School Board Workshop - May 20, 2025

001Testing testing one two three. the broward county florida workshop is now called to orderment please be reminded of of the exit doors that are clearly marked from exiting. While in the board room refrain from block the exit doors. Once the board has reached its seating capacity attendees will be directed to a designated overflow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm system please exit from the room in an orderly fashion and continue to exit the building and remain outside until the authority that has jurisdiction has deemed the building safe to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board member, alhadeff will now introduce her is school to lead us in the "pledge of allegiance" to the flag. MS. Alhadeff. I would like to introduce my school to lead us in the pledge allegiance to the flag. please

002stand for the "pledge of allegiance". I pledge allegiance to the flag uft united 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. thank you carl park elementary job. Thank you. MS. Rupert is enable to be with us in-person today but requests a moment of silence. I will be reading the moment of silence on her behalf. Thz rupert is requesting a moment of silence for mandy crosby who was a second grade teacher. ms. Crosby has been a valued member of the quaier family since 2007. She will be deeply missed by all those who knew her. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you, there is another request for a moment of silence for lacoina moupt' -- delightful and

003kind human being. Loved by all the students and staff at cross creek and will be deeply missed. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. we are remind that our vision is 100 pro futboler see for all our students. We begin the task of sustaining this achievement. We will continue to our theme this year is believe in power achieve one broward. Today's workshop will operate in accordance with school board policy 1020 and the board will review the items as advised by the superintendent. Our first item for discussion is student and quarterly feedback session. I now turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. good morning, members and public at this time I'm going to turn it over to DR. Wanza and landyn to move forward with the session. And thank you to

004our students here. good morning, DR. Wanza, it gives me great pleasure to work with MS. Brown and MS. Santiago as well as our fabulous student advisors who are going to facilitate today's conversation. If the board members recall this was the request of the board to go and have a conversation with the board actually engaged in dialogue with students so they can hear for themselves up close and personal, the experiences of students in our county. So at this time, I'll turn it over to MR. Spielberg and he will get us started. I'm landyn, the student advisor along with sierra our alternate student advisor. I want it thank all the students here with us today. This is a really exciting event and if staff with load the presentation please, we will begin. So as DR. Wanza meningeded,

005this is the first student and school board study session. The students will discuss the topics that board members and students requested and then with time left we will have an open forum and taoed -- feedback with our students. These are the topics that we will be discussing today. I want to outline the process of students joining us today. It was important that we had a holistic graoufp students. We have one middle and one high school student as well as two students that represent our non traditional schools for a total of 16 students. This applicant went to out to all students and we received over 140 applications for students to participate today. It was a highly competitive process and so congratulations to all of you who are with us and we look forward to the next

006four session next year. I want every students to introduce themselves. we're going to start with district one and remember students when you want to speak, please press the button and we will start with our stud nt from helen dale. good moansinger I'm taria. good morning my name is maria sd and I go to apollo middle school. good morning, my name is lea and I attend broward high school. my name is lillian and I attend silver trail school. my name is george and I attend ft. Lauderdale high school. my name is benjamin and I ascend new middle school. my name is jack and I go to ramboy middle school. good morning, my name is lasarua and I tend dill ard high school. good morning, I attend middle school. I'm lea na hernandez and I attend cooper

007city high school. good morning my name is brian dash and I attend nova middle school. good motorcycler, I attend dear field beach high school. good morning, my name is res wes welkernor I'm one of the middle students of middle school. good morning, my name is josiah, I attend middle school. thank you all for being here. We will start by asking questions that were posed by board members as well as topics from each board members. Each board has has the question at their seat so you can follow along. And we're going to begin with academic programs. The first question is what academic programs and elected do you wish were offered at your school and we're going to start with josiah? first I want to say it's a pleasure to be here thanks landyn for leading. What

008I feel is MISS Ising our mousse pick, our band our instrumental type elective and other theater other things that could be instrumental to facilitating student's success. I believe that indulge in those passions and I've seen that indulge will lead to a brighter student. honestly I've always had a good impression for the academic programs and electives. However what I would say I never actually gone to a school where my choice of elective form. I've never really gotten what I've ever asked for. It's always been random so if you can make it so you get what you ask for instead of something random that would be good process. I'm going to jump in, gabriel, you did it perfectly, so you can answer what is going well and also what programs should be added. And thank you if

009every one can join in that direction? Go ahead wes. You want to share? Okay, tamila. I wish that there were more programs for certain career paths that children want to go for. I want to be a lawyer so I wish my school had a law program and for kids that want to be doctors, medical programs. I believe the same thing because at my school, we have a law program, that's nice, I'm in it. I wish we had a medical program because a lot of people want to do that. We have a joined skao school with middle and high school. A lot are excited to be joining. thank you to the board for facilitating this discussion it's an honor to be here. Various college academics with widespread through the country. One thung I found could be

010improved is encouragement of duel enrollment. I found throughout the district while many schools pay for the broward county for duel enrollment, so students MAY earn their a a or widely transferable credits they're not as encouraged as ace a a p project. So it's a two-year that could not expose them to semester base and formal but cost of post secondary education. Thank you. I do believe that we are good on okay dem I can programs on that front. What I do want to expand on is making students using their voice. A lot of students tend to be shy and not use their voice. We should have more programs or even clubs to encourage them to use their words. So on academic programs, I think we're good but expanding we should allow students to use their voice

011and to start speaking more to boost them and boost their confidence. Thank you. well said while you speak, you can move the microphone move closer to you, they're wireless, so if you want to move them, they will not stop working. thank you for inviting me. I've had a good like with the academic programs. But what I feel would prepared kids more is having study groups. As you get into college, the knowledge gets harder. The dance program p the band, I've been in a lot of program and sometimes study group is better when you learn from your peers or other students. Rather than a student. So yes, we do have study hall but I believe a good study group at the school or during school with kids that have the same class will improve academics as

012well. I think we have really good academic programs but I would like to have more college and experience and job roles, like law school, medical school and all that, in middle school so we get a preview but we have really good leadership programs in terms of middle school. I think at my school, we have band and like art and stuff like that. I think at my school and luke that, I think they have clubs and stuff like that that students attend. so first off, thank you for having me, I appreciate it very much. One of my concern is the encouragement of different type of readiness classes. A lot of ap classes are very encouraged with a lot of schools. A lot have a Ps but I also believe nen couragement of ib and base. They

013give another for front for students to have different kinds of thinking compared to a p such as the free response questions that ace and iv offer in comparison to ap. thank you so much for having me. I love, excuse me, I love the diversity of the program, excuse me. I love the diversity of the programs at my school. Every one finds a program that uniquely fits them. However I would like our cambridge program to be expanded for classes as well as elect you have and I would like for classes that member I can the rig or of high school classes as I find some are easier. Thank you. good morning, every one. So I attend west broward high school and I'm a senior, I feel like we have really good elective, I have my cda

014and I'm able to work at my high school and get paid higher. My friend now knows she wants to be a teacher because she has a hands-on program. And we have a vet program at my school. But piggy backing off of what she said to tap into other careers rather than just a couple. But I think the ones we have very strong and can provide opportunities to get a feel as to what you want to do and our ace program is good as well. I know my school is working at expanding it. I believe at my school we have pretty elective programs. As mentioned before, when you choose your elective is random. So I believe there is a lot of students that don't take their elective seriously because it's not something that they like that

015they chose. I think students should be encouraged to take elective more serious because they think that since they're not core classes it's not important. We should encourage tutoring sessions, because it's important to get good grades and good passing scores at the end of the course exams because it's important to have the courses early on in middle school. good morning. I personally feel that our ace department is really good and I know they're expanding with different programs. The programs I like to see at my school are culinary arts because I have a passion to cook, I really luke to cook. And in the future I would like to be a chef so our ace department is working for a culinary program for our students. We have digital design, but it's not like hands-on art like it

016used to be. I wish we could bring back our art program. thank you, everybody. We're going to move on to college and career readiness. We're going to start with a raise your hand. Raise your hand if you've talked to a teacher guidance counselor about your future? awesome. So we're now go to go this way and we'll start if you're a high schooler about what has helped you learn about college or careers? What hasn't helped? Middle schoolers, do you feel ready for high school? Why or why not? What ideas do you have? We'll start with taria. hello again, what has helped me is talk to go personal teacher. Most of my teachers don't talk about this stuff but when you have a connection with a certain teacher who strives for you and wants nothing but the

017best, she talks about college and what I should do. And my guidance counselor, I only went to her once to talk about my schedule change. But if I ever have a problemsinger I just go to her and she helps me through it. And we have programs at our school that helps us with future college. So colleges from fiy and florida, they tutor us over anything. And oar the programs we're going to do programs that help us with fashion, and gets us in the field where we can do, oh if I want to do medical we can do that. If I want to do digital design, we can do that. They offer a program where that helps our future. I think at my school I've talked to a lot of teachers and counseling about high school.

018They help a lot telling me, not only me a lot of students at my school which classes we should take and also what careers we want to take in college. And also having high school courses prepared about what to to expect in high school and when high schools come to our school, they give us an idea what classes they have that can also help us to get scholarships. landyn, if I MAY, along with your answers, can you also know what we can do better? What we can enhance to make that experience better or close any gaps. I I hear a lot of great information but I know there is room for us to do better for you guys. as a senior this year, that has closed out the college application. It's really a lot and

019I know there is a lot of students seenors at my school who are struggling who are trying to apply to colleges or they got into their dream school and they have no idea how they're going to pay for it. We have the core program which is the college advisors, I know not a lot of students go do that that person, they don't know her or don't even know what questions to ask. So maybe having an assembly at the beginning of the years for students interested gogog g to cocoege, u layoutut e e press atatththey eded to take in order to apy inin a a titimely fashion and get back an answer and maybe more access to scholarship. Like maybe you have a study hall for teachers and to apply for scholarships. I know a lot

020of scholarships are sent out through canvass but a lot of seniors don't look at san vas anymore. Or an application is at the bottom and they don't see that it was available. So I think of things like that, that it puts it in their face like this is what you want to do. So kind of giving them an option this is what you can to still be successful but you're still going to be able to provide for yourself and have a good life. So doing more assembly and in-person things rather than sending stuff out through canvass so seniors have ready access and know what to ask and know how to be prepared. thank you. I personally, I'm in middle school, I feel completely equipped for high school. My school. My school has a lot of

021programs and a lost staff that are equipped with information that helped me get ready for high school. I know this year I took a non traditional route, and applied at different high schools to see if I wanted to go to a private high school. I know a lot were a supportive, which high schools I can apply for. I feel that, in middle school, that there is, there is like a false narrative about high school, especially with some of the classes cambridge and stuff that it's going to be a little easier. So when kids go into high school and they go into those campus programs they're shocked by the amount of work. So I think that again class that's minimum pick the real high school rig or will be better, as well as elected and students

022that are equipped with information that makes them know these are the classes that they need to be taking to go here and here. sorry. So I think my statement is more about a phrase al, I think that broward county has done a good job, I'm a senior, has been doing a good job especially encouraging attaching the brace advisor. I think I've had a lot of help to decide to college, I decided where I'm going to go. I'm going to famu, but as I believe that broward county has done a good job. My brace advisor puts out a bunch of scholarships and has papers and announced can vaccinationer I know canvass is iffy but a lot of people still use it at my school. And broward county has done a gaot job putting out the things.

023george, I cannot see your school what school are you at? ft. Lauderdale. sounds like some best practices. at my school, I do feel ready for high school. I'm in 7th grade. I think they should have more like, advanced classes at my school. I'm jazz and I feel like at my school, middle school, I feel like the teachers push high school and college a lot. And I feel like the clubs, like ncl and hea have given me leadership and skills to be ready for high school so I can be ready to work with partners. And, prepare me for my future. Thank you. to piggy back on what lea said, a agree with scholarship and college, I just committed to a college like two weeks ago. I'm going to florida memorial. But what they don't tell you

024is all the skol or ships that you can get for just going to the school. You can go on the website, and you can get a whole free scholarship for the first year. But the things that I was kind of confused was when senior night came up and there was a bunch of scholarship that I didn't know about and it was oh it was like a canvass page but like she said, you don't see them. The only time you go canvass is to submit your assignments. And I kind of wish I had more help with picking my college as I searched through to see what I wanted to major in, I found out that I cannot transfer anywhere because it is a private school. So if I wanted go to another school, if I wanted

025to do two years and switch to famu, I can because I would either have to go to um and I would have to start over at that school. I do feel 100 percent ready for high school. I'm inside a program called mont -- montessori, where we lead with respect. Many students in the program are ready for the high school but outside there is a lot of students that aren't ready for high school. They believe high school is going to be easy. It's going to be something that we can just rub off our holders. So I do feel like we should expand on mag nut programs and not just set to a specific register region of kids so the students who aren't as ready and aren't as fast as other students have the same opportunity as

026a students inside of magnet programs. Yes, so, that's how I feel. thank you DR. Hepburn for constructive criticism in this program. I have some on this topic. As I have received ample help I have noticed that the under class people that followed me will not get a chance to speak to guidance counsel because I've seen that guidance department will be non existence before their job postings are listed as open and students cannot get aid that they need because when they have a question, they have directed to administrator or assistant who is never in their response because they have jobs that are walking around. My second point is in relation to elections to piggy back to what my peers already said, they're not encouraged as well as the college path or applying, it's just as elective

027such as automotive repair technical careers that can be lucrative, are not as funded or encouraged or widespread in many schools. Thank you. I feel like I'm not ready for high school, like so, so I feel like I could use a little more honing when I go there. And something you can benefit is from you can have a checklist after finals that have skills that you would need for high school luke my language arts teacher, she emphasizes the need of note taking schools as a crucial skill that you will need in high school. Or have a summer-like I had in 7th grade that helped me with math and gave me a passing score. as a jaourn yor in high school, I feel like my brace advisor has helped me the most in learning about my readiness

028as she keeps students up-to-date with scholarship. However I will say, that I feel like there would be some more college and career readiness because it relieves some of the stress because time goes by very fast. Another thing that I would assist is teaching students how to properly write a resume and how to conduct themselves in interviews that lacks a lot and it makes it harder for students to receive jobs and careers when they're not properly trained. honestly, personally, I feel like I've been nothing but supported in my college readiness, I don't have anything negative to say if any. I have received two to three emails every single day about scholarship and being able to go to different colleges, who is visiting the school, where I can go take internships for technical programs whatever it MAY

029be and ever since, ever since freshman has been like that and I trust that it will continue so I have nothing to say. as I have three points that I would like to make on this topic, just to piggy back what lea said about the process, I think it starts from the bottom starting in freshman year. A lot of times I have seen that students are not engaged with the college process because they're not exposed to it early. They're exposed to the rigors of high school and getting assignments ready but they're not exposed to applying to the college, learning about the college, understanding what makes going into college readiness ready. And it's a lost time I have to instigate it ready I have had to join the brace club and become a leader just to

030learn about opportunities that were never exposed. And the other part is the financial aspect of paying for college. A lot of students don't understand what it means, we go in and we apply. But what happens after that? Where do we engage after that? There are certain aspects of that that need to be involved. And then the third point, me having to engage with an advisor and finding out that I do not have a guidance counselor because my guidance counselor had to be removed that is something that lee ann mentioned, and there is shortage and having to split between three counselor. My final thought is there is a multiple of programs and facilitates that -- it shouldn't just be a student ins gaysing about learning about these programs you have to push it, not on them

031but you have to be ready for them and expose that to them. Thank you. thank you, every one. We're going to skip down because I want to make sure that we leave time for board members to also ask questions. So we're going to do the two raise your hand questions and if anybody has something to share, we're going to go to you. Raise your hands if you're in a club, sport or activity in school. Okay. Nice. did anyone have any of those questions they wanted to address? I feel like at my class you can should have more clubs. I think it should be more encouraged and promote. george. so this is a very one club specific. So I participate in my school's marching band I'm very active in my musical aspect in my school. Me

032among other people are fearful that we're being cut our funding, we fear that, maybe, and maybe five or ten years, there MAY not be any musical programs that we MAY see. We're afraid that by the time the upcoming freshman club leaves, we MAY slowly see less band classes, just a fine arts in general. The funding seems to be lacking at some point to the point where it's just painful to sometimes even be part of the marching band. not working instruments, broken instruments at that matter and I just think there should be more encouragement for those fine arts instead of removing them from the county. to piggy back off what he said, I'm also in the band but I dance for the band. I dance for the band, and this is the first year that we

033have not had any transportation, because we got cut from the funding. It started a big uproar, it was not bullying but it was kind of like some kids would be like, dillard doesn't have money, we don't go anywhere because dillard does not have money. We should start a gofundme for dillard, we didn't have any transportation to go anywhere. We couldn't, it was to the point where we won jamboree and we got made off because we didn't have a bus but we had a bus that day, but I'm saying at certain points we didn't have a bus at all, we couldn't support our football team. They had to ride with the football players and I feel like the funding with the band should be even more boosted. We also have a hard time struggling to find

034costumes or funding even with that for our shows and things, because the dance program is really big. They have four levels, I'm in level three and we have a lot of shows, and it's to the point like where the seniors have to come out of their pocket for their dancers for their dance. brian? I wish I knew I had -- I get to pick my classes. I wish I knew that. in 6th grade I wish I knew more about the law program that I am in. You can send out emails to people in our county going to sixth graders. Telling them about the programs that you offer for this school choice. to piggy back off the two prior students being about playing, I play the sox -- saxophone, and I'm wondering does the school determine

035how much money is allocated. Why is it does it seem that the athletic department has more money than our department. We are growing, and we have a lost students who are coming to play in band is a wonderful, organization to become a part of because you're not only learning how to play a instrument but also fostering a community among students but can we get students to join when we don't have enough money for instruments or to go to games and events. It makes students feel discouraged and not want to be part of when they don't have enough to be able to support themselves. so my fellow students they said my part better than I could say it. As a flute player, my funding for my school personally, it got cut but our support facilitator gave

036us funding for we could play instruments. We have sports teams who need that funding because they do do more events than you. But can we say that when without us, we wouldn't have that student engagement. We are the ones who MARCH, we are the ones that practice, we spend day in and day out learning these instruments and yet we cannot get to practice our skills. But to touch on something else that they touched about the musical aspect. I want to talk about the ak dem fund -- academic funding. Give things are being funded are being cut personally I had to pay out-of-pocket for four academic trips this year and the cost was overwhelming not just to me and my parents but to me and the students. It was hard to fundraise when you don't have

037access to resourced to fundraise and there is so much a teacher or guidance administrator can do when it comes to money. And just, I have a final point, cross access to clubs and extracurriculars I go to a technical school, I don't have access and I had to go to nova and I had to advocate for myself. And my funding got cut so I don't get to go to nova or participate in their extra curriculars because they said there is a bond at that? we're going to go to miciah and come back to you. so just to piggy back off what they said, me and my debate partner made history, we qualified to go to the nationals for the first time. [Applause] Thank you, thank you. Now the nationals is in iowa, right and we have

038to raise 6500 dollars. Now we spoke to the principal and she said we don't have the funding that we would have to rely on sponsors and grants. I went to the city and spoke to the commissioner and mayor, and we have to piggy back off ofof them. We nene morefunding, wewe se th addingnew bathrooms or stalls but when it comes to funding clubs or band or debate as I'm in, it's really lacking there. You know, nationals this is important. This is important, and this is the first time that our school has qualified and it's been over 50 years that schools have been there. That's what we need to work on as a whole funding for different clubs and different academic programs and funding in the children's future sxn just on the structure of the building.

039Thank you. to come back about what he said, about the practices, I I'm there until 8:00 o'clock, I come home and take a shower and I don't sit down for dinner until 10:00 P.M., just for them to say, that you cannot participate in this game because we don't have the money. 500, $300 uniform, I paid for that only worn once because we don't go absolutely anywhere. And for dillard, not to say anything about your high school, dillard is one of the historical black colleges, not colleges, historical black high schools in broward and I feel like sometimes people don't even come to the games for the football, they come for the band. They like to hear the band music, they like to feel the beat and watch us MARCH and we can't even do that because

040we don't have any money. It's not even the fact that we don't have any money it's the transportation. We can put money together and get this and that, but we cannot put money together and get five buses, that's really impossible. I feel like there would be more supportage for that. We work hard for the football, and soccer and we work as hard of them. If that can be adjusted for my next upcoming seniors and juniors that are in a band, I would really appreciate it. we do have to move into the next topic, but it loops, we'll do a wrap up. So I want to make sure that we have enough time to get through the questions, sorry. So we're going to do the raise your hand for this one. Raise your hand if you

041feel like you have a voice on your campus to share your thoughts and ideas? And it's okay, you don't have to raise your hand if you don't feel this way. Okay. Does anybody want to share maybe one or two people what ideas you have to increase your voice on campus? thank you, again. I would say that there is a difference for to you being able to share and the ideas being applied. A lot of times that I've seen, especially with students and student engagement, the reason students don't want to engage in school or activities is because every time they bring an idea or every time a thought is brought forward, they're turned away, not only by admin but other teachers and anytime the students tries to bring something instructive or that could benefit them or

042other school, it's taken as disrespect or subordination and that is not where we want to be especially as a body, and especially as a population. But another thought on that and having a voice and thoughts on school, in school anything, starting from the bottom is a big thing. It should not be onlying the student leaders that encourage change. I participate in a multiple of different activities. I would not have gotten where I am if it was not for my fellow students who encouraged me. They're the ones oh you're the one that can talk. But they should be encouraged too t.I should not be speaking for thousands, even though thts a pleasure there should be other way to see fa till sate this. Thank you. I feel like I have a voice on campus but I

043think it's mainly because of the leadership positions that I've taken on. I'm class PRESIDENT And I'm on the stud ept advisory committee for the superintendent. So I have access to make talk to administrators and talk to the people in charge and to be able to facilitate change. But I think a lot of students like they said, they will reach out and say can you ask this question when we're at the same school. So I think bringing like sessions like this to the school where we sit with the principal and administrator and it's every students, it's the kid that shows up two times a week and failing all classes, you talk to him and why. You don't really get the full picture, we have a better experience most of the time because of the vincing that

044we are involved in and there are students that don't experience what we experience. So I think opening it so not just leadrs have voices but teaching the students who feel they can't lead having a voice of their own. thank you. Our next topic is student services and support. Raise your hand if you know who to go on campus if you need mental health help? If so, who do you go to? And if not, is there anything that you wish your school did to support students. If every student can share one idea pretty quickly if you can of what service you think you need to be provided or what service is not offered at your school? Or maybe a service that is provided that is not working. We'll start with mariah. hi. So, I know who

045to go to if I go any problem. And which is one of my favorite teachers and my last resource is my counselor. I barely see her, I don't know what happens, it does not go through and I cannot just show up in her door. I feel like we should implicate more appointments with guidance counselors with mental health and also question should talk groups like support groups at our schools that can benefit mental health. I know a lot of students that go through things and it's hard to tell a friend because your friend can't handle that when they're growing up. as she said I feel we should have more sessions with counselors to learn more with mental health. Usually when you go this their office, it's hard to find the counselor. You can talk to your

046teachers but they're also busy, they have things to do. We should have assembly about how to manage stress and anxiety especially during testing time. I feel like we only have those assemblies once a year or in canvass sometimes we have sections where we have to do activity about mental health but students don't even do it. For students to do t teachers have to make it a grade. at my school I know we have a social worker and the guidance counselor but it's not necessarily shown to kids that they have people there that if you're going through something you have somebody that you can talk to. I know most kids they have a favorite teacher, I have a teacher that I go to when I feel stress and have stuff to talk about. That's who I

047would rather go to just because of the comfort ability. So I think making so that guidance counseling build a relationship with students. Past oh come to me with your scud and certain advise so that kids feel comfortable when they need to talk to them. at my school I know who to go to I know we have teachers and guidance counselors but we did have to have a peer counseling program where kids can tutor other kids as well as counsel other kids but for some reason that got kid off. But rather than talk to go a an adult, who MAY not understand anymore, talking to students MAY. And they removed it. They would rather get altercations online or in-person. Restoring programs where students can talk to other students would be beneficial. so at my school I

048heard there is a plethora of support systems, the issue is is I've heard. I have not been able it access. I've been made aware they're possibly not busy but 99 percent of the time busy, they're admin, they have things to do, I understand that, there is nothing wrong with that but other counselors are doing other things and social workers are doing other things. I wish there was things with staff so you're not overloading counselor issues. We don't want to add more workload to them. This is not a bad thing, I know this is how it works but I think this is why kids are fearful. i'm aware that teachers are all mandated reporters. That's the reality of things. You cannot tell a teacher something negative and have them not report it. So kids are afraid

049that. That teachers and counselor are mandated reporters. If you need assistance, go to a licensed professional as well as your school. -- outside of your school. at my school, they have counselors and stuff, they're usually in your office, they're usually not in your office. hey, landyn can I interpret, everybody is a mandatory reporter for crimes for child abuse. MADAM Counselor, they're not mandatory reporters when you go and talk to them on things on your life. They're there to hear you and talk to you. I want to make sure that they get the facts out. Anything else that they're mandatory reporters for? I'm sorry? MS. Batista? the law provides that their mandatory, everybody is a mandatory reporter if there is a possibility of self harm, harm to others or child abuse. right, so for the gross

050majority of counseling, which is I have this program, I need to talk to somebody that is not about self harm or abusing a child for the gross majority of counseling, counselors are not mandatory reporters. I know that word gets out real clear examine this conversation is important. But for anyone listening, i want to make sure that they go to the counselor knowing that it's a safe thing unless it's harm to yourself or others or child abuse. maybe at the end, we'll have staff clarify about guidance counseling contacting parents. I don't know if DR. Fulton or hollingsworth about a students providing a service. would you repeat that one more? that if most I didn't want it say in most cases required parental contact? yes, so the students have to be advised of that information and that

051interaction. thank you. jack? at my school, I feel like all the security, the teachers and the guidance counselors are always there if you need them. They're mainly in their office or at post waiting for somebody to walk by. People can just walk and ask them if they need help or something and they can make an appointment so that they can leave during an elective to go speak to their guidance counselor about stuff happenings in their life. And I feel like everybody is there for you. I know at my school, they're always there for you if you need something. at my school, I don't know who is my go-to. Likely a said, most counseling or anybody, you just can't walk up to them because they're not in their office. Or if you walk in, this person,

052will know, you're here for that person, go back to your class. i don't know how to schedule an appointment, I don't know if we have that. But I feel like peer counseling would really help. We had that in middle school and it helped me with my anger issues and after that, I have never had a counselor in my life. There should be a group session for therapy or something. Some kids are not mentally mature for life. So somebody that has the knowledge of college or life in general could help them or even help me. our guidance counseling is 9 out of 10, always busy. Guidance counselor are organized fast testing, field trips, organize state testing and do a whole bunch of other things. At my school, I advocate for a loed of students I'm in

053a lot of clubs, they see me a lot so when they see it's like oh, he's on the stage again. I've had a lot of students come to me and speak to me and sometimes they're really alarming. Should I report this? Should I tell somebody this but it's again, I don't want to get you in trouble, I don't want to break that trust. I feel like we should encourage our students to speak more, use their voice. A lot of students are shy to go up to a teacher and let them know what is happening in their life. I feel like we should stop it at the small problem and encourage them to use their voice more and speak more and I feel that's where the problem is, them being scared to speak to somebody about

