001school board meeting. welcome to today's regular school board meeting. We're lap' to have you join us and we're thankful for your time and dedication toyer district. This regular meeting is now called to order. Our primary focus is to create a safe and productive environment for all participant. Please be reminded of the exit doors that are clearly marked for exiting. While in the board room reframe from obstructing the exit doors. All must occupy a seat with a exception of a media. Attendees will be directed to a designated overflow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm please exit the room in an ordererly fashion and remain outside until authority that has jurisdiction has deemed it safe to return. Board member bulman will now introduce her school to introduce us to the "pledge of allegiance". thank you, chair.
002I'm excited to introduce Mcarthur high school's rotc color guard under the direction of master sergeant julio de leon with the support of principal mark ha ward. left face, present. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under GOD indivisible with liberty and justice for all. forward MARCH. thank you to sharaton mark elementary for leading the "pledge of allegiance". I believe we have another little thing coming up, maybe. Fwr sharaton park that is lead by music teacher. Thank you to principal jacqueline carol. [Singing] I choose to sing, I choose to live to live to the fullest. I choose to smile, I choose to laugh out loud, I choose to live in a way that makes me proud. [Music] When it glaoum when
003you feel low when I'm feeling scared inside, when I'm somewhere new, and don't know what to do when attempting to the smile. I choose to live. I choose to sing. I choose to live I choose to smile. I choose to laugh out loud, I choose to live in a way that makes me proud. Though we know that surprises come our way and there is a new day. And we'll go far places somewhere and together we'll say, we choose to live. We choose to sing. We choose to live life to the fullest for me. I choose to sing. I choose special, I choose to live like. I choose to smile. I choose to laugh out loud, I choose live this way. I choose to live. I choose to sing. I choose to live like. I choose
004to smile. I choose to laugh out loud, I choose to live in a way that makes me smile. I choose to be a good friend. to be kind to earth. I choose. to be ready when the world is scary. show everybody light. will you choose to dance with me. [Applause] thank you, sharaton park. The superintendent released a revised agenda with certain klaiz for this meeting and published it on the school district's website. The chair finds pursuant to 1201.25 that good cause exist for such changes. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to close the agenda. so moved. second. ttsds been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. All in favor of closing the agenda say aye. aye. any opposed say no. The agenda is now closed. MAY the chair have the motion
005and a second to approve the minutes of DECEMBER 17th, 2024. FEBRUARY 19, 2025, special expulsions. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, and seconded. The minutes are approved. As we prepare to begin our regular school board meeting we're reminded that our vision is a 100 our vital task is to sustain this achievement. We will continue to educate all students to reach their highest potential. Our believe one broader. Broward. The following consent items have been pulled for discussion. Consent items h3, h4, a-4, b1, f1, j3, j5, o1 and 03. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the consent items that have not been pulled for discussion? so moved. I was going to read them all it included h1, 42, a 1, a 2, a 3, a 8, b2, j1, j2,
00602 and s1. excuse me MADAM Chair. I was not provided the list. I don't have one at my desk. : can I have a motion to pass those. does she need time to look at it? no. no, I mean it doesn't have anything, we're passing those items that have not been pulled. it's been moved MS. Leonardi. Seconded by thz thompson. Are there any registered speakers for any of the consent items that have not been pulled. no registered speakers. all in favor of approving the consent agenda that have not been pulled for discussion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Do any of my colleagues have any brief remarks at this time on items that have not been pulled? I do quickly, would I like to give a shout out on h1, we have three administrative
007retiree, seven instructional retiree and seven non support retiree. I want to say congratulations and wish them good luck in their future endeavors. [Applause] Okay, at this time I would like to turn the meeting over to DR. Holness, he would like to do a little presentation. good morning, MADAM Chair and every one. i would like to take a moment to recognize north broward and south broward chapters of delta sigma theater for their outstanding commitment to empowering their community. One of their impactful initiative is delta days where they continue to make a significant difference. In 2025, include mental health, advisories and committees and redefine broward schools. So thank you to delta sigma theater, thank you. thank you. So much. [Applause] we can take a quick recess so we can take a photo with the deltas and we'll
008come back to the next item. welcome back to the regular school board meeting. The chair would like to take a moment to recognize new staff appointments. We would like to congratulate each of you for your career advancement with broward county schools. We value you and your families. If we can please give the appointees a round of applause. [Applause] Dr.Er hepburn, can you please share a few remarks and introduce the new leaders. thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you and congratulations if you received a promotion or if you're new to the team. We have one appointee mitchel, director. You can come forward for a remarks. good morning, DR. Hepburn, cabinet, ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen, my name is mitchell epstein I'm glad to step in the role of director management. As we continue to prioritize the
009safety of our students and staff I'm committed to build a strong plan across our school district. Together we'll work to ensure that every individual within our school community is equipped with the knowledge and resources to respond effectively in time of crisis. I look forward to colob rating with you to keep our school secure. Thank you. thank you, at this time we will recess one more time, for a photo board photo with the new staff. Thank you. that we're getting today is a critical list it pays people a small amount of money for doing a heck of a lot of work and for all f these people who accept these awe mrements to coach teams and sponsor and just as a clean up item, chair, how much does this cost the school for the year? DR.
010Hepburn. MR. Azzarito. for 2024, it was about 23 million. thank you. There is a lot of sentiment to figure out how to pay supplement. 33 million dollars is a lot of money and that's why we're are where we are appreciate getting that money out. Do you know what the number would be for this year, chair? MR. Azzarito? I'll have to do a follow-up, we're totaling as we go along, but we don't have it right now. I appreciate that very much but again I think the public and the board would like to do better by these supplements to pay people an appropriate amount for all these numbers but 30 million dollars is a lot of money. Just wanted point that out today, thanks chair. thank you, DR. Zeman, all those in favor of h3 say aye.
011aye. any opposed say no. H3 carries unanimously. The next item is h4 can I have a second and a motion for h4 so moved. DR. Zeman. thank you, so much chair. This item is pretty straightforward about assigning a some specific piece approximates of our calendar. However there is an attachment for next year's cajj. I just want to make sure that the public is not confused. They asked the superintendent to go back and talk to the appropriate bargaining authority about early release days. But the attachment that is appended to this shows early release days which MAY give the impression that that is fixed in stone while this board has asked the superintendent's representatives to go talk to them. I understand there is a meeting set to discuss that next week, is that true, chair? DR. Hepburn?
012that is affirmative. thank you so much, I appreciate that and just wanted to be clear that the calendar is a draft still until formerly approved on that one issue relate today early release days and my understanding we have to figure out what the best possible outcome might be and bring that back to the board. So thank you, chair for that. thank you. Okay. All those in favor of item h4 say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no? H4 passes unanimously. The next is h4. -- a-4. so moved. MR. Holness. chair can we table this item until we -- I'm sorry. since it's on the floor. MADAM Chair, I don't need h3, so. no it was h4. a-4. sorry a-4. MADAM Chair, is there anyone else that is coming? I need to bring it up. no, you're
013the only one. give me a second. okay, thank you MADAM Chair, for your patience, it's coming right up. Okay. So I was just concerned about a minor error that I observed. Not sure if the staff had fixed it. In the recommended action, it recommends university, but in the board vote action it says merriville university so I want to know if that's an error? DR. Hepburn? DR. Fulton? so you are correct, DR. Holness, it was an error because we have duplicate university so we forgot to make it consistent. So we have since corrected that. yes, I suspected that was the reason because we have multiple ones that is coming. So if that can be corrected. And I don't know if we have the updated version, but, we are voting on liberty university for this item and
014not marriville. we have since uploaded it. okay, thank you. thank you so much. All those in favor of a-4 say aye. any opposed say no. A-4 carries unanimously. The next item is b1. Can I have a motion and a second on b1. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Rupert. Board discussion? MS. Alhadeff? thank you. So I would like to have a better understanding for the maker of the motion in regards to complaints from parents, what was what was given, how much parents, where exactly is this coming from? DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So for item b1, I don't know have necessarily substance I have data but we do have sort of antidotal type concerns about the weight grading take place in broward county so. There are, different weights given to grades
015for even students who are at the same, in the same class, the same grade level. one teacher MAY have 80 percent being assessment and 20 percent project work homework. And on the same team you MAY have another teacher that has a completely different weight where it's 80 percent weighted class and 20 percent for assessment. So I think there is a important that there is consistency across the board. So I wanted to us to discuss how we can make grading more consistent across the board for students so their learning outcome is being assessed fairly and there is not differences on how students are being graded. So if you look at the different schools, some students MAY receive an a in a class another student failed the class even though it's the same subject within the same
016grade level because of the different weights options. So the goal here is to have a degree of consistency. So I have some suggestions and I'm going to pass this around, andre? So I would like for the board to discuss if we are able to provide some direction to the superintendent, to explore having consistency across grade levels and possibly create DR. Hepburn some sort of as we did before, the advisory committees, some sort of a a task force that can look at this and that would involve our teachers union that would involve teachers, guidance counselors to come up with a standardized grading process for broward county schools. That way students can be assessed fairly. So if you look at -- . MADAM Chair. MS. Batista. since this is an item that we'll have to be negotiated
017with the union, I think that this process is better held at a close door session with the board to so that the board can give some parameters to staff if that's what the board wishes to do. okay. okay, so MS. Batista, would you encourage the entire item be discussed in closed door or just the the motion that I passed out? just the motion that you have right here. as far as this? okay. So the recommend to engage discussion btu to established procedure framework to be presented to the board and the school board at the school board workshop on JULY 29, 2025. okay, do you have more questions? Go ahead. so I would like to hear from the superintendent in regards if this is an issue. If you think this is appropriate to move forward with
018this motion. DR. Hepburn. yes, thank you, chair. Thank you for the question MS. Alhadeff. We donough that there are inconsistencies with graded. And we know that our teachers are afforded some autonomy, I think there is a great conversation to start with the union. The focus will have to be on the core content area first, rather than elective because we have so many I lekt I haves. And it wouldn't be staff really driving the outcome, it would be teachers, those impacted and those established in the grading system to really come together, probably content area by grade level or by specific grade level or specific course to come up with some consistency that could be implemented. So the depending on the action of the board, if it's the will of the board the staff can start facilitating.
