meeting up until the meeting it then becomes a joint agenda between superintendent and the the board chair at the meeting it becomes the board's agenda so when we are in a meeting it is no longer the superintendent's agenda it belongs to

059all five board members that is why if there is something that a board member wants to add during um the consent approval anybody can do that and then we vote on it so um you vote on adding something to the agenda so for example if mrs barron or anybody wanted to add something and then you did not want that particular item to be added to an action item or a discussion item or something else and you can vote and say no and the agenda moves forward as such so i think there were some things that you mentioned in there that you may not have understood the full understand okay because that you didn't mention any of that um he does not own it sorry the superintendent doesn't own or or or have the agenda the

060night of the meeting um so that's with with regard to agendas but what i did uh print and i'd love to share it with you all are some there's the top page one two sorry let me turn it i'm gonna give one to the superintendent and um whomever else wants a copy the top one is a statute for public officers thank you here's three i have three the top one is just the statute for public officers with regard to meetings hearings and workshops um but there are and and i'm glad that you did bring up this agenda item though not for the purpose of what you are are discussing but for us to review agendas in general when items are presented to us when they when backup is posted online i think that's all important

061for us to discuss as well with regard to agendas um because i've had some concerns with that receiving things last minute receiving items on friday for the tuesday meeting or even items being placed on there on monday they may be for good cause but i think that we should establish an understanding that everything should be done seven days prior all of the backup all of our everything should be seven days prior to avoid which was the prior practice to avoid the last minute hustle of what what has been updated because when we receive the updated notice i don't ever get to know what what was actually updated so i'm scrolling through the agenda trying to figure out what was it you know so those are the kinds of things that i think that this might

062be a good opportunity for us to discuss and that's part of some of the items that i included to you for you so the first one is a general meetings hearings and workshops statute the next one is our policy notice of meetings we have a policy 0164 with regard to notice of meetings and postings on the district website and so on and so forth you can take a look at that the next one i included which i really like is st lucie county's board meeting policy it is code 2.22 um this is a really nice policy if you look at it it's really very comprehensive in one page we often have policies that are like 20 different you know uh uh 20 different policies all talking about the same thing when we can just narrow

063it all down to one and i kind of like the way that st lucie created theirs here on school board governance and organization here you'll see how school board meetings are run you'll see the rules of order you'll see the meeting agenda when items are placed on there how it's run you will see public participation at school board meetings you will see scheduled speakers it's kind of all encompassing quorum voting and of course disruptive behavior so i thought that these might be good um supplemental material for you all to take a look at as we start to look at what our agendas should look like receiving the agenda when we should receive it and and all of those um items dr schiff couple things um [Music] i don't disagree at all dr jones um i

064think that i too thought we that we were going to talk about um the seven days versus the occasional sometimes things are put on friday afternoon often those are for good cause because they're apollo their personnel decisions so um mrs rosario when something is updated i always know what's updated because our incredibly um well efficient and well organized executive assistant always says updated in front of the item so i can look right there where it's updated and she says the date it's been updated and the color so i i'm well on the board docs it doesn't show color but it does show emboldened but i can usually find that so i know what to look for when it's been updated and i know when she sends me a notice that that means go look because

065something's been updated and it'll say that but to to dr jones's point um i hear two different things here well to everybody's point there's a difference between when something is put on the agenda for action and when something is put on for discussion when something's put on for discussion because something has occurred that we didn't anticipate it's completely appropriate for us to discuss it because we don't have any other time to do that there are innumerable things that come up before this board that i really wish we could hash out beforehand and we could have some discussion about but we can't so there are times like an executive order when it's completely appropriate to have that conversation here when we take a vote however without that preparation i agree with dr jones that that can

066have unintended consequences for example because we didn't vet the policy i too received numerous communications about citizen input because when we go back to normal that means people can't email citizen input anymore that means people have to show up as a result of which we have a lot of people planning to show up tonight because we didn't vet it before we voted on it and that concerns me because that has implications too so irrespective of in addition to noticing it and letting people know what we're voting on if we haven't had the conversations if we haven't discussed it with the superintendent if we haven't discussed it with our board attorney we may wind up voting for things like i think we did without a full understanding of the implications of that vote and that's what

067i hear dr jones um alluding to that that's my interpretation that may or may not be her words or her agreement so i think there's a difference and when there is something that comes up nothing precludes us from having special meetings we've done it in the past it's hard to organize sometimes because we all have conflicting schedules but there's if there's something that has to be voted on that has implications like as dr moore said at the last meeting teachers went home under one policy and he was concerned about having them come back under a different one at eight o'clock the next morning i i have real concern about that and i agree and i do think we need to have more considered and thoughtful discussions when we're making policy decisions that affect fifteen thousand

068students and two thousand employees and i don't think any of us takes that lightly and i think we need to be really conscious and conscientious about how we do that so i don't at all disagree with how things have to be noticed and i do know that sometimes things have to be put on at a later date because uh for a variety of of good reasons they weren't ready by tuesday they needed legal opinion they needed direction from the state they're you know they we are protecting personnel there's any number of reasons that can happen but for broad policy decisions yeah i think we need to do that in advance so can i ask a question here for my benefit if if if an item is introduced by a board member it's one thing to

069add it to discussion which i presume is not a problem because we've done that more than once for sure but to be able to be asked to vote on something when it's introduced that evening that's my question and that's what we did and there's always unintended consequences not always but often and in hindsight he might have been a little more specific or included this or made an exception to that so i i would like to know from a you know from a not just the opinions we all may have but you know maybe you miss the aggressor whether or not you can actually vote with the exception of the words that dr jones just used what you use for for cause or for good cause and how do you define that um is there something

070to guide us rather than us having our own conclusions as to what that means and what we're able or not able to do absolutely your policy with regard to agendas allows board members to add items to an agenda once the meeting is called to order if the board determines they wish to operate differently and some boards have and some boards haven't you can change that language and remove the ability to add an action item to an agenda in prior years this is going back many years that was the policy and then over time it was revised at the request of board members to allow board members to add action items historically and this was some years ago the policy was worded to allow board members to add anything to the discussion section and then after

071that discussion if further discussion or action was needed it would be put on a subsequent board meeting agenda for action um but that language was changed over time and which leads us to where we are today okay mr do you remember when that was changed i'm not going to be able to give you the year but i recall a discussion amongst board members and i know mr cearcy was a part of that discussion of being able to add items to an agenda that board members felt needed to be acted on the night of the meeting i'm not going to be able to give you a date i'm sorry but that time within the four years that mr seriously right and there may have been discussions prior to him being on the school board as well

072but that that's the discussion that i remember leading to some language changes that's close enough thank you mr grista on our pilot in our policy it says the order of business may be altered in items added at any meeting by a majority vote of the members present so do we have to do a vote before we even add it other than the orders of the day that's your orders of the day at the orders of the day you you alter the arrangement you move some things from consent to action or you might rearrange where a presentation is and if a board member wishes to add something which the language allows that vote on the orders of the day approves all of those changes if for some reason the board wants to bifurcate that and take

073take individual votes i want to move consent a to action well let's take a motion and vote i want to move consent d to actually take up you know you could bifurcate each one of those or you can take it as a group and we've done that we have removed consent items yes sir to discuss individually yes and then we discuss and vote right and uh you know that could very likely happen tonight uh can happen at any meeting and then the rearranging of the agenda for whatever the reason is again that's under the orders of the day um and we can rearrange the agenda with the approval of the majority of the board yes for whatever the reasons may be out of courtesy to someone who's you know going to make a presentation and

074and you want to move them up front so they don't have to or for whatever other reason may be appropriate i guess my basic premise here is unless it is an emergency or good cause i want to have the information needed to make a vote as we do with our consent and action items and i want to know that our constituents know we're voting that's it and i and i think what the the issue that that dr schiff raised about email specifically because i can remember after the fact i think i asked either miss esplin or dr moore what does this really mean does this mean we go back and sit up there um does it which it is one thing for sure does it mean rearranging the deck chairs here hopefully not on the

075titanic but be specifically what about emails and to that point specifically and seconding what dr jones is saying we shouldn't be voting on something if we don't know exactly what it means we just shouldn't if we don't know exactly if if we have to go back afterwards and say what did we just vote on we shouldn't be voting on it in my in my opinion but that's what discussion is for correct at discussion not at action right but if if there is but you can discuss during action yeah so we can do that but clearly afterwards there were implications of that to which mr barefoot is eluding that we weren't clear on and that had implications for subsequent meetings and i'm sure the superintendent as he did with me had individual comments conversations with all

076of you about what that meant for citizen input in particular it had other implications for how we're arranged in the room how we sit with each other various other how what's going to happen in this room tonight when we all know a lot of people are planning to show up where they're going to be how they're going to be arranged how security is going to be managed yada yada all of those things but we took a vote on something and and pardon me mr barefoot um because you just said that but said so i'm going to reiterate that our board chair had to then go back and say okay what are the implications of this i think that's a dangerous precedent personally i agree with dr jones on this i think that's real i i

077agree i have concerns about that well and as i recall just using the email piece and this was put in place i believe it was put in place when covet came along but there's plenty of people who find it inconvenient to have to come here at six o'clock on a tuesday night even though not only inconvenient impossible and uh personally um i think having particularly people seem to with there's a few exceptions but people seem to have gotten used to how to fill out the form and the whole deal that i think we personally think we should put that back in and allow it it's just i just think more people have an opportunity to speak it's less of an inconvenience and it's no more of a of an inconvenience to us have someone speaking

078in person or having uh kristen or somebody else reading an email that's just my point of opinion you know i know like our um email addresses are out there people email us all the time about things they call us they stop us in the grocery store it was stopped twice this week so um you know they have the ability to talk to us many different ways it's the question here is whether or not they want to be on camera or have their um comments made public publicly for the camera i guess that's what we're asking right because they can still and they do send us those same emails so i'm getting all those emails i'm reading all those emails but how those how that information comes i make it emails you don't get you may

