001testing testing one two three. good morning, welcome to today's school board workshop. We're grateful to have you join us and thankful for your time and dedication to our school district. This school workshop is now called to order. Our primary foc sus to create a safe and productive environment of all participants. Please be remind approximated of all exit doors. While in the board room, refrain from blocking all exit doors. Once the board has reached the seating capacity, attendees will be designated to a overflow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm system, please exit from the room in an ordererly passion, until they have deemed the building safe to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board members, severa will now introduce his school to lead us in the "pledge of allegiance". griffin school, under the leadership of
002principal and assistant principal and debate valerie bird, the students will lead us in the "pledge of allegiance". please stand for the "pledge of allegiance". I pledge allegiance to the flag uft I. States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under GOD indivisible with liberty and justice for all. please be seated. okay, thank you so much. Next we have a moment of silence from board member rupert and since she is not here today, she asked me to read t.Here are some words of tribute from her principal, practice -- pravile ellie. Chelsie dedicated three years to teaching and previously taught for four years. She was a passionate and committed 5th grade teacher who poured her heart into the school and community. She was not only a de voted educator but also a
003loving mother of three. Her daughter is a third grader and 5th grader and her youngest son is 5 years old and in bpk. Despite her on going illness, she continued to come to school even during her most difficult days until she could no longer do so. Today is a sad day at tradeweighed elementary. Her strength and resilience will be profoundly missed by her colleagues, students and entire community. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. As we prepare to begin this school board workshop, we're reminded that our vision is 100 percent proficiency for all our students. We begin the vital task of sustaining this achievement. We will continue to, our theme this year is believe, and power achieve, one broward. Today's workshop will operate in accordance with school board policy 1020 and the
004board will review the items as advertised and presented bit superintendent. Our first item of discussion is committees reports. We will now hear reports from the committees. first up audit committee. good morning, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, chair of the district's committee. Welcome to broward MR. Severa, buckle up, because it gets bum', especially when I'm involved. So the audit committee you have attachments from our MARCH meeting, this was more informational in nature because the motion that was passed, for a subsequent follow-up audit to be performed on elementary, this was the 66th missing covid lap tops. The chief auditor had already planned to do and this was just being, trans mitted as an fyi. However, because, there was some confusion, over how this could happen, and we will get an update on exactly what happened from the other side,
005from the xhaoef auditor at our JUNE meeting. I dug into the first thing which is the business process, because this is all about internal controls. So the first thing you know about the bulletin, it does not require schools to reconcile inventer tory. Which coming from not accounting background, I apologize for sitting in the audit committee and not imagining that this is how the district does inventory because this is a fair rebasic function. But what happened historically is the policy has not been revised since 98, that designates individuals as property custodians. That's in conflict with florida administrative, as well as florida statute chapter 274 which is established a superintendent as custodian school property and the chief responsible for rules. So you also school board policy 3204. This same school board designate, defunk property, responsible for conducting
006physical inventories. They uncovered this systemic deficiencies and this is happening this whole time. So, I went through and catalogued what is required from staff and nobody created this probably, however this is the opportunity to fix it. So you have everything that is transpiring and who is responsible and how to fix it. The chief auditor is suppose to assess the internal controls that can't be involved in, performing the responsibilities, safeguarding assets, they're suppose to evaluate that not actually safeguard them. What has been happening is, the staff individual departments and schools have been tasked to create withing procedures when that is something that should be done bit chief financial officer's department. : this is a function that has been hoisted off but also on these individual schools and mrin pals and department heads where the procedure should
007be centralized and implemented across the district. So all the rules involved are sited there. We have coming up on thursday jend's an issue of auditor dependence being repaired. Your business support center did not provide a response when they should have and finally what is coming up on the 139ing that we have been discussing over a year and you approved an audit of is internal control of hr. Should prevent things like the highest rank person by your superintendent, somehow not being the person that comes forward to the board when that interview occured in SEPTEMBER. And I just got the remaining documents, so I'll be sharing hem -- them with the committee. okay, examine you can continue. switching gears. You have a hand out toer that one, because some of what we did, is now semi irrelevant,
008thank you. So last night, I, since last tuesday, been trying to figure out how to frame the motion that's were framed bit different areas. So staff brought 1164 to a workshop that was one did I before the meeting and then meant to be brought to the board again. So all we had the time to do was the areas discuss 1164 and each area either passed motions, recommending the board adopt the language from 2023, central area came to consensus. But that sort of is all out the window because when rehad the rule development workshop which I then had to prepare an update related to. At the rule development workshop, the version of the policy and I prepared a comparative report that shows 30 changes were made to the document between the two pdf, there is the
009document that was approved by caward and could card, that was presented to you on rule 8. But I have a problem, what staff has now done is picked and cherry picked different language from 2023. So now the requests that I'm making in order to help district advisory and all of your areas, is to honor what appears to be the board's original intent and in light of the changes made to the original and APRIL 8th version and because the school year is now almost over and the policies are not associated with any imminent need, I'm requesting the board, instead allow staff to work with dac to loop the policy through the areas and other advisories once the 25-26 school year begins. Because there is language from 2023 that upon further review and because of what is
010being incorporated by staff into what they would be bringing you, the areas and dac MAY very well have different recommendation to see make. And this policy is called communication and public engagement. So if all the policies, we would hope that that is where we have the most engagement. And we meet dac meets next week. We have elections, but this was the most pressing thing, we were joined at our last meeting by the superintendent, we'll be bringing a slew of year-end recommendations following our next two meetings. And that's all I have for you. thank you so much. Next is diversity committee. I'm sorry, MS. Alhadeff. thank you, I just had a question-comment when the committees are going through policies or looping, where does coward and coward the law firm that we hired to help us go
011through our hol sees are they engaged involved with the communities to support them? And if they, they should be? DR. Hepburn? MR. Sul have not. -- sullivan. it just depends, they're not al every single meeting. They were not available, they had some conflicts for this past community meetings so they were not there, but I'm sure DR. Natalie-walsh wants to expand to be?A I don't know why staff keeps calling it a community meeting. Yes coward and coward was not available which is one of the many objections attendees such as myself had. I will say that coward and coward participated via teams when they went through the officer related policies. However for this one, it's cloaked for some mystery for 1164 because the board voted against sunseting policy 1164 on 9-13-22 and what we think is happened
012is staff was directed to loop it. So dac, started to work on policy revisions with staff. There were multiple meetings this is before could ward and coward came on board. And there is an email and by me, I mean lind a sent to MR. Sullivan to have legal review it. This was in AUGUST of 23, she followed up a month later and he said that he would get back to her in the interim, coward and coward came on board. Other than audit, I'm trying to think if they've been available. But for this particular one that is of such importance because it speaks to how you communicate and engage your stakeholders, your constituents, they were not available which one was of the ushz people had at the rule development workshop and and they were not in
013the picture when dac looked at it in 2023. So that's why I'm requesting that we properly loop it with them involved. Also I did a public records request to get the red line version and sent the staff's version and it's unlike like coward and coward to rewrite the policy. So I've done another request to distinguish that from what staff is bringing. If you look at the contract, yes they should be coming to meetings but I don't know that staff is doing that. MS. Alhadeff. thank you for that explanation. Yes, I think that coward and coward should be in collaboration and at the meet approximatesing with them, this is what we hired them to help us to help, you know o you are committees, we're a team we need to work together. Thank you. thank you.
014Next up is diversity committee. good morning, school board MR. Cervera, welcome. The committee common themes observed are the facilities issues, standard of service and consistencies and safety and security issues. Several schohos s sited e e ererns ing jor issuesanand work ororderse e atat a all-time high. Or simply non responsive, safety protocols, assessments and guidelines are inconsistent, all schools visited have blind spots and several schools have inoperable cameras, a few schools don't have pa systems and it's inoperable. A few schools have safe space signia. And as the school draws to a close, the diversity committee has completed their response report and submitted it to the district for review. In the meet ing, our committee reported items to be included to provide this board that will be beneficial for students and staff. The chair of diversity has
015been in collaboration with several other advisories to present a robust report that gives the board a holistic view. The committee believes that this emphasis the commitment to actively collaborating with stakeholders and coming to a consensus to update it for the 25, is it 25-26 school year. We also discussed the work of the superintendent's task force that is in charge with providing the district with hemation policy 1070 and restructure of advisories committees. The xhi' is -- committee is in consensus that the board and superintendent is well intention. However the time frame they were allotted to come up with two options does not seem prudent. The committee members professor: vieed sound recommendation. However the time fwraim is not con ducive enough. The committee agrees that they should be allotted more time than 60 days and we're recommending
016that the superintendent reconsiders. Before I spend my spill, I have like two minutes, I want to thank every staff member who has helped me as chair of tie versity. You guys have been awesome, people have been very responsive and helpful. And I want today put on record last month, it felt like there was an implication being made as if I've come up through observations and visits as if everything is all bad. Especially where security is concerned. That is not the case. Le just based on our observations, some areas have a plethora of security while other areas have scanty security. Based on the superintendent's comment about industry standards, you're over staffed, it's not seen from our committee's perspective because we can see if you go based on demographic. Some schools are plentiful while others are missing
017members f.We do have over staff by industry standards, we MAY need to recycle them throughout district that way everybody has enough, so I just want to put that out there. i didn't like the implication last month and I do not like people questioning my inat thingity and it's not the superintendent, it's not you. I will always end my report with the phrase that the power is with the people, not with the people in perceived power. We work better together than apart and I want to emphasize the importance of community and collaboration. This community could not thrive with those that believe that it takes a village and I thank you for your time. MADAM Chair, regarding the task force in place for the committees, what is the end date as far as when they should get
018back to us? DR. Hepburn? go ahead, MR. Sullivan. We gave them a date of MAY 16th. I think the initial report was MAY 16th and then the other report, give me a sec. I think it was the following week for the final. okay, so DR. Hepburn. and DR. Holness, maybe you can hold the comments about the task force because we do have the task force khaur here that is going to give comments on and this conversation MAY lend itself for that time of the meeting. thank you, john, I just wanted to mention a couple of things. DR. Hepburn, regarding the timeline, what is the consequence? Should there be extended if there is any? MR. Hepburn. go ahead MR. Sullivan. our goal to align with the next school year and school chart. That's how we organize
019ourselves. So if we extend it, that work would not be able to align this upcoming school year. okay and john, through the superintendent, if it's not aligned with upcoming school year, what does that mean? What is the consequence to the actual committees? well, so if the board cause it wasn't necessarily the superintendent that established the 60 days, that was a board discussion during a workshop. So without board consensus on an extension, we've made it clear to the task force that if they don't provide two viable options, the superintendent reserves the right to bring it back for board consideration. okay, so DR. Hepburn, I know there were some concerns with leadership of task force and changes that could have created reasons for the members requesting an extended timeline. I guess I'll wait for the report from
020the task forced to see where they are. But I do believe, MS. Grants comment MAY be relevant but I'll hold the rest of my comments until we hear from the task force. thank you, thank you for your report. Next is ese advisory council. good morning, jackie, MR. Cervera, welcome. Apparently, comments and thought MAY be given to that but now that reports have been moved to workshop, nobody has the ability to comment at the begin of the meeting. and nobody can submit written comment at the portal. General meeting APRIL 16th, we had long discussion of the am P.M. Speech program, this is a specialized program for pre-k students. And it infuses languages through the course of the three out program. There are alternatives not comparable alternatives and those are now what parents are being forced to.
021Which is take your child out of pre-k or take your child out of school or send them to full day pre-k, with speech issues. Transportation, and so on, we sounded the alarm a year ago when we heard, not when we were told, third that bcps was closing this program in 2024. Provide you a map back then in the hope that anyone MAY be as keen as we were to see how this could be deemed acquitable and question the contentious manner in which the closures occured. And for anyone that shows the program, the pink shows where all the program were and the blue is where the programs were left which is the far western reaches of the district. I'm sure you can understand why it is seen as it is being seen, of course you're not
022going to increase enrollment if you put it out of reach geographically and saying now the few students are enrolled are arguably trickery. This program was a gem that could be built up. We passed a motion recommending the school board review the closure of the program. Provide financial program of the justification and evaluation of its benefits to students and conduct an assessment of its potential for growth if supported by comprehension awareness. We have a descending vote, and there were parent testimonials that I have not submitted to you, but I didn't want their personal information on portals. Number two, provide notification to parents when there is a change in the school nurse. These are all issues that are being counted. For allow parents to communicate students by cell phone for the purposes of management of type one
023diabetes. Five, do not call dcf on parents as retaliatory action. And cell phone accommodations for students with diabetes, to include professional input from the american diabetes association and discuss other issues. Also to discuss other nursing schools to set in place procedures and protocols and I'm garbling because I've got so much. And last one, cameras in classrooms, I'm des made that we have having a de face about this. We recommended that broward schools continue the wonderful program by the state. It's been 8 months since we were told it would be expedited. I get it's difficult, half our policy recommendations weren't included when the staff brought you the draft. That other mail went out to other parents that already legal concerns about it and there is not been anything waiting to put on agenda after this one-year
024wait to get things moving and also deaf and hard of hearing issues you were all part of a email threat last week, thank you. That was very distress to go read about the problems being encountered by the deaf and hard of hearing community examine appropriateness of interpreting services this affected a student that was going to field interpret on the morning. She was a kid dragging around with a teacher and I think a lot of thought knees to go into these these services are being provoided and review as suggested by informant. I have a lot more that I cannot say. MADAM Chair. thank you. DR. Hepburn are parents allowed to communicate to their students on cell phone for purposes of managing their type one diebt. DR. Hepburn. from what I understand, yes. good morning, chief academic
025officer, yes, DR. Holness, students are able to communicate with their parents about their dient management. But if the students is not independent, we require that another adult is required so we don't have a safety issue. okay so I attended the last ser advisory council, is there a reason that parents are concerned. There principals are schools that allow students. We're getting feedback from parents regarding that concern. And if, if the schoolses are not aware through the school leadership, how can we communicate with our school leadership to ensure that teachers and every one is on board? With students using their cell phone as a result of their type one diabetes. thank you, every students is individualized so we're looking at those case by case. We're making sure we work with that student's needs. So there is not
026this misunderstanding and certainly working on that too to make sure that that is continue to be approved upon and making sure that families are not frustrated. okay, would you say that every principal in broward schools is aware of what the role is in making sure that students are allowed and processes to use their phones? I would say, yes websinger just had a joint meeting with principals so we're continuing to address those. okay, I have one more question. Is there a DR. Hepburn is there a policy related to provision of cell phone accommodations for students with diabetes and issues? no, there is no current policy. I want to double on what has holingsworth is tauging b.Yes they're aware. But I want to make sure that kids are not all put into one basket. There are some
027specific cases that we cannot talk about here that already some issues going throughout the year that we're work withing the parents. there is no policy, legislation does allow instructors as well as our us to utilize their phones when given permission. okay, is there an existing policy to which this would fit in to revision to each policy? As regards to item 6 from MS. Lucekoms. I would refer to MS. Batista, we already a law faefpers to use their electronic device. MS. Batista. thank you, MADAM Chair, the policy that addresses that issue is the cell phone policy and it already has a provision that provides that there is, you know, there is a carve out for medical issues. In addition to that, of course, we have the individual with disability acts which provides for IEPs and section
028504 which provides for accommodations based on which would be more align with the diabetic issue, it will be a 504 plan that would be allowed for phones to be used or any other members necessary to address the medical needs of the students. okay, so that policy should protect those students, correct? correct. thank you. board member thompson. MADAM. good morning, a couple of items just clarification in the meeting with the cell phone and diabetes was nursing staff was that part of that conversation to all the nurses are aware? DR. Hepburn. MS. Holingsworth? can you repeat that. so at the meeting you reference with principals regarding cell phone policies and type one diabetes where the nursing staff and people who would be providing medical care are a water? correct. okay, thank you. And then, I want today
029go back to the am/P.M. Classes. Can the board get more justification foreclosures. And what are we putting in place to make sure that those kids are still getting services. yes, I'll let MS. Holings go tlut timeline and the alternative methods that are providing services and then we can provide a follow-up go ahead. and I'm going to have MS. Eden provide for detail. Individual families were community indicated and and looking to see what services were needed for them and that is individualized. MS. Aegan. ye, every year we look at the enrollment of every single program and make projections based on enrollment. So last year, we took a look at all the programs and we did notice the decline in enrollment. We did close 13 programs last year because there were less than 8 students so it
030really wasn't viable. So then we moved forward taking a look if we consolidated where we had more than 8 students where we would try to see if we could give it another year to grow the program. However when what we found, the data which is our gateway to our programs, the type of students that traditionally had been placed in those programs are really not coming through. So everything was based on need of students. So we took a look at the individual students, we had staff work with schools and communicate with families ahead of time and let them know that they would be scheduling a an iep meeting and the family to make sure that they were accommodated and their needs to be met. At no time was there a break in service for students and
031we had positive meetings with families and they are excited about having the opportunities to have a variety of different ways that services can be met. The meetings have been positive and we decided that reaeay great opportunity to give many of the oppopoununies s progra anand ththe mimiesare excid d about that. A all right, d I veve one more comment thank you for the follow-up and I look forward to the written. MS. Lucecom you said something we should not have staff contact dcf if we have a issue. I take concern because all our teachers and staff are mandatory and their sole job if they have a concern they report it. While I understand there is your concerns that it could be retal tory, I never want any person in our school person to reach out dcf,
032because they're afraid for a child, I want that stated. I MAY respond. briefly. I didn't say don't contact dcf, I you know well, I would never say tha. There were two cases where they were concerns. thank you, board member cervera? MS. Thompson beat me to the bunch, I was going to -- punch. MS. Thompson asked the question. I thought we were going to wait for all committees before we asked questions. Is there a procedure within the district about cell phones and medical issues in general? I know it's in the policy, but I think it would be important to have something written out as a procedure so that, principals are very clear what is allowable and what is not? So, DR. Hepburn? yes, somebody said it was specific procedures but as we know many of our
033medical issues are IEPs and already documented for the unique needs of that student. So I wouldn't want it create a blanket procedure when many of the cases are unique ushz that already documented and have to be implemented by law and policy, ida policies and things luke that for these unique situations. MS. Batista, looks like you want to add something. what I want to add is we have a policy of medication and treatments and that current with that policy, we also have procedures that go along with that. okay, maybe we can share that, I continue to get emails about diabetes and, when I'm in specific areas, that's all people want to tell me about. I know the district feels like they're addressing it, but it does not feel like the parents are seeing tha. There is
034a group of people not seeing it happening. So it would be important to maybe share those policies out again and the procedures that MS. Batista just spoke about with your principal just to remind them because it does seem to be continuing issue. if I can add MADAM Chair, we're working with our partners to come until and do a review of how we service our students. Hopefully, they'll be able to give us some good information that we can use to improve our practices. Because we always have areas for improvement. We're inviting a different lens to come in and review these for us and provoid better services in the future. thank you. And can you give us an update on the cameras in the cam radios. As you know, it's been frustrating, we were hoping to start
035the school year with cameras and made the insin oohation that it was going to happen and then we had some issues and then we stopped because we were waiting for legislation. Legislation is not was not passed so we're again, stand alone, on making a policy which I still think is very important. But I know some things came up. When are we going to see this policy come up as a workshop so you can discuss the concerns. as you mentioned, some things keep coming up as we work through this, this is something that we really want to do to really address the needs of especially our most vulnerable students and newer schools and I'll let MR. Sullivan add to some next steps and things that we recently discovered. sure, thank you superintendent. The superintendent is fully
036committed this this policy is in place for this coming school year. There is no statute that would authority this program. Since there is no sta zarah constitute, the policy as written does conflict with current statutes. So we have to make change to the policy which would mack it substantially from what the board considers. So we have to start the rule process again. So that will come to workshop on JUNE 26 and then JULY 22 which will be in place for this upcoming school year. so when it comes to us, is it going to go through the ese advisory? if you have it looped, it will not be ready. I'm sorry, it's JUNE, 24 and 22. But we're only adding one sentence to it to make sure it, it aligns with the parental rights statute. So
037it's not substantial. It is a substantial change in that regard but it's not a substantial change to what the community has already seen. okay. and the page or difference in there for the statute, we have to put in there that if one parent objects to the camera, then we wouldn't be able to do it. okay. So JUNE 24th is when we're going to see this. it will be workshop and then presented for final approval on JUNE 22, which is before the school iar starts. -- school year starts. thank you. I know there is frustration but if statute would have passed, we would not be in this predicament. I need to correct that. That was not what happened. The statute first came into the conversation in FEBRUARY, and we can all see which way that was
038going to go. But that was not until FEBRUARY and our point then, was let's get ready for when that legislation does not pass so we can hit the ground running. And to correct if I MAY, about nursing services, it was the nurse, one of the director's of coordinated health services who instructed her staff to deny blanket, cell phone accommodations to students that was the concern that we've articulated. It was not a problem with principals, it was a nursing staff was told to deny the process and the process is ada which is the law. DR. Hepburn, can we address with the nurses team. that is noted, the team already addressed that with the nursing staff. That is noted. all right, anybody else, we'll move on to facilities saskatchewan force. -- task force. first of all, I
039want to thank DR. Hepburn and paul, for attending our last meeting. We were able to have a clear dialogue. Sd talking about the work order backlog. And warranties, making sure that everything was being inputed into the system. And we asked about timelines to find out when these things will be done. That was pretty left open. But these are the things that we really want the board members to ask about. When things will be inputed, what is the deadline, what is the drop date. The long-range facility master plan is one of the things that was overlooked a little bit. We wanted to find out the timeline for that. We were able to get some clarity from the, the what is it called? Council of gray city schools. The superintendent ranzy, he asked for some in 2019
040and they were able to give some recommendations. And you have copies of the recommendations to kind of give a guideline on how to things should be done as far as, thank you. How things should be done as far as, what we should be looking for when we're make master plan. And we ran out of time because we spent so much time on maxmo, but the stirring committee, there was, DR. Hepburn, basically, he dissolved our current committee and said they were going to implement a new stirring committee, but we have not heard about the members, the new members of this stirring committee for this long-range planning committee. Let's see what were some of the other things, hold on just one second. What you have in front of you are the recommendations from strategic support and the
041new range stirring committee. Regarding the future of atf, it should be a stand alone advisory. The work that we do, it MAY be that we're very passionate about what we do for this county. And we love our schools, we want our children to walk into buildings where they feel safe and they have a beautiful surrounding so the environment will be conducive to learning. We do have a lot of passion in the room and we also have brought a lot of things for reimplementation for maxmo, a program that you paid a lot for. This is something that needs to be used to help with with what is going on in our country. We also brought something concerning blanche ely, we would like to invite you to the reopening of loop. Can our committees that fought to
042have these things brought before you. Please can he where as far as ftf is concerned. Thank you. thank you very much. I'll just say, very excited about the bus loop. I know that when I first got elected it was one of the first places I went to. And we had the discussion, this is my fifth year, I'm very excited about that. thank you. Okay, the next committee is the human relations committee. good morning, school, nancy fry, chair of the human relations committee. Welcome MR. Cervera to the board. Please review the attendance of your appointees and I'm happy to provide that information if you need. And review very good fit for the committee and for those that have not appointed yet, I look forward to your a appointments for next school year. We had our leadership
043summit or the, the school climate department had their leadership summit, 25 schools participated so we're excited about that and we'll get more feedback from that. I know that, there is some concern about our student engagement activities being in limbo because we're awaiting a doe, funding, I know that will be impacting our programs for next year. Hopefully we'll be figuring out some ways to make sure that those very important programs can move forward. And I want today speak very briefly to the topic I've brought up regarding reorganization can our enrollment numbers that one of the biggest piece approximates of feedback, we always get from our students, is they have a hard time being able to reach an adult when they get assistance with something, or they need documentation or paperwork, or they need to speak to