019But the first thing that we would have to do is talk to btu to see if they're amenable to something because they can simply say no and it stops right there or they can say yes and we can figure out how to work with our teach inventories come up with with something. thank you. MS. Familiar. -- MS. Fam. thank you, thank you DR. Hepburn I appreciate you saying the impact that we need to have a good conversation which I dwraoe. Agree. And you said the teachers are going to be the most the biggest group impact. I disagree with that. I think there is going to be a greater impact on our students. And I think therefore this is a important decision that the parents must be involved in. You're talking about getting input from the
020union and teachers but you left out the parents and they do not feel welcomed. they do not feel like they are involved in the decision that's impact their children. And by law they're entitled to do that. So I request that we have some kind of meeting or opportunities that teachers at least be a prides of the changes being proposed wha. Is being offered on the table as option sxz that they get the opportunity to provide input back to this before we're voting on it whether that be a town hall or some other method. I know a lot of parents don't have the opportunity to come here during the day because they're working or dropping their students off or picking them a lot of time when they're suppose to speak. So I insist upon an accommodation
021where parents are included. Thank you. DR. Hepburn. thanks for the MS. Fam, I don't disagree but we do have to start with the union because it's a contractual and if they decide to move forward parents and students will be part of the process. through the chair, MAY I respond. go ahead. DR. Hepburn, if possible that I would ask that the parents have input what is even proposed to the union. It seems like the union is stirring the bus, when I think it should be the parents. Thank you. thank you. MADAM Chair. MS. Thompson. so I think it's a good conversation to have. However I have concerns about taking some autonomy from teachers, DR. Holness your comment about it being different in the individual classroom is concernings because if you have you have one student graded
022one way and another student graded another way. That's something to explore. However in general, I'm not favor of implementing this on our teachers because they have the autonomy to run their classes the way they see fit. thank you. DR. Zeman. why is this a consent idea instead of a double b item? DR. Hepburn. for my understanding, there is no cost to the district, so it falls under consent. I would like to talk about that in a workshop. There are issues that people look at and say that's okay to do. We have a different definition of consent. We have another contract and we have 30 just like it and we have another university to do intern sxz things like that. I would expand consent to significant academic shifts in broward county policy so that we don't
023confuse the public with a consent item of this magnitude. Second question, so I recommend that we have a short conversation about that at a workshop, I think it would be short. The second is, chair do you view this as a effort on staff btu and this board? DR. Hepburn? I would consider this a large. thank you very much. shift across the district. in the view of that and to MS. Alhadeff's question, I don't know have any information about this being a big issue that is worth a big effort of time. I have children in school, they've been in school for a long time in broward school. I have never heard of a classroom that has two scales. I'll ask the chair have you heard of a class school that has two grading scales. one would
024have a weighted scales. I'm familiar with that, two teachers across from the hall, both teaching nineth grade english. I understand that. And to MS. Thompson's point, I applaud that. And the reason I applaud that is sometimes teacher feel like they in their lesson plan, would like to teach the objectives of the course through reading and therefore the grades for that class is more reflection and others, fact base knowledge base learning about this topic and they want to test the knowledge. More importantly, I believe that we trust teachers. And that's something that while people want to talk about trusting parents, I trust parents too. But at the end of the day the education system rises or falls on the judgment based on teacher. I don't support taking autonomy from them. And we don't have the information
025from this to take from collective bargaining btu to run this down. If there were 1,000 parents here today, if there was a town hall, if I had got one email about creating scales, I might suggest that there is evidence about the demand signal for this. But I don't have a single item coming through as a consent item to launch 10,000 hours of work when we need that work to be spent on things that have a great impact on our strategic plan. So I'm going to make a motion to table this item until the next school board meeting, I don't want to make inaccurate, APRIL? DR. Hepburn? 22. ?Fm I think it's APRIL 15th, but correct me if I'm wrong, MR. Hill. yes, APRIL 15th. thisiscoululbe an important thing d d cacan fifind thatatout,t, t mymy
026moti is to table this item until we get more information about how big this is with our teachers and our whole education community. is there a second? second. it's been moved and seconded moved by DR. Zeman seconded to MS. Fam to table item b1, is there any public comment on the motion? Any board discussion? On the motion? Before we do that, because if it passes, no one will get to talk about it, I would like to ask the student advisors if they can weigh in on this particular topic. good morning, landyn, student council. We have not heard anything on this. I don't want to say that this is an issue across the board because I don't have the evidence to support that. But I will say that in conversations with students, we do hear about
027the consistency across classes. So you know, you have one period of english and another period of another class of english with two different teachers that are grading differently. So it would be bruteful to have a conversation about consistency across course but that's the extent of what we've heard. I don't want to speak and say it's a widespread issue because we have not heard that widespread. thank you so much for your input. Any other board discussion? MS. Thompson. I have a question for DR. Hepburn, how are we going to gather more information so we can make an informed decision if we table it to next month? DR. Hepburn? so at the will of the board, it depends on the information that you want to see. Right now we will have to go into focus and find
028a couple of sample sizes of different courses at same schools to see if there is inconsistency or a wide range of inconsistency for same level and same course and provide as information for the board so. If there is any additional information that you need, now is the time to kind of give usz direction on that? DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So I just want to reiterate the intent of the item is not to take away autonomy from the teachers it's to volve teachers in discussion along with parents as to what would be some level of consistency that would reflect outcome on students. So it's actually to maintain the autonomy but to maintain that children are being assessed across the board. So if the involvement if it moves forward would be to en cage teachers
029and if you look at the item that I presented that MS. Batista indicated to be discussed. It indicates leavely involved teachers. So it's a way to look at our experience teachers and to ask them to have a robust discussion through the teacher's union as to what would be considered consistency that allow us to assess students. So it's to put it on the teachers and not take away autonomy with them. Soy just wanted to reiterate that. That's what it's really is about and not, not for us to remove that autonomy of the teachers of making great decisions that they will make decisions on not us through the teachers union oz to what they consider a fair graded grade-in for our students taking the same courses over at the different levels so that our students can be
030assessed fairly. thank you, MS. Leonardi. thank you. I can understand both sides. Sorry. Of this argument. To have similar concerns about teacher autonomy. I can say as a teacher I heard concerns from students about consistency among courses. I think it's also possible that this is one of these issues that is just like accepted as fact for students that there is not much they can do to change it. So they don't complain about it. That's why, I think it's useful to have a conversation with the teacher's union but also with other stakeholder groups like parents, students, guidance, counselor, I would also include administrator assistant principals and principals, I think there are probably, if there are concerns, they are probably very familiar with those complaints. So I think it's worth having the conversation. I guess I'm wondering
031what the time commitment for staff would be? DR. Hepburn? I would say, it would be similar to the time dedicated to this late spring, during the summer and work withing btu and other teacher and parent leaders to go through the process. would you say it's 10,000 hours of staff time? close to it. This is a shift. A large shift for the district as far as how we grade or place grade. So this is something that is a laborious task. But it is, a conversation that could happen outside of that just to really understand the gravity of it if it is having a large impact. We land and have conversations with our students and work with some of our parent organizations. okay. Yeah, I guess, I guess, I'm conflicted when it comes to committing staff's time
032for something that is as my colleagues has said has not warranted lots and lots of emails and phone calls and but I think taking a look at a systemic change to have some more consistency in our district, would be helpful. So I think, having that initial conversation with stakeholder groups, I don't know that it needs to be a town hall necessarily but work groups or something like that, I think could be useful. thank you. MS. Alhadeff. so I agree with tabling it. Within the time that we table it we use our survey softer to survey our teachers, our students and our parents and anybody in broward school union stakeholders so we get data to ask those key questions to see if this is something that would rise of having the importance of having staff working
033thousands of hours to make that change. Thank you. thank you. Go ahead, then I'll go. thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you, to DR. Holness for bringing this forward, this conversation. I agree with postponing it until a time within reason. A little nervous about everything involved in this when we're trying to maintain a a-district and our staff is scattered all over the place. However our parents and community really deserve to have a part in the conversation. I want to suggest but my learneded colleague MS. Alhadeff just covered that part. But my second is parent involvement task force, they're able to do work groups pretty quickly and they have thousands of people that show up, for their thing so that would be my little, cherry on the ice cream sunday. thank you, and I'll wrap this thing
034for the motion. I think it's worth a conversation. Like MS. Leonardi, I can see both sides wh. My son was taking math, 80 percent weight was on the test and he did really well on the homework and test was given the last day and ended up with a d in the class. As a parent I was very frustrated but as a teacher, I never weighted anything. I didn't put weights on things so it could be a struggle for me to see how that went. Certain things had points to it but I think it's worth. The item is just to ask btu if they're interested. It's a first step. I think once we know yes or no, could come back to us in a workshop setting to move forward. So I don't think I agree to
035table it because the item was just to ask btu so I would rather know there. So, I'm not, I'm not really in favor of tabling it, I just like to see where we're at with it. So, okay DR. Zeman. thank you so much. I just want to read the item back because it's different than you invert. It says it does not say to have a conversation. So if we pass, we're implementing and the question to the btu is how can you help us implement, not to to have a good idea. If you need to implement, we need the data and evidence we need to be convinced that this is a big issue to put this evidence together. And that evidence is not in this item nor in anyone that has testified generating 2000 emails or
036our student advisor saying that this comes up up a lot at his speak out sessions. I'm curious if there is evidence, that's why tabling, this is a directive to the superintendent to implement a weighted grades standardized and I don't think we're ready to do that. So I think tabling it gives everybody cooler heads. Like MS. Leonardi, I appreciate the story about your son, that is about somebody being injured. It says to implement not to go to discuss. MADAM Chair. DR. Holness. I want to clarify the motion in terms of tabling the item. so are we tabling it to get more data? Does part of that tabling volve having a conversation with btu to see if this is something that they want to move forward with? Is that part of what you're? DR. Zeman. the innocent
037is to go bring the evidence to us. I suspect strongly that since btu is like the 800-pound gorilla in the room, I would say yes, I'm sure the superintendent would do that. Is that correct DR. Hepburn? yes. bring us the evidence of how big of an issue it is and then we can decide whether or not it's the juice is worth. all right, so MADAM Chair, we cannot move forward without btu, so if we're tabling this to see if this is something which I think this is the first priority. okay, thank you. MS. Bulman. MS. Alhadeff. I have a question, my colleague, DR. Holness, did you speak to the union before bringing this item? so I brought. This item was brought together by me. There was a conversation that took place to clarify the meaning
038of my item yesterday with members of the teacher's union. I will, I will now that that's been cleared up. If you read the item would be to engage with discussion. That's the way I look it. -- took. If they say no, the conversation ends but if the motion to table includes speaking with btu, then I can, I can be on board with that, thank you. so MADAM Chair, I would like to clarify my statement, I have not contacted any members of the teacher's union. I was contacted by individuals who belong to the teacher's union a day or so ago, asking me the meaning of my item and I explained it the best ways I could. thank you so much. Any other discussion. All those in favor of tabling the item say aye. aye. any opposed
039say no. Item care use unanimously. no, it does not carry. I'm sorry, the item is tabled until the next board meeting, that's what passed unanimously. The next item on the floor is f1 can I have a motion a second to bring f1 to the floor. so moved. moved and second. MS. Fam? thank you. I have my concerns about the audience. I've expressed them before, because we're not in compliance with the cpa requirement. I really recommend that this board especially in light of our history and grand jury findings that we use a higher standard although we're, advised that we're not required to, but that we do use a higher standard of cp a standards. In an abundance of caution after speaking with legal council, I was advised that i should hold to my guns in the
040event that something happened because we have lowered our standards and we're not doing exactly. If we had a certified public accountant doing our records, that I will not be held accountable. So I'm not going to approve this until such time that we're compliant. And I know we don't have to be, but I'm saying that I'm not going to require that fior my vote. Thank you. MS. Batista? when you said legal counsel, I don't recall having that conversation with you, MS. Fam, so I wanted to clarify. yes, that was not with you. okay, and DR. Hepburn. I have nothing to add, chair. DR. Zeman. mine is really rhetorical for the board to think about a little bit about these monthly updates are just, I want to say they're a certain percent better but they're just grairkts
041phenomenal reports, clear, comprehensive to every dollar. And at the same time this board used to get reports on categorical and functional break down so we would know at the end of end of every month how much was spent on salaries and textbooks and other things. I would prefer to see that every month. I would prefer to know that we're maybe not able to hire all the people that the board asked to hire. I would love to know what the affect of fte's is going down the line. I can request that every month and get that. Ahead of time but I prefer us to have a quick conversation about whether as a board we want to see that specific data for the operating account because that's what we used to get last year. We used know
042what was spent and we took action on that. If you remember over the last couple of years, when we have a-line with money left over. If we're not going to spend money on hiring people. So it was a good way to just keep the conversation going and making sure that we're fulfilling our duties to not just pass the budget but to monitor a budget throughout the course of the year. Soy wanted to open that up to my colleagues and see if there is any interest in getting more detailed spend plans when we get these reports. DR. Hepburn. I think he's referring to the colleagues board if they want to see additional information for categorical department or division spent? okay. point of clarification, I just want to specify that I'm not attacking what's not in the
043budget or what is in the budget. I'm attacking the process of how we're getting to that and I just don't want to be held accountable if this works up and the house of cards does not fall in, that's wonderful. But if it does, I don't want to be held accountable, that's my only opinion. can you just clarify one more time so we have it for the minutes. What is it that you would like us to weigh in specifically? Do you have specific things that you're asking. sure I would like to use the format that we had for the last two years to get monthly spends and elements in the budget. okay. Do you want to make a motion? I think we're in a space where we need a motion. MS. Batista, right? I'm happy to
044do that, I would make a motion that we in addition to the monthly reports that we're getting now include the categorical and functional element break down as we have for the past two years in the monthly reports. I would second that. it's been moved by DR. Zeman and seconded by MS. Fam. Is there any public comment on the motion? give it a sec. here we go. I understand MS. Fam's concerns. You'll get no argument that we should see budget to actual. As much transparency as humanly possible. But you also have a fund balance policy that flows from state law which is probably where MS. Fam's concncns are cocong from t tt ys that you have present inriri fifinancial atatements that show the projected fund balance. That is not been happening. And I don't know how
045you determine if you fall below three if percent. So MADAM Chair, I'm going to be requesting a meeting with you so you're crystal clear because we're going to have a special committee meeting on the 27th of MARCH to make sure that every one is clear where our concerns are. So as we're concerned about the house of cards collapsed, every one is informed. Thank you. thank you. Any other public comment? sorry, I thought she was going to come up. Board discussion often the motion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. MS. Thompson. I just want to clarify there is been a lot of statements about how we're not following state statute with this new reporting system, I want it to be cleared to the public if we are
046or if we are not. DR. Hepburn. we are following state statute to the letter of the law, Is dotted, Ts crosses. thank you. I think that's is circulating and it needs to be put to rest. I heard that they actually like this new formatting, not by a lot of people but the people we talked to, it's more understandable, it's talking in figures and it's a better, we're better able to have a conversation about it than the previous reports, so thank you. thank you. anybody else? all those in favor of f-1 say aye. aye. any opposed? opposed. okay, passes. Oh, yeah, it was not amended it was separate. No no. DR. Zeman's motion did not amend f1 it asked for additional information. So f-1 passes 8-1. Next item up is j3. Can I have a motion
047a second. moved. second. moved by MS. Thompson, seconded by MS. Leonardi. MR. Zeman. can you tell between this and contract in the next five years. DR. Hepburn. thank you, DR. Zeman, I know what you're alluded to, that there is no red line. We will do that moving forward, so board members have all the information at their fingertips and see the difference between the contracts. thanks, chair. This puts the board at a pretty delicate situation. We can either read 16 pages of a contract under the entire contract, ask questions about anything that comes up, become an expert in reciprocal agreements. I appreciate going forward, DR. Hepburn that we will do that. But I'm not comfortable voting for this because we don't have the information that we need to decide whether or not this is in the
048best interest of our schools and our students. I'll just leave it at that. thank you. All those in favor of j3 say aye. any opposed say no. no. roll call. school board members alhadeff. yes. bulman. yes. fam? no. I have a no. no. hixon. yes. holness. yes. leonardi. yes. rupert. Thompson? yes. zeman. no. 7-2, passes. thank you. The next item up is j-5. Can I have a motion a second to bring up j5? so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. DR. Zeman. thank you, chairs. I just want to point out that the last time that we did have a red line version, it included a statement that said that broward county would ask permission of the city to use our property. I didn't think that was a good idea. I'm glad that
049there is a 90-day extension to get this right. And I look forward to getting this back. Thank you chair. thank you, all those in favor of j-5 say aye. aye. any o poeds say no. item passed unanimously. next up is j7. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Alhadeff. MS. Thompson. is this the doors? I had o-3. I'm o-3. okay, I had you as o-1. MS. Fam? thank you, MADAM Chair. Through the chair, I had a question for wanda paul. Is know at your last meeting, we discussed uping the number of vets, veterans that are on our vendor list. I know we only had one and one, we were the veterans are the lowest, the very lowest and I know you said you're very passionate about this, so I wanted to know if
050you made any type of progress? DR. Hepburn? yes, we're still working to bring more veterans in, myself and trey and MR. Davis, many of us are veterans. So we are still trying to working towards vamping up the numbers or improving the numbers since our last meeting, it's been about a month, but we are still at the for front, we're still working towards that. thank you. And through the chair, I just wanted to thank the veterans that went out and did voluntary tee service and cleaned out the canals behind high school they did that in one weekend and they did that at their cost without any payment from the school district. i think we should be acknowledged and we do appreciate you. Thank you. thank you. All those in favor of item o-1 say aye. aye.