079get emails i don't get how those are heard by the public how they add to or detract from a conversation that doesn't happen i have no idea what anybody said to you in a supermarket and i don't necessarily need to it may not be for me but when somebody comes here or writes an email to be read into the record it's because they feel strongly enough about something that they want to make a public statement and if that's the case then and and i agree with you um we should allow that communication to still continue um because that's what we want we want um citizens to have the right to have input of course we do we're not going to close down input and everything else and that's what we inadvertently did i think what

080it gets away from though is when it becomes and i've seen it in our county happen i'm not talking about recently i'm talking about years ago where people were running for an office for other thing and then they would come to a school board meeting and speak to the camera about whatever it was and it had nothing to do with school board so it got away from people and i think that's why some districts change some things because i think people were using it for the wrong reasons if it's about the business of the board and about students and about what's happening with our schools yeah we want to absolutely here and i think we need to and it needs to be timely for them i agree and i would add to that um you

081know that speaks to what i think is dr uh jones's next item which is is um stability which is which is limitedly that's not really a word uh civility but it it also speaks to broader issues of of relevance and respect and specificity which are not necessarily in civility but certainly could be and and to to that i agree and i think that's our next item where we could expand that item from civility to also include relevance uh dr moore um having you know served for many years down in miami-dade and now here and never having to deal with a pandemic which uh email allowing email certainly was appropriate for the times not to put you on the spot but if you had all the votes or a recommendation or if you don't choose to

082have a point of view what what would you what what's your point of view on this topic about em allowing or not allowing emails so in terms of the overall dialogue i think first and foremost if the superintendent of schools isn't bringing an action my item around any emergency then he or she is doing something wrong and if it's up to the board to bring the item um there's a problem so in terms of ensuring that the staff who works for the superintendent is ensuring documentation is being provided the a vote that drastically shifts the overall operation of the organization is the responsibility of the superintendent and if it's an emergency um and things do happen an executive order that says a b c or d uh that needs to be acted on before we

083come back together a second time that would be uh something in which we would vote upon if we were to take up um an initiative for a bill that was signed in tallahassee and the board wanted to take a stance uh that should be something that that we should be able to from staff's perspective prepare in terms of the public comment um it's just relatively straightforward i think the opportunity to engage and access the community um is done in a very very efficient and ineffective way and the opportunity to connect to each of you is something that's rightly of you know you had the community has access to its board members we do not have a policy that allows us to to put in email emails it was a modification to policy uh under the

084executive order therefore we went back to normal and then if someone you know wants to come in they come in and speak so did you answer the part about whether or not you're okay with the emails i mean i'm okay with with the structure as it is and i i think the at the at the front of this work is the opportunity for the elected officials the board members to have a deep understanding um as to where the community believes but ultimately makes decisions based on uh what they believe is in the best interest of the entire community um and and i think you know you know this is a a policy that was probably written a hundred years ago you know where you know you know there was no opportunity to email there was

085no you had to put a stamp on on a piece of paper and and send it in i am not concerned that you don't have access to your constituents and have a deep understanding as to how they feel uh on all areas of all issues um so conducting the the business of the board in a timely and relevant way that ensures that we're all awake we're all um clearly of of mind in making decisions and going through the work of the board uh needs to be a priority for the board so let me ask a question of my my colleagues we all get these emails and and we made it very simple because now they only have to check one box not not five is it appropriate for one of us on a particular email

086to say you know mary smith or tom jones sent an email or or i re we all received an email and then just have it brought forward for for discussion because some of these emails once in a while i don't know what the percentage is a small percentage actually raises a good point and yes they can communicate with one or all of us at the same time but does it stay there or is it is it incumbent upon one of us to raise whatever the issue is to the point of discussion uh mr rosario that has happened before um and but but it all depends on the content of the email so it might be a particular situation where we just need to forward it to the superintendent he may not have been tagged in

087it and he needs the opportunity to respond in the right way or forward it to his leadership so that they can respond appropriately it might be something that we need to address from the from the from the diocese in that in that particular instance at the beginning of the meeting you can add that item as a discussion item and then we can discuss it and during discussion you would say we all received because i see that we all receive this particular email i want to discuss this because it's that important and then we continue you know through the discussion that way um so i i i hear you and it is important and and and sometimes it's just a matter of you responding to that particular person you know alone without tagging all of us

088and just saying i'm sorry for your situation i'll take a look at whatever it is and i'm sure we all i'm sure we all do that yeah but the real question is is it appropriate for you me mrs barrenborg any of us to take it upon ourselves where we've all been copied on an email to to tee it up for discussion and i guess you use your judgment yeah i think we do that all the time and we may do it in ways that say you know i receive communication that i am aware that it's been brought to my attention that without necessarily saying susie jones sent me this email right i do that all the time so i think we can always do that whether whether the email came to us individually or came

089to the board corporate so the in the world and the policy that we we have right now is you show up in person email is not an option for citizen input not not for communication with the right run right for citizen input so we leave it like that which is in effect what dr moore he i don't know that you were that specific but that's what you're intimate we leave it the way it is but if someone if someone really wants to communicate with one or all of us there's that opportunity and we should encourage people to do that but but we do not accept email input to be read during citizen input you know to be honest i'm really conflicted about this because it's a little like pandora's box and we've opened it you

090know prior to the pandemic when this was not an issue and it was not a policy we never had this conversation you you showed up to talk to the board that's just the way it was um because of the pandemic and because we've done things differently for a year we've now opened a possibility that didn't previously exist once having allowed that possibility it now occurs as if it's taking something away to discontinue it and i i have some concern about that because because i don't and honestly i'm not clear how i feel about this because i agree with dr moore um the business of the the the board business meeting is to do the business of the board and when we don't get to the business until 10 o'clock at night and we're all tired

091and we've been here since often you know 9 10 in the morning we may not be as attentive to things as we would otherwise be were we more fresher and more alert on the other hand i also don't want to discourage input i don't want to discourage voices if somebody feels strongly enough to come and talk to us i'm not sure i want to discourage that so to be honest i have really mixed feelings about this and i and i think that having allowed it whether or not it was previous policy and whether or not we mean it this way it now exists as if it's taking something away and i think we have to be sensitive to that mr miss barrenburg i'll agree with you um the one thing though that i think um

092do you remember back when we had a two-day meeting because of citizen input how could i forget yeah so the one thing i will say about that is we saw a lot of repeats uh somebody would send out something and say please copy this and send it to the board and so we were seeing the same things being read over and over and over again that's where it's kind of i agree i think that's i see what they're trying to do they're making their point that a lot of people feel this way and i get it and i want to know that but i also think you're right it it puts us into starting our meetings at 10 o'clock at night which is not good for anybody um because then some people say things that

093they um probably said the wrong way instead of you know realizing what they were saying not pointing eight fingers to anybody dr moore [Laughter] he he he must spoke one word last last major three words three words three words okay and it was pretty funny if you went back and read it but it's because we're so tired so i will say this that um i think there could be a way i've seen other districts do this where you're allowing citizen input up to a certain point in other words the first so many that get in are the ones that are red the rest of them are sent to the board to read and i think that's fair because you had your opportunity to get your input in and know that it's going to either be

094read on camera or it's going to be read by the board members but it's going to be red i think that's a possibility i'm not saying that's the way to go because i want to hear from everybody what your opinion is on it i do agree that we've opened pandora's box and that not everybody has the ability or the time to come here and speak but they feel very concerned about things so they pull you aside in the gym and they tell you how you feel how they feel because they don't have the time to come to our meetings i get that but i also think that that shouldn't have to happen either they should be allowed to email us i'll agree with that um go ahead yes but to that end i think i

095sent the board through our executive assistant recently a policy from i can't it was either pinellas or polk i can't remember which county that said if there are a number of you that was in their policy if there are a number of you who are saying the same thing from an organization we request that you have a representative of your organization speak for the organization and it was i i think we have that too no we don't no no no we don't but i'll say a lot of people won't say that they're with an organization they'll say that they but if they're right but if they're sending the exact same email which which we've seen a lot that that there are i agree with you that there should be a way to consolidate that uh

096mr zara thank you um one of the reasons why i'm going to ask that we all maybe come back together again during a board discussion to continue this discussion because there is a lot that began with agendas how our meetings are run including citizen input that all that are all encompassing and it it it's a greater discussion if other districts have done it this way i'd love to see their policy how it's written before making a judgment on that um so i think that this would be a a a discuss and i'm willing to come back for a special session if you if you all think it's that important um i'll i'll come back i can't come back until after next week but um going away um for the weekend but after um the long

097weekend sorry but afterward i'll i'll come in and i'll meet if you all want to do that my concern is that we are here this is one of the reasons why this is so prudent right now because this is a superintendent workshop this isn't a board discussion and yet we are now discussing board items for three you know almost an hour and a half and the board the superintendent hasn't even begun his presentations so this is inappropriate we one or two items to be added that boards want to add should be okay again part of meeting protocols we have to stick with what the protocols are if this is a superintendent workshop he should be the driving force to present to us his items not us dominating with our very important uh discussion needs so

098i would love for us to be add this to some whatever you all whenever you know a discussion session so we can iron all of these details out and figure out what we want moving forward well if any if we had to change it we have to we have to write a new policy or amend the existing anyway so it's not something we can decipher exactly so dr jones well since i've been here most of them have been superintendent workshops i mean we haven't had a lot of just board workshops that's why i wanted to add those but and with the permission of the superintendent i think he agreed on that it wasn't an emergency or a good problem okay step on back there lady just just saying hey i've got an idea start with