054their life problems. okay. Four quick points to speak on lea said I can support that with my own personal experience. Many times even a guidance counselor is on campus, a lot of times, they're busy, no opportunity or notice of them being out of their office with no notice. They will not allow you to schedule a time for them, so you can ensure one on one time. I've spoken on the shortage of guidance counselor district wide and the negative impact it has when many departments are falling apart. I would like to say that I was a part of hope club helping overcome problems, which was a mental club but rather dismissed or disregarded by the administration, even though it was technically a state wide or I believe a nationwide brand. Our meetings we were not given

055a proper room for our meeting or any declarations, our meetings would be canceled with no prior notice or declarations to feel people connected, would be torn down without us being told. In terms of; mental health issues, I would like to speak on academic burn out it's a topic many are familiar. A lot of times, there have been accessible removal of honor classes which leaves ace classes available. Why is that a problem? Ittially only two leaves two polar opposites, you either go to a basic class and often expose you to other students who have behavioral issues or cause disruptions in class or you go into a a p class which is a great but a lot of times depending on the students they have extremely accessive work board that the students MAY not be prepared for

056but still pushed into going there and now they don't know how to handle this much work on top of what after happens at home and outside of school, on top of preparing for college, it can become very overwhelming and that causes a lost mental health ushz that I've experienced and they break down halfway through the year. I percentage had a health issue arise because I had an extreme stress overload and hi to go to the hospital. I believe that 504 plans need in terms of accommodation. People need to look at the mind set. Due to my health issue, had to get a 504 so I can proper lehmanage my time and do these work loads and me as well as other students around me and I know this is a district-wide issue would be turned

057away from getting a 504 oh you have good grased on focus, you don't need it. They don't like ottawa it takes to get the stress and the stress that happens at home or even at school when you're talking to your teachers and they get emotional, they say you look good, you don't need it. It's not looking at the wholol picture. Thank yoyou. I think we would benefit having more affective wellness checks. We have those self assessments also that I'm sure you see at least one alarming results but like who actually looks at those? I've never seen anything done. So we can like, we could like benefit from checking those results and doing something from it. ?Fm I believe there shbl a wider range of mental health activities and presentations throughout the entire school year instead

058of one part of the school year. A lot of time when mental health is spoken about is when we have to do the assignment for a grade. And some kid's mind they MAY think what is the purpose, it's just for the school it's not an encouraging me to focus on my mental health. at my school, I go to my counselor when they round it up for something they always hears from me. at my school, you go to the counselor, they tell you like if you're having any problems, go to a counselor or trusted teacher. But the counselor is usually not there. You tried setting up a meeting like the another day and she literally never replied to my email I understand she is busy but that's my point. Things like the wellness check, a lot

059of them like the teachers are always telling you, hey, do it take it seriously. But the truth is, the students don't. they they're just these whacky videos that are trying to give up a point and the students, it's just the school board trying to make it look like they care. Trying to make it look like the students have some sort of, trying to make sure that the students can't say they didn't do anything. It's not taken seriously, especially when every year they do one assessment that is super long, like a lot of students, they just, the same answer, like go through it or like they literally change the change. They don't even read the questions. And my point is, to make them more enhance them and make them a little more, hands-on me maybe, just

060so students even if they don't take it seriously, it would put a dot in their head, like hey, this video has a point actually. so as the last person on the block, I would say they have made some great points and they practical said something I would say. From personal experience I'm tired. When I I'm burned out, there is no point in, there is days where I literally tell myself, do I have to further my education, the point is I have to go and do that. But my point in saying, with those academic burn out with being depressed some students have serious mental issues, and that ment an, I apologize, I've had students tell me, they told messierous things about their family, personal life aspects of their life and I know more about the students

061at my school than my administrative counselor will ever know. They see me as somebody, you can go and tell admin and you can try to fix it. It's hard when they put the pressure on them because they feel like they don't have a voice. Yes we have the mental health and peer counseling, I'm the PRESIDENT Of my hrc, like I can tell you, I've had programs being dismissed, initiatives taken away because I'm trying to further clarity. I have a 504, I don't know if anyone here does, and having that, I don't have the support that I need. Going further with that in mental health, she has 40 kids under her belt and that's only one of they are and they tells me, you have good friends, I don't need to spend a lost time when

062I tell you I'm going to repeat it, I'm tired and being tired goes a long way. Yeah I MAY have As but when you look at what it took to get there and it gets harder and harder each year when you're repeating the same things and nothing is happening. But thank you. thank you, every one. I do want to -- . just so I can, what is the acronym hrc? Human relations council. I do want to recognize that we have about 30 minutes left, do we want to switch over to dialogue, we do have some questions or if the board would like us to continue to go down this line of questions that we have prepared? yeah, I'm guessing that some members would like to have some feedback that they would like to share. Not

063that the others are not important but this hits the main issue why we wanted to see the students. MADAM, chair. yes. if you don't mind, the issue of safety and security, I was wait to go get there and I don't know if they can spend two or three minutes on that and their perspective would be important. I was hoping that was not the last part. I think it says they filled out a form with that information so maybe they can share that? MADAM Chair. so we wanted make sure that we're not mentioning any school's specific vulnerability and we went over that prior today's discussion. We did q every student has a format their seat to fill out if there is any specific issues that they would like staff to address, they have the ability to

064write that down and we will collect that at the end and share that with our chief security rather than sharing a security vulnerability? do they feel safe or not? exactly, we have some general questions and it would be imperative to understand how they're feeling because that would provide us with information as ho how we should react to that? okay, just the general question there looks like do you feel, what makes you feel safe at school? can we do maybe raise hand for that one. yes, maybe five. okay, will you raise your hand if you feel safe at school? so we're going to have five people that are going to share, what would make you feel safer, a quick thing. Anybody want to share? okay, so, I want to say thank you, whoever did the met

065at detectors. The first day of school, it was hot and I was standing any long line, I had my new shoes on and my feet were hurting. But the metal detectors make me feel safer. I know students still bring stuff into the schools, that's a little more on security with the tsa rollout. Detectors. I was like I don't want to go through this. It was like they wasted money on metal detector knowing we could get more school books, so we should get higher on the tsa rollouts. That's kind of it. thank you. anybody else on this side? I'm going to move around, we'll come back to you. so, the thing that didn't make me feel safe at the school was the cleanliness of the school. Dillard had open case of tuberculosis which is a lung

066disease and lung failure, so if you catch it, you start coughing up blood, and you have a weakened immune system and bronchitis but we had would have shut the skol down. But I had to continue to go to school. I had to wear a mask because I was not trying to catch anything that people had. And also the bathrooms, they're really really really dirty. I literally hold my blater until -- bladder until I get home. If we can do that on the cleanliness of the school and make ing the students feel more safe with the tb thing going around, that would be really appreciated. anyone else? Go ahead. I would like to speak towards the alertness of being aware of threats made to several schools. I understand several schools here have had an opportunity. Somebody

067calls into a threat into the school and you have to do a code drill, a real one not a drill. It can be scary. We can only try to enact it as much as it should be. We isn'tly in my personal experience during pm testing, there was a threat called in to our area our school and a code red was to occur and it didn't. And I didn't find out about it, until the end of the school when which was speaking to a teacher. To my understanding that something like that can be extremely dangerous for students when you're not doing a code red when you should, regarding a testing or not. Not every one is in a room and they would have been severely en DANINGEDERrd and that's a preventable instance. Thank you. two more.

068gabriel. the main thing I believe is that, it needs to be made sure that this security guards know how imperative that they're in their proper post and making sure the students are safe. A lot of time, it's as' to walk out of class, you're going to the office whatever it MAY be, and the security guards they're not doing anything at the moment but they were sitting down talking with each other. In one off case, a security guard lost his walkie-talkie a singular one. And it's things like that, they're ready and automobile to protect the students if needed. and our last one. Josiah. the cleanliness is a big thing, that's a major parity and thank you gabriel about mentioning that about security guards. But my experience is various types of substances, I'm not going to literal

069example but I've seen students carrying around things that they shouldn't be. Eve seen teachers and security having things that should not be on campus and that does not make me feel save as a student, I have as ma and other things -- asthma and other things, if you're doing this on campus, how are you endangering the student population. I know a lot of people had things to say about this, remember if you have anything specific that you were not able to share at all, please write it down as you saw DR. Lozano was walking around a dressing some of the concerns and it will ab dressed. Please write that down. And I will turn it back over to you MADAM Chair. next we'll have public comment, the person signed up is diadra jeter, if you'll

070come to the microphone. Okay. Tamu gilbert. No? I guess we will go to board comments. MS. Leonardi. thank you, and I really can't express how much I appreciate you being here and our student advisor for organizing this. It has been so refreshing and I think we will be seeing the repercussions of these conversations going forward. Really impact our school district for years to come. So thank you for all of you sharing your feedback and being so prepared to do so. So thank you. I wanted to touch on some of the, the themes in the electives conversation as well as the mental health conversation but since we were just talking about safety, I do want to commend our staff, our DR. Lozano has been responsive. And I brought something that a student brought to me to

071DR. Lozano something regarding metal detectors and DR. Lozano visit the school and a met with the student. I want to say that not just to give DR. Lozano props but to demonstrate that there is a safety concern and you come to us with it, we address did immediately. Thank you for shager that feedback. With the elective conversations, I heard a lot of first I want to shout out josiah's feedback about the need for more arts and elective. Throughout the school year, for me and several of my colleagues, I've seen the benefits of the arts in our schools through various performances and things like that. So thank you for bringing that up and I really want to highlight that, the need for more of our arts examine our electives. I heard the conversation between tamila and

072brian about the desire for more law and medical programs in their schools. And we do have law and medical programs so I think we need to do a bert job of connecting students with the programs that they desire. There is a larger point that I wanted to make between the electives and the mental health piece and I think I'll get to that at the end. I also wanted to point out lea's experience with working with preschool students, I think that's so interesting. It really comes back to something that we talk a lot about as a board in terms of the need pour more early childhood learning and more access to all childcare. And I'm not sighing that all our students should be providing childcare for adults but there is an excellent opportunity for our students

073to get access to that really meaningfulle work xaoeshs while filling a community need in the future. Thank you for sharing that was really interesting. I do want to get back, and I think, we kept on hearing about funding, how at various schools there is no longer funding for sports or sports or arts and I know that, when we've talked about bijt as a board, we've continual said we dont want it to impact our schools. When we hear from our students, this is. So that is something that we need to have addressed with the superintendent, something we need to address with our budget a conversation that we need to continue to have but there is a disconnect, the board is saying, we don't want these budget conversations to impact our schools but then our students are

074telling us, we don't have access to electives. We don't have access to extra curricular that we have. It's a conversation we need to continue to have have as a board. With regards to the mental health conversation, I think there is a glaring disconnect. Between what was, you know, what continues to be presented to the board. And what we're hearing from our students. So next time we do have a mental workshop, I hope we can have more students at the table. I know we have our student advisor but hearing from all of these students they're clearly not getting what they need and what they're asking for. I've heard a few times from students the, that one way to get information to them, is through canvass you know, pop ups and things like that. So I think,

075one very quick solution could be, you know, when landyn asked how many of you know who to go to for mental health at our school. Maybe we can have that information on canvass, if you need that mental health exact this person. But the problem is when they do contact their counselor they're busy doing other things. Which is frustrating, continually passed policy to say that guidance counselor should not be doing anything than counseling. There is a disconnect what is being said and what is happening at our schools. The continual repetition of my counselor is not available, my counselor is not available that is really disheartening to hear. And I'm wondering if, you know, if we can use some kind of technology scheduling, program to help with scheduling efficiencies. Jack mentioned that the counselor are readily available

076so what is ramble wood doing that we can implement at our other schools? I heard that the piece of assembly is not how to manage stress and wanting more of that. I wonder how we can expand on that. I also think it's important for us to recognize, we continue to hear from students that they go to their teachers, who do you go to, you go to the trusted adult, your favorite teacher right? And I think it's important for us to think about how that impacts our teachers who are not trained professionals. I was at a school reisn'tly where the principle pam was talking out the ntal heheal essusus on our achersrs and how toto expandnd areneness and resources of eap, I just wanted to put that out there. I hear about the piece about academic

077burn out. So this is where I want to bring it back to the electives. So I think the over ar fpg team or message for me from the conversation is that our kids are asking us for the opportunity to be kids. And we can give them all sorts of academic opportunities but we also need to have a holistic approach to their education and let them be mental free of the pressures there are facing them. And give them things like the joy of the arts and athletic and extracurriculars. I hope my colleagues hear the message. One last piece, a few students brought up this rethink ed wellness check. And somebody asked who even looks at those? That is my question, who looks at these wellness checks that we're doing? DR. Hepburn? MS. Hollingsworth? I was going

078have DR. Washington come up and address that, please. good morning. Good morning, jodie washington, tasking sign director student initiatives. It depends on the screener, we have the wellness we monitor that at the district level but also the tariffs metrics screener, mental health professionals that are delivering that tariffs metric and they have 'er follow-up or if they don't have any immediate concerns then the expectation is that they follow-up within a certain time frame. And then there is also the resiliency lessons that many of them spoke about with the rethink ed and quizzes, those results are monitored at the school level bit classroom teachers as well as the counselors. okay, so it sounds like there are people who review this information and do follow-up. Is that conveyed to the students when they're doing this wellness checks? Like

079hey, you're about to do this, this is who is going to follow-up if you are in need. I'm seeing heads shaking. So I think, sometimes a follow-up or, you know, giving people, giving the kids information that they know that this is for something and that somebody will reach out to them, if need be. Could be helpful. And then, finally, I've been thinking so much about the use of technology in our schools. And the school board made a decision to restrict the use of cell phones clout the school day. With for me, it was, it was a mental health piece. A mental health choice. That is what informed my voice in that policy. We have not thought about the way that this educational inexecution uses technology and how it impacts mental health of our students. So

080I do not think, and we heard it from our students that using videos and software to do resilience lessons is necessarily a helpful or affective way to address the mental health needs of our students. I think it comes back to them academic burn out piece as well. So I would really love for us to have a larger conversation of how we're using technology can how that is impacting the mental challenges facing our youth. And I would like us to rethink the way that we're administering videos and online lessons to students to address their mental health challenges. I just don't think that's an authentic or affect tough way to do that. Thank you. And my cell phone and email are on my school board website so if you have anything you need or feedback or interested

081in volunteering, I'm here to serve you. Thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman. thanks so much, chair. MS. Leonardi brought a lot of critical points from the feedback. And she was so wise to thank you for coming. It's not easy to be prepared for session like today. Sometimes it's not easy to share smft critical things but you did a great job. I've left this conversation very optimistic about the future of broward county and where ever else you decide to plant the flag, you're at a very impressive group of students. From the board's perspective, I shared about the data that we get. For example, we never hear about the number of kids who want to see a counselor and cannot find one. Wiier not thinking creatively about the use of technology, wouldn't it be great if counselors

082were available to you with your laptop which is the way that many many adults now connect with their therapist. Why can't we do that? Why can't we have a pool of therapist that are available for you after-hours when you're stressed out about school or about funding for fine arts or other things that you brought up? We have to not just think about the risk inherent at technology which we've done in great length but also the use of technology and the data that gets to this board. Again, we are not aware of some things that we could make some decisions to support. I'm really struck recently and I think, other people in the k-12 business are as well with student engagement. Not just through fine arts and athletic, not through teachers who care passionately about your

083future. Not administrator who are working tirelessly to provide systems that you need but from all the things that had you link together. Some people get enjoyment from marching in the band and I hope that you're in the marching next yae, great school that you're going to attend in a great city. But other people get it through other fine arts. Other people get it through law or medical programs. There are people that come here and say what gets them excited. 25 percent of students are actually engaged when they go to a school. Which means three fourths of kids are living lives of quiet desperation right in front of and yous they're suffering. Mental system is not responding to the needs of the students. We have to staff it, when we do staff it we have to

084fulfill our own policies of people being available. We have to track things like somebody saying, I want to talk to a therapist and maybe nobody is there that day or the next day. The worse thing about being courageous enough about saying I would like to get some help is when you get silence in return. It reminds people of the shame and the guilt and the resistance that people have to go get help and that's where we want to be as a district. Student engagement is a key to high level of reaching your potential. I'm anxious to learn more about that from us and to get bet data about mental health. Not the number of bodies, but the number of times somebody says I want help and they don't get help in an appropriate amount of

085time. couple other small points, last year when we were doing the final wrap wup, we looked at the brace counselor. I never understood that term. It confuses me, I know what they do I can read the job description but I'm not sure that it serves our students to continue with that name. I think we need to get inside into the budge the at our school level. Why are fine arts program getting cut? Why can't we afford instruments why are we paying for facilities when we can pay for a bus that you train so much for, that's your engagement, which means it has to be our concern. And if we can't get that equation right, if they don't provide your principal enough resources to pay for buses, we're not doing our jobsinger not our only solemn

086spoment but one of them is to take a whole bunch of money and make sure it's spread. One of the things that I learned today is that we're not spending time to see the results. Mental health is not being provided. We pass budgets in big numbers but nobody has instruments. And if you learn to dance, you're not allowed to travel and perform. And that's engagement and what we found even if weird things like vr glasses, that what is cool is about the vr glasses is not the glasz glasses but the vr, people get to travel to other places and they're engaged the rest of the week. those vr classes are used four times a week. That's exciting to people and it needs to be exciting to us as well. So I look forward to talking

087more about that. I really, as we go into budget season, we need to think really really hard about the access to mental health professionals. We need to make sure that people understand the rules and make sure that everybody who contributes is well integrated in the plan. So thank you for everybody that is a tineding today. I know you benefited tremendously from the students comments as well and I'll finish with another thank you to all of you. You really impressed me very very much. Thank you for taking your time today. thank you, MS. Bulman. thanks chair. So thank you, to all of you for being here. I am extremely impressed by everybody sitting here and the engagement that they have in the school and, to hear from all of you things that I have observed on

088a smaller level with my own kids and to have that reaffirm of what is happening in the schools and to really get that firsthand account. There is a disconnect between programming described to you and then having the end user come in and tell us what is rally happening in your experiences in school. It's so important, I hope everybody is listening to this very carefully, because it brings up a lot of concerns that I've had and I think it's been confirmed here. Please know that we're listening to you. Because this is extremely important. To our dill ard dancer, I know you're awesome. It fruft ates me that you have missed opportunities because of unfunding for buses. I don't think that is unacceptable. There are different situations happening in different schools based on different economic situations. Because

089when you leave funding to parents, booster clubs, different students are getting different opportunities. Everybody should be getting the same opportunities to get on a bus and show off their skills because you're all working your but thes off, not sleeping practicing very long hours. I think that we couldn't be clearer. I don't know how many times we have to talk about it. I had a conversation with just your and landyn yesterday, very intimate and you know, we were talking about the same thing. I don't necessarily agree with the technology piece. I think there is something missing that the kids have all talked about which is having a human body available for them to talk to. This, there is some kind of disconnect happening where that is not available every single kid here has said that. So

090people need to. These kids need to have access to a person who will help them. And that needs to be major priority. Because to go into the next thing, the burn out, everybody is overworked and stressed out. I see that with my own children, they're working longer than we ever did when we were in school. Kids don't sleep, they're getting up at 5:00 am because they were up so late doing their extracurricular activities. I think we need to reassess how we're delivering our education in general so there is more of a balance because the kids need to be kids. You're not going to be kids forever. Well rounded students, everybody having opportunities. These kids are coming up here reporting it to us. I cannot think of a more eloquent group of people. I am so

091impresses it does make me hopeful for the next generation because you guys are crushing it. We should take note on what is being said here today and really focus on that, there is no better expert than the people who are actually there living it on a day-to-day basis. Thank you very much. thank you, MS. Alhadeff. thank you. And thank you to every one here today. It was really powerful to hear your personal insides and what is happening in your academic world. Sxl so, one of my take away is the guidance counselor. I remember looking, there is a chart how many we have per student ratio at a school and that number is way too high. So I would challenge the board that we in a board budget conversation that we increase the number of guidance

092counselor by double of whatever we do have. So I know the board will have a very robust conversation about that. The other big take away from me, somebody brought up support groups. And I don't know if we're doing enough of the support groups but I think that is, an amazing way for, many students to come together to have discussions and having you know, somebody guide those conversations but to have those group conversations I think would be very beneficial at your schools. I would like to get additional information on that. And then my other take away was something brought up about the cleanliness of the school or lack of. I know that, our janitors and how we're cleaning our schools and I think that's going to look a little bit different next year. But that's a

093huge point. Not only for the health and well being for our students health but just in general, where we want to go to clean schools. So that is another big point that I think we need to make sure that make sure that our schools are clean. We need to give you resilience to deal with these pressures. My daughter alyssa, as a freshman in high school, she was up all night studying, and there was a lot of pressure, she was putting the pressure on herself. We have to find a healthy way to deal with the pressure through exercise, or talking to somebody, and then I think if we can give the resiliency skills to deal with this pressure. I wrote down and I think my colleagues did too, academic burn out. And that breaks my heart

094to know that you have all of this pressure that is going on and through your academic career to just succeed and do better and take more college courses but why? Why do we need to do that? So I think we need to take a fresher look at what is the necessary skills that you need now? Thank you. thank you, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So, I just want to thank all of our students. It's such an an hoer to have you here. And you certainly, basically, you're the why in what we do. So I would like to give them a round of applause. I think they're so deserving. [Applause] And I don't mean to be repetitive, but I can say regarding the guidance counselors, one of our students said, her last resort is to

095go to her guidance counselor and I think that's, just, I was very saddened to hear that. Because I think the guidance counselor should be your first. And so DR. Hepburn, when did we change the job description to ensure that our counselors are specifically doing the job to which they're assigned? excellent question. We've changed that, have to be six months to a year ago. I don't think the job description is the issue, MS. Alaldeff actutulyly popoted t anan iueue or coconcern atat is naononwide. Nationwide the guidance counselor to student ratio is 450-1. We're hovering around that nationwide average. I can acknowledge school counselor regardless if they have wub description in their job and availability that they MAY have to address the needs of a case of 400 plus students. Plus if the board member discussing this.

096We have some schools that our staff and allocation, correct me if I'm wrong, if you're a middle of school of 500 or 2000 kids, you get three guidance counselor. That's something that we have to correct ourselves that will help out some of the ratio but we also need to look at how we lower our guidance, our school counselors to student ratio so we can address more critical needs that our students can have. It's a case load issue, a case loads are just too large. I understand and I was actually getting to that as well. And I would agree with board member alhadeff. A student mentioned that a counselor said come back. Or counselor MAY be at a another post. And I'm not blaming the guidance counselor, but what I'm seeing, and the reason I said

097the description, stud students six months later, saying that counselors are doing other things. The one is there, there are students here that mention that they've observed guidance counselor still doing other things. And that's why we changed the job description. I guess, my question is, how do we move forward, being the superintendent to ensure that at the school base level they're adhering to the job description that we've changed as a board because that is not what we're hearing from the students and this is 6 to 8 months later. absolutely, we've communicated based on the job description all over the place. Very much aware. So we will have to dig into case by case situations that we're hearing or that we see. The only thing that we can think of, that's the willingness of the guidance counselor

098to get a supplement to do additional things. I remember at the beginning of the school year, there were some guidance counselor saying, hey I want to -- if you want to volunteer to do this additional things, we can provoid a supplement or we MAY not be able to provide a supplement. Those things are solely voluntary tare', if they want to en gauge in additional duties and responsibility beyond their job description. but for some of that, we need to look in detail for the one off cases. right and DR. Hepburn, I believe and what I've heard these are not just isolated cases. Multiple students mention this, and so, I think we have to come up with some sort of a, a reenforcement plan that the schools are actually adhering to this. I didn't hear it from

099one stud ept, we heard it from many. I think this permeates the district, that's what I'm suspecting. And if it is, we need to have some level of reinforcement that the schools are following. And that would be for that point. I just want to mention a couple of other things. The, it was mentioned that one student mentioned that athletic received more funding than performing arts. DR. Hepburn if your staff would respond to that? no, they already have a note for that. We'll follow-up, I don't want to get into the complexity, there is a difference between elementary and high school when it comes to performing arts and how these things are funded and some of that is self sustaining when you have the three big sports support. I got t.I heard many students mention thating they

100need comprehensive support in terms of understanding very basic things such as writing a resume, you know, financial how to apply for financial support and how to access scholarships how to manage stress, stay healthy all of these different things. How can the district, how can the district do a better job? so for a scholarships, we're ahead of this discussion, actually. We created some scholarships and students who don't know how about scholarships. The first part of the this whole, project is we've created a scholarship dashboard to really understand per school how many scholarships are filling out. How many students are filling out fasfa forms regardless if it's a criteria, will make that available to all students, so they understand about all the scholarships. For me, every time I go out and I talk to the partners, and

101nobody ever replies, how the concern started with me initiating this project. My question for the students though, I hear right, previously I heard, put it on canvass, put it on canvass, but then I hear, they don't look at canvass, how do you want it? I hear both. How do you want to receive information moving forward? If I can get like two or three who don't use canvass and say, this is what I prefer. you know how to change pinnacle to focus, you should use focus. I use focus to check my grades every day. To check my schedule, focus is better. I can start with jacqueline, and we -- jack and go across. when we're on canvass, they give us notifications but nobody checks them. But I agree, you should put it on focus. for my

102school, I do have a class group chat and that's where I get most of my information. So maybe the class chat in group me or announcements where everybody can hear it. okay. So we can drop a link in the group chat to take you to focus or canvass to see it all? definitely focus, it's amazing. Also parent link, I know you send out emails a lot but sometimes it's hard to like, just distinguish which email is important and which is not. You do send a lot of emails. So, the definitely focus because we check our grades very often and there is a remind section on top, that would be amazing place to drop anything that is really important for the students to know. last one, lee annedr. thank you for this is it should be

103launched on a multiple of platforms. I agree with my peers focus is a great place it start with people of all people check their grades. Half of our assignment are digital, they don't bother giving out physical papers. And personally I commend my brace officer at my school for sending out monthly scholarship bulletins of dozens of scholarship but those are only seniors. So these those bulletins expanded for middle school and under classroom so they can accumulate before their junior and senior year when it's a finalizing your grades and talking to your teachers for recs, creating 500 words essay. So having those resources on focus in addition to canvass and any other platform can be appreciated. Thank you. thank you for your feedback. I'm glad you like focus. I'm going do allow brian to answer, he has

104had his hand. with the app you can get notifications on your phone and you can get out like, overview of what you're getting an email from. a lot of assignment are online and I feel that's a downside. I feel like a lot of assignments should be paper base. Yes, we're moving forward in technology, but I feel like it really restricts us, it really, people, a lot of students are able to cheat, use certain websites, and I feel like if we are able to write more, not only will our percentage of pass people passing gup but more acceptance rates for colleges and universities, I believe that's a huge problem online work. thank you for the feedback. okay, MADAM Chair, I'm going to wrap up. I have a couple more things and then I'm done. I heard

105cleanliness, as it pertains to schools and it was mentioned as well the bathroom, the restroom, that is concerning. I think that should be the first point of emphasis when you talk about cleanliness for a school that the restrooms are clean. And even though, we MAY have custodial, emphasizing the restrooms must be clean is important. We are, we are an organization and education organization but we are in the customer service business, and if we have a restrooms unkept that creates health issues, safety concerns I think we need to have a greater emphasis that restrooms are of major focus in our custodial services. Lastly, I would like to mention that, you know, I know that we are an a-district and we are proud in terms of our academic. But as board member bulman mentioned, we need to