051any opposed? Item carries unanimously. The next item up is o-3. Can I have a motion and a second on o-3. so-ed. -- moved. moved by DR. Zeman and seconded by MS. Alhadeff. my question is did we look at wooden doors? DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. no, they did not meet our specification that's why all bids were rejected but we can do some research on bullet resistant doors. DR. Holness. I'm good on o-3, I appreciate it. and I will echo MS. Alhadeff's concern about wooden doors. As we know, that's probably not the best choice. I know these are to replace wooden doors that we already have but if with we're replacing doors we should be reflation them with something that is safer for students. I echo what she said. With that, all in favor of o-3, say
052aye. aye. motion passes unanimously. We will now have our first speaker, which is judy jervanavich. my name is DR. Trudy jernannvich. what is going on with sex ed at south florida schools. Changing how vital information is presented to broward and palm beach students. Time to email the palm beach and school board to see if they can get the doe to change their strict interpretation and allow districts to bring back major components of this important curriculum. These curriculum materials have been used for at least 15 years and evaluate and approved by several parent committees. In fact, there is been a comprehensive approach to sex education allowed in florida classrooms even in 1977 when I began teaching middle school science classes. What he described in the palm beach program is appalling as it is stripped down and
053turned the clock back to 1955, with all the chaos in the world, I sincerely hope this informative program is not restricted this school year. I urge you all to discuss this at the board meeting how the district will make sure that students don't use valuable part of their education, you should make it clear that there will be an informative sex education program for broward students this year. This is only one of the many issues you must collaborate with the broward delegation during your rally to tally in order to differ the best education possible for our students. Use some of your time in tallahassee to work with the florida doe to get this sex ed program approved. literally, this is an issue where our children's lives could be at stake if they do not receive accurate
054information. Florida statute 48-001003.42 states public schools must teach comprehensive health education. That includes prevention of child sexual abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. Let's follow the law. This is part of the sex ed curriculum. I also brought with me, 200 words that the federal government just band from use. There are words that you would not believe. They are words that are just incredible and I'll send out email them. Words like and phrases like community equity, diversity, cultural competence, cultural differences, cult -- cultural heritage. Let's not go the way of the government. Thank you. [Applause] thank you. Natalie lynch walsh. good morning, again. DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. Couple of quick things, looks like we still have three minutes. Fund balance. The audit committee has more degree accountant and cpa's than the finance department and board of course we
055would not know what we're talk about. Your hr chief is deny to go could comply with law. Of course we're following state statute, dac, has been looking at creating a student framework which would include DR. Holness's item and I'm glad you tabled it because you do need to collect data and the student progression plan speaks to grading and standards of service used to be part of the service progression plan. Fun fact, the pages two on curriculum and instruction, maybe it needs to be changed. All right, getting to why I'm actually here though today, the db' he espinoza incident, I thought you MAY want an update. It's been 180 days since the only smraint that was specific to the person arrested her was submitted to the district and not recognized as a complaint. You've got 32
056days left to do something about it. The pba attorney that wrote that libel. MS. Fam asked if an internal investigation was ever done, did she get a answer? No. What we got is a memo from this superintendent saying why we would be violating if we did another investigation. You have never done an investigation which in my public records requests, you totally know how to do one in this district, you just didn't do it where this incident was concerned. 4.9 is suppose to be followed but was not. The only question is how many people were involved in covering up what went wrong at the beginning and trying to drag me into it when on one occasion, in one instance in answering MS. Fam's and recalling what was put in a sun sentinel article, I uttered the
057man's name once because I tend to be visual and his name was in the page I was recalling in my mind. So let's look at the report and I'm going to be hitting reply all because I don't want anybody to have mraus ability deny ability. You need to do the right thing, find your integrity, find your moral courage and do right by debbie he espinoza the district knows what right thing is and isn't, and it has not been done. Thank you. thank you. Nicole morst. good morning, nicole morst choral springs. Less than two years ago, against the superintendent smiley recommendation changed pass with four-year phase out even though chief alberty, the fire chief and saw no safety or over crowding concerns and noted there were no incident reports to support such claims. You'll remember that
058board member alston and after a 4-3 vote it moved forward. Choral springs district pleaded to rezoning to see if the new vouchers MAY have an he affect. After the change those that were rezoned allowed for sibling exceptions in ex ten yating circumstances but denied. So you can deny how frustrating it was to find out that in the very first month of the new boundary change school year, the principal at msd was asking for reassignments because the enrollment had dropped so drastic. As msc was not the over enrolled district. the superintendent at the time time with demographic and staff attended other parkland commission meetings where they discussed from boundary change attempt. The proposal discuss would be the one that later passed. Now the district wants to quietly open up reassignment seats less than two years into
059a four-year process. Without consulting those families that were rezoned to give them priority seats. Some have children attending two different high schools and a lot were walkers to msd who now have to take a bus to glades. For what to give their seats away. I believe the district has an opportunity to right a wrong by offering them a choice area for the c zone so student and future sibling will have a choice just like the choice sfrd in parkland. Grades is a fantastic school and most want to say, however their families with current eight graders shah should be covered a choice. Boundary creating going forward. Considering there are about 80 kids per year and msd this seems extremely fair to ask. Now the is the time to right a wrong. Please bring this as an
060open item. I have a question, can you legally allow for reassignments within a four-year process wor would this undo the change and staff has made concessions outside of policy specifically during the boundary change and even now with the broward window. So we know it could be done. So please right the wrong. rene silva. Speaker: good morning, rene silva rock springs. MADAM Chair, board, MR. Superintendent. Today with the benefit of hindsight we can see the unintended consequences that the boundary change that took place for msd has brought about to the school and the stud entsds it was trying to protect. By zone admission, the school has about 150 desks for the next school year. And in doing so, it is at-risk of losing funding because those desks are going to be empty. So I ask you,
061with your vision and leadership to please consider as the school opens for reassignment, to allow the communities that were sidelined and the students and families that were sidelined two years ago to have first priority during that reassignment process so that those children should they choose can have the opportunity to come back home,, to come ck tomsmsc r. Furthermore, I ask you to please consider making the boundaries or making the zone a choice zone so that the families that have soon to be high schoolers can have the opportunity to go to msc just like my ten-year-old neighbor who's dreams were shattered two years because now she couldn't attend msd with her peers from elementary school. There is precedence because neighboring communities do have a choose between two elementary schools. putting this as an initiative on your
062next meeting, is worth your time is worth your time because it rights a wrong and it allows for the community to heal. And it allows for the families that were sidelined two years ago to not be further victimized. Now the desk that's were meant for those children are going to be given away county wide. How will you feel? If that were the situation for your children. I'm asking you to please make this an item for the next board meeting so we can have a discussion about the future of these families. Thank you. thank you. Next we'll have the superintendent report. thank you MADAM Chair and good morning to every one here and also the public at large. As we celebrate women's history month, I want to thank the incredible women across our district. From the
063dedicated school board members to the hard working women in our schools and offices, your contributions make us better. And I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to my amazing wife, I don't get to sleep on the couch tonight. Take note men. One of the stand out moment was just do awards. Seeing the smile on student faces, and the pride in the parent tt a proud reminder of why we do this every day. With that, I would like to show a high light. beacon, please play the video. and that completes my report, chair. thank you. And sorry, I inadvertently missed somebody. For public speaking. So lin, if you want to come up for public speaking. Speaker: thank you, lin martsell executive director for communications for the city of choral springs. I do
064appreciate the board and our superintendent for all the work that they do for our 19 public schools in the the jurisdiction. We enjoy that relationship with you. You can see that APRIL could not be here. She is commonly here to advocate for our schools and programs. You from two of our residents. So I am hire to bring that forward. And also want thed to make this board know that we're communicating with those families that are impacted about school choice and when it opens on APRIL 7th, we will continue to do that and advocate for the families. So again I'm here requesting that this board bring this forward at a future meeting on behalf of our commission. Thank you very much. thank you. we have a presentation by broward foundation. But I don't think they're ready
065so we're going to move to the open items and we'll come back to the presentation when they're ready. This part of the meeting is when we'll consider all the open agenda items. The following open items have been identified for discussion. So the items pulled are a a 1, bb2, dd1 and 2, f f1, jj1, 2 and 3, and then 14, 15, 16, and 17, oo1 through 5. Rr1 which is a special order at 12:30. At this time, does the chair have a motion to pass the items hh11 through 7, a a 1 double b1 and 3. Gg1, jj4 through 13, jj18, o o-2 and ss1. aa-1 was pulled. oh, okay. We'll move that item. can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman. no public speakers. all in favor of
066those approving the agenda items that have not been pulled. Say aye. aye. any opposed say no. And it seems like they're ready now so we'll call them up for their report. sorry we're a little late but, you are moving faster man usual today. So kudos to you. Really excited to be here today because we get to do what we love to do most which is give back to the schools and our students and our families here at the district to improve what it is that we do well which is to educate, that's's what I want today do today is express my thanks and gratitude to one of our greatest partners that we have and it's fpl. We have julia from fpl. she is going to talk a little bit, just share that we're going to
067do a presentation to three different schools today which we're really excited about but this has, and I'll ask if we can share some larger news that will be coming a little bit later. This continues to be fruitful for us at the district and continues to give back to the district. So I'll introduce julia. Speaker: good morning, thank you for your patience this morning but hopefully it will be worth it. So I'm so proud to be here. We're pouring strong communities and making broward an even better place to work and raise a family. And one of the ways we do is funding youth and funding programs. We understand that our students need to be healthy both in mind and body to learn and be great students. We're excited today to support three schools in their unique
068initiative and thank the broward education for foundation for their incredible support and facilitating this effort. The district and foundation are critical for the important work that they do to help our students and teachers. First. Boyd anderson high, principal james griffin, I worked with him and he has the mind and body program at ranch in pompano, the love for horses with strengthening development with our equestrian club. The students have had an incredible opportunity to care for and ride and bond with these mag nificent animals and lead to go tranquility and balance in their life. Their experience offered not only creating strong bonds with the horses but also cultivating as a supportive community among participants. The second school dill ard high, principal blumenfield has a whole wellness program created and calls it the panther zen den, I
069love it. This relaxation provides opportunity for students to engage in activities that will help with anxiety, difficulty with sleep and overall quality of life. The programs goal is for students to gain better brain health, high self-esteem and reduce stress and anxiety and stronger mental health. We all need that. And finally plantation middle school, work withing principal kaim, he created the pay troy ot providing ak dem training, resilience and opportunities for transformation. It's a mentoring alliance program that is to empower students with a growth mind set and life skills conducive to growth and achievement cultivating resilience, motivation and personal development. The school aims to enhances academic skills by trans forming the school newering positive mind set and help mental health within the school community. I am so thrilled to be here to be part of these
070three initiative and to give back to our local community by supporting these schools. I would also like to say that last week fpl called upon the foundation to identify a school forous to partner with to partner with our week-long volunteer initiative. And we had several fpl employees read to students and then help with donating plants and planning them. I had the pleasure of reading woosh a story about a student inventor. This year as fpl celebrates we're please today support broward schools that proudly serve our children contribute to go a brighter future for our students. Fpl is proud to be working for you our customers and our community every single day. Thank you. [Applause] thank you so much. so we're excited to have obviously, principals and assistant principals in our schools. We would love to take