099the business before the citizen input no no no no i mean our business meetings usually hasn't last an hour but no i mean there are some things we can look at okay my last one am i on the last one now civility can i go with that i'm i'm fine okay and i thought this was important to have them did you did you understand that we're gonna yeah we're gonna need a table to work to enough i'll i'll work with nancy to find a date okay if it doesn't fit i was just looking as in june 8th our next meeting yep the agenda is patched oh is it okay earlier okay june 22nd um i talked with dr moore and actually mr gress about this because obviously i've been here a long time in my

100opinion civility the last board meeting was the worst i've seen in 41 years and it was not the board's behavior it was a few people were here for citizen input not all but a few and the tape is available for anyone to watch it now in my only time i've seen a recess due to behavior of the audience there may have been more but i did not see one before that in this meeting we had raised voices inciting and disturbances phone cameras were in people's faces in our sheriff's faces nothing less of rudeness we had an academic program we began with so our parents would not have to wait two to three hours after citizen input and once they and their students left to get ready to be called into the room the boardroom had

101more chairs before they left these people had to witness people yelling in the lobby and in the board room before their program started i am glad they were escorted outside before the program began with our children their children our students so they did not witness all of it our staff was also sitting there to see the wonderful accomplishments this is why we are here in the district and people complained because the staff wanted to see this wonderful award and wanted their chairs again that is why we are here we are here to run a business meeting and the recognition part of the meeting is the best the superintendent in his cabinet and all staff members we're here to see the students parents and staff members recognize our last board meeting our first speaker was a

102young man who spoke eloquently and was actually booed when he went out into the lobby by adults i repeat by adults and called a yuppie by someone who spoke during citizen input they didn't like his definition of critical race theory or anything else he said i learned more from the young people speaking that night than anyone else young adults i truly listened the best comment we had is their bigger issue than mask we need to help those who need help and just to inform you if you didn't know some of our speakers were harassed by those in the board lobby for their lifestyle we need to make sure that never happens again when we say we do not discriminate for any reason race religion culture gender disability and sexual orientation that no discrimination policy needs

103to include those adults at board meetings i just cannot imagine this happening with people who came to speak i guess if people don't like what you have to say you will be ridiculed this is a world of sound bites i've been on the board since november and i believe in the first amendment in a citizen's right to speech but you don't have to be demeaning other people or speak in a sarcastic manner or yell something from where you are sitting i have seen citiz citizen input at its best and now i have seen it at its worst and i know emotions go into some of these issues everyone has a right to opinion but say it in a way that is not hateful this year has been hard for many many reasons and people can

104get emotional when they speak and that is fine i hear you but anger harassment bullying and hate do not belong here we are school district we are a school board of education the question i pose is this what do we want to model for our students our schools we expect everyone to show respect students staff teachers administrators and parents it is in our code of conduct we can all disagree without being disrespectful we can disagree without showing hate and we can disagree without putting it on social media within three minutes of the situation happening and never given the counterpoint we are a soundbite world and sometimes with social media we have forgotten to have a conversation or even give the other side something to say and one last thing dr moore i want to make

105a comment about what was said to you last week be best by kids well you know what dr moore that's not all on you that is the responsibility of this board our district staff our teachers our support staff and administrators and i would add a little something to that be the best for all students i repeat all students and in closing dr moore is the superintendent mr barefoot as our chair mr degress as our parliamentarian i want our civility policy followed or even amended if the board so desires but people who are not acting appropriately need to be removed we have the most important job in the world the education of seventeen thousand students lies with the board it is in policy and we do not have time to waste and neither does our superintendent

106teachers administration support staff and district staff let's get the job done for all of our students in our school board meetings and have a professional meeting thank you mrs rosario nicely said thank you i agree i'm going to come back to the meeting decorum meeting how we set up our meetings and how we agree what should be in there what shouldn't be in there if we follow st lucy's policy the very last item on their policy number nine it actually indicates on their disruptive behavior and it states it is unlawful to knowingly disrupt or interfere with a school board meeting and that any such action may result in a misdemeanor offense although i don't know if that's entirely true but this is what it reads may result in a misdemeanor offense of the second degree

107this includes individuals who advise counsel or instruct students or school board employees on techniques for disrupting a school board meeting so i think that when we come together it might be a good idea to include some of these suggestions get legal counsel on whether it's a misdemeanor or not and include the right language in that in this particular place of how our meetings are run and and what happens from there moving forward yeah yeah yes i agree with you um yes i do think people get passionate and sometimes they're frustrated and sometimes they say stuff that i i hope they wish they could have taken back um i do know and we're all aware of the fact that there have been some threats made um and i know when i was a principal and i

108had somebody threaten me because it does happen believe it or not i would remind them and you know to calm down and that it's a felony to threaten a school board member and i actually had the felony number memorized back then um because i was working in a really rough area and um had to deal with some really tough things so i will say that um i think that people when they get carried away they think they can say whatever they want and however they want to say it sometimes because we're in that world now where people just are used to saying whatever they want to say in social media and it doesn't matter what you know if you use the f-bomb or whatever and and we can't allow something like that here especially when

109you had students sitting up there and we're going to be recognizing what i got frustrated with is that we had to um have a commotion and not allow the their parents to have a spot the parents were out there or in the back um but we also had to wait and and let the kids have to wait to be honored because of that disruption so i think that you know it would be good to kind of put it out there or have a have the policy either available for people when they're looking at citizen inputs right on there but also maybe something on the wall that says you know we act in a certain way and when we come in this room and behave it's sad that we have to do that but i think

110you know for the fact that we have students in a lot of our meetings at the beginning we haven't this year because of covid but we have in the past always at the beginning of our meetings we start with kids and it kind of focuses in on why we're here and i think that we need to keep that in mind and adults should be models for kids and um i think it's you're right it starts with us to do that too so um yeah i'm all for that i think it is a long discussion that we need to go through and really take a look at our our meeting policy and draft that into the meeting policy so i'll agree with you no i certainly don't disagree um and my intention is tonight to make

111a comment similar to what dr jones just said before we start the meeting because i'm for one and i'm sure all of you would we're not going to sit here and listen to a bunch of people pontificate and as a matter of fact in order to try and avoid that just as a heads up i'm going to propose that we rearrange the agenda a bit so that we deal with the business issues first and if someone wants to comment on anything that's in that consent agenda they're free to do so that's what the card is for and we will do the business and then other people who want to comment on something that's not on the agenda will be free to do so but with least we will have the opportunity to um get the

112business of the board behind us and that's that's it's a challenge i think and you you all particularly those of you who have been here for a few years and dr jones you've been here for a lot of years if not here here you've been here and you observe and you've seen uh as i'm sure a lot of our teachers and principals and administrators have watched over the years once technology allowed it to be uh broadcast uh but um the sad part of and and one of you said it the sad part i think you did miss baronborg this was a night to celebrate these kids and it was ruined by a bunch of people who are so self-centered and or insecure that they would go to the extremes they went to to cause a

113disruption it's inexcusable and and whatever the repercussions are as far as i'm concerned they deserve what they get or got uh yeah i know you're dying to say something no not it's been said um and i agree and concur with everybody uh as difficult as board meetings have been for various reasons over the last few years it hasn't been like this and i know this is happening all over the state all over the country i know political civility is is is quickly flying out the window and people who got into jobs with the intent of doing good and supporting their communities are now feeling physically emotionally mentally threatened by the behavior of communities so that said mr barefoot i would agree and encourage a statement to that effect tonight like you were alluding to but

114i would also say um [Music] that that we that as soon as it starts to become untenable as soon as it is uncivil disrespectful abrasive um that in no uncertain terms you know you have the authority to shut it down you have the authority to cut the camera you have the authority to recess the meeting you have the authority to have people removed and i and i think we are beyond the point where where we err on the side of seeing how it goes i think we've seen how it goes so i support and encourage you um as chair to um to do what you what what you need to do and i agree that uh by the way many of these so all of these things are part of board policy which should happen

115in whether it's a board discussion or a special meeting or whatever it is that we do all of those can be hammered out in a day we spend together working on those policies we're not going to finish them today we just know they need to be done agreed uh mr spernborg i will say um you mentioned something about changing um the order of the meteor how that's going to go the only thing i would caution against since we are expecting so many people to come and speak i know if i took the time out left work early and came here i want to speak and i want to be told i can speak and i don't want to be told that that now got moved to the end of the meeting so i would caution

116you about that but but but the board should hear what the community says before voting on something but they have the ability on the form where you've checked the box said they want to speak to item 2c or 7 8. if they just want to speak okay can can we um because sometimes people aren't really clear about that right people think citizen people who haven't been doing this a long time and are not as familiar with the rules or the policies aren't as aware that there's two different ways of speaking is there a way that we can make that clear to people as they're filling in the form so that they know that because otherwise it's going to it people will be awfully confused we know that what do you mean because the action item

117on the form that they fill out so how can we be what do you can you be a little bit more specific that's that somebody might need to physic to to actually state that as they're filling in the form either at the door in the room when we get on the board because yeah it says it on the forum yeah we've said it on the board yeah it's in our policies but that doesn't mean a people pay attention to it b people who are coming for the first time don't know all of those nuances my um my oh may i sure my um my concern is a from a mom with a young child who comes to speak i don't necessarily have the freedom to wait until the item of which i want to speak

118to so speaking at the beginning of the meeting is is um is the only time that i can do that so i think that that's part of being careful of of this is this the decisions that we make in terms of when citizens um speaking when they don't um i don't have a an elder that i'm caring for but there are some who do and they have to get home right away there are some who come to speak and they have to get home to cook you know there are so many possibilities out there and i don't want to limit citizen input or push it off to the end of the meeting when when we don't know individual issues so when we have further conversations about this i want us to be very careful about

119that well we we can be careful but but again if if there's something on the agenda uh or or correct me if i'm wrong mr agresta or there's something in the consent agenda that that a citizen wants to be able to discuss or much like any of us could pull something on a consent agenda and deal with it discussion and then have a vote we have the ability to do that it's the it's the it's the uh just to use an example there was nothing on the agenda uh the last time about masks specifically they were and yet most of the conversation was aimed at mask there was we tried to up front uh mr superintendent and mr meyer try to clarify if that's the right choice of words the the choice that the our

