Superintendent's Workshop 12 p.m. 1-23-23

001good afternoon everyone one I would like to call the superintendent's Workshop to order today's date is Monday January 23rd and the time is 12 noon and we are in the Joe and idle at Junior Tec Dr Moore you can begin with the purpose of the workshop and I also believe you wanted to switch a little bit of the agenda at one time here um I think when we get to I think we'll be fine okay I think we'll be fine okay um but thank you madam chair our purpose today is review items that will be coming before the board as well as opportunities to get feedback from the board on other select topics our first item of the day will be the instructional calendar which will be presented by Miss Emerson and Dr Erickson is

002supposedly to the chair the school district of Indian River County has held an open public calendar committee the committee consisted of District staff teachers ircea and CWA members Community stakeholders and parents using the same assurances by the committee with feedback from the public earlier in 2021 and in 2022 the calendar committee has created and unanimously approved the tentative 2023-2024 draft calendar for your approval the following assurances were made with the tentative recommended calendar led by Dr David Erickson it is veteran Council approved we have continued the elimination of 10 of those monthly early release days we've continued increasing instructional hours from the 2019-2020 calendar we have now added to full days of focused professional development continued professional choice and teacher optional days and have maintained the 196 day teacher calendar some additional feedback and adjustments

003we have added two modified instruction days prior to winter break for our teachers and added three modified instruction days prior to summer break what we have also gained back is two full days of professional development prior to the start of the school year we will be using the same assurances to push out a 2024-2025 calendar that's been tentatively approved for public posting and public feedback that will be done once this calendar is approved along with a 2025-2026 tentative calendar just to help our families be able to plan ahead and our staff hey board members any questions or comments Miss barenborg yes um I noticed some makeup days on December 20 or 19th and 20th um board members you didn't have to deal with this Mrs Rosario and I did a couple years ago where we

004had the um those same days were right before Thanksgiving and if you remember we had to actually take those days back in order for instruction to happen and there were a lot of employees that had planned on trips out of town they had purchased tickets for airplane tickets and things like that and they were very upset with us because that was non-refundable but yet in the calendar it said those days would come back so what guarantees will you give this board that employees will be made very aware that those those days are precious and that could possibly come back given a hurricane day what a great question those are actual still full days of work for our staff but there are modified days for student attendance so the 19th and the 20th along with of

005December along with May 29th 30th and 31st are modified instruction days so teachers are expected to still be working those days they would just get a modified release schedule so that they can wrap up their grading work on getting classes prepared for second semester but we know those are easy days to take off our employees the other thing is how will we communicate that to parents so they understand that if they're going to plan a trip that that's a possibility that we might have school those days we will have school those days regardless of whether they're modified or not the the buyback is instructional time for the modified hours okay that's that I just want to make sure that that's being communicated really really well because we went through a very interesting board meeting so

006I don't want to put our board in that position again absolutely okay thank you any other comments thank you for all the work that you do I know it's very important for our parents and teachers to know what's happening in the following school year okay absolutely thank you Miss Emerson and just to Echo what Doc Jones said thank you for your leadership having this uh a very collegial process that's well thought out in years in advance really addresses so many issues that the community has had before with our school calendar Ms dampier will now present items B and C which is policy 22 60.02 which is c as well as the entitlement grants which is Item B good afternoon through the chair tonight on tonight's agenda I have one entitlement Grant in the amount of

007119 000 398 dollars that will be used to improve the Safety and Security of school buildings this item we've uh Mr Seymour has reviewed this item with each board member and board briefings do you have any questions board members Miss barenborg um yeah 119. that's almost like half of the year before correct yes okay so what information have we gotten from the doas to why they're cutting safe school money in half I'd like to defer that to Mr Seymour especially with the you know Governor saying that we want to make sure our schools are so safe I'd like to know are we getting the money another way yeah Mr Pagan respond oh Jake sorry about that this is probably I don't know exactly but it's probably a direct appropriation from the state it has nothing

008to do with our money is how much they allocate for this grant to be utilized throughout the state and it's just a reduction in their overall funding so this money we use so for our sros for any other school security services is this excuse me yes we're using it for security camera this is hardening hardening ground so this is only for Hardware software upgrading cameras lighting fencing and Etc got it Charter Schools also get a get a little bit of share so there's no money then being substituted in another way no no ma'am this is above and beyond it has nothing to do with the actual sros or that day-to-day services this is only above and beyond I just know that that's been a real um Spotlight put on Safety and Security in schools so

009I'm wondering why our money's being reduce so much if the chairs probably was based upon an appropriation and a plan through several years and this is just showing a slight dip due to this the spotlight being put on that next year's appropriation could be higher dip half I'm sorry half of what it was the year before that's not a slate tip of what it was the year before I just want to make sure that you understand that through the JS mail okay or if I can also add this excuse me however this will not hamper any true Safety and Security issues that is needed in the district we will utilize Capital funds or general funds if we have to to solve those issues so even though it's half doesn't mean that there's work that needs

010to be done that's not being done well and that was my my ask before is are we able to I know we can dip into other um budgets for that but is there money more money being then put into capital in order for us to do that your Capital fund is based upon your your property taxes so yes your Capital fund is increasing as well as those increasing go up you also get new new requests as well it's going to be one of them and as the uh Mr uh teskey and the um all of our Law Enforcement Officers we continually monitor our campuses and notice that if there are needs we've always uh presented that information to Mr Fagan where you can oversee the budget make a change if necessary well and the reason

011why I say that is because on the last board meeting we discussed fencing and the the cost of increasing the height of the fence so um you know with increase in costs everywhere going up and then we're seeing half of the money coming back I'm a little concerned about that all right any other comments I'll just say a few things tonight when you look at all the information on donations and grants you know we're very very lucky all the work that our grant people uh have done for us this year and what they're bringing in and also the donations and I encourage everyone from the district to take a look at that it is on the website and we're very fortunate okay Miss dampier you're still up okay the next item through the chair is

012um actually a board member asked that we bring this item forward for you to review um currently we have policy 22 2260.02 which is the racial Equity policy we have a couple of policies uh that are aligned or has familiar content to this policy which are policies 2130 which is the achievement Gap oversight work group we have 11 20.01 which is the Recruitment and Retention of a diverse employment staff and then we have policy 1122 which is non-discrimination on equal employment opportunity so with those policies a lot of that information is covered um that the content is covered in those policies so just conversation about it so just a a little bit additional information uh this initially was brought to our attention uh through the Department of Education regarding House Bill 7 and language within

013this particular policy that could possibly be in violation of House Bill seven as I review the policy and looking at the reference policies that Miss I'm sorry Ms dampier reviews this is a policy that is above and beyond our Neola policy so we have policies that are in place to ensure uh the intent or content within this particular policy we're still good now as I've met with each board member my intent is to be about the work and in the work so um this is in response to the information shared by the state this is an opportunity for us really to continue to provide every Assurance to our community the content within this policy is covered by other policies that we currently have in place and it is the easiest way to move forward now

014we could probably if directed by the board to go back and look at this particular policy and word Smith it to ensure that there is no violation of House Bill 7 that that could be done but I think that takes staff away from um very very meaningful work not saying by any means this isn't a meaningful policy but I am saying we have other policies that are in fact in place uh that cover the content of this particular policy and we'll be happy to do discuss anything with the board board members any comments questions I have some well I'm sorry I didn't see your hand go ahead um more just to be clear if this policy were removed completely um the items that are in this policy would be covered through other policies correct and

015or through statutes and you just said in two sentences what I said in four paragraphs I know I know but yes the answer to your question is yes okay asked him earlier well I still have some concerns when I you know I looked at this last Monday when we had this information you know request to take a policy off well first of all that has to be a board vote Yes you just don't take policies off um and I think about this because Dr more you I Dr shafty and Mr Seymour are on the dseg um work group if you will we've got a lot of work to do we've made a little bit of progress in this new new work group with performance indicators but we've got a lot to do and then I

016did my research when you take a look at the letter that this District received from Jacob Oliva on November Smith might be 18. 18 November 18th there was a concern about some of this information that needed to be taken out so our attorney Michelle looked at this and responded to them with a new with new information Crossing out basically the first two or three paragraphs and so then I double check with machetic the other day have we heard back do we need to do any more and so far we have not heard back from them and again this is on the doe website I think Seven Counties were alerted to this and each one is there and any river is one of them obviously I'm very familiar with the achievement Gap policy and the sustainability

017policy that we're continually going to look at because of our deseg order and I don't think everything is covered in all of those I think to myself if we have to change something according to the doe State Statute that's fine understood we have to follow that but when we take a look at this and we just say on our agenda removal of the racial Equity policy that sounds a that sends a very wrong message to me um when you look at the whole policy I guess the one thing that kind of wraps it up for me and this was adopted by the previous board I think in early 2020. teaching and learning board employees will work together to increase their individual and Collective capacity to effectively teach a racially and ethnically diverse and changing student

018population and it goes on to positive academically rigorous School environment collaboration and eliminating practice and the other thing I think if and I don't want to cause more work but can we talked to our African-American student councils how we talk to our African-American parents and community on what we could do better in this you know because I've said this many times the most important policy to me is non-discrimination and I want to make sure we are good with that as we talked about it up oh I think it was September October you know we're a majority minority District right now and I think diversity is a wonderful thing I think inclusion is a wonderful thing and I just want to make sure that all of a sudden you know I say I don't like this

019policy take it out well even the state at this point hasn't said take it out they said to do corrections and we did it and then a follow-up went to um Michelle basically said you know unless you hear from the chancellor and I have talked to Jacob Olivia but not about this specifically so I have concerns Dr Moore so just in response the state is not going to say yes or no it was just a courtesy to work through potential Solutions you all as a board own policy not the Florida Department of Education it is your call and as I said before yes we could work through and word Smith it um there are other words that were okay two and a half years ago or three or four years ago when this policy was

020approved that are not okay today and it caused questions it causes distraction uh away from the work so in my mind if we can be fully protected around the work and I think every board member agrees as does Cabinet member that everything you just said is an absolute priority I I don't take away from that at all that's not the intent here that's not the conversation here the conversation is can we all just be about the the work and I think this is a way to do it but at the same time yes I can have staff go back and say well this may cause frustration on one end of the community but not not the other uh I think our actions as a board and as a community uh is strong I think we

021set the example in so many different ways I honestly believe that I think there is a perception out there doc that we collectively as a community uh need to stand up against and speak out against it because I don't think it's the reality as to what I see and you all see in our schools so it this it's with a heavy heart I I think when you you look at you know removal and I get because this is a discussion not necessarily a removal um but at the end of the day my desire is to move this work forward in the teaching and learning of children forward and maximize my staff's time in doing that work and understood I think that um well I'm not in favor of just wiping it out but even combining

022that with our achievement Gap because we talk about this you know deseg work group and those are now public you can see that on YouTube and what we need to do when we get unitary status in the sustainability so like I said I just want to make sure this is continued I just didn't like the fact that we put on a board agenda remove racial equity and I I own that not not Ms dampier that's 100 on me and that was coming off the break and trying to get the agenda done after being out for for a week so I appreciate um what you're saying that that wording is 100 on on me um and when we do bring an item it would be I won't use the word removal but discontinuation or something like

023that Miss Rosario uh this policy I remember when this policy came to us it was uh policy created by Dr Schiff it is not a Neola suggested policy just wanna clarify that correct Dr Moore you are correct um so it it um uh that's neither here or there but the fact that it wasn't recommended by Neola even though I'm not a huge fan of Neola altogether I can understand the recommendation I do believe that you all would never recommend the removal of a policy if it wasn't um if it wasn't one that um board members could or should support and so with that said I I support the removal of this policy call it whatever you want to call it the naming on it I understand um but the perception and what it is actually

024are two totally different things or what the proposed perception in the community might be because of the title of it because of the name of it doesn't necessarily mean that we're not doing the work so I trust that we are I know that there are other places where we have captured this work in its entirety so rather than be redundant I would fully support it thank you Miss barenborg yeah um I agree with you doc that I was concerned when I saw that statement um and I had lots of conversations with you and with other people um that I think would personally be affected by this and they felt I was kind of surprised by that they felt like our non-discrimination policy was going to cover everything and as long as our non-discrimination policy is

025going to make sure that all students are protected and that we are we are culturally sensitive people I think that that's the key so I'm fine with that I don't like the term removal of this policy the way you have it worded but I understand why we're because of state statute things change I get that but I think we have to be very cognizant of our wording that we use Dr Posner I'll just weigh in you know I think the most important thing is just to make the community aware that it is indeed a redundant policy it's covered in under other places that very well enumerated and spoken in those other policies we're not losing anything by removing this policy I think so and and we will do that uh prior to bring it back

026to the board thank you um when you say we will do that do you mean be communicating and giving the assurances that I'm giving this board I will turn around and do the same for the community so they're fully aware of the action I'm recommending to this board but this would be an action item we're just discussing okay yes thank you very much thank you board members okay Dr Moore all right moving right along this is uh Dave still miss dampier if you would uh tee us off Miss dampier for these three policies we'd appreciate it okay through the chair um we're bringing free policies forward just as a reminder as we're looking at policies with the purpose of the board policy zero one one eight the purpose of the board and the role of

027the board and the responsibility of board members which is policy one two one and policy review policy 171 as we move forward uh what the what the actual role is the board is actually in charge of policies so we just wanted to bring this forward to see if there was any question or if uh there any discussion or about these three policies yeah excuse me oh I'm sorry that's right Miss Rosario um the um the Paul the purpose of the board um we have there are many purposes right we the pull it up in statute and the list goes on and on pages and pages of the responsibility of board members it's not just policy but it's also overseeing the budget or approving the budget rather um and um and instruction and materials and the

028adoption process state adoption all that other kind of stuff um but one of our basic daily um work is to create policy bring recommendations to the board receive recommendations from the superintendent um and and approve policy and in the purpose of the one that was just previous you know in that case remove policy altogether if necessary or if needed um part of when it has to deal with board policy we have to ensure board members that there is proper protocol and that edits to policy are not done by anyone else except the board the board is responsible for the creation of edits in terms of what is sent out to for example the Department of Education Without notifying board members in advance we can't we have to make sure that messaging is not sent out

029that staff has taken care of editing um board policy again without it coming to the board first and so I bring this up because there was the Dr Jones mentioned this email from November 18th and I was unaware of the email of November 18th until the first week second week in December um and so that's almost a month later I don't even know if all board members are aware of that which email are you November 18th was the original doe notice to the district saying this policy uh purpose of this policy the one that we were just talking about was redlined or you know it could be a possible violation please review your policies that letter are you all aware of that I know you just mentioned it but I saw it on the doe

030website that's how right but I didn't know anything about it until the second week of December and then it was brought to my attention also when I pulled up the agenda on the Department of Education website I noticed that there was a letter from Molly to the doe saying that staff I don't know if you all received that one did you see that letter that email the noted dated November 28th I saw that on the doe website on the do I saw it on the doe website as well and it was a letter from Miss Shattuck saying uh to address to the Department of Education attorney is that Miss gay is the Department of Education attorney I don't know who Miss gay is just clarifying yeah um and the letter said uh essentially on the

031bottom it said upon review of Chancellor oliva's letter board staff not the board but board staff have undertaken to review board policies including policy 2260.02 please find attached for your review a redlined version of policy 2260.02 which deletes the language that the fdoe highlighted as being non-compliant with recent changes in the Florida law we look forward to working with the fdoe with regard to this matter please advise if there's any proposed changes and we just heard there weren't any proposed changes my concern is that this was copied to the superintendent but we were not copied on it we should not receive information of this magnitude especially when it deals with policy by happenstance or by looking at a board you know another uh agenda somebody in this case it was the Florida Department of Education

032agenda where it was posted we should have been copied on it um at the very least I think the letter should have said our boy as a response instead of allowing staff to edit it um I think it it should have been um our board does not meet until January 23rd um at which time we will recommend the removal of this or the removal of that um and and in either case board members need to be prize and brought into the loop of this kind of communication and so moving forward I'd just like to um one of the requests that I I asked for these policies to be up here is to just remind us that that is our work that's our work is policy and procedure and procedure that is connected to policy or

033statute um and so um with communication in the future I would hope that we would get copied on memos that are specific to the work that we are responsible for as elected officials um so that my colleagues and I can be on the same page with you where we are not receiving information from community members on these particular issues especially with regard to policy and then I'm in the loop saying what are you talking about I don't have any idea what you're talking about we didn't even look at this yet so that's the kind of stuff that I think that we should all and I'm I'm hoping that you all will agree that we need to be um in the loop on those kinds of communications thank you Mrs Ariel Dr Pasco I'm sorry if

034you didn't raise your hand I'm sorry you don't do that I didn't have anything I have a question who was the email sent from because I looked on November 18th I don't have it from Mrs Shattuck to here you could just look at it I want to see whether or not I received it that's what I'm asking we we did it we didn't receive it no that's the problem here okay at the CC on the bottom and it's just Dr Moore foreign ER oh it's not his letter it's Mrs I know so they're Miss shattuck's letter through the chair and I didn't catch it at the particular time but I don't disagree with anything that Miss Rosario said so uh I will work with with staff and our school board attorney in order to ensure

035that that policy is created and fully vetted uh just additional two cents I did meet with the the chancellor myself and as Miss Rosario said is exactly what I said we're bringing it to our board for for uh conversation uh for discussion so the intent wasn't for board uh staff to or the attorney to write the policy but to do some of the lifting uh and Logistics we're the ones who who do the work under your your direction but I completely agree uh you should be copied all along the way and that's um I I when I saw it I didn't realize it at that time but I won't admit that mistake again thank you yeah yes go ahead Miss brownberg I just have one question no no you know obviously we're not going to

036do all the cutting pasting and the words methane we're we're going to be the uh ones discussing it and then asking you to do that work and then approving it at the end so I I understand what our role is but I agree that we should have been privy to this information as it's going along so lesson learned Michelle thank you um chairwoman um and to the board um so just for just a little bit of background information I completely you know agree too I'd be more than happy to copy you on such correspondences we were given a short time frame to respond to the doe is why you know we didn't have a meeting beforehand that we could discuss it with the board but it was made very clear in a conversation I had

037with Miss gay that you know we go through the administrative procedures act that includes things like you know we publish and notice 28 days in advance have a public hearing the board has to you know go through the process of approving it so she was very clear that it would take months you know the process and that it would be a process that the board did that nothing was being done at this time this was just a communication that we had we were told we were informed that we needed to tell them you know what we were what steps we were going to take because they were having a staple board meeting at which the commissioner was reporting back to the state board that we had to inform them you know what we were going