044an adult about an issue. So whatever we're doing, I just want that to be kept in mind that our students need to be access guidance counselors, social workers administration, and make sure that whatever we're doing, with reorganizing that we're maintaining those channels and hopefully increasing them or making the routes for the students to access those channels as easy as possible. And with that I'm fwg to take a moment of personal privilege and DR. Hepburn you'll be attending my son's band's class tomorrow and I hope you enjoy and they're not too loud can rowdy for you. And one day I'll come up which closing like narny has but for now, thank you. and I will echo what MS. Frye said about the committee appointments if you have not appointed somebody to all the committees, once it
045gets figured out, please know that is really important examine make sure that you're appointing somebody that wants to mack a commitment, because it is a huge time commitment and I appreciate that that you are mia pointy on human relations committee. So thank you. Next up is multi lingual advisory committee. hello I'm danielefrjt and the chair of multi lingual community. Mike has been busy, one of our members has created a dual language, and she did encounter a solo spanish speaking familiar, which we needed a spanish tri fold, so we're working on that. And we're working with programs, tam independent rmarac are closing the program so we learned why they're closing it. Lake wide is a newer program with a new principal and manatee had a new principal, manatee had some issues last year. So I consolidated
046some concerns and recommendations. So teacher recruitment and recommendation, lakeside maintained high staff morale, their administration was very pro that program. Manatee bay does anticipate teachr revierment but has not had ushz a tracking. We're seeing a trend where there is more saturated community, spanish, you get more qualified candidates. Tamarack, dual language program did not provide enough engagement with enrollment as they had some higher achiever students that weren't succeeding in the spanish side and it was due to them having to condense their teachers and really getting down to only two. Lakeside enrollment caps, although there is a lost interest to expand examine that program examine despite the high demand, they have the capacity to have them. Manatee struggles with student retention especially from the gifted or higher grades because not all the dual language teachers are gifted
047endorsed. Academic performance, tamarack under performed in spanish and standardized testing which is what sparked the meeting to vote whether they should keep that or move to a more gifted program. They moved from a a to b rating. Demonstrate higher learning gains. Shout out to that specific principal who does rti blocks by different way that is all done b bgrade. In their testingng. Soi thinat if ththat nonot sosomethinththat other principals are doing, they should look into that. It does make the school have to work on a block schedule and go along that rti block but everybody supports and it does alleviate the extra workload on the teacher and it allows them to work with the individualized students and whether you're gifted or dual language it's all hands-on deck. Funneling and resource dedication, and that did not
048help with the schools performance and scores. And naubl them to get enough resources. Lakeside is faced with some funding inequities as well. Manatee bay is automobile to raise funds through a dual language committee however the money that they raise is not specifically earmarked for that dual language program. Tamarack received, lakeside benefited from strong community support. Manatee has a reactive committee committee that -- between families and administration. There is a need of strength and support and implemented professional development and programs providing inenter I have to attract or retain qualified bilingual teachers. To families for -- especially into higher grades. Goals that align with dual language to ensure that these programs are integrated and provide necessary resource and dedicated funding advocate for district level funding specifically dedicated -- tone sure sustainable growth and the more involved parents
049the more the program is more successful. By addressing these challenges. You want me to finish. By addressing these challenges schools can enhance the affective of their dual language programs. thank you very much, that was a lot. Thank you for the data, I think it's a good inside into the program. Does anybody have anything? Okay. Thank you so much. Next we'll have parent community involvement task force. good morning, I'm erin and I'm vice chair of the parent community task force. It will has been another productive month. During this time we've held events and continue to work on initiatives geared towards amplifying family voices and identifying practical strategies to deepen engagement. Last week we hosted our secondary school forum, and community partners from our middle and high schools. Participants include sac and sac chairs and pt a
050and teachers and community base organizations and parents without formal affiliations to their schools. That was our parent group. We extend our thanks to middle school for hosting the event and for many individuals who shared their lived experiences. We had about 80 participants and they shared their feedback and then participated in about an hour long discussion group with their stakeholders groups. Participants noted the transformative power. They shared a deep desire and celebrated many positive efforts happening in our schools. They also identified persistent and common barriers including scheduling challenges, limited language access and others, mary is shager some of our information in reports right now that make meaningful engagement difficult. Some noted a perceived over emphasis on compliance expressing a desire to shift that focus. Educators shared concerns about initiative overload, highlighting that new engagement efforts compete
051with limited time and staffing and support. It was an incredible event where participants were excite today talk to others. In fact we had to kick people out. They were just so excited to learn from one another. And overall the message was clear, family and staff alike are eager, former flexible. And they want schools to be places where etcher is seen and heard and welcome. And yeah, I think everybody got this data. so expand this reach, we'll be sending the survey to schools that did not send the student participant. This will help to ensure broader representation and feedback and we will follow-up and share that with the board once we have. We have other initiatives members mind ways to listen. We are preparing for a second nonprofit forum, looking for a date in JUNE. And this
052will focus on channels between community partners. We are doing a national research review to look at models from other districts to bring forward innovative ideas and best practices to our district. We're reviewing communication system and processes within our system, for consistent and accessible out reach. We're developing a short survey to gather principal input and still working on a development of a podcast, stay tuned, it really is going to happen. Our work is grounded that believe that engaged families and empowered communities are essential to thriving schools, and we heard that a lot today. As he they where the priorities next year, I would like to reiterate a motion that reunanimous lea proved in APRIL. We and that the school board elevate parent and community involvement as a formal strategic goal and explicit place student families in
053the community at the top of the district's organizational chart. Our district to the north has that and it's very meaningful. This will highlight the role that students play to meaningful family and community engagement. And as we continue these initiatives, we will continue to provide this feedback to the board, and we are grateful to the board and district staff for their continued partnership as we work together to build a more connected, equitable and inclusive district. thank you very much. Anybody have any questions? DR. Hepburn, the recommendation was made about adding a strategic goal, is this I know our strategic plan is a five-year plan, so does that come back each year? Or you know, what do we, when can we have the opportunity to discuss that? yes so, we do have a workshop coming up to
054go over the extra taoej tick plan which sun sets in 2027, usually a year out from the sunset is when we will start developing the new strategic plan. So we can definitely incorporate many other areas that we want to monitor and have some impact during our next adoration of developing a strategic plan. I also want to say, thanks this is very meanful data, it's going to help us make better decisions on how we address the families and students. Thank you for this. thank you, board member alhadeff. thank you. Just also to DR. Hepburn's point. I was under the understanding that the strategic plan is a working, living document. and we have three new school board members who I believe should have weighing in what that strategic plan looks like. So I hope that we're not
055rigid in changing hypothetical something in that when we do workshop it. thank you. I agree. Next is the technology advisory committee. good morning, board members, superintendent and new school board cervera. I really don't have a report because we canceled last meeting because there were no items placed on the agenda. Again if I don't receive anything from staff by thursday, I'll be canceling monday's meeting again. Nothing is coming forward so there is no need to drag people out to talk about nothing. That's it for me. all right, thank you. DR. Hepburn, do we know why staff isn't getting the information that they're asking for? I'll have to talk to the team. I'm not sure if there is anything to share but we can see what we have up-and-coming for evaluation and consideration bit tac committee. can
056somebody please make sure. absolutely. next is broward association of student council and advisory to the board. Landyn, I hope you did great in the examine. Exam. I apologize for being tardy, I've been testing and near the end. For good reason in this room, we talk a lot about instructive feedback, it's also really important to highlight the amazing things that our students are doing. Again this year, students will take thousands of ap exams, it's incredibly impressive the work that goes in, it's not easy, so in this teacher appreciation week, a big thank you to our testing coordinator who do a really really difficult job. And on that topic, I think it's important to highlight again the importance of our dual enrollment, and students worry about losing those classes next year. So the student interest in those
057programs is incredibly important. I want to highlight some resent events with athletic. . Congratulations to our teams that have won in regionals and some amazing things that we are doing. We had a great meeting for our superintendent where we had a year-end discussion on what went well, what could have been better and what we want to see in the future. We had some conversations to what MS. Frye is discussing and hoping for collaboration. But students are sharing the same feedback, they want to know what is the adult on campus. So we organized a cross walk, to for students to readily have that information on canvass. I want to thank DR. Fulton for putting together the concept of academic plans that came out of our speak out session. And there is plan to implement the plan.
058Soy want to thank them, and having students identify who is their person, their trusting adult that they can go to regularly to receive that input? Or that support. Our guidance counselor are responsible for so many of our students but if one of our teachers wanted to be that person for the students it would be really powerful. And the topic of parent community task force, we discussed creating a similar style for the parent university but for our students, to have another form and receive and give feedback. So we're looking forward to some collaboration there. I want to end by, highlighting that tomorrow will be our 36th speak out speak up session, a goal we thought would be hard to reach is something that alana and I are are proud. And what, the data well, the data
059MAY change yesterday but as of this morning, the data MAY change tomorrow, wow you can tell I have not slept. 65 percent of our students were not student leaders. 65 percent are the students that come to school for their education and maybe not as involved. They have that real authentic experience where they can provide the input. And we're proud of the fact that we've been able to give that voice to students who in the past have felt voiceless. Next week we'll be transitioning to a new student advisor and there, we'll be able to thank alana for everything she did. It's important in looking at the feedback that student engagement should be a priority for our district and I'm extremely grateful for DR. Hepburn, cabinet and the board for making that a priority. Thank you. thank
060you, board member thompson. I always love hearing from you, because it reminds us that we're here for students. I want to commend you on making sure that there are a lot of students involved in your speak out, speak up that is not the typical student involved. And I want to get DR. Sullivan, MR. Sullivan, on legislative on the ace where that is at? How that is happening, how we can make sure that the parents know this is still a threat. sure so for those that are not a wai, the legislative session ended this friday. They conclude the legislative portion of but they did not pass the budget. So they're scheduled, there is still disagreement when the house and senate will return but they have to have a budget by JULY first, per constitution so this
061is one of the topics that they're negotiating their conference. Once we know, we'll let the board know. thank you. board member alhadeff. thank you to landyn, exceptional, I would love to support your matrix to how we connect students to resources. that's important so when we have the connection sxz relations with our students. They're going to then be safer. So whatever that looks like. DR. Hepburn that should be a priority for us to make sure that the students are fully aware of what those resources are. And who can they go to as an adult to talk to them about what ever issue that they're having. thank you, I was actually going to make a similar suggestion, I don't know if we can make a poster, I don't know if a poster would be too much but
062at least those general things because we heard it in two different areas today, that students are not sure. And I do know from the conversations I've had, putting it on canvass also like on the landing page was a suggestion students had given to me about if you wanted to get something out to students quickly because they all have to log on there every single day. if I MAY, thanks for landyn and student advisory group are always awesome. They don't want posters. That's us. They do a great job providing issues, when I meet with them monthly or occasionally with landyn or alana. This is will be something implemented for the upcoming school year. So some of the things you're expressing it's already in motion. Thanks to the landyn and their team and making sure that they're
063reiterating at their level. They don't look at billboards when they drive in the car, we're giving it the way they want to receive and they're giving us great feedback. And the team is work to go make sure that happens. I also want to say, thank you for going ashed to the schools. I've had a lot of students come up and very appreciative that they have the opportunity to share their thoughts, they're very excited about students coping coming to the school board workshop and wup missed the deadline and he was very upset about coming. I'm looking forward to starting, because the students are the center of what we do and you really bring that, full circle for us. So we really appreciate all that you and alana have done. thank you, thank you for all of
064your support. we're going to finish the reports with the superintendent task committee. Yes, DR. Lynch-walsh. because this is slated and I don't want this to get lost. There was a tangible requests what what are the next steps for policy 1164? I appreciate that it's not in the agenda next week, so this will be an opportunity when you're altogether to let us know if you plan to loop it next year? Put off any taking any actions, loop it through dac which is where it was in 2023, so that I can take that information back to everybody and we know what our next motion is if we need to pass a motion requesting that again. Will it pop up on a JUNE agenda or later in MAY, and then I need to know if I need to
065do another public rule development workshop. So I'm looking for a response because I don't want us to run out of time. my thought on that is, really to wait until the superintendent's task force has figured out what committees and what the other policy looks like because it tupz some of the other policies and let that run through. I'll let DR. Hepburn but that's my personal thought and then come back to how we're communicating they're all tied together. But I'll let DR. Hepburn answer what the thought is. I wagoing to -- .. of coursrse 're gogog g togogo in summ and ththe advisories don't typically meet in the summer so we'll run out of time to discuss any recommendation that's we have at the area and dac level, MAY is the pretty much the last we
066meet. staff is prepared to present a policy as is, just with the revision of new policy number to align with the new system. okay. Any board members want to weigh in? So again, I'll say I personally think it should be delayed until the superintendent task force. we're not changing anything. right but the perception is about looping and I really think until we know what committees are going to be done. well it's our view that even with the revisions that really didn't change how operate it, so if it's such, if it's going to be a big issue, we're happy leave it as written. any other board member? what am I telling, dac next week? Because even the 2023 changes are not, what was proposed is not verbatim what they put in. There is words that they
067cherry picked out of the 2023 language and in light of us waiting for websites, their responsibility is put on district advisory council which is are volunteers, which is words like staff facilitating is removed. So now even the 2023 version is up for additional review. What they've done is cobbled and crazy quilted what was originally there. So it's not like it was what was in. And every word matters in the england, if you take out an and, if you take out a phrase, and the group would be on board after task force has done their work, but that puts us in summer. Sol staff, said they're not changing anything but. Whatever they're proposing now it either let's looped and there is no emergency that we're aware of. Is there an emergency. : we'll just postpone it
068to the fall. thank you. and next we'll end with the superintendent task force committee. good morning, every one, chair board members, superintendent and staff. my name is cynthia dominique I'm the chair of -- we've been working diligently to provide recommendedation. Our meetings have been collaborative and and productive. We've had feedback from the community advisory chairs and liasons. I want to shout out our liason, armando, it's still document to get all the documents we requested some since MARCH 13th. And this is a concern shared by other chairs. There was a question that board member holness shared about whether if more time was needed. I had a conversation with the superintendent and he wanted to stick to the aggressive timeline and providing those recommendations and two options for committee structures. Again as you heard john stated, if
069they felt the options were viable, our options would be presented, if they were not viable, he would present his previously option. I did express to him and we discussed at the meeting, we think that MAY undermine the work of the task force if the superintendent went forward and presented his own option. We presented recommendations on, APRIL, APRIL 28 so we provided at this meeting but we were not placed on the agenda. And final recommendations on structure on MAY 16th. However this timeline is not preferred it's just in fear of the alternative. We met nine times so far over the course of the month and a half totaling about 30 hours in addition to hours spent reading hundreds of documents and policies, watching meetings and preparing agendas and corresponding via email and we find there are
070other related policies and processes that need to be reviewed through this process. The consensus is at the current face that we're meeting is sustainable for task force members, it does not give us enough time to review all documents, school board members and really doesn't give the community ample time to participate in our meetings, meaningfully which they have expressed. However in the spirit of inclusively we have asked our liason to send our committee dates to send them out to the chairs so if they want to participate they have those dates in advance. We do have the ability to do this right by slowing down. The task force massed a motion on APRIL 9th, asking for more time to continue this work through the fall. We sent out two surveys, we've had -- another survey was sent
071to advise'. We've gained a lot of surveys and we've identified numerous challenges and discussions we've had. Some of our challenges are similar to that that have been previously expressed by chairs. The application of 1070 sunshine law ensuring that all board member appointees actually attend every single meeting. We've had challenges with that as well and committing to their end of the sefbs. we've had some ushz with compliance with ethics training, we have a challenges getting all of the records that we've requested that we believe are jermaine to the scope of our work. We need a centralized place to store all committee documents that are accessible to the public. Thanks to armando, -- there are concerns that the work that we're putting in, MAY not be valued and again, I'm not speaking for myself, I'm speaking sentiments
072as a whole that the recommendation that's are proroyeded MAY be disregarded. And there is also the fear that if we don't provide a recommendation in this aggressive timeline, that the alternative is that, a decision will be made through the summer in the summer without stakeholder input. Is it okay if I finish, chair? Thank you. The committee also desires that all of our recommendations be presented a at a meeting at which we can have representation at the table. So that we can provide context with our recommendations because we do believe that that firsthand context is important. And more importantly there are other policies being revised like 1164 that are related and should be looking at tandem. And as a board as a superintendent as a district, we have to define what effectiveness is. Because we heard
073that word so much. The current structure isn't affective, it's not affective and we really don't nont what that means. What do we mean by effectiveness. So your board members, your appointees should have been making a, getting in contact with you all to be able to discuss what your view of effectiveness that was part of your homework. So that as we go through this, we're not setting an arbitrary but having a delianed and they have to be aligned with the committees establishing policy. Right. Because we might say that something is not affective but what does that policy say that committee needs to do. So we do need clarification on that. We look forward to sharing our findings at a future meeting. You know, I just have to shout out all of the membersed because they truly
074have worked so hard, we have, I feel like we see each other every single day or every other day, because we really want to do this right. And we are really want to come to you with a viable and thoughtful recommendation. Thank you. MADAM Chair. yes, there is a list. DR. Zeman? chair, thank you very much. Can you hear me? Sorry to be away to my colleagues and other people there. I hope to feel better and join you for the afternoon session. My documents will cover all the groups because the advise is incredibly welcome. i want to advise our superintendent task force about the question on effectiveness and I then I want to ask the superintendent a question. The first is, affective of advisory boards is whether or not the school board is getting excellent
075advise to help inform decisions that we have to make. That's why we have task forces to all the advisories district and area at the like. Is to get great advise and to encourage people to participate in those sessions so that, that advise is fully informed and it comes from a broad swath of people in our community. I also want to address the point about our work shart. We're here to do great things in the 239 campuses, but in the bigger level, we're to serve the community to build a better broward county not just now but the education level of the entire county. It involvesed other people who are going to interact with them. It will depend on the education and all the people that they meet and work with and play with and have any
076kind of association with. So I've said this many time, broward schools has the greatest impact on the well being of broward county. I love the fact that we have the community at the top of the workshop and I'll offer that a definition to what it means to have an affective advisory board or affective system of advisory boards. So thanks to all the people that came today. MR. Superintendent, when we ask the supervisors task force, did we ask them to do that only within policies 1070 or to bring us ideas even if we later have to change policy 1070? DR. Hepburn. the latter, the recommendations for advisory make up and how that would look as far as number of functions and also the policy. thank you very much, DR. Hepburn. And to the committee, thank you
077very much for the ideas you have about policy 1070 but my memory is consistent with the superintendent's memory, what we want two alternative and if we take a solution that is in the middle between the superintendents and option number one and option number two that comes from the superintendent task force and that rurz a change to 1070, we can bring 1070 back. It's critical that we create a system that a highly affective and in my view, one of nine are we getting great advise and that advise informing the decisions. And if the task force nice to have but optional. I hope we can stick to the MAY 16 deadline for the initial report. I know there is always pressure no matter what the task is to take more time to do it even better and
078that is appreciated. My goal is to get a new structure in place for next academic year and that's why we set the 60 days, meeting every day this week is amazing what a combination that the team is mack ing. I'm sure that it's difficult for members to make every one of those meetings but it's collectively it's going to be fascinating to see what two options come out. But I would be in faufr to stick to go MAY 16th, even though I recognize that more time will allow for more data. At the end of the day, the balance of that decision, has to be can we get a recommendation and mack a doesing and start next academic year with a system that is put in place bit board. Sorry for not being there. Thank you to
079the team and I really have, a strong preference chair, for holding to the deadline just so we can move forward in time for next year. Thank you. thank you. MS. Alhadeff. thank you to the board I know you've been putting a tremendous amount of hours into the work so I we greatly appreciate that. So my first question is to DR. Hepburn, of documents being requested by committee. Is there a process and timing that they would receive it? they will receive if it's available and how quick, if it's something that needs to be produced, that takes a little bit more time. I would have to dive in with armando about what information they are asking and they have not received yet. So if it has to take time, the team has to lock and produce. I'll
080have to follow-up and find out what they have not received versus what they received. okay, it would be helpful with the expectation of you know, when the committee needs to have the document, how much time that they have to give staff to request it so they have it in a timely manner for their meeting. I don't know if those things are written in our scope. I remember I want to say, MR. Sullivan, I'm having a blank but some of the documents from r from other committees and advisories, that we don't have found. yeah, by laws we don't have all the bylaws. But 1070 allows for 7 days for us to provide supportive materials per the request of committee. okay, I guess what I'm asking is to see a time line of when it's requested or
081how much time and then that seven days and the dlufr'. -- delivery. and we try to work faster than what is required. and the chair can reach out to me, if armando is not able to ascertain them, we'll do our best to get them. and again, I'm going to make the remark that coward and coward should be involved with the superintendent task force. They know the policies, they can help circumvent, maybe working through, or trying to figure out what the other policies are so they can be a collaborative partner with helping make their work more efficient and timely. The other part and it's regards to this deadline of MAY 16th, I believe that we should give them more time. I understand DR. Zeman's point but we can, we can push it at least to JULY,
082it would be enough time before the start of the school year. But, you know, they have a summer too, they're volunteers and you know, it's, they need more time and as a board, I think that's their requesting that and we should be amenable to that request. thank you, vice chair leonardi. thank you and a few comments have been made about appointees not showing up. So I want to thank the appointees who do show up and make their attendees, I know district 3, a tepd' are committed, I know this because they send me detailed notes. I'm wondering if the proposed date has -- in mind? MR. Help bern. on the motion that was passed on APRIL 9th, was to take this work into the fall. We do believe that we have an opportunity as a district
083to do this right. Not necessarily compare ourselves to the north, but we get to be a pioneer in creating a model of what stakeholder engagement looks like and really setting the bar for excellence. I do believe that we have opportunities for improvement throughout. But preferably, a lot of volunteers who also serve on other committees would prefer not to, take summer away from their families but continue the work in the fall. thank you. Yeah, I heard that motion, I was just wondering if it was a specific date. Fall could be SEPTEMBER or NOVEMBER. And I do want to thank the appointees to the appointee for all the hard work. In termds for definition for effectiveness. I do feel for me it has to do with the motion that's are made, the advise that we are given
084by advisories, are they actionable? That's where I I go with the defp anisisg ofof effectineness. Oh I have one more question actually. There was a that was made there were some concerns about recommendations of the committee not being valued or being disregarded, I'm wondering what transpired to raise those concerns? If we can do anything to alleviate those concerns? so I think it's from lived experience. People who have served on other advisories, where they have made recommendations, they brought feedback to the board, or staff members and it just hasn't been, utilized. So I think that's where it's really hard when we define effectiveness. What perceives as value is different from another, right. What MAY be a good idea to one MAY not be a necessarily, a, it can't be I am mrimgted easily. So it MAY
085need more work so. When we say, things are actionable, not everything is going to be able to put into action because of limitations or whatever. Because as parents, parents don't know the laws. they don't know all the policies. So they MAY provide a recommendation that, conflicts with law, conflicts with policy or there are just other limitations to actually implementing it. So just because something is not implementing, I guess it does not necessarily mean that it's not great advise it's just something to be heard. okay. N.And then we have our vice chair that would luke to opine. I would add that there was some con cernation, we asked to be and we were told no. We had to rearrange our schedules, which is why cynthia and I are both here. We would like to know that
086we're in a agenda firsthand through our voice by context, the concern is we don't know if our recommendations will be heard if all we're doing is a written report. So we want a block of time to present to you and field questions. can I respond? sure. so I guess, I, when we talk about actionable items or when I talk about actionable items, I think about the diversity committee and coming forward and identifying facilities issues at a school that is something that the superintendent can take a look at or board members, we can take to the superintendent and say, please address these pass ilts issues. That's a good example for me, and I would just, caution us from you know, caring negative conations from previous experiences forward as we do this work together. I don't think
087that that is, you know, a good faith way to move forward and so, I hear that there are some negative lived experiences and I think that is understandable examine I want to acknowledge that. But, you know, the superintendent formed this task forced to find solutions to thoses problems. So I hope that we can, the task force can bring us solutions to those issues and the board can also move forward with those solutions. Thank you. excuse me can I just make one comment. sure. I think when we started, there was a lot of skepticism about whether we can be successful. I think we're at a point, and we're meeting three times a week. And we realize that we can make a huge change for the district and plan something that could be successful into the future.