120committee had made vis-a-vis the curriculum and yet a number and there's nothing there to vote on per se but yet a number of people wanted to speak to it those are the kinds of things that they should be able to speak but not before we deal with the items that are there to be voted upon which is a combination of the consent agenda and very specific items that have been put on there by the superintendent and or one one of one of us can i make a suggestion yeah mr barefoot can i just say one thing before um i think for tonight we just need to follow exactly what our piece of paper says yes and then hash the rest of this out at our next meeting yeah i was going to say the same

121thing i think we have to grin and bear it tonight absolutely as difficult as that may be and and make a decision moving forward which may be included in our civility policy but i think for tonight to change it at this moment when we know it's going to be a volatile meeting and we know more people than usual are planning to show up we will make matters worse as i have seen happen in the past with previous boards i think it will get worse not better to be honest much as much as i may not be looking forward to it so um it's look we we know what's on the agenda we know what's going to be voted on um we i'll guess as to how the things will be voted on and so if

122you have a and but how can i say this you probably can't may i just may i yeah mr barefoot you know it's really very honoring that you are listening to your colleagues share their thoughts on this particular item um sometimes we're we are all going to agree on some things and sometimes we're not we're going to have a difference of opinion ultimately you are the board chair and your job as board chair is to run the meeting during our business meetings um and so hearing our wishes our concerns um it's it's wonderful to know that we can have this discussion and and to know that you're you're hearing us and you want to take into consideration your colleagues um and their desires but at the end of the day that's why your chair so

123you get to make those final decisions because you run the meeting on the day of of the meeting you get to make those but but the ho yes i agree i agree but he still is the board chair and what he doesn't want to do as he has been publicly called out for being is being quote unquote and autocratic tyrannical i agree you know that's that's actually a compliment compared to this yeah and and i you know i because i don't disagree with you mr barefoot and i don't disagree with dr moore i i think we need to get the business done given the volatility of what we anticipate this evening i don't know if tonight's the night to do it much as as i would like to to be honest all right well i

124guess i will uh have to decide whether but i'm going to tell you i think well under the orders of the day as they always do and if you know if things get pulled um they'll get pulled and they'll discuss individually and the question is where in the sequencing does citizen input fit and if it's relative to action items then there's plenty of opportunity to speak to that action item anything that's not related to action items the option is to put it at the end and and you know uh i mean i get it uh and and i in here all of you and it's i can argue both sides of this uh it it just um would be a shame to sit here and listen to the people go on and on and on

125about the same thing and then vote on something i know how i'm going to vote on something and they're wasting their time and our time to keep yapping about something and then for the people to get up and want to bring up something that isn't even a topic tonight just to talk let them talk but let them talk after the relative business that the board is completed now if i propose and i then will go on to the next agenda to to shift to change the sequencing of the agenda or the program tonight you all have an opportunity to vote on that and so um and so i don't want to i don't want to have me put in a position or any of you put in a position where a vote would be misinterpreted

126we're we're stronger together as they say than we are apart but i think you're not hearing us but i think you just heard us and if you put it to a vote i think you're gonna you heard how well but we're gonna we're gonna vote on it when we meet we're gonna i mean we're gonna come to consensus when we meet on what our meetings look like and i understand i'm talking about tonight i know i know i i i think tread lightly i think we all right dr moore all right mr barefoot with after a long await we finally get to hear from mr fagan oh wait can you please present uh our insurance package renewal thank you superintendent through the chair uh tonight you have an item you know annually for the health

127insurance we go and review everything to do with health insurance we look at the trends the expenditures uh this one time was also done again we also looked at the impact of covid and the lack of a lot of selective procedures that were probably not done during covet that may pick up next year however some of them may just choose not to do them so using aeon as our primary source looking at our trends and our analysis we came up with a three percent increase overall for everyone this was reasonable customary and justified based upon our experience three percent means the board rate will go up by three percent so it will go up to uh 18 and we'll go up 18 all employees will get three percent raise based upon the plan they're on

128so some people might see a one dollar increase if they were maybe on the lowest plan and only had an employee and if they were married and only had a family plan and it chose the highest plan that would be a 26 dollar increase per month so cut that in half because you do it twice a month total increase overall is 572 000 total plan increases to approximately 19 million dollars overall any questions nope just good job on the uh aren't we about 8 million that chart it went up to 8 million through the chair yes ma'am the fund balance currently is very strong and eight million dollars save harbors around 2.5 3 million 3 million okay also i forgot to add uh this was also recommended by high tap and also was approved by

129both unions okay that was my question okay great thank you so to clarify the hi-tef and both because what as i understand it so this will be an increase to the board as well as to individual employees in the past sometimes the unions have objected when the board actually absorbs the whole cost because they anticipate a higher and more difficult to absorb raise in a future year but we're not but this year everybody is absorbing some portion of the increase to the chair yeah and the unions are good with that high tufts good with that yes ma'am both shares both units have approved it didn't seem like a really high increase compared to the other years no one year i was going to mention for the board members who weren't here one year we had

130there was a um a proposed increase of i think it was 15 percent it was something ridiculous it was really really high and then am i wrong with the 15 it was in the teens i thought it was it was it was 44 more and so we really struggled with trying to figure out you know you know we no one really could afford the 30 increase but we we understood the role of high tef is to make recommendations and ultimately it was up to the board to decide what that increase would be we certainly didn't settle on the 30 or whatever was the recommendation at the time we kind of met them in the middle um so i'm i'm that was the first my first round with this this is uh an easier round thanks

131to mr fagan um so i'm happy to approve it and i'm glad that you are here and i i don't want you to go anywhere no plans make sure you stay because you're doing the district good mr fagan also through the chair there was also no changes in the plans all the deductibles all the coverages everything remained exactly the same so no changes there the other part of the item is also a stop-loss policy stop-loss policy primary objectives is to protect the district should you have a large number of large dollar claims this is where we pass the risk on to a reinsurer and so that liability caught that premium cost us about eight hundred thousand but in theory if you have five or six five hundred thousand dollar claims if those premium if those

132total claims cost us three million dollars we'll get two million dollars back so basically it's insurance for insurance because if not then that would directly hit the plan and that would possibly cause you a double-digit increase because now you need the revenue to make that up how did we do it this year on that on that increase this year was oh i'm sorry for the in other words the stop loss if you had so many employees that had claims how did we do with our claims this year with those employees uh we basically made probably a two to one from probably from their premiums that we paid out for the stop loss we made back twice as much money so we paid 800 000 we got one basically 1.6 million dollars back okay the insurance

133the increase in the premium was approximately 12 percent it was 15 but however working with neon with aeon not neon aeon's influence they were get they got it down to about 12 percent which is industry average because you have a lot a lot of large dollar claims that are out there that people are trying to pass on to a reinsurer okay any questions yeah i'm i'm wondering if um and maybe miss miss mary d mercado would be able to chime in on this i'm not sure you know within the high-tech meetings i'm just wondering how kovid played a part in the decision or in the recommendation of the three percent moving forward i i'm not so sure usually it's looking at historical claims and then coming to the table and saying we project this many

134in the future um would you have any idea through the chair baseball on the analysis aeon did they did a projection somewhere between one and six percent as an impact of coefficient of it and other trending factors we picked the middle road and said approximately three percent so the impact of kofit and future cova cases are in that number that's it's interesting um and it probably is not going to play a factor right now but um there are some who believe that as a result of covert people being home um there there aren't very many claims to be had because they're not going to work and they're not traveling they're not getting hurt but on the other hand and then you have the psychological the emotional um concerns medical concerns that might have come as

135a result of covid isolation etc maybe people are not wanting to go to the doctor because they're afraid to go to the doctor or they're told not to go to the doctor and so cancer screenings are missed and you know elective surgeries are not had so i was just wondering you know where all of that played in this through the chair that is factored in but there's no crystal ball to determine if that long-term effect of a one-year covid will have a massive impact in healthcare in the next five to ten years thank you thank you thank you and i certainly want to acknowledge this was something that was a high heel to climb in previous years so um high tap the members of high tap the committee our union leadership jennifer maureen mike um

136mr bass miss old mary d uh mr fagan of course this is a a great uh acknowledgement of the progress the district is making something used to be so arduous now uh just standing operating procedure so very proud of that work uh and now moving on to mr meyer and the cni contracts so jared thank you dr moore um unfortunately these aren't quite as exciting as some of the stuff i've recently brought to you guys um we could go as in depth as we like to on these but to be honest these are all renewals of contracts that the the district has had in place for many years um mousse there are two actual contracts with iready and ingenuity but the remainder of the items are simply agreements that the board has had in place

137for numerous years thanks again to mr fagan's team and mr degressive for helping us re view those and make sure they are up to legal standards and risk this year once again so i'm happy to entertain any questions about any items i don't really think i need to go line by line but it can obviously answer any questions about any of them that we may have question go ahead um edgenuity has i heard something about product changing or something changing with ingenuity this next year so the item the great question the item that i'm bringing for curricular instruction is just the use of edge genuity for credit recovery so given the reorganization that we went through last year ms stampier's team oversees the virtual instruction side of the house and i believe mrs dampier will

138be bringing those vip what they call virtual instruction provider contracts at a later meeting date i don't know i haven't been in the talks whether or not mrs champion is bringing ingenuity i'll let her handle that but this one in particular is just for the use of it as a credit recovery option uh given the fact that we had so many students going through and using edge annuity this year they're still working to catch up and finalize those courses we didn't think that it would be appropriate to switch providers right now in the middle of the summer like with the fiscal year because we have students who are trying to get caught over before right before the the start of the next school year um you know we did look at other um credit recovery