106be holistic, we must be a-district in our esthetic appeal in our cleanliness in how we address mental health issues of our children. And we must be an a-district in terms of our overall, support of students. So I appreciate that we are an a-district in termds of academics but we also need to focus on the areas that are not measured bit state and be an a district for our students. Thank you. DR. Holness, you started something, my team is going to be upset. We did this in palm beach county and we will just grade ourselves internally for different departments and the task and responsibilities for those departments and we'll find mechanisms to give an objective review, ie students and grading the cleanliness of restroom or their school environment and things like that. I know hz poul

107has her team doing that type of work right now, I don't think they're yet. So schools will be abling to see the outside I looking in at the cleanliness of their school. Sometimes when you're in it for years, you just overlook it. But that's a priority for us. But overall for a different departments, just, we'll expand that idea. great. And I hope for the cleanliness, they start with the restrooms. absolutely. thank you, MR. Cervera. thank you, and kudos to every single one, coming up here and sharing and speaking your ideas. Very impressive. This is invaluable inside for all of us up here. Hearing about the day-to-day of the student life as DR. Holness ention med, you are the why and having an opportunity here that is directly from the students was really fantastic. I appreciate

108everybody for their participation and coming here to speak to tuesday. A couple of quick points I want to make, my friends brian jack and tamil mentioned the lack of a law program within their school. That'ses disappointing for me. I think I speak for my board member bulman and myself, you cannot have too many lawyers. So the fact that our students are being deprived, I'm going to have some conversations with the superintendent to see if we can divert some resources to your schools. All of you would make fantastic lawyers. And for those who don't have the programs, perhaps joining the debate club, that's a good opportunity to hone your skill set and we'll, help you in the future especially if you have aspirations to litigate for a living. Next, where is lasariah? How are you? I'm

109fine. I was very disturbed to hear that you cannot get transportation to go to football games. That's very concerning to me. I remember as a former many many many years ago, high school athlete, have thing cheerleading squad and the band and color guard and the dance team being part of my games was very important. We stunk back then and I'm not, I'm not overly sure that actually came to see me as much as they came to see you guys. So having you guys participate as an entire squad with the football them is very important. Dillard performed well last yae, I think you won nine games, you should have shared on some of that success. And that's unfortunate to hear that you didn't have the conversation. I'm going to have some conversations about how we can

110address that, absolutely. the band has also opened a lot of opportunities for me. I got to perform for the fox news and the orlando classics examine um. They really opened up a lost opportunities and that's why some people come to the school and us not having transportation, also decreases the rate of people getting into band or people coming to dillard. you guys need to be there, that's the bo rl bottom line, you're just as much of the football as the quarterback and receiver and I'm going to look into that. I do want to ask a follow-up, also to you. You made mention about the lack of study groups. I remember when I was in high school and I played sports, my coach was very very adamant that you know, the teams or portions of the

111team would get together and have to do homework and assignments and things like that together, so in affect we had our own private study groups that we had with our teammates and members of the coaching staff as well. Do you experience anything like that with youer dancing coach? it's not really the coaches I would say more so say the teachers. Even when I'm in class and I don't understand something, I will ask my teachers and I'm still confused and my peers try to explain it to me. And then they're like oh you didn't walk, and why didn't ask you me. And sometimes you can't explain to me than a kid. A kid's understanding is better than some teachers expect you to immediately know what they're teaching. for me, I take precalculus honors and I didn't

112have a al ge bra 2 teacher so sometimes, he was, why don't you know this. I would sometimes teach myself or ask my partner next to me because it's really hard. So the group would really help. I understand that, I thank you for bringing that to attention and kudos to you for taking precalculus, I could never handle such a course. Thank you. thank you, MS. Thompson? thank you, so first like my colleagues, thank you guys so much for taking your time to come and be prepared. You're not only unspir racing and like my colleague says, our future, I also want you to know that we hear you and here to support and work to take some of this burden off you. Adults like to say, you're going to save us, so you can save us

113with you. Along with elected funding and our ct funding as well. This is something I went to talk to and one of the things we really need to look into is funding these programs is like law and our health and hosa, stands more, I forgot, health science something. And I also want to remind the superintendent and my colleagues that we fund a strategic partnership department that should be helping connect these groups with potential funders. So it's not just on the broward education foundation, there is a department that we have that could be doing this. I also want to bring up middle school information fares, this is something that came up. Today lilly, you were talking about teachers that helped you decide where you want to go to high school. This is a missed opportunity to

114promote different law programs, schools with law programs, or different electives, because our middle schools are not aware of all the opportunities that they have. And I would really like to see. I know we had that big showcase bubuwe should reresit the e ideaea onon a reregial babasiand al targetinou7th, 6th, 7th grader so they know about opportunities coming into their high school. And final leon the mental health piece, I am so support that some of you have had the experience that you cannot get the help when you need or you feel like you're taking on your friend's burden. I know my colleagues and I rally want to make it better. And I know MS. MR. Shapiro and MS. Winter and MS. Washington are back there listening and want to kind of bridge this gap. Also reminds

115me of my frustration from last meeting that we spent 130,000 for a assessment that don't include students. And I want to make sure that our student voice right side included and I know the superintendent will bring that. But I, I think we need as a board to focus on bringing in more staffers and I know there is financial considerations but real people are the people that you need to talk to. Not a computer screen. We need not only more counselor but more school workers. I actually pulled out groups. Feeling overwhelmed all of those are possible we just need to figure out the funding and making sure that we put real people in the schools which is what you said you need. And I don't think changing job descriptions is going to fix anything. What the

116superintendent brought up is counselor are getting supplements to continue to do that that's because they're not getting paid enough to live without these supplements. I know something that my colleagues and I talked about, is finding way to pay people more so they can truly focus on this. And again, I just want to thank you guys. All so much for not only through sitting all of our comments, I know the chair has comments too but bringing your authentic self to this conversation. And I want you guys to know that you're heard and we're going to try to take some of this burden off you guys so you don't have to save us and I really appreciate all your time. thank you, MS. Rupert? thank you, MADAM Chair. What over arching theme from today, I think our

117students expressed is that they need more personalization for careers, classes for connecting with their brace advisor, there is counselors. That's what our private schools do and they do it very well. So every student, is feels nurtures and have a taylor opportunity for their education moving forward. And if we start at the k-level, so k-12 instead of a 6-12 career kind of push, this will increase awareness. We've done it at some of our elementary schools but what there really needs to be an all-out foundation built into k-12 not just 6-12. I will speak about this you shall during the diversity committee during that section of our workshop. I do appreciate my colleagues for personalizing and making it a bert experience for you all. And I support a budget conversation about doubling our counseloring and mental health

118services and I love the idea of group counseling. That's just a great idea. Thank you to all the students who shared their experiences today, it's nerve racking to be in this room and speak up, and speak out, little secret, I still get nervous and in there as well. So thank you for caring about not just yourselves but all students district wide. You guys are awesome and a fantastic generation. So thank you so much. Wish I could be there. thank you, and I'll finish this up. Thank you, every one has said this but I just also want to reiterate it, thank you all so much for coming today. It is not easy to is sit in front of a room of adults that you MAY, that you know are the decision-makers in you know, what is

119really impacting your life at this time and it's really important for us to be able to understand what is happening in a classroom because we make decisions here at the board level with one thing in find, and if we don't understand, how it translates into a classroom, then we're just making decisions blindly. And I think it's been evidence in the conversation that we've had here today that what we think is happening, is not really happening in the classroom. And as a 32-year teacher, knew that already because I would often say, what the heck are they thinking, why are they making us do this. And it's just because you have a plan, you talk to people and make a plan and when you implement it, it's really important to go back and see how that plan

120worked out. It's frustrating for me, I spent the last couple of weeks talking to principal who's are just, I just had my budget conference and they have this look of despair, and we were clear that we didn't want this to impact schools. But it was clear to the principals and all of you have made comments on that it is, translating and hitting our schools probably harder than it's hitting anywhere else. Some of that is because we're losing students and when you have less students, you get less money into the schools. But some of that is just also that I think at the district level, we need to do and DR. Hepburn knows this because we've already had a discussion about it, a better job of helping the schools navigate what those differences are. Also you

121mentioned a number of you mentioned school voice, so it also would like to ask all of you advocate for better funding for schools because there are a number of things happening at the state level that we cannot control. So you will be our future leaders, you are their bosz just like you're our bosses sort of as voting people once you become voters, you're going to fire and hire people who make decisions on a legislative level. Now is the time to get of them. The state of florida gets about 9,000 a student. The national average is 20,000. The state of mississippi sfends more on education thant state of florida. Let that sink in, people say you can figure it out, that's not necessarily the voice. Please use your voice for our legislators they also require us

122to do certain things that don't allow you to do some of the things that you want to do. I want to mention a couple of other things, so I think athletic MAY be getting a bit of a bad rap, you have to keep in mind that they charge people to participate in their activities so they are in instances self funded but they do also get money from the district so DR. Hepburn, we need to find out why, there is no excuse ever that students that participating in a district activities don't have transportation to get there. Regardless if it's athletic or academic, we've also had that conversation. we've got a number of academic things like Mckyle from bear middle school, you want a if he nom that will opportunity to go go to a national competition,

123it should every be a concern how you get there. And it's been an on fwg discussion that we've had. And as thompson pointed out, we have a definitely of extra taoej you can pickup. We have lots of companies that want to help. And what we ask them to help with are these miner things and we need to look at that a different way and see how they can help across the board and more student related things as opposed to, programs or things of that nature, getting things in. As I, was at the choral springs po lit forum, a number of times, they said why don't you care about our mental health? Which I think we're echoing, we're saying, we have staff and they're not available. And it was frustrating for me, we spent millions of

124dollars, millions of dollars on things for mental health that we think will work but it's very clear today that what we need to do is not programs but people. And with that, I would ask the superintendent we have mental health coordinators that we funded. We have suicide prevention. I don't think any of the students here are even aware that there are people beyond guidance counselors that the district has funded and I know they go to different places but I don't think we're using the staff that we have in a way that are necessary for the students that are here. The mental health coordinator can do some of the support groups that we've asked about, they could maybe, monday there at one school, tuesday at another, where there are organizing these support groups to help students

125with that resiliency, with some of the things that they're struggling with to help them as MS. Alhadeff did have resiliency and be able to get through that. We said that we should let kids be kids, I agree 100 percent. Why is it that in middle school we're trying to finish up high school and in high school, we're trying to finish up college and in college, we want to hurry up that. You're an adult for a really really long time can a kid for a short period of time. So as a society, we made that a thing, the ap classes and you can see it in the conversation that students are having, you want more elective but also want to have more opportunity for more academic things. It's a controversy that you play within yourselves and

126we think in society, we want to offer you those amazing opportunity but also want you to be kids. So that's where that academic burn outcomes in. Sol if we stop offering as many things you would have less choices but then you'd be mad because all your other friends would have more unts to increase their gpa examine have more college credits. I don't know how to solve this problem just pounting it out that when we were in high school, we had vaneds classes. We didn't have the ace and the cambridge -- cambridge and ace are the same thing, duel enrollment and we all turned out pret okay and we're still adults moving along in that time frame. So I think, students put a lot of pressure on themselves because they see a lot of opportunities and

127they don't want to MISS Out on anything. I get it 100 percent but you also have to learn to brief. Take a step back and say, I really like art, I like drawing, I like dancing I like all of these things, I have to build that into my schedule and we have to allow you the opportunity not just for academics but for those down times for you to be able to breathe. So those are some of my main things, I was going to ask the same question DR. Hepburn did because we were told canvass was a good place. We offer a scholarship, I run a foundation that ones a scholarship and we struggle for students to apply. It's a $4,000 scholarship. I heard they have money to give students. I would love to have another

128conversation even maybe just a focus group with your dashboard to figure out how we do a better job. I know brace advisors as one mentioned, I think lee anndra has a news advise ago, somebody did can there is a link, they've been doing that for a long time, I know when I was a teacher, our advisor did that, but if you don't have the time to look for them, that's important because there is a lot of money going unallocated because people just aren't applying. And some of them are really simple. My son won 1,000 to write about why he likes being an american. Right but you have to take the time to figure out which scholarships meet the things and skills that you have. So I appreciate using focus, we have never used that before.

129It makes us happy to hear that focus is is amazing, we don't hear that either. Thank you for all of the suggestions that are on there. And I'll end with this, we think of safety, we often think about, sorry. I don't normally go over my time. When we think about safety, we think about metal detectors and active shooters and all that. It was interesting to hear that cleanliness, the bathrooms are dirty, ub stances, I heard yesterday, people don't go to the bathroom because they don't want to deal with people vaping in the bathroom. Those are low hanging groups to help you feel safe. If students and staff don't feel safe in our schools, we can never expect them to learn anything. Thank you again for coming and DR. Hepburn is going to end. MADAM. yes,

130MADAM Chair. Thank you board and public. First of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for demonstrating courage, fortitude and all those essential skills to provide us feedback. I do have a motto and feedback, I want to understand your lived experiences because it is very important to us, we get that feedback to ensure that we're following through and changing our practices and our strategies just to make sure you have the best learning experiment and opportunities everything that is going to help you excel post secondary. One other things I want you to realize as we started a journey to continue to do better, landyn, alana, who and the rest of the students advisor group that gives me feedback on a monthly basis that has helped us really iterate and be innovative around our work. But

131I want everybody to understand that you're in a very competitive environment, right. It sounds like your principal is trying to push you. It's continue going to be easier. By I also heard you want a well rounded education. I have kids of my own, one just graduated recently and talked about smft same things that you guys dealt with early on. But there is a lot of opportunities that we have to make sure that we're providing certain levers to help you demonstrate the stamina that you need for your day-to-day, I also heard that you want more rig or. Especially for some kids, I want more rig or, I don't want any surprises when I get to the freshman year. and I also heard from high school people that you want more rig or also. I didn't hear

132things about physical activities, we need you to make sure that you engage in physical activities, these are great activities for your mental health and learn to go persevere, and coaches who are yelling at you, lasario knows, has that helped you your coaches? yes, because the school programs helped me with life because I know when I get into college, I'll know how to juggle everything. Being until 8:00 o'clock, you have a schedule and go home and eat examine go to sleep. It actually does help. all those additional supplemental extracurricular activities that we have to ten courage our students to engage in. But we have to make sure those opportunities are dear at the school and evaluate and assess. And also for the parents, I think we have some parents in the students. We should parents in

133the audience, let's give a round of applause to our parents. You have some successful young men and young ladies, looking forward to what they accomplish in the future. We know they wouldn't be where you are. Lea this goes out to you, if you're going to college or post secondary, locally, we have yourself a job in early learning, thank you for all that you do. Continue to advocate, continue providing feedback, it's going to help us as a school district get better quicker. Go ahead landyn. I just want to share my gratitude for having us. MS. Leonardi, thank you for initialing this. This is a testament of how amazing our students are at broward schools. It would be wrong if I I didn't recognize the tremendous improvement that DR. Hepburn and cabinet have done through the year.

134I know all the things that were shared with DR. Hepburn and cabinet will be addressed and I appreciate you for including us. And finally I want to end by thanking the people who made this happen. It was a collected effort to mack this happen and I'm incredibly grateful for the staff that supported this initiative. Thank you. thank you so much. [Applause] Okok, we're going to tata a a fifi-minine reress before we go ititem nber r thank you and welcome back to the school board workshop. The next item is the diversity committee report. Thank you all for coming today. I will now turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. thank you. MADAM Chair and board we have MS. Nanit pier-grant who will move on the presentation. I'm going to have to forgo my presentation

135since we're running so behind and I'm going to go into presenting who is here. Some board committee members have comments and recommendations. So, first, what time is it is it still 11:30. Good morning, board members, staff and members of the public. Today the diverse committee is having their response report. Before we begin, I would like to thank MS. Williams, MS. Russell and MS. Latore for their unwaivering support. Their work is invaluable to this committee. Without them, this committee would not be as efficient as it is. And I want to thank the committee members and past chairs, hopefully that was suppose to be here today but hopefully they will be here soon. I would like to thank our committee members, our past chairs today, well they're not but these individual make up a diverse group of

136people who aids this committee in its work to achieve equitable work. You would also like to guf a huge shout out school observing their programs was amazing and we recommend the school duplicate their efforts. Last but not least, I want to thank the original of the ccc settlement as well as MS. Miller and sparks. Because of this advocacy, this committee would not exist. Today you will hear from the committee members, this year's report was collaborative efforts that included several other advisories. We hope that this report will not only improve but maintain the ex tense that the ski committee strives to go. We have DR. Tacma, corey sheer, winceer burgeson excuse me. Rashould ied gray and myself. And I would like to turn it over to MR. Sparks who will give us historical background of the

137ccc settlement for those board members who are new. thank you, MADAM Chair, my name is james, I'm one of the original members of ccc, phase one, we go back, MS. Batista, we were there from the beginning. And I look at it, and they tell me we cannot teach history, anymore. What do we have to do to make a difference? We had to change history, we'll never know how to change the future. I listened to the kids and the kids were talking about situations and circumstances that were going on in their schools. Those are the same that we at ccc were trying to bring about. Before broward county used to have george alan who did everything that went for the black community. When this board wanted to do something, they went to alan, they gave him

138a check and they go do it. We at ccc decided that we didn't want to do that, that's why we became citizen concern for our children, not just the attorney not just the person getting paid. We wanted to make a difference, as you saw she named all the board. You sent people to represent your schools rather than your community and let them tell you about what is going on in their schools. i know my schools in my area, you know what I mean? I even know about some of the things in your yours too? So what better than the people. But what happens is when the people come and you make recommendations and you people up there don't listen, that's a problem. I look at one of the things, it says textbook. Most of the

139schools have the required textbooks. But as a problem with that statement, why would it say most of the schools, it should say every school in broward county should have the textbooks. And that's what the diversity community is about. And that's I couldn't need them to go along and check out everything that is going on along in the school and make recommendations. Now seeing a statement, what do you do as a board, not do anything about it? In the next few months, we'll see what is happening. You know, you have to take my hat out to the superintendent, I have seen a lot of changes. I came back with frank pencedeli, he said if I don't say we're going to do it, we ain't going to do it and that was it. That was the negotiations,

140am I right, MS. Batista. ? Okay, well, well anyway, what I'm saying, we have a good group of people in this community. We have a good committee and this committee needs your help. And they need your help, so now we need to you listen to them and you take their suggestions. You know what you need at your school. You know what you don't, why would one school look one way and the other look another way. I have four girls and listen, those girls was growing fast. And all of them would need shoes at one time, but guess what? I was not able to get them all choose at one time. But I would try to fix the ones that could be fixed. I tried to get ones that needed shoes and when it came around,

141then the one that didn't get shoes, I go back and get them. Sometimes we don't go back, we just keep going. At what point, we're going to be able to work with the committee and let's use the information thth they've given us. Chair, I ththk you, mam air r d d scschool arard and I than you MR. Supentntendent. thank you. thank you, MR. Sparks. So we're going to go into the members in order I think we're in order of the conditions but if not, I have them in order that they have. Most of what you hear will echo what your students spoke about earlier today when they were having their presentation. So we'll start with you, DR. Gani. good morning and thank you for the opportunities to speak with you today. My name is DR.

142Fahima I'm a board certified behavior analyst examine I've been working with the families across dade and broward county. I'm here as a diversity community member to speak around goals on equity and student support. Especially in the context of condition three based on our ccc settlement graoe. Access to recommendeding behavior technician, or rbt services that are medically necessary and cover through a child private experience or medicaid. It does not equitable across campuses, whether an rbt can work with the student often depends on policy but on principal's depression. That means two receiving identical insurance funed report MAY have difference based on where they're enrolled. It's an equity you shall. Broward county is one of the most diverse students in florida serving students from socio economic and cultural back grounds. For many families, schools is the only place

143where their child has access to structure and consistent learning and therapeutic services. Others have limited or denied their presence despite the services being funded externally and required by healthcare plans. Under florida law, specifically house bill 255, school districts are required to permit qualified proif at instructional personnel, such as RBTs to deliver services to students on school grounds. These are not only recognized under providers under private insurances. But they also work under the supervision -- DR. Gani, hold on. hold on one minute. [We'll take a short recess until we figure out what is going on] [Board in recess] thank you and welcome back to the school board workshop and we'll continue with your diversity committee report. thank you, so I will continue where I left off. So under florida law, specifically house bill 255 school districts

144are required to require personnel such as rbt to deliver service to see students on school grounds. These professionals are not only recognized providers under medicaid and private experience but also work upped the supervision of board analyst. That are taylor to see each student's needs align withing continue three which calls for continue standard of service across all schools, I respectfully recommend a recommendation equitable access to rbt services in all schools. The goal here is not to remove school base dis stressing entirely but rather to provide clear ubdsing so families and providers can work from the same understanding and set of expectations, specifically I would like to offer the following collaborative recommendations. One, create a uniform district policy that clearly defines the role of RBTs as private instructional personnel assuring campuses in accordance with state law. Two,

145develop a standardized on boarding and documentation process for RBTs similar to the procedure already in place to ensure safety professionalism and clarity. Three provide training to school leaders and staff so that purpose, scope and rbt service right side well understood and implemented consistent ly across all businesses. And rbt sefbses are being utilized allowing the district to identify patterns and barriers to access examine intervene when necessary. These steps will not only support compliance with florida regulations but also advance the district's commitment to equity and excellence, more importantly they will help ensure that no student is denied services that they're allowed them. I believe we all share the same goal to create an educational environment where ever students regardless of ability, background or school is given the tools and supports need today succeed. By working together to

146create a consistent transparent access, we will be one step closer to that goal. Thank you for your time and consideration and I look forward to your support. thank you, DR. Ghani, I appreciate that. good morning. Chair, superintendent, members of the board. Members and community stakeholders thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you. Today I'll be covering conditions five and six of the ccc settlement. the theme is never judge a book its cover. Often fails to cap constituter whole story, zip codes and assumptions of neighborhood do not design the spirit efforts or excellence within our school. Most of our most impactful schools don't always make headlines but they're rich in community fuelled by committed educators is sustained by parents and grandparents who deeply care. These demonstrate the best practices that deserve to be recognized and

147replicated. As a district we have the responsibility not only to highlight success fwu to ensure it's shared whether it's a school is academic thriving or excelling in community engagement, they must be ensured to all. Equity is about aoek al inputs it's about giving the school what it needs to succeed. The 2024 annual report stauts that one out of four indicators have been met. This is for athletic and extra curricular activities. Proves a level of consistency. A degrees with the findings, 14 schools that have fields that require continuous service to sustain normal and high school activities. During all school visits we in deed observe unsatisfactory conditions, however the continuous service. The district explain the schools that were there and the process of repairs examine renovations. However, there was no explanation of the schools that were missing

148needed items. no mention of if and when those items will be provided. Have school who took part in ms a a a levels at all schools so parents are aware. We have three recommendations. This is the first, provide the diverse committee to find the conditions as athletic communities as satisfactory or unsatisfactory during annual site visits. Recommendation two, provide a de tailed explanation of what is satisfactory versus what is unsatisfactory. And three, adopt a policy of procedure for collection, distribution and online availability of comprehensive list of student initialed clubs and programs all at middle and high school levels. Next, media centers. A resource hidden in plain sight as we continue to explore equity and collaboration across our district, I would like to highlight walter c young middle school. The school appears to be well resourced public

149county library located in the city of pen brooke pines. In theory this should be an incredible asset in reality, students are unable to use the library during the school day due to safety concerns time to unrestricted access. Responsible for the maipt ens for a facility it does not control. This is a clear example of how appearances can be misleading. A school MAY be well equipped on paper but the day-to-day experience tells another story. As a district, we must ensure that shared resources like this support our students not at the school challenges. The 2024-25 annual report states that two of the six indicators have been met. The most significant unmet indicator is 6.3 which reads budget expenditure, as defined bit advance ed accreditization. For the last three years, 9:60 cents in high schools. In the district's

1502024 unindicated that -- all elementary, 3 percent of middle school, zero percent of high schools and 7 percent of combined and centers met the standard for the 21-22 school year. Our recommendation for this would be request the department of innovative provide yearly update to school board for proeer vieeding support to non compliant schools. And future report indicate increase or decrease, recommendation three request school board consider updating media funding unchanged since the 2000 settlement. And recommendation four, indicator 6.4 statutory required, request the board prioritize this. In the media center district sited 100 percent compliance but offered no explanation of who, what those plans look like or how w we'r're measuring g th effectctivess. One scolol still had no media access to the center. That's not equity. And athletics, the lack of quefd valuation, delayed work orders

151and unclear policy for club listing continues to disadvantage students based on the school they attend. a patch work of responsibility is not a system. We must move from intention to impact. Next, I would like to move to give a shout out to my principal MS. Padora from western high school and davie. On behalf of the senior class of western high school, our feyserless leader and hands-on mentor. From day one, she has demonstrated leadership. Her leadership is not not only inspiring it's transformative. Additionally on behalf of the faculty and wider community, we respectfully request clarification on the status and next steps for our proposed wellness center. With increasing male suicide rates, rule rulings immigration status and economic uncertainity, the weight being carried by our black and brown communities is undeniable. This center is more than a

152proposal it's a life line. A critical hub for healing and meaningful support for our students around the schools and in davie. This morning, I listened for students. They were clear, many don't know where to go or how to talk about what is weighing them down. As educators, we wear many hats, counselor, protectors, advocating often not seen but deeply felt. We experienced the heart break of two student suicide in the past three years, as we observe mental health, our students are calling on us not as teachers but as districts to respond with compassion and action. Why do we wage or the mental health of adolescent. We also extend our well welcome to adam cervera, our new board member. We invite you to experience the incredible work happening here. Our doors with always welcome. Let us continue

153to move forward together at the wild cat way. Thank you for your time and attention and your continued commitment to our students, but I'm not done yet, thank you MADAM Chair. Honoring a true champion my MADAM Chair, grant, as she steps down, we take this moment to celebrate a leader who's impact has been profound and lasting. Norni has been an invaluable resource advocating and serving with unmatched dedication and heart in her words, we do it for the babies, I get emotional. Her passion and energy are unwaivering call for action. Learned so much from her, her leadership has been built a compass and catalyst, not only a powerful advocate, she is my friend, my sis, somebody who presents and lifts and strengthens those around her. She has fought for the schools and communities who are too

154often overlooked and MISS Tafpd. With conviction clarity, she is a force to be wreck end with, we know that. And of course her her signature phrase trash, when sis says it's a full statement a reminder to raise the bar and demand better. Sis, you deserve your flower, we honor and you thank you for everything. thank you. Conviction and demand better. Sis, you deserve your flower, we honor and you thank you for everything. Thank you. okay, girl. Thank you. You brought me flowers, thank you. We're going to MR. Furgeson and MR. Ace, who will be talking about. good afternoon, MADAM Chair, superintendent to everybody, on the dais. I've come to you to talk about a proactive plan for putting into a five-year capital plan some recommendations and suggestions for what things we have observed for safety

155and facilities, we understand that our facilities, there are some opportunity that great things that going on for our facilities. Dealing with security issues, at the school that we went out and observed, 90 percent of the schools have blind spots, have blind spots with their cameras and they have issued with just safety words it is, chip where people will trip and fall. Some of the challenges that they're putting as replaced towel but not explaining thaez towers have holes in them and our students and staff can trip over them and fall. And then when the order is briefly put in, it's put in as something cosmetic. It is causing a repetitive problem at most of our schools, especially when you go into a cafeteria and you can see like 25 tiles that need to be replaced because

156of safety issues. We like to recommend that the school board, to direct the superintendent to organize a staff to prom ly address the issues. Whether it's working on the sidewalk where the tree is lifting up the sidewalk and something that will cause a safety hazard. There are some facilities that we talked into unfortunately, that has pest control issues. To the extent where we found a disconnect with the facility manager in the principal's knowing who to directly contact and to expect to get rid of rodents. And you've got a couple of schools but nobody came out. So no holes were plugged up, so according, of course, the road -- rodents continue to come. But we must take a proactive point that our schools are safe from my type of infestation that come. The facilities some of

157them what I call a refresh, a fresh point job or pressure wash to bring the school into an environment where staff and students will come to a student environment. Shout out to sto, any issues they got on the phone and called MR. Doreset or the grounds committee to come in and address those issues. But we would like to recommend where a plan be put in place where every year there is a facility assessment that will come in and look at every school to assess the needs that would need to be done within the year or within the next five years and to allocate this into your capital budget where we know where we're going and where we're keeping our facilities up to par. When we're talking about competing and losing students to charter schools and

158private schools we're competing on the academic level, on our facility level when they come in and tour our schools, what do they see? What do they smell? How are they appearing? So we're recommending that the board address, the concerns where a facility team will come out on the yearly basis, and do a facility assessment. And according to that facility, assessment put an action plan in place where our schools can get to a premier place and stay that way within the next five years. Thank you for your time and patience. rasheed are were you going to say anything? Took care of it for you, okay. And last we have MR. Shear. You're up. thank you, chair grant. My name is corey shear and I'm a son of broward student of peters elementary, horizon element reebsinger lauderdale

159elementary, go panthers and blanche ely school. Broward schools is people. And they're great people. We've been built with the foundation of great people amongst us. Broward county school students continue to excel, I hope you're informed to go and actually require about the issues that were brought up here examine to add not just give ask questions or give speeches or plat tudes. My board member p DR. Holness mentioned the need for a-rated, thank you, for a-rated district in everything from esthetics, I heard that. End up spelling it right here, to mental health initiatives and care. I'm proud to say that, amar, from every grades and now a resident of university of florida, was in tallahassee advocating for increased mental health funding. It's good to feel proud in what we've done so far. And he's a mentee

160and mentor. We honor alana, for presence she made me cry as stud inter advisor in the diversity committee. She is positioning herself to be great but great for others. And we stand in the foundation of stein and others, and MR. Spark thank you for being here today, I love you, I appreciate you my brother. We talked to equity and facilities, sadly again we experienced ship, ship, smells, holes, incomplete work orders and paint feeling off walls, huge. Maximo must be fully implemented, fully not faly not with lack of purpose, practical purpose like the students brought to you all today. You have to make sure that you go back from this today and say, we are going to get this right, we're going to fix all of these issues, at each school and we're going to start,

161if we have to school by school and not just look at every school, first start with the first school and work all the day to the last. Maxmo must be used and must result in better. Failure to do this, can result with students being better off at home than in a broward county school and that is being said and that is the truth in some of our schools and you have to endeavor that it's never true for any student for any reason. I just have to thank you so much. We hear you wh, it comes to our chair, we're so thankful. And by the wai, the school staff members are the part of the committee, even though they can't be chair, they are vital because they inform us. They give us input and also listen.