088I, I'm very, I've done this for a long time, guys, I'm very optimistic that we can help to create a model that will carry you forward not backward. But I think that takes time. When you say, and I think MS. Leonardi that's a good question, what are we talking about in the fall, I myself as I was sitting here, if we had until OCTOBER, I think that we could really come and bring you something that you would be proud of that would assist DR. Hepburn and the staff in needing what needs to be done for this district. We know what national research o shows, we know how important it is to have the community involved and we know if we're going to hold on to public education, we have to have committee. I don't want
089to put my name on anything that I consider, well not be substandard or less than what we can do. But I guess, and I told DR. Hepburn, I spoke with him last time, and I said I think we can bring something great. I implore you, for the time you're allowing me to speak. And thank you cynthia. thank you, MS. Leonardi are you a yes for extending or no yes, if we can pin point a specific date? DR. Holness. thank you MADAM Chair. So my concern as I heard from MS. Dominic. They appear to be reluctantly rushing this process in fear of not having their point considered. And I believe that is what we want. I believe that it is important for the superintendent to get a thorough stakeholder input. And I think it's important for
090them to comprehensively complete their work. So I guess my question to the superintendent is, what is your absolute deadline for task force recommendation to set things in motion for the upcoming school year? so o, that's a good question. Honestly, I want to hear the discussion from the rest of the members, because we all have appointees on these task force. So I'm listening intently to the discussion to see what I can gather and see what the consensus lies as we move forward. okay, so let me ask another question that is similar but different. I did hear a comment from MS. Verdict raggeder the OCTOBER as a possible deadline. If we do, decide on OCTOBER being a deadline to which it appears the task force would be in favor of to have a comprehensive report to us,
091what impact would have this have on implementation changes for the upcoming, for the upcoming school year even though it's within the school year that is forth come? -- forthcoming. I think the impact would be status to the fall. Our goal was to infuse this with our oar chart changes, our priorities and initials that we're going to focus on during summer so we know how our committee and advisories directly align. So those are things that will happen later, if through this conversation if I summarize, at the end of when everybody is done to see how we move forward. and DR. Hepburn, if you mentioned later, if this comes forward in OCTOBER, are we speaking later? it will happen as soon as the decision is made. To orient to everybody to do what needs to be done
092whatever the board deems engagement interaction, that's what would happen. so it would happen immediately accidentally whatever deadline we decide on, not necessarily in the following. correct. got it. Thank you. MADAM, chair I want to say that I'm also in favor of an extension. thank you. Board member thompson. thank you, chair. Through the superintendent? What is the process? So we get the recommendations what are the next steps to having this happen? the recommendations will be brought to a workshop. so I'm not in favor of ex tending the deadline. I wanted us to have that conversation when it was originally brought up. I don't know how my colleagues feel about any of these potential impacts. I don't know how my colleagues feel about the feedback they're getting from it. I want our board to have this conversation
093and if we continue to push it back, there is always going to be things that you guys can get side tracked on, can be relevant. But the task was to bring proposals on our committee work chart. That is the task. And I understand that already policies that touch on that. That you can get side tracked and deep in them, we're a huge district, there is always going to be other things but really honing is on that task is what I want to see. the conversation is not over it's when we get to bring this feedback. I think I'm not in the majority of not extending but I just want to explain why I think it's really important that we start having this conversation as an entire group instead of just these silos of conversations that
094I feel are happening. Thank you, brooke for being my appointee. I also have the same concerns, so if we koent get moving on this, it's not going to be implemented until 26-27 and there are other things that we need to be focusing on in my opinion. Thank you. thank you, board member bulman. thank you, chair. And thank you to the task force, I know you've been working very hard on this and I really appreciate it. And I want to thank my appointee tom lander, he's not here. So in terms of extending, I don't have a problem with having some kind of an extension but I do need to nail down a time line and implementation schedule so that we know that we're going to be on task, you know, going forward and able to do
095this. To board member, thompson's point, I think that if we go all the way to OCTOBER, and thn we have to workshop it, and then we MAY not all agree on what is happening there, we're looking at second semester of next school year before we even have a plan. i don't know how my colleagues feel about that. But if we can tighten the timeline on the extension. I would support that, something sooner but not necessarily MAY 16th. And I know, I hope everybody is keeping in mind again that, that and I'm very excited to see what you guys recommend. I'm happy to hear the plan. But just, so we're not getting in the weeds. The purpose of the committees are to advise the board and so, the best way that we can get advise based
096on I don't know how you're envisioning it. But you do think if we are, if we as a boateder are perhaps setting particular topics that we would like to have advise on instead of it just being kind of thrown at us on a month to month basis, if there is specific items that we need assistance with, and you know, perhaps we can set an agenda for that for the year. And then also the committees would have their on topics that they would like to bring forward so we have variable there. Can also the board input of what we would like to brought back. That would be affective use of time and energy. That's recommendation, thanks. thank you I'm going to weigh in and then we'll finish off with MS. Alhadeff. DR. Hepburn, if we were
097to extend it what would be the latest time that you would still be able to implement something moving on? We changed the orc chart, often so if you don't get to it, in MAY origining in JUNE is okay. But, I what would be the latest time? Luke what timeline, if we extended it what would you suggest? well through the board, two workshops, sorry, sup, JUNE 6th and 24. But you do want to taution the board, -- caution the board. If it's the streamline committees they're set in policy. So based on that, we would have to change policy. I'm just giving you the everything that could occur. So even though, you would be able to do it perhaps in JUNE, if there was any impact to the current structure, you would not be able to do
098rule making wildfire this upcoming school year. so would it be a problem if we did it like we did rule making in AUGUST. I don't know the urgency. it's the will of the board, the superintendent did want to align it to our work chart, that's that's how we're going to prioritize the work. But if the consensus is to extend, we would accommodate. so my thought is to extend it because I see, you know, thank you so much, meeting three times. I thought it was bad that we met once a week, you're clearly doing the work. Examine you think it's important but the biggest piece is the structure of the committees. I don't know that you would have to sunset by the june 24th, maybe you sunset in OCTOBER and you bring all those pieces that
099you're working on. But the piece that DR. Hepburn needs going forward, is what committees are moving forward? That's the biggest piece of what that is, so we can get the work chart getting moving and maybe you can do the other pieces. So I'm, maybe JUNE 24th is when the committee brings to us that main piece, the two committee recommendations and then they sunset in OCTOBER, and bring the rest of what they were looking for with the policy and all that, would that make sense? yeah. or would that work? I think, the runway that john says, we need more MR. Sullivan rather, we need the changes in the policy that would need to start late summer, early AUGUST. In order to have something ready at least in the middle of fall which would be in OCTOBER
100or NOVEMBER. but if policy changes as we see with lots of other things, the change just happens when the policy changes. So if we know what the committees are, but then the policy has to change towards the end of the first semester. I don't know that's a huge concern as long as people know. But I think the urge nt see piece of this is, what committees, what are the structure of committees. Maybe we can have that by the earlier of JUNE. Have thing sunset date move to OCTOBER and have the other pieces to that. so. I just have to say we're half an hour late. And it can only be the people on the superintendent. but it's the logitics. Okay. I can't. Go ahead dominic. with my conversations we were trying to meet with JUNE
10110th. We went through 1070 first, because we had not had all the policies and bylaw for the committee. So it's really hard to evaluate if we didn't have all the documents. So we did 1071 to present that to you first. And that liasons are clear about what they should be doing. The members are clear about what they should be doing. And then, bringing forward the structure part later. Examine who'll I understand the, we're at a sort of precarious little juncture here. I understand the conversation that is taking place, so I don't want you to be raouk it's falling on deaf years. -- ears. But if we can do a NOVEMBER first, we would just naod a workshop date and that would be a time when we drive. Clearly the people are committed and willing to
102do what it takes to have that input and give a great recommendation. hair? Yes. to help nd the e ple e since wowooer behind schedule. we have one board member that has not spock en. you go first. thank you, chair. To MS. Dominic, thank you for the job. Tt a great job that is is bestowed on you. If my notes are correct, I heard you're meeting three times a week, is that accurate? If there is an extension to OCTOBER which the majority of my colleagues seem to be in support of, will that meeting schedule remain the same? I think for the summer, we would want to go at a slower pace so people can enjoy their families but we're committed to meeting the deadline. so my concern is taking the foot off the gas pedal.
103If we get an extension and then we're meeting once a week orer other week, we MAY have the same problem come OCTOBER. I don't think we will. Part of the strug gle is we have board members that can't make all the meetings. Some members work for the district and they're having meetings during the school day so they cannot attend. So if we're able to, have set dates, in advance so people know and they can clear their schedule and make sure that they can be there, then I think we would be more productive. thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman. just a question on process. We at a previous workshop, created a this superintendent's task force on advisory committees and have set the 60-day deadline, turns out to be MAY 16th. I've heard two objections to extending
104that deadline. is it possible in robert's to reach consensus on reaching the deadline or do we need to bring that to a board item. What do we do that given that you dont have unanimous support. MS. Batista. as we discussed at the last workshop, the whole process of consensus is not something that is under robert's rules. We use it in workshop because there is no vote. So the idea of consensus is that there has to be a general agreement among the members of the board without any substantial objection. If there is substantial objection, you would not be automobile to reach a consensus so that would be something that is brought to the board, not to a workshop but to a board meeting toer a vote. just to add though, we talked about this in the
105workshop and we came to consensus in the workshop. I don't think it's a actual board item. From our training as MS. Batista, it's sum miezing. Summizing the date of the extension. I don't agree with you superintendent. You know there are two people who object, we would like to hear from the folks tasked to do it, we gave them 60 days. Jo want to disswayed us. We're going to lose a tool for reaching out to community and getting some degree of good feedback. And you know, we're at a workshop and I'm not sure that we've reached consensus on going forward with an extension with the discussion that I've hard so far. okay, MS. Alhadeff. yes, so first, my question is MS. Batista, can you design substantial objection, MS. Batista? well, it's substantial ob jx would be
106something that is grounded, that is not just, if somebody with live with the decision of the majority or of the consensus, then it's not an objection. But, it sounds from the discussion here that there are two objections that are not, two board members that are not able to just live with the rest of the, you know, the rest of the consensus if you would. but wouldn't it be five board members if they didn't agree with it? yes, that's when you're voting, but on a consensus basis, again that whole doctrine of consensus does not really exist pursuant to robert's rules. So consensus in this strictest sense is that you must have a group of people that agree to a course of action without forceful objection, right. Without having people object, people MAY not like it but
107they're able to live with it, that's not necessarily an objection and then you can move forward with the consensus. but we're nine board members, but if one person forcefully objects, then we're not going to move forward with it? again, if you want to use the strictest sense of the doctrine of consensus, is yes, you cannot move forward if there is a forceful objection to moving in that way. If you wanted again, bring it to a vote some sort of item so there is a clear direction, I think that's available as well. okay, I have one more comment. And regards to the committee, would they be able to bring any type of like midway recommendations in MAY? we were prepared to do that with 1070, we were just not place on the agenda. that's what I
108would recommend if their recommendations could be placed on the agenda for MAY, and then come OCTOBER, that it's also placed on the workshop and giving them the opportunity to present and speak to the recommendations, and for board member also to ask them questions. DR. Hepburn. yes, I'm going to turn it over to MR. Sullivan, I think we can come, as a team working with the chair dominic to come up with some dates. I have a quick question for MS. Batista, if I MAY. The task force is the superintendent's task force? that's correct. does the superintendent need board consensus to change the date? good question. You know, it was discussed as an item to have that type of feedback or buy in, does he need it? No but that's how the process that was created. The
109reality is if you take this to a vote you're going to have a majority, right, that's. so if you don't want to use this strictest definition of consensus then I would say, given the fact that there is a majority that would like that extension, that you can from now forward, use that as a definition of consensus. Even if you were to take it to the next step and talk it to a board meeting, you would get similar, I would say outcome. so I believe based on the board discussion, what the superintendent would have recommended, if it was allowable, was an extension for their initial report by JUNE 10th so it could be presented on JUNE 24th workshop and if they have any additional work to sunset the committee on OCTOBER first. With the recommendation that
110the superintendent has the right to bring his recommendation. okay, DR. Hepburn? Okay. I don't want to ask any comments. so unless the board objects, that's our plan, MADAM Chair. we obviously have some objections to that. But again, we're not voting here. But I was fwg to ask that if it's a superintendent task force although and we didn't vote for a date we just had it in this general forum, I don't know why we couldn't let the superintendent. He made the, the task force came out of his suggestion based on a discussion that we were having initially. I would be okay with the superintendent. I would not heard an objection to the new dates. object. I object. I stand corrected. I'm good with it. sorry, DR. Zeman, I want their proposal though, I want that to
111be very clear that if DR. Hepburn, does not agree, but if we're asking them to sacrifice three times a month. we're public institution, so we're not shreding their document. I do appreciate all the work that the task force members have been doing day in and day out for the past no or so. So off line, myself, MR. Sullivan and the chair and whoever else, we'll sit down and talk and define what the timeline really looks like so we can send something to the board. We want the fafk forced to be successful to help the district moved forward in a affective way, that's a term that has been used. okay, thank you all so much for coming out today for the great discussions. DR. Hepburn. point of privilege, chair, I do know that this is the
112last meeting our one of our advisory chairs. Thank you, MS. Pierre grant for your hard work and your contributions to the district. it's a team effort. I know it's a team effort, the feedback and impact especially since I've been on the chair, it's been a gift how to we move forward and create a better environment and learning environment. i know you'll be stepping away but I know you won't be gone. So we'll be depending your voice to continue to help us move forward and create a world class district for everybody here. ?Flt thank you very much. And I appreciate the district, as much as a give you a hard time, but I love you all. the next is the bond oversight committee. ma'am, in lieu of a presentation, at the will of the board they're
113prepared to submit their report in writing. So you can go to item number 4. do we have public comment on bond oversight? no ma'am. -- MADAM Chair, if we can move right to the training, because we have a hard stop with the trainer. next the item is the school board member training, I now turn it over to MS. Carol cook to resume with module two of the board training. okay, welcome back. There we go. Okay. Good morning, I'm glad to be back. I guess, we have a new board member, now so when we were talking last time about forming, norming and performing, this takes you back with forming, you have a fresh start with the new member. I hope you remember what we discussed last month, couple weeks ago, time flies. When we were looking
114at things in the weeds and you had an opportunity to put the items up on the chart paper. I want to mention some of the things that were mentioned. We had trust with several people saying that unless you develop trust, that would keep you from going forward. Board members, bringing items up multiple times, not being prepared, not committed to a team, more of a me than we. Not being able to move forward and sometimes create a negative narrative and being open minded and appreciative of other people's perspective is get in the way and opinions of other board members are things that get in the way. Now not everything listed is something that you're doing necessarily. Some of the things that are, when it came on multiple cases, that is something that needs to be developed.
115All of these things are things that could get in the way of being a high performing team. Oh I left off, play indicating small groups. So as we go through the training, we're going to address these things of kinsed. And today we're going to address trust issue, trust mb hit on some of the modules and these were all be incorporated. We didn't just write them and walk away and move forward, we'll be incorporating those into the trainings. So let's look at what we have today. I just want it ask where all our colleagues are? We committed to this training and it's great at that wooer here but everybody needs to be here so we're onle same page. thank you. are they here today? I know a couple of them were online. I think one board
116member is online I don't know where every one else is. Maybe using the restroom? Maybe eating their lunch. okay. Are they in a place where they can at least hear? I don't know. not necessarily. Okay beinger all right. Okay, we have it from the authority now is to to work it. I need to point over my shoulder. That should eliminate about half the problems. Okay, should we move on or wait? please move on. okay. Alrighty, so as we talked about cultivating excellence, I spoke too soon. I don't believe the clicker is working. there we go. If this is something that we're going to be voting, we have to take care of the conversation. And today we're going to, okay, thank you. And today we're going to talk about communication and ways that we can develop
117communication. Okay, this is still not working. I spoke too soon. Point it in the air? this one and that one, that's forward and backwards. there we go, okay. We're going to talk about why communication is important. And there have been studies that show it improves student achievement and that's what we're all about. You mentioned that to make sure that students are getting the best education that they can. So in 2023 in the journal of school leadership, they find the high functioning districts when they had a good communication between the superintendent and board, there were 2.5 times better to improve student achievement. It happens, over three-year period of time. And they did the data behind that to find it. The meta analysis in education administration quarterly, also revealed that when the governance team which is the
118superintendent and the board when they have communication it increased responsibility and resource allocation. Higher teacher resensing rates -- retention rate. So not only is it improve student achievement, it's improving the structures that need to be in place in order to make sure that the student achievement is happening. And the american association school administrators, 78 percent of the superintendents said, that because of good communication with their board, their job satisfaction was excellent. Or better and they were very pleased with it. So there are a lot of different reasons why communication is important. It's not just because everybody wants to talk or everybody wants to try and listen and move forward, there are actually studies that show that it is not only important it's imperative. This findings emphasis that it also, the findings also emphasis that it
119creates a culture of collaboration and communication being high on the list and that you all through that communication have a shared purpose. And again what was that shared purpose that we talked about last time? Student achievement and moving things forward. And the conversation that's you have enrich the ground and enrich the opportunities for students as you move forward. Okay, it's not just beneficial, it is essential to the success of your district. Now if we went through and asked and I'm not going to ask each one of you but if I ask how was your communication with the board and superintendent? I would get varied answers. What we want to do is we're at a point where all of us can say, we have good communication with the superintendent. We have good communications among ourselves. When
120we're at the dais, it's a conversation that is, fruitful as opposed to a lot of just talking at each other. Sarah? yeah, so to that point, when you talk about good affective communication within the board, you mean on the dais, I'm curious are we going to talk about best practices for that today? we're going to talk a little bit about how to how to learn the best way to communicate with each other. Not necessarily as to best practices as to conduct a good conversation as a board but you as a board can communicate with a person based on their personality style and behavior through the disk. Some of that will translate to how do you work better. Okay. So what is needed to communicate? One of the things that often times when people are talking
121about communication, they focused on you have to listen, you have to listen to understand, you have to have a purpose, you have to try and figure out what the person is saying and all of that is important. However, the ownous on communication is on the person thatat spking and w w are e yoyou be communicining anand meeting the needs of the person so they're able to listen and understand what is being said. It's fair, the disk was created and it's very important to understand, this is more based on people personalities, and what was, when they looked at it what are the different kinds of, ways that you need to interact with people with a different personalities and they found that those personalities play an important part with the actually communication. Not only how that person
122is going to communication but how you can communicate with them. We're going to talk about the four areas and then we're going to find out where you fall on this. There are two dimensions to the disk. there is the upper level, which is people who are very fast paced outspoken. They're the ones when somebody comes forward, they're already going to have the answer and their answer is the right one so everybody else better get on board. And the other part, they're the ones a little bit more moderately, paced. They're going to have to think things a little bit and analyze a little bit more. Some of are going to try to figure out how is this going to impact the people that we're working and and others are how is this going to move forward?
123Do we have the Is dotted and the Ts crossesment now we're going to the division going north and south. And on the, what is left hand side on the screen, they're the ones that are lodge you canly focused, they're the ones who will, you heard the comment, I will trust you when you prove your trust worthy. They're the people on the left. On the roit, are I will trust you until you show me that I shouldn't. They're the warm people, they're a people person. They're very receptive, they're team players, they want to make sure that everybody is involved and everybody not necessarily comfortable but that they're doing the best to make sure that everybody's needs are being met. All right, we're going to do the risk assessment but before we do that, we always tell
124everybody, there is no good group. there is no one group na is better than the other. There is no one area where everybody wants to be. Let me ask you some questions here. If I said to you, do we need people who tend to be confident and place an emphasis on accomplishing the bottom line or the result? Do we need that on a team? Yes. Do we need people who tend to be more open and place an emphasis on relationship and influencing or persuading others? Yes, you need that. Do we need people who tend to be dependable and place an emphasis on cooperation and sincerity? Yes. And do we need people who tend to place an emphasis on quality, accuracy, expertise and competentcy? yes. Those are skills of different areas. So we need all of
125them. So there is not one style or one area that is better than the other. We need them all in order to function and have a high functioning team. What I'm going to do, we're going to give the, the assessment out to you, and there are two pieces that you're going to get. One is is definitions, sometimes we think a word is means one thing and we find out in a con fines of the assessment that it actually means something else. There was an example of one that we did last time where the word was activist and many of us had a different definition of what an activist as oppose today somebody who brought everybody in and then, created a situation where everybody worked well together. That was not what most activist was. So this
126time I want you to refer back to the assessment definitions if at all in question as to what it might be be. Or whether you're leaning towards that piece or that piece, go look at the definitions. You're going to have, each question has four choices, you will pick two of them. We don't want to you labor over it, it's your first reaction are the ones that you're going to do. So you're going to mark two answers and each of the boxes. And if all in question which one you should be. Maybe you're looking at all three as a possibility. Make sure that at that point, you refer back to the definitions to see what you're going to get. Is there anything that I can say to make it easier to understand or clarify? Any questions?
127Okay. Then go ahead can mark two in each box and when you're finished we'll go on to the next part. okay is there anyone that still needs for time? You're thinking too hard. And those who have finished, don't go back and change your answers, then you get less accurate. Okay, are we finished? The next paper you're going to flip it over and it's going to look like. In each section, you're going to take the question and look at the number next to the word so. In this example if you marked analytical as one of the choices, that is worth ten points. If you fair minded, that's one tien, imparttial, that's one point. So you add the number of points for each word that you suggested or that you marked. Go ahead and put the numbers.