139providers but the best choice i feel for the district is to maintain this contract for another year right now given the the circumstances that we're in we will be bringing that item as a at our net sport briefing um next week we'll have that item we're still have some uh loose ends to turn to tie up with ingenuity i had some questions in reference to their contract so we'll be bringing all of the ones for our virtual school as well as for the expansion for next year okay and parents have the right to look at that those materials okay does that's a good question may i sorry that's a good question do the recommendations for virtual program follow the same recommendations as the curriculum the traditional book curriculum the 30 days allowing parents to have

140access or review it how does that work i will have to research that because uh i know you can show that yeah it's so fun everybody's like i know k through 12 normally the instructional material they give us an outline i will research that with the dod now that we're doing virtual school as a school and the curriculum that is used within the virtual school should also be vetted i just don't know what that would look like right i'll take a stab at this miss stamp here um yes if they're using our teachers and our teachers are the ones providing them then our teachers would be using the curriculums adopted by this school board parents do have we are required in in-law to offer parents multiple options for virtual instruction providers so if they were

141to choose one of the other providers those providers may be using a different curriculum but that's not obligated the parents take that choice they're they're open to choosing that or so are we going to hear of the three options when mrs dampier brings that to us and then do the parents have 30 days like what is that process do they have their 30 days to view before choosing i don't i mean we don't know right the they would already have their their process to go through and decide their curriculum isn't the same as ours necessarily i think that it would be sort of unique to each provider as to the time in which they adopted the curriculum that they're they're doing so i wouldn't say per se that they're exactly going through an ela adoption

142right now for their their standards so as far as parents having an opportunity to speak with them i'm sure that they would be transparent as to the the materials that they use but as far as an adoption that's a separate issue i think it's interesting i'm i'm curious to know it's a great great segue because it's not something that i previously thought of until just now um may i make a saying yeah my apologies i have a appointment i could not get out of that i need to leave i apologize but i will watch um before our board meeting tonight because i know those items were voting on so i appreciate it thank you all right any other questions about my other contract renewals good all right thank you next item is ms dampier exceptional

143student education policy and procedures through the chair we're required every three years to submit to the doe revisions if any to our exceptional students education policies and procedures manual this manual has gone extensively through the state and every step of the way they've given us feedback so they take the manual in every section they give us feedback to update before we actually bring it to the board and then submit it back to them as a manual there's minor changes that were added this year for example we had changes in terminology we used to have a prevention intervention specialist we no longer have that now we have behavioral analysts also we used to have an executive director and now we change that with director so just some minor changes that were added usually if there is

144language as far as the legislation we have to update that but we didn't have any of this this particular time so are there any questions no just a comment um i have really enjoyed being part of the ese parent advisory and listening to those zoom meetings and i just love the collaboration with the parents and staff members and just the movement of where they want to go with their students but it's really been a great experience thank you yeah just real quick does this have any direct impact right now other than the few language changes on anything we're specifically doing or not doing right now no all of this information that we put into the portal has been updated by are approved by the state and it's in line with everything else they make sure

145they give us feedback if we're you know we haven't answered the question correctly pertaining to uh policies and procedures and then we have to go back in the portal update it then they tell us it's okay to bring forward to the board but not no changes as far as legislation for may or ju you know anything that has been approved for this coming year so this is we'll update it again it's continuous it's like an annual if there are legislative changes and they'll usually let us know what those changes are and then we have to update the manual and bring it back so this is just to be clear so this is only reflecting legislative changes that need to be added to our existing policies no more no less yes and if there are minor

146changes to names terminology etc that we may change because i know that there's work we're about to undergo in the esc department and structuring and organizationally and all that but this is completely separate from that yes all right next three items i'll introduce them all at the same time so mr bass can flow through them is the non-instructional calendar uh and the associated mou the salary increase for our non-bargaining employees as well as the transportation zone our z-pass agreement uh good afternoon through chair um happy to bring to you a successfully negotiated non-instructional work calendar for the employees that are on the 180-day 186 196 220 and 250 work schedule i'd like to thank ms oak and hr team and mr fagan's team for getting this done it was agreed upon on may 11th and

147two major changes or highlights of this these calendars first is teachers assistants will have pd days at the beginning of the school year in the past their two pd days were embedded within the school year they would show up the first day that kids would show up and that really is not conducive to preparation and getting started for the school year so that is a big win there for teachers and assistants and school staff and then also we have 12 month employees work days align more now or align now with the school calendar whereas before we had actually individuals working and their supervisors were off so we've got that straightened out and two big wins in that calendar next item i've got is the salary increase for 2021 and 21 22 so the salary increase

148would be a 2 increase for all non-bargaining employees retroactive to july 1 2020 also a 2 increase for 21 22 that would begin effective july 1. i'd like to take a moment and just brag on not just the non-bargain employees but all our employees over this past year have really put the work in really taken things on that we normally have not done so i'm just thrilled that we're in a position financially to be able to have everyone compensated in a bump up in salary looking forward to getting started with negotiations with cwa very soon to get them hopefully in a a good place also which they're finishing up their three-year contract you know we we have tasked employees pretty well this year um bragging on our superintendent for a minute the grass does not

149grow under his feet and we are constantly moving and pushing and pushing and everyone has responded greatly so thrilled to be in that um this salary increase will make our administrative salaries more competitive with our competing districts um we're really low on the the district level administration salary end uh principles not as much but this will go a long way to get us up to where we need to be yes ma'am in my experience uh there's usually like a hiring cut off date uh after which someone might not be eligible for this because they were hired within the time frame prior to this is is there such a date in this do you is that clear i'm not sure if i'm clear on what i'm asking yes ma'am you you are um i don't know

150that we have identified that i believe we were going to since we're behind we're behind in comparison to other districts we were going to go ahead and put it in place once they were hired keeping in mind we have a salary range so you know putting them on that schedule based on their years of experience if we were to bump everybody else up we would still be looking at that same range and and the experience level so i guess my my point is if this is affecting non-bargaining employees 2021-2022 they would have to have been hired prior to a certain point to be eligible for this increase right if they were hired the week before whatever is the date then technically they wouldn't they wouldn't be eligible right that's just how it works in in

151my academic environment that's you know i know there's things in the superintendent's contract about what he's eligible for when having met certain criteria so i'm just trying to understand that better so i think the the clearest way for the non-bargaining individuals which includes administrators the date in which we are in that specific position uh they'll receive the the retroactive now for going into next year there is language in the salary handbook that looks at an either or situation in comparison to if you got a raise of two percent and you were just promoted you probably don't get that two percent you just got the raise which is probably more along the lines of what you're actually it's in there um but could we get some clarification on on how that works i mean yeah we

152can do that but anyone in the in these rates from the date in which they've had them in this calendar year that we're about to conclude they will receive that to that two percent so the cas so the the academic year and the calendar year right well i i know i'm i've been an academic for 30 years i think i i get the two confused um so if somebody were in their position for the academic year 2021 and they had been in that position for the entire year they would be eligible but if they were hired in let's say february march april would they be eligible through the chair they would be retro back to that date to the date they were hired yes ma'am right it's it's pretty standard i mean when you you

153know what it's it's prorated to the length of time they've been working yeah i know that um there's usually language i mean when when we get raises at the university when there's stuff there's usually language that specifies you have to have been employed as of a certain date in order to be eligible for this that's all i'm asking can i can i ask a question the two percent just how did you arrive at the two percent or any number that you arrive at do you have a process do you look at regional cpi do you look at national cpi do you look at that's what we came up with the cost of living and then also to be totally honest what we could afford also but before you get to that point what can i

154afford you you try and benchmark where we are vis-a-vis the cost of living increases and the like and then hope you can afford to make at least keep people whole i think we've done a good job of balancing the principles and assistance principles so we looked at and identified a target how do we appropriately compensate in comparison to surrounding counties and this does a good job of bringing us within the specific range of other districts outside of us in some cases still below where we have significant work yet to do and have to really really problem solve is that the dish the district level positions they're drastically underfunded in comparison to our counterpart so there's more work to be done in terms of the district folks um but in terms of our principles and assistance

155principles we now can call ourselves competitive and when you put this maybe is more appropriate for when we get into budgets but you've got a you you budget a salary increase of x number of dollars do you separately budget for based on merit i mean do you have a merit line or is it all one line and how do you how do you then reward because in the again whether it was running a college we we would reward based on merit and then obviously you'd have the normal two percent or whatever it is for for everybody else how do you how do you or can you reward for someone who went above and beyond through the chair the district itself for not for non-bargaining does not have a merit increase formula you get a straight

156two percent the only one who gets a performance or a merit is your teachers and your and your principals so our two percent is straight two percent on your base hour now if you are less than effective you won't be here that's that's the merit you must be highly effective or i'm sorry you had to find another place but there is no sliding scale that says you're effective you're slightly effective you're highly effective that says of the two percent you get one and a half or maybe you only get one percent but well maybe this is a side conversation i mean if this were my business i'd figure out how to pay someone who is performing above and beyond that would warrant a merit increase besides the normal increase whether you whether you have a

157line item or whether you have the flexibility within that salary line but you know that's a that's another conversation see that yes rosario interestingly before dr moore came in one of the tasks that i know dr moore took on and mr fagan actually before dr moore took on was kind of figuring out how to level off some of the salaries that were that we had here because you had some people who were coordinators making more than directors or you know some people in some titles making more either because they were here longer or because their boss just decided they were going to give them a raise for no particular reason and so those people had a higher salary than some of the others on their same level and of course mr fagan can can speak

158more and and doctor more to this and i and one of the charges was to kind of level the playing field essentially and and and make um those who were on the same salary scale paid the same so there wasn't any favoritism i think to a certain extent i see what you're saying but it didn't work it was very unfair there were many people in the district who knew that some were getting more than others for no particular reason for not essentially reaching a particular benchmark and it was very very very unfair so i appreciate what we have in place right now because um because it's fair and it's honest and it's it's allowing everyone to be able to see salary transparently whereas maybe in the future if we can afford i'm sorry no just