071a photo, really quick. So in this partnership, we've also continued to grow but we were just actually, awarded for two of our schools at the school district, 250,000, totaling $100,000, next year that will be going to go to two schools. We're excited I was hoping I can talk about it but she allowed it, she is the boss. I just want to say thank you so much and this is exactly what we love to do through our schools that the schools continue to put in and fund them. if we can take a quick photo and let you move fast as you have. thank you for supporting our students. We will take a quick recess for a photo. thank you, thank you, everybody. Thank you. welcome back. Next we have copa. Speaker: I'm dorothy davis smith representing
072the confidence confidential employee program. And I wanted to a depress the board and have an opportunity to say thank you for making salary increases a priority this year. It will go a long y in lping us maintain r hos s anand falies. So jujust quickly,wewe wa t to say thank you again and as always, we look forward to continuing to do our part to keep broward an a-rated school district. Thank you. next we'll move to the running agenda. second moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Alhadeff. we're going to spend 30 million on textbooks. Last year we were making tough budget decisions and we kicked science. We're moving if that passes. What was the impact on our students of not having science books for the one year? MR. Sullivan. we're going to turn it over
073to DR. Fulton our deputy superintendent. I'm going to pass it on to MS. Hollins worth who is going to give a more detailed impact, we didn't have the newly adopted textbooks but we still had books in adoption. I would second that. They were not without textbooks or materials, they were in the gas process during that one year while we were waiting. DR. Hepburn. we would like to have the new materials so we want to make sure that they get the most current information that was definitely not, the decision that we wanted but we went with it. and chair what was the cycle between the last science book and this science book? DR. Hepburn? MS. Holingsworth. I'm going to call on -- I believe it's six years but I want to fact check me. three years
074by statute, so we were on year 6th. terrific, I just want to always keep that in front of mine. These books are absolutely central to our core mission. And delaying one year MAY not have had a big impact. Whether it's science or science or math or global affairs, great resources for our students allow for great learning. I also don't want to send the signal from this table that we think it's okay to cut corners about our core mission. We're here to educate students. I don't want the opportunity to think that we did without being over the parallel wise and having to do that and the impact that was relatively miner. -- minor. but given this that this is central I'm going to continue to watch this to make sure that we get great resources four
075our students all time. thank you. All in favor say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. Second can I have a motion and a second on bb-2. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. DR. Holness is not here. MS. Thompson. I had my question answered by staff. I'm okay. Thank you. okay, DR. Zeman. I have no issue with this issue. I do want to point out that it is not uncommon for school board that's have five or seven or nine members in florida. I'm concerned that we differ to our chair for virtually everything. And we have an amazing talented chair it's not an issue with ability but labor. Whether it's or representing broward schools at a town hall, I want to make sure that all non eight chairs are full
076employed to the extent of their abilities. So I'm just open enough a concept, the state statute requires the chair to run few meters. -- meetings. In the future, I might propose some alternate staffing that have gone to the chair. Not because because there is any issue with the chair or our system but because I want all of us to be do what we can. And in some cases we MAY have a full security conference that we MAY have to attend and we MAY want MS. Alhadeff to go or DR. Holness. I want to to opus to think about these assignment and make sure that we're assigning an important when we have an attorney this is an issue that goes back decades. Those kinds of things that will allow the community seeing putting our best school
077board member for each of the task. Thanks chair. DR. Holness, we're on bb2. thank you, MADAM Chair. I'm prepared to go. you can take fam. well I don't have MS. Fam on the list. MS. Leonardi. that's fine. I'll put you next MS. Fam. just a point of clairation, the chair negotiate the contract. Does the contract come to the board subsequent to approval? MS. Batista? thank you, MADAM Chair, yes the contract will come back to the board as you are MAY recall and then, board members sometimes will have some additional changes at that point. that was going to be my next question. Do board members have the ability to make amendments and motions on the contract? When it comes to us? MS. Batista? yes, ma'am, they do. thank you. And I was curious, I know the
078city of ft. Lauderdale has a new stie manager, does anyone recall who negotiated that contract? DR. Hepburn? for the new city manager? I'm not aware. it was the mayor. So I think it's pretty standard procedure to have the chair negotiate this contract and other contracts and wh it comes to the board and all the board all of us have input on those contracts, so I support the chair's authority to do that. Thank you. thank you. MS. Fam? thank you, actually I'm in the adverse. I do not think that we should be negotiating the contract. Specifically this board, and I am an attorney and I did make a recommendation that when it came to the pension for the superintendent la will he la kata, and he resigned ten months after, and he was enable to a
079full. This is DR. Licata that we're talking, 100 percent after four years. We could have saved this district a lot of money. It was voted down. We should have an attorney experienced negotiating to handle that. I have said that bh MS. Batista was negotiating superintendent, I'm sorry, I'm going to say carter but it's the wrong name, cartright when she was leaving. And one of the statements I heard as an being arbitrator and sitting on many ne goe,z, that's batista said well I didn't say that was my final offer. And I thought you never bid against yourself. I would feel much more comfortable and I'm not trying to be critical of anyone. We have to be objective here. The subjective has to be removed. People are voting with their loyalties and emotions. This is billions, it's
080upsetting that we don't have a cpa running our team. You know, this is a billion dollars business. MS. Fam. Please stay on the topic. anyway, I would feel much more comfortable if we had an outsource resource that was an expert in it. And they conducted the negotiations and came back as a whole. So I just want to give my feedback. I am supporting this we begin discussion on contract negotiations. I think we have improved how we market broward schools. You've heard choose the best, choose B.C. Ps. He has dealed how we deal with in terms of customer service. I'm so grateful for the formation of the sdo office that we look at our schoolsing that are lower in performance and how we can improve those schools. There are a lot f things. And I think
081that I would love the discussions to start on a longer term contract for this superintendent and items that will be favorable to making sure our superintendent continue to do the good work so I'm supportive of negotiation. Thank you. thank you, and I'll just say that the reason that this came as a b-item is outlined in his current contract is a provision requiring the board to vote on a termination clause, after the end of first year. And believe it or not, we're coming to the end of first year. So I wanted to have the discussion at one time to the board. I would also like to say that negotiations is with an attorney it's not just me in the room with DR. Hepburn. He has an attorney and we have an attorney and I'm there to
082vote for the board and I remind you that you voted for me and I appreciate the confidence. I also wanted to bring the contract part forward as DR. Holness just mentioned given DR. Hepburn's strong performance and the need to continue the stability and forward momentum, it's in the best interest for our students and community to discuss a longer term contract right now it's a three-year contract which means it will end in 2026, if I'm not mistaken, oh 2027, we would like to look at what we can do to make that a little bit longer. That's I didn't brought the b item forward to ask your authority to go into negotiation and see where we land with the superintendent and I'll wrap this up with DR. Zeman again. I appreciate, chair. again my comments were not
083specifically about this item or this task, it's about doing the best thing for broward schools with all nine board people on the board given their various expertise. In my own extension of DR. Holness's comments it MAY be that things agreed at the beginning of this contract, DR. Hepburn would like to bring up like DR. Holness, I think that we ought to be as flexible as possible and extending the contract is the best interest of broward schools but also listening to pieces of that contract to see what we have with our superintendent allows us to get the greatest benefit from the superintendent for what we do. Our job is k-12 education with a lot of other things added on. But for things that don't pertain to the core mission, I hope that we remain flexible during
084these negotiations. Thank you, chair. thank you, all those in favor. MADAM Chair, if I MAY. sorry, MS. Batista. just wanted a point of clarification, the employment contracts for the superintendent historically and including the one for DR. Licata and now DR. Hepburn. When there is an resignation clause, the individual does not receive any severance. The only thing in the contract for a resignation is just vacation which is earned by the individual while they're employed in the district and sick days, and that's all they receive. thank you, all those in item of bb2 say aye. aye. any opposed? opposed. the motion carries 8-1. The next item to the floor is item dd1 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. MS. Fam? sorry what was the money?
085dd-1. through the chair this is for DR. Hepburn. I know that, watkins elementary had the greatest equipment losses, I just wanted to know what guard rails if any, have you requested to be added so we don't allow this to go on and provide to such a large degree? DR. Hepburn. I'll differ to DR. Fulton and regional office. For watkins. for the property inventory awed udit? I apologize. watkins had the largest losses, for longer period, just wondering what guard rails you placed or recommended? so what we have with all of them but I will speak specifically for MS. Watkins, we're start to go see some of the controls for when we were doing voluntary ko vid lap tops and at that time we were distributing lap tops to families that needed them. So a lot of
086those we were not able to capture them to ensure that they're not on the list. So therefore schools are not getting hit by that. and other controls that we're doing for all of our schools and we are doing all of our controls internally before the chief auditor and his staff comes out and those are done on a carterly basis and we'll do spot checks. We'll pick a few items and making sure that they are where they are suppose to be and if not we're being proactive to ensure reconciliation of the property and inventory as the database system that we have. thank you so much. okay, thank you. All those in favor of dd-1 say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. Moition carries unanimously. The next item is dd-2 I can have a motion and a
087second. so moved. moved by MS. Thompson and seconded by MS. Zeman. this is item that got discussion at the audit committee and got push back from the principal from the bsc, from the regional superintendent, and from the director. And at the end of the day, if you look at the standard practice bulletin that we put out to the schools and through I think chair, do SPBs come out under the signature of the chief financial officer or business support center? DR. Hepburn. bsc. okay, so bsc puts out these bulletin and there is a keyword that the principal, the director, the regional superintendent said which said you should, not you can't but you should. And so allocating funds according to the standard practice bulletin where it says this is something you should do. I am not an
088auditor, but I do have some degree of common sense and I'm hoping that, we can talk a little bit about this get a deeper explanation of why there is an exception in this audit and we will think about it in view of this exception and chair, I just want to make sure that my information is correctly. When there is an information of school base audit that gets listed on the principal' evaluation, correct. DR. Hepburn. that's correct. so the consequence of this which I believe after spending several hours on this, is uncertain, I don't think it's an exception, I don't think it's a non exception, it's like, the rules say, you shouldn't spend more than 15 percent on something. They spend 15 percent. The principal felt it was a critical need for the school and I
089think the principal's letter to the auditor was pretty clear and my read of the principal spb, again, it says you shouldn't but it doesn't say you can't to do this. And I don't want to mara principal's -- who has did not teaching and leading for decades on something that is ambiguous and our dits shou reflect that. It's a a scar t would prprevent ththemfrom lotsts of other things in their career and I just, I just have tried to figure out a way to understand this. It certainly came up for a discussion at the audit committee, there is plenty of your attachment on pages 110 to 118 to talk about this. But I need to learn more about. And first question that I have is what is the authority of the board on this item if
090we don't agree with one of the exceptions in the audit report? DR. Hepburn. I'll differ to MS. Batista. MS. Batista. thank you, MADAM Chair, so the action that is here for the is just receiving the internal funds audit report. It is not to accept the findings necessarily or reject the findings, it's just to accept the report. As far as you know, if there is information that you feel needs additional either information or action, then you would go through the process that you are going through now which is discussing here at the board and perhaps asking for some more information from the auditor. and I intend to do that. But after we do that, what authority does the board have if we vote against this and not accept the audit? Is it substantial, is it, if