128At the end, here's what you need to listen to, you're not liening right nono after r u u calculatate go across and add the three totals and put tt box that would be on the far right. Okay, so you're going to add horizontally and put the numbers in and when you're finished with that, we'll move on to the next. Okay, anybody need more time for the portion. Let me move you to the next one. And please listen carefully. It's not that difficult but it can be confusing. You can turn the paper over that I left on your seat and you're going to see across the top of it, for example, w1, w2, equals, whatever divided by two, gives you what number? All right. Now be careful on this, this is where it can be confusing,
129you have to search for w1 and search for w2. They're not in the same order on the sheet. so go through and fill-in the numbers on each one of those based on what letter they're asking for. You'll go find the Xs and then find the Ys and Zs, add it up and divide it by two, you shouldn't even need your calculators for this. Once you finish that, bring the numbers to the top scale down to the bottom and you're not listening yet. Nobody is will is ebbing to me. That's where on times listen falls short. So after you finish doing each one of these and you have your abc and d, put it across the bottom and do not go any farther than that, just right here. Repeat the end relates here where it says
130disks and that's where you'll stop. Okay, any questions? Okay, now go ahead. For example in the first one or in one of the areas you had an 11 and in another area you had 11. Okay, are they that prominent or dominant areas or were they the lower numbers? Okay, what about yours? You had two that were the same? Don't tell me whether it was dis or c, you have two numbers that are the same. Are they in the higher numbers or would you say the two highest? Okay, I'll tell you in a second? Anybody else? Two highest, okay. Okay. If they're the lowest, don't worry about it, okay. If they are the highest, no. No, don't concern yourself with trying to figure out it would be, just, just go ahead and you know, look at
131them, all right. Because on this page, you're going to have to look at primary. What is primary mean? it was the highest two numbers, sorry, carol. all right, okay. Okay, so if if you're high, if you're two matching numbers are the lowest, just go ahead and put those at the bottom, okay. Now if the two highest are the same, then, what you're going to do is put them both if it's a d, put both of them on d, if it's an I, put both of them on I and just go ahead and circle them so you know both of them are the same. Okay. On the bottom of this page, okay, down here, what are your two highest, go ahead and put them down here, even if they match, put them down there, the two
132highest areas. And again, don't tell anybody yet, what are your highest areas. Because we're going to give you an opportunity to guess what other people's areas are after we talk about a little bit. Yeah. Well you're still informing, so this MAY move you along. Okay. All right, everybody have that? So everybody knows what their two highest or most dominant areas are, or primary. They make no sense, you think. Well let's find out. We're going to look a little bit. I gave you two pieces that you can use as a reference. as we discuss this. Yeah? Oh. Sorry. Well here are yours, okay. Yes? three of them, my three lowest have the same answer, do I worry about this? oh three, okay. Okay. You can do that, what often happens when you have numbers that are
133the same in two different areas, it's because of circumstance in which you find yourself will bring out one or the other, of those two. Two things. Now in you're case, you can elve between all three. And that's good for a superintendent to be able to move from area to area that's what you'll call it, because you find yourself needing to do that depend on the circumstances. Whether it's willing to solve something, having to go there. One of the things that we're going to find out is, where is the board? The board needs as we found out earlier, they need somebody or people in each of those areas if you're going to be a well rounded team. If you have vacancies in some of the areas, who or how can people kind of shift in that
134particular role or at that time when it's needed, if you don't have any? And we'll talk about that shall that be the case a little bit later. So let's look, at again, reminding you of each of the areas. Remember how we had a divide top half and the bottom half was the pace at which people go? In the d, if you're a dominance is that area and that is your style, you're going to come to a decision very quickly even if you have all the facts, you're going to come to a decision and you're going to want to move forward, don't waste time with some of these things. Let's move forward and get it done, we've got to move on to the next one. Now the influencer is the eye, that's in the same pace
135area. That's the ones that are let's go, you know, there is a parade, let's go build a float and they're going to grab everybody and go make a float and they're going to be in this parade and wave at everybody and throw candy or beads they're the ones that are going to get excited and get them involved. If we go to the next slide, you have the let's start with the steadiness. They're the ones again, they work at a slower pace. And they're the ones that are going to be accommodating when they need to be. And they are going to look at when there is a mistake that happens or sometimes because fast pace people are moved forward and they've gone along with it, they're very for giving, okay. That didn't work. Let's try something
136different. So they're very patient, very accommodating, they will work with every one. The concious people, they're going to make sure that the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed and they're going to make sure that everything match. They're going to be a more reserves slower space not outspoken but very analytical. With your numbers even, you're a little bit of everything. Is there anybody who was in all four areas with one? No? You all were a little bit of everything. And so that's important as you go through this. So, let's look at again, the whole over chart, I mean the whole over arching, we'll talk about the Ds, dominant drivers and doers. Cs, conscious competent and careful. Supportive, inspiring interactive, those are all of those areas. Now I gave you is a little bit of way
137to identify each area. And these can be a resource for you. Now, how does all of this tie in with communication? Because we said that is going to be about communication. If you're trying to communicate with a d, somebody who is very dominant, very fast paced and moving on? What do you need to do? You need to have that conversation, and talk to them in the same way, so you're hitting the highlights. You're not going to tem a story as to why why this is all important. They've shut you off already. You need to go in and say, we have an issue, this is what we need to do, this is how I want to propose that we move forward and let the conversation go. you then it will be a questions back and forth
138but you're hitting the highlights right in the beginning. Okay, if you're going to go to somewhere who is an I, how might you talk to them and how you might start a conversation with them? Okay, you can give them a compliment. You can say, you know, there is something that can be really excited, really great for this district and you start getting them excited and getting them on board. But again, do it quickly, get them involved quickly because they're past cased and they'll pickup on it. Sometimes where a superintendent has problems, sometimes they just want to run with it and the superintendent has to say, we're going to run with it but we're going to make sure that we cover all the bases first. And you have to real them in. , and that's hard
139because neither do the Ds, though don't want to be reeled in. But it's important. Now if you go down and talk to a c? How might you start the conversation with them? Okay, that would be an I or s, would you ask them those questions, leading how is family, how is it going? How is your weekend, those people oriented kinds of conversations for those on the right side, so that would be the I and the s. give the facts and provide data. walk in the data and give them the facts, that's what they're looking for. And again, if you have those, now you have the basis for a conversation. But for an I to go ininnd say to thehe cfo, ha a a great idea and blah blah blah blah blah, if they never say,
140and I think we can afford it, or this is a conversation that we need and I know we have to look to see if there is money, then you can have that conversation. You see why knowing the person to whom you're speaking, what their dominant penter is, you understand why it makes a difference? Because sometimes you lose them before you ever start the conversation. And it's difficult when a superintendent has to speak to the whole board, he has to make sure that everybody we're going to hit the Is, we're going to hit the Ds, the Ss, the Cs in the conversation and in what order am I going to make it happen? Quickly enough for each and slowly enough for the others. Now slow does not mean, you're dragging, you cannot make a decision, it's
141just let me think about it a minute. I don't have to think about it for a three weeks. You're all ready to go, give me a break. I remember working with one board and during one of their board meetings, they had a lot of people that were fast paced and they had one person that was analytical and somebody called for the vote. And that person finally said, will you just give me a minute to process everything I've heard. They had to stop them for a minute. And because they understood, they did. They stopped and said okay. And then, moved forward. But, that can be a problem if you're not willing to say, wait a second, let me process it. And move forward. So the single page is how you can identify some of those styles,
142okay. This second pick, I should probably, yes. So the next one because I said that this was based on behaviors. You can see what the behaviors are in each of those areas. Now look in your area. If you're a d, an I or s or c find that area and can you identify with the statements of behaviors? You don't have to do every single one but if you're an influence error influence, let's say. Of course you're charming but can you say that you're confident? Can you say that europe mystic? Are you optimistic? Are you identify with those? The same thing for each of those areas? Is there anybody that does not identify with some? It does not have to be all of the behaviors ba ifrz that are your dominant areas? Okay, so you can
143see some of those behaviors in yourself. And we're going to come back to this slide and talk about which ones do you most identify with in your area. So we'll come back to this one. All right. And then there is an directed open or whether they are they tend to be kind of, more private or closed off. This is just an indication, you're going to find the people that in the lower circle, they're not the ones that share. They're going to be a little more indirect in approaching a subject until, until they either have the data or they have tested the waters with is it going to fly? Are other people going to accept that? Is there a way to move that forward? They're a little bit slower but task oriented. Okay. And that was
144the sheet that I gave. Now we're going to go through it with DR. Suess, and he's describing a situation osh making a comment and what style, what disk area? So you can use these papers. The first one is why fit in when you were boerp -- born to stand out? Is it a d, I, c or, influence? Everybody says d? You say I? Or an s or a c. Do we have a consensus? Sorry I had to throw that in. Passion al, why fit in and all the new possibilities. Your d? Pardon me? Anybody say anything than d. Or do we have people that have no idea? That's okay too. Let's look. it's a d. Why? Because it's results. You're going to move mountains, there is going to be an action there is a challenge
145with it, so it's a d, it's a power decisive people. Okay. Let's look at the next one. And you will succeed, yes you will in deed, c? Okay , a c what else do we have? Okay. Accuracy, they too have a challenge. Left hand side, and making sure that. Conscience, unless something like you cares a lot, nothing is going to get better. They enjoy compliments. But you know how it could be, the c. Which is once fast paced people and the other one is a slower pace and it's more, data oriented. Okay. And I think this is the last one. Step with care and great tack and remember that life is a balancing act. I hear a c, okay. Why c? Could be an s? Okay. So somebody that is slower paced, I think we're
146seeing because it's either an s or a c, patient and c. Let's see. It's an s, again, that's support the stability. Okay. Yeah, you were thinking s and said c. they're the ones, they're the accommodating ones, they will, they're the stable, they're the one that love collaboration, they're great working in a team and just because they're accommodating, doesn't mean that we can ignore what they bring to the table. They can be accommodating, but they also bring a strength to the table, it's not as though somebody is in there okay, well whatever you want. That's an s, an s is somebody who says, I know what we're doing, we're working in a team, I'm going to you know, work with you here and here's my idea and work back. And whatever the decision, they're going to
147move forward and they're going to make sure that it's a win-win. Oh the things you can think. What is this one? This one should be pretty easy. c. why? And the others don't have to think. Anybody else have any? You're right, yeah, because they focus on opportunities to gain knowledge and the question and reflecting and make sure they get all the data. All right. On this, I want you to now turn one of the pages that you have, that you worked on as far as doing the, either the test itself or the definitions or one of those, flip it over and writ name of board members that are here and then the superintendent as well. Pardon? Sure. If she wants to share, she does not have to. Do you want it share? Are you comfortable,
148letting them know your style. Put her name down, you'll have a chance to guess. That's what this is all about. She has not taken so it's probably not, you can guess but we will not know whether it's true or not. If you want to, I can leave the materials for them to do it at some point. No just write the names. You're all going to have to chance to gets the person and they'll tell us what their dominant style is and that's what you'll put down on paper. Okay, everybody has everybody's name down. All right. Who wants to be the first guinea pig. Okay, we'll start with deb ra, start and think about the traits that I've given you in front of you. And what do you think is her dominant area? Just her highest,
149we're not going to go into second. Lori says it's an s. You'll go with s? S? Oh. Well then forget the rest of you, she told the answer, she is an s. To put that down next to her name. All right. Okay, and this is putting adam at a disadvantage and he does know you, it's a little tough but you're getting to know them when we go back. Who wants to go next? All right. let's start over here, since you didn't have a chance before. What do you think superintendent's dominant area is? s or c? Adam do you want to give it a shot. there you go. For your, okay. Rebecca? I. an I, okay. Marilyn, you want to jump in? an I. okay. db ra? a c? alrighty. s or c? And that's his
150cheater's way out. Is and c. Okay, did you have three that were all the same number? You did? But they were not your dominant. Okay. Ain't that something, okay. Okay. All right. So he's a d with all three of the others with the same number. Which is actually pretty good for a superintendent because you have somebody who is decisive and fast pace. You almost have to be fast pace but having said that, we have to make sure that we have the facts and going quickly in the same direction so by having the other three, you can morph. So if you're communicating with the superintendent, what do you do? You start off hitting the point. And then you can move into the other stuff. After you hit the point, and hit discussion, then you can go
151into how is your family. Okay. Who is next? Lori? Okay, what do you think lori is? D? d. you want to think that a little bit? Yeah. Okay. And alan said d. D or s. D, d, d? lori what are you? c is her highest and then d. Okay, then she is also on the left hand side of that, so it's still pretty fast paced, don't drag me down. land the plane. She wants to move along and she wants to get it done quickly, however, it's important with the we have the data and we have the information and that she has thought about it. Okay, who have we not done? Alan, did you do this or have you done this before? I did it bfp a number of times but I did get it today.
152okay, good you got the materials. What is alan? They're pretty fast paced? What was your highest. d and I. so he fast paced totally, very decisive and let's get on board. I saw that in you, when the students were talking at our last workshop and he was giving them thumbs up, he was clapping, he was very excited to about what they were doing, which is the influencer, this is good let's move forward. So I kind of saw that, and they saw the d very very quickly. Okay. Let me see who is left? Laura? Ay. Okay oh yeah. Don't let that word get out. Okay. So we're talking about maura? I. why? Okay. And an s, you said. Okay. c, I or s, s. Anybody else? Okay. Maybe because, well let's alan? Alan? yes, ma'am. what
153would you say maura said. I think she is a c. a c, okay. now you even said you were dia metrickly opposed. You were a d and c. Nobody saw a d in her. [Laughter] Okay, fast pace, okay. All right. So you're a d and a c? Okay. And that is on the same spectrum on the side, you're going to make your decisions but it's going to be based on facts based on lori. You and lori are both the same. All right. So sarah, did we do you? How about sarah? Who wants to lead off with sarah? C? A d or an s? i. Okay, so we have d, I, s and c. You're an anomaly. I think s. alan says you're an s. S or c with little d. Depending on the topic, right?
154Okay. D when needed and if you have enough other Ds, maybe it's not needed. Sarah what are you? What is your next? I think I identify as an s. Okay. [Laughter] I'm a c but I identify as an s. Okay, we're going to go back in a minute. And all three others, just like the superintendent you can morph what needs to be in that particular situation. Okay. Who have we not done? We haven't done, yeah. Or rebecca, these three have not been done. Okay. Shall we start with marilyn. c. okay, we have a c. And why would you say that? have you seen her memos. no haven't, very analytical, very facts. Not a bad thing for an attorney. What else? Anybody else see anything different? An s? Okay. And why would you say s? Just
155to be different? Okay. Uh-huh, okay. Okay, yeah, yeah. Both of those are in the same pace that you move along, she's not going to jump to my conclusions, making sure that all the people involved are taken into consideration. Okay, what are you? What area did you fall? c and s. You called it. Okay, rebecca? I and d. I. I? I and d? Okay, why the d? Who said d? Okay, d at the right time and versus, okay. Okay. So that was a d and then we had the I. Somebody said I. I said I. alan? I think rebecca is a d. okay. All right, so we have d, an I, and a c. Did we have somebody say c, just d and I. What are you? D and a c. Again, look at, you've got
156several that are Ds and Cs, okay, I will not go into it about how you make decisions. Alan we're going to save you for last. Jeff? What do you think we have for jeff? S.Or c? Everybody has a little bit of something. And everybody does have you know, as you saw with your numbers, everybody has some of it in them in each of those areas. There was nobody that was a zero in any area. So you do have some it. So often times what resonates depends on where they are in the scale of disc, say again what we have, we have c, s and I. Why do you think I? there you go, charming and per ersuasive, and I'm not going to say what on my mind. Alan? What do you think? probably an s.
157and why do you say that? just the way he approaches items and discussions, it seems like a solid s kind of approach. okay. You're at a solid s. Okay, what are you? Alrighty. He's tied with s and c, but feels more like a c. Dominant. Are you comfortable with them guessing at you. Go for it, what do you think adam MAY be, seeing that you have hardly met him seeing that you know him out of this position. You say, I? d? cd? Another c, d. All right, what are you? I'm a solid d. all right. And how solid? What is your next highest area? Whoa, you're solid. 40. 76 is off the chart, yep, that's pretty solid d. All right. So you know what you're up against, somebody who is fast paced and move forward.
158Now remember I said I was going going to back to this page. I want you to, let's see if we can get the powerpoint back up. Okay. I'm going to pop it all the way back to the slide that I said we were going to look at. This one, if you are a d, raise your hand if d was your highest. I want you to look through that list and tell me two of these characteristics that you believe describe you the best. And say, I think I'm pretty direct, I think I'm persuasive or I'm innovative, what two do you most identify with? Okay. You're a d, lori. Which two do you most identify with? competitive and results oriented. all right. So next to her name, also write competitive and result oriented. Okay, who else is
159a d? Okay. Okay, debbie? Debra? Okay, next to his name, innovative problem solver, not bad character ukz for a superintendent. Competitive can get in the way with lori, but depends on whom you're competing. If you're competing miami-dade or west palm, that's a good thing. All right, who else? Who else was a d? Adam, yes. Decisive and persistent, put those next to him. Decisive and persistent. Okay. Alan? You were also a d. I would probably suggest innovative and results oriented would be the best two out of the list. okay. So write those next to him. Any other Ds? Maura? You were a d? Okay. Is this for your personality? Yeah, you would say. Okay, so adventurous and problem solver. Okay, put those next to her name. Well no, let's just look. I'm going to wait because
160I heard something say something else that I want to point out. Were you a d? Okay. I would say results oriented. [Laughter] Yeah. you know, bringing it up waoeblg after week is not going to be ailt do it and that's not going to get you anywhere but knowing the timing for those people that are persistent, if you're persistent in stringing to take on a challenge and fix it, that's different than I'm going to be persistent because I'm going to try o bring my idea forward and I'm going keep bringing it forward again and again. Since that was one of the things that was mentioned that could get you into the weeds, we need to be cognizant of what we're doing and when we're being persistent and when it is important to be consistent and when
161it's not. okay. That's all the d's, right. And did we have any I's at all that were dominant? I didn't think so. How many had I as maybe their second category or one of their multiple categories? One, two, anybody else? Well, it's going to be up to you two to get people enthusiastic and involved and be that cheer leader whit's time to be -- when it's time to be cheer leader because everybody will be figure out data that they will bury you in it. At some point they have to say let's go for it and it will work and if necessary, it will be fun, you know, whatever you need to bring in there but you're going to have to be the cheerleaders for decisions that are going to be made and also at some
162point to get them beyond all of their -- sometimes when you have a lot of people that are direct, it's great if they're all on the same page. If they're not all on the same page, you have a whole bunch of direct people, you can spend multiple hours discussing and not get anywhere, so the I's every once in a while have to get in there and move things forward. And the directs can talk to each other very easily because they are very direct and they respect the fact that other people are direct. Just like an I respects the fact that other people are I's but they don't discount everyone else. How many were c's? Okay, let's go back to that list and -- [Inaudible] okay, and if you are tied, then pick one thing out
163of the list. [Inaudible] well, nowhere does it say that drk's are nasty, d's can be nasty if they want to be, no, being direct doesn't necessarily mean you're nasty. You can be very -- you can be tactfully direct, you what are we looking at, c's? [Inaudible]. yup. Good. Which are good combinations to have. So, write that down next to his name. He has -- under the s, he a has understanding and sincere and under the c, you had precise and objective is the one I was wondering. Okay, bho do we not have on the list yet? Okay. What was your highest again, c? Okay, and so what area is out of the c? Accurate and analytical. Diplomatic. I should have started out with pick 3. Okay. Very good. Alright. Who else is a c? Anyone
164else a c? Okay. [Inaudible] okay. Good listener. Patient. Team player, okay. [Inaudible] okay. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? When she comes back, we'll find out which ones she identifies with most. Now, why we think we did this portion of it? We already talked about, you ow, direct and in a very broaay, why did we co ckck here a and bring it to ts level? You can say it. self-reflection. self-reflection was part of it. Any other guesses? If you say you're a direct person and you're going after one of the areas after direct and mret me just pick one, and say one that I didn't hear. Daring, I didn't hear the word daring, okay. So, if you're looking under direct and you want to talk with a a person and you say, you know what, I bet
165they're daring because they're a d and i'm going o go with them with a guess what, and you hit them that would require them to be daring, you're still not going to get to that person the way you would if you knew somebody's results oriented, you go to them with the results. This is what we have, this is what we need to see. They're the ones that want to look at data, they want to make sure what they have put in place is going to end up with the desired results. So, knowing a little bit more about which ones they identify with the most helps you again zero in on where that conversation needs to start in order to catch them and get them part of just listening and being part of the conversation. This
166is what we want to do. So, if you're trying to convince somebodiover something, you go to where they live, what area, what do they need the hear. If you're talking to somebody who is an influencer and you're talking all about the data and the results, okay, they MAY want to get there eventually, that's not going to be the thing that grabs them. Knowing that gives the person who is communicating a leg up. It is up to the person communicating who is doing the talking to make sure that they're being understood. we spend a lot of time as I said earlier, we spend a lot of time, you have to listen, you have to listen, you have to listen, guess what, you also have to be able to speak in a way that people will understand
167or speak this a way that people aren't checking out before you get to the point. Now, yes, lori? I also think this kind of slides into when board members bring agenda tenses item -- items to bring that backup so we know we can support what that board member is bringing forward, that they've done their homework and worked with the superintendent to bring that forward. because you have a lot of c's and they need that data. Don't treat everybody who is a a c as if they're an I and it's just because it's a good idea, it's something everybody could get excited about and we could all do it and the it would be good. That's not going to sell it to a c, okay. So, it's about kind of knowing -- you know, it's what
168are the points that will grab them to get them involved in the conversation, to get them to listen to the beginning to allow them to come in. You don't have any I's, you don't have influencers. How many of you had something that was where you had three of them that were the same? Okay. How close were they to your top number? DR. Hepburn, how close was your -- you had a d and your other three were all the same, how close were they? [Inaudible] 13 points, okay. How about the others that had three? There were others. Okay, you had three that were all the same, how far off were they from your dominant? [Inaudible] less than a half point? Half of it, okay. Alright. And maura, how close were your three that were the the
169same to your dominant? I had two dominant and one that was just a little bit under. okay, just -- okay. Alright. So, we talked earlier about all of you having each one of those -- a little bit of each of those areas in each of you. We also talked about how important it is to have somebody in each of those areas, so what do you do when you don't have anybody that falls into that area? If I go back here, it tends to be more open and place an emphasis on relationships and influencing or persuading others. that's the I comment that I made. If you don't have somebody that that's their dominant, what do you do? They'rere are going to be times when you ear going to have to morph into that position, you're going
170to have to bring that out of yourself especially when you have all the d's trying to make a decision. Who's going to be the influencer or the persuader? Somebody who can click into the I and bring that to the surface to be able to move things forward. [Inaudible]. (Not using microphone). and sometimes that's going to be the s and sometimes it's going to be the I because they're the people, people, they're going to worry about relationships, whether the relationship with the community, the relationship with staff, the relationship with teachers, not necessarily are we best friends but how is this going the impact those people. How is a decision we're going to make going to impact students who are people. It's how is it going to influence the people in the district and education is a
171a big people business. It's also a business and so you need the d's and the c's to make sure the business is running. So, if you can bring those things out of yourselves when you're having a discussion, it can be different people that are bringing it forward but it will be necessary and it MAY be a time when you go, okay, this is not consciously necessarily sometimes, some of us just morph into it easily, but this is a a time when we need an I, this is a time when we need an s and you can do that. Are there any questions about this and how it impacts the board? It also helps you understand each other a little bit. It's hard for us to develop relationships with each other when we're not allowed to
172speak out of the sunshine, when everything has to be public, when every agenda has to be followed, everything is so regimented, it's hard for us to get to know each other and this also helps us to get to know how we view ourselves, what makes us tick and how can we communicate with each other, yes? I want to make a comment. I think the struggle becomes a lot of times is that people don't understand that we're governed by the sunshine and when we have an agenda, this is the first time that we can talk about it and we're under a lot of constraints. You have the media here, you have a time clock, you can only speak two times on it, so it is very difficult and I don't know how much the community really
173understands that we can't speak to each other and then in -- that's why a lot of times those conversations go on and on and on because it's our first time being able to really communicate with each other on it. that's the advantage of workshops which helps you have a lot of the discussion here. You are still going the have it because this is like mo other business, you know, business people can talk to each other, he can talk to each other in the parking lot, they can talk to each other at lunch, they can talk to each other in passing, we can't. yes, we can. not about items on which you're going to be voting. Er I know, but we really need to be clear about it because lori's point is important, we cannot talk
174about items outside of a publicly noticed meeting but we can ask each other things like how do you like to be talked to, what's your communication style, what are, you know, things about you as a human being because none of those things are things we're ever going to vote on, and I totally respect sunshine, I admire the fact that we live in a state that is great sunshine laws for everybody except state legislators by way, but the fact of the matter is that we really can talk to each other and we can have dinner together and we can go to conferences and admire work together and the like, and I think we have to be clear about that. The common explanation is we can't talk to each other in the parking garage, we can, and
175we could have actual real connections to people until it comes to something we would vote on and we'd have to wait until we're in a meeting like to this talk about it and I think it's important to recognize that. . Inger you're absolutely right, we can can find out how is your family, how is this moving, what's going on, and you all are allowed, I say you are allowed -- there are attorneys that say, no, you are not, don't go out to -- there are some boards that after a board meeting, they'll go out and have dinner or go and just have, you know, I'll say a drink, but coke or milk shakes and that kind of thing. They'll go out together afterwards and there are other os where the attorney will say, no, that's
176not acceptable. There was one district that used to break during their workshop and is they would go to lunch and there were some concerns and they finally invited the person at that time they had a reporter has was attached to them, they invited that reporter o go. Reporter found out it wasn't all that interesting so they quit going. But allen is exactly right, when it is a conversation about something on which you are going to vote or could vote on in the future, that gets a little tough too. Then that's not anything that you can talk about unless it's in the sunshine, okay. You also have to look at the perception. If after a meeting or before a meeting, you're out in the parking lot talking, people MAY perceive that a little differently than what
177you're actually doing. You know, you MAY be just saying how did it go, how was this, you had this event going on, how did it work out, so just be cognizant of those kinds of things. You made another point, lori, I forgot what it was. But anyway, I MAY think of it as time goes on. But making sure that you know that each one of these areas is important and at times you're going to have to fall into a different role and not necessarily be in your main most dominant area, sp if we can remember that and we can appreciate the fact that everybody brings something a little different to the table, it goes a long way. But it does help us get to know each other a little bit better, okay. Let's move on.
178I'm goipg to give you an opportunity now to test and see how you can solve a problem together as soon as this starts working. This isn't working. Can we move this forward to the bean stalk. we have to reload it, it's locked. okay, well, then I will give you the instructions while we're going to this. I'll pick this up and then this one isn't working. I will do it from here. Over on the table, there are 50 sheets of newsprint. There is masking tape and there is a pair of scissors. There are also little like marbles and you're going to incorporate all of this into a bean stalk and you want to be building this thing as tall as you can and it still has to be self-supporting, okay. So, it has to stand all
179by itself, you can't lean it up against -- well, you know what, I'm not going to say that because there's another trainer that ignored that rule, so you're just going to build a bean stalk that will stand and support itself and on that bean stalk, you have to have between 5 or 10 of the marbles that will be on there and added to it. Okay. That's the task. That's all I'm goipg to tell you, I'm not going to tell you how, I'm not going to put any parameters and I'm going to put those rules back up, use the pieces of paper, make it stand, add the 5-10 marbles and if you're going to put them inside, mark where they are so we can get the marbles out afterwards, you're going to do that. I'm going
180the give you 10 minutes as a group to plan how you're going to do this and then we'll move forward and actually build it. Okay. So, are there any questions? Let's see if it's moving yet. This is a group project and you're allowed to talk about it. Here we go. And you MAY want to include allen in on the discussion as well, so allen, any time you have some information that you want to add, jump in here, okay. Let's get to the next one. There we go. So, you're going to build the tallest, most stable bean stalk possible. That is your mission. And you're going to do it with the 50 sheets, the masking tape, pair of scissor, the measuring tape is over there because we're going the measure it afterwards and then the objects.