038to do and then her advice was you know then she would tell the commissioner Miss gay the attorney I was corresponding with and then he would be able to inform the state board that we were taking appropriate steps that you know that we were listening to what they said and moving forward with appropriate steps but it was never communicated that just so that you know that it would not be a board decision or that it was taking place now okay and um just a few words obviously kind of going back to the policy um listen I know the superintendent and his staff run day to day no question 100 policy we need to be informed about had we been informed earlier we might have been able to have this discussion earlier my my heart still

039tells me that that whole policy should not be wiped out and I want to look at it before I make a decision on my vote but um day to day is obviously the superintendent and um policies we need to be made aware of is barenborg no I agree with you I don't think we should be in on everything but we do meet with the superintendent weekly and just a heads up is all I need hey this we got this in for and I do know I got a heads up at some point about this because that's why I was like wait a minute I don't remember seeing it but I remember hearing about this so I know at some point I have to go back and look at my notes but I know that at

040some point um I got information about it I just want to make sure that when you get something like that that you know board members are very aware of it okay okay good yep all right so next can I just offer one more um the time I know that you mentioned the time the timing of it the first notice came November 18th um and the meeting from the doe wasn't supposed to be submitted or at least our evaluation of it wasn't supposed to be submitted until December 9th December 14th was when the Department of Education had their meeting of which Dr Moore was present by phone it was a phone conference um and so there was plenty of time for us to meet or discuss it or an email or you know a special meeting

041or something that could have happened in between plenty of time for the board to say yes I I'm in support you know go ahead and email them or or not so the timing it wasn't as if there was a week in between I mean there was certainly significant amount of time almost a month okay thank you very much next Mr Fagan will present uh this is just on Workshop today not up for Action yet until we receive feedback this is the review of potential sale three uh parcels thank you Dr Moore to the board to the chair to the board members this is again more mentioned these are just some items for discussion purposes today we have three pieces of property that have been in the district for quite some time um they're currently not

042used for anything in educational purposes and do not seem to be something we would probably use in a foreseeable future for educational purposes so we wanted to present the items get any feedback the board members might have once we get the nod you'll get additional communication that we're okay we're moving forward with this issuing a solicitation to to offer for sale properties one two or three the board members will have we the district will have final approval to revoke all bids for whatever reason we don't have every reason we just said we changed our mind and of course then the item will come back to the board at a later point in time for you to prove the sale the disposal of the property and the entire transaction so nothing's going to happen the three

043quick properties I'll go over them if you have any more questions as the piece of property off of the highway one it's about 2.2 Acres it appears we've we got the property from the county in 2008 it appears based on some background we have it used to be a couple of homes were on the property a 10 bedroom house and a three two bedroom house talking to some staff members they seem to believe that that property was used for maybe a facility for children who may have been homeless or displaced for a while and this is many years ago the properties were determined to be not suitable so they were torn down it was part of a group of piece of properties we got from the county across the street there used to be an

044old school building I guess back in the day the county owned all the school buildings this appeared to be an old school that was there was torn down and then with the property came to the district and we sold that property many years ago so this is just another piece of that it's market value we did an appraisal in 2022 was about three hundred thousand dollars it's currently zoned for residential and some limited commercials second piece of property is in Sebastian um what we call Rosewood uh 12 870 81st Street Avenue it's about two acres seems to be donated to the district to the county in 2000 true that's what my memo said but that appears to be incorrect we got the property from a individual's name of Barry her husband husband and wife donated

045it back to us in 1911. back when that original development was being started they donated two acres as that plot Number 24 to the count to the district to be a school obviously it never turned into a school and then after further research which is again why this is only for information purposes it appears a few years back in the 80s the board gave not the land but the rights to the land to be used by the community in a quasi Homeowner Association Park so a passive Park no baseball fields no lighting no nothing the association seems to have been disbanded we can't seem to locate them they're not on the internet they don't answer phone calls we have sent a couple of letters to find out if it's still there the park is still

046there there is a sign we don't do any maintenance on it which is somewhat troubling we haven't been out there in years so we're still researching we're going to do a title search on the property by the way the company that we called to do the title search usually cost a few hundred dollars or so they agreed to do the title search for free they are prior School Board there are prior students of our district and they have kids in our district and that was professional title of Treasure Coast said they would do the title search for us for free to find out if there's any official liens on the property since this is a little sensitive issue we would want to reach out to the community find out where the homeowner association is is

047it being used but my understanding is we haven't been doing any maintenance on this for a long long time so we got a little bit of a liability issue I may give you the right to use it but I still have the right to maintain it to make sure it's safe and secure valued at about 250 000 Zone residential and limited commercial last piece of property isn't a very small lot across the street from the old admin building down on uh 20th Street where the old admin building used to be it appears we bought the property tore down the house and turned into a small parking lot it's about valued about eighty thousand dollars and zone for residential only So the plan is to answer any questions no action probably be a couple months three

048months before you would see anything potentially move forward with some bids see if there's any interest what the bids turn out to be and we still have to do a little bit of work on that property out at Roseville any questions Miss Rosario um I had uh I don't board members as an FYI I requested some information on Charter School acquisition of some of properties that we own there's a statute um which of course now I can't find where where it is and I don't remember if if Miss Shattuck sent it to us um or I think Mr Fagan may have sent an email with that information but I requested some information because there's a statute that says something along the lines of any property that we have we have to offer it to or

049proffer it to Charter Schools first before selling it or doing whatever we want to do with it and so I just needed a little bit of clarity on that the email that came back um which thank you for that Mr Fagan it it the wording of it is just odd so the wording and it's not Mr Fagan's fault it might just be like you know the way the legislation or the rule is written um and to my recollection it said we have to offer it to Charter Schools the same way as we offer it to other districts which is just weird yeah that's weird it's just am I wrong that's how it's worded in the email yes ma'am yes ma'am okay so I I read it as you had to offer it to other schools

050within the district not districts but other schools within the district other schools within the districts and then Charter Schools why would we offer our own land to other schools within our anyway so it's just odd right so I think that there and I'm and I'm concerned that we might be and no offense to your research of course because you're always very good with getting this information but I'm just concerned that we might be missing something somewhere along the line I reached out to a couple of board members on uh from Charter High School just to kind of verify in another Charter and um they kind of felt like there there is something out there that does lay out that I just want to be sure um the part the selling of these three Parcels is

051not doesn't seem to be an urgent matter I mean we're not going to make millions and millions of dollars off of it one is three hundred thousand one two hundred and fifty thousand which I believe we already have a a buyer who's interested in parcel number two I think Dr Moore may have mentioned that could be yes ma'am no no officials and parcel three so I I have a couple of so that's one concern um I'm not not in favor of you know selling the property but I just want to bring these up first right so that's my first concern my other concern is um if it's zoned for residential can we and I know we can because I spoke with the property appraiser some Parcels of land can be rezoned from residential to commercial

052or to school you know use or whatever that that might be so there is a possibility that some of these Parcels could be rezoned where the district could use some of this property for something correct um and then the other possibility is if we keep any of them for residential can we partner with a developer as we've talked about in the past and create a community for affordable Workforce housing right which is something that has always been a concern for us my last throw out there is I have always talked about and you all know we have not agreed to it but a possible AG vet tech you know Tech um school choice option or program hypothetically speaking if we did move forward with that or any other program and we did need a large

05315 Acres somewhere could we use these three as a property swap for a potential owner right somewhere or a down payment or something you know maybe someone who has property somewhere large amount of property would like to donate some of that but then say for the other portion I'll take parcel I'll take all three of these Parcels you know and sometimes that happens um so there are other things that I think that we need to kind of investigate and I wanted to throw these out there because I'll I'll close my thoughts if this is not an urgent issue right now maybe we can just kind of hold off a little bit and do a little bit more research thank you Miss barenborg yeah um you know how I feel about selling land you know I've

054kind of put the stop on the land that we talked about down south um I noticed the first parcel is near the north county Charter High School or school um the second one is by Laporte farms and the third one is parking lot across from is that property owned by the county to the chair yes ma'am to my knowledge all right so again there's an opportunity you know you talked about 15 Acres you know that that's kind of an interesting piece of property right there I wonder what the county has plans for it um I know what it's been in the past I remember that property but I will say that um yeah I'd like to know if we've done the research on the statute that Miss Rosario brought up and if so could all

055board members be brought up to um you know par with that the J yes ma'am I did send the email but we will do a deeper dive into that okay um yeah because I'm sure that a charter school especially North Charter North County Charter would be interested in property that's right down the street that one is right on US-1 so I imagine it's worth a lot more than you think it's worth correct to the trip based on the on that market value at that point in time which was over a year I know I've seen that property and um and now looking at it from Google Earth I think I have concerns about what's happening on that property right now what we could be liable for if we own the property I I see kind

056of the pattern of what's happening on that property and I'm a little concerned about it the other two not so much there one is in a residential area and the other one is surrounded by residential area too that one if you'll notice from Google Earth there are a lot of tracks on that property of all terrain vehicles or motorcycles or something's going on there I don't think we're taking trucks and going on there all the time okay okay Dr paska yeah I would just say that um All Points brought up are excellent and uh you know we should look at all that uh in general I would say I'm in favor of selling the property for a number of reasons um one of them would be the fact that you know we're not necessarily able

057to maintain or not maintaining them but most importantly I think uh from an economic standpoint property values are high we don't have any foreseeable use for the property and we can get good income from it and I think that ultimately we are moving towards an economic downtrend and we should be positioning ourselves forward into that so you know it's quite possible a year from now selling these would not make any sense points thank you um yeah all the times I have attended board meetings I don't remember when we sold property that it had to be go to Charter Schools first so please take a look at that I I I'll research that too this seems pretty much bottom line but if we decide to sell and I agree with what Dr posca just said I'm

058sure Mr Bass and Mr Pagan have looked at is it a good time to sell is not a good time to sell it's kind of goes up and down but um highest bidder I mean we have paid for this what about taxes on this Mr Pagan are we paying any taxes or how much on each of these properties no matter exempt okay all right just double check on that um in the amount of time that we've had these you know the any river called County Public School System paid for these and I want to make sure we get the best best money we can when we sell these so that's my main thing yes ma'am thank you for your feedback board uh we will continue to problem solve and we have a time to sell

059which is now and a additional exposure for liability if if we choose not to we have to do something with the land one way or the other that's a good question did we purchase how those or was one a gift one was a gift that's what I thought okay all right our next item board members is finally uh review of policy 2520 which is selection and Adoption of instructional material library or reading material list materials and as well as policy 2520 challenge to adoption or use of instructional library or reading list materials as you know we have already approved I believe in August policy 2522 but based on the final state board meeting which was held last week on the 18th where they had their training had influence on our creation of policy 2520. so

060as you know the board discussed at a much earlier date that we would hold off in the creation of this policy because we wanted them a policy that allows us to have the most accurate information uh including uh what took place at the state level regarding work uh the work groups and recommendations from the Florida Department of Education so we made the decision back in August to pause I know that meeting concluded on the 18th that presentation was presented on the 18th and now we are bringing this policy to you my goal is to allow the board the opportunity to have some conversation and dialogue I feel as if we've been waiting a very long time to get this done we need to put some of this to bed so if we can have an

061opportunity Dr shafty will present what the updates were what the recommendations were both to the policy that we are now presenting and possible impacts to the policy which may require changes based on what we've um 25 22 which was approved back in August we just want to get this right chair so when we look at policy 2520 contextually we did bring that forward in the book of policies that we spoke about in board member briefings in September and then we made the decision to remove it from the entire book of policies that we approved because we knew the pending October State Board of Education meeting they were going to address new rules pertaining to instructional materials as well as the new definition to include classroom libraries underneath the definition of the library media center so

062that happened first we were also eagerly awaiting the release of the state's online training program for all those who select approve and maintain anything Associated now with our new definition of instructional materials library media materials reading lists so looking at all of the changes that have happened when you look at the draft policy for 2520 you will see all of the blue language that happened prior to that is the new language in accordance with House Bill 7 House Bill 1557 and house bill 1467. then we had another round of board member briefings and received some additional feedback you will see that feedback highlighted in yellow the most recent feedback is that pink language that is added throughout the document and that is very much aligned either to State Statute or rules to help bring Clarity

063to some of the language we were awaiting specific definitions for we also thought it was important to include the new definition of the library media center as it now includes classroom libraries so you will see that in there but is heavily all of the language is very much cleanup alignment to State Statute now that we have all of these new rules set forth in front of us so that is the first contextual background of 2520 when you look at 2522 once we did the update to 2520 it was important that the language mirrored itself so maybe if we pause right there Dr shafty and allow board members the opportunity to provide any feedback on hold on the one that looks like a Christmas tree 20 25 20. and I this is a policy that we

064are in fact recommending this policy would be the most current and up-to-date policy of all 67 counties because that's how fast we are now moving um so we're proud of it but would be more than willing to receive any feedback you all may have Dr Pasco I'll let you guys start okay Miss barenborg and then miss Rosario okay um so I noticed in here reading lists must be approved by whom who's going to check those and make sure when a teacher says I want um here's an approved summer reading list or here's something to read over spring break how are we going to check those and make sure that they're following policy yeah so with that new online training program our media Specialists are coming together on January 30th to go through that online training

065program and since their role is changing significantly we did ask them to be like thought Partners problem solvers because they're they will have to be a place in the teacher's decision tree because anyone who holds that educational media certificate has to be the one to formally select and or recommend to the school principal so as we go forward with expectations we felt like it was important to involve the stakeholders that are ultimately tasked by the policy by state rule with that expectation to have a stay at the table so we eagerly await their feedback January 30th to see what some of these discussions look like because it would probably mirror the classroom Library process so teachers then I know media Specialists will be getting that training how about teachers how will they know that they

066need to use that process yes so in tandem on January 30th we have our media Specialists and we also have our principals so we wanted to bring all of the new information to those groups because they're going to be on the front lines really pushing the oversight and explicitly with school principals having the responsibility so we are actually going to have our our principles and APS we have the unique opportunity to have them both together on the 30th and they will go through this training as well so the critical stakeholders in this being the educational the library media Specialists and our principals will have gone through the training and it's important for them to have the foundational knowledge of the expectation as we co-design those processes with them okay it says committees will rank eliminate

067and select all materials so anything going now into classroom libraries libraries on these reading lists all needs to go through a committee is that right that's not my interpretation of it that's what I want to know because that's when I looked at it that's what it looked like okay what page are you on I'm sorry I'm just going off my notes I read through this and I'm going off my notes it says committees will rank eliminate and select all materials it's in pink somewhere I wrote um the other thing it says is meetings have been noticed to the public 20 days in advance which I get and it says appropriate for age and grade level have we gotten that information from the state yet um what the state is saying is appropriate for age and

068grade level the state has a slide in the online training program however we've been made aware that there is a work group at the state level currently working on a consistent definition honestly we're hoping of age-appropriate but that is the task of that work group and so we were told that work group probably would have that to us in October and then in January so when are we expecting that now my knowledge is there very much struggling reaching consistency with that so we just we await their guidance it's not so easy all right there's also pink wording here this is [Music] um that we need to really look carefully at weeding through books that have any sort of images um or refer to anything right I'm not going to read all that but so my

069question is then do we need to remove encyclopedias art books Bibles adult versions of the Bible it's not kids versions because I'm sure that those don't have that are those things going to be removed when we do this weeding and if so who makes that decision ultimately the way that the statutes read that the media Specialists are tasks with they will be tasked with developing their collection policies one of those criteria would be weeding the state training program recommends that materials within a five-year window if they have not been checked out by students be considered materials that you would weed and then really we're just going to be there to support our media Specialists and the development of the policies that will govern the space that they reside and support them along the way to

070make sure that they're in compliance so so some of the things that I mentioned though are reference materials students don't check those out so how would we determine on a reference material then how do weed it great question we haven't gotten guidance on that no is there a way to ask questions then to get guidance on that yes okay I think that we need to be very clear on that um it says recommended instructional materials to include School libraries classroom libraries and reading lists so those all are under a 20-day public notice correct any more questions Miss barenborg yeah that is a question I thought she just what was the question I'm sorry it says recommended instructional materials to include School libraries classroom libraries and reading lists are those all under a 20-day public notice

071I'm asking that was not the intent of okay of the language of the policy but if it reads like that we will fix it okay I just want to make sure because when I read it that's my first thought was that's what it says so I want to make sure that I'm reading this correctly okay and then when I did a search for library books by school I applaud you for getting so many of them out there immediately however I did bring to your um I want the other board members to know that I did bring up that on Treasure Coast Technical College Wabasso and Indian River prep do not have those so we need to make sure that those are updated okay take it has been placed it should be updated shortly thank you

072Miss Rosario um yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna start off where we just left off with the 20-day 20 calendar days that is on page one two three that is on the third page it's in blue um Dr shafty it is the paragraph all the way on the bottom starts with prior prior to submitting a recommendation to the board regarding the recommended instructional materials those materials will be accessible for review online for at least 20 calendar days do you see that I don't it's after criteria yes okay so there is no library library materials and reading lists are not there so it's non-instructional materials it's it should be the state adopted instructional materials so it needs to be rewarded yeah we just need to add that's why I said that because it looks like you're including

073everything on there and I want to make sure we're very very clear on this so if we look back on page two the subheading addressing all of that content if we added state adopted no before instructional materials no because the criteria I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt there no because the criteria for selection also includes what is supposed to be the criteria for state adopted instructional materials library books reading lists and basically everything in your school so if you sub had something there that says only state then you're going to miss the criteria for reading library books reading lists and library books the problem with this is that you've got everything in one if we had a separate policy for stayed adopted and then we had a separate one for Library you'd probably you

074know have the same kind of wording and some things would be different but in this particular case the only I what I would recommend here in that line would be um regarding the recommended state adopted instructional materials or the recommended adopted because that could be non-state as well adopted anything that's adopted so adopted instructional are you okay with that Mrs berenborg adopted instructional materials yeah but I think part of the concern that we had too was library books right they're not adopted though I know that but but the concern we had last time we were looking at all this was the term instructional materials did not include library books but they do now the training so that's right but that's what I'm saying so because they say that now then it should all be under

075that 20-day window according to what this says with instructional materials where is it interpreted from the state that it's not then that's what I'd like to know that's what I'm asking through the the training is the only thing so have you done the training have you all seen the train I've watched the work group meeting no no the actual training itself have you seen the join Monday okay so I think part of what you're asking is covered in the training as well um but but I'm a little ahead of myself because I did the training probably three times so some of the answers to your question about identifying what's what is in the training so if we cover that here because the 20-day window is by stat statute supposed to be for adopted instructional materials