091in fact we don't agree that this finding this exception is appropriate and we vote against the item what happens to the audit? So again, you can't really vote against the item. It's not what is on the item today. So you know, it's the audit is done through the discretion of the audit experts that put it together. So, I'm not sure what you what would be your resource if you wanted to reject the audit it s efl since that is not the action that the board is taking at this point. well I would like to emergency that the elected school board is more than nine house plants who look at documents that they don't agree with and pass them anyway. At some point, we have to look at audits and say somebody's career is being damaged
092and there is no evidence that this is a black and white exception and we would like to do something about that. What do we have the authority to do? again, other than receiving, that's the requested action is to receive the audit, I would have to research if you have any other authority to make any type of rejection regarding that particular finding. I'm sorry so you would need more time to find what our authority are. correct. I appreciate that. I'm very very uncomfortable. The guiding bulletin says that this is something that is not do. This is a 10,000 debt from a principal, got permission from her director to do to and got approval from a regional superintendent to do it, that's a lot of hest. If I ask alan strauss about something, I get the right
093answer. This principal did all that and now we're in essence mark her career as having an exception to an internal audit? So chair I'm ready to make a motion. MS. Bulman. thank you. Board member zeman for bringing this up. I agree with him and I think that the response from the bsc is very telling. I think they setforth a great argument that this should not be of mar on the principal's record. It does not say say, generally acceptable is even more vague than should in my opinion. And so having sought the counsel of various leaders from different departments and relied on that, I don't see how we could put a blemish on this principal's record. MS. CHAIRMAN. MS. Batista. if I offer, there should be a motion or if you would like to make a
094motion to table or postpone the item until the next board meeting so I have an opportunity to see how if there is anything that the board can do as to that particular finding. I appreciate that and do you mind if I take bakt microphone. I would like to do that. And again, I have been through several thousand audits, and although I'm not an auditor, I have an experience with awed ilts. Gak to the principal going back to the bsc director MR. Smith, going back to the director, the regional superintendent to the C.F.O. To anyone. And we own the bulletins so in fact, the bulletin says, that's different or the like. And in this case, I think there is just a lot of subjectivity, you know about this and a 10,000 expense where there is no
095missing money no dis gross account. I think this is not the appropriate conclusion to come to in an audit and I'm glad that the audit committee flagged this and I move to table this till APRIL 15th to learn from the general counsel and chief auditor together what we can do about this audit so it reflects a potentially a different outcome on this particular exception. second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Alhadeff to table the item until APRIL 15th. Is there any public comment? Any board discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you the next item up is f f1 and I have a motion and a second? second. motion moved. second. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi and
096this is my I pulled it. I just wanted to as I like to do monthly, say thank you and congratulations to the grants department. This month they have brought in 223,161 of additional money to our district for different things for our students and we appreciate your time and effort for that. So thank you. all those in favor of ff-1 say aye. aye. any opposed a no. Motion carries unanimously. The next is jj-1. so moved. seconded. moved by DR. Zeman. Seconded by MS. Leonardi. MS. Leonardi. thank you. So this is a change order for an north side elementary. And on the change order it says the contract time will be increased by 1272 days, I'm just wondering if somebody can explain that a little bit. DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. good afternoon, board. I'll have mike mac
097entire from a come speak to that item. And so you know again when we talk about enrollment, you know when a parent walks through a school and there is roof leaking or an entire building is enable to be used because of delays or constructions, we're really not helping ourselves so. I just, I wanted when I saw this on the agenda I wanted to highlight those issues cause we're really doing students a disservice by not getting a handle on the facilities and these projects. thank you, DR. Zeman. thank you so much chair. MS. Leonardi took my bullet points so I'll be briefer. Anybody on this board happy with a three-year change order? The community is really angry and we cannot keep seeing these things and not express their anger publicly. In this particular case, it's a
098historic landmark, you know. And not being able to use that school and then demand that they become an a-school district when they're title one school, we have to figure this out. I recently made aware of a change order, that had been put in for 5900 dollars and six months later, it got approved at 9300. Was the six-month really worth the $600 difference? And what I want the board to think about as we go through the transformation spined y'all program, is, you know, we hire contractors for critical technical skills that they want to provide to us and we need. But they get paid by the month not by the job. Contractors get paid by the job, right? The GCs? What's the broken incentive there? Anybody tell me? We hire contractors who get paid more if there
099is long delays. That's why we need a robust government staff to make sure that things like 600 dollars don't holdup a project for six months. That's a tiny one, but this one is a big one and three and a half years is too much I cannot wait to see what the new structure will look like between staff and contractors. The need to dramatically increase spend to think deeply about facade upgrades. Like we ask the superintendent to bring us a-rated district schools. We want the best district in the county but have we done facade districts. When they visit our schools, they're pretty excited. They meet the principal, the academic coach, their far more likely to en roll in the school but how do we get the potential students to come visit the schools. That has a
100lot to do with how it looks. We have too many schools where the old sign is still because because we replaced after ivan so you pass the yap' sign and see the nice sign. Those things we need a cohesive approach that is inclusive to help us achieve our goals. Three and a half years is not acceptable, the community is angry and they should be and we have to keep talking about it until a change order comes back in a reasonable came frame. Thank you, chair. thank you, all those in favor of jj-1 say aye. aye. any opposed? Passes unanimously. Next is jj-2, can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman and seconded. This one I brought up, the contractor granted 30 days of delay. But when you go down
101to the change order items, this is actually a consulting omission. So either it's unforeseen or it's a consultant omission. Solt this is conflicting information, DR. Hepburn can someone explain why it says two different things. MS. Small? MR. Mac entire? mike mac entire through the chair. It is an omission on the first question on the contractor will be compensated as you know forable. It was unforeseeable to the contractor but it's a design omission, there is no liability and we will be looking at the architect for recovery. okay. Thank you. But that's, it needs to be worded different than I think, initially it says, unforeseen and I keep track of this. I agree. and I'll just point out that there were three consultant omissions. Part of that is because it comes, we're looking at it somebody missed
102something but if it's really unforeseen, that's different. So I think it's important that we get it right. But there are three consultant omissions for a total of 38,465.94 which was way better this month I should say than the trends that were going in the last few months. But for the explanation. All those in favor of jj-2 say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. Passes unanimously. The next is jj-3 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by MR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. MS. Fam. thank you, MADAM Chair. this will involves I think it's parkway elementary school, hold on. central park. central park elementary school. And the reason I'm really concerned about this is because we got a resent request for 634 additional days to be added. That is almost two years.
103It appears that the contractor is already in litigation in reference to about bailout and I just wanted to know, the records seem to indicate that this change is being supported by acome is it's going to be determined as part of included in the litigation that is already pending. I just want to know if at this point in the game, if we need to, this is phase two that we're started, an alternative contractor to step in, this is going to be really realistically five years or more and as we've all been discussing, we want the schools to be done. We want to attract other parents and it's not fair to the students as well. If a-come can see why this would not be a good idea it just seems like this is a really getting dragged
104down. This is also the 8th change order. These 640 days are not additional days going forward. They are in the past. We are work days that have accrued to this point. The tia review has been performed. To bring the contract date up to the realtime line. Up to reality. so we're not adding additional 664 days. Going forward. This is to contractually add the days that have been accrued to this point. point of clarification, if acom would advise how 640 days of additional work done without coming to the board to seek that approval. DR. Hetch burn. MR. Mac entire. the additional time was needed to complete the original contract work. So there were this is a basket of errors associated with typical renovation work. The roof, the roof took a lot longer than it should haveso
105that dedelayed the projt. Wewe had a a t t of existing ndnditions that existed that were unknowns associated with plumbing. And the tia found that the basically that the time was not, was not accrued to the contractor, the time was accrued to the owner for delays and the ae for delays. additional point of clarification, please, when you say to the owner, does that mean us? Contributed to us and my question to you, was how come not that there were delays but how come did these delays not come to the board in order to get approval. You're telling us in hindsight we owe this retroactively. DR. Hepburn. I'm going to call on you to you mike, for further clarification, but if you look on left hand side, you'll see change order dates that came to the
106board since 2019, 9:23 so it's come to the board three times for previous change orders. is change order 8 there? That's what this is is labeled? go ahead, mike. this is the first time this change is coming to the board. There have been previous board approves of change orders, additional work that was found to be needed that was unforeseen or correction of errors. Tia's are traditionally done wednesday on a project. It's usually a tia, a time impact analysis is done to capture all time elements that are delays and then assign ownership of the liability at one time. So that's why a tia of this size comes now versus doing a peace meal. And ao ur correct it is in litigation, this contract has a number of projects in litigation. But you bring a T.I. A.At
107the end so you can capture all delays and assign their liability. thank you for your response. sure. sorry. Thank you. All those in favor of jj-3 say aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries ooh unanimously. Next is jj14 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. MS. Rupert? ms. Rupert. Jj-14. sorry, sorry. Yep, I got it right here. Jj-14 about pompano beach middle school, my question and I was trying to get into the email because I was not able to. My question is why is the installation in two loofers on building six which was included in the original scope not required any longer? DR. Hepburn? MS. Mac entire? mic al mac entire aacom it's no longer required. The engineer of record has made a determination
108of not necessary, now it is not necessary for the systems to function properly. through the superintendent, another question. yes. Go ahead MS. Rupert. okay. So you're, you're stating that this is not a safety issue, none of the above and what they thought was required but now it's not any longer. correct. Item one is a safety issue, item two is not on this item. Item one is being carved out to do separately otherwise it would extend the project. So item 2 is not needed any longer and it's not a safety issue. And item 1 is necessary for the building to be utilized. that was a great answer and one that was required so you can vote on this. So I appreciate that. And then I have part two of the same item is the credited amount
109of 85 blah blah, will be returned for what aspect of this program? Or is it going to go in for the? it goes into the carve out correct. there you go with that. Thank you. Thank you MADAM Chair. thank you, all those in favor of jj-14 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Passes unanimously. The next up jj15. so moved. second. MS. Fam. thank you, MADAM Chair, I had propounded a record, I want to thank you for getting back to me, the answers were very thorough and complete, it was enlightening. I want to thank you for that. And I ask one additional thing, if you would not mind stating to the public, there was one vendor that was certified and one was not. Can you explain the vendor that was certified. so basically the certified
110company goes through our process, works with our staff to get certified to understand what the rules in working with us and makes it a lot easier for them to transition and work with the district. through the chair. If you provide more clarified. You say they're certified what is that process? Do they have to have higher level insurance, what is involved? it's not a higher level of xaourns insurance -- I thank you for that. but is there any way that you can read it to the public now, I get asked that question. I'm not sure if MS. Andrew is here. she just walked in. go ahead MS. Andrewe. Speaker: good morning, in terms of certification, they do have to apply additional documentation on their line, sun biz their tax all information to become certified. So answer
111your question, you asked about the criteria used and is there a preference in terms of -- . somebody that is certified versus somebody that is not certified. that's project specific based on if there is any goals were assigned to that particular solicitation, then there would be preference points or price preference depending on what the solicitation calls for and how many vendors we have available. Also in reference to your question, we explained that per policy through our supplier and out reach program we are committed ensuring that small and veteran and women businesses have an opportunity to bid on all solicitations of broward county schools and they are trust worthy experienced and reliable. thank you again for your response. Your written response as well as our oral response, thank you for providing that additional information. thank you.