181Are there any questions? That's all we're going to give you. You have to come up with how you're going to build this, okay. So, you have 10 minutes to do your planning starting right now. (Group exercise). yes, this is a team sport. [Inaudible] yes. Do your planning, you have 10 minutes to do your planning. [Inaudible]. you should be planning, yes. If you have to get up and move to go see something, that's okay but you do need to talk in order to plan. (Group exercise). do you need the microphone so allen can hear you? [Inaudible] the objective is to build the tallest most stable bean stalk possible and it has to include -- it doesn't have to use all 50 sheets but it's 50 sheets, masking tape but you will add the 5-10 marbles that
182are in the bag with the bean stalk, you can't have a bean stalk without beans. [Inaudible] it was supposed to be but one of the other board members, one of the other trainers let people do thing that is are not freestanding so I'm not going to say it has to be freestanding. [Inaudible] pardon? [Inaudible]. allen, can you hear them and be part of the plan? you can hear us? have the center in the middle, start building on the center, you put marbles on the base of the stabl -- [Inaudible]. (Audio very low and unclear ). (Group exercise). it doesn't say anything about staying in the room, it tells you to build it. That's your attorney telling you you have to stay in the room. (Group exercise). [Inaudible] height, I had to stop for a second.
183Ing alright. Congratulations, your bean stalk was 12 feet, 2 inches tall, so wrai, that's right up there with some of the tallest. As I told you outside though, you were out done by oki ch obi county that used their third story building to do it out the window. Why would we ask you to do something like this? Here we are, we're doing important business and we go out and build a bean stalk with paper and marbles. Why would we ask you to do this? it is a team building exercise. it is a team building exercise. Er [Inaudible]. there you go. And here's the d coming out in him. [Laughter]. Yes, in a less structured, not as serious an environment, but yet doing team building, it requires all of you to work together in order to
184accomplish the goal. What else? [Inaudible]. okay, to see if their perception of people's personality is a reality, okay. Lori? to see how everybody might think differently on how to solve the problem but everybody's ideas help to overall solve the problem, right. everybody had different ideas going into it for sure and yet you came to a decision as to how it was going to be to complete the overall. What else? Okay, what about using your planning time, did you use your planning time well? Yeah. Everybody thought about it for a little bit, you saw me just watching you. As I was watching the planning time, some might say that it took you a while to get going with it but at the same time, I believe from the things that I saw that you were contemplating
185what can can we do, what are we supposed to do, processing what the requirements were and then all of you came together and started talking about what can we do. You didn't just say here are the resources, my gosh, we can't only do it with this kind of stuff, you started looking at what other resources can we bring in, how do we use things differently, materials that are out there, they're the pole that you found, I guess it was -- who was it? We used the pole differently. There was a pole -- nobody knows what it is but it was incorporated into your bean stalk, you used the materials and the supplies that you had in a different manner. Are these things that we have to do as board members? Yeah, yeah. And sometimes we
186have to look outside the constraints and the confines of what we have been told. For example, when laws are passed, we have to look at a way that we can honor that law, stay within the limits of that law but how can we creatively do the job we still need to and that was one of the things you did when you were out there. What else would you say during the planning time that happened? Yeah? at first, we were in silos and then we all came together collaboratively. yeah, exactly. Using all the good terminology as well. Yeah, there were a couple of people over here talking, a couple of people here, here, they all came together. And when it was time before the time was up, all of you were together discussing what you were
187doing and you were looking at how are you going to use this, you decided what was going to be the base of it and where were you goipg to go from there. One of the things I noticed is different people's personalities did come out. There were some that were like jeff, you were a c and you were also an s, right. He was very accommodating, he was making sure the tape was all -- not everybody could be standing there and putting up the paper but he was fulfilling a role that needed to be done. What if you had to hold the thing up and cut your own tape and having to wrap it, so everybody filled a different role and a different need and then some came in and decided it needed to be prettier,
188so this is what we have to do to make it prettier, so each one of you played a role somehow. Yes, jeff? [Inaudible]. [Laughter]. What is your idea and then dismiss it, right. Yeah? [Inaudible] exactly, making sure you include everyone in the process rather than -- you could have had a lot of dominants suggest -- first of all, arguing over how it's going to be accomplished but bulldozing through and forgetting about those people that aren't dominant and getting in there and voluntary do it. You had people what do you think and incorporating everybody into the conversationfinger that is so important when you move into any kind of decision-making. What would you have done differently if you had a chance to do it a second time? And don't worry, you're not. But what would you do
189differently? [Inaudible] okay, you might have dispersed the tape which would impacted the outcome. What else? [Inaudible] okay, yeah, if you had known about it, they would have climb today the top, we would have been on the roof doing one going down probably, okay. So, that competitiveness with other districts is there. Nilgts that you anything else that you might have done differently. Er [Inaudible] asking more questions before the time started, yes. I have to give you props, there are sometimes when you give instruction and is you say here are the materials and people think those are the only materials and you're out there, can we use this, can we use this, can we do that, all of those kinds of things, exploring all the options, so cue f kudos on that. The kind of thing we
190just did just now looking at a project, talking about the planning, did we do enough planning, are there things we could have done differently during the planning stage is something you would do when you're looking at programs you put in place quh you when you're evaluating them. Did you take advantage of making sure it was in a timely manner and what was the outcome, and then how could you have done things differently to be more effective or more efficient. Those are the things you have to be exploring when you are evaluating programs that you do or making decisions because I talked less about strategic plans and the goals that you have, have you accomplished goals, did you do it, what can we do differently, those are the same kinds of questions we asked here, those
191are the kinds of questions you'll be asking when it comes to what kind of progress are we mating ining the district and what kind of progress are we making with student learning. Lori? so, I think a lot of times the board wants to plan and workshop and loop and plan and workshop but I think -- but we also have to give the superintendent the autonomy and give him the trust that he's done his homework on whatever it is and that we just move forward with it. okay, so let's talk about the kind of planning the board would be involved with with the superintendent. When we're talking about how things are going to happen, remember when we did the what, how, if you're talking about how it's going to happen, that's the superintendent and staff deciding
192how are they going to implement a program. The planning that a board would do before that with the superintendent as a leadership team would be what are the expectations. Too often we say we're going to implement this program, the time has gone by, now we want to evaluate and then the board asks toipt know if we want this, this and this and people will come back and say we didn't measure that because they didn't know at the beginning what was going to be measured or what your expectations were. So, the planning that the leadership team does is what are the expectations, what are the outcomes they would like to see. Then the planning goes to the superintendent and staff, how are we going to make this happen. We know what the board wants now, how
193are we going the make it happen? If the board gets in to start toelling the superintendent how to make it happen, you're in the wrong place, you've stepped outside of your governance role. So, you see the difference, you still have to do planning as a leadership team but the planning is not how is it going to happen, it's what are the expectations. Then when it's time to evaluate, were those expectations met. Did we make it clear what we were wanting as outcomes or do we have to define that a little bit better. Is it in a timely manner, did -- was the program implemented with fidel -- fidelity, those are the kinds of questions that could be asked. Do you see the difference? Okay. Any other final thoughts on how you did with the bean
194stalk or anything that you thought of as you were doing the bean stalk, jeff? I noticed as we define our individual roles, we also finetune those roles, for example, just minor observation, like, you know, like I think lori was working with me with the tape and she said, well, don't tape it this way, tape it vertical, so there were evolving how you do it type of things in addition to what you're doing, or where do you put the pole, do you put flit the center, we decided where to put -- to put the pole but where do you put it. and see what works best. So, you did finetune as you went along, just as you will with any and everything within the school district, you're always having to check to make sure that it's
195being done successfully. Any other observations? Observed that there were a coupup of peop that either ren'n't re sure or wenen't on board with the whole project but after they saw what was going on, they too took a part in it and that was good. They were kind of standing back watching what was going on, when they felt they had something they could do to offer, they stepped in, so that is also a positive thing, not everybody has to be hands-on. What if all -- how many of you are here today, 6, 8? What if you were all squished trying to wrap stuff around the pole and get real close? It would be a little tough, so someone was standing over here cutting tape, some were here rolling stuff, there's your bean stalk. A-rated. That was
196done very well. Where's john? You took that picture? [Inaudible] okay, well, I'll give you props on that because you didn't have anything under that, it was a-rated so it looks like it was an a-rateded bean stalk which it was. So, congratulated, give yourself a big round of applause on a job well done. [Applause]. And I will tell you one thing that I was impressed with is that you had a lot of d's and yet all your d's were able to work together. Nobody tried to take over and be the d in the whole thing if that makes any sense to you. [Laughter]. Okay. Very good. So, let's move on to our next piece. Okay, we had the reflections, okay. Here's a last bit of it and it covers some of the things that you had
197that might become weeds or are weeds that could get in the way of you bingeing the best board that you possibly can. And it's all about growing in confidence with each other. There are just some basics you talked about at our last session that one of the things that you did agree with that all of you were here for the students and when you're paying attention to what happens with the students, you have to make sure you're treating staff well because if they're going to provide what they need to for the students, they have to be also considerate in your decisions. So, you know, the bottom line, all of you agree was to make sure your students or your scholars I will call them are getting the best education possible, so knowing that as your
198basis is very, very important and there are times when people don't all agree on that, so you're starting with a basis of here it is, and so it will be easier for you to believe that each one of you is here for the right reason and it's your same reason, and that you are -- you have good intentions which is one of the most important things when it comes to a governance team having and developing that confidence in each other. If you're feeling safe to express your opinions, even when they differ, that is where you get from the storming into norming and also if you feel safe to did that, that's where people are growing the confidence. I have the confidence to say I disagree with you, I don't believe that's the best thing for
199this decision. In a manner where it is also received as this is my opinion, this is my perception, okay, not that I am trying to put you down because I think your idea was, you know, stupid, or your idea wasn't any good, you're saying I just agree I'm coming from a different perspective. Supporting decisions once they've been made, even if you initially agree -- disagree. It's easy to support them when you agree with them, but supporting that and how you present that to people and how you present that to the press and how you -- even your body language -- decisions made, it doesn't go your way, you throw yourself back in the chair or do you say I'm ready to go on. I tell the story that I had a friend of mine that
200I told her about a decision that was made, she was very interested in it and I told her that the board had decided to move forward with blah, blah, blah, and she said, you didn't vote for that, did you. And I looked at her and I said, why do you say that, and she said, because when you vote for something and agree with it, you say we decided but whether you don't vote for it or you haven't totally bought it into yet, it was the board's decision to move forward. Well, I felt like I was supporting it, this is what the board decided, this is how we're moving forward, even sometimes the way you speak can erode that confidence that other people have because, so, you didn't really -- didn't really agree with that, or
201one thing that we also do with new board members, we make sure if they're talking to the press afterwards, if you have a controversial decision and it is a split vote, they will go to the people that were on -- they'll leave the prevailing side alone, they'll go to those people and say how come, what do you think, how you answer the press at that point is very, very important. And we always say don't share anything with the press that you have not already expressed from the dais. Because it's not fair to the other board members to all of a sudden read it in the newspaper that there was another piece to be considered that they never heard about. So, we're not going the tell you whether to share your opinions or whether or not
202to share your opinions, we always do say is make sure you are supporting the board's decision because it is the board's decision but, you know, don't ever say anything that hasn't already been said. Because we talk about no surprises, you don't want to surprise the superintendent, you don't want the superintendent surprising the board, you don't want a board member surprising another board member by saying something they had not heard, okay. Assuming positive intent in other people's actions and words. That's really kind of going back to the same thing here that says, you know, you're feeling safe and believe in each other's confidence, you also have to believe it's positive intent. There's no underlying hidden agenda or anything else, they just really are on the same page with you to make things better for the district.
203Lori? can you go back to 2. So, I have a question in regards to -- a lot of times we get a really contentious item and all nine board members want the speak on it, but what is your philosophy in regards to someone like just coming out right away and making a motion but having that respect to your colleagues like you want them to weigh in on it but I also kind of feel like even if I make a motion, my colleague can still give their opinion because it's connected. in order for an item to be discussed according to robert's rules, there has to be a motion ask a second. let me clarify, a substitute motion. okay, alright. A substitute motion also needs a second, so.The board members are willing to discuss the substitute motion,
204then someone will second it and then the discussion happens. You also have the opportunity if after that discussion you find out they don't like your substitution and the conversation goes on, you vote on it and if it fails, then you go back to the -- it's like an amendment. I mean like as far as board members given the opportunity to speak on the item and even though -- because it drags out really, really long and I just feel like maybe even when you make that motion, there's still opportunity for board members to weigh in on the item as a whole. usually. A substitute motion MAY be something very different than the agenda item and so you can still only speak to the item which would be the substitute motion, you can still only speak to
205that and there MAY be some things in the original that aren't taken into consideration in the substitute. So, it really kind of depends on the motion itself. but how do you feel in regards to just -- so I'm make ago motion, just to try to -- try to move things along. try to move things forward, that d, but you feel like, no, let's wait, give everybody ten minutes, all nine board members speak on the item. okay. That's 90 minutes. That's an hour and a half on an item where a substitute motion is ready and then another 90 minutes on that, so I think it really does depend on what the item is and not everybody has to speak to it but a substitute motion is designed to be focusing in on what's really relevant and
206this might be a good way of moving forward. So, am I avoiding answering, sort of, because there will be times when you should talk about the original motion but there are other times when you have a substitute motion that's moving forward. What I will say and I'll call on you in a second, sarah, I will say if the substitute motion is drastically different than the item, then I would say don't second it, let people talk about the original and then present the substitute motion. Does that answer it? I know I'm being somewhat evasive because it's going the vary from motion to motion. right, okay. sarah? I guess my thought on that is, like, there's nothing preventing us like in robert's rules from making motions whenever and I think what used to happen a lot, someone
207would say I have a motion but i want to hear from my colleagues and then we would all talk and then the motion would be made and it could have avoided all of that discussion, so, like, if it's drastically different than the item and there isn't support for it, no within will second it so I don't see what the issue is of someone -- if you come to the meeting and you want something to do with the motion, just make the motion so we don't have to go around and around and around for someone to ultimately make a motion that maybe most of us support anyway. I don't know, tla's my feeling. . Inger and that's where it gets into unless it's drastically different. What people need to understand is they don't have to second
208a motion. There are people that will say, I'll second it just for the sake of discussion. yup. if you don't think you're going the support it, don't second it. Because you second a motion does not mean you have to then on it and support it either, but be careful with the just automatic seconding it because that's how some of that can be prevented as well. thank you. okay. Let's go on to the next. Okay. So supporting decisions once they're made even if yu disfwraoe, but assuming positive intent on others' actions. If you're listening to what they're saying and assuming what they're trying to convey so s to make things better or to share something they think will improve either the motion, the decision, the project, whatever, if you look at that as they really are
209trying to make things better as opposed to what are they really stringing to do, what's their hidden agenda, what are they trying to accomplish, you can't have the confidence in each other if you're always trying to second guess or trying to look at what are you really trying o do. That is not creating the confidence that's necessary for you to become a high performing board. Now there's a responsibility on the other side of that in that you don't bring things forward that has a hidden agenda or it's something that you want to do to undermine the board, so in order to develop the confidence, it's do what you said you're doing, you're going to be here to make sure the students are getting the best education possible and you're creating the best school district for
210every child that attends school here as well as how are we going to make it better. And not have -- this is what I want to see. That's where you bring things forward and the board has an opportunity to talk about it as opposed to trying to to manipulate things so that you get what you want because that will destroy the confidence in a district or even among two people faster than anything else. Is that making sense? Okay. Without confidence in each other, your governance team will see miscommunication and misunderstanding. You have misunderstanding because you're looking at what are they really trying to do, I bet this is what they're trying to do and it slows down the decision making process. Do we have time to slow down decisions that are important, or is every
211day in the life of your children important and you need o do the best you can? Do you need your board meetings to make the decision-making slower and make that process slower, or do you need to have the understanding that we're all here to discuss what's best for the students and we're all coming basically with a pure heart? That was not a rhetorical question. Do we have time for misunderstanding and slowing down decision-making processes more than they need to be? No, not at all. Now that's not sa saying rush through your decision-making. You take the important time to make your decisions but when you're trying to figure out what people are saying and what's really their motive and they're doing this today and I'm not supporting because pause that's not good and that does not
212develop the communication and the confidence in the team. Missed opportunities for growth. How can it be a missed opportunity for growth because you don't have confidence? [Inaudible]. okay, if you didn't think something's coming from a a good place, you wouldn't be supporting something that would be beneficial. What else? I think y'all are more quiet here than you are at your board meetings. correct. okay, lori? I think there's been times that there's been things that have been brought up on the dais where it hasn't been communicated with the community or just quickly kind of rushed I guess to say. okay. And that's where the planning comes in. What has happened before it ever comes to the board for a vote? If the communication has gone on and those that are involved have been involved in the
213conversation, then now you know it's moving forward, if that has not happened and that preparation has not happened, yeah, that can create some issues, but yes? and also I would say that I think it's really important to listen to our constituents when they're speaking to something very specific that we should listen to what they're saying, if they don't want to mover forward with something, we should listen to that and not just reflect on maybe a few loud voices many the community. that was one of the things that was listed in here and what I will share is you can have a room full of people, you could have 200 people here all speaking to a subject and an agenda item, keep in perspective the number of people in your district whose children are in the
214school district or that are just affected by decisions that you're going to be making. And 200 MAY seem like a whole lot of people but what percentage of your population is it? Okay. So, rather than just take ago head count and saying, okay, this is how I have to vote, it's important that you listen to what they have to say. Everybody comes to a board meeting with -- I'll say 99%, maybe 97, maybe even 80% certain as to how you're going to vote. Your charge is to listen to the your other board members, listen to the superintendent, listen to staff and listen to the community or any of the speakers that come to share their input. You're looking for things in that, that will help you make a better decision. What is it that they
215need to know, did I MISS Something when I was thinking about how I was going to move forward. Is there something that needs to be incorporated to make this a better decision, those are the kinds of things you're listening to, so while there MAY be a large group or even a small group, listening to each individual person who comes up is an important thing to do. Debbie? I think it's also important that board members reach out to the superintendent or staff prior to coming to a board meeting in order to get some of the questions answered. Sometimes if you still want to say it out loud because you want constituents to hear it, you can do that but I I don't know if like is the right word, it's uncomfortable when a board member seems
216to be throwing staff under the bus or trying to catch them off guard. Yu eel have people from the community that are saying things, you know, about staff not doing things appropriately and then if we as a board put them in that same situation where they're feeling like we're all ganging up on them, it makes it hard for staff to trust us, you know, we should have their back and I mean if they're doing something wrong, obviously we want to know that but I think we should always believe that staff is also doing this in the best interest of the district and then maybe misguided many some particular decisions or whatever, so to take what the community says to heart but not in place of what our staff is saying because sometimes they are at
217odds and ththe truth issomewhere in the ddle ofof thatat, t t we've en here a few times where board members have not been confident in staff and I think it's more important for them to have those conversations not here in the board room but to tell them their concerns and things prior to getting here so they're not caught off guard because I do feel that sometimes that happens and then it throws the whole conversation into a bad place. yeah. Sarah and then I'll come back and comment on that. that brings me to another question, so there are situations where like members of the public disparage staff by name and I agree like with debbie in that, you know, if there are issues, if someone's not doing something they're supposed to, it's good to hear about
218that, I think that should be done more privately, but as a board, like, on the dais, if a member of public is doing that to staff who we can expect it as board members, we're elected, that's something we sign for but that's not something staff signs up for, so I wonder how you would recommend handling that sbaition. there are districts and this is going to be -- there are districts who the attorney will say you MAY talk about a situation, you MAY talk about an employee but not by name and when they start to talk by name, the attorney will stop them or the board chair. Usually the board chair because that's their responsibility. I think there was a law passed though that changes that. yeah. unfortunately, that was the way that it used to
219be but we had a policy that specifically stated that you could not name people by name if you were going to make disparaging remarks or whatever regarding that particular individual. However, now there is a case that came out within the last 8 months, you know, that specifically says, you know, you can name names and that the particular board was actually cited as -- that was not appropriate pursuant to the first amendment, they had the right to say the name of the person and it wasn't so much necessarily disparaging comments, I think really what the court was looking at was that how else are you going to complain about someone that MAY not be doing the right thing unless you name that person by name. I don't think the court was thinking that it was going
220to be insults and that type of stuff, so that still is not appropriate and should be stopped by the chair. great, okay. And I was heading in this direction with it. there are still some that say don't do it, you know, and we always say listen to whatever your attorney says, you know, so, but the other piece of it is, yes, they are, however, we can stop it by saying I understand this is an issue and you can ask the superintendent what staff member can handle the concern and it can go sx, sometimes it's before they get out to saying the teachers' names and everything else, it can redirect it, but just because they're standing up and speaking, they can say it. Now it doesn't mean that what with they're saying is accurate and that's
221the frustrating part, and so to follow it up with the superintendent will have staff look into it and will find out where it needs to go or we'll let the superintendent deal with the situation, again, depending on what the comment is. If it's a comment that their student is not getting whatever necessary things they need to follow their iep's, then, okay, we're going to have the person get in touch with them and make sure the iep is followed appropriately or we're going to find out if and how it's being -- we'll set up an appointment, any of those kinds of things to move it forward. If you can diffuse it, it makes it a little easier. yeah, we -- I'm sorry, sarah, were you done? yes. we moved the superintendent's report to right after public
222comments so that if there was something that came up, he could address it immediately instead of the board members going back and forth with the public, so we did try to be proactive on working on that. you know, if the superintendent needs to say I'm aware of the situation and we are in the process of handling it, that even lets the public know it's not being ignored, it's moving forward, we don't want people to ignore anything that they bring forward that's legitimate but at the same time, we don't want rumors going crazy, so it's a real tricky, you know, deal to handle and I don't think there is any one good answer as to what to do. You said something else about -- I don't remember what it was, what was the first thing that
223you said when you were bringing things -- when you were talking about things -- surprises, and the way they treat staff. We're constantly staining no surprises, you should be talking to the superintendent ahead of time if you have questions or however the communication matrixes in this district, whether you go o to an area superintendent or what you do, that should be happening, that's why you get the agenda ahead of time, you have a chance to read it, get your questions answered and go forward. If it is something of an answer you have peeved, it's nice to say I talked to the superintendent or talked to so and so, whoever the staff member is and they explained this was the issue or answered my question if you feel that needs to be brought to the public,
224but this having confidence goes both way, you want the public to have confidence in the school district as well as you having confidence among each other. You can't move the confidence as quickly or build that confidence as quickly if you are questioning staff in such a way that makes them look like they don't know what they're doing or that they're trying to hide something from you or that they're not bringing all the information forward. So, it behooves you to get the information ahead of time. That doesn't prevent you from asking a question should something come up. Somebody -- a board member says something and it triggers it, it's okay to ask that question but how you ask the question and when you ask the questions are two important things. If possible, doing it ahead of
225time, getting your questions answered so that you have a a better idea a as to how you might vote is the most important and letting the superintendent know what those questions are and so that he's also prepared and can make sure that staff is prepared, but how you ask the question makes a difference as well. When you say what were you thinking when you decided to do mra , blah, blah, that's received differently than help me understand how you came to this decision, do you hear the difference? What were you thinking when you decided to do this as opposed to help me understand how you came to this decision. One is I really want to know I'm trying to get the information, the other can lead smp to think that your questioning my ability. What
226was I thinking kind of thing is how it can be received. You don't want to do that to staff, would you like it to happen to you. You have a lot of d's, so you have a lot of people, but think about how you would want to be treated in this situation and do it with grace and do it kindly as you're moving forward. Does that answer your question? Okay, and sarah, that kind of moves your forward. Okay. If you don't have confidence, the negative impact on the district's morale, if you don't have -- it's tough right now in these circumstances to keep morale high in a district. We don't need to be adding to the deterioration of any of the morale. People are working hard, they don't believe they're getting paid enough which, you
227know, I think all of us would say we'd love to be able to pay teachers more. That affects the morale, being questioned constantly about everything they're doing can affect the morale. Not feeling as though you're supporting the teachers and staff, that impacts morale, so what you do impacts morale and if you don't have confidence in each other, it's hard for them to have confidence in you and then, again, that impacts the morale of the district. I'm not saying that you don't go into a meeting and say we need to improve these things or in a workshop, we need o improve these things, that's part of getting better. That's not destroying morale. It's how do we make things better, and yes, things are going to have to change. We also know people don't necessarily like change
228so sometimes we have to kind of persuade them to do so. That MAY have a small time issue with morale but a a lack of confidence has long term issues with morale. Yes? and I think the other point is as board members, we set an example not only to staff but also to the community and to our schools, so we need to make sure that when we're speaking, it's positivity and we're stinging -- setting a positive example. Er when you're getting ready to ask a question or getting ready to interact with someone, it is a good thing to ask yourself how would I want someone to approach me with this, and then do that. Now we talked about people who are very direct, being direct and I would like somebody to be direct with me,
229it doesn't always work with someone who's not equally as direct, but I'm talking about being kind, being polite, being straightforward, being respectful, those are things no matter where you fell on the disk scale, everybody wants that. Is there anybody here who doesn't wan to be treated respectful and with kindness? We could go around and say yes, yes, yes. We need to treat others with that. E then that person that comes to every single board meeting and comes year after year criticizing everything you dofinger it's still important that you treat them with respect. And that you listen. They MAY still come that one time and go, I never thought about that, and I'll give you an example. We had a person who still comes but has been combining to our board meetings since JANUARY of 2001.