159yeah you're right thank you maybe in the future if we can afford to do some sort of bonus i'm not sure if we'll ever gonna get there but um they've done a pretty good job at that mr uh dr moore as you say for as mr fagan mentioned for for teachers and and principals there's a statute that drives incentive pay and in terms of overall district ms rosario i think uh captured it perfectly we had a salary handbook that was the amount of gray that was in that book was was not for a a public institution so we have a very standard uh operating procedures on percent increases for raises uh norming across um the ranges as they lay themselves so we're very proud of of that work and ensures that we're being consistent open

160and honest dr jones well i just want to say thank you many times the non-bargaining employees seem to be a stepchild and i served on a couple of these studies with administrative pay and i'm glad just doing it right for the principals and hopefully we can get it for district staff because it was very notable um probably six seven years ago um with administrators compared to others around the district so it's a great place to live and we want to make sure people can live here yeah absolutely and you know we have the great um increase for our teachers this year and i'll say it right now teachers are never paid enough but we've got to get it to the point where you know we value them but we also have to value them financially

161well it sounds like once you got through the evening out process where all these variations or inequities or whatever you want to call them which was the first order of business now at least you feel on a relative basis people are properly positioned and then by giving of course someone makes more two percent of a higher number is going to be more money so you know that's that's simple math um and this is it this this thought process um is foreign to the world that i lived in you know i i live and even at the college level i don't know mr dr schiff about you but we went out of our way to reward people who performed above and beyond and you know you have performance evaluations and someone met expectations or they exceeded

162or they far exceeded and if you met exceeded and far exceeded there was a difference in the percentage increase or the dollar amount that you got now the problem with that sometimes is you're building that into the base another way to handle is is have a bonus then it's not built into the base but at any rate it's uh i ask these questions because this this is the perception that i've always had when you get into the bureaucracy of public entities government this is not government but it's government-like and you end up not being able to reward people who perform above and beyond what's what their peers do yeah mr barefoot i uh our higher ed experience has been significantly different because i've worked for a public university for nearly 30 years now which a

163i've been a faculty member not the president so in a public university we're very limited what we can do a public university like a public education k-12 organization is really limited we don't we can't do that like the experience that you've had at a private university where you have flexibility we're limited by statute we're limited by legislation we're limited by collective bargaining um we're limited by a board of trustees at this point so i assure you um we do not get merit pay based on the work that we do we get it because it's a collective bargaining agreement we don't get it based on uh because we've done an exceptionally good job public institutions work really really differently so i completely understand the the difference between what is and isn't possible in the k-12 um

164and the in effect the lack of flexibility that we have to reward people monetarily for doing a good job instead what i know the superintendent has tried to do and what happens in public institutions is we try and do that through non-monetary ways but it works it's a whole different ball game um in public ed than in private oh no i get it but you know and when you got a contract you have a contract but as dr jones said it's the non-non-people that are part of a bargaining unit that you want to make certain that those people i mean they've got to trust management in this case you all for making sure whether it's dollars and cents or just an extra thank you or a gift card to go to you know the local

165steakhouse for dinner that we appreciate they're performing above and beyond what would normally be the norm yeah absolutely go ahead all right my last item is a transportation update on some things that i'm very excited about and i've discussed it with you guys in briefings and like to publicly present it today the first item is a couple of things that we're going to be doing and the first item is id cards which were really not existent across the district in the past we did start with some cards this year for food service but in the transportation realm we feel like we need to be able to be more accountable as to when our students are getting on and off of the bus this particular solution will provide that the cards will be multi-functionality cards ms

166rosario i you know i recall our briefing you hit it on the head this first and foremost is a security item because we need to know what kids are on our campuses and be able to identify them um you know it does not happen often but it did happen this year we have a student that isn't supposed to be on our campus and we don't have any way to identify them with an id card that they would wear with a breakaway lanyard that will give us that opportunity uh here's sample cards that we will be having made for the students if you look at the card up in the top right hand corner is more like what we're going to be looking for so they'll have their picture on there it will be school specific

167and have the barcode now the barcode will work on the scanner when they get on and off the bus but also whether it be the barcode or a magnetic strip on the back depending on the readers that we have in the other areas it will also work for food service and media services for checking items out with in the media center so really excited about that the process for the the scan will have a card reader on all buses we already have card readers at each food service line and in each media center this particular item that we would be approving today will provide us 27 printers to be able to have at each site and a couple of extras so they can print cards for if a student loses a card if we get

168a new student and then we will have additional spare readers that we can put on the buses if by chance one of them fails supplies that will come with the package is the breakaway lanyards up in the top right hand corner and we will have enough of those to outfit the students all with one and have a large plethora of breakaway lanyards for if they lose any moving forward the next item is another another item that i've briefed with you all is the um the parent app for the the z-pass which is the real-time map based bus locator you'll be able to to set up a parameter for when your bus is going to be at your house you set this geo fence up between 50 meters and 500 meters and it pings every 10

169seconds so you know when the bus is coming or when your student is going to be dropped off parents would load this on their phone it will also be able to send out push notifications to say if a bus substitution occurred or if a bus is running late rather than getting the call outs that we see that a lot of parents just send straight to voicemail you can also set multiple zones for for families with kids at different schools so if you have you know one in elementary one in middle one and high you can have a different geo fence and bus tracker for each one of them the parent app goes through a multi-step process to ensure the authenticity and confidentiality of much like focus would be password protected i think this is going

170to go a long way for helping our parents and seeing when the bus is coming and where their kids are at and that is and we would not need approval for this tonight because this is under a procurement amount mr rosario um i'm i'm very very excited about this item um i would ask and i don't i know that it's under i wish it wasn't under um consent because we've talked about this this needs to be presented at a our business meeting parents need to see this not just at the workshop i'm pretty surprised it's not on there because we agreed that it would be presented to them at the business meeting um i don't know if we can make arrangements this evening i think this is quite a lot of money and it's very

171very important for everybody to be aware that this is coming it's a good thing can we add it where would we add it how would that work this evening it's under consent so i mean you could pull it put it to the pull it for action i just think that this is such a good thing one of my questions i submitted board members i submitted several questions to mr bass because i i there were still some unknowns um and one of the things that i wanted to know is how are we going to pay for this where is this going to come from um and the answer was mr bess the initial cost would be through cares dollars and and so yes ma'am so and then you would have a renewal fee each year it

172runs about a thousand dollars per school and i thought um there was another with some of the follow-up i think you said the the monies for the follow-up or the maintenance of it if a machine breaks i gotta go to my answers if the machine breaks um the maintenance is not costly it's i believe it's covered for three years and then after that it will not be much cost at all so because the car the car the carter the readers themselves are relatively inexpensive um and they're tied into the the computer gps and everything that we already have on the buses um because we already have part of this uh service on our buses already and you know the the re-install will be very simple it's just a simple disconnect wiring on the back and

173just put a new reader down so one of the other things that i wanted to know um i'm just letting board members know what we talked about um was the benefit of this to our audits yes ma'am so our transportation audits should i mean historically have not been great um they've been by hand and there have been some errors and resulting in lots of money lost essentially how does this benefit us in terms of our audits that happen you know that occur it being it being something automated that we can print out is going to go a long way for one for accuracy but then also with the state auditor when they come in every three years for their operational audit you know a lot of times they will start off and they will pull

174attendance of students and then they will look to see if that student was a bus rider and if they are a bus rider then they match that up and make sure that that student rode the bus that day where you get into trouble sometimes is a individual let's say it's a substitute bus driver they have their sheet of paper and they're marking each student off as they come in to ensure that they rode and then they cross compare that to attendance and find that the kid was not in school that day and you get a certain percentage of those errors then it opens the door for deeper investigation and a lot of times districts end up losing funding for transportation which is already sorely underfunded through the fdfp and then my last question that i

175didn't submit to you and thank you for for sending me your answers um in this app will this app only uh monitor transportation what about lunch money and books owed the app doesn't connect it is not it is not i wish it would be great if it did and maybe that's something down the road that they can incorporate in it it would be really good if they did because then in one place parents have all access to lunch money lunch money still owed lunch money paid how much is on their balance and and books but good news is usda has extended no-cost meals for all students for all of next year also so maybe we won't have that issue next year good good news yes sir general fund not cares sorry about that error a

176couple really quick um you said but i really want to highlight the impacts for safety and security on this it more important or at least equally important as all of the other benefits of this is the security issue which um that we haven't addressed that for as long as we have i'm really glad we're finally getting to it because that we don't know who's you know god forbid there's an incident and we don't know who's on our campus at any given time is a disaster we've avoided that disaster i hope we always uh i hope pray and you know whatever all else we always avoid that disaster but um i'm in the greater context of comprehensive approaches to safety and security this one is really essential so thank you for that i want to also

177just clarify mrs rosario mentioned it's quite a bit of money the amount i'm seeing here is sixty five thousand eight hundred and twenty dollars yes ma'am that's the total amount right initial upfront for the card readers and then you said and then after a certain amount of time it's like it to get the cards it's about a thousand dollars per school is a renewal fee each year renewal fee um i think that sounds really reasonable frankly for the benefits of a system like this that tracks kids gives us ids it's a security issue it's a bus issue it's a parent's issue there's so many benefits of this no i think it's a great thing it's still costly i mean it's still 65 plus 65 000 plus it's still costly i think it's a i think

178we should do it it's long overdue but i still think it's pretty costly i think in the grander scheme of our expenses it's a bargain yeah yes ma'am it's a cost benefit analysis it's pretty simple to come to the right conclusion dr jones uh speaking as a parent who had children on the bus thank you speaking as a principal who took many calls after school because their students weren't home thank you and as far as i'm concerned that's the best money i've seen spent in a while thank you thank you ma'am um two things i would like to point out um you know if you break it down 500 meters out is 0.311 miles which in in the world that i come from the district previously i was in that's nothing here you have neighborhoods

