Superintendent's Workshop 12 p.m. 3-13-23

001good afternoon and welcome to the superintendent's workshop being held at the Joe n idle at Junior Tec I asked that out of respect to everyone please silence all electronic devices and if you have any material you wish to share with any board member please give that to our executive assistant Nancy esplin I'd like to call this Workshop to order the time is 12 noon and Dr board the floor is yours to explain the workshop and the agenda items thank you thank you madam chair we do have a number of items to present today and then following my items it will it will be followed by two board member items that were placed on the agenda our first item is the student code of conduct and I will turn it over to miss dampier but prior

002to doing that just want to thank her and her team they have literally been working since December to capture the intent of each board member regarding our code of conduct this is a policy that you all will approve of the course of the next two months seek Community input a real comprehensive approach to ensuring that we do have a community standard that is captured in this code of conduct and it has not been an easy process by no means is this a cut and paste of last year things are fluid in the State of Florida as they should be as we're being responsive to the needs of our community and students and Ms dampier and team has been an outstanding job of capturing the intent to ensure each and every single student knows the expectation

003when they walk into our schools clearly defined systems in place to maintain an environment that allows children to know the rules administrators to know the rules and then ultimately we can do what we're charged to do which is teaching and learning so Ms dampier thank you to you and your team and I'll turn it over you for your presentation thank you Dr Moore through the chair today I will provide an overview of recommended revisions for this code of student conduct for the 23-24 school year before I begin I would be remiss if I did not thank the student services team for facilitating feedback many feedback sessions with all stakeholders and for making all the many amendments to the student code of conduct Mrs dowdell Dr Crawford Miss Bernal Miss Ainge and Miss Kasha Schmidt stakeholder

004feedback is very important therefore over the past couple of months feedback sessions were conducted to give everyone a voice on the code of student conduct we really wanted to focus on four areas or we heard from everyone talking about the cell phones bullying vaping and discipline expectations we conducted three Community feedback sessions to solicit feedback and we had many board members show up just to you know see how that process was working we had over 55 students provide feedback during our superintendent student advisory Council on those four areas and they really did give us some feedback uh that we had not thought of and then during our board briefings this past month uh I presented the recommended changes and reviewed all of that information with uh board members and solicited their feedback to the code

005of conduct the summary of changes we really were find to increase clarity uh throughout the handbook and amended behaviors and corrective interventions to ensure consistency of expectations and procedures specific guidelines were outlined and this is the first in the code of conduct for bullying cell phones and vaping for the bullying guidelines we added a statement we really wanted to send a message that there was no tolerance of bullying and the school district of Indian River County and all reports will be taken seriously and investigated in a timely manner we wanted to make sure our victims were protected so we also placed in there something new that a plan must be in place to protect the victim during and after the investigation to make sure that you know students were you know felt comfortable with coming

006forward to make an investigation and that make to make a report to ensure that the investigation would be upheld in a timely manner administrators School staff students and bus drivers are trained on bullying every year that state statute we do that at the beginning of the year and we document as such the bullion investigation timeline that administrators must adhere to for all reports of bullying is now included in our code of conduct our administrators are trained on this they know what the requirements are that within 24 hours of a bullying report they must start the investigation and then they have between one and ten days to conduct the invest conclude the investigation and then outcome letters we must send outcome letters to the victim as well as the perpetrator as well and also provide the

007Hope Scholarship information no longer no longer later than the 15 days of receipt of the bullion report and this is outlined last year we put together a process and focus that outlines all of these steps for an administrator to follow so this is something our administrators have documentation on of when and where uh The Bullying takes place and the reports we have a new cell phone uh guidelines that we're very excited about um that were added to ensure a positive learning environment that is free from distractions and for grades k through eight a lot of feedback here between students as well as all stakeholders that cell phones must be out of sight and Silence from the start of the school day to the end of the school day and that's for grades K-8 for grades

0089 through 12 cell phones must be on silent during school hours and out of sight during class time we really want our students to focus on instruction when they actually go to class and for certain unique circumstances for our grades 6 through we have unique activities in the classroom like hole saw biotech that a classroom teacher would need to receive prior approval from the administrator to have the students use the cell phones for during that class period you will see that a progression of discipline is outlined from minor cell phone misuse an office discipline referral will be submitted for all offenses with consequences of signs such as detention Aspire all toss or out of school suspension and it's Progressive to make sure that throughout the process there is parent contact is required for all of

009those offenses any additional offenses above the third offense will result in an automatic referral of course uh to the suspension it's a review team for consideration of an alternative school-based program we've given many chances of first offense second offense third offense so if it continues we want to send a message that this will not be tolerated also for our major offenses we uh by we have violations that are considerate considered serious offenses will not be tolerated as such as recording and posting fights cyber bullying recording transmitting and sending messages of students or staff without consent this is an automatic office discipline referral with an automatic 10-day suspension uh any illegal activities will be will be reported to law enforcement this is very serious we will outline all of this training at the beginning of the

010school years to make sure our school our parents our students and our staff are aware of these uh this important change and of course we're very excited that netshare for 2023-24 we have committed and uh through the Sheriff's department and SRD will be assigned to do a full-time cyber investigation you know that's been the concern with the principles that a lot of time to look get you know and do a thorough investigation Snapchat all of these uh social media is disappeared by the time you get to it where we have someone who will really spend all of their time looking into this and investigating this so we can um give some consequences for those students who have contributed to this offense we're very excited that we have our new vaping guidelines and our code of

011conduct before we always had vaping uh outline in there but not specific uh We've added specific consequence consequences for tobacco and drug use for tobacco we have uh a progression of corrective interventions were added each corrective intervention includes a referral to law enforcement and they do give civil citations where the kids can go and with their parents and take a class that actually the parents take a class like orientation and then the students have to complete modules to really reiterate that the abuse that that Vapin is doing to their system for drug use for all offensive students are assigned out of school suspension here with a referral to law enforcement and of course depending on if it's drugs they may be arrested or for all of them they're given a civil citation and it's referred

012to law enforcement so it's really outlined for the administrators to really look at all of the offenses there is no guesswork and what should occur we've gone over this with the administrators we've gotten feedback from the administrators as well so they are fully aware of what's expected as far as consequences in our code of conduct is transparent for our parents to be aware of this as well as the students and then our next steps will be for us to update the code of student conduct training for all stakeholders that would be our school teams students and families update policy 5136 which is our wireless communication device we'll bring that forward with the Nets volume as well as policy 55 1701 which is our bullion and harassment policy we want to make sure that these align

013with all recommended changes to the 2023-24 code of student conduct are there any questions what was that second policy number oh it's our bullying policy it is 55 17.01 there have been some changes with that the instructional material training that was conducted a couple of uh weeks ago that outlines there are certain curriculums that are prohibited from being taught in our schools and it was pretty self-explanatory those particular areas so aligning that information we went in and removed those curriculums from our code of conduct and to be on the safe side we are not going to add curriculums in the code of conduct we if like for example Champs or PBIS will provide training but uh because we don't know what's going to be added or deleted and it just protects you know us but

014I would be remiss if I didn't say that we went in and we looked at all of the training from the instructional material I'm going to be sending that information to my staff it's a course that you can take 55 minutes we're all going to take that course the make sure we are aware of what's accepted as far as curriculum because we all need to be aware of that since we're handling all of the training for mental health and any discipline training I want to thank Miss Dan Pierre and the code of conduct team I attended one of those meetings and listened very carefully to the parents and principals and at this time I'll just open up for questions from our board members start with Dr posca I don't think I have any specific questions

015at this time based on our previous meetings you know you did a great job answering all those but I would like to just say that uh a big thank you to you and the staff and this is I mean a great example of how we can do things properly as a board as an Administration get feedback from the community come up with a policy we can all support which is a in my opinion a huge Improvement of what we've had before and it's hopefully going to help keep our kids a lot safer and improve their ability to learn in the classroom you know and obviously if we do end up passing this policy it doesn't mean the work is done you know there's always room for more feedback reassessing what's going on and moving forward

016to see what other beneficial changes we can make so thank you for your time thank you Dr posca Miss barenborg sure thank you so much to your team especially for listening to board members and um you know because we hear parents we listen to parents and and teachers and I've heard from administrators all three and uh they all have different takes on it so it's very interesting to hear but overall I'm hearing that this these changes are wanted um I appreciate that especially the um statement that you put in for bullying um to add victims rights I think that's really important because as we discussed a lot of times a victim is moved and not the bully and that shouldn't be so I appreciate that um a couple things I had mentioned written down and

017discussed with the superintendent this morning on page 15. at the bottom it says teacher must Implement two interventions yet the guidelines State referral so how would they do a referral at the same time they have to do two interventions where are you I'm sorry page 15 at the bottom where it says teacher must Implement two interventions for the first time they they have a cell phone issue and then it says they need to do a referral so how did they do the two interventions and the referral at the same time on the we're asking teachers to do two interventions and if it's a cell phone issue they need to follow the guidelines that's why it says for that particular one instead of going in and listing because we went back and forth on whether we

018were going to list all these different guidelines for them because theirs is different we went in and put cell phone C cell phone guidelines on page 20. so if they had a cell phone if it was a cell phone issue they would automatically write a referral okay so you may want to look at that page 15 at the bottom because it says right there a teacher will Implement two interventions that's not what we discussed for for cell phone issue yeah for cell phone thank you and then on page 39 I asked about notes from parents about writing different buses and superintendent gave me a great explanation about that you know in the past if a parent wanted a child to go home with another child like for the weekend or whatever or overnight and they

019got to ride a different bus and parent just wrote a note do you want to take that one I feel like I'm on all right yeah that is a a practice that we should not be endorsing because ultimately at the end of the day there's no way to verify is it in fact that student who's giving that level of permission so it's a liability that we as a system should not be putting on ourselves I appreciate that and I and I understand that thank you um page 43 it says first offense for dress code um but it doesn't say that they need to change clothes or have a change of clothes brought um if you want us to add that but it does say that the principal has the authority to make decisions I guess

020that was the whole idea is that the principal still has the final authority to determine I I understand that but if you have a child that's been brought to you for the fact that they have inappropriate clothing and we don't put in there that they need to change have a change of clothing right away and if they let one child get away with it it's going to open up the floodgates you see what I'm saying I see what you're saying I just want to we have not had time to bring that up to the yeah exactly because I know we haven't really that wasn't an issue according to the principles when I got their feedback um that wasn't an issue on their campus it's an issue from from parents and students I'm going to tell

021you okay I've heard it um that certain students are allowed they just could be talking to and sent back and they're allowed to keep wearing what they're wearing and other students aren't so I think to be fair and to be across the board we need to be very clear in that statement okay um page 47 at the top this statement students have no expectation of privacy they have their cell phone taken away and somebody can go look through their entire cell phone has that been passed by a legal test yes as far as if there is anything that um is Criminal I understand that but the fact that it says students have no expectation of privacy is I guess that's an attorney question yeah straight from policy but you can go ahead and answer that

022okay so I do believe that we did take that from your policy let me look um but with regard to expectation of privacy um as a legal question for law enforcement law enforcement has to if they are looking into something as a potential crime has to make sure that they're following um their laws that apply to them that have to do with search and seizures so there are specific things like probable cause that do apply that in the you know criminal Arena that they would have to pay attention to um that's not exactly the same for us when we're just dealing with discipline issues um and even though we say that there's no expectation of privacy I do believe that if you look at our policies and procedures we're not just going through people's phones

023with no reason it would be based on perhaps catching them doing something right like catching them taping something and then I think usually what we ask them to do as opposed to going through the phone themselves is to have their parent come and we ask them with their parent to actually delete what they had just taped as opposed to the staff doing it themselves but I do think it's a good thing to have in there because it does put the students on a sort of notice or warning you know that if I'm doing this at school that you know it could be a problem either through a disciplinary issue with the school or through uh you know criminal issue with the law and that somebody may go through my phone if it warrants it okay

024I just want to make sure we're on legal ground by making that statement there it's in our policy it says students shall have no expectation of confidentiality with respect to their use of wireless devices on school property that's different than privacy but then there's also talks about privacy as well specifically foreign it says um including but not limited to those but cameras may not may not be activated and utilized at any time in any school situation where a reasonable expectation of personal privacy exists and then it talks about what the attorney said that there are certain times that if we have suspicion that we can do it like a search and seizure I'm just saying that statement I want to make sure we're on legal ground of that statement do you want me to charge

025it well I'm just asking you you discussed it with the attorney I'm not an attorney so I want to make sure um and the next thing I have is well teachers and administrators review the important changes at the beginning of the year with new students when they arrive because we get new students all the time and at the start of the spring semester and will parent information nights and Communications go out frequently a good food through the chair the answer that question is yes so we've created a new onboarding process at the beginning of each school year we work with administrators over the course of the summer to identify what shifts uh need to be effectively communicated both to staff at the opening of schools as well as students at the opening of schools as

026well as the community at the opening of schools so we vet that process and streamline it across the entire system to ensure that the appropriate messaging is being communicated we also replicate that process coming back in January where we have the same exact process which is kind of reloading for the new the new semester or walking into the second semester reminding students of the expectations pushing that information out so this will be part of that process as we upload that information to make sure everyone clearly understands what are the changes and how do we ensure that we're being consistent in the implementation at the opening of the school year is if we get this right as we open up the school year a lot of this will just uh the expectations will be adhered to

027and we'll be able to focus in on teaching and learning and then we come back in January uh we'll be able to remind everyone of these expectations to continue through how about new students um uh we have an intake process that we follow at all schools so as we go through the intake it's more than just saying Welcome to our schools and sitting down through the counselor's office where there is a checks and balance for lack of a better way of saying it where you're going through the expectation so if you're coming into our school from one school a new system then that's the opportunity to make sure we're onboarding that family the most appropriate way coming from another school which is typically the overwhelming number of our transfers we have a significant movement within

028our system uh they already know those expectations so it's a little bit different depending on where you're coming from but if you're new to the system it is sitting with the counselor and going through this is the code of conduct this is the information in which you need to be aware of sign for it as well as everything else you think at the beginning of the schools the plethora of information you as parents have to sign as we onboard a school year we have to to do that while we have the parents at schools registering those kids okay because I know in the past it's just been handing the paperwork and they get a ton of paperwork and they're expected to read through it all and then they go to school the next day so

029I just want to make sure that we're these are big changes and we want to make sure everybody's aware of them when they walk on the campus making these these changes I think is absolutely moving the system in the right direction not effectively communicating these changes is an absolute failure of myself and staff that will not happen we this is a been a long time coming it has been a process in which we've really taken seriously in order to ensure that we do have this community standard associated with the way in which students will act in our County as it relates to what takes place the behaviors that are displayed while in a school so we will be very Vigilant in ensuring that this expectation is absolutely 100 percent effectively communicated in the organizational behaviors

030that will be created or aligned with this code of conduct okay and then the last thing I have is uh the video that I shared with you when will we see some posting of that so I've had staff review that and it is it's a very good video and a very long video so what we're working on now is taking the most pertinent pieces out there and kind of making clips of it so our community can digest that information and bite-size pieces where they can actually sit in in small chunks digest some of that information so taking all of it we don't think we'd be able to communicate have them sit through the 90 minutes so we're communicating and we're gonna be pushing that out while this is out for public hearing because some of