230Talks about the same thing each time, we build stupid buildings, we have to build them so we we orient them correctly, we don't need air conditioning because we're belching carbon into the ozone and mitoses the same -- it's pretty much the sail thing, we can tell you what they say, it's still important to treat that person with respect, they have the right to say and every once in a while, they point out something on a topic , I didn't think of that, and it's an important thing to do. Yes? so, I think we have our regulars that come and speak but what I think DR. Hepburn, this is something that we need to work on because as someone who doesn't know our process and even looking on our agenda, it is not easy to be
231a public speaker and so I think that we need to make that more community friendly so that anybody who wants to come and speak really can't go through our process without having to click and research and find, it should really pop and be super easy. what is the thing you're saying is difficult for them? if you look on our agenda, it speaks to written public comments but people want to come in person and be a public speaker. so, are you asking for maybe clarification that they can come in person or written? right, it should be -- it should speak to that on the agenda as far as coming in and being a public speaker. I mean, I I don't know how many written comments we're getting now. I know that was more during covid, we
232were getting a a lot of written comments but people want to be in person, public speaker, I think there's a form you have to fill out. It's not easy, it's not user-friendly. so, this might be a conversation at some point that you need to look at what would make it an easier process. Even having a printed out, not the whole thing, but a summary of your agenda, just have that so that they can can look and see what items are going to be discussed. Like I said, not the whole thing with all of the explanations and all the dock mation and everything, they can see that online, but maybe even something where they can look and see, this is the agenda item to which I want to speak and, you know, that kind of thing,
233and let them know they are welcome. There MAY be a piece that you read at the beginning of the meeting and let them know what someone who's coming to seek, what are they supposed to do as they prepare so that they know what process they have to go through, you know, and then I will also say it's very important in my opinion, only in my opinion, when someone stands up to speak for the CHAIRMAN To say good morning, good afternoon, welcome, greet them. That is a way of them knowing first of all, okay, now it's time, I can start speaking because they get up there and stand sometimes and wait and think when am I supposed to start, if you greet them, now they know it's time for me to speak. Not only to give
234them the time but also to let them know they're welcome, thank you for being here. Good evening, it's good to see you. And kind of give them a starting point. So, some of the things that you as a board can do will make them feel a little more welcome in addition. The very first one, building confidence in each other takes time and effort. It doesn't mean that it's an arduous process, it just means you need to think. You need to think about what you're doing and it takes time, when you're constantly doing it over and over and over and over again, all of a sudden people start saying I see the consistency, I can see on a regular basis that you are here for the students and for what the betterment of the district. I
235can see all of those things happening and vefrmgly it happens but it requires just as it says, vulnerability, openness and a willingness to see beyond your perspective. But the rewards are immeasurable. The confidence that a community can have this the school district, the confidence that your staff and your teachers and all of your employees can have in the governance team, each one of those things builds a a stronger and better community and I'm talking about the community within your school district. Okay. I have a -- yeah, we have time for it. I have a thing that we want to do. The highly confident governance team, when you have that, there are going to be challenges that come before you, there are going to be times when you're not all on the same page but you
236can get that through that more effectively because you have already laid the ground work of, again, we're all here for the same reason, I know that your ideals are pure t way we're going the speak to each other, you can just get through it much, much easier and much more effectively. Bold decisions will benefit students. You can't make bold decisions if people don't trust each other and if the community doesn't trust you. If you don't trust each other, making those decisions is difficult and if we're going to see any real change, we've got to make some of those bold decisions. You remember the very first -- after we get through all of the sunshine and everything, the statement that was made, student outcomes don't change until adult behavior changes. That's what the benefits will be,
237yu eel be able to make some of those changes and those bold decisions. Lori? yeah, so I think that's great, you know, let's make those bold decisions but I think also we need to stick to those decisions. We cannot make the decision and then whatever time goes by and then khaipg that skition or give directions to the superintendent on something and then later down the road after staff's done a flett ra -- plethora of work on it, change that decision. unless there's a good reason. sure. that's a -- the superintendent's task force, we made a decision but based on conversations, like, sometimes we make a decision with not all the information and once that information comes, it might change the speed of the decision or the decision, so, I agree mostly on that but there
238are times when new information comes forward that sometimes making us change the direction to the superintendent. and there MAY be a modification that needs to be made along the way. I'm not saying you've made this decision now, go where no man has gone before now and no matter what happens along the way, here's your target, make sure you're doing it. There MAY be times you have to modify it and that is okay, but to say we're going to move forward this way and then, oh, no, no, we're going to do this instead and you start flip flopping and making decisions that are just kind of creating turbulent waters, that is a problem and there's a difference between navigating the situation and changing your mind. Changing your mind needs to be done very carefully and very
239infrequently. But the navigation has to happen consistently. And then when you have a highly confident governance team, it inspires confidence throughout the school strictct ananthrougugut the whwhe e commity. I've sd d it I don't know how many times today that we're all here for the same reason and by believing in each other's work and the work together with confidence, you're multiplying your ability to reach those goals. You can spend a lot of time talking about the goals and talking about what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, how it's going to happen, but without the confidence, it's going to take you longer to have every single one of those conversations. And that would probably drive the d's on this board crazy. Okay. Now I'm going to give you an assessment that really looks at
240how much confidence you have in each other right now. This is a baseline, I'm going to collect it, you don't have to put your names on it or anything. You can if you want to, but this is goipg to be a baseline, you're going to get this again at our very last session x&we're going to see if all of the time and effort that we've put into this, if it has helped with the level of confidence that you have in each other as a a governance team and we're going to kind of compare that and then see where we can go from that. So, if you'll -- it is on a 1-5 scale, 1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest, and again, the 1 is hardly ever, and the 5 would be almost always,
241okay. Thank you. So, with the first one, board communicates openly and honestly with each other, if you think that hardly ever happens, you would circle the 1, if yeah we do most of the time, you would circle the 5, okay. Any questions? Alright. When you're finished, just raise your hand and I'll come get it. (Filling in assessments). alright, in front of each one of you, there is a c packet, we talked a lot of things in the past when I've been here, we've talk about who our prolepses and responsible are, communication, we have talk about the confidence, we have talked about all kinds of things that relate to even the disk assessment we did today and what I would like you to do is on each one of the seeds, it says broward county, and
242your cultivating educational excellence, I want you on the back of this, I want you to write the one thing you are going to do that a out of all of this conversation we've had, all of the things we have done, what is the one thing that you think you could do that would help this board become a strong governance team member and what would help the board become a strong team governance team, what are you going to work on or something that you think would be a way that you could help this team become strong? You understand what I'm asking? Out of all of the this conversation we've had, what are you going to do with it, did we just bore each other for 7, 8 hours or is there something we could do. I'll
243put this up on the screen and we can talk about the different things. We've talked about roles and responsibilities, we talked about stabling stages of develop, we've talked about communication, gaining confidence in each other. What are you going to do with the information that we have talked about? And, again, I will collect these after you have written them. (Exercise). And when you're finished with that, stick them up in the air and I'll come pick them up. [Inaudible]. Alright. Our next -- let me pull out my phone for our next session. Our next session is in AUGUST. What's the date for our next -- there's my bag. Okay, our next session together is AUGUST 26th at which point we're going to be doing -- talking about different per spekt s if and is the tifrns between
244perception and perspective and so we need to at some point just let me know what time I'm supposed to be here, until then, I hope you all have a very nice summer and that you take time to enjoy your family and take a little time off in between and before we break, is there anything that you need me to know, anything that you need to say to wrap this all up? [Inaudible]. you're very welcome, okay. Alright. Now enjoy and continue to do your hard work. I know it's not easy but it is very rewarding in the long run, okay. So, thank you. [Inaudible]. you're very welcome. Okay. [Applause]. Er thank you so much. thank you. before we move to the next item, for the bond oversight committee item, I did have DR. Zeman wanted to
245make some comments, so we'll go back to that so he can make his comments. thanks, chair, you know, these oversight meetings and books are difficult to consume sometimes but I do think there's one like really big issue which we're sitting between 750 and 800 million dollars of other people's money in the capital account. We're going to be making a whole bunch of thoughts and ideas and decision ins the future about what to do with that but it's clear from the report that we've kind of plateau at being able to get some things done but we're not plateau to burn down the money we have, we still are finishing fewer projects, that new capital money is coming into our account, the projection is for that 750-800 million dollars to grow over time which I don't think
246anyone that's elected to this board is something that would work well with decisions o of broward county, while there's good news about plateau to get a lot more down that we've gotten done, there's still a tremendous opportunity to deliver more for students by making sure we get facilities done and have more ribbon cuttings and more libraries and more cafeterias and things like that but we right now if you look at the bond report, there's nothing in there that says we're doing anything different, if we're not doing anything different, how can we expect a different outcome. I wanted to point that out which we continue to disappoint our community in that regard with our facilities, our facility growth, our facility appointment and conditions and yet I don't see us anywhere in that report doing anything different
247than we've always done and that's just kind of a point I wanted to make when that came up. Thank, I appreciate it, chair. thank you, did anybody else have any comments on that item? Okay. thank you. So, the next item we're going to move to to is rule development, religious expression in public schools, florida department of education model policy, I will turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. MS. Batista will jump in, this is a model policy from the department of education, therefore the board dun have a lot of wiggle room for lack of a better description but we are here to entertain any questions if there is but again it's a model policy that is coming from tallahassee for the board to pass. okay, anybody have any comments? I have one question,
248let me just get to it. Sorry. Do we have public comment on this? yes, but she's not here, for the record, narnique peer grant signed up to be a public speaker. thank you. So, on the bottom of the policy, let me go to it, it says that the district must state in oral or written form that the student speech does not reflect the sponsorship, position of the school board of broward county and they MAY require this disclaimer at all graduation events and is events where students speak publicly, my question is how are we going to be displaying that, is it going to be on a poster board, is it on the programs because if we pass this whenever it comes to us, it has to be in effect immediately, so if we have to include
249a disclaimer, I'm just wondering where we will do that. I think.Ing it would depend on the event, so for graduation, it would probably be set by the principal or any other district function, it would probably be staff making that disclaimer before the students would speak and I know MS. Washington just walked in, she might have more insight on this too. I missed the first part. my question is we're on the policy about religion. We're required to have a disclaimer so I'm just asking would it be verbal, would it be written, are we going to make post e because it says a at any place where students MAY express their views, so obviously every place won't have a program but MR. Sullivan just answered like at graduation, that maybe the principal would say that -- what
250if people came in late, I think it would make more sense to have the disclaimer on the graduation program printed on will, written, so that people couldn't say they didn't hear that. DR. Hepburn? DR. Washington? I think it depends on the program and where we are, if there is some kind of written program, we can certainly add it to that but I also think a public meeting or something happening in a public forum where students will be speaking, there could also be a verbal disclaimer. MS. Batista? yes, I just wanted to just remind the board that this language, this disclaimer is also already part of our student code of conduct and it's in every school where like pamphlets and other items are displayed, we already have that language stating that -- now I know this
251is also for graduation specifically, but we use this language already in our schools. I can't say as I remember seeing a disclaimer like that on anything, so I guess I'll have to look more clearly, but that's not the disclaimer, I see the disclaimer about discrimination and all that, is it in that wording and I just glanced over it? so, my understanding is that it's in the -- like for lack of a better -- like a bulletin board where like if a student brings something like there is going to be a meeting at the church and I would like the distribute this particular item or displayed at t the school, if they have a place where they would display other items or secular in nature, they would also put that religious pamphlet or, you know, flyer
252and then at the bottom of that bulletin board, there is language pursuant to our student code of conduct that states that this is not endorsed by the school district, the items that are displayed there. again, aisle -- I'll have to look closer because I have been in all of the schools and I have never seen that ever. Itsbacker it's part of our policy. it MAY be part of the policy but I don't know that the disclaimer is visible and based on that policy that we have, again, these are the things if we have a policy, we need to make sure we're being true to them and I just find that I don't see that anywhere and if we're making a policy, we need to be making sure that we're following it and I know that
253it says oral or written, but in places where oral might not work, it really needs to be written and I don't see that, but I'm just making that point. board member bulman? thank you, chaiair. So, yeah, I had rerecognized e e number6 that I read some kikind ititeration ofththat in a different place, so thanks, MS. Batista, for clarifying that. I was wondering and I don't know the answer to this, so this is why I'm asking the question, with this -- I mean, this is just basically providing a policy of something that we're already doing and that everyone has their first amendment rights anyways, so this is just kind of putting it in writing. How does this affect say like graduation speeches? Because my understanding is they have to be approved before they're given and like
254how does this policy play out against say like a political speech policy? MS. Batista? well, thank you for that question. So, the commencement speeches, we have a policy on commencement speeches and one of the things that we do or that the principal must do is to look at the speech to make sure that it comports with the rules of the district because the actions of the student are -- you know, this is the balance, right, is that the piser amendment rights of the student and is that student able to say whatever he or she wants, or is it a -- you know, is it something that is coming from the school district and then it will carry the matter of the government and therefore it cannot have this establishment clause issues and so on, and
255so the way we look at it or the way the law looks at it at this point at this time is that, you know, it does have -- the delivery of that commencement speech has to abide by the rules of the district because it is part of the processes of the school graduation process, you know, of the government. so, would the same criteria be applied to say political speech and religious speech? yes. thanks. board member alhadeff? so, to chair's point in regards to the oral written form, why -- I mean, I get it if the principal speaks to it, why wouldn't we just put it in the graduation, like that little pamphlet they get with all the names and maybe like on the back somewhere or on the front, just add that just to make
256sure that it's happening? And then my next -- my first question is in regards to during graduation, then do students have the right to walk with like a flag around them? MS. Batista or DR. Hepburn? go ahead, MR. Sullivan? I believe that's in one of our policies, 1910? So good to have a helper, a volunteer, we don't pay. Yeah, if they're going to do that, they must have approval before the event, before the ceremony. okay, so you know, and DR. Hepburn, I guess how is that -- is that communicated with the high schools and they're getting those approvals, so they are aware of that? yes, that's communicated to the high school principals and their team and it's communicate today the students. I did notice last year we had kids sneak them in and unfold them
257as they're sitting down, by the time they get ready to walk up, it's already out and displayed, so the students have their ways of, you know, getting around certain rules and policies but yes, that's been explicitly told to principals and they go over that with their students. Rjt and I believe it's part of the commencement policy, right? correct. yes, 1910. and can you clarify, I didn't understand what the -- so, if a student during their speech wants to give a religious viewpoint, that is allowable or not allowable? the current way of the law, it's not allowable. not allowable. it neats allowable. You know, the whole analysis would be pursuant to either whether the speech falls under tanker, where if you recall the kids were wearing the arm bands and the supreme court said, yes, you
258can wear the arm bands because it's your first amendment self-expression and you're able do that unless you're disrupting the educational process of the school. The other side of it, it is something regulated by the school district. If it's regulated by the school district, it needs to conform to the items of government, so there is no establishment clause, we cannot interfere with the establishment clause, that means there is no political or religious speech that will be given during the commencement speech. okay. Thank you. anybody else, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, is this policy written to the extent of the law or does it go beyond what the law requires? MS. Batista? this policy codifies the state of the law. okay. And are there any existing policies that we currently have in place that we
259need to look at that would be in conflict with this policy? no, there's nothing in conflict with this policy. okay, thank you. anybody else? I have a quick question. So, in commencements that we mentioned students but what about board members, do board members have to also follow the not being political or religious in their speeches? absolutelyfinger because the board member, it's even more a representation of the school district which is a governmental entity, so you must abide by those guidelines. should it be in the policy about the board members because there was an issue last year. Just asking. so, I mean, I don't recall every word in the policy, but the sentiment or the gist of it is that if it carries the matter of the government, then it must follow no political issues, it
260must remain neutral as to religion as well regardless of who the person is, whether it's a board member or superintendent, what not. and 1910 does cover all speech, it would be all of us. perfect, thank you. Board member leonardi? yeah, to that point because that has been an issue in the past, I'm curious about like what happens if a board member violates that. What are the repercussions? MS. Batista? the repercussions could be a lawsuit from other -- from students who MAY feel ostracized as a result of the government showing that they're supporting or they're against something in particular that they're not supposed to be doing that. but we don't have any recourse as a district? well, as a district, if you recall there is the resolution for board man ship where the board members have
261signed off on that you will follow all the laws and policies of the district. Censure would be something, that's what is provided for in that badman ship resolution. so, it would be up to your fellow board members to do anything? that is correct. thank you very much, board member cervera? the florida doe's model policy, seeking clarification that the policy that's presently before us is a direct carbon copy of what the doe has put out already? the answer is yes. there's mo deviation? there's no deviation. The only deviation is we added the section of authority and we wrote down the section number of the florida statute and of the federal law, other than that, there iss no deviation in the substance of the policy. in regards to comments made by students and/or board members at a
262graduation, would it be inappropriate for that student or board member to perhaps praise GOD for the ability to graduate, does this policy implementation change that in any way, shape or form? does this policy change that? I mean, the policy should not change that, no. okay, so would it be permissible or impermissible for a student to make that comment prior to giving a commencement speech? if it is part of the process of the graduation and it carries the matter of the district and of the government, then that would be an inappropriate comment because this is not -- an expression of the student with respect to tanker, it would be tuned the first amendment can which talks about that, you know, or many other cases, right, hazel wood is a landmark case that talks about that is
263something that is the -- the expression is part of the government. It carries the matter of the government. thank you, MS. Batista. okay, thank you. Anybody else? Alright. Thank you very much, staff. Okay, the next item is the program manager/owner representative services. I will now turn it over to staff for a very brief presentation. we have no public comments as well. okay, thank you. And then, MADAM Chair, this was -- this was postponed from the last meeting so I'm not sure if staff has a presentation. I think this is more a continuing the q & a. okay, perfect, and I would just in the spirit of the conversation we were having earlier in our workshop just ask my colleagues, you know, not to continue to ask the same questions. If you have different questions, I
264think that's really appropriate but we spent a long time on this at the last workshop, so, I would just ask us to be cognizant of that. So, who would like to start with questions? Okay, DR. Zeman?Frjts thanks very much, chair, there's been a lot of conversations about the language related to the contract and I've spent some time reading the original contract, reviewing it, trying to understand my constituents' concerns with it and I think I've come to a on census, I want to confirm with our general counsel. The original contract was worded in a way so that we had a -- thanks, I'm waiting for general counsel to join us. Whomever wants to sit in the chair is fine with me, but they've got to be here, if I want to talk to the general counsel,
265it's better if they're around. Thanks. In the original contract, there were statements in two different sections o the contract, one which talked about a six month extension and one which talked about an 180 day extension. The law treats those things differently but it's also clear in appendix h of that that the site's all agree that the it was th was a five and a half year contract, not a six year contract, is this confirmed from your research as well, MR. Cuny? I have to founs around here, thomas cuny, assistant general counsel, it's one in the same, it doesn't extend the contract beyond the additional six months, 180 days, it's synonymous, there's no ability to refer to that one reference of six month which is was in the rfq itself as being in addition to, it's
266the 180, that's what every single amendment thereafter is referenced. this is a contract that has a maximum extinction life of five and one half years? correct. I have a suggestion/question, I don't know what we would call it, there has been a lot of questions, a lot of e-mail to general counsel and then responses about whether it could be extended beyond the JANUARY time, so I would like to ask the general counsel if -- and I guess ask my board members if it would make sense for us to ask the attorney general to opine on this so we have a solid answer because I know the general counsel has given us the same answer a variety of times but the question continues to come up, so I would really like -- hoping that they would answer
267us but in looking at this be able to just know for sure and a solid answer whether it's possible because if I'm not mistaken, there's a part if the law that says you can go beyond up to six months of what the contract agreed on korkt what I understand, so, how does everybody feel -- I don't know the right way to ask the question so it's not a vote, but I would like to ask general counsel to ask the attorney general to give us a solid answer on whether you can go six months beyond what is in our contract or you're boun by what's in the contract because the answer that has been asked, where does it point in the law, your answer has been it's not really in the law, it's in our policy
268on the last memo that we got. right, there's a whole memo about it and the answer is that -- and I'm sorry I missed first minute of the discussion so I don't know if MR. Cuny has already answered this, but it is -- it was answered in the memo that talks about that when the rfq was released originally, the material of -- term of the agreement was a three year term with one year extensions and then as a potential for six months or 180 days, those two terms were used interchangeably after that which is what we're voting on or you will be voting on, on MAY 13th to be able to extend that or consider the extension until JANUARY 17th of next year which will be the additional six months. right, but that's what's written
269in the contract, we're not going beyond the contract. My understanding is in the law, there is a provision that allows if it's beneficial for the project to go an additional six months, so that's what I think the question has been with different board members asking can we go beyond the general and so they've asked where it point ins the law that we can't do has and the answer was it doesn't point to that in law per se, it was our policy, so my suggestion or my ask is can we have the attorney general give us, you know, an opinion on whether we could go an additional six months which would be JULY of 2026 because it extends beyond what is in the actual contract. So, I don't know how everyone feels but we keep asking
270the same questions. the answer is yes, you can ask the attorney general if it's the consensus of the board that you want to do that, then we'll be happy to put an item together for that. is there anyone that would have an objection to that? I just have a question before I give an opinion if you don't mind, chair. I'm curious because having spent several hours on this issue, I thought this had been resolved, so to the general counsel, what is the chance that the attorney general would come back and have an opinion that's different than the broward county general counsel? from my perspective, it would be zero, but that doesn't mean you would be not able to ask for one. no, no, I want to ask the attorney general when there's like a weighty
271question about law or statute that's ambiguous, are you aware, general could've counsel, of the law that's been written about if it allows for a six month extension if it's beneficiary to the government? no, the law that applies here would be the competitive procurement processes, that's what would be controlling, and under that process, if you have a a term in the agreement, that's what you must abide by, so I'm not sure if when people are talking -- I don't know what the additional six month after the -- what is already provided in the agreement, I don't know what they're alining about, alining -- talking about, what that is? I would like to ask to cite it, there's a rumor about that, can somebody cite it? go ahead. well, my pages are a little messed up, I
272don't know that this applies, so MS. Batista, I would give you this that I have here in my little thing. Shoot. Okay, I think it's 287.05713. okay, so yes, you're talking about the consultants competitive negotiation act, the cc na. and then that doesn't apply, right, or does it apply? well, it applies but it doesn't apply to this issue? okay. can you explain more, i don't want to waste the attorney general's time, I don't want to ask a question that's not an bursting question and the general attorney writes back and says your general counsel is right, so if you know this doesn't apply, yes, I'm going to object to asking the general counsel. I would like to defer to MR. Cuny or I don't know if [Inaudible] Is on the line who are the experts of
273competitive negotiation. so, DR. Zeman, I'm unaware of any other statute that woululd alalw for exteion of anotheher six mohs, ththere is a declaratioof emergency statute, we're not there, we don't have that. It doesn't just say that several months from now, we might not be in a situation where if the rfq that aos currently underway that's unable to be consummated that we MAY get to an emergency scenario which would then grant us time to extend. Under the procurement process we've been entered into since JULY of 2020, we made it clear to all the prospective bidders on this procurement that this is the timeframe, we have five years max f we needed, that's what it says, if needed, that 180 days f we were to change that now, that would be -- the it would be contrary