112All those in favor of item jj-15 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries. Next item is jj16 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. MS. Full man? thank you, chair. So this is a additional funding request for south broward high school to complete life safety repairs, which I fully supports. I was just wondering, it states here, structure replacement is necessary to ensure the safety of students and staff. I was wondering what the timeline is for making she's repairs? DR. Hepburn? thz paul? MR. Mac entire? good morning, sonia tlut chair. What was the question again? what is the anticipated timeline for making the repairs proposed in this item. so there are three separate projects, we're going to twine two of
113the projects, we have the drawings but we have not put out the solicitation. So once ge the funding approved we can get a time frame so we can follow-up with that. okay. So what would be, is there a, estimated timeline? Are we talking about months, years? I can't give you a time frame right noi, we have to get with the contractor but no more than six months to get it done. I have to follow-up with that. thank you. And part of that has one of the project is ASBESTOSEs abatement in the auditorium. There is currently an auditorium renovation in progress, is that going to delay? The renovation? they have to do the abatement so there MAY be a little bit of delay. how much time do you think? I don't know I'll get back to
114you on that and get the schedule from environment to determine how long it would take them to do the abatement. okay and was that just discovered? My understanding was that the project was going forward and there was work being done in the auditorium? it was probably discovered after they removed some of the panels but I'll have to again follow-up on that. thank you. you're welcome. thank you, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair, I'll I'll be supportive of this item I just have to questions. I know it mentioned necessity of structure repairs and replacement and transferring from ppo due to the complexity to a capitol programs. So I just want to find out when facilities assessment was done regarding south broward, can, can they staff explain why these weren't, these concerns, because this is three million
115dollars, weren't discovered during the facilities assessment. Does it have to do with the quality and how it was done and if that's the case, we have a lesson to learn going forward. DR. Hepburn? ye, I'll ask MS. Paul for providing details but you hit it on the knot, it didn't go beyond scratching the service to identifying a lot of issues that have plagued this program altogether. okay, so DR. Hepburn, based on your response, as you mentioned, this has been an on going concern district wide in terms of how the assessment of the facilities and as we go forward, I think it's important that as we go and ask taxpayers for work. That relation in delays and increased cost and we look at this, this is three millions, it's very supportive because I want the work
116to be done but it's a lesson going forward that we really have to have, quality assessment done and I, I don't know if this was a result of a company, we hired or how we needed to work, how we decided to have the assessment done. Are you able to speak to that? I can totally speak to what happened in the past but I can speak to right now. We have better expectations and bet eer expertise on the district side to ensure that the work is done properly this time that will present an early summer for this facilities conditions assessment that is being performed right now. okay so for this facilities, was it done by one or more than one company. MS. Paul. I can speak to it too, I think it was done by one
117a company with the collaboration of the district. so I was not here and I cannot speak to the past but you know, I know that in many cases, you have none a number of assessments or worked at companies you kind of get what you pay for. So I think it was a little bit of both in terms of, how it went. But I think one of the most important things that we look at, you know, in our current space, is what DR. Hepburn alluded to earlier that our expectations are a lot higher. We the district as a whole learned from the previous assessment and what is currently happening now with a bureau of riders is the right way to do it. I know that we're going in the right direction and I think the current
118approach is to correct approach for the district going forward. But also keep in mind, the assessment was done in 2014, you know, we're 11 years removed from that assessment. So you, our buildings, we just can't freeze our buildings in time and say that 2014 should have caught every single day, that's not how it works. But, you know, one thing that we're very confident about, is that we learned in the past and as we move forward, my expectations is that that we will not have the same difficulties that we had over this last smart bond program. okay, so DR. Hepburn, I do agree with MS. Paul that sometimes you kind of get what you pay for but the at times you pay more for what you get. I don't know what happened. did we pay for
119for what we got or did we get what we paid for? DR. Hepburn? sounds like we got what we paid for. As a as MS. Paul just said, we've been reviewing documents ever since I started every since she started. Just to lessons learned to make sure they're not repeated. But through MS. Paul expertise, she has done this work with great success and have a clear understanding of directions that our school district should take when it comes to conditions assessment and also updating the board about the next steps after that process is complete so we can make the best decision moving forward. okay, so thank you so much MADAM Chair, I will be supporting the item but as I mentioned for the record I'm concerned about the facilities assessment, going forward I hope that we can
120correct that in terms of good use of taxpayer's dollars, thank you. thank you and DR. Zeman. chair, thanks so much. 2.7 million dollars for life safety chairs, is there any higher priority than life safety? DR. Hepburn? I would say no, this is one of the highest priority to keep our staff and students safe in our schools. I appreciate that. Chair I wonder that given this is life safety that you MAY think about accelerating this process to max speed. I appreciate a quick estimate of six months, that's great. I was going to be smacker' and ask my colleagues if anyone thinks this will be done in six months, but I will not go there today. I will go the other way, which is what is the fastest authorized process we have to get a contractor out
121there for a life safety issue. So I'm going to watch this project, and I'm going to report every time we have a school board meeting about where we're at. And I would like to know how fast we can improve this life safety issue at south broward high school. I would also like to know a couple of things. The item says that, the rain gutter is going to be descoped from the renovation process and included in the replacement project. Will that cause a delay in the life safety project. DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. MR. Mac entire? through the chair, no it will not. that was a no it will not. thank you, so much. Sending question, I answer this board has given the superintendent the authority to do a lot of stuff but this item says he
122can't spend 10,000 on a life safety issue. General counsel why can't the superintendent spend 10,000 on a safety issue. MS. Batista. there is no prohibition for the superintendent to do that. There is depending on whatever the particular contractor agreement assessed, there MAY be provisions that the board has not delegated to the superintendent to sign off on. And that is the reason it would have to come to the board for approval. chair is it your general understanding that we've given the superintendent to give authority of ten thousand. it is my understanding but I know there is also a cap p so I'm t t sure if at ayays in why ththis s to co backo us.. I hoefp that I hope we can look at that in the future and think about it, because if there
123is life safety issue on one of our schools, I sure would love, maybe the, maybe MS. Coally should have the authority or the chief officer somebody should have the authority to execute dollars when it's the life safety of our students. I hope that we can look at general authorities, I think we approved things and there were caps and foot notes and things like that. I know that in an organization there are things that superintendent ought to be able to approve and get done. And again when we did that, we said come back and report to us when you do it. He does it, because we need a ceo to be able to do that and then he puts it in, I think we said his weekly report. The last issue is a big deal to
124me because I hope we can think hard about our why. We're about to make some big decisions about either facade or capitol projects, we're going to look at next years and maybe even the next two or three projects and start to approve design projects and we can actually execute design of those things so that down the road we can make decisions separately about constructing them. But we have to do something about our why. I suspect there is an rr -- not immeasurably large but measureaby, so we can help the boateder make decisions where we get the greatest bang for the buck. Thanks chair. DR. Hepburn, you wanted to address something. nothing to add. MS. Paul. Go ahead, MS. Paul. it should be called three percent cap on the topic, that's why you get what we're
125trying to do. And what we will bring to the board is 5 percent. again I'm a little bit out of order but to the extent that we can get that on a future item as a staff item and not a bb item, that would be great but it would be a good solid discussion to ensure that we're giving our superintendent and you, frankly the authority to make decisions and get things done. It's frustrating to hear about three yeah orders. MS. Fam is not here, but it was in MS. Fam's district where plantation high school waited six months to get approval on a 5 million dollars order. We've got to move those fast. Community members spend 10,000 on their bedroom. And when the plumber says, there is no subfloor you're going to have to spend another
1261,000 on grade b plywood, they say go for it. And we spend six months looking at a plantation order. And MS. Fam should be hearing about that from everybody that uses that school because it's not acceptable to the community. Thank you. thank you, and I have a quick question. So we approved, I think at the last school board meeting, a large chunk of money for minor contract issues, right? So that smaller things ppo, couldn't do these companies that were listed would do it. Is this an item that would fall under that contract? no ma'am. MS. Paul. no. no ma'am. okay. okay, why not. so ppo handles minor construction projects and basically, the separation is the dollar amount as well as the scope of the project. So this is part, the broward project is part of
127the overall project. So often times when we come to the board and we give you whether it's a tia, we give you the history of a project. This is part of the broward project of the school. I would not recommend carving this out. They have enough in terms of emergency work orders that they work on and so forth. So minor construction, projects are just that, minor construction projects. okay, in the discussion I heard minor construction with this in mind that's why I was asking. All those in favor of jj-16 say aye. any opposed? Okay, it's unanimous. 6-0. Next item is the jj-17 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. MS. Rupert. thank you this is margate high school, I would like to DR.
128Licata and MS. Paul and her team for moving these much-needed projects to be completed. I'm hoping bit end of the school year, do we have that information. repeat that que, I'm sorry. are we going to have the finishing touches on this before they get into the next school year? MS. Paul? if you're asking will the building be occupiable for the next school year based on the comments, yes and based on the project timeline, so I will go to MR. Mac entire and see if he has any concerns but I think it will be completed for the upcoming school year. that's what I was hoping to get on the record, I appreciate that. michael mac entire. The building is occupied and complete, the punch list is done. This is the final close out because the punch
129list is closed out. great. i'm telling you there will not be any principal that is going to be happier than tommy at margate, he has been a tremendous leader, just getting there on saturdays to make sure the construction people showed up. If somebody was pushing, he was definitely pushing it. And he even became an a-school during this whole process. So kudos to him and thank you to our team. Thanks. thank you. All those in favor of item jj-17 say aye. eye. any opposed say no. Passes unanimously 8-0. The next item is oo-1, can I have a motion and a second. Moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Thompson. MS. Rupert? hold on. Okay, so I was when I was going through this, I got a little confused. Can you explain what the first two sentences
130mean under the background and history section? That was in my original question because, the, when you're looking at the background history, it was a little confluy there. Replace 20 aging vans which is quote ten years can we don't know what, ten years old? Ten years in the making? ten years old. And as, you know, we're trying and perhaps we can make that a little bit clearer in the future. But we have really old vehicles within the complete. Sol my expectation is that we clear out the fleet examine phase out the aging vehicles that we have over this time period and not too continue to have them in the future going forward. So as part of our tragedy to make sure that we proride vehicles to our team. okay, thank you and one last question. To
131the superintendent have the technical college programs replaced any trucks or vehicles within this current school year? DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. so this particular purchase is for driver ed vehicles. And and you know, we're, we've completed the differ' of them but yes, we are still needing additional so we do take that into consideration. thank you very much, I appreciate it. MADAM Chair. DR. Zeman. how many vehicles are we buying with five million dollars. DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. for 2024-2025, 73. thank you. Sxl this item is proposing you piggy back contract did we shop around a dozen or so piggy contracts to see which one had the best. this is a state contract. So we tend to get the best prices going off of state contract. thank you, chair. thank you, and I'll just say very glad
132to see this moving forward. They've been asking for new driver ed's vehicles for a while. So I know you just made a group of people very happy. Thank you. All those in favor of oo-1 say aye. any opposed. Say no. Motion passes unanimously. The next item is oo-3 can I have a second and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. MS. Fam? thank you so much, MADAM Chair, I just have two quick questions for oo-3 this is transportation for field trips? oo3 is construction services minor projects. oh okay, sorry. Here's my notes down here. For oo-3 construction amount I think it's 7 million or 7.5 million that would be allowed per project or per contractor for one. DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. I'm not sure where you're getting that figure from.
133And these are projects that are physician plan operations, department is responsible for they tend to be minor projects. That deal with old. I think the cap that is allowed, without coming before the board is 7 million or 7 and a half million. so projects funded and not to exceed construction costs. okay. so that gives ppo the flexibility of assigning projects to vendors. We don't have those internal resources or staff to do thed skoip of these projects so we're able to go out to contractors to do them for us. good and two questions, one I just wanted assurance that these vendors specifically, they have a prior proven track record with the school district. yes, we, we look at that as we assign projects and so, many of our firms we have longstanding relationship with them, some
134are sm veterans and minority businesses and just a whole gamut in firms. And in many cases we use them for minor projects. and the second thing I'm afraid of things being broken down into piecemeal so a perfect contractor can direct massive amount of money by piece mealing. Are we outlining the projects? yes. yes, we scope out the projects, we give them very specific guidelines on what we need on these csmp projects. all right, thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman. thank you so much chair. I'm really excited about this item. So my jol this is going to feel kind of a gap, we have projects they're not generallier and we have a lot of companies that would get the work done. Chair I'm curious, are these vendors, well let me start with the contract question. How
135many people bid to be part of this group? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? I'll have MS. Our pro curt executive director acts that but it depends typically on the particular job skill set or the item. So like roofing, we MAY have more contractors electrical, more just depends on a specific trade that we're looking for. I appreciate that. I'm curious about the answer because there is been a concerted effort among a lot of people to one make broward county schools a better partner. Pay on time to show up for more and more timely inspections and so, if you could get back to me. Like I said this is exciting because it fills a gap. Bigger than ppo but less than a formal acquisition. Chair, do you think there is a way that we can accelerate the procurement
136and contracting with these 17 firms so that we might get more modium sized projects fin ishtd? DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. they collaborate with a com so fill the gaps so that relationship is already there. And I think because you know, we meet every week and we talk about any concerns we have on on smart side or capitol side as well as the ppo side, that collaboration is working so some of that colation that should be fun. how does the process works. Let's say that another issue comes up at ft. Lauderdale high school and it's not big enough that a major construction firm is going to work on it. But kind of perfect for these sweet spot. How do we select a vendor to come and do a project of this size? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul.
137I'll have MS. Andeau that will speak to. But we do have vendors and we have, emergency projects, you know, we have to get somebody on board and these vendors have been very reliable but you can speak to the process a little deeper. thank you. sonia with the process we send out a request for estimated order because we already have them on bid so we have to get that request from them. and chair how long does that roughly take. It's lovely that there is 17 preapproved vendors, you throw out the right task order and response, if you don't mind how long does it take before we identify a need before we get a contractor under contract? so typically the estimated order, we'll have john's and we will provide them with the drawings and they have 30
138days and some dwet it back within 15 years. and I appreciate that, and I ask how long it daikz to -- takes them under contract. that's world speed in broward county. DR. Zeman, we work closely, procurement is under my umbrella, we work collaboratively with MS. Andrew and her staff, if we need to accelerate something, she is always in the room with us. and I appreciate that, I appreciate that. That's why I always like to have andrew in a meeting. Why didn't we use this list for south broward. again, south broward was smart program, a large renovation. And then it depends on at what stage when you discover that there is an issue, asbestos is a specialized skill set. As I said before, it was already project under acom's control. So I think throughout the project
139and I think mac entire can speak to this, there were certain discoveries. And due to the size of it, it was decided that it stay with not acom scope. terrific. And the only reason is it sounds to me that this is fast, under 30 days, give them a flat area and sometimes the bigger contractors, you know, because it's a small piece of a bigger project MAY not have that urgency to get things done and get paid like one of these smaller contractors. I'm not saying that it wasn't a great idea but t I'm tryingngto connect t the dotsit's 2,, we have e e 17 coractctors ssssibly they could have done it faster. I'm raising a rhetorical issue. we have to be paushs with the band with with ppo and them managing project. They hired a
140project manager which they never had before. So again, we have to balance you know, the amount of work across both on the capitol side on the a com, smart side as well as the needs of our individual schools that MAY not have a smart project going on and so forth. that's terrific. We do have one outstanding issue that we just have to think a little bit about bringing back related to this. Which is if in fact we want to get going. If we want to work towards a 2028 bond. Do we want to have the board authorize the hiring of new positions now or the next available school board meeting rather than waiting for JULY first. That would give us about three more months of interviewing for what we know to be needs on construction
141managers and building the superintendent. And I'll sit down with the superintendent to see if there is any minimum way to identify the needs and bring that back on the next school board meeting on the 15th. Thank you. thank you, it sounded like DR. Zeman, was asking what I asked and you said no. So can you just clarify that? it's a dollar amount, we have a certain limit that we don't have above for the contracts and extent of the project. Keep in mind that ppo is tasked with doing maintenance, regular maintenance and so when they have a cs M.P. It's for a very discreet specific need. So we do not utilize ppo similar to what we utilize a com to do. I get that, but he mentioned like a 5,000 emergency project and the indication was
142yes, this could be used toer that. But you said yes to it. so we v we have projects that come up at our schools, something happens. We're able, for instance canopies, right. We were able to exercise a contract under cs M.P. To get canopies installed at schools. Or particular schools. So it just depends on the type of project, the type line of the project and the dollar amount of the project. I think chair, there is now 17 new vendors that we can put a task order out for seven and a half million dollars or less and they can get contracts awarded in 30 days and because they're smaller firms it's more likely that they get moves through. This is good indicators how you giddy. And you have one that will add a lot of, of
143commercial contracting construction capability to broward county schools. The 2.7 just happened to fit. I get that, I just wanted to kind of put those two points together so we can see how cool this item will be. thank you, and is it not a standard practice. I remember voting for these on a new weighs basis. we've always had this process. Good example is pressure walker where we're able to bring the mom and pops to help us pressure washing. But we don't want to run as a washer company. I juster wanted to clarify because it seems like we were asking the same question but got different answers. All in favor say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. next up is 00-14. MS. Fam. thank you, MADAM Chair. I'm assuming that the transportation budget that you're looking
144for $400,000, $200,000. Is this for field trips? And light things? DR. Hepburn? yes, that's correct. This is for transportation for field trips that we cannot do due to our old school buses. and this is for 2025-2026 or 2024-2025 field trips. this is for current school year into next year. and I want to remind that you had signed up for 2024 is it 200,000. this is money that is already in school budgets and department budge thes for certain activities and engagement. So they'll be paying for transportation out of their existing budgets. will schools be coming back for additional funds or is that all that is needed? we typically bring this back every to approve the vendors so our students can take advantage. great. Thank you. thank you, DR. Holness. thank you MADAM Chair. So on the
145financial analysis work sheet, I did notice that none of the 116 awarded vendors appears to be firms. But out of my own concerns is there any of these 16 companies are any of them that are considered mwbe firms. And if there is none, can you, can you tell us why? DR. Hepburn? MS. Andrea. thank you, for the question. There are wbme firm and they did receive payments in upwards of 220,000. thank you, MS. Andrew, but is there a reason that you didn't understand on the financial analysis work sheet, otherwise we would not have had the question. MS. Hepburn. MS. Andrea. thank you, superintendent. It's recognized in the executive summary, so my apologies we can maybe add another asterisk on the financial analysis, but it is on the executive summary. okay, and besides atlantic charter is
146there any other firm? as you know, sometimes certain firms MAY expired at certain periods. So looking at the list, I can tell you there were, I would have to check to see if kings college, was I would have to see if they're currently to date, sil certified. Sometimes they expire but they would previously one as well. okay, so okay, I appreciate that MS. Andrew a, ands we continue to a practical vend, we we have one that is confirmed that as a furm and possibly there would be another. I encourage the district to make sure that we're providing opportunities for mwbe firms to do business with broward county schools, out of the 16 we only have one. I think we can do better. Thank you. thank you, all those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed
147say no. Okay, the motion carries 8-0. Next item is item oo5 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. chair, thanks a lot. People who like to think a little bit outside of the box, this is really exciting that we bought this software and it's tracking our consumption of electricity as you know from our home bills but also from the bills that we get. It's going up as ro and since those are two things that we buy in by in future amounts. In this case are we using this data to find like buildings, that have either a lot of electrical use a little bit of electrical use. We're finding some, we have a bunch of 20-classroom buildings all over broward schools. If we look
148at one column and look at their electric allege uses, are we trying to learn from those that operate with the sale building than those that don't. DR. Hepburn. so, this is actually pretty cool because it tracks and an rised our utility costs. It looks at spikes abnormal spikes, so we're able to utilize this across the district to look at the same things that you mentioned. Also it identify duplicate billsed so we don't pay bills twice. It gives us a basically a vision across the district. and chair just as a, an item to be responded to later, this is all part of activity based costing, so we have, we have water usages, electrical uses, waste management and because we run such a huge organization. This is the beginning of looking at identity base costing. I would
149like to see a handful of like buildings we have compared to their emergency usage and just to get an example where we have changed and having old windows and keeping the thermostats in the wrong place have made adjustments to lower the cost of broward county school. It's not something that we'll be able to get costeder quickly. It's exciting to go to our schools and say, guess what. This middle school had a building it was out of the normal balance and what we found, is they we changed and their price kept going dpoun. As well thanks chair. thank you, all those in favor of item oo-5 say aye. aye. Any opposed say no. Passes unanimously. Next pp1, double p1. Can I have get a motion. we have a registered speaker, chair. okay. judy. DR., right you
150got it. My name is DR. Trudy jer manvich, this there are a lot of changes on here that I think you have to be really careful about looking at. This is not only looking at how we registered students but how we deal with homeless students. Whether students do have a social security guard, don't have a social security. i saw a lot of things that made me quaez', because I worry about an executive order that says we have to look at differently at the way we do this policy. So one of the things you'll have to do is make it so it will be changed quickly or you should, you know, try to make it so that it's kind of a little bit more vague. I don't know how else to put it. Immunization status, is
151another issue that's brought up here. And I thought I had heard about something that was changed at the state level where immunizations were not required. So those are just all things that as I read this, I, I worked, they forced me to be an a p for one year because they couldn't find anybody else. One of the things that hi to do was this kind of thing. And it's so difficult with homeless students with students that MAY have weird immigration at status. It's one of those things that, I had to deal with years ago and I really see this as an important, important policy to please read it carefully, thank you. thank you. MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. My questions were answered okay, great. All those in favor in favor say aye. I would like
152to speak. I thought I was on here. Thank you. I just got the reviewed the amendments, that were more recently changed because with the one point in time we were substituting the word live. Anyway, I have serious concerns about this. We already heard today from nicole morst and speak about marjory newman douglas, the boundary controls are not affective. It's not fair to the other students and now it's open where other stud -- students. Where it says, hold on. Let me just pull it back up. I know we're uses residents in one, that's an error that we need to be very perfect but what we have here and we have taken out of more than 50 percent of the time, the primary residents and/or address, now we're using address instead of lived nr. So somebody can
153use an address where if they're staying in a hotel on weekends or grandparent so it does it's not even right here this is primary resident, you can use an address for your driver's licenses, you don't, you can use an address our po box to receive items. Now you spread it where it can be someplace where it's not even habitable where somebody can just use a church as an address. I would dispute that language and also says hooer, with parents if applicable. We need to say, what does that mean if applicable? Is that applicable in your definition or court definition? I dis brie with that too. I'm for taking out ambiguous, I think it would be challenged and I would love to be somebody that challenged it. did you, fam do you want to make motions,
154because we're voting on the policy. my motion would be to one, find primary resident with the word prime aur' would appear, that's throughout the document. In addition, I would remove the word address. Normally, a state boundary, country boundary, it's you're residing in that country, not your coming to visit and live at that address. I would remove the term address and stick with primary residents as we did and/or dom siel if you want to add dom sale too. That would be my motion, it would be motion to substitute. Residents and domcile in lieu of residents and/or address throughout the document. is there a second? MS. Batista? MS. Hixon, can we have the exact place where this changes are being proposed? I think staff MAY need to respond to some of these items. okay, MS. Fam, can
155you tell whether you're on the red line version or the clean version and what it would be. I'm in the red line version. what pages are you looking at? the definition specifically at the begineding, so I'm one of 16, okay and it says now. Address and/or residents, so it's my motion that that be primary residents and/or domicule and that would be consistent where ever that appears throughout the policy. it is definition a, so you've crossed out primary residents right under it, it says primary and/or addresses. it's right above it, so you would have to have the word primary and remove again, address and it will be primary residents and/or domclice. So there in the and trout the document thereafter, so you have fourth line down says primary residents but you don't stay primary residents the
156dedefinion itse inin the tle e of t defininitio it all has to be consistent. MS. Batista, can you indicate, is there a difference between saying address and domicile? I think it's staff is here to discuss the language. go ahead, MS. Holingsworth. introduce -- MS. Hixon, point of order, did we get a second? we did not. okay. We did not, I think we were trying to clarify. Anybody second her so MS. Fam's motion was to put in primary residents there but take out address and add domicile in terms of address. and/or domicile and primary resident, it just says residents, I'm sorry. You went from not having primary to then you do have primary so they're not consistent, the title is not consistent with the language contained in the chapter. I'll second her motion. okay, so MR.
157Shapiro. or DR. Washington? I'll go. Good morning, every one, jodie aush wash student services initiative. i think a couple of things, that we have to be mindful. We do have students that share housing and MAY not in the fortunate to have addresses and. just for clarification, can you go to the step of the students in that situation? How do we register them? How do we identify their address. thank you for that question. We do have a shared housing questionnaire, that students do complete annually so we can address the needs of the students. This is how we identify students and in order for them to be able to register in school, this he have to fill out a share housing affidavit if they're staying with family or friend, there is an affidavit that is signed by
158the notely and also residing at the time in a hotel. They MAY be connecting with the following the results of the housing questionnaire thank you, is there any public comment on the motion? yes, I was going to say, similar to MS. Washington, you're required by law to provide for the homeless. And so that is you have to be careful about how you word the things because of that. The other thing is, there are people that l if on boats, I had somebody when I thought at it's difficult for them, this MAY have a post office box so you know, so that's, I don't know how they figured out where that the boat was anchored but those are all kinds of weird things that happen within this policy. I'm glad you're looking at it. point of
159clarification, the definition contains an address refers to the home, not a boat or post office back. I'm saying that this an address can be used when it's not at home. But if that's the definition, the school different wants to give, when you use that and that's in the definition section, number 2 section a and says address refers to the work and applicable a parent resigned. So if you're calling that, that has to be somewhere where they're staying so. If that's them living in the car, that can be a residents. okay, MS. Bulman. I'm not commenting at all for the right for any homeless students to be enrolled I just think the two sentences and definition of address and/or residents are a little confusing. And so looking for clarity so if a primary residents or address
160refers to the home where the students and if applicable, typically more than 50 percent, right? That's the primary residents or address. Now the second sentence says, address, and/or residents shall mean the home location where the students and the are we suppose to draw that primary comes in this primary definition in the sentence above. It's just unclear to me. DR. Hepburn. go ahead, DR. Washington. so in this particular definition, the homeless is being defined with youer sleep. So we think typically avenue a home being the house we owned, the house we rent. Some people where they lay their head at night, is a hotel. So we're going to put unnecessary variables for our most vulnerable students. MS. Hixon. just to address, MS. Bulman's question. The language in the second sentence, actually this because MS. Fam's question
161as well. The language that discusses, it says, address and/or residents and that being different from the initial sentence where it talks about a prime' so that is it referring to a second court order. So the first definition is purpose for the district, what the district considers the place for an address or residents, it will be the primary residents and/or address, refers to the home where the students and if applicable the parent resides majority of the time, or as specified business a court order and should are main the home location where the students and so again it and it's designed so I don't think that there is any problem with saying primary, adding the word primary residents to after 50 percent custody, stating address and/or preference, if that's the motion. I think that's the motion, correct?
162yes, because the following sentence goes back to residents, and residents does not sever to citizen. but the motion said primary residentses and put out address and put dom siel. and the question is, our PRESIDENT In washington, has his domcile, he resides in florida as to intent to return to florida. any board discussion on the motion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. no. motion fails. So back to the original double pp-1 all in those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. no. motion carries, 8-1. okay, the next item can we take them together? Okay, so the next item up for discussion is rr1-. Can I have a motion can a second. so moved. so it's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Thompson. DR.
163Zeman. thanks so much. Just a lot of money here, the community she's she's a generaleds, they say 1115 million, 220 million. I understand cops and gobz, I'm not sure that the item is clear. What I would like to hear is some somebody describes what we're doing in rr1 and rr2. DR. Hepburn. MS. Johnson. we have a aquatic number of bonds that are called. What we're doing is refinancing those funds to have savings to the district. ter you terrific, so we have bonds and we're picking a date and say, we want to do bonds now. The value of these bonds has gone up. So we're making a little money. I just want to be clear about that. We're not taking anybody 3 ho million dollars we're just executing some bonds and making a little money on
164the side. It's a heck of a side hustle, you have chief financial officer make ing us 8 figures. Thank you for doing that. thank you all those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed no. Passes unanimously. The next one is rr2 can I have a motion can a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman. second. seconded by MS. Leonardi. All those in favor of rr2. Say aye. rr2. Aye. all those opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much for that. Ss1 was not pulled. Okay. Yes so we have exhausted all of our items, very excited to say that but we do have some other business. So before we move to that other business. : when free time comes up, I would like to add a few comments. so in order to expedite afterwards,
165we're going to move board member comments. At this time do any colleagues have any discussion to bring forward to the superintendent for consideration. DR. Zeman. I do, and I appreciate the association but counsel this is still regular school board meeting? yes. three things I want to bring up. One is a little bit of a rock the world thing that we learned in our legislative session last week, which the state has a house bill and senate bill to mandate repurposing in counties throughout florida. The intubation is that they're going to set a capacity limit and a number of years and districts are going to have to comply with that by the department of ed. So me that's important for people to know whether you're in favor or not in favor, your representatives are going to be
166debating that over the next couple of months and it's very possible that something like that could come down from tallahassee. I know a lost us will be talk to go representatives and senator and anybody else that is appropriate. But that's a big deal. If the state tells us that go to 90 percent, that means 30 percent of the schools will have to close. I want everybody to be aware. Second, chair, I would like to get a current stauts of 12:20 con broward's accountability to offer sex ed this year. thank you for the segway, and question. I'll turn it over to MR. Sullivan to talk about that issue and since we're talking about legislative days to give an update on legislative day. john sullivan, affairs officer as it relates to our reproductive health, the team continues
167to work with our partners up in tallahassee. We do believe we will receive feedback later this week we're not sure if that would be further approval but we will be hearing from them later this week as it relate to our curriculum. But we cannot offer it until we get an approved curriculum. thank you, chair. One more item and I appreciate the last comment, MR. Sullivan, the law is very clear. The law says that you will submit sex ed curriculum, as we are and have and we will get approval. Do we have chair, any approval for sex ed right now. DR. Help oner? -- hepburn. no we do not. so did we get any feedback from the state on k-3 sex ed curriculum that we submitted. DR. Hepburn? DR. Washington. good morning, we received feedback, I
168have not yet received on 6 through 10 depending will impact what is submitted for 9 through 12. But we have received some feedback. and does that mean k through 5 has gotten approval. no that does not. if I MAY. go ahead MR. Sullivan. just to add, historically, we don't give these DR. Washington, correct me, we don't give this instruction to our students until MAY, the last quarter of our school year, so we still have time so that's why we're ensuring that we're in communications with the state so we're able to offer that curriculum to our students. question, last question. What is plan b if we do not get approval what is plan b to educate our students in comprehensive sex ed? through the chair? MR. Sullivan. there is really no plan b, thz batista, can
169stop me but the law is clear, not only do we have to submit to the state but we have to have approval. chair I'm going to submit a question formerly but before the next school board meeting, what the predicted result is of not offering sex ed. This has a lot to do with the health of our students and it will be an interesting question for staff to come back and talk to us implications of that lack of plan b. Last question is about marjory, what authority does the school board priority enrollment for the people that were moved out of the msd district for last year. great que, I had the same one. referring question to MS. Batista. thank you, DR. Hepburn, MADAM Chair. So the there is a very specific policy that the board has.
170The boundary policy that process has been completed as you all know. And then the next steps right now, is that the reassignment process or there will be reassignment process because there are seats that are empty. So you would have to abide by your policy, so there is no leeway to change that sort of mid-stream without going back and changing the actual policy and making amendments to the policy. so chair let me play this out. We had a very lengthy fully informed decision. The board made a decision. Our projections of enrollment were as accurate as they were but now we have seats available for reassignment. And if I understand the general council correct, this board has no authority to provide -- bound -- [Indiscernible] that's correct. terrific, what would our current policy say about people who
171apply for reassignment? What is the criteria to determine which students get to go to the school that they would like to go to. I know that a speaker said there is 150 seats, that MAY be 40 per year, it's not 100? thank you, I appreciate that. You corrected me and helped us. 150 seats held now for freshman. Right, there is going to be more than 50 that will likely want to go to margely stoneman douglas, what is the criteria to who gets placed. DR. Hepburn. I'm going to have DR. Wanza educate us. I was not correct you, i hope you u didn't take it that way. lot of people do, and ththat's gd. a the school requested reassignments, it's where ever they availability bayeds on their projection and right now it's 147 that's item memo
172says approximately 150. So according to the policy, that the board adopted on OCTOBER 15th, of 2024, so when the first semester of this school year, the policy is very specific and it says when there are seats available at any school for reassignment, the priorities are honored, these priorities are honored prior to a randomized, hold on, let me get to the right one, reassignments. So we know that we have students of military. We know that we have also in the collective bargaining agreement particularly to protect the collective agreement for teachers, it speaks to employees, children, in the innovation zone so if I'm an elementary teacher and the innovation zone and my child is a high school students, I get a priority as well. And it is, so dependent children of military, school board employees, students relocated
173due to foster care placement. Students that move change in custody. Then we have lastly its students who reside in the county so we have very specific assignment priorities that are predicated on law and also on what the board did in policy. there is nothing that speaks to students impacted or affected by a prior boundary change we know that siblings also a priority in the policy as well. thank you so much, chair. DR. Wanza, so happy identified some conditions in which people would go to the head of the line to en roll, is that correct chair? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza? so those are, those are given priority and then the last one is everybody else who does not meet one of those criteria. terrific, so you hit five or six different criteria and things like that,
174those folks would get a seat and then after that, the list goes in random draw on a certain date and some people, you know, it's almost like a waiting for a superman model. If their ball gets pulled out they get to go -- msd. I don't think given the start date today that we have enough time to change our policy, is that correct chair? DR. Hepburn? yes, that's correct. Unless thz batista says otherwise. you would not have time to do it before the end of the school year, before the process is over. terrific. And I remember reviewing the policy and I remember thinking of all thinks. Failure for me to not to think in the count way of thinking. What other groups make more sense, had we done that, or even geographic proximity as something
175that MAY have made sense but we did not do. And we don't have time to do what our speakers and emailers have asked us to do. Chair, is there anything else that people in that area who got moved out of the boundary would do in your knowledge to get any priority towards the priority seat. I guess I would jump into your time to ask a question, because in our policy it does have boundary choice, I would ask the superintendent could we do boundary choice for that group of students to allow them to either select choral grades or msd in the upcoming school year. from my understanding, we're going by policy. So that would not applicable if MS. Batista wants to weigh in to say otherwise. I would say, letter d, it says bound' choice area.
176I guess it's just definitions, I don't know how the school gets assigned choice other than a school board saying, that area could be a boundary choice. go ahead, DR. Wanza. so MS. Batista, correct me if I'm wrong. That's established as we go through a boundary process and that is why it was expressed that the boundary process was concluded on JANUARY 22 when the board officially voted and established the attendance areas for the 25-26 school year. so let me borrow some of MS. Hixon's time back. That was a decision of a school board could MS. Batista do that and bring that back. MS. Batista. you'll be able to do that but you'll not be able to do that in time for enrollment for next year. can you walk us through the calendar that don't suggest. We
177have a school board. We're in a school board meeting right now. yes, but this is not a regular policy, this is a boundary policy. So the choice of boundary process is a whole entire boundary process that comes, you know within the boundary policy. And I don't know I don't see MS. Becko. MR. Beck will be on his way down. But in the policy revisions that the board approved back in SEPTEMBER for policy a b-10 it t described the full boundary process. The boundary process is rule making. So we would have to follow the process that the board prescribed in its policy if you want us now to reconsider and redo a boundary. thank you, I view that as the end of that discussion, so I appreciate the deep knowledge and collaboration between our attorney and
178the deep experience we have on senior staff. I still would like to think about it between now and APRIL 15th and see if there is in some way to to determine whether or not we could give priority enrollment for the assignment seats. So I'll just leave that up and we'll have separate conversations unless you wanted to have more. I just wanted to go back policy 8010 and in the policy it expressly says the superintendent shall no later than the second week of MARCH of every year, brit final recommendation to see conclude the process. So I just, that's why I keep differing to MS. Batista around the policy revision that's were approved by the board in department as it relates to the process'. I'm with you but it's not to say the superintendent can say, that
179task is boundary. Because the rule-making prohibits making any action beyond the ones we just took. that's correct. wore in the second week of MARCH and you MAY be excited. I'm resigned to that but I'm going to continue to work between now and APRIL 15th to see if there is some opportunity that we have to make some changes. Thank you so much, chair. thank you, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair, I do have a separate comment but I would like to concur with DR. Zeman and I would like to take a little bit further. I would like for the superintendent to come back to us, with some timelines as to when this can be accomplished when a c-4 becomes a choice. I would like to have a time line. And if it can't be accomplished this
180year, then what is the inhibition in moving forward too. If it's the will of the board. I'll take direction from the board. everybody okay with asking DR. Hepburn to come back with a time line for when we can look at -- do you want that in a workshop? Are you asking to have a discussion about it in the workshop? well from what I'm hearing from the membersed -- members of the board, we would like to hear about the inhibition about the timeline in getting that done by the end of the year. So if the superintendent can bring information as to when that can be accomplished and come back. Is there more space to fill up that amazing school? I think all of those things the board should think about. understand. I am just, I would
181just be cautious in terms of the less complicated and the most straightforward path, we can take for those impacted students to be able to have a choice. I think it's the direction that I would prefer that we proceed. okay, so let's take a consensus on the -- . MADAM Chair, just to clarify. There are two policies. Right, one of them talks about boundary choice areas. And what that entails is a whole entire complete boundary process to begin from beginning to end is he the timeline is the time that we've had. As we we sently had. That will be the timeline to change this c-4 to a choice area and that would have to be next year and go through a boundary process. how they are stated in the policy and unfortunately, they do not have
182anything about, you know, they don't have any language about gee graifk location or any of that sort. okay, so let's take a consensus, I guess, to if everybody is interested in having the superintendent bring back to us c-4 as a choice boundary area. So MS. Fam, are you agreement with that? yes. MS. Bulman. DR. Zeman, MS. Leonardi, I'm a yes. MS. Thompson. I have a question before we get consensus, we're discussing another wouldn't it be better suited conversation for that process so that we're not looking at one school but as a district as a whole. And I would like DR. Hepburn's recommendation. DR. Hepburn. that is the process that I would like to follow, the entire district instead of just focusing on one area. That's just my take. I did ask that question. 'cause I
183don't disagree and I was told that this area will not be impacted so it would not be fold into the conversation. So that's, I'm just going to throw out, that's what I was told. I'm still a no, thank you. no. yes. okay. So it sounds like we all consensus is yes that we would like to see this come back and what it would look like. sorry, chair. can we make it clear for the public, I know especially for some of our municipal leaders, this would impact the 26-27 boundary process, we're not talking about this next school up year, which would be 25-26. yes, because we have to go through the process. yes, but if I MAY add it will be a part of next year's boundary process, but that is the timeline and we're happy
184to lay it out so people don't have to dig out through policy. great, thank you. MADAM Chair, I think I'm on. Okay, so, for my comments on, you know, I, I know that DR. Hepburn, date county and other large counties, seems to have a different board office model than we do. And I know that we have, a lot of governance concerns. And often times we have somewhere between 3000 to 5,000 pages to go through and we have one secretary. So I know that day county has a secretary, a legislative aid and office and all that. I'm not saying that we should go full scale but I would like the superintendent review model as well at civil government model, specifically focusing on their office staff structure and budget allocations. The goal is to evaluate in managing
185the concerns and governance workload, the superintendent can bring back this information to the board and share via the board foum email process, preferably by MARCH 18th. MS. Batista? We keep getting stuck in this. i've seen different ways, one board member can give a direction and I was told they cannot. Do we need a consensus to ask DR. Hepburn what is being asked. yes, you would need the rest of the board. okay, I'll go this way. How MS. Rupert. bringing information back. no. alhadeff. no. thompson. no. I'm a no. MS. Leonardi. yes. no. 5-4. So DR. Hepburn? I think it was a 5-4 yes. 5 yeses. it was that yeses. so just on timeline, MARCH 18th, maybe too early. Yeah, we're in tallahassee and we're going to be making phone calls and figure out other structure,
186so if we can get probably like two weeks. that's fine. this is spring break. First of APRIL. that's fine. no problem. thank you, I have we have to go back and do the leasing court meeting and then I'll come back to everybody else who had something to say. I have not had an opportunity to speak yet. we are done. We voted on it. I had asked you and signaled you. I have you down. I've been asked by the audience that the board please consider the boundary making a choice area for future sibling so we can choose. we just discussed. MS. Fam, we discussed and agreed, but it will be for next boundary, we had a whole discussion. will that be for 25-26. 26-27, we just clarified that, thank you. We have to reis hes the
187regular school board meeting, so -- . and I have one more thing. when we come back, you can do that. We have to go to the leasing court meeting sorry, chair it gets complicate when we recon with the technology, MS. Batista, are you allowed to do this portion at the conclusion of the leasing course so we can end the meeting. can you rephrase. MS. Fam. you're next couple people down on the list. There is a list. can we adjourn this meeting and have board discussion in the leasing? we can adjourn, because we need to have the attorney-client session during the board meeting. And MS. Fam also has to speak. . we have a a lilist. She's third on the list. and others. okay. So do I need, do beacon need a minute? We're going to
188recess the meeting so we can do the board leasing meeting.