179that's that's that's that's a pretty good distance but the standard um market for this in the industry is not any more than that because then you don't want someone to gain access and be able to track that bus everywhere it goes around in the county so i just wanted to point that out and then the other thing and i this is it needs to be said but it will be a learning experience for our students and our families to get accustomed to wearing their lanyard every day we know that we're going to have some that forget them we know that we have some that lose them but believe me seeing it and doing it in another district it does not take long to catch on and a lot of times especially the younger guys are

180really proud of that id card well depending on the picture okay all right the next item is a review of a policy if you recall in the wee hours or our last board meeting miss barenborg presented um a policy in which she received communication and that policy was board staff communications and the conversation that we had that evening is it needed to be modified because we weren't adhering to the policy in which it was written upon further investigation i find a policy with the exact same title board staff communications this policy was updated in 2013 the one in which we were referencing was 2007 and this policy i think is appropriately written and allows us to continue with our standing operating procedures which give board members a level of confidence in their communication uh which

181they should rightfully have with district staff and our employees in the field and the major difference is that the board or its committee shall be preferably submitted uh through the superintendent which basically means that preferably yes the information does come through the office of the superintendent but there are opportunities for the the your our staff to engage um specifically with you what i'll be doing is aligning the language within these two i these two policies to ensure that they're consistent so there will be no more concerns for board members and i'll work with legal to get that to the board for that modification and that is that item kind of just a real quick real quick thing on that um we actually have several policies about board staff communication we've got because i looked this

182up for somebody who wrote to me we've got this one uh 4112 we've got 149.3 we've got 3112. and in as as in this one it says board staff communications preferably though not mandatorily go through the superintendent so nothing prohibits anybody from communicating with a board member or communicating around the different the the district there's also in policy 149.3 board staff communications uh up there's there's that one i'm sorry zero hang on zero one four nine point three thank you yes board staff communications where many much of this is redundant but it also says this communication protocol is not intended to not deny any staff member his or her constitutional right a free speech or the right to appeal or to otherwise address the board on important matters through established procedures we've got it all

183over the place there's there's three or four policies that address this it's not an issue that people cannot communicate in the district we have it well codified correct but i will align those those two specifics so we're it's good all right our our final evening is the reorganization of the district this is an item that i'm bringing a little bit early but i think it's a pre uh completely appropriate at this specific time it allows us to have staff in place come the new fiscal year in order to ensure that we continue to hit the goals and the objectives identified within our strategic plan the true foundation of this reorganization is the alignment and being intentional around our strategic plan as you know when we adopted our strategic plan which is still under a year

184we began with a values-based budget system ensuring that every dollar spent was aligned and justified to the support and improvement of the action aligned to our strategic plan that exercise over the course of the last year easily identified a two percent overall um or actually a five percent cost savings to the district allocation the district budget that allows us to really invest that money back into the system and ultimately back into school budgets which is the intention the overall cost of this uh realignment or reorganization or shifting of responsibilities comes to the district with a two percent savings a three hundred seventy one thousand nine hundred and twelve dollar savings uh to the district which is exactly what the intention was and we look forward to continuing to shrink the district budget and maximizing the

185resources as close to children as possible in the re-envisioning of the system as a whole there are significant opportunities to improve the support that the district provides to schools in the creation the packaging the marketing the clearing of red tape and as well as generating funds where we can in order to ensure we are an innovative school system i say all the time we're a public school system but we don't have to choose to act like a public school system and some of the foundational changes within this reorganization are just that you'll see a number of positions being offered that come at no cost to the district but actually become as gener uh cost generating positions uh and we'll review some of those as we move through there are some uh expected outcomes as a

186result of this a business efficiency review maximizing expenditures in order to ensure we as a system are appropriately providing support and services to school we need to drastically enhance extended learning opportunities we've done some good work in creating the systems and structures around extended learning opportunities but as we move into next school year we're going to have to maximize every single moment that we have with children and that includes summer school programming that includes extended learning opportunities after school and maximizing what we call our wrap-around services our community partners that are providing that after school significant opportunities to really be more efficient efficient uh or effective in that specific area as i mentioned we i charged cabinet members to look within their organizations to define are there opportunities to generate funds or improve the systems

187of support that we're providing through partnerships and we'll review some of those the opportunity to engage our families and our community members is still something we need to do a better job of and we'll be talking through how we'll be doing that parental support in our community we made a first uh stab at parental involvement um and quite honestly you know the distribution of that work uh was ineffectively uh designed by me so being more intentional about how we're going to leverage and engage parents is a key opportunity with this reorganization um and then looking at how we're leveraging the ability to provide access to students to ensure that we're equitably providing resources to all students we're being inclusive in all areas of the system and then we're appropriately attaining uh the progress that needs

188to be done as we started this meeting we spoke about the desegregation order we spoke about unitary status we need to appropriately uh ensure that we have those structures and systems in place to continue to manage that particular work so i will quickly review i'll go cabinet member by cabinet member uh and their offices in the area of finance mr fagan is suggesting a position that will be funded by florida blue and this is a wellness program specialist this individual will help create programming create initiatives uh provide development and support to ensure that we have a healthy staff in our system the healthier and more well-being individuals are in our system the lower the actual the the cost of our our insurance as well as the benefit for us a happy engaged healthy staff that

189can connect and engage for students comes at absolutely no cost to our district mr abbas earlier mentioned what we've done in terms of food quality in providing resources to those particular schools we understand that we can turn a a profit if we are more efficient and effective at marketing um that those food initiatives uh branding what what's going on in our cafeterias kind of celebrating the good food that's being served as well as continuously improve the quality so we think with this we won't think we know we can cover the cost of this by and and generate funds with this specific uh position which is our marketing quality food cold control specialist in the area of the department of advocacy athletics and student activities i am recommending a realignment or repurposing of that position creating

190assistant superintendent of student affairs advocacy and access this individual will oversee three key areas within our district continuing to build the opportunities for students to have access ensure the experience that students are having is effectively done and ensuring that we're equitably providing resources to all students and we're continuing to engage and activate parents so we will repurpose that particular position and will be extremely intentional about how we are ensuring that equity is the responsibility of everyone in this system and we collectively understand what the definition of that word is as designed by the school district of indian river county in our community and then really become intentional about providing the appropriate level of support uh to work collaboratively as a community within this specific area also the the equity coordinator and community engagement that position

191will be repurposed we're going to bifurcate those two particular areas uh ensuring that the equity coordinator is solely responsible for that particular area a deep analysis of supporting our community supporting our teachers supporting our administrators uh building a deeper understanding of how we will implement that very specific work in our county and do it together night not in isolation not in a silo but ultimately engaging our community to deepen uh what it means for us as a community to work together enhance a enhance the creation of a school system that really ensures all means all the appropriate resources are being provided to each and every single child that needs to be provided so they have every opportunity to connect themselves to their full potential connect themselves to the success uh that a school system should

192be designed and created a way to ensure we become the path we become the light that ensures that that can be a reality for them uh also creating a parental and community involvement a sole position to engage parents in our community we don't want parents uh not to feel welcomed we don't want parents to feel as if they don't have absolute complete access to our schools and we as a system need to be intentional about how we're creating programming and packaging uh those programs at our school sites making our principal's job as easy as possible parental involvement and access at school sites is not at all what it should be and truth be told because of the school year in the pandemic that became very very hard to do but now as we move beyond

193covet we need to ensure that we're accessing and leveraging our parents and ensure that they are equal partners uh in this work and that they feel included they feel welcome they know their voice is being heard and they see the school system as a tool really to ensure that their children who they love is being effectively uh educated to ensure that they have those opportunities to find all the success that they rightfully deserve uh moving on to curriculum and instruction there was a cte coordinator position we have um moved away from that position and then repurposed that to a steam position science technology engineering the arts mathematics is a crucial area in which we need additional support from a district perspective to continue to grow those programs once again packaging resources support services provided from

194the district that makes the teacher's job easier makes the principal's job easier there are significant opportunities to enhance that specific work it is a very big initiative for our district repurposing that position allows us to uh do that work at a much deeper level that position will be assigned to the department of academic success when you look at the college and career readiness readiness college and career technical uh educational specialist we're pushing that work right where that work needs to be not a cte district position but inclu providing additional access to students to maximize the programming at school sites led by the principal we as a system or as a district can't be a crutch for principals uh we need to ensure that we're supporting their vision providing them with the on-site support needed to

195create programming uh that meets the needs of their very specific students it creates a divide and the organization isn't efficient when a bunch of people are coming into your public school system or your school saying do this do that do do something else we need to ensure that we're supporting the principles in the implementation of their specific visions uh this drastically enhances the authority that they have uh with the needed systems of support to build meaningful cte programs at their pacific schools as well as provide additional uh college and technical support for our students so we're excited about providing that as i mentioned under the creating the a position of uh department of instructional innovation some modifications and changes to that specific area of work um that that position uh began the first steps of

196creating the after school programming uh and we've done great work there but as i began this conversation there's a number of opportunities to take that to the next level it has become its own body of work to continue to grow if we're going to continue to offset uh the impacts of covid and be that literacy capital of america we need to maximize every minute that we have this frees up additional burdens by other staff members so they can take a deeper focus within their specific areas while the same time growing uh that those wrap around services uh and extended learning opportunities so we're excited to be able to provide that position in the department of extended learning services the alignment strategic plan uh that was the coordinated position that i just spoke about sorry about

197that looking at student services ms dampier's office currently we have 22 health assistants that are provided in our each of our schools 17 of them are registered nurses or licensed lpn we want 22. we need to continue to grow that we have the appropriately staffed schools when you look at rpns or lpns we do have three positions that are retiring this year natural separations we will replace them only with uh rns or lpns and over the course of the next three years we will uh ensure through natural separations or retirements that we will we will be able to have all rns or lpns in our specific schools and i think that's just the right the right move given the reality in which we we specifically stand or live in now we want qualified individuals to