162They're a very important part of the committee. Please go back and start working, don't, go to a review, let's start working right away and at the same time, also review and come back and look at, you know, take looks where we are and how the progress is going. But the first step is the first step. Thank you. thank you so much. That's it for our members. And I know that we're going to turn it over to you, but I want today allow MR. Sparks to round us out and when the board have questions and concerns they can do so. So MR. Sparks, thank you so much. thank you. I want to just say, I hope everybody was really listening it brought me back to a point. We went to federal court and we had a

163federal court order, MS. Batista, the judge ordered that any school that had a lock on it or door, we can go in and look at and take pictures and we did. We found a school that had no computer. So we went to court and told the judge, so when we were sitting in court, they soed pictures, they had that they had computers. They had 20 boxes that said computers on the news. Then we got called from the news and said, oh yaf, the boxes are here but there is no computers in there. So what I'm saying, that's how desperate the school system at the time. And that's how they found the solution to a problem. I hope you guys are not like that, particular group of board memebers what good is sending boxes for school

164to kids that don't have schools. Why say, we don't have them, we're going to get them. But you're going to try to fool the people in the situation. And I was listening to the kids today and I heard you all responded. Don't fool those kids. Everybody that says you're going to go do something do something, that's what this committee is about. We want to see the things done. We had, school that we went to that had, in 1995, were using a 1987 world atlas and encyclopedias. Those are things that we were dealing with. when you say we're an a-school, let's take sure that every student has access to that a-facility. And that's including building, that's including books, that's including techology and all the other nine points. And I want to thank you guys, I've seen

165a big improvement but we've got a long way to go. Thank you. thank you, MR. Sparks. Thank you, superintendent, DR. Superintendent and board memebers for allowing us to present today. I hope you have an opportunity to look over the report. We worked really hard on that and really take our recommendations in consideration. It was a collaborative effort as I mentioned earlier, I'm always trying to be collaborative. So we look forward to your feedback and whatever questions you MAY have. Thank you so much for the opportunity. thank you, board member thompson. I just have a question for the superintendent. We heard facilities concerns, we've been told there is a facility assessment happening, when can we expect that to come bang to the board? yes, thank you MS. Thompson, for the question, we should have that by

166the end of JULY at the latest. I think they're wrapping that up and collecting in the data in the reporting format. it will come as a report? no, it will come to a workshop so we can review as a board. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, I'd like to thank the diversity committee for your wholehearted commitment and dedication to the work. I appreciate each and every one of you. And thank you to our chair, our wonderful chair for all of our leadership on the committee. So DR. Hepburn, I have a couple of questions. The committee provided really detailed thorough information. How will you use this information on recommendations going forward? thanks for the question, DR. Holness. We've already had the report and team and I have been in cabinet revicing the action plan to

167close gaps that they've identified in the report. okay, so I would imagine some of the content of the plan would volve short-term as well as long term? correct, short-term that we can close gaps for this coming year and long term, the long term things is the same as our facility. I shared some of things when it comes to some of our facilities. Many of those things that take a long time to be creative and it's going to take sometime, it's a lot of hard position by this board of how we tackle some of our most outrageous concerns. More to come on that but we've got long term and short tem access test. Thu, we've mentioned that we've got a long improve but we've got a long way to go. And I would agree with you

168on that. But I will tell you that we're going to remain resolute. We're going to continue to be diligent to make sure that we are in compliance and we're fulfilling the recommendations from the committee, I think this is a very important committee. And I thank you sir for your input as well. So DR. Hepburn I have a few questions on the summary of the finding. And before I mention that, I would like to just make a comment on the wall to see library issue. I was a former teach at walter c many years ago, and it was discussed that it was discovered through too access that it is impact in student use of the library. Can you speak to that? And then I will have more comments on the content? no, I can't currently speak

169to that, I ll not evenenask e team. I wawant toto go and keke a a ok a at myse.. I want to see what the committee is talking about. And if it's city owned property we can talk to the mayor or city manager to figure out how we can address it. I see DR. Lozano raising his hand. so DR. Paul and I have been talking about it, by next school year, it will be secured and totally fenced off so that it will be a separation from the library and the school. thank you, doctor. okay, so doctor lozano in the upcoming school year, that will no longer be an issue? yes, sir. I have a few more questions, when you look at the summary, it says the committee observed that some schools allowed technology to be

170checked out and some did not, so DR. Hepburn, I know we passed an item that coming out AUGUST 11, all students will have laptops. So I would like to you to assure the committee of what we voted on and that this particular concern will not be an issue in the upcoming school year? yes, you are correct. That will not be a concern for the upcoming school year. okay, and as we continue to mention, the committee seeks student achievement and graduation rate data, it's broken down by demographic, it's indicated here that this remains an on going issue. Can you respond to that concern? certainly, I have to talk to the committee, we do provide the information to the public, I just need to find out more of how they want to receive it if it's something

171separate than what we know vieed to the board. yeah, I can recall that, this information was requested in the past. I cannot recall when but it seems familiar. So I hope that whatever they're looking for can be provided in the form that they need it. we can talk about it in the committee. You know we have it available for our workshops to have hopefully we'll have graduation data by then. I highly doubt it t it comes out in the fall but we publish that. I understand. It also mentioned that athletic seems to be fewer in middle school. Is that factual? And if it is, there a reason? so, I know patty brown is gone but DR. Wanza MAY be able to back me up. I'm going to put my principal hat on, middle school, quarter

172to half the sizes of a high school. So you usually stick with the big three or four, basketball, soccer, sometimes you MAY have softball or baseball but often not. So you don't have all the same amount of sports as a high school and middle and then they don't have the facilities similar to high school, so it limits what they can do. I know, in past districts I've worked at past schools, because it does not allow every student to participate in sports, usually all can participate in track and field but for a basketball, you try to do, what do you call those? I'm having, you used to call them in college also, intermural sports to give kids additional opportunity to participate. I don't know if the committee is referring for inconsistency from middle school to middle

173school if that's the point we're making. So we can look at middle school to middle school to see if there is inconsistent to access to similar sports? okay, so MADAM Share. we do 8 sports. Soccer, cross country, golf, basketball, track and field, flag football, volleyball, and floor ball. okay. I don't think. So, again, based on the not from MS. Pierre-grant, it MAY be from school do school. inconsistency from middle school to high school. okay, if we have team to fill out there, we'll work with partners to get a equipment and stuff. understand. Board member, bulman, I'm not finished but if you want to make a comment on that, you can. If you want to comment, chair? Stranhan. she got straight hands. I'm sorry, I thought I heard stran han. couple more things and then I'm

174done. I remember seeing this in the last concern, there is concern with media centers not having media specialist. Is this a requirement? And why would some media centers have and some not? it's going to take a couple of years to change that because of the sheer volume of media clerks we have staffed many our schools. so, I guess if I'm hearing you correctly, are we -- it's an ongoing process but with hen we ear looking at attrition in terms of refilling those needed clerks as opposed to hiring media specialists?Frjts that's correct, as we lose them, we encourage the schools -- and we encourage nem to find media clerks, it's going the take a couple of years, it's something we can't do in one year. and my last comment, MADAM Chair, and thank you for the

175time, I'll also like to mention that MS. Grant, I appreciate your service, your leadership. I am very much impressed with your dead a -- your dedication, how you've led the diversity committee. You've texted me a a few times and we've had conversations about issues you see you're so passionate about and would like to see resolved and I hope this is just a pause for you because the district would love to continue to have you and thank you so much. you sure? I am sure. and thank you so much, we appreciate you, thank you. thank you so much. I just -- DR. Superintendent, I just wanted to make mention about the walter c young thing, go ahead. the issue isn't offense that's separating the public from school facilities or school faculty and students, it's the farting

176that children do not have access to a media center at all. That's a problem. It's not security in terms of building a fence or it's -- you know, we're stringing to build brains here, the kids need access to a media center. I naoets a physical thing, they can have access. the principal stated it's security issue based on new legislation that they can't let the kids come in there, they don't have is enough personnel, it's no a fencing issue, so you went over there and probably figured it out, we're getting that information now, it's public library, it's a broward county public library and our students cannot have access to it because the principal does not want the general public with the children rightfully so. so, DR. Hepburn, is that a partnership use? I am hoping --

177I'm not expect tog have all the answers today but I'm hoping that can be looked into. yeah, absolutely. I'm going to the take a visit there myself, if I need the talk to the powers that be in the county or the city, we'll figure out access for our students. thank you, MADAM Chair, I appreciate it. thank you, DR. Zeman? thanks. Diversity is really in some sense and maybe it's the committee's attention an issue about compliance, the result of a legal settlement and we have strict format and structure, we have adversity committee, my belief though is that broward county's history with racism would always force broward county public schools to have a diversity committee. Amongst the least offensive things in broward county was strict neighborhood segregation, strict school segregation, overt redlining and in 1970 when I

178was 7 years old, we allowed black people to go op the -- on the beach. We don't need a diversity committee because of a settle. , we need a diversity committee because of the our history in broward county and it's not going to go away and we need to continue to be serious about these things and I'm grateful for the recommendations in this report. I went to markham elementary school last week, if you have been to markham and see the band-aid we have there of a school, it's a bunch of portables strapped together in the middle of a construction zone with 600 title 1 students trying to get an education. The walk-through cafeteria's the size of this table between our chief auditor and MS. Bulman for 600 skids -- kids to get lufrmg every day.

179Do you think we have a perception of racial disparity in our schools? we sure do. And in some cases we have a reality of it and we need to know about it so that we can move forward and do much better. A particular note to me was the idea of an annual facility conditions assessment. We don't need an engineer to go to markham elementary school to say there's disparate treatment of students in pompano beach, the mayor came with us and she was shocked at the conditions. She had gotten a lot of notice and is e-mails about it but walking through it is different than having somebody call or e-mail you about it. We need to be a-rated in things way beyond academics because schools don't just kids raoe,d writing and arithmetic, they do a hell

180of a lot more. I'm fascinated with that, whether you describe it as being the best school in the united states, or being a rated, you can pick your logo, and we have work to do. The second thing that struck me was the work about people and we were kind of silent about this but as long as we have principals recruiting staff, it will always be difficult to have schools staffed with the same quality of leadership and quality of instructional staff and quality of media specialists or media clerk, custodial workers, the whole thing where it's the hardest to work and it's the hardest to work in our schools where we have lowest income, greatest diversity and the like, and the report to my knowledge was silent about that but that's a real issue. Other districts including

181the one that our superintendent came from have a different policy about staffing teacher positions where people get extra pay and extra career rewards for teaching in our hardest schools. It's something we need the think about like a real systematic solution to our history to ensure that schools with high levels of racial disparity, high levels of ethnic disparity, high levels of whatever you want to call it contributes to the beautiful diversity of broward county, where there are differences many those, we need to have the best talent and make sure going forward as well, these recommendations will get serious consideration, I hope we do these and more, we need the make sure the reality is that we believe in equity and equity is not about equal inputs but it is about achieving the potential for everybody on

182the back end and if that costs us more on the front end, all the better. we have whatever money we have and we need the aloelocate it in a way that's reflective of the values of broward county because the people of broward county believe in everybody having the opportunity to fulfill their GOD given potential. Thank you for your service. thank you. MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM Chair. I also would like to express my gratitude o the committee for putting this report together and sharing your input for us. I have some questions I'm going direct to the superintendent in regards to the summary of findings. I noticed on here and we heard from the gentleman regarding a five year capital plan, according to the summary, it statuses the district has not done a five year capital

183plan since the smart bond was passed. If I'm not mistaken with dates, that was in 2014. What has happened in the last 11 years that has prevented this capital plan from being implemented? I can't speak to the past 11 years, in summer we are creating ago new committee to work on our long range facilities plan which is essentially your capital plan which is utilizing data from the fca and other specific resources to provide information to the board to help facilitate some decision making as we move forward because we have a lot of facility issues in our district and it's going to be some tough decisions, some tough work moving forward. understood, MR. Superintendent, thank you for that. I want to touch on the these findings regard thing media centers and a lack of certified media

184specialists within our schools. MR. Superintendent, do we know how many media specialists are currently employed by the district? yes, I've had to provide it this the follow-up, I don't have the numbers, we have a number of media specialists and number of media clerks per school, so we can provide that to the entire board as a follow-up. I don't have the numbers in front mf -- of me. do you know if the clerks out number the specialists? I can't say, I think -- do you have it, DR. Wilson, go ahead. Thank you. good afternoon, DR. Wilson, director of innovative learning, we have roughly 127, roughly, clerk spaces available now for hire and over 100 media specialists at each site and that's -- those are rough numbers but it's definitely over 100. we have been doing on

185a yearly basis and we've increased our training and candidates for media specialists by 40 where we do training to basically encourage our principals to identify an individual that can transfer their skills from the the certification that they have and go through our program where they can become certified media specialists and that's something we've been working on diligently for the past couple of years but we have those vacancy and is we support the clerks at the schools as it stands. I want to make sure I understand. There's 127 media clerk positions that we're seeking to hire individuals for. roughly, that is correct. and we have approximately 100 media specialist that is are currently employed by the county? a little over 100, I have to to verify the numbers but it is about half of media clerks.

186DR. Wilson, we don't have 127 vacancies for media clerks, we have 127 media position -- media clerk positions with people in them. yes. thank you, I wanted to clarify that, thank you. my apologies. Er our media specialists tasks ensuring media appropriate books are in the schools? yes. what we do is we provide training every two weeks for our immediatemedia clerks because by contract, they can only checkbooks out of the media spaces, so my team works with those individuals so that we have proper subpoena -- support at the schools and we have been doing pop-up libraries of various schoolers across the district this year to show that the media centers which are really innovate I have commons 4720, how those media spaces should be, they should not be deserts of just books, it should be an

187interactive space where you can have project based learning going on, you have more digital access as well as books. So, we support those schools that have the clerks but we also do the same training with our media specialists and those two groups collaborate every two weeks. thank you, ma'am. MS. Batista, under section 1006.28 of the florida statute, specifically subsection 2, does this board, myself included, and my colleagues, hold any ultimate responsibility for the implementation of these library programs and ultimately the media specialists and whether or not they are in compliance with assuring that age appropriate books are kept in our schools' libraries? thank you, MADAM Chair, yes, that is correct. It's the responsibility of the school board, the board members, the superintendent and as well as the school principal is tasked with thahat reonsibibity. anthat

188a constututional dutytyununder thisstatatute,is that not righ . Inger that's what the statute provides. thank you, MS. Batista. If I MAY, there's mention of one of the committee recommendations, on one of the conditions, it's on page 11 of my report in which there's a request to have a behavioral summit twice a year. MR. Superintendent, what is a behavior summit? DR. Hepburn? I'll let DR. Washington provide e details on that and the fraoegt si of those. good afternoon, behavioral summits, we take the feedback from the community the find out what they want to learn a little bit more about. We've had them on bullying, we've had them on the effects of social media, we've had them on sub staons use and abuse. We typically do them in the evenings, we've done them in person, online, we take

189-- again, we get the feedback from the community and what they want to learn algt bit more about. and these are voluntary attendee based summits sm correct. The intended audience is the parents, families, so they can better understand the district's discipline policies and implementation of those. thank you, ma'am. Thank you, MADAM Chair. thank you, MRS. Bhutan? -- bulman? thank you, MADAM Chair, thank you to the diversity committee, you do great work. I want to thank MR. Sparks being here, I don't know if you remember us met at the boys and girls club in the parking lot, my husband and I both met you and we were talking on the way home we met the legend so it's great to see you again, and thank you to MS. Grant for doing an excellent job of chairing

190your committee. You know, I think just as an example, I think with the good work that you guys are doing and kind of all of us collaborating together to make sure that the facilities in particular, this is something we've been talking about today are addressed properly goipg forward. We had a couple of months ago, MS. Grant called me with a concern, I was going to be visiting the same school the next day t the chair was also visiting the school within a few days and obviously we spoke our facilities chief, so I think when we're all working together like that to make sure we have eyes on it, to make sure that we know what the situation is, we can really more quickly dress -- address these issues so I appreciate you going out o

191the to the facilities and doing that, please bring the information back to us so we can address the concerns. I think that's the most effective way we can mao u forward the way we need to and I loved your comment about the spirit of the school not necessarily being reflected in the physical appearance because I see that in district 1, amazing things are happening in these schools, teachers, the staff are just doing such great things. The kids are awesome. And wouldn't it be nice if they all had the same opportunities to have the same level of facilities to be in it, so I think that certainly needs to be the goal of our district going forward because everybody deserves that and so I just thank you and again I'm always here so if you guys

192have any concerns when you're doing school visits, I would love to hear from you so we can all be working together on that. Thank you. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? thank you, thank you to the diversity committee. My first comment is on condition number 2, technology, in regards to laptops and next year, we'll be giving the one to one devices, my f my question is in regards to identifying any type of threats, ensuring student safety with monitoring accounts on those laptops, like if there's any threats or violence or self-harm or bullying that's going on and what are we doing as a school board or a school district to identify those threats. DR. Hepburn? yes, so I know students as well as adults utilize the platforms we have, fortified florida, safer watch, and now we have the

193badges, yes, the cies si alert badges, I want to see what other things we use to monitor threat, especially cyber security threatens which is always a common issue for large entities like us. er I'll complement what DR. Hepburn mentioned about fortified florida, safer watch, on the back end, we have a strict cyber security controls and that we naturally monitor all the time so,, there's two sides, a client side and a service side, so it's collectively helps ensure our security for students, but from the client's side, that's what's currently in use for students to report any kind of anomalies or concerns. okay. I was just wondering also if we're looking into any type of like if a student brings up something inappropriate on their computer or says that they want to harm themselves, is there anything

194that's identifying that and sending an alert to the district? so, there is nothing, DR. Hepburn, there is nothing currently active that explicitly is tracking that. There are solutions that are available obviously, you know, but currently not installed on the systems. okay. I think that is something that we should look into being now that we're going to have every student with a laptop and we want to make sure that they're safe and within the space of using their laptop. My next comment is in regards to the athletic facilities across the district. I do think that we need to be looking as a threshold first at our schools that don't even have athletic facilities and that's something we should tackle first, those schools, because obviously they don't have that opportunity to have the football game, friday night

195lights at home and that's a big problem, so when we talk about budget and the facilities across the district, I want to be looking at those schools first. And then as regards to the discipline, condition number 7, I want to have a more elaborate conversation. I know MR. Cervera brought up the behavioral summits. I think there's a greater opportunity to reach more students across the district and so I think that could be vetted out a little bit more. And then I do think as far as identifying the gaps in discipline across the district, that is a big problem because in one school, maybe vaping gets a certain discipline and then in another school x something else happens, so I'm wondering, are we auditing those things how are we kind of figuring out where those gaps

196lie and how are we fixing that? just cell phones, right, you know, with having -- not being able to have cell phones during lunchtime, well, kids are having their cell phones during lunchtime. It's just they're not supposed to be, but in one school, are they just ignoring it and in another school, are they gets detending. These are real issues that are occurring so we can't just be blind and think it's not happening. We have to address it head-on. Maximo, condition number 8, this is something that has been brought to the board's attention year after year after year and we say, oh, well, we don't have this part of maximo that we now need to fund, so I guess my question to the superintendent is, are we fully using maximo to help to eliminate these ongoing

197work orders? that's a great question, so we have a process and improvement project, several of them, one does include maximo, four or fiver years a whenever it was purchased was not rolled out appropriately, it was not used at all, it was at a standstill and a waste of resources. The team has done a reboot of maximo and we're piloting certain things with maximo before we scale it out district wide for effective use moving forward and I'll let MR. Davis provide additional detail of what the team has accomplished thus far and probably MS. Paul too. to complement, we had to reboot being led by [Inaudible] So, the team is ahead of schedule with the current project which is in phases, working collaboratively with MS. Paul's team as well, so we're comfortable where we are. I wish

198I could rewind the tape fiver years but we can't do that. The team is making incredible progress and as we report out every two weeks, we are ahead of the schedule, in between now and the DECEMBER timeframe, there will be other phases to be completed to bring the full implementation of maximo to fruition, I will defer to MS. Paul if she wants to add anything to the collaboration there. I think -- good morning to everyone, I think this implementation and reboot is a more robust -- it will bring us obviously into the 21st century. We will use ipads and so forth to communicate with each other. We're currently training our leaders at our schools on it. Our facility supervisors and so forth to make sure this implementation is successful, and so again we're -- one

199thing we did not do I think in the past was work collaboratively with our it department, they're fully engaged in helping us do it the right way this time. thank you, and it's funny you say the ipads, I remember hearing about that three, four years ago because they were supposed to with our air conditioners when they changed the filters, they were supposed to be able to use their ipad to document that information. exactly. so, DR. Hepburn, if you could give the board every three months an update on maximo, I know I would greatly appreciate it and I know my colleagues would as well. I want to address our playgrounds in the elementary schools, I think this is a point that really hits everybody's hearts and I think it's so sad when I see a playground

200with the yellow caution tape wrapped around it because there was some safety issue that didn't get addressed and so it really breaks my heart that that is happening and our kids, our elementary school students, they don't have necessarily a playground to play at, and I would say if that's the case, then we need to be providing them with like some other playground kit, making sure they have balls and jump ropes, and they're able to have other equipment and resources until that playground can be fixed. Thank you. thank you, and I'll wrap us up quickly because everybody kind of talked about everything. One of the -- MADAM Chair, I had my name down to go. I asked and they said no, but okay, go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt. Thank you so much. And I appreciate

201all that my colleagues have spoken about today. And of course I want to thank DR. Zeman for coming out to broward c. Markham elementary, for all many many years on the board, it has been extremely difficult to get attention to the inadequate there until DR. Licata and DR. Hepburn made this process finally move forward. I would appreciate it, DR. Hepburn, if you can explain what you have done and the plan moving forward succinctly if you can. I have, MS. Paul, her and her team are intimately involved about what's -- the progress that's been made since the past year. Er thank you. thank you, DR. Hepburn, thank you, DR. Zeman, and the vice mayor pompano to going out to robert c. Markham to see the progress. this project was stalled and we are very aggressive about

202making sure that markham is taiga care of appropriately. I want to thank the principal and her staff at markham for providing excellent collaboration to get this project done. Aiz explained to principal allen last friday when we walked out there that this collaboration will not end once building one is completed, this is a commitment that we have to this school and to our other schools to make sure we provide equitable services across the district. So, where we are, the great news, this was not an easy project. There were a lot of complications and I won't go into my nerd mode and explain in all of that, but the bottom line is the equipment is arriving. We are looking at making sure that this school is opened with fidelity and amazing celebration. We identified a couple of

203things that we like to partner with the city of pompano with, playgrounds being one of them and we will continue to work on that, so this project is moving forward. MS. Allen is in direct contact with everyone on my team, as I call it a golden ticket, she has the golden ticket to the make sure that that school has everything that it needs until we open that new building. So, we are moving forward. It is on track to be finished in 2027 but the reality is we're trying to recover whatever time we can to expedite the construction. So, that's been on my list from day one, today is my one year anniversary in broward county schools. [Applause]. And I thank y'all for the opportunity to serve this amazing community. There's no doubt we have a

204lot of work to do but we are committed, my team is committed to making sure we get this work done for our kids. As DR. Zeman always asks, you know, what is the result of not doing the work, well, kids don't have what they need to learn. So, markham has been there along with other projects we have to clean up and move forward. Markham was the first test of our resilience in making sure this happens. The markham community thank y'all so much for being patient with us and we will celebrate to open that school, so thank you all for the opportunity. thank you, I appreciate MS. Paul and congratulations for your one year. To go off that for a half a segd yearbacker here, awareness and engagement for all of our populations who are attending

205our schools is extremely important and that also includes our ese population, focused from day one from kindergarten should be career and college opportunities but one that is often not spoken about is much called life skills which are not solely just soft skills for college but a particular necessity among our sw daoe,, our students with disabilities to build confidence and practical abilities that support daily living, employment and community participation. We used to have these courses but they seem to have died out over the years. I would like to see all our high school class and is life skills for our schools with disabilities. MR. Superintendent, I would like the data on how many do we have currently in high schools and how can we make sure this happens for next school year for our students. I

