Superintendent's Workshop 12 p.m. 11-16-21

001call the superintendent's Workshop to order it is 12 o' on Tuesday November 16th and I will turn it over to Dr Moore thank you Mr chair we do have um one item that will consume most of our time today which is the interview process for uh School Board representation uh we have gone back and forth to create the process we put out the uh request for proposal and today's the opportunity for the board to conduct the interviews uh to review the process Mr Fagan uh will highlight the the entire process Mr Fagan thank you sup to the chair to the board good afternoon we have an action-packed afternoon for you um as you know we have the RFP we have the two firms sniffin sniffin and smellin will be first and then gray Robinson will

002follow um the schedule is is 5 minutes for them to come in and set up approximately 15 minutes for their presentation then we go into the board member questions if you need copies of the questions I have here if you need copy also for the sheet and also if you need the the uh the interview guide sheet I have copies for you if you need those um 10 minutes for followup and then a five minute wrap up um each board member has already formulated their questions there'll be approximately 10 minutes to ask your questions and get your responses and once all the board members are done they'll there be a time period at the end for any follow-up questions as I said you have an interview guide once you complete that interview guide for each

003of the selections we'll collect those do the same thing again with the second firm then as we go on to the next agenda item we will go tabulate those scores and then the end of that second agenda item we will come in and announce who what firm had the most amount of scores and will be selected that will trigger us to go into the process for negotiating the contract and getting an agenda item for the 29th and that's it any questions does anybody need questions or the interview guide interview gu I I have a quick question but it's for Mr Barefoot pardon it's for you Mr Barefoot um how do you suggest uh that we order how the questions get asked I'm G to go one District 1 two 3 four five okay thank you

004and we're going to do one question or we're going to do a set of questions you have 10 minutes you can get as 10 minutes to do okay many questions you can fit in in 10 minutes and then you'll have an opportunity follow up if there's still something that you would like to ask got it else yeah might as well so Dr Shi you can do us a favor you can ask all the questions in your 10 minutes that we want that we might have asked and therefore we can truncate the whole thing oh so I can pick and choose from anybody's questions then y got it hey now hey now if we don't have humor Suzanne what have we got really I don't know what are you handing that I got this thing you

005got you got both of the score sheets you got the questions y somewhere let me have a set of the questions just in case okay if we're ready um first firm is sniffin and smel Spellman and the attorney who will be coming in doing the presentation is Molly shat I'll go grab her do they typically bring just one person or more than one from the firm very the the first one is just the is just m okay good board members may I present Miley shadik from sniffin and smellin make sure that this can you hear me yes okay good afternoon chair and members of the board superintendent I'm so glad to be here today representing my firm sniffin and Spelman my name is Molly shadic and I would like to um go through the outline

006that I was given of about five questions um that you wanted some information on to kind of present my firm our attorneys and what we offer in education law so starting out with presenting about the firm's niin and Spelman it was created in 2005 it was founded by Robert sniffin in Tallahassee where it still has its main branch of the firm but since it's founding they've really tried to expand um throughout the state and in 2000 they actually opened two new offices one in West Palm Beach each and one in Pensacola so we see it as a firm that can offer Council um geographically throughout the state and Robert sniffin has been practicing education law for 27 years and it's an area that the firm really focuses on it's been expanding its bench of education

007lawyers as well so that in addition to many lawyers who offer other services that can also be drawn upon for their knowledge and expertise there are several uh lawyers at the firm who practice education law me being one of them and I'll get into those lawyers in a minute um we have represented over 35 School boards um throughout the State of Florida as well as six State University Systems and some other um you know private schools or Charter Schools some other education law clients so there's a lot of uh interaction with education law issues in 2010 The Firm did start a monthly newsletter which I'd be happy to sign you all up for if you'd like that's a monthly newsletter of law alerts specifically in the education law area that will update you on any

008you know interesting case developments or things of that nature um as a way of kind of keeping our clients updated on those types of issues and it's really um an area that I feel passionate about and several Attorneys At The Firm really focus our attention on education law issues our firm has collectively done over a 100 ESC exceptional student education due process cases we have lots of experience with exceptional student education I think you'll find that in the legal Arena a lot of um litigation kind of develops in the ESC area as well as in the employment area we also have a lot of lawyers that specifically focus on employment law in our firm so those are two areas that we're well acquainted with um in terms of meeting Schoolboard needs um as you may

009or may not know I did handle two uh ESC due process cases for the Indian River County School Board this year um both of which the school district prevailed on um so I have had some experience in this County with that so that's a bit about our firm and moving on to to the attorneys that would be representing the school board if uh selected so there is myself and I'll start off with myself um I have been practicing in the area of Education law since 2006 so about 15 years I am a board certified expert um in education law and I am currently serving as general counsel to Two school boards in the state of Florida one is hry County and one is St Lucy County um that's one is recent as you may or

010may not know although I did help them as general counsel um when I first started my career I started under Dan herrold he's in St Lucy and I actually live in St Lucy and I worked with his office for about 10 years and he's been um The General Counsel to the school board of St Lucy County for close to 30 years he just recently retired and um I have now taken over as their general counsel so I do have familiarity um with serving General Council needs in this you know general area of the state and this is the area of the state that I live in I love the Treasure Coast and um some other uh things about me I also have been involved with the Florida Schoolboard attorneys Association for many years I served

011on the board of that I also um um was a member of the uh Florida legal education committee and I've been involved in some other you know National Schoolboard associations um as well as local uh bar associations so I do keep my memberships current with those and I've also been a speaker for um the Florida School Board Association and the Florida Association of school superintendents I more recently did one of the fads um trainings for their new superintendent um I've also been a speaker for the Florida Schoolboard attorneys Association we have quarterly meetings that I like to attend and I've been a speaker for them as well so I do also have experience with doing um speeches on issues important to uh School boards as well as I have also been doing trainings for school

012boards on issues that are important to them such as public records laws um student education privacy and Records fura I've done trainings on Title 9 um including the more recent uh Title 9 changes to the regulations that required changes to all of our district policies more recently so that's probably enough about me for now I'll uh let you know about some of the other members of The Firm who would also um be providing Services because we do utilize a team of approach and so I would like you all to know that you know if you can't get a hold of one of us there are plenty of other people uh that can fill in there's Terry Harmon who also has been practicing education law for 15 years he is also a uh Florida bar board

013certified specialist in education law he serves as general counsel to the Santa Rosa school board meeting he wanted to be with me here today but he's actually at their meeting this morning it's why he could not be here he also does a lot of speaking um on education law topics especially ESC related um he's handled so many of those types of cases I really consider him an expert in that and he's also very passion about passionate about education law with the majority of his time being spent on education law as well uh there's Robert sniffin like I said who founded the firm and has 27 years of experience serving education law clients we also have Matt Carson at our firm who was a former general counsel to the Florida Department of Education so he also

014is well-versed in education law and Michael Spelman who is another partner at the firm has currently been serving a lot of the needs of the Maran County School Board including acting um as their labor negotiator recently so there are lots of Attorneys At The Firm with a lot of experience in education law including in this Treasure Coast Area who can all help to meet the school board's needs so I hope that you always feel like if you have difficulty getting a hold of one of us or somebody's on vacation or sick that there's always somebody there that can help um you wanted um a little brief overview of the understanding of the requirements of your RFP and the methodology for delivering legal services so I think that I've kind of already explained that we do

015use a team approach and I've also mentioned that in addition to all the attorneys who practice primarily in education law and primarily with school boards there's lots of attorneys that practice in other areas like real estate or labor and employment um that we can draw upon too if the district has needs that are a little bit outside of our field and so it is a team approach and I think that that benefits everybody um I always have have other people at the firm that I can go to um that may have more experience than me in something um and the requirements of the RFP were not just for an attorney to service the school board but also somebody who will interact with the superintendent and staff so School boards school districts do this a little

016differently from school district to school district some specifically hire an attorney just for their school board some hire one who kind of services both the school board and the superintendent some like to separate them um so that's an area where as I understand it the attorney who's selected would be representing the school board would sit at the school board at their meetings would give councel to school board members on any types of legal issues such as public records requests um ethics opinions on things like voting conflicts or gift laws um things that impact school board members um and in addition to that they would also be helping out with the superintendent and staff with any kind of day-to-day legal questions you may have and those really run the gamut it may be a parent custody

017issue where somebody wants to pick up the you know student from school that they're not familiar with it could be an issue where a parent wants to watch a video Tye of an incident that happened at school um there's so many different uh day-to-day legal issues that you run into that you know we just a phone call away and can help uh resolve any of those types of issues Additionally you want somebody to review or perhaps draft your uh legal agreements um also things like policies also things like resolutions I know that Indian River County School Board does use Neola as your company that you contract with for your policies uh our firm does serve as Council to Neola so we help to draft those policies and that is something that should not be a

018conflict of interest in the event that there's ever a need for an agreement between the two parties um under Florida bar ethics you know if we were to represent both of you as clients we would need to get rid an agreement to do that if there was ever an actual conflict between you we would not um be representing both parties but that's something that I think really is a benefit because we do pay close attention uh every legislative session to the changes in the legislation we are always reading that legislation and helping to update the policies that many school boards throughout the state use through their contracts with with mua so being involved in that process I think is really helpful because I'm always aware and not just of the legislation but also of the

019accompanying policy changes that um are required for school districts and paying close attention to that and helping out with that and this last session was certainly an interesting one so um there was a lot that came out of that one um so that's a bit about um what I understand you're requiring for Legal Services is really you're looking for somebody who can do everything obviously in addition to serving as general counsel who can answer questions and that's the area that I really like to focus on because I think communication's important and because I think it really helps to keep districts out of litigation um if things do get into a conflict resolution our firm does offer all of those types of conflict resolution types type um services so that may be more informal like a

020Florida Department of Education mediation it may be a division of administrative hearings due process it could be litigation in state or federal court our firm has lots of experience um in all of those forms everybody's licensed to practice in those forms so that's also something that we have a lot of experience with and can service the school district District needs in that regard so what you would what I believe you're asking for and what we would be able to provide is a full panan p p you know the word um the full kind of um services that the school board and its staff would require and uh My Hope also um when I say staff is that principles you know it's not just the superintendent or people who are in the administrative offices that people

021at the school level if they're running into something especially something where like I said you know if a parents angrily they are trying to take a student away and they don't know this parent and maybe there's some legal agreement that they want help interpreting or they're getting a subpoena or this that or the other thing that they would also feel comfortable uh calling our offices um because that's something also that I I really encourage um so that's a bit about the types of legal services that we provide um you wanted to know what I believe is the most pressing legal issue um facing school districts throughout the state in the upcoming year I think it's still the impact of covid-19 that's something that we've been dealing with as you know for a while um that's

022something that we continue to deal with and we're continuing to deal with kind of the Rolling effects of it the students who Miss school or who maybe weren't as inclined for a virtual environment who had um kind of didn't have the learning gains that we would have wanted uh students with ESC where we were trying to give them services but it was maybe more difficult to give Thum Services virtually so trying to you know Bridge any of those types of gaps including not just what is oh I apologize it looks like I've ran out of time so I will open it up to any questions of the board at this point Thank you so uh just so you know we're gonna start with Dr Schiff and Mrs Rosario then Dr Jones and Mrs barenborg and

023and I will be last and we're district one two three four five as we're lined up so so Dr shf thank you thank you um I have followup questions on on some of the things you said but I'm going to stick to script for a minute and I have four questions here I have 10 minutes so I'm going to invite you to be as succinct and clear and direct as possible if you would hypothetically the superintendent makes a recommendation to the school board which results in a division between the school board and the superintendent and everybody seems to need legal advice who do you represent and why thank you Dr Schiff my understanding from this request for proposal um is that my primary representation is with the school board and if there was an issue

024where the superintendent needed separate legal counsel that would be my advice was at that point that I would represent the school board and that it would be the superintendent who would get separate legal councel I think on most issues that would not be the case but there are certainly some issues where that would be the case even including let's say the agreement between the superintendent and the school board for the superintendent Services that's something where the superintendent may want his own counsel and I represent the school board thank you what would your competitors say is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness as a firm and as an individual attorney that's an interesting question um and I haven't thought of that one before I think for greatest strength uh for the firm would be our

025good I think we have great word of mouth I think that we're well respected I think that we do have a lot of breath of experience in education law I think for myself uh something that I've heard people say positively about me and that is true is that I am prompt in my communications so if you give me what I'm sorry I'm very prompt in responding um something that I've heard is that the number one complaint that clients have with their attorneys is that they don't get back to them promptly enough and that's something that I'm very conscientious of so I would say i' I've heard the opposite at least for myself that I am very prompt and responding to emails also I feel freely give out my cell phone number so text you know

026cell phone calls um I always am very prompt I know that some things are kind of an emergency so I I try to really um make sure that I'm always checking my messages and getting back to people and then you also said um um shortcoming as well so for the firm shortcoming um I would say right now we're really trying to Branch out and expand so I don't know if other people would say this but I would say something that we're trying to do currently is um Branch out even more so I don't know if that's a shortcoming but I would say that's something that the firm is working on um is being able to to expand even more in terms of geographic rically um because like I said right now their main office is

027in Tallahassee it's a little far removed you know from um some of our clients and in terms of my own I cannot say that I have heard of any nobody's ever told me any but if I had to come up with one of my own I would probably say just in general anxiety I can be a little on the anxious side so that's just something something that I try to manage I think that's more of a personal management thing than a professional management thing but um that's how I'd answer that thank you thank you thank you so how do you Pro how do you view the Schoolboard attorney's role in providing legal advice to individual board members and how would you handle requests from Individual board members uh thank you uh that's a great question

028I'm very happy to answer that I think I kind of went into it a little bit with my last answer but I happily give out my cell phone number if um board members want to give me a call I think my cell phone or my email is the easiest way to reach me some things people may not want to communicate in writing so I'm always very happy if people want to pick up the phone you know I encourage that you should always be considering public records requests when you put things in writing even to your Schoolboard attorney some people think everything's privileged really not all Communications with attorney are privileged that tends to have more to do with litigation and pending litigation so I I like I said I really try to be very prompt

029and responding to any of those Communications and as you know with the Sunshine Law Communications if I do do them by email you know I'll probably do them oneon-one or say do not reply all all my communications with you about any matter that may come before the board has to be individual Communications um so I I think that answers your question but let me know if you have any follow there think more um there are times when uh a board member's role as a member of the board in leading in needing legal council can blur a bit with eating legal counsel on individuals that may come up in their capacity as a board member but are not necessarily specific to the work of the board and sometimes those needs and interests can overlap so I

030was speaking more to that um and I'm very consciously watching the clock as we go too so if you want to address that for a minute terrific um and if not I'll go on to my next question yeah absolutely I hate to speak too much in generalizations I think something that I feel strongly about as an attorney is I always like to get all of the facts um I think sometimes people think you know that you can just kind of make a one-size fits all answer when a lot of times things are kind of very circumstantially dependent so I would say that's something where I would definitely probably want to flesh it out over the phone make sure I'm getting all of the facts straight but I would say in terms of things like conflicts

031of interest or things of that nature I those are the types of things that I advise my clients on regularly also as you know the commission on ethics is a great resource for that and they I actually talk to the attorney at the commission on eth ethics you know fairly regularly when I have clients that have questions about any of their kind of professional responsibilities as board members um in terms of other things you know I'm happy to advise clients on if they're getting media requests or things of that nature and they want to discuss what they should do but that I do think is kind of a fact dependent scenario I don't know that I have a one-size uh fits-all answer for it other than that I'm you know happy to discuss it thank

032you you okay last question um and you alluded to this in your opening statements um probably the wrong term to a lawyer as a school board uh we deal with a wide range of legal issues unique to education such as idea um Section 504 student discipline fura how would you you in your packet and you mentioned um that you have a lot of history with ESC for example how do you maintain the balance and represent the district while still actually also supporting parents and families who who come to the district with some considerable needs yes thank you for that question so something that I think that I've been successful at I think that your District's been successful at this from when I was speaking with the staff at your district is with things like ESC

033uh do process requests if possible most of those were able to settle um most of those were able to settle through informal resolution or settle them before they even get to the due process stage because you know that the parents are getting upset so whenever possible I think that that's the preferred method of handling things due process can be pretty adversarial and that's something that I think can be difficult um for parents to continue to send their children to school and feel like they're in an adversarial relationship with the service providers so I think you know when it's possible that the best thing to do is try to work out informal resolutions one of the reasons that I became a Schoolboard attorney is because I really do enjoy doing what's best for school districts and

034the families and the children and so that's always something that I'm thinking about in addition to Legal interests and risk management I'm thinking about what is best for the members of the community um you know not just the client but also the parents because I do think that oftentimes what's best for the parents hopefully is what's best for the school district so that's something that I am always mindful of is trying to maintain those relationships and keep the child at the center of discussions what's best for the child's education because that's ultimately what we're what's we're here for at the end of the day thank you thank you I want to do one uh one qu you mentioned um that there are number of people in your firm who represent districts um I take it

035from your application and your statement that you would be the primary person working with this board is that true or would there be some rotation thank you I live in St Lucy so I would be attending your board meetings but like I said we really take a team approach and I would be sharing contact information of several attorneys so that if you ever had questions and I wasn't available that they would also be there um to meet the the needs of the Indian miver County school board thank you perfect Mrs Rosaria hi thank you so much for being here thank you for your interest in Indian River um I appreciated the comment that you mentioned about um that you love the Treasure Coast so um that means a lot um I do have a few