076those things that come from the doe that we are adopting or if it's non-adopted it would be this year is civics right the the recommended they recommend Civics book a we don't want to go with Civics book a we want to go with a private company we are going to adopt private company C that private company C is still going to be adopted by us it still has to follow that 20-day calendar window but individually purchased items other than adopted instructional material would be library books resource other resources supplemental materials okay okay just a moment ladies and again with this information I'm trying to keep up um Dr Moore this probably won't be able to be presented tonight because I'll have to see all this in writing before any kind of vote and I haven't

077done the training I'm going to peek in on the media specialist next Monday but um yeah Jesse's going back and forth as far as what we can do and I understand everybody's points but um we've got we've just got to make this make sure it's right and we see it all so go ahead Miss Rosario um so I would recommend putting in adopted instructional materials for the 20-day window could you tell me where that is again on the page Miss Rosario yeah because third page in the blue okay all the way on the bottom it's actually third paragraph up from the bottom in blue it begins with prior the first word is prior to submitting Dr posca wait I'm not sorry I just started there but um I do have a request um still on

078that same page um Dr shafty number seven well I don't know if you're on the same page but number seven uh that begins with Ensure materials um on my end the number seven wasn't visible it might just be a tab thing I think so there are some other little like commas and spaces that I can probably recommend to you separately if that's okay sure um but the where it says unsolicited strategies the statute and the training both say unsolicited theories and strategies both theories and strategies thank you and then um the next page it's in pink under publication on website the procedure for developing library media Center do you see that yes ma'am um I'm not sure what the statute says there but I think it says selection because we don't develop the media library

079I I and that might just be a play on words but I know we're supposed to put that on the website so I just want to make sure that we're not developing our own curriculum so if we could just verify that one word okay the other uh number two it is in blue in the highlighted in yellow section same page or page I'm on one two three four number two um what is consistent in statute and in the training and in the rule by the Department of Education is um where it says free of pornography and material prohibited under Florida statute 847.012 and age and grade appropriate okay and then number six still on that same page number six um there was there was something missing there because it begins after evaluation in form principle

080to those books it doesn't say who is to rip to do the informing so I would just recommend saying after evaluation the media center specialist will inform the principal okay and then um let me just verify it's a couple of I guess formatting things on the next one I lost my page again one two three four five Page Six um the it starts with there was a line out it looks my thing is brown parent objections uh instructional material used in classroom there's a line through that and then it says objections challenges to the the board that's repeated can we just and that's also right smack in the middle of things that doesn't have anything to do with you can just delete that okay because it's repeated down below where it says go to the

081challenges policy if that makes sense it does also on this page free donated and complimentary do we need free no that should be a strike through that yeah free should and the free directly underneath it should also be okay okay um then it under the second pink for donated and complementary School related instructional materials obtained at zero cost if it's donated it would be zero cost right so I don't know if we really need that language but then it continues must be reviewed by a school district employee who holds a valid certificate I would add their principal and School District employee so is that on there and subsequently approved by the principal says it right after that well I I wouldn't do subsequent I would have the principal at the front end of it as

082a result but again it's a play on words just my preference I don't agree with that as a former principal and I stepped in as an Elementary media specialist I'm going to tell you the Elementary media specialist knows a heck of a lot more about it than the principal does and so they donated materials about reviewing materials yeah I'm not going to die on that Hill it doesn't really they need to look at it first and then I think it's fine as it is and then who's responsible in the end the principle so I think that's why Subs that's fine the principle needs to be the last one um the other part is on the process still on that page the process for parents and residents to contest I would just add parents and Guardians

083parents slash Guardians and residents and then I'll end here because this is my last part of the um confusion with some of the portions of this the way that it's written is because we're as was mentioned before it's unclear as to what is library and what is state adopted and so the very last part filing a petition time frame of hearing hearing officers and procedures for hearing each one of those are for state adopted materials so I would just recommend saying filing a petition for state I'm sorry filing a petition for adopted instructional materials time frame for hearing of adopted instructional materials hearing officers for adopted instructional materials that sort this way it's clear that it's only that and not for libraries how does a parent then object to a library it's here it says

084it right above the process for the parents to contest and then it shows policy 2522 are the challenges to the adoption of and library books right it should be the parent that objects to that well it's parent or resident who can resident of the county campers got it thank you appreciate it you're welcome thank you Miss Rosario Dr paska yeah sure I'll say a couple things um so you know obviously we've been talking about this for a very long time um it's been going on for at least a year um but I think it's you know reading through the policy that we had brought to the board today um I think it's a huge Improvement you know I think we've made a lot of uh gains on this I think it's an intelligently written policy

085I really appreciate the questions from Jackie Rosario and Terry berenborg about the policy and I think hopefully we can fine tune this and approve it you know once we're all okay with it because I think it is definitely a big Improvement thinking I'm not hearing significant change as as I'm running this through it's clerical not clerical it's just clarifying and some some grammatics so I'm not hearing a lot of significant changes that I I would feel I would that we couldn't get done at this point for this particular policy would you give that in writing to us then as far as well absolutely I'm just as I'm trying to record through um yeah because this is important we want to do it right all of us want to do it right absolutely and admittedly so

086I I am eager to do this work okay I've got a few comments before all right go ahead Miss berenberg um to me I just want to know about the directive from the doe is it going to be only in a training are we going to get a letter are we going to get something in writing from the doe saying specifically for example the question I brought up about reference materials you know how can we get the clarity on this stuff except for a trainee I they encouraged us to reach out they're in transition for our contact it was Chancellor Oliva but now Dr Burns presented this at the January meeting so I do have a little running list of questions for example when you do your online training the certificate goes to the person

087who completed the training yet the superintendent has to certify who completed the training and the certificate doesn't ever go to the district so there are some loopholes that I think that they were moving so quickly to adhere to having this to us January 1st but now you look at procedure and implementation and there's some opportunity to be a little more efficient in that okay I've got a few things and then see if anybody else has first and foremost thank you for all this work as Dr posca said this is um really good information we had to wait to get information and obviously we still have the training coming up for media specialists when I look at all this my main concern is getting students to our media centers I am working on this and once

088I get it I will share with all the board members how many students are checking out books I'm not talking Elementary because that's part of their wheel but at the middle and high school I'm very concerned about that and that's not a hit against media centers I know students are reading on their Nook on their laptop Kindle whatever so again and I think I've talked to space here about that about you know reading books that haven't been checked out for 20 years and we're looking at that also um and as far as the board uh Dr Moore if you can get the information to us before the meeting I just have to see it in writing but when a book is challenged and it goes through the committee the committee makes a recommendation and then

089the board will vote on that is that correct yes that's not and a rough kind of answer yes but that's not this particular policy right I don't think that is I want to get down to where we are changes right based on this policy which is going to go to the board this evening has influence on a policy we approved back in August which is the challenge policy which is the next conversation okay I just had quite a few questions on that from parents because they want to see what the challenge books are why they're being challenged What specifically they can look at in those books so they have that information and obviously we still have on our website if during this time if a parent doesn't want anyone checking out a book they can

090say no checkouts last time we checked it was 39 families so I want to make sure parents know that they can do that during this time that there is a challenge um I think one thing that concerns me as a lifelong educator is um students and checking out books in our media center and going there and having an atmosphere where they want to be there and be able to sit and you know read quietly when they have the time so okay so what is I'm sorry anybody else before we wrap this up go ahead I agree that we need to get students back into our libraries and and secondary schools but as long as we have this ugliness hanging over our head it's not going to happen why do you say that because we want

091children to go into libraries and we want families to support children's going into libraries we're in the process of innovating those particular spaces as you know through an item that came last February we had one update to the board there we're trying to finalize those but we want it to be a warm welcoming right and embraced space so as we go through the the challenges and the weeding of books unfortunately this county has hadn't done weeding we probably have more books in our County than Miami-Dade County Public Schools has for 326 schools um so we have so many books so as we go through that process we really need to create space that kids want to go to um and everyone in the community says hey this is a space as because it's inside of

092a school is a space we want you to go um and the longer we're we're dealing with some of the decisiveness around media centers and what's in media centers um I I don't think it would be encouraged the way that we all would like it to be encouraged so that is part of the Innovation process as well as creating as part of the weeding process which you know we're in the midst of now um and it goes back to what I said the state of District sometimes it's common sense um just one question did our Mr Speaker did our group get to go down to Martin County look at the media centers oh okay I'm anxious to see what that would look like Miss berenborg um yeah you talked about weaning books so will the

093board have to develop a policy or is there a policy already about how books get weeded and who because taxpayers paid for that so what happens to those materials who gets them where do they go so you want to answer the first part I'll answer this question so slain training program gives some guidance some consistent guidance for weeding weeding collection development policies as a whole because that's an opportunity for growth for us that is also a topic that the media Specialists will begin to discuss when they meet on the 30th because a really critical piece is that their collections are reflective of the communities they serve so that will be one delineation for maybe some of our elementary schools possibly some of our Title One elementary schools so there is a customization that's allowable with

094the online training program there are non-negotiables but then there is an expectation that you align your collections to the students that you serve so we have some really great work to do we have two fantastic lead media Specialists who are completely embedded in the work and are really leading that group and you know we feel it's very important that that group feels a part of the conversation as opposed to here are the expectations you do it so we're building some kind of collective capacity with them but it's their capacity that they're developing as a group thank you I asked where this looks go that was the last two questions that was the the second part is we'll have to lean on media Specialists as well in order to to make that determination that that's conversations

095that we haven't had yet we're still in the process of of what is being used in our media centers as you go through the weeding process as well as the selection process once we have this done in order to bring in relevant current material that can in fact be used in a way in which students would use them so we we'll have to Circle back and say how are we actually going to make sure these books aren't sitting on a shelf somewhere that aren't used we have to kind of figure out how we're going to make sure they are in fact um you know use materials so you're coming back to the board with that information yes okay Miss Rosario yeah I would just like to add to this because part of the process the

096process does have to come to the board if there's a procedure that's connected to a statute or a policy which in this case this procedure would indeed be connected to all of these statutes and and these new policies they would have to come to the board for a vote um but I appreciate coming back to us with that because there are still a lot of things that have not been captured in some of the other things which obviously the weeding is one of them but also what needs to be captured is the process of which the library media center specialists communicate with the principal who then communicates with you because you have to report to the doe once a year annually through this online form what books have been removed by name and title and

097and all of that still has to be kind of that's work that you have to kind of bring to us in turn in in a procedural kind of way I something or other uh a hundred percent agree the lift is tremendous the volume of work that's being created is absurd so it would be this is foundational and then yes we would come back at a later date that says all right now this is the uh the flow of work or this is how we're going to punch all this out so everyone one is clear and I think that's vital here in this particular area whether it's um and I may even come back and say because you all know how I want it in in policy yeah so there's no confusion so it may be

098either a new policy or embedded into another policy we have to take the time to to build that consensus so we're all moving in the same direction but I do think this is step one as we'll work with those who are much more informed in doing this work in order to make sure that we get this correct yeah and and let me just clarify I don't mean to suggest that the board creates the weeding I mean to suggest because that in the training the training is very clear the media center Specialists the certified um employee with the media center certification um and this and the statute actually says that it's the principal's job as well between them to weed the books and the training is very clear on what that weeding looks like including that

099there's a recommendation of um and this is probably TMI but there's a recommendation of maybe a three to five year window of saying okay well this year you can go through your fiction or next year you can go through you know weed through your core content courses or whatever and of course that's just a suggestion but um the training actually is in depth of what should and should not remain including books that are out of circulation which I know you mentioned before books that are old the jackets have kind of fallen off can't be restored those kinds of things okay thank you anything else Dr more we got a other policy to go so yes so Dr shafty I I paused you so now go on to the the challenge policy um so with the

100rewriting of all of the new rules that have kept us on our toes since October there is an opportunity to make sure that what is in the selection and adoption policy that same language is in the objections policy so when you we say challenges that's something that is more known to be associated with our books or our materials but if you have an objection in an answer for an instructional material you are a petitioner so little things like that just fine-tuning the title making sure that if it's instructional Media or instructional library media or reading list it reads the same phrases read the same so there's no confusion when you see it from one policy to another the update of parent or legal guardian is slashed in there there was a recommendation to remove the

101residency requirement and after checking with machetek that absolutely should be removed because you are the statute just as you are a resident a parent can move here today and enroll their child and there's no length of stay for them to object to a material so little cleanup language like that to make sure that what we have here you can actually follow it start to finish and we can justify that we're following it based on rule or statute so that is a lot of the blue language that you will see in here the new definition of the library media center to include classroom libraries has been updated and just consistency with language throughout the policy but I am happy to answer any questions that you have about the added blue language or if you have recommendations

102you want to start no me Miss Rosario sure just the same thing with the filing of the petition on page one time for the hearing hearing officers procedure for hearing I would just add that tag of you know adopted instructional materials for those [Music] um okay page two um there's a bold faced I guess title that says objections to materials used in classrooms do you see that made available in school library media center or included on reading lists do you see that that's the entire policy so I think that that title or that caption there is just redundant it's unnecessary to be in that specific case so I would my recommendation is to delete that because it's just repeating the same title that we already know this entire policy is um I would also come

103down Midway under procedures um begins with the underneath the definition of library media center the paragraph begins a parent legal guardian or resident of the county who has an objection to the use of a library media center blah blah blah blah blah okay third line the petitioner I'm sorry second district approved instructional materials should now it says here request in writing a conference with the principal my preference would be to just submit their objection and not require in writing and I'll tell you why parents can come up to a principal in the car line and say hey look what I just found I have an objection to this an objection can be verbal are we really going to require that parent to say hey go home and email me that principal could very well say

104let me get that let me see and contact the parent on their own do we have to require it in writing I have an opinion on that I I can see the benefit of keeping a record you know of having a record of the objections but to make it a requirement of the parent I would prefer preferably say preferably in writing you know submit your objection to the school principal or library media center specialist in quotations preferably in writing so that you give the parent an option um it's really not supposed to be a complicated process a parent can just call up and say hey I have an objection the principal can receive it there is nothing in the training that says it has to be in writing although I do understand the process though

105when you come back with us with the process at that point there would have to be a a trail from the principal to the superintendent as to what that book was that was objected to and removed but from the parents point of view I'm not sure it's actually required in writing but I'll have a conversation with the board member as a former principal who went to car duty bus Duty walked across the courtyard to the cafeteria I might have 15 requests I think the writing is essential so that we do have documentation and for me how many times did I say please send me an email just so I don't forget and I think if we're doing something like this it's important to the parent to get that information to the principal and it's important

106for the principal then to respond and then go to the next level if we don't I and I'm not a principal today but um I think every principal today I want to do it right send me the email there's no way I'm going to remember that and email is just again documentation that we did it and we need to respond and that helps me respond so that's how I feel about that one I'm sorry um we did have a form before for objections and somebody has to say I object to this I read the book I signed it I read it and do that objection formally correct yes so why wouldn't we want to continue to do that then so we built I'm sorry go ahead will that form that you're referring to was for

107a committee not for this that form was for the the previous committee so to review at the district level yes it was can I speak to you yeah um we had a form right that's if somebody objected to a book they would say I object to this book I'm filling out this form because we've all seen the forms and I I think they saw 159 forms um and they were filled out and said I read this book in its entirety I'm signing this saying I object to this book correct yes ma'am so we have a school complaint policy that we passed in the fall because we were finding that some complaints were being escalated to the district level that could be remedied on the School site we had a unit in one of our materials

108that maybe there was a religious contradiction and had they gone to the school an alternate state approved text could have been provided so we had a lot of not a lot but we had some concerns that were brought forth and they you know when they come to the district level we still have to go back to the school to figure out what happened so we're trying to bring back that authority to principals to help make some of those decisions but if it needs to get escalated we do have that reconsideration form posted on our website that if anybody if unsuccessful at that level the principal will then say here are your next steps and filling out the form begins the process of the official District level review so I can see where a parent would

109have a problem with a book that was assigned to their child and said I don't want my child reading this okay and I can see where that could be a verbal thing with the with the principle I don't think that's what we're talking about I think what we're talking about is a removal of a book and that's where I think we need actual form is when you're asking to remove a book not just from your own child's hands but for any child's hands that I think needs a form a consistent form right so where we are in this specific policy which is in fact new car Loop example I was a principal for for seven years hey I have an issue with a book reach out schedule a meeting let's have let's have that meeting

110because you're a lot like I I would forget call my assistant um if you're able to capture and then it goes on the petitioner should include the name that's information that could be collected it is what I'm saying I don't want to present a a policy or a situation in which we're trying to make parents jump through hoops so if there's an opportunity to say reach out to the school we'll capture this information ideally in writing but when we schedule the meeting we can collect all of this we need to document why we're meeting and what the actual concern is and this does at a school site level and you all hear me say all the time I want decisions made as close to kids as possible this allows the parent the principal the media

111specialist to meet and discuss and potentially resolve the issue now if it isn't resolved then we go back to the form and the policy goes on to say uh if it's not legal or to complete the library media center reconsideration form so I I understand in writing but I I think we can collect the information will be collected uh to include or prior to the information could be collected I don't know how you would say it um the the title The objection the material author all of that stuff all right so I guess my question so we wouldn't require a book to be removed from a library collection or whatever classroom micro whatever let's talk libraries we wouldn't have that book officially removed unless there was some sort of form and investigation and all those

112steps correct no I think that one of the possible solutions would be okay you're right media set media a specialist agrees this is a book that probably should have been captured in the weeding process we're going to remove that book but my point is we'd go through those steps would we go through the forming of if the principal can't resolve it so if the principal looks at the book and says oh my goodness this book never should have been purchased what in the world what would they do then they would remove that book now if the principal says well I don't think this violates any state board rule I don't think this violates any uh policy I don't think it violates anything so you're saying you're letting the principal make this decision now what book

113is appropriate if it's violating a state statute law those would be some of those things we don't have to make folks jump through hoops if it is oh my goodness this is not age-appropriate when we have age-appropriate this is yeah so I think the answer would be would be yes okay I just want to make sure that we're not putting in a principle to make a decision that they're not comfortable with and I don't think any of our principals would if they felt uncomfortable um they're pretty vocal folks I'm like they're pretty vote they then we would move along to the next process this to me would be low-hanging fruit that absolutely you know this book's never been checked out this book is it's just the opportunity at the school site to solve a problem

114um without causing additional Ruckus but if a principal Dr Moore removes it because it does violate State Statute then we had to get information to other schools that they absolutely absolutely and I think most principals and yeah they are vocal but they're going to check on this before they just say removal I mean absolutely absolutely okay Miss Rosario um so um I just want to be clear on something in support of what the superintendent is saying it is the state's statute that was written to say that principles and media center Specialists are the only ones authorized to remove books through this process it's not that you are arbitrarily saying okay you will be the person the point person at the school district you're obeying the state statutes and the um the rules that now identify

115those two people to remove to be able to to have the authority to remove library books reading material supplemental material that violate all this other stuff that that they're going to be trained in I'd like to also add who was talking before somebody who was had the floor I'm sorry I think I did do you still have the floor she had the floor I didn't but I don't want to interrupt someone else who had the floor I just asked a question about the principal okay can I go yes ma'am thank you okay um so I'd like to also stay there because one of the things that was not captured here are some of the things that you're all talking about which I would like to have added um on the what page is this one

116two three four PA fourth page under responsibilities I'd like to have added a number fives um which captures exactly what we're just talking about that the library School meet library media center Specialists principal and this is all from statute or School District employee who holds a valid educational media certificate and who has been trained by the fdoe mandated training has the authority to remove the instructional materials library media center resources or anything in the classroom library or on a reading list if it of course violates statute I can give this to you as long as everybody's okay with that it just clarifies the what we've just been talking about it captures what the policy doesn't already have may I ask and it makes it very clear the last part of that is that any material

117removed from one school must be reported to another school that we don't have captured and Dr Jones just mentioned that and then the last part is all removed books or instructional materials must be reported to the superintendent so I think those three are critical and I think it would help clarify some of the questions that board members had and and obviously if it's okay I can just hand this to you and you could just take that word through the chair um would it be that subsection is Begins the responsibilities of the district objection committee shall be as follows is there a better place because that those things would happen sure before sure you can put that in a better place that's fine as long as we put it in there okay um I do have

118another suggestion and board members again I'm not gonna I'm not gonna die on this hill but I have a suggestion in terms of um the committee makeup the makeup of the committee members so if you go to one two it's between page two and three um the membership selection members of the committee I just got to thinking throughout this time um that with the weeding process that we that the schools are going to go through I'm sure half of these books are going to come off anyway I'm sure of that um I don't see a big need for uh the committee mem for the committee for this purpose but just in case we do I was thinking about the makeup of it we have on here two classroom teachers two instructional coaches and one administrator

119I'm not so sure we really need all those many people it would be nice ideal but I think that their work would be better function in the classroom so if it's possible if you all would allow me to suggest C and D become one classroom teacher and one instructional coach five five six seven eight and then one administrator that's fine so this way you have you know then it takes our people yeah you it takes our committee from 11 to nine it's still an odd number so voting you still got to go with the um majority and of course the superintendent selects those people so you can have a middle a high school an elementary so I wanted to throw that out to you guys to you all Dr posca I think that makes sense

120yeah I'm okay with that change thank you I I don't agree I know sometimes one classroom teacher may not be able to make it or instructional coaches I think this is a very very important Review Committee especially with our five parents of Stu who have students in our school district and maybe after the first year we don't need it you know and I'm not sure how many times they'll meet I don't know if they'll meet monthly with the challenges or how that will work and then we let parents know that this book has been challenged but what if what if you had instead of it yes that's exactly what I was going to say what what was that day he said don't say alternate I said what if you had a classroom to one classroom

121teacher one coach and Alternate yeah in case they can't come somebody calls somebody else you need an odd number right right but what she's saying is she wants to keep two and two she wants to keep it as it is just in case somebody couldn't show up yeah I said why don't you just make that second one the alternate well if you make that second one the alternate then you'd have six seven no no you'd have nine nine and then if that person can't come the alternate would get called to come and the spirit of problem solving oh have two an alternate for a teacher and an alternate four coach oh I got it an alternate for an administrator if you're reducing that's a good idea if you're reducing the the number um it might

122be more efficient for staff to say just two teachers or instructional coaches with one alternate if then that way the number I think so there's still nine people on a committee like I said I don't even want the committee to meet um I want us to be ahead of it but that way it expands the opening and doesn't limit to just an instructional coach right and the alternate was there in case one of them could not show up that's right that's a good idea yep I like that idea okay so nine members of the committee with an alternate teacher and an alternate instructional coach in case those two just just two two teachers which could include an instructional coach and the altar I'm just expanding my opportunity to have Choice flexibility yeah yes so you

123but the alternate is not mandated to be one or the other right it's just a teacher right but ultimately we're going to have nine members correct correct president anytime I don't know what you just said though I was saying we're kind of confining ourselves to saying an instructional coach the instructional coaches as you know is a resource so let's say in 10 years uh we can enforward instructional coaches instructional coaches are paid through Esser dollars or paid for through title one dollar it's supplemental it's not in the student-based allocation in terms of it it could change so it's an ideal to have love them I think it's the world's it's a great reform strategy but it isn't something it's a year-to-year decision so if we just said two uh teachers uh or instru or instructional

124coaches but two uh and then with one alternate it just allows me to say 10 years down the road if coaches is no longer a thing it's just flexibility did you get that yes would it be would everyone be okay if it's two instructional staff members group and then we have flexibility because I think we'll we'll always have that classification um alrighty are we good to go on that one so tonight what are we going to expect from you so um Dr shafty is going to work some magic she will bring this policy back we'll email it to staff uh we'll give you the opportunity to review all we're doing tonight is sending it to public hearing you're not approving it you're just sending it out there so members of our community could look at

125and provide feedback prior to adopting which would be um in in March February okay good to go on that board yes last sorry there's um the one two three fourth page all the way on the bottom under procedures it has two a b c and d the a b c and d have nothing to do with two and a b c and d are repeated in another place in the policy can we just remove a b c and d as redundant thank you you're welcome and go to work Dr shafty all right we have the next item because I'm I will set up for Mr Seymour maybe a little bit of Mr Bass the Gifford High School alumni association approached me earlier in the year as well as the principal at Gifford Middle School uh

126to consider changing the mascot to what it was um when they when it was searched still served as a high school the mascot has changed a number of times over the course of the Year prior to moving forward reached out to Mr Bass and staff we looked at how would we actually be able to do this without occurring any additional costs the answer to you board members is that we will not incur any additional cost uh we would push items out when they come within our Capital plan which are already scheduled example uh Marquis Mr Bass has done a great work over the last three years replacing Marquis so when it would be time and it is time at this particular School to change the the Marquee so this will come at no additional cost

127to our school system we also looked at what was the biggest change which was uh uniforms uniforms uh through a donation uh will be completely covered so this will provide the opportunity for all new sporting uniforms for this school starting next year and I think it's important to note this is not a change for this school year this is a transition it will start next school year and over the course of time we will continue uh to make those changes we've had the opportunity to seek feedback from staff from students from parents and to a person I don't think hardly anyone disagrees with changing the mascot uh there has been some concern in which I will own and put it on myself not the principal and the the timing of pushing out the information and

128seeking um that feedback so the feedback has been positive Mr Bass myself Mr Seymour will continue to work with with any Community member on ensuring no Financial impact uh and building um ownership my desire to do this really is to pull our community together Gifford is a part of our community once again talking about perceptions uh to me this is a pulling an opportunity to pull us together as a community and celebrate the totality of our community and this is something I believe is is just the absolute right thing to do uh no additional cost problem solving for uniforms taken care of so I I am very very excited to to do this Mr Bass you have additional information Mr Seymour yes I I do and uh again um I'm I'm very grateful to be

129a part of this process and I gotta mention too um my position is to hear the community and deal with parents needs and uh when we were introducing Dr bacon to the community uh one group came up and said how can we help what can we do to assist Dr bacon in turning this school into one of the top schools in her State and it was the Gifford High School alumni association and I'll go on and say too that we have two of the members here the president Mr Godfrey Gibson who was a principal and also Mr Johnny Thornton who was a principal in both grads of Gifford High School even as a an assistant principal at Lincoln Park Academy it was my duty to oversee some of the planning at the school and we

130were about to demolish the gym at Lincoln Park Academy until I found some of the archives and we decided to you know hold on to that facility looking at those archives was Gifford high school and all of the attributes coming to us as young kids and seeing these things happen being an administrator and seeing it 35 years later was impressive and I just really want to be in in their Corner when they um you know come to us for at least guidance on how best they can assist the school some of the um concerns too came from several of our parents about you know kids having the Monies to afford opportunities to play and be a part of extracurricular activities as a result of that we also had other community members and I've already coined

131this project called my kid can where we've already got donations of forty thousand dollars not only uh one donor twenty thousand one another donut ten thousand in the NFL another ten thousand dollars to assist and help free the cost of any student who struggles to participate in any program so we want to really cover it again whenever it comes to our kids and make sure that they have not only the best facilities but be able to afford any opportunity any other kid would have in our County thank you and just one other thing and while the principal was receiving feedback he did push out information under the umbrella of redesign or re-envisioning um this is not re-envisioning this is changing a mascot in the school colors the principle is extremely Innovative and I am more

132than willing to work with him and the entire community on what an envisioning process would be configuration of bell schedule grouping of students those kinds of things so I just wanted to to put that Clarity I say that because as you all know there is a policy regarding re-envisioning in which I I'd bring an item for for you in the future I may actually bring that item I wish I can bring more items around re-envisioning which I think is well we're going to have to because as we move forward and enrollment continues to shift there's other conversations that that we need to have but that is that is the item I just wanted to have the opportunity to to speak with each of you I I've spoke with each of you individually but as a

133board proper thank you okay board members so start Miss berenborg sure you have had conversation over this and um I asked you about whether or not you had surveyed everyone parents and the parents were surveyed we we did push out information to get feedback over well I think it was 75 percent of those surveyed uh supported or aloof or just not concerned so yes and we will continue to push out that information but yes ma'am okay um kind of have a unique perspective on this and that's because my kids are dolphins they went to Gifford Middle School I was a principal of a school that had to undergo a change just like this we changed the name of Garden City because we restructured the school but that was because it was a double F school

134we had to change it so that was a big revision I understand that what I what I I did speak to my own children about this and you know what it was a middle school they were okay with it they were saying you know we understand this High School's different I would never touch a high school here's what I'm going to say about that I understand why this is coming where's my high school and if this had been changed for my high school which happened to Gifford High School I can understand why they want to bring it back in it I don't think today is the day but to listen to uh to these individuals back here tell their stories about that school in the community that was in that school we all as board

135members and Educators should be striving to create that sense of community Through the stories that they tell that's the power of what was taking place in that story this is just power in their stories and it was such a sense of community and to have a sense of Pride and as soon as soon as it was removed are they closed the school or repurpose the school it's one of the first things they did was change the mascot they changed it again and changed it again um and then you have an entire community that embodies the sense of community that was in that school that's why I say I just think it's the right thing to do so so when I went through that change of Garden City one of the things I did was reach

136out to the community and say you know how do you feel comfortable with this because Garden City have been there a long time and in Lincoln Park um and you know the Community First was very concerned about it because that school had been you know that mascot in those colors for a long time but when they realized what was going to happen to the school it was being changed to a Pre-K to school so it had to have a little cutesy mascot now I had instead of a a big scary um night it was a bumblebee so I understand why we went through that this is different this is not our envisioning yet this is a change to what used to be for people that had a lot of pride in the high school that

137was there um because it's not going to cost us anything and because we have this generous donation and kids are going to get uniforms right signs are going to be changed letterhead paint gym floor shirts all that's going to happen parents aren't going to have a cost oh no cost and I don't want to miss all of those things that you just mentioned won't happen next year they may happen two years or three years down the road um there are certain things that we can do at absolutely no cost the Alumni Association is 100 percent uh willing to fundraise and support to accelerate some of those things but understand at the end of the day we run a business and that business is educating children so we want to get it back and grow it

138out over the course of time there's some high yield things we can do to build culture at the school opening up for next school year in terms of you know the you know we all have our discipline plans or a PBS programs and they're aligned to them mascot so there's some neat things like that but the schools have been working on for a while now that they can continue to do but then their Sac team is behind this yes they've had the opportunity voted on it I don't know if they voted but it was shared and discussed but okay um and I can support this I know I have a lot of vested interested in as a parent a former parent there but not as much as a former principal and a parent there so

139I I'm anxious to hear what Doc Jones has to say about it as well Miss Rosario um so I I think it's a great idea to change the mascot I mean based on from what I'm what I'm hearing um it's not the mascot that I mean Dr Moore knows it's not the mascot that I'm concerned with as you mentioned earlier was the process in which was taken to get to this point um I I do have some uh questions with regard to this next three or to four years you said I'm going to ask rather than go through all of the details here I'm going to ask is it possible for you next month to come or at our next meeting to come to us with a detailed uh plan to propose to us what

140are what what it will look like in the previous year and the next year and the next year for the next four years what will be um new done that year how will it impact our budget if the flooring or the logo or something else comes out of our budget where would that come from if it's coming from donated materials when will the uniforms be done this way I even I can go back to my constituents who call and say you know when I'm what's going I just fundraise all this money for uniforms and now what right and I think that's best opportunity for us to give that information to the so yes we can absolutely say uh you can expect the the Marquee in year one you can expect uh this these changes which

141we'd have to go back and say and just kind of goal out so everyone can know in terms of uniforms and things of that nature uh we'll make sure that that everyone's clearly informed yeah um there you mentioned something about partnering or you know having the Alumni Association come into the school and maybe I thought I heard you mention you know them partnering with the school a little bit more it would be great if they could if there was some like tutoring program or mentoring program can you include whatever the benefits are from the Alumni Association into the school moving forward over the next so many years I can include things that they're they're currently doing as well as things that we Endeavor to do so apps absolutely the the partnership there is strong uh

142and we want to continue to grow it and we've been very intentional of saying um as we have been through all communities let's get the community back in our schools let's get the parents back in our schools in order to ensure everyone understands we are in service of the communities in which we reside um then the talking about re-envisioning we do have a policy board members 72.50 I requested that of Miss Shattuck to kind of figure out where we stand um legally with this I didn't know at first if we needed to vote on it or not um the rebranding or the revisioning of a school would have to come to us for a vote if there was a name change of the school itself so if it was Gifford Middle School to you know

143tiger Middle School um then we would have to vote on that we would also have to vote on new schools if we're creating a new school altogether existing in new facilities there are other requirements for that on here but there's nothing in our policy that says the change of mascot would need to be a vote so um so right now we don't have that Hillsborough County however and I know that you mentioned recreating or possibly bringing back to us the the policy on this on re-envisioning I do have a request and I'd like to just I'll work with you Dr Moore if we can work together and present or come before the board uh with a a suggested new policy or an updated one to our current one that would include a mascot in it

144in the re envisioning moving forward not not right this second obviously because we don't have it in here now what I'm talking about is one that was presented by Hillsboro uh County Public Schools they have a policy on mascots only and their policy says that the board shall upon recommendation of the superintendent approve by vote any proposed new mascot for all elementary middle and high schools it just kind of would be consistent it would bring us all you know on the same page with regard to this clearly um my opinion is when you're changing a mascot uh you're still changing the name the the statute the policy that we have actually says when you're changing the perception of the school into the community by name change that's when a board members should vote on it

145and in my personal opinion um though it might not be supported by the law um changing the mascot is changing the perception they're no longer swimming Dolphins they're now roaring tigers or whatever it is so that still changes the perception you know in the name of the student in terms of what they identify as and my response is in terms of absolute complete transparency which is always going to be my desire um moving forward I I just think that's a good practice to have and it still should be a decision and Endeavor led by the principal because students students own it but ultimately at the end of the day come before uh approval I think in this particular scenario I think there is consensus and willingness to move forward but if we don't take the

146opportunity to learn from this process then shame on us so yes that's absolutely fine okay Dr posca so um you know in light I believe that uh Student Success is most the most important factor is really community and parental involvement in that kid's life at the school on a day-to-day basis so given that we as a board can help facilitate uh you know Elders in the community that want to give back want to be a part of what's going on there I think that absolutely I support that and hopefully we can I'm interested to hear what Partnerships you guys are forming with the school and how we can help support that thank you the former principal yeah I had the distinct privilege of being the principal of gift for Middle six in Gifford Middle School

147I was at Gifford Middle six from 1992 to 1995. and when that school closed down we opened Gifford Middle sick I'm sorry I get from middle school for grades six seven and eight it was a wonderful opportunity for me to get to know the community and give her and as most of you know my mentor was a Ronald Hudson and he helped me quite a bit when Dr Hudson Eddie Hudson and I were tasked with opening the new Gipper Middle School which was standing at the old Gifford Middle seven which was standing at the old Gifford High School Gifford Middle six was the old Gifford Elementary well again it was a privilege and what we were tasked to do was ask our incoming students to vote on the colors in the mascot um Dr Hudson

148Oslo was blue Wildcats and ours ended up green and orange Dolphins probably because of Miami I don't know but that's the one that won now I do want everyone to know I was never asked by the superintendent of the Border community at that time to keep the old Gifford tigers and colors and I'll be honest with you I wish I had I think that keeping that historical aspect at Gifford Middle and what those schools meant to the community is absolutely essential especially in today's time with all this stripe I think it's essential and when I heard we were talking about this the Gifford alumni brought this up I was so very very excited I attended one of those meetings I don't know if you remember but we changed Clemens to Dodger Town who remembers that

149maybe Mr Seymour okay okay I look back I did not see an action vote but I may be wrong I didn't see it Highlands to Ira I wasn't here then I don't know why that happened I still call it Highlands okay it's so confusing and I went I forgot a telephone number for Alternative Center the other day and he said we it's IR prep okay so the things change please don't get me wrong but I think knowing our community is the most important thing that we can do here now Dr Moore you said that Dr bacon um sent out a survey Zach was it was discussed there's no cost correct and maybe we use the term rebranding when we shouldn't have because we're talking about right now the colors in the mascot am I correct

150you are correct um these from what I recall especially Clements to dodge town when Miss Donovan did a really really good uh partnership with when the Dodgers were here in the 80s and so forth it was bringing the community together and the Dodgers were the closest ones to Clemens Elementary at the time and they left and so we have to think about these things I feel it is an honor to do this I am very excited that Gifford alumni came to us and said you know could we consider this because our community feels very very special about those sites if you attended the last Juneteenth celebration um I'm sorry this was a year before last down by the hospital where one of the first schools was and Joe idalette was there I mean the history

151the camaraderie the collaboration second to none so I you know board policy is very very important I don't think it should be board policy for mascot and colors this is a community decision it's the cost of knowing your community and what we need to do and if you ever want to talk especially to these two guys here Johnny Thornton and Godfrey Gibson they can give you the history and it will just send chills down your spine of what that school did for our students Gifford Middle six was the old elementary Gifford High School where Gifford Middle School is now during the time of segregation it's outstanding so I say we move forward there's no board vote on this so we can't do that in policy and actually if Mr Thornton and Mr Gibson want to

152speak now I think that's the most important thing if you both these gentlemen are very long-winded dude um thank you so so let me I do think moving forward some sort of policy would be the right thing um to do not necessarily in this particular case but I would recommend what approves it doesn't approve it um it would be the right thing to do just in terms of of transparency and pushing out information I I fully support doing this I think the board fully supports doing this um but creating a more uh a timeline that would benefit everyone I don't want no negativity around it I want us to celebrate that so and I know there's going to be a celebration uh next month thank you Mr Thornton right here Mr Thornton and Mr Gibson