206mentioned briefly when I spoke before about having the opportunity for our elementary school kids to really be able to see what their likes and dislikes are and have the opportunity to discuss with their teachers or so and I've been to some of my elementary schools that are amazing, they have the alma mater of ere door of their teacher or it will say army or atc or sheridan, and they speak about that during the school year and incorporate that into their classroom relationship with the students and I honestly think that's a best praktsz because it gets our little ones to think about the opportunities, so when you're in middle school, you know, there always seems to be too much to get done there if we're trying to get them ready for high school. I know as

207a ninth grade teacher, when I discuss opportunities for our kids, the kids were like we don't have time for that, MS., we're trying to catch up. Granted I taught reading and so that was kind of one of their classes they were forced to take instead of an elective but there's ways around that. I mean, we constantly -- I did -- spoke about opportunities and second chances, all that kind of stuff, and our teachers get that. They totally get has and they do t tt but what would like to see rely mo diststrictpupushon that aspect, so the kids will be asking and they'll say, oh, you know what, I really like math or I like science, so they'll have an interest before they even get into the middle school arena and start actually taking those classes,

208some of them, for high school competencies, so that's really the few things that I wanted to say about that. I wholehearted agree with MS. Alhadeff, excuse me. MS. Alhadeff when it comes to the playgrounds and these sports facilities. I know we get the -- and I'm sorry if I don't remember what it's called, it's either title 9 or title 11, boys fser girls when it comes to the locker rooms and sports activities. There's usually frequent flyers on that list and we get such -- I don't want to say bad answers but they're pretty much the same answers every year, we expect to get more girls to get involved to get on this and it never works that way, so I think another eye on that would be super helpful to make sure that we do

209get equity besides genders but also the entire district with looking at facilities and that's what I have right now. Thank you, thank you so much. thank you. And I'll flemish this up now. Just a couple of questions. So, thank you to the diversity committee for coming every year. I know that we went a few years without doing this report and it come tog the board and it's really easy to not see things if they're not being brought to your attention, to I appreciate the hard work that you do all yearlong and what goes into bringing these recommendations, and to MS. Grant, we're going to MISS Having your reports and thank you for your diligence and your leadership in all that making us have these reports come to us, so we can hear. So, just very

210quickly, the hb522 issue on condition 3, one of the recommendations was to create a uniform policy. I think tla's a really great recommendation so I ask the superintendent whether it fits into a policy we already have or if it maoeds to be a stand alone policy, but that it's a state statute so we need to make sure we're following that. We've talked a lot about mental health and wellness today. I was at western recently and they do have some plans and we have wellness centers sprinkled throughout the county, there are some that are private, some in the schools and something that we've been trying to push t more wellness center we can have many different areas, the better. Trying to ask someone to go somewhere for wellness is often a problem and why they don't

211seek help and getting mental health services because it's not readily available to them. So, even if it's just a small sensory room or a place where a student can go to decompress if they're having an issue, I think we should be putting some resorts maybe through our strategic partnership. I know I'm giving MR. Chisom a lot of work, but things that could go in a room and it could have a guidance counselor in there that would be available when students -- so that's there even if it's a rotation of a guidance counselor so it would keep the issues where students said they were going and not find ago guidance counselor, if that room in every school or center or whatever, you know, some of them are more elaborate than others, was staffed by someone all

212the time, it would help to alleviate the fact that students are going somewhere and being told they can't stay. So, I think that would be a great addition, and equity for our students because it MAY not look the same everywhere but at least they'd have access to somebody. I won't beat the horse on maximo, as MS. Alhadeff said, it's not even from the diversity committee, we heard it from a lot of different places and I think we need to finally put our money where our mouth is there. Just a little plug here, middle school sports, I think the reason you see some inconsistencies is because the salary for coaches stinks which is true for high school as well so, we MAY have them available but they MAY not be implementing them because they don't have

213anyone to coach them so we've talked about looking at supplements and how we can can increase them. I've been waiting patiently, this is my fifth year here, on how we're going to do that so I ask the superintendent, I keep being told it's going to come to us, I would love for that to happen. This got thrown out a little while ago when we said I think the board said, yes, we'd like to look into it and nothing ever came of it, but sponsorships for athletic fields in our district, so we have as we mentioned a lot of companies that want to put their name on something and do things of that nature, so I would really love especially in places where we don't have the athletic fields to reach out and find out where

214we can bridge that gap with our partnerships, with people in the community, and just one quick question, I know behavior summits are something different, but if we could, MR. Superintendent, just remind everyone, are there not behavior assemblies every semester for students? Can you explain how behavioral assemblies are different from behavior summits and who the audience is for those? DR. Washington? yes, so we do have behavior assemblies at the start of each school year as well as when students return from winter break. The goal of the behavior assemblies is to orient the student tos the rules and policies outlined in the code of student conduct and explain the consequences that come with breaking the rules, it also is designed to connect student tos the resources that are available, so during those behavior assemblies, they get introduce

215today the school counselors t school social workers t professionals on campus that can give them support and assistance. I think what we heard from student iss they MAY not connected with those people personally yet and MAY not be comfortable going to them so there's work we can to to make those connections but there are assemblies for students, at least each sm es e some schools do them quarterly. just a quick question because the behavior summits could be substance abuse or any of those things, do we have additional assemblies and I'm asking on purpose because I've asked for them in a way that we teach our students how to be more resilient in terms of not absorbing things and maybe reflecting especially when we look at cyber bullying and things of that nature, so do we

216do substance abuse and all those, do we have those assemblies throughout the school year for our students as well? Wefrjts do have assemblies available that cover the topics that you just spoke about. They are on a school by school basis, so we provide the school administrators with what we have available and if that fits with what they're working on for that time period and that year, then they will invite us to come in. okay. Thank you. you're welcome. thank you again to the committee and we appreciate your report so much. thank you. okay. we're dismissed? yes, we have a brief recess. thank you MS. Grant, and I see you got your flowers. I did. congratulations, I appreciate your hard work and thank tos the whole diverse te team, we appreciate your feedback, it's important for

217us to get better. Thank you. (Meeting in recess). thank you, and welcome back to the school board workshop. The next item is redefining our schools update and I will now turn it over to staff for a brief presentation which will start on page 28 of the powerpoint if you're following along. DR. Fulton, I'm good? go ahead, DR. Wanza? good afternoon, thank you, MADAM Chair, school board members, DR. Fulton, and to colleagues across the organization as well as our community members here and the board room and listening online, I'm valerie wanza, the chief and innovation strategy officer, the full presentation is posted online, we're going to go to slide 28, we have the full redefining team if you will hear if questions come up around other partser of the presentation websinger are here to answer questions

218but really and truly, we want to start to have the conversation with the board around phase 2 for redefining which will begin essentially after this workshop and start talking to the board about some concepts and some areas of focus, so you will see on page 28, one of the main ir erer -- areas of focus will be school consolidation, you will see what the key driver ares, obviously in the previous conversation, MS. Paul and her team advised in summer, we will have the full reports for the facility conditions assessments available, so those will drive some of the decisions as well as enrollment trends, one of the things we did in this year's redefining was we presented actual groupings of schools as it relates to concern about enrollment so we will have that as well as

219internal and external stakeholder. Hanna research firm dade research survey with parents, specific to parents in the the district as well as they just completed one of parents of students who have elected to attend charter schools, we've also done some research ourselves if you will informal type sur vase -- surveys who elected a school choice option for their student websinger have a multitude of different data we're going to look at as we start to formulate some decisions and then we know we'll be partnering and collaborating with municipalities and organizations looks at some p3, some public/private partnership opportunities and the other part, we want to do is we've built some momentum coming out of phase 1, we want to capitalize on that and then also look at how we phase in some replacement schools via school consolidations,

220and then obviously through all of this, we will have to engage with the communities because we know that different communities have different needs and we will enfwaij with the community. We believe that we have done some great work in how we engage the communities on campuses, transitioning them, I'll never forget MS. Leonardi when she said we cannot have people standing in an auditorium, so transforming gymnasiums in the florida room settings and making people feel comfortable for them to open up and have conversations and additional phase two priorities, we are going to the look stens I beverly at our magnet programs, do a complete -- I'm going to use my term a complete overhaul in some of the programs but look at some new and innovative programs, things we haven't thought of before to really attract

221not only parent and is families too but to also identify, address our parents who continue to be customers and partners with us have told us they would like o see. Then we know we do have to review all the feeder patterns, we talked about this in phase one but kicking it off in phase two, look at some regional feeder patterns, dual language, as well as other things and areas of opportunity, and some of the other areas we will look at is options for district managed charter schools. We know we have received one of great interest around district operated or managed charter for potentially students with autism but look at all the options that are out there, expand our technical college footprint. I know there's a presentation coming up right after this one around modernizing our

222student trance por asian services and then also look at opportunities that we can provide some fee based child care services for om sof our employees in some of our buildings that are currently underutilized. And so our next steps after today, obviously we're going to get feedback from the board, we will complete all of the adopted changes that the board approved in JANUARY for next school year where you see an update from each work stream, we will have all of that work completed by JUNE because we know that we must be ready for students on AUGUST 11. We have definitely much future collaboration, tomorrow I do know the superintendent will be having a mayoral and municipal roundtable so that along with many other conversations, but really conversations with municipalities around supporting the district's efforts and then

223obviously start to formulate our key goals and object I -- object tiers for phase 2 of redefining. So, tloez the four slides we've gone through and we're here for questions on the entire presentation. DR. Hepburn? yes, before we go over the discussions, I want to mention to the board the last couple of slides that DR. Wanza went over, overarching recommendations that are being included in phase two of refining, I I would love toto hear fr ththe board d about any adaddition thingsgs we ne to thk ababt t thatat are nonot on the slides as we start our work during the summer with engaging with municipality leaders, for profit, non-profit and all the partners for some of the programmatic things in leases and space and all of that, also that future very difficult decision we have

224to make about closing schools and consolidating schools, so I would love to hear some discussion on that as we move forward too. thank you. We'll move to public comment, the only public comment I have listed is MS. Nicole morris. good morning, nicole morris, coral springs, I'm here today to speak about concerns I have with the redefining at broward estates and DR. Martin luther king JR. Elementary. For one, I think it was a huge oversight to not include the families of broward estates and the survey and community conversations. I also question how these conversations were advertised because the one that I attended at mlk had two parents and three staff members present. I'm told the previous meeting turnout was about the same, aisle echo DR. Holness's concern that it did not have to option the keep

225the name as is. There were protwo motions, one to have a community organization and another one to send out another survey to include questions around if they would like the keep the monitory or not and what programs they would like to see. I understand there's a plan to roll out a new science and technology innovation programs at mlk which sounds wonderful. This would have been helpful information when they were deciding where to send their children next year. More than half of the families chose to be bused out of the neighborhood to avoid the monitory or remain in stem. I hope they have an opportunity to change course based on this new information. Another concern I have is the playground at DR. Martin luther king JR. Elementary and JANUARY at a long range planning committee meet,

226a committee member had concerns about the playground being so far from the school. At that time, staff said they had three operable playgrounds, I've since learned from parent and is staff at the school that one of the playgrounds, I believe it's the 3-5, has been inoperable for quite some time due to safety concerns with its location and it's believed to have a family of ra coons living in or around it. If policy 8010 was followed, the variable site inspection of both schools would have included the unsafe conditions of the playground. Staff has also raised concerns they MAY not be able to retain the current number of teachers and specials next year at mlk due to budget concerns. At the JANUARY 22 vote to close broward estates, it was mentioned that teachers follow students, if this

227is not happening, it could result in much larger class sizes. Next I would tliek bring to your attention the removal of two programs at one of the previously mentioned schools that was due to close year being under 50%, coral springs elementary, they are losing one of their head start classes despite having a one year waiting list, I suspect they're on the chopping block for next year, why are we siphoning off children without having a community conversation please rename lauderdale, it has not been a school in years and no children have reportedly been on-site, it's listed as an early learning center when it's the central regional superintendent's office. Thank you. thank you, next, DR. Zeman? thank you so much, it's a great topic, one we've dealt with a lot. I have tremendous value from the rest

228of the deck that we didn't xwo through, so thank you for the update. I know in the pinch of time, we don't have enough time to go through that, for anyone who hasn't looked at that, it's a lot of great information tabt the transformation going on right now. This issue has vexed this board for a long time, I believe we have to go back to first principles, if we want to do is is become an a district in every facet, we have to spend our money in all those facets and we can't continue to spend money maintaining facilities we don't need. It's expensive. The number of schools we have in excess is 50 and 150 million dollars of operating funds per year. It's a significant amount of capital raised too, between 300 and 500 million

229dollars of capital funds. You want to be an a district in every area, then we've got to be honest about not spending money of things that do no value to reaching our strategic goals, buildings and invest in those thing that is we do, instructors and school leaders. The other part of this brief I would suggest we think hard about, try and say it that way, is momentum. Because we built a lot of momentum in the community, we set an expectation we were closing fiver schools. And then we said we're going to close one and we're going the repurpose some and I get it, sofm these things are very difficult but I've learned a lot about local politics in this last two years and I know that our goal still has to be to be the

230best school district in the district, to be a in sx efrg we have to allocate our funds to those thing that is generate our strategic goals. I asked a question last week about how many schools we would need to close to get to 90% of capacity, not to 100% because we're in a declining enrollment projections right now, but let's just go to 90% and the answer is between 27 and 36 schools over the next three years. Last year that number was 33, so that was very consistent, the numbers haven't changed very much. MR. Superintendent, you asked about having a conversation about this. I believe that we did an amazing job last year on our analysis and gathering data and setting conditions in the community to expect to be closed. We even convinced the community this

231was the right thing to do, we just didn't do it. Last year we focused on facility conditions, we focused on enrollment compared to capacity, we looked at academic performance, we stayed within feeder patterns and we also allowed other factors to come in for things that made sense including historically named schools, other schools that we believed for a variety of magnet program or other reasons were going to continue to thrive even if they hadn't thriver up to this point. So, I'm interested in moving forward with round 2, I want it to be best for this district, it would be something like 33 schools, we probably need to think about a different governance model to get there. One of those models that has worked in other district iss to give the superintendent a target or a number

232and a set of criteria and say you pick the schools. You're the superintendent, you're going to have to deal with this for a long time. And that's kind of a model that I think we should think a little bit about today. I would set 33 as the number, I would say for three years, you bring us 11 schools per year, the demographers and the analysts have looked at this and said that is number that gets us to 90% of capacity, we still have 10% where we could fill more and allow for school choice and allow for all the looseness of a system that happens when you have 2 million people and a laming county and 239 different campuses but the money that this would save is absolutely a cry for moving forward and doing things

233that would require change. 50-150 million dollars a year of operating funds and 300 to 500 million dollars of additional capital. The capital we spend one time but the operating funds we spend every year, so MR. Superintendent, if we raised just the middle number and said 100 million dollars a year of operating funds, what kind of raise could we give everybody that work in broward county schools? MS. Johnson, that sounds like 8% that is correct. and what could we do, MR. Superintendent, with 3-5 hundred million dollars with capital funds? Frmtion we can address all sorts of facility needs across broward,. Er I think it's hard to ask a school board of nine people to look at list and not find something they don't want to do. This is a process that I have outlined that asks

234the superintendent to identify those schools that should be closed and to do that every year for three year and is to work with the staff and work with the community and work with the municipalities to figure out where do we need a park, affordable housing, but I think all of those things are feasible and I think the community is supporting this. I think it will be a change but it will be a change that we have done before in broward count di and we can do again and when we're done three years hence, when those 33 schools are closed, we'll be at a place where we can honestly say we put our money where our mouth is and we've said there is no gap between the lip and the cup here, we are staining we

235want to be the best district in the county and we're willing to make the changes to get lighter on the facility footprint we have and free up massive amounts of land for all kinds of great things to happen on what now is school sites and to allow us to spend money, 8% increase to everyone that works here is pretty exciting, 300-500 million dollars worth of capital, we could build five new brand new high schools so, that's the argument in favor of this. I'm going to continue to remind people that facilities don't educate people, teachers do. And I would tliek spend our money on the things that will achieve our strategic goal, thank you, chair. thank you, MRS. Leonardi? thank you. if we closed 11 schools a year over the next three years, what would happen

236to those employees at those schools? DR. Hepburn? so, with the teachers, most of those would be absorbed because students need teachers and especially to meet class ratios, for admin or clerical staff, that's the -- usually we have enough attrition to put those people in positions, but if there is no attrition, it could equate to a small amount of layoff. okay. Can you break down for me and we've been through this conversation before, but I think because it's come up once again, it's important to highlight, what is the majority of the cost of running a school? personnel. right. And from what I'm hearing is that that personnel cost would follow the students, they -- in some instances, there MAY be some layoffs if we close a school and we can't absorb those positions but largely the

237teacher is what makes up the majority of the employees, they would stay employed, we would continue to pay for them? correct. so, the savings that we incur from closing say one elementary school would be about what? correct me if I'm wrong, DR. Wanza, we had those number ins previous decks. I want to say close to a million. about a million. for elementary. About 2.5 for middle and I think high school is -- the max was 3. and are those recurring savings or one-time? mostly recurring because of the admin and clerical staff and some not recurring -- the capital you're spending on yiment on equipment and resources. and I don't know if anyone has the answer to this right now but I'm curious about like the at mos sphere for selling our properties right now, if

238this is an environment at which it is competitive and also I think there was recent legislation passed that would impact the sale of our properties, so could someone speak to that. so, I don't know if MR. Sullivan or MS. Moore have the information, the recent legislation around surplus schools as far as I guess the ability for other entities to utilize that property. so, we're still going through the legislation but the biggest change as it relates to charter schools is one, the ability to convert, they took out staff from that process so now it's just parents and then municipalities could apply to the district to take over existing schools if the they are opening job creating charter school. got it. And I don't know if I need to request a follow-up just about the environment to

239sell any of our property or lease any of our property what that looks like. if it's a buyer or a seller market? right. I think it's a little bit of both right now. For us, I think we are the flamingoes lan owner, if not, we're like right behind the largest land ownowner and people have been approaching us about properties, about potential surplus properties, so we could get maximum value based on appraisals for many properties we decide to surplus. got it, but I guess I've been hearing a lot about legislation and charter schools and their ability to access our surplus properties first. So, can we speak a little bit more about that. go ahead, MR. Sullivan. we have a workshop with the board JUNE 10, by then, we should have more information on exactly what passed

240this legislative session, they still haven't passed the budget but we we're going through the lemg slaying tha, last day they add today 1105 an extensive bill that came out so we're still going through it. I don't think there was a lot of changes as it relates to that but we'll have a full report for the board on JUNE 10. thank you. And the reason I bring that up is I don't want us to create an environment for ourselves where we're creating more opportunities for students or for other organizations to take our students and then usually they send them back, that's after they collected the funds. Logistically, would we be able to close 11 schools each year for the next three years? Let me rephrase that. What are the logistical barriers to doing that? one of

241the main barriers is identifying adjacent capacity for kids when we do consolidate, so we will have to definitely look that the with a fine tooth comb to make sure surrounding schools are able to absorb a school that we decide to close. okay. Can anyone speak to the specifics of that, so like if we closed 11 schools next year, depending -- do we have schools just generally that could abb -- absorb the capacity of 11 schools? I'm going to have MR. Beck, our director of demography -- hi, good afternoon,, it is exactly how the superintendent says websinger don't emphasize in policy, to close a school that's understood enrolled, you need other schools around it to absorb the enrollment, so we have identified 8 clusters of enrollment, underenrollment at the elementary school level and five at the

242middle school level. Those are schools that have one or more -- more than one underenrolled school that is would facilitate the consolidation of one school into another. That's 13. However, to go to reach a much higher number, 33 or whatever the board MAY want to pursue, you would have to basically erase all boundaries, you would need to draw boundaries anew for the whole sdr img district because there aren't adjacent boundaries to close that many schools. got it, thank you. I think I have a lot more questions, but what I think is important is the narrative that the board and the district create around this and when a big corporation announces that they're closing offices all over the country, that doesn't send the message to the public that that is the best in the business or

243the most successful corporation in the business. So, you know, it MAY be easy to say we would close x number of schools by x date, it's much more complicated as we're hearing and not even like in a political way but in a logistical wayfinding find d way, finding places for students to attend if their school is closed. I think MS. Hixon made a very good recommendation several months ago around partially repurposing campuses and as I talked to municipal leaders and community lead and he iser business leaders, there is great interest in partnering with the school district, so while we have -- we certainly do have underenrollment and we have vacant seats and we have property that is not being used or that could be used for efficiently that we shouldn't be paying for. I don't

244dispute any of that, but I think we need to do that in a very tactful, strategic way and there is a desire from the -- from all stakeholders to do that, to work with us and to have -- to be on our property wringing with our students, so, you know, I think that's disht's very -- it's very important the way we message this and the way we talk about this and I truly believe the recommendation that MS. Hixon made about partially repurposing and I know cities, businesses, community organizations are very interested in that. A few things that I saw in the presentation that I am very excited about is offering more fee baited child care. -- based child care. I was at pine ridge yesterday and the staff was discussing how many more -- they

245call them babies, but kindergarten and first graders, how many more of those students are coming into pine ridge and I asked, why do you think that is and they talked about the lack of access to child care and the lack of experience with bingeing in a school setting, so many of our kids, a lot of their first time expeperien is sittg a kikindgagartenlalassomom and how they're not used to that and that erupts into behavioral challenges, so the more that we can expand early learning and child care, it is a desperate need, it is a part of our core mission because the data suggests that the more access to child care and early learning, the more successful students are later on in life. I'm very excited to see the idea of expanded footprint for our technical

246colleges, that is something that I continue to hear in the business community. it is something that our students are very excited about. I would as look at something that I hear a desire for is more education around aviation and those kinds of vocations. We have executive airports all over the county. We have our big airport and that is a career that is very much in high demand. One thing that I heard when I was talking to a group of business leaders was -- a lot of people compare us to private schools, what do the private schools offer has we don't, and one suggestion was maybe doing a k-12 school, I attended a k-12 school, so I think that would be an interesting idea to explore. I don't know logistically how that happens, you know, if

247we have to close a series of schools consolidating those into a k-12 school might be interesting and unique and outside of the box kind of way to think and I think just in a larger -- as we're doing this phase 2, I think it would be really helpful if we could have like a checklist of things that private schools offer and things that we offer and a comparison of that and I think it would be helpful for us like in mess slanging and communicating tout the public and marketing but it would also be interesting tog see what could we offer that the private schools are offering that we don't currently do. Thank you. thank you, MRS. Rupert? thank you. I just wanted to continue the conversation, I want to talk about fee based daycare for

248us and I know I brought this up over the last two years and there was multiple -- I think the entire board supported looking more into this and especially our employees daycare 0-3 year-old age is where we're lacking when we're trying to keep our young teachers who are having families yet still want to continue being part of bcps family and I want today hear more information on that aspect if we're still going to be including that into the conversation. DR. Hepburn? that is a yes, MS. Rupert. is it availability for this coming school year, or obviously we would be talking about the next coming school year, you tell me? we're working on both. I know there's a desire from some employees, so we're working on both. If we have enough employee that is are committed,

249we can create a sustainable fee based program tha,'s one of the goals for the upcoming school year but we're working hard to scale out appropriately for the following -- not this upcoming but the following after this upcoming. okay. And I think you sent sur vase out before to get this information, aim correct? correct. alright, thank you for that, and page 7. We have adult esol, basic literacy, I think it needs to be more infused in our community schools as well and a missed opportunity to talk to our families, and today I'm going to mention it 100 times, we need to be discussing a focus for the kids -- for their parents to understand there's opportunities for their kids that they learn about in elementary school, get excited to see it happening in middle school and

250already know before they get to high school what path they're going to be choosing and that excitement builds and hopefully more of our children get not only diplomas, but they go on to college and career and some graduate with our certifications in a lucrative field so, we have the programs, we have the opportunity. It's a matter of making sure we start at the right moment discussing those. Little by little many -- in the elementary school, I do see an opportunity to do that, it would definitely help, and hold on. and I want to say on page 17, the marketing work stream was terrific, the examples that I looked at and my question is, did all new k-8 configurations get the same marketing push? So, is this -- you're putting names on it, but did ere

251one of them have access to this? MR. Perez can answer that. good afternoon, yes, MS. Rupert, all of the schools have access and will have all of the same types of material, obvious with their own unique personalized approach. perfect. Thank you so much for that. I appreciate it. And look forward to seining all the new logos and school banners and everything bringing us all back together. And I want to thank everybody because I was able to get on now and thank you to my colleagues for asking such good questions. Thanks. thank you, MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. I had a couple of series of questions. When we're analyzing data for next year, how are we going to look at the schools that we just changed? Because obviously this isn't going to be an overnight boost

252of enrollment and I want to get a better understanding of how we are calculating that or looking at that and planning for the future. are you referring to data we're going to use for the next phase? for like the next phase televising's schools we just changed, obviously they're not going to be at capacity overnight. Er those schools, we would exclude out of that because we -- sorry to cut you off, but like the surrounding like putting names in the universe that's going to blow back at me, for example, we have two k-8's in miramar now and we have glades middle school, how are we going to analyze the impact to glades middle when we don't know that yet because we don't know how many students might filter -- that's what I'm trying to think, regionally

253we made a lot of changes, for example, to district 2, like how are we staining that information and account before we make decisions about potentially changing or closing or whatever a school that's so close? Does that make sense? yes, that makes plenty of sense. I'll use the example with glades middle. I'm not suggesting glades middle. I'm going use that as an example, we would look at about three to five year trend date for glades middle, it will show the trend where it's been underenrolled for a certain number of years, so there wouldn't be an expected impact of them gaining enrollment especially with offering new opportunities but the trend data has been declining over the past few years so we would look at multiple years of trend date to help support decision-making for schools that are

254not part of phase 1. for example, panther run or -- silver palms, like those feeder patterns have been changed. I'm asking more not specific about closing -- how are we making sure that we're -- we know that this isn't going to be an overnight change and analyzing the data? go ahead, DR. Wanza? thank you, MS. Thompson, just to give you a little bit of comfort I guess is a good word, so as the superintendent said, we're going look at historical trends but we're also going to look at opportunities that MAY have been out there in the past to capitalize on what we've done now and some options that MAY attract students back well, so you used glades middle, I'm not throwing them out there in the universe, if we're going to have the honest conversation,

255the school is at 56% capacity, and we just created some k-8's around the school, right, there could be -- MAY be an opportunity to do one more and then we start to think about in order for us to expand the technical footprint, we're going to have to have some places to expand the technical footprint. Those are conversations that obviously we would come to the board as we bring in AUGUST the concepts, that's why we want to get all the board feedback today taz superintendent said so we can really start to analyze a wide variety of data, explain to the board the data that we are analyzing and how it got us to make certain recommendations. thank you. And then, excuse me, we talk about -- I want to get some understanding about rationalizing magnet programs

256because then we had students come in who were like, I love a law program, so students want these individualized programs in each of their schools but if we rationalize it and -- would that affect -- law programs and the hosa and stuff like that? can I speak?Frjts yes, DR. Wanza?Frjt aisle speak but my colleagues in the teaching and learning arena, DR. Cohen, you can jump in, so you have schools that have programers that have nothing do with magnets, right. They have looked at the interest of their students so, when I was at miramar high school, we had law study classes but had hosa but we won a magnet, when you talk about a rationalized magnet and providing transportation because these are students who have elected or have raised their hands and said I want to

