001regular school board meeting. welcome to today's regular school board meeting we. Are happy to have you join us and we are thankful for your time and dedication to our district. This regular meeting of the school board of bro urtbacker broward county, florida, is called to order. It is to conduct a safe environment, please locate the exit doors, refrain from obstructing the exit doors. You must occupy a seat with exception of media. Once the room [Inaudible] Please exit pr the room in an orderly fashion and continue to exit the buildinging and remain outside until the authority that has jurisdiction has deemed the building safe to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board member thompson will now introduce her school to lead news the pledge of allegiance to the flag. MS. Thompson? thank you, chair, I'm excited
002to introduce one of our new consideration-8 school cove academy of the arts under the leader sheriff of steff fee and lewis and our music teacher maria garcia. please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. please be seated. my name is stephanie sabin, please welcome to our path to success performers. (Playing music). thank you so much. The superintendent released a revised agenda with certain changes for this meeting and published it on the school sdrigt's website. The chair finds pursuant to section 120.525 nrorflorida statutes that good cause exists for such change and is accepts the revised agenda. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to
003close the agenda. so moved. it's been been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonard? All those to close the swren da, say aye. aye. the agenda is now closed. MAY the chair have a mroetion to approve the following meetings, APRIL 2025 regular school board meet, the special school board meeting, MAY 13, 2025 special meeting expulsions, MAY 13finger 2025 regular school board meeting. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. Is there any discussion? All in favor of approving the minutes as listed, say aye. aye. those opposed, say no. The minutes are approved. As we prepare to begin our regular school board meeting, we are reminded our vision is 100% proficiency for all our students, as an a rated school district, our vital task is to sustain this achievement. We will
004continue educating all students tos reach their highest potential, our theme is believe in power achieve one broward. The chief communication and is legislative officer poll the board of any agenda tenses they wished o to address t following consent items have been identified for discussion, items h1, 3, 5, 67, 8, 9, 10, items b1, 2, 3, 4, 5, f3, g2, I1, j2, j5, 03, 4, 5 and 7 and s1. At this tile, MAY the chair have a motion and a second to paz the pass the consent items that have not been pulled.Er discussion. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Are there any registered speakers on the items that have not been pulled for discussion? no, MADAM Chair. thank you. All in favor of -- hold on, chair. I'm signed up to speak
005to h11 which I don't think you guys pulled. no, h11 is pulled. Wait, wait. no, I don't have h11 as pulled. She did register. My apologies. I read the pulled items, so I didn't read the ones that weren't pulled, sorry, go ahead. yes, it has not been pulled. yeah, but didn't you just pass it, now you have to bring it back. Sort it out. Lady batista? we haven't voted on anything, DR. Lynch-walsh, you can go. . Er did you want me to speak on h11? yes. good morning, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. Yesterday it looks like at 10:29, I sent you guys an item on h11. H11 is the agreement between broward county schools and the pba. I sent you a detailed e-mail because despite the pact that you asked for an after action review
006and that both two of your three direct reports, namely your superintendent was talk about the office of bill of rights and your general counsel was talking about the office of bill of rights, dr. hepburn andin his JULY 29, 2024 memo, and MS. Batista in her OCTOBER 25, 2024 memo, they both clearly know it is a thing and MS. Batista even said you'd have to amend the agreement with the pba. So, how sit this agreement is coming to the board today without the word discipline in it, without any mention of the two statutes related which is the one on complaints which is 112.533 and the one on investigations which is 112.532, how do you get to today and nobody has a problem with the fact that the entire catalyst for why somebody who arrested a volunteer
007never went through the processes dictated in those statutes at the the front end but was using it as khaoeld at the back end sx, malfeasant iss also a thing, how do you possibly sit is here and approve something that you know is wrong? You must know it's wrong because you said her being arrested was wrong and your consultant that you hired for 2500 dollars pointed out a lot of things but that was neither investigative nor disciplinary in nature, so the next step if you -- since we didn't follow state law, state statutes, you had an after action review that the board agreed to, so is it incompetence on your direct reports, gross insubordination? Which one is it, all of the above? Because you have an item that your superintendent has brought to you and is
008missing the thing that would prevent a volunteer from being arrested and complete confusion as to what to do when a complaint is made. Does the pba know that the district sometimes does investigations? Yup. Because the public records request, let's see, 2425-3344 states that they do. thank you. MS. Batista, did you want to address -- thank you, MADAM Chair, so, the board already passed -- adopted a a policy 2050 which is related to the broward county school police and included in that policy a section regarding discipline, so while one of the options would have been to amend the collective bargaining agreement, another way would have been to do it through policy and that's the way you did it through the din police -- discipline of police officers. thank you, any other speakers? no, ma'am. thank you,
009all in favor of approving the consent agenda item that is have not been pulled for discussion, say aye. Aye. those opposed, say no. Er do any of my colleagues have brief remarks on the items that have been passed? Okay, great. Next we're going to go to the job descriptions because we have to pass those before we can hire the people in them. So, we're going to take item h3 first, so all -- can I have a a motion and a second to bring h3 to the floor? It's been moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by DR. Zeman, is there any public comment? none registered, ma'am. board discussion? I have item h3, I have DR. Zeman? terrific. I want to remind colleagues and people assembled here about broward county public schools built for ai, powered by ai.