274o the competitive procurement where we set forth the material term in that procurement, we had three bidders at the time, they knew they had an opportunity to go longer than five years and 180 days, they MAY have presented different ly and MAY have been ran bed differently so it could get us in some hot water that way. and MADAM Chair, MR. Viknola is also on the line, I don't know if he has something to add on this issue. yes, I do. Everyone's been talk about is there a statute that addresses this and actually, this all flows from the competitive procurement requirements which are not only statute but you also have case law that a ddresses this area of praktsz and they state -- this is from the first district court of appeal, reasonably definite plans
275and specifications as a basis upon which bids will be received must be adopted by a public agency prior to receiving bids. It goes on to say -- the court goes on to say, it is essential that plans, specifications which would include the term and estimates be prepared in advance and filed or given out to all persons interested in the bidding so that's the entire community of bidders out there, sufficiently definite and explicit to enable them to prepare their bids intelligently on a common basis and it goes on from there and it repeat that is a bit, but the gist of it is when you put out a competitive solicitation, rfp, itb, what have you, you're telling the bidding marketplace we're looking to have goods or services under this procurement and we intend to award this
276procurement for the period of time specified in the specifications. So, if you fail to be our "ward -- awardee, you will be told how long this is off the market, so if you have a three year contract, two one year renewals and a possible extension of 180 day ifs we want it tha,'s how long we've told the marketplace if you don't win, you won't have another crack at our contract until that passes. When you end up extending beyond what you've told the marketplace, you're now going beyond the reasonably definite lan and specifications and that's going beyond what our governing laws and rules require of us. Thank you. I don't know how to react to that. I don't feel like -- I'm not going to jump up and down not to do that but it doesn't
277seem there's any basis to it, I don't know how you would put together a leather and say there's a part of the law that doesn't apply to this contract but can we apply it to this contract and have an extra six months. I like the plan that wanda paul has put together, we're going end up paying more per hour, I would like to keep aecom forever because their rate ares cheap but that's not a legal option right now, so I'm not going to object but I don't know what the basis of that letter would be that would allow the attorney general o spend time on it other than to say thank you for cite thing the law but that law doesn't apply, this is part of the procurement law and my business sense is when
278you tell somebody it's a five and a half year contract or five plus a six month if needed extension, that sets a certain price they're willing to pay f you want them to do ten years or anything after five, they have to change their prices the, have to gairpt tee they can hire people to get the money from broward schools and pay their people, so there is a disadvantage to people if we change the time of a contract so it makes great sense to me the law is written the way it is, I don't understand the basis of the letter so I'm not going to object, I just don't understand what we would say o the attorney general that would allow him to just kind of -- I don't know how they would react. okay,
279thank you, MS. Alhadeff? thank you, so I do object. I think -- I know our attorneys here are telling us what the law is and so I don't see why it's necessary to ask the attorney general for an additional opinion. anybody else? DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. I support asking for an additional opinion. I don't believe that whichever way it goes, if we even change some of the language in the terms of agreement to accommodate that ask, I think that we will still accomplish what we need to do, so I'm going to support it and I'm going to also recommend, chair, that if we do get consensus, I hate using that word now, on supporting your ask, that the language under the fourth amendment page 2 of 5, item 2, term of agreement, that
280it would reflect that to which you're asking where line 2, starting at for a period of 180 days be changed to -- from JULY 22, 2025 to the earliest of JULY 21, 2026, or the latest extension period permissible by law as interpreted by the attorney general in an opinion to the board. MS. Batista, does -- can you do that in a contract? ill like to defer to MR. Cuny to respond? . Inger thank you, MS. Batista. Tr. Holness, in response to your suggestion, I would respectfully suggest that we can consider moving forward with the language as is and then once we get the opinion back from the ag, -- ig, then enter into a fifth amendment, then we protect our rights to move forward. I'm uncomfortable adding lang wanl right now that myself, my fellow
281attorneys that has been conferred with feel is contrary to the procurement la w. MADAM Chair, so, if the board gives consensus to proceed with your ask, as far as getting the opinion of the attorney general, then I believe that the suggestion that I have made here would not be in any way consequential to the fourth amendment because it is just accommodating that ask whereby if the attorney general says we can can move forward, then we have the option in there to move forward. If the attorney general says no, then it also provides for the option for us to continue with the JANUARY date, so I'm not understanding the reason for the objection. MR. Cuny? any time you put a conditional term in an agreement, we don't know how long it's going the take to get
282the opinion back, we don't know what that opinion is, so in effect, we don't know what the ultimate term will be until that point in time. I don't see the harm in entering into a subsequent amendment that would then extend -- .The opinion comes back in a favorable manner and we are able extend it to a full year, I'm certain that aecom would be willing to sbrao that fifth amendment as well and as soon as that opinion comes back, we submit the fifth amendment, everybody agrees to it. okay, so it appears the concern from MR. Cuny is the timeline to which we will get the opinion back. So, if we include that in terms of not having an opinion by JANUARY, we would go with the JANUARY date, then I don't see where there's a
283problem. okay. Did you have anything else? that's my recommendation, to accommodate your ask, chair. MS. Bulman, did you have something? I just wanted to think about it a little bit backwards because -- and ip we talked about this probably at the last meeting, I don't remember so I apologize if this is redundant, I guess we're looking at the can concern with the six month extension is the short period of time that we have based on all of the pending projects. I would feel more are assure today o know we have the plan move fogger ward of what we will be doming after this contract and presumably in JANUARY and would like to know what we're doing on that end. Because based on what general counsel has said and based on the general idea of bidding,
284pub luckily bided jobs, if you could continue to extend .Things, then that basically takes a lot of other people out of the marketplace, and so -- then it doesn't allow for public competition, so I can see why there's -- why their opinion is likely correct based on the statute and everything. So, I would feel -- I don't know that it's necessary either that we have this attorney general opinion but I really would like to I guess for DR. Hepburn, so to make sure the board is well advised of the plan that we're doing everything we need to with our new rfq and everything else to make sure we're ready to go if and when this contract ends in JANUARY. thank you. MADAM Chair, if I MAY just to follow up on that comment and also
285DR. Holness' comment, it just dawned on me another consideration if we had conditional terms in the amendment that we have to have two sets of numbers from aecom, because right now, all the numbers contained in the fourth amendment are predicated upon the 180 days, so we'd literally need to have two exhibit, one for the 180, one for the one year, that can be done, I'm certain tha,'s one additional level of xe thetysing. board member cervera? I agree with your analysis if appropriate entering into the fourth agreement now and if necessary at a later point in time entering into the fifth. I do want to focus on some of the lang wanl that's specifically in the fourth amendment presently. I'm assuming this was likely drafted by aecom's counsel and provided to you guys for revisions. I
286have two issues if I MAY, on page 205, subsection 3 entitled amended provisions, there's an attempt to amend article 2.02 entitled contract documents and priority of documents, within that subsection, it states that all financial commitments set forth and identified in the executive summary associated with and part of board item for the fourth amendment are incorporated by reference into this agreement, the executive summary presumably is a document package we were provided for purposes of today's workshop. This is not as the amendment currently reads an exhibit to the fourth amendment. I think that creates some potential evidence rules down the road, I think this should be attached as an amendment and to this fourth amendment should be an exhibit, excuse me, and if you look down further in the document in the next subsection where it talks
287abarticle 2.03 entitled cost of services, there is a provision in there in which again it's making reference to a staffing plan and that subject staffing plan is listed as an exhibit a to the fourth amendment to agreement. So, as someone who has a little bit of experience in drafting contracts, I think it's best practice to include the executive summary or whatever term widths ear attempting to incorporate by reference therein as an exhibit. I would also note for the record, this is the paragraph directly below where it says article 2.03 cost of services, the paragraph that begins the title cost to sbbc under this agreement, I want to make reference to the actual amounts, the 123 million 586 thousand 384 dollars, when we look at the that's provided in parentheses, that number does not match, I'm
288assuming that was an oversight or a typo, but that needs to be cleaned up. thank you very much, MR. Cervera, having been alerted to your comment, I took the opportunity to make some proposed corrections, if you look on the inside sleeve of the bender everyone's been handed, you have a single page with a red line on page 2 and the items that you just mentioned. And while you're looking at that, pulling that out, I would say that I agree that typically I like to have an attachment and this is exhibit -- physically attach and had identified as exhibit a, exhibit become, what have you n this particular instance as has been the case with the last few amendments, we typically get up against the clock and we don't have that exhibit a finished so we
289kind of have a catch-all, so although I think it is legally sufficient as written in 2.02, I would agree that we have an opportunity right now to change that, so if you look at article 2.02, the change would be the executive summary attached hereto and incorporated herein in exhibit a and we will now make the executive summary exhibit a and attach it physically to this document. Similarly down under 2.03, I have inserted the term the staffing plan is set forth in the executive summary attached hereto and incorporated herein, so therefore exhibit a is going to take care of both of those issues and as far as the scrivener's error, the term 500 is just stricken and that would correct that scrivener's error. it happen tos the best of us, right. yeah, thank you, I appreciate
290it. just on that point though, which is correct? Because our executive summary still says 586 thousand and exhibit four says 86 thousand, which one is correct? my understanding is the numerical value is the correct number. I'm looking on the last page of the executive summary. [Inaudible] Is what you had in exhibit a. that's correct. perhaps I don't know if any of your staff are here that can compile these numbers to verify what the actual total should be, but I did not run the math on this. Whatever the accurate number is, whether it be the numerical value or the written value, I'll change one or the other. So, if I can get confirmation from your staff, that would be fantastic, then I'll make that change. the numerical in the parenthesis was if the incorrect value, I
291think the 586 thousand is accurate, it taoes numerical breakdown, it basically needs a 5 instead of that 0. that makes sense. it's easier -- the then we're all together. thank you for that. chair, I have more comments later, whenever you're ready. okay, board member cervera, is that it for you? yes, thank you. DR. Zeman? chair, I love reading through these things but one of the things that jumped out on the staffing plan is that buried in this contract to do support to construction and capital projects are three positions that help eddc and one position that helps with procurement. The procurement one is kind of a serious conflict of interest, like we have a vendor who has an employee who's come back to help us with procurement. This is a capital support pmor contract, if that
292is like what I think it is, then I suggest we reallocate that level of effort to somewhere else and if we need support to eddc for contractor support, it would be much better practice to go out on a separate contract or on a general consulting contract than to put it to the pmor, so I'm just curious why we're doing that as part of this contract and why did we ever do it? MS. Batista? MR. Cuny? yeah, thank you, DR. Zeman. I don't have much involvement at all in the staffing plan or review thereof, so I can't answer the rationale behind that. I don't know if somebody MAY be present today that could answer that, if not, I presume we can get that answer back to you. I don't care necessarily how many people there are,
293I don't think it's an appropriate way to use a contract. If you have a contract to do program manager owner rep, everybody that's listed in there, for the transparency of this board, when we look at the cost of that, we think, aecom and its subordinates, that's what it costs to get pmor, when there's staff for eddc and one staff from pmor, this board or anybody that saw this contract would think that's the case. I understand your concern. I don't care if it's three or one or half of one or 13, the issue is that ought to be spent on pmor stuff and we need lots of help getting construction done in broward county, if we have four positions left, I hope that when we get a revised staffing plan they're all about doing pmor work.
294If there's objection from my colleagues. DR. Hepburn, is that something that aecom can answer? [Inaudible]. hold on just a second, if we can get e mimic.N, plsese ke talkg g ansee if they have ion. There you go, perfect. thank you. Mike [Inaudible], aecom, through the chair, those positions have been in scope, my understanding for the duration of the contract since it's commenced, I would say it is a little unusual. Many times in my past, they have been what I call start-up positions, when you're standing up a program, they're stop gap normally until the internal systems are stood up to support properly and then the positions go away. But they've been in contract, in scope, that's the best answer I can give, and we're told to staff them. chair, just to try to explain that to
295my colleagues, in scope mean ins the rfp we went out for, we asked for three positions to support eddc. stated that you wanted support activity ins those areas, correct, yeah. It doesn't list the number of positions. I'm with you, but it listed our economic and diversity -- the activities. would have support through this contract. yeah. and then second, it said we would provide procurement support through this contract through a a vendor who was a warded through a procurement process, an awafrd is going to then alaw f lou that contractor to come back and support the procurement office of broward county public schools. it does not name procurement, it names supporting various departments. I'm happy to hear from my lapels, but when this comes forward for a final, I'm going to make a motion to strike
296those position and is replace thel with people that do pmor work for which we certainly could use more people. MS. Batista or MR. Cuny, question on that because if you -- you're changing them, would it -- if you want to stay within the value, would you still have three positions, or would the value of the positions change, you know what I'm stringing to ask? If everybody is making the same way, then you can just switch from three of procurement to three of something else but if there's a difference, maybe you're only going to get two out of it. How would we know that before it comes to us at a board meeting so we could maybe discuss that now instead of at the board meeting. yeah, thank you, MRS. Hixon. I must get back to
297staff and work with aecom to see how they worked out their figures to see how that would play out as far as a translation as you've asked the question. So, right now, I can't just give you an answer. I would be more than pleased to work with staff and aecom to get that to you, but it would certainly be before the item is brought back for consideration if it needs another workshop, I don't think it would, if it needs that level, we can can meet individually with board member and is discuss it with you at length. We'll do what it take tos get that done. can we just get consensus from the board now if they agree with DR. Zeman so that it's just written in the contract before it comes to us so that
298we're not continuing to have the discussion at the board meeting. So is there anyone that disagree widths DR. Zeman in terms of switching those positions to something that's contract related, not procurement, am I staining that properly? Not procurement related, is there anybody that disagrees with that? Okay. Well, so when the contract comes back to us, okay. Is it a strong -- can you tell us why you disagree? I disagree, this is not coming forward from our superintendent and I don't like the way that this is going. Thank you. DR. Hepburn, you want to weigh in? no comment on the issue. I'm listening to the conversation and the legality of the conversation as far as the extension of the contract, but just like MR. Cuny said, we would have to go back and analyze those costs.
299okay. Anybody else disagree? They can bring it forward as a follow-up. and then you would bring the contract back to us as you see -- well, discussion with aecom to see if they would agree, if you agree, you can come back to us. we can review and see what's the best move forward for the six months extension. that part of the discussion was just about switching the procurement positions to actual construction. That's what I'm asking about right now. for the extension, correct? yes. we'll review the extension and bring it back. so, and we had one -- it seems one disagreement on asking the -- or maybe I read the room wrong, asking the attorney general, so I think it makes sense as MR. Cuny said to continue the extension the way it is, ask for
300an opinion, if the opinion comes back, write a fifth one so we're not changing anything here. I know that -- I'm with lori, I disagree. okay. with zeman's response. okay. So, staff will bring back the information and the superintendent will speak with aecom and make a decision. Is that right? So, are we still okay except for one person that disagreed with asking the attorney general to opine on whether there's a possibility of making it further but not affecting what's happening right now but just asking for that, so if there's a possibility, we'd have a fifth amendment. Is there anyone -- I know that you -- alhadeff objects, thank you. is there anyone else? Okay. You can object if you want to. [Inaudible] okay. So, -- excuse me. yes. superintendent? DR. Hepburn? yes, go ahead, MS.
301Paul. so, the staffing plan was the n the original rfp. So, it is section 6.35 that talks about scalable staff required to manage the program and so you caning look at it as staff augmentation or whatever. If we were to remove those positions, then we would have to replace them with district staff and so whatever happened during the rfp process, obviously I was not here, they put this provision in the staffing plan and I can definitely send a copy as follow-up and work with MR. Cuny to answer the question, but that's what I see now. The pmor's required to maintain to provide to management to approve on a quarterly basis a responsibility, accountable consult from the matrix. That includes both the staff and the staff of its sub consultants. So, if you view this as
302a way of augmenting staff, that was the decision when this rfp was put out for bid. comments? just when we talk about pmor, we won't be telling the truth because we buried in the pmor contract people that should be in another contract and I don't agree with MS. Paul, they could be government people or contracted out people, there's a billion way tos get help. When you get help for eddc and procurement and put it in a pmor contract and tell the people that voted for you this is how much it cost tos build construction, you're not tell thing truth, so it's not good business practice to call it a and then jam b, c, f in it. That's bad business practices. When the next contract comes back, whoever win it is next award, it's going
303to be an issue if they try to jam b, c, d and f in the contract that it's for a, that's what you're agreeing to. okay. Anybody have any other comments on the aecom extension? So, we're moving forward with the way it is. You're going to come back to us with the information DR. Zeman asked for and we are going to ask the attorney general to opine on whether there's a possibility for an only one-time six month extension and if that's possible, we could bring it back as a fifth amendment if the board was interested in that. does that sound right? MADAM Chair? DR. Holness? I need to the clarify so I understand clearly where we're goipg, there were two strong objections to DR. Zeman's suggestion, does that mean we have consensus or no? MS.
304Batista? so, what I heard is that there would be no changes, there's just going to be a follow-up or a request for a follow-up. okay. so, the contract won't be changed but he still needs to have his question answered. Anybody want to make any other comments? Alright tha,'s what we will do moving forward. Er my only comment is then we will add an item for the MAY 13th requesting an attorney general opinion for the approval of the board. okay, thank you. okay. thank you, the last item is the 2025-26 organizational chart and I will turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. thank you, MADAM Chair. Board members and the community at large, I propose organza chart focused on tra staoej -- strategic management, key savings include approximately 7 million in recurring save tosing
305the general fund through eliminating redundancies and extra staoej I can consolidation, this is accomplished by identifying org chart savings of 4 thousand to to the general fund, realigning one million to grants to reduce the burden on general operating dollars, 5.6 million in general fund save frosting additional staffing adjustments off the chart, our goal is to modernize our leadership structure and ensure every doctored -- dollar spent supports our students. Enrollment declines and enrollment pressures, we are reducing staff or employee number ins a detailed memo I sent o the board last friday. We know it requires hard choices, with planning, we can ensure broward county public schools are innovative and a student fee canyons innovation, we are ready to move into discussion. okay, thank you. We're losing people. Any board members have discussion on the org chart?
306DR. Seezeman, is that a yes? [Inaudible] okay. I have a few comments, not really questions. And I do appreciate the opportunity to sit with staff last week and go over the org chart. It's a lot to digest for all of us an hour was not really a lot of time to do it, but I just -- some basic comments. I do want the say that I was disappointed not to see some more positions eliminated. I don't know if that's the right word but I guess it's the only word because I know we're working on budgets for schools and there are schools that are losinging more staff at a school level than we are overall as a district, and I asked for a list of how many people were in each department and some of this
307doesn't come on the org chart, it's underneath the line but I have a general question, so the regional superintendents, we have north region, central, south, the list that I received, the south area has 16 employees, the north has 14, central has 16 and transformational has 21 and if you look on the org chart, it has four directors and each of those regions, two for school transformational and then an assistant director, so that gives you six people, right, in each of those departments and then four in transformational, so I know all the the other positions are under the line but when we're alining to the public about what it is we're doing, what are we doing in areas like that and what are those positions, you don't necessarily have to give me all the answers right
308now, but I think we were clear as a board that we wanted to see where we were shrinking be in the administrative part of the district and not impact schools but looking at this particular org chart that has come to us and going to schools and hearing the principals, it seems to me it's opposite and that concerns me. absolutely, let's start with the schools first, this time of the year, we're goipg the hear rumbles from schools when it becomes budge season and when you talk about declining in enrollment. Schools, when the schools done get -- when they are projected to be below or declining in enroll m, they don't get the students, they don't get the funding. We do have swautionbacker situation wes ear working out with high schools and that's another complicated issue that
309will probably take me 30 minutes or more to really map it out. There's some systemic changes that flexed to happen starting this summer for high school sos we're not the same place again next year. When it comes to regional offices and those roles, those are support rolesfinger some of those are clerical, instructional support staff that go out and support schools, so you have a plethora of positions that support the schools within the region. I want to remind the board we are a very large school district, we try to make ourselves smaller by creating regions to have three or four different clusters within our school district so it's manageable but nonetheless each of the large regions have 65 plus schools and it takes a robust staff to provide the level of support that teach and he
310iser principals and other staff need. And then over time as I've been analyzing data here, I just don't make decisions off the whim, I dive deep woo sbao the detail and is the data, over time since our peak in employee numbers which was 19-20, central office has declined in personnel by 19%, so we're steady maiming additional cuts in central office including some of the stuff you won't see on the chart but below the chart and we consolidate certain positions, numerous positions to create one, to create a better -- higher level of efficiency so we don't have a a bunch of redundancies across the system. okay, thank you for that. I know we always hear that we're -- our administration is pretty low, keep in mind those are the highest paid positions so you MAY only
311have 20 there but teachers are not making -- employee ins general, not just teachers, so it's important however we roll this out and explain it that there's a way to be able to explain what seems inequitable because that's how it's being viewed. I'm not saying you didn't put a lot of time and effort and, again, I appreciate it, but there are a lot of levels of management on this org chart, it's 20-something pages long. We are huge, but I just like to think about as we're moving forward, is it really necessary to have that many layers of management at every single level, so, it's just my thoughts. and it's a constant review as I told the team last week, we are going to start planning for the upcoming school year's org chart this summer, right,
312so there's many positions that we were going to make a decision to consolidate and get rid of but we truly, some positions you truly don't understand the value of that position yet if you cut it and something falls apart and it's hard to replace it, so we don't want to put ourself ins a predicament where it's impacting the services we provide the schools and students, so it's an evaluative process throughout the summer and school year too so we can make good decisions in the next iteration of our org chart. thank you, and I raoesht the thoughtfulness, we don't want to cut any positions if we didn't have to but we are -- the graphic that the cfo put up was very eye opening for a lot of people and we just have to be cognizant
313of the fact that we are trying to reduce not just what happens in our schools but in history. MADAM Chair? DR. Holness? so, DR. Hepburn, I appreciate the org chart and the changes that were made and I know that we are having some savings but can you also speak to what our savings would look like in the future as we continue to have staff who resign or retire and so forth. I'll talk about two things, great question, let's talk about our attrition rate. So, for the past three years, our attrition rate has averaged about 2900 employees and that's just employees who retire or resign, this doesn't count termination. In years past, we've been backfilling one to one. Our goal is to only backfill about 40% of that which is the 40% is mostly made up
314by instructors if we still need teachers, so about -- out of that 2900, approximately about a thousand teachers resign or retire every year and so that will be our focus of backfilling just to make sure we're not declining service ins the classroom for our students, the rest will be case by case to make sure it has to be an essential position, but backfilling 40% will get us to a point of about 17% reduction in overall staff for the desire district -- entire district in the entire year, our attrition has been high, we've been backfilling one to one which has kept our employee base steady, if we focus on what we need and not do a practice of backfilling one to one, aout of the 2900, 40%, it leaves about 1700 position that is we wouldn't
315need throughout the next school year, if we continue o do that, we can exceed our proportion of -- fwet the load of proportion of students as far as number and is get to the 20% for employee base. so, we will realize these savings the upcoming school year and subsequent years? s, bebeuse wewe won't t flfled the e employees s o e alreadady cididi to leavavon eir owown. And thth 1700 ememployees this acacdedenter looks like it could be in significant millions of dollars. correct. And we realize a quarter of that d per quarter throughout the year, so first quarter, we'll analyze what we need to backfill, focus on the 40% which is usually just instructor and is not backfill the rest t the next quarter is the rest so by the end of the school year
316websinger eve utilized [Inaudible] when you talk about 15, 1700 employees, can you speak to the type of employees this would normally -- absolutely. So, those employees are all employee groups, so you have -- I'm going to throw out numbers as of 2023-24, so bpaa, of course that's principals, assistant principals, 17, btusp's, that's 87, copa, this is just retirement, I'm talking about, you can multiply these numbers by 3 to get the total 2900 t but it's across the board so you have clerical, copa, e instructional employees, pba, food service, every employee group is represented in this. and does part of that include a lot of middle management folks as well? yes, you have up and down the whole entire spectrum of our employee groups. got it, thank you, I appreciate it. thank you, board member thompson?