198be nurturing and caring for our kids when they go into the clinics at our schools we've done an absolutely outstanding job in creating datacom i'm sorry dashboards to allow principals to access all of the data in one specific size one specific site house that information together be able to manipulate that that data i've said it all the time data it is our super power it is the power bi is the tool that we use uh now we need to provide the additional training that is needed really to dig deep to ensure every single person who has access to those dashboards has a deep understanding on how to quickly navigate them to accelerate the decisions that they're making to drastically improve the quality of instruction having the tool is one thing mission accomplished having the dashboards

199available mission accomplished initially training principals and school site leaders on how to use them we've made drastic strides but students who are in classrooms now need to ensure that their instructional leaders their teachers have a deep understanding of understanding how that instruction was powerful in the classroom and that data provides that information for them to make any shifts or modifications to that instruction so we're looking forward to adding those specific positions um that is the the major shifts within the the organization as i mentioned two percent cost savings to the district uh also asked staff to go through their specific district site positions and looking at job descriptions and as you'll see there are a couple of positions that were being modified with no additional salary increase and there are positions in which assignments or

200responsibilities are being shifted or modified which do result in a salary shift or a pay grade change of assignment these have been appropriately shared with the associated unions uh and agreed upon and we think this is the right sizing of responsibilities from a district perspective in order to ensure as we move into the next school year we have appropriately designed our district to meet the needs of a post-pandemic educational environment that allows us to be extremely nimble be responsive to the needs of our specific community while at the same time being fiscally responsible for the funds that we have maximizing the use of those funds while the same time maximizing student outcomes thank you that's a lot take a breath i was trying to get on time mrs rosario yet another wonderful opportunity to share

201with the public at our board meeting the plans and the vision that you have in terms of reorganization um i do have a couple of questions and and i i have one i have i'm going to start with this one thing that i i don't like i don't like the title of the position preparing advising to higher education path advisor it's a job description that i think the title is way too long i just why not just call it path advisor well that that's that's what it is it's teacher path that's what they're going to have job description on here is like a full sentence what what it means but we can add a dash path which is which is how we are already um referring to it pat the path the path so can

202we just change it on here that's easy to just say path advisor well i would keep the whole name just so you can put that in the goal the goal is to prepare advising to higher education i i would put the title what it means and just in parentheses put path just so there's completely i'm just saying just make the title path advisor and take all that other stuff and put it in the in the school goal could we let the superintendent yeah that should be history we design these jobs that we are and board members can have input to the we have not micromanaging him this isn't micromanaging if it says path in the in the job it's not micromanaging whatever then what it means and then in parentheses path which is mrs damp

203is that how it is okay what was that i'm sorry what it is which is what it is right now right that's that that's what that's what i was going to change but if i already said that then i think i'm good so yes yes okay um and then i have another question about um with regard to the equity position i know that you and i have had several conversations about the work of equity and how you have dispersed the work and the responsibilities amongst your cabinet level amongst district leadership that everybody should have work in this area so can you talk a little bit about um your interest in keeping it that way or your interest in uh eliminating the the burden or not the burden the responsibility of equity of some of district

204leadership and instead all of that work is going to fall on the equity commit coordinator how is that going to work the responsibilities of equity is 100 percent must res everyone's within their specific area of work we all need to be looking at it in terms of my prime am i providing the appropriate resources within my area of responsibility to maximize the support for children who need that additional support i think that is everyone's responsibility there is a significant amount of work as you reference there is the african-american achievement plan there is the um the equity state report that has to be created we do a number of you know community outreach in a specific area so there's coordination of those resources in which we need to drastically enhance and take burdens off other areas

205that that's currently doing that so it is the management of the specific work uh ensuring that it is being done across the organization it is the opportunity to bring uh through what will be mr seymour's office that to my attention where we may be falling on transportation we may be following or falling on uh student activities or enrollment uh someone to keep a deep understanding their their finger their pulse on their finger on the pulse in regards to what's happening across the entire organization thank you one of the benefits of spreading it across is that basically everybody's in you can't you know everybody's got a role to play and it starts at the top and you set the example and then your cabinet and it just flows down from there the more people you have

206involved the more the more the odds of success are i think it's i think what you've done is terrific tractor ship wanted something i'm sorry a couple of real quick things um we've shifted a bit how we do things bringing the organization chart is not specifically about designing the budget but they're interrelated so my question is one of the things that's come up in the past is having a specific position for grant writing we miss a lot of opportunities because we don't have somebody who's specifically dedicated to that where does that fall in district responsibility that's a good question uh through innovation and i think that's a perfect example so innovation and ms emerson well hit her target for um this annual year which i believe was two million dollars so she's we're on target

207to hit that specific uh annual target as it relates to grants so the redistribution of some of those responsibilities which is a big lift the extended learning opportunities the after-school summer programming that allows more intentionality of working with that so i did just to be completely transparent problem solve around a a very specific grant writer um i i think we we have that skill set in in the building uh and we'll continue to set very very high targets to ensure that we maximize those specific resources yeah one of the things we've seen in the past is that there are opportunities that neighboring counties are picking up on or getting through grant writing that we're not so so i can see where you're paying attention to that and finding ways that we can also maximize it

208but i i that is such an important part of what we need to attend to as well another area in which i struggled for um as i as i came in um we're looking for grants oh let's write this grant or let's write that grant versus saying this is what's defined within our strategic plan this is the needs in our specific schools uh let's go look for very specific funding sources so without a strategic plan without clearly defined concepts at schools uh without the the staff being designed in a way we become we have all these one-offs creating additional work that you know i think i'm like we're forcing principals to do things they're like that's not what i want to do um so now that we have that structure in place and the work

209now is evenly distributed around the work of innovation i think we're going to be able to really begin to accelerate that and pull principles in pull district staff in and use their areas of expertise with the shell or the structure that a grant writer would be able to provide so i think we'll be there when we're supposed to be there um and and i think we're almost there and i um just because you happen to mention around food services and health and nutrition are we uh and this may be this popped into my head but may not be relevant to this specific conversation so maybe better another time but are we taking advantage of like local resources local growers state driven food opportunities agricultural opportunities to enhance the quality of our food i'll let mr

210bass answer the question but i have never seen so much fresh vegetables and fruits in a cafeteria uh since i've been in this system i think some of the things that we're doing in our cafeterias who our cafeteria managers are they're a really really fun group of of people who really take a great sense of pride in their work uh and when you see some of the the quality and presentation um i think if we're marketing it and we're celebrating it and getting kids excited about what's going through the line on thursday and friday you we never hear any of that with all the social media that we do if we could push that out you know i would love hey mom it's taco tuesday yeah chicken nuggets it is taco tuesday but those kinds

211of things um you know we have to think from a business perspective uh while the same time giving kids great food to eat through the chair we are participating in ways to get food in um the farm to fresh i believe that's the name of it i've really it's been a while since i've really um are you talking about this the state initiative it's the state initiative yes so it's been a while since i've didn't dove this deep into the food service but we're taking advantage of that and then also usda commodities that's the discussion that ms simonton and i had when i first came on board because at the time we had we had built up a good fund balance and then if you recall we paid staff during covid and you know to

212keep them whole and so we ran up a pretty big deficit that we had to cover our general fund through usda using those commodities this year we were able to get that debt paid back and then build up a decent fund balance for the rest of this year so yes we are taking advantage of those thank you um and lastly i don't i don't want to believe it we we've gone back and forth over equity a lot um and and i've expressed my disappointment that that shifted around i understand what you're doing and i understand building it through everything that we do which i think i agree is essential um yeah i think i'm going to save that for another time but but there's there's so much we need to do with equity and how

213we define it who's included in that how we shift the idea of um what are quote-unquote good words and bad words and what those words actually mean that i'm looking forward to seeing how we address that in the year to come and i think having that sole position to do that will allow us to get that done dr jones kudos on the assistant superintendent who will be over equity advocacy and access as we all know equity many things title ix esau esc academic achievement merit scholars very very important we are a public school system and the repurposing of two positions within that area with equity and then engaging the community they tie together very very well and i'm looking forward to that and i agree with dr schiff i mean a lot of things we

214need to talk about with that parents being engaged parents are our first children's first teacher and as a principal i love having parents and they're just very very supportive and i love that we're concentrating there the cde we used to have those positions at schools and i loved them at the schools and i'm glad they're going back to the schools because that's the way it should be tying in all our after school programs with the program we run also with miss muscle white and fine fine-tuning that i think is just that wrap-around is going to be fabulous and having lpns and rns on our campuses would also be wonderful but i'm always looking at you know making sure the schools are the ones having that support or that position there and i think that's i

215said that one of our first meetings when we look at the realignment i'm going to look to see what where are we going and are our schools getting the support they need but um i'm very happy with this reorganization thank you welcome back mrs behrenborg's very happy too right anybody else have any um i do actually i have a request on the very next available date that we um that we get together and do a board discussion maybe that would be another opportunity um for you to train board members on the power bi oh the data dashboard and and give all of us an opportunity to because i know that mrs dampier and i have had discussions about that but it probably wouldn't bear much weight to just do it with myself only when all

216of us could benefit from that so that's a great idea great idea i can tell you on that note i have had two meetings with dr mcmahon i did too it was great and it's amazing it's great it's absolutely amazing how uh data can be manipulated and i say that in a positive sense and the the good that can come from from how you look at that information displayed in different ways it's quite amazing anybody else yes ma'am the reorg um kudos i think you listened you listened to us you listen to the community um you listen to the school's needs so i think that that's the way we need to go is really looking at what the needs are and really listening to um you know what's out there and so i think that's

217what takes takes us to the next level and that's what takes you to be the next level of superintendent is really understanding the needs of the community you serve so thank you all right unless somebody has any last-minute ideas the meeting is officially adjourned at 402. you