153are both members of our climate task force no idea he is a long one day good afternoon thank you all for allowing us to take part today and I know you will have your business schedule giving us a few minutes to say something is enormous and uh and I know your your job is extremely impactful you have more things to do then they talk about a mascot in colors of a school but it's important to us and uh allow me to I don't know this gentleman here a doctor posca but uh most of you here know me I guess uh my name is Johnny Thornton and I'm a lifelong member a lifelong residents of this County a product of uh the education assistant public schools in this County I'm a graduate of Guilford High School

154the best school I've ever been in this County I graduated in 1968. and upon leaving here I left went to college graduated from there and the best thing that ever happened to me in my educational career when I came back here in 1973 and got a job at Guilford High School I still called a Gifford High School not get from middle school but I still look at it as my high school I had a job they gave me a job a guy named Stuart Carlton gave me a job and I was so happy and elated about that and uh and when I arrived the name had been changed Guilford Middle School but they were stingrays and I I got another principal while I was there I guess the names always changed with the principal the

155other principal came and changed it to the paladins while we were there nobody ever thought about let's go to the community and ask the community what they think and um we were always Guilford tigers maroon and white and um in two we're not just fly by organization up let me put that out there also in the year 2000 we convened about six or seven of us got came together and started this organization Guilford High School alumni and Friends Association and the idea and the premise was to honor the teachers that had taught at that particular School on an annual basis annually starting in 2000 we always had an all-class reunion from 1938 to 1969. classic will convene we'll go someplace and and classical come back and make a donation toward the Guilford High School alumni

156friends Association and the good thing about it some good things come out but it's sad good things are never being told only when you try to get something changed that's when the naysayers come about you're going to always have naysayers every place you go because you don't have you have those individuals when it comes to the school system you're gonna have all the all the time you're going to have those and they sells running behind school buses all the time but nobody ever thought about Guilford High School alumni and Friends Association I doubted most most of these school board members don't know anything about giving our school rooms and our association about the scholarships that we give I do we do Mr Gibson every year he comes and our other chairperson the educational chairperson on

157an annual basis now bet the name is Guilford High School alumni and Friends Association but on an annual basis at Vero Beach High School and Sebastian High School those two individuals go out there and award scholarships to graduating seniors at those two schools it's not Guilford High School it's Vero Beach High School and Sebastian High School and nobody said anything about the money that we've donated over the last 18 years over 160 thousand dollars to the students in this County but the naysayers when we say anything about embracing us that's when the problems start but when we start embracing the other two high schools nobody ever said a word because we were given it wasn't about a gift for our school at that time it was about the uh the students of Indian River County

158and that's the most prized commodity that you all supposed to be monitored and we're assisting with that to give those kids a heads up a leg up to going on in school and uh it is not at that particular time by where the community that you live in ethnicity or anything if you qualify for the for the scholarship it has nothing to do but whether your parents or your ancestors attending Guilford High School has no bearing so I just want to put that out there and um and say some of the good things that we do but if we I don't want that to go unknown because knowledge is power but you can always come out and get the naysayers to do anything you want them to do I want to keep this might be

159not not be it might not be a good analogy but just think about it in 1969 your school being terminated and and then thank God I was gone then but I had my own problems when I got up into South Carolina anyway but your school being terminated you don't want to go someplace but you'll be enforced to go because of forced integration you had no choice but the naysayers that's coming trying to impede this progress now those probably the same ones back in 1969 and 70. probably been the ones that didn't want the kids to go to Vero Beach High School and they didn't have a choice so they're always going to be some barriers you can always come out and say some things that might be negative but let's put the negative things behind

160us now we asking you all to embrace our association like I said it's not a fly-by-night thing and we've always we already have our oars in the water trying to see what we can do to be a positive influence on Guilford Middle School Dr bacon is the administrative leader of that school we can't do anything without him embracing us to come in and say oh yes come aboard now with some of the we're all about academic success also um we've already we've already addressed things in our association we have nine board members eight of them are retired Educators and administrators so it's not a thing that we don't know what we're doing so if Dr bacon Embrace us we think that we have some positive things that we can bring to the table such as

161tutorial ships these is one thing that we thought that we might be able to do maybe two days a week identify those students that's on the lower 25 percentile starting with the sixth graders and monitor them through eighth grade and see if we can have a positive impact academically on those lower 25 percent the lower 25 percent that's kids that's not functioning properly are not performing at the grade level and need some assistance so we think that we could have a we have a lot that we can bring to the table in that area and also as far as in addition to that academic success academic success but we think about um and it's not anything that Robert derogatory toward the district it's just a matter of time it it's the the times of the

162day we know that black students and minorities are not functioning pretty much at grade level when it comes to um honor classes Advanced placements and those type things that's what we also would like to Horn in on and try to track those kids from sixth grade through eighth grade and started we can bring them up to speed and get them into those honor classes and a very advanced placement classes because universities look at that they look at your GPA and how do you get Jeep how you get weighted gpas or through those classes so those are that's the other thing that we want to try to um horn in on and we have access to many other [Music] um I would say members in our our organization we moved from from six now our membership

163consists of approximately 200. 200 members some locally many in the surrounding counties and in several States outside but when we convene every December they always asked us what are y'all doing to try to bring our mascot and our colors back because they do have a vested interest in it I see that I'm on the clock and I got to leave yes but uh but uh one thing I wanted to say you all had an opportunity right now dear Potter be a part of History all we asking you ought to do is Embrace what we're we're saying this board can restore with the board in 1969 didn't give us all colors back and give us our mascot thank you for allowing thank you Mr Thornton thank you in the interest of time I I do want

164to say uh to a board member of my conversations with them uh support the change I do think in process uh we can do better and we will but in terms of supporting the change of the mascot uh I think you have that support would you thank you and we have God for Gibson would you like to say a few words God be former principal in this County and a really good guy good afternoon my name is God for Gibson I'm the president of the Gifford High School alumni and Friends Association you know when I walk through that door I looked at your sign up there and I thought about it said together we'll what stronger I just want to give you a little history maybe what John didn't tell you I just want to

165give you about my family my family was here before in River County was separated so when I just want to be honest with you when it comes to doing things in the uh black community funds always come up but I want to say this we've been paying taxes I've been paying Texas here since 1965. my family been paying taxes here since 1921 whenever the county became 22-25 somewhere a County we pay taxes some of this is our money that you and you are supposed to be good stewards of our money but I want you to understand we are the only County in the folk County area in 1969 that lost the colors lost the name and everything you go to Lincoln Park you go to Brevard County you go to Martin County they steal their

166names have been changed but they still have their names and their colors this is the only County John mentioned about the cheating the name has been changed out there I think three or four times no money nothing came up I know you all didn't have anything to do with it but now is the time to be some things to be changed and corrected we cannot go back and change the past but we do have a chance to have a positive influence if you know anything about any River County and St Lucie County it's the Indians and then it was Dan McCarter Eagles in Fort Pierce every time before they played the mascots was tried to be taken it's a symbol of pride you know and that's what we want I passed that school I finished

167in 1961. we had a whole lot of things that we had Pride about we didn't have all the material things we didn't have all of the structural things but as a school board and just to give you some history that same Guilford High School have produced from Wabasso Florida a three-star General Eugene chromatic I played football Vera Beach High School had blockage sledges we had two dummies that we put behind a tree but we was always told we could do it we challenged schools for larger counties one saw me we lost some but it was there and the pride that we want to do is not just about the mascot Jonathan mentioned it we want to bring the parents back into the school to be involved make it one of the better schools in the

168county and the state we don't just look at that changing the mascots and the colors if you know I hope all of you have been there yeah we were given the privilege to establish a room there that we've put historical things students have things that they really want to put there and we've been embraced by this the principal have Embraces Dr Boyd worked with us in the community and all we're asking and it's going to be done by phases I think the financial part that's no excuse about that but I don't care if it did cause some finance my tax bud is there too and I'm just being honest with you and and I I don't want to see us have an opportunity to make some changes to the positive towards the community and then

169we think about finances when I know we do other things to other schools there's nothing said about finances but we don't want to get to that we want to just look at the positive aspect of doing this our community is excited about it I hope all of you have uh got the invitations that they are coming back for this and I hope you don't cancel it I hope you see the need what it can do for the community and for the students and for Indian River County School District I just like to say I would be proud to see this happen and if it doesn't it's going to be a sad day for me in Indian River County thank you Mr Gibson no did you just in closing I um as I was saying as

170he was coming up Mr Gibson um I do think we create a policy to memorialize it and I do think this is an opportunity to forge the community together um so in terms of of the work moving forward I'll bring a itemized progression and plan over the course of the next five years uh just on the sequencing of when things would happen um as I said and this is the opportunity for us to come together I think we're in a good space and we'll continue to to listen and learn as we grow through this so Dr when you say create a pain culture I I think it's just working over the course of of time so when there is an opportunity whether it's five years or six years down the road you have a clearly

171fine defined procedure on what steps would take and all of the feedback that I have to this point is not on uh the change of mascot but rather the the process which is yet to exist and I think that's a opportunity to move forward uh for whenever we're all not here so it doesn't take so long to to have this in process the next time but there's nothing wrong with saying this is the this is the the rules the or the ways of of Engagement but we are moving forward yes yes okay yes okay all right so the next item Mr Bass well yeah okay I'm sorry a question about that so are we form Ed may not not at this time now if we do a re-envisioning thing which obviously Engage The I would

172love to do that I think we need to have a lot of conversations about re-envisioning our schools yes okay and then yeah next school year next school year is the official change okay next week and then uh well we have some sort of ceremony we'll have a number of Ceremonies uh they're the alumni Associates coming together in February that's one opportunity and then as we move throughout the year probably at the opening of schools a big pep rally I'll include all of that in the information I provide to the board okay and one thing in the conversations we had about this one thing that came up was naming of things because they're when you go around to different schools all of a sudden you'll see there's somebody's name on a library and name on a

173building and and we have specific policy about names we we do and there was a a request on the other side of the County uh to to change that and we're still working through that but if we if that was something that we moved forward that would require board approval whether it's a gym as you recall we did change the name at Sebastian Rivers gym and and their Courtyard that requires board approval right okay I want to make sure that we're looking at that policy yeah and it's not a decision to be made um lightly okay okay all right uh h-i-n-j uh will finish me out uh and they're all presented by Mr Bass yeah the first one I have is the purchase of the classroom Furniture cafeteria tables and art tables from Sebastian River

174Middle School uh this is going on for the construction of the new Wing which is uh 12 classrooms and two science labs this is through the U.S communities contract which is a purchasing collaborative um and it is budgeted within the ffmp of the project any questions board members no I just you know how I felt about the cost yes ma'am it's in the chair prices are going up yes ma'am all right second item I've got is the out of Field Report um you know the past three years I've been here we've kind of prided ourselves on uh whatever number we bring you in the fall is usually less in the spring however this year is not that case we've actually gone up from the fall number and I'm going to attribute this and this is

175not a scientific study or data research is just my gut I'm attributing that because we have hired a 147 new teachers since the start of school so we've got teachers who are retiring resigning leaving the profession and we're getting a lot of influx of people moving into the State of Florida a lot of which do not have the Esau certification keeping in mind we have three years to get Esau certification so a lot of those people that are on that list maybe in year two or the final year year three so that kind of makes it look a little a little higher than what it is um you know we're continuing to recruit and do that as best we can and we're continuing to hire as many people as we can who are fully certified

176but just we are seeing unfortunately now what many other districts are already seeing is educators are just not out there or members any questions about Miss barenborg yeah um I I noticed that the two high schools that at Vero Beach High School we have um a lot of science and social studies out of field teachers and at Sebastian River High School math and English and I know when I got hired as a science teacher years ago in Houston I got a stipend that I was able to use towards getting my certification for middle school science because I was out of field in science but I had enough hours to get my science certificate very quickly so they actually gave me a thousand dollars so that I could apply it towards going to school at night

177to get that done which I was able to get done in a year so um are we looking at something like that where we can do some sort of money for licensing to get people qualified so so to answer your question from earlier today we are doing reimbursement for certification tests and Miss crispelli I think we had said that we sixteen thousand sixteen thousand that we have reimbursed thus far um last year and this year combined so so we started it last year and we put that as a line item in the recruitment budget so you know if they pat if they take that test and then submit for the reimbursement we'll go through a process we approve it so I looked at one like for example an in persons qualified to teach e-12 is

178teaching High School science you know I have a concern if my child was in that class does that person have enough I don't know that person might have a lot of science background and that's fine um but I know the State of Florida is only requiring a test now and all of a sudden you can you're qualified to teach science correct or any other subject yes just a comment um I don't have the recent statistics but the State of Florida is still really low I mean really high on the number of teachers we haven't filled so I mean this is something I think that's just going to continue until we get more students going into education I mean there's a lot of data out there about it so can I follow up then you've been

179are we talking to IRSC then about helping us with getting local people she was prepared because she knew I was going to pass it are we asking IRSC locally to Institute what they used to have here which was a education department to be able to help us locally get grow our own through the chair so two years ago we started a dual enrollment program called Teach IRS teacher with IRSC that would end with an AAA in education they've had some change in their leadership at IRSC so in the past two weeks we've met with Rebecca Shearer and other at Dr Graham at IRSC to revive the teach IR program and then also the ffea clubs so they were unaware that we even had it and so it was great to meet with them and so

180they're totally excited they are working on and I don't want to speak for them but they're working on being able to offer more education classes at the Mueller campus so that so what type of education though is it just Elementary Ed or is it no we talked about higher level like they used to have science I can't I don't want to speak for them I'm going to say that the classes that are part of the dual enrollment program which are the the beginning classes intro to teaching those as part of I think they're in the works for doing that but I don't I I can't speak for piracy I'm looking at the out of field report and where our need is and when I see that we have especially in high school I'm mean I

181know you know you can cover especially homeschool parents will tell you this I can cover up to 8th grade pretty well and then after that I need a little help so when you're talking about high school level courses you know I wouldn't be the first person to teach anything in math higher level so I would defer that to somebody that has that ability to do that my concern is that are we watering it down so much that our kids aren't getting the highest quality they can get from the people that are knowledgeable in front of them and I understand we can only get what we get walking through the door but we need to help with IRSC making sure that we're getting high high quality people that are walking in front of our kids we

182we have one another meeting with them I believe next week as a follow-up so we can bring that can we ask you that specifically about higher level course studies of places you know what we're out of field in you know what we need those are the concerns that I have absolutely thank you um I would just ask and uh do you have uh incentives specifically maybe for the the hardest to get teacher groups or the most uh important people that are currently out of fields like maybe incentives for high school science or Math teachers or something that affect like a sign-on bonus literature we don't have a a specific bonus for those High need areas that would be something that we would have to ultimately negotiate we we could do that we do have uh

183Focus programs where we do reimbursement for for housing for new teachers through the RIT Foundation yeah so there's something in place and I think this is a national concern and it really is growing Educators the focus of our Indian River State College program is to grow Educators uh from our current students and and we have the problem solved and fix it from a long-term perspective you know building in an internship for someone who's at Vero Beach to go to Vero Beach Elementary School and see the impact and power of this work and then going on and graduating from high school with your AAA in education and continuing on Indian River State College and US afford them opportunities to be a long-term sub or to build in credits while they're in in classrooms subbing we have

184to to kind of feed our own that's a long-term solution but well at the same time really looking at how we're recruiting and maintaining so there's a lot of complexity to this and there's a great deal of support above and beyond that we we provide from instructional coaches mentoring once we get them in our job is to ensure that it the instruction is in fact aligned to the standard which is in in a lot of cases a humongous lift but we provide that support in order to ensure that is in fact what's happening okay Miss barenborg um are we still involved in the program where we're doing student teachers from FAU so I believe there I'm not in charge of specifically that program but I believe we have several different universities where we have interns

185coming here we're really growing along with IRSC when you get a student teacher it's a really good way to keep a person and train them the way you need them to train so they can start day one so I don't know what you know I mean we we have those I'm not sure which university they're connected to okay so so we're still getting a good amount of student teachers yes we have several I don't know maybe the exact number but a lot of interns yes because I I get the calls of she's almost finished I want to hire her okay you know as soon as she's done I wouldn't put her as a long-term sub right now because she's going to be done in four days and then I'm going to hire her I did

186it and it's the best way to hire because you vetted them in your culture at your school you know and a lot of them are went to school here they're coming home to do their internship whatever University or college they're at they're just fine with me exactly we grow our own but I want to make sure that you know we're getting high quality people and and our kids are getting the best of the best okay Mr Bass next one all right last item I've got is I'm sorry sorry um I wonder if there is and I know that when someone applies to a particular school that's the school that they want to work in but if we have a need for that person who is licensed as a science teacher rather than put that person

187in an Elementary classroom can we offer that person an opportunity to teach their certified area at a different school and say hey we have this opening here rather than you be out of field would you prefer to go there or would you consider to go there so you know not trying to mandate the transfer but if we're going to put kids first we have to put teachers that are certified to teach that that I mean that should be the priority right that should be a lens through which we look so at all of these placements are based on on student enrollment and we don't have significant increases or reductions in enrollment right now knock on what we might next year but we give it positions based on the number of students what we are doing

188100 aligned to your question is going through a process in March where we're looking at those who we know are retiring those who we know would be separating because they've let us know so we have a pool in which we give to miss christopholi so we go out and start to connect I need three science teachers I need two Math teachers we begin to connect them to the schools so even before they're graduating or they're in the process we're interviewing before other counties so we can offer the jobs first because we know it we're going to have the the opening and we we started that work last year and we'll continue to grow it we're trying to do it as early as we possibly can to make sure that we were able to retain or

189bring on what are the absolute best of the best you're saying but what I what I what I'm trying to suggest is like for example I'm looking at Vero Beach High School there is a teacher who has a current certification of social science six through 12. and apparently he or she is in a reading it doesn't have reading endorsed or English or is teaching English this is how I'm reading it because they're out of field in English 6 through 12. but if you go down below there is a teacher who is a substitute guest educator teaching is science 6-12 so why not just flip-flop them so you have a certified six science six through twelve teaching the needed course science 6-12 and you put the sub in the English class looking at these lists so

190that we're actually putting the certified instructor in the classroom so we do a lot of that work at master and we do master schedule call master schedule development ensuring we start with all certified teachers and then once we're problem solved wherever it may be then we go to the next level some of the names on this list may be because of the semester change and going into a new course or I added just that one course so I have five sections of history and one of the language arts whatever the scenario was so it just may be that one course but the other five are depending so it's a case-by-case scenario but we're there are multiple opportunities for us to continue to reduce this list yeah this is this is this is bigger than we