257go to this school with this unique theme of study individualized so typically our magnet programs come with some type of transportation boundary, and one of the things I think in talking with DR. Hepburn and I'll use medical for example, when we look at doing a regional agonized immediate cal magnet websinger talk about third, fourth great so the students have a matriculation up to the middle and this experience at the high school level that's different than what they've experienced before, so we do have to look at while there MAY be different innovative type programs offered in school but to replicate a full scale magnet -- and I'm going use that in every school MAY not be something that's doable. thank you for clarifying, I think there's misconception on after school programming and magnet programs, so that

258was helpful. I want to echo my colleagues in saying expanding child care -- or not child care but vpk programs are going to be our success going further. For example, looking at when I have at the see taste town hall yesterday, the flanigan students really want a west broward bob cats type early learning center there and I think that is a really good area to put something like that in, so I think that both helps our high school students get needed skills and also helps our families and gives families an opportunity to explore our school system, so I think anywhere we could incorporate there would make sense is something I think my colleagues and I are big fans of. I would tliek see a vpk program in every elementary school, I like to dream big

259but that's my goal. And then I want to go back to marketing a little bit more because as someone who lives very close, walking distance between two two of the k-8's, I still feel like my neighbors don't necessarily know about the changes and I kind of want to dive a little deeper in this and then offer a suggestion. jose? yes, that's great, jose perez, broadcasting and marketing, what can I -- how would you like me to answer that? We are well into the process of build thing collateral that identifies the schools in a new way and we will show you a sizzle reel we've created a compellation of them of all five schools, each school has a sizzle reel, each school will have a flyer a new logo, I'm sorry, and a host of all

260the items you see here. We are work witching the city of miramar which DR. Wanza alluded to earlier, there's an example of the kinds of things we can do with them and we want to expand that to all our municipalities, the awareness is in the ideal yet but we're get hearing and all of the sizzle reels are ready, the logos were prepared over the last cupful o weeks and I think we're close, social media kicks off this week, paid social media, we are going to target very, very specific areas of your district and really introduce them to coral cove and pines middle and -- silver shores. I'm sorry, silver shores, well, isn't pines middle in there? yes. you're in between two middle schools. I get very nervous. I love everything you guys do and it's

261very polished. One of the things we talked about yesterday was -- with some of the business of see taste is avenging more -- I don't want to say unpolished, more informal marketing, like having students create tiktok's or reels to sell their schools. Obviously elementary that MAY need some working out but I think even our schools that aren't being redefined like giving some students some control of our social media or some sort of marketing projects, if students hear from other students about all the great things happening, that's a neat opportunity and I want to see if that's something to explore. yeah, go ahead. good afternoon, fair wilson, director of marketing and strategic communication, that is an excellent question. We had an opportunity to go to each of the sites in your area and we're going to

262all of them and talk to them about social media. We had a would've meeting where the social media specialist was there, the media team, myself and we went through their profiles, updated their pictures, put their new logos and gave them ideas on content and how to post something every day so that's something we're working on with all of the schools. let me add to that, to your point about involving students , let me just be clear, tiktok is still on our prohibited list of the district, and all things related to tiktok, so I don't know if you get that mess sang popping up every time -- any time you go to a related site but just be aware of that, number one, and I agree, tiktok is a great way to reach students but we're

263going to have to look for a different alternative. or proems. or instagram, absolutely, one of our challenges is definitely that somebody needs to own the presence online and especially in social media because that is a challenge at all of our schools and something that we have to engage students ideally for in the future, so I think that's a great way to do it. I'm just not sure how quickly we can get the students to participate. They certain are engaged on our facebook and twitter and instagram and not always -- our instagram stories. yeah. all of florida. And then -- so I think if we continue exploring that, I would include pta, I think they -- some of our pta's have active socials, so looping them into the graphics or whatever I think would help promote,

264and then this idea of a regional showcase especially for the airreas that have been drastically changed, is that something in the works? yes, I love that idea. You said it earlier. The showcase was a huge success this year, so doing them regionally or municipalities, I think tla's a great idea, something we will definitely budget for. thank you. And then I think MRS. Leonardi brought up good points, there's been a lot of proposed legislation changes around what can happen to our land once we surplus it or save it. MR. Sullivan? sorry. he alluded we're going to get an update but I want to emphasize the need to do these things before legislation kind of takes it out of our hands. I think all of us -- some of us would like a slower approach but I

265think maybe even though it didn't pass where charter school haves a first right of refusal this session, it could pass next session. there is something? Statute already about giving charter schools access to surplus land. i don't believe anything has hiked in this legislative session that impacts that, again, we're reviewing all of the bills to make sure we didn't MISS Anything. The biggest change from this session is the conversion which again they took out the piece about staff having to vote, now it's just a parent vote. Then the ability for municipalities to take over our existing schools if it's classified as a charter school with high performing jobs. and I appreciate the update, I think that's something we need to be mindful of f the board doesn't make smart, quick decisions, it might be out of

266our hand by next session, so I really appreciate staff's thoroughness to that and kind of nodding your head and understanding that this is something we're up against and I would mumuchather our xlunt and this bobod mamake cisionons about r hoolols than tallahassee. what we can do in the update to board, we can include the lang wanl that did not pass because sometimes thing that is don't pass in one session come back the following session. it does. And then I think that's it. Thank you, guys, so much. thank you, MR. Cervera, so you can eat your lunch. er thank you, I appreciate that. I have a question about the presentation portion of the sale of the surplus properties. Specifically I'm looking at a property that's identified in here in parkland, it's identified as elementary a-1 site

267trails and korkt the status update, in 2023, the negotiation parameters committee established an asking price of 13.9 million dollars. And to date, we are still currently engaged with negotiations with broward health regarding the sale of this particular property. I'm not a real estate expert but I have to imagine that that property especially considering its location is worth a lot msh the 13.9 than it was appraised for in 2023. I want to know what is being done with that particular parcel. Are we locked in at that price, what is the status? DR. Hepburn? yeah so, the board voted to direct negotiation with broward health probably about three months ago, so we're in direct negotiation widths broward health currently to date. The appraisal and also the appraisals performed by broward health are right along the same similar

268numbers. There are some mitigation that needs to be done to the land where -- I want to say -- MS. Paul know it is specific language t cubic feet of fill that needs to be added to raise the land up to a certain level, so they can build on this, so I think it has something to do with the appraisal price too. If you want to add anything, MRS. Paul? I think you're correct, the 13.9 I believe is the minimum asking price for that property. That was their appraisal, but we are in direct as the superintendent spoke previously websinger are in direct negotiations with broward health at this time. I want to remind the board, so whatever the superintendent does negotiate with broward health does come back for a vote to the board, so the

269board has the final say over the negotiations, but right now we're in negotiations with broward health and also we've asked for other things from broward health as well that might have to be factored in. Again, we're in those negotiations now. so I guess to seek clarification, we're not locked in at the 13.9 million price or are we looked in at that price? that's the minimum asking price. so, there's flexibility? correct. Er okay. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? thank you. I'll start on page 20. The coral springs high acreage site, it says we're currently under an agreement of sale and purchase through the general counsel, I thought that was stopped. That's no longer happening from our last board meeting. And we're now in -- we're going to be suing this company. I'm going to have to give

270you a follow-up on that. okay. go ahead, DR. Wanza? so, I wasn't here, but that is what happened at the board meet, I did watch the board meeting. I see MS. Paul nodding also. This was loaded and we did not do a revision, however, what was explained to me was the reason why and I'm speaking from what one of the staff members in facility real estate, technically the board voted to enter into, that's why it still says that, that we have to leave this like this for now until the litigation actually commences because technically there is still a contract even though it's being litigated. Er I did ask for a revision but I was told to leave the language this way. thanks for the update. thank you, okay. And then in -- one of my

271just branching overall thoughts was I would love to see how we go ahead to try to get a student back into one of our schools, like, what does that timeline look like from a-z? Because I have my thoughts but I have no idea if that's happening. Like, what are the check points, what is the follow-through look like? Do we -- you can give it to me in a follow-up but I'm just thinking like is it one and done or is there a five step push to eventually try to -- and I would think like a site visit is one of those thresholds, is it a personal phone call to the parent? I would like to see that. DR. Hepburn? yes, I'm noting the follow-up but a site visit is involved with offering the opportunity for

272families to tour the school that they're interested in and the academic team, working with their principals have specific follow-up strategies with those families so, we'll follow-up in detail with those steps. But we'd love to hear your thoughts on that since you're here in the workshop. let me come back to that. we're also engraining with aging -- again gauging that might be able to assist us with that endeavor. that's interesting. So, I did see something in news, I think one of our other school districts near us, I think they're paining a company a thousand dollars per student -- yes, there are several company that is do that. Er to help us bring kids back to school and I didn't know if you were looking hinting that and if -- what is the outcomes. so, we are

273working with a company to pursue the same opportunities, probably the same company, I want to say you probably read the article about orange county public school and is and there are several company that is are florida based doing the same thing, we're in conversation with one specifically to -- and pretty much what they do, they identify the skaount u students not currently enrolled in our schools, it's zero cost for us upfront if the students pass the first fte window, that's when they get their share of the first fte. and I saw on the news the other day, they were promoting a whole school district and trying to bring kids back to their school district and we also need to get in the news for bringing kids back to our school district. and we've been doing

274that through the choose the best cps exam pain, those went out universally, now we're taking a more targeted approach. it wasn't a commercial, it was a news report regarding one of the low area school districts, not ours, stringing to get kids back to that school district because I was working out, saw the news and I took a picture of it. through that campaign, we did some new segments, I know the superintendent did one and our deputy also did, we can share that with the board. and I think some of the principal year folks, teacher of the year, we had some folks do some news segments to us to highlight the district and recruit students. the more free news ko f advance -- coverage we can get t better. MS. Alhadeff, we do have a process

275when a student withdraws from a school that we do follow-up on that, there's supposed to be an on-site interview with that student and their family to see where they're going, we have to report that to the sate, but to your excellent point about a follow-up call, we don't have a crm system in place and I think that's exactly the kind of thing we do need to be looking towards, a customer relationship management system, when someone leave and is you know where they are and you can call them directly and have a relationship with them even though the student has left. that's the kind of thing we do need to do more of, it's like a retention policy for a subscription or anything like that, you have to have multiple touch points where you're reaching out

276to those families, so I totally agree with that approach and we will figure that out somehow. great. On page 11, I was happy to see all the ai integration into mlk elementary school, so that was great. And then as far as I see that you're going to be discussing with the mayors, I don't know if chair hixon has already had the mayor roundtables or if that's coming up. tomorrow. tomorrow, perfect, because that's a great way -- I know when I did it, they were super happy, really engaged and a lot of amazing collaboration came out of that. And then as far as the bell time schedule updates, is that being made clear to the schools about their bell time changes? DR. Hepburn? yes, that's been made clear with a small few that are requesting some

277possible changes for the upcoming school year. can it just be crystal clear with all of our schools on their bell times? because I think there is some confusion of the time. yeah, we'll clarify, we've sent that out once but we'll clarify, we'll have the regional teams work with their schools just to make sure everybody understands the start and end time. okay, and then I think every school should have at least one social media handle , whether -- if they can't do all three facebook, instagram and x, at least have one, because the way we are going to be able to positively promote our school iss by tagging the schools ask have the parents tag the schools but they can't tag them if they don't have a social media handle. that is a work in progress

278that we're working on as we speak. okay. And then as far as district charter schools working directly, I was thinking that we should have the conversation with the broward education foundation as they're a non-profit organization and I think they could be a strategic partner of ours to have a district managed charter school. yes, we met with james map yesterday and that was part of our discussion, we are going to focus on our autistic student tos -- student, the ese team and also MS. Hollingsworth have been already engaged with our partners in different district tos really learn about the nuances of how they started, what lessons that we can learn, any mistakes we've made that we can learn from and not repeat in our journey and establishing that for the 26-27 school year. okay. And lastly,

279I think the board, we need to be very, very careful and mindful on how we speak as far as closing schools. We as a board previously we were going to close five schools and then it changed. And I think when we opened things up about speaking about closing 33 schools, it creates this seesaw effect and this uncertainty out there and as a board, we all -- maybe we just need to workshop that, that one point, or maybe it needs to be a board item because it's very frustrating for the community, it's frustrating for me as a school board member to not -- and I'm sure it's frustrating for staff because they don't know how to move forward and the superintendent, you know, are we closing any schools, are we ever going to close a school,

280are we closing one, 5, 33, 100, what does it look like, we as board have to come together and figure out what that number looks like, so again, we should workshop just that point because we have to all be ob the same page because at the end of the day, if we tell staff to close five schools and they go and do that work and then it comes to a board vote and hundreds of people come here and say, you know, no, don't close my school and then it fails, well, we just wasted all their time and we don't move forward and we move the trust from the community. So, my suggestion would be that we -- whether we workshop it or it's a board item or the superintendent brings a recommendation as far as

281what it looks like to close schools, but we're tiptoeing on this, we have to do it because we cannot continue the same footprint we always have done and we have to change and I want to do that but I think we have to be very mindful and tactful on how we do it so we continue to have the trust of the community moving forward. Thank you. thank you, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, I wanted to make comments on two different areas, one would be closing schools since I believe DR. Hepburn had mentioned getting some sort of feedback on that, and secondly, on the broward estates plantation elementary mlk ecosystem and how we approach that. So, regarding closing schools, for me it appears we have two major problems here in broward county. We have

282aging facilities, some of our schools are very old. And we also have declining enrollment. So, when we're looking at closing schools, I'm guessing there's a way to address both, DR. Hepburn. So, are there schools nr -- in the sdrigt that you would consider aging schools or too ole, DR. Hepburn? DR. Hepburn? yes, I would tread lightly on my answer because we are waiting on that facilities conditions assessment to really inform us as a staff and also the board about next steps because there's going to be dollar amounts associated with the needs of many build sosing that's going to drive decision-making as well as also the enrollment of that particular school, so those are two key variables that we're going to have to pay attention to to figure out what the next step is for a

283school if we're going o spend 20 million dollars on renovate thing school and it only has 30-40% capacity, so there are some key decision wes have to make based on good data we'll have from the fca. I understand so, should the facility assessment indicate that we do have some schools that are possibly too old or they're aging, what problems are created as a result of that? you will be dealing with a school that is literally falling apart and spending tens of millions of dollars on the school for a low population of students, then the capital dollars could be used better to upgrade facilities that are not in disrepair. okay, so I guess my next question then would be, would building brand new state of the art schools, replacement schools, that absorbers -- absorbs two or

284three nearby schools be a solution, I would guess if we have state of the art facilities, a brand new school that would absorb two or three others, that it would also attract students from private chart and her so on because we're building state of the art facility and is deal witching the enrollment problem, so is that a solution, if it is, can you expound on that. based on the informing we received, that will be one of my recommendations. we have in many areas, we have clusters of old schools and speaking of adjacent capacity, you MAY not have enough adjacent capacity to close one school and then for me, thinking of as a parent, a family, to consolidate and send my kid to another school of the same age doesn't make sense. A strategy we can

285definitely implement is is identifying out of that cluster of old school that is are underenrolled and the fca MAY say, we need to spend 5, 20, whatever the amount per school, we could easily identify one of those schools and build a replacement school on that site and consolidate the kids out of the old school into a brand new state of the art facility to meet their needs to provide innovative learning opportunities and the like that you would get with a brand new modern facility if we build one replacement school to absorb multiple old outdated schools that will cost way too much. Your money would be spent wisely on build ago replacement school versus spending a bunch of money on renovating old facilities that you will constantly have to update over the years. so, it appears

286to me, DR. Hepburn, that would resolve -- potentially resolve a couple of our problems because it would take care of the decline ing enrollment issue and it would also having state of the art facilities would then over a time period result in ib creasing enrollment possibilities. correct, you would have a school with a higher capacity and have a brand new facility that's not going through the aches and pains of some of our older facilities that is we hear from, from our advisory committees. I remember board member leonardi mentioned that we ought to look at what private schools offer that we're not offering, but I'll take it a step further, right. I think we also, we need to do a better job of promoting what we're offering that they're not offering so, it goes both ways,

287right. Maybe they're doing a great job promoting what they're offering, but we need to do the same in promoting what we offer that they're not and I think we're offering many things that they're not, but how are we promoting that? I wholeheartedly agree, we're revamping our marketing strategy and campaign, I MAY ask some outside source tos assist us with their expertise also. We do have a reresech thth's ming soon,n,that would be cleaean to show y y pants s are choongngesspspshlly charter hohools, that's the data we'll have available, and my preliminary review of it, we offer way more and people just don't know. correct. the full breadth of what we offer, we've done some things early on with short clip and is commercials to let people know we're here, we're in your backyard and it will

288be doubling down and get more detailed about what we offer, what our student outcomes look like, scholarship dollars, magnetics, academies and all the other myriad of services we provide the students and families so, that will be coming soon. and I can't imagine that is not a difficult thoing do, and I also believe as board member leonardi mentioned, we also need to look at what they're offering that we don't have and try to incorporate that within our school district. So we're approaching that from both fronts. sure. on slide 6, was community input a major driving force among many divining force briefing forces in programs being offered nr the upcoming year? that is a yes. I'll let DR. Wanza and DR. Fulton, we have DR. Cannon here too would were part of these meetings about what we

289want to see or what the community wants to see as far as services that will be provided to our families and our community. thank you, everybody, DR. Laurie cannoning, DR. Holness, thank you so much, yes, community input was invited and involved to be a part of making the decisions on these behive focus areas, as you can see on the right hand side, we held two community meetings, you also know we had a large group community meeting that happened at broward estates. Everyone that was in that large group meeting was invite today come o the partnership meetings, we also worked with the city of lauderhill t city of fort lauderdale to look at the date da and see what the need showed from the community, that local community right around the school. And based on that,

290as you can see in the beehives, right there in the middle, our core is going to be that early learning center, those are our bees, they will be taking flight on AUGUST 11, that first day of school, but surrounding the bees, we will have those services, those partnerships and those supports to really complete the full model. And that includes mental health and wellness, a central resource hub, family centered programming, health care access, workforce development and college and career exploration. okay, great. So, DR. Canning, in addition to community input driving the programs, I know there were community inputs that MAY not be necessarily data supported. How did we approach that in implementation of programs at broward estate that is the community deemed necessary but it MAY not -- we MAY not have had add quait data

291or it MAY not be date supported and if you can give examples. we have an open door, our partnership leader, our assistant director for faces is in the back, during those meetings, we took all input and all suggestions and definitely used those as we worked to match with our partners. And really we want to meet the needs of the community, that is our design and anyone that has additional input to share about potential programs or practices, we're still in the building and designing phase of the beehive just getting ready to match partners. We will be bringing leasing agreements over the next several mother sos our partners have space on campus. If anyone has additional ideas to share websinger would be very happy to listen to those and look at the data and help match so

292we can best meet the needs of the community. okay, so DR. Canning, I do recall when I attended one of those meetings that one of the input had to do with the possibility of homework assistance after school or -- have we included that as a part of the intention to bring programs at broward estates? we're working right now with partners who will have services for not just the early childhood programs but services for teens from the community, services for children from the community, so we are definitely working on that but I also want to caution that children who are going to the new schools, we know that those new schools have amazing after care programs and clubs. I want to highlight MS. Freeman and MRS. Benson from broward sates, they will be wringing with the

293new schools those students will transition to, to provide best practices for those club and is programs that continue to be highlighted. Er awesome, so I want to make it known to our public listening that based on what yu mentioned, DR. Canning, that it's an ongoing process, are you able to provide information on if someone wants to potentially be a partner, how they can go about that process? yes, they can reach tout me directly. DR. Laurie canning, you can send me an e-mail at laurie .Canning at broward schools.Com. I have a couple other comment, I did notice that the parents were quite excited in the transition of those students, I have spoken to a few of them and I have to commend principal MS. Parent and assistant principal mckenna for the accommodating atmosphere, the welcoming at

294mos sphere they created for those student and is the team of our district staff including our superintendent who has made this transition seemingness so -- seamless so far, the question I have, DR. Hepburn, I know that we're making some changes to mlk and some potential changes to plantation elementary in accommodating the students being transitioned from broward estates. Can you speak to some of those changes and will we realize those changes in time for the upcoming school year? DR. Hepburn? changes as far as facilities changes? facilities changes or additional changes, mlk, I believe we're looking hinting a new additional science lab and so on. I'll have the academic team -- I'm going o -- to defer that to DR. Hudge. so, you reference or your question is around what changes are going to be made, I'm

295sorry? okay, so the question is two parts, I know there will be changes as was discussed before. Just if you could mention what some of those changes are and will those changes be in time for the upcoming school year ?Frjts thank you for the question. One of the things we're doing to enhance what is already going on at mlk is -- and you heard people reference it, is bringing in a learning commons in the media center area and so that is in the works. I'll have DR. Wilson to come up and speak to that in a little bit more in depth but that will be an enhancement to what is already going on at mlk. So, currently what is going on at mlk will continue and then we will enhance with the ai for the

296learning comment -- common ins the media center. I don't know if you can speak to the learning commons. good afternoon, DR. Wilson, director of innovative learning, the vision of principal parent, she want tos fortify her leap program and creating in the media center which is known by policy 4120 as the innovative learning commons, we're trying to move our media center spaces into the 21st century and lagging behind just a bit but with the support of the innovative department, we are going to reconfiguring the library media space so that students would be able to in year one be exposed to the innovation hub being the center of the school beginning with a fundamental digital literacy, understanding how ai works and exploring daily data within their lives. MS. Parent wants to go beyond the page transforming k-5

297literacy through ai driven ?Ror if -- exploration and problem silvering. We will be having an ai tinkering, this is a tool of exploration that was founded at stanford university and we will be replicate thirsting in our media space infuser the 25-26 school year where students get to do a variety of polled actinviter that is are connected to safe ai websites that you can get entry level exploration and learning how to maneuver through ai. Additionally we will be working with applied learning so that we can bring in other hands-on experiences with our students so that we're really triaging the project based learning and using artificial intelligence to solve everyday problems dealing with scarcity and other issues within their community so that they're plugged in, in this tha process, so we are going to start off from

298a standpoint of digital literacy, also infusing a lot of our apple products, we're currently working with apple and we will be training the teachers to become apple teachers and to create a cohort because this principal is also interested in becoming an apple distinguished school, so we will be shepherding that process with MS. Parent and the mlk staff but the nucleus of innovation will be in the media center. okay. And DR. Hudge, I am so happy to hear that and I'm looking forward to all those wonderful initiatives at mlk. I know that we recently voted to rename the school and there were concerns over the renaming if it will involve some degree of programmatic change as far as the montessori model. I just want us to reassure the public that aspects of that model will remain,

299it is not leaving completely. But we're looking into adding some additional programs that will attract parents to the school, so if you could comment on that. thank you for that and you're exactly right. Those components of montessori will remain so we will continue to could the piece education which will allow us to build a culture where students are learning to resolve disputes in a very klab rat -- collaborative way, also looking at the environment and making sure we have structured welcoming environment which is kind of part of the montessori component, hands on learning or exploration is something that we'll continue do do within the school as well, and focus on community collaboration. We will continue conversations going into the new year through the procedural guidelines around the magnet, we're working with MS. Hen -- ken

300drik and her department and collaborate witching the community and stakeholders throughout next year the make sure we are looking at innovation or initiatives that will align to the needs of the students and the community at mlk. wonderful, MADAM Chair, I have one more concern, so DR. Hepburn, I know that there were concerns and we've spoken about it before regarding the smart bond allocation that was initially allocated for broward estates, not sure of the exact figure, I have heard conflicting numbers, 5 or 6 million dollars, and you had assured us that will be spent in the same ecosystem as far as plantation elementary, broward estate and is mlk. Could you comment on whether or not that is -- has remained the same and have there been any plans as to how it will be distributed across

301the three schools? yes, thank you for the question. I our recommendation stays the same, of course we have o bring that to the board for a vote, it will be part of the whole defp process, there's some things we need to upgrade such as adding additional awnings and things like that for bad weather when students are leavening bus loops and car looses we've identified and some other things the facilities team have identified. understood, so have your departments started looked at the needs of the three school and is determined -- yes, they have. While I have the team here, I want to publicly thank them, it's been a large effort by many people across the entire district, DR. Cohen has been thrown on the k-8 task force that includes regionals at different department and is different

302regions in the district, there's the sim team, willie has been doing a yeoman's job in guide thing whole process through project managing the whole team and getting everybody on board and bringing tasks and bringing information so it's been -- we've been on the journey for three months now and it's coming to fruition, we're almost at that finish line in the next couple of months, they've been doing an excellent job in making sure that all of our schools are transitioning appropriately and it's going to be an excellent learning opportunity and learning environments for our kids going to those schools. and the kids going to plantation elementary, they will have not to walk across 441, they will have transportation? correct, I will the transportation team is working on all of those coordination, we would not do that

303aver all but because of the business of the road. thank you. MS. Bulman? thanks, MADAM Chair. First of all, ies o as a parent of the child of one of the k-8's that is being converted, I can attest to what's happening right now. Er I'm impressed with phase 1, part 2. I think you guys have done a great job with it, maybe it wasn't as many schools affected or as so many people would tliek see, I think it was well deiced and it fits in together nicely so I'm excite today see what's happening there. I think the roll-out has been amazing, MR. Perez and his team has done an amazing job with branding. I was at hollywood central on friday touring, there's work being done, there's up da it dates, it's a great environment to

304see the changes being made that I think we need in order to attract kids back to our schools and really give people what they want here in 2025, so you guys are doing a great job on that. And the fact that we're getting an early learning center out of this I think is amazing for that community in particular and obviously nobody wants to have their local school closed. I mean, that's something that is so dear to the community and no one wants that but I do think given the environment we're in right now and really having to be realistic about serious decisions we're going to have to make, I think we can laob at this as an opportunity because we've spent the whole day talking about facilities and all these other things and the challenges

305that we're facing with that, so, if we have to make those tough decisions, I think we need to be very comprehensive in our lan and continuing the same way we did the first phase, so I don't know that we just -- what kind of data you're going to use to identify how many schools. I agree 100% with MS. Alhadeff, it's all about communicating and making sure we're communicating with the public about what kind of decisions we're making, how we're making those decisions and most importantly, I think for the stakeholders, how you're going to get something better. So, if I'm losing my school down the street, I better be hearing that the school that my child's going to be going to is going to be better offering more, having a better facility and giving my kid

306better opportunities. So, that's the narrative that I want to see coming back for phase 2 because I think that that will be great for everybody in broward county if we're able to offer that but I do agree with you, I think it's all about how we're interfacing witching the public and really kind of selling our plan and I think that you guys are on the right track with that, so continue that and obviously we'll be waiting for the facilities assessment because that's going to dictate a lot of how we're going to make decisions. And I just -- just from my own experience, I was thinking about land where I grew up, it's like the school that I went to is now a japanese language school t school behind it was an adult education program, mow

307it's an early learning so when ear thinking of an early learning center so it's had to change with the times, so when we're thinking about surplus and how we're using our resources and our land, I think we first of all have to be one step ahead of whatever statutes are coming out for land grabs, we need to be planning ahead of that and then we have to be thinking about the needs of the community. I love the idea of having child care if we're taking people out of -- and putting them into surplus buildings for offices, that's like a great benefit to give to our employees. I mean, there's nothing more expensive right now than having to pay for child care in broward county as far as I can tell, it's like sometimes you're paying