036questions here as followup uh to one of Dr schiff's questions um you mentioned that it's very important to you to keep kids first um what makes School law practice so satisfying for you and why thank you I feel like um this question is very near and dear to my heart because I majored in political science before going to law school and I've spent my entire career serving local governments it's not the highest paying area of law but I always knew that you know that I was interested I'm sure like all of you as um officials as politicians in politics as a way of serving communities and so I really see what I do from the legal side also as trying to serve the public interests of my community and it's just really fulfilling because when

037I work with education institutions I have worked with lots of other local governments I really kind of like working with the education institutions the best I do think that it is really rewarding to work with um the board members and the staff because you can see really the impact that you have on the community and it's really fulfilling to to be able to see that in a in a day-to-day way and to try really to focus on like I said kind of meeting the needs of the children and the family and I see that when I work with education clients you know when it gets litigious it's unfortunate but most people really try their best to do the right thing legally as well as to do the right thing by children and fames sometimes you

038can't help it right sometimes you know a family just has an idea and it's not what the law says and it's not you know what I mean fair for us to do it and so things may get to that point but I really have enjoyed working with education institutions over the years because I do meet such wonderful people I mean as far as I know the people that I meet everybody gets into it you know for the reason that they care about the community and families and education and those are their their primary reasons for getting involved and so it's nice working with people who are all on the same page um when you work with them in that regard thank you thank you for that um The Firm seems to have extensive experience working

039with school districts um you wrote in your packet uh that was provided for us that you are currently the council for Henry County and now of course St Lucy County um what other school districts have you had uh experience with and if you can explain what your role was in those with those experiences yeah absolutely thank you Miss Rosaria I worked for 10 years like I said for Dan Harold at the start of my career and he was General Counsel for the St Lucy County School Board and so at that time I was doing a lot of the general counsel uh work for the St Lucy County School Board and after that I did work um for the Martin County School Board as general counsel for a while and right now they um are using

040our firm for a lot of their services as well with um Michael Spelman being kind of a main person I know he's been doing doing all of their labor negotiations and I have worked um more on cases for other districts as well as like I mentioned we use a team approach so Terry Harmon is the Santa Rosa School Board attorney but he's often asking me you know oh I'm busy can you fill in so I will handle their matters you know whatever they are as well and just working on cases for different School districts um like I said I did two due process uh hearings for your school district this year I did one for okachobee County School Board last year that was a DOA hearing that was in the employment law Arena um St

041Lucy I was working on a DOA hearing for them a couple of years ago that was with a charter school matter so yes um several school districts throughout the state and we do represent many other school districts throughout the state so I would say I'm often drawn into just kind of General review of things for different school districts whether it's you know their forms or procedures or contracts or just general education law questions probably too many to remember or mention but lots of them yes thank you okay thank you um how would you manage a situation in which the board feels strong WR ly about its position but you believe that the position is not legally supportable uh thank you Miss Rosario so as your legal councel I I give counsel I give advice but

042you are the elected officials so you make the decisions all I can do is tell you what I think the law supports so that's what I would tell you if you disagreed with me I tell you you know you can disagree with me this is what the potential outcomes are and just kind of make you aware of what they are because for some laws like public records laws the potential outcomes can be criminal but all I can do is make you aware of those and just give you the best advice that I can thank you I appreciate that um how would you manage a divided board um thank you Miss Rosario I would say uh that when I give councel we do have to be careful about Sunshine Law so when I talk to you

043outside of meetings it would be oneon-one I do encourage you to come to me before meetings if you have a want to know about the legality of something because I think that that's just easier to do than add a public forum to discuss it gives me more time to prepare it gives you more time to prepare it's not public um to flesh out any kind of things that you have question questions on you know divided boards you are all elected officials and you all know who you represent and you all know you know why you're here and so sometimes split votes happen uh I'm not going to give you advice on what your opinion should be other than legal counsel as to what the law says maybe I'll give you bre practices or you know

044something like that but thank you I appreciate that um I think you you touched a little bit on um this next question that I have um but I'd like if you can expand a little bit more on it how are you going to be able to handle three districts um timing wise um maybe scheduling wise you know H uh being able to remember all of the policies or all of the um I suppose the things that we talk about in our board meetings and trying to stay on top of all of the multitasking um with three districts do you find that you might lean more towards your colleagues to be present or will you for the most part be our general counsel and you expect to be here uh and fulfill that Duty thank you

045uh Miss Rosario so something that I mentioned to superintendent Moore and Mr Carver was that our firm was think speaking of withdrawing our bid when we got St Lucy uh you may knowe that both of those bids came open at the same time and I am local and so when we bid on them both we were thinking oh perhaps you know we'll just take one of them and then withdraw from the other and that's what happened is St Lucy made their decision and so we were planning on withdrawing and when I had that conversation with superintendent and Mr Carver they said well actually we may be able to be flexible on the board meeting dates because there was a conflict there and we wanted somebody to be able to attend board meetings who has the

046education law experience but also um isn't all the way up in Tallahassee and so that would be myself and so in order to be able to accommodate the Indian River School District what we were talking about was I we would only be able to do it if we were were able to make sure that the meetings didn't conflict Hendry County school board has their meetings on the 1st and 3rd two St evenings of the month which does not conflict with St Lucy which is second and fourth although St Lucy they are second Tuesday of the month in the evening and then their other meeting is actually a workshop that's in the morning so that does not conflict with your schedule so my understanding is that if we were to be selected by the board that

047we would find uh a time that would not conflict perhaps that fourth Tuesday of the month for a board meeting um because that's the only way that we would really be able to do it in terms of outside of board meetings which would be covered by me oh I'm sorry is that time do you want me to finish her I think that if yeah I think I would love for you to finish I hope that board members wouldn't mind because I think this is very important to fulfilling the role yeah that outside of the board meetings that would be covered by me there would be a team approach so that you know if I'm ever busy um serving other school boards or you know sometimes I go on vacation or I'm sick that there is

048also plenty of other attorneys that are there and that also know education law as well as I do that can assist the school board's needs and like I said we are currently expanding in that area um and hiring more attorneys so thank you thank you appreciate it okay Dr Jones good morning thank you for being here a school board member approaches you for assistance in obtaining a copy of a student cumulative folder when the board member is not the parent or guardian of the student how do you respond um thank you Dr Jones I would respond that under furpa um which is the family educational um pupil records act that and also under State Statute um which mimics Vera that there is um not an ability for people outside of parents to see educational records

049there are some exceptions to that one of the exceptions is if you are a staff member with an educational interest school board members on some instances will see Student Records uh the most predominant example would be if there was an expulsion um where the school board acts in making that order of expulsion they would need to see the relevant information there but if there was not a matter coming before the school board for which the school board member had a reason to look at those records I would say that furpa does not allow it okay thank you you've somewhat answered this but there will be situations where the school board may require other Council for special issues what type of management and oversight process will you put in place for these cases yes um thank

050you very much so I as I understand you do have insurance uh counsel who handles things like your slip and falls and so that's something where I will communicate with those attorneys um to make sure that I'm just keeping up to date on how they're handling those matters um if that's what you mean a lot of the other stuff we'd probably be able to do in house if there's something that we're not doing in house that is something that I would want to communicate with the attorney to make sure that I have oversight of what's happening in those cases thank you thank you as a lifelong educator I'm always looking to the Future where do you feel you would take the board attorney position in the next five years and provide examples regarding advocacy District

051legal services and training so what would that look like ah thank you for that question I think training is an area that our firm really excels at I myself have given lots of trainings um to school district staffs in various areas uh as well as other members of my firm I'm a firm believer in training some legal trainings are required like for example the title 9 training staff were required to be trained on that even for areas where staff aren't required to be trained I think it's important um areas like public records and Student Records I think that those are great areas where all staff should understand um the legal implications of those something that sometimes you'll find a lot of people don't know are like with public records you can make a request to

052anybody it doesn't have to be to the public records custodian you can make it to anybody that works at the district and they should know how to handle those even if their only information is send them to the records custodian who will then know how to handle them and that's another kind of area where when you're doing training there's the kind of training for people where it's more notice when things aren't issue and who the right person to send it to is and then the more in-depth training for the people who actually handle those issues so I do think you know there's different levels of training there um that are important but I think that I'm a big believer in trying to do things on the front end and ounce of prevention being worth a

053pound of cure and I think communication's really important I think updating those trainings often is really important um I think that being on top of your policy and procedures is important I think that the fact that my firm does act as Council for Neola and this was actually something I wanted to answer um for Miss Rosario as well the fact that the three districts um well the two districts that I am general counsel for and this District all use newa policies that offers a lot of consistency from District to district and knowing what the policies are and already having familiarity with them I always still like to check just because sometimes District put in their own little things or you know just to make sure I'm not an encyclopedia I don't have everything memorized word

054by word but I do have a lot of familiarity with those policies already and um so that's an area where I think that there's a lot of area of overlap between the districts where there's some efficiency already built in both with representing those districts and with what I already know um and in terms of leading the district that is something that I am interested in is having the more districts that I represent and that the firm represents having a lot of efficiency built in where we are keeping on top of all of these education law interests and especially ones in this geographic area for you know all of our clients and having a lot of consistency and knowledge there that can kind of build upon itself so could you tell me a spec specific training

055you've done with the school board in the last year or two yeah absolutely I trained the Henry County school board on the title 9 regulations when they updated their policy to uh comply with the new title 9 regulations and they required they're required to have a training um I did that required training for them um they did have the Neola policy that's something that I also kind of with the Neola policy and this is true sometimes with Neola policies there's things that you kind of have elective options so there it was kind of also making sure you know going through the elective options with them on what they wanted their policy to say um so that was one that I did recently that's good and my last question tell us about a time when your

056initiative at work caused a chain to change to occur what was the situation and what was the outcome oh thank you Dr Jones that's a thinker my initiative at work caused a change to happen interesting I would say that one thing that has been a change has been um working from home a lot of people went to work from home because of covid but that's something that a lot of people have been going back into the office I haven't been going into the office as much my office location is West Palm and honestly it's a bit of a drive and it's not even as close to my clients so a lot of times because I am driving driving around to clients in St Lucy to clients in Henry to clients you know like I've said

057I've done work for Martin and okobe and Indian River that it's really um kind of a very flexible location for me to Service uh Treasure Coast clients and not have to be in the office and so that's kind of changed the way Communications worked so we'll set up things like you know when you're in the office you pass by people you just kind of have those informal conversations where you have to schedule that more like okay you know we want to check in every Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. you know what I mean and just kind of have a running kind of meeting so that we're making sure that we're checking in with each other um so I do think that there's been a lot of movement in that regard fortunately our firm has already

058pretty much went totally digital so that's not an issue everything's on our server um you know moving to Communications like Zoom was not an issue so I think it's actually all been uh pretty seamless being being able to do things in a more digital and flexible way thank you very much okay Mrs Baron B yes good afternoon good afternoon um I did work in St Lucy and no Dan Herold we have never met have we not that I recall okay I just wanted to make sure that was on camera and we we know that because you do not look familiar other than I have watched one of the St Lucy school board meetings very briefly recently and I did notice your face on there um so congratulations on that um what process would you use

059when responding to Schoolboard member questions and by that I mean what research would you perform and what steps would you follow uh thank you very much for your question uh Miss Brandon Borg so it is fact dependent even though I know a lot from 15 years of experience and kind of knowing policies I tend to always double check um you know I'll tend to to always look up the policy just to make sure it says what I think it says I tend to always look up the statute those change a lot as well um the agos the Attorney General opinions those are an area that I would often look for Schoolboard questions because those relate specifically to opinions on Florida Statutes that impact public officials and that discuss things um like the laws that the

060public officials have to follow such as the sunshine laws and the public records Act laws uh I have mentioned in a previous question that I do speak with the attorney for the commission on ethics regularly he's somebody that presents at Florida Schoolboard attorney's meetings he's given us all his phone number he's such a friendly guy so even when I know answers I often like to bounce them off of people I'll talk to people in the Florida Department of Education if I think that that's appropriate I'll talk to other people in my firm so I guess in answer to your question I would say even though I think I know a lot of things off the top of my head I do tend to look at all of those sources as well um and even just

061getting kind of second opinions sometimes even where I think I know the answer just to see if somebody has any other good input I think of myself as always being very open to you know learning new things so I wouldn't say that I'm totally set in my ways um I like a collaborative Appo approach I like to do my research and I I like to continue learning and refining my processes thank you okay thank you um what would you recommend as an evaluation process for a Schoolboard attorney how should we evaluate you oh thank you very much Miss Brandon Borg uh I would say for your evaluation generally speaking I think with rfps they tend to give you like a point system and then kind of say you know up to this many points for

062this category and so I'm assuming maybe that that's how you'll do it but I would say if I was to retain an attorney the things that I would look for are obviously their experience I do think it's important to get somebody with education law experience because I do think that education law it's got its own code of law and even if you're familiar with local government law like I said I've served lots of other local governments whether it's you know cities or Community Development districts what have you they there are some similarities obviously viously things like public records act but there are so many things that are Schoolboard specific that you wouldn't know that you didn't know about um so there really is just a lot of law in the education law Arena that isn't

063just generalized to um those more laws that affect other local governments and so I do think that it's important to to get somebody that does have that type of knowledge and experience especially when they are going to be you know servicing the superintendent and the staff I think that one of the areas that I feel very comfortable with is you know in an emergency when you do have a parent that is trying to pull a student from school or that's you know demanding something like recording a meeting or something of that nature you know to be able to have somebody that can kind of come up with an answer really quickly I think is important outside of that I would say you know when you're looking for something for services the things that I think

064are important that I would pride myself on are communication and promptness in communication and then just that you feel that the person um you know that you could work with them that there're somebody that you feel comfortable working with and Trust okay so let's talk down the road um let's say that you are chosen as the Schoolboard attorney for Indian River um how shall we EV evaluate you yearly how shall it be done well uh thank you Miss Brandenburg that's a question that I barenborg just saying barenborg all right he keeps giving me a look so I'm gonna give I'm gonna correct that go ahead barenberg no thank you um so I would say that it would be probably on the same criteria that I just said if you think that um that you feel

065that you're getting good quality services then you would want to continue the relation ship um you know it is really up to you I if selected I'd be serving at your pleasure um the legal agreements that we tend to have tend to be able to be cancelled you know we're not trying to lock anybody in for you know 10 years or anything so it's something that you know we're here to serve you and you are the client and you need to be satisfied with the services great thank you those were all my written questions but I'm going to allow you since I have four minutes time to finish what you were going to answer at the beginning so I'm going to go back and read this last question if you you were selected as Schoolboard

066attorney what were the first items you would recommend for immediate review yes thank you so there I think that coming in I would want to talk to the school board members and to the superintendent and see what issues they have if any that they would like to be reviewed and if so the time frame is for that in terms of setting up an order of Precedence I wouldn't want to put you know my structure on all of you I'd like to learn more about you and your concerns and if there's any areas that you're currently working on that you want reviewed and I would say in addition to that uh policy is something that as an attorney I feel is a very legal matter it's obviously one of the main things that the school board

067does is set policy those are basically having the effect of laws and so they are very legal documents and a lot of times some I wouldn't say a lot of times some districts don't seem to realize the time pressure so you know that's something where I try to make sure that I am stressing that you know you can get these legislative updates and there's so many changes to the legislation and there's so many policies coming down the pike and you may say don't want to look at 30 policies in one meeting and I would agree with you and there you can set up an order of precedent so that you are making sure that the ones that are required to be passed and that impact things like student safety um get passed more immediately and

068then the things that maybe are just little small changes can get passed you know down the line so making sure that the board you know is up to date on all of those uh legislative changes that really require being passed and then that we're looking at other policies in a more timely way that maybe need changes but they're not immediate so are you aware of any um immediate issues that are pressing on this board from what I understand you are in litigation I believe about masks um no no okay I I know that you did have a mask litigation that was resolved uh motion to dismiss as was a lot of districts um because the mask mandates were um perfectly legal so I I thought that I saw that there was a special executive session

069to cover some sort of litigation I think I thought of mask because I thought of some I saw something in the news about it but I could be wrong because it doesn't look like no we we're not involved in the Mas okay it doesn't look like a mar now I would say something that has been um an area that's been kind of being played out in Florida school boards as well as nationally is that there's been a lot of public participation at meetings particularly on mask issues also on some other issues so I know that that's an issue that a lot of school boards are facing and some of them want to kind of review their policies and procedures in those regards um that's something that's been kind of both a topic for school boards

070and I think an area where you're really kind of seeing just the everyday tensions you know are playing out in schools um so that's an area that I think that a lot of districts want to look at and that may be an area of looking at okay thank you thank you I'm done all right well thank you um one one litigation issue that we've only been in this district has only been involved with for 53 years um is is we're party to a federal court uh desegregation case and uh what experience do you are members of your firm have in this area of the law and how can you support the school board and the superintendent in this litigation thank you Mr Barefoot um I have a lot of experience in this area this question

071seems like it could have been written for me currently Henry County is still under a desegregation order and they have been under it for 50 some years and I am handling it I've been working closely with um the Department of Justice the United States Department of Justice on resolving it and we've actually made a lot of progress in this last year with their case what they've been doing is they've been requiring us to compile information on what we've been doing and send them reports and like I said I've been working closely with them and trying to see you know what they would like us to do to move forward with trying to get it resolved once and for all there were two areas that we had um outstanding concerns on and one was on staff

072um and the other was on student discipline and so just recently within the last month we actually got an order where we have resolved the Staffing issue so now we're down to one last issue which is on student discipline and making sure that there you know is complete um no racial disparity at all in student discipline and we are continuing to send them information to show you know what our numbers are and what we're doing but also we've worked on a new stipulation with them where we really worked closely with them in kind of updating things like our code of conduct and kind of updating the reports that we're going to send them to really uh get to the heart of the matter and try to resolve that so we're hopeful that after another year

073of reporting that we may be able to resolve that issue as well and and finally be finished with that I will say I know St Lucy School Board also was under a desegregation order that was resolved when I worked for them that was quite a while back so I don't remember it as well but uh yes I am familiar with that process and that's something that you know I think that it's important for school boards to be resolved after you know all of these years I suspect that that in the situation you described there's I'm sure there's some overlap in terms of the four or five categories that you know we constantly are uh reporting on or or trying to report on um you you said you've been in contact with the Department of Justice

074um how about interaction with the litigant and and their uh representation or their uh lawyers if if you worked with them and then you go to the Department of Justice you go through the federal court to the depart how how how did you end up interacting with the Department of Justice on some of the things you just described uh yes thank you Mr Barefoot so as we mentioned the case has been going on for over 50 years so I'm newer to the case but it is a federal case and so I have entered an order of appearance so that I'm now the attorney on it we do file um our updates with the federal court and so when I speak with the Department of Justice I'm specifically speaking with an attorney for the Department of

075Justice I've only been interacting with their attorney and we have come up with legal documents together such as a stipulated order where we um were found to be in compliance on our staffing issues but where we were also going to put in place um like a new reporting schedule for our student discipline issues with the eye to being able to resolve it within the next year you know if we're able to successfully meet our goals in that area and something that I've been closely working with the superintendent and staff with because they are the ones on the ground so they are very aware of their requirements and they are very on board with all of it obviously or at least I think it's obvious this is something that we don't just want to get rid

076of from the perception of this is a lawsuit that's been going on for 50 years but also we want to make sure that our practices are Equitable and I know you know since I said that I've been involved with the process and I've been looking at the numbers we have hired a lot more you know minority staff and we are being very conscientious in our disciplinary practices so I think that we are doing the work um that's required to to finally bring our deseg desegregation case to a closure in in this role have you uh interacted with the federal court in Miami is that basically the venue when you make your report to the court or is it another Court it is the federal court I'm trying to think which one is for Henry County

077I think it's the 11th I think it's just the 11th circuit thank you okay um obviously after 50 some years you you would hope that you know we your current situation and ours we can get resolved but it's it's obviously been a challenge if it's gone on this long uh next question um School Board like all other public entities can be subjected to intense public scrutiny for its actions are there any incidents or situations or investigations involving you or other members of your firm which we should be aware of um thank you Mr Barefoot and just to go back to what you just said I I would like to note that I have been very proactive I don't want to say that this has gone on for such a long time because they weren't proactive

078but I have been taking a very proactive stance of you know we really want to work with you and we really want to know a timeline and what we can do and what goals we have to meet and I think that they appreciate that not just you know what I mean that we're trying to finish it but that we're really committed to it so it's not just oh we hand in our report and then you know what I mean it just goes on and on and on like we're really looking to work with them as partners at this point in terms of um anything that you should know no there there have been no complaints uh about myself or anybody else at the firm that I'm aware of okay good thanks um we got a

079couple of minutes left um is there anything that you uh would like to respond to any of us or ask any of us um follow up from your perspective additional points you would like to make that relate to any of the questions any of the five of us ask um thank you so much uh there is nothing that I can think of at this time um if we do have additional time I'm happy to further discuss any of the questions that you have I think um you know that I did get through all the presentation now so unless there is anything else that you have for me well everybody probably has a follow I don't know about everybody but some will have follow-up questions so why don't we start uh go ahead Dr shiff you

080yeah I have a a it's not quite a followup it's a a thought as you as I I listen to you speaking um as I've seen different school boards around the state the relationship between the board and the attorney varies some boards work with attorneys that are more engaged in directive some work with attorneys that um uh take a role of sitting back until being asked or uh what I would call it's the wrong word a more passive approach where do you see yourself on that Contin when working with school boards and I'm not sure if that's clear if it's not clear I'll I'll further clarify thank you Dr Schiff no I believe that that's clear so I believe that I'm very client focused I'm here to serve you and I think that it really

081my direction comes from the board how active you want me to be so if you want me to take a backseat I can do that if you want me to be more proactive I can do that I do like to like I said we have our monthly newsletter letter where we put out law alerts to keep our clients informed on any kind of litigation or you know things that are happening in the education law realm um I have been keeping involved in associations like the Florida Schoolboard attorneys Association where Florida Schoolboard attorneys throughout the state that represent school districts communicate on the pressing issues so that even if something is not necessarily brought to my attention by the client I'm keeping a breast of what's happening and making sure that if there's something that a

082client needs to do that they're aware of it so yes I would see that as something that I would be um doing if that answ your question can I follow up Mr clarify um how do you see that occurring when we're actually in a public business meeting uh thank you Dr shiff so that may be more that I give you all a memorandum of law prior to the meeting if um if desired you know I can bring legal updates to meetings as well but I would see a lot of it is probably also stuff that would be going more through staff than the board directly so if I'm seeing something that I think you know staff need to be aware of um then that's something that I'll bring to their attention so I would say

083that there's it would be dependent on the circumstance how I would bring it to the board it may be just through a memorandum to the board that's not at the meeting or that maybe I am presenting at the meeting for the board's awareness or that's going through staff themselves because it's more of a a day-to-day operational matter thank you I could follow up but I'll I'll stop um May I sure thank you um I had a follow up on a question uh Dr Jones uh asked you with regard to Schoolboard members requesting uh assistance in obtaining a copy of a student's cumulative folder but to follow up with that I there was a mention about a parents um right to the students folder um so I thought I heard you say that parents are do

084not have the ability to to that information um so I just wanted clarification maybe I heard wrong um do parents have the right to access their students cumulative full older uh yes thank you U Miss Rosario they do and thank you for letting me clarify that I'm not sure if I misspoke or not but yeah they absolutely do have the right to look at their own students folder as well as some other rights um with regard under furpa to their students education records thank you um I do have another followup with regard to your role um as our attorney and um our meeting meetings um can you explain a little bit or talk a little bit about your role as the parliamentarian and then your knowledge of Robert's Rules uh of order uh yes absolutely

085thank you Miss roserio I know that that's something that YULA has in policy uh so the school board does follow Robert's Rules of Order it's a fairly detailed book usually with five member School boards they run pretty smoothly the chair shares the meetings uh generally pretty much everything requires a quorum to be present physically present requires a vote you have a motion you have a second you have discussion if you want it you have a vote uh generally a lot of items may go on the consent agenda and then they can all be voted on at once sometimes a member may want to pull one for discussion so that's generally I know you know how the meetings are run but generally um as the parliamentarian if I if there is a question about about kind

086of the Robert's Rules of Order and what needs to be done um I can step in at that point to offer some clarity about what needs to be done um you know if board members aren't sure if something needs to be voted on or not or whatever their question is um if something can be brought back or I'm trying to think of you know some things that have come up I think I've been asked before you know do we have to vote on this or can this be brought back or things of that nature and I can let the board know what they they need to do procedurally perfect thank Youk you you said in um the deseg order dealing with Henry County that you had a resolution in the Staffing issue can you just

087tell me what that resolution was oh yes um thank you very much Dr Jones so our resolution was that the the federal court did enter an order um it was a stipulated order meaning the parties both agreed to it and then we asked the court to agree to it so um the Department of Justice and I wrote it together we asked the court to approve it and they did approve it so it's it's now ordered that that part of the case has been resolved so now we're just down to the one issue of student discipline and that was part of the order that we were going to continue to work on student discipline thank thank you okay thank you I had written down parliamentarian too and the reason why is because um sometimes things can

088get a little heated and at what point do you feel the parliamentarian should speak up and interject um thank you very much Miss barenborg you got it yes okay it's hard one I know it it sounds German uh yeah cly yeah I'm German well my last name Ma a name is rotting house um so German family lineage so I should know how to pronounce those things although I'm not great with languages so I think that it really maybe depends a bit are if you're talking about if I could ask for some clarification are you talking about heated the audience is getting heated no on the DI sometimes you know we're passionate and board members sometimes things get amended several times and it gets a little confusing as when you're following Robert's Rules do you vote

089on the amendment which amendment do you vote on first um at what point would you step in if you're not being asked absolutely so I would say that generally I allow the chair to cheer the meetings and certainly if they ask me for a point you know to clarify um what's the correct parliamentarian you know decision here do we need to vote on this don't we what needs to happen I would weigh in I try not to interrupt meetings um because I think that when you look at the Roberts Rules of Order and you consider what they're there for they're there to guide the orderly process of meetings and like I said I think that meetings with more people tend to need to rely on them for making sure that the process is more on

090point in the meetings are able to move forward in a way in which people are able to participate um but having said that um if I thought that the members were doing something that was incorrect um that needed to be changed I would certainly jump in and voice my opinion at that point if I thought they were just you know discussing amongst themselves and wanted more discussion and it wasn't something that was legally incorrect then I would allow them to continue their discussion um I understand again you know you are the the public officials and these meetings are recorded and sometimes people want to let their constituents know what their opinion on something is and that's their form for doing that thank you thank you all right I don't have any further questions um so

091we now uh we have an opportunity I guess for sort of a wrapup um Mr Fagan or Dr Moore you want to yes to the chair this would be a time in which there's any other further discussion if all questions have been answered and there's no more questions for um Molly then we would excuse her take a short break for a second while I bring in the other firm thank you Miss Shad maybe this would be a sorry I'm sorry maybe this might be an appropriate time if not someone correct me to discuss other than the Tuesdays if if we were to consider um your firm other than the Tuesday fourth meeting and if this board were to consider changing our board meetings what other days of the week would be available I think we

092would need to know that ahead of time so that we can start thinking you know what our options would be so are what's your schedule in other than Tuesdays um any day thank you Miss Rosario yeah I did have a little bit of conversation with the superintendent Mr Carver about that and I express that I don't have any other evening uh standing meetings so I could be available for evening meetings at um any other day of the week I think they were thinking maybe Thursdays so that would be available for me um okay thank you thank you I appreciate that okay all right so thank you thank you Marley I don't the district had or the the board has a lot to consider but I want to thank you for considering the school district of

093Indian River County uh if selected you would be joining an group of outstanding board members who are truly passionate about the work that they're doing uh and an absolute great number of people to work with and work for so good luck thank you very much chair board members superintendent I really appreciate your time this afternoon and good luck thank you here so we'll take a 10minute break is that okay does that work yes all right why don't we recess for 10 minutes at uh 119 thank you be to two individuals a Mr Scott Cole and a miss Anastasia and I cannot pronounce her last name I'll let her do that at the meet when she comes in they do have a a presentation I will give each board member a hard copy can you clarify

094for me um Mr Fagan are we handing back to you this whole thing yes the interview sheet at the back question back scoring sheet you can just fill that out sign your name okay but you just want the scoring sheet not all the notes or you want the notes TOA item but we're going to have discussion before that [Music] correct discuss thank you yes sir a great job fga did you not see his last email he dropped his n recently he dropped the n in his last name okay my husband's doing what he needs to do hello hi there is he and here okay yes please all right good thank you yeah you're right they're a little warm through the board I'd like to introduce from Gray Robinson you have Mr Cole and and as

095I mentioned Miss Anastasia and she will pronounce her last name it's Proto Papadakis now you know why it's just a lot of letters it's pretty fanatic I like that do you want to do we just hit it go forward yes yes all right and I also printed out a copy of the presentation so everybody can have it in front of them so you don't have to look behind you are you all ready okay um my name is Anastasia Proto Papadakis I'm a shareholder with the law firm of gry Robinson in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale offices and with me I have uh my partner uh Scott Cole and he comes to us from the Orlando office a shareholder there um I'm going to start by giving you a brief overview of our firm we are

096a full service um law firm and consulting firm I believe we are the largest Florida based Law Firm or if not one of the largest um Florida based law firms with our headquarter office in Orlando Florida um The Firm was established in 1970 it has 14 offices now across the State of Florida so our our firm um has offices from the Panhandle all the way down uh to Key West and um lawyers that practice in almost every single area of practice that you can think of both on the law side and on the Consulting side um 250 lawyers uh and Consultants as well um in the last 50 years we just actually celebrated our 50y year anniversary The Firm has uh created an environment that we're able to service our clients on a on a

097full service basis um while also being really involved in the communities in which we uh serve and and take a lot of pride in being a purely Floridian Law Firm I'm going to go through our um our team that we've put together here um I'll start with myself um I've been practicing Municipal law for about 13 years I started my career out of law school working in a small boutique firm that was Municipal focused defense firm so all we did was um Municipal defense and that was for not only um City organizations but also school boards as well and um police office uh divisions and and Sheriff's offices as well um captive Council for the Florida League of cities um in my time there and also in my practice at grey Robinson where I continued

098to practice not only Municipal law but also in the private sector I have always um kept Municipal clients and one of the um clients my largest client is the Schoolboard of BR County and with the Schoolboard of BR County and other Municipal uh clients as well I practice in both the state federal and appell at courts um as well as administrative matters um before DOA and um also at the at the board level um defending negligence claims um I do a lot of employment defense so claims for negligent hiring training retention and supervision I do the majority of the district's um sexual assault battery and rape claims um their employment claims as well as idea claims and claims for denial of fape and I have a specialty in the defense of ADA claims um also

099for them battery claims as well as um Sunshine requests public records and other uh General Tor litigation matter um personal injury defense and things like that um as part of my work with the school board of brow County I was on the marger margorie stowman Douglas defense team um also currently representing the district in a challenge to the um the new fairness and women sports act um in my my private practice I I sort of do the same kind of work but for private clients so that includes um contract work uh litigation work for them I also do personal injury defense for private clients and employment defense claims as well in addition to myself we have our co- team lead who who could not be here today because she's actually in federal court on a

100uh summary judgment hearing um her name is Stephanie Marchman she has 15 years of experience representing local government and she also served as the assistant City attorney for the city of Gainesville for over a decade she is based out of our Gainesville office she handles labor issues including um negotiations and interpretations of cbas grievance arbitration and appeals of Labor matters uh for the school board of BR County currently um she recently served as a labor and employment Council to the school board of Maran County the Belia County School Board Alachua County the city of Gainesville the city of mclen the city of Miami the City of Winter Haven and the Florida Association for Healthy Start coalitions Hillsboro County Aviation and the village of biscan Park so miss Marchman has a lot of experience in um

101Municipal uh matters as well and and a lot of Labor experience our next team member is Mr Cole and since he knows himself best I'm going to let him give you some uh some background some of his background that would actually be my wife who knows me best um so I started out in private practice in 1986 for six years and then I joined the University of Florida as an associate general counsel and then I spent almost 19 years as general counsel of UCF uh I've only with been with the firm about six months I am sharing their higher education practice and so uh While most of my experience has been at the at this higher education level obviously um there is very very large overlap between the two practices so I've spent uh almost

10219 years working with the Board of Trustees I understand that role extremely well I understand the challenges you have as board members and so many different levels beyond the legal challenges and so I try to uh give the best advice I can in context of of the other issues as well that you're dealing with um I am very very well vered in furpa and public records law and Sunshine Law and First Amendment and Ru making not a whole lot of people know about rule making I actually do um and I um also student conduct and Title 9 so pretty much all of the the educational issues that uh are faced at all levels of Education um I've I've had to deal with so um I'm very uh excited to to be here today this is

103an area of the practice that I would like to expand even more into and I'm hopeful that my experience as a general counsel could be helpful to you thank you and that is why we added him onto our um panel here today because he does bring a real depth of experience um that I think would be very beneficial to this board um we also have on our team uh Ryan Fender he is our Municipal Bond Guru he represents a variety of clients that include School boards universities Aviation authorities Banks and other direct purchases of Municipal debt Bond holders Charter Schools cities counties Expressway authorities government financing pools and programs Special Districts Sports Authorities State program tax exempt organizations and um other special district he is involved in more than 650 Public Finance transaction transactions and

104has represented clients in the issuance of more than 40 billion dollar of tax exempt in taxable debt so um to the extent that there are any U Bond issues with the district here we have a professional that has a lot of experience and we can dedicate to those issues we also have uh Greg Herring Mr Herring is board certified in labor and employment law and he's also board certified in education law um he focuses his practice on management uh labor and and employment law and he represents local and National management clients including several um County School boards in a variety of matters before not only the state and federal courts but also in in administrative proceedings as well we have Heather Ramos as part of our team um she focuses her practice on all aspects

105of uh state and local government law um she has a practice area that includes land use as well as a Florida public records and open meetings law ethics and Gifts law Sunshine public records taxation finance and utility um she serves a special Council to public universities hospitals and Hospital districts um regarding some of these um practice areas including the Sunshine Law ethics GIF law financing and public records and she also assists in the establishment of community redevelopment agencies and other um local government financing mechanisms and finally we have um Rebecca Rodriguez she is a litigation focused um professional with our Fort Lauderdale office um focusing on state and federal litigation appeals and general compliance matters for corporate clients financial institutions and government entities she serves as special Council to the emal coast Utilities Authority and

106in the past has served as general counsel to various municipalities um she also has a specialty in um public records and Sunshine Law particularly and so as part of the RFP we were asked to discuss what our um service methodology uh would be as as we've gone through the team you can see that we currently represent um school districts throughout the state and we are familiar with issues that the school districts face and how to successfully navigate them um of course we would always uh tailor our service to what the needs of the district are and how how you all would like us to um provide services but our initial proposal is that we would have a dedicated individual which would be mral sitting on your day to act as the general counsel and be

107the sort of the face person um for our firm in terms of how the services will be provided on a day-to-day basis um he will be providing General Council services to you through your board meetings and and I'm not sure if you have Council attend workshops but if you do um he would also be a council that would attend workshops um we would also be willing to provide um either on the board day or on a on a separate day if that's what serves your needs best an office hours day that where Mr Cole can actually be here at the district to interface with your various departments and answer you know any day-to-day legal questions or issues that come up and then our team would be sort of back of house support for Mr Cole

108the nice thing about having a firm like gray Robinson is that we have such a breath of knowledge in not only every area of the law but throughout the State of Florida um whether it is a lobbying need that you have if it's a litigation need that you have if there's an administrative um uh need or whatever the district can can possibly face from financing to litigation to you know just general advice there is a professional at grey Robinson inhouse that can provide that expertise to you so we would not need to go outside of our firm to find a professional for you all of those Services can be provided to you um through gray Robinson and it would not require that the district has to you know navigate our firm you would have one

109dedicated person to whom would you'd make those requests and to whom that you know would be your your your primary point of contact and we back of house would support that you know the the team that that needs to be in place to address those needs [Music] um if there I guess we can I'll leave that to the um question part okay so you had uh specifically asked two questions one was the most pressing legal issues um to me it's the current active ISM in public education right now is a huge issue that is um a real mixture of um First Amendment rights Sunshine Law uh Public Safety um to me public safety issues when in doubt always come first uh people need to feel safe when they're at public meetings and so there are

110ways that that you can uh run public meetings to still give the public access but also maximize the safet of all the par participants in those meetings so to me that's that's a a very large issue and of course a lot of this activism is leading to lawsuits across the state uh challenging you know open meeting laws and public records law um bringing First Amendment claims um uh attempting to regulate curriculum all of those things are are key issues that that our firm is very well qualified to deal with um other issues uh you have unionized employees um I'm familiar with dealing with that it's an important issue I think a lot of those issues become really important when you're in a situation when you're having to respond quickly to challenges and you've got collective

111bargaining agreements that may limit how quickly you can respond to issues so that that's certainly an issue um First Amendment Free Speech not only for your employees but your students in and outside the classroom um especially with online postings and where is that Nexus between the the uh school and their private role as a as a as a child so those are interesting issues that are working their way through the courts now student discipline always a challenge Title Nine putting specific with with the newer regulations and upcoming changes to Title 9 we're going to have to everyone's going to have to reconsider their policies and procedures on that changing state and federal regulations um K12 is a high as you know a highly regulated activity and so it's so important to stay up to speed

112on all the regulations and be able to respond to those changes quickly and of course furpa is uh an issue we all have to deal with um every day at every level and um so you asked also what we would propose in terms of day one uh first is conduct a risk assessment for the school district review your policies your training programs on Title 9 public record Sunshine Law student discipline uh look look at your current litigation what are the activities that are leading to that litigation and what are some proactive steps you can take to try to minimize the amount of litigation that you're you're in uh litigation is expensive it's timec consuming and it distracts people from doing the important business of the district so you obviously want to reduce that litigation as

113much as possible and I'm down to 22nd so we'll stop right there thank I didn't even notice the F down yeah like I said I worked with boards before so I know about the bo that's the end of our um formal presentation but we're certainly open to open Dialogue on any questions that we can answer for you and I I think we also have a few that that we have so we're going to start from your left to right okay and Dr Shi will lead it off hi good afternoon thanks for being here absolutely uh it's funny I listened to your presentation and and we have a list of questions that we're all asking but then I listen to the presentation of course I want to ask completely different question um so hopefully we'll have

114a little time for that um I'm also going to say that I have only 10 minutes for this so I'm going to invite you to be a succinct and direct as possible if you would in your answers sure so hypothetically the superintendent makes a recommendation to the school board which results in a division between the school board and the superintendent everyone seems to need legal advice who do you represent in this situation and why so the attorney represents the School District board uh the board is the governing body of the district the board is responsible for overseeing the activities of the super intendent and in those hopefully uh unlikely situations where there is a diversion of Interest the the legal obligation goes to the institution which is represented by the board goes to the institution

115as in the board not in the institution as in its CEO the superintendent that's correct as as the board thank you y what would your competitors say is the greatest strength and weakness of your firm well I think that the greatest strength of our firm is that we have such a Statewide presence and such a breath of um knowledge in so many different practice areas um that's the benefit of having a firm like gray Robinson on your side is that you we it's literally a One-Stop shop anything that you would need from a legal or lobbying perspective I believe gray Robinson um can serve you for um and I think the second part of your question was what is the what would your competitors say is the greatest weakness of weakness um I I don't

116see any weaknesses in having that being able to provide that kind of of um service to a client but maybe smaller um firms would say that that you know you're not going to get the attention that that you deserve because we have a a a a larger firm I don't believe that to be true I've been serving the Schoolboard of brow County for about 10 years um I am in constant daily contact with my general counsel there and the general counsel's office um I I answer their calls and their emails whenever they call me and email me there's never a time lapse there's always an open dialogue and so I think that the nice thing about gray Robinson is that the the practitioners within their within the firm have the ability to run their practice

117the way that they want to and so it's up to the individual lawyer to you know run their practice that way and that's the way that I run my practice I'm very responsive to my clients and to my clients needs because that's what they're hiring me for they're hiring me to be there for them and that's my job thank you how do you view the school board attorney's role in providing legal advice to individual board members and how do you handle requests from Individual board members I'm going to clarify in that that sometimes uh there might be a gray area between what is representation as a Schoolboard member and what are things that come up in the context of being a Schoolboard member but night my might not necessarily be as part of their Schoolboard

118member role if you could address all of that so the the general Council represents the board as a body and the board acts through majority vote of the body and so uh no one person um is the client the board as the collective body is the client so it's it's really um it's a preference of the board on how they would like their general counsel to interact with each of the individual board members um and so long as um the attorney is not asked to um do anything that would be inconsistent with the obligations to the body as a whole then there's no problem with repres with with Consulting with individual board members that's not a problem at all UCF for example we regularly had one-on-one meetings with our individual trustees to talk about sensitive

119issues uh that could not be discussed uh necessarily in the public um you're not allowed to carry messages back and forth between you know indiv idual board members that that's the way it works under the sunshine law but you certainly can get a sense of the leanings and maybe a little more thorough sense of where the individual boards are and that helps the general Council give better legal advice thank you uh I've been a professor at FAU for nearly 30 years so have a sensitivity to higher education as well we'll say hi to David Keon one of my closest friends okay we're not tight but I'll look him up okay he's awesome yeah I mean I I just I don't know him um as a school board we deal with a wide range of legal

120issues uh unique to education law such as idea Title 9 Section 504 discipline fura how would you represent the district and still support uh parents and families who are coming to the district um because of a particular need that okay um well obviously you're here to serve the community you're here to serve the parents and so so you know the the idea is that we can find a way to do both and that's one of the jobs of the general counsel is to find a ways to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish role of General council is not to say no and so finding solutions that work with the legal constraints on the board but also accomplish the needs of your community your constituents the parents that's the win-win so that's what we

121try to do as much as we can you know subject to whatever legal constraints that you may have as a board and then there's four minutes left um so if I may I'm going to use some of that um can you speak a little bit about uh who is who is present at our school who is going to be at our school board meetings or our workshops or what is is it both of you is it one of you is it somebody else can you speak about that a bit sure so the proposal currently is that Mr Cole will be the face person so he will will be the person that is going to be present sitting in your dat for your board meetings and to the extent that you have council at Workshop which

122I'm assuming that that you do um he would yeah he would also be there um if if there was ever a conflict and he couldn't make it of course there would be someone else that that would show up that would either be myself or U Miss Marchman um and then we would support Mr Cole and any of the you know needs that he has to serve the board back of house with our team that we have in place and can you remind me are you located in Orlando Orlando you're in so you would come back and forth yes to us and and forgive me for asking this I don't remember in your proposal do you charge for travel time as well yes okay thank you um I'm going to seed my time for the moment

123and and hold it for later miss Rosario you're up hi thank you very much thank you for being here and thank you for your interest in our school district um so I will begin with um I know that you have had higher education experience but um how many other school districts have you and or the firm had experience direct experience representing um and if you can talk a little bit about that experience so I don't have the list of all 250 lawyers but I know that we have represented um I currently represent the Schoolboard of BR County um I represent them in Miss Marchman does all of their labor and employment work so they don't have an in-house person that does that our firm does that for them and that's negotiating their cbas for them

124um any administrative issues that come up we do we do their grievance um their step grievance issues with them as well as the hearings all labor and employment issues are hel handled by Miss Marchman I do all of their um litigation not only and their litigation is split sort of in in two pieces there they're parts that come directly from the general council's office so those are claims that are not covered by their third party administrator and then um also serve as kadre Council to their TPA um so doing uh the majority of the work that I do for the district is employment litigation um their idea uh work um a lot of claims for sexual assault battery rape um abuse of uh the ASD or ESC population and um their employment work um from

125the in the litigation context I also do um their some of their Sunshine work for them as well so depending on whether it comes you know from the the work that comes in from the districts directly versus their TPA that there's some differences in the in the kinds of cases that I do but uh Miss Marchman and I work together as on that as a team I know that Miss Marchman is working I believe currently in the employment litigation for Maran County School District I'm also doing um some cases for Maran County School District um in the the personal injury defense realm and I believe that our firm also represents Orange County School District currently um sort of same capacity that I'm doing for the school board of Broward County but it's another individual that's

126not on on our team here thank you um what makes School law practice satisfying to you so I've spent my entire all but six years of my very long career in education I'm a I'm a True Believer in education and the power that it has over people's lives and their ability to get ahead so that's what gets me going it's it's about the students it's about the stories of the people who look like they don't have a chance and boy they they have find a way through education to achieve their goals so you know it's it's personal for me uh that's why I've dedicated my career to it it's life-changing and um it's not without its challenges but the benefits so outweigh the the challenges we all have to to face along the way so

127how how do you see your s transitioning from from that area I don't know if you're going to leave that area but or add on to a local school district uh to the experience that you have had how do you see that transition yeah I would like to add this to the overall education practice um you I've only been the firm about eight months so um this would this would be my first school district uh full-time work um but it's it's a such an important area there's a a natural offend I've worked with school districts a lot between the University of Florida and and UCF between our education Pro colleges of education and nursing and all the overlap we have with them so I have worked with the district schools across the State of Florida

128but this this is a natural extension of what I'm doing and I just think especially now it's a really really important area um in in Florida right now isn't that true it's definitely an interesting time yes it's a very interesting time um how would you manage the a situation in which uh the board feels strongly about its position but you believe as general counsel that the position is not legally supportable so my role as general counsel is to give the board the best advice that I can uh The General Counsel is not the decision maker now if something is truly illegal if it's something somebody's going to go to jail then obviously that's a different situation and that's when you have to say no that this cannot be done in 30 years of practice I've

129never actually had that come up uh so my job is to to advise on the law and if there's a strong you know desire to accomplish a a certain purpose then it's my job to find the legal way to accomplish the purpose that that's my role so it should never be there are very few things in my experience that would ever lead you to have to to do anything that's illegal to accomplish your purposes there there will be a legal way it may not be perfect but there will be a way to do it and we want to make sure everybody stays out of jail that's you know priority number one that would be important right that would be very important that would be a failure on the general council's board um how would you

130manage a divided board oh I've done it for a very long time uh it because board members are people like everybody else um you know part of the role of a general counsel is to be sort of a counselor and working with people and trying to find common ground on issues as as a neutral third party the general Council doesn't represent a constituency the general council is there to represent the board as a whole and try to find solutions to problems and so you know people can differ on things and they and they're all not necessarily wrong they just believe different things and that's fine so my job is to work as hard as I can to find consensus among the board and a path forward that's that's legal thank you can you explain uh

131can you think of an experience in which that has happened that you're free to share and how you uh were involved in uh your word was counseling and providing solutions to those problems sure so in the past we had had some board members who wanted to abolish tenure at the University and they felt very very strongly about that um it most of that uh feeling in these particular cases I know everybody's different were based on misunderstandings about the nature of tenure what it was and what it wasn't and I worked individually with those two particular board members and explained what tenure was and that it's not a guarantee of employment for life and and spent a lot of time going through that and and I was able to actually turn them around uh to to

132realize that that probably was not the best thing to do and we resolved the issue so you know sometimes it's just a matter of having misinformation or uh that if you take the time first listen to your client listen to your board member and what their concerns are and not prejudge the situation and then once you figure out what the issues are try to find some like I said some common ground okay thank you we have some time so I do have a another question that I want to ask um with regard to parental rights um being uh a postsecondary education or having that EXP experience in post-secondary education um I imagine that parental rights is not usually a concern uh because of course you have children who are no longer children they're 18 and

133over adults how would you um how would you transition The Experience uh handling a a concern with regard to parental rights from the postsecondary educational experience to a local school district where everybody is under 18 for the most part right about the only place that we would deal with that uh directly at the post-secondary level is furpa when we have a student who is a dependent of their parents and they still have their fura rights um so obviously it's it's different in K2 education um so parental rights are relatively well defined either by Statute or by case law and so the first thing is to feel comfortable that you're on Solid Ground and understanding exactly what parental rights are and then um making decisions obviously to the extent that you can tailor your decisions to

134not trample on those parental rights you you try to do that of course there's also a lot of misunderstanding about parental rights and I know it's you know not always popular but they are not unlimited we know that we know that you you know you can't abuse a child you can't refuse to educate your child there are things there are limitations on parental rights um that being said so much of this is not a legal issue uh it's an emotional issue and it's something that I'm sure you deal with all the time and so I I think the first first approach is to try to find a way to to U address what's really going on with a parent first in terms of their particular circumstance uh and if that's not successful then you may

135have to make decisions that are not popular with some parents I'm sure with others they are but you want to make sure when you do that that those decisions are legal grounded thank you I appreciate it and I think with that we will I will I will end my questions Dr Jones you're thank you you've been at UCF about 18 years what happened to us last week against SMU oh too many injuries yeah too many injuries uh the Gus bus has lost all four wheels and I'm I gosh I don't know it's interesting um there's a reason for this all three of my students went there for their undergrad and then they went to Florida for the graduate but the question Miss Rosario asked was interesting because I had had an issue at UCF as

136a parent I'll share that with you someday sure it was good it was good it was a good experience pardon me was the experience it was really good yeah it was really good okay it was really good we we were probably involved in that one well long story short my son was in a very major accident and they they needed a note from the surgeon saying he wouldn't be in class and what I did for parents on their website at the time so that parents knew what to do in these cases instead of being dropped from classes it it turned out well good we met with department insur and everything um a school board member approaches you for assistance in obtaining a copy of a student cumulative folder when the board member is not the

137parent or guardian of the student how do you respond so the board member is asking for a copy of a student's records well there has to with everybody whether it's a teacher or a Schoolboard member there there has to be a legitimate educational purpose to under furpa in order to review those files so that's got to be the first question if there is one no problem if there's just kind of interested that's not going to legally thank you there will be situations where the school board may require other Council for special issues what type of management and oversight process will you put in place for these cases I think you've kind of answered that but a little bit more on that sure so that's the one of the real benefits of having a firm with

138the level of expertise and uh on on so many issues is that we're all Partners we work together we have the best control you could possibly have over uh other council is that they're in your firm and you can make sure you can really stay on top of what's happening okay where do you feel you would take the board attorney position in the next five years provide examples regarding advocacy District legal services and training I'm always looking ahead as an educator yeah can you give me some examples so I'm a big believer in avoiding legal issues if you can especially litigation and that comes to being very proactive in making sure that your policies and your practices and your procedures are all up to date and that they're being followed um and even sometimes if

139um if a procedure isn't followed if it's in place and people are acting in good faith you still tend to be pretty good in litigation so first is focus on proactive law and proactive risk management that's that's the second the first thing uh second of all is to develop a culture where the general council is seen as an accessible person to decision makers within the school district so that they feel very comfortable coming in and asking questions I'm a big proponent of being accessible because you can avoid so many legal problems by having people come to you early and say hey I'm thinking about this instead of I've done this and if you can get them to the the first part you can Sol you can solve so many issues early and and save a

140lot of money and a lot of grief okay thank you tell us about a time when your initiative at work caused a change to occur what was the situation and what was the outcome wow okay I got to think back on that one I know so one of the things that I'm um very proud of doing at UCF was we were one of the first universi used to hire a full-time University wide compliance officer one of the and that was not the most popular um thing to do but what I was seeing was a lot of issues in the risk management unnecessary legal issues occurring because of a lack of true risk Enterprise risk management and so um I worked for two years with my president and my board to make that to happen make

141it happen it's now been 10 years and and I could tell you they would never consider not having a compliance officer now having had the experience and and the savings they've uh recognized because of that so that's one area where it was really not even a legal issue but I was able to I think really benefit the university I'll go ahead and go to the next one I'll bring up something at the end oh okay sorry U thank you for coming today Mr Cole and Miss Anastasia's fine propo Papadakis close all right yeah um well my last name gets confused a lot too so I can understand um thank you for being here when we saw your proposal when I read the proposal I thought you were going to be the school board attorney so

142thank you for clearing that up because that's what the proposal looked like so I understand that you would be uh the proposed School Board attorney great so this question is for you then all right what process would you use when responding to school board member questions and by that I mean what research would you perform and what steps would you follow well so first thing is to have either it's up to the board member how they prefer to communicate I I like phone calls personally um because they don't create public records and um sometimes when thoughts aren't totally formed in your mind it's better just to have a conversation on the phone so first is to have a conversation about what the issue is if it's something that I've dealt with before if somebody's got

143a furpa issue or public record I mean I can I can answer those like that if it's something that's a little more involved then I would say okay I'd ask a few questions after I understand what the issue is and then I would go look uh look it up see what the law is on that issue see if there's any other non-legal considerations that may be flowing around the legal issue and then get back to that board member and and respond okay thank you um what would you recommend as an evaluation process for the Schoolboard attorney well the attorney ought to be evaluated by the board board every year uh based upon their performance whether that's a uh you know some people do a self assessment by the attorney and then there's a response to

144that from the board or the board may just want to do its own have its own particular evaluation tool I think all of those work well as long as it's a you know thorough evaluation because it's not only an opportunity for the board to express its feelings about how well the general council's performing it's opportunity for the general Council to realize where he or she needs to improve their performance so it's a very valuable tool when it's done correctly and uh and I'm open to any sort of review like that all right thank you um so I asked this before so I'm going to ask it again uh what recent issues do you know of affecting the school district of Indian River County um well I know you've had several issues with some school board

145meetings um which um no ours run all smoothly yeah yeah and I understand you've also had some litigation arising out of out of some of those um I don't know all the details of them um I know that you're not alone in in dealing with those issues and um so they're they're they're difficult I I don't know all your particular individuals involved but I know you've had some issues at your at your school board meetings okay and um question for you because um this would be your first school board attorney at at K through 12 how versed are you and Robert's Rules do you use them in your meetings all the time okay and as parliamentarian which we use our school board attorney as parliamentarian and yes she does attend our Workshop she's right there

146um so as parliamentarian at what point would you step in um instead of being asked well if you're you're about to go down the road of not doing something the right way I'd go ahead and step in I do it in a very nice way um by saying excuse me you know Mr chairman uh you might want to you know you haven't gotten a second on this motion or or you may need to get a two-thirds vote on this or so yes I'd go ahead and assert myself um in a positive way because what you don't want to do is have to repeat the action because it wasn't done in accordance with your own rules so you said you did use Robert's Rules then oh yes yeah it's not something you advertise as as a

147skill people think you're a little nerdy but um I actually it's okay to be nerdy as an attorney okay good yeah so yes we we use that the entire time I was at UCF okay thank you y I'm done you're all said five minutes and 45 we're sipping right along here this is impressive well again thank you thank you both for coming um first question for me is U our school board is a party to a federal court desegregation uh case and what experience do you or members of your firm have in this area of the law and how can you support the school board and superintend intended in this litigation I you want to well you said it's it's a desegregation we have been under a desegregation order for 53 years okay and we

148are under the correct me if I'm wrong that in effect the oversight of the federal court in Miami and we are the litigant is the NAACP the local NAACP and so we've it's something that we everybody after 53 years you would like to get resolved so what kind of experience do you or your firm have so my practice I would say is 50% or more Federal litigation um because I do a lot of the idea work as well as employment um work which inevitably is you know Federal claims title 7 things like that so very comfortable in federal court our team is very comfortable in in federal court um we have a lot of litigation experience and so I'm I'm not sure sure if your claim is is a covered claim through your TPA such

149that you have kadre Council and you is your question that how how does the would the general Council assist the the defending Council or would we be stepping in as defending Council on that matter you you would represent the school board okay so we would be defense Council on that matter I think I mean again Federal Federal experience litigation experience I've been doing federal work the entire time that I've been a lawyer since the day I got out of um law school I've been doing federal work so I'm very comfortable in federal court um in litigation matters and and I view my role as providing zealous advocacy for the district because that's my client but also providing you know honest assessment and um advice on on what the our strategies are what the likelihood of

150success is on the strategy But ultimately letting the client pick the course of action because you're the client and it's your decision our job is to provide you with the the legal basis for what we want to do in a strategy recommendation and the pros and cons of of the of the available options for you and then to defend the position that the board wants to take so following along in that discussion um there are four or five areas that you try and get um agreement with from the litigant it can be everything from the um the Staffing and does it represent the community that we serve uh it can be student discipline is there a disproportionate or perceived to be a disproportionate discipline problem for one demographic versus another um it can be uh

151the academic achievement of one demographic is lagging behind other demographics um those kinds of things so it's not just being able to represent us in court but also working with the superintendent his team and the board in how to present uh data information in a manner that will favorably be viewed by the court and or in this case the litigant right do you have yeah so um I agree I I think you have to have your ducks in a row and try to uh uh do the best of your ability address all of the issues that were raised that resulted in the desegregation order and when you feel like you're in a position to do that um then you you go back I mean there have been multiple desegregation orders that have been Li lifted

152around the country uh when the district is available to show that the you know issues that were presented 53 years ago no longer exist or or are not significant I also think that uh your success often depends upon what the nature of the courts are at the time that you go back in for a consider consideration of these issues in general the courts now there has been a move toward a little more conservative Court than existed 50 years ago so I think the timing may be right to for reconsideration of those issues but you you'd have to look back I mean the strategy was you go back and you look at the order exactly what the issues were that led to the order then you pull all the data together to see exactly where you

153stand in comparison to where you were before and if you feel like you've met most of that then go for it you know uh try to negotiate a resolution with with the plainist um and see if you can go to the court together and get a agreed upon order lifting the segregation I have one more question but I might well we're on the topic for any of the other board members because this is something after 53 years I think this superintendent and this board would like to be part of the solution and if there's a way so if there's any other followup questions to this specific thing would that anyone would like to ask do you specifically your firm have experience with desegregation orders I've never litigated a desegregation order but I I can't speak

154for the 250 professionals that we have I'm confident I'm confident that that that they have I just don't know off the top of my head if they have but we can certainly research that for you and get back to the board through Mr Carver and let you know our specific experience on that issue and pull those team members and if if required right it's a hard question to ask I guess on the spot so thank you for that of course Dr Chef you I I actually want to follow up on that one of the things um and then when we get to it I have another follow-up question one of the things that you mentioned is an advantage of your firm is that you have so much talent in one place is is your size

155as an asset here if there were somebody who you discovered had experience in desegregation orders Federal desegregation um or any form in a school district is that the person who would serve Us in this particular instance or would it be you as is our primary counsel and does would that person come along with the hiring of you as your firm or is that a separate contract with we would do with them for that particular issue so you're hiring gray Robinson as the firm Mr Cole's going to sit as as your contact person but you're getting the experience the breath of knowledge of of all of our professionals so if if we were to look back and see that we have someone that specializes and and I'm and I'm confident that we do I I think

156Mr Herring does but I don't want to speak on that without getting confirmation from him but yes we you you would have the experience of that individual as well we would bring them on as needed on on a on a caseby casee basis for example for this issue and have them assist us so to the extent that it is a litigation that they need to defend the district on and appear as Council we can have them do that if it's if it's more of an administrative issue that they can council with Mr Cole on and then Mr Cole can present to the district whatever recommend a or you know processes that we need to put in place that can also you know that's an arrangement that we can also um set up but it's it

157wouldn't be a separate retention of that individual you're you're hiring The Firm okay do you have another question Dr sh I have follow-up questions but I'm not sure if we're up to that yet because I don't so let let me ask one more question and then we can do the followup unrelated to the desegregation case uh the school board like all other public entities can be subjected to intense public scrutiny for its actions are there any incidents or situations or investigations involving you or other members of your firm which the school board should be made aware of none that I'm aware of no okay um all right follow-up questions Dr Shi go ahead yeah uh one of the things that that uh comes up about your firm um that you are selling as an asset

158but I also see as a possible uh as something I'd be concerned about is you are really big you do a lot of work in Florida all of that was in your presentation how do I know as a Schoolboard member in Indian River County that I am going to get the personalized service that I need here as a as as an individual board member as corporate board as a small District in Florida tell me how you're going to assure that my calls get answered and I'm priori ized because you're going to have a dedicated person too so it's not like it's not like you're going to be having to call an office and and find a lawyer that can help you there is going to be one person that is going to be dedicated to

159the district and then the way that we Ser that we service the needs of the district will be funneled through that person so if if if Mr Cole needs assistance in for example desegregation and he calls and says listen we need to find someone in our firm that special do we have this expertise we will find that expertise and then H bring that professional in for that um you know that particular matter but there will never be a time where you will be without a person that you can directly contact by cell or by email whatever the preferred method is um and and and get someone on the line to answer your questions I have that relationship now with the current District that I represent they there's not a time where they can't reach me

160they can always reach me and and I think that's part of you know providing service to your client that the way that you run your practice I know that Mr Cole and I both we prioritize our clients in our clients needs there's you know it it doesn't benefit you nor does it benefit us for us to have a a relationship that is that is not based on open communication and timely you know communication because you know we'll also be making requests of you when when we need information to to fulfill our roles and if we can't you know get a board member or get a response it's frustrating just like it's frustrating for you guys when you can't get us so I I don't I think that that's part of the lawyers practice and for

161our practice even though we we are a larger firm we still run our practice we have a lot of autonomy and Independence on how we run our practices and I personally run my practice that way and I know that Mr Cole does as well C can I just add that the um an effective general counsel um has to have a trust relationship with each of his board members otherwise you you can't do your job you just you can't be effective and you can't establish the trust relationship if you can't get me on the phone and so you know if I was going to be the general counsel the first thing is everybody gets myself c phone number and you call me whenever you need whenever you have an issue and I know those things happen

162sometimes at not real convenient hours or whatever that's fine because I know that you have to rely on general counsel to be there when you need him or her to be there and to deal with these issues and so they don't they don't wait for a convenient time so you know I I again I've been a general counsel for a long time I know the importance of that and and I was extremely available to all of my trustees uh at UCF uh they would all tell you that and because of that they were really great about being open with me and it made my job a lot easier thank you do can I ask another question for because I want to take back I had three minutes left over from before am I allowed to

163take any of those I had five and a half I so my point is I think we're running on schedule okay even if we're go ahead okay with um yeah so in thanks by the way your reference to the whole tenure controversy I remember it well um your uh in your proposal you discussed an hourly rate and a discounted hourly rate but you did not talk about retainers or monthly retainers and any relationship we might have like that which we've had in the past can you speak to that a bit well I think we'd be open we'd be open to a retainer relationship uh we typically do it at a discounted hourly rate but we would have no problem uh doing it on a retainer basis for for the bulk of the work obviously if

164you have a litigation matter that it's going to court that's not really conducive to a retainer relationship but sort of the the meat and potatoes the the vast majority of of work of the general Council nature could be done on a retainer basis yes thank you that was short and sweet I didn't say it was going to take a long time I just want to ask fa important I have two questions um you mentioned availability just now so if you are general counsel to UCF um what availability do you have to us for what nights to meet or during the day to meet well I was General Counsel to UCF oh was okay okay yes gotcha so so you would be available 247 247 seven days a week seven days a week and I don't

165put my phone on silent okay so bless you um the second question I have is lobbying yes you mentioned that you have Lobby or lobbying um as part of your firm so have you had experience with lobbying for education in Tallahassee yes for bonds yes we have a um a lobbying professional that that is her sole specialty and she um also works um does some some of that kind of work for the school board of BR County currently um they and she's she's based in Tallahassee um we have the strongest and largest lobbying group in the State of Florida also with an office and contacts in in DC as well so there is there is the former speaker of the house uh Dean Cannon is our um firm managing partner he heads the lobbying group

166there is not a contact that Mr Canon does not have or that we cannot make if we needed to for the district and so would that be part of the package or would that be um something that we would have to negotiate above and beyond so if it's a if it's a it's a particular lobbying issue in other words you're hiring a lobbyist for a specific issue I think that would probably fall outside of the retainer only because sometimes lobbying issues can take you know several years or or you know a lot of a lot of time dedicated to particular issues um but if it is just a general lobbying consideration like you need us to make a a connection to so and so individual or there's there's something that we need to you know

167I think that would probably fall into the general retainer um the the only time that we would go outside of that is if there's some special or larger project that that's going to require sort of dedicated time or a team that that would that we know would exceed um whatever General Services we're providing great thank you he Dr Jon I think I I don't think this is a question just a comment but something you said Mr Cole about what public education can do for students and how they can get that step up to their next journey and um you know we were all elected here in inber County to serve on the school board which is a public school board and I when we talk about DC plan or we talk about student achievement or

168anything you know um our focus is our students and what we need to do to assist them to get to that next journey in life and I think it's just very important for whichever um uh firm we choose you know that that's our focus on what we want to do do for our students here in in River County in the public school system you know in the desect uh plan it's not like we want to check these boxes off and put it on a shelf we want to achieve what's asked of us you know we have an equity committee that evaluates that so a lot of things we wanted to do as board members to um help all of our students here so um you know that just was an important statement to me because

169um we have a diverse population here um you look if you looked at in River County I mean our our Alice and poverty population is around 53% and um we're working with many homeless students we're working with students that struggle in many ways so that's very important to me for whatever School Board firm we choose that they understand who we are in in River County thank you uh for that and and I totally agree I know from from my personal experience when I began at uh UCF it was a commuter school and and um John hit came in and really changed things and his Focus his entire 26y year career was on access to education and diversity and inclusion he brought the institution to be a a primarily Hispanic serving institution um that diversity inclusion

170and access were all and still continue to be there uh the the highest priority and there's no reason and in fact it should be the priority at every level of Education right because everybody needs a chance to show that they can succeed and in order to do that they need a Level Playing Field and that's what a lot of these programs do they just give people a Level Playing Field we just added an access and advocacy um department so that's the way we want to go excellent thank you Mrs RAR do you have uh any questions no I'm good thank you sure go ahead I have one more burning thought you cannot answer it if you want um but because I was a little confused you made a statement earlier that you wanted to add

171this because you were at UCF and were general counsel to the president and to the court of trustees and then I just heard you say that was former can I ask why you left oh sure um 19 years uh at the same institution is a really long time we had a new president come in and the new president wanted uh to bring the new his people in and so about half the cabinet left with that um I'm Amazed as a general counsel that I was there for 19 years that's quite an accomplishment but it was time for him to be able to set his own team and so I said great best of luck and fortunately for me gray Robinson came at the same time and offered me an amazing position to head up their

172their higher education practice and so uh I was thrilled to do it and and now because I couldn't do this when I was at UCF I get the opportunity to come and work at the K12 level it's a Continuum you know education doesn't stop at one level just because it call us something different it's it's a Continuum all the way through to postgraduate from kindergarten to postgraduate this is the next step for me and I just think it's you know it's exciting you'll actually learn as prek birth thank you thank birth birth birth okay very good yeah thank you so that about wraps it up is there any anything else that you'd like to share with us that uh before you leave that this come up either in this conversation or any questions that you

173might have a an additional thought it's not necessary but you get the last word as they say just because my mind think I'm I'm a litigator so my mind thinks in in uh litigation terms um in terms of the amount of litigation that the district is involved in is that something that you typically handle inhouse or is do you have covered claims and that and you work through a a TP like a third party administrator like usually districts use G bass gallager Basset or um John Eastern so is that are are the claims coming in are they covered under insurance or are is the district on its own self-insured uh Dr Moore why don't you U respond Miss be aggress better yet the school board is a member of um it's called scrp it's here

174in the Treasure Coast Area the um South Central um something risk management pool okay I don't know the exact words um so the there's uh six school boards that are a member of this trust okay and so all of the typical tort claims are processed through that group and so they're handled by uh lawyers who work through that particular group separate apart from that coverage the school board also has some insurance policies for errors and Emissions those sorts of things and so they have approved panel Council that handle um items that are covered through through those Insurance programs uh there are always some litigation pieces that crop up that aren't covered by either um which would require either outside expertise or the board attorney to handle okay thank you any other comments I I would

175just say thank you for having us here um I know that all of you have a passion for Education you wouldn't be here you you have to go through a lot to be in the positions that you're in so I share that passion with with you I've spent my career U because I believe in education I would love the opportunity to work with you and I'm I'm so thrilled to be at a place now where we have these amazing lawyers who literally can provide whatever service you need I haven't had that before so I think it'd be a great combination and uh appreciate again your time for having us thank you thank you thank you so much you very much thank you very much have a great day you want to take a five minute

176break yeah very very briefly five minutes you can do your um I I'd be remiss if I did not just bring this uh you've already already read the proposals but I just want to make sure everyone's aware so this is a point in time in which we're going to just reflect and have any other discussion I we would like to talk about uh then I'd ask for you to complete the evaluations and let me collect them and we'll do a go get the calculation if you would like yours back we'll make your copy and give it back to you so you'll have that for your reference if you need it um there was discussion at the at during the interview with the second vendor regarding fee so in the first one uh Sniff and smellman

177Spelman they gave two options one a monthly retainer of $111,000 approximately 132 a year or a flat hour late and so there's multiple rates here but if you just look at the attorney for 190 gray Robinson only uh submitted a flat rate a discount rate of 275 per hour so I just wanted to mention that sure Mr you sent me an email that Robson they had a flat rate of 22,000 no sorry no it's in the 22 is the current legal council question board members and I um I sent an email on October 26th to Mr Fagan asking about the comparison of current fee um versus the two um and so yes the current fee is $22,000 per month Sniff and Spelman proposed an hourly rate as as Mr Fagan just mentioned at 190 but

178in their proposal they offered a flat rate of 11,000 a month and then gray Robinson oh maybe it's not here oh there's no sor there was no flat free from that's why I asked the question y okay disregard yeah and and and the fact know why I thought there was a flat fee for them as well fact of the matter is if they were willing to consider a flat fee they should have put it in their proposal as opposed to but I think at the end of the day just to correct me if I'm wrong if we going to evaluate them and that's obviously but on the the the four broad topics if in fact they're The Firm that gets the highest number points are selected then I I presume that Dr Moore and Mr

179faken could negotiate a flat fee if they're chosen but that's not necessarily I don't know how you could avoid it but that's not necessarily something that we should consider in based on the four questions that we asked to rank them on am I incorrect in that that is correct how do you want this conversation to proceed Mr chair well um I think what we do I mean we you know they both both presenters uh I think handled the questions well and presumably as you've gone along you you've come up with a number and if you put the number and add it all up I think that at this point in time I don't know that there's much else we can do uh because you and I'm unfamiliar with this but I'm I mean if this

180were were not a public forum we could go back and forth on some of these things but I'm not sure that's appropriate it correct me if I'm wrong Mrs RAR go ahead um I don't know if Dr shiff was going to respond to this but the same thing happened when we hired our our attor our attorney our superintendent um you know we had the interview and we had a public discussion um at some point about what we thought were Pros what we thought were cons um and then we had our private time to kind of give the scoring on this rubric so the if we were going to have a conversation it would be now we are in a we are in a workshop I mean this is what we are here to do to

181hire an attorney which next to the superintendent is the most important position for a school board um to to to hire and to um make this this decision on um and so if I can if I know Dr Schiff had something to say prior to you calling on me on this issue so I'll just hand it over to Dr Schiff similarly um I'm interested in hearing what other board members thought I'm interested in you I I don't know if we can or not so maybe we need legal guidance on this so if if I can this in fact is the opportunity for that discussion that both M Rosario and Dr Schiff is referring to so I would encourage the board to um very similar what Mr raro just said this is your your one and

182only opportunity to have that discourse uh so now is the time and then after following the completion of that dialogue we'll give you a a few moments to fill out the form in silence and then we will collect them and go go through the next items and once it's all tallied up we'll come back to the board with what that scoring is but feel free to take this time to discuss all right Mr bar go ahead we discuss I have a clarification super because we went through an process so um I would like to ask the school board attorney are we okay in discussing before we absolutely just like any other um procurement committee would hear presentations and discuss amongst themselves before they filled out their scor cards or to get clarification amongst you know

183their colleagues before before they fill out their scorecards this would be your opportunity I I I would just provide you with the same it's not really a caution but with the same um information that was shared during the superintendent search during this discussion uh you know be aware it is a public meeting um so I please try not to be negative about an individual or their experience um only because these are people in the you know in the legal industry they are representing other school districts um I would hate to and I'm not suggesting that you're going to but if we could just not be negative about the people that came to present to you okay go ahead thank you thanks first of all I were there were some things that your M your mic

184your mic there interesting to weigh however um because we are weighing basically this decision between two firms so there were some things that I thought um I was jotting down as I went back and forth yes fee is important and that's something that we need to look at and consider um but I think there are other things that are just as important first of all um the one thing on the first candidate um Spelman sniffin and Spelman uh their deseg um experience I thought was quite valuable the uh no travel expenses was something to consider because living locally and I did see in the um RFP packet that they would not charge us for travel um they have a lot of Schoolboard experience and City on school boards that is a positive and yet a

185concern because they are on other school boards so I do know that sometimes it's hard to compartmentalize when you're working with different agencies and so that might be a positive it might not I'm not sure uh as far as the second candidate with uh gray Robinson uh the availability was a huge issue I think that was very supportive of them uh his Mr Cole's AB ability to be available whenever uh we would get um individual Focus his um travel was something to consider that we would have to again pay an attorney to come from Orlando that's we're used to doing that thank you Suzanne um Schoolboard experience is not um something that he has in his back pocket but I think his his experience at UCF is extremely valuable so I'm not as worried about

186that because I think he would make it his main focus to be very versed on that his um experience with Roberts rules was I think an impressive thing that's very helpful for us us and he was able to answer questions especially that last one I asked and a very um I thought his demeanor was very very good uh I also thought the other attorney's demeanor was very good but I thought the way he answered that question they also asked a question of us at the end which I thought is an important thing when you do in an interview and his 19 years in one place shows me that he has um the willing to commit so those were some positives I I brought from both of those interviews okay Mr raria um I I don't

187disagree with what Mrs barenborg um has uh just mentioned um something that I found pretty concerning for an RFP is that Mr Cole was not listed anywhere in the interest packet nowhere not a biography um know anything um although I'm I'm glad that he was here I'm glad that there was clarification that it wasn't Anastasia proo Papadakis who would be representing us um but the fact that we didn't have any prior information on him to give us an opportunity to research um him and his uh background better before this interview that's a concern um the fact that they didn't first introduce that um he wasn't in the packet and that we have as a firm decided that we would uh profer Mr Cole as your um uh general counsel at the onset of the interview

188that's a concern for me um how do we know that that something like that isn't going to happen and they're not going to better communicate with us um ahead of time even if it were through Mr Carver um or Mr Fagan by saying you know just a little heads up we have changed things around in our firm and this is going to be who your general counsel might be instead of you know Anastasia protop Papadakis um I do think that they had a a great gray Robinson had a great array of um lawyers with various uh experiences so if for example we were work I could see the benefit of that if we were working on settling land um or or doing something with the graves property that was donated to us I can see

189um the partnership and and dealing with their firm having other people who have real estate and Land Experience land use experience and that sort of thing I can see how that can be a positive for us um but I I honestly um I I think that sniffing and Spellman is really the better the better option for us um for me um I think that they have much more uh indepth school district and School Board experience I think the idea of being local is a benefit all the things that Mrs barenborg just mentioned my only concern is multitasking three diff three districts that's my only concern I don't know how that's going to work um um and if sniffin and Spelman are our first choice then we have to think about what our Schoolboard meetings are

190going to look like we obviously cannot have our Schoolboard meetings on the same days as we have now um so that changes pretty much everything about how we do business um or at least the discussion here moving forward about what that would look like um um so those are my I guess my biggest takeaways um but honestly I think sniffin and Spelman um would be a better fit for this district for us here and I think all the other things that are concern we can kind of work around but it's still something that we need to um pay attention to because that's going to be the next decision if we choose them what are we going to do about our our meetings uh Dr Jones When I look at all my notes I'm just in

191my head trying to think who would be the best fit for Indian River County um when you look at the information that they each gave us on their experience and people that could help in most areas the qualifications I think they both did a very good um presentation at the beginning and answered the questions well but I'm thinking who's going to fit here with in River County um little disappointed that gray Robinson didn't know about our desc plan that's that's huge and what we've been working on for years um uh Molly our first person um obviously she has dealt with that in um St Lucy and Henry I believe it she said it was you know that's something um I believe that um you know gray Robinson had some very good information on if we

192needed someone in this area or this area or this area they could be there for us you know I would certainly want as they said they would have Mr Cole here for us on a regular basis which is what we we would need and we need access to our attorney um for calls and emails and um just like whenever I email Miss DEA I I get a return call or an email and I really appreciate that even though it's a little issue I appreciate that um you know they both seem okay with Robert's Rules of orders parliamentarian they'll step in when they need to um some the collaborative approach I see that on both of them but um I'm just still processing you know who would be the best person now I believe that they

193said fourth Tuesday um Sniff and Spellman are available is that correct so if we chose and if we negotiate and that works like Mr raro said what would that do to us as far as our meetings and I'll be honest with you if they are the um whoever we choose uh I think we could probably work around that so that we have um the best consel we can have for the school board so those are my thoughts thus far Dr shiff thank you uh I have to say I am surprised uh I walk in thinking one thing and I'm walking out thinking something different and I'm surprised because that's not how I thought my reaction would be um I appreciate sniffin and spelman's Schoolboard experience deseg experience um all of that I I think they

194have certainly the experience and capacity to represent the school board um they are less expensive that's true but as Mrs Baron Borg mentioned um expense isn't always the sole criteria on which we evaluate what I appreciated about gray Robinson uh their answers were clear direct succinct they understood every question clearly and gave an answer that was directly responsive to the question and I appreciate appreciated that um they while not spec while not um as well-versed in Schoolboard experience what I also heard is it's an area they're really interested in engaging in and if we are the first board to do that um I think there is some desire to make sure it is done well and that it is if if it is an area that they're adding to their repertoire um you want to

195establish a good reputation and competency in that competent competency is is not the right word um they are clearly competent I appreciated as Mrs Baron Borg mentioned the higher education experience um of Mr Cole I appreciated his Clarity and directness about what he brings as an attorney when faced with difficult issues as well um I think either either firm can represent the board I don't think we necessarily go wrong I think it is a question for us as a board of the kind of representation that we are looking for moving forward the kind of board that we want to be and the structure that we are creating as a board um it's an opportunity for us you know m m deesa has been with us for a long time we're very used to her style

196um it's an opportunity for us to make an act choice about how we want to move forward in our relationship with our attorney um so so so both for firms are are clearly competent um yeah um I I agree um with with Dr Jones the confusion around the dseg questions was was a yellow flag um not because they're not competent simply just because they don't have experience but that doesn't mean mean that they don't have it elsewhere in The Firm or they can't learn it or they are not able to Marshall the resources necessary in order to get up to speed on on that issue so um yeah so uh so I I know that um I come out of this feeling differently than I went into it um which I appreciate the interview process

197um and I'll be interested in seeing then what what everybody's I assume Mr Fagan that the score we we we had scored the proposals and then you will take those and add those to the scores of the interviews and somebody will emerge Victorious presumably and from there we will go to negotiating some kind of a contract is that correct car are we going to add the two together or just use this last one so the the intent of the first scoring instrument that you completed was to identify the short list and score the final scores that we Tally from this exercise the that's where we will arrive at the winter and will that information then be brought back to the board for any discussion or will you simply move ahead so for example in the

198question that was was raised earlier about uh so one thing that Mr Cole said was he would Prov he would provide off in effect office hours right that he could be here another day if if we are what was not part of the application was this idea of as we talked about this idea of a a retainer so when we went for a superintendent there was a there was a significant negotiation process about that contract and I'm wondering how this works and what is the board's or the board chair's role in negotiating that contract or if there is a negotiation I I've never done this before through the chair today when you finish we will take those scores and go back and tally whoever is the selected firm we then begin negotiations with them and

199that and that is the process so if it happens to be gray Robinson we will bring up the suggestion of the flat they may say $5 off they may say a th who knows what it's going to do then we have to negotiate that to see if we can come to a consensus if we can't then you might have the opportunity to go to number two I think I am um feeling that tension I often feel as a board member where our job is 30,000 feet up and sometimes we want to get into the weeds and I'm feeling a bit of that tension right now is all well this this is your weeds this is your hiring process it's my weed to decide who I prefer as an attorney it is not my weed to

200negotiate a contract it may be my weeds to have some input into how that occurs but that's not the way the structure was set up um and there is a fine line as a board member between the degree to which we take receive information and make decisions about that and then we get into day-to-day management of the district which is not our job right through the chair if I can through this process you will arrive at a selection all right you've made your decision you've put your best foot forward and both firms have already been decided has been qualified so there's no real right wrong answer now it comes back to Administration no nego now no go negotiate the best contract you can for us which now takes you out of that Arena and now

201that's on us Y and then on the 29th we come back and say based on your results we've gone back tallied negotiated with the firm this is the best best contract we can come with and this what we're presenting on the 29th so we're kind of separating you from that once you make the selection all right um all way in but go ahead can I I just wanted to follow up if that's okay um I heard that uh gray Robinson or Mr Cole for example um might be um or this board might be the first I think Dr ship mentioned might be the first to hire someone who does doesn't have uh School District experience um and while I think that that might be a Poss possibility for us um if we had a team

202of lawyers um that we can fall on for experience uh but without Mrs Diaga here um I don't think we have I don't think we have the playing field to take that chance I think that we need to go with someone who has school district experience specifically um that would meet our needs on day one where we would not have to worry about someone who does not understand uh ground level uh lower education work versus you know postsecondary education work not saying that he's not qualified for it I just don't think that that would be the right fit for Indian River County where we stand right now um especially with our desegregation um order and especially going um uh to to you know um seek unitary status or you know wherever we would be in

203that process um I just don't know if we would I know that we shouldn't take that chance right now we should go with someone who can well represent us on day one um and we'll have to figure out all the other challenges around that okay so um quickly um I look at the four boxes here I have both A and D I have both of them rated the same for which one what are we to disc are we supposed disc we're not talking about that we're not talking about our individual numbers no I'm just saying that they both they both did a good job in terms of experience we're not he's not giving his points he's just talking about his view that's all he can do that I mean everybody's said what they thought was

204good or yeah better I think they both did a nice job I'm just saying that the experience of the law firm they did a nice job I thought they handled the questions well I I think the difference in my opinion was the um the gray Robinson presentation was a little smoother uh what I particularly liked is the risk assessment because uh spelling uh I get them mixed up sniffing sniffing and spelling uh didn't really answer that question whereas if you're coming into a new situation you would normally expect it was a corporate setting you know a new CEO or or a new Chief auditor would immediately do an assessment so to find out where they are so that you can identify sort of where you're beginning from so so I thought that was a plus

205for for gray Robinson in a little bit of point of differentation differentiation but at the end of the day um the lack of hands-on experience in desegregation cases unlike uh sniffen um an experienced attorney despite all of the um perhaps challenges around scheduling uh I just think that that that's where Molly um experience and um with school boards that it's also you know there's I guess there you could say there's some benefit to having the same attorney while it could be a negative as you point out uh serving servicing the Treasure Coast there are some similarities so that becomes a little bit of an advantage for sniffin um so at the end of the day as good as they both were and and and I would not be unhappy with either one I just think

206that the experience both on the deseg and an and school boards uh gives gives the benefit the nod to uh to sniff and not to gray Robinson but they're very good I mean there's no question about it and and Dr Schiff your comment we all tend to have a perception from a piece of paper as to what to expect and I do think that gray Robinson uh surprised me I thought they were they were not that I thought they were going to be bad they were better than I thought they were going to be but I go with the experience of of of uh sniffing sure sorry for jumping on you by the way I misunderstood what you were about to do so I apologize publicly um one thing I would also invite us to

207consider is how we think any of these attorneys will represent us um under stress and duress I think that we have been experiencing some challenging times and we may be going to experience some challenging times um so how we think either of those attorneys will best support the B the board moving forward in that I think is is worthy of cons for me is worthy of consideration um I think there were some differences it's a little hard uh people sometime as you alluded to Mr Barefoot people present differently on paper and in person and I think we all felt that in the process of of reading these descriptions and then seeing these representatives in person um as we move forward I think there are going to be some difficult moments and I I want us

208to make sure that whoever is the attorney representing Us in those difficult moments has a a strong capacity to do that a strong confident ability uh to know how to guide and support the board in some of those difficult moments and I would ask us to consider that that as well okay any other comments one more sure I have a hard time I'm fine with either um you know I I know financially there's a big difference between the two but we're not being asked to consider that which it's bothering me that that's not part of this decision making but um and I know back in the recesses of your minds when you're scoring you might be considering that um again to consider just the interview to me there were some very positives on both sides

209and that's why I had a hard time with this because it's very frustrating I agree with you uh the demeanor I felt on one would be a very calming demeanor I'm not saying the other one wouldn't because I haven't seen that act in action so again in an interview process versus on the dis you might see totally different demeanor you know you don't know um because we haven't been able to see that so that is just something that yes I I understand what you're saying and that's why I said to the superintendent after we're done the interviews that's why they play the game and the reason why I meant that is because on paper UCF probably would have been you know champions of the world this year but they play the game and they're not

210so when I read the papers and the packets I had a very strong feeling towards um sniffing and smelling and then they came today and I was really um pleasantly surprised by what I saw with uh gray Robinson but I agree with Mr Zario um I was very taken back by who is going to be the board attorney that's why I asked the questions I asked because I I really wanted to get a clear understanding of what who is going to be representing us so yeah but I do also know that things change all the time and if you have a big firm then you have the ability to bring somebody in to because you know Suzanne hasn't been at every meeting and she brings in a a substitute that tags well and comes in

211and and helps us so I I'm con not concerned about the fact that either of these firms can do that for us so yeah I had a hard time scoring this all right chair excuse chair then if all the board members are done I'll collect the forms and we can move on to the next agenda item so are we just are we done do you need a minute or I think we've discussed I guess so all right all right here we go collect them Ron hi I just want to apologize for anyone in the room if you see me putting my head down I'm just fighting a you no I'm just fighting a m brain you have me concerned thank goodness Dr Schiff has some essential oils here so that's I don't want to be

212disrespectful to anyone I just wanted to I record the essential oils so I do apologize so as was Mr mentioned um him and Mr Carver and and absolutely Mr Carver thank you for leading us through this process very very hard complex but uh I think you did absolutely outstanding job moving us through this process Mr Fagan thank you for thank you uh keeping us on on point I know we we wanted to make sure that we conducted ourselves in a way which brought honor to our community and I think we just proved that we were able to do that uh the next item on the agenda is Miss DEA so to present her final item don't get I won't have to talk any more after this okay um board members you may remember at your

213last Workshop we had a discussion regarding the voting districts that um the the County Commission is currently working on revising and that tentatively you will be approving as your new voting districts and uh one of the items um attached to this Workshop um item is the map it's proposed map 1B as in boy which the County Commission discussed at its last business meeting and tentatively approved to move forward to be their final map so in December uh the County Commission will hold its final meeting with regard to the selection of a map and um they will have the map that they tentatively approved they will have uh legal descriptions of each of the voting districts and they will have their final approval once that occurs the school board would then be in a position to

214also have an agenda item at your December meeting uh to approve the uh new voting district maps and the legal descriptions and just to be sure that we keep ourselves on schedule I actually already mocked up a proposed resolution for the board to approve in December once the County Commission gets done finalizing the map and attaching legal descriptions to it so the purpose of this agenda item was really just to bring that information to you we discussed it the last time to let you know that yes in fact the County Commission did pick a map uh you have a copy of it attached to this particular agenda item and at your uh business meeting your six o'clock business meeting this evening there is also an action item for you to articulate your intent um which

215you had asked to do at the last workshop for you to articulate your intent that you would be adopting the same map as the County Commission so you can certainly do that at your business meeting this evening with the understanding that the map the legal descriptions and the resolution will come back to you at your meeting in December for final approval I'm happy to answer any question questions that I can questions anybody all right next item will be presented by our director of innovation Miss Cindy Emerson and it is the instructional calendar for the upcoming school year all right I believe that they're going to be pulling up the presentation but I just want to First say it has been such an honor the last two years working with the instructional calendar committee um it's

216very humbling being a part of a committee that involves so many stakeholders and having the opportunity to hear input from um various groups throughout the community and while I just facilitate the um committee it's been a great honor working with so many great people throughout the district and so um we always start with our unified Mission and guiding principles and that is to transform education and Inspire and Empower all students to maximize their full potential we were tasked last year to create an Innovative instructional calendar that maximizes instructional time creating the best systems for SDC growth and you know these these members of the community irca CWA we brought in admin and staff um as well as District staff that uh this impacts including payroll having all of them a part of this allows us

217to move um slow to start with and then that allows us to move fast by creating norms and establishing um some feedback from our community as a result and so we always follow our Norms with our meetings we take time to survey the committee we have opportunities for committee feedback and then we've been able to create assurances that have allowed us to not only develop the calendar for next school year but a tenative calendar for 2023 2024 which has been posted now since February of 2021 and once we are done with our meeting today we will post the tentative calendar for 2024 2025 and so this is the restructuring of the calendar um which includes also a back page that we've added on last year just to give a little more detail for our families

218and our teachers and staff and so we are coming forward with our recommended instructional calendar to the board we have continued with eliminating the 16 early release days which has allowed us to increase 21 instructional hours and provide more stability for our families that was a major source of feedback um from our families and parents in the community that um those days were very difficult for them to establish um child care and um while those hours were important a lot of times in an effort to transition to the professional development there was a lot of time lost even getting there so what was intended to be two hours of increased professional development sometimes one and a half or one and this allowed for more distraction or less distraction and more time on task during those

219school days those 16 school days that are no longer cut short so we consider that a big win um another big win was finally getting it on record that the veterans Council approved us not having school on Veterans Day and so that was a big win for us where in the past we had been going back and forth each year this allows us to really focus in on what the intention is of the veterans Council and so that was a big win for us another huge win was of just giving teachers autonomy and choice in these four optional days for teacher planning and so from the four days that have been built into the calendar they pick which two are beneficial to them and having that autonomy and choice you know we're treating our teachers

220like the professionals that they are we also have added two full focused professional development days and so this allows our principals and our District staff to develop PD that really can dig in deeper and take a lot more time to really go through the process and scaffold and so we have one in first semester in second semester and then another big win and the one that I probably most honestly get the most feedback for is just how much more user friendly the calendar is people understand with the reformatted layout the orientation days the open house dates graduation dates everything is on there along with conference night so they don't have to bounce around the website they can really get everything from the one location front and back of the calendar and so with this recommended

221calendar it has been posted for our families and our staff since February 2021 um with only Minor Adjustments from stakeholder feedback we did have unanimous approval of the instructional calendar that is um being put in front of you by the calendar committee and we have the 2023 2024 draft tentative calendar posted next year we will again meet with the calendar committee and we will go through the same process of approval and once we're done today with the instructional calendar we will then post the draft for 2024 2025 which I know it seems like really pre-planned in advance but because we've established Norms we really can pre-plan this out so our families can make decisions um in advance for them so I just want to go through really fast what the process is for the calendar

222committee so we have 196 days scheduled for our teachers teers and August 10th is the first day school May begin and so with that comes six recognized paid holidays off so when you see holiday in the calendar that is what the actual um payroll is having as our six days off this leaves 10 days for PD planning wrapup Etc um dictated by contract one day after conferences for first semester one day after conferences for second semester would take two of those 10 days uh the request from our staff was to have five pre-planning days prior to the start of school so that brings us to seven we have the one day uh when we return from winter break that was established so that brings us to eight and with the two optional days that brings

223us to the 10 and so I know it seems like there's a lot to work with but once the Norms are established there really isn't much space and wiggle room within the calendar uh what we did add last year was those two additional professional development days dropping from 180 to 178 for student days um because we removed those early release days but even with that we added an additional 21 hours of instruction and as I mentioned earlier those 16 days are a lot more meaningful when they're not being cut short um so the process we s out the survey for all parties interested in joining the committee and uh we have 20 hold on I want to get this right 27 members of the instructional calendar committee it's one of our largest committees in the

224district and through the efforts of surveying we're able to move pretty quickly now because we've established our Norms which are right here the veterans Council approval elimination of the early release days the increase in instructional hours the two full days for professional development um along with adding choice for Teacher optional days and maintaining that 196 day teacher calendar and so um we use the same assurances that we put out into the community last year to make sure that we're just following through with what the voice of our stakeholders has said and so um in the 2022 2023 calendar was voted and approved in September of 2021 this year and and we only went back and did a minor adjustment which I'm sure that you noticed adding October 5th as a day off and pushing back

225winter break to start on December 22nd um there was a a long 8we period full and so they did feel like it would be better in the first semester to add an additional day in that space and take one day off of that winter break still having the two weeks off at least that has been the community feedback of what has been um expected and interested so that's where we're at with the process so I I just want to acknowledge Mr emmer uh Miss Emerson um I think two years ago this was a a big long drawn out process where there's a great big debate and a lack of focus uh really shifting us to a Professional Organization where we present items to the board in which it does in fact have Community consensus really

226doing the long-term planning and creating the conditions over the course of time where families know know uh typically when the schedule is going to be um so this is a a body of work that once was hard and complex but now ultimately comes before you in in a a great deal of consensus in building Partnerships as as we present this calendar so that we we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have oh thank you um first of all yes thank you for the organization on this because I did attend those meetings um a couple years ago and this is a vast Improvement there are two little comments I had written down one was about Veterans Day um because that was a a bone of contention in the past so um we do have

227verification and writing that the veterans Council definitely wants us to be able to take the day off correct through the chair yes and I was able to and since you mentioned and I'm I'm going to make a plug my first Co my first Veterans Day was in the midst of the pandemic um but just past this past week had the opportunity to see what Veterans Day is all about here in Indian River County um and this is an absolute validation as to why we need to be out celebrating and honoring uh went to two or three different events on that particular day and it was just so powerful to see our students were at all of them participating whether it was marching whether it was speaking uh whether it was presenting the flags whether it

228was playing an instrument uh it was an absolute outstanding day but yes we do have that validation yes I'm sorry I missed I was out of town with a family illness um I will say that when I looked at this calendar I found it interesting that Halloween is a day off whereas teachers would probably prefer the next day off just saying it's just a comment uh I did notice that's a long weekend that we put in here and we had it off again this past year that long weekend okay so you you suspect that that's going to continue that long weekend in October okay that's all I have any other comments questions Dr Jones last your was very grateful for making sure that we had school all day on Wednesday I couldn't remember if I

229was coming or going on those days you know do I plan on the PD does a district and um kids got out of syn so I'm very happy with that um I know I'm the OG here but do you remember when we went to school Thanksgiving Monday Tuesday and Wednesday okay everybody this is nice this week off it's so nice so nice you know um the optional PD days I like those Miss Emerson so those those are PD days offered by the district where the teachers can attend so they're not school-based or are they school-based so that came up and um what we said and what you'll see a minor change is Staff professional development is what they're being called and so principles will be offering professional development but so will the district and so

230the hope is that it would give teachers autonomy to choose what would be most beneficial to them I like those um and I remember as principal gford and Sebastian I scheduled exams Before Christmas before we were off at Christmas so I kind of I had to do stuff with the doe but boy it was just so smart for the kids you know it was just so smart and Dr Moore just a question I I don't know if you've seen I think it was bvar County a couple others where they're extending Thanksgiving break because teachers needed more time off and they said no school on Friday after Veterans Day I mean those issues around the country how are we doing on subs and teachers so to the calendar specifically let me the those first two updates

231belong to the teachers we do this was the first year that we did we did that we need a better job of making sure our principles are there to receive the teachers they can have their keys they get in the rooms and they can do their own individual planning on those particular days professional development day which is a solid day of professional development we just have the opportunity to debrief that and we think the second one is going to be even more intentional to ensure teachers have what they need to to be planning um in terms of substitutes we it is a a national short and we have a structure in place uh through Mr Bass and his office if they need additional support they being principles they would contact him and we can deploy

232District staff we are using um in some cases instructional coaches we have uh long-term substitutes we do have a little bit of flexibility in which additional compensation is provided for a long-term sub versus a regular sub um if we use a a CW a employee for an extended amount of time they also receive an additional compensation so there's some things that were naturally in the contract which help us to do that we look at open positions uh every single week in order to ensure do we need to deploy uh we're in a much better place than we uh than most districts and speaking to to other superintendant and you did mention about bus drivers so Mr Bass just to follow up on that you saw a lot of bus drivers who who are who are

233coming off uh for the first time we have an additional 10 bus drivers above and beyond our routes so what that means is if we have S eight N Out we're still good we don't have to combine uh everything so that was an initiative that Miss idet brought forward uh Mr Fagan found a way to fund it so that's going to help make sure that we have every single route running every single day I just want to be aware you know um last year was tough but if you talk to Educators they say this year even seems to be tougher sometimes for different reasons and I just you know I just want to make sure that our teachers are okay okay so our our next item I'm going to present them together was Mr Fagan

234uh followed by Mr Bass and they're going to both review the contracts that have been brief with board members for their uh very specific areas and Mr Fagan you'll begin yes to the chair I have two items one is the construction Management Services to build the uh classroom Edition at Sebastian River Middle School it's approximately $8 million the winner of that uh process was Proctor construction second item is a piggyback for Solid Waste cont collection through a piggyback contract with Bard County approximate cost over 5 years is uh $1.5 million any questions thank you good afternoon uh through the chair uh bringing to you the final retainage payment Pro construction for the locker room renovation at the FLC uh boys and girls locker room each locker room received new epoxy floors uh new lockers created

235a better line sight uh for supervision uh new toilet uh fixtures new partitions uh new PA speakers and IP clocks and paint um this will close out uh the account be the last payment due to Proctor construction thank you anything else okay that thank you very much that is it and through the chair uh Miss dampier will present as you know we go through uh our adoption of policies Neola policy um we just spent a a lengthy amount of time working with our school board attorney through Miss dampier's office then those items specifically the policies go back to each specific Cabinet member who's responsible for that P um area of work they review it to make recommendations back to the board we then take those policies and we meet with each individual board member to

236review the shifts in P policy based on Neola recommendations following our our conversation there were minor edits that were made based on feedback from board members Miss dampier sent that information to uh each an individual board member it was a very tight process and I thank Mr dampier uh for her leadership keeping all of the cabinet members on task and presenting such a large amount of information to board members is not a easy task um and this is always in the winter you have the big load of policies because of the shifts based on uh changes in statute and the overwhelming majority of Statute uh changes in policy here all relate to shifts and changes in statute so with that I'll miss uh dampierre will present the item and we will be able to answer

237any questions you may or may not have through the chair I bring forward volume 22 number one this is our first set of Neola policies for our fall session you know uh you you Neola provides two updates per year and this is our first one we had 48 policies we had the opportunity November 1st through the 4th to meet with each board member to review policies and take recommendations and those changes were uh sent out last Tuesday at this time uh do you have any questions pertaining to any of the policies I do um I have a I have just two one was a spelling area I caught after our meeting and that was on uh 9800 Charter Schools I'm not sure if somebody else caught it um on the second part where it says

238b on the highlighted area if either the charter school it says car tier school so I just want you to make sure that it's spelled right it's just a small spelling error but I know that matters on this it's under B Charter contract negotiations the part that's highlighted we got it okay and then the other question I had is when you meet with Schoolboard members to do this um is it edits like that like small little that um spelling errors or something like that or statute changes or major changes because there was one at the bottom of uh 2417 Comprehensive Health education that I want to know if this follows exactly what the statute says it's something I used to teach that's why I'm kind of familiar with it which which what's the name of

239the policy yes the policy is comprehensive health education 2417 okay that would be curriculum but we'll do our best okay on the very very bottom uh where it's highlighted says the board shall annually approve all instructional materials used to to teach reproductive health or any disease including HIV AIDS in an open noticed public meeting is that something a school board member added or is that something that statute the you can say it just as well Mrs beorg during the last legislative session that language was dropped into the statute regarding regarding instructional materials and so Neola literally just pulled statutory language and dropped it into the policy okay I want to make sure that we're doing that especially on a sensitive topic such as that one yes ma'am okay and again my other question about school

240board member edits so through the chair that the overwhelming of edits just are that their grammatical or preference or or more specific to us here in Indian River County not changing anything that's in statute so overwhelmingly what we're seeing here are changes based on statute we're not seeing a board member saying well take that out we don't like it that's what we pay want to make sure that's not happening cuz I don't I'm not privy to those conversations they're not privy to my conversation I just think that when I vote on something I want to make sure we're following the letter of the law absolutely okay and we have the attorney available as well so no we're we're following we always reference this is revised because of Statute um because of legislative changes and that

241sort of thing okay thank you any other Dr Jones just a couple comments on um 8452 the AED um calls for employee volunteer who is reasonably ex expected to use an AED to be notified annually of the location that seems pretty we do a lot more than that through the chair and and it's interesting and that's that validation miss barenborg that we we we don't know my conversation with you so I'm glad you brought that I didn't bring that yeah I would tell you I used to train my administrators my coaches and those aeds were all over the place so the so when way back in when when I was the principal as same with miss barenborg and miss barenborg I don't know if it was your site specific under your leadership or your count

242the county told us we we needed to do that and I made sure we did itten if you don't mind do would you like to share or sure sure um in St Lucy County we had to um do just like a a fire expection or fire drill or tornado drill you know you were we do that here okay for the a but our specific drill was different than what he and I discussed last week so I want to make sure we're very clear on this because we have ad AED machines now in all our schools and it was because of a tragedy that I know Dr Jones is very familiar with Michael app and um I spoke to his mom recently so I know that this is something very sensitive that we make sure that

243those aren't just on our campuses but the people know what to do in case of that emergency how to handle it where it is so it's not second thinking it's just this is like a drill we we just grab it and go we know what to do so we used to do the drill every month where I had to call um a special code and just those people on the Eed team would run to the location that we thought I would say PE field or whatever they would run there and actually assimilate doing the AED um procedure on a a student which there would be no student there but it would it would be a simulation to use the machine so a they remembered how to use the machine from their training because you get

244that training once uh or once a year and then B it takes the guesswork out of who does what who gets the machine where does it go oftentimes we would have two machines located wherever we were and that's a good thing so I just want to make sure that we're doing that practice like we do fire drills tornado drills hurricane practices things like that and chair I think we do the the basic drill in terms of location but we are going to add that practice as we discuss very similar to what Doc Jones discussed where we're going to create that mock drill the exercise to ensure uh it is in fact happening because you get nervous when something like that really happens I want to make sure so thank you so it's second nature and

245the other one it was just basically a question on um Ese and um you know student takedowns or you know looking at that yeah and and I know that we have training for that and uh I know at one time we had an issue with some of those things so how how are we looking there now miss dampier we're constantly just so you know we're constantly monitoring our restraints as a matter of fact that's part of my monthly meeting with Dr deore and we've actually reduced our restraints uh up under the direction of our new director we've been providing additional training for our um staff we just held a full day of training on on November 1 for all of our ve teachers across the district and provided that training as well as making sure

246that um everyone knows that we we don't use seclusion you know and what type of restraints to use and that they are trained extensively and that's the last resort good yes ma' I am not a member of the ESC parent advisory but I always zoom in on the calls and I just love the um parent involvement yes uh proactive measures we're we're attempting to do every day and I'm really looking at what's best for our kids it's it's good thank you that's so yeah a couple things uh this may be statutory language it may be we wrote it but um forgive my pickiness but the grammar is all off uh and it doesn't make sense on uh 2520 and the same stuff is repeated in a few places it says parent objection to instructional material

247used in the classroom should I keep going or do you want to find it 2520 it's also on 2111 few the paragraph is not logical it says parents May object to the use by their child of a specific instructional material in the classroom is set forth in Florida law if they feel the material violates the Pres provisions of you know 106.2 six Etc Florida statute which states that material may not colon contain content that is pornographic comma remember we're going from may not be suited to the student needs and their ability to comprehend the material or be inappropriate for the grade level and age group for which the material is used so Florida Statutes which states material may not or be inappropriate for the grade level it doesn't make sense so could you review that

248yes through the that's pulled right from the statute but I I agree it is confusing it is confusing it doesn't make sense and there's uh another one um this is a clarification and again maybe statuto and I'm afraid I don't know where it is um I'll find it it states um parents of District students have a right to access school safety and discipline incident as pursuant to Florida statute 106.7 parentheses 9 can you clarify parents don't do parents have the right to access school safety and discipline incidents specific to individual kids or just the incident or what does this mean cuz they can't access records of other kid hi that particular language was added into um statutes during the last legislative session it's referring to cessor data so um and I'm not going to know

249the what all those letters stand for but cessor data is collected from every school but it's it's aggregate so cessor data is available to parents so it's parents parents students have a right to access aggregate student safety and discipline incident cessor data is aggregate it doesn't say cessor so that's where I'm unless the 10607 is ceser that's what it's referring to is ceser I was confused okay it all right um moment so I I oh I'm sorry no no I'm good one more question go ahead no I'm just saying these were all basically State Statute changes okay correct yes yeah right there I I do have Miss Rosario as as m is not feeling well so she's going to hold her items is it was on the agenda to present time permitting but it is

250action item tonight as as well so the next item was for Miss Rosario to present uh the item but she'll present it this evening and I certainly hope she feels better because can I can I ask a question about that it's it's I mean absolutely if I can answer it I will I know it's a board member brought it to discuss but if we have it tonight yeah we can have discussion but you know I was well prepared prepared to discuss this today for a workshop me too so do we have it as an action item tonight it it is it is an action item for this evening without discussion it will be once it goes to the floor that's when that discussion takes place so there won't be a vote without having the discussion

251unless you all choose not to have discussion no there will be discussion I'm sure I'm sure there will be discussion I just um I was hoping we could discuss it this afternoon afterno so we could get some of this I kind of want to get a feeling of what's going on with the board um before tonight on this yeah I I I I agree I mean it's a lot easier to discuss it in this setting and people perhaps are a little more forthcoming even though it's all public as opposed to tonight and um I guess there's there's really nothing I guess we can do unless Mr are is willing to pull it until the next meeting the next workshop and meeting I cannot she is the maker of the item and out of respect for

252the maker of the item no no I I I get it so perhaps what maybe what we can do um to resolve this is have that conversation this evening that because we weren't able to discuss it at Workshop as we were all intending where we thought would be an appropriate setting before it was brought for Action that we would uh like to recommend that it be delayed till the next meeting oh I don't know about that I think it's a timely either discuss it at 9:00 tonight and decision once the meeting opens this evening it Bel that agenda the items belong to the five board members and what you do with them is what you do with okay so I just had a question that I really wanted vetted before tonight because I I really

253felt like I needed a Clarity on a certain term that comes up all the time when you're looking at these statutes am I free to discuss something or add a discussion item I don't see why not I just want I just want the clarity of instructional materials um because there are laws and statutes and this is a concern for instructional materials so I just want to have a short discussion about that terminology so through the chair is that right now that's what I'm asking okay and and and Suzanne can feel free to to jump in at any time instructional materials is our Core Curriculum that we put in front of children it is the materials that are being used to plan the lessons with the confines of a classroom uh it is approved as a

254public school system we approve that curriculum in which all students are exposed to our Core Curriculum um we have a process in place where it is vetted we're all very familiar with that process because uh we went with hmh because our first product amplify wasn't available and then we this board took a a pause in the purchasing of curriculum until amplify at the very last minute was approved so we're familiar with that process there is an appeal process uh which is in in place for that particular right approval of of that content now to speak specific Al a that's not a a library book I want question distinction between is a library book then defined as an instructional material if a teacher can check it out and use it in their classroom for instruction if

255a there's not a library book for core instruction that's going to cover an entire class set so a core instruction is we're all going to be covering this particular story or we're going to do a a novel study on a specific book that everyone has in their classroom so I don't think it's odd to see novel studies taking place oh those that's not within the media center I'm sorry we call it Library um that's not in the the the library itself so the way libraries are are working here is a go checkout interest book uh not at the drive of the teacher well and the reason why I bring this up board members is because we do have a policy in place for instructional materials however where I was searching and searching and searching for

256I could not find a policy that's in place for an objection to um library book or media book whatever you want to call it um so that is where I was having the problem with um trying to Define all this um Mr is Raising her hand and I'll just point you back to the information that Mrs dampier reviewed with everyone uh one of the proposed revisions to your policy is in your definition section 010 and there is a proposal for and a definition of instructional materials and it is just as um Dr Moore had has was talking to you it what the um definition the proposed definition in this new uh policy piece means items having intellectual content that by Design serve as a major tool for assisting in the instruction a subject or course

257and then it goes on to give you some examples and that is why I wanted this very clear that the board understand the definition of instructional materials and where do library books fit um because we definitely have a policy and procedure for what to do if you have an issue a parent has an issue or a board member has an issue with a particular book right that is an instructional material the question I have is where in our policy IES do we have anything that tells us exactly how we deal with the library books um exactly I don't think there's a policy but there there are statutes that deal that that do address there are statutes my my question is what's the procedure oh procedure yeah that we don't have a policy for a procedure

258no that's why I'm saying that we don't no and and my concern is maybe we should have a policy of how somebody objects to a book is it done by email one at a time is it done by presenting it at uh citizens input is it done by sending a list of all the books at once to the superintendent is it done by having a meeting with a superintendent is it a parent going to a a principal so I couldn't find in all of our policies I looked I couldn't find an exact and you know I was questioning that all week no um I couldn't find our policy that we have in place on how someone does that I can tell you um I'm thinking as you know Middle School principal and high school principal

259I'm going to speak as a mom right now if I didn't want a child checking out a book I would tell my child not to check out a book but that doesn't mean I'm going to overwrite somebody else's decision on that I don't know I think we could get into 300 policies and procedures but you know what is it that we're trying to accomplish here with all of our students um and I understand what you're saying but I mean just because one parent objects that that doesn't mean the rest of them object so no no but let's get down to specifics if a parent feels that the definition of the statute right about profanity has been violated on a book let's say what does that parent do and what's the procedure that a principal or

260the superintendent takes to determine whether or not that book fits the definition of the statute you're talking the library book yes so I hear you actually asking two different things one is what's the process the other is what definition does it fit those are two different things yes yes and no the process the process I would think and I'm sure you know all of us have had a lot of conversations about this lately and a lot of conversations with the superintendent uh until this moment I'm not clear that the process would have been any different than for any other dis dispute or disagreement or grievance you have at a school if I'm upset because my child's um curriculum there's something in the curriculum if I'm upset because of how my child is being treated if

261I'm upset because the lunchroom is it is in honoring special meals whatever it is my process is I go to the school I go to the principal I say this is a problem how can we work this out how are we going to handle this I'm not sure that I see where this process is any different than that process as far as process goes you're also asking about how do you def decide if it meets the definition in a statute that's a different question that's a legal issue that's not app parent issue that's not that's a legal issue that's what we have legal counsel for but the process for expressing a grievance about how something is happening in your school with your child is to go to your principal if you don't get satisfaction from

262your principal you go to an assistant superintendent you go to Mr Meyer that would be the process okay that's not what I'm talking about I'm not talking about the side of the parent I guess let me clarify that I'm talking about let's say this book like you said um and I see the attorney's wanting to answer um let's say that this book is very is a concern to a parent about the statute on profanity okay let's just give that I don't know that might come up tonight so if that's the case who makes that ultimate decision in other words what process do we have in place that decides who gets to Define that that it violates the statute that's what I'm asking and if I may you you do have a General policy 9130 regarding

263public complaints and that particular policy addresses a myad of types of complaints right one of the categories included in that particular policy uh has to do with matters regarding the educational program so if it doesn't fit neatly into any other category this is like I don't want to say a catch all but this is the catchall if it's about the educational program this is where you would look to process that complaint and it refers you back up in earlier in the policy it says uh in the manner prescribed in in the matters regarding an instructional staff member so there is a a step by step if you will of of of who you go to there's a first level there's a second level there's a third level [Music] um what policy is that Susan um

26491 913 3 the title of that policy is public complaints there are other types of complaints also addressed in that particular policy but there is that that General educational program that Mrs bebook that I I would say if we don't have a specific process in place this would be the general where we could go for a step by step by step who do we go to and then what's their you know what are the steps to get through and the reason why I bring this up is because with the the former one that you brought up the example that you brought up with amplify versus hmh um there was a process in place that was clear and defined um we bring in the mediator and or was it called a mediator hearing officer hearing officer

265yes hearing officer and the hearing officer makes the ultimate decision made a recommendation back to the board that's why I wanted def that's why I asked my first question about library books being instructional materials so we don't use that process then for library books correct correct so so now the next question is because there are not just one book that's being questioned but several books and we have to tread I think very carefully on this and I want to make sure that we're very clear as to what the processes so that books aren't just being taken away quietly and removed um but we're being very transparent in how it's done so through through the chair just to respond to that the only process that we're in the midst of now is to look at the

266statutory requirement around uh are those specific books aligned to the statute around pornography around vulgar explicit inappropriate inappropriate age appropriate language that's the that's the only problem any other content any other issues within those those specific books uh is not anything that we are reviewing this process does speak specifically to working through the school which is 9130 meing the school then you take it up to the assistant superintendent then ultim ultimately myself so if there are issues with books around uh racism if there is issues around gay or lesbian um that is not explicit in terms of the content then that would be the appropriate process for for parents to follow I I just want to make sure we're very clear on this and I I I think you you make a valid point in

267terms of moving forward this is the process in order to follow I I can use in examples I know Dr Jones is is biting to to speak don't worry about me none but you you clearly Define the the process uh there are materials that were put on the shelves in which the process to put them on the shelves wasn't followed corre that's we need to make sure we that the appropriate response and I will be honest with the board this will not be the last time we find a process not being fed correct that's just the work of transformation but you don't hide it you don't sneak it away the truth of the reality is this school system has that link of all the books in our our library publicly available I can't find another

268superintendent who's willing to do that so we are leading from the front here which sometimes is uncomfortable but that's fine too uh and we don't hide or or modify or shift anything other than the simple fact we're going to look at what the statute says we're going to align ourselves to the statute but we're not Banning books we're not taking things off shelves uh we're going to ensure that all means all and all of our children have access to the the information and teachers aren't prescribing any one particular book to be used uh and if a parent does feel uncomfortable about that there's a process for that parent to follow just um procedures manual section is 2000 program selection of instructional materials and equipment criterial for selection equipment then D procedures for selection of library

269or Media Center materials curriculum and instruction Department in cooperation with the committee she'll be responsible for the selection of all materials housed in a library or Media Center I never had the CN help me choose books for a library you know what I mean no ABS no okay all right I'm just being transparent here but that's a lot of work on cni I mean you're going to tell them that they have to help choose all the books in the libraries now okay good no not at all through the chair we'll have a very diverse group looking at when we're purchasing materials for the upcoming school years is it relevant is it what kids want to read uh and is it aligned to the statutes before we put them on the shelves I you know and

270I'd like to also know how often are kids going to the library and checking out books period and I think that's part of the item that Miss Rosario is is bringing forward and I I can tell you Mr Bass can tell you from someone who just built a school in another County I I could tell you from a from a district that had 326 schools um the it should be an innovation space Absolut it should be a media center uh the volume of books purchased uh when building a new school is significantly different from what we see so part of that item this evening which I completely agree with is to look at how we're using those specific spaces to ensure kids are in fact ready to be successful and that's that's way overdue and

271the all the emails we received something about the AR well high schools aren't using the AR we stopped funding that four or five years ago middle schools are kind of using it but not aligned to any curriculum and they've chosen another one they like a little bit better so you know if they they're concerned about people using AR books none of them are saying you have to read this or do this we used to do probably 10 years ago but that's not even used in the high schools right and I I I would inform the board I do it regularly because we now are so committed to being at the standard and having a Core Curriculum within each specific area uh you're seeing a level of alignment that you haven't seen ever before yeah uh

272in terms of what teachers are teaching there is a process in up in place to approve curriculums uh what we saw pre pandemic uh was very very concerning and significantly below uh the rigor of the standard it's not what we're seeing now and and I'll say it again this evening in the 10 years that I've done transformational work uh the Improvement of the quality of instruction from the beginning of this school to what I was seeing just this morning in schools is truly amazing you are seeing instruction improved by Leaps and Bounds um and you see a level of alignment uh that takes four or five years to get to uh so what we're doing in our schools in terms of inspecting what we expect is significant and our teachers are delivering and because of

273that you probably seeing a a lack of use in media centers because a we got a job to do we got to move kids we got to make sure we can they can maximize their full potential and what's in the media centers isn't something that today's kid really is attracted to uh now it should be the heartbeat of the school it should be the Hub of the school uh we want to go there and work on projects um we have great people that are Staffing them but we have to support them in the creation of the process in the space uh to bring those media centers back to life yep okay thank you I just want a very very clear definition of what we're dealing with I agree okay I agree and and we'll push

274that out I do have one item that I I referenced the board in email uh working with the NAACP we will be meeting coming in December with a a their members of their executive committee as we begin to plan for next school year we are interested in having a number of of small meetings to identify what our agenda would be what targets we would like to hit what areas of the joint plan we may want to shift or modify um I communicated to the NAACP that I think it would be valuable to have a representative of the board participate in those sessions this would be uh at this point uh Under the Umbrella of mediation um NAACP has new Council but after they are currently meeting with their new Council to to get up to

275speed and we plan on having these meetings in December so this would take place over the course of December so when we all come back together in January uh as we did last year the entire executive committee and the school board we've kind of normed and we've had a a working team presenting collectively to the both the board and executive committee on the shifts or modifications or changes I I I know Mr Barefoot responded to my email he recommended Doc Jones Doc Jones said she would be interested um if there's consensus from the board then then we can do that if not I can bring an item and the board can select somebody but I just wanted to put that in front of the board I I also responded to your email I didn't realize

276that the idea was to nominate someone via email I thought that was a conversation no just a that's the email was to have this conversation if there is consensus there would be fine if if not I will more than happy to bring an item so we could uh that's the only way the board to take action unless it's absolutely go for Doc Jones or if she's willing I'm I'm happy for Doc Jones to represent she TS anyway um I would be honored thank you the only other concern I had is a board member brought up concerns about us attending committee meetings so would that be a concern of the board member about attending committee meetings you sent us something that uh board member was no that um through the chair and Suzanne help me if

277I if I go straight that would those were meetings in the community or District staff committees I I just wanted to send that there is no issues uh with any board member in as it relates to that particular concern um but I did want to share that information with the board okay correct there would be no problem with an individual ual board member attending um a mediation session in pending litigation it's fine so our I do want to announce the the winner which is is Sniff and spalman was the highest uh ranking firm so Mr Fagan Mr GES and myself will be working diligently to bring an item to you on the 29th um and absolutely thank both firms very very uh good in terms of their presentations and the quality of support looking forward

278to getting that work done and as we do close this meeting let me remind the board we will be celebrating our retiring School Board member uh over in our little area over there for school board member scho attorney that she's going to run for one that's that's what she's going to announce that's her retirement no I'm kidding she's like no uh our school board attorney in in our our little room over there so we just want to take the time to celebrate and acknowledge all of her contributions to the school system for how many years a really long time on April Fool's Day yeah 12 years was itpr yes I looked it up and you worked before that kind of coming in and out I remember yeah yes Russ we're gonna talk about you again

279tonight so okay we're all done meeting adjourned at 4:04 thank you and we'll be back at 5 by the other