191I think we've ever had not in terms of lists because we've had longer lists but in terms of the looking at the variations of where the certification is and where their placement is I mean it's yeah this is actually like you know I I hate to say that you know and give the impression that we're just throwing anybody in a classroom but there certainly is it's pretty eye-opening to look at usually our concerns are Ese and Esau um although Esau is there's a lot well Esau is a lot of it is the fix because this is part of our our district strategic plan so the end of year Target we capture at the obviously at the end of the year so there's a lot of Esau training uh and course certifications that we'll be offering

192because we plan on hitting that Target then we've hit the target Ever every year to this point and it's been a relatively easy one to hit and now because of our reality is significantly different so we anticipate in our at the end of the year in our strategic plan saying guys remember back when it was actually went up we still hit I think it's down to six percent or Dr Jacob's not here or eight percent so you're right it has gone down absolutely every single year over the last three years and except now except now and and we can understand why but that doesn't mean we can't still hit the target for our strategic plan yeah well I mean part of my and and not to you know beat a dead horse but you know

193part of my concern with with a lot of the esol if we're just going to talk about the esol out of field teachers is that many of them are in our Title 1 schools we have a lot in felsmere which is a bilingual school or at least you know that's the the choice is you know the the um the option there for school choice is that they want to teach bilingual at either rate the Esau certification is in in many of these areas in many of these schools it's critical like you need to know what those strategies are and I wonder if you're going through an educational course assuming that all of these teachers went through some kind of educational course I mean Esau has always been included within the educational course or that at

194least the foundation of that so when you graduate you graduate with your East mandated esol hours for that certification so it's kind of odd that we have so many out of yes sir some some of these people are second career Educators okay not all though not all but some of them are some okay so that removes some all right um the other thing that I just wanted to um reinforce here for those who um you know that parents who are watching or listening why this is so important and it may seem like it's not is because in an educational system you want a highly qualified person to be in the classroom teaching primarily the the subject in which they're certified to ensure that it is a highly qualified person for that position thus giving your

195child in that classroom the highest um the big the greatest opportunity for uh success in that subject area so for the I don't know if I said that correctly but I think I did in my head it came out all right um correct me if I'm wrong um Dr Morin any of that um and that's why this is so important that we make sure that teachers receive or are might you know reminded of their requirement last question if they do not satisfy their requirement to become in-field by a certain time what happens we turn them let them go non-renew them due to certification we've been doing that morning or we sending oh yes oh we stay in constant contact with them so it is very possible that we could end up with a very similar

196list with different teachers going into next fall if these teachers do not all get certified in that area because then we're back at square one okay anything else just a final comment on this um I know HR works very hard in getting Educators into our system and I've said this before we're down to less than 10 percent of people graduating from college in education that was a 2020 report 1970 it was 33 percent so no longer are they coming to any River County just because we're at the beach and so forth because it's expensive to live here so this is an issue that the whole nation's dealing with and just thank you for trying anything you can to get these qualified teachers to us thank you all right and oh I'm sorry Reverend last last

197item I've got yes um and you know this is on the agenda tonight you may or may not want to pull this but this is to going back to our disposal of property and selling the three Parcels of lamb prior to doing that you have to have a office of educational facilities spot survey spot stands for supplementary plant survey um it does not mean that we have to sell the property right if you approve this tonight it's just something that has to be done ahead of doing it so you know whether you want to do it tonight you can or we can bring it back when we've made a final decision we can but there's nothing date specific on the survey it's just there as an option to do it if we want to do

198it thank you thank you same one that we were just talking about right earlier it is in conjunction with it yes ma'am those three Parcels so why don't do we I mean we're we're gonna pull we're holding off on the sale anyway so wouldn't it just make sense to hold off on this as well we could do either or either presenting the option to you go ahead so this is for the fish survey right yes ma'am the fish what fish fish so um how long ahead like is there a scheduling issue with it will it be a problem to put it off until we bring this item back there shouldn't be a problem with it the big issue with getting it done and we were able to get it done rather expeditiously so it's done

199the survey is done so if we decide in February if we decide in May you know what whatever we decide we can just put it back on prior to taking action on it how long does it take to get on the list then to get the survey done to get the survey done so let's say we we put this off to a vote to March and then does that put you off till June or July that survey's already done we're good oh okay yes all right is there a timing then do we have to worry about a timing so for example if we do it now and I'm unfamiliar with this so if we do it now in six months would somebody come back and say well it's already been six months you have to

200redo the survey no ma'am okay before we start board member items I need a five minute break yes please adjourn for a minute five minutes I didn't really hear consensus on um we are now on the agenda for board member items all right so just to set this up this is items proposed by board members that we are now moving into the first one is the legislative priorities earlier uh gosh I guess I guess I guess it was last school year last calendar year we sent a draft of legislative priorities and now is the time for us to finalize those priorities just to set this up we sent a complete list for the board to consider some of them may they're all important but may not be the priority of this board so this is

201the opportunity to have a conversation to say these are absolute priorities it may not there may be additional ones you all may want to consider so my goal is to get us to a one or two page document of our priorities that we collectively can endorse so we can begin to advocate for the needs of this community and the children within our community so I don't know if if you would like to facilitate Doc Jones or you want to go through I don't know what the actual process is um completely up to to you and the board well we receive the information of the priorities and basically I would just like to hear from each board member and to see what their thoughts are I have some thoughts but um you know I looked on

202this as far as board priorities I went back to the 1990s and some were just informational some were action some were put on consent so if anything today as a board we can decide how do we want to approach this I mean we always see the priorities from fsba Central Florida smaller schools and so forth but just have some idea where we're going when we we put that forward as a board so I'll just open up for a board member to speak about the priorities you see and what you think on that not necessarily priorities but I do think we need to establish a timeline okay for each year by month we should have this done on Election years by month we should have that done so we're not caught off guard regardless of when

203the our delegation meeting which was her um yeah conducted extremely early this year um if we have that schedule we could kind of Norm on it Nancy has it so we always know the process that we're going to follow okay so Dr Moore you go ahead and take that over facilitating for the timeline I think that's important or Mr Bass Mr Bass will do that good point okay yes go ahead we already have a policy on legislation I'm legislative it's called and it's policy 0131 so I would just recommend that we start there right and either you know review it it hasn't been reviewed since 2014. um it does set the board as the um policy making body um and obviously the the it's the board who governs legislative priorities so um if we can

204just start there and maybe add the timeline or who you know the responsibility clarify that you know change the language I don't know what you know either something like that but that's the actual policy so in terms of looking at the priorities maybe my suggestion to through the chair is to work through what is on paper to hear from board members what your priorities are staff and I can can feverishly take notes and try to capture what exactly are the priorities as we listen to each board member um share their concerns or feedback you want to start with the power first or just the feedback I'm sorry I would start with the uh that's a homework assignment so I'll go back and I'll do that homework and come back to the board with a calendar

205in any aligned to that specific policy that Miss Rosario is referring to this should be a conversation based on the overall feedback that you have regarding suggested priority legislative priorities talking about when I said just to hear from each one any board member lied to go first on the yeah I'll do that that's fine okay um one of the things that I notice here um and I do agree best practice is to have a one-pager of priorities so that we have it available for well number one our legislative liaison our board legislative liaison or anybody else are you know Senator and our representatives are representative to be able to just say hey here is um here are our priorities and the priorities are really the items that although many of these are very important as

206was already mentioned but those things that are specific to the needs of our school district now um one of those things that I think I can immediately support is an item under school safety and student well-being it is an item there amends the Marjory Stoneman Douglas safety act to facilitate the requirement of charter schools reporting their assessor incident data independently of school districts um I spoke with some Charter School board members and I and they're in full support of it as well I would never want to suggest a priority of that kind without um confirming you know where they stand on it and get their feedback clearly and they're in support of it so I think that that would make sense um to keep that there as a priority although it might not be an

207immediate priority and you know I'll I'll go to whatever the the rest of the board suggests on that but I'm good on that one um I do want to come down to education achievement and innovation there are two on there the second and the third check mark they both talk about the fast the Florida assessment of student thinking I think that it's important to keep those on there because both of those um obviously the fast is new and we certainly need um a a quicker progress monitoring system or one that gives teachers immediate feedback and so far we haven't actually gotten there yet but letting the legislatures know that I think that there should be a timeline so these actually look like um they would be good to keep on there the other one is

208in the same section it's the last check mark um it reads provide a waiver from the passage of the English language arts requirement for ELA students who have passed all other high school graduation requirements and have been enrolled in a school less than two consecutive years but I'd like to add to that my ad is two consecutive years and maintain or lower the concordant alternate scores required for graduation of the PSAT the SAT the act the pert and all of those other requirements I think that's important it's important ell e community and it certainly gives them an opportunity to you know a better opportunity to graduate so that would be academic Innovation my last academic Innovation would be to and I'm still thinking of the wording on this every time I say it I gotta

209say it out loud start um start up build develop and expand Technical vocational school choice and new programs or something to that effect so essentially startup grants rather so essentially if there was a you know bucket of money that the legislature said okay we will have this amount of money available to schools to apply for grants for reopening or the re-envisioning we're talking about re-envisioning right re-envisioning the opening of a new new vocational you know vet vet tech AG program or something of that sort so that we can open up our school district to more options um right now we don't have that and if we were to want to open up a school tomorrow a new school or a new Choice option um it would be incredibly difficult because we don't have millions of

210dollars but if there were Grant funds around it might actually help us with the startup costs or you know to maybe even break ground I'm not sure how that works but um so that would be another one of my my asks do you want me to keep going or do you want to just stop there it'll keep going keep going okay um move into recruitment and retention I am fully on board with allowing the school district to re-employ Personnel after one month of retirement without penalty to the employee's pension um that might actually help us with the the out of here without a field yeah um and I'm fully on board with establishing a Statewide Universal fingerprint system to expedite the processing of background checks I want to share something and I don't even know

211if this is a legislative priority so I was I went to an event recently I met a a person in the education field whose daughter became a teacher in another County obviously got hired by another County School District and apparently that school district's salary negotiation thing is very different from ours and I didn't get into any details and are you going to say what that's in Florida here in Florida and the the the teacher the new teacher graduated got all of the credits submitted the application passed all the exams is just in the waiting period for the certification to come in the mail just waiting for that certificate number and in the interim the school district said we will hire you until you get your certification but we're not going to pay you at a

212new teacher salary we're going to pay you at like full-time sub salary so of course the the issue and the conflict there is it's not a it's not the teacher's fault um but I don't know if it's legislation that we can request for some kind of Expediting from the doe to ensure that teachers who are qualified immediately get their their their licensure I'm not sure what what's happening there it takes forever it's a it's so bad and it holds us up and it holds other districts up in hiring highly qualified people because then these people say or you know these new teachers are stuck they're just stuck and it's it's a terrible situation so I'm kind of speaking out loud because I don't know if that would be a priority that would help us as

213well with retention and recruitment what are your thoughts anybody so there's a the typical backlog which is three to four months depending on and sometimes in certain years it's earlier I've always been when you when you have somebody you reach out to your Staffing officer and say this is somebody we want to get in can you put them to the list it's not a matter of this is teacher just waiting to be processed this is a district saying we want this person and our understanding it's just this one thing so in some scenarios if there's a district that's wanting to hire there should be the district should be able to call out and say can we can we move this one to the front of the list because this is an actual hire that I

214may lose um so but I do think but that's not a legislative thing no legislative priority is is to work to ensure that the start to finish of processing certification doesn't take you know more no more than 30 days okay um I have two more board members um one in terms of funding so I'm moving down the line one in terms of funding um it's not on here um in this way and and I'm okay with the superintendent kind of fixing the wording on this um but it's to fully fund uh virtual classes to the full FTE cap so and that would be including beyond the school day because of the nature of virtual school no I'm not talking about virtual um Virtual School school I'm talking about our virtual so Indian River virtual right

215now if we only get fully funded if a student is enrolled in six virtual classes is that right did I say that right and they have to pass the course at the end but how does that how does that affect us in terms of funding okay wait say that again they have to be enrolled in sixth virtual classes they have to pass one of them let's pass all the classes oh they have to pass or we don't get any funding or we don't get any funding correct and if we were to get funding for the sixth what are we getting equivalent to a full-time student yes ma'am what if that virtual student is only taking two classes you get your proportion share what if that student is taking part-time in a public and part-time here

216he would be reported under the public school and get that percentage that proportional share of those classes for that FTE and then through through the virtual but then he got he has to pass a virtual for you to get it and what if you get a homeschool student who takes a virtual class same scenario as long as they're registered it's rfte and not a franchise so would it benefit us at all to get full to request full what is the request so full funding full FTE we spoke above that six course would be the opportunity for us to get into that business okay there you go so right now it's it's if I'm taking a seventh course because I I'm interested in U.S history then we're not getting funding for that they go to Florida

217Virtual School us to have this you know a stake in educating that child through our virtual program which could be done after school so that would be we're not even accessing those kids okay so full-time student who wants to take additional classes virtually we're not getting that wouldn't benefit us for a full-time student that we have during the day yes so the additional courses that he or she is taking are not funded not fully funded yes so we can't claim FTE beyond the six periods so would it and I know that it's not okay to say fund us the same way you fund Florida Virtual or fund our Virtual School the same way you fund Florida virtual but what would be the appropriate thing to I know you know what I'm trying to ask and

218it's important because we are not we're not really utilizing our Virtual School the way that we should and I think that if we were to open it up or request at least for I think we understand the the intent we would have to work with Mr Bass and Mr fagin to Define exactly what would be the appropriate verbiage that we could endorse would it be a priority and that's up to that's up to the board but I I would really enjoy the opportunity for our virtual school which is a great school um to have possibilities too I don't know that you have someone who's locally teaching you I mean it's a virtual course but the support that you receive still is local yeah okay so that's what I would like that was my I said

219I had two more that was my my one my last one um was to increase the transportation allocation as always transportation is always underfunded and it is a mandate so to increase the transportation allocation makes sense especially since we are a a school District choice a choice School District stop there okay notes only nine people taking notes so we've got two people back here okay and I am but we've got to narrow it down to one pager this should have been Dr Jacobs doing this Dr paska [Music] I support a lot of the legislative priorities that you guys put on the uh I think was a three-page document um I think in general all of us probably support just about every one of them um for me the biggest legislative priority is increased funding for

220Safety and Security in schools um I'm just going to leave it at that rather than get into the weeds of everything but number one priority is Safety and Security getting every school up to best practices across the state not even just our County should be the number one priority thank you Dr posca Miss barenborg yeah um I agree number one safety because if you look at the item that I asked about today um with us going down in funding for safe school funding I'm a little concerned uh what's coming on the horizon especially since um this is a priority I know for this Administration so I really want to make sure that that's on the Forefront that we're talking about safety um I agree one pager please some of this could be suggestions or bullet

221points or dots or whatever for example um I really like the idea of their retirement one month um I think that's a great idea because look at how many people are you know waiting one year and then coming back we've had them we've re-employed them I know I run into them and go oh my gosh you're teaching again so you should bless you bless you bless you so um perhaps that's a bullet point underneath um recruitment retention but I think you know our legislators know that we're having a hard time with that so giving them ideas of things they can put into bills is a great idea but really I know what it's like to go sit in front of a legislator and hand them this and they put it on top of this huge

222pile of them that they have and I know how those get filed um so I think for us to be really really careful in our verbiage and short succinct this is what we need this is what we want here's some suggestions that's what we need to do that's my number one thought on this um fingerprinting I'm thank you for that uh vaping thank you for that transportation we ask for every single darn year has that gone up at all that's the number one thing I always start with my with my conversation within the legislator to the chair um not a whole lot because it's all based on ridership and it's based on the format that they've always used so if our ridership increases then of course we get more money but that was probably all

223geared around the scenario where everyone went to your relatively neighborhood school and if you lived outside of two miles then you got Transportation when's the last time they re-looked at that the way they do that funding well if I can continue now you've got school choice and we're providing Transportation because we want to do that they don't look at that at all okay so I think that's where we need to go with this you keep saying Transportation Transportation they go yeah yeah you gotta you got some system there and we do that calculation every year but what we're not stressing is we need it for this reason to provide choice for parents what's in there you know but it needs to be the priority of Transportation this is why this is so important that we

224need Transportation money um because we ask for money every year for transportation we always get sure funded and short funded for not providing Choice correct and then providing choice on top of that it's even shorter for the funding so again fefp funding of course that's always the big ask um one other thing that's kind of come up lately that I think is something that it's not really a priority but it's something that I don't think has been Revisited in a long time is the way that a school money is voted on oh yeah they just it causes severe Division and staff I don't know if you know about this but what happens is if a school goes up in a grade or they maintain their a they get bonus money and it's a it's decided

225because a statue that the staff the following year gets to decide how that's voted on and and distributed not the people that they got the money they got the grade the people that followed it the year after they're the ones that get to decide what to do that I don't think it's a fair process I think it creates serious I've seen it it creates serious divisions in staff that have worked so hard together all year long to get this grade up and then get divided over a few dollars those dollars matter to them and I'm not saying few dollars is and it doesn't matter it does matter but it costs people friendships it costs staff um superintendent knows why I'm saying this no we need and this hasn't been looked at in a long time

226it's just kind of one of those things Ah that's what happens when the school money comes out that's what happens nobody's actually looked at why hasn't this been looked at for years and years and years having been at mostly Title One schools back in the day when we didn't even have the opportunity to get any school money now at least they're looking at you know hey you improved your grade you improved your quartiles now you can get money too now when they're going to this new system is a good time for them to look at this could we have that as a bullet point somewhere a school money Revisited or reviewed something because I think with the new system that we've got now with it's a great time for legislators to really look at this

227and I don't think it's on the radar because any nobody's brought it up but I have recently been brought up to the fact that this is a concern and I know it is because I've been on faculties where they had these votes and it caused huge problems with staff I see shaking heads administrators you know what I'm talking about that's my big one okay that baby all right uh just in general whoever wrote These you did a great job we just got to get it down to two pages maybe from one one front pack um when you look at all the recommendations from everybody around the state a lot of them it comes down to base student allocation Transportation safety mental health and Recruitment and Retention and and I see that we hit on those

228um I agree about the flexible funding the universal fingerprinting one month retirement I remember talking to Mr Bassett Dr more about this two years ago man that's we've got to get that expanding the bpk program for three-year-olds if we can do that that would be wonderful that's on here um I'm not sure about increasing concordance scores until we know what this test looks like and we know what the results are I mean we've done the first and second part of the testing the third one will begin when Dr Moore so just a a point of clarity they've already done that they increase the concordance score oh wait okay I don't agree but but no no no you've advocated for it before so they they increa they gave us a waiver last school year right so

229in this year that is not in effect so to give you an example the graduation rates we just celebrated if that wasn't waived by the state to increase the concordance course those results would not be what they were so um but this testing when do we do the third one or have we the third what we have three parts of the testing with this new testing we had from the beginning oh um April end of April or earlier and then we're supposed to get school grades by the end of this day school grades are saying December so we will get raw scores because they have to go through and do their their studies and all of that so actual grades won't be until December and you have to keep in mind grades are only going

230to be proficiency components but still have to have passed the FSA along with the Junior all of them have to pass the um they started with the FSA in 10th Grade the exam correct that was back in place as of last year but we don't know with this new testing where that's going as far as what we have to do as far as graduation what will the kids have to do on these tests as far as graduating this new test they have to receive yes they have to receive that level three so there's significant and that's part of the reason you should keep the concordance score as to where it currently is until you go back correct correct a regression still we'll have no lower quartile we'll have no gain score correct which is significantly

231going to impact I know uh elementary schools yeah yeah okay um also there was something here for extra money for summer school and I know we do summer school for kids who course recovery and the direct instruction for Math and English so anything we can do to help those students I think would be great um I think that's it for me so you kind of get this back to us and see where we are in the summary what I will do is probably by cob tomorrow close to business um send out where each of you have selected selected a priority okay um and kind of take it from there and we can bring it back at the next Workshop which is only two weeks away and hopefully be done by then um I I have

232another one that we that I didn't um what about increasing Capital funding specific to [Music] um updating and maintaining playgrounds and sports fields that is definitely a priority for us our playgrounds in schools across a whole lot of money to upgrade to replace to bring up to code Ada code to make them you know student friendly obviously our Sports field I don't even think we need to talk anymore about that if we had you know increased Capital funds for that particular purpose we wouldn't have to you know move things around and and and try to find the money to pay for um Vero Beach the football field and clearly we have other sports fields and other you know around the county um that would need you know lighting or you know new Turf new new

233whatever they need because I'm not really a sportsman no no but I do believe that that's a need that's a priority for us um so how you know wording something to that effect you can do that my only concern there is that just saying we need more Capital money is I don't want the capital funds to come in and then we use it for something else like I don't know how we would be able to kind of capture if there were Capital funds coming in as a result of our legislative platform that we could say let's let's Reserve this for just you know our playgrounds and our Sports Fields or something like that that's planning ahead of course I know you wanted to say something somebody was taking notes through chair if I could just

234and nobody said it but I think it's important just to put it on there and let you all think about it increase the base student allocation that's you know that's something that you always see repetitively every year yeah and um in previous years okay and we can kind of rank them this is what we shared collectively these are other high priorities and then we come together we just kind of problem solved to get to the one pager okay what what did you just say come back the next time we'll be able to say these are the ones the new ones that we added that we didn't necessarily have on this piece of paper these are the ones that each board members selected that's that would be our priorities those would be your priorities and these

235are other ones that you may want to consider uh from the page that's already there and then you say up or down left or right like the one Mr Bass just mentioned got it yesterday we have time because this is a later session this is um legislature so I don't go up there until March normally I'd go up in early February so we have time to be able to do this right yeah no I'm if I don't have to rush it I certainly well we only meet once a month so I mean two weeks so and other than other than the workshop right unless there is a holiday or something which all right President's Day when is President's Day coming up is that does that fall on the Monday of our meeting all right so

236Universal okay background check yes included that was included we're good we're good okay uh Miss barenborg still yours I'm sorry about that um cell phone cell phone all right so um board members when you see all the backup that I put in there you'll see wcd come up a lot it's an acronym for wireless communication devices so it's not just cell phones it's all these other devices that parents get their kids so they can communicate um so I've talked to teachers administrators parents um and they all have reported to me an increase in cell phones being used to record violence illegal activity bullying intimidation posting inappropriate actions and social media in order to humiliate others it's not just for students but also employees I don't know if you're aware of some of the really unbelievable

237websites that are out there in our community for about teachers I'm just I know there's stuff about kids but I know some about teachers too um on our code of conduct we have a technology use form and that technology used form which I sent you or I gave you some others from other districts which is fine um but what I'm concerned about most is at the top of this one part where it says technology usage says wcds are permitted only at the discretion of the administrator teacher bus driver sponsor advisor or coach yet I see them out all the time and I think that even though we have this policy I don't think it's being enforced and I hear from teachers specifically saying I've I've stopped trying because it's just too much and is that

238the case is that what we want do we want people to stop trying to enforce policy is it the teacher's job to enforce it our administrators not following through so the third one here says wcds must be connected to District Wi-Fi so my question is if we have these policies in place what's the punishment foreign taking a number five specifically says taking posting or sending pictures or videos of anyone on campus without staff permission what's a punishment sharing posting of any personal information about themselves or anyone else online what's the punishment we know it's happening there are laws about this if you post a picture of a student that is under age on social media there's a law about that you can't without their permission or the parents permission and so are people being prosecuted

239for doing things like this that's that's one of my questions because it only takes one to send a clear message to kids um there have been things that have been brought up to me I'm going to give you some examples before I go through some of these uh teacher fan pages that are out here in our community that are inappropriate there's one of a teacher's backsides all kinds of close-up pictures of teachers backsides out there commenting on which teacher it is and which school and so on that's that's in our community memes including sexual comments and actions about teachers and students are out there I saw one in particular about a teacher that was in a very very inappropriate position with a cat disruptive texts calls on phones while teachers are trying to teach kids

240watching their watch because they've been told to put the phone away but the phone is not on is not off so what are they doing instead they're getting around it by you looking at their eye watch and their iWatch is disruptive as well why because they're not paying attention to the teacher how are we how is the support teachers trying to teach kids the subject that the child's supposed to be learning when the kid is totally disrupted with what's going on with social media um Snapchat Tick Tock challenges oh my gosh I can't even tell you some of the challenges that are out there the meetups kids are saying meet me in the bathroom at this time to beat up whatever so and so or meet me over here to be able to do this

241the conflicts that are being that are happening kids are checking their phones okay during during hallways and they're seeing so and so said something about so-and-so and then they walk into their next classroom and in the classroom erupts teachers say it takes 10 15 minutes of their classroom time to calm down what they saw on their phone when they're walking from class to class I don't think parents are really aware of the loss of instructional time that we have going on in our classrooms you know when you look at some of these things this is not just new to our district This Is Not Just Happening Here it's happening everywhere if you look at the one I posted here from Monroe they talk about the same thing with this SnapChat and The Tick Tock they

242talk about the escalation of conflicts between students because of social media it's the detriment to our society social media for our kids um meet up in the Park after school or meet up here there's constant that stuff the kids are getting so much pressure put on them a lot of it is through these devices and if they could just concentrate on school it'd be awesome you know if you look at Broward County they have a really strict policy they can't be turned on at all during the instructional day you know I know I've talked to parents that say oh I need to get a hold of my baby well I remember you called the office and the office was inundated with phone calls I remember every day my poor office staff would have to make

243sure they got messages to all the kids before the end of the day I know don't think we want to go back to that either but there needs to be some sort of compromise you know some of these policies are really really strict some of them aren't as strict um but this is an interesting one in Brevard County they have no expectation of confidentiality if they take their phone it says that right here in other words if if their phone is confiscated and they find something on the phone they can be used against them so that's quite interesting I don't know what our attorney thinks about that one um there's a couple of communities that are putting cell phone they call them jails there's they look like little lockers and they're putting them inside the

244classroom and the kids go in and they put it in their locker and they take the key or the combination they sit down and their cell phone is in that Locker during class so they know where it is they can see it they're see-through they're 500 on the Amazon I checked 500 per classroom I don't know what the answer is but I do know that what we have in policy is not helping the situation in Duvall if it points to the Florida statute 1006.072 subsection e it should be F so when you go to that I have F in front of me it says code of student conduct this is where it needs to happen and I know the code of student conduct is being looked at right now by that committee um it says

245this code once this is in here this code shall be discussed at the beginning of every school year in student classes I used to do it also in January again when I was a principal um School advisory Council meetings I don't know if we go over it in the sac meetings but this is in statute says we should and parent teacher Association or organization meetings do we do it at those meetings because this is where it says you're supposed to go over these things to inform parents what the rules are about all these things especially phones and social media distractions It also says an explanation the responsibilities of each student with regard to appropriate dress respect for self and others and the role that appropriate dress and respect for self and others has to do

246with orderly learning environment I've gotten a lot of complaints about that being lacks as well kids wearing whatever and Administration look the other way I get that we got a lot of things to worry about but you know if we're worried about what kids are being exposed to in books I'm worried about what they're being exposed to on a phone and also clothing you know what kids are wearing to school we need to look at all these things we don't want vulgarness on our schools and it says right here in F which is the one that was for for a tune here notice that use of a wireless communication device includes a possibility of the imposition of disciplinary action by the school or criminal penalties if the device is used in a criminal act a

247criminal act is when you post somebody's picture on social media without their permission it's happening constantly do we want kids arrested I don't know but you know I really have a hard time when I find out that a poor teacher has had their a fan page dedicated to them that a student devised another student posts a picture that's inappropriate on this fan page the teacher didn't give permission for the fan page and yet the students were talked to that created the fan page that's all that happened and then the student that posted the inappropriate picture was given one day suspension I have a real problem with that because we're not backing our teachers we're not telling them they're a value and we can we're concerned about their bullying as well you know we're putting them

248in front of kids and saying please do these things and help our kids and yet kids kids can be kids I taught middle school I know still teach it so I think we need to make sure that kids know that this policy is going to be followed through with and I don't think that that message is totally getting out there so I'd like to know if we could make the student code of conduct committee aware that this is a priority to look at this and say is this policy enough and if so what is it that administrators are going to do with a follow-through for punishment when this is not being followed just to respond I I think there's a great opportunity because we're in the midst of that creation of a code of conduct

249there's a number of meetings still to take place so we can have a specific evening looking at code of conduct as it relates to cell phone and the use of cell phone and the reality is are there clearly defined opportunities to have that policy replicated in the code of conduct and then how do you Market it how do you inform the community the parent as well as administrators and teachers to uphold the specific policy so we can go through that complete review as you said the timing is is perfect to do so in order to ensure that's the next Beast that we conquer because the reality is um it's hard and it's complex but it's unacceptable some of the things that that are taking place and we all need to be on the same page

250and fully enforcing what that expectation is and everyone knows the consequences that will take place if we don't uphold the defined expectations around those those devices okay Dr posca yeah I would just um Echo a lot of your sentiments uh you know I think that this is something we've been discussing for a little while now and uh definitely reviewing some other counties policies is helpful um and absolutely you know we can't have high quality education in a classroom if they're all on their cell phones it you know directly leads to violence and psych uh issues mental health issues through social media and bullying and all these you know inter uh connected problems uh ultimately you know the policy that we have it's probably realistically not enforceable in its current form I you know I just

251say that as a realist expecting the majority of teachers to be able to tell the student to take their phone and put it away and it's probably not going to work I think ultimately we need some sort of device or system that either disables the phone I know we mentioned the blockers or FCC violations I I still have not forgotten about them I know police can use them legally so maybe there is a route with them or just simply a box and maybe it doesn't have to be a 500 box right maybe we there's a way to do it that's very cost effective at the end of the day even if there was just a box on the teacher's desk you put your phone in the box when you go into class and as you

252leave you take your phone but if we don't have some sort of strategy to help teachers I think just giving them a policy saying you know what to do with a kid with a phone it may be difficult to really enforce that effectively at least across the board certainly some teachers will do fantastic jobs with it I think others will just be too much of a challenge so I definitely support revising the cell phone policy including it in the code of conduct and ultimately giving it a little bit of teeth having specific penalties for specific infractions and hopefully a way that we can really make it realistic to implement thank you Miss Rosario so I went to the code of conduct meeting and um what one of the what the the groups were working on

253one of those talking points were cell phones and there were um there was feedback they were looking through the code of conduct on certain pages and they provided feedback on these um posted papers um so I'm really curious to the follow-up because I know a lot of people uh suggested that that one meeting wasn't enough I know we talked about this because many who had an immediate reaction like oh we should take this out but they didn't have enough time to research what they want to suggest to put in so um there are there's a number of opportunities here for for us to gather the input from the community which is great that being said I think everybody in that room at the time were all on the same page with cell phones it's an

254obsession yes it is a social contagion that is driving kids crazy I mean I I get it I I literally like my son just I mean I just gave him a phone it is so limited the kid doesn't even pick it up because he can't really do much on it but he's telling me to cut the umbilical cord but with other kids I mean you can't take them and you can't do anything without them being completely obsessed with whatever is going on on the phone it's cool I mean so um so I would absolutely suggest you know that we even as a board if we can come back at our next meeting or our next whatever with feedback from these other um districts the one that I did not see here Mrs berenberg was Duval

255I I didn't see it but if I missed it that's fine is it in there I may have scrolled through it it's in there okay um I may have passed it at the but in the current code of student conduct book cell phones is listed as a level one infraction yeah not a level three not a level four not a level level five so there's a there's a layered concerns that I have being a level one infraction the corrective Behavior really doesn't do much right right that has to change so either make it prohibited on school grounds During certain times in classrooms um and or you know change it to another level in fraction the problem there is that it might be a level one infraction today but if the student repeats it tomorrow it

256no longer becomes level one it only becomes a repeated disruption or it may become an open Defiance at which case that's a level two so they might get a little bit more corrective intervention but not so much now our reporting now changes our reporting doesn't say repeated cell phone our reporting just says repeated disruption so what happens on our end is we don't get to see the continued infraction throughout the different levels exactly as it should be and and that I think was a problem that we talked about not long ago when we were reviewing some of the student behavioral data the discipline data that we I can't even remember when it was that we were looking at and there was a discussion about what is um insubordination so at a certain point if the

257behavior increases or you know if the behavior is is significant enough it it no longer becomes I threw the pen across the room it's now insubordination because you didn't listen to the teacher but when we are reviewing that data how do we know what insubordination is that I mean that could be a whole bunch of different things if it's labeled as throwing the pen across the room 10 times then you know as administrators that there might be a classroom discipline uh classroom teacher management thing going on or it could be just student defiance so when I say there's a layered concern that's what I'm talking about so when we're looking at this I don't want us to look at it through that laser focus of just cell phones but I'd like for us to also

258look at some of these other reporting issues with these infractions with these behaviors the only other thing is that um the highest level that might be on here regarding cell phones is in is level four and that's sexting that's included in the behavior of sexual offense misconduct other including sexting that's a level four and that's any that should be um based on what we see here uh alternative out of school suspension anti-bullying intervention Aspire law enforcement consultation actually I think it gets more than that because law enforcement has to be involved when they're sexting so that corrective intervention has to change for some of these items here and sexting is not one of those that should just be uh out of school suspension there has to be a report to uh the safety officers at

259some to to law enforcement um so I would agree with everything that Mrs Mrs berenberg is bringing forward I'd like to add obviously to that because um it is a problem I'm also going to add what um what some have mentioned in terms of dress code oh my gosh I have been having this conversation with Dr Moore probably since August I mean I'm talking pajamas yep slippers slides I'm talking disheveled completely to show like I literally rolled out of bed and I'm slow I'm like pushing myself I'm slothing myself to school it is short shorts literally short shorts that are higher than thighs I mean I mean short shorter than boy shorts that are used for bathing suits I mean that's how short they are I've seen I mean ripped paint I get the ripped

260pants but at a certain point there has to be a limit to the rip because then you might as well just take them off right I don't know how high the rips are I mean it's just who is monitoring this stuff then we look at seriousness right we look at student comportment how does a student comport themselves well I mean good grief if they're allowed to be on their cell phone and do whatever they want and dress the way that they want why wouldn't they not comport themselves like a student ought to you dress well you behave well we don't have business attire days anymore in high schools I don't know why I remember a time maybe not here but I remember a time where every Thursday or Friday was just for success and there

261were you know rewards given I don't know whether you know extra time in recess or whatever it was you know if you come dressed for Success literally and if you were in one of the tech programs you come just as in your Tech attire which makes a big deal ROTC comes in there you know full Barb we don't have any of that stuff anymore so it's so it's kind of like I hate to say a free-for-all but you know it's just that's the feeling it's like whatever nobody addresses them nobody says anything to the kids and if they do they're sent right back to class parents aren't being called to pick up the kids and say your kid is inappropriately dressed the kids go the whole entire day nobody says anything so I know that

262we've talked about this that definitely I'm adding that to the importance of code of conduct for sure that certainly is not a level four but how we address things and support the teachers so we can have a shoe box I mean a shoe container what is that shoe thing where you put the shoes in that hangs a what a shoe organizer thank you at the front of the of the front of the room or at the teacher's desk charter school does it no not one issue kids walk into the classroom they drop their phone they continue the entire day they leave they pick up their phone it is seamless at Charter High School some of the other schools do it too no students you walk through some of these schools no students have cell phones

263during instructional time they might have it in the hallway right that's the expectation Crossing but you you do not have it in instructional time the problem with that is not the implementation it's supporting the teachers after it's done so it's with a teacher who actually comes the student who wants to be defiant and say I'm not leaving my phone there that teacher needs immediate support so now I'm going to come to my other layer Deans still come back to Deans if we had Deans on school campuses you have that extra support of that one person who would be able to handle that situation appropriately dress code or cell phones or whatever allowing the principal the assistant principal the guidance counselor to do the work that they are hired to do apart from Dean work okay

264I'm just going to add a few things and we'll come back around if we need to with high expectations that we have of our teachers and administrators with that we must have support so I guess my one main question is what can we do to help our teachers and administrators with a cell phone issue I left the high school in 2009 it was just a few years before that where they said cell phones were allowed on campus members saying to my really good friend Mr Billy Wilson I said this is going to be a run buddy it's going to be a journey and I was right now at that time it was strict cell phone on campus we see it with you with that cell phone we take it your parent must pick up didn't

265happen too many times because those kids did not want to lose their cell phone so it worked if it happened again we go into the consequences and they weren't minor the one thing I think that we need to say here is you know we're always looking at schools you know we need the parent support on this we need them to make sure that they tell their students not to use it during instructional time we need the parent support on make sure that your students are dressed appropriately I mean I had three kids in the system they were dressed appropriately before they went to school these are the things that we need to talk about it just could not be the teachers and the administrators because when we put in a more severe consequence other than

266level one and I'm for that because I don't want these phones disrupting the classrooms we've got to be able there to be to support our administrators and our teachers um we had those cases of caddies and most of the classrooms when I was there had them and the students would put the cell phone in there when they came in I think some classes still have those but maybe we can make that as part of the requirement I'll also say um we were talking about and Miss bearberg I'm very glad you brought this up we were talking about what you can see on the cell phones not only that but in the gaming and yeah they're gaming on these cell phones and the bullying that's happening there and what we are seeing with cyber security there

267and um these are my real issues it takes them 3.5 seconds to see an inappropriate picture on a cell phone much faster than going out and checking up a a library book we all know that we've got to stop putting our heads in the sand I'm not saying that we need inappropriate library books I'm saying the issue is social media cell phones gaming these are what where we're having this bullying the cyber bullying and so forth one story before I am and it's in our code of conduct of these are 11 o'clock they're typing on their computer and they're threatening then you get a call from a parent and I remember the first year I was there I'm sorry well we had this issue in our code of conduct now about cyber bullying at night

268I'm thinking Jeepers crew I watch them from seven to three and then I watch them extracurricular from four to nine or ten why do I have to watch them at 11 o'clock at night that's not on me that's unapparent okay that's the guardian they need to be checking that and of course as a principal I was going to check on that because I didn't want anybody having an issue at school of course I would check on that but holy moly I'm not watching them at 11 o'clock at night if you talk to these administrators and teachers this is not a negative they've got so much on the plate as far as teaching the standards what we need to do so let's approach this with what can we do to help you well the consequence be

269more severe will that help you what can we do talk to our teachers talk to our students talk to our parents um we all know punishment doesn't change Behavior just punishment it might stop it for a while but it's not going to change the whole Behavior so when we look at this and we go through the code of conduct MS dampier what can we do what can parents do to help what can students do to help what teachers and administrators because let's make their day a little bit easier not harder and I agree and I think the the first step is in fact this conversation and there's such power in the local board School Board having this kind of conversation good so the next step is is for us to memorialize some of the things

270in which you shared you're sharing concerns from your constituents uh our job is to oh man on On Cue Mr Gordon walks in we'll go back and it is creating a plan that is specifically talking through the consequences and and Miss Rosario was right um we need a clearly defined progression of the behavior um that's not being modified and grouping it into this Progressive or this bucket doesn't allow us to problem solve the speed in which we need to so I think we take this back uh we'll come back at the very next meeting provide probably board updates as we go through the code of conduct we are very much ahead of the game in terms of of getting that to the board already starting our conversations which is something I'm proud of but leveraging

271this priority makes it easier DOC for absolutely the teacher standing in front it becomes a priority for the teacher the principal the assistant principal the parents it's this Collective conversation across the community at every level that says enough is enough enough is enough um and we learn from it and win all schools and I tell principals all the time when we do this all together right they're gonna have nowhere to look and you go back to things that we had tackled this year uh being in class not walking around tardy policy bathroom policy uh those things we all did it together yep and it was a proof of concept look look what happens when we all do the same thing the same way for the same reasons um for the right reasons and we're able

272to get it done and this is just building building on that so a great conversation which will push and drive um the the work in this District thank you can I answer the I mentioned this there's a county I'm gonna say Collier I'm not sure if it's Collier who's working on updating their code of conduct and their policies probably preferred and something that I love is that they are um looking to add language and it hasn't been um um I think fully presented so it's it's difficult for me to be able to share it with you but it's their conversations went along the lines of this is what we want and now superintendent you put it together so we're waiting I'm waiting on what that looks like put together but they've actually um are welcoming

273um as part of their code of conduct and opening up maybe Sarasota Sarasota yeah and opening up um there are schools to parents coming in and having a a bigger say in their in the in the way the discipline is happening at schools so essentially their parents who want to are able to volunteer and stand in the hallways and like go to class you know you're less likely going to have someone you know be disrespectful to a parent than you would a teacher unfortunately um and so maybe and so it you know then it's like you know you get these there's I think in Georgia or North Carolina there was a group of fathers um who showed up at a school there was a big fight that broke out in in the lunch in the

274cafeteria or the courtyard and after that the father's uh created a club and it's so fantastic I gotta research it so I can share it with you it's fantastic and now they've got shirts and they're like big dads you know and they come into the school and they're like now they're mentoring now this school has turned around completely just because of the presence of the dads on campus and so Sarasota is talking about some of those other type like really thinking outside the box of how to engage families it's a way of engaging families getting parents involved in the disciplining and the you know upbringing obviously of their own student but also adding to the culture of the school and supporting teachers and now they have a front row seat as to what's actually what

275teachers have to go through what administrators have to go through so it's kind of like a win-win for everybody all the way around and at some point I don't know if we're there yet but at some point I would love for us to have further discussions you know on on how we can kind of think outside the box um and engage parents more because I think we're missing that part of this we're talking about cell phones and classrooms teachers but we're not talking about the parents and obviously we have parental rights this priority of the cell phones just want to make clear is not a legislative priority we've kind of moved that this is a priority of the district in terms of code of conduct and discipline okay yeah so we there's no better place

276but to to engage parents in on on how their their child and um is is behaving yeah it's my item I'll wrap it up um the first thing I mentioned was that I've talked to teachers administrators and parents parents are just as concerned about the fact that they think that their child is being on task they don't see their child all day long at school they don't know that their child's not doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing they're kids especially middle school and high school um I have a concern though you know we used to have a program called Scared Straight I'm that old where kids were actually put on a bus and went down to the jail and saw what it was like to actually if you did something wrong what would

277happen and now we don't do that anymore I understand why but I also have a problem when a principal is talking about something like cell phone usage and saying well if you do this and you post pictures or you make this website about teachers and you put in appropriate things on there you're going to get in big trouble those were the words used in a local school recently you'll get in big trouble what does that tell a middle school kid what's big trouble they don't know what big trouble is but yet when that officer right back there goes up in front of kids and I've seen him go up and speak they're listening and if he's a uniformed officer going up and I'd suggest possibly we look at this having him speak in front of

278every school you know about the dangers of vaping or or whatever but about cell phone usage and what could happen if you post a picture of somebody inappropriately what could actually happen to you and your family and how much it would cost your family because you know what these teachers have rights and I said were you told whether or not you can prosecute no you can't you can you can have them prosecuted and if that's the case that's going to blow up I just would rather our kids know that that's a possibility we've said it here it is in writing you can be prosecuted but just kids really know that no they're going to be in big trouble that's what they hear they need to know that they could actually be arrested and their parents

279could spend serious amount of money going through this and it's not right what they're doing to each other or to adults it's not right and it needs to stop they need to concentrate on school yeah that's the goal thank you okay Dr Moore it's you oh alrighty I brought this through the superintendent about posting of the alternate for the mpo and I'll tell you why when I I always re-watch meetings to see did I really say what I thought I said and I take a look at it and what we did you know as a board we do our best to um two set precedence past practice and follow the orderly agenda there is a new person assigned to the mpo that was a vote then we put in another person who applied as alternate

280and then we found out from him he did not want to have that position and that's his right then the person already attending his alternate thought he could go in because now that other woman's going in but no it doesn't work that way so I just think in order to do something orderly we already had an alternate for this position we should post that again and no I do not know if anyone's going to apply but this has been brought to me a couple times I'm an alternate uh still am an alternate for a value adjustment board in 2122 I attended three times and it had I not they're not there wouldn't have been a quorum now I know some of these positions um you can only go up as the alternate if the main

281person is in there I understand that but I just think it's the right thing to do otherwise we're just going to say well we'll have this alternate or we won't have this alternate to keep it consistent and to be a board that follows the orderly process and I just wanted to bring that to your attention oh I'll go yes um is this this is a voting position correct okay so how many positions do we um have that the board uh appoints that are voting oh um uh value adjustment board and um one more Development Council on all of those on those two others do we have alternates because they're voting positions no no alternates mpo would be the only one up for discussion for an alternate adjustment board does not have an alternate how are

282you doing I'm thinking real quick here Miss Rosario and I switched that out on value adjustment I'm the alt I'm the alternator no no no no I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt there's a difference here between the board value adjustment board and the citizen value adjustment mpo yes board position and the mpo citizen position those are two totally different things that's correct by Statute um the neither one of them require a an alternate the mpo alternate happened to the history of that wasn't that we decided that we were going to vote on this as a board out of the Hat it was the person who was the lead purse the lead citizen the primary citizen on that position on that mpo contacted Nancy one day and said he was going to be absent there

283wasn't an alternate and he suggested maybe we should get an alternate in case he can't attend that was the only position this was like two three years ago yeah it was the only reason why it but prior to that he had been the mpo primary person for years um he's now no longer that person we now have someone else we don't need an an alternate it's none of the other positions so to answer your question none of the other citizen positions okay have an alternate sorry I think I was talking so yes you are um so if that's the case if we don't have any other on our um citizens right yes we don't have an alternate and mpo would it have a quorum if our person doesn't show up well right okay so my

284question is is it necessary I guess in 2020 when I first came on the board um this is on public record Mr Luther was recommended and Mr Marsh was the alternate now why we have the alternate as Miss Rosario said maybe that's what we need because he wasn't able to come to them and I know that Mr Marsh attended some of those meetings I'm just saying I just don't think we throw it out the window just because someone doesn't want an alternate now I think for the most part we should have alternates alternates um and I know it's separate but even at The Economic Development Council that I attended last week we didn't have a quorum and had we had some alternates from the other people it just would have helped and it really sets

285things back I'm just asking the board whether we have it or not it was a past practice that we did that you consider posting it again that's just my request and I think this all started because I think Mrs Rosario is the one that actually nominated Mr march to be the alternate when we at that time back way back when when Mr Luther brought forward that there should be an alternate the board at the time said okay let's have an alternate and yes I did but this is has nothing to do with a particular person this is about the position of mpo the position of sorry mpo alternate the position of mpo alternate is not needed where it's not we're not we're not doing the same thing for our value adjustment board why make this

286particular position an issue it's not needed it's not a required requirement Nancy did you want to say something because I was Mr Luther the other side I was like when this came up we had multiple applicants that particular year for the MBA where we brought on Mr Heckman the board decided to bring on an alternate we never had alternates on any of the other positions the oversight and how often do they meet once a month once a year yeah I'm on that yeah yeah okay so I'd be comfortable with either All or Nothing in other words we have an alternate for all positions or we don't have them for anything well again this is a workshop I just asked you to think about it I think alternates in general whatever committee you have like we

287said on the media library committee one teacher one alternate just in case people can't come that's all I'm asking you to consider I'm good doc all right and the next is don't you want feedback from other board members on that um oh sure I thought you already said you didn't think anybody I know but we didn't hear from Dr posca oh I'm sorry I I don't feel particularly strong about it um you know I think that it does make sense to have alternates uh at the same time if it's technically not necessary I don't know that we need to go through it but um I don't know that it hurts to have an alternate thank you buddy I'm sorry you got to raise your hand and say doctor I was fine not saying anything that

288would probably be pretty lengthy in conversation it's 4 16. I have to pick up one of my boys so if it's okay I don't mind putting it on tonight I'd rather discuss it now yeah but I have to go and they're both my items so um I don't want to I'm okay with discussing one of them but um we I have to go I have to pick up my boys so we're supposed to be here until four o'clock I'm totally okay with putting these on tonight's agenda I'm not I think I'm okay with the attorney evaluation on tonight's agenda let's get the library book thing done why no they're in order e is first they're both my items we can discuss the attorney evaluation now and then I gotta go and put the other one

289on the other agenda or both of them on tonight's agenda well I know I know that happened last time because we're both discussion items so it's no big deal I know that happened last time when we ran over but it really is as important to get as much finish as possible so we have that information going into the evening and I understand you have to go so yeah we have to be respectful of our time yeah and so is mine I have kids waiting no no I'm just saying it's hard because we all want to have an in-depth conversation on all of this absolutely totally agree but we're over time and we have a discussion uh we have discussion session on our agenda it can just very easily go on our discussion Agenda One thing

290I want to talk about maybe Dr Moore is look at pushing this meeting up you know even if we have to because it is nice to have an hour break before the next meeting because I want to make sure we get everything finished but that would be up to be a consensus of the board before we go so what one did you want to go with Miss Rosario I'm okay with putting both of them on tonight on to on the discussion session Dr Moore how do you feel about that well this is now the board's Workshop so my my items are done I definitely can move these these items up I'm not trying to keep anybody here longer than they have to give me we have to be back at 5 30. so if we

291could hear as Miss Rosario said said he hear one of the two that that saves us time this evening Dr posca how do you feel um I mean we're at an impasse there's no Miss bear boy you'd like to get the one miss rizard do you have time for one week um we can do one thank you um okay so board members the attorneys um let me back up Mrs Rosario we all know why I put the last one on there why don't you just bring that one up now okay the attorney's um item here was one that was on the agenda back in October the um I went back it was October 10th that we had a workshop in uh Dr posca you weren't here um but I don't know if you watched it

292online it's the October 10th meeting it was a a workshop in which we discussed um and Dr Jacobs actually facilitated on this on the stand their feedback from the board on whether we should or should not have an evaluation for our board attorney and the board firm and the attorney firm of which we contract with um and so it was very clear there was a established consensus that it would be an evaluation tool it was on the board Circle devaluation yes or no circled yes and then all of the other criteria came from there I suggested and I provided lots of backup just so that I'm just giving a a summary for you Dr paska yeah yeah I provided lots of backup for of other districts that have evaluation tools um that they use in

293their District um and we all kind of came to consensus that we all liked Brevard brevard's template and then we gave the superintendent direction to engage in conversation with the firm with Mrs Shattuck just to get some feedback on it but that the tool would be similar to Brevard County's tool um the tool that is now suggested looks nothing like what we gave direction for on um in the backup there is one that was a really it was a good evaluation template um I don't see Dr Moore's where's the one that you gave us in December like you mean the actual the one that you provided as your final copy the payment though but it should it should be in there but it was the document that was emailed in December to all board members

294right it's not here in the backup so that one that I'll just go back so that one that Dr Moore sent us in December looked nothing like the conversation and the template from Brevard so I'm kind of stumped on how that happened um the one that Dr Moore presented to us in December um just was just the feedback you know which is fine but that's not what we agreed we agreed on an evaluation tool with feedback um and so if we give direction that should be adhered to and honored as this is the expectation and that wasn't what was provided what I was told was that Mrs Shattuck did not want a number system or like a rubric and so that's how it was changed so I'm not sure what that conversation was you know

295I don't even know if it matters at this point I think my my the purpose is for us as a board when we collectively have unanimously actually because I think all five of us are here Barefoot gave very good um um suggestions for it um offering critical objectives for evaluations on four or five things identifying expectations with a number or a rubric system he said it was the type of process that you use for businesses and organizations Dr Jones the same thing Dr Jones actually suggested seeing the evaluation tool in January which is where we are now and even Mrs berenborg same thing that we should start the process looking at an evaluation tool in January and of course we got some feedback from Dr Mara Schiff who was here who was a board member

296at the time even the attorney Matt Carson sorry Matt Carson who was here said that he expects to hear from Dr Moore and from the board if he was quote dropping the ball end quote on anything but that expectations uh but he and he expected to receive feedback for his work as an attorney so we hire even if the attorney is a contracted part-time attorney the attorney is still our attorney and so is the firm so I would like for us to redirect the superintendent to do what we expected which was to create a rubric for an evaluation system with and the idea at the end was a feedback for the firm so just to get full context and whatever the will of the board is is how I will proceed um but my interpretation

297that conversation was to use the Brevard as a model if you looked at the document that was provided some of the titles most of the titles um were from Brevard but as we in real time created it between Dr Jacobs myself and Miss Shattuck that was the form in which we produce so if it is to create a full-on evaluation um let me know or to use what I have provided as a opportunity to have a a very a conversation with the attorney regard around the same specific area so it's a focused conversation that was part of how I how I interpret it so if I miss the Mark um you can go back and I can create it but you do have a very clearly defined contract um and which any of you can

298bring a a item to place on the agenda to discuss the the employment of our attorney or the contract with the attorney so it's parent Morgan another boards yeah um she's not our attorney she is a representative from their firm we hired The Firm we don't have an attorney in-house attorney we have an attorney that is provided to us from the firm that we hired that we contracted with do does she need feedback absolutely um but I don't think it's our job to evaluate somebody that's not our employee this way I'm gonna be firm about that we don't do that with anybody else we don't have we have lots of vendors we don't sit there and make a little rule about all our vendors and how they're doing we give that feedback to the superintendent

299superintendent gives that feedback to the vendor um I have a concern when we're when we're I feel like it's picking on our attorney and um you know let's face it you're younger and you're learning and you're going through this and we appreciate you coming here and working with us and we hired your firm The Firm brought us you thank you for coming I'm sorry I'm sorry I have no problem giving feedback to superintendent and wanting to give feedback about how our attorney is doing for us or our firm is doing for us but it's not our job to evaluate an individual attorney because she is a member of the of the firm that we have hired The Firm can send us anybody else they have um but she's not our employee she's a person that

300we have um contracted with her for hey Dr posca sure um I mean I I think I can speak for everybody and say that nobody likes being evaluated as someone who's been evaluated for many many years um I think I understand there's a little bit of a semantic difference between the firm and uh the attorneys that are physically here um so I don't I don't blame any attorneys who would prefer not to have a review process like that that's what I would Lobby for um so there's nothing wrong with that at the same time I do think basically every employee in the district gets an evaluation right I do see the attorneys that are here uh you know I think it probably makes sense to evaluate them that's my opinion on it okay um I'll

301say something then we're going to wrap it up I looked back at that too now I did like the Babar components I look back what I said and I pretty sure I said but I look at this informally um so meeting with the superintendent and the attorney and of course we work with um Matt on the deseg order and some other things so um I like the components but I think I see it as informal um well this is just a two Dr Moore an attorney um your contracts are decided by the board and anytime an action item can come up to you know in your contract or in this contract so I see that as the what we have the um I say in power but responsibility to do so I I look as

302a component and they're good components but I look at this more informally in discussion and what we can do because the best kind of evaluation that I've ever done is what are your goals okay and what do we need to improve upon those are the things that I think will be very key factors in that discussion so all right we got through a little bit of that so did you get your consensus I got 50 50. that's going to probably have to wait for Mr Barefoot comes back well he's not here you can't do that I know but we don't have a consensus nor do you have the ability that's correct that's correct well it's not a voting item anyway it would be consensus I think we're getting angry what'd you say I said I

303think we're getting angry oh yeah I am the only one there's there's no consensus so what'd you hear an evaluation valuation no evaluation no evaluation now you heard discussion discussions informals fine with me I had to wait for Mr Barefoot I get to make a decision I would just put it on the agenda so you can vote okay for What on whether you're directed to a coordinated evaluation process or to use the um protocol process that was created one nice question to Molly what did they do in St Lucie for you I'm sorry I should have asked that before Henry that's right all right there's no consensus right now all right but I will Circle back all right we're going to enter in this Workshop thank you everybody it's 4 30 see you in one

304hour