308to work and then also to MS. Thompson's point, the vpk, it's just low hanging fruit, kol on, this is how we continue to have our kids go from the beginning until 12th grade here and he venn after that, so keep up the good work. i look forward to seeing what you guys bring back to us and I guess the only question I would is is v is when yo do you think we'd have that next? we'll be coming back during the summer, but we will be chunking some things that we want to present the board, iep3's, that's probably the fifirschunk, sinincesome ofof that is meme sensitive e and ththe rereal este and plplanning amam hadone meme work thth urban planners and we want to present that information to the board to get some considerations for

309next steps that we should focus on because that entails a lot of logistics and then we'll bring the other chon -- chunks during the sirm, after we speak to our municipality partners and our non-profit and our for profit partners. We want to do something amazing. I think there's going to be a lot of people that will want to collaborate with us, we need to do it smart, so thank you very much, everybody. thank you. I'll go and then DR. Zeman wanted to -- he's going to finish us up. So, first I would like to ask a question to DR. Hepburn or whoever could answer this, so we have a company that's doing the facilities conditions assessment, is it possible or is it in the scope of what they're doing for them to make suggestions to

310us on schools that should be consolidated because I do believe that is a capacity that they have and I personally, I don't know how my board members feel, would lieg to take our staff out of the beginning part of that discussion only because we hear a lot of times, you know, we didn't listen or whatever, I would love to have a professional company after doing the facilities assessment and looking at data say, here are the suggestions that we have, so instead of us as a board making an arbitrary number at an arbitrary date to my other board member's point, if there's a company who this is what they do, this is their job, is that something we can ask them to bring to us so that's where our starting point of conversation is. so, I'll

311have MS. Paul answer that question with the company we're singing to do the assessment and I'll follow up with some things I'm currently doing too. Go ahead, MS. Paul. so, the company, their deliverables are the facility assessment reports, they're also doing inventory of our assets and asset tagging. They will help us with a maximum integration and portfolio prioritization but I think what you speak of is more of a long range planning scenario, and part of having a master planner. And so, you know, we hired them for very specific things, not to make recommendations in terms of facility consolidation and is that sort of thing. so, in addition to that, I am seeking a consultant to do? Ing the front end to look at the date from our student enrollment and any other variables we have

312to provide some initial recommendations for us. It's not khao cheap, I'm looking at it last year too, the companies that came to the forefront were way too expensive, so I've reached out to the council of great city schools to collaborate with any superintendent across the kuntdbacker country. This is not a broward county issue, this is a national issue for many large school district sos see what consultants they've used to support them in their initial endeavors for closing or ie consolidating schools so more to come on that information. I am seeking somebody to assist us with that. okay, thank you, because as we've mentioned, communication is important and to that point, I also I think as has been mentioned, it's important for us as a district to explain what the benefits would be. I think we

313did it backwards this time, first we're closing the facility -- facilities and then we're talking about what kind of programming. I think we should be talking about -- you know, if we're able to consolidate schools, your student would have access to drama, would have access to art, pe, why, because we have three schools and one facility. What I have noticed especially in the broward estates discussion is they don't understand that because everybody -- every student brings in the same amount of dollars generally speaking. So, they don't understand how it is that you can put more students in one space and what that benefit is. We have to do a better job of explaining how those electives come about instead of focusing on the buildings, more about the programming and then the buildings part maybe won't

314be so important, it's always going to be important because everybody loves their hometown school and the history it has but I don't think generally the public understands what the advantage is of consolidating two or three schools, build ago brand new school and what those educational opportunities are, so I think moving forward, that should be the way we look at it is just first talking about the programming and then talking about the facilities part of it. Just a quick note, somebody mentioned this, can you give us an update about changing the name of lauderdale manner since I've been asking for a couple of times. I don't know if it needs to be a b item that comes to us or if you're just changing it? no, DR. Fulton and I have had that discussion, so it

315will come in a future batch of a board item. okay, so that's moving, on its way. I agree with the vpk in all of the schools and as I said a number of times, the partial closing schools and partnering with municipalities or partners, early learning, daycare facilities, I also am going to put a plug in, I mentioned had this before, my grandson who is 2 goes to a daycare that's bilingual and I would really like to see us maybe in some of these spaces of early learning start adding that bilingual piece to it because he can do his numbers and colors in spanish and english and he's 2. So I have a hard time keeping up, but I think especially where we live and you could look at it and see what language is in

316that community depending on where they're at, but I would say not just vpk in general but to look at what that looks like and in terms of where we talked about regionalbackinging dual advantage waj programs, they don't have the staffing for dual lang wanl, a lot of schools start it and they end up only being able to offer it in k-1 or 4-5 and they're not able to sustain it so being able to offer that in a regional space would make the staffing easier and I think give access fully across the board. And I know the students earlier today mentioned about having more options in their school and we talked about magnet programs in every school, I want to also say keep in mind that -- because this happened at south broward, the more things

317you add to a school and you still have the same number of students who are your base to take thel, you water down the ability to have those solid programs, our marine science program suffered because of the ican program, not that all of those ican pieces weren't great pieces but when you put too much stuff in one place with not enough people to take the different programs, it doesn't help -- you end up getting rid of some of them because the students have too many choices, so sometimes I think too much is maybe not the right path to take. I'm just going put a plug in, also I was at south plantation yesterday and board member fam brought brought this up a long time ago t prevet program at south plantation, there was a discussion

318in looking into it. I think bro urtd education foundation was part of it but those talks have kind of settled down, so they're still going to offer a small portion of pre-vet, but they have the facility, if we could add that to our phase 2 of programming, it would be awesome. I knower that we don't like to use paper but I would also throw out for marketing postcards, right, some mailing is important because not everybody looks at social media. We make the assumption they do but they don't necessarily do that. Let's see here, what else did i want to say. You answered the question about the autistic school. I think it's important because we have some private companies that are interested in doing autistic charters in broward county, the quicker we can jump in front

319of that, the better off we would be. And I look forward to the discussion about transportation because I think that we could definitely do a much better job on that. Alright. Thank you. So, DR. Zeman? MADAM Chair, can I just speak on something that DR. Hepburn said. DR. Hepburn, you spoke about companies and you said that there are some that were too expensive, I would really like you to bring all of it to the board because we were faulted in the grand jury report, the board was by pick thing lowest option when it came with the smart bond, soiled like to know what the choices are, thank you. DR. Zeman? thank you very much. On page 22, we talk about rooms for staff to go to schools, MR. Superintendent, we also talk about leasing out

320entire floors if that's possible. Do those two things compete with the board's interest in early childhood education, daycare, ese pod expansion and the like? no, they don't. if there ever is a trade off, if we have to make a decision about leasing space or moving staff to a school that would displace ese, early childhood education or child care, I would love to know it, if you could let us know in the future, please. absolutely. thank you. And MS. Alhadeff, this idea of getting inside the decision loop about how people make decisions about how they attend schools is so important of what they're doing, besides ai, it's the biggest driver to how we spend all of our operating money and all of our capital money and I still don't think we have that intelligence system, I

321don't think we know how to market to the decision makers because we don't know when they're making decisions. I asked the council in great city school, ray heart, to give us the research they've done on it, they focused on transition dates, 3-4 year-old parents, thaoer at the point of making decisions where do i live based on boundaries and distance to public charters or to private schools and they still have enough time to move and relocate if they want to do something else, they point to fifth grade parents and 8th grade parents because there's big draws and their research says what you decide is a parent of a 3-4 year-old, a parent of 5th and 8th grader is different torx the extent we need to know that to market better and make decisions about how we

322spend our money, I look forward to learning more about that, we're flying blind right now, as a member of the board, those are things we want to expose to the leadership. The debate about closing schools has to happen. I think it has to happen here, I hope we close quickly, I love the idea of bringing an item back that suggests how many schools over how many years so the issue is settled. I would suggest there's a third issue is who picks the schools, so it's number of schools over how many year and is who's the decider. I put my idea out there because I've been studying this for a long time. I love going to 90% capacity because if we went back 20 thousand students, we still have space for them, so there's plenty of

323room to be so successful in this battle that we still have room left to do it. I think the community already expects this to happen, so three year iss a reasonable amount of time and I would rather have the superintendent pick schools because he has no dog in the fight and I've seen other districts do that. I know DR. Hepburn and I would trust him o bring a list of whatever number we have. Why am I putting that proposal out now? The laws of economics are like the laws of gravity, you cannot fight against them. And right now if we do nothing, the bad guys are going to win. The risk is to become duval county who kicked the can for 8 years of declining enrollment, severely underutilizing their schools and this year they're considering

32420 closures, emergency closures. I don't want to get there. I don't want to kick the can, I want to do smart, intentional things so we have tile to adapt, move student, send kids to school that is are better than the schools they're in now, newer capacity, newer buildings, higher levels of academic profish si and thoughtful transitions to better programs. There's many people here and other place tlas compared us to kodak when dining cameras came out, it doesn't work except that our digital camera is school choice and the real question is can we stop acting like a monopoly provider. Broward county schools for a long time was the only choice in broward county and we did the best we could with the money we had to deliver great education, we're in a new world with school

325choice between public charters and private school and is home school and moving or going to palm beach schools or miami-dade school and is we have to figure out thousand get to that point. Some people think private charters are ten feet tall, they are not, they grew from to 50 thousand students over the past 25 years, that's a lot. But I like school choice and I love competing but I like to compete like an athlete, not like a passive victim of the legislative dictate. MR. Superintendent, who has the higher graduation rate, broward county public schools or broward county private charter schools? broward county public schools. Correct me if I'm wrong, I want to say, what is it, 96%? 96.2? And the charter schools were 80-something percent which brought the average down. MR. Superintendent, who pays for

326transportation to public schools, public schools or private charter schools? public schools. charter schools charge up to 10 thousand dollars per student for transportation. Who has the most certified teachers? broward county public schools. would la to take a piece of the revenue in order to pay their owners and their private entities? not broward county schools. if you can imagine a a charter make ago thousand dollars per student, that's a thousand dollars we pay for learning, they're not ten feet tall the, ear our competitors in a sense that people get to make these choice and is the debate is do we continue to act like a monopoly or do we compete? If we want to compete websinger have to make smart decisions at the laws of economics. When we get back together to consider the number of

327schools, how many years we take to do it and who would be the one to select those schools, I'm going to ask the superintendent one question, not now, MR. Superintendent, but at our next meeting, if we want to be the best district many the united states, how many schools would you recommend we close, over how many years, and are you willing to be the guy that makes the list? And I'm not asking that now, aoem telling you no. Er I was going to plead the fifth now. I want to start it with hear framing you, at the end of the day, your thoughts and your opinions and your leadership matters a great deal and I think it would help center the debate if you would share your ideas about that when we get back together,

328thank you, chair. thank you. And -- sorry, just to DR. Zeman's point, if we do ask our superintendent to give us those answers, we as a board have to then support him. yes. thank you. okay, thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you for the robust discussion. we wanted to share a sizzle reel. I'm sorry, so we're going to end with a little video, sorry. we have mike from becon tv, he he's worked with all the principals and been amazing. So we're very excited to share a compellation of the sizzle reels. Each one is about two to three minutes long, so this one is all sorts of little clips from each school and there's -- it's two and a half minutes long. (Showing sizzle reels). pines college yat academy 6-12 has many program and

329is many things to offer its community, we have cambridge, culinary, robotics, aeronautics, the teachers here are great and there's extra curricular and clubs that we're all a part of. silver shore steam academy k-8, science, technology, engineering, aviation and math with the offering coding fundamentals with the offering of robotics, we'll be introducing aviation and aviation mechanics. I was pretty nervous about graduating school but [Inaudible] To be with my friends. Wefrjts ear coconut creek, k-8 academy of excellence wre, the only school many the north broward air what to have a can recollect-8 school, we have the academic rhetoric that we need to provide us to excellent academic instruction. I am very excited, it takes a lot of anxiety away from me thinking about what middle school she was going to have to go to so we're all

330set for the next five years. at the academy for the arts, we do amazing things, we're known for our extensive arts program. Er I'm one of the main high yaoen nas and a funny high yaoen na, so I'm a main character. we are very excited about that. hollywood central preparatory k-8 provides a close knit environment. This is the place you want your child to do. This campus is built to be a performing arts school. I have a 500 seat performing arts auditorium that is our auditorium. mymyototr eswentnt hereand evernenehehere pretty much knows me ever since before I was born. cambridge is a higher level of learning that will provide for all students kindergarten through 8th grade. (Video complete). [Applause]. so, those were produced all by becon and we included MRS. Bulman's son in that last

331clip. Everyone has known him before he was born which I thought that was dpraet, and the high yaoen na was great. We are doing mlk on friday, so that's up next and after that, getting started on the new broward estates. Thank you. thank you, again, so much. [Applause]. okay. I don't know if we -- we'll have a minute or two for transition, we're moving on to the office of the chief auditor audit plan forecast. (Meeting in recess). welcome back to the school board workshop. The next item is the office of the chief auditor audit plan forecast fiscal year 2025-2026. I will turn it over to staff -- we're going to not do the presentation, so let me go to public comment, there's no registered speakers, so we are going to go straight to board discussion,

332unless MR. Rhodes, did you want to do a brief introduction like a minute twofer? I think that would be a good idea, we have three new board members from last year. Er let's do that. let's make sure they're all here. Standard response, auditor wants to see -- oh, oh. So, I wanted to give a brief overview because we have one, two, three board members who were not here last year when we went over this. Last year, I was task assigned and at the time that I was tasking assigned, I had not been here in 12 years, I was working for the office of the inspector general. We were nearly due the for our five year risk assessment. I felt it was time for them to come in because I didn't feel qualified to do a

333risk assessment at that time. They came in and spoke with audit committee members, school board members, chief executive directors and got a sense of the basic question that they try to find in any risk assessment which iss what keeps you up at night. Everybody provided their input, it was qualitative in nature because of the timeframe we had, I think it was useful, we appended that three year risk assessment/audit plan they provided for us at that time for everybody's review and to keep it all in one place. So, with that in mind, we were able to put together last year's audit plan. The remainder of that story is that by JULY 1, we were supposed to an external audit services contract for our external resources that we used to help us to complete our audit plan.

334We had requested that that rfp be put together in OCTOBER of 23. The the contract was supposed to be ready for us on JULY 1 for several reasons, it wasn't ready and approved by the board until NOVEMBER 13, so you'll see on this current audit plan there are some items listed as carry overs because sofm the product that last year carried over on to this year's plan due to those lack of resources. With that in mind, having that general background, our general focus as the office of the chief auditor is to provide some level of oversight to assist the board, to assist management and to provide some assistance to and reports for review by the audit committee and then also to take information from the audit committee as they represent several of you on the

335board or all of you on the board and then there are three others that are appointed by pta, dac and the superintendent. So, at the end of the day, most of the people that are on the audit committee are representatives of people sitting at this table. We do that, the way that we provide any value at all through this process to the district and to management and to the board is to go out and find these things that staff either was not aware of, so let me back up for one second and tell you, for purposes of going through whether it's a statute, a policy, a florida administrative code, a contract term, I'm going the call those things guidance for today, there MAY be washings where staff who are managing a project or a process,

336they're not awir o f the appropriate guidance and they MAY not be doing this in accordance with the requirement that is are set forth for them to follow. We go through and we put together an add dit program that is set to test those guidance pieces and to identify if there are any reportable conditions,.There are, we write those in an audit report with an audit recommendation that will bring what we found in the field into harmony with the guidance they're supposed to be following. With that in mind, as a background of what it is we do and how we got to this place, I would like to open it up so we can talk about this year's audit plan because I'm very interested to get any input that's going to help make this a better

337plan. okay. Any board members have any questions? MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. MR. Rhodes, first I would tliek thank you for the proposed plan. I did my best to go through this and I've got a couple of questions if I MAY. sure. and I noticed sometimes the pages of the actual document don't line up with the number on the pdf, so I'm going to do my best to articulate where I'm at if you want to follow along, so, page 68 of the report, it's page 71 of the pdf, your finance proposed audit plan. I noticed there's a budget process in which you are recommending for 26 and 27, however, there was no recommendation for this for 25-26, I needed some clarity and some explanation as to why we are skipping that budget process in

33825 and 26. so, first of all, what you're referring to and pointing us to is a part of the risk assessment audit plan that was done by the outside firm. That begins on page -- that's car regs and ingram, yes. and I want to find that page for everybody's benefit here. that begins on page dpdf page 26 of this report. So, our audit plan is previous to page 26 on this report, so with regard to your question, what we had to do was take a look at after having reviewed the acfr, the asfr and all the work that was done from a financial standpoint, we had to take a look at it and see if there was something we could benefit from those reports before we can put those into the plan so they neater

339duplicative, that's the primary reason why that's not in here, also when we put the plan together last year, there were far more check marks many the 24-25, 25-26 and 26-27 columns than there are resources that we have available to do them so we have to separate them by statutory requirements and we have to separate them from areas of audit that have not been looked at and periods and more importantly the higher risk level items so I hope that answers your question as to why we didn't include that item identified on page 71. thank you, MR. Rhodes, if I can follow up with an additional question, staying on somewhat in line -- this is page 67, document page 67, the it is page 70 of 115 of the pdf. I noticed that for the categories of

340capital budgeting and financial reporting and disclosures, they are -- well, let's say capital budget, the outside vendor has identified this as a yellow category or somewhat moderate risk if you will. Looking at this, why -- or strike that, do you believe this should be moved over to the red or the high risk category? after OCTOBER of 25, i think that should mover further to the right and further up in the magnitude of that scale into that red area, that's the time period where our resolution runs out where the bond funds are going to start to be funded by capital budgeting and that's certainly going to raise the risk. and incidentally and for the benefit of perhaps those who don't do editing for a livening, how do you get or what would quantify you to be

341placed in the high rising or the red category? again, when you look at the arrows to the left and to the bottom, it shows you either the likelihood of that risk occurring or the magnitude as much that rising MAY occur, and depending on where that point in the graph falls, that's where those two items come together. And that's where they identify based on each type of risk where it should end up on that heat map. and second part of my question, in regards to the financial reporting and disclosures, do you also report that category should be changed to the red or the high risk category or are you cited satisfied at the one that it's currently in? I don't believe it long nrs the red area, we have a cafr, acfr is reviewed by the

342audit committee, there's an external auditing company and this year there was provided to the board on a monthly basis, so we're getting more of real-time view of these ie ems and identifying what the balances are and what the liabilities are and if money has been spent at all. thank you for that, MR. Rhodes. And my final inquiry if you will indulge me, page 16 of the pdf, document page 13. In regards to the audit subject area entitled finance which is in line item number under payroll, why is this only given a risk rating of 4? we do routine payroll audits as a part of our internal audit function. We have an operational group in there and they look at these things on a piecemeal basis. We have found that typically the risk that we've been

343able to identify has been low enough to justify this bingeing in that range of a 4. Certainly any comparison to some of the other areas that are rated higher than the 4 that have to do with discipline, bta or btm, whichever period of time you were looking for, behavioral threat assessment or management, we believe this is a lower risk based on what we've seen so far. That could change, based on input we received throughout the course of the year from this board, we identify that a larger scale macro scale payroll audit was more important and it nighed to be more comprehensive. That's why I would say that number could go up but we won't know that until we start to look at that data on a much larger sample. Er so, you're satisfy witched the

344current ritz k rating for the payroll aspect to be a 4? I am based on what I know. thank you, MADAM Chair. thank you. Anybody else? DR. Zeman? thank you so much. A handful questions for the chief auditor, on page 11 to follow on MR. Cervera's questioning, on x answerbacker axe osier you have likelihood, on the y, you have magnitude. How do you xwiep -- combine those to equal risk? when wewe assessssthe internrnal contntlsls, they're e either susufficie for r usto fl l that therisis a control to mitigate that risk and if not, it goes further out to the right in terms of that scale. The magnitude would be and which we generally find a lot of times in follow-up auditing findings is we test them against that magnitude to try to identify wla is

345the likelihood of this particular finding happening again and if it did happen again, would it put the district in an unacceptable level of risk. so, would you say the x axis is really the probability of a bad event happening? yeah. and would you view the y axis as the consequence of that bad event? that would be a good way to put it. you would define risk as likelihood of something happening times the consequence if it did? times. it's an important question, if you don't mind getting back to us, I'm interested in your definition of this. I also had questions about the plot. Who did you interview to get the data for this heat map or this definition of risk? this heat map, we did based on the recommendation of the audit committee, it was also

346a better way for us to be able to give a very quick and visual idea of what it is that our current audit plan does. We got that information and kept it consistent with what it was that our outside consultant used with their heat maps when they did department by department or area by area. And so by using that, we were able to identify that we were, a, not looking into the green area where the risk and the mag my tuesday did not lie and we were also looking at a way to identify what areas were of the lowest magnitude even though thirster were at the highest level of like lie hood -- likelihood. I appreciate that, I'm curious about who was interviewed to provide the data that put dots op this map. well, because

347a lot of it ties back to the original risk assessment, it was board member who is participated, audit member who is participated in the original rising assessment that went from 24-25, 25-26, and 26-27. the date that went to generate this critical heat map to understand the audit plan, did you resolicit from school board members what they viewed as the greatest risk and the overall? no, and the reason I didn't is because today is my understanding of the process how that impact comes to us after -- in my best judgment, I put together the plan and we take the input and where have if something's going to be remove and had replace framed the recommend detesting of the board or something would be removed or replaced from the recommendation of the audit committee. I understand. I

348don't know exactly where MR. Cervera is going. Where I'm going is I feel like school board members live this risk problem. We get selected to this bore, we see systems, we pass budgets, we pass policies, we're constantly weighing kind of where is the likelihood of something happening and the consequences of our community. In the chief, past auditors in this county have done one.By one interview tos get the data underlying this heat map, I find that methodology far superior than talking to somebody else, I think iet assist school board member's job to look across the entire district and provide the data on it and again I'm not trying to presuppose where general counsel over there was going with this but I'm going with two years ago, the former chief auditor came and interviewed all of us

349for an hour about where the risk was, I found that data to be compelling, this data I find to be muddled and I don't like the results at all. I don't agree with the risks identified here in terms of probability or consequences. There are things like the construction sss that I view as infinitely likely to happen again because of the history of it and the consequence is massive because we're going to go out for another bond. If we don't win back the public thinking weing can build a school or a wing or finish our library on time or a sidewalk on time, we're not going to have the chance to get the county commission to go out for a bond, so those are the things I would point out that school board members think about

350all the time and I think we're uniquely qualified to help you identify risk. You also point out on slide of your audit plan kind of an interesting chart that shows different categories for audits. I'm sure you're familiar with this, what share of the audit plan are operational audits? we have intended to change this to represent the percentages after we understand what the final audit plan is going to look like. We have been -- that it was recommended to us by a member of the audit committee and the remainder of the audit committee agreed with that. This has been something that had been used by the prior chief auditor just to identify in his plan what was the area that the audit was going to be performed in, who would be responsible. We're planning to take

351this and make it more a percentage of what the real pie would look like. terrific. How long have you been our chief auditor? since OCTOBER 8, 2025 -- 2024, sorry. terrific, so you're 7, 8 months in. yes. in that 7-8 months, have you learned much about broward county public schools? I have relearned it. . Inger have you learned anything that would suggest this year's audit plan should be different than last year's? yes, because I've been here for a year attending workshops, audit committee meet advising school board meetings where a lot of these areas are being discussed and I'm making moreover what I'm perceiving as risk so I can go out and research tla and determine if it was in fact a risk and that has gone into the data that has been brought into this.