031the changes as you have referenced as have other board members um there's a great research that supports the need for some of the changes that we're making this code of conduct right because the the piece in that video I think that's the most important for parents to see is the addiction to cell phones absolutely that's in there okay thank you that's all I have thank you Miss berenborg Mr barefoot for that there's not many more questions to ask or comments to make but I um I think that that communicating with parents uh Guardians grandparents and the like is absolutely critical there's only so much you can do in a classroom or at a school everything starts at home so the video that gets produced um one obviously it should be available at any point in

032time the other thing you might consider when you are producing or creating or editing whatever stage you're at this video is a couple of case case studies in the sense that Little Johnny or little Mary was found with this or had this problem and this is how we handled it almost real life role-playing you can probably get some of our students that would be delighted to participate in something like that that'll make it more real time I agree and not just a lecture or not just a bunch of slides that works well for adults that learn that way and and as you might consider that as part of this video that you produce and ultimately put on the website and or and send it out on a regular basis just to remember where's the case

033as they delete it uh closet reminders but on that you did a great job thank you thank you thank you Miss Rosario thank you um thank you for all the work that you and your team have done um thus far I do have a few questions um one of the things that you mentioned on the PowerPoint as you went through it was the effort that the district um made to reach out to community leaders to community members to be a part of the code of conduct committee and student leaders as well I know that there were times where the superintendent met with the student leaders of our district to receive feedback and of course the board members but what I didn't see were teachers we did have our Union president participate and I think she

034brought a teacher but she was the representative on behalf of the teachers she um actually had copies she participated in the first session and we got feedback from her for the initial round of revisions and then we got feedback again from her once we got feedback from the board members as far as the changes the proposed changes along with the principles so that was twofold and she um really gave us some suggestions from a teacher's perspective which helped out tremendously especially when drafting uh the consequences relating to the offenses as well as you know the administrators so we don't have not all of our teachers are union members so if our Union president is speaking on behalf of the union members then we're missing an entire segment of teachers voices that may have participated or

035may have you know added to this conversation I think that's definitely an area of improvement for us moving forward that we need to make sure that we reach out to everyone maybe even bring this forward at a future and I'm sorry that I didn't think about it before but maybe even bring this review forward to school so that they can at their level you know do a full review of the code of conduct with their principal or their assistant principal or in their Department um chair meetings or something like that so that we can actually get literal classroom teacher feedback comprehensive feedback like everyone um if they're interested of course you can always some people might not want to be a part of it but the idea is to make sure that the people who

036it's actually impacting in the classroom which is the teacher we hear from and I think that we didn't getting one president One Union president and one teacher who brought came in with the Union president I don't think that gives us a fair and accurate view of all of our teachers and also bias having the community input that was another opportunity but that's good feedback because anybody can show up for the community input I know but to give to give feedback what that's well taken yeah input feedback committee Community Committee was really there were parents on there there were a lot of I didn't see any teachers you know local working active teachers um there so I think that we need to kind of find a way another way of recruiting them and if this policy

037get if this code of context gets passed tonight and it goes for this hearing public hearing because public um we still have 30 days to receive feedback so I'm hoping that if any there are any teachers who are listening um that if you all hopefully they're teaching right now when they watch it later when they watch it later I do it later please don't get in trouble and I want anybody to um just provide us with feedback you know we still have time um provide us with feedback provide the feedback to the superintendents and Mrs dampierre you know send us all an email of your concerns or something that you want us to either address or add or take away this is the time when we want to be able to hear from the the

038people that it actually impacts yes sir I I agree that we need to formalize the the structure so you can as a board member or board members articulate this is clearly where that information was shared with with teachers so I I agree with that in the same breath I want to give assurances to the board as we went through this policy um in the in the changes whether it be with principles whether it be with the leadership teams um this bus service team uh and and looking at it the expectation isn't always well be that you are representing um the teacher's voice in terms of what these changes are so it just isn't speaking from a principal's perspective in terms of implementation it's going back to your teachers and receiving feedback what do you think

039about this uh so the expectation is for all of us to have the backs of teachers which we I know for a fact this um staff does is to receive that information so at the end of the day uh teachers will say this code of conduct has taken some things off of me uh which will make my job easier and I think that's exactly what we'll hear as we move forward but we will articulate exactly how we're going to get that information in in the future thank you um you have a few as you know obviously as we go forward there were a couple of changes since the last time that I saw this that I just wanted to ask some a questions on on page 11 what was your you mentioned earlier that we

040would still be doing Champs you said in terms of the training but it's crossed off here and I know Champs is defined in the back as not being social emotional learning or you know some unsolicited Theory so why was this why is this crossed off before crossed off all curriculum just to be on the safe side because we don't know what can be added and or changes might happen so we took off all curriculum because we wanted to make sure that whatever is on the approved list we will be able to implement those changes but we're still doing it that still would be an option for schools we're not requiring that was something that schools individual schools may have selected as an intervention school-wide intervention so they may still use it just like PBIS was

041eliminated off of um the list we we eliminated all the of the curriculum off that that doesn't necessarily mean that PBIS or Champs won't be implemented we just eliminated it off of the list of listing all curriculum on here because it could change okay so so what I'm hearing is there's still a possibility for schools to select a curriculum or a guidance that they can use at their schools that is not a part of this code of conduct that has been approved for example if you we have the list of prohibited curriculum we are unable to use that so they will come through our office that's why we're going through the training to make sure that that list is acceptable of course Champs is acceptable just like kids at Hope is on that list as

042being acceptable as well but we will not have an automatic list in the code right gotcha so how are we how are you all communicating that to schools that will be part of the beginning of the school training as well as with administrators because we still have to do training with the administrators once this is approved and we will at our not reignite pre at night make sure that whatever curriculums have been approved that's not on the prohibited list that we will let them know that they can continue to use that as well as our school counselors because we want our school counselors to be aware of this as well okay all right so thank you for that um let me go to the next page sorry so on page 20 something that I mentioned

043early on in our one-on-ones um was the department of education's let me get it the Florida Department of Education has on their website a um [Music] that's a nice ringtone I like that ringtone that's the Ohio State fight song by the way I don't like it I she don't like it at least it's patriotic right yeah I apologize do you get an infraction yeah it's a detention I get a detention I have to go to the person's office um so the Florida Department of Education has rules for student discipline on their website and part of the um there are slides that are there which aligns with our statutes is a zero tolerance Preamble it is in State Statute 1006.13 essentially the the the one phrase that is shown over and over on their training slides

044here um is are the words zero tolerance for crime and victimization that's something that I brought up earlier that I would love to have that supported in our code of conduct I thought it would be included here but I don't see it you were right because because I see that we've reduced the minor self cell phone usage from three of four offenses to three which is good but I don't see this I do apologize um I think some of the changes and this is no excuse but some of the changes that my staff had made we think that it didn't click that's why it took so long for us to you know send out there so that was on this list I saw it so and it was in bold I I don't know where

045it disappeared but we realized that late that day I was sending it for I realized can we make sure on here and okay now I'm not crazy because Mrs cash and Schmidt said the same thing she said I know some of the changes that I caught she was like I saw them and I saw them but when I guess when the track changes maybe when she went in and saved so we'll add that the victim it was on here thank you that's what this is all about right and it was bold it was bold um then 20 Page let me go page 27. nope nope it where the Boolean section let's make sure what page I'm sorry page 27. oh we we did put the violent crimes I apologize did you we did put it

046on page yes up on the violent crimes and victimization that's where I see it we discussed perfect okay perfect thank you I know it was like someone sorry about that all right we're good there okay back to page 27. um under Altos the alternative to out-of-school suspension there's a word there um recidivism it's a second bullet down it says the program is designed to reduce recidivism I talked about this the last year and probably even the year before about that particular word I mean the definition of recidivism is the the tendency of um really a convicted criminal to reoffend to do a crime again recidivism is one of the most fundamental concepts in criminal justice it's really a word that refers to people who relapse in a crime or relapse in a behavior that would

047bring them or return them to prison essentially um I would like to not use that word for our kids I mean if we're going to use a word here in our code of conduct we can very easily say the program is designed to reduce repeat misbehaviors keep it simple and that is correct we'll align it to the Strategic plan we'll we'll make that change easy thank you all right done thank you Miss Rosario I'm not done I'm done with that done I'm sorry I apologize okay page 31 I didn't see this word before it's all the way at the top it says interim alternative educational placement what is interim because we either have in-school suspension we have Aspire we have all Altos what is interim and it's for ESC students um we have it's from

048statute that we can place them in a room placement it could be another facility that's needed because the facilities that we currently have do or do not meet the needs of that student oh where would we put them I mean here in our school district we only have but so many placements so what would be the option well uh it could be home school if with the parent it could be of course our prep or it could be a facility that the parents have agreed to where the kid needs additional support so basically the same thing that everybody else is getting well B yes and no it depends it's on a case-by-case basis so I can't make a you know okay I get it all right thank you for that um let me I have

049a before I go to the next page on the slide the school resource officer school resource Deputy assigned to cyber bullying for the next coming school year it was on the slide for cell phones but when you go to the definition of cyber bullying in our code of conduct cyber bullying is referring to technology or any electronic communication including the transfer of signs signals writings images sounds Etc in part by wire radio electronic systems photo but I don't see here personal cell phones so how can we clarify what exactly is going to be investigated is it school related Electronics or are they also going to be charged with um personal cell phones it would be a combination of both for example our wireless devices like I said we've had students take video and use fake

050accounts and so our principals don't have really don't have the time to go and do some extensive research to find out who you know have that skill set and we the our SRD department has a department that really focuses on that so they'll be able to bring the expertise to us so that was just an example that I listed as such as you know cyber security but it would be of any type of investigation that pertains to you know that requires us to delve deeper into investigating okay so here for the definition of cyber bullying can we include um under the in this definition uh the words including personal cell phone um yes we'll we'll have to change the policy because the policy does yeah we took this we got a lot of policies that

051we're going to wind up changing anyway as a result of this but that would make sense because if the cell phone is used for cyber bullying but it's not included in the definition I think it would be smart of us to include that in there and I think that's part of that Boolean policy so that's perfect you're welcome thank you okay moving on page 43 dress code um page 33 43 sorry 43 one of the bullets um in the middle two three the seventh bullet down it reads apparel will contain no sheer net mesh or sleep wear items we have that now and kids are coming to school with their pajamas so we can have all the policies in the world all the procedures all the written guidance but if they're not implemented at the

052school level it's for none and we'll make sure that that is part of the training I have written that down to add in the training explicit training that our principals will have to take and make sure that that's expressed also with the training for our teachers as well um there's a with regard to the shear and the net um what about leggings that have a sheer um side to it so I have seen leggings like workout gear where there is a sheer mesh that obviously goes from the hip all the way down to the bottom of the leg and I've seen them on school campuses I know I've seen them in the gym and you know would that um fall into and my my initial um thought is yes it does fall within this category

053of no sheer and no net no mesh but if that's not again caught at the school level um I suppose that that would fall under your training yeah you have to have all eyes on deck for these I put that I added that no pajamas no sheer leggings just some examples of it give them some examples specific yeah that would be good the other thing that I have here what I don't see and I know that we've had this conversation before no flip-flops no slides no slippers and I don't see that here anywhere I thought I remember seeing it in past code of conducts that they weren't allowed to come in with flip like beach flip-flops you know open flip-flops it's unsafe walking down the stairs walking up the stairs I know we live in

054Florida but what what is the dress code policy on that the principal of course would have the final decision but we can add that on no flip-flops well board members I'll open that up to discussion my thought for that is no flip-flops I mean I can I understand open toe but there has to be like a back strap you know to to secure the foot in the shoe but no open flip-flop my my my my belief my thought no open flip-flop no slides no slippers I see kids coming to school with pajamas and slides they're just rolling out of bed I mean literally just literally rolling out and just going to school so I think that kind of attire needs to stop so I'm almost done and then we can re get the board members

055um view on those three things so I would like to see us not have slides flip-flops or slippers um the other thing is I'm going to go to the first offense I had a suggestion for the first offense and I have it here for a second and third I know this is part of Statute we're not removing words from here but I thought to uh with the change of clothes I had a suggestion and we can open it up to the board members too include for the first offense do three things because if we're trying to crack down on some of these misbehaviors this could be one of those ways first would be call the parent obviously if the parent can come in and bring a change of clothes great then the child changes and

056then the child goes back to school basketball back to class and the day moves on If the child if there cannot be a change of clothes um the child would obviously get a warning and a lunch detention because I'm not sure we can do anything else at that point except place the child in Aspire for the rest of the day because they're out of dress code but that's one one suggestion the second offense if they do it again obviously parent call same thing if you can come in with a change of clothes great if you cannot come in with a change of clothes lunch detention and then at this point the additional um response could be removal from extracurricular or Sports suspension and then the Third offense would be the same thing one two or

057three same thing parent um uh lunch detention extracurricular or Sports suspension and then of course number five is in-school suspension or Aspire and then of course you can progress from there but if we provide some of the if we provide those options within the first the second and the third we still get the opportunity to say no you really need to change those clothes and the the the principal still has some of those options in there to choose from in terms of looking at a particular situation quite differently but I will agree with Mrs Mrs um barenborg on this that when you have a student who comes in with clothing that is not appropriate midriff showing boobs showing shorts are too short that's not someone that should be sent back to class because we are

058setting the wrong we are sending the wrong message to everyone else that this person can just go to the office and then be sent back with just a warning that's not acceptable we wouldn't do that when it comes to any of the other violations unless they're pretty minor in this case this would interrupt the educational you know setting so I think if we could talk about those as a board and get feedback there that might help with the changing of clothes my last item that is not on here that I'd like to open up for discussion is I was told within this whole process that Vero Beach High School and Sebastian River High School have a bathroom pass policy that is only um that students can only use three passes within nine weeks is that

059true you're abused too sure yes but not by nine weeks by class so it's not necessarily either three bathroom passes for the totality of a nine weeks period it's by individual class so each class gets three passes yes so yes correct so some um some parents are actually you know saying that this is it's not per class it is per semester per nine weeks and that some students some girls obviously when they really need to use the restroom they can't so what was brought to my attention was that this was a school board policy because that's what the parent was told but it's not a school board policy this is a school building practice is that correct yes but I'll I'll verify with with principles but just in speaking to principals and being on campus

060each every single day it is by the particular class and there's always the opportunity to where there's unique circumstances in which you work with a student to this point as we began doing at the beginning of the school year um there was concerns but this is that's an example of principles being consistent in terms of what they're doing students are moving every 40 some odd 50 minutes so when you walk in classrooms you you're on schools you see hallways that are empty and at the end of the day being implemented um with Fidelity across the schools but I'll double check with principals and when did this start at the beginning of the school year so I've I've had some concerns over it or you know some concerns have been brought to me over this so

061I don't know how to verify other than you walking the hallways but I don't know how to verify get student input how do we get student input on that I mean it's great that the hallways are clear but I don't want anyone to have to feel like they've used up their three passes and they have to hold it you know or they get in trouble [Music] which I've heard from a few kids we did receive feedback and it was one of the things as we worked through last year that was just absolutely way to move too much movement in the hallways um we went through it again as we moved through this particular year there's always going to be situations in which Common Sense has to come into play and teachers will have to use

062that that common sense but at the end of the end of the day there is an expectation um that we are here for for teaching and learning and I I know that our our teachers go above and beyond in terms of being able to act in the best interest of of our students so there is a a system in place that is working very nicely and when there's opportunities that we need to allow students to use the restroom that's exactly what we do [Music] yes thank you Mrs Ariel um just a couple statements um with a new cell phone guidelines just want to make sure this board The District staff is here for our principals and our teachers because there will be issues and we will get calls a cell phone was taken we've got

063to support the process and we've got to support the school so I just want to make sure clear on that I like the information what we have through K8 6 8 and then 912 when it has permission for example in certain classes I too which wish to talk a little bit about um state statute 10613 District School Board shall promote a safe and supportive learning environment in schools by protecting students and staff from conduct that poses a threat to school safety threat assessment team may be used alternatives to expulsion or referrals to law enforcement agencies to address disruptive behavior through civil citation Teen Court neighborhood resource of Justice or seminal groups Zero Tolerance policies may not be rigorously applied to Petty acts of misconduct Zero Tolerance policy must apply equally to all students regardless of

064their economic status race or disability now when I talk about this I'm not talking about any kind of major disruption fights disrupting School environment drugs we know that we know the student has to be removed but we have what we have been doing and whatever we end up calling it or what is approved is bringing people together with parents knowledge to see if we can solve the problem we all know punitive has to happen sometimes but when you collaborate that with a practice whether it's called restorative practice or whatever you want to have I think is important and again this would be through a parent wantiness I don't want to take it away from parents who want this when we used to do it what we called it say okay if we do this we

065might reduce the suspension parent knowledge we have a base and when they come back then we don't have as big a problem because if you bring kids back from just punitive without something else it's going to come again so what we want is safety on school campus and believe me the first day of school is a principal you do not have the right to disrupt this environment period but in saying so if there is an issue we will try to work it back with you reducing suspension Colony parent and sometimes I knew parents enough that they'd say I got it and I trusted them and it didn't happen again so when we talk about zero tolerance I understand I want every child safe at all times but don't don't throw the baby out with the

066bathwater oh no something else has to be there I didn't have enough time to get all the data but I will have it for next board meeting I have talked to aspired teachers um and what they use so when the student goes back that they feel like they're going to be safe and they feel there's not going to be an issue so whatever that is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and it has to be okay with the parents I got it 100 percent the principal is in charge of that school by state statute big big responsibility I would not be in favor of saying You must do this you must do that you must do that you must do that the principal knows the climate and the culture of that school and

067I think for the most part this code kind of gives them that um permission if you will again not talking about major disruptions I don't think we go into the detail I was here when the first code of conduct book came out I see some former principles there I'm looking at the book you know I'm looking at the book what do we do here what do we do there I knew my students I knew my staff I knew my parents and they all knew I expected a safe learning environment so we have got to trust our principles and our teachers and our staff members and our bus drivers because those this is important on the bus too with cell phones and everything else so I'm not in favor of saying you do this you do

068this you do this at the same time we make sure because we have students who are suspended and the parents work really hard with you work really hard with you to get that reduce or what can we do I guess Ms stamp here that's my one question I have we've got to have by State Statute these Alternatives will we have them we have um character education which is outlined our curriculum Pop um division has instruction on those character Ed like respect kindness those are things that we're really going to focus on with our school counselors for next year to combat some of this Behavior you will see a lot of and all their um the offenses as far as the interventions it says parent contact we really want to partner with the parents and have

069them as a part of that conversation as long along with our school counselors as well so there will be um some correction uh but not programs per se that are not outlined that that have we've been told that we cannot use we're not talking about programs I'm talking about students who need help yes and they need to talk whatever you call it yes maybe the suspension is reduced I'm not talking about a program that every child has I'm talking about how do we help these students and that is a part of the process that's why it was important that we put parent contact as well as our school counselors and our school counselors that's why we have them in K through 12 now we didn't have them at the elementary level but we have those

070people in place and folks in place to um provide them with those strategies to be able to help our students and our parents and so a lot of training is going to happen and occur with our school counselors because they have had programs and we're not going to be utilizing those programs we're going to be utilizing strategies uh to make sure that our students are able to come back and be able to you know interact and be able to follow the expected expectations and rules that we've outlined in our code of conduct just to build on what Miss dampier says and give every Assurance to the board where we are being explicit is where absolutely we need to be explicit on the most egregious offenses offenses right that harm children absolutely the level of flexibility

071uh for principals administrators counselors to work with students and parents to address those behaviors uh to keep children in classroom and to keep children understanding which behavior is leading to a negative consequence whether it's a negative consequence to myself or to others and then provide them with a deeper understanding as to what behaviors don't lead to harm to others or self that's not negotiable uh and you're right a hundred percent in program specific programs that are fine today but are not fine tomorrow uh in some ways takes the level of really addressing and defining what I'm going to do to meet the needs of this specific child which may be different and not a 100 percent aligned to one specific program we need the ability to to understand what is the reality that which this

072child is living and how do I partner with the parents in order to provide an environment so the student can be successful that's not going anywhere we need to continue to do that so every Assurance to all board members we're not walking away from meeting the individual needs of students both in the classroom as well as in the hallways we need to create environments in which children can be successful and we can't punish away uh maladaptive behaviors we have to educate we have to partner and we need to increase a student's understanding of the impacts of decisions that they make that they have on themselves as well as others not talking about a curriculum we're putting out there with standards or anything like that I'm talking about when two students fight and before they come

073back what can we do to help them with parent permission yes and again that that is the key there because if we don't it could just get worse at school and I've lived that yep um let me think I have one more thing and then we can um I talked about not having the direct options as a principle but and I'll have more data because I know we've used some programs in Aspire and ltos because I've talked to the teachers there so and those students really need something before they go back into the mainstream my feelings all right any other discussion board members on this topic oh I'm sorry Ms barenborg and then Mr Barefoot okay so um Mr Rosario brought up flip-flops I'm going to tell you that I remember distinctly that there were

074not allowed flip-flops for a while because of insurance somebody steps on the back of somebody else's shoe they're going to go forward and they're going to hit the ground I remember and flip-flops were a big no for a while so I don't know how that even came back um anyway I'm just throwing that out there because it was an insurance issue um I agree what message are we sending to other students when we allow somebody that's breaking the rules to continue to break the rules the whole rest of the day because if you somebody comes to school with pajama bottoms on and you call a parent they say I can't get up there that's you know you're going to have to just live with it well they are your responsibility they are your children I

075understand because I've made those phone calls and I get that response sometimes but what's the call there for the principal you know and and that's on them 100 and the reality is and I can go back from when I was a a principal the expectation is the beginning of every class all six classes or seven classes or eight classes depending on the number of classes you have as kids come in you you track the dress code so dress code should be done first period right the end of first period everyone's in dress code not me and I'm not the easiest person to work for but any teacher who sent something a teacher a student down second period or third period um the first place I went to was the first period in the second period

076teacher because the reality is you check it once uh and then you're done for the day now of course there will be opportunities when you would shift or a student came from this class I was dressed this way then this way but the reality is um if you're not enforcing it through the entire day um all you're doing is sending a message that you don't have to be in dress code so exactly if I received a warning first period and was sent back to second period all the children in second period And every student who was passed in the hallway would say well they don't really mean that because look at so and so um so the reality is it needs to be done once and there is a level of consistency um that we

077need to absolutely expect so having it on paper that's great that's wonderful but we need to ensure that it's being done with Fidelity uh for each and every single day of school okay I hope that helps I I know that you know with this new cell phone policy and the dress code we're asking principals to crack down and teachers and we're supporting this Crackdown and they need to know that we expect them to do it and if they crack down at the beginning of the year we all know those of us have been principals if you enforce or even a teacher in the classroom if you enforce your rules the expectation is there for the rest of the year but as soon as you let that rule get bent or broken it's gone I see

078a lot of head bombing out there so they know what I'm talking about um that's the expectation I have as a board member of our administrators on these policies that we are all voting to say let's crack down on this stuff we we want that enforced and when I walk on a campus and see this stuff it bothers me that it's being allowed so I'm just letting you know that I guess I'll just have to walk on campus on second period then um I do know about the three pass rule and I did question that in the fall because my own daughter went through that problem with a teacher and her grade was being marked down because she asked for more passes yeah well we got that taken care of but um I do understand

079that kids are meeting up in the bathrooms there's a you know they're on their cell phone hey meet me at 1004 get a pass I'll see you there I know that stuff's going on because I I witnessed it at Vero Beach High School when I was walking to campus one day we I was really with and I prayed that said just a minute I gotta go check on something sure enough that's what was happening so um I think I understand the Crackdown on that but I do also understand the fact that um you know kids may need extra passes or whatever and hopefully we're allowing some of that stuff especially for you know medical or health issues um what is a stamp here you know I'm going to ask you this what is St Lucy's

080cell phone policy for all their schools they're not allowed from the beginning to the end even in their high schools and and not that we want to follow everything that St Lucie does but they have one of the top five schools in the state so I asked what does Lincoln Park do and that's what the expectation is for a high school so my question is with all these high school fights especially when I hear about the flick um and kids are pulling out their phones to videotape videotape videotape if the expectation and the principles are we can't control that in the schools but yet we're adding an SRD to help them with that how come we can't help them with this so that we can crack down on all the social media problems that are

081happening that cause disruptions in our schools why can't we crack down on even high school cell phone policy so as we went through and received feedback we really looked at where the root cause of the problem was coming from middle school students have really demonstrated the lack of maturity in terms of knowing when to use these phones appropriately and not appropriately and it was pretty pretty consistent across the board that there has to be opportunity to help students understand how these devices should be used so in middle school we thought it was absolutely appropriate to say based on the number or the frequency of incidents in Middle Schools it is a very doable thing in which we can build that level of expectation in secondary schools or early high schools specifically by adding the teeth

082to the non-negotiable zero tolerance we're able to address the behavior and as you said yourself once you address those specific behaviors then ultimately students will fall in line and having the ability of of the the resource so in speaking to the principles are we looking at where best to address the behavior I think this could have conduct captures that so now that they have this extra support with the SRD there's a fight breaks out a bunch of phones come out and I've heard from the administrator's part is I have too much to do and handle with the investigation how do you expect me to go and look in video and find all these kids with their phones out all you have to do is make one case one case and everybody finds out what happened

083to that child that was videotaping another child put it up on Snapchat it's illegal to put that up there without a parent permission and yet what's happening all the time so to crack down on that and to give them that support let's get this SRD to help them with that when there's a that situation going on so that we can stop all this craziness and I'm hearing about it with the flick especially what happened last year okay and then um I agree punitive and education go hand in hand what are we in the business to do educate so we have to educate we can't just throw away the key and um you know the principal runs the school yes but if you'll you'll get the same discipline with the same expectations and the discipline is

084out of control and the only way we're going to get it under control is to get these rules a little stricter but the follow-through has to be there and if they're not willing to do it find somebody else it is so I have thank you Miss barenborg Mr barefoot this is uh when you uh Mr Empire when you were having these sessions did you include uh or were any people involved from the Boys and Girls Club tyac crossover mission the programs that actually work with these kids oftentimes after school on weekends [Music] we had so many people that I can tell you the first night I don't recall do it did we have any with fact substance awareness committee we from where what miss Corbin who works with Community Schools from through children's and family

085we did have it open for our first session we had almost I think over 50 people that were in attendance for that first session we did have a lot of community members here for that a second and third session sort of doing the down a little bit because we did cover all of those four Focus areas and gathered feedback at that point but no we didn't have anybody specifically however the people that were on their community members from before and we posted it we are on our website so we didn't call specific agencies to say I think yeah we did have someone from gyc yeah because my suggestion was going to be when when you when we put this out to be sure and get our proposed policies into the hands of these organizations in

086the community that deal with kids because they're going to be in a position to reinforce I think this is a you know it's not just us and it's not just the parents but a lot of parents and I'm familiar with with boys and girls club for sure um they really depend on these organizations to in some respects obviously they're Role Models but in other respects I don't want to say uh substitute parents but they are the adults in the room when those kids are in these organizations so I think including them or advising them or seeking some comments would be would be a smart move okay I have that written now miss Rosario um yeah I have a few questions um uh Dr Jones you mentioned something about data that you don't have the data

087what data were you referring to I was just looking at the information that we use in Aspire and Altos on whether it's restored to practice or anything that works with students so to see how that has worked or reduced suspension so I've been looking at that but I have the whole stock of all of the data here did you not receive this which one was it Aspire the Aspire program all of the Aspire teachers had to log in all of the data of all of their students on a day-by-day basis when did you receive that by whom a couple of days ago last week I requested it Dr from Mrs dampier yeah for this particular meeting to be prepared for now to have those questions which by the way is a good lead way I'll

088let you respond but then I wanted to talk about this no ma'am I don't have it me either I'll make sure you get it it's not on purpose it was it was information pertaining to the Aspire just particular questions yeah because I requested the Aspire data which is exactly this the and what's interesting is you'll see it leads me into this next conversation or this next question and I'll ask probably Dr Moore to respond or Miss Sam Pierre the original intent of aspire two years ago when we started Aspire was so that there could be a place for students kind of like an in-school suspension um but it wouldn't be used as a a period by period you know you you do something bad in this period go to Aspire or go to in in

089school suspension for just that period it was really intended to be an all-day thing an alternative to out-of-school suspension basically um somehow or another that's changed so I'm going to ask Dr Moore if he can talk a little bit about the original intent of aspire and where we are now with the Aspire program we'll I'll open it up to you first um Dr Moore [Music] thank you through the chair the intent of aspire is to keep children in school while the same time a price uh provide them the opportunities to receive Services uh through the school to help them understand what Behavior landed them in aspire and looking at it very similar to the dress code if you don't have the appropriate dress code um we need to get you in the appropriate dress code

090but sending you back to class sends the message to the school culture or the school environment um that nothing happened to me the student who would be out of out of dress code so as we receive feedback from principles on what is the absolute best use of how to use this intervention uh principles have the autonomy to say you'll be in there for the remainder of this period or that period or for a day or two while at the same time having the opportunity to address behaviors over the course of time so it is there's a lot of flexibility provided to the administrator in terms of how you use this resource to help modify behaviors while at the same time keeping a expectation across the totality of the school so everyone clearly understands uh that

091there is a consequence so the feedback on that modification from principles has been um absolutely this this has made their lives um much easier it's allowing students to understand there is a immediate consequence for behaviors while the same time maximizing the time that they're in class you're able to provide the consequence uh have it help the student and get the student back in class and I'll also say just as we're having the conversation um I'm going to tell you right now the work that our principals have done over the course uh of this year to improve the environments and schools has been significant it absolutely has been significant are there opportunities to improve um yes the answer to that question is yes but when you look at where they were last year to where they

092are this year um so much better so I want to acknowledge that rate of growth well the same time acknowledging we from as from a systems perspective have to have a high expectation so as we're being critical on on what we're seeing it's not to to take away the efforts that principals have in place there's clearly opportunities to improve but we can't walk away from the efforts that they've made in terms of walking campuses students in classrooms uh the structures the the the fights um in comparison to this year to last year drastic drastically down uh still opportunities to improve so what we're seeing in our school tools is progress and we'll see even more progress yes next year when we improve this code of conduct so um when you when you receive this packet

093um board members you'll see what's interesting in there is that there are there's an array of um in fractions anything from cursing verbal altercation vaping there's a lot of vaping dress code tardies detention failure tobacco use skipping being insubordinate um there's one here that says I told my teacher what's up I don't know how that ended up in in an in um Aspire but um there's a lot of different infractions what I find though is that many of these and of course this list doesn't include student names so what we don't have here is a list of how many of these students are repeating the same behavior and still being placed in Aspire and not getting the next Altos or something else like what is the progression at what point and what this is what

094is not clear anywhere is at what point um do we say no more Aspire like what is that cut off because it's not it doesn't seem to be anywhere so who makes that decision as to how many times you can be placed in Aspire before a a subsequent um consequence is given the administrator is based yes so we can have kids go into Aspire for 10 times until an administrator decides I mean there has to be a cut-off we have to be able to say that's that's way too much we do not have anything documented stating that but we have given the principles the flexibility on a case-by-case basis because each case is different um depending on what the incident is um and again this goes back to what Dr Jones said uh says about

095knowing the students knowing you know um the whatever is happening in the student's life it could be a pattern of repeated Behavior and the administrator knows that maybe something is going on at the home Etc but it is left up to the administrator to give the consequence same thing with Altos we don't say you know you can only give so many days you know you can only give 10 days max up yeah I know but there needs to be I think there needs to be more support more more structure there um maybe a minimum or a maximum like you can't do more than a certain number of days I mean at a certain point we have to look at the school year how many times is a student going to repeat the same behavior and

096still only get the same consequence and it could be there hot there needs to be some kind of guideline there and it is that is one of our goals within our our District's strategic plan so we we do look at that is is the modification the behavior modification actually having the impact that it should so it is one of the criterias within our strategic plan as you recall that was the where we debated what was the appropriate turn you referenced earlier so that is looking at is that program being successful so having the opportunity to get to the student quicker versus tomorrow you report um to indoor suspension they call it something different here um requires too much time in between the display of the behavior versus the actual consequence slash intervention being provided so

097we're trying to accelerate as fast as we possibly can at school sites what do we need to give our principals in order to address uh the behaviors that are are keeping children out of class that would keep children from not being safe so I'm I'm telling you abundantly clear uh we need to trust our principles and we will look at if if I'm just which I think is what Miss Rosario is trying to address I'm going to send Mr Barefoot probably a good example from when he was in school to the indoor suspension 25 30 times and just kind of push him off we're not helping that kid or Mr Barefoot what we're doing is pushing away the kid and just go get out of my hair that's not cool that's not a a someone

098who makes a six digit salary who's going to be able to maintain their employment but that's not the the case we live eat breathe drink and sleep in these schools and this is and you heard me say it all the time the best job in the world but also the most complex job in the world and the environments in which uh I was a principal my last year being a principal was 2012. versus what it means to be a principal in 2023 even though I was in an inner city school man it's night and day it is different so we have been very aggressive at looking at interventions getting the opportunity to improve interventions to help modify behaviors opportunities for us to improve um is dress code I don't think anyone could shy away from

099from that we have to improve we have to be consistent and you set the expectation on the on day one and you enforce it all day long and when you enforce it all day long it says I think Miss berenborg just said it it becomes very very easy to do um that is an opportunity for us to improve specifically in our secondary schools I I 100 percent agree with that and there's only one person to blame because you're the board and that would be me um so we can modify that and we don't be honest with you we don't have to wait until next year to do that we can do it uh consistently over the course on a daily basis and I think there is opportunities to do that so when you're looking at

100the interventions that are in place um we do listen to our principles we do look at the consequences and what are we doing to be as Nimble as we possibly can be in order to get the appropriate um consequences as well as the opportunity just not to have a consequence but to learn from the consequence so the behavior doesn't repeat yes ma'am um so the other thing that I wanted to mention um something that we discovered was a concern a few months ago when we pulled up one of the odr reports I forget exactly which one it was that most of the um infractions were a lot of them were insubordinate and you couldn't actually identify which one were cell phones and which one were you were insubordinate why you know you weren't subordinate because

101you had an attitude that day or because you just refused to do the work or you had yourself like what was that insubordination um so are we changing the system so that these specific behaviors are now going to be able to be checked off yes I see yes um I can tell you feedback previously we used to have everything listed and then feedback from the principals can we just have a catch-all now we know that we can't be specific and Target that data now we're going to outline everything that was uh added to the code of conduct as far as cell phone um affiliating bullying all of that will be updated it will have its separate code we're working with it to make sure that happens so once this is approved we get with it

102and make those changes we've already we're going to include some principles in that as well to make sure we cover all the specific areas we've already been working with some of them I know Ms dowdell and the district team have started working with some of the principals to make sure that we're getting feedback what should be added what should not be added as far as a code because we want to make sure that we can really use the data to make decisions and we found out even with cell phones Dr poshka asked for that information we were like okay we have cell phones but we don't have it separated is it cyber bullying and so we're just from that feedback we're going to make sure that we can get data that we can make some

103instructional and behavioral decisions on more specifically great minds think alike because I was just going to suggest can we have multiple options for one offense so if a student uses a cell phone for cyber bullying for example can that one offense have both cell phone checked off and cyber bullying so this way when we are pulling up the data you can see how many cell phones were used for cyber bullying or you know any of the other things that you would use your cell phone for um you know classroom use cell phone use classroom use or cell phone refusal or you know something to that effect refuse to put it away or if you so we can see a little bit clearer um what was actually used and why for each infraction I don't know

104if we can do multiple yes uh I think you mentioned that in our individual I think I did I don't remember and and Miss cash and Schmidt said we're going to do it on the back end which is behind the scenes um I know we're working on that we have gotten a lot of feedback and again when we looked at the cell phone we could not give specific information about the cell phone so we do know that there are areas that we need to be more specific yeah the other thing that I had was for the Hope Scholarship I thought I saw the Hope Scholarship mentioned in here it is where is that because I can't find it now it's on the top of the timeline um John or bullying for bullying on here uh

105on page 18 at the bottom I'm on 20. if you look at the bottom it says the Hope Scholarship information down at the bottom for the timeline what page are you on oh page 20. sorry my old sheet setting I see the timeline uh I said a track changing do you see the bullying at the bottom where the yeah at the bottom it says days 11 through 15. oh here it is okay yep okay so can we have um in the back a definition of what that Hope Scholarship is something um with a maybe a an Asterix so that people know so parents know when they see Hope Scholarship they know exactly what that means what we don't have here and I've you know I've had conversations with some parents lately who have had no

106idea what the Hope Scholarship is and what it's for and I think it's important if we're going to include it in here that we include what it is and why it is mandated so we have had some situations one that has come to me most recently where there was a bullying incident and the parent did not receive any Hope Scholarship information even though it was mandatory to provide and for those who don't know the Hope Scholarship allows a parent kind of like a voucher works as a voucher system to attend another could be another public school could be another could be a private school could be a an alternative of the Parents Choice um to go to another school and receive Services if their child was bullied um in some form uh or fashion and

107I'll share with you all some numbers and this is why I think it's very important for us to don't disregard the Hope Scholarship or the family empowerment scholarship so some data that I received from our district which I think would be in important for us to kind of keep in the back of our mind is the growth of these vouchers in this voucher system of parents leaving our school system to go to a private school and I think moving forward there's new legislation that might even allow some homeschoolers to use some of these scholarships but the family empowerment scholarships used in this District in 2019 to 2020 were 92 so 92 parents utilize the family empowerment scholarships in 2020 and 2021 there were 81 who used the family empowerment scholarship and then 75 who used

108the McKay Scholarship um the in and look at the increase here from 2020 2021 they there were 85 81 family empowerment in 2122 school year that shot up to 373 families 373 families utilizing the family empowerment scholarship and then an additional 64 using the McKay Scholarship in 22 to 23 which is this school year 554 families have utilized these scholarships these vouchers that's a lot about that's a lot of vouchers or a lot of families that have left our school system to take their kids someplace else because of bullying or there I mean some of these could also be for reading tutoring or for some other reason why they've just removed their child from it could be ESC Services it could be a lot of different things [Music] um you're right let me take that

109back hope is separate the Hope Scholarship is a separate but for any other purpose it would be 554 this school year and the projection for next school year uh should go up to about 691 now that's just the projection could be more 691 families next year utilizing the family empowerment The Hope Scholarship which is specific to bullying in year 21 to 22 was 17 and in 22 to 23 it is now at 45. so it's still a lot it's still way more than we should have and I'll bet half of the students the kids who have been bullied and have not had any resolution those parents maybe have not even heard of The Hope Scholarship of their opportunity to go someplace else so once they start hearing about it they are entitled to receive those

110scholarships to go someplace else the problem with the state of Florida now is that there are so many school so many of these scholarships that are now going to be um available for pretty much everyone who is interested um but there might not be enough schools available enough options for school choice um that said it's one of the reasons why I think it's important for us if we're mandated to give this information on the Hope Scholarship to parents when there is bullying involved we should include the definition of what that is at least end with a link so we can let parents see that within our code of conduct the last thing that I'm going to mention and ask about is this new memo that came out and I don't know if this would fit

111within the code of conduct my guess is it doesn't but it might fit somewhere else is the heroes program it was a memorandum that went out to the superintendents on March 10th it might be very new but it's helping emergency responders obtain support which is Heroes program um it apparently has it's not new in 2022 there was a bill that was passed that that stated a public school May purchase a supply of opioid antagonist naloxylene no I might be pronouncing that wrong from a Wholesale Distributor or may enter into an agreement with a Wholesale Distributor I suppose you know and have this medicine available on school campuses yes that's what it says so what is this where is it does it pertain to us like what we as I recall as a part of the

112health plan um that was one of the questions that was in there about do we provide opium all that and we do not we do not house that on our campuses but our SRD but our srds they can administer it okay but we do not they they have okay we do not okay and they're always on campus yeah okay thank you so just a just a some clarify I'm sorry Doc Jones I wanted to wrap up with one thing you go ahead I just wanted to clarify as the state increases on a yearly basis the per uh percent of scholarships that are available across the entire state that is the same rate of growth that we experience so um Ms Rosario pointed out the the 45 that we have for for bullying uh and as

113that number has grown uh the projection of almost 700 next year is a increase based on the allocation provided from the state so it's and there are multiple opportunities for families to access those particular scholarships but what's important to know that that is money that is absolutely uh taken out of the hands of the public school system and pushed into wherever that student may be accessing his or her education so when you look at our enrollment one of the things that you'll see is we actually slightly increased in enrollment last school year while at the same time absorbing the 300 or 280 that went into the choice programs the next school year but as the offering from the state continues to grow the students who will choose to participate in that program both locally and

114across the state will also continue to grow so we need to do everything in our power to say the most appropriate Place uh or a powerful place to educate your your child is in a a public school and we got to be able to sell the great things that are happening in our school because there are great things happening in our in our school so we should embrace the competition because that's exactly what it is it is choice at the absolute highest level and we want to ensure that we as a board and we as a District staff and principals ultimately understand the power and the choice of a public education from a district operator School hey just to wrap this up um just a comment you know when now I found out was Dr

115posca asked about the cell phone good question and that let me stampier that information came to us just like when Ms Rosario asked for something please share that with us because that's information I would want to have and I've seen that go out a board member asks so you send it out and that's fine it's just that we need to do that um I really want to reiterate what Miss berenborg said we expect these things to happen but we are here for support we expect these things to happen as far as the code of conduct and cell phones and it's a it's going to be tough we expect it but we are here for support for our principals and our staff and a little comment about what Dr Moore just said you we are in

116an era of school choice we all know that but I too is a member of this board I am here to serve the 14 500 students in our County and we will continue to do the work we need to do you know Dr Moore is a CEO and runs the day-to-day of the district and the principles the day-to-day of the school and the teachers the day-to-day of the classroom it is harder than it has ever been but you're right this is competition this is choice and we need to continue to do what we do and we are on the next one I'm sorry I don't think we came to a resolution on the flip-flops the slides do you want me to comment for the dress code did you want all of us to comment as

117we can do that I think you were talking about so what were the questions and resolutions you brought forward to put on the dress code no flip no slides no flip-flops no slippers with an open back okay I can comment okay Dr posca um I I mean in general I I don't like the idea of policing our kids stress uh code and what they're wearing obviously we do need to have minimum standards um and more importantly when we do have those standards we need to actually Implement them and I think that's probably the biggest issue of the discussion here is just making sure there's equal implementation at every school on a daily basis specifically to flip-flops I I wouldn't want to limit that personally I think it's an important thing for a lot of kids

118to be able to wear what kind of shoe they like and I I don't really see much of an issue with that is barenborg I just brought up the insurance issue because I know in the past flip-flops are one of these things that some years are in some years are out and the year they were out thrown out it was because of an insurance issue I don't recall an insurance issue I I know we are we did attempt to negotiate with our our Union regarding the liability of of flip-flops from a work standpoint not necessarily the the code of conduct and I think it is a well I remember it coming up because kids were stepping on the backs of other kids shoes and they were starting to fall and get hurt and then the

119parents were like well you expect me to pay for it when you didn't enforce a rule so you're you are correct it was an issue I remember that I'm absolutely not in agreement with this we have a lot of changes that are happening choose your battles not only will you have a revolution you'll have a rebellion from students and I agree with Dr posca I'm fine with it I'm fine with putting it in there no I'm fine with it if we don't do it but I just wondered about the interesting problem because kids were stepping on the back see other kids shoes if that's not happening anymore I don't know they're moving on to other Tick Tock things the three of us know Mr barefoot I'm I find that you can go too far Miss

120Rosario no I already gave myself all right so it's fine thank you all right thank you so much okay here we go next one next two items will be presented by Mr Fagan um and Mr Pagan you're up followed by Mr Bass thank you Dr Moore through the chair to the board uh we have again and the item to increase the purchase uh Authority limit for two vendors CDW government from a million to million and a half in United data Technologies from a million to two million we have some things to buy before the end of the year and primarily also to be in preparation for the beginning of next year we want to make sure that we have all the equipment and all the supplies that we need and services between this these two

121time loans that we do not impede any opening of school for UDT I have about five hundred thousand dollars in interactive panels these are replacing the old panels that are several elementary schools and also if a panel goes down in the classroom instead of trying to fix what's there we're replacing with this panel So eventually we'll get to district-wide interactive panels we also have about 250 000 for laptops because we know we're not going to get them all back they're going to be damaged they're going to be sent off to be cleaned so this gives us a little bit extra inventory and then we also have some AV Equipment for Replacements and some other stuff that we need to have on the ability to buy from UDT for CDW we have several things to purchase

122them from them before the end of the year we have the media furniture for the Sebastian River High School and I have a couple slides for you we also have some monitor Replacements to be purchased from there software as we need through the end of the year for the district and is also we use them for technology Services we don't necessarily have all the skill sets we have in-house when something breaks so we contract out and they provide us with excellent services for that and I'll show you a couple of slides so um just a couple three slides up on the top you'll see on the left that is the current Sebastian River in that glorious pink which is beautiful color love it to death and on the right is the potentially new colors we're

123going to go with which is the school color school color absolutely love it notice the books on the shelves um and the pink walls on the right you've got the soft uh seating you've got modular seating you'll be able to move it around and what's next okay then you also have the seating where you would go get a book and sit at the table and read it the other side you have high top desk and you have some soft seating and I graduated high school I believe somewhere in the mid 70s and I'm pretty sure the picture on the left is exactly what I left probably probably a couple of very probably a couple of um Vero Beach graduates through here can probably say that was the same furniture that was there when they went

124through there um also once again self seating what you see there's also an area for some a little bit more powerful computers this allowed the children to come in one is also going to be open during lunch we're gonna you know actively engage them to come during lunch sit at the tables do their work um and also it's going to be highly technology rich and they're going to be approximately four to six panels where they'll be able to hook up at a table do some interactive work work in teams working working groups either on Special Projects or assignments they have to any questions board members Miss berenberg I just have a comment so we've come full circle on when I got in trouble sneaking food into the library to the point where they can actually

125have there's going to be coffee in there right coffee yes ma'am I can't wait to go for coffee to these squares so that if they do get damaged we can peel and replace versus having to replace them I think this is wonderful it's going to allow kids to want to use this facility and want to be able to work together in groups thank God we're starting to to really think like what they do in the real world is work in collaborative groups so thank you the board member comment question this is this this transition has been going on in colleges for years it's about time yeah we caught up with 15 years behind the curve okay next item is amendment to increase I'd like to comment I'm sorry commented um can you put that picture

126up again please Ronnie you can go to PowerPoint there you go so um it's beautiful it's a beautiful setting it's a beautiful room um I'm assuming that those chairs those tables are at height level for uh wheelchairs can wheelchairs get into those little spaces yes ma'am I would feel 100 confident yes everything there would be Ada so the one thing that I don't see and I mentioned earlier was because otherwise this is just it's just it's a redesign of our current room Library which is very needed it's very necessary there are some areas in there um that I love I love the computer station I love that little area for clubs and active and um like after school extracurricular activities they can meet there and discuss and small little small classrooms can get there and

127and and have small lessons going on I love that what I don't see and what I've mentioned before is um ESC special um furniture for our students who have sensory needs so if there is a student who you know we want to have who has autism for example we don't have sensory bean bags or sensory chairs or something of that sort within this layout that would address the needs of a lot of our students obviously we have and we can't look at just the students that we have currently in this year we've got to look at the students that are coming in next year as well so how can we accommodate some of these pieces of furniture or you know remove some of these and replace or ADD and make sure that we have you

128know kids cocoon some you know little Reading area on the floor something that is more comfortable to kids other than sitting at a table or sitting on that I don't know what that blue thing is called a blue bench which is wonderful and they're great again but you know kids some they want to sit on the floor they can read on the floor what where can we accommodate those needs in this space so through the chair I'll take an attempt at Mr Vegas feel free to add on uh in terms of buying furniture I think we're gonna address everything in which you just said so this is just the the request to to buy that but this is furniture that would be stackable this would be Furniture in which we could look at to say

129is it warm and welcoming and is this something that would would stimulate children I think we could do that you mentioned bean bags sure we we can add bean bags uh whether it's you know allowing students to sit on the floor you know we want this to be a warm inviting space for all children that it's open from sunrise to sunset or Bell to Bell um so I'm more than confident that we'll be able to accomplish that this is not necessarily a sensory room that's something as we all know which is significantly different but have an array of furniture that allow all students to feel comfortable almost I can select this piece based on my need I think this is going to allow us to do that and and we can continue to look at

130that and bring back to the board what that furniture would be but I'm comfortable uh based on the flexibility of some of the things that we're adding here uh the design of the room will constantly change in the access to how this furniture can be used provides multiple uses on how it could be used so is this request for just Furniture alone or is this going to be a request for other items like a 3D printer so this is a request for the to extend the amount to purchase the furniture which will finalize in in the coming weeks um did I say something carpet too okay in terms of Technology we will continue to grow technology aligned to the programming of schools so as you see those stations there very similar to screens and current

131offices or current media centers a student could move one of the desks over that called a collaboration station and throw there's their laptop screen over to that device right there and they could begin to work uh collaboratively in terms of a 3D printer if there was a course that had that in the in the confines of the school day once they were trained we could do it there we have the flexibility of adding programs in the media center aligned to what's happening in the confines of the school year what this initial phase would be is the reinvention of the space making it a collaboration space making it a warm and welcoming space and then continued conversation so the district the system is never in this space again where you have a library Mr Fagan was

132was joking but Dr Jacobs graduated from Vero Beach Sebastian River High School Milo Thornton graduated from Sebastian River High School our Sheriff graduated from Sebastian River High School that's the furniture they sat in and these are all people in prominent leadership positions in our district who graduated a really long time ago so as we continue to invest in the space over time that furniture is is easily replaceable and can continue to be modern as we move forward and what would happen to the old furniture through the chair it'd be offered to any school who may be able to use it if not it'll be surplused out Surplus an auctioned out auctioned yes can we donate it the Jerry yes ma'am could if we had someone who who needed it yes just like we've donated buses

133before or Mr Pagan you just said it could also go to one of our schools if they needed it right to the J yes ma'am okay when at what point when do we make that decision we will not be loading Furniture so the scope of work we will have Assessments in this space after we return from Spring Break um and then we will begin the flooring immediately after the school year ends and then started loading Furniture as we get closer to the opening of school so we could you know we'll look at that as the school year opens I I guess so your support you're um supposing that this is going to be completely done by September by August we don't think it's going to be done by the opening of schools no I think

134we're going to be still loading furniture and uh going into the first month or two of school until it's completely up and running yes so what about the books what about usage of the library while it's under renovation we'll have to make a plan on that because once we become closer I'll know the exact date in terms of the length of time in which the media center would not be open maybe a portion of it would be so as we get closer to it we'll design a plan um it does not mean the media center won't have we won't have access to it we will we'll have to figure out what that plan would be and the length of time that we'd have to implement that plan so it's depending on when furniture arrives how

135quick we can get it loaded but we will have a comprehensive a comprehensive plan in place so when school opens there there is access to a media center and and where are these funds coming from the chair at Capital funds capital so you're asking for an increase to the capital funds for this particular purchase not increasing Capital funds but an increase in the purchasing Authority and the purchase out of capital funds for these two vendors gotcha okay any other questions all right Dr Moore still Fagan uh next item this is approval for an amendment to increase purchasing Authority for Legal Services currently we have a contract with uh stiffness Melbourne for 250 000 this includes all board attorney board fees and also any litigation this is an increase to go from 250 000 to 350

136000. you may say Well Ron that's a pretty large increase well in actuality it's not in Prior years you were probably spending 500 000 a year on Legal Services between your board attorney and litigation currently right now we've been able to consolidate all litigation and board Services through stiffenous Melvin and therefore you're not paying two firms Plus in the prior year your board attorney's fees were almost twice as much as your current one so you're saving approximately 150 to 300 200 000 a year in cost avoidance or members questions Mr Barefoot one question I have oh I'm sorry doctor I'm sorry are there any other legal fees that we pay for instance for litigation do we pay hourly rates or any or is this contract all encompassing on our legal fees this contract is pretty

137much all uncomfortable now you do pay third party for workers comp insurance okay if you have a litigation directly against the district for something we would contract directly with stiffness okay and if I can add the hourly rates by the current firm a significant less than the prior firm and the other firms who submitted responses back when we renegotiated okay Mr Rosario yeah where did the where did the hundred thousand dollars come from I mean we just renewed our contract in this in November 30th I think it was November 29th currently right now we're not even into we're just entering into our fourth month in the in the year so where do we justify a hundred thousand dollars more okay we have a contract and the PO issued a stiff dismember for board attorneys fees

138that's value that eleven thousand dollars a month so you have that money encumbered the balance of what's been encumbered up to 250 000 is litigation you already have active litigation up to 248 thousand dollars well we've been in active litigation oh that's true we were in active litigation last year and we didn't go over it's because you had multiple uh firms you have one firm now who did we have last year have firms such as Google Cooksey hash Blackwell um Fisher and Phillips acre man LLP Alan Norton um I think we should receive all of this before we approve the hundred thousand dollars uh as we wish the board if you get another litigation that you can't engage them sorry if you get another lawsuit and we send it to sniffers mountain today we can't

139engage them because we'll be above the PO limit that's right generally when you get a litigation there'll be say a 25 000 initial po to say we're going to set this up for 25 000 for this litigation pending receipt of bills we we couldn't issue that PO but here's the thing is that you know now you're it feels like we can't do because now you're you're you're you're hitting that threshold once again and you're coming to us at the last minute without providing this information previous to today so that we can be fully prepared to have this conversation I mean today literally I don't know when board members have a briefing on this but I only had less than five minute briefing on a hundred thousand dollars today and then none of that backup was

140provided as well so it's just smart of us not to invest a hundred thousand dollars unless we know what we're spending it on and why as we're just into the fourth month of the school year I'm not saying that it's not that we we shouldn't I'm just saying it's smart to allow us that opportunity to do that research you must have received that research I think the research is relevant at all this is a this is standard business practice you're just asking to provide the district was the flexibility should it be needed and if there's a lawsuit that has to be addressed and we need to hire a law firm that specializes in that particular area then you'll have the ability to do so um standard practice in this expense line and many others this

141is there's only three months remaining in this fiscal year so we you all approve a budget from July um July 1 through June 30th so you approve this allocation of spending um last year and as Mr vegan explained you're still saving over a hundred and fifty two hundred thousand dollars when you look at what you were allocated with the old firm and it outsourced all of its litigation versus having an eternal form uh firm that does not Outsource its litigation so at the end of the day if we were still Outsourcing this would not be a request but anyone can sue us we have zero control over who decides to file a lawsuit the fact that we stay internal or work with the same company the same Law Firm is the reason for the additional

142request so at the end of the day you as a board are providing a cost savings uh in terms of what you negotiated with this law firm and US keeping it with one firm kind of streamlines the the work so you should have every confidence um that a the money is is available uh we're still going to end this the school year in a very very positive Place Mr vegan is is very fiscally responsible um but at the same time we need to be able to govern and run the school the school system and we can't control what happens tomorrow um Miss barenberger sure you know I asked that question too you know why a hundred thousand and you gave me a really good answer um we've paid more than that before but it just

143went out piecemeal to lots of different companies because Suzanne's firm didn't cover a lot of these whereas our new firm does right so I totally understand why you have to now come to us because we're looking at one firm covering it versus doing a little bit here and there which you wouldn't have to come to us for correct Mr Pagan and then I can clarify this is all just authorization to increase right no more litigation comes in we don't need to issue another po then I don't do anything exactly let's hope all one comes and it's only ten thousand then I only use 10 of the 100 requests it's just for cautionary in case something happens thank you Dr posca I'm good yeah I'm good as long as we're not spending as much money I

144know we're saving some money compared to last year and I think about if something did come and we couldn't react what will that cost us so I'm good with this thank you madam chair Mr Bass you're you're on the clock noon um I have a few items here for you the first one is extended day summer camp our fees each year we bring these fees to you for your approval the fee structure did not change uh from previous years uh it's going from extended day will be held at Liberty and Rosewood and it'll be from June 5th to July 28th any questions on our extended day program or comments summer camp just I heard it was really good last year and I'm hoping it's just as good this year it will be all right thank

145you Dr Long you're going to do a really good job and thank you to everyone who works with this program I see the um Cost Cuts for employees and what it can do for children as a grandmother and I know who uh grandson going to daycare we do a really good deal here for our summer and especially our after school program so thank you very much ladies I have a question what are the services that are provided for students with ese with special needs in our summer school and then in our after school programs uh through the chair we do have staff there that will address those needs as they can um there are some students that may not be able to come to the after school programs as much as they would like because

146of the severity of their needs and not having staff that can appropriately deal with them it's not that we're not trying to find staff to get them there's just no staff who have stepped up and to take that on really made an effort to get someone to provide those services for students as needed yes ma'am we have so is it appropriate to tell a parent sorry you can't have your kid here because it's not appropriate to say that it's tough it's heartbreaking yes ma'am so what what can we do to fix that I mean there has to be if this were in the obviously within the school the parameters of the school day from nine to three from seven to three we would have to find a way to fix it it would be part

147of their job description and and we would hire people specifically for that but the prop the problem is is getting those individuals with that special skill set to commit three additional hours a day five days a week to be there you know they're they're getting paid and that's not even incentive enough so I I don't know that I can answer that for you honestly can we engage in more conversation about this because there's a big need yes we can it's a really big need and I don't know if the Board needs to have you know another future conversation about it uh but I you know something has to be done because I hear it all the time I can't have my kid in an after school program even the summer school because they don't provide

148the services for my kid now I don't know what to do I can't get child care I'm working parent um it's heartbreaking and I wish I had an answer and I wish we as the district were working harder to to support these kids over and over I hear students with special needs are not being serviced the way that they should and this is just one of those areas that it's it's killing me it just as a point of clarification there are students to their IEP Drive summer Services extended summer or extended school year the 100 of those students are provided that those services so that is part of our summer programming that's not necessarily the item in which your Mr Bass is presenting this is we run a business we run an after-school business and

149we run a summer um Day Camp business um so there are are two things extended school year in which we do in fact meet the needs of those particular programs uh for our students the concern or additional conversation in this particular arena is are we able to provide the services um for those students who attend and have their IEP Services met during the confines of the school day but how do we think creatively to address those specific needs so we don't have to turn students away uh at the for the extended program okay well for both for all not just for the extended it's extended and summer well summer if it's written in their IEP that they have extended summer school then yes that is provided that's what we're talking about is all no babe

150I was just presenting the extended day program that's that's the extended school year program it's a different program okay I get it now and so we're gonna brainstorm more ways to increase for the extended day particularly for after school during the school year because that's where that issue arose I'm so the Board member Miss barenborg so I'm not sure if it's after school during the day whenever it is but um I've had some parents of gifted students approach me and say what else can we do to really Target and move those kids in their giftedness and you know we think about the lower quartile we we hit the middle all day long and I'm hearing about some of our gifted programs like I had a one parent said her child's bored in the gifted program

151is because and and I went through this with my own son it's that wasn't his giftedness but that's what we've offered so that's what he had to do um when are we going to actually address how we're going to get those upper level kids really challenged and unique like you know I complained about science fair and that we didn't have a lot of participation because I have seen um when you really challenge that upper level Echelon of child that you know has that capability to think like we can't even pronounce the words they talk about in the science fair we need to do that that's our future firm for um you know our our future it depends on kids like that that are going to move us in the directions that we need to move

152so we need to make sure that we're not getting them bored in elementary school middle school and then of course high school so what are we doing for those opportunities and one thing I heard is specifically was about summer program they said oh it was nice that there was a robotics program this and that but are we bringing those parents in to ask them what is it that we need to do to help your child maybe be more challenged creatively have we done that are we asking those parents dude yeah I can start and then Mr Baskin continue so I think we've done a a really good job over the years still still work to be done in looking at the programming being offered both after school and during the summer programming and upon my

153arrival it was 100 um not necessarily aligned to the standards I think under Dr Long's leadership we've done uh some significant work in looking at what children are doing during that specific time offering both enrichment activities as well as remediation activities and I think as we move into the summer you'll still see activities continuing to grow and if we have the opportunity to have students under our supervision then it just behooves us not only to provide a fun interactive experience because it's summertime but to ensure that there's absolutely no summer slide and summer slide impacts all students whether they are a level five or a level one so providing engaging programming to them at a level of interest and engagement for them is exactly where we need to continue to grow so I then I'm

154going to ask for um in a future Workshop if you do a presentation for us on gifted programs and what we're providing okay okay so just as a level of of clarity gifted programming or summer programming both okay how how gifted kids are being challenged how are how are top tier kids that we need to not be bored and not just relax but keep going and challenging them as well I know we're constantly worrying about you know our other kids and I get that we don't worry about those kids they're doing fine but they're not you know we need to push them with where they need to go to and I don't I don't want to mislead the board you're 100 accurate the data is abundantly clear in terms of the lack of level fives

155that we we have here uh that data was clear upon my arrival obviously the pandemic has had significant impacts across the state um but we need to grow and not teach towards the middle so it is providing engaging Innovative programming that my response to you is just on after school programming but making sure that fours become fives and fives remain fives and we don't see a steady digression of higher level kids as they move through their their time with us they need to actually continue to grow so that is a priority and I guess my suggestion would be to meet with some parents of gifted kids and get their feedback because I heard some stuff that I think would be great for you to hear oh I agree okay any other comments or members do

156you need a five minute break you're good to go okay you're good okay all right next Dr Moore yeah I could I could potentially be done in five minutes here um so next item is a charter school service agreements uh same agreements as the previous years this is for North County Charter imagine Sebastian Charter Junior High and North County Charter I thought I just said that in River County Charter High sorry um the um any questions or members any questions I just have one Mr Bass yes ma'am are you finished with your presentation yes ma'am okay um and I talked to Mr Fagan a little bit about the charges here I'm on the federal relation subcommittee for fsba and one of the topics we have with our lobbyists this Friday was Nationwide never having enough

157money for transportation and then ese idea and Mr Pagan explained to me a little bit about charter school and how we charged a student less than two miles and greater than two miles but what is it that we can do as a board or a district to get the money in there that we spend for transportation what is it we can do because every year we never have enough Mr pagan you'd have to get the state to change the formula to basically cover cost of school choice that if you if we're providing Transportation because we want to expand school choice to have every student have that option but they live further than two miles and it costs me more because I'm driving more they need to change that form into where they compensate us more

158if I'm driving more miles per student and they need to increase that coverage and what is the estimate for falling behind in transportation this year how much will we be short approximately two million dollars I think Miss berenberg is going to Tallahassee yes next this tomorrow and but that was a topic Nationwide Mr Bass and Dr Moore those two topics and when we talk about ESC we talk about summer school and summer programs and what we need to do is just that's been a topic since 2001 since I've been involved in it we haven't and I think it was before that too thank you all right um I have a bonus item for you since we're are on Transportation um did have a job description that's going before the you guys tonight to approve and

159want to explain that to you there's a we have an individual and I'm going to go ahead and give him a little shout out right now Richard Trammell is retiring in a couple of months and if I did my math right I believe Mr Trammell has worked in the district for 48 years he is the service center manager over at transportation because of his longevity he has salaried out of the job description uh level that he's at and so the other individuals that he supervises have also crept up and I guess it was never changed or never really addressed because Miss Trammell had been here so long we want to move that job description salary schedule from a c to a b which is roughly a base increase of five thousand dollars that's you know

160just something more there's a nugget to attract a qualified individual um it's going to be hard that's going to be a hard position to fill because Richard has done a tremendous job for the district so that's coming for you tonight I apologize it was not on the um the workshop agenda any questions Mr Barefoot and and one more thing it will also it will be a savings to the district even with the move up you're going to put the plan being to promote from within or oh we're open it yes sir yeah so going what increasing it to what by 5000 brings it to what level that would bring it to uh base salary of 65 top at 76. good luck yes sir you're right um Richard Trammell has saved this District thousands and thousands

161of dollars by keeping those buses running that shouldn't be running and looking at I talked to him just a year or so ago about the the longevity of a bus and what we need to do he will be sorely missed just put it in perspective he started April 23rd 1974. so that's pretty impressive um thank you all right next item I've got which was on your agenda uh the fish certification again something we do each year basically ensuring that the data in our fish database is correct we bring that to you guys for approval Mr westenberg and his team once again have gone through and any changes that need to be made they've made those uh any questions on that one and then the last item is the Glendale cafeteria final payment to Summit Construction

162per Florida statute you have to hold retainage money out this is that final retainage uh brief you guys on it earlier I guess a couple of months ago 91 673 dollars it is budgeted within the capital funds and it is there and just ready for you to sign off to pay that final draw questions or comments thank you Mr Rosario is this expansion going to include is it just the kitchen area expansion is it going to include like a a renovation and it was a seating it was a seating area new new look made it a little bit bigger also it was the serving lines and the kitchen area and it's done it's completed all right that's good Madam chair that completes or exhausts my items back to you thank you I do have the

163next item board members parents on the book committee I've had several questions about this from the public so I wanted to bring it to the board a couple board meetings ago we reduced the number of people on the this committee for instructional materials and media books from 11 to 9. we now have five parents and then four District people and you know before I voted on that I thought to myself that is fine you know we want to have the input from everyone having more parents is fine no issue and the board obviously agreed now um when we put our names forward I I just didn't know if there was a little bit of confusion here but right now obviously in our district we have 13 Elementary four middle two high school one alternative and

164then one exceptional program and obviously the people will be receiving the training or have received the training before this committee begins and I just wanted to make sure that the parents that were chosen are members or their children are in our school district and for people who may not know and I have visited four of the five charter schools in the last month House Bill 1557 the parental rights and education Bill and House Bill 1467 does not apply to Charter Schools so when we're making these decisions these are for the library books in our media center so Dr Moore I just wanted to confirm that all the people Chosen and I do not remember the names are have children in one of ours 21 district schools so I've been able to confirm with four board

165members um and the MS Rosario still would have to confirm her her fifth I was unable to find the name she provided as having a a student in a district operated School what did you say I'm sorry what did you say was not for Charter Schools house bill 1557 the parental rights and education Bill Fuller State Statute relates to concerns District school Powers which binds forward Charter Schools exempt House Bill 1467 the K-12 education Bill choosing library books and classroom learning this is something that does not apply to Florida charter schools so I wanted to make sure the parents that we have are from our 21 schools because they'll be making decisions for the libraries in our 21 schools and so what's your question is your parent does she attend one of our children attend

166one of our 21 district schools she attends the charter school but I'm happy to change that that would be great because I've gotten several questions on that and I said I don't know but our our policy does say a student with a parent in the district I'm sorry a parent with a student in the district it does not say a district run School yeah that's right I think I actually brought that up for clarification in the last meet I asked is it District run or district and I think you were going to look into that right through the chair in that meeting you did ask that question and that was that was the response but we did Miss Miss Rosario made a recommendation to the board that we align the language across policy and statute

167to say a a parent of a school of a student in the district and then you asked a clarifying question um whether that means the parents would have a student on the committee I was asked a very similar question I said the district operated in a district school to me mean the the same thing but miss Rosario said she's happy to change it so but we don't have a book committee first of all we don't have a book committee so this is written on here wrong because we don't have a book committee we have an objection committee that we've approved not a book committee big difference so a book committee can vet books you know be a part of something else we have an objection committee that was not on here so I think that

168needs to be clarified as well and something else that we mentioned when we're putting agenda items on that there should be more than just the title so that we can prepare for the conversation we've talked about this before in order for board members to be readily prepared to have a description on here of something backup or something so that we can prepare okay yes Mr barenborg um when is this group going to get any sort of contact because I checked with mine and she said she's not heard a thing about what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to meet when they're going to get training that sort of thing through the chair we just two weeks ago modified the makeup of the committee so obviously the District representative was cut in half so I

169wanted to make sure that policy passed it just passed uh then we have this conversation that we're having right now we do want to convene this committee uh so after today's conversation also go back with Miss Rosario identify that individual we be we need to train those individuals we have not received a uh or the need to convene the committee yet which is a good sign but obviously we know that we will we want to have them fully trained so when there is the opportunity for them to engage in the work they have been trained they've normed on their process we'll have to notice all those meetings as well so that takes some time so we'll be able to begin to engage with them in a very short time frame and then the other question

170I have is like the parent I chose has one in elementary school and I think going to middle school do we have any parents that represent High School through the gym that's not necessarily in the policy so I don't have that particular I'm just curious if we do I I do not know okay I can I can check but I don't know how that would may I yes I don't know how that would make a difference I mean every parent is selected is chosen selected by a board member correct so um but I understand the representation on there but I mean there's nothing you could do about it it's individually chosen by a board member and that's it but you don't need to Circle back with me I'll just pick Laura Zork as my my

171parents of choice with a student in The District in this school district and is a high school student so I will uh reach out to that committee to uh tomorrow I also will have to notify just out of courtesy I want to notify the board because my team is being ultimately my team our team is being reduced so I'll send out who is the complete makeup um and their assigned position so we each member parent that you selected as well as who's going to serve on the district committee uh and I'll work with Nancy getting no vacation out so we can convene and train uh this committee thank you board but we I'm sorry I may ask another we haven't had any uh um challenges through the chair no we have not had any challenges

172but I still want to train them uh go through the the stage training uh that has been provided I'm just asking I know I got that I'm just asking if we have had any challenges not and but have we already begun the weeding process of those books um through the chair we're reading at the high schools while the two high schools keeping in mind that the flick has a the flick is also involved in that so yes they're in the process they're not complete yet um but they are in the middle of going through that process and is of the amount of time that a book has been circulated correct through the chair yes so we're looking at the criteria that the state provided the condition of the book The checkouts of of the book

173um and as I've said in previous meetings the the weeding process for us um will be larger than most you should anticipate a larger number of books at Sebastian River because of the new design but really creating a criteria so that we're looking at on an annual basis so yes what about the middle schools and the elementaries Middle School we wanted to to start with the senior high schools because we knew both of those projects were coming in and we wanted to implement and work with those teams really to kind of Norm on the process and then on an annual basis as we close out the school year which is should always be in place um provide that information so it's happening at all schools and we're removing items and replenishing with current up-to-date items

174so recently there was a um a news conference with the governor which I'm sure has been circulated around about the book hoax that has been at least that's what it was titled it was the book hoax news conference um and the interesting part about what was mentioned was a con was a question that came up in terms of the timeline for getting for doing the weeding of these books and the governor's response was look this bill was signed into law a year ago it should not take this long to go through a weeding process and so my statement and I completely agree and my statement would be you know our middle schools shouldn't have to wait we shouldn't have to say no we're going to do two schools first and then we're going to work

175on everybody else it's it's it is policy it is statute as of last year it needs to be done so why are we giving some schools priority to begin the weeding process and not others I I've not heard of that in any of our conversations that's new to me through the chair I don't know that we're giving one school priority over the other you just said you're starting with the high schools I I can rewind the tape and hear it as well we very strategically went through the training and made sure okay let's begin the process what's pending and getting it done with those two particular schools was in fact um that we're going to spend a lot of money to renovate um and bring technology into those particular spaces um I'm more than confident

176what we're doing in our school system really should be a Shining Light in in terms of really not only looking at the books that are in media centers but being intentional about the space itself so it is a warm and welcoming space that all children would would like to attend so I'll Circle back with team in in order to see when exactly all other schools were are in that particular process and that's I'm saying something inaccurate Miss basura am I on you are largely accurate in your description but we have started that process in the middle schools as well all of our schools actually are going through the annual reading process thank you we are spending more time more deliberate attention on the high schools though gotcha thank you because of the yeah process gotcha

177thank you anyone else um miss baser or Dr Moore how many books have been weeded thus far so I don't have that information in front of me um we could provide the board what we have I know they are not complete is this is a big lift in terms of the volume of books that we've had at those particular schools um we can provide the board with that that information unless you have it readily available any other questions comments okay I have the next item and this was on the agenda and it's talking about a new policy and just comment on the last one about the parent book I sent the information to Ms dampier and Dr Moore and how it was worded I just went with it it wasn't intended to um say something

178that shouldn't have been said after the board voted on the February 27th meeting to place a racial Equity policy on the April 24th agenda so citizens could have time to review and give input before the board voted to repeal or not repeal there was a lot of discussion before that with board members and many citizens I thought of everyone who spoke and listened to them again and they spoke with passion commitment and concern the policy before you safe respectful and inclusive education was created after listening to board members and many citizens from our community knowing that policy needs to align to State Statute work with Dr shafty to have this one for the board today it was said a couple times on February 27th that there are many policies we we need to pull together

179and bring it all together so I wanted to present this to the board today for input and then Community input also obviously there could be some changes and ideas but I believe the foundation is here to review the timeline I sent it to Dr Moore on Monday March 6 and he reviewed with board members during your board briefings it was posted afternoon to March 6 along with our workshop and board agenda seven days ahead of time as requested by protocol the first question that I I think people may ask not only from the community but from the board is this a legal requirement do we need it not legally but I think it's very very important to have it because it shows collaboration and good intent and just like legally at our last meeting we

180added certain parts of the parents rights and education bill into our policy and it is already in State Statute but the board voted to do so and we all know that state statute Trump's policy this racial Equity policy was voted on two and a half years ago by the last board by zero but now we have issues with certain words in certain terms but I do know this for sure our intent as a school district and as a board can and must never change can never change and must never change we are always here for our students in fact in policy it states the responsibility of the education of the students in the school district lies with the board on our day as we have transforming education to inspire and Empower all students to maximize

181their full potential and it's in our strategic plan so after listening to board members and the public tried to capture their intent and bring it together and again heard it several times let's bring these policies together under one policy concern about repealing the equity policy until we have something else I thought about this maybe this board in the citizen collaboration could be a real Beacon as we move forward with making sure that we serve all students now if you look in the very first part of the policy it talks about the elementary and secondary secondary Education Act this is many of you probably know that was signed into law by President Johnson in 1965 it was actually part of the civil rights law and then it was amended and re-measured when President Obama signed the

182Essa law every student succeeds law in 2015. and both of these are laws giving all students equal opportunities federal law and had bipartisan support and as you move into the letters a through e with the subgroups it is consistent with Essa with all the subgroups listed race disability English language Learners lower quartile economically disadvantaged this could be a policy that every District would follow and then you go into an important paragraph noting the federal desegregation order which is Law and you all know we're working on that as we speak and hopefully with key performance indicators we can have unitary status at some point so then I thought about this after our discussion would like Dr Moore to ask people in our community put it on our website send it to our pcas send it to

183our sex our ese parents Hispanic black white parents disadvantaged just to get input I think it's real collaboration and as I stated at the last board meeting in my motion let us get something together as a community before I ask for for input and ideas concerns questions I don't know I just think it's something like this that we need to do as a board when we're thinking about any policy I have a real concern if the racial Equity policy is repealed without something to put in place I know that we have to follow State Statute I know that we have to follow law and I know certain terms cannot be in this policy but I ask that you just consider this because I my goal here in bringing up in this workshop on March 13th

184is put it on our April 24th meeting to go out to public hearing to hear what people think what their some of their ideas are I'm not asking Dr Moore to go out to 52 meetings or anything like that but put it in our website to take a look at and to place this on our April 24th meeting just for the public to see and then we get re reviews comments concerns at our May meeting because again of that racial Equity policy is repealed I think we need something as we heard from our community to bring us all together so I'm asking for board input at this time and Dr Moore if you want to start with anything I'd appreciate it okay Dr posca um yeah so in reviewing this policy you know it felt

185very similar obviously to the other policy that we were just voted on potentially removing with some changes in wording um I guess one of the things I was concerned about is that it alludes to and directs itself to CRT and some of these other issues in in its statements even though we maybe have taken out certain words I think the premise is still there so for one instance address the root causes and and systems or you know systemic uh you know basically the verbiage is owing to kind of the older policy which we're trying to remove and I think if we if we Wordsmith and make a new policy I have concerns that we may find out it also is in violation of the law and I don't know what we're really getting as a

186benefit from this policy because we do have these three other policies on preventing discrimination and all these other aspects of things and I think as a district obviously we do an amazing job at that you know I don't think that we have a big issue in this district with this type of a problem and I've worked in organizations that quite frankly did have problems so I I for me personally I wouldn't try to create a new policy at this time I think we should you know that's all I have to say yeah Dr Patrick can you just explain to me what part you're talking about in this policy just so I'm aware by sure thank you let me go to the so it's page I think it was two where was it so at page

187one at the uh Item B at the bottom of the page second part of the sentence which addressed the root cause and systems um you know ensure systemic inclusion you know the premise I guess is that we have a systemic racial issue here and that's kind of the way it's written right and that's the the underfinding uh the basis of CRT is that there is a systemic issue we have to fix um and I guess I just disagree with that premise you know I thank you very much Mr Beer and board okay I'm sorry Mr barefoot I did okay business Rosario I'm sorry okay um so there are I kind of I took a look at a lot of the sections that are in here obviously and I went through all of our policies and

188pretty much every single part that you have in here is captured in an already presented in current policy we have about 24 21 I lost track I think about 18 to 21 policies um that we currently have that capture all of this stuff already um I'll start with the improving uh in your purpose um there's a section there that says improving the performance of all students we have that captured already in multiple policies but in the policy titled School Improvement policy we also have that in our educational uh program or program of instruction prop policy we have the section on subgroups in Florida includes four reporting purposes a b c d and e which are students from major racial ethnic groups children with disabilities economically disadvantaged students we have all of those aspects captured in

189all of those policies including our Title One services including our bullying and harassment including our standards of ethical conduct including anti-harassment and recruiting of diverse employment and I can continue on we also have a section in here that is titled um or that you included increase achievement and including on-time graduation we have an entire policy on our graduation rates or our graduation policy I should say um we have a a thing here on achievement gaps eliminating systemic achievement gaps when we talked about the achievement Gap work group uh a year or two ago and that was approved the achievement group at that time what I said was if we were to have any policy moving forward we should have a general policy of closing the achievement Gap in general Dr Moore actually said but we

190don't need a policy on achievement gaps because the work is already being done and it's captured within our strategic plan and so that didn't go any further from that point on so capturing that in policy now would be kind of hypocritical essentially of what the superintendent mentioned just about a year ago or whenever that policy was approved so moving forward um I I I'll piggyback off of what Dr posca mentioned with regard to systemic because there is uh you know the the idea behind using the word systemic does imply that it is a system-wide um almost as if there is a system-wide uh purpose or intent to have a an achievement Gap um or that the achievement Gap is not being addressed system across the board for everyone and the effects of on the entire

191system um would in this case not be addressed because we're not doing the work and I would completely disagree with that I think that we are um doing a lot of work towards closing the achievement Gap the State of Florida has um issued obviously as you all know the new uh standards the best standards to address increasing the expectation of what students are learning and then also implementing the new benchmark assessments to also address some of those issues in terms of closing the achievement Gap so we we are working on that already I have concerns with the fact that we would include current litigation within our policy I've not seen that ever before if we get into the Precedence of mentioning or crafting policy with current litigation knowing how litigation works and how fluid litigation

192can be I don't know why we would capture or that language within any language within our policy I think as a result of litigation whatever the final results are after the litigation is over we can capture the results that are mandated to us obviously by the judge or by the magistrate by whomever and then capture that in policy but to do that too prematurely seems to be um something that we shouldn't we should not um go down that road plus the mention of this current litigation um in terms of uh meeting unitary status all of that is already included in our strategic plan in fact we have an African-American achievement plan that captures the work that we were supposed to do to reach unitary status and we've taken that African-American achievement plan and we've included

193it within our strategic plan because that's how important it was to us so so to imply that we are not um working towards that end to make a strong stance on not having racism or um to imply that we are not working towards closing these achievement gaps would do an injustice to those who are doing the work day to day in this area I do also want to mention the um family student and Community engagement section this section we have about four policies three or four policies on parent and family involvement in our school program one of which is policy two one one one so pretty much everything that is here is already in this one policy it actually states that the board believes that student learning is more likely to occur when there is

194an effective partnership between school and students parents and family and that as it mentions here the elementary and secondary Education Act um as amended by the every student succeeds Act of 2015 defines certain terms there in this case it's defining a parent but then it goes into stating that this just this district will cultivate Partnerships uh to build relationships with family build effective communication um collaborate with the community involve families uh volunteer have volunteer opportunities and then the implementation of course is the responsibility of the superintendent to provide a comprehensive plan to engage parents and families for their involvement so that section is already captured there there's a section here on leadership that is um that talks about our policies and practices to promote equal opportunities obviously we have all of our non-discrimination policies our

195standards of ethical conduct that captures this information in there we have anti-harassment policy but we do have a policy specific that dresses both of these A and B and that is the Recruitment and Retention of diverse employment staff policy 4120 and it very clearly states the same thing that's here already the school board recognizes um that the District staff should reflect a broad diversity of backgrounds that characterize Indian River County diversity and employment at both the school and District level provides students with of all backgrounds and abilities with examples of achievement through education a diverse Workforce and it goes into talking about that it talks about the goal of this policy is to maintain a diverse Workforce in which the district through recruitment hiring training promotion and personnel management practices that are administered in a

196manner which furthers the principles of equal employment opportunity and obviously there are two pages there that you can read so that's captured already in current policy teaching and learning same thing all of those bullets there are captured in all of these including our strategic plan as well and our professional development policy and the last one which is implementation and monitoring is captured throughout and obviously within the contract of our superintendent because and we also have an executive orders policy that captures his responsibility to ensure that all of these um that all of this is is um is executed um with this significant opportunity to receive a fair and inclusive high quality education so it's already there we already have it one of the takeaways that I had last at our last meeting was pretty significant

197in that the idea of having a policy has to be something that we can work toward and if we can work toward it um it should be something new or it should be current policy that we are um editing or changing as we go along but to cherry pick or to peace meal certain parts of current policy and then create a new one seems to be redundant and and futile at the least I I don't I would not support this we already have it I spoke with the superintendent though it is not um something uh legally required I know that we can create our own policy at any time that is not of the issue I think that as he shared it it does Place additional work on staff that is not needed when we

198already have all of these things already captured thank you Mr barefoot um this is one of those things you know I can go either way Mrs Rosario is right we have all of this I think I do think that there is um an unintended consequence of of repealing the policy and that consequence is there's certain groups that relate to these words that other groups don't like in policy and they're part of our community as well and many many spoke to that um to that point I think that the attempt to consolidate three policies in particular into one I mean I think I made that suggestion yes you can leave it as is but I think there is some value to end up with one policy covering not all of the points that you mentioned but

199the three specific policies who were referenced at the last meeting that that that in effect say what the proposed policy that was being reviewed repealed proposed to be revealed said it neatens it up but in the process perhaps there there is there's no question there's redundancy but hopefully some of the words that some people object to that other people actually take comfort with and I'm not here to pass judgment on anybody's point of view there there is some benefit to that because it does appeal some of these words you hear the word Equity what does that mean I was in a conversation the other night with a public high school teacher from South Bend Indiana and her husband who is a professor at Notre Dame so I asked the question this is the Son and

200Daughter of some friends of ours and I asked a question when you hear these words what do you mean and I mean I had a headache trying to really understand the response to these words because to some people these words are really important and to other people less so so I guess my preference would be that we we continue to try and figure out if we can get um one policy that covers all the the critical points on the other hand it's not something that I prepare I'm prepared to fall on my sword for and there's no question it would require more work and and Dr Jones I applaud you for making an effort to to to get to that point it's a challenge there's no question but those those are my comments thank you

201Mr Barefoot Miss berenberg yeah that's exactly what my statement I wrote was to applaud you for your effort of putting forward something because when this came up before I spoke to the superintendent he said oh look in this policy you know we brought it kind of picked it apart and he said this is here in this policy this is here in this policy this is here in this policy but then part of as a board member a good board members should listen to public input and when I listened to public input that night I changed he he asked me why did I vote that way and I said because I listened the Optics of us removing an equity policy in February of all months it just was bad and I understand the timing wasn't good

202and you didn't you know there wasn't much control over the timing I get that um but then I started to look at your new policy you put forward and I started to realize okay a lot of the statements in your new policy are in our other policies aren't some of the statements covered for example family student and Community engagement a on page two specifically is in another policy um and then under leadership a that's in another policy so I get the fact you're doing that one thing I wanted to point out is that we passed is it 2130 was the name number of the policy that we passed and I believe you brought that forward to us about when we're looking at the deseg order and when we finally get off the deseg order that

203we're going to all commit to doing these things achievement work group achievement yeah so in local policy again here we are creating a policy without neola's input um which makes me a little nervous because we're going to be back in this boat again so I do applaud your efforts on this I totally you understand because I voted with you on why I'm I'm very sensitive to this being removed like this instead of changed or adapted or I appreciate the fact that you're trying to adapt this what I think we should do is look at that d-cig um when the the achievement one two one three-0 and say is there something in there that you would like to take from your policy that you're trying to craft here that's not in another policy that you could

204adapt to that policy instead of making a whole nother policy adapt the parts that were missing in the cracks and put it there but making sure that our wording is correct because I agree with you on systematic you know not good so we need to make sure the wording is correct we're not taking one group's side over another group's side we're looking at all our kids equally and we're making sure that we're following through with the kids that don't get the support at home and what we can help them with so I think looking at that other policy and saying what can I take out of this and add to that that's not already somewhere else might be the key all right just some feedback from your points um we heard several times that night

205that these pop and we just heard it today these policies all are all over and I think it's important to bring them together yes I do know that some of these are in the policy but just repealing the racial Equity policy just throwing it out after it been voted on 5-0 just a couple years ago sends a terrible message um as far as the uh mentioned the deseg order letter A says continue commitment to compliance with the 1967 deseg order in accomplishment of the goals outlined I don't think there's anything wrong with that legally it's just something that we are continuing to do and I'm on the work group so I'm I understand that we're working hard um as far as systemic or race and so forth we get results from the state by race

206for test scores so they are looking at that buy race and so that's something I think that we need to continue to do um I just think it's important that we say to our public we're looking at this I think it's important that Dr Morgan this out there and get the input that we need from citizens to see where we need to go this is an approving of policy it's just getting it out for public input so we could hear from everyone when we um talk about the achievement Gap policy I think you're all aware that that goes into effect when we receive unitary status why that was so important to me was because many times deseg orders will be accomplished by the court and then they go on a shelf and that has been

207actually documented I can't remember the exact numbers but I think seven of us are under a deseg order 26 I've never had to deal with on and the other 36 have received unitary status or vice versa on the 26-36. so it's something I think that's very very important I understand this is not perfect I follow protocol to get it to you seven days ahead of time to take a look at I think we need really need to bring all these policies together into one so I'm just asking that if we can get input from our public and then we put it out there for the public April 24th and then make a decision in May and that's the one thing I'm asking you know to at least get a consensus or at least three board

208members to say let's get this out to our public it could be changed it could go to one page I I think the title is good safe respectful and inclusive education I think that a lot of components are good and I know we repeated some things but what parent looks at every policy on the school board anyway and how many of them are going to find their different 15 items that need to come together for this we have up for April 24th repealing the racial Equity policy can we at least get something on that agenda I mean it doesn't have to be this that says listen we're looking at this and we're trying to bring it all together from the 18 different policies it's simply what I'm asking or feedback um I guess one question

209I had and maybe Dr Moore can answer this uh are there any specific complications with taking our Neola policies and trying to combine them all into one which could be an issue down the line and maybe Mrs Shattuck can comment on that through the chair I'll I'll take a stab at it and then Molly could um jump in Neola is designed a certain way so Neil is the organization that could work for all 67 Florida school districts I think there's about 35 40 I'm sure Molly knows the exact number that use Neola the intent of Neola is to on an annual basis look at the shifts or changes in State Statute and provide recommended changes deletions additions to policies to ensure that your policies are in fact aligned to State Statute that is a service

210that the board contracts in order to make sure you're good it is your responsibility you are the owner of policy my previous District did not use Neil you did so Neola is something that's new to me but then again Miami basically has its own Law Firm so they don't have to use Neola what it has been mentioned in the time that I've been here a number of times by a number of different both current and former board members that Neola is confusing because as an example when Mr Bass brings items he's going to for personnel there's a one policy written three for three different audiences around surrounding the same statute so it would be for personnel it would be for students uh it would be for Community but basically the same policy they organize their

211policies in a particular way in order to ensure that they remain current and they know exactly where those particular policies are and they're written to a very specific audience so I say they have a structure in place that works for them to ensure compliance board members have said a number of times that's confusing let's have one policy and I think the maker of this item has been relatively clear yes it's it is redundant she's saying it's redundant because I think the intent is to create a policy that houses all of the information in one particular place so um I think it's redundant by Design I don't know Molly did I say do you need anything to add unlike maybe Miss basura you could if I said anything wrong cut me off thank you thank you

212chair I I concur with all of that and I think it just goes to the point that some of the board members have been making it does create some additional work for staff because Neola will only review and provide updates for their own policies so if we're saying let's say this is already covered innate other policies and let's say there are new Yola policies and let's say there's some changes made to those Neola policies they will provide those updates but it will be up to staff to remember to make corresponding updates to this policy if we do a policy that's not an Eola one okay and so that you're we have created that system so as I referenced at the last board meeting um the policy that's up for repeal we had not yet created

213that system that was the first one that was created above and beyond neolim so as we went through the as it shifts in law occurred they give us what Miss dampier refers to as the book we have a book coming to you which is the changing of policies based on the last session um that's how long they take that's another thing but at the same time it is additional work we have created that policies that are out for public hearing now uh they have been they include language that is straight from policy I'm sorry from um from statute into it right and also federal guidelines so we've created that system but I want to caution the board yes it is additional work for for me and staff but at the end of the day Neola

214is going to provide a foundation um that would be relevant and legal for all of the districts in which they serve in Florida uh you as a board have the local control to say thank you naola that's good but we want more uh you can't necessarily say we want less but you can definitely say uh for those who elected us this is what we would like our policy to be so I by no means would I ever say you have to take Viola uh as being biblical you have to take that minimum Foundation to stay legal and it's me and machadic's responsibility to make sure is any policy presented to you legal and as you give your local voice to policy it is our responsibility to say yes that is still legal question jacket was

215a racial Equity policy approved by Neola no through the chair we did not uh ask Neola to to look at it but we did with our own legal team review that policy ask for input on the creation of that particular policy so yes the Assurance uh is provided to the board when you approved it um that it is in fact something that we can legally do and okay and so all right you answered that question and even though this would be work um bringing this together so you would then have to double check with Neola at this new one is approved correct through the chair no not necessarily uh you have your own uh lawyer that you work with Yola is um a bunch of well-intended lawyers who actually look at policies and procedures so

216you would have an insurance from your lawyer that this is in fact legal all right that's that's just what I'm asking the board is to see if we can at least get this um out to our public get it on April 24th hearing so we can hear from our public and then make a decision in May Dr Moore I I work for the board proper um so I am looking for next steps even if individual board members think uh in polar opposite areas I still work for the board proper um as I listen to you as you introduce the item Madam chair um I think your intent is to create a policy based on feedback in listening to board members what they said at the last meeting and what you're pulling policies together um April

21724th is the next convening of this board I I do think you received some good feedback from other board members that would makes me pause and want to say can we look at those specific items um Dr paska mentioned the the issue around systemic racism that is something that Miss barenborg echoed that we could look at I think I know your intent in the creation of this policy is not to have is to create something that everybody can get behind they may be the opportunity to to look at that specific issue Miss barenborg also raised the issue of looking at um adding on to a current policy versus creating a new one that was a suggestion I didn't hear any feedback based on that um Mr Rosario highlighted the the level of redundancy I don't

218know if there's an additional feedback that you would like to provide in that but I think basically that was by by Design uh we would just have to make sure in its final review that there would be no redundancy fine additional work yes but redundancy fine but contradicting information and policy is something that we're going to have to review to make sure that it would not um so the next time the board can take action on this item would be April 24th but from as I listened to five board members I hear some immediate feedback that you could consider and shifting or modifying it that you can bring it back on the 10th and then we could still get it to the board on the 24th if that's the desire of the board I may

219I didn't hear support I heard before I didn't I heard before that are not in support of it and one that is so that's my all of my previous statements that's the consensus basically okay I need I need clear clear Direction all right will you say what you wanted to do one more time and then I'll ask each board member where they wanted to move forward the only thing that I'm saying is is I I heard a number of suggestions and recommendations based on the current policy I just wanted to highlight to the board that you still have another convening where you can Workshop this before you take it if that is the desire of the board to take it out for public hearing on the 24th that's what you said you wanted to do

220the board convenes again on April 10th and I highlighted some possible recommend recommendations whether it is to embed some of this into a current policy whether it is to look at some of the language that is currently available can the board proper are you okay with the it being repetitive it's we're giving feedback but we're not being explicit in terms of next steps okay Mr barefoot we have three options do nothing leave it in place we talked about uh word smithing 2230 as opposed to repealing it in some respects that's what you've done and the third option was was to create a new policy while repealing whatever the number is 2230. that would incorporate all of the key points in the the three policies that are in effect in place that would say the same

221thing um all three of those choices that you know get get us to the same point I mean it's like saying you know we want it we want to go to Miami for the weekend when we can fly we can take the turnpike we can take I-95 but they all end up at the same place we ought to be able to reach a consensus I personally I don't see anything wrong with perhaps if you're willing you've already put in a lot of time and effort taking another stab at this and bring it back on the 10th but as I said earlier we've sort of addressed this my only my only uh my biggest concern I don't even know that's the right choice of words is a number of people spoke uh fairly strongly at the

222at the thought of of eliminating some of the words that were in the in the policy that we would repeal that are important to them whether they're important to me is beside the point um the other thing that I think is a concern of mine is that that parents don't read policies but if there is a policy that they might want to read it would be on this topic and to have to send them to three different policies to get whatever it was they're looking for seems to me to be a Fool's errand so whether it's word smithing the one that we want to repeal or moving ahead with the Consolidated policy call it or leaving it the way it is just repeal the old policy as I said I board members would you consider

223um allowing me to bring this back for April 10th after listening to the board member comments and rewording it so bringing this all together and still going back to what citizens said at the last meeting and what it meant to them would you consider letting me bring this back April 10th so we can take a look at it again after board member input and I've got it all done I don't think it hurts anything if you want to bring it back but I don't think my position will probably change appreciate it Miss barenborg um I'd like to do what I suggested which is take what you think is not in any other policies and just look at a policy we already have which I understand why we have several different ones like you said some

224uh are geared towards students some are geared towards employees I get that um so why not look at 2130 which is when we recently brought that I think might be one that you can just tag something in there that we don't already have somewhere else there's a lot of what you wrote down in there that I could find other places right and I get why we want to have one stop shopping as I said that's parental rights bill they they basically took a lot of different statutes and they put it together one spot so that parents have a One-Stop shop to be able to find what their rights are I get that and I think it's great how about same thing for a parent of a child you know that might have these concerns so

225maybe we look at that policy so you're okay with reworking it and looking at 21 30. look at 21 30. Dr Paul said okay not sure his mind would change but he'll take a look at it are you okay with reworking yeah that was a that what that's you know wordsmithing option yes I'm fine with that Miss Rosario if you are going to bring to us something that is repeated in other policies I'm not interested I'm not going to support that we're our purpose here is to create policy past policy approve policy that is going to be implemented and useful implemented by the by the board by the superintendent and his staff and obviously our schools and principals and teachers and so on and so forth and if it's something that is repeated already that

226is already in working order I will not support something that is already repeated I just I just won't thank you but and I also want to just add um I think it's important for us to understand that we we have to not create policy or approve policy or support someone else's request for a policy if it's emotionally driven our job is not to be emotional as not to have emotional um make emotional decisions but to create things that are going to be functional and applicable to the Daily operation of the school district that aligns with our vision and our mission and that is not captured someplace else that's the creation that's the creation of what policy is meant to do and you know to be for to align with statute to align with our standards

227and and to drive the the work of the district forward I just would like to make a comment on that it's not emotionally driven it's trying to get it together listening to the citizens listening to the district listening to board members I simply knew that this just wasn't going to say okay we're going to do that my purpose was to make sure that we have this for our students and that we're here for everyone so Dr Moore's four to one that I can take a look at this and bring it back April 10th I'll do my best again the purpose here is just to make sure that we are good to go with all of our students okay any other agenda items no more additional items but I did want to provide a a quick

228update Mr Bass has and then uh Miss Missouri is going to provide a quick update on where we are with our review of of books um on the extended day program I've misunderstood it is an increase I apologize for not saying that earlier I misunderstood the pricing from the previous year twenty dollars more a week from the previous years and it has not gone up for several years so we are having an increase this year for the students to attend the extended day the extended summer camp program but I thought that we were that part of the um the monies that we received from the grants having the the grant funding uh the millions of dollars that we got from grant funding would help to cover some of the program the new programming for summer

229program for day camp we gotta I forget that's covering those programs but this is the Standalone program that we fund through their what Standalone program it's funded based on the parents paying for the care so can't we supplement why do parents have to pay in this economy with all of the increases I mean eggs are close to ten dollars a dozen it's crazy some people are like I'm not going to eat eggs anymore but to increase the amount no I'm like I mean it's probably cheaper to get your own chicken but I mean and now we're saying if you have multiple children times twenty dollars more each child I mean that that's a burden on them for the summer can we supplement that somehow I think all the other money is tied up in all

230the other programs release it let's let's untie money somewhere I mean this is through the chair these are a paid for summer program very similar to a typical summer camp that we just run within our school system the dollars that have been allocated for us are to be used during the confines of the school system so I don't think we could charge people a price and then offset because then that would be if it was completely free which we offer a great deal of free services with those dollars to offset what was the learning loss all part of the application which we've submitted I'm sorry man we did that last year we supplemented last year we talked about this last year and we offered um a super big discount for staff that we were going

231to supplement for them and their children so that they if if you have a summer school teacher who has children who wants to attend the program they were initially going to pay full price but instead we agreed last year that we would supplement whatever the difference would be so that those children can go in at a discounted rate we did it again with the student amount last year the students amount I think you all were requesting a little bit higher than what we gave them last year what we were charging last year per kid and that came down last year so why not do it again the staff is discounted to sixty dollars per week yes and then it is if your child attends one of the summer camps and then comes to the second

232half of the day it's Thirty thirty dollars I know and last year was going to be full price but we're offering that again this year I know but last year you originally came with a request to have those teachers pay full price this board gave direction that no at least I know I did let's discount it for teachers who are working the summer program and we did it again this year if there is I know so what I'm saying is if we did it in the past and we're doing again now why can't we also do it for the students okay I have a question yes ma'am you said it's 20 increase a week how many hours is it a week eight well eight you're they're paying three dollars an hour that's what I'm asking

233so 20 hours so what is that eight to four fifty cents an hour okay I have no problem with that and just this is for everybody I went to Fresh Market yesterday and I got eggs for 3.99 a dozen true I'm thinking it's because they have been 8.99 9.99 I was very surprised everybody go to Fresh Market for your eggs but um I agree with I looked at all the costs I looked at the um assistants were giving employees which means a lot and again I know what daycare is with the grandson so it's a pretty good deal it's a great deal yeah and then our last update um I think Dr Shafi you'll provide go ahead um through the chair so we wanted to update you on weeding so a really pivotal State release

234of that training happened January 30th when our media Specialists were able to come together and make sense of what that meant for them shortly after that we immediately began assisting our schools with the first steps for weeding middle and high schools we ran preliminary reports in fallett which is our inventory system just to see which books had not been circulated at all zero checkouts the additional layer that everyone has to understand is Fallout gives checkouts by staff and student combined as one so we wanted to say first screening materials with zero checkouts then we gave those reports to our middle and high school spaces and said this is just your starting point because we couldn't combine the publisher the purchase or the acquisition year in that report something could have had zero circulations because it

235was just acquired in the past two to three years so after giving them that initial report they have been weeding knowing that the spaces cannot be closed down it would be one thing to say you shut your doors and you weed but they still need to be in service of the students on their campus so they are actively weeding at the middle and high school spaces with the new guidance we're working on a decision tree for schools for purchasing because that is the next question it would not be fiscally responsible to purchase wild weeding in this instance they need to make sure the space is secure and ready to receive materials and then they can purchase and in accordance with House Bill 1467 those purchases will come to you for board approval as a separate

236line item questions any questions or comments I I if it if it's at the Leisure of the board Ms dampier um does have some updates based on our conversation it might be behoove us just to quickly go through those to save us some time thank you Miss Sam Pierre and we'll provide copies of this to the board as soon as she reviews them um through the chair these are the recommended changes from a few minutes ago well I'm hot off the press we are making these changes and they're making copies right now I just had to approve everything based on Miss Baron board she recommend well she's pointed out on page 15 which in our document it was the level one about the teacher right two interventions yeah so what we did there um to

237make it consistent we eliminated that because really that is more of a level two where they're getting a referral level one are the minor infractions in the classroom however they could take a phone away from a kid if if they needed to but they will be writing a referral so we took that out to be consistent because level two would be more of a referral and the administrators will act on that um also there were some suggestions on page 20 to add a link to the Hope Scholarship that has been highlighted on page 20. uh we're making that change we've highlighted The Hope Scholarship all these changes are highlighted in yellow as well as we put that the Hope Scholarship definition is in the glossary it also has been added to the glossary as well

238you should be receiving copies as soon as possible and then on page 34 Mrs Rosario asked that we add for the Cyber bullion to add cell phones and we added those to both locations the top and bottom of page 34 which was um instead where it says computer networks we added cell phones there and then we added it through um cell phones at the bottom as well where it listed computer Etc um page 40 page 43 okay if we still have changes going on page um we added this language here which was suggested we already had it for the first offense a student shall be given a verbal warning and the parent or Guardian will be contacted to bring a change of clothes we added that verbiage a student will be assigned a lunch detention

239if a change of clothes is unable to be provided so they go back to the classroom with the same change same clothes on no they there's a lunch detention assigned to to the student what if it happens at eight in the morning they don't go back to class so they've lost their whole morning of school if the parent doesn't bring a change is unable to bring a change of closes that's what's the recommendation that we had yeah I brought up the pot the you know the the center one two three four but board members didn't provide further oh so we're not changing that no I'm not saying no I'm just saying I suggested I said I have some suggestions but then it didn't get any feed no we didn't get any feedback so I think

240what was just mentioned now is interesting why then have them if they can't get a change of clothes and they should go straight to aspire my thought is they don't go back to the classroom with the same change of clothes because we're sending the message that it's okay instead of lunch Ascension they just go straight to Aspire okay we can add that but again you want to limit Aspire so well if I do for repeated go ahead Dr Moore thank you that's fine that's that's all I'm asking for wait doesn't return where the classroom s but you've got you have to put them somewhere it's just that as part closet yes I do too and we have page 47 which Miss Baron Ford mentioned we went and pulled the policy and the policy says students

241should have no expectation of uh it was used privacy but in the in our uh policy it says confidentiality so we changed it to what it states and our policy okay as long as we're covered you know because yes I can see where some parents could be upset with that because in the policy um and that's policy 5136 we actually added that to the end of the sentence so you can so it can be referenced do parents sign this still when when at the beginning of the year they sign a form saying that I understand these are the rules okay electronically it goes through a process okay uh page 51 it was also um added on the cyber bullying up under the definition we added cell phones up under each area that we made changes

242that was Miss Rosario who asked for that change and then we added on page 53 The Hope Scholarship definition along with the link thank you thank you is that it Dr Moore Oh wait wait yeah I just wanted to did you look at page 20 did you include the definition of cyber or uh adding the personal cell phones to page 20. because I didn't hear you say page 20. uh let me go there page 20. yes that's added as a part of the def uh the definition of cyber bullying okay we'll also update that with the harassment the bullying and harassment policy we'll know where to update that at the same time okay and that's it all right thank you everyone meeting is adjourned 331 thank you start again at 5 30.