010There are positions that have been revised in very short ard to remind us of the amazing capabilities we have with technology and I look forward to continuing to support poll icies and budgets that align to that expansion, so broward county public schools powered by ai, it's all over these job descriptions today and I appreciate the superintendent and staff making such quick work to mover forward with this technology that is here and present and if done right is going to allow us to the attract more student and is to do a better job that are within us. Thank you very much, chair. thank you the, all those in foyer of h3, say aye. aye. in opposed, say no. U the, next item is h4, kif a sxhoetion a second. Er it's been moved by MS. Leonardi,
011seconded by DR. Zeman, any public comment on h4? no registered public comments. for board comment, I have MRS. Bulman? thank you, MADAM Chair. I had most of my questioners answered about this item, the follow-up I guess is just to make sure we're staining in line with the discussions that we've had over the course of the last several months, particularly -- I'm nrarl focused we had from the student sessions a few weeks ago with respect to counselors being available to them, so I'm hoping and yo just like to ask DR. Hepburn to make sure that's the focus, that the job description changes are going to focus and make sure the counselors are available for the students in the role they're supposed to perform. DR. Hepburn? yes, thank ifs r the question, MS. Bulman, we have winterized
012everything that our students provide a feedback on that day, so we're wringing throughout the summer to make sure our strategies and policies adhere to their needs. great, thank you. thank you. Next I have MS. Thompson? mine was supposed to be h9 so I'm good. DR. Zeman ? Thank you so much, chair, a question for you, do all of our counseling positions con include a requirement to work as a school counselor prior to being considered for these jobs? DR. Hepburn? thank infuser the question. I'll refer to MS. Hollingsworth. Er good afternoon, our school counselor director is combining up to answer that. . Er. good morning, danny schapiro, director of school counseling, thank you for the question, they can graduate a degree of school counseling and go directly to the position, and they also allow a a
013mental health professional with a license to take the position as well so there's not a requirement they have to already have experience as a school counselor. thank you so much. Chair, I noted in the job for the director position, it does require two years of working before you can be qualified which I think is wonderful last question I have is how do these positions fit within the overarching mental health strategy we've adopted? the school counselors, they do individual counseling for students based on their academic needs, their mental health needs and personal and social needs and life and career readiness needs, they analyze data, they provide individual counseling, small group counseling, classroom lessons, college and career iniatives and others that buila potive schooool cucuure. Ththey bring g in resources from the community, tutors, mentors, community events
014that support mental health, college and career readiness and they facilitate productive parent/teacher conferences. They consult with families and staff to bring in behavioral health partners for specific needs and they overall provide that support, so along with social workers, family therapists and school psychologists, they're meeting these specific three domains of school counseling whereas the other mental health areas specialize in other areas, the family systems, you know, psychological testing and so forth. terrific. Just to follow on, chair, over the course of the next 60 days or so before school starts, how many counselors, mental health counselors does broward county the schools want the hire over the summer? DR. Hepburn? go ahead, MS. Hollingsworth. Er good morning again, any vacancy is what we want to hire for, to make sure we're get thing most qualified yves, both at
015the school level, district level to support our students and community. while we have people assembled here, do we want to tell folk that is we're open to hiring counselors at our schools? every day. part of our strategy that has been discussed here publicly is fully staffing the position we have and they're difficult job tos fill right now, we pay as well as we can, maybe we can figure out supplementing down the road, we have vacancies, and to the extent people here know people, we would love.For them to apply. Thrashings, chair. all those in favor of item h4, say aye. aye. any opposed? Item assess unanimously. H5, can I have a motion and a second. it's been moved by MRS. Leonardi, seconded by MS. Rupert, any public comment on h5? no registered speakers, ma'am. MS. Alhadeff?
016thank you, I would just like to thank the board for approving this. The tragedy at marjory stoneman douglas high school, the pain from that school doesn't go away, it's the pain and trauma for a lifetime so I greatly appreciate the board for approving the msd mental health days, thank you. thank you, MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair, and I also was very pleased to be a part of the passing of this provision as well. I do think it's important especially for those who were directly involved in the tragedy including my colleague who I continue to pray for on a daily basis. I want two points of clarification because it wasn't clear after I was reading within the agenda. There niece formal requirement of proof that these teachers or educators have to provide if they choