Regular School Board Meeting - Apr 15, 2025

001county school board meeting. welcome to today's regular school board meeting. We're happy to have you join us and thankful for your time and dedication to our district. This regular meeting of school board of florida is now called to order. Our primary focus is to create a safe and productive environment for autopsy participants. Please be reminded of all exit doors. While in the board room refrain from blocking the exit doors. Once the board room has reached its seating capacity attendees have been directed to a designated flow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm system, please exit from the room in an orderly fashion and remain outside until authority that has jurisdiction has deemed the room ready to return. Board member zeman will now introduce his school for "pledge of allegiance". in advance I'm going to take

002a little bit longer than normal. Because today is an amazing day for broward public school. It's my pleasure to introduce almost the oldest public school in ft. Lauderdale. Just this past MARCH, the boys won the championship with an unbelievable come back in the last 30 seconds to claim their fourth state title. What a legacy they're building. [Cheers and applause] And we would be remiss if we didn't comment, although he's not here coach schuyler for his dedication. Big congratulations to the marching band under the direction of carlos redman whoi got to MARCH with and watch through the ft. Lauderdale saint patrick's day. They won overall, they were voted number one, by the elected official who o were watching thaharara.. As you u know, marching bas s is not easy, it's tons of hard work, discipline all

003fostered by carlos, thank you for your dedication to this school and broward county. We're honored today to have gunnery sergeant james phil here leading the color guard in today's ceremony. His guidance in the program en stills values of leadership and service. It's dedication to our community. All of these things going on at strenhan high school and all other schools are really determined bit principal and school leader. And we have nicki gail who has done a fabulous job and also not here today but like most people who contribute most, she gets little credit and I want today take the time who thank her. A school who has gloen ak cademic and athletic. I'm so glad to have them here today. If you all rise, we'll say the "pledge of allegiance". left turn, MARCH. we are strathan

004mighty dragons, please rise for the "pledge of allegiance". I pledge a allegiance to the united states of america and tt republic for which it stands, one nation, under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Right turn, MARCH. [Applause] thank you stranhan high school for that great presentation. The superintendent released a revised agenda with certain changes for this meeting and published it on the school's website. Pursuant to 120125 that good cause exist for such changes and accepts the revised agenda. MAY I have a motion and a second to close the agenda. so moved. second. moved by MS. Thompson seconded raoubeter. Those in favor of closing the agenda say aye. aye. those opposed say no. It's unanimous, MAY the chair have the motion and a second to approve minutes of meetings, JANUARY 22, FEBRUARY 19, 2025,

005public hearing finance, MARCH 11, 2025 special expulsions. so moved. second. moved by MS. Leonardi seconded by DR. Zeman. Is there any discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes as listed, say aye. aye. those opposed say no. The minutes are now approved unanimously. As we prepare to begin our regular school board meeting we are reminded that our vision is 100 percent proficiency for all of our students. Our vital task is to sustain this achievement. we will continue to educating all students to reach their highest potential. Believe in power, achieve one broward. The chief communication polled the board of any agenda items they would like to pulled. The following items have been pulled for discussion. H-1, h2, h3, h4, a 1, a 2, a 4, a 5, a 6, b1, b2 with a 2 P.M. Time

006certain, b3, b4, b5, f2, j1 and l1. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the concession items that have not been pulled for discussion. Which include a-3, j1, j3, m1, m2, m3, m4, m5, o1 and s1. so moved. second. it's been moved by board member thompson seconded by DR. Zeman. Are there any registered speakers for any of those items? no ma'am. okay, all in favor say aye. aye. those opposed say no. They all pass unanimously. Do any of my colleagues have any brief remarks? I do quickly on h, oh we didn't get to h1 yet, that's okay. Alrighty. Sorry. The chair would like to, we missed anything. Okay, so now we'll move to h-1 MAY I have a motion and a second to bring h1 to the floor.

007so moved. moved by MS. Leonardi seconded by MS. Rupert. Those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed? So a few of us have to recuse ourselves from h1, so I have to recuse myself? do we do a motion to separate our names? yes. motion, can one of us make the motion. yes, we're going to do all three of us. motion to separate sarah leonardi, debra hixon and rupert from this item. I think there is a public comment, if you give me a motion. DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. is it on this motion? not on the motion but on the item. just on the motion. And just to for the record we're refusing ourselves because we're on there for having our leave approved. All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion

008passes unanimously. Now back to h-1. DR. Natalie lynch-walsh is our only speaker. natalie lynch-walsh, plantation florida, I'm going to skip my time. thank you. Any board members have any discussion on h-1? All right all those in favor of h1 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. The chair would like to recognize new staff appointments. We moved ourselves out. so we don't have to vote. we were, the three of us, since there is enough people to pass the item -- no. MS. Batista said that was okay. so yes, you could have done that, but when the motion to separate was done, then. sorry, we had a plan. All right, all those in favor of the item we did that part already. All those -- let's try this again. All those in favor of

009h-1 minus the three names that have recused themselves say aye. aye. any opposed? It passes unanimously. Now all those in favor. I would like to move the other three names, please chair. perfect, thank you. All those in favor? second. I'm still confused. But we can't vote on ours? All those in favor of the item, minus the three names, no? I got you. All those in favor of the three names that were separated say aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. 6-0. right, minus the three, thank you. That was confusing, sorry. Okay, now, the chair would like to take a moment to recognize new appointments. We would like to congratulate you. We value you and your families, if we can give the appointees a round of applause, please. [Applause] DR. Hepburn, can you share a few remarks

010and introduce our new leaders. our new appointee to team B.C. Ps, welcome to the family and I look forward to supporting you and you reach the levels that you would like in advance. At this time, we have one director, MR. Carlos gomez, director of accounting and financial accounting, if you would like to say a few remarks. good morning. Good morning, superintendent, members of the board. Faculty, staff, community, it's an honor to be here. I bring to this position, over 25 years of experience in accounting, financial reporting and financial analysis. And it's an honor to be appoint today this position, I look forward to this opportunity. It's with great honor and responsibility that I take upon this new opportunity, this new position to make sure that our financial statements, accurately reflect the state guidelines and I

011look forward to building relationships with other team members and a long and successful career with the county, thank you very much. [Applause] thank you, and welcome. We're going to recess the meeting for a quick board photo [School board in short recess] this regular school board meeting is now reconvened. This is the time in the -- let's see. Oh. Okay. The first so now we're going to move to the consent items that have been pulled. So the first item is h-2 and that is MS. Fam. thank you. thank you so much, chair. In reviewing this item, I found that there is 8 positions in which discipline is being for facility use staff workers and that extraordinarily large. And I want to know if anyone has concerns about that? And I'd ask the superintendent, I requested the

012superintendent have an investigation ordered so at least we can have some data back to see what is going on in that specific department and if we have a problem that needs to be addressed. Thank you. MADAM Chair, I'm sorry sorry to interrupt, you need a motion to move h2 to the floor. I need a second. It's been moved and seconded to move h2 to the floor. Moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by MS. Rupert. Those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed. And MS. Fam already spoke. would you like me to repeat that? no, it's okay. Any other comments? All right, great. All those in favor of item h2 say aye. aye. any opposed? No? I had a motion on the floor for the superintendent to have an investigation conducted in reference to the number of

013facility workers that are being disciplined so we can get some data to find out what is going on in the department. I'll make that a motion if the question is not sufficient. thank you for the question, MS. Fam, it's noted and I'll follow-up with that information. thank you. The next item is h-3 can I have a motion and a second to bring h-3 on the floor. point of order, we didn't vote on h2. we did. we did not. we did it out of order but we can do it again. Sorry. All those in favor of h2 say aye. any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Okay, we have can I have a motion and a second to bring h3 to the floor. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there

014any public comment on h3? no ma'am. thank you. Any board discussion on h3? MS. Fam. yes, ma'am, I'm listed. All right, thank you. I just wanted to direct a question to the superintendent in light of all of these supplements, is there anything that you see that we should be downsizing, reducing or doing away with? 'cause I know that we don't have the same student capacity that we've had in the past. DR. Hepburn? thanks for the question, MS. Fam, these reflect a need to sponsor activities just to main thain student experience. This is a area that we don't need to decline. actually we have more people providing these services than we have experience for. So a lot have volunteering. thank you, if you feel comfortable with the amount we're spending, I'm on board. thank you, all

015those in favor of h3 say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. The next item is h4 can I have a motion and a second to bring h4 to the floor. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. Is there any public comment. no ma'am. board discussion. DR. Zeman. chair, I'm curious about this title. We're going to go through the process of making a change which makes great sense but I'm not sure that we've ended in a place that makes sense. Can you tell me what the compliance is about in the title? DR. Hepburn? I'll have MR. Azzarito and team address that. Go ahead, if you want to address it. good morning, jennifer andeyu, director of 07 racings. It's about making sure that when we have -- operations. That the prime vendors do

016abide by those goals and meet all of those goals or section seed. That's what the compliance team from accd office works on ensuring that all of our vendors meet our goals. air, that's terrrrif. Ththat's l l I ha.. eaeat, thankyoyou so muc next, question on that item is MS. Rupert? thank you, chair. Officer economic development, I have an alternate suggestion here. What if we were when you take out the diversity part of it, I don't think that you're still including our under utilized business compliance. So that would be my suggestion, because we still be, doing the diversity as pekt of -- aspect and make -- making it fair across the board. That was my idea. I can make a motion or see what the colleagues think. DR. Zeman? did you have a suggestion for the

017title? Would you replace diversity with under utilized? under utilized business, businesses excuse me. But it's fluid, I'm open to changes. okay. and I have one more question, chair, which is is that throughout the job description it talks minority and women owned and veteran owned and all those fit into the under utilized businesses. Do you feel the longer title needs to be in there in order to make sure what their job does? Or what is the replacement suppose to generate, I guess in the end? I think for me, I did notice that they had it in the bullets. However taking out the big word for us, and you know, I talked to some business people who are like, this is something that you should not be doing. You should be at least standing up for under

018utilized businesses. That's my point, if we're going to be doing the job description for officer economic development, compliance position, I would prefer under utilized business compliance, businesses compliance. board member bulman? in the title? I guess my question is, are under utilizes does that have a negative conation or does it reflect the truth of the matter? I think it's a targeted demographic population. Can we use the word opportunity or something like that instead of under utilized? For broadening opportunities? Because just because you're a minority business, does not mean you're under utilized, you fit into a certain category. Anyone else have a comment? I think the job itself is to make sure the companies that are under utilized are used more, so -- . so you're expanding business opportunities? yes. chair there is another word too, we

019always have to do a study to kind of demonstrate that in fact we're not selecting as many women minority owned and veteran owned, I would ask a counsel is there a summary word that we have to approve before we do business like this? MS. Batista. the answer is yes. There is a study that was conducted by the school board and I think I'm going to need the superintendent help with the process that was followed. It was within the last year that I know that there was a study done, that the district did the study that was required legally to take this steps that we're taking now. DR. Hepburn? yes, MS. Andreu, if you know the name of the study. yes, DR. Zeman there was a disparity study that came independent research conducted and the board

020reviewed and accepted it. Enable was in JANUARY of 2024, I would have to double check the date but somewhere close to JANUARY 2025. -- JANUARY 2024. and I think the process, it finds disparity and with that finding, then we offer through the office what has been oddc, the ability for those same disparity treated organization to see have special acquisition rights to apply for contract, is that the correct process? that is absolutely correct. That allows us to have race conscious and gender conscious groups for specific groups and commodities. I'm wondering if disparity is another option besides opportunity and under utilized, all of that being viewed in the context of titles are important but the job description is essential, right? So thank you, chair. thank you. MS. Rupert? didn't seem like we had consensus? well, DR. Zeman,

021did you want to make a motion? no, I don't. did you want to make a motion? I would. My recommendation would be to instead of under compliance or under utilized businesses, business des parate business. MS. Batista. as you know, there have been a lot of changes recently regarding the law on some executive orders from the PRESIDENT. So I think that it would be more appropriate to keep the word disparity out of the title. okay. MS. Rupert. do you have a problem with under utilized? no. okay, that would be my motion. okay, so there is a motion on the floor to change the name of the job to officer of under utilized compliance, is that accurate? Did I say that right, MS. Rupert? officer, economic development and under utilized business compliance. okay, so officer economic development

022and under utilized businesses compliant? compliance. Is there a second? Okay, it's been moved by MS. Rupert seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on the motion? Speaker: good morning, and shoes beautiful. Good morning, I appreciate what MS. Rupert is trying to do. I see what you're trying to do, I feel like under utilized have a negative conation for me but i appreciate the spirit of what you're trying to do and I wish you could change the name to emphasize the fact that these are businesses or groups of people that are under utilized, the under utilized is a little bit uncomfortable for me. Thank you. thank you. DR. Hepburn. yes, if I can suggest MADAM Chair, we can table this item and I can have staff work oncoming up with some different name options that we

023can bring later on in the meeting if that suffices. that's perfect, thank you. all those in favor -- I need a motion to table the item. so moved. second. it's been moved by MS. Leonardi seconded by MS. Rupert to table the item. Till later in this meeting, all those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed? Thank you. MS. Fam, we've tabled the item so when it comes back, you'll be the first one to speak. thank you. you're welcome. Thank you, the next item, I need a motion for item a-to -- a-1 to come to the floor? any board discussion? MS. Fam. can you come back, I'm just pulling it up on the laptop. you're the only one. oh okay. Okay. Yes, oh thank you. This actually incompasses if we want to expedite it, would be

024a-1 and also a-4 and a-5. and I had submitted a question to staff about whether or not these schools are in compliance with the PRESIDENT's executive orders. And the response I got is, each party shall comply but that does not mean anyone confirmed. I just want to make sure that we don't violate any federal orders and lose federal grants. If you can tell me who confirmed this so we have this documented that they're it's confirmed before we end our partnership agreement with somebody that MAY not be in compliance, I want to know now, have we confirmed this. DR. Hepburn. that would be on those three colleges. I'm going to have MS. Hollinsworth discuss what the items actually are and I MAY have a follow-up with MS. Batista. chief economic officer, and they're agreements that we're

025entering with colleges so we have student interns so we can increase our opportunity for retention of teachers. The process goes through privacy as well as legal council and in the sections for saint pete as well as fau on page of 10-14, it does state that we have complied with the laws and the one with grand canyon was in the original agreement. But it's in the general section that we're in compliant with federal state laws. And I'm not sure if MS. Batista has anything to add. MS. Batista. so all are coming to the district, so we're not sending our students to their schools. They're sending their students here. okay, one, the compliance was that subsequent to the federal executive orders being ordered or was that prior to? And the other question, that would be based on

026meritocacy, that's my concern that we're not violating anything here by only sending students to us. We need to make sure that we're in compliance, otherwise we're going to put our school in jeopardy, according to that contract, it says we're partnering. MS. Baptist a. there is nothing in the agreement speaking about the choice of the students that are coming that they're of particular race or gender. As far as we under, it's based on merit. again, when was that confirmed? I just want to confirm that we're in compliance so we lose grant. As an attorney, I always thought you take the most restrictive view so we don't have to encounter situation that has to be just legally later. as you're aware the executive orders came out very recently and this item was done after the executive orders,

027I think most of the executive orders were issued. so it was confirmed after the executive orders? And who did that confirmation? Who would be that department from our district? well, I'm not sure who the department would be from the district other than, you know, we are we make sure that we from the legal department make sure that the language states that the other party would be in violation of the agreement if they don't abide by the clauses that are there. So we do have a clause that says that they have to abide by all the federal and local rules that are applicable to them. So if they were not to do that, they would be in breech of the agreement. I'm talk about thing breech of the law it says in the agreement that we're

028partners so if they breech, we breech. That's your language. I'm not sure that if they're breech or non compliance that they themselves we're in non compliance ourselves. I don't believe that that is the, you know, that's what the law requires. However, the agreement says that they have to be in compliance so obviously we have to take it at face value, we're not, you know, they have made that representation to the district. so it makes me feel so much more confidence that when I hear you saying that we're immune from liability so we don't have to worry about this, we can put our heads down and say we're fine, is that what you're saying? We're immune, we don't have to worry that we MAY be partnering with somebody that MAY be violating the law. Is that

029what you're saying? no. then what are you saying? Are we going to be on the line with liability or not, which is it? the agreement is appropriate as written. It states that the, the all of these different entities are suppose to be in compliance with the law and we're taking their affirmative representation on at face value because that's what they have represented to the district. So we are not in, you know, in any danger or risk of being out of compliance ourselves. okay, so rephrase that, so I understand I'm not talking about the agreement I'm talking about the law so. If any of the other schools violate the law, we're not going to be at-risk. that's correct. thank you, I like that clarification, I can rest assure that we're immune from liability. thank you, all

030those in favor of a-1 say aye. aye. any opposed? Passes unanimously. We're going to bring h4 back, the staff is ready to answer that question. Can I have a motion and a second to bring h4 back to the floor. second. it's been moved by board member thompson seconded by board member bulman. Staff? yes. If I can have MS. Andreu or MR. Sullivan return to the board room, they're in the prefunction. And go over what the new name would be for this specific position? thank you, DR. Hepburn. If it pleases and the board, we would add opportunity. So it could be economic development, opportunities and compliance officer, if that captures what the maker of the motion was trying to capture. MS. Rupert? yes. so would you like to make a motion? New motion? sure I move

031that the the name for this job description would be officer economic development opportunity? opportunities. opportunities, okay. Business compliance. okay, is there a second. second. it's been moved by MS. Rupert. just a point of order, what was recommended is different from the motion. If you want it to be the same we should make a new motion. I'm trying to ask if they were trying to recommend the recommendation of staff. there is one additional word if you would like to consider asking what their name was, recommended? that was the name. go ahead, MS. Andreu. I believe it was economic development opportunities and compliance officer. and you added a word business, you meant that with intent? I did. okay. Can you repeat your motion, sorry. we've got a wheel going around. officer economic development opportunities and business compliance,

032businesses compliances. you've got me confused now. does the second still stand? I would like to accept the recommendation of staff. motion to, motion to accept the recommendation of staff. second. moved by MS. Leonardi seconded by DR. Zeman that the name would be economic opportunities and compliance. right. is there any public comment on the motion? Awesome. Board discussion on the motion? DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So I do appreciate the staff suggestion, I would also like to get the superintendent's input on this new naming of this position to see if this in his opinion, would match what he's looking for as regards to the job description? yes, I think this, conforms with the job description. And opportunities. thank you. okay, any other board member discussion on the motion? MS. Fam? Right, I'll call you next.

033All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. anopposed? opopsed.D. thmotion passes 8-1 with MS. Fam descending vote. MS. Fam. thank you, I think we're trying to rename something different with an underlying objective that MAY be violating the federal law. I think we should stick to the law and use the word merit ocrasy. When somebody comes to dot roof of my house, I just want the best roof that is going to last the longest, same for the security, same for the sprinkler system. I want the person that is best qualified for the job. And you're dancing around this topic and saying no, no, we're going to see somebody is under qualified or if they're not getting enough business, that's not the standard anymore. The standard is, meritocracy who is the most qualified. So I'm

034not going to support the new name just to hide behind a new became before we're putting this county at-risk of losing grants, I will not do it. board member thompson. I would like to call the question. all those in favor of calling the question, say aye. aye. any opposed? no. roll call on the motion, school board member alhadeff. no. bulman. yes. on calling the question. yes. yes? yes. fam. no. hixon. yes. holness. yes. leonardi. no. rupert? Thompson. Zeman. no. it fails, 5-4. okay. MS. Alhadeff. MS. Batista, can you speak to whether the comment that was previously made if we are breaking federal law? MS. Batista? so, as we heard we had a study done in 2024, which under the law, the current law as it stands right now, does allow for the district to make

035certain considerations regarding minority businesses at this time, so it would not violate the law. DR. Zeman. thank you so much, chair. I also want to address an insinuation of my colleagues, these firms are not not qualified and inadequate, it's pretty hard to argue that those people that wor the colors of our nation shouldn't have an opportunity now within the system that they didn't have before. And as MS. Batista pointed out, we have to find highly qualified women owned. That's a disparity. This is not a hand out based on our race or ethnicity or military service, this is giving them a level to play in a playing ground. Any other insin oohation is false. MAY I have an opportunity to speak again. Usually we get two. is it new information? yeah, it's to rebut the. rebut.

036If this amendment is should be based on the qualification of the people, I will support it. If it's on the merit, I'm behind it to 100 percent. My husband is african. Not african-american, african. If anyone misunderstood my meaning, I just wanted to qualify, merit, the quality of the work is the issue here. Nothing more. thank you. all those in safer of a-1 say aye. aye. sorry, h4. all those in favor of h4 say aye. Any opposed? opposed. the motion -- point in order. as amended? yes, h4 as amended. Let's try that again, h4 as amended. Say aye. aye. opposed? motion carries with one descending vote. MAY have a motion to bring up h4. -- a-2. my public comment on a-2. no ma'am. board comment? MR. Zeman. when we look at this list, am I right

037that all high schools in broward county would be participating in professional studies waiver to the policy that we have? Are there any high schools left that are not trying to take advantage of this waiver? DR. Hepburn? DR. Fulton and team, address that. thank you, we have kelly from school improvement that will speak to that DR. Zeman. good morning, kelly blackburn, coordinator. We have 40 high schools and if this passes we will have, about 34 of our high schools with waivers, with psd. terrific. And chair, when they get a waiver how does that work in practicality? How can we talk to the public about what happens in ft. Lauderdale high school when they operate this year under waiver? DR. Hepburn. staff, you can continue. how could we talk to the public about what they do professional

038study days? We could put out some information to the public of each school what is to be expected. I can clarify my question if you would like. The question is, in this room how can we talk about this saver to the calendar so the public understand why we're giving almost all of our schools a waiver to our standard counter. DR. Hepburn. yes, if I understand the question DR. Zeman, we have approved calendar that has early release days and majority of days have waivers and you're asking how we can communicate based on the current calendar. We can work with the communications team to add that communication to our calendar, which the public always peruses through so they have a clear understanding that they have specific high schools and how it affects student attendance. and next year,

039when we see the calendar I'm going to ask some questions whether we want to make it part of the calendar process rather than approve the calendar and come back with waivers. Every time we do this, people email or ask, now you have a policy of calendar and now you want a waiver, is most of schools and tz a turns out 34 of the 40 roughly and that's a lot. And if that's the way high schools want to have a calendar, it seems like we MAY want to have a separate note that says, this does not include high schools. And makes it a policy. It makes the community relax when everybody is treated the same and everybody no matter what high school you go, we adopt it. Thank you for all the hard work. thank you.

040thank you, MS. Alhadeff. yes, can the superintendent speak to what actually happens on a professional study day for students and also for teachers and staff? DR. Hepburn? yes, I'll have DR. Fulton and her team. I'll kick it off, professional study day it's a normal day but short schedule for students, and when they're released, two hours earlier, the teachers participate in a plan that details what professional learning will be taking place that entire school year. and can you speak more in depth when the students are in school, what happens? it's a normal day for students but it's a shorter day for students but instruction still continues for students. thank you. MS. Fam? thank you, MADAM Chair. Personally, I would like to see more data on the economic performance of students and schools where they're having waivers

041and then the schools that are not having waivers to see how the school is doing overall as well as individual students. Are they advancing are they pulling out behind other students, I would like to see that data before we keep proceeding with waivers to know that it's successful for students. Thank you. MS. Fam, did you mean academic, I think you said economic. academic, definitely. DR. Hepburn. absolutely, we'll provide that in the follow-up. thank you so much. all those in favor of h-3 say aye. aye. opposed, I'm going to wait on the data. point of order, h2. typing in the request for follow-up not the data. I'm going to wait for the data so much. let me say safer t all those in favor of h2 say aye. aye. any opposed. no. so the motion carries

0427-2 with alhadeff and MS. Fam desending votes. Is there any public comment? no ma'am. this was already, MS. Fam asked her questions, so all those in favor of a 4 and 5 say aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. The next item is a-6 can I have a motion and a second for a-6. so moved. any public comment on a-? -- a-6? no public comment. thank you MADAM Chair, just wanted to find out for this item, that appears to provide summer employment for low income families. How are parents made aware? DR. Hepburn? yes. DR. Hepburn. again, if you want to come to the podium and answer the question. lolly from cts director, so at each of our high school we have a career champion and they go through lessons every single month to prepare our students.

043So all of our school champions advise to our communities, we actually have four different student intern ships that are taking place. Last year we had the largest numbers, we had 200 students that were placed in summer internships. We also host parent session to inform our communities of the various internships that are available. So all of our students that do participate are in a call with myself and my staff to go through the entire program, all the processes, we walk them through. Then until the summer, my department actually staffs summer internship supervisor that's go on to the site and visit with each of the students to ensure that they're successful. They receive support and every single of our campuses has a career champion that supports our students. thank you for that information. I do have other

044questions. So in terms of low income families, because that's what is stated here, when you seek participants, what measure do you use to determine low income families? Is it a targeted approach or universal mroefp and then you -- approach? we look at free and reduced lunch information and then we do assembly to make the program available to our students. Through career source, they have their own mechanism as well. So basically, we have an agreement with career source and we do all the advertising so it's our students that participate and they have various applications that have to complete their package to ensure that they're low income students. So our career source out of the 2000 internships 1200 were with career source. okay, so would it be fair to say that all schools and I'm assuming this

045is high schools? all high schools and it's juniors, it's target today junior because it's path of their career pathway. would it be fair to say that all high schools in broward county are made aware of this program? And given an opportunity to participate? so 100 percent of our high schools have a career champion and my department has monthly meetings to provide professional development and lesson planning so that our students are prepared and our students are aware. so I have a couple other questions. It mentions that at the end of the program, it says 95 percent program completion. Can you help me to understand what program completion means? yes, that means that they successful satisfied their employment. So for some students, maybe they start the internship and they can either face adversity at home where they're

046not able to finish. Maybe they don't meet their deliverables. So it looks a little bit different for the five percent. But again they're provided a summer supervisor so they can provide that support. And students with hardships, we work with them to get them through. But for some students sometimes life happens and they're unable to complete. it did mention that they're given some sort of I guess, some sort of a, evaluation? yes. and it says, supervisored evaluation attendance track and participant feedback. If a student attends all the requirement in terms of their, they have full attendance, but they supervise, completion. I don't think so they meet all of their deliverables, they're provided feedback but they're able to complete. And our students are also offered a credit upon completion. So they receive credit for their transcript and

047just over $1500 supplement per student as well. okay so my final question, I would like in a follow-up some data on the distribution of students across the county participating in the program. What it looks like in terms of how many students from the different schools, the demographic and all of those things. If that can be provided as a follow-up, I would appreciate it. thank you. thank you all those in favor of a-6 say aye. ?Fm aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The next item is b1, can I have a motion and a second. It's been moved by board member thompson seconded by board member zeman, are there any public comment on b1? yes, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. good morning, plantation florida. the audit committee often has reports that are several inches thick so one of

048our past chairs had requested lap tops to have for our meetings and I think for them to have for their use so they can review the reports online, electronically so we can reduce the amount of paper. So that's where the request is coming from, tlgts almost the end of the school year, so this would apply next year. It was in the works they were about to assign them but that did not happen. I brought it to the workshop, we passed a motion a couple of months ago and we're just look to go reduce the amount of paper that everybody has to carry around and on top of that, understand that for 13 years and including this one, whenever I chair committee, I'm using my personal laptop to transmit and show everybody documents that's what the

049chairs are doing. We're all using our own laptop to facilitate meetings. That would cure that problem, thank you. thank you, any other public speakers? Okay, MS. Alhadeff. thank you, and thank you to DR. Lynch-walsh and MR. Mayorson for bringing this to mia tension. So -- my attention. So I found it very I guess alarming can be the word, thank you to my colleagues MS. Thompson for asking the question for follow-up in regards to the printing costs associated with committees. So basically every sheet is 25 cents and if it's in color, that's 50 cents. And I know we have another item once again, where I willll speak k abouout is againinst schools we're printing, 25 cents. I want that to sink in because I want people to be mindful when they're printing 25 cents. So this

050item, would give committee members a laptop, and my first question, I did some calculations but wanted to get from staff, if we were to move forward with this item what would be the costs if we were to do it for all committee members? And/or do you have the break down just specifically for the audit committee? DR. Hepburn? yes, I'll ask MR. Trey on what the cost would be. And in the discussion what I heard from the speaker, two things. One, was for use at the committee meeting here versus issuing from for them to keep in their position outside of committee meetings. So if we can get some of clarification. trey davis chief information officer. MS. Alhadeff, I appreciate the discussion earlier. I do want to clarify, there is really a range of costs mono and

051color depending on what device is actually reports, it ranges from 0.8 cents upwards to what you mentioned, that would be specialty printers especially in the color realm. The majority of our printers certainly are not all 25 cents or 50 cents as an example whether it be mono and color. we try to push the use of high involves versus low or especially device printers that would have a higher cost. So the majority are 0.101 per page per click. The cost if new laptops are pro cured would be essentially 159,000 to pro cure laptops for all commission members. And I'll speak to surplus in a minute. Additionally, there is a licensing for software that could be used for example in teams as an example. And also if there is internet access requirement our current credit is $17

052per month. And then there is also overtime to be calculated to relative to any hour support to be factored in. I look at the total costs of the requests is certainly not saying, we couldn't entertain that but I wanted to make sure that every one understood the total costs. As far as surplus, you hear about this ratio of point 80, and some schools a little bit more some schools a little less but no school has less than 1 to 1 issue today. So the point I want to bring, those are currently allocated to schools until we can actually get in the MAY board meeting, hopefully, we can get our laptop across the finish line and start our pc fresh. Until then we're not decommissioning items that are assigned to schools but when we do, we

053would have surplus equipment that can still have useable life, not useful life but useable that could be assigned in cases like this. unless the board wants to spend the $159,000. okay, so thank you. And you know, words matter and we get board member follow-up and they tell me that it's 25 cents and 50 cents, that's the number we're going to go with. If we can have a board follow-up, I would like to know more specifically not just here at the district level but at the school level specifically what does each page cost black and white and color because I think that's important information that we need to have. But one of the other follow-ups that we did get from MS. Leonardi asked for in DECEMBER 18, 2024, was in regards to the audit committee and

054the average cost per meeting is $527.58 in the year of 2024, they spent 5093, in 2025, 1059. What did that include? Paper? Fedex, they're fedexing these documents to their house and oca labor and expansion folders. So there is more involved and so, that's why I just having the laptop computer is going to be so much more efficient and we have responsible adults that are going to take care of these laptop computers. And maybe there is an initial cost but in the long run it's going to be more efficient and we're going to be printing less. And you have public record that in reality, it's on their personal computers it should be on a bcps computer for that public record. So I'm interested in hearing what my colleagues think. And if this is, something that we

055pile it next year with the audit committee or we start now. I'll be open to those ideas, but I do think this is a way for us to be more efficient and stop printing as much. MS. Fam? thank you, MADAM Chair. I'm in agreement with alhadeff, I think a pilot would be great. In addition I would make a motion to say that this should be an optional idea of whether you want a school district laptop, if you don't want it, you shouldn't be forced to take it. Or if you don't want a responsibility, of carrying two laptops, I don't know if you want to leave them in the car where they MAY steal it. But my motion would be the use of broward, the use of broward public schools laptop is optional based upon availability

056for committee members to eliminate printing or delivery delivering of documents. that would be my motion. is there a second to the motion? make a recommendation, can you add pilot with the audit committee? certainly, we can do it. So let's rephrase that. The audit committee will engage in a pilot program of the use of broward county public school laptops based upon availability and optional in lieu of committee members printing, and eliminating printing information and delivering documents. second. okay. Is there any public comment on the motion? natalie lynch walsh. I sport motion of course and to clarify what alhadeff has said to take the laptop home that was the entire point so the mountain of paper is not being sent to people's houses so we can make changes on that laptop. It's take the place of the

057paper reports and then they would bring it to the audit committee have their notes electronically. And I agree, it should be optional but most people do not, which is why the request was made in the first place. I would probably like to have two because I like to have personal notes and whatever else I am going to support with everybody. Soy support the motion and piloting with the audit committee, this is the committee that has the most paper because of the nature of the work so it would be the logical place to start. thank you, DR. Zeman. just wanted to clarify the term that was used in the motion was availability. Our ceo said that we're about to buy thousands of laptop that we would declare surplus, the motion based on availability means that it's

058on those laptops, is that what that means? MS. Fam. no based on school availability. For some reason we need to distribute more laptops to students because we have a flooding and they would naturally take priority. another question about the motion, how many people sit on the audit committee? If we're going to pilot this? What is the number of laptops? DR. Hepburn? MR. Sullivan. I'll differ to our chief auditor. we have 12 members. thank you very much, chair. I'd also ask if the motion implies that we're going to gather some type of data during this pilot to find out if we want to expand or eliminate this process going forward? DR. Hepburn? I think it was asking question of the MS. Alhadeff -- not MS. Alhadeff but MS. Fam. there is no such implication. so do

059we gather data on the pilot? Pilot means we're going to test something which implies that you need to gather data about the results? yes, we would gather data. But I do need clarification from the make per of the motion. I heard the speaker some MAY do both laptop and paper, just for clarification for myself and team, what are we solving for? The amount of paper that we're mailing home and printing out which is causing an expense to the district. So if the motion is specific to issuing laptop to eliminate the use of paper, we need to be very specific and clear so we have a clear understanding. MS. Fam? thank you, I'm going to answer the second question first. We don't really need to do a lot of data collection, we have 12 people and

060I was thinking for of a roundtable after words how did this process workout where we get a feedback. The second thing, the reason why I'm saying to keep that other option if somebody has paper, now-a-days, we all use computers but we're going to have some old timers that are not computer savvy so if they feel more comfortable and the only way that they can participate is to use paper, we should allow that to continue. And gradually, as the new generations we're not going to face that question but we should leave that open for people that don't use computers. that's the point I wanted to clarify, so if you get a laptop, you're not utilizing paper, you still use paper? yes, sir. yes so the laptop is to eliminate the use of paper. And if you

061use your own laptop, you're choosing to use your personal computer. But if somebody doesn't have computer skills as I said to participate, then we should allow them to hand write their notes or participate that way and not cut them out. chair, I'm almost done, I have an unrelated motion that I would like to make after this. Thanks chair. thank you, and to DR. Zeman's point, we are data driven and we ask for data on everything and the whole point is to safe money so we should collect information about how much money is being saved to the original motion which was focused on saving money. So I would hope that it does not have to be in the motion, but I would ask DR. Hepburn that the whole point is to collect data not whether they

062liked it better, I'm sure that they will like it fine, it's just about whether we have saved money or not. MS. Alhadeff. my point is to eliminate the printing. So this pilot to be to go to laptop and then they can choose 12 people can choose to accept the laptop or use their own. My point is not to continue to print or deliver the paper. And then I would also think that DR. Hepburn, you would be the one to determine you know, what specific computers, those 12 people would be getting. And that we would have data to then support if we then, extend this pilot to other committees in the following year. board member bulman. I don't know if this is appropriate right now, but I have a question. If we're trying to eliminate paper,

063would it be and I guess would be done by MR. Davis, would it more cost affective to have tablet utilized for documents instead of worrying about licensing and other things that MAY come on a computer having the whole, you know, set up? DR. Hepburn? MR. Davis? trey davis, chief information officer. You know, I respect the affinity for tablets. I will say managing those separately, ads additional overhead there so that would be my response there. thank you. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, my understanding of proceeding with the pilot for the audit committee, is to collect data, to ascertain costs of using computers versus having paper. So, I would imagine that we have data already on what it costs the audit committee to use paper. And we should be able to estimate costs for using

064laptops as opposed to paper. So I am not sure why a pilot is needed to make that determination. We could compare the costs of laptops as opposed to what is currently being done using paper and the staff can bring that data back to us to determine whether or not on the basis of costs if this is an item feasible to proceed with. So, DR. Hepburn is your staff able to provide what it would cost to provide laptops even to a pilot group as opposed to what the costs currently is and use in paper? Because my concern too is if this is expanded to other committees, then, I've heard mention of costs for the computers, notice costs, internet costs, support costs, and I don't know how many committee members we have, but if we proceed down

065this path, I'm wondering if it's going to be most cost-efficient to do so this this being expanded to other committees. In addition to that, we have a committee revision task force, currently in place that will be reporting back to us in 60 days. i know there is some concern of this functionality at the moment, but I'm sure they'll get it together. And I don't know what their recommendations will be when they come back. They could recommend reducing the committees, there would be changes that would impact this item. So I have various concerns. In addition to that, DR. Hepburn, would you say currently that and I, I read the follow-up questions, but would you say currently that every student in broward county schools have access to a computer? District computer at home? DR. Hepburn? not a

066district computer at home, we have devices for every student for their available use at schools but not at home. okay, so I know that we had a, I believe there was an item in the past to have a district computer at home for every student in the upcoming school year, is that correct? that's correct, and that will come to fruition. okay and there is a mention that where there is a surplus in place for when computers are broken. Is the intent to use the surplus should this item pass for the committees? correct. So our priority is going to be students and faculty and staff once we do our refresh when the item comes to the board hopefully in MAY, so we can order our new computers. And what is left over as far as surplus

067which is in good use would be utilized for this. but the surplus is in place for students should computers? correct, we will order a -- we will order enough to have 20 percent inventory for lost or stolen items. does the district have budget to provide laptop for non volunteers? I would say initial ly no. We're equiping our scschos rst, priorititing facultlty d d stafaff anstududents fst. With the new equipment that we'll be ordering later this spring to achieve our one to one devices. And MAY be recycled but the items that are still in great use that are being currently used by schools right now would be the items that we will satisfy for this item so the board chooses. okay, and my last comment is, I know that the item is to pilot this through

068the audit committee. And I understand there has been arguments made that they use a lot of paper. We have not heard from the other committee chairs as to the extent to which they use paper. I just have several concerns that I, I would prefer to revisit this after we hear from the committee revision task force that is in place. I would also like more data that I think we can, that the district can provide as far as what would be the cost of the laptops in its entirety in terms of licensing, internet, support and so on as opposed to what they're doing now. We can get information, financial information on what is happening now and DR. Hepburn, you can provide information on what the cost would be should we go to direction of the computer

069that is more concrete. So I don't think we have adequate information so I would rather wait on this item. so do you have a motion, DR. Holness? well, I -- . he's speaking against the current motion. right. So MADAM Chair, I'm going to hold on any motion to postpone I'm just making it clear this is the reasons I will not be able to support this item at this time. all right, thank you. Anyone else have discussion on the motion? On the motion? Yes, on that MS. Fam's moabsing. -- motion. Okay, all those in favor of the motion say aye. All those opposed say no. No. Motion fails. Do we want to do a roll call? let's do a roll call, why not. School board members bulman. no. fam? yes. hixon. no. holness. no. leonardi. no.

070rupert. no. thompson. no. zeman. no. alhadeff. no. it fails 1-8. okay, so back to the regular, original motion and people that wanted to speak. The main item. So the next speaker is DR. Holness, did you still have more to say? no, I'll hold my thoughts. Board member thompson? thank you, chair. I echo DR. Holness concerns. I would also I'm having difficulty because as a board, we've all decided that our agenda come to us electronically. I have difficulty seeing why that same process can't go to our committees. I also, think our students need to come first in all things and at this time they don't have a capability to take a laptop home. I think we can potentially if this passes I would be at a need-base if a committee person needs one because they don't

071have access so we have equity in our volunteers as well. That's a process that I would be in favor. But as it stands, if we can process 3000 plus pages, I don't see why that can't be shared among our committees. We all want what is best. I also have concerns like DR. Holness says we're in the process of restructuring our committee chairs, this seems to be too ahead of the curve of that process. I would be more comfortable waiting to see how that shakes out. don't deliver them in some shape or form to the committee how are are they suppose to review it on their personal laptop? They get paper so they can have notes? So they were getting delivered by people in the district. Know your history before you start making rules, please for

072the love of GOD. thank you so much. And just as a note, we board member do not receive those black boxes anymore. Everything is online, I don't know there was an option, I was told there was not. Okay, thank you. Anything else? DR. Zeman? Well I'm sorry. Board discussion on the motion? MS. Alhadeff? so, if you're not going to now print and fedex the agenda items, then if I'm a committee member, I'm going to sit there and say well how do I get the information? It's our responsibility to provide a way for them to get the information. So that's going to be us issuing them a computer or printing it and delivering it to their house. We're talking about right now, 12 computers and it MAY be less, we MAY be talking about 11 computers.

073And we have the computers to do it. I'm just perplexed on the delay in us voting and moving this forward, this is a pilot. If we want to be more green, we need to be able to provide a mechanism. MS. Alhadeff, this is about the fedex. We're just speaking on the motion about not fedexing anymore. but it's an incomplete motion because if you're not going to fedex how are they going to get the information? MS. Bulman. thanks chair. Just for purposes of clarification, my understanding was that there is a link with the document that is available. Is that true? DR. Hepburn? I differ to MR. Rodes? can you please repeat the last part? is there a link a digital link where you can access the documents? yes, it's always located on the the chief auditor's

074website and there was an electric agenda that you can link to and click on every document. so basically the same thing of what we're using today. yes, ma'am. so if there wasn't a district issued laptop and if there wasn't a fedex delivery, there is still access to the document nobody is going to sit there unable. I don't know the individual technological devices that they have available but what you just said, absolutely makes sense. thank you. thank you, any other board discussion on the motion about fedexing only? yes. MADAM Chair, in taking MS. Alhadeff's consideration, I for one, and our internet goes out frequently. So a lot of times I cannot rely on getting on the internet, so in that case, I would need a paper delivery. We need back up plan and maybe some of

075our members don't have access. But we have to have something in place where they get these materials so they can assess it and make recommendations. Thank you. thank you, anyone else discussion on not fedexing? All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no. you want to roll call? school board members, fam? no. hixon? no. holness. yes. leonardi. yes. rupert. yes. thompson. no. zeman. yes. alhadeff. no. bulman. no. fails, 4-5. thank you, back to the original motion and just to remind the original motion didn't have a pilot in it so that motion failed so we're back to the original motion and I think I'm the last person to ask questions. dr. Hepburn. Okay. Okay I have a couple of questions, not to say that ynez leo pose, I have some

076concerns. -- necessarily oppose. But about accountability. When a person checks out, there is a process and then when they come back, there is somebody that assigns it. MS. Fam made this scenario, somebody breaks into your car and steals your computer who is going to be accountable for that? So my concern is more logitics and accountability would the person who took understand that they would be accountable and have to pay the cost of the computer if it was lost? But who, like I think it would be important to have all of this information figured out and then brought to us as one package whether it's going to be a pilot just for audit. Maybe there is less of them and the number is 20 total and just do it all at one time. But, I don't

077think we can be half hazard about it, so you cannot say I want a computer but my internet is out, please send me the papers. That's not the intent of item in front of us. People would have to make a choice, you know, as I mentioned as a board, we don't have a choice. It makes me -- not to have that black box even though I'm an environmentalist, sometimes I don't do well reading it on the computer. I like that they have a choice but they have to have one choice. and using laptop that are surplus because we don't want to give any laptops to other than our students and staff. DR. Hepburn, who would be signing the property passes and who would be the department head to sign off that it's okay to follow

078the procedures that we also have in place? so as I stated before, DR. Zeman asked similar question. My staff would not be responsible for that. We already have layers of responsibility. All my direct reports, I sign the property pass, I'm responsible ultimately for their loss, broken or stolen item but they're responsible too. So I think since the only thing I've been thinking about this issue, who signed off on these things? And so since these are board advisories and committees, the only people I can think of are in the ones signature up here in the dais that would be responsible the advisory members or committee members who say they need a laptop and be issued my staff and myself will not be responsible for responsibility for a whole layer of individuals already in the district that

079we hold accountable for losing their items or breaking them or whatever the case MAY be. thank you, MS. Leonardi? thank you, I have some questions and comments before I get into those, I would like to ask one question, and make a motion. So currently do we have one to one for our students? DR. Hepburn? so let me answer the question as clear as I can. We have enough devices for every child in a school. We do not issue those devices for students to take home right now had, that's the initiative that we'll complete for the beginning of the school year. But as it stards, within our schools, yes. but like you said, we do not for every students who needs a laptop to take home, we have not achieved that, that is the goal for

080the beginning of the school year? that's correct. so I would like to table this item to the SEPTEMBER board meeting to see that initiative to its completion and maybe I would be more comfortable deciding this. But right now, our students have priority. is there a second. it's been moved by leonardi and second by thompson to postpone this item until SEPTEMBER 16th board meeting. Any public comment on the motion? I'm sorry, I have a point of order, chair. In roberts can you postpone something beyond the next meeting? MS. Batista. usually not. However, you know, that's the will of the board, that would be fine to postpone it. I withdrawal my question. Thank you. thank you. Narly, thank you so much for the motion, MS. Leonardi. A point to help alleviate, not all advisories need laptops, some

081of us work fine without them. And if you want to poll the advisories if that's an opportunity for them, I know that audit committee does a lot of work so I see why they would need that additional laptop so to help you out, maybe poll the committees. I know you have your task force, just poll so you guys can come to some consensus. thank you. Okay, board discussion? DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair, and thank you board member leonardi for that motion. As I said before, when I had asked a question, the superintendent indicated there is no capitol budget to provide devices for non staff volunteers. I appreciate this motion, I do believe students are first and if we can ascertain that all students ascertain a computer for home, I cannot ascertain lap tops to

082non staff, volunteers when our students don't have, or all of them don't have access. Like I said before, there are other things that I think are important, should we approve this item to come forward SEPTEMBER, including I would like there to, I would like to get some additional feedback from other committees to, we've heard from the audit committee to see what their needs are. And also DR. Hepburn, I would like to have comparative data as far as laptops for a committee members as opposed to paper. i think that's important when it comes back, should this item pass. In addition to that, did I hear you say your staff would not take responsibility. So I have concerns if board members should take responsibility. I for one, do not support, support taking responsibility for a lop top

083that is out of my control to a, to a, to a non staff volunteer. So I'm going to support the item but I do hope DR. Hepburn that not only the information that board member leonardi ensuring that all students have laptop but also information on comparative data for what committees are currently using compared to cost for using laptop. And I I wowod like informrmatio fromom alcoitteeses to see e what ththeir needare and what their prevalent concern is. Thank you. MS. Alhadeff. thank you, so I would suggest that the chief auditor be responsible for the audit committee issuing the 12 laptop computers. And then also, I was going to mote fie my motion to have this audit committee pilot start in the year 25-26 school year. And I think that you know, this is something that

084our audit committee is coming forward to us asking for us to give them the tools so they can be successful. I don't know why this should be such a battle to have such a lengthy conversation regarding this. And you know, this should be, we should be able to move forward with this quickly and we can get all the details worked out. Thank you. thank you. my colleague mentioned a motion, do you mean a motion beyond the item. I'm going to modify my motion if MS. Leonardi's fails. so procedurally, if I was to take the responsibility for the laptops for this audit committee pilot or moving forward, from time to time, an audit committee member resigns or moves along, and there would have to be some sort of a process in place whether it's the pta,

085appointee there would have to be a communication piece there. For example, sometimes I MAY not know until two meetings after the audit committee has been absent that they're no longer be in the committee. Then in the process of chasing them, as opposed to being notified. okay, thank you, any other comments for posting? All those in favor of postponing the item? aye. any opposed. opposed. the motion passions with two ascending votes MS. Fam and MS. Alhadeff. Thank you. now is time on the agenda for your public speakers. alrighty. This is. 16? this is the time of the agenda where we have split the general public speakers to incorporate a morning session. Each is reminded to present their agenda comments in policy. We'll start with our first speaker, trudy jerman ovich. my name is trudy jermanovich DR.

086Teachers leaving all florida, it specified broward which is one of the most voting blue. But I'm curious about the numbers across the state, many, all of course of the bad decisions come from broward county itself. South florida school districts are all losing students so not as many as new york city, L.A. And chicago and houston among the largest district. As a percentage, broward are the highest. But the numbers are not different from high high and broward. You can read the article for further details. The title is how enrollment in the largest school district has changed since the pandemic. Other comments concentrated on testing. If this district wants to save money, I can save them. Stop paying for platform for testing. Find a way to ask parents why they're leaving and listen and account. Performance matters

087was suppose to mimic the eoc and they didn't. Students can't do any type of editing like they would on the eoc. The teachers don't have an answer key. I also founderors in the end of quarter tests. The real purpose, sorry. The real purpose for all of this testing appears to be a level of micromanagement for testing that the district should not even be doing. And it's one reason parents and teachers both are leaving. This was not about practice, this is 100 percent about micromanagement, those are comments from teachers. Want to keep teachers, ask them why they're leaving. The micromanaging this year is nuts. And it's not coming from my administering it's coming from the district and they're so out of touch from what goes on in the classroom what we need to do and then

088add on top of everything else, we have more of what the district wants us to do. It's exhausting and frustrating. They ask us to be on a pacing guide for their district assessments which means we are ignoring the needs of our students. This is very wrong. If the teacher wouldn't micromanage, we wouldn't need the many positions of those who are pushing the micromanagement from the district. Thank you. thank you, next is kim mohorn. Speaker: good morning. First of all, I would like to recognize this is holy week, as come as humble as I know how when I'm, when I have to be careful because I am outraged. I recognize the significance of team work and openness and it's essential for us to unite and tackle in the urgent concerns, regarding our facilities. When school leadership,

089staff, parents, students encounter unresolved facility related issue, they turn to ftf for assistance and often we uncover not only the issue but what's behind the issue. Currently, we are left with unanswered questions, that need to be addressed. We can no longer overlook the needs of our students and staff. The current state of our facilities is unacceptable and it's our duty to advocate for the necessary resources to ensure a safe and supportive learning environment. DR. Superintendent, you're the head. And everything flows from the head. As the leader, I strongly encourage you to reassess the stance you have taken regarding the ftf and me as the chair. Your director and staff, they are not working with us. We must emphasize the need for open communication and ensure that the stakeholders voices are valued. The chief fas --

090facilities officers, enforce the decision and we recommend that she be involved in our discussion. Her participation cannot only enhance but also reflect the dedication to accountable and progress. It is APRIL 2025, and she has yet to tend ftf meeting. Board member my intention is ton create discord but to promote positive change. This change does not volve dismantling the atf. It's time to take meaningful actions and hold our leaders accountable for future of our schools. We want to keep our students and teachers and take care of our facilities and everybody has to be held accountable. If they don't attend meetings, how do they know what the issues are. Le #sing meeting is in JUNE. JUNE, -- the next meeting is JUNE, JUNE 5th at 7:00 P.M. I expect to see DR. Hepburn or chief facilities officer.

091Thank you. thank you. Next is DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. Speaker: good morning, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. I don't know how many minutes I have left. L-1 is why I'm here. I'm here because I heard about it from the board chair, my name is on the item but nobody notified me, because nobody communicates here. I brought you a matrix that shows both JANUARY 14th of this year, and just last week on the 8th, your general council clearly indicated that the rule development workshops are not rule development workshop per state statute, which is why I requested one. So this l-1 item contains transcripts and for the sole purpose, you're another one, MS. Batista. Your words were clear and accurate in JANUARY and last week, l-1 full of falsehoods. You do not have a second workshop with our

092request. You would have one workshop according to state law. So if you approve my requests, you'll be in compliance. If you vote it down, then we will have a problem and we'll be asking to amend it, because they're trying to bring it to the board in MAY. So concern concern cornacopia, four for four, does not match on the tape. So just so you know, four for four, that means four people misrepresented reality. Why are they bringing these safety security today? By the way your hr chief still having prnl complying as well as your facilities chief. They are just flouting public words law. And as the chair of ftf, everything flows from the superintendent. You MAY want to hold off, by the way one is policy 2050. If you're going to give people that power, you

093better be sure what their disciplinary issues. Property and inconvenient tory don't worry about when a staff has laptop missing, because they don't have systems being. Nobody is held accountable for missing laptop. But I'm sure that the department that has been tasked with reconciling will find 12 laptops and you're complicating that to no end. Thank you. and I want to mention that MS. Batista is going to speak to l-1 when we get to the item. Thank you. Next is tavara. Speaker: good morning, I'm desire, I wanted to know if I was on the list for speaking? I want to give my minutes. you're not on the list for speaking. so he'll have three minutes. Speaker: good morning. I have some concerns that blanche ely, high school. They're not putting the school on lock down when parents

094are coming to the school with guns. On FEBRUARY third, this year, a parent came to the school with a gun. The school was not on lock down, nobody called it lock down. She was advised to take the gun back to the car by assisting the principal MS. Lativia. And she advised to take the gun back to the car and come back in. I had a meeting with MR. Williams and MR. Milton who is head of the security. If you're head of the school, how did you not know there was a gun on campus. Last year there was FEBRUARY 14, there was a kid with a gun in the bathroom taking basic tours it was brushed under the rug. so, I have some papers where there are allegations that's been gave to MR. Mili the tan

095to get to the detective, she said she didn't get to the case yet because she just got it. This is over a month ago, my concern is him getting back to the school. I'm going to give you guys a read that a past student from 20 years ago wrote allege allegation that MR. Jordan did some things to him that's disturbing that he just don't need to be around kids. he's like -- he's a monster. He plays he's this nice guy, he's the head of security. thank you so much, we're going to have some staff members meet you in the prefunction room to have a longer discussion, so thank you very much. okay. DR. Lozano, can you meet him. our last public speaker for this morning is kaylie brown. hello, good morning, my name is kaylie

096brown, I'm a broward county public school substitute a private tutor, a senior fau and an artist, I'm a 22 years old, I've grown up in the broward county public emg kaition system, my major is in elementary education and I spine to be an art teacher at a private montessori school. Alarming problems need to be addressed as soon as possible, as a public county public school substitute, I witness daily challenges, here's to save our educational school crisis in broward county, florida, they need to make a mandatory class about managing technology, searching the internet responsibly and using technology to the student's advantage sp not to their disadvantage, the broward count tu public school board system is not keeping up with the latest technology which is crumbling in front of our eyes. The student ares unprepared for the

097digital age and MAY lack digital literacy and adaptively. Students do not truly realize the dangers of the internet until they or someone they know are going will you something profound from the internet. As a mandatory technology class would be the perfect solution to help teach students how to properly use technology appropriately and safely since the internet nowadays are unavoidable. Too often, I have seen and heard the no telephone policy does not stop kids from using their phones. When folks keep using the narrative of abstinence from singing cell phones instead of using them safely, it sets an unrealistic expectation. Another problem I have noticed is that our current education system doesn't adequately focus on developing critical thinking, problem solve, creativity x the collaboration skills they use back when I was in elementary school and middle school.

098Schools prioritize on time standardized test sols over fostering well rounded evils. I have witnessed students not knowing their multiplication tables, not knowing how to do long division, not knowing how to write cursive and not knowing how to make their hand writing neat. And the sad part is these kids want to lesh these life skills but aren't given the educational resources to could so. I hope I've shared some inspiring ideas with you today, I'm kaylie brown and thank you for your time in allowing me to speak. To conclude, here's a little mini expert of the broward county public school -- from a broward public county school student, the right way to go about these problems is to listen to schools and don't try o control us, figure out washes to help us, the world is cruel

099and students fear for their lives, we shouldn't come to school on how we should stay safe in the event of a school shooting, we should feel safe and feel comfortable in a space we are leering. That was from a west broward high school student. thank you so much for your insight. the speaker brought up having technology classes, is that something we offer, if not, can we look intntthatat very goooospspeang.. d DR. Hburn? yes,go informioion by the speaker. So, we have technology classes but many of those are oftentimes elect I fevers or associated with academy and is magnets so it's not a required course. When we think about requiring a course, we have to think about what are we going the give up. A lot of students don't have room for one additional required course but

100we do offer many technology courses and things like that as an elective but there are many magnets we do have that are associated with those courses also. just as a follow-up, is that something we can include in our family life when we're talking about our dating violence and all those other skill sets, is that something we could consider? possibly. I can have the team look at what that pace and what that scope looking like and what they're accomplishing already during the year and what can they plug in if it fits so we can have them look into that. I think it would be beneficial and it doesn't have to be an entire course but that is something this board has discussed with the cell phone ban, we need to find ways to to support our

101students in that way. If there's opportunity, I really appreciate the speaker for bringing up the idea. of course, many things are legitimate. DR. Zeman? don't do that to me, chair. Don't do that to me, I fwot a life, man. I would like to comment on two things that MS. Brown said, one, as this board has discussed and MS. Thompson brought up, there's a deep need to education children about technology and whaled ask us to start thinking about, not always thinking about curriculum many the standard format, kids don't learn by that all the way, they learn from things we post, things they read, from reminders so if we could marry the way kaylie brown and her generation learns with the need to teach people about responsible technology, we wouldn't have to take away from the formal

102curriculum time. The second is for my board members to not MISS, that was a substitute teacher of count broward county salts that elected to teach somewhere else, we can't continue to lose talent like that in broward county schools. Thank you. thank you, the superintendent has a report for us today. yes, absolutely. Thank you, MADAM Chair and board and public, as I reflect on my first year as superintendent, I'm incredibly proufd the broward county team, together we're empowering and achieving ask it shows on every classroom and every campus and in every corner of our district. we're an a rated school district and we -- this is a success of dsps' dedication, passion and unwavering commitment to our students. Over the past year, we have strengthened relationships and built meaningful partnerships with our family, business and community

103stake headers, these are vital to ensure every student has access o the highest quality educational opportunities. While we have accomplished a great deal, there's important work ahead, we must continue redefining dsps, offer invoe nait I have programers and we remain the best choice for broward county family, we must also align staffing levels to our student enrollment, these are necessary conversations, this challenge has been year ins the making and the l take tile to fully address, through thoughtful planning, we will prioritize protect thing classroom, we will be transparent and realistic every step of the way. As we move through this process, we must stay focused on our core business, educate our students, that mission must remain at the heart of every decision we make. I'm grateful to this board for your leadership and your guidance as

104we navigate through this pivotal time together with your continued sort -- support and our remarkable team, we'll play a video of last month's happenings across the district. (Playing video). [Applause]. that's the conclusion of my report, chair. thank you so much, and thank you for that video to remind us why it is that we're here every day. We're going to move to our is 111:00 time certain, even though it's a few minutes before 11:00, can I have a motion and a second for item jj234. . Inger so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Rue bert, do we have public comment on jj24? we're going to start with the mayor, mayor riley. good morning, superintendent hepburn and board members. Today I'm speaking on behalf of the city of coconut creek and my colleagues

105who are here today supporting this very important agenda item. Including vice major jeffrey waser man, commissioner sandra welsh, rydell and rose, thank you for taking the tile to hear our concerns ask the concerns of our community about the traffic congestion at lion's creek middle school and thank you for committing to make the solution we have worked hard to develop with your staff, the flip of the car and bus roofs operational by the start of the next school year. For more than a decade t car and bus drop off at lion's creek middle school has caused congestion and extending lie yo n's road to the expressway this accidenter congestion is negatively and dangerously affected the school, the parents, the parents dropping off the students and the resident ins the surrounding areas and neighborhood of cocoa bay,

106park wood bay, cypress bay and sunrise estates, it has become a safety issue including police chief hoffer and lieutenant don davis are goik to speak to that in a few moments. Or city has 13 public schools not counting charter and public schools, we are quite familiar with the normal traffic from the schools. However, the traffic, the congestion and the results in safety concerns at lie yo n's creek middle school are not consistent with the traffic we see at our other schools. The complaints and reported incidents as well are not consistent with what we see at other schools. Our police department currently devotes three quarters of our entire traffic unit to this one school and this is indicative of a larger problem stemming from the dropoff configuration. For the past four years, city staff has been

107working diligently with staff from the school board to woul p come up with viable solutions, this in front of you in terms of a traffic flip, this will move the parent vehicle tos johnson road which has a capacity to handle the large number of vehicles that currently block the roads, driveways and neighborhoods of the surrounding area. This agreement is the appropriate solution for the ongoing traffic congestion and life safety issues at lie yo n's creek middle school. Thank you for continuing to work with staff through a change in administration and a new superintendent. We have had several productive immediate meetings with superintendent hepburn and staff and I know we will all agree that this traffic flip is the appropriate solution to addressing this ongoing issue. On behalf of the city of coconut creek, I urge

108you to approve and execute the lion's creek middle school traffic improvement agreement today. Thank you so much. We all want the same thing, we have been an amazing partner, you have been an aib mazing partner with the city of coconut creek and we appreciate your consideration. Thank you. thank you so much. next up, we're going o have sheila rose and bernadette hughes after her. sheila rose, city manager of the city of coconut creek. I want to thank the staff for working with us over the past four years on this, eel waiver the rest of my time unless you have questions. thank you. good morning, school board members, for the record, bernadette hughes, thank you for working diligently with us, we've worked for four year tos get here and we appreciate your attention to the issue

109and your assistance moving this item forward. Several people are going the speak after me, they're going to talk about the traffic and the life safety issues, the increase in complaints of incidents, the negative impact on our residents. What I want to speak to you about is the amazing partnership with have with our schools and with you that we've had for the ten years we've been here and time before that as well. Let's start with this agenda item, it showcases how we heart fer with the school operationally and fiscally, we spend 200 thousand dollars a year the manage traffic n the four years we've been discussing this, that's 800 thousand dollars the city of coconut creek has invested at one school out of in m schools in coconut creek, that's a huge commit lt, we're commit

110today the safety of our students' wellbeing, because of the limitations we have, we've only been place ago band aid on this problem, the true solution is the flip that's before you today and this is a school board issue on school board property we -- property we hope that you approve. Canine taylor, so following the msd tragedy t the city of coconut creek took the initiative to bring the first vapor wake canine dog detecting dog to our schools, we committed time, energy, training sh we put on officer with this dog, it was to protect our students and our schools, we worked closely with the school board to introduce a pilot program and she is now canine taylor a trusted presence and a te enter located within our schools, that was a 200 thousand dollar invest wment

111the city of coconut creek. We do 50 thousand dollars a year to ja to biz town tha, services every fifth and eighth grader websinger give 250 thousand dollars along with the seminole tribe to scholarships, tutoring students in the coconut area, that's a million dollars we've given, our employees give almost 2 thousand hours of volunteer hours every year within the capacity as employees to our schools and to our non-profits so why am I telling you this, I'm telling you all of this because we're committed to our schools as you are, however we're committed within our role as a municipality, the agreement before you provides for the school board to make these necessary improvement and is it's on school board property. For the city to make the necessary improvements on city property. This is a fair and

112necessary agreement and reflects all of our commitment to our schools and the safety of our students and on behalf of our city, we urge you to approve this agreement, thank you so much. thank you. up next we're going to have police chief hoffer and lieutenant davis. good morning, I'm fred hoffer, the chief of police of coconut creek, I started to recognize there was an increasing problem or issues with the location of the school and some of the surrounding issue that is were happening as a result tof school's lay off, the importance of this is so strong I felt it necessary to highlight om some of the safety issues we're searing and the increasing concern of these issues as population goes up and st cities start to change. The sdp irs primary issue is the block

113to residential vehicles, children are being picked up and dropped off within these community and is walking through private property which can can result in them climbing over fences, getting hurt and damaging property and what not. An increase in frustration from both parent and is residents, some residents made comments about how they can see someone losing control ask using a firearm to fix things. Increased traffic violations which increase safety concerns, driving around signs, driving around other vehicles and barriers and on to private property and destroying private property. These driving behaviors heighten the safety risk for walking and bicycling through these nraibds and there are five neighborhoods in communities directly around the lion's creek middle school that are affected each day by this problem. And it also increases the risk of injury to both driver and is

114home owners in the area. And like mentioned earlier from the mayor, three quarters of my traffic unit is pending more than half their shift in the morning and the afternoon dealing with this issue, on average, five officer and is four service aids are dedicated to this school alone. There's also an increased safety concern on my officers, officers have been spit at, cursed at, screamed at and on many sanctions, frustrated drivers have come to f close the striking my officers with their drivers. I felt this was increasing, in the last couple of years, I directed traffic in the beginning of school and in front of lion's creek middle to the see what was going on and I felt there was an increase in issues, last night I asked my officer tos pull citations for the areas

115that are affected by the school zone. They said no, so they pulled the citations and warnings from the school zone in lion's creek middle, in the last four years, those citation and is warnings equate to 6132. Now that is not including the surrounding communities. It's also not including peak times when this issue was the worst. During those times, these officers can't leave their post to go after violators so this number in all essence could be doubled and this dwarfs all of the other school zones combined in our entire city, this is a big problem, it is a safety issue and as MS. Thompson said, we put the children first so I hope you do, thank you very much. thank you so much. my nail is lou -- lieutenant davis, I want to thank city staff

116who's worked hard on this project and also the school board staff. We've worked for many year tos try to get here. I read in the proposal it takes 30 minutes.For traffic to clear up in front of lion's creek which is a true statement, that's because we have a large police presence and it's because of environmental changes with the school board and through us to make that happen. I really hope you approve this proposal, it's something that's needed to be done for a a long tile. Thank you. up next we're going to have nancy fry and denise bruso. good morning, school board and superintendent and staff, my name is nancy fry, I am the staff chair x the ptsa vice-PRESIDENT For lion's creek middle, we are asking the board to please vote yes on this traffic

117agreement. There are two issues at hand, the first is the safety is eye t walking path for the majority of the students walking up to lion's creek involves walking in and out of the school zone for over a quarter mile stretch, completely outside of a school zone and the primary l epgt of had is along a three lane each direction divided county road adjacent to an industrial park. This change would keep our kids in the school zone for the entirety of their walk up to school and would keep them away from the semis coming in and out of the industrial park. In addition as was discussed blocking the neighborhoods. The second issue I want to talk about is enrollment. Lion's creek is a gem within broward county public schools, that pun is intentional websinger have

118the highest number of high school credits earned of any middle school of the district, this needs to be uplifted. Our enrollment is solid, there is still room for improvement and issues like these impact enrollment. i talk to parents constantly that are choosing which kids to send their -- schools to send their kids to. We aren't only losing kids to other school, they are going outside of the county all together, the traffic issues impact us directly f they're having tog stay in a car and trapped in traffic, they MAY as well go to the school they want to other than the school that is closest and would keep them part of the community. And families worry about the fighting in the school, this is aggravated of the kids to duck into neighborhoods surrounding the schools and

119fight hearing. If you shift the traffic pattern, this would keep the kids on city property where they can be supervised and they don't have the ability to sneak away and get themselves into problem. This is a long overdue fix that will show that the district cares about our school and our community and on behalf again of all of the lion's creek families websinger are imploring you to vote yes on this. Thank you. thank you. D d this e e st spspeaker? A femomore, okay. superintendent DR. Hepburn and school board members, good morning and thank you for allowing me had opportunity to speak regarding the the proposal for traffic improvements surrounding lion's creek middle school, I'm denise, I'm 66 years old and was was born down the street, I have lived in broward county all my

120life, I moved to coconut creek in and currently live in sunrise estates what will be almost years, I'm a retired paramedic firefighter and have served the citizen of this county for 27 years, I have 25 years experience as a registered nurse. I live five and a half blocks from lion's middle school, I have seen many stressful situations, due to the traffic flow of parents driving children through our neighborhood, my neighbors and I have been forced to arrange our schedules around drop off and pick up times, many kids are dropped off or picked up in the boundaries of the neighborhoods to avoid long lines, they will dalg our lawns, break our sprinklers, there have been cars passing slower drivers or passing service vehicles parked in front of homes. Many cars have no problems blocking driveways or

121side streets and our fear is the emergency vehicles not be able to access our homes during an emergency. On a daily basis, we have numerous students walking through the neighborhood on their way home. However, they will walk down the middle of the street, throw trash on our lawns, spit chewing gum into our driveways, remove items from our front yards and show no respect for our personal property. Then there have been several fights that have been broken out among our streets as the kids have figured out there's less consequences of their behavior if it's not happening on school grounds. I had cervical spine fusion surgery in DECEMBER, while recuperating at home had a scary issue, one afternoon I heard a lot of scream, walked to my front door as I was opening it, a teenage boy

122was bagging on my door, I scared him away where he join add group of 15 boys as they were laughing at me. I reported it to the police off my ring camera. This was not the first time kids were caught banging on the front doors of my neighbors, rarely there is not a day I'm at heightened alert for fear of something happening to me or my home. I have reviewed the proposal between the city of coconut creek and the school board, I feel hopeful and confident there is a solution around the corner. I want to get back k to enjoying my retirement with less anxiety. thank you again for this opportunity to speak and allowing me to share my concerns. thank you. our last speaker is colleen le plant. good morning, chair, vice chair, board

123members, superintendent and staff, first I want to thank you for your dedication and amazing work and commitment to our children. Colleen le plant, coconut creek, 30 year plus resident, let me start by saying my daughter went to school here, during at lion's creek middle when her teachers inspired her to choose a career in education, she went to unf and graduated top in her class with a degree in secondary english, she is in her tenth year teaching at rickards middle school t bus load and drop off, we're in full support of this agenda item and are hopeful it will be supported. This is long overdue websinger thank you for your support of this resolution and the safety and wellbeing of our kids, the school board is suggesting fencing at the west side of the saol, we

124do not agree with this unless absolutely warranted, all these years we have never issued with the reserve or the children websinger ask for your clarification on the proposed bus route to ensure a smooth implementation. I understand the plan is for the sole purpose of the drop off and pick up, it will create challenges for residents to exit and enter into the neighborhood, we don't feel it would be so much of an issue when going to the school, while exiting, the buses only use sole press for this operation, we want to confirm the buses will be restricted from cutting through neighborhoods. Additionally when we went around our neighborhood yesterday with our petitions, many of the neighbors with 55 terrace complaining at 3:00 t cars lined up televising's dozens of them waiting for their children. I would

125like to have clarification the children walk tog school, what entrance they would be using. That being said, the city has done an amazing job addressing the traffic and student issue that have arisen because of the control. Children fighting, speeding, scooters, bicycles extremely fast, no helmets, no respect for the neighborhoods and cars pulling out of the driveways, of course this is not all the children, but the majority of them. I have attempted to drive my bike, I have had three close calls where stopped ridinging my bike, I don't ride it in the morning or after 3:30, my neighbor was broad sided by a mustang that passed three cars in front of me and they -- it was 9:30 in the morning, they wouldn't going the speed limit fast enough for him and my neighbor was blindsided,

126this lady with was shaken. Two doors down, my neighbor was raking his swail, the car went by so fast, near accident. Who weeks ago when I was alining along the rec center, I saw two mothers opening their tuning, take out scooters dropping their kids off, the kids go by me and almost -- so, I invite you to go to my driveway and sit and observe the traffic and have coffee. thank you. Board discussion? MS. Rupert? thank you. The city of coconut creek has always put our student and is our school family and is employ ees first especially when it comes toser prioritizing safety, security and enrichment of our students. If many years t city supported sro's in all the schools within the city even when financing became tough. The city of coconut creek sponsoring the

127lunch bunch quarterly which is is when lunches come and prains pals come and areas to focus on, it's an open conversation. More times than not, the conversation about safety issues, issues bubbling to the surface, they turn to lion's creek middle school. They have safety issues that have highlighted today have the lack of safety within our buses and droop off and pick up lines. The city's always been proactive when life safety and enrichment for our community is involved. I was going to talk about taylor but they already did that. And I did want the say that was very important because they were the first city to bring forth this idea and this extra level of security. So, it's no surprise the city's worked with the district and come up with a plan to decrease the traffic

128issues, the no supervisory availability that abut it is the school where the students walk through unchecked and dangerously long lionesses that block the fire and first responders and neighborhoods surround thing the school. The traffic might mare necessary sates assigning three quarters of the traffic unit near the schools taking those officers away from other life and safety issues, this is a a collaboration fwaoen the bsps and coconut creek, thank you DR. Hepburn and your staff for working with the city and bringing forth this item today and the revision. DR. Hepburn, can you please explain why you did bring this item at this time. DR. Hepburn? yes, thank you for the question, MS. Rupert. Also I just want to thank the city of coconut creek for just your support and your collaboration and ensuring that our students

129and our community is staying safe during these numbers of years with this waysing. This is something when wand da paul started and myself started that came to the forefront for us immediately to start reviewing. And we went out there, so we went out there separately. I had to park and walk up to the school. MS. Paul also had to park and walk up to the school. I won't repeat the words that wand da paul called and told me, but it is a severe life and safety issue where a whole community is in grid lock and my two concerns, the ability for first responders to respond to any emergency situation on our campus to address the needs of our faculty and staff and students if something happens to thel on campus and also to be able

130to respond to the citizens in their own community in that subdivision during drop off and pick up. So, I know our teams have been working together diligently throughout the school year to come up with a feasible plan that's going to address this situation and under my tenure, we cannot wait, I'm not going to wait for an emergency and be reactive in that situation, we have an opportunity to be proactive to address this and come up with a great resolution to this challenge before the beginning of the school year. thank you, MRS. Bulman? sorry, well, I 100% support making sure that our students are safe, that everyone has access to emergency services, etc., I just wanted a little clarification. Are we voting today to go -- is there a very specific plan in place already, or

131are we just voting to go forward to develop the correct plan because I know there's some talk about fencing and other things. I don't know if that's addressed and what we're looking at right now. yes, I'll have paul of how everything works with this item, how we'll move forward. tla's my only question, thank you. MS. Paul? through the board chair, superintendent hepburn, this can has been kicked for several years as the city spoke of, city officials spoke of. We have a conceptual plan and there have been like it seems like a trillion meetings over the years to try to move this forward. As of now, what we're trying to do is allocate money so we can get the plan fully developed and to move this forward. So, the rup of show basically stipulates here what

132the city is going to do, what we're going to allocate for, this project on our property and then we would hire the appropriate officials to work from the conceptual plan, look at traffic flows for the buses as well as for the cars and try to get this done. is it feasible we're going to have this done by the beginning of the next school year? we will have certain parts of it done. I don't think we'll have the complete project done. The city will work with us as they've said very enthusiastically to make sure we have the appropriate permits, so we appreciate that. I will with the city working with the permitting that we should probably not have as much as of a problem with the timeline then, thanking. MS. Thompson? thank you, I just wanted

133to follow-up, I have a couple of comments on MS. Bulman's question because one of our audience members brought up the fencing and the preserve, next to the preserve, are those plans in exhibit b like what the proposal is? there is an exhibit in terms of fencing in the wetlands there, that area. And we'll work with the city, one of the things we want to do is to make sure that we address the main problem and that's the traffic and the congestion first but the city will look at that and we'll work with them to get the fencing done as needed. and also bus routes, I know we talked about this prior, just so everyone else on the board knows and in the audience, those are options where buses can come in, not necessarily where the

134buses will come in. we will work with our transportation department as well as the city to look at the traffic flow but again, this has been a conceptual thing and over the last four years, so four years plus, so we will work in partnership to create the most effective plan. and I appreciate that clarification, so everyone's on the same page, I am in full support this item. As one of our speakers mentioned, this is a strongly enrolled school, we want to make sure families feel safe and comfortable to go there and increasing our enrollment there, our students seem to be the forefront of sx efrg if they can't go to our schools safety, what are we doing. I really appreciate the city of coconut creek for your continued partnership, for the commissioners reaching out to

135me and answering some questions and I'm looking forward to this item passing. Thank you. thank you, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair, so, I will agree with MS. Nancy fry, lion's creek is certainly a good school, I was a teacher at lion's creek many years ago and DR. Tuma was my principal, he has done a wonderful job, gave me great experience and leadership and that's where I completed my lead program as well. So, I do understand the traffic, I'm very familiar with the school being there as a teacher in the past z. -- past, I understand it's increasing. Well, DR. Hepburn, is it the increasing number of students attending the school that would create this problem? Because I'm not sure this problem existed many years ago when I was a teacher there. DR. Hepburn? thank

136you, you have a couple of problems but the main one is that you have a lot of students also coming from outside of that subdivision and they are -- their parents are divining them to school, so it's exacerbating the situation, we have more kids driven by the parents creating the congestion we've been experiencing in the past few years. and I appreciate that you and MS. Paul went there as well, just out of curiosity, I know DR. Tuma was a principal there, did he know this problem existed there? go ahead. actually, school board holness, this is DR. Fleming's region, he's been closely monitoring that situation and perhaps he has more input. okay, DR. Fleming? and I'll try to keep DR. Tuma out of our schools. that's my principal in the past. he's welcome to come to

137lion's creek. I visited quite a few times and smrifk for this reason, I had meetings with city staff as well as district staff to look at the issue. Lion's creek presently has around 350 students that might be reassigned there, so that's -- we don't give transportation to student that is are reassigned to they're being dropped off by their parents. Probably when you were there, it was largely attended by residents, I know some neighborhoods there, a lot of residents don't have school age students anymore. And to deal with the main congestion, it will alleviate this problem, so MS. Paul's team has been instrumental to getting us to this point. DR. Hepburn, regarding the school leadership, the current principal and so on, did they provide input on the concern as well. If so, can you tell us

138what that input is. DR. Hepburn? yes, they did provide some concerns about the issue. I have DR. Fleming because he works closer with the principal than I do to express those concerns. principal iddie who's there this year, she was the first thing she noticed, and we had discussions with her around our plans moving forward and she was present when we went to the city commission meeting to be in sup por of this item. ja us couple of more questions. I know it will cost approximately 1.4 million dollars and I appreciate the fact that the city of coconut creek has been basically absorbing some cost in terms of traffic, but has the city volunteered to offset any of this 1.4 million dollars? DR. Hepburn? yes, we've been working with the city. I know the city has

139definitely gone over the amount of funds they've extended over the past few years which probably equates to close to a million dollars in additional staff to support addressing the congestion, so we can keep the students, families, car riders safe throughout those years, we worked with thel to try to assist us because most of this is on our property. I think they're doing something on one of the curbs to help our buses get in and out of the new traffic pattern, so they're working with us as much as possible plus all the funds they've extended over the past few years. okay, great. Those are all my questions, MADAM Chair, thank you. thank you, we'll finish up with DR. Zeman. thank you so much, chair. We can't talk enough about municipal cooperation, you know, broward county schools

140will be funded in situations for broward county, municipalities do extra work and those are not things they get funded to do but they do them because they care so much about their schools because your schools in coconut creek are your schools as well and I always want to extend a special thank you for that. As all of us know but maybe haven't talked about yet, the very ability of municipal support is 0 to a lot, and coconut creek is on the edge of that lot side of the distribution and we preciate thatatery muchch. This item kekegreat sens the only thi at I uld like to know is there's plans and permits and solicitations and drawings. Chair, what is the fastest process we can institute that would allow this to have the greatest chance of being

141in place by AUGUST 12 which I think is our first day this year. DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? we definitely will work with our procurement department to get this done but part of what is really important is that we do it the right way and so the majority -- my expectation is that the majority of the work will be completed in terms of the parent. That's our priority, getting the parents off of the main road on to johnson road, and it will be a couple of phases associated with it but I'm very optimistic of getting this completed within a reasonable period of time because we have the city working with us on the permitting so forth, they've been gracious in making that commitment to us, so again, you know, this is just allocating the money, we

142still have to go to design and several other steps but we will be expeditious in stringing to get this done. I appreciate that, chair. I'm not asking about a trade off between speed and quality. I'm talking about a best speed given we always deliver great quality in our construction process but there are certainly ways to work with the city to accelerate some of that. There's also ways to find existing general contractors that can do probabilitybacker projects of this size and the like, this is a life safety issue, we have a short null of months between now and the beginning of AUGUST to get this done. I'm just curious if the superintendent has any thoughts about what could we do knowing we're going to build a great project here in the end, not talking about quality,

143but can we make some assurances to the parents in coconut creek we might get this done by the beginning of AUGUST? DR. Hepburn? I'll let MS. Paul double doup on that, I heard her speaking on ensuring we get the parent part addressed, to get them on the opposite side for drop off and then I guess there's some other things that come right after has, so MS. Paul? I would feel more comfortable providing a follow-up on the timeline for that. I don't want to say we're going to do something and not get it done. how about this, can we tell the city of coconut creek o leaked officials that we're going make good speed on getting this done? absolutely. when you have people like jackie railey in the audience, you know the city's going to come

144through on their part but there's lot of other partners, there's architects and engineers and plan designers and reviewers and pmor might be involved here and then, but we just have to be serious about life safety issues and this is clearly a life safety issue and it's embarrassing we ever had this so long, so I'm glad we're getting after it with best speed. Thank you, chair. all those in favor item jj24, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you so much, we're going to go back to the consent items and we are going to go to b3. d as in dog? b as in boy. thank you. we'll take a two minute recess before we do that. (Meet ining recess -- meeting in recess). thank you and welcome back to this regular school board

145meeting. The next item up is b3, can I have a motion and a second to bring item b3 to the floor? Moved by board member thompson, seconded by board member bulman, any public comment on b3? MADAM Chair, we have one registered speaker, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh who is not here. thank you websinger will go to DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair, I make a motion to postpone indefinitely this item. there's been a motion by DR. Holness, a second by MS. Alhadeff to postpone this item indefinitely. Any public comment on the motion? Any board member discussion on the motion? Okay. All those in favor of postponing b3 indefinitely, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion careries. 6-0. Let's see, the next item we're going to bring to the floor is item b4 can I have a motion and

146a second to bring item b4 to the floor? it's been moved by MS. Thompson, seconded by MRS. Leonardi, any public comment on b4? no, MADAM Chair. MS. Alhadeff? thank you, so, what I'm asking is to amend our 2025 state legislative platform to include an amendment to alyssa's law which is the establishment of a centralized system to integrate panic alert systems and digital map ins schools ensuring real-time commune cruising with law enforcement and emergency responders which allows sdaol schools to connect their systems which will store historical data for authorized agencies. okay, thank you. All those in favor of item b4, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously again 6-0. Okay, 7-0. Okay, the next ie emtem -- he's not here, is f2, can I have a motion and a second to bring f2

147to the floor? motion. it's been moved by DR. Holness seconded by MS. Leonardi, new puck lick -- public comment on f2 MS. Leonardi? I got my answers. all in favor? notion carries unanimously 7 mf -- 7-0. The next one is j1, it's been moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by MRS. Rupert, any public comment? no. board comment, MS. Rupert? I'm sorry, can you tell me it again? j1. can you bring it back. well, you're the only one, we're trying to get rid of all of these consent items. alright, my question was on the leadership series, how will we guarantee our students under the ese umbrella will be included in this opportunity? DR. Fulton? so, I do know that this goes through our sga, I'm going to have DR. Wanza go ahead and weigh in on how

148that process is when an application comes out for our students to be able to apply to be a part of this. under the ese umbrella. thank you, DR. Fulton, thank you, MS. Rupert, for the question. This is administered through the office of student activities which is under the athletics division. The schools select their student leaders so what we do is work with the schools to ensure they are identifying the ten students who is representative of their student population, so I can tell you we don't say per se you have to have this many, we can tell you over the years we always have students with special needs who are participants in this experience. Nationally we work additionally, woe work with the counselors to ensure this have training and expertise to work a variety of diverse

149needs but we work with each individual school to make sure they are selecting members to attend that are representative of their student population and we always make sure that we don't just hint at but we say specifically your student widths special needs. thank you, and the reason I brought this up is during when we were bringing up our students for rally to tally, I always -- I don't like to isolate people, I don't want people to especially our students not to be able to be part of it all and it just made me think, I wonder what the process is for this one when I was doing the the backup for it but also moving forward to make sure that our kids, all of our kids have the right and the opportunity to be able

150to experience the enrichment that they get. So, thank you. I agree, thank you. thank you, and alana? yes, hi, I was a part of this pral for the past two years. I went to the beginner camp and also the advanced leadership training camp. the curriculum we're learning is super adaptive and even going into this year, I'll be a junior counselor, so I've had the opportunity to go three time ins a row now but I can tell you now the accessibility is from a wide range, each student has an opportunity to learn in indepth opportunity of what leadership is and how can we reach our skill of leadership. Everyone has leadership in different ways televising's type a and type b people, how can we reach that different guideline to find a middle ground, leadership is expansive

151soit's like that but it's overall an accessible experience and we're excited to have it back again. thank you for participating and the opportunity. All those in favor of j1, say aye. Aye. Any opposed. The motion carries unanimously 7-0. The next item to come to the floor is o1, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by MRS. Rupert, seconded by MRS. Bulman. Any public comment on l1? yes, we have three public speakers, I believe DR. Natalie lynch-walsh is not here, we have [Inaudible] Grant as well as trudy jermanovich. okay, morning, so I would love for the board members to vote no so we can have a -- what is this, rule development, because this is stating there was a workshop already but based on DR. Lynch-walsh's comments, my nose is running because

152it's cold up in here. MS. Batista made some comments in reference to that and I think the chair would be commenting on that but I'm hoar to advocate you vote no and allow the second rule development to happen, thank you. my name is DR. Proudly jermanovich and I wanted to read about what happened in prior regarding policies. At the DECEMBER 17, 2024 regular school board meet, agenda item b2, initiate rule making policy 1070, district committees and their membership a motion was made by MS. Thompson seconded by MR. Zeman and care rid to move to add language to the requested action to read as follows, direct the superintendent to initiate rule making for the revisions and to make -- to make access to the community for this change. The community meeting will provide an opportunity for

153the public to offer input and recommendations on the motion prior to rule development or the final vote. At the MARCH 4th meeting and that did occur. They were contentious, you need to the hear from the public and what you're trying to do when you change these things is -- and you are not listening to the public. It gets to be that you're doing it on purpose and I don't think that's what you want to happen. I think you want to listen to the public so I think you should have at least a meeting. I don't care what you call it or whether it's required by law, you need to have the meeting because you need to hear from the public. Thank you. thank you. that concludes the registered speakers. thank you, MS. Batista, can you

154speak on l1 before I go? I'll be happy to, MADAM Chair. So, l1 is a denial of the request for rule development workshop. There seems to be some confusion as to what is a rule development workshop and I think the biggest issue that we have in broward is that we call our school board workshops a workshop and then it gets confused with the rule making workshop under chapter 120.54 so we need to decouple those two terms if you would. In our policy, policy 1000, which is the policy that directs the board on how to do rule making, some many years ago, the board decided that instead of following the statute that only requires a rule making workshop when it is requested by the public, that the board wanted to have a workshop on every single

155rule, every single policy. So, that's what we have been following in broward for many years and the workshop that the board has where it discusses the policies does comport t th 120.54, membmbers of the pubc are aowowed t come up and scscuss the policy. They ask questions, they make comments, they have a voice and that is what is required under 120.54, so the only standard that 120.54 requires is that when you have this rule making workshop, that you have a person or persons that were the ones that drafted the policy that they're there to respond to questions from the public. That happened at the last workshop that the board had where this policy was discussed. Having said that, there's nothing prohibiting the board from having another rule making workshop if that's the desire of the

156board. However, as the item states, it is unnecessary pursuant to 120.54 but it is not prohibited so you can have as many workshops as you like. thank you, and I pulled this item because I have had the same comment for the last couple of months. There was a way the board -- and we had a workshop and I 've eve asked -- the policy maybe is coming back to let us have a better discussion and expectation moving forward so the public knows what is a rule making and what isn't. And so I think it was 1020, that particular policy that we were in discussion with, we did a true rule making workshop I'll say because the board was not there, it was done in the evening, staff was there, the community was able to ask

157question, staff answered the questions and staff brought back that conversation to us. That's the way I read what the statute says and it seems that we do it that way stieps and then sometimes we do it all in a workshop, and last week it didn't feel like it was that workshop where staff was there, they could ask questions, whether we advertised it that way or not, I think we just had a regular workshop last week, so I would ask my colleagues to vote no on the denial of request for the rule development workshop because I don't think the public really got the opportunity because they weren't sure what kind of workshop they were in, and whether that's because we're not really clear on it because I'm still not clear on it, and I think in

158general we just need to make it more clear what's happening when and I know that there was staff there but the public gave comments and I don't think they were aware that we were in a setting that would allow them to ask some questions back and forth and the other workshop that we had, whether again we changed the name because I think that's part of the confusion is it just didn't feel right to me. So, I would really like for us to be able to say yes, we can do a rule development workshop where it was like before, it would be in the evening, staff would be there, only staff, not the board members and they would be able to ask their questions so if you vote no on l1, that would allow that meeting

159to proceed. So, -- if I MAY, MADAM Chair, I want to clarify one thing, 120.54 does not provide for I think the second par of -- part of your comment which was a rule making workshop is not to collect feedback from the public and then bring it back to the board. I mean, that clearly can happen, the only thing that that is supposed to happen by law is that the persons or persons or person that drafted the item are present so they can answer questions from the public. right, I wasn't saying that was part of the law, I was saying that's what happened last time they brought it back to us. thank you. so, all those in favor of l1, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. no. do we want to do a

160roll call? roll call on the item, MS. Hixon? no. holness? yes. leonardi? yes. rupert? no. thompson? no. zeman? yes. alhadeff? no. bulman? no. fam? no. item fails 3-6. with the dissenting voight vote of MS. Thompson -- no, MS. Leonardi, DR. Zeman and DR. Holness. right, so I want to make sure, MADAM Chair, it is basically to hold that rule development committee meeting like we did last time to answer questions, that is the intent of the workshop we're going host for the public, right, not to collect feedback or to bring it back, correct? well, MS. Batista, in terms of bringing the item -- so, you MAY request but by law what would be required and what this item does is that now you will have the -- the public will have the ability to come to

161ask questions and clarify any language in the draft policy that they need to have clarified. But if the board would like to have whatever is said there, some summary of what is shared at that meeting, you can ask for that as well but that's not part of what the law requires as I stated before. okay. MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. Just as a follow-up, could the board and therefore the community get a write-up on what rule development is, what policy review workshop, like something that's very clear in writing so that we understand the, the community understands, we all have the same -- that's the workshop that's coming in MAY. That was the request or suggestion, so that it's very clear. will that be a rule development workshop or a workshop? What is that? so the

162way the board does it, again, is that the board has decided that a a workshop for the board where there is a rule development workshop imbedded into that workshop, so yes, it would be both as has been for many years now. thank you. MADAM Chair? DR. Holness? just from my understanding, I know there was a workshop before according to MS. Batista, the requirements according to statute was fulfilled in that first workshop, so I'm trying to understand what is it that wasn't present in the first workshop according to what we're supposed to do that we're going to do now? so, DR. Holness, just so you know the item passed. We're just asking -- I disagree with MS. Batista, I don't think that the public was given the opportunity to ask staff questions and be able to

163go back and forth. MS. Batista believes that they did, so we just disagree on that. So, enough colleagues agreed that this would give the public an opportunity to have that chance to ask questions of staff regarding why they have different changes in that policy. okay. so, just a follow-up with MS. Thompson and just based on a little bit of confusion because I think it would cut down on a lot of controversy and a lot of confusion if we knew exactly what's required in policy 1000 and the statute, I know MS. Batista said it. Does our policy 1000 right now create this need for the workshop? I guess we should never be wondering about it and it would be a lot easier so we could definitively proceed. MS. Batista? I'm not sure if the policy right

164now is what's creating the issue. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the real issue is other than perhaps the public feels that sometimes when they're asking questions, they're not receiving responses or they haven't asked the questions or I'm not really sure, but what the policy states is that we will have a rule making workshop during our school board workshop for the policies that are coming to the board and that's what's been happening for years now where, again, the public had the opportunity to speak and ask questions and those questions were answered maybe not to their liking but there was staff there that did respond to questions, but again, we can do it all over again. does the public -- do you think the public understands this particular rule, and is there a way

165we can advertise that so we don't keep coming to the same issue? I mean, we're just standing strong on the fact this is what's happening. so, thank you for asking that question. The advertisement happens -- there are two advertisements that go out for every workshop of the board that also contains a rule nabbing -- making workshop, there are two advertisements placed on civic plus, one for the regular workshop of the board with all the general ta and one for the rule making portion of it so there are already two advertisements or multiple of advertisements, one for each one of the rule that is would appear on the agenda during the workshop. thank you. I know this isn't rule making but could I ask -- no, we have btu to give their report and then we

166have a 12:00 certain, so I think MS. Fusco is in the room, go ahead and give your report. good afternoon, anna fus koe, broward union, a couple of things, our educator and is support staff and everybody's considered in the um brella of esp's, they got their retro and the raise in their last paycheck, thank you for making that happen. everybody else in the district is eagerly awaiting, tlsz a small group of people working on that, thank you to those departments that worked very long and hard to make sure that every individual with 13 thousand teachers, 3 thousand of our pairs do the math, tla's 15 thousand people just for that to get it done, they did and I'm pretty sure it went without minimal flaws because I didn't hear any conversations their pay was wrong,

167we're always going to question what the paycheck is going to look like, it's cumbersome, I want to go into the next piece t budget workshop that happened the other day televising's situations with money, we know swre a new cfo that's trying to get through years of maybe some misunderstandings or numbers that are different or off or however we want to do it but we know that hearing from certain board members that we want to possibly take out, was it 4 thousand employees, that's a lot even though we have over 20 thousand employee ins the broward county public schools, we know we have over 250 schools, we know there's always a conversation going to happen with low enrollment here and that, there needs to be strong meetings and conversations of really understanding what is low enrollment,

168what really is low enrollment, what are these projected enrollment that is are going to happen when we get those budgets? The admin is in charge of the budget but they have conversations with people in the budgeting office and their academic directors and their deputy superintendents. Multiple conversations of what they want, I do know that our schools still have struggles with having enough teachers and our esp's in our schools, we know they struggle with enough custodians and a lot of employees in those schools so what is really happening? I know you all visit the schools but do you go boo the schools? Go into them, stay a while, don't just go there for an hour, stay all day. Go in there, do we have enough security, there's a lot of things I'm hearing, people are retiring

169out, people are moving on, people are resigning, people might get terminate d and they're not replacing employees, we have school that is are over class size, we shouldn't have 100 students in a locker room, should we? We shouldn't have 80 students in an art room, we shaont have 50 students ins a math mrasz klass or an ela class, if it happens in one school tha,'s too many. we want to talk about decrease thing employees. There needs to be bigger and stronger conversation to the public of what that would look like and when it's going the happen and how it's going to happen, not two weeks before JUNE 4th when the end of the school year happens and our educators and all of our pup port people that work hands on with our students and schools

170that are being told we no longer have a position for you, that is not okay. If it really is about the student, make it about the student. It is annoying to hear it's about the student but your actions don't show it. It really doesn't. Direct the superintendent to direct the staff to have really strong conversations and when a principal is really saying I need employees in our schools, do not be upset at them, do not act like they're not take ladyfinger of the school, that is taking care of the school, they don't know how to handle the budget, you create the budget of what the principal should have and there is this showing that, wow, we really have a good amount of students, we need more hands-on with our students. You're beating down the employee

171ins our schools that work with our students. they're not seeing the severe increases we need, we know you have budgets you're wringing from from the state and so on, when they're working outside the realm of having two or three job and is you're piling it on them and not taking it away, tla's okay. It's about the student, stop using the words and start showing the actions, get strong into that budget and look at really who and what you need to cut and how you're going o cut and it cannot affect the schools, every year it affects the schools, when I I heard we are looking tog release teachers, that happens every year. Make it happen where it stays in tact for our students. thank you, lisa maxwell. thank you, MADAM School, school board member and

172is staff, my name is lisa maxwell, the exec tier director for the broward principals and assistants association. I'm here to talk about the superintendent's contract and for those of you who know me, I'm not really prone hyperbola and I usually don't comment on superintendent contracts, not what we do, but this is an exception, we in my opinion and in the opinion of principals and assistant principals throughout this district have a true rock star in the chair. And I'm hopeful and I believe this board knows that as well. We -- one time that I can remember going back years, we have a majority of the school board who are actually edge -- educator, it's a minor miracle, you know how schools operate. This superintendent also comes from those ranks, he knows exactly how schools operate. I've

173recently become a fan of chat gp,, it helped me fix my dryer, I'm proud of that, so I.Put in chat gpt, what are the characteristics of the greatest of superintendents. And it had quite a list, it's very interesting so I'll just read you a few. Visionary leadership, they possess a clear and compelling vision for educational excellence and/or adept at inspiring others to work towards that vision. Strong communication skills, educational expertise, data driven decision making, financial management skills, empathy and emotional intel swrens, community engagement, commitment to equality, collaborative leadership, resilience and adaptability, innovative thinking and commitment to professional development. Those characteristics, talents and aspects describe this superintendent to a tee. and I don't think you need ai to tell you that. It's been a long time that I've worked in this strict -- district and I've

174seen a lot of superintendents come and go, I've seen a lot of boards come and go and I have long hoped that we would have a superintendent of this quality in this district and we finally do. And the fascinating thing to me is that while public education is under attack, we are still the best game in town. We educate children better than anybody else. Our teachers are the best, our school leaders are the best and they continue to be. We have an opportunity here in broward to again be a national leader in educational innovation, this superintendent knows thousand get us there and so does this board so I'm very helpful you extend his contract today and you take that into consideration. Just want to take a moment on the issue of school enrollment. I completely

175concur with what MS. Fusco said today, my element ray school had 300 kids, my high school had about 600. Small schools are where inknow -- innovation can really occur, if the school didn't cover up the fact that we were booming in term of the housing market, we'd be at these levels. Broward has been at these levels for many years without question. So, I think the advice to take this slow, to really look at each individual school and make decisions about how that school might best contribute in the community that it's in is wise counsel. So, thank you for ur time today,y,I I apprprecia it very muchch ani dodo hopepe yowiwill approve the susuperintende contctct extension. Thank you. thank you so much. And speaking of that, we are going to move to item bb1 as it

176is a special order at noon, so can I have a motion and second to bring bb1 to the floor? It's been moved by MS. Leonardi and second by MS. Rupert. Is there any public on bb1? sorry, I forgot we needed a short recess so that superintendent -- we're going to take a one minute recess. (Meeting in recess). thank you, and we will start with our first public speaker. the first two up is going to be kim beverly morhorn and kimberly grant, after that we'll have DR. Natalie lynch-walsh and executive director lisa maxwell. so, this is the superintendent contract, so I would tell the board when you are looking at the contract and you're discussing it, does this person make children first? I know the btu PRESIDENT Talked about making children the priority, I've been an

177advocate about making kids a priority and majority of the times you guys have your conversation on the dais, it's all administrative and while it MAY affect the kids externally but directly I feel like we need to have someone at the helm who make kids a priority and if DR. Superintendent hepburn is that person, then you make sure that you provide the best contract to keep him here. I know some of the hinges -- things in the contract has some things of where he leaves, if you have someone who lives in da id county or palm beach county t part of that where he live ins broward county, you should lift. E -- lift it. I should you should be allowed to live, as long as he's 30-0 minutes out, that should be sufficient. My experience

178with him has always been a positive experience, based on our conversations, I feel like we opuses the kidsfirst, if this contract negotiation is because we want to make sure we keep stability in the district, I think it's a great move. We have had several superintendents in a short period of time and it does show a a great disservice to our community, so if the maintenance and priority of our kids, I'm all for it, so thank you. MS. Maxwell had already spoken, next is sarah and PRESIDENT Marsha alison is after. good afternoon, everyone, laurie salarola, south florida, I -- it's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. I usually don't to this, I felt compelled to speak on behalf of superintendent hepburn, I want to speak in support of who I believe is exactly

179the kind of leader she need for our schools and our community. DR. Hepburn has an unwavering commitment to excellence, a fresh culture of accountability. He isn't just focus oned making the district better than before, he is focused on making it the best. In his words for the first time in a long time, it's a superintendent whose words are matched by his action. Under his leadership websinger ear seeing a renewed emergency and momentum, educators are engaged, partners feel valued and for the first time in a long time and I have been working with the district probably over 20 years, there's a sense of alignment and possibility and hope across the district for our children. One of the things I like most about DR. Hepburn's appreciation of partnership, he knows schools cannot thrive in isolation, they flourish

180when surrounded by a strong, connected community. It's been a long time since I've seen a superintendent who's so authentically welcomes collaboration and recognizes the values that others and other organizations can can bring to the table. Both myself and junior achievements board and our entire team look forward to building the best school district alongside DR. Hepburn and the school board. I would like to lever you with something personal. When I joined ja ten years ago, we were struggling financially and our brand was weak. The board wasn't sure I could turn things around, I was an unknown to them. But in that first year, we started to see a shift. We had some early wins, we built a clear vision and the board from there on forward built -- placed their trust and confidence in me, together

181we have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. Today I'm asking you, our school woeeder, to recognize the poz tier changes already taking shape under DR. Hepburn's leadership and to make sure going forward, that we work together to build the best school district possible. Thank you. up next is PRESIDENT Marsha alison and PRESIDENT Of the btu, anna fusco, you're next, if you have some more words to share. thank you, MADAM Chair, members of the board, I too don't do this generally speaking, but on behalf certainly of our CHAIRMAN Of the board, MR. Leon russell, our present ceo, derrick johnson, our 64 members of the national board of directors and all of the members of our local branch, I was compel and had excited for the opportunity to come and share a few minutes in this space

182and I was elated to learn from the media that you were going to to this to make sure that we kept certainly this leadership in place and this superintendent and we're all about proving leadership and we make sure we are fat driven and we know the district went to under this superintendent, became an a district not since 201 1st limb baiting the other slaloms but that didn't pried me because we had an opportunity not just the naacp but other parents and organizations had an opportunity to meet and work with this superintendent prior to him taking the helm and in every meet, every conversation it was about what was best for our student and is school leaders maiming this district an a rated school district, what we could do as a commune, as a district to

183make it better and make sure our chirp have certainly a high quality public education and that has not changed. We talked about stability and strategic vision, we have to have vision, this is a big ship, so under this superintendent, we've certainly had steady leadership through some times have been tough of this transition and guiding the district with a bold long term strategic plan has been vital to this big ship we're trying to go, making sure the resources are in place, that school realignment is tough, not everybody agrees but we understand, we had an opportunity to have those conversations with the parents and making sure that anybody who wanted to get the information to weigh in, that was imperative to make sure that we were able to be included, transparency certainly is important and we talk

184about wha community partnerships. This superintendent has certainly strengthened our partnership but has also rebuilt and built partnerships and it is more difficult to rebuild than to build because once something has been destroyed or it's been damaged, it's very difficult to make sure that you rebuild that relationship and that goes to not only the parents and the community but also to our local municipal leaders, to our state legislators, to our national leaders, both elected and otherwise, and so we know that that advocacy is important and vital to the mission that we have and just know we've had an opportunity to vote in support of this superintendent today. we have anna fusco and alicia to close us up. good afternoon, anna fusco, broward teachers union, I am speaking on behalf of DR. Hepburn, I do have a

185good relationship with him, I try today build it when he was our deputy superintendent, one thing is he'sing excellent at staining my calls, returning my calls. I try not to call thim as much as I can but he knows when I'm clinging him, it's because other leadership is not answering the phone, we do have a common goal of we were goipg to make it to the a rate and had stay the a rated and even though I'm speaking on his behalf, you know, I'm still going to be the union PRESIDENT, I'm still going to do anna fusco, I supported our other superintendent ins the past, they know when I don't agree with something, I'm going to say it and we're going to work through it and I give him credit he's learned to understand me,

186there's still some time to get to know me more because I have different positions about me of where I have to the take a stance when I have to take a stance and I'm never wavering from that and I have to agree with that whole stipulation you need to live in broward to be able to work in broward, I call bs, let's not do that to anybody, it's cumbersome to drive around broward let alone to say you have to live here to figure it out because you can live in dade and get a route here and get quicker, rather than be in broward county, he's responsible, educated he was a n a district is that was a rated for a long time, I got great kings -- conversations from the previous PRESIDENT There, they've all

187worked with him. It's not like they knew him as this top leader. They had a chance to work with him as a colleague and he's grown up in the ranks and they said he is what he is and I've seen it so far so I'm asking you guy tosing make sure whatever the agreements that you guys have come into and that you guys supported, you take trust in the chair that debbie hixon did her due diligence in making sure they brought forward and let's support the superintendent websinger eve seen it where other boards have not supported the superintendent but then you expect them to thrive. If they get support, guess what happens, if we support our students, the same thing, they're going the thrive, so support him so he can support our admin and our

188schools and our admin can support our educator ins our schools and you're going so see us thrive and I agree, he had to come in and rebuild a lot of relationship and is that is harder than build ago relationship because you're like t the thing is broke, how am I going fix it, and to do that and bring other avenues in to have it happen shows some great tenacity, integrity sx, for right now, we're seeing he's doing an amazing job, we're committed to doing an incredible job and I want to be part of that solution. and our final speaker, mayor? I'm felicia bunson, city of west park and I serve as PRESIDENT Over the broward league of cities so I'm here today in support and I just wanted to share that through the broward league

189of cities, one of the defining qualities that we saw from DR. Hepburn was his desire to just listen and so we got all of the elected together across broward county, through the broward league of cities and he sat down and he listened, he listened to the good, the bad, the ugly and everything and we were able be open and honest with him and share those experiences and share those concerns from our constituents, so for that, we are thankful and because of that, some agreed, some didn't agree, but we were able to foster aonbacker an open line of communication, so for that, we're thankful, we were able to build trust and klab collaborate and share our concerns on a a consistent basis, again, whether good, bad or indifferent and it is our hope and desire that

190you support and allow him to continue the good works so we MAY continue working with him to make broward even better, thank you. thank you very much. Okay, and so we will move on to board discussion and I will start since I brought the item forward, just a quick summary. The superintendent's contract -- aisle just remind people why it is that we're here, it said in the contract it needed to come back to us by the end of his first year which APRIL believe it or not, he'll have been here a year already, for us to look at the superma jor, o so the superintendent did say things since we were opening the contract to discuss that, that he would like to negotiate, so thank you to the board for allowing me the opportunity to

191negotiate with the superintendent and there were not a lot of major things, some minor things, it depends on how you look at it, that the superintendent asked for and so we're here now with the contract that we negotiated for the board to decide whether they want to make any motions to change it or if we'll just move forward. So, I think MS. Batista did a really good job of sending us a chart that kind of explained all the changes. I'll go over them as much as I can remember. I think the biggest one was he decided he was not going to seek the super majority, so that is not on the table anymore. He did ask for us to not require him to move to broward county which then allowed some of the money that

192was in the contract to be freed up because he wouldn't need the moving expenses and things of that nature. He did ask for a contract extension and he did ask for it to go through 2030 which would be five years from the date that we sighed or from the day JUNE of 2030, he did ask for some tweaks in the retirement contributions which is really what you see as the additional funds that are listed on the executive summary and a way to tweak that was to reduce some of the other things that he was getting in his original contract. So, MS. Batista, if you want to add anything to that, but again, thank you for the opportunity, colleagues, to negotiate this and I look forward to a great discussion and landing in a good place

193for DR. Hepburn's contract to move forward. thank you, MADAM Chair, I think you summarized it pretty good. tr. -- DR. Holness? so, I echo a lot of the wonderful comments from the audience regarding DR. Hepburn. we've heard from the broward teachers union PRESIDENT, MS. Fusco, has a lot of poz tier things to say and it's great that that relationship is in tact. We also heard from the naacp PRESIDENT, MADAM PRESIDENT marsha alison, in support of our superintendent. Now what I say is since DR. Hepburn came on board, we can confidently say we do not have any d's or f schools. I know in my district alone, we had five d's and two f schools, the only two f schools in the entire county. So, I knower -- know this is a concerted effort with staff

194but it is under his leadership and we became an a rated school district under his leadership. We have the transformation office which has seen major improvement on our schools that have performance concerns. We've seen improvement in our overall district culture, he's a genuine individual, he's responsive to me and the other board members and to the community. And he listens very well. Now I've seen improvement as well and ongoing improvement in customer service across our schools. Our superintendent h ips goes to different schools just to see what customer service is like to work to improve it. i've seen him as schools when I visit, he would stop and pick up a paper off the fwround, tla's the kind of person he is, that's the person he is, he leads by example. And he's responsive, I've seen

195ongoing effort tos improve our facilities, so I am asking the board regarding the item about moving that that is unnecessary because he's here as far as I'm told 7:00 almost every morning and earlier, right sx, he leaves at night oftentimes. I mean, he is completely dedicated. I wouldn't even know he's not from broward if I didn't, I would think he's in broward because of his commitment and his education and because of his love for broward schools. I think we have a great superintendent, I think a lot of counties would want a guy like this and we want to keep him. Now, in addition to that, he's appreciated by the community as you heard from the naacp PRESIDENT, marsha alison, he has attended numerous community events. He has held many community events as well on behalf

196of the school district. We are in a much better financial position because we were concerned about about fund balance and so on and he's brout ononms. Jojososon johnhnson ththat ilill -- I believe we will probably have no longer ways about fund balance hopefully by the end of this year. And what was mentioned about partnerships, he is great on that. There's so many great things and if we have a great person, we need to keep that person. So, MADAM Chair, I want to ask a few questions. I know that we had given DR. Hepburn a bonus because of achieving the a rated that was ten thousand dollars. That was donated by him to the broward education fund dashing. I think that deserves a round of applause. So, when you look at a guy like this, I

197am going to -- I know his base salary when he started was 340 thousand. I know DR. Licata started with 350 thousand, is that correct? MS. Batista? yes, that's correct. and DR. Cart wright, do we know what that was? MS. Batista? I think there was a follow-up recently and I believe her amount was 340. Rjtszbacker so I believe when we offered DR. Hepburn the 24 as opposed to the 350 that was offered to DR. Licata, I believe that was with respect to his experience at that time sx, he has proven what he can do, I am going to in addition to what's here make a motion to bring his base salary to 350 thousand which is just an additional ten thousand. Am I able to do that? DR. Holness, if you look in the executive

198summary, because of the 3% increase that all employees got, his salary moving forward is 350 thousand 200. I'm aware of that but that was earned through normal increases. right, but if you make it 350, it would be less, he's making 350, 200 now. well, the 3%, I would want to stay in place as far as his raise but to add 10 thousand to his base salary. I think he's asking 350 before the 3% okay, so MS. Batista, can you speak to that. so, DR. Holness, just to make sure that we all understand, so you're asking that the base salary before the 3% raise be raised to 350? correct, instead of 340. and the 3% be on top of the 30 350 ? right, because the 3% is an increase that employees normally receive, that would

199not be base salary, right. So, I I'm requesting his base salary be increased for the thousand for the wonderful performance, the reason we started him as 340 was we were concerned about his experience and what he can do, now that we know what he can do, so I'm suggesting now we offer him a base salary of 350 and provide the 3% of the 350. so, you're able to make that motion and I need to correct myself in the follow-up that was provided by the budget department, DR. Cartwright's base salary was 350. DR. Cartwright's was 350, DR. Licata was 350, I'm suggesting now that this superintendent has proven himself, has shown us he is do the job, the concern was his experience before, that we make his base salary lateral to the last couple of superintendents

200we've had and move that to 350 and provide 3% of that, I think it's a fair request. is there a second to the motion? it's been moved by DR. Holness, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there a second on the motion? anna fusco, broward teacher union PRESIDENT, I know there were negotiations between the superintendent, his attorney and chair hixon, so when they got to this point, the salary part I'm sure it was agreed upon. I think if there could be clarification. Everybody that got the 3%, that's for this school year which was the salary he's already making so, when they get into negotiations for this extended contract, if we can clarify the date and what that salary moving forward would be before the 3%, I think we need a little more clarity and was this DR.

201Holness speaking on his own and so forth. I think there needs to be some more conversation on it. It's a few thousand dollars here, more and there, I think just taking phone calls from anna fusco t the btu PRESIDENT Warrants to make sure his salary can be compensated to take care of business because I'm telling you right now, anna fusco's not wavering from the PRESIDENT You all know, just making that clear. so, DR. Fulton, can we have staff maybe address that. So, if his salary right now because the 3% kicked in already, so his salary right now if I'm not mistaken is 350, 200, so DR. Holness' is asking for an additional 10 thousand, that would be 360 thousand 200, is that correct? right, I'm asking for an additional 10 thousand to increase his base

202salary and then the percentage of his -- they already got the raise. it would be 360, 500, chair, just so you know. okay, 360, 500. [Inaudible] that's kind of my question, MS. Batista, can we -- there was a contract that was in place with the 340 and the 3% already went in. Can we go backwards and increase that salary and then give the 3% or should it just be an additional 10 thousand moving forward? I think we're adding a lot of extra layers in here for a couple of hundred dollars. DR. Fulton? I'm going to have MS. Johnson weigh in on some of the complexities we're hearing right now. if I MAY -- all the staff have not received payment of the 3.% and the superintendent has not been paid the 3% yet so, this

203adjustment could be made before we pay out the 3% increase. that's fine. so, but I think the legal question I'm asking is the contract is moving forward, so I guess MS. Fusco's point is what is today the date na the salary would change or would it be the next fiscal year because if it's the next fiscal year, it would -- you know, the 350 would stand until the fiscal time, so I think -- with you just clarify that. right, and I think that's really something to ask the maker of the motion, but it sounds like for the last year, the salary of the superintendent was 340 thousand. When you have a raise that is given across the board to all the employees, your base salary increases to whatever that amount is times the 3%. So,

204right now the base salary for the superintendent is considered to be 350 thousand 200 going forward. So, the question would be would you like to -- is the motion that the superintendent make that amount -- the additional 10 thousand for the coming year, not retroactively to the beginning of last year, is that correct? so, MS. Batista, if there are significant complexities to make it happen for the past year, then I am okay for this to happen in subsequent years, but I think -- so, if it creates a lot of issues to go back and redo the past year, then I am okay to modify my motion for subsequent years because we are approving the superintendent to be extended to 2030. So, I am willing to make that adjustment to the motion but going forward, I

205would love to see his base salary minus the raises match the previous superintendent. okay. I mean, I understand what MS. Johnson said, I think to go back and change now not only -- it's not about the 3%, it's about the fact that the superintendent's salary also has sol connection to the benefits that he's receiving, so then we would have to go back and change all of that as well. so I modify my motion for the upcoming year. is that something that the superintendent would accept? we can ask him? good afternoon, once the motion is approved, DR. Hepburn is able to consider anything you have for him. to clarify, your motion is moving forward his salary would be 360 thousand 200 dollars because you add 10 thousand to what it is right now. yes, it would

206reflect the increase of the base salary. MS. Thompson? . Inger MS. Batista just mentioned it affects other benefits so how much would it end up costing, is there a way to figure that out? MS. Johnson? I would have to do the calculations but it would be a minimum increase in the benefits cost because it's based on percentage. okay. DR. Zeman? 4339 dollars tla,'s plus the 10, that's the compensation. Are we still in open session, we're talking about the 10 thousand dollar motion? yes websinger ear -- we're op the motion. Er I wanted, chair, to direct comparisons as we consider this. Our county administrator and again all public records, monica's base salary is 461, superintendent in los angeles unified school district, more years of experience, certainly a lot more years being superintendent, the gold standard by

207many folks assessment, alberto, his base is 440, so good numbers to keep in mind. I think to DR. Holness's point, I understand the intent here. It is not uncommon an executive compensation to have adjustments based on experience, largely because you want to have room to give increases for I'm hoping 20 more years of DR. Hepburn, right. So, when you accelerate it earlier in a a career than other exec tiers might have gotten, you get to a cap where the public start tos look at the salary and say why are you doing this. The other point I think is just important about this particular nrum is with the additional benefit negotiated with the chair for tax deferred income, so a 30 thousand dollar increase toward his retirement count, that gets you roughly a 9.2% raise in

208compensation. That in the face of us looking at very significant budget reductions this year is a lot. I did not recalculate what another 10 thousand would be, but the only mitigating factor is I think that we want to make sure we can continue to give him raises every year to compensate him for his growth and experience and make sure he's incentivized to stay here forever and then the fact there's already 9.2% baked in from last year to this year, we gave teachers a 3% raise this year, that means we'd be giving the superintendent three times what we gave the teachers and I know the community has some sensitivity to that as well. thank you, any other comments on the motion? MRS. Leonardi? thank you. And I appreciate the points has were raised about the salary

209of the county administrator and I think it's important to note that broward schools is the largest employer in broward county, the superintendent oversees an organization of 30 thousand employees, 200 thousand students, something that has probably the largest impact on broward county's economy. So, that stark difference in salary between the superintendent and other executives in the public sector is rather shocking. At the same time, I appreciate the point that was made about comparing our teacher raises to that of what we're discussing. I think these matters are so complicated and, you know, we talk about these are small numbers in comparison but to a teacher, a 4 thousand dollar or 10 thousand dollar number is life changing and a lot of our employees wouldn't see that kind of increase even in five years. So, I'm feeling very

210conflicted because I do truly believe that superintendent hepburn has been excellent for this district and has been refreshing and brought the stability but also the focus on mission to this district and I think as we move forward in the next few months, we're going to have some difficult conversations regarding budget, so yeah, I would like to hear from more of my colleagues on this motion because the it is so complicated and nuanced. thank you. I'll just weigh in. I think it's prudent to bring up the fact that DR. Hepburn did not ask for an increase in his salary and I believe that's probably because he understands what DR. Zeman, MS. Leonardi and I'll bring up now also, we have employees that are seeing minimal raises and not that we don't -- we wish we could

211give everybody a 10% raise and maybe some day soon we'll get there, but I think it's -- it is complicated, but I think he was very -- I don't know this, I would guess he was intentional in not asking for a salary raise because he was cognizant of how that felt because he's been in the mix of all of our employees and hearing the strife and the teachers and the buses drivers, so, I'm sure he would appreciate it and I don't think that if we say no, it isn't that we don't appreciate him but we're in a very difficult place in terms of our finances and maybe we could look at the contract next year and see where we are with our funds and what it looks like so we could bring everybody up, but

212I know that our community, our teachers, our paraprofessionals, our bus drivers, our custodians, they're all going to look at this and think, well, what about my value, and I know it's one person so it's much easier to do that, to give them raises but we look at that when we look at the h items, somebody because of the way the contract is written automatically gets a 4 thousand dollar raise and it's difficult as a board member to explain that to someone and as a former teacher, it was hard to swallow when I was a teacher and getting a $500 raise maybe during the school year, so as much as I very much appreciate DR. Hepburn and he knows that, he answered my call on a sunday morning because thereafter bus issue with special olympics this

213weekend, 7:30 in the morning, you know, he definitely -- and MRS. Paul, it's not that he doesn't deserve it. I just think he was intentional in not asking for it. I think it will not go over well for a lot of our employees and I just find that maybe now isn't the best time because we are compensating him more in other places, so, I guess that's where I'm landing here. MS. Bulman? thank you, chair, and this is something I was going say just in my general comments, but -- and I appreciate my colleagues' concerns and I think there is a distinction though between, you know, many of the other jobs and everybody is very important, but this is an incredible responsibility and so the fact that he's even chosen to be anbacker in education and

214he's here sitting here leading us is amazing. He could be doing anything right now with his skills, so I don't think you're comparing apples to oranges when you're looking at the value that he's bringing to our district, to the morale of our district, the people he's brought into our district. I don't really have a comment on the 10 thousand dollars per se, I don't know if we can put a price tag on it but I don't think we can underestimate the value and just the vast responsibility that he has that I think is distinguishable from basically anybody else that's working for this district. MRS. Alhadeff? thank you. And I echo MS. Bulman's comments. I think that it's very important that we look at past precedent, past superintendents and what those salaries looked like and they

215were at 356, 350, 350, and I think that's where DR. Holness is coming from to bring DR. Hepburn up to the 350 or now the 360, 10 thousand more, and if you look on the fiscal impact, there's things that he is not -- he's not getting which is the 15 thousand for moving expenses, so I'll just stop at that point right there, so I'm in agreement with the 10 thousand. You know, at 3:00 in the morning when the phone rings, it's our superintendent that's answering the phone. It's the weight of this district is on his shoulders. And we're so lucky to have DR. Hepburn here being the superintendent for our school district and one thing I wrote down in my paper was stability, stability, stability. And DR. Hepburn is the one that is creating that

216for our district because we were on a rockcky papa anand he has guid us an I support the motion. thank you. MADAM Chair? yes. If no one else want tos speak, I want to make a final -- great, wrap us up for the motion. Er I do agree with board member bulman and I also agree with board member alhadeff. I think the 10 thousand is a small token of a gesture of how much we appreciate him because I know when I first got here, it was pretty chaotic. We had a lot of issues. We wanted to be an a district, we are, we wanted to get ri of d's and f schools, we got rid of them. We wanted to improver customer s frs, we've done that, we wanted to address our school that is

217are low performing, he's done that and I don't know if we should be having any inhibition regard ago 10 thousand dollars that would be lateral to the previous superintendent, to DR. Cart wright, to DR. Licata, I think this is our way of saying thank you and that now that we know you have gotten results, you have shown results, we're going to bring you to the price of the other superintendents, I think that's what we're saying. And we are not -- we're not comparing apples to apples here. I think that if the board makes this decision, it's a gesture of appreciation for this superintendent to say we thank you. And there's no dollar amount on it as board member bulman says because this man has done so much. But I think this is a small gesture

218from us in the right direction to say we recognize what you have contributed to this school district and we want to keep you and we want to express our gratitude so I'm asking the board, it's 10 thousand dollars for so much we've gotten in return, to vote yes on this. To vote yes on this because my conscious will not allow me to do otherwise. So I'm asking everyone to please support it. thank you. Okay, all those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. no. roll call. school board members holness? yes. Er leonardi? no. rupert? no. thompson? yes. zeman? no. alhadeff? yi. bulman?Frjts yes. fam? yes. hixon? no. 5-4, it passes. okay, thank you so much, back to the regular item, so, next up is MS. Thompson. thank you, chair,

219I just wanted to echo -- I'm sorry to interrupt chair, you have to ask if they accept, I believe. I'm sorry, DR. Hepburn, do you accept the additional 10 thousand dollars plus benefits? [Inaudible]. Er okay, thank you, board, and it was intentional he didn't ask for the raise and he understands the different dynamic and is sensitivity of the issues you all have discussed and he wanted to leave it up to the board to decide based on his past performance. He does accept the motion and does accept the 10 thousand dollar raise with the additional benefits. thank you very much. Okay, fwaok -- back to the item, MS. Thompson. I wanted to echo the community sentiment and the public speakers that came and spoke about the impact DR. Hepburn's had to our district. I think we

220all know that we are about to face an extremely difficult situation for public education and I can't imagine anyone else at the helm to lead us through this. I think with DR. Hepburn's attention to our community, to valuing board member's input, to manage the different personalities on the board, there's no better person to do that. And I also want to repeat again that he got a bonus and he donated it directly back to our students. Who does that? That's amazing. That is something that is leading by example that he didn't have to do. I don't think any of us would have second guessed if he bought a new boat. I don't think he can buy a boat for ten thousand dollars, but that and new fishing poles, and I just again want to echo that

221I think he is the person that's going to lead us through redefining, who if we have to make the challenging decisions, he's going to make sure the community is listened to, and I also want to echo he sticks up for his staff which I think is something that has not happened in this district for quite some time. And making sure that staff feel valued but also still challenged. There's a delicate balance of making sure staff are protected but also that they are held accountable to the decisions they're making. I'm incredibly impressed by the team he's tomorrow -- forming and is leading and I hope you're with us for as long as I'm on the board, that's it, thank you. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? yes. I did have a couple of questions, the medical exam, it

222was zero, giving back 3500, is that because it's covered under his insurance? MS. Batista? yes, I believe so. he'll still be doing the annual medical exam? yes, I believe so. perfect. And in regards to the exec -- exec tier, that is a 0 with 10 thousand dollars giving back, why is that? MS. Batista? once the financial information came back after the negotiation, I think it was higher than the superintendent had anticipated and so he also made some adjustments to other parts of the contract to make sure that it would not be that large of an impact to the district from a financial -- he still has the executive training? so, the executive training is not going to be in addition to the training that he already -- the conferences he already attends, it's not going

223to be an extra ten thousand. okay, I understand. And then as far as the attorney fees, from my understanding, I know he is the sitting superintendent, and any time the superintendent or anybody up here would need to have counsel, that those attorney fees would be paid for. And I see that that is not the case here. so, I mover too add to pay up to 5 thousand dollars for his attorney fees. second. . it's been moved and seconded to pay the attorney fees, is there any public comment on the motion? Okay, board discussion? I'll just say it was something he asked for and in discussion when MS. Batista and I caucused on it, it is expected in the initial negotiations but we didn't ask for this negotiation, he did, so we made a decision not

224to include the attorney's fees because it's not something the board initiated, DR. Hepburn asked us to open this up so we could renegotiate his contract and that was why -- and he said, you know, okay to that negotiation when we were discussing it, so that's why it was removed, just so you know. MS. Leonardi? thank you. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly. Was -- I thought it was in the initial contract that we would be opening this up to address the super majority vote within a certain amount of time. so, I think it was to come back for a vote, it wasn't necessarily to renegotiate his contract. He asked since it was coming back for a vote anyway, could we actually negotiate, so that's -- if I'm not mistaken. got it. Did we -- I thought

225I recalled a vote to authorize you as chair to negotiate, am I correct in that? yes. okay. at DR. Hepburn's request. got it. And I would just argue, you know, the it is typical that the superintendent would not negotiate the contract himself, that he would have an attorney at his disposal so I'm happy to support this motion. DR. Zeman? thank you, chair. His attorney's done a great job. And he stands without legal fees of getting an 11.6% raise and that's tremendous. I haven't had a chance to make opening round comments about his leadership, I hope to do that in the future, chair, DR. Hepburn negotiated for a 30 thousand dollar increase, he graver that and fwa ifr up legal fees, he graver up the exec tier training, isn't going use the moving expense and is

226is going to make up the medical exam, that gives him an 111.6% raise. I can't support any more poz tier changes that we give him and stand behind teachers at 3%, so I'm glad he's kind of proven his wisdom by having counsel through these negotiation, it's a great choice for him to make but I can't support any more poz tier adjustments to his compensation. thank you, MADAM Chair, when we were negotiate thing settlement with vicky car wright, I thought it was unusual she didn't have attorney's fees included in her contract and then we offered them to pay the attorney fees at the end, so I don't think we should make it routine of providing attorney's fees when we're negotiating for someone that we're letting go because we feel -- MS. Fam, we have to focus

227on this contract. I'm saying are these fees we're talking about, would this be in the event that the superintendent was released because -- we can't even answer that right now because -- you're seeing attorney fees for anything -- we'd have to renegotiate that again. I would like to get clarification when possible. MS. Batista? I'm sorry, I'm not sure what the question is. MRS. Fam was asking about would if we agreed to pay these fees now, would it automatically be paid if we were in additional negotiations for what -- we'll call it for whatever reason because I don't want to put that into the atmosphere. r for discharge or for an average situation against the board and the superintendent. so, attorney's fees and any other provisions on any contract are negotiated contract by contract and on

228a situational basis, in a case by case. then I would be opposed if that's what these funds could be used for. dually noted, thank you. Anybody else on the motion? Okay. Go ahead. I believe this just says a one-time attorney fee, right, would that be the motion, one-time? Okay. Thank you. okay. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. No. roll call. school board members rupert? no. thompson? no. zeman? no. alhadeff? yes. bulman? yes. fam? no. hixon? no. holness? yes. leonardi? yes. fails 4-5. thank you. Back to the original item, so, people are still talking about it. MS. Leonardi? yeah, I just wanted to give brief remarks on it to tell two quick stories. One, I to have to say temperamentally DR. Hepburn is very calm, he's the steady

229hand nor district and at first I was perplexed, I wasn't sure how to read him because he's always so calm on what's going on. The one time I have seen him emote really is when we were talking about repurposing and broward estates and it wasn't because we were getting yelled at or anything, it was because he was so passionate about the early learning center for children. The only times I have ever seen him really get fired up is when he's talking about kids and what's good for kids and I think that's really indicative of who he is deep in his soul and why he's right for this district. And the other quick story i wanted to tell, I was at a dinner with some first and second year teachers, we were talking about good leadership

230and what characterizes good leadership and I kept on combining back to DR. Hepburn. I think they thought that was a little weird, but I'm so appreciative and so relieved to have such a calm and steady hand leading this district forward but also someone who's focused on the mission and gases oals -- goals of this district, we've had so much chaos and turmoil for so long and I feel like we can breathe a sigh of relief, not that we don't have difficult decisions and a hard journey in front of us but I really do trust that the leadership that DR. Hepburn brings to this district and his team who you can tell really believe in him and are not trying to undermine him but really trying to support the work he's doing, I feel like we're

231finally heading in a good direction so, thank you for staying with us. thank you. And DR. Zeman? thank you so much. I'm sure you're wondering what I'm going to say, DR. Hepburn. It's all good, except I heard him share motions with me for fishing, there's few stories for him and several stories for me because I have a bit more time thankfully. But you're nr the most important job in broward county and not just because of the economic development and the size of our facilities and our staff, because you hold the future of broward county in your hands. And in my four decades since college, I've learned a few things about leadership. And it comes down to really two things. Can you generate positive outcomes and do you recruit people to come behind you to make

232sure we'll perpetuate the greatness we've experienced so far. In both measures, you're exemplary, when I look people sit ining the front row and count the one that is you recruited and there are people that recruit folks but they don't recruit talent like this. This talent is exciting and you've only been here a year and with this front bench and with everyone working behind that front bench, any investor would be buying your stock. Any vc would come here and say look at broward county public schools, I'm in. We have 43c rated elementary schools, I can't wait to see what we're at, at ten of this year, largely because of the leadership team working on the things that matter the most to us strategically. We are a learning and education institution and that's what you focus the

233team on, there are things that you do for mental health, the social emotional learning too, athletics to whole person development, however you want to describe it, the person who sit ins that chair is the most important person to the welfare of broward county. MS. Alhadeff talked about the weight on your shoulders, it is amazing, do you know how much 1300 square miles and 2 million people weigh, it's a lot, and thank you for carrying it so well. To MS. Leonardi's point, I don't know how he's so calm. I've seen him get animated in one on one b meetings but not so much in public so I appreciate that. But I also want this board for those of us who was here two years ago to reflect on the immense risk we took, how many months

234of searching time did we spend trying to find the next superintendent? How many days, how many hours, minutes, none, out with the old, in with the new and boy were we taking huge risks. Sometimes with great risk comes great reward, I would say that is this case. i have to tell you, I was scared to death. I loved him buzz I was still scared to death when you make the motion to move quickly to him, but you have made us all look incredibly wise in the recruiting of you. Can we do better, you keep saying we can so I'll say the same, I think we can get better, our speed is still slow to the community, our agility is still lacking, our commitment to building the greatest school district in the country, sometimes shake their

235head and say, really, look what I saw yesterday, data informed decision making, our inability to ingest ai into this county, there are certainly things we can and we will do better but I'm optimistic about those things and optimistic that you love the red. For people that don't understand loving thing red light, if you have a red, yellow and green light for scoring something, most people run to the green and he want to tell you how great they are and things they're great at and DR. Hepburn is always focusing on the areas in which we can get fwet better, fur loving the red and everything you've done for my community after 61 years of running around this place, I can tell you in the last 12 months, as a community, it has gotten better and you

236contributed more to improving my county than anybody else the in the whole county, so thank you very much. thank you, MRS. Rupert? thank you. What I can say about DR. Hepburn is that he leads with his heart and when he gives you his word, he sticks with it and that's a leader we were sorely missing for a while and the chaos ensued so I'm thrilled that it looks like the contract is going through, I believe, and that we're going to have many more years with DR. Hepburn, so thank you so much for taking us on and for holding our hands a little bit when things get bumpy, but I believe in you and that's big, so thank u. tha yosx, llll closose us out aiaining tnknk yoto mymy colleagues for giving me the opportunity to

237negotiate, it was my second time and this went so much better, it was second time that disagreed I didn't give enough money in a contract, thank you for that and I'll echo everything everyone said, DR. Hepburn, we have daily conversations and I appreciate them, I appreciate you, I'm very excited to give the stability to the district through this contract and to give you the stability to know that we want you, we praoesh you and we are looking forward to a lifetime together, so thank you so much for that. It feels that way sometimes, so, lifetime all depends on -- you know whose life it is I guess, so anyway, all those in favor of item bb1 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed? It passes unanimously. [Applause]. DR. Hepburn wanted to say a few words.

238Okay. so, normally my team knows me, I will probably just simply say under normal circumstance, let's just get to work, but first of all, I sincerely thank the board for your faith and trust in me. I really do. I really appreciate it. I was telling MS. Alhadeff when I came in, I was thinking about that faithful morning of that announcement and her willingness to take a risk to appoint me on APRIL 16, 2024, so I remember that day vividly. I don't take this responsibility lightly and I plan to make you proud through my continued work and leadership. While I'm proud of what we've accomplished together, ip there's still much to do, I'm committed to building op our past successes and strengthening relationships with our students, families, businesses, municipalities, and the entire community. We have difficult

239conversations ahead but by working together with transparency, collaboration and a shared focus on students, I know we will make bcps a better, stronger and more resilient district for generations to come. We will be the best in the nation, not the state, not the region, we will be the best in the nation for all kids in broward county public schools and I know that takes us working together collaboratively with all our non-profit organize iterations, our for profit organize says, our municipality leaders, everybody in broward county counts so I really appreciate the support, now let's get back to work. [Applause]. can I have a motion and a second to bring item b5 to the floor. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any public comment on b5? Okay, board discussion, DR. Zeman?

240thanks, chair, I appreciate you call thirsting and I apologize for stepping out for a minute, I appreciate your deference. This item is something that I think that we've kind of brought into our praktsz to make sure when we spend taxpayer money to attend a conference, we come back and share with the same taxpayers what we did and why we spent their money to send us to different places. I've been to two conferences in the last few weeks, one I went on my own out to arizona state university's gsv conference for four day toser learn about ai and emg casing and to learn more about their k-12 report-out from that innovative group. From my haloes that's interested in spending your money and time, I recommend it, it's a mind blowing conference when you think about some

241of the most amazing school ins the country commingling shrining their innovations. It's an expensive conference, it's 4 thousand dollars to walk in the door, so you have to have a commitment to go or a great sponsor, it was absolutely wonderful experience and I'll be able to approach topics we deal with differently because of the arizona state university golden silicone valley conference out in san diego. I wanted to talk a little bit more about florida school board association meet, great organization, great lobbying efforts on them, we were able to meet so many of our elected colleagues from marie wood son, DR. Oz good, I spent a good time talking to hillary and talking to chip about things that mattered in education, impressing them to think hard about the core funding for education that they send to

242each one of the districts. There were 7 of us from the board that went there. I would ask us to think about having a full contingency, go next year to the extent people can attend, I know we've had nine there before and I would also ask us as representatives, elected representatives of broward count di to think hard about our city commission and he iser our mayors joining us as well, we were light this year, we lad 72 people there and the cabinet level people that came to meet with us was representative of that. We have over 200 elected lead necessaries broward county, the more we can get to go through during broward days t more like we we're going talk o the senate represent I ever, the house speak and her the like, it was

243a great conference, we were able to talk directly to the elected leaders, we pressed hard for our agenda which is really important ask&we're using taxpayer money, we are one of nine so we have to go up and represent the agenda that we've all debated and approved and we were able to do that. I wanted to open it up to anyone else that was there tat conference to share things, chair, and then I have a motion afterwards if you would allow me to do that. are there any other comments? MS. Rupert? thank you, it was a great event. It was a little light and as usual, it's competing tents because you have broward days, you have fsba day and is you have rally to tally so there's a lot of hat tos wear while you're up

244there and I am wringing on a report for the greater consortium of school boards. I went back the next week for a day and a half, something like that, we were able to sit down with ideas from that group and the senate presidents and every person that you want and you need to be in the room for and they were very welcoming and really listened and took a fair neutral vision of what we were doing for kids and really understanding what we were asking for, so I will bring that to the next meeting we have so it will be all typed up because I dn finish typing it, but thank you for doing this. anyone else? MS. Thompson? I would really say really quick because I know we have a time certain. I would hope

245staff next time would not have rally to tally and broward days at the same time, it's important that members are up that we can be there with municipalities where rally to tally kind of took our time slots to meet with the important people and I think if we're spending taxpayer dollars, I want to make sure we're using it in the most effective way possible but all in all, great experience. I loved going with the kids and I think that was the best part. MS. Bulman? agreed. Definitely the best part was sharing the experience with our students, seeing how the democracy works and visiting some of our favorite representatives from around the state and I just want to give a shout-tout to the staff that drove on the bus for 7-t hours, they were back with

246the student that is takes a very special temperament and willingness to dive in, they didn't have to do that, it was awesome we have that level of commitment in our district, so, I really enjoyed it as well. DR. Holness? thank you, chair. I certainly enjoyed rally to tally portion with the children, with the kids. It was amazing the kind of questions they had for the different senators, I know we went to several state reps and senators, one being senator oz good and others, and I was amazed at the depth of their concerns and question and is their advocacy and it makes me proud that we have such intelligent, awesome kids in broward county and I have always enjoyed being with them each year, so thank you so much, it was a great experience. excellent. All

247in favor -- I asked if I could speak again, do you mind, chair. go ahead. Er and I'm going ask for your deference on something else. I have a motion to make related to the conference up at fsba but I would tliek make it to the whole board and we're missing a cup ofl member, I would ask if you would be tlog recess the meet toing go to the attorney-kloint and come back to b5 when we're done. do we need to recess or can we table, MS. Batista? yes, you can either table or you can recess I guess in the middle of this item and come back and pick it up at a later -- when we come back. okay. I will recess the meeting -- after I make my announcement for the attorney --

248I have a portion to read and then you have a portion to read, correct? yes. so, board members, I'm advised the general counsel would like to request an attorney session at this time, I please exit the room at this time, MS. Batista? thank you, I would like to request the school board convene an attorney-client session in order discuss litigation pending before the 17th judicial sir caught and n and for broward county florida, lead construction group inc., case number cace24-004955, the following persons will atepid this attorney-client session, school board members debra hixon, chair, sarah leonardi, vice chair, lori alhadeff, maur raoe mccarthy bulman, DR. Jeff holness, nora rupert, rebecca thompson, DR. Alan zeman, DR. Hepburn, superintendent of schools, edward laurel, esquire, and marylin batista esquire bcs in pantsbacker anticipation of this request, the attorney-client session was

249properly advertised for today, APRIL 15, 2025 at 1 P.M. In accordance with section 286.011n.8) Of the florida statutes, the purpose of the attorney-client session is to discuss settlement negotiation and is/or strategy relative to the pending litigation. A certified court reporter will record the session and only those persons noted in the advertisement will be permitted to attend. Thank you, MADAM Chair. I believe it would be about 30 minutes. do we need to rerecess the meeting? yes. Er go ahead and recess the meeting. (Meeting in recess for closed session). thank you, and welcome back to the regular school board meeting and we will finish up with DR. Zeman's b5 report. I'm dope with conference reports but I do want to ask you a question and maybe get some support from the general counsel. When we travel on

250taxpayer funds to do lobbying in tallahassee, are we being sen on behalf of our taxpayers to advocate for the legislative agenda that we approved as a board? MS. Batista? yes. If you're travelering through the school board for the legislative I guess either broward days or the rally to tally, you are going under the auspices of the school board to advocate for the lemg ablative agenda of the school board. and chair, and maybe counsel, what if question -- spend money that do not advocate for the legislative agenda? MS. Batista? so, if the -- if a board member or really any employee of the district that is sent to the school board does whatever it is intended for them to do, they would have to pay for the trip themselves. I mean, that the school board would

251not reimburse them for the trip. thank you, and chair, is reimbursement made when we approve a trip for a board member or is it made when they request an expense reimbursement from the district? DR. Hepburn? I'm going to ask MS. Johnson about reimbursement for the trip. Is it post, the reimbursement for a trip is -- yeah, the board members have p-cards. so, part of it is paid before we go -- it would depend how it's purchaser, if it's on your p-card, they kharmg you when you get the hotel, if you use your personal card, you seek reimbursement after the trip is completed. thank you so much, chair. I observe behavior that's inconsistent with that and I want the public and my colleagues to understand how seriously I feel about spending taxpayer money and advocating for

252what this board does and the character traits we have if broward county, when you request expenses for travel and you fail to advocate for items or you advocate for item e that are not on our list if you ask for ri e rebim usenet, if you make public statement that is does not reflect the consensus of the school board, you are violating thing policy of broward county school bore, you MAY be violating the law. If you're admonished by the chair and senator during the critical criminal committee meeting for what you have done, that's another indication that what you're saying which is not passed by the board is misrepresenting what the board has done in our business. If you engage in conduct that brings disrepute to bro urtd county public schools including misrepresenting our process for

253reviewing books in our libraries, that's a clear vie -- violation of what we have discussed here today. I understand there's a lot of things to police and regulate behavior of elected officials, if I see a government official violating any one of these rules, I'll do everything i can including censure, ethics or even criminal report ifing there's anything that goes on with public money. When we ask the tax pay teaser give us money to go somewhere, we are going with specific intent. And we must come back and say that monies we spent is furthering the benefit of broward county public schools. To go to tallahassee and say something that is abjectly not true and to bring up issues not on our agenda is inconsistent with the way we operate as broward county public schools. If I

254see any kind of behavior like this again, I will do everything I can to make sure that that member is held accountable to the taxpayers, all of our funds must be spent to further what we have in our strategic goals and what I observed is not in that way. Thank you, chair. thank you. All those in favor of item b5, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Next we have a time certain at 2:00 for item b2. So, can I have a motion and a second to bring item b2 to the floor. it's been moved by dr. zeman, seconded by MS. Alhadeff, is there public xhen on the motion? on the item we have 16 registered speakers, ma'am. okay, so based on the fact there's 16 and we have a limit of 30

255minutes, we're going give everybody two minutes to speak. alright, first up on the mic. Is going to be city manager of coral springs, catherine givens, and after shawn sarah, after that will be narnik grant. good afternoon, my name is catherine givens, I have the honor of being the city manager of coral springs and I want to thank the city's unwavering support of our 19 traditional public school ins the city of coral spring sos much we want a partner to be able to have an educational relationship, officer APRIL whites, the positive k ebses she's trying to make and the relationships she's building to be able to there for our traditional schools we believe in. We're here to tack about one particular school and I want to also state that typically and historically for us, reboundary process

256was something that pulled us apart, it was to go and have a conversation with the city of parkland, I appreciate that partnership with them, i appreciate the fact when they saw that our request was to be able to look at any of those seats, that it would have a a priority to be given to those residents that were previously in the c4 area, that is something we had a resolution on, we had a conversation, appreciate the time also with superintendent hepburn, had multiple conversations with our district rep, thank you, as well as chair hixon and really just wanted to be able to speak to the fact that we have gone through this process previouslyfinger -- we're not interested in doing something to putting city against city, everything we tried to do in coral spring iss

257having a strategic regional look as well as make sure that we are listening to our constituents as I know you listen to yours, so we as coral springs are here, I know the city of parklander is here and we also have constituents of yours which MAY be our resident and is yours throughout broward county, listen to them, whatever your choice is, we are a city that will find relationship and find a wi forward to be able to be in the best interest of our residents and your constituents, so thank you. good afternoon, board chair, vice chair, board members, DR. Hepburn, tremendously honored to be back home, shawn, 30 years retired broward county public schools, proud commissioner of coral springs, a couple of years ago we went through a defining moment in our community. It was

258a challenging time for many. We have two great cities that partner in every way, shape or form, great leadership at the highest level, the commission that has a huge heart and a community that wants to put their kids in our schools and really have what they are hoping to have the all american dream and the experience. Our ultimate goal is to keep kids in broward county public schools within the system and like I said, a cup of years a we went through a challenging time flt we've been collaborating with our friends from parkland, I think we have a great vision as to how we can move this forward, with those that are impacted in a neg way or at least in their minds in a negative way, aisle have an opportunity to have first right

259of refusal to have this marjory stoneman douglas opportunity if it presents itself and then moving forward and somewhere down the road have a greater vision of how we can fix this not only in our community with regards to the city of coral springs and parkland but across all 3-1 cities t ultimate goal once again is to make sure these kids have a great learning environment that's safe but also the adults on that property that are working and leading in every way, shape or form to make sure that their educational needs are met and when they go off, they have the opportunity to be great. Thank you for your time, we appreciate your consideration and we look forward to wringing in collaboration with the city of parkland to help our residents. next up we have danielle

260hoffman, rachel con stan teen, -- constantine, [Inaudible], thank you. Sorry. hello, my name is danielle hoffman, I'm asking the board the support b2. This will allow those in c4 the opportunity to open seats at msd without tapering resource from bsps that has been highly supported by the board to help teacher compensation and academic success across broward county. I do believe a friendly amendment to prioritize civilians to take into effect the 25th and 26th academic year is necessary. This will ensure the students impacted by the tumultuous boundary process two years ago are get thing choice to attend msd. As bsps is elevating academics in our district, they prioritize low matriculation school and is help bridge and support the economic gap. As the superintendent stated, he's concerned with the 79 million dollar deficit, I would think it

261would be fiscally responsible the utilize resources in times when there is a solution on the floor that would naot require a long drawn out taxing process, I ask the board to be fiscally responsible and also add the friendly amendment, thank you. I'm not rachel though. Okay, I want to make sure you didn't skip anybody. Sasha from parkland, nror abasing I haoem here to request that you approve the agenda item and give c4 priority registration at msd. I would like to request you make this possible for the 2025-2026 school year along with sibling consideration. By voting yes on b2 avoids a divisive expensive and emotionally draining reboundary process that our communities have encountered. The board's time is better served to retain families, raise test scores and sfai student needs. Not this again especially when the district

262expects to lose another 8 thousand students. There's an entire district out there that needs focusing and to make them great again. We really need to pass them to be able to have reassignment, thank you for your time and consideration. next up we have commissioner jordan israel and commissioner simon briar. good afternoon, MADAM Board chair, board members, DR. Hepburn, thank you for having up, I'm here today also to urge your support for b2, I want to echo our colleagues at coral springs this accidenter process and the reboundary of the process I think took a toll on the communities and only because both communities feel strongly about education and that's the plus here is recognizing we have similarly aligned values. And I also echo their sentiment that by allowing the reassignment preference and priority, it gives the

263students the tun to go back to msd who MAY have otherwise been reassigned from there but also it focuses the efforts of the district on right thing district, put thing the dollars where it makes sense, the demography and all the aspects that go into this, not just the time the community expends for making sure they go through the different boundary issues, but it's important the recognize if the communities are aliened in how we move forward, the best step is to listen o the community and is take their word on it because if the goal here is the pillar of the students, what's best for the students then that should be the focus. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath watt and her look for trying to solve a problem by create

264ago bigger process when in reality this amendment itself or the rule making policy will effectuate the goal that everyone jointly is looking to solve. I thank you for your time and consideration of this, this is something all of us have spent a considerable amount of time on. Hopefully this amendment and this rule making policy allows all of us communities and the district to move forward in an aligned fashion. I urge you the pass it and I agree with the amendment of the siblings, I think thth's fafa, so I woululcocoider at well. Up nextxt cocommsionerer iar r and d nnnn mayor and mayor rich lklker. good afternoon, DR. Hepburn and the board, thank you for having me, I'm also an msd graduate, class of 1993 proudly. We join in support of as my fellow commissioner or

265vice mayor said, we join with the city of coral springs with regards to this agenda item. We agree that there should be prioritization given to those students affected by the boundary change two years ago with regards to available seats at marjory stoneman douglas. Obviously we went through the boundary process two years ago, we do not wish to revisit that process. We want to ensure we continue to stand arm and arm with our city to the south, coral springs and we have a great relationship with, we're fully supportive whether it taoes agenda item or some slight modification of that as long as the students and the affected boundary area get prioritization along with their siblings for the open seats at stoneman douglas, with that we thank you for your consideration and time today and continue to

266thank you for our service to our city and to our county. Thank you very much. good afternoon, rich walker, mayor of city of parkland, congratulations, DR. Hepburn, on your new contract. I also support this amendment and I appreciate our partnership with the city of coral springs, as compare ner sarah shared earlier, I think that relationship is extremely important to us. This amendment includes a reassignment priority designation for students residing in areas impacted by changes in school attendance zoned boundaries. As the district undergoes its resizing, this initiative will have a positive impact. This countywide action will mitigate the potential long term effects of the adjustment throughout the county and will provide more students with choices in the future. As the mayor of a city that recently went through the boundary process two years ago, I understand

267how difficult this period was for our residents in both parkland and coral springs. The stress and strain associated with such changes are significant for families and also this board. The reboundary at msd was essential given both parkland and coral springs are experiencing growth and demographic shifts. This would be a solution I believe both cities of coral springs and parkland would view as an amicable and mutually beneficial. This agenda item will provide preferential treatment to those students a fjt affected by the recent boundary changes sparing them from enduring the challenges process once again and I think adding siblings which I heard earlier today, I think that's a fantastic addition to this proposal. Ultimately this initiative will not only support these students but also grant the entire county greater flexibility as the school board continues to implement

268necessary changes. So, again, I implore you to support this amendment and thank you for everything that you folks do. good afternoon to the board members, board chair, vice chair, superintendent hepburn, congratulations. I echo my fellow commissioners and mayor walker in their comments in support of b2. My name is cindy murphy, I'm a newly elected parklander commission and her both of my daughters graduate framed solemn douglas high school, b2 and the support of it will ensure that those that were previously or at least perceived the negative impact will be supported and will have that priority designation and I do also support the siblings. We need to listen to the voices of our constituents and of course most importantly promote the safe, optimal learning environment. We appreciate your consideration. Thank you. nicole morris. good morning, I'm waiting

269for time. good morning, nicole morris, coral springs. Okay, so, this is foolishness because on FEBRUARY 28, I asked for this to be brought as a priority. I asked for priority to be assigned to the students that were recently rezoned and we were told by the district it could not be done for this year. At the last board meeting, we were told it could not be done so there was a motion or there was -- the board gave consensus to bring back a boundary choice area for the students that reside in c4, there was consensus given, an e-mail was sent out to both cities districtwide, that is what people were assuming was going to happen and this item coming today is political theatre, it's just to override what was given. I've already heard we shouldn't do

270the boundary choice area. We just passed 6400, I absolutely agree we should have priority, absolutely agree. But bringing this back now is just for show. It's just o undo what was just done, having a boundary proposal come in the fall would not create a special process, it would go with all of the other boundary proposals, it would go to a boundary committee. What we didn't get last time was an objective look to a boundary committee, you pitted two communities against each other. There was no one that looked at this from the outside, you all said you were going to give us this boundary choice opportunity, at least keep the opportunity on the table. I spoke to school choice yesterday, there will be sibling priority is already there, you don't have to add it, it's already

271there. It will still put student ins a lottery. If there are no space ins two years, there will be no lottery, the boundary choice area just gives back the 150 seats that you just took from these student and is now you're taking people from the outside, you took 176 seats from them and now you're giving 150 in reassignment, this is foolishness. Thank you. next we have nor dao en wine berger and brook brody. hello, superintendent, board members, name is noer dao en and I'm a coral springs resident who represents concerns of family ins the c4 area. Today I'm requesting implementation of a choice boundary for the c4 area effective for the next possible school year. This boundary would allow parents to choose between marjory stoneman douglas and coral glades high school for their children. The

272request is based on recent history. In 2022, discussions about school boundaries took place during place which lori alhadeff and parkland sited overcrowding, however the fire chief indicated marjory dug douching las was not overcrowded, despite this the boundary changes were implemented. In AUGUST 2023, the principal the month after you redid these boundaries, the principal sent an e-mail requesting to go on school choice one month after you took 150 kids and had all of this hoopla because her enrollment was done and she was going to have to lose teachers. Do what's fair for coral springs, put the kids that you took away with a choice to go back permanently, not half way until they change but permanently with a school choice boundary. Thank you. good afternoon, my name is brook board di and I'm from mrafrndbacker plantation

273which is not twoufn areas affected but I'm here because if a boundary were heaped for my children based on incorrect data and we lost our seats at a school and had our boundary change, I would hope the school board would do the right thing. I don't need notes to date to say that wrong is wrong and it should be fixed. That leadership in this room should correct the mistake that changed the boundary in this instance. You have to question mote vases here today when we have more politicians in the room than parents. I think it's clear this is a political issue and if parkland wants to agree or support to have priority for certain students, it's been repeatedly said by the individuals here today that it is in place of the boundary choice area and

274that is not the directive that the board is supposed to be abiding by right now. The boundary choice area is what should be being brought, and if you want to do priority, that's fine, but again it cannot be in place of, and I'm curious today to see if there's going to be a motion on the floor to substitute the boundary choice area that was already agreed to and supported with this priority assignment, and again, the sub ling, -- sibling, it's a token assigning it to sub ling, so I'm aware of the politicking that's happening ining the room and it's underlie thirsting process. I hope to see the board stick to its initiative and go forward with the boundary process as planned. Thank you. up next we have loretta wallace, commissioner josh simmons and final speaker

275will be latrecia grieves. good afternoon, board members, I'm reading from an e-mail from one of the parents who could not be here today, she had to pick up her child from school at 2:00. Hello, board members, today there's a special b item that is being brought before the board to offer priority to recently rezoned students. It is my understanding as per MS. Wanza it's too late in the year to grant priority and there's no way this will happen, coral springs asked MS. Alhadeff to bring this item in FEBRUARY when it was announced that msb was open for reassignment but she did not. Today's item is for political optics, the intention of this item is to try to negate the consensus the board graver at the last meet toinging bring a choice boundary to I implore

276you not to allow has to happen. A city e-mail was sent out o the district to the residents of parkland and informed them of the choice proposal in the fall and there's no communication stating otherwise since. This is exactly what happened two years ago when the district sent communications out o to the cities telling them there would be in changes to boundaries when that very night they passed a boundary change. This has already been done to the city of coral springs once, please do not do it again. Today we are only singing that you proceed with a directive given to the superintendent to bring a proposal during the normal boundary process in the fall. I am not opposed to adding a priority for school choice but bringing it now when there is no benefit for

277the upcoming year would in fact be asking for a special timeline. Please do not allow political agendas to change the directive given to the superintendent and the expectation from the c4 rezoned community, thank you. Thank you. alright. Good afternoon, everyone, joshua simmons from coral springs, to the chair, vice chair, superintendent, board members, thank you so much for hearing us today. And while I am a politician, I am here on behalf of my resident and is my commissioners that cannot be here today. So, I understand how incredibly difficult your job is, it is not our job to decide these things, it is yours, and for me, I don't know if this item is the one that solves it, I don't know if the boundary choice option is the one that solves it. For me, just being

278a simple constituent in broward county is undoing what was done wrong two years ago. Whatever option gets us to close to that, that's what I want. Those options for families that want to klaoz toe go to the marjory stoneman douglas torx have that option, and not something that gets looked at every year, something permanent so these families in this area feel comfort know whoring they want their children to go to. I'm also concerned with the threshold in terms of when schools tap out accepting reassignments. At what point will the schools stop accepting reassignments, is it 100%, 105, 110, you know there's school ins this district that are overenrolled, does that mean special assignments coming outside of this zone, if that threshold hit ins that school, there l they no longer have the opportunity for some

279issue or reason if fr getting into marjory stoneman douglas, I don't know. This isn't about putting down any other schools, this is about choices. And I want to make sure that those families who made it two years ago, three years ago moved into this area thinking this is where they wanted to go, imagine the family moved there because they wanted to be part of that band tla's at msd, so I'm asking you to decide what is the best decision to make sure these families have that opportunity of choice. good afternoon, [Inaudible], broward county residents, I wanted to ask you to vote no against this item b2 and I'm going to quote that the board as a majority graver the superintendent directives to bring a boundary choices proposal affected by the msd boundary. I'm just going

280to speak from my heart and do a mixture right now. All children matter to me in broward county, north, east, south and west, so I care about all children and what I have an issue with today if you do vote yes on this is that you're not showing all the children and residents of this entire broward county school board district that you care about all of them, not just those with the money, the status or ability to innovate you with e-mails to influence that decision to keep students out of what they feel is their school. you're doing this for them, you're doing it for broward estates. We came here, we asked, you said it couldn't be done, but you'll do it for them. I have an issue with that. A real issue with that. I'm

281watching and I'm listening and holding everyone accountable. I respect your decisions and, chair, I appreciate all that you do as far as listening to the community, those parents cried out the same as these parents crying out for broward estates so I'm asking you as a whole to vote no because I'm watching you're you're not listening about what broward estates wants and watching what happens, so I'm watching everything that you do and I'm holding everyone accountable. Thank you. MADAM Chair tha, concludes our registered speakers. thank you, before we go to board discussion, DR. Hepburn, you wanted to make a statement? yes, so just to clarify unless MS. Batista says otherwise that the item that I was directed to implement which is the boundary change for -- that c4 zone is still applicable because we haven't gone

282through a process to do anything other than that right now. MS. Batista? thank you, MADAM Chair, yes, that is correct. This item in no way negates the direction that the board gave the superintendent at the last board meeting, so both of them can go forward, both items can go forward. thank you, so we'll start with MRS. Alhadeff. so, first of all, I just wanted MS. Batista, can you clarify what you just said? certainly. So, this item that is before the board is to make an amendment to the priority for school choice policy which is policy 6400. The the item that the board directed the superintendent to work on is for the policy which is the boundary policy and that policy, you know, would have to go through the process as we explained at the last

283board meeting of having public participation, having a school boundary committee and going through that process to change the boundary of the school if that's something that the superintendent finds is necessary. okay. I guess I just have problems with you saying that was an agenda item. That was not an agenda item at the end of the board meeting. The board gave consensus to the superintendent, it was not an agenda item. The public did not have the opportunity to come and speak on what was voted on, on a non-agenda item. so, there was no violation of law when there is either a motion made even if that motion is not part necessarily of every item on the agenda to give the superintendent direction, the law provides that if the item -- whenever the item is brought at

284whatever point that item is brought to the board, if it's brought to the board, then the public will have the opportunity to speak and I do wan to point out that in the memorandum that was provided as a follow-up for the timeline, that -- and our policy specifically says that for a boundary change to occur, the staff needs to notify the superintendent that there are changes that are necessary for the school attendance area boundary and if the superintendent terms those changes are warranted, then that's when the changes are presented to the board, so those items have to be met before the boundary change is -- before any boundary change is made. sure, I understand that, but what transpired at the last meeting was not an agenda item, the public did not -- was not aware

285of what went on there and the public did not get the opportunity to speak. so, again, the board has not taken any action to make any actual change at this point. It was just a direction that was given to the superintendent to bring an item or to start a process if he -- again, if he determines it is warranted pursuant to the policy. okay. and, again, because there hasn't been any action taken, there is nothing prohibiting the board from making a motion and rescinding that request of the superintendent or that direction to the superintendent. okay. Words matter and so I'll just leave it at that. So, I brought this item forward hearing from my colleagues at the last meeting and felt that it was important to move forward with my requested action to initiate rulelemaking

286for the polili 646400 scho chchceceanand to dict ththe peperintendent schools to initiate this rule making for policy 6400 school choice to include a reassignment priority designation for students reside ining an area that was impacted by a exchange in the school's attendance zone boundary. So, this is a change in policy that would not only affect what happened with msd and the boundary but this is a policy that would forever moving forward if there was a boundary change and then seats become open, then they would get priority to be able to go back to the school that they were reboundary out, I wanted to make that point first. Secondly, I would like to thank both the city of coral springs t city of parklander for collaborating on this, for coming together, I've had conversations with both the

287city managers from both cities, both the mayors from both cities and they are all in support of my agenda item here today. So, you know, I think that is very important as we as school board members move forward and make changes throughout the school district and getting the community input and buy-in from both communities to collaborate and come together as partners to be together for our broward county public schools. So, I do have a few questions, DR. Hepburn, if you can explain how this language would be applied in the policy if it proved through the rule making process and speak specifically in the policy, I think it's page 18, under c, assignment priority, where this would go, and also speak to number 7 on page 19 about siblings. DR. Help -- hepburn. I'll ask MS.

288Wanza to answer those questions for you. thank you, DR. Hepburn, my alhadeff, to answer your question specifically, how would it be applied to the poll osier it goes through the rule making process and adopted or approved by the board, then on page 18 of the policy where it speaks specifically to assignment priority, under reassignments, we would add language there for whatever the exact language is approved by the board that speaks to students who reside in an area that was impacted by a change in its boundary, so that's where the language would be -- it would be inserted there and then as we -- so, the first thing I think we need to make sure everyone understands is reassignments only come into play when a school has seats available, right. It's not every year, they're guaranteed

289they're going to have reassignments, if they are at 100% of gross capacity or they are projected to be, then it's school that would not be on the list that would receiver assignments so it would be inserted there and then I think the other thing that is important to say that the rule making process will not be completed, even on the strictest of timelines, we will not have this done before the end of this school year which means we will be awarding seaters now based on what is currently in the policy for all of the schools that are still accepting reassignments through the end of the school year. So, this language would be applied when the window opens in the fall of 2025 for the 26-27 school year. It's just important so that everybody understands, we

290would have to complete the rule making process in order to the apply this language and on the strictest of timelines, we will not be done before the end of the school year. okay. But you can confirm that there is 26 students currently from c4 who have applied to go to the msd and that there's 147 open spots for reassignment at msd? that is accurate. So, the 26 is as of yesterday, now I don't know what has come in today, as of yesterday when we checked numbers toward the end of the day, there are 147 available seats, that has not changed. But as of yesterday, there were 166 students total that applied and of the 166, 26 were from what is known as the c4 area from the boundary change. okay, and to the superintendent, is

291there a way to expedite this policy if the board passes it today? DR. Hepburn? yes, I'll have DR. Wanza or even MR. Sullivan to weigh in on that. so I'll start and I went specifically to this department yesterday for -- and MR. Hill can weigh in for a timeline. If the board approves this today, the board is approving the direction for you obviously to direct staff to implement rule making, so then we'd have to go through the process, so I went to MR. Hill yesterday, give me a timeline based on everything that's going on right now. And that's how I got to -- we won't get done before the end of the school year, but I will allow MR. Sullivan and MR. Hill. I believe the quickest we could expedite it would be AUGUST 19th

292when you factor in the different rule making timeline. okay. And then can you speak to the siblings and policy currently now? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza? currently right now, on page 18 in the assignment priority, number 7 is there and it says district students who have a sibling currently attending a school where we are awarding reassignment, so right now if I am -- I'm a family and I have a student who for whatever reason currently right now is at marmg ri stoneman douglas high school in the tenth grade and I have an incoming 9th grader, regardless of where I live, because marjory stoneman douglas is accepting reassignments, there's a sibling priority already in the policy. so, just to -- so, we would not need to amend my motion? correct, based on the current policy language, there's

293already sibling priority there. okay. I'll hold my comments for later. next is board member bulman. we're only speaking to right now? Alright. So, I'm sure you haven't done the projections but I guess with the timing unfortunately if we can't get this done until the new school year opens, would that be applicable, can people change after the start of school, I believe the first day of school's AUGUST 14th or somewhere around there? so, we had the reassignment window open through I believe it's the -- and MS. Collins, correct me, like that first week or two of school, the window was open. What I will say is right now, there are enough people who have submitted an application for an open seat in the school. So, on AUGUST 28, that week, we are going to begin awarding

294seats across the district at all schools that have open seats, we will begin awarding seats and until we've exhausted the open seats and we will continue to award seats throughout the summer because you have some schools that say, listen, we have room for 200 reassignments, only students have applied to date but someone moves in, we have a new application, we will keep awarding seats. DR. Wanza, you said AUGUST 28, I think you meant APRIL -- I'm sorry, APRIL, thank you, I'm still stuck on AUGUST 19. and the first day of school is AUGUST 11, AUGUST 19th will be the following tuesday. right, but we will begin awarding seaters for the window that opened on APRIL 7 of this month, we will begin awarding seats on APRIL -- the week of APRIL 28. and when you

295set the available seats, is there any flexibility? I'm looking at the numbers you gave us, there's 147 available seats, 166 students applied, 26 were from the c4 boundary. I guess first of all I would question whether the availability of the seats was advertised to the c4 boundary. Does this indicate the interest at this point since they've changed schools, or is this a lack of knowledge? I mean, I don't know that you would know that, those are just some questions I would have about this. DR. Hepburn? yes, and city of coral springs can nod their head if I'm correct fr, my understanding, they've had meetings within their communities and educated their community about our process and our window and they've collected information themselves about who want tos take advantage of that opportunity and given us that

296information, they've been well educated on the opportunity. okay. if that's correct, yes. alright, that's all I have for right now. thank you, MRS. Fam? thank you, MADAM Chair, I'm thinking if we can do a hybrid approach if possible. My feel is that if we try -- if we don't accept today where we give priority to students that would like to attend, marjory stoneman douglas this year, upcoming year, they're going MISS Out for another year if something happens where we can't get the boundary change passed. So, I'm wondering if we can put this into effect for now with a promise that that's coming down the pike so we can change it back so therefore the students aren't penalized and lose another year, so I'm hoping the board will consider that, so where they can be together,

297these motions -- sorry, DR. Hepburn, can you explain to MRS. Fam the process again. DR. Wanza? so, if the board votes in the affirmative for the item that is before them today, we will start the rule making process, however, as I said and I'm going keep repeating it because I'm told we can't communicate it enough, whatever action is taken today to initiate rule making, we will do that, we will complete that process, but the new policy language will not be effective in time enough to complete awarding seats for this year, it would be for the seat that is we would award for the 26-27 school year. thank you, through the chair, yeah, I comprehend that, that's not the issue, the issue is how can we process these students now so they're already positioned? i think

298what we need to do is put in place where they're given the priority, the people from c4 now through this mission and then we also do a boundary change, so this is giving school choice and the other one would be the boundary change assuring they stay in that theatre. if I MAY, and MS. Batista, you MAY have to assist, 6400 went through rule making. It was approved in OCTOBER. I don't know that the board has the authority just to say we are going to change a policy right here on the dais. It has to go through rule making and after it's gone through the whole public input process and everything and then there is contemplation by the board of what the board will adopt as the final language in the policy. So, MS. Batista, thank

299you. that's accurate. so, the answer is we can't -- regardless of what we do, we cannot implement anything for this coming school year, it's too late in the process. through the chair, any way we can even do a waiver, anything to help these people? We need some solutions here, we need to know what we can do as opposed to what we can't do, what alternatives we have that we can execute on to help them? MS. Batista? so, the waiver of a policy would take the same amount of time as the adoption of a policy. there's a state statute that governs how the process goes through. Administrative procedures, not statute, sorry. Anything else? Okay. Next up is board member thompson. thank you, chair. MS. Fam kind of went through the same line of thinking, I was

300trying to figure out if there's any loophole for the next year and it seems like there is not a loophole and I just wanted that expressed so all the community and also our commissioners that came in kind of asked for an expedition of this. Our hands seem to be tied. And then my other set of questioning was kind of how this decision would potentially impact the previous board's vote of the reboundary, it seems like there's not. I think it's a little confusing how this is all being laid out. Not only on the dais but also to our community and to the families in these areas because I was hearing from both cities, parent advocates that these changes have been happening to their community, it seems, every year, and that's not the way you win back

301students is creating more chaos, but I wanted to also have a conversation about redefining and how changing of these policies kind of interact with any policies is with boundaries, and I know DR. Wanza, you and I talked about this yesterday, if you could give some highlight tos my colleagues because I'm really -- I want us to have a better district approach to this. I think with redefining, there are a lot of boundary conversations that we should be having, not only in the parkland, coral springs, but also on pembroke pines, and I want to make sure we are going along this process equitably and making sure that what we decide for one community doesn't look different for every other community. DR. Wanza? thank you, thank you, MADAM Chair, so what is being contemplated before the board

302right now in policy 6400 will be applicable to any school, to any neighborhood, to any community that has gone through some type of a boundary change. I will say this here that the board MAY want to consider as the language comes that they MAY want to be some type of a timeframe and the reason why I say that is I live in a neighborhood -- well, I grew up, I no longer live there, I grew up in a neighborhood that went through a boundary change 35 years ago, the board MAY or MAY not want to contemplate, is it within the five years, ten years or.N perpetuity, that will come through the discussion of rule making when we get through the process, if it's voted in the affirmative to to that today. That is separate and

303apart from policy 8010, policy 8010 is the process that we go through as it relates to establishing school attendance areas annually. And the direction given at the end of the last board meeting was for a tile lao in and an option to come back around establishing a choice boundary area for what was the impacted c4 area from two school years ago, so what is being contemplated here today would be applicable to all schools every school year as opposed to the boundary process, we look at groupings of schools, select schools, whenever we bring to the superintendent and is ultimately decided we're going to go out, have community conversations, it MAY not impact all schools throughout the district but the policy language for 6400 would be applicable to all schools in the district. okay, and then as

304you led into my other questioning is a timeline especially when wre ear going to be having conversations about changing boundaries or closing schools or repurposinging schools, I do think there is some merit in setting a timeline because how many -- if you know, how many boundary changes have we had in the past 30 years would you say? so, in about 30 years, I had MR. Beck do some research, we went back to 2008, so we're almost at 20 years, just shy of 20 years, and there were upwards of 2.5 pages because we did a table, he can tell us the exact number but there are several that we've done and that's why I said this language would apply, it would, districtwide, so the 6400 ask if you will would be applicable to all schools throughout

305the county. And MR. Beck can kind of give an approximation of a number. good afternoon, joe beck, director of demographics and enrollment planning, so it gets a little complicated because during that peer, I went back to 2008, the year I came here, my first boundary process, there are several instances where we opened new school and is had to create boundaries for them. There are lots of boundaries that we shifted due to overcrowding, there have been some boundaries we shifted due to schools being closed due to low performance but overall we're look at easily 30 possible boundary changes from the past 18 years. It's a lot. It's a tremendous number, and some of those are micro changes within changes, schools were split up fiver ways when a school was closed or three schools were closed to

306create a boundary for a new school, it's not a straightforward one to one answer but it's quite a number of changes. thank you for that. I think I would like to hear my colleagues' thoughts of establishing a timeline within this. I think it makes sense for fiver years and that just because that's the amount of time people matriculate. I just have a question on that because the item before us is ababt prioritizing, so I ththink at could in th discusussionwh the boboundary comes back usus but I dodon't think that's prudent to the conversation that we're having right now. but DR. Wanza just said it was to this policy. when it comes back, I don't think it needs to be something we discuss right now. okay. Is that it? yes. DR. Zeman? thank you so much,

307chair. What we're deciding today is to bring a policy back, we MAY or MAY not make changes about it, it's rule making and it comes back and there's one suggestion, my question to you, share, -- chair, if during the rule make progress kress this accidenter one says we're going bring it back and there's a specific change recommended for consideration and I appreciate that because now the chair can look at that and we can have some options, during that rule make progress kress, can we suggest other changes to that policy? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza? so, that would be and I'm trying to listen to what happened a few items ago when we would come to the workshop and we would get the input from the board, that's where obviously we would hear the infrut all the

308board members before we would bring back what would be the superintendent's final recommended iteration. thank you, I appreciate that. I'm just going the tell my colleagues here that I'm fascinated by the opportunity to use distance from the boundary as another criteria for admitting kids, not just for one area that got changed within four years or ten years, whatever number we end up with, I and I raoesht the recommendation to have a a number in that. We don't want to go back to when I was at dillard elementary school. I'm not sure we have data that goes back that far but there's a limit that makes sense to this policy and I appreciate you bringing that. I also think there's some logic in considering whether or not proximity to the school will make sense and there's

309a a lot of research on neighbors staying together, kids who grew up that played soccer and baseball together sxit's cohesive for them toe stay together, so we'll bring that up at the workshop, I wanted to disclose something that I find fascinating. I wanted to dispel some myths that came up from myspeakers and from one of my colleagues, this process was not chaotic, it was the opposite of chaotic, it was super analytical. MR. Beck was a member of the team that projected a significant growth of enrollment at marjory stoneman douglas, it was going to go to 114% of capacity, can we confirm that please with staff. DR. Hepburn? MR. Beck? so, enrollment was 114% of capacity the boundary change was adopted. Er thank you, can I have a credit for remembering a number two years ago.

310that's pretty good. wrong category but got the numbers right. We were told that it was 114%, that was a crisis, I mean, there was safety issues, things going on in that school and we went through a very intentional, analytic detailed process, I remember 600 people showing up to a town hall come tog talk about it, my good chair graver them each 30 seconds which was gutsy, we went through all those comments and we heard what people said and we voted for what we thought were the right thing. I'm curious again, chair, from staff, were our projections right or were our projections wrong? DR. Hepburn? MR. Beck? so, no, the projections were much higher than the school turned out to be, so over four years, the boundary change was projected to remove about 360 students, it

311has already removed 400 students over two years, so it's twice as many as were anticipated. again, very analytic, very intentional, it turns out the projections we made were not perfectly accurate, they were reasonable but they were not perfectly accurate. In the middle of that time, we bruce this thing in florida called vouchers and there's a significant number of people in that area that MAY have taken advantage of that or gone to private schools or public charter school and is the like, we created gaps where we projected overcrowding. Tla's what happened here. The last point, if you care about students, let's make decisions about repurposing early in the year. Because the last thing we want to do is to give families minimum notice about schools, boundary changes or schools not being open where they thought they

312were, programs being adjusted and the like. It's difficult sometimes for us to move fast to decisions early in an an academic year, we tend for good reasons to delay those decisions until too late in the year and the consequence of that is we don't give parents, we don't give communities, we don't give elected leaders in other areas the opportunity to know what the impact is going to be until it's awfully late in the process. As I have argueesed where it's impossible for people to change. Chair, the om other comment I'll make is it's unfortunate we don't have the authority to do what we want to do. It really is. I feel terrible for our inable to be agile, to make a decision for the 26 people who were in the district and want to come

313back. But to say that the process we used was chaotic or irresponsible or wrong, it's just not true. We looked at all the data, we made the best projections we could, we made a decision the board chose to make. I was a member of that board. I made a decision on that and now we find ourself in a situation where there's not the number of overcrowding that we projected and that happens but it didn't happened because we had chaos and we were responsible or wrong about something, we used the best information we had and made a hard decision and it was I think 5-4, 6-3, tvs close sx, now we find ourselves where we are, so to try to bring up history and condemn the people that did it I think is not really accurate

314in this case, but I am very sad we can't do anything quickly for the people that are in that zone and want to go back. I think it will be fascinating to come up with a timeline for how far back we want to go for these kinds of changes. I also think it would be interesting to change our priority so that we get schools with people in the same general area going and rather than as my transportation friends have talked to me about, putting fiver people on a bus in deerfield and driving tlem to miramar because they entered into school choice, that's incredibly expensive and it doesn't keep general neighborhoods together as they go through school. Thank you, chair. thank you, MRS. Leonardi? so, I want us to be very clear because I hear the

315idea that these two things, the decision that we made last month and this item can move forward at the same time, but the way I also understand it, boundary choice is different than priority, correct? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza, if you can clarify. thank you, yes, MS. Leonardi, you are correct, a boundary choice area is established through the boundary process. You are absolutely correct. A reassignment -- and a boundary choice doesn't have to contemplate a reassignment, right. If the board through the process establishes a boundary area, boundary choice area where I live in this residence and I can choose between one of these two schools, right, and it's not a boundary that says, you know, we have a boundary choice area where we have reserved 150 seats and those seats are available or not available, so

316a boundary choice is established through the boundary process and it is imbedded. A reassignment priority says will we have seats available, these are the people that we would prioritize for those seats. . Inger right, so help me understand how this item would not then replace the boundary choice? because it's two different policies, two totally different policies. This policy is simply policy 6400 that would apply to every school in the district that when I apply for a reassignment and I follow -- fall in one of these 6 or 7 priorities, I have a priority of the seats that are available, to establish a boundary choice area, we would have to go through the boundary process which is policy 8010. right, so and maybe I'm having a difficult time, it's been a long day, if this applies

317-- so, if this item passes and we make the changes and it applies to every school in the district, how does it then not apply to msd? it will apply to msd. so, then how will it not replace or negate the boundary change. the boundary choice first has to be established to say that regardless of a ri assignment, I don't have to put in for reassignment, if a boundary choice area is established through the boundary process, I have the right to go to either school regardless of the enrollment. got it, okay. And so how can we assure -- because there is a fear out there that we will not follow through with that, with the boundary choice. How can we assure the community that that will indeed happen? so, I can just speak for me

318as -- today is what, APRIL 15, if I reappoint for JULY 1, I can speak for me, the gentleman that you just extended his contract would have an expectation of me, then I would follow the direction that was given to him on whatever day the last board meeting was, they all run together now, but so then as we begin the process like we did last year, as we come and sit before the board in AUGUST, we would have -- as the board said that they would -- they came to consensus there's an expectation the superintendent would bring options for a boundary choice area for what was c4 as a part of next year's boundary process, that would take effect for the 26-27 squaol year. -- school year. got it, thank you. and I'll finish this

319out, I have a couple of questions. MADAM Chair, I was on the list for speaking. oh, I don't have you on the -- I would like to speak. okay, well, since I jumped in already, I'm going to start and then you guys can go. So, DR. Wanza, can you tell us what schools already have a choice boundary? so I'm going to have MR. Beck help me, there are a few of them, as many people know, particularly the residents and the leadership from the city of parkland, we also have for heron heights and park trail which are considered a combined bound are you, they tell us which school they want to go to and which school has space and then obviously the newer school has space, there hasn't been an issue recently, typically they would go

320to river glades, we have about four, five schools, there are some school that is have gone through a boundary process to establish a boundary choice area. okay. thank you there -- for the question, there are two choice of boundary choice areas, we have four school where is if you liver in the boundary choice area, you can go to either school, either school is your school. Usually you only get transportation to one of those two schools but at any time, it's not based on seat availability or anything, you have the able to choose and those are fwaoen plantation middle skaom and seminole middle school, plantation high school and south plantation high school, boyd anderson high school and piper high school and west downward high school and cooper city high school. In general, just an extra piece

321of information, the only one of those that's active in a given year is the one assigned from west broward to cooper city, that has a little bit of history also. The other type of boundary choice area referenced in policy 8010 is priority seats and this is a situation we have for magnet sheets at virginia young elementary where a certain number of seats are established 150 in both cases for children live ining that neighborhood b to get priority to go to that school. That doesn't guarantee there will be 150 neighborhood kids tat school, it's still a priority for seats that become available. And then parkland is a different situation, so I want to be very clear because there's some confusion around that, the combined boundary of heron park and park trail iss not a boundary chase

322air ya, it's the opposite of that, in a boundary choice area, dwou yo u get to choose where you want to go when you want to go, when you live in parkland, when you mover into one of those elementary schools, you don't get to just go there, you have to request it and be placed based on availability, it's the opposite of choice. okay. Thank you, so, for school choice -- for boundary choice, choice boundary schools, I'm trying to say the words right, so plantation, middle and seminole middle, plantation high school or south plantation, ba or piper and west broward or cooper city, is that correct? that's correct, yes. which makes no sense, but -- and then there's priority seats which is vsy, is that the only one that has priority? and beach side. and those

323are a certain number of seat that is are set aside for students who -- is there a time limit on that, what does that look like? both of those school ares full choice magnet schools, they don't have an assigned attendance area so the seats are filled through the annual school choice process, both of those schools are high demand schools, all o the seats will be filled during the full choice window and residents live ining that priority area for either one of those schools, if there's room available, they would get the priority for that. MR. Deck, MR. Beck, is there something for pompano beach high? that's been requested many, many times, the community has requested a prirt area, has tha has never been established. but what there is, and probably MS. Collins has to answer this

324question n the magnet policy n this choice policy as it relates to continuation in theme, and that's where the students from crystal lake, right, and the continuation in magnet theme which is in policy 6400 and that's a distinction that I think is important to draw for the community. so, yes, that's absolutely correct, DR. Wanza, there are other magnet school that is have that similar pipeline where students ares allowed. Some of them, that one makes total sense geographically, new river middle to south broward high maybe doesn't make sense, but that's a conversation we'll be having with the board in future. and I appreciate that because I think most people don't mow the differences between those things and I think it's important to point it out and as has been said already, the direction was given, not

325necessarily -- I don't think and maybe DR. Hepburn can tell me what his expectation was, but as the board, we directed him to bring us back the idea or choices on what a boundary -- a choice boundary would look like for that, it was a discussion that we were asking for, so that we could look at all these piece and is see what made sense. Is that what you understand also, DR. Hepburn? that's correct. so, when we would key -- see that come to us for that discussion? I know everybody's talked about a timeline in terms of making it a choice boundary but I think we haven't had a discussion as a board as to what we want to see, so when would that be o coming back to us? in AUGUST when we start

326the process for next school year. okay, perfect. Thank you. And so I would also -- I mean, I hope that continues forward. At this point unless something changes, I want everyone to understand there's no breaks on that, that has been moving forward. I would like to say that I appreciate the way that the item came in terms of the fact that it's a district wide policy and the fact that we are going to be going through repurposing and that we will have other issues that come along. Now, is the wringing of this exactly what we might need? I don't know, but again, this was not to change it necessarily but to bring it back for us to have a discussion. So, I think everyone needs to put in context whatever we vote today doesn't automatically

327change anything, it is for us as a board to have a deeper dive into what the right wording is, what's right for other places, but I know a lot of people looked at b2 as if it was only for one specific space but when you look at the wording, what was appealing to me is the fact that it is for the whole district, it's not for one specific area. It's for anywhere in the district and I think that that in itself is important so I'm really interested in having that conversation when we move forward. So, I just wanted to kind of put things into a little bit of context because I know there's a lot of motion incentive around this, both items were to ask for us to have a better conversation of what it

328looks like moving forward. That would be in the best interest of our students. So, I do appreciate the indepth conversation here and I look forward to as each of these items, if this one passes coming back to us so we can hash out what the actual wording would look like. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, MADAM Chair, I did request to speak on this item. I just forwarded my e-mail that was sent on monday, so it might have been an oversight, so I appreciate that never happened before, interestingly happened on this item. I will go ahead and provide my concerns regarding it. So, thank you for the opportunity to speak on the item. So, on MARCH 11, regarding the boundary process policy 8010, we had reached a consensus by the board for c4 as

329a choice boundary area and DR. Hepburn, I did pull the transcript regarding the consensus that we reached on MARCH 11. It says consensus in having the superintendent bring back to us the c4 as a choice boundary area, we had a 7 yes's and two no's on this particular consensus reached. I know what's before us is regarding policy 6400. And I did hear the concerns of many of the board members. I guess I will ask some of my questions. What does it mean just to reiterate, DR. Hepburn, to have a choice boundary area? DR. Wanza, if you can clarify again. yes, sir, so thank you, DR. Holness. A a choice boundary area means we would go -- as a part of the boundary process that we would kick off in AUGUST, bring options and as a

330part of that package for the board to contemplate and consider us to go out, get community input, so it would d terally be a part of the official boundndar process thatat the boboard wowod d whenen it finally adopts ththe boundbacker bond -- bounds ris for that school year, whatever it approves, would be part of the permanent boundary hof those two schools, that school or whatever school it is. so, if I am a parent in that choice area, I do have the option to either go to stoneman douglas or coral glades? yes, if you reside in whatever -- so I'm going to use the c4 area so there's consistency. the board adopts through the boundary process of next school year that for the 26-27 school year, a boundary choice area for c4 has been established where

331students residing in that area can -- they have the option of attending marjory stoneman douglas or coral glades high school, has would be recorded in the official action taken by the board. okay, and this can be effective based upon what we, the consensus we reached in the year 2026-2027, is that correct? we would go will you the process and then the board would then vote whether or not it's going to be final when the boundaries are adopted. okay, so I'll rephrase the question. Is that timeline doable based upon the discussion we had on MARCH 11 to implement this in the year 2026-2027? yes, because it would kick off in AUGUST this year of 2025 and it would be finalized sometime later in the winter or in the spring when the board adopts boundaries for the

33226-27 school year. okay, so let me talk about this current item which is based on policy 6400. What does a reassignment priority designation for students imply? so, DR. Hepburn, right, so a reassignment priority basically says when a school has seaters available, these are the applicants that would get priority for an available seat before anyone else who does not have a priority. okay. And should it pass? It will be effective as you mentioned 2026-2027, correct? we would go through rule making and it would be -- based on all the final language, yes, it would be applicable for the 26-27 school year. okay, so this is a very important next question. As this item is written, should be to pass, will it reach the consensus for c had being a boundary choice area. . Inger that's a

333MS. Batista question, I believe she answered a question. yes or no. from MS. Batista could answer it if you like. this item does not negate the other item. okay. the question is will it replace the consensus c4 being a boundary area should this pass? this item will not replace the prior direction of the board to the superintendent. okay. What will it mean for c4 to be a choice boundary area as well as a reassignment priority designation for students? What takes precedence, is it the former or the latter? you want me to speak? Okay. go ahead, DR. Wanza? alright. So, c4 would have the choice, that area would have the choice of attending either school. So, they wouldn't have to rely on the language in 6400 to baibl choose to attend either school, they wouldn't have

334to rely on that language. I understand. So, MS. Batista, which has more weight, a consensus because I heard concerns regarding the con seb -- consensus that that wasn't an item, which has more weight, a consensus or a motion for directing the superintendent for the same consensus arrived at on MARCH 11? Is the consensus lateral to a motion or does one weigh more than the other? MS. Batista? so, procedurally speaking, a motion is more appropriate, you know, when you want something to -- some direction to be given by the school board as a whole from -- in a school board meeting which I believe is what happened last time, but inbacker instead of a motion, it was done in a consensus manner. I appreciate that comment. So, for what's before us today, since it will not

335replace the consensus, can we -- because I like the idea of districtwide but I don't like any idea of it replacing in any formal way or having a greater weight than the consensus, so I like the item in some ways but I'm concerned about it in others. So, after this item is voted on, am I able to make a motion for the consensus we arrived at to direct the superintendent to designate the c4 area as a school choice option for students impacted by the msd boundary change? Since this cannot be implemented for the upcoming yaoe, I request it be planned for implementation in 2026-2027, so can I make that motion subsequent to this item being voted on? MS. Ba taste the? -- batista? the answer is yes, you can make that motion after this item

336passes or fails. okay, and it's simply a motion that replaces the consensus. I mean, you don't need to make a motion because the direction has already been given and that's the direction that the board has made very clear. but I can, is that correct? but you MAY do that, yes. Er point of order, how is that able to do that after the item is already done? after an item, if I MAY, after an item is already done, a board member can make a motion that is not related to that agenda item. wow, opened up a can of worms, okay. we have to talk about that for a little bit longer, in general websinger eve done that at the end of a meeting and our policies says at the end of a meeting, we open up

337for people to make comments or motions or anything they want, would it be advisable to relay that to all of us as well. Er thafrjts's appropriate as well, I think that's what happened at the last board meeting, instead of a vote, the chair asked for consensus as well. You wouldn't need to make another motion, hate the same effect. MS. Batista, if I'm hearing you correctly, a consensus would have the same weight as a motion being made, correct? yes. okay. Thank you. MRS. Rupert? thank you. I'm going to be short and sweet. Following, we had the same brain thoughts over here, MR. Holness, DR. Holness, excuse me. Open reassignment window is open until 8/20/2022, right? yes, ma'am. why could we not pass a resolution like you did for heron park and park trails that is in

338policy that is tha are in policy but make it possible, why could that not work? DR. Hp burn? -- hepburn. I'm going to have MR. Beck talk about that. The resolution MAY have been a part of the boundary process or what kicked off the boundary process, I'm going to have him speak so I don't misspeak. But establishing a boundary area is the boundary process. right. but I'm going to have him -- so, the reassignment window, we have -- so, the policy doesn't give a specific date, it says the superintendent will establish and so we have done that, we've advertised to the community, we had the first window in -- we opened it and right after -- sometime in DECEMBER when the policy finally passed, we closed the first window and now this is the late

339application window that will remain open but we have already advertised to our community, it's a news release, everything has we will begin awarding seats on APRIL -- the week of APRIL 28, so the window's going to stay open because it's just going to be open throughout the summer. If yu eel recall, there used to be a time when we would have multiple windows, we would have the first window, a second window, a third, we eliminated all of that, did the first window to get everything settled and now this is to give families opportunities from now throughout the summer who MAY move into the community, situations clang and families, so we can award seats from APRIL throughout the summer into the first two weeks of school. right, and I guess we can do a resolution, that's

340what was done before, a resolution that made heron heights and park trail an option, so there would be an option for coral glades and msd while we work the other situation. I'm going to have MR. Beck speak -- to be concurrently. let MR. Beck give us a history less -- lesson on that. it was combined by the 2024-15 school year through the boundary process t two boundaries were combined as one boundary during the normal boundary process that went from -- start ined the fall and conclude I believe in MARCH or APRIL of that year. but wasn't there a resolution? there was an amendment to that to -- I think it was your amendment to guarantee that whichever -- the way it functions is once that boundary was established, whether a fmly moves into either area

341of heron heights or park trailers, they can request whatever school they want. The district -- the choice office will place them in the school that has space. The amendment to the item was or the motion to the item was to allow siblings to be placed -- to be guaranteed to be placed to be in the same school but as a part of that boundary change, it was strictly through the boundary process, it adopted two public hearings,s approve and adopt. It wasn't just a motion. MS. Batista? I don't know if this is helpful. Maybe the confusion is that -- so, a a resolution is part of the boundary process. right, I know. it's not a resolution like something that is brought like under item a or whatever to vote on, it is part of the whole

342entire pl si and at the end, there is a resolution tha,'s what it's called but it's for the boundary. I don't know, I just -- I hate the fact that people came here today thinking there was going to be some movement and the policy aspect of it for the rule making has its time window but it seems to me that sometimes you can do stuff that's a little bit more creative but yet legal. So, that's what I'm asking for. You know, we're very smart people all around here. There has to be a decision that we can do concurrently. yes, so I completely get it, I know for the public and for our partners, our municipality partner ins the audience, as you can hear it's complex and challenging, so, staff if you're putting your strategic hats

343on, if there's anything that you can think of that can help with this situation because I know the board has consensus of supporting both communities to kind of land this plane, so if we can think of anything that MAY lend itself to addressing this while we're answering questions because I know the board, your questions also are trying to help us and each other kind of think of some different steps we could take because we know the policy is bounding us by certain steps, the boundary process is binding us by certain step that is are time consuming or going the lead into the beginning next year instead of before next year starts. what are you doing, MRS. Rupert? so, if I was in c4 and I wanted to apply if r the reassignment to go there,

344you said that was open until AUGUST 22. it is sx, so far we received applications in the seats and we know students reside in that c4 areas, we're going to award seats the week of APRIL 28. I guess I'm in AUGUST because that's when my anniversary is, I don't know, but APRIL -- we will begin awarding seats the week of APRIL 28. gotcha. and I am looking through the policy to see if there's anything, I have combed it fiver times, I'm going to comb it a sixth time. I feel like we need jeopardy music while we're all thinking. MRS. Fam? I'm okay for now. MRS. Fam? wow. Thank you, thank you. I'm also getting messages from constituents that are really concerned and one of the questions is, is there anybody to even leave the enrollment

345process open longer or by shifting it, so it can at least open doors for these residents that are residing there. By resolution, could we do that, anything? the window's open now so they're applying at this time, so they're already doing what you just suggested. thank you. okay, I have a quick question. We'll go to DR. Zeman and then we're going to land the plane, MS. Alhadeff. So, DR. Wanza, based on policy, I know that we said we were going to award the seats APRIL 28th or the week of that, but you've already indicated more people have applied than there are seats. Is it possible to close that and give seats now so that we -- through policy, it says it's up to the superintendent to make the dates, so, not -- it could be for

346every school, if there's still more seats, but is it possible to close that window today, not for everybody, at least this particular for msd and award those seats now so it givers whoever has applied a better chance of -- without prioritizing them? so, this is what I'll say and MS. Collins can correct me if I'm wrong. We have advertise today the public in a news release and all of our print that we will begin awarding seats APRIL 28th. And if the decision today is we need to for one school, all schools, every school, right, whatever we started to do, just do it earlier, then we certainly can do that. The only thing that I will say is we have advertised to the public that we will not award seats until APRIL 28th. okay. DR. Hepburn,

347do you have thoughts on the suggestion? go ahead. through the chair, dante collins, director of the choice support department. I also want to share the time that we are collecting applications, it also give it is magnet coordinators an opportunity to review the applications that are received to determine eligibility of the students or family that is are applying to I want to alert you to that as well. If we begin to one, then that would be considering all but there's still that caveat with the applications that do have to be approved. I mean, I'm sorry, reviewed to determine eligibility as well as staff within the choice office has to review all applications to determine the priority for those applicants as well. that's for choice, this is about reassignment. That's completely different. it's the same. but it

348doesn't have to be. I'm sorry. so, that is what I was saying, as it relates to reassignment only, not a magnet, if -- the question is are we doing it for all schools or one school because we have advertised to the public the timeline. right. so, we want to be consistent in whatever we now have to amend in communications is all I'm staining. DR. Hepburn? so we will work at the Beheads of the board if it is the will of the board to shorten or do the awarding of seats earlier, I'll ask staff what's the most feasible time if it's cutting off -- receiving or stopping applications, the and give staff as MS. Collins just pointed out, reviewing application and is eligibility and all of those things. And then the other question is how does

349this -- does this impact a wider group beyond because I know it's not just that zone applying, it's a larger geographical area, if this is a solution that MAY assist in some form or fashion for this issue we've been discussing. so, I would like to make a motion, is that appropriate? [Inaudible]. I don't know if it's a substitute motion because I would still like to see the regular b item go, but a a motion to direct the superintendent to change the date for awarding reassignment seats for msd, closing that window today and awarding seats by the beginning of next week. Is there any public comment to the motion? Okay. Board member discussion, DR. Holness? yes, MADAM Chair, I appreciate the reason for bringing the motion but I do have some concerns with the motion. If

350we shorten the window, what I'm hearing from staff is that the review applications and not all students that apply MAY not necessarily qualify, so, I am concerned as well that it has been advertised, right, so there are people who intend to apply and now they don't have that opportunity because we're shortening the window, unless we have a mechanism to advertise again with a new end date, I just think that is not -- it's a disservice in my opinion to the public because we gave them this window. Someone could be on vai case and intended to apply and come back and it's closed. So I'm concerned. I like the spirit of the item but I'm concerned with the consequence of doing that on parents who intend to apply and didi't get the opportunitit asas well asas

351not t hang that vovolumeofstudents review the applicants. so, just -- I won't answer anything else but reassignment is different than the choice, so there's no requirement, there's no qualifications, it's just -- I understand. the names are in a bucket. let me clarify. they said review applications, what does that mean? it is all choice. Reassignment does not have the same criteria as magnet, as the college academy, so it doesn't have the same criteria. Choice, we just verify maybe one -- so, we would have to verify they do reside in that area which we've already done, right. So, it doesn't come with all of the academic or other criteria that has has been verified. thank you. so, then my concern would be with the not advertising -- having a different date that we advertised to the public.

352I think that would be concerning for me. okay. MS. Thompson? I'll make it short, I echo DR. Holness' concerns, I don't think we should be changing for one school, we need to be consistent, thank you. DR. Zeman? thanks, chair, sorry, do we have an item and a motion on the floor right now? yes. So, -- I'm just curious, procedurally we have an item and one motion on the floor? yes. I would like the make a substitute motion to postpone this item to give the staff the time to help us understand what the implication of the first motion is and to ---- as the superintendent intimated, to think hard about our policy and is all of the ways we do business to see if there isn't s m some suggestions we can make to these family

353that might get us to a better solution. I think if we postpone to 5:00, that would give them an hour and 15 minutes to do great work and maybe answer some of those questions. is there a substitute motion? yes. did you have anything else? oh, yeah, I think -- yeah. I'm really not comfortable talking about these incredibly significant issues without being able to get answers about what the implications of the conversation that is are going on up here. These are people's lives, it's where they're going to go to school, it's incredibly important and we're not at the point where we have the information we need to understand yes or no about things going on here. About this idea of accelerating, I think it's not something I would ever support because we have no idea what

354the downstream implications are, we don't know if there's people that still wnt to apply and I don't want to jury rig a system that's based on the policies we worked on in order to try and provide some and around if there's legal way toe do it, if it's within our policy, that would be great, but the idea that we're going to change a publicly noticed deadline and potentially injury people that we don't even understand right now is something I don't think is anything I would support. thank you. MS. Bulman? just a question about the choice window. Are the applications reviewed at the close of the time period or are they reviewed on a rolling basis? it's ongoing because of the volume that they get, they can't save them all to the end. okay, you're reviewing

355them but basically the decisions are made -- so, if I as the example was -- say someone's on vacation, the expectation is that until that window closes, that everyone's getting the same -- everyone has the same opportunity. everyone has the same opportunity to have admission of that particular school, so I think if that's the case, then again there's an issue with closing the window early because people already had an expectation that they had x amount of time to do it. So we might be closing people out unintentionally. So tha,'s my comment. great, anybody else have comments on the motion? Okay. All those in favor of the motion, the motion that I made, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say no. no. okay, motion fails. Back to the item. So, let's see. MRS. Alhadeff, you're going

356close us out. thank you. I do have a question regarding the timeline and then also implementing special school board meetings before workshops to execute or expedite the timeline to be able to move this policy forward faster. DR. Hepburn? he went to the restroom, but yes, if it's the will of the board websinger could add special school board meetings to expedite the process. I'm looking to MR. Hill, you're probably looking maybe JULY. so, I was advised due to what is on the next -- the schedule of the next workshops t first time I could even come to a workshop is in JUNE. I'm saying that this takes priority, the board makes a priority to push this to special school board meetings before workshops. has a timeline that has to be advertised. I think that's what --

357dra DR. Wanza? I think the workshops, the next two workshops are 8-9 hours each other so, it wouldn't allow for additional items unless again it taoes will of board, if they want longer days or longer workshops or special school board meetings, it's possible but -- DR. Wandsbacker wanza? so, thank you, thank you, MR. Sullivan, I was over here with MR. Hill because I can actually -- if it's agreed that there are going to be additional school board meetings as it relates to school shop schedules sh I can come up with an amended timeline so that the board can see what the timeline would be, but right now based on what is defined that the board voted on for its meeting schedule and workshop schedule, that was the dates that I was given. so, my question

358is can we expedite this to be able to make a decision for the students for this coming school year? DR. Wanza? so, talking to MR. Hill, still, the soonest it's going to get done would be JULY because we're going to start awarding seats this month, so there's no way we can do it -- I'm in the right month, right? APRIL. there's no way we will get through rule making before we start awarding seats this month. We're going to start awarding seats on the 28th which is two weeks, less than two weeks. can we understand what the timeline is, what are we talking about? if you're talking about rule making, we need to have a workshop and then a board vote but what DR. Wanza is saying, even if you spaoe diet it, it wouldn't be

359before you during this next window. but there are also timelines, you know, I just can't come to the kissinger workshop, I have to advertise that whole process and that's why -- which is 28 days. yes. just so everybody can understand the timeline, can staff be specific on the number of day and is number of meetings. absolutely, MR. Hill? for school board workshops for rule development, it is day ins advance for the publication of the ads and then for the rule making for a board meeting, it is 28 days in advance for the ad. After the workshop. can you please be specific on how many workshops, how many school board meetings, the days. DR. Wanza? it is my understanding, it's one workshop one meeting , so it would be -- I'm going to have to have

360the 14 days of advertisement for the workshop and then 28 days after the workshop. for board approval. okay. so, when you factor in all those days, you would not be before those seaters are awarded for this upcoming school year, no matter how quickly we expedite it. okay. okay, do you have anything else, MS. Alhadeff? no, not at this time. okay, well, we're ging to take a vote. All those in favor of item b2, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. We are going to take -- we have a time certain for 3:00 but we're going to go ahead and take all of the items that were not pulled so we can pass those and then we'll come to the time certain, so just give us a few

361minutes for that. This will be the part of the meeting where we'll consider all of the open agenda items, the following open items have been identified for discussion, dd2, dd4, ff1, jj3, jj10, jj12, jj15, jj16, jj22, jj23, jj29, jj30, jj36, oo1, 002, 00111, 0013, 0014, pp2, pp4, ss1, 2, 3 and 4 are all a time certain which we'll get to next. At this time, MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the open items that have not been pulled for discussion which are dd1, dd2, ff2, jj1, jj2, jj4, jj5, jj6, jj7, jj8, jj9, 111, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, jj19, jj20, jj21, jj25, jj26, jj27, jj28, jj31, jj32, jj33, jj34, jj35, jj37, jj38, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 0010, 0011 -- no 11. 0012, 0015, 0016, 0017, pp1, pp3 and

362pp5. so moved. second. mauled by DR. Zeman seconded by MRS. Rupert. Are there any registered speakers for any of those items. Er yes, pp3, we have desiree grooms and devarius tokes. I don't think they're here. Okay. chair, just one other thing, did you have some other p and -- yes, we're going pull them in just a second. They're withdrawing them. MADAM Chair, looks like those registered speakers are not in attendance. okay, thank you. are there -- all in favor of approving the open agenda item that is have not been approved for discussion, all those in favor, say aye. All those opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. We have -- can I have a motion to open the agenda again, there are a cup ofl pp items. we no longer need to do that, I apologize.

363okay. So, they're still on here, okay. So, we have to go back because I deleted them from what I just read. right. so, let me -- can I have a motion to pass item pp7 and pp -- it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Rupert, any registered speakers on those two items? no. all those in favor of pp7 and pp8, say aye. aye. any opposed? opposed. Er okay, which? pp7. okay. for pp7, we have opposed from MS. Fam? both items pass. Okay. Excellent, thank you so much. So, now we're going to take the time certain which is items -- we're going take them together, items ss1, 2, 3 and 4, can I have a motion for items ss1, 2, 3 and 4? so moved. Er it's been moved by ms. thompson, seconded by

364MS. Rupert. Any public comment on these items? we have one, I don't see her in the audience, for the record, sandra welsh from city of coconut creek if she's here. no. she left, she gave me something to read. okay. Go ahead. okay. I was going to speak on it anyway, but coconut creek commissioner sandy welsh, she asked me to convey the city's utmost gratitude tooter to the school board, superintendent and staff for coconut creek elementary being officially named as coconut creek k-8 academy of excellence, commissioner welsh says they just don't attend our meetings to ask for something but also to say thank you. thank you so much. Any other public comments on these four items? no, MADAM Chair. okay. So, first person to speak on ss1 is board member thompson. thank you, chair. I'm super

365excited about these name changes and I have a question that's related to all of the items is how are we going to make sure we're supporting our schools in marketing? DR. Hepburn? yes, go ahead, MR. Sullivan. so, we're going do a couple of things, first if the item were to pass, you want to make sure the community at large is aware of the name change, we'll probably start with parent links at those schools to their immediate community, press release and we'd have a more targeted approach as we approach this upcoming school year. As it relates to other avenues and channels to make sure everyone's aware of the name changes. and we do have a budget for that. can you get more detail about how we're going to be supporting our principals? we'll do a board

366follow-up, we're ging to do ads again, communicating on our social media channels and also letters to our parents in terms of mailers, so there's a whole campaign planned if it were to pass, we're happy to provide a poerd -- board follow-up. thank you, DR. Zeman, you have something on ss3 and 4. my questions having answered already, thank you. great, and MRS. Rupert, did you have anything else you wanted to add? [Inaudible]. er excellent, all those in favor of items ss1, 2, 3 -- I'm sorry, you weren't on it. thanks. I just wanted to recognize principal christine who's in the audience, we've come a long way this year. [Applause]. Super excited about the new name and what the work she's done and what we're bringing to that community and it's been five year ins the making,

367so thank you very much and looking forward to next year. thank you. I think all four principals are here, so if you'll stand up. [Applause]. thank you so much. Thank you for coming and supporting. All those in favor of items ss1, 2, 3, 4, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously 8-0 because MS. Alhadeff isn't here. Okay, thank you so much. [Applause]. They have created and strengthened their SROPs that resolve around those items. so you're confident that the issue are resolved? yes. all those in favor of dd say aye. all those opposed say no. Motion carries 6-0. Nobody else leave. at this, let's see. This is the time of the agenda when school board members will hear from our evening speakers. Do we have any evening speakers? no ma'am. we will move on to

368dd4. MAY I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. we have a motion and a second. we have a registered speaker, natalie lynch-walsh but she is not here. MS. Bulman? She stepped out. DR. Zeman. this is the audit that we postponed the last meeting there is a critical role to play in schools. This particular audit got plenty of attention because of finding at one school related to the use of trust frunds. So -- trust funds. I have a series of questions, chair. First in this specific district, were the funds in question placed in a trust? DR. Hepburn? MR. Rodes? yes, there were. are there exceptions in trust acts? in this case, yes. In our standard practice suggest that it's generally acceptable to use 10 to 15 percent of general funds for school improvement

369but it's not prohibited to use more, is that true? yes, that is true. so, in my own history of audits which has gone back many many years, the power of audits is to ensure that people are doing things whether you're auditing them or not. It's not that we found three things going on that didn't meet standards but that it's we do good, honest, clear, audits which includes kind of discussions about materiality. Chair, last time we brought this up, we pointed out that this principal asked both our director, their regional superintendent and the director of the budget support vsc?? Pport centnt? Is thahat rit? Sorry out thatat, y too ny acronyms after I've used it 143 times, I forgot what it stands for. The budget support center about this, she followed good practice to make sure

370that in an area that is sometimes difficult to understand she was using those funds in a way that all three of those people thought were appropriate. All three of them told her that it was. I don't know plan on talking a great deal about this but I'm concerned about our ability to conduct audits and to get information from the staff in a way that reflects positively on the team work that we believe in broward county. This, in my opinion and in the opinion of other auditors have have been a discussion point not a finding. I appreciate that some people have difference of opinion. But I'm also gratified that they don't no longer make it a deduction in an annual evaluation. These are things that will go in the evaluation comment but they're not categorical in

371the sense that they used to be. I'm going to continue watching audits and talking to people about what is going on. I'm going to continue to advocate that audits are best when they engender great behavior not when they have exceptions or findings. That's not the way to measure the roa in our audit. And it's important that area growth. There are tremendous people that work here and they, deserve to be partnered with, to be teammates to sometimes to be differed to. So that we can gelt the right information for audits and report back to this board, the things that matter greatly to us. Things like being actable for property, using internal funds, fraud waste and abuse and other things. I appreciate the board's permission last time to postpone this and I have no motions at this

372time. thank you, MS. Bulman? thank you, chair. So I pulled this to discuss cause we had, pushed it to this meeting and in the intervening time period, I was able to talk to our chief auditor, I'm not an auditor by profession. I think just to clarify the issues that we, DR. Zeman and I had in the last discussion was that, there was a finding that this principal had gone away from the guidelines that, I believe it's called the red book. uh-huh, chapter 8. the revenue guidelines but the concern was that she had consulted with various departments and relied on certain advise that she had received. So I don't, again I'm not questioning the audit findings themselves and I think they kind of run in a direction that might be different from what actually ends up

373happening in this particular situation. I hope that this particular principal doesn't suffer any negative impact as a result of this audit because of the ways that she did cult before she acted, even if it has to be included in this audit as an exception. Thank you. thank you. MADAM Chair, MAY I? go ahead. there is one item that, there is some information that is flowing around and some of it is good information and some of it is not complete. There is one item in here that makes it complete and it's very concise. Restricted expenditure in the red book state the following expenditure are deemed inappropriate and shall not be made except from trust funds collected for a specifically identified purpose. This was not collected, this was not for a specifically identified purpose or expended, that's

374the problem. That's what it is that our audits hold us to in terms of the standard. And when it comes to roi, that's something that you and budget can measure, that's I'm not here to measure, I'm here to ensure that the rules are complied with and if they are, that we report them. all those in favor of dd4, say aye. aye. any opposed say no. motion carries 8-0. The next is f f1, can I have a motion and a second to bring to ff1 to the floor? Any public comment on ff1? no comments. there is two comments, so MS. Rupert. yes, I just wanted to thank seminal, coconut creek educational fund. This fund is going to encompass a sum of $20,000 for our readers at coconut elementary school k-8 academy of excellence, thanks. thank you,

375and I had a similar comment. So the total for grants this month is $71,000 and most of that is seminal coconut creek foundation, it's not just $20,000 to one school but to I few of them. Thank you for the partnership. All those in favor say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously 9-0, every one is here. The next is jj3. Can I have a motion and a second. moved by MS. Rupert and seconded DR. Zeman. MS. Leonardi. I was looking at the rule, reason for exchange. On the change order it says, it was a consultant omission. so I guess I'm wondering, how this played out? How the external speakers were left out of the contract documents? Now, you know, do we as a school district, does anyone on our team review those

376contract documents to ensure that everything is there? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? yes. One of the things that I think is important is that our architects actually walk the site also. As opposed to just looking at drawings, this was an omission we would have had to do it anyway. But yeah, it was, an omission, it should have been included in the original drawings. okay. Does, I guess what I'm asking is, is there a scenario in which on our team could have caught that so it didn't have to become a change order? It could have been included in the contract to begin with? we do review them, but again we pay architects to make sure that all of these things are included. On the projects, so yes, you know, it should have, -- it could have been

377caught but if it's not caught by us, we have architects that are suppose to catch it. and I guess I'm ask MS. Hixon-type question. [Laughter] What is our plan to recoup this money then? again, as I said before, I don't think that we can recoup it because we would of had to do it anyway. It should have been included in the original drawings. And if it were included in the original drawings, we would of had to pay for it anyway. What I am concerned about is when we MISS Things and it costs us more way down the line. that was going to be my next question. yes, I think that's where you were going. Again, this is a project that started in SEPTEMBER of 2023 and you would think that it would have been caught

378but we have a requirement and responsibility to put them in any way. So yes, I understand we need to have a better quality control over our drawings and we have talked about this in depth in our meetings. thank you. how to get better. got it. DR. Zeman? I'm going to ask off the end question, are you ready for this, lori? Can we bring an item next week that we discussed last week related to superintendent and officer authorities? Do we have room in the school board meet to go get that item done? DR. Hepburn? MR. Sullivan? if the item is executed by friday, we should be able to add it to the agenda for the special school board meeting. and the reason I asked is we made a decision on the workshop on what levels and

379authorities we wanted to get to. We continue to have long jj item sections until we get that done. Given that we're going to have a special session next week. okay. All those in favor of jj3 say aye. any opposed say no. The item passes unanimously, 9-0. I MISS Spoke, we're look at JUNE the earliest based on the policy requirements if we're making. thank you. sorry, I didn't realize it was a policy. thank you, the next item up is jj10. Can I have a motion and a second on jj10. Moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there any public comment? no, ma'am? DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair, I know there is a credit here because of a replacement. I know there was a lot of work done at markum. This credit is going

380back, to I believe, based on what is said here, kept on project reserves. So I just wanted to ask a question for markum, has all the work been completed in markum? It's not in my district but it's in broward county so I just wanted know if everything was completed in markum? DR. Hepburn? no, not all the work has been completed at markum, we're just beginning of allotting the work, actually. all right, so this particular credit is simply based on the, that particular renovation and you didn't need as much money. I'll have MS. Paul give the specifics on the credit. yes, so the history on this it came as a replacement and then renovation and then came back as a renovation. So this is a renovation so we're putting the money back in the capital preserves.

381thank you. thank you, I also had a similar credit. Because anytime you see a credit of over a million dollars, you're like yes, that looks great. But then also, I know for sure, that the work is not done at markum. So when you say it goes back in, it goes back into the funds specifically for markum's project? it goes back into the overall capital reserve and if for some reason we needed additional money we would bring a board item to the board and request whatever is needed from the capital reserves. okay, thank you. And for this month, when you look at all the consultant omissions, that was almost $201,000. And consultant errors was $13,000, so it totals up to $213,000 which is more than last month. I always like to keep us mindful of what

382those numbers are. So thank you very much. All those in favor of jj10 say aye. Any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously with every one here. The next item up is jj12 can I have a motion and a second for jj12. moved. moved by MS. Rupert, second by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no, ma'am. MS. Fam? microphone? sorry. There is a confusion about this because there was a time extension request for additional work done. And when they were doing the work, they found water damage in the insulation and in the new roofer membrane which cost them additional delays. And this was not attributable to the contractor. So it's all been approved, we're ready to go. okay, thank you. All those in favor of jj1 say aye. -- jj12? Say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes

3838-0 with MS. Alhadeff not here. The next is jj13. Any public comment? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman. chair, how much of a delay did we get in this because of the change order? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul. michael mac entire, eacon. It's additional funding not a work order. This project has gone back and forth between what the board had original given direction to happen with the music room. the previous administration at the school, the principal did not want to use the space that the school board had set aside for, the music room. So the music room was held in a portable. The new principal decided that it doesn't make sense and we'd agree. So now we will dot demo which was the original plan to demo the building and the music room will find a classroom that

384is suitable that will then be renovated as a music room. So it's a bit of a convoluted story but this is not a change order but we're looking for funding to do the demo. and chair, do principals have the authority to override the school board? DR. Hepburn, but I'll quick say the board actually voted on what to do. Beforehand. I know, yeah. DR. Hepburn. go ahead, MS. Paul. I'm going to answer your answer it but not answer it, we work in collaboration with the principals but one of the history of this project, as mike said, has not been a straight line to the target. And so, again, you know, it is very important to establish that relationship with the principal but at the end flt day, our job is to renovate and to do it

385withstand adser. We'll work with our deputy supe to come to the best collaborative approach. Thank you. terrific. Chair, did the board approve the request based on the music room? I can just explain real quick, danielle elementary was a big thing when I first came on the board. We made, the board made some decisions but nothing moved on the, what we had approved. So there was lots of discussion there was community input, there was were we going to build a new building for the music room? Were we not going to build it? And we landed where we landed. But then the boards kept changing and then the chief facilities peoples kept changing and I think that's how we got to this place and there were a lot of things that were suppose to be done that

386the board approved that did not. That is just my input but MS. Paul, if you wanted add anything to what he asked? no, I do not. terrific. The net result is a single building, stand alone building on a very very important elementary school in dana beach was to be demolished not a big challenge. And we're in 2025, and we're still talking about change, it's not a change order but it's a change in funding. And I still go back to my original question, this change in funding, how much time did this add to the demolition? DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. so if we had done it initially from 2014 to 2025, that's how much? 11 years. and part of this is, I know there is a lot of back and forth between boards and C.F.O.S and principals

387in the past but at the end of the day, the kids deserve to have that building demo and demo is not a complicated process it can be if you run into critical elements like asbestos, but other than that, most demos are straightforward projects and they are quick and they add tremendous value. So, lastly, I think the discretionary authority that we discussed last week which is a change in policy between the cfo and the superintendent, should help with issues like this because if something comes up and the peamoore goes to the chief officer, and says this is the amount of money, and we can get things done for our students which I cannot wait. Thank you. thank you, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So in regards with this item, after building two is demolished, what

388is the intended use of that space? I see where it says techonics has, put in a bid. What is intended use after the area after the demolish? it's going to be a play court. and is it 510,000 the cost? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul. I'm sorry what was the question? so it indicates in the item that 335,500 is for demolish in building 2 at dania elementary, and the area will be graded and soded. So the question is, is the $510,000 to create this play court that board mber hixoxo mentntned or is it to grade thth area? It addiditionalcoststs beyond the demolition costs? so the intent and initially was to grade the area but went back and MS. Hixon sent a lot of the information to me in terms of the board discussions over the years about

389this particular project. So we're going to do a play court so that money will go towards the play court and we have sought additional fund to go complete the play court. And that was documented in some of the I think a board workshop. okay, I understand. But in the item, and I understand there MAY be changes to what the use will be but in the item it shows grading and soding is proposal is presented for $510,000. So for the play court do we know what the estimated cost as opposed to what the intended purpose would have been before that decision was made? we have an estimate if mark is here, or somebody can speak to that, mark dorset executive director of maintenance. good afternoon, mark doreset executive director for physical plan. The estimate for the

390play court is around the figure of $220,000 to make the play court, to put the play court in place of the building. okay, so just another question. So is that $200 plus thousand after the only cost after demolition? Or is there a $510,000 possible costs to grade and sod and put a play court? i'm trying to understand, what is the entire cost to achieve the play court. the entire cost after demolition will be $220, it includes restoration, to restore. The 220 would be to install the new play court. so the $510,000 would include everything demolition plus play court? knoxer the play court is extra $220. So you have the 500, whatever the figure was for demolition, restoration, the play court is extra $220. so the play court is additional 220,000. entire demolition is 510,000. The

391demolition is 510,000 dollars to restore the field. The play court is separate project, to build a play court. The play court is $220,000. but this item I'm voting on a demolition cost of 330 -- . if I MAY, this is requesting additional 305,000 to complete the demolition. So it's not the whole project, it's not, 335 it's an additional 335 on top of what has already been allocated for the demolition of the building. and then there is an additional 220 for the play court. yes, and that's an estimate. MS. Bulman. I pulled it but it was not marked. Just to clarify, a little tiny bit more because I'm trying to do the math here when I'm reading this and maybe I'm not correct. It says, there is a carve out of 290 and we need another

392335. yes and that's for the demolition of the building. and the? the play court is additional. so 290 plus 335 does not add up 513. I MAY be humiliating myself. hi, ashley carpenter, sorry through the chair. Correct, it does not equal 510, there is money for contingency and change order, if needed, we always put that in there for any other purchase orders that are needed through that. And the contract itself will be the 510,000. so we can presumably use our savings up above 510 to go towards the play court? DR. Hepburn? yes, we could. and hopefully, we will do that. yes, we could. thank you, all those in favor of jj15 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Item carries unanimously with everybody here. The next is jj16 can I have a motion and a

393second. so moved. second. moved and second. Le no, ma'am. okay, MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. I just had a question about this item that says, the kitchen area of pasadena elementary currently lacks air conditioning. Is this because the airconditioner is broken? yes. I'm glad that staff has lived through this so far. I think this is the last school. it's hot in the kitchen. that's a great mild stone for the district. I think it's important that when it's 5 million degrees with the often going that our kitchen staff has air conditioning. Thank you. thank you. All those in graduater of jj16 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Item passes unanimously with every one. The j is jj22. Can I have a motion and a second. moved by MS. Rupert and seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any

394comment? no, ma'am. MR. Zeman. my question on jj22, if I'm correct, this is a reallocation within a school, is that fair? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul, cooper city, stem lab? so, this is so provide equipment and furniture for the stem lab. So we had this construction money but we didn't have the necessary money to equip it that's why it's coming to you. and what is the source of funds for this? DR. Hepburn. MS. Paul? Or MS. Carpenter. yes, thank you. ashley carpenter, yes, it's coming from the budget, we have the money in the budget but we needed board's approval. what was originally allocated for? for change orders and still remains in the project. and was this ffne part of the scope of the project? the original scope of the project in the smart program renovation did

395include stem labs it had an o lo occasion for stem labs. The majority of that money was used up by the contractor, so there wasn't enough money left to purchase the equipment needed for the labs. thank you. thank you, MS. Fam? that's all I was going to put on the record is that this is a reallocation of funds. Thank you. all those in favor of jj22 say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. Can I have a motion on jj23. so moved. moved by MS. Leonardi seconded by DR. Zeman, any public comment? no, ma'am. okay, DR. Holness? we're on jj36? 23. I am good with that. thank you, MS. Fam? thanks, MADAM Chair. I just wanted to say the amount of this auditorium is more than 23 million dollars, that's really astronomical and

396we also had with stranhan, the indoor outdoor food cart came to 23 million dollars, if we keep spending like this, we don't have this. This is just for one area of each school. If we would have spend this on every school, we would have been over the school bond. I just want us to be aware. Whether the expense right side extra nom -- ex nom cal or we're being extravagant. the next is jj29. Can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. DR. Zeman? I just wanted to note that every once in a time, we get done through things, and I look at last 100 JJs, I went back four months there is nothing this good. There was a slip of 18 and 17 and difference of final completion of 18, we're moving

397in the right direction, superintendent and MS. Paul. I appreciate it very much. thank you all those in favor of jj29 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Item passes 8-0 without MS. Alhadeff. jj30. so moved. second. any public comment? no, MADAM Chair. MS. Fam. this is another one of schools,z reviewed and recommended the contractor be given this extension so I ask every one to vote in favor. all those in favor of jj30 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. The item passes unanimously. The next is jj36, moved by MS. Rupert seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no, MADAM Chair. okay, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So it mentions here this is the variable error volume boxes in several buildings that stillman douglas. And the purpose of this item is to replace 295 volume

398boxes. Can the superintendent tell us the the existing variable air volume boxes that is there now? What is the concern with what is currently existing because this is a 4.3 million dollars item. yes, I'll have MS. Paul go over that in detail. so, in this particular project, they replaced air handling unit. So that's all new equipment. And the vav, boxes were not in the project. And in order to control the airflow and so forth and temperature to this brand new equipment, you need the vav boxes, so it was missed. And so, you know, it makes, it's like buying a new car with no engine. So we had to bring this back to the board in order for the equipment to operate correctly. Or to operate. okay, so MS. Paul, so you're saying this was an

399oversight when some sort of assessment was done as far as the h vac system? it was not identified when they scoped out the project. It was just missed. so it is critical for this so it's critical for this item to pass in order to regulate the temperature. So currently what is the consequence to staff and student? Is there anybody occupying the building and what is the current consequence to staff and students? Without the temperature being properly regulated. so the consequence, is on really hot days, you cannot regulate the temperature at all. It defeats the purpose of putting new equipment and not being able to control it. I'll let MIKEMac entire add anything if he chooses. MICHAELMacentire, through the chair. The original system is non functional with the new equipment, they do not work together so

400we have to change the VAVs as well as install electric control systems. Without that, one room will be cold, the room next to it will be hot. We will not be able to maintain proper airflow, so we'll have difficulty with health conditions because we will not have adequate fresh airflow as well as temperature issues. This was missed back at the development of the program during the fca. The equipment for this school was called to be replaced in kind, which is on a system this old is unheard of. You do not look at a mechanical system and say, replace in kind, when tlgts as old as this is. You have to replace the whole system. So thz two items that should have been captured 8 years ago. okay, and all of these buildings are currently occupied

401by staff or students? the space is occupied were also portable so this will get students out of portables into classrooms as well. This has been a compounding problem, the fact that it was not captured at the beginning during the fca and we put a lot of money into the modern equipment. We need to now finish the job so it's properly operational. understand I just want to find out buildings 1, 4 and 9 will be predominantly occupied by staff and students, is that correct? The buildings that are being impacted by the -- . yes, sir. thank you, so much, I appreciate it. thank you, DR. Zeman? thank you. Chair, are you aware of any alternate technologies besides 4.3 million dollars worth of VAVs in order to complete this project? DR. Hepburn? I'll let the expert provide

402information on that? MS. Paul or MR. Mcentire? I would say knoxer but mike. mike Mcentire, acon through the chair. This is technology, this is all we have available to us to make the system functional and turn it into a modern system. thank you. Second question, is there alternate to solicit these VAVs that would cost more money? there were two options that we were asked to look at, one was a design approach and the other is what we would call delivery method, design bid build added roughly a year to the schedule, which would have a cost implication because we would not be able to order the equipment until design was complete. The world we're now in with tariffs we're unsure what that financial pressure on equipment like this. Since the majority are & outside of the

403country from canada or mexico. So the concern is time is multiplier when it comes to costs. It's always an additive but now it's a multiplier. So we looked at the two delivery methods when we looked at the risk factors, 24 was not only the fastest but most likely the cheapest. thank you very much. And the last question MAY be best redirected to our cfo chair, but when we get briefed on uno lo indicated capital reserves to our cfo have any confidence that the number is our unallocated capital reserves? MS. Johnson? well my staff, omar, he does the capital allocation, so I'm confident. that's not a personal question. Mike Mcentire told us that there was a project that is costing 4.3 million dollars when we scope it correctly, do you have any idea how many projects

404are in our 239 campuses that have that same problem? no. right. So for my colleagues, when we get briefed on 4.3 on capital reserves there is zero veracity, because we can have projects that they're going to come back, DR. Holness and they're going to g oh we bought the car, we forgot the engine. And at some point we're going to want to look at the things and see if there is big problems and make sure that when the cfo briefs us, we have x tens of hundreds, we MAY have some confidence that there is money in the bank. Because 4.3 million dollars to fix a goof up on a airconditioner is unexplainable to my neighbors. And they cannot image the incompetence of the team that bought air-conditioners and did not buy VAVs they cannot do

405that. And I don't know how we can go to our cfo we would like to new program but it's going to cost this type of money for capital, as some said, we want facade upgrades. But we cannot go as a board and believe what is at the bottom of omar's charts because we have so many project out there that we don't really know how much it's going to cost to complete the project. That's a big problem, besides the ca, when we're going to be done this summer. How many projects are under way right now? There are hundreds still. Are we going to have a bogey that just drops on our head. And right now, as a board, we have no idea. And we need to know, how can we buy buses when we have no

406idea how much money is in the bank? Hohocan facade until l ow how mumu m moneyis in the nk. And jujust to be clear,ms. johnson that was not a question about you or your staff. That was a question about the system that runs construction, has got talk to the people that keeps the bank account. And if this information is incomplete or wrong, there is zero credibility in our capital because our inability to stay, how many bills are we going to get next week or the week after? We need to know that before we allocate. I'm glad that we're cleaning up I'm sad that it's a 4.3 million dollars. I cannot explain this to people how we cannot get a project bought in the way that you buy a or b and provide climate control. And

407how long people, chair, have people have been in portable because of this mistake? DR. Hepburn? I'll ask DR. Fleming, I'm not sure how long? How long they've been sitting in portables. I'll look forward to the construction team but I knew two years that they were doing this hvac project so it could be about that long. any specific information? somebody from aecom? mr.Macentire? mac through the chair, the portables have been in use since the construction began. So the hvac work is just part of the overall project. I would say, without hard notes in front of me at least two and a half years since the project commenced. We're, they've been chasing this control issue for a while. trying to determine this best approach. It's taking longer. The issue was not captured until they learned the new

408could not marry the old. That's when we moved into what does the design looks like for big and the big dollars is not the electrical it's the vavs. thank you, I just at some point when we want to allocate some of our capital unallocated reserve we're going to have to think hard about trying to come up with some kind of confidence estimate of how much we really have. Because 4.3 is a big hit. We can build a building for four million dollars and instead we're building a second half of project that should have been engineered. I don't know how an engineer, I cannot imagine a professional designing an hvac system that does not have the part that does not deliver. I'm not asking a question, but it's inexplicable when we make mistakes like this. thank

409you, MS. Thompson. a lot of DR. Zeman's questions is what I was going to ask. If we postpone this any much the mention of tariffs was brought up. Are we expecting the number to be brought up even higher? Are these going to be pro cured fast enough that that will not impact it? DR. Hepburn. MR. Mcentire. so the purpose of bringing this forward and not kicking the can down the road, number one, we're concerned about the impact with tariffs. And number two, we have portable that have been sitting there for a long time. So that's very crucial that we move this part of the project along. We're going to put controls in place for the dollars to make sure that we are spending the dollars efficiently on this project. But anytime you go into a

410h vac project like this, that's always a red flag for me. This is clean up, it's necessary, it's essential for the comfort of our kids and staff and those buildings. So that's why we're bringing this forward. MS. Alhadeff. wait, I wasn't. sorry. sorry just to clarify that the expected amount or do you think that is going to be higher if this passes? I don't have a crystal ball. Our goal is to keep it within these parameters. We work very closely with ashley and the team to manage the costs. This is what it is today. With the up and down of tariffs, I cannot predict the future. I would not want to have to come back to the board and ask for additional funding on this particular project. So this is what we know right now.

411okay, and then in the interest of time, I would really like to see some kind of follow-up or some kind of plan or workshop on how this cannot happen again. as DR. Zeman, says, this seems like a silly mistake, I'm not blaming anyone and I know it happens a while ago, but we cannot do this again. That's it. thank you, MS. Alhadeff. thank you, so what I was going to bring up, the portables are sitting on top of the tennis courts so now we're affect the tennis team that cannot be playing tennis on the tennis courts. Do we have a time line or expectation and also are the tennis courts funded to be repurposed once the portables are gone? MR. Hepburn. MS. Paul. I'm going to bring MR. Mcentire for this. through the chair, the

412return to the tennis courts is funded it's in the base contract so that work will pickup by whichever contractor finishes the work. So it is fully under funded. The rough questions is best case scenario is 18 months to 24 months that's with the process. If we were to go the longer more expensive, it could go out to 30 to 36 because it's a linear process, so it's design, bid, built, abc, versus the design process is not linear so we can actually be buying equipment while we're still designing. our goal is 18 months. And we'll, you know, if we, we'll see what processes we can do simultaneously. We're going to work with procurement to expedite as we can, but our goal is 18 months. 2u. -- thank you. Thank you, I have a couple of questions

413and then we'll end with DR. Holness. So I sense a some questions and I got part of the follow-up but not all of it and I appreciate you're explaining it now. I wish there was more explanation in the item because in terms of why, it's coming because there were, there was some push back from the community. There are elementary schools who have unregulated temperatures in their school. So is it possible that we find out who else is sitting in that position and why it is? How do we correct it? Is it because of something similar to this? Is it for a different reason but there are other schools who have similar actual physical issues there they're caused by the same reason I don't know. But I will tell you that we've gotten some push back

414on that. So can you answer that? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul. so that's the entire purpose of doing a facility assessment to identify the deficiencies. What is different about this project is that it was scoped out originally in 2014 and these items were just left out, it was just left out. So doing fca, doing a complete comprehensive will give us additional eyes on our buildings. If we have situations where we have hot or cold issues, we have a process through ppo to go work orders through it. that is different from what has happened here. The controls were just left out of the project. okay, so my other question to that is if that's the case, is there a way for us to recoup any of the money that we're going to have to dish out since

415it was, not, I'm assuming it was not necessarily us, it was somebody else who caused the issue. it was not even, you know, I was not here obviously, I'll have mike talk to the history of this. But, so mike if you can just step forward, I don't want to just. mike Mcentire, aecom, this is not categorized or omission it was to replace in kind. Which is just to replace the hard equipment not to replace or change the control systems. So that is the problem with missing this kind of scope. At the conception of the project. If fca delivers information that allows you to conceptualize and develop the essence of the scope, that's when it was missed and it carried forward from there. So this is not even a case where an architect or engineer made

416a mistake. This happened long before, going to a design was envisioned. okay. Thank you for that answer. Just a couple of other things. So I appreciate and no one wants staff students to be where it's too hot or too cold it's missable either way. So I think, the project is obviously very important. I think it just has sticker shock and it's you know, people saw the school and the amount of money and it caused some questions to be asked. So I had another question which is is there a list of hvac project that you can give us a time line. It seems like this bubbled to the top and there are other people waiting. So that was not answered in my, in my question that was here. Can you share with us what is the

417order of hvac systems coming so we and the public know where everything false in pecking order. so again, this project was part of the smart program. So this is, unique in a sense that, these things or this issue was just left out because these items were just left out. In terms of a peck and order for h had hvac, we have ppo that manages the h part but the question is what is the long term ability to respond to hvac issues and part of that is, the major part of it is to give us what is the actual status across the district. It gives us a lens across the district. And that process is being undertaken. In the interim between having fca or going out for a bond, we do maintenance and repairs and replacements.

418So if you're question is to give you all of the hvac work orders that we have in the system, I would tell you that it would be an extensive needs, we have a lot of needs. but we're putting new hvac systems. I'm really asking about -- . we can give you a snap shot, it's basically maintenance failure when a chiller fills, we have to replace it. When air handling unit fails, we have to replace it. So again for a district this size, it's quite expensive. because we did get extra money and some of that money went to hvac. yes, a portion of it did but it was not sufficient to carry a district this size. okay, thank you and I'm going to end with a statement and then close with DR. Holness. Although, I appreciate

419the speed. I know it's important but I think it's really hard for some schools to hear how important it is to get the portable off the tennis courts because there were schools who had portable sitting for ten years. I'm not saying it should move forward but we need to be mindful when we talk about things, I hope this is how we move forward with everything. Because there is still portables on spaces that schools would like to use foreplay areas that are not a priority for us. Thank you so much. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So DR. Hepburn, based on this item, it is important that this is passed for the especially for the health and well being of our staff and students, correct? DR. Hepburn? yes, that's correct. okay, so, as DR. Mentioned and

420I totally agree, it's hard to say to the public that we're spending 4.2 million dollars because we built the car but the forgot the engine, it doesn't play over well. Right but I'm going to support the item because it's important that we protect the health of our students and staff. But I think we need to learn from this mistake because it's hard to explain this to the public. So I hope, that there will be measures in place put in place that will prevent this from happening again, because 4.2 million dollars is quite an ask but it's necessary because it will impact the health of our students and staff so I'm going to support it. But at the same time, it does not look good publicly. And I think the analogy made of leaving the engine

421out of the car, that is pretty vivid, right? To say the least. So I don't think we want to do that in the future. no, we wholeheartedly agree, we're just as shocked as the board and the public and also the amount of money that has to be spent to correct the issue. So definitely, lessons learned from the past. And I know this is not MS. Paul's procedures of how she does things either, so it's frustrating for her and trying to figure out how we fix them as fast as possible. So we create a better environment for our kids and staff. thank you, all those in favor of jj36 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously with everybody. The next item is oo1 can I have a motion and a second. moved. second.

422moved by DR. Zeman, second by DR. Holness. MADAM Chair, I did have my questions answered. DR. Zeman. thank you so much, chair. This is an opportunity to talk a little bit about professional development under the management system. But let me ask a question about the manage system. Can somebody describe to me the criticalality of having this item approved? DR. Hepburn? MS. Hollinsworth. can you repeat that one more time? The tech cality. I don't think I'm as articulate as I was this morning, either. so this software system is keeping management for all of our in service, for certification, also connected to our other infrastructure such as sap so individuals get paid, professional learning, continuing education so it's definitely a very critical piece to managing all of those pieces for all staff members. terrific. And if this

423were not approved today, how many additional staff would you need? I would have to get back to you, a lot. within 10? probably 100. that's a lot. I just want to say thank you for that. And I also want the management system to be a nice entree that they're having with you and others about professional element. The standard is, is that we are the education experts, right? That's our core function. So how we educate our own staff ought to be our reflection of our ability to convince our future customers how good we are in doing education. I don't believe we're there and I cannot wait to see what you come up for next year. thank you. all those in favor of oo1 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. With 7-0, DR.

424Holness and MS. Thompson are not on the dais. Item 002 can I have have a motion a second to bring that to the floor. moved by MS. Rupert and seconded by DR. Zeman. Any comment? no, ma'am. my question has been answered, thank you. and DR. Holness. sorry, chair. DR. Holness. I believe his questions MAY have been answered. He's coming back. is this for o o-2. Yes, DR. Wanza answered those. all in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. 8-0, MS. Thompson is not here. oo1. -- oo11. so moved. moved and second. MS. Alhadeff. what controls are we putting in place to reduce the spend and specific specifically at our schools. I'll have MR. Davis sw er that question. tremendous davis, information officer. So if we print that where services were started, it was the

425AUGUST 8th, 2023, board meeting. There was an amendment to the motion to not put fiscal controls in place for schools central office yes, but t t schools. In order to acachie thth rereduction th weuld d all sisire and certain, in paper reduction in costs of manage print services because we're spending about 400,000 a month. We would need to put the financial guard rails at schools and that's we're in the midst of discussing now. We have all the data that we need. We understand what the actual spend per students is, we have that information for example, high school point 48 cents. We have schools that are spending between 2100 and 4132 a month on printing. So what we're doing is working with finance in order to understand the best guard rails to put in place or

426consider for schools and to attract per account spending through a clawed base technology that we can deploy. And also have financial retrospectives to understand what that trend is. So since the nps program started in 2023 towards the end of 2023, the retrospect did not occur the way they should have. If we had done that, we would have seen an upward spend in trend per school instead of the actual costs driving down. So before M.P. S, the school budgets were used for printing. So naturally when schools didn't have to use their budgets for printing, then of course the print naturally escalated or increased. So there is those are some of the controls that we're putting in place to ensure that the schools understand that it's not, you know, and central office by the way and they're

427not just schools. That is not limited on the print budget. thank you. So I think that we have a great opportunity here to save three million dollars and if we put these fiscal guard rails in place, we put these controls in place. So I move to amend to approve the additional spending of 4.5 million for the agreement between the school board of broward county and lexmark international ink district wide. is there a second? Okay. MS. Thompson seconded, is there any public comment on the motion? Okay. Board member comment? Go ahead, DR. Zeman. thanks. I hate to be upsetting to people but the actual amount of money is zero. we should just stop the insanity, we should build apps, focus people on getting the information on their phone and other things. It is really, going back

428to the dinosaur age that in 2025, we continue to send my kids with 30 sheets to give me information that I already get otherwise. I don't agree with changing this from the spend perspective until we can change it from the productive perspective but I hope the superintendent comes back with a budget to make sure that people turn to their phones and laptop when they want to learn something about their kid's schools. Parents are already doing it. And a lot of what we print, I think MS. Alhadeff is redundant, it's stuff that comes out. Why can't we do permission online? Why can't parent sign things online? Why can't we have the next pt a, we have to get with 2025, we have to get with 2010. And I think it's a competitive advantage MR. Superintendent, one

429of the way that we communicate about our own sophistication is that we don't do things like kill trees unnecessarily. I cannot support this because you don't constraint spend by just cutting the dla,z you can constraint by having a replacement technology that eliminates the need. Soy hope that we can see that this summer MR. Superintendent when we look at our budget so much that we can actually become paper less with our parents which is a dominant part of what we use paper for? It is way past time to do this. The technology is actually pretty simple, we can build apps with ai with about four seconds. I built a nine-minute podcast with ai this morning, two people and a topic, it took them 12 seconds to make a nine-minute podcast for me. I'm almost done, trey,

430I know you're on to this but we have to get a plan to eliminate the need for paper and all of this money can come back. okay. Colleagues, it's come to my it is attention we're at the 8-hour limit. So I have to take a motion to extend. No later than another additional hour? we can beat that. yes, I hope so. It's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. any opposed? no. motion still passes, 7-2. Right? Okay. I'm sorry. Next to speak on that is MS. Leonardi. thank you. And I agree you know, with this sentiments that we need to move things more on line especially when it comes with things that can easily be done online like field trip forms. We have to be mindful of a few different things. Some IEPs

431and 504s require that things are on paper. A lot of students prepare paper, a lost people prefer to do things online. What time I do believe in moving things online, I think it's there is a happy medium there. And we do still need to serve the needs of our students. And I will add, you know as I visit schools, some school communities are less willing and less comfortable with engaging with us online. They prefer to do things on paper for a variety of reasons, especially in the climate that we are in right now. So again, like while I think there are some school communities that would benefit from apps and forms being done online like I'm very much somebody who would would prefer to do anything that I can on my phone or laptop, it's

432apparent as a school board member, I do think we need to be mindful of different communities and their needs and worries right now. I'll leave it at that. thank you. MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. Through the superintendent to MR. Davis, I know we've talked about this at length and I know we do have a plan to reduce the spend on this. But it takes time and it's tier approach. I'm wondering if you can give a minute synopsis. I would like to compliment what MR. Zeman said, there is no shortage of apps, a lot of forms that are being referenced are handled by mobile devices. So if we look at what has been digitized so those paper base and physical objects and what we're doing to digitize, we have those initiatives in place, for example, focus

433being one of those. And also the mention of ai. So we've got some very robust plans in the near term, some of which we'll be seeing in the next board meeting relative to a district wide employment. Across the district ai base that will also auto mate that. So we're excited about that. So the first year was transitional. So that innovation the digitalizing page. We also have the accommodations that were mentioned, for example. One reason we're transitioning to that hub concept of printing instead of having printers in every classroom. So there is the intelligence aspect of that to understand what it is to help people want to not print, but use apps versus just printing. And I know that's been around a long time. So this is a big can getting kicked down. and my question

434is, is the 5.4 million enough to cover? Could you make that work? you could make that work, if you put the controls in place that we're speaking of. 400,000 of 10 of our months inadvised that would far exceed the 4.5 million dollars but that is our goal to ensure that we put some controls in place that we focus on process as well. So that we can mitigate that spend as people become with using digital access, inclusive of things like focus. so to say focus having that ability for surveys but to see that when you don't have to do that, I think it's a mind shift. and last question, can you speak on the controls and how reducing it to 4.5 would impact our schools? well I always look when you can reduce spend especially millions

435of dollars that you can turn back around and say in general fund that can go towards teachers and teacher pay and all. And things that were more worthy. I'm a little sensitive on the paper part. what does that mean for schools that were putting in controls? yes, okay. So at the moment, obviously, we get spend data per, but it's not a account base. There is no, you know, dynamic or any intelligence or throttling that, that's the technology I referenced at the beginning. It's cloud base, id base. So what occurs, the administrators have inside into what the spend s.Instead of being retrospective and already I've consumed those funds, no you're at 70 percent of your threshold. You know, that's why we're doing that. and if I can add also, MS. Thompson is that what we're deploying

436one on one devices and that will decrease the amount of paper that students are using too. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So DR. Hepburn as it relates to board member's alhadeff's motion to amend to additional spend of 4.5 million as opposed to the 7.5 that is referenced here in the item. Is this doable immediately? Or do you think sometime is needed to assess this situation and come back to us? Regarding the reducing the spend authority? DR. Hepburn? I'm going to rely to my expert to give us an answer that he can actually have some confidence that either or at the 4.5 is enough or if we need more. my goal is 4.5. The realistic is 7.5. That is assuming that status nothing is done. Clearly we need to do that. So I'm not opposed

437to 4.5 million being our target, our goal to make this happen. The reality is, if none of these controls are put in place, whether they are fiscal controls or whatever, you know, you might have a situation where you have to come back and ask for additional funds, because you can already project out that this is what the spend will be unless you put that in control. But this has to work in parallel with modernization, it's not only what we're doing with focus and other application, but also our ai initiative. And I've gotten questions, if we have focus, why are people printing? That's a good question. Why are people printing if we have the technology. I just believe that it's a shift in mind set that some people print, some people are okay totally online. okay,

438so MR. Davis, I understand your response but your response will also help me in how I vote on this item, right? Voting on this item, I need to know if you need time to put those controls in place and would you prefer that a higher authority is approved and then you work on bringing this down? let's do this, DR. Holness, I'm making an executive decision for the team on this one. Since we're coming in with a service, let's stick to the 4.5 spend authority if we need more because we'll be able to forecast out based on future need, we can ask later on. So I think this provides a good guardrail for this, as we work with the school leaders to say, hey, here are the guard rails, here are the controls, here's how we're

439going to assist you in monitoring how much you're spending on these items and if you see in the future, because we'll have the capability, if we see, you know what, we're going to need x amount of services in six months, we can come back early to request that. so as long as there is not a reluctance to come back. Because I do not want. you will not be reluctant. Absolutely, it provides a on-ramp to start changing. Because we were planning on changing anyway. okay, thank you. and all ends before we vote. I was a teacher in a classroom many years ago, since I've been here a while. And when I was in the classroom, we were limited to how many copies we had. We only had a certain amount of copies and as a teacher,

440I would need more than that. So I would pay to go to kinko, because my students needed it. Teachers already have limits on how much paper and how much not even the paper, because you can buy paper but the machine only let's you make so many copies that's why you had to go to kinkos, even if you bought your own paper. There is controls already for classrooms and if we reduce it even more, you're going to have classrooms where students don't use the computer or there needs to be like sometimes, in marine science, we had, they did coloring in order to understand the parts and function of the different marine organism. So the idea of going to zero paper is never a great idea but not realistic in a classroom setting. And I just think

441that this would impact teachers and classrooms too much if I'm not mistaken, we did reduce the amount that we had last year, I think it was 10 million and we went down to 7 and a half, I could be off on the numbers but we did reduce it last year. Soy know we're moving in the right direction. I would love that to be the idea but to limit teachers when I know they already have a limit and I'm going to guess it's less than what it was what I was there. I just, I can't support that because although I want to save the trees and the plastic, which is just as important. I want to make sure that our teachers and students have what they need. DR. Zeman. just a quick technical point. If I'm

442correct this is to approve a spending authority of 7.5. I'm talking about the item? Spend authority. This is a big enough item that it should be part of the superintendent submission to us. If in fact, the cio say we can cut 5 million out of this because we're going to use these controls and to MS. Leonardi's point, there is a huge amount of instruction that goes into it. It's the way they do their things. But it is a big enough item that when the budget comes babsinger I expect this to be an item. If spend authority, that allows us to do that if we want to. The budget should control how much we put into the school's budget for printing. And I would be fascinate to go see the conversation to what we come up

443with. So we get the best of both world's. It's not a good answer but it is what it is. But I think the budget should come back with something as two million dollars in saving and that ought to be the reflection of the staff's and thinking of, and other changes, changing processes, you know that might reduce the demand for paper. thank you. so I'm not in favor of the motion because all of this does is approve spend authority it does not actually change the budget, which we'll be doing this summer. thank you, MS. Alhadeff? I don't agree with that. I think it does more than just approve the spend authority because we're also asking for as MR. Davis said, some MISS Cal guard rails and some controls to be put into place. So if the

444board approves my item, then this will go into affect but if we just keep it at the 7.5, you know, then, they might do it but there is not going to be a more of urgency to do it. And it's saving three million dollars today potentially that they're not going to spend and this board needs to look at ways to save money. We cannot just roll, give everything out d enennot t reduducewhat we think shouldlde. Anththsuperintdedent already said if he feels he needs moabsinger he's going to come back and ask us. MADAM Chair. DR. Holness. so MADAM Chair, I listen to your feedback as well and that's the, that's the importance of having board member feedback and audience and so on. I appreciate your feedback, because I was a teacher as well. And I remember

445limiting my copies now that you raised that concern it raised a red flag for me. So I would like to ask the superintendent, because I know it's very frustrating when you're a teacher and you can't get enough copies to provide the academic needs for your students. So if this is reduced, how can we ensure that we do not further limit teachers in the amount of copies that they're able to make currently? DR. Hepburn? yes, so just to recap, we'll have a system of controls. This was going to be part of our discussion as far as cost saving to bring back. And also known that we're going one to one and my experience in the previous district and with my own kids one on one, I saw the significant decrease of paper that came home, it

446was only essential things that came home. Most things were done online and canvass and of course for students that receive paper, they receive those. Because you don't need paper for every one anymore. With all of those aspects, I don't think we're going to you're going to see the spend rate or burn rate for printing service budget that you saw the year before or this current year into next year. But as I said, if we do need more, we will come back and ask for more because we'll be able to forecast out how much we would need in the future and not be in the situation where oh we need more paper tomorrow. Right? We'll be able to forecast months out to know how much paper or print services that we would need. okay, so in

447your attempt to reduce the cost, I want a direct answer, the teachers currently have I'm imagining he a certain amount of terms that they can print. Will this impact that in your attempt for savings? so right now, in correct me in I'm wrong, from last school year to this school year, the print services is different correct? From what I understand, there was less guard rails because ttsz not in the principal's budget anymore. We saw an increase in printing as a result? yes. So before AUGUST 23, a worked off school budget so like what MS. Hixon was saying, there was a particular threshold that you can print in classroom. But as soon as it went to the centralized business, they didn't have the guard rails locally and they just upped the print. So to give you

448an example, 3.2 million dollars the second year so there was an increase. You can see the increase, year over year, it's not a decrease it was an increase. You don't have the guard rails in place. so we'll be putting in those guard rails to replicate what schools we're doing it anyway when they had in their budgets. I got this amount of money for this year, I need to devy out and when this was centralized, the printing services went up significant re. -- significantly. so the goal is to resert back to the what the volume was. correct. We have the data to make the best decision possible so we don't have impact the services and instruction that the kids are receiving. MS. Bulman? nothing makes me happier than when I see my son sitting at the

449table with his piece of paper and pencil. I would love to continue to see that continue. When we're doing guard rails, maybe we can throw some of those too. Everything that they can work on when they're working on that homework. thank you, all those in favor of the amendment to the motion say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. no. can we do a roll call. school board members, leonardi? no. rupert? no. thompson. (Inaudible). zeman. no. alhadeff. (Inaudible). bulman. no. fam. yes. hixon? no. holness. no. Fails 3-6. back to the original item all those in favor of the item as is. Say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no. item passes, 8-1 with MS. Alhadeff descending. Next is 0013 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by MR. Zeman and seconded

450by MS. Thompson. DR. Zeman. thank you, I have the same question on the management system what value is there to the audit management software? MR. Rodes? it's going to allow us to get away from paper. It's going to allow us to manage our resources by seeing what they're doing with this software and increase our efficiency, our effectiveness. I've looked at the demos of the system, we've been -- this is been something that this office has been working on for two and a half years so it predates me a bit. So I have a couple of my staff members that can provide some additional information on that. But just to let you know, we've spoken to the folks at orange county and they're use iting, and it's a very affordable system for us to be get

451into. And, again, between utilizing work papers, so to speak, electronic papers off of other systems, we can pull those into this system as well as scan documents, PDFs and store those and eliminate printing altogether and have our papers put together in one place, and again, seeing where our auditors are at different locations and adding to their work papers as they're doing their work by the day. terrific, and you mentioned that it will increase effectiveness and efficiency. yes. how much more efficient? I think it's going to make the audit process at least 50 percent more efficient just based on the fact that we're able to go to the site with a laptop and scanner. and you said 5-0. 5-0. so for the same number of audits, we need same amount of auditor? for the what it

452touches. We have department that are heavy on work withing papers and that's our internal and to some degree, our audit, we're going to start to use that with our property and inventory as well as our it audits but they're much less paper intensive anyway. but this does more than reduce paper it reduces the audit core process? absolutely, and it allows us to better manage our resources internally realtime. terrific. I would like to explore this further to see which percent of each of these buckets could be done. So we can make sure that the budget for next year is reflective on that? thank you. All those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed? Item passes unanimously with 8-0, MS. Rupert is not on the dais. Next item 0014. so moved. moved by MS. Thompson seconded by

453DR. Zeman. Any public comment? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman. this is always a concern and I think it's just important to get the information out. We're replacing or improving equipment used by our athletes. One of the big issues in athletic in fact one that is causing a lost parents to restrict their student's participation in football is whether or not we moved to the new national standard for helmets. This is a huge competitive we have. We provide funding for our agent leetsing to have world class equipment. The question chair, are we buying world class super save concussion proof helmets that meet standards for our athletes? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza. thank you for the question, the answer is yes. That's why in this bid, you'll see the recommended award is rydel and as we know, that is the

454supplier for the nfl. Coupled with the fact that the products that they provide meet the national standard for algt athletic equipment. terrific. I'm not going to opine whether that still makes kids enough to play football but for those who choose to play football, this is the standard and paid for, chair by who? through the broward county. are you the chair? DR. Wanza. no, I'm not but DR. Hepburn looked at me. chair who is paying for this? DR. Hepburn? [Laughter] he just got a raise. who is the best? choose B.C. Ps. this is paid for by us, we provide the equipment. Now if some athletes want to buy something extra, they can do that. It's really really impressive and it keeps you as safe as we can. And I want to make sure that we have

455that on the record, thank you so much DR. Wanza. thank you, all those in favor of oo14 say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. Item passes ooh -- unanimously with every one in the dais. next is -- . any public comment? DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. But they're not in the audience. no, so MS. Fam? I'll pass. okay, DR. Zeman. thank you. Does this make change to standard to both include math and english? DR. Hepburn? yes, we have added the math for our elementary students, which is a change from last year. it's a big change. And I'm just going to talk for 30 seconds about that because we're getting late in the day. Buzz kids are going to enter a workforce in 15 years or so where math is at just as important as english. All

456companies are deeply involved in it, data analysis, data management, the next generation of ai and alike. It's important to read and write, it's not really an argument about a or b but b is becoming very very important. So job creation is happening for math, dominant, skilled people, and the fact that broward county has moved forward with an english and math standard throughout kindergarten, including kindergarten is big news. It probably won't make the sun sentinel tomorrow but it should. So thank you very much. Cao. thank you all those in favor of item pp say aye. aye. all those opposed? Motion carries unanimously with all those here. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. Any public comment. they're not report but for the record, narne pierre grant? MS. Fam? That's the one. if you

457can turn on your mic, please. excuse me. I've been contacted I had a discussion with MR. Lozano earlier that I've spoken with a few of my principals and they don't feel comfortable making the determination of a credibility of a bomb threat and they're asking that that be relegated to somebody else where they have training in that and they can make that call whether this is legit mate or not legitimate, that would be a great burden from them, because they don't want evacuate schools when not necessary and they want to make sure that they do when they are. DR. Hepburn? yes. Go ahead DR. Lozano? artie lozano, chief safety security officer. So in initial assessment, it says the principal will assess the coordination in coordination with the superintendent, our chief of school police and local law

458enforcement. So principals don't do that in isolation, we do it together but principals are the initial receiver so they are part of that process because they MAY have to immediately make a decision on a standard response protocol. thank you, for clarifying that, that is going to be a big relief for many principals, thank you. thank you, all those in favor of pp4 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Passes unanimously with every one here. And the final item of the evening, is -- oh. 7? Sorry, pp6 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi. Is there any public comment? no, ma'am. okay, DR. Zeman. I did not pull this item. okay, we've had some issues. I apologize. pp6. All right if you're good,

459all those in favor of pp6 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Item passes unanimously with every one on the board. I would like to speak on 7. we passed that already, it was not pulled, so thank you. Sorry. At this time, do any of my colleagues have any discussion or students successes to bring forward to the superintendent, for consideration? DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So I wanted to make a moment to recognize and thank becca's closet for generously providing students at board anderson school for free formal wear. It has made it possible for them to attend events with pride. Funded of rebecca kirkman who believed every student should feel empowered. and DR. Holness, you had comments on ff2. it's not that. okay, perfect. MS. Leonardi. thank you. I wanted to raise some concerns

460about some kind of silence delays. So I had asked for a follow-up a couple of weeks ago, and I just want to briefly kind of summarize some of the delays that we've been experiencing. So as of MARCH 21, 2025, we have one, one item that has been kind of silenced since MAY 14, 2024, so almost a year. We have another item that has been silenced since JULY 3, 2024. Another item that been in silence since JULY 29, 2024. another that's been in silence since SEPTEMBER 12, 2024. This is as of MARCH 21st of this year. Another since SEPTEMBER 20, 2024. OCTOBER 15, 2024. So the, there are some items that have been that we've been waiting on for quite sometime and I'm wondering what the deal is and what we're doing to move these items

461in a more expeditious fashion? DR. Hepburn or MS. Batista. I'll have to do some research to find out what specific items, you're discussing, unless MS. Batista has anything else to add. I have the items, I just don't know if we're allowed to discuss them publicly but you know, one has been, it says it's been with legal since DECEMBER in several discussions have occured since then. But this is, it's concerning that something has been in code of silence for almost a year now. can they discuss specific? Just to clarify before? so if something is in the code of silence for that period of time, it's probably because there was a protest that would extend the period of time for the code of silence, not knowing the pkz, obviously I would have to get with MS. Leonardi

462and provide and look it up and see what item or items she's referring to. okay, I'm looking at one that says in the follow that wuz sent to all of us, that the agreement was submitted for general counsel for genre view DECEMBER 28, 2024. so that was four months ago? is that possibly, bus patrol? it says bus infraction,. yes, there are some issues and that item is no longer in our office. We have asked for follow-up from different departments and we're waiting for that since FEBRUARY 12 of this year. and also travel agency that has been in code of silence since JULY third, 2024? I don't know that one off the top of my head. we'll have to research on those. I know we brought a travel agent item to the board that was approved

463probably two board meetings ago. okay, still quite sometime, right? Like 8 or 9 months? we'll have to look at them and really dive deep to see what those issues are and see what the hold. If it's something in either of our shop procurement or legal, we'll see what the barriers are and address those and if it's something legitimate, bid protesters or not, we can follow-up. thank you. yes. DR. Zeman?N? t tnknks, cir. There beena number of local news and news papers articles related to our budget. All of that discussion is predicated on the state's budget and their funding for us. If they continue along that processing that they have right now and end on MAY 2, with the numbers that they're proposing between the house and senate, everything that is being talked about in the

464budget is very real, we will not have money to cover inflation for fuel and paper and printing and all the things that we've talked about otherwise, not even touching tariffs, they don't affect construction but what we do on business on operation side as well. So the risk of us being budget extremist, it real. We're up there, trying to make the case, we were not affective so far. It's insanely the type of miniscule that they're talking about they're talking about a $20 increase. People still have an opportunity to input outcome. But we are with all likelihood going to be in serious issues. We're going to have to do real quick after the workshop next week. And the other is alan bogenough, I nom natured to be on the superintendent task forced to hope us bring in

465committees and have a good conversation, he lasted three weeks. And in his resignation he made clear observations about the way he was treated by people who, don't abide by our core character traits. That is a real thing. It reminds me of the former state rep that I nominated to a committee who walked out of a committee meeting and said, I thought you liked me alan. We have to figure out how we can get advise' committees to help us make decisions because we hear advise from them. It's an important function, to government and we're going to find a solution over that. But the alec bogten story is a sad bun, he's incredible level headed, mit and h h , Ph.D. In his resignation which has been shared with everybody, superintendent? yes. please read it again. This

466is not how we treat human beings in this business. I'm very sad for him and I'm also equally sad for us because we're not enforcing the character traits that we tell our students that we will enforce to them and we're adults, last time I checked. And I cannot wait for all of us to act like it. Thank you. board member thompson? um, so I wanted to give a shout out to our ktw employee of the month, erika argeno who is a teacher staff developer in our learning department. Also a shout out to choral cove who is their lion king performance, that I will not be making it starts in five minutes, but I will be make iting tomorrow. West broward just had an amazing stories of west side stories that I heard several amazing things

467about. Their choir team also placed superior in the palm beach competition. And they had several, students place hold on, also receive superiors as well and then also the silver palms elementary robotic team is going to world in texas, which I think is super cute, yeah, right, so cool. that's my comments, thank you. thank you, and I'll be late, but I'm going to the lion king, so I'll let you know how that is. Congratulations to the south area, scholar athletes that were recognized last night at the bahemar and won up to 50,000 was given away last night at the banquet. So I want to end with this. We know there are a lot of budget issues, we were giving a lot of difficult situations at last workshop and a lot of media around it. And I

468would like to caution my colleagues in talking with others, that we have not discussed this at all as a board. We have not voted on anything and to present things to the media that looks as if we made decisions as a board, does not do the community or the superintendent or us as a board any favors. So I would hope that when you're discussing things with the media, please make it very clear that it's your view if you make those statements and make it clear that the board has not voted on anything yet because it makes it very difficult because we have not had any conversations. I just want to make sure that the public knows that. The board has not voted on anything. We don't know how, we're not getting rid of staff, we're

469not moving people from one position to the other. We're not at this time, who knows when we vote on it, but just wanted to be clear that we as a board did not vote on anything. Thank you very much. The scheduled business. couple of things. Sorry MADAM Chair. MS. Fam, you had something? Go ahead and then I'll go after fam. you turned it off. I had to spoke with with some legislatures about some ideas. We've been getting a lot of negative publicity about not vetting some of our staff members and teachers in reference to inappropriately touching students or being involved physically with students. What I recommended is where changing the law where it is trusted adults where it would be a aggravated assault. Sexual assault. And the reason being is because these people are in

470positions where our students trust them. So we can come up with some categories if anybody would like to work with me, not only in schools but also be baby sitters, relatives, also be anyone that you would expect that you would entrust your child to. So therefore instead of looking at a minimum of a maximum of ten years, they would be starting at twenty years. Zoo we know they are going to really think if they want to touch an underaged person. The second thing, I reached out to of my mayors in reference to vetting. Some are getting through the vetting process. And I asked if we can work with their police chiefs to try to collaborate to come up with a better vetting system, I don't know if anyone else has done that. But I did

471want to speak to DR. Hepburn, about what we're doing to increase our vetting so at least we cannot let these people through our doors? We have to improve. We're not doing t we're not accomplishing it and that's the biggest thing is to protect our children. We cannot leave the doors open for these predators. What are you suggesting? MR. Hepburn. I'll have m azzarito go through the, background checks, the required fingerprinting is pretty robust to identify anything that the person has done in the past that would not warrant them to be our kids. And the same goes for volunteers also that register to be on our campus and help support our kids. I can have MR. Azzarito to make sure you understand so when you collaborate with other constituents, you can be able to converse with

472them about our process. I thank you for that. That would be great. And if we can find out how that teacher got through from dade county when he was wanted? Wasn't there a warrant, we need to close those loopholes, people are getting through. I'm not familiar with that specific case but I'll do some research. That's it? Two quick items. One, with alec boganof, so the board is aware that he's resigned from the chair role once DR. Zeman appoints his next appointee, I'll send the board an email who is going to be appoint to continue this process so we can land this plane to come up with a better committee structure that is going to add some value to the district as we move forward with a lot of awesome things that we're trying to accomplish

473for the upcoming school year and beyond. Also, didn't get the public didn't get a chance to hear all the new names or renaming of schools so I wanted to announce thez. Pines middle school pines collegiate academy. Silver shores will noub silver shores academy ak and coconut creek, now coconut k-8 academy of excellence. And in the vain of always trying to finderors of improvement, I'm a detailed, we heard some hiccups about some pulled items so I'm going to ask MR. Sullivan to share what he found out so we can ensure that process is flawless. by 10:00 am prior to the board meet ising when you're suppose to submit your pulled item. At the time when the chair is announcing the items that have not been pulled and before you vote on an item, if you see

474an item that is not indicated that you have pulled or want to pull, that is the time you need to alert the chair. Once you pats non pulled items, it's too late to bring it up unless you bring it back to the floor. it's on the individual board members that they're not passing items on that item if you have a item to pull. hold on MS. Thompson asked first. she's quick. very quick. Since we're waiting on an appointee on the task force, is there going to be an extension of that 60 days? DR. Hepburn? I don't think, I have to see. But honestly, I don't think there needs to be an extension but I need to see what the time extension needs are if any. Yeah. DR. Zeman? thanks so much, chair. I want to

475make sure that I agree with MR. Sullivan. I think when we pass on mass items, that were not pulled they MAY not be pulled back because they passed unanimously, because they've been voted on. nobody can bring them back but MS. Batista. if there is an item that has been passed unanimously anyone can bring it back for reconsideration. so I was completely wrong. your words sir, not mine. that's okay, I trip on it all the time. MS. Bulman. this is back to the superintendent task force, hopefully you'll appoint someone soon. I'm just concerned about, you know, how affective this is going to be given what is already happened in its existence. I don't know if there is a plan? so the plan is to, continue with the current task force if there is anything different that

476the board wants to do, this is an opportune time to let me know, if it'sing bringing the original item that we brought to the workshop or updating the item that we brought at the original workshop or bringing it back or continue with the task force and let them bring us something. So whatever the will of the board through consensus at this moment. do we want to take consensus. if I MAY, sir. The consensus is do we want to continue with the task force or dissolve it or bring back recommendations and go through that process? well, we'll go around. MS. Rupert? no. okay, DR. Holness. MADAM Chair, I want to ask a question to the superintendent. Would the current task force, I understand the chair resigned but do you believe that it is an affective mechanism

477to get input as as far as the revision to the committee chairs, or do you believe that you bring in for recommendation with collaboration with your staff is the better option? I think we, we attempted that, and as a result of all the feedback, we got in the room at the time, we pivoted to create a different form for more feedback and in we're going to continue. I think we continue with the task force. MS. Alhadeff. continue can the task force. continue with the tafng force. -- task force. MS. Leonardi. continue and I have some comments. DR. Zeman. give it another swirl. okay, so you have your direction for that. Okay, MS. Leonardi. yeah, and with regards to the task force, what happened and what transpired was really unfortunate with the chair. And I don't

478go on twitter very often but I did go and look because I received a phone call. And the comments about of a video, that was posted online of the task force, were really astonishing and they were not the way I would want my children to behave and these are grown adults, basically cyber bullying, members of this committee. So I hope that in moving forward with the task force, people can conduct themselves in a manner of respect and kindness. And I got some phone calls this morning about, you know, from people who were very concerned about the voices of a few overpowering the voices of many. And I truly believe that the majority of people volunteering are doing so to help move this district forward and they have, excellent and productive conversations. So I hope that

479we can uplift those and I hope that this task force can have kind of a reset to move forward in a, in a hopeful and productive manner. thank you. And we will end with MS. Bulman. I agree with MS. Leonardi. And I just want to I mean, I don't have to remind you guys but the purpose of the advisory committees is to be a tool for us to advise us. So, moving forward, I hope that messaging is given to the task force and I also, I think with all of the moving parts with budgets, coming from the state level, and other issues that we're going to be looking at that are going to be very pressing and very difficult, I hope that we will not have to continue to spend a lot of energy dealing

480with kind of the in-fighting and behavior that we're seeing with the task force in general. We need to get to a place where we're actually having productive advisory boards that are giving us advise so we can all function at the highest level because we have very important jobs to do. That's all. Thanks. thank you, the scheduled order of business for this regular school board meeting of school board of broward county florida has been completed. I seeing no other obligation, I now adjourn the meeting.