352and my sense is broward county schools in 2025 looking at next year's audit is very different than it was last year or the current year. Can you point to any audits in the audit plan that are different this year than last year? yeah. We have the facilities ppo construction services minor projects, we were going to look at because there were so many carve outs that were discussed in regard to the smart bond over the year with how they were managing to get projects completed. They would carve things out and hand it over to ppo or to the construction services projects we have under contract. can you tell me which page you're on. I'm sorry, page 14, this is item project number 6. Page 4 -- 14 on the actual page. okay. so, what happens is

353there's a day labor statute that identifies what is the threshold limit that for example ppo could go out and do a project using district employees and I wanted to look at one, were they in compliance with that statute with the number of carve outs that have been described throughout the course tof year, and two, I wanted to make sure that the folks that are hired for us to provide those contracts under 4 million dollars, I think there's a couple of different thresholds, but that they were complying with and adhering to the multipliers that they provided in their bid that won them their respective part of the projects. thank you very much. I was struck by how the titles at least of the recommended audits for next year looked like a carbon copy of the ones

354from last year, so I'll do more read tog figure out of the details being different. I think going back to my pie chart question, there's some fascinating operational issue that is are not included in this and I was going to propose a few to my colleagues for them to consider. One is we have a a massive opportunity to make sure we're doing consistent reimbursements with our ese services. That's been a longstanding issue here, it's a perfect audit, a lot of accounting, a lot of invoicing and the like. It also has an implication of whether or not we're staffing those things f you're supposed to have three of these kind of therapies per week, if we don't do three, we can't ask for the money, if we're not doing three websinger ear not provide thing s

355frs. We have to make sure we're ubs thing strategy, gathering the right data and understanding the different facets of the occupational groups that deliver mental health and I think the cc er process of the safety incidents reported in schools, we've done a lot with bta's, I hear a lot about cc ers and I'm curious if we're following state law and all of broward county policies, is there enough education and the like, and lastly, food service. Our food service is xwlint -- excellent but I have a wide tent of eating food, I like eating food that was left over for the past 3, 4 days. We should think about how other districts provide food and provide new insent tiers for it. These operational audit ares fascinating and more internal audits and -- we should remind people

356these thing ares critically important torx the extent that we use manpower and staff time to do those versus do some of these operational issues and I don't know if these four are the best ones, I would love for our audits to be about things that the board finds fascinating to look at. if I can follow oup to that, one of the thing wes do property and inventory and the internal funds audits is because they are required per statute, those are not optional. We have to do those and they take a lot of our internal resources to do them tla.'s one of the reasons we have -- when you do take a look back at the far stoekd the right category, you will see -- the far right category, you will see whether or not something

357was a carry over or whether or not something was a newly identified audit. I think there's four carry overs in here and that's a direct result of us not getting our contract approved by the JULY 1 date that started this audit year, however we have six audit that is are currently either started or near completion, one in completion that we're waiting to bring to the board that are all part of has that population of audit work that we have assigned. thank you, chair. are there any other board members that have any questions or feedback? Okay. MR. Rhodes, do you have what you need from us? I do. I heard some ideas that I thought from DR. Zeman that were very good ideas. I heard some questions from MR. Cervera that I thought were great observations

358but I would like to know so that I have an understanding if there's any areas of consensus that I can go back to the drawing board and start to work on incorporating some of the things he said with the consensus of the remaining portion of the board. are there any objections to the suggestions that DR. Zeman brought forward? No? Okay. I think we have some consensus there. and chair f you don't mind, MAY I add one quick point? yes. thank you. Chief auditor, if there are other operational audits that in your experience or in hearing from other large urban auditors have done fascinating thins you heard us have a a lot of talk about, I would be interested in your ideas other than those four as well, those were fascinate tog me and my colleagues

359I think, if you have a couple other ideas, hey, if you don't want to do these four, here's a couple my team is fully qualified to help you with, I would love to know those who when you bring it back. absolutely. are we able to -- so, the next item is information and technology policies. I now turn it over to staff for a brief presentation. Do we want to do a brief presentation or do we want to go straight to questions? we have a brief presentation. okay. four slides. thank you. alright. Good day, school board member, my name is nikki green, assistant director for it business operations. We are here today to present to you two it policies, 8560 which was previously 2501 entitled forms, control, systems, and 8520, previously 5008 entitled centralized recordkeeping. We

360present these two policies to you as part of the practice outlined in policy 1000, staining runless must be reviewed within five years of policies last review. We request the board to review these two policies and provide guidance and directions to the superintendent at a subsequent board meeting. Policy 8560, forms control systems which was previously 2501 was revised to be more concise to increase coherence to koe reduce duplication and be more consistent with retention operations. this slide shows the changes made on page 1 with each of the four rules and the introduction. So, I'll let you review it for a few seconds if you need to. staff, if you don't mind the, are ready for questions. okay, awesome, we're going skip right to that. Slide 4 is the policy 8520, centralized student records keeping,s previously policy

3615008 is recommended to be repealed as the information found here is already contained in policy 1480, students records' confidentiality and family educational rights which was brought to the last month's board meeting I believe on APRIL 8. And we're going jump right to the questions, if there's any, so I'm going ask my colleague to jump in. Are there any questions the board has for us? does anybody have questions? It doesn't look like there's any questions, so thank you. [Applause]. don't walk away missing point there. What you guys did was just terrific. We used to have 287 policies, now we only have 286, so thank you. thank you, board member zeman, I was looking forward for questions from you. that manses you guys did a great job. Thank you. the last item on the agenda for today

362is student transportation and fleet services. Transportation information request, I will now turn it over -- well, we're again not going to necessarily do a presentation, we're going to go straight to questions. Is there any public comment? yes, MADAM Chair, there's one speaker, jackie. okay. yes, there's one registered speaker, jackie lescom. I have so many issue, I want to bring one back that I didn't have to, I wanted to bring it up here on transportation. I asked six weeks ago to the hr team whether he could assist with a question about the job description for ese bus attendance because the job description does contain some vagueness that is concerning and I wanted to be able to make constructive input into a possible redrafting of that if it could help tighten up procedures on buses, and students

363they're caring for with disabilities. Possess sensitivity to the needs and feelings of individuals requiring special care. I asked how is this evaluated or measures and by who. Another one, ability to control student behavior to the extent necessary for the driver to safely perform the driving assignment required. Again, I asked how is this evaluated or measures and by whom. Successful completion of 40 hours of preservice training consisting of 20 hours of classroom construction and 8 thousand hands on training, based on equivalent training based on the responsible director or designee. I asked please see the bcps bus curriculum plus those materials that would give insight into what that equivalent training looks like. Also is there data you could provide that would show what percentage of ese bus attendance this year have done that curriculum or how many

364have done the equivalent training instead. And then the before the job description says the candidates must demonstrate the mental capabilities required to carry out all assigned responsibilities as a bus attendant, and again I asked how is this evaluated or measuring and by who, in six weeks, I can't get that responded to. It was sent to the transportation department by hr only last week. They're pretty simple questions but they are serious ones, who was on our buses with the special students who needs somebody who's trained in knowing and understanding behaviors, what triggers can do the behavior, how deescalation training and I come to a broint there have been incidents of concern and this job description MAY explain some o that. I would lover anybody to drill down on that today and one other thing to mention,

365there are bus cameras on the outside of buses but there are also cameras inside and there's been incident ins the past in cases where there have been matters of concern on a bus or a suspicion of a matter of concern on a bus and parents have asked for somebody to view the video and it's turned out that that video just so happens not to have video that day or somebody forgot to turn that camera on or pushed it off, I think protocols on that are important the ask about. Thank you. thank you, DR. Fulton, is there anybody that could make sure that MRS. Lescom gege th answswers to those esestions. thank yo I was look atat the job description as you were speaking, so we'll follow up with hr chief to provide some responses to

366the concerns you just mentioned. Thank you. I think the request was she has a meeting tomorrow. [Inaudible] yeah, is there any way we can get those answers since it's been six weeks since she sent them? The answer was you'll get them by tomorrow. [Inaudible] alright. Thank you. I don't see anyone else in the audience for questions so we'll go to board discussion. Anybody have any questions? DR. Holness? MADAM Chair, are we on to the transportation, is it? Okay, thank you, I appreciate it. Alright, so a couple of questions. DR. Fulton, maybe you can answer. I'm looking on pages 7 and 8 and I know that some of our schools are magnet schools and I couldn't help but to notice some of the cost of transportation for some schools and that is significantly high. Is there

367anything that can be done to, for example, if we look at -- we have -- I'm so sorry. Sorry about that. We have one school and I'll just mention it in general, one school is 10 thousand per student, another one is 7 thousand dollars and I understand why but is there anything that can be done to reduce that cost t per student cost for the schools that are significantly high, and i understand it's because of the programs that are being offered and kids being bused in and so on, but if there's anything that can be done or have we considered how we can reduce costs? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? so, this is a reflection of the current countywide system we have where we're transporting children across the county. This is a historical perspective in terms

368of how our programs have emerged over the years. One opportunity MAY be to look at having regional type programs, so you're not transporting children across the city and I just wanted to point out in terms of -- these are amazing programs but as you can see, our reimbursement is $507 for general education student and you can see the cost and it's just a question of, you know, if we want to continue to do this or work with our educational side to determine if we can set up regional programs so we're not transporting kids across, I think that discussion was brought out earlier in conversations, so I think the superintendent wanted to weigh in. in addition to what MS. Paul is talking about, so there is going to be a transition as we try to make

369sure transportation is more efficient and we're -- the costs are astronomical.Er certain situations so this wasn't a a problem that was just born in a year, it's been over the years. The team has done a great job, the strategy innovation office has done a great job in doing some data analysis for magnets across our district and we found a lot of -- we are busing a a kid from one corner to district 1 or two kids for a magnet on the other end of the district, so we're in ra process of working with our principals to either consolidate or not have that nag magnet. If ere year you're only accepting or actually have one kid to apply to your magnet and you accept -- it naoets a magnet. That's not a magnet, so those are

370the things that we're going to sunset which will help with this situation because we over the past decade, we have been busing the kids all over the place and if MS. Hixon is is a principal at a school and she has a magnet program and only one kid apply and is that one kid gets accepted, she's in miramar but we're unslinging somebody from pompano, so those are the situations we will sunset during the school year but we need to talk to principals, we need to talk to family and is need to figure out our grandfathering kids situations so we can make sure kids who are in certain program ins the later years of elementary and secondary can finish out while we don't let other kids in, so there's a strategy that will take probably another

371year or two to really address this problem fully but we're doing it in chunks. I understand, DR. Hepburn, and I naoement necessarily supporting losing programs but I think that we can become more cost efficient, I'm looking at this chart and I'm seeing here there's a particular school, one bus and one student is on that bus and it's over 5 thousand dollars. So, -- and there are many other example that is are here. I've seen schools that it's costing ten thousand dollars for one student and their school is costing $200 for one student. you're making my point. good. so, this is the type of analysis we've been doing throughout the year to identify these type of inefficiencies that are costing us way too much money, unnecessary dollars at the moment that we can do differently and

372under the umbrella of redefining, regional dinging programs where you have a larger number of programs that are being transported within a region to go to a certain school instead of the criss-cross we see across the whole district. and you mentioned the timeframe would be about two years or so because I think this is a significant problem. yes, we're chunking it right now by creating magnet tran oration zones where if you're outside of the bubble, if you want to attend the school, you have to figure out how to get to the closest stop to get transported to the school, that's the first iteration. The next iteration during the school year is working with our principals because we have to do this before the choice window opens, right, make these decisions before the next choice window opens,

373work with our principals, this is not a magnet, this is a boundaries academy you have here at your school if you want to continue this program, we can't continue to bus one or or two kids across the district especially when we have programs in their backyard that they MAY not be aware of so we'll educate those parents about programs that are near them, educate the parents about magnet transportation zones and probably at the end of your -- at the end of the next school year, we should alleviate at least 80% of this problem. so, we're looking at as well that you mentioned, the number of students that would get accepted and then determining if that route takes place, right? correct, because have to make some decisions before the next choice application window opens up in

374the fall. I understand. I have another question. Now, I actually -- I have 35 schools in district 5 and I visited all of them, some of them multiple times, lauderhill is the one that I visited several times, probably 6, 7, 8 times within the year. And one of the concerns that I've heard from students at lauderhill 6-12 is that the high school students struggle to get employment because of how late the school let's out. In addition to that, they're not able to participate in sports in their boundary school because lauderhill doesn't have sports so they have to participate at their boundary school and they're not able to because they get out too late because they start too late. So, they start at 9:30, and I think it would benefit our high school students at lauderhill

3756-12 if they start earlier, 8:30 or 9:00, so what is preventing that, is there any consequence of doing that, if so, how can they be overcome? yes, there are consequences for that r it co-s money, it will cost in the millions of dollars o did that. This situation that you're looking at on those pages is what's causing that problem. We don't have a true multitiered system where you have a specific grade level being picked up at a certain time of the day, all elementary schools pick up at this time, all elementary schools pick up and drop off at this time, due to complexities of magnet ins ta s, school start times were modified to accommodate such as what's the one school in deerfield? Deerfield park, the elementary school with a performing arts magnet, they were

376starting at 9:00 or 9:30 to accommodate kids being paused across the district to get there. That causes a domino effect for pick up and drop offs for other schools start times, so once we solve this problem during this upcoming school year, we'll be able to address situations like that better without increasing our costs significantly for transportation. okay, so question, because lauderhill 6-12, they don't have too many high school students, right. They have a middle school component as well, so if they start at a different time in the high school part of that school, would that change -- would that cause any significant increase in cost if it taoes high-schoolers only? from my understanding right now, correct me if I'm wrong, that's a transportation situation where all 6-12th graders are on the same bus, so it's

377not a differentiation between high-schoolers take ago bus and middle schoolers, so the start and end time would have to be the same because they're all sharing the same bus. but you did mention there are measures possibly being taken so that problem can be aleaf dynamited in future? correct. thank you, I appreciate it. DR. Hepburn or chair hixon, if I MAY introduce DR. Clowers, she is the director of transportation and [Inaudible] Services. MR. Alvarez is retiring so they is filling in. I think he's in panama somewhere right now, but I just wanted to introduce her, first time being up at the table I guess addressing the board. yes, welcome, and thank you for all that you do. I know I have called a number of times after hours with some special needs bus issues and thank

378you for always taking care of them. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. In regards to this nova complex hub concept per the report, it appears that the hub concept will result in a reduction of 21 buses or routes. I just want to confirm with this reduction, there's no change for school overlap in the sense that middle school students would have to ride with high school students or elementary students would have to ride with high school student tos accommodate the loss of the 21 buses? DR. Hepburn? . Inger they ride the same bus now. They're all in the same bus now, the middle, high school are in the same vicinity, they're in the same acreage. but is what you're subjecting, there are kids from elementary school a who are riding with high school students from high

379school x and they're in the same bus? for nova, yes. okay. Thank you. okay, MRS. Alhadeff? I would just like to put it on the record, please do not change the bus stops in water crest, thank you. that's one of the first things I encountered so we're not touching that. okay, aye. I'll end it I guess. we have two more. DR. Clowers, welcome, I heard great things about you with regards to saving mccarthur if -- field trip, you saved it, that's awesome, that's why we need some good problem solvers, soy appreciate it and welcome. And I really like this plan and just to -- I don't know if I missed it or not, just with the magnet streamlining, this is -- I guess this goes to redefining as well but also to busing, so hopefully

380or for sure we need to be looking at feeder patterns and everything because we can definitely make this work for everyone in our region, so I really like that idea, ipg it's going to help us with enrollment and everything too if you have a more localized pattern of programming, so that people don't have to be all over the place, I think people like it better in practice, so thank you. DR. Zeman? thank you very much. Could you tell me what the overall budge is for unslinging in broward busing in broward county? go ahead. I'm going from memory, I think it's 60 million -- I think when I first got here, it was 100 million dollars, so -- and then with personnel and buses and everything all in, I think it's 60 plus 20 -- somewhere

381around there. so we've seen budget exhibits as a a board that put it between 95 and 10, that MAY be interesting. Na's correct, I think we pay thousand dollars per students per year to transport kids in broward county, so how does that ducktail with the 107 dollars reported? that's all reimbursement. we pay 2 thousand but we only get 500, we pay roughly 1500 per student times 50 thousand students per year, I think that's important to pull together. So, that $500 per 50 thousand is about 25 million dollar reimbursement give or take? give or take, yes. there' a couple of things that I think are fas mating -- fascinate ining here, page 7, I want my colleague, DR. Holness who's not here right now, I was going to tag off of what he said, let's just

382pick one, he picked off a different page f I just take the top line here on page 7, 10 buses, an hour and a half to move 89 students and the cost per student, 1193, right, and those are for the 89 students that are going out from out of the boundary to the mag -- magnet program to dandy middle. Is that total cost or payroll cost for the people doing the work? that is total cost. thank you. We love the expertise talking, so you can jump right in. So, 1193 per year, that includes the fuel, the maintenance, the depreciation, the whole thing? correct. okay. Why is that less than the average to take someone to school? so, -- f the average is 2 thousand per ride, why is the special out of boundary cost for

383these small number of buses for 89 students, why does it cost less than the average pick someone up in a boundary and take them a few miles to their school? rephrase your question. this chart says it's 1193 dollars -- for 10 buses. for the 89 people, 1193 on average to take them to a magnet program at dandy middle and these are people from outside the boundary area, right? I think it's a combination of it, so we would have to drill down more. we just wanted to give you kind of averages on the transportation. yeah, I just would ask you the rethink the answer to the last question. I think there might be some missing cost farting tors in here, this is less than the average and I guarantee the magnet school transportation costs more than

384the average transportation, right? we can look at that. and to DR. Holness's point, there's tremendous value in attracting student tos the magnet program to our schools, there's a value of having magnet programs that are popular in more than one school so that way we can put it in four different school and is reduce dramatically the cost. I'm fascinated with the technological opportunity that there is, not with ai, just in terms of simulation and is connecting students to instructions that are in other places, we don't do that very much in broward county. It givers us an opportunity for kids to stay closer to where they live to be more with the student that is they know that are all on the same soccer team which is wonderful and I hope we think threw the changes of

385these magnet changes over the year. I love your nova complex, I hope we can implement that. On page 12, I'll wait for the superintendent here. DR. Hepburn, on slide 12, we have an option of going to this hub concept that will reduce the need for 21 buts. Sdsh buses. could with e just reduce the cost to the transportation system of 21 buses? go ahead, MS. Paul. so, we are currently looking at that, it's not just about reducing buses, it's reducing fleet size of -- or having those carrying costs and so forth, and one slide, I think it's on page 4, if you were to look that the, we're traveling more miles now than we did ten years ago. And so for me, that's part of our chchlelee e anththat we've growa system, igiginally I think

386the system was built on a three tiered system and that means you can take one bus and run elementary, middle school and high school and that is the most efficient way to run a school transportation system but because we have so many outlier and is because we're transporting kids countywide and so forth, we can't take advantage of that so it's almost like we need to look at doing a reset of our transportation. Stinger terrific will part of that reset be buying smaller buses? Rjs I'm sorry, we can go back to the finance question if you want to answer that. we have vincent harold here, he created this chart, so if you would love please to re-ask the question and MR. Harold can answer it. Vince, the question they're asking is right here on page 7.

387You want this? Okay. And it's more of a question about the breakdown and the composition of how you came up with those numbers, the very first one, 10 buses, why is that cost lower to transport those 89 magnet students versus regular transportation. Did I say it right, DR. Zeman? Vincent harold, manager of transportation operations. Looking at the example, the comparison of [Inaudible] Versus regular, so I think the question I heard earlier, you were trying to figure out the average cost of students versus our budget, the response that MS. Paul submitted was accurate, our average budget is 95 to about 100 million, the average cost per student to your point if you took the general number is 2 thousand, you added is correct, to go into more detail, the average cost for our regular students is

388about $1,200, we segment our budget to our ese costs. Our arch cost per ese student is $9,311, but as it relates to this particular item, this would be a comparison between that 1200 figure but 40% -- 46% of the transportation budget is used about 10% of students as our ese population, our regular transportation hovers 57 million dollars, our ese footprint is about 47 million. so, is that ese transportation reimbursed? the reimbursement for ese transportation is called weighted traps oration. It's an additional $1,611 for weighted students, when we put those together, it's 2 thousand dollars per student, that's what we receive from the state for e sexier. we get 2 thousand but it costs 9 thousand to transport them. that's [Inaudible] And 47 million dollar footprint. terrific. I know we've had this discussion otherwise but is

389there a chance we could buy smaller, more efficient bus tos move -- many of the, es's are 2, 5, 7 special needs kids to get somewhere down the road but we still use the big buses because that's what we got. Eventually I think part of the plan was to move to something smaller. yes, I've done a shift in three other districts, so yes, absolutely, what kind of hindered us in the past was the state law here. I think there has been a change to it so we can go to smaller vehicles and we're exploring that. We need more flexibility in our transportation, we don't need to send a 77 passenger bus to pick up three ese students or, you know, we just have to change and that's -- this is starting that conversation. and I

390have no interest in reducing the service to ese, paying 9 thousand and getting 2 thousand back is a real opportunity. Most of those changes, MS. Paul, would be for the following year, not for 25-26. yes, definitely. a couple of other quick questions. I told you I love this nova concept, I don't know why we didn't do it before. I'm a math guy and I don't understand slide 15. If I have a 77 or 72 or 65 mass jer bus and put two kids per bench, that givers me a number, not a range. If I have 77 seat and is I put two kids per seat, how many kids fit on that bus? if I MAY, so it's a 77 seating capacity, that's how many students could possibly go on a bus. But that's not what

391actually fits, so I would love to provide an example, revenger's not here, but just imagine three kids sitting side by side on a bus, 77 passengers meant for three kids per seat. in the interest of time, I don't want -- if we put three people on a seat on a 77 person bus, how many people can fit on there? anywhere from 45-50,.Er high school, 50-60 in elementary. all of our kids are not the same sides. If you're a high school student, then it's not fitting 77 high school students on one bus. So, there is a variance. thank you. Help me understand slide 16 then, second line, we have 37 people that show up on the bus but we only say there's three available seats even though there's a bus with 72 seats. I'm a huge

392advocate for using up empty seats, we have a lot of people that would die gate ride from the bus with their friends, here we only allow three people to take left over seats. we route based on those who are registered so 57 students registered for that and based on seating capacity, again, that's 45-50 for high school, it's already o r capacity, it's 7 over the 50 that's supposed to be standard, so -- and again this is the snapshot at a certain time. When this was produced after the fte FEBRUARY survey, 37 of those that registered rode, we still have to accommodate for those other 12, 13, 14 students that MAY decide I want to ride this week and decide that they'd like to start riding the bus. So, we do allow other students on the

393bus per empty the seat policy but we do keep in mind there's still 57 student that is are eligible that would like to ride that bus and can by law utilize that bus at any moment. Rjs. so it's a state law that we have to program based on the people who have said they want a seat on the bus? it's not a state law that we have the program basined at, it's a state law we have to allow student that is are eligible for transportation on a bus. right, but this is what my constituents do not understand. It's fine to have people registered a ride and you get a full bus, but they don't come and they registered but then their next door neighbor drive sos they go with the next door neighbor every day,

394I appreciate they have the right to register but don't we have the management capacity to say if you don't show up for a bus for a week, we're going to give it to somebody else that's on a waiting list that might want to use that empty seat and get to school. I'm just continuously frustrated because we're spending other people's money here and those other people would like their kids to get a ride and I watch buses pull up to schools that are half empty or one-fourth empty and that's the frustration that the community has which is there seems to be a lack of initiative in our transportation management team to try and do things the community would tliek have done with their money. so, hold on one second, I'm going to ask counsel to weigh

395in on the question about -- management capacity versus state statute. . Er DR. Zeman, can you repeat your question about that. sure, it's an interesting question, right. Because we have a bus with 77 seats but 50 say people could fit on it and we have a 7 registered but on a given day, we have 35 showing up, and the question is are we allowed to manage that to the actual number of people who show up knowing there's plenty of other people that are outside of two mile and is others have registered. Can we allow people to ride that bus when there's free seats available? I'm going pull the statute, you have to have the adequate transportation capacity for students that are required to ride the bus in that boundary, so you can't give away that

396rider's seat if there are people in the boundary that would be eligible for that bus. and I appreciate that but we don't have the capacity for everybody that lives outsider of two miles that take a bus, do we? DR. Hepburn? do we have the capacity, no, we do not currently have all the resorts of all 80 thousand students that want to ride a bus, we would have to figure that out. We have to -- the bus isn't the problem, you would need to have driver ins attendance t resource is there, we have the buses. I just am -- I want to continue to press this because there are assets available that other people paid for that they would like to use and we're hiding behind the ability to provide seats for people who registered but

397are no longer using it and I would rather unregister them or go back to hem and say yu registered but you're not riding, do you still need that seat and then we could say to the waiting list of many, many people who like to get on that bus, now you can register because these people have unregistered but I think that there's a real opportunity, dramatic opportunity to increase enrollment by offering free seats to people and we're already paying for them. through the chair, if I can respond to MR. Zeman, I'm sensitive to the financial end, there's another aspect that needs to be taken into consideration from the state level, when we we receive the funding we referred to earlier as our fefp, it's registered on those registered two mile students, if we were to remove

398those registered students, it would degrees our abo which is our average bus occupancy tha,'s the number of students you transport over your three tiered system, our abo is 66.6 which is the gold standard is 65, we're doing good as far as our efficiency, if we start removing our renl steed students, it would reduce the student that is are eligible for fpfp funding, so last year we received 34 million dollars from the state. Each student we would lose would whimsically say we're removing $500 from the bus because the empty seat students are not eligible to be register and had we would lose that funding so I want to put that out that there's financial footprint for removing registered students. terrific. We'll take this into a different place. I don't want to waste more people's time. I

399hope there's an opportunity to use things that the community pays for in a way the community benefits and I don't want to lose state funding but I would love to figure out a way to manage those empty seat sos we allow people who want to get a ride to school to ride to school. I think we can attract thousands more students to broward county public schools, given that charter schools charge up to 8 thousand dollars per student to get them to school. I would rather deal with this separately than take up more time today, thank you. thank you, anybody else? I have a couple of questions. I have a question about the hub transportation because there's no -- it tells us how many buses but it doesn't say how much money we would save unless

400I missed that information. So, can you tell us if we had 21 less buses going to nova, what does that equate in terms of financial savings? and I'll take that. So, a simple number to remember for transportation, at least for this current present year, we adjust it every year, right now any time you place a bus on the road or in service, it's going to be 71 thousand dollars. This includes the salary of the bus operator, the fringe benefit package for that bus operator which is currently 22.5 and a little over 11 thousand 600 fringe benefits, also there's going to be fuel and maintenance costs which is about 18 thousand dollars, it entail it is maintenance of nao vehicle versus the fuel. If this is a special needs bus, there will be an additional 42

401thousand dollars which is the salary and fringe benefits for that employee. So, if you just -- if any time you see there's a bus added, multiply it by 71 and l give you a round figure to see what put as bus in s frs. which comes out to about 1.5 million dollars. yes. and that's important to know. We've had a discussion about the nova hub, how expensive that is because every single student gets bused in there and I know when I was the magnet coordinator at south broward, they implemented hubs for the magnet because we had a lot of students coming from coral springs and margate to hollywood, so they would take a bus to a hub and then the hub at broad view and then that bus would bring them all this way and

402it's a little stressful in the beginning, but it helps the students in how many buses that we have to have, so I appreciate it for nova, I wonder if it makes sense in other places because as has already been said, the idea that you have one student being bused to a magnet program, you know, maybe the bus takes them a couple of places, the cost of this is astronomical as we can see, so like one was 10 thousand dollars per student for the bus, that just doesn't especially when we're only getting 500 and something dollars back, so I appreciate the conversation but I also would like to -- some of my colleagues' points, see what else we could be doing to tighten this up and make sure we're transporting students that we're supposed to be

403transporting, having the availability to transport some maybe outside of it but in a way that isn't draining our finances. So, this was really informational, it wasn't really a plan on what we're doing moving forward so I look forward to doing that. I don't know if the hub is something we're supposed to be -- do you need direction for that, are we going to implement that next year? What taoes next steps for the hub? this is more to update the board of our plan of transitioning, so this is just the first step, we'll come back with additional steps during the year. in&the hub for no efr va starts the 25-26 school year? correct. awesome. Alright. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you so much for the presentation, for all of that, yes. I have a quick

404question before we go to student successes and stuff. So, it was mentioned a couple of times to have a workshop that specifically addressed how many schools that we were going to look at closing in a timeline, so, is there anybody against asking the superintendent to do a specific workshop just -- instead of all of those pieces together, just that one thing? I just think it should be a part of the whole conversation, like, I don't see why it needs to be one separate. and if I MAY, I was going to subjecting we ensure this goes after the nca, that will be a key indicator about some decision making when it comes to schools and the number of closing schools, so o do that before -- we wouldn't have an important piece of data to support

405the decision making. I wasn't suggesting a time, it was thrown autoa number of times. MRS. Bulman? I agree with that, I think -- I don't know that I agree with just throwing out an arbitrary number because it hasn't helped us in the past and because of way you have to look alt consolidating where boundaries are going to be and that kind of thing, coming up with a number might just kind of be putting us in a difficult position we've already been in before. But I do think that hopefully once we get the facilities assessment, that this will be happening very quickly because I think that it's very pressing we address this as soon as possible so we're planning for next year, so I would like to see this coming up as soon as possible after

406we get that. thank you, MRS. Leonardi? yeah, I agree with MRS. Thompson that it should be a part of the larger conversation. I don't -- we've thrown out numbers before, then we went back on it, so I don't think like choosing like MRS. Bulman said, an arbitrary number makes sense. I think it should be a part of a larger conversation. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair, so I believe from my prior questioning, the superintendent indicated that after the facilities assessment, that he'll be coming back to us with some sort of a plan of action that could possibly involve replacement schools as well in term ofs consolidating older schools and schools that are underenrolled so I prefer to go that route and I'm sure he'll have something substantive to go back to the board. I think

407we have a general anybody have any student sub sasses to share? MS. Alhadeff? con grafp lacing tos e e mamarjy ststonan douglas baetball teteam r eir r fifth state championship. [Applause]. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. The silver knight award is the most prestigious community s frs scholarship offered, con dprafp lacing tos the 2525 silver nao ikt nominee and is the 7 winners from broward county public schools. I'm excited to say four of those winners are from district 6, help me many congratulating cooper city's high school lola, from cypress bay high school, JUNE, and victoria. thank you. And I will I guess round it out. This past weekend was the state special olympics in orlando and although I don't have a list of everyone, aisle get that to us, a big shout-out to lauderhill 6-12,

408this was their first time participating and I did see both of those athletes walking away with a lot of metal clunking on their necks, so very excited for them, it was the summer games so it was track and field, soccer, basketball, there was something else, but so anyway, con xwrafp lacing -- con xwrafp lacing to all of those athletes that made toit the competition and were able to win awards. [Applause]. thank you. the scheduled order of business for the school board workshop of the school board of broward county, florida the, has been completed. Seeing no obligation, I now adjourn the meeting. Have a great night and remember there's no meeting next week so we'll reconvene again JUNE 10th.