317thank you, chair, thank you, superintendent, for all your work op this. I just had one point of clarification and then two tenses to talk about. When we are getting a deputy superintendent, at least on the chart, it looses like -- looks like all the other chief ares below her, are those positions going to be reviewed equally along the cabinet or who will those people report to then? you have two chiefs that report to the deputy superintendent, they report directly to her, that's the chief academic officer and chief of student services. but everyone else like cfo, -- the rest of them, they directly report to me. alright. And then going to page -- the mental health page, wherever that is. page 8. it's not -- found it, okay. on my one on one with you guys,
318I feel I talked about this in workshops, our mental health sss, social work services for our students are incredibly disjointed, they're very siloed, I have looked at o r org charts in different districts about how they're organizing school counseling, school social workers and family counseling to make sure that it's actually a cohesive thing that students can access. I don't feel like that's what's happening here. So, I would like to get your thoughts on that but also is your idea for this chief student services officer like helpful to that because to me, it seems like it's just adding another layer of people to have to go through. yes, so the chief of student services is to combat the working in isolation issue we've experienced most of this is student services, including our ese s frs, so
319there could be stronger initiative and is priorities with work that aligns ask klement complements itself, and evaluate the level of service and be more proactive, this is why we're create thing the chief of service, so we can have better alignment and have initiative and is priorities that span across that whole division that complements itself better so we can provide better services to our kids and then in addition too, we're trying to work with outside organization to really evaluate how we're providing mental health service tos our students. We always have areas for improvement so it's not just about looking from within to improve, it's also having outside eyes to come in and do some form of diagnostics analysis or review to give us additional feedback on how we can improve. Hopefully we'll have some good information
320over the sum thaer the chief of student s frs cans can utilize to create a better service model for services when it comes to mental health service and is any other service in that division. and then revisiting again from our little one on one that strategic partnership line, like that whole department, I would just really like to see a follow-up or what that department is bringing in and what new partnerships are being established that wouldn't have necessarily already wanted to work with the district but I want to see like innovation, I want to see people that you don't think about partnering with school systems that we are actively bringing in these people because I want to make sure that's an investment, not just like bef who was already going to work with us regardless of
321that because I think it's a significant amount of money and like I said earlier, at least in my district, I'm not seeing those partnerships so that innovation that I would really like to see if we're investing many that section. absolutely. We're going to provide a follow-up and I know MR. Chisom will probably want o do a workshop websinger eel skaoez it into a follow-up. He's been doing a yeoman's job, the level of investment has exceeded his salary, we'll baibl provide a follow-up. thank you. thank you, we started a little early and we skipped public comment, I'm going to go backwards and go to public xhen and then we'll come back to board discussion. Do we have public comments? yes, we do. come on down. you're up if you want to come to the mic., pick
322your favorite side. good afternoon, anna fusco, broward teachers union PRESIDENT, I would like to say hello and welcome, new school member adam, MR. Cervera, how are you doing, I hope I pronounced it correctly, I want to speak quickly about the org chart. I looked at it, it's very cumbersome to the normal everyday constituent, even to our everyday normal educator,. We know there are lots of boxes that obviously need to be filled and you start and you work your way down and so forth but what I'm going the speak on is that I have to ask about every single time is that when you're filling these spots with a lot of central office and upper management and you all know me that I've never ever speak about intentions of anybody losing their job or not having
323a job, we have to make the best that we can to make everybody whole, but I also see every school year the places that get affected the most are our schools. I see educators, whether they're teachers or guidance counselors or our parent professionals, everybody, everybody's a different type of educator in our school system, they educate our students in every fashion, form, specialty, it doesn't matter whether you're a degreed teacher with a certification. if you are looking to cut pots -- spot ins our schools no matter who they are, clerical, cafeteria, I can mention every career in our school system that is some type of an educator besides the teach ner a classroom, even that gets cut drastically, I'm asking every one of you to make sure you're asking deep, deep, deep questions that our schools
324are going to be affected to where class size is going to be drastically increased or custodial is going to be cut where they're used to have plentiful to keep our schools clean, that's only cut down to one, so our students walk into our large a-rated school district, it is done by everybody, from the top down. We want you to make sure you ask all the correct questions from the bus to the cafeteria to the office, to the classroom, to the mental health capacity, wherever our students walk amongst in our school system, somebody touches them besides the classroom teacher and that group also I see every year get cut. So, I'm asking you to ask the deep, dark questions of making sure that every single one of our schools get taken care of and they're not
325going to be harmed. thank you. thank you very much. DR. Zeman? thanks so much, chair. I first got a comment about the timing of this information but before I get into that chair, what does florida statute say about district org charts in florida? MS. Batista? I'm sorry, could you repeat that. whose responsibility is it to approve the org chart for districts in florida? for the board. great, so, the board is the approval authority for this organization chart. I enjoyed the early brief about this. I did not enjoy not having a paper copy of this until friday. This is one of the most important sporting we have, now I look at the schedule going forward, we're going to make some reck m dashing and is thoughts and ideas that will lead to changes, we have to
326the approve the job descriptions so there's going to be dozens of job description tos read through, if we get them on friday again to approve them on tuesday, I feel that's a very negative timeline that doesn't give us enough time to review them and think about all these pieces together. To MS. Fusco's point, this is a mri kate connection, it's sometimes difficult to understand even if when you're on the inside of the system, when you're on the outside of it, many times it's impossible but I'm going to continue on with some of the thoughts of my colleagues, the first question for your superintendent, does this draw down the people above the line by the 17% that are fte have come down over the past ten years? DR. Hepburn? this draws down the line to about
32713%, 12-13%. The 17% will be accomplished through a attrition during the school year. I appreciate that. I would like to see an org chart that meets the 17% mark today. We cannot -- to everybody's point, keep taking cuts on school site and is not look at our upper management, middle management and administration. If in fact it's true which we can all look at the date the and see that it is, our teacher numbers have come down with fte's, every time we have fewer students, we open fewer teacher position,, it's an automatic reduction one for one, when a classroom -- a group of students doesn't show up, we have a teacher position we don't fill. For the last two years,, we've swept between 200 to 250 teacher position that is were vacant because the fte's were
328less than what we righted, we came down on teacher positions, we have to as a board manage the administration to also come down an equal amount otherwise we have to answer to people about why that isn't the case, why are we taking bigger cut ins our classrooms than we are outside our classroom, ill like to see an org chart that comes down 17% from ten years ago and I have a handful of suggestions on how we could get there. if I MAY, the org chart has come down over the past decade by more than 15%. If you're talking about just the org chart and if we're talk k about employee base total to get to 17%, that would equate to cutting 1500 jobs. I can ask everybody dx everybody ob the org chart tha, still
329won't get us to 17%, that's why the strategy impending on attrition, depending on employees leaving our system anyway is the strategy we're -- among additional strategies, that is one of the many. thank you very much. To say that back to you, ten years ago today, administrative and management positions are down 15% from ten years ago, is that correct? yes, this this organization, correct, I've looked at the numbers many times just to make sure we understand the data per employee group and teachers and central office administrators are the ones that have declined the most. The ones that have declined the least are of course you have smaller number of these people are your school base administrators because they only make up less than a thousand people as paraprofessionals, but o r all, teachers and tentbacker central
330office staff has declined significantly over time. thank you very much. I'm groining to keep thinking about that 17% and I have some ideas that might help us get there. I'm right that all of the positions detailed on these charters are supporting positions, is that correct, chair? They don't provide direct instruction in a school? correct. thank you very much. I'm going to go through think comments then starts on page 2, aisle hit my highlights and is come back with some quicker ones. I don't understand why the cabinet isn't on one slide and I appreciate the deep involvement that the deputy superintendent has with academics and student services but in terms of showing an org chart and writing position descriptions that show how we get things done, I think that it would be better to have them
331on one chart. Last wraoer we had 8 cabinet members, this year, it's proposed to be one more at a time when we're dramatically declining on fte's. I wonder why we're going up one at a time when our student load is going down. so, we dissolved two executive director positions to create that additional cabinet position to bring continuity to the division, to create that new division of student services, as I reviewed the past year, there's been a lot of things happening in isolation televising's been a lot of questions from the public and from my staff about the level of service that's been provided, identifying areas of imprao ufrment and we need a chief to drive initiative and is priorities to make sure we're providing the level of service to our parent and is our students. And
332to get rid of the areas of isolation that has been plaguing us for quite some time. Er I totally understand the explanation but we're still growing one s band person at a time when our enrollment is dramatically reducing, it's not something that I can support. Second on page three, big changes, I'm going to talk about this until it happens or until I leave the bore, our regional superintendents and director ares redundant, they trip all over each other, they do great work, that's not the question, the question is can we afford five layers of management between a principal and the school board of broward county. I don't think we can can. I know that it would be innovative to eliminate either directors or regional superintendents but I'm going to continue to advocate for one of the
333layers entirely to go away so we streamline operations, increase efficiency and get more work done and save a dramatic amount of money. That might be the 2% right there. What that would do is get rid of the s pay man problem, we went up one during a time of declining enrollment which is not supportable so we have a new student service ors a new cao position, we still have three regional superintendents, and we have to figure out how to make real change if we want to continue our excellent growth. On page 5, small change but it's an important one, underneath the trekt toer of elementary learning websinger have three curriculum supervisors for ela, is that something we can live with, two, or is three needed? we've evaluated that, due to the sheer volume of elementary
334schools, we need three. We asked the same question you and had we evaluated the level of service two can provide, the elementary school ares the largest portion of schools we have and also the strong focus on literacy in the k-2 area and also the whole k-5 area to be honest, so we need the three to make it work for the large amount of elementary schools that we have. on page 6 aon the far right, director of early childhood education, curriculum supervisor for school readiness, is this support to golf stream early learning center or is that the ap at gulfstream early learning center? go ahead. DR. Zeman, the answer to your question is yes, they support the connection to the community and also the families of the gulfstream early learning center and cim lum as well.
335I love everything going on at guileful stream, it is not part of our mission, the risk we have operating those two early learning centers is the state of florida will identify we're working outside of our mission and they will come down and sweep that money away, I have mentioned that several times, we continue to spend money at risk,. I think it's important work, I think the broward county should buy those, that is their mission and we should continue to provide standards and other things for pre-k, but I know that we're at risk and the department of education would love no more than to sweep some of our money. On page 8, the director of mental health services, when this comes before for a vote and we have to review the position descriptions, I'm going ask
336the board to consider whether we wan a director of mental health services position description that doesn't include any experience working in mental health. DR. Zeman, -- I want to on your previous point, I wanted MS. Batista to weigh in on that. I would like to be able to do a follow-up on that question if I MAY. thank you. when that position comes up, I think my colleagues and I need to look hard at that job description and make sure it has multiple years of time doing health services, I would like that change to be considered if the it is changed, I don't think that should have an impact on the incumbent to the position but I think we've made a mistake with that position by having a director with mental health with zero years of
337mental health services required and I think we have to consider that without affecting the connection with the incumbent in that position. When there's a down grade like on page 11 from the director from construction to a dictor of nstrucuction mamanager,what ppenened th jojob, did it get simpler, did the construction oversight get easier, what made the job change so we could go from a paid band d to a pay band c for the manager of operations. DR. Hepburn? MS. Brown, if you want to provide additional info. DR. Zeman, it wasn't a reduction, the position of director of construction, I removed it. It was previously additional director position that I removed. i'm contemplating putting it back but that's where we are right now. thank you, I would fully support putting it back and as we've talked, I'm
338anxious to see what growth there will be in the overall chief facility officer workforce, particularly emphasis on program managers, construction coordinators, planners, schedulers, four small and medium size projects televising 's a lot of work that government pm's could do to take the burden off the pmor so they can focus on the more complex jobs but swre to ramp up the pace of getting stuff done in broward county, not just the pace of having meetings about it. On page 12, chair, why are we eliminating an entire division underneath the chief building official, what happened that we don't need an assistant chief building official for plans, a senior plans examiner and a senior planning examiner structure. through the chair, the reason that we eliminated those positions is we have not been able to fill them, so we've
339been using contractors to do that work and so we just want to go -- continue along that vain, it makes more sense to do it this way. thank you. I wish there was a notation on these complex carts that we can show we're not getting rid of the work, we're doing it with different people but it's not evident by what's probed. On page 16, probably one of the things I feel strongest about websinger are moving forward with an assistant director for artificial intelligence, broward county public schools powered by ai is going to reverse enrollment and going to dramatically change the perception of broward county, it's great to be an a-district but what are we doing for our kids in the future that's going to be h efrlly influenced with ai, I'm worried about the pay
340band, it should be at least a pay band d, we pay engineers 375 thousand dollars, I don't know if anyone besides you, sir, that -- you want a job? It's tough to get a really great ai person, I would challenge the board to think about this question, how much is education going to change with artificial intelligence? It's going to dramatically change, we need a senior person to help us think through those changes so I would ask you about whether it could be moved up one pay band so we can attract aal lobed person to work with our amazingly talented cao. last for my comments at least for this round, we went from a chief people officer to a chief of hr, I've talked a lot about this too, I'm surprised we would go here f
341we wanted to negotiate a middle ground and call it a chief human capital officer, they passed the human capital officer title, a lot of major school digits are using it, every federal agency, they use that title, that might be better than human resources which is a term about compliance, it is not a term about what we need in broward county which is a strategic plan about retaining the most valuable resource we have for an education which is our valued people. Thank you, chair. thank you. Board member bulman? thank you, chair. So, as not to be redundant, I appreciate everyone's comments, I was wondering through DR. Hepburn, I appreciate that you've made some changes and that we're also looking to attrition to kind of support some cost savings going through the year. When we're looking at
342the attrition, are we looking at teachers and school level staff or are we looking more at management? no, so a great question, so I just want to reaffirm that our cost savings are not going to impact schools. Our cost savings are not going to -- the thing that is are within our control are not going to impact schools. There's things that are out of our controls that impact it is system overall and sometimes impacts schools. The attrition rate we have, an average of 2900 employees each year, the 40% backfill, that number's predicated on the teachers backfilling instructional positions, not the other positions, the other positions will have have a doctor detailed look to see if it's essential and if the district is going to shut down if you don't have it. It's the only way
343we'll backfill that, the attrition rate we're going to backfill is focused on the schools. that's very reassuring and I appreciate that because that's where we need to make sure we are fully staffed and making sure that everyone's getting all of the services and support they need at that level. And then I had a question on page 20. I see that you've moved the magnet programs over from last year, so I was just wondering where on the org chart like the cambridge and the ip programs fall, are they included over ner hao er? that's still academics because they're tested areas, these are more programers at school academic programs, innovative programers at schools that we need to really have under this umbrella due to our redefining effortfinger we looked at robust data of unseating scaling out or
344bringing in new programs so this position is going to be essential under the strategy of the innovation office to make sure a lot of the ideas that we have are coming to fruition and with our partnerships we have too. and I appreciate that. I think that this is -- that that is a good move. I -- it was just suggested to me the cambridge and ib program would be better served over with the magnet program, so I'll put that out there. That's all, thank you. thank you. thank you, anybody else? I have a couple of cleanups later. MS. Alhadeff? I was wondering if our chief auditor could speak to his page on page 21 and our general counsel can speak to her page on page 2. okay, MR. Rhodes? sure. The primary reason that I
345had made the request for an executive director is there are a lot of things that happen during the times that I spend down here that have to get done that I don't necessarily have someone at that level that could provide that level of backup and that level of service for me, and for my department. And the role that I would expect that person to play would be to perform the duties of the director position that primarily funded it, funded the proposed position. Which would include looking over the facilities on at work as well as the property and inventory work as well as providing the direct assistance that would be needed again at times when I'm here or at times when I'm either out in the field performing these incoming requests for investigations that we receive
346from the fldoeoig or vice-versa, have that person doing that kind of work as well. It's that kind of investigative work is a pretty heavy strain when we already have our internal resources working on everything from repetitive property and inventory, repetitive internal funds work, both of which are based in statute requirements and florida administrative code requirements. So, the additional item that i did was to repurpose an auditor 3 to an auditor 2 for a more entry level position and have the remaining funds from the auditor 3 help to make up so that it was a a virtually cost neutral, I think it ended up being a 12 thousand dollar difference many the position to bring the executive director on, all to say that this creates a more functional succession plan as well because we would have
347somebody with all the same educational experience and job requirements and credentials that were necessary to be the chief auditor, I'll be it, task assigned neshlly and then compete for the job with the credentials and the experience that they had, the whole idea was to make a situation where we could at least have an opportunity to make use of the institutional knowledge in the department. thank you, MS. Batista? yes, thank you. So, as you can see, the general counsel organizational chart is not changing from last year. We had some changes that we requested and that the board approved for two additional positions last year. One of those positions is currently has been filled, advertised and filled and has been working in my office for the better part of this year. the other position was advertised and
348offered to another candidate and he accepted. He had to relocate his family out of the state and so it's currently vacant again. But as far as the structure of the office, it remains the same. We feel or I feel that in the event -- well, when we are able to fill all the positions, that it will adequately provide the services required for the district. thank you. Okay, DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair. Some questions on page 8. We are deleting the supervisor of child abuse neglect and pre vention and also eliminate thing supervisor of -- I'm pretty sure it's foster care, I can't see it under those big thick lines. Could someone explain to me and publicly why those two boxes seem to have been combined? yes, I'll have DR. Fulton go over that,
349we evaluated the workload and caseload to make sure this is a change that will not decrease the level o f service. we were able to find some cost savings so we took two supervisor position and is combining that role into one person. We did a job study to ensure that the job description and the duties that we're putting under one person is able to be fulfilled and we were able to determine by could be sensing two roles into one that we can still tl ifr the same level of services. thank you, on the same slide, we have two charts that I thought my colleague school board member thompson was going to talk about this earlier. One's called supervisor of social work services, another one is called supervisor social work services stl, a distinction between those
350two boxes in the center of page 8? yes, -- through the chair, the difference is funding, the top one supervisor, social work services, that shaded box is grant funded, the one below is general. The three positions below are general. okay. Alright. That's just the way it's presented, I guess is the issue, it's one group of five, some of them are general funded and some of them are grant funded? correct. awesome. on the auditor page, we just bought some amazing software, we were convinced it was going to allow us to do audits twice as fast. I'm curious if you can come back to us next week when we look at this again and give us an estimate of what impanting that has op the number of auditors we need or ob on the number of external
351audit contracts we might need going forward? if I MAY, there's two issues to to bring forward about that. Would you prefer I answer that after? I was just asking for a report back to the board rather than an answer, you're welcome to talk now but I need to take away to auns it fully. I can certainly do both, one thing we've received is word that that procurement has been put on hold and it has been put on hold initially for what looked like no rationale was provided to us. We recently received something back that said there's some problem with the insurance requirements of that contractor which I would have imagined would have been completely ironed out before it got to the board so I have to do more research on that, that's on hold and
352I thought that was important that you knew about that today. thank you. okay, and we will finish up with board member thompson. thank you, chair, just a clarification to our chief auditor. Why are we promoting an executive director of audits? You talked about investigative work. Are we also have an oig now, so can you expand on why we would need to raise up that person? yeah. Because there are things that the inspector general does that are completely independent of what it is that this role would be hold on to and providing. For example, when we get our referrals from different agencies to do the work, some of that work isn't work that's nets sailor in the scope of work that the inspector general provides for us but it's still work the office of the chief
353auditor is expected to perform, complete and provide reports on in a timely manner so that's just one of the roles, the other role was the director position that this position was derived from through the writing of a job description would identify that this person would maintain those role that is director position has vacated or left behind, so that they would be doing that and increased roles and providing direct support to the chief auditor. okay, thank you. okay. dr. Hepburn, do you have what you need? yes, we have what we need to move forward, yes, thank you. any last call? when are we going to get the position descriptions we have to read in great detail before we make decisions next tuesday? so, I'll let MR. Azzarito give an update, before he does that, of course
354many of the positions, there's not a lot of updates to job description sos what we'll do, we'll designate what's revised or updated job descriptions so you know exactly where to go, another team has been working to update the job descriptions so we'll try and push those out as soon as we can, I know there's concern about time for review so we're mindful of that also. I concur with DR. Hepburn, he couldn't have said it better. okay. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you so much. At this time, do any of my colleagues have anything to bring to the board or student successes to share? MS. Leonardi? yes, I have a few things. Sorry, I was not prepared. Just give me one second. Okay. So, I wanted to share north andrews gardens elementary, they have a performing arts
355magnet and last week I was able to attend their performance of the descendants and again I want to emphasize how amazing it is and important it is to have the the arts in our schools, it was a wonderful performance. The staff at north andrews garden and is the students do amazing things, musically, dramatically, so I was grateful to attend that. Yesterday I was able to attend an ai training for microsoft co-pilot and I wanted to share -- I encourage all of my colleagues to do it, it was interesting. But I wanted to share some comments from the trainers who work for microsoft that they are very excited about the work that they're doing with trey and they truly believe that broward is going to be a leading district not just in the country but in
356the world around ai, so that was really cool to hear and I thought it was timely given our workshop I guess the week before last. And then I was at sheridan technical high school yesterday and they shared with me some really cool information about some work that their students are doing in the vita program, the students at sheridan technical high school, every week have been offering free tax work for the community, so you can go in and get your taxes done by these students for free. I thought that was really cool and we talk a lot about -- and I hear a lot about this in the community that our students need to have more financial literacy and what is more incredible than high school students who can do taxes, so I thought that was
357really cool and wanted to share that out. That we are doing some cool things in our schools and finally I wanted to wish all of the mothers on this board and in this district a happy mother's day. Thank you. thank you. Next, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. Congratulations to vince watson, a 12th grade student at plantation high school who was recently recognized by congresswoman sheila mccormick as the winner of the 2024 congressional app challenge for florida's 20th district. I would also like to extend a congratulations to MR. Brown from castle hill elementary, MR. Campo from north folk elementary, MR. Fraser from c rop bert markham elementary for being selected to participate in a prestigious 25-26 principal preparation program. Thank you. thank you, board member thompson? thank you, chair, I want to give a shout
358out to pembroke lakes elementary for their production of moana JR., so special shout out to principal wag ner and ap christine nap for making that happen and also a shout-out to our kcw employee of the month, jennifer hudder, not only did she accompany our student ins tallahassee but being employee of the month. on the idea of arts, last week the district had a stars on parade event where they -- I forget how many students, there was a large number of students received a scholarship from the district but helped with the community but the cool part about that was is that schoolols om all over thdistrict cacame to perfrform, someof themem did singing, some -- so coral glades was there with their singing groom, beach said was there with their fabulous matilda, every time elementary school
359does those performances and you feel like you're sitting in a broadway show, it makes you so excited that we believe in the arts in broward county public schools and it was just a fantastic evening. So, this week on wednesday, they are having the perfect attendance celebration for our students and it is very exciting to know that six students had perfect attendance from kindergarten through 12th grade so they will be celebrated [Applause] -- yes, so excited at blanche ely high school, they never missed a day of school, that's awesome in dedication and id like to end by saying happy teacher appreciation week. We are very, very grateful to the work that our teachers do for our students in our district, we wouldn't be an a district without all of the extra things that the they do
360and we just wanted to -- on behalf of the school board, I would like to say happy teacher appreciation week, we are very grateful for all that you do. Alright. And -- go ahead. just one thing, to your point about the arts, I wanted to point out I'm very excited to see that the sun sentinel jaournism awards were published over the weekend and we really were killing it. South broward bulldog bark got multiple awards, marjory stoneman douglas, south plantation got awards and pomp pan know beach high, so I think that speaks values to our journalism program and keep up the good worldling.It is a good reason why specials shouldn't be cut in elementary schools, just saying. The scheduled order of business for this school board workshop of the school board of broward county, florida, has
361been completed, seeing no obligation, I now adjourn the meeting. Just remember we do have a closed door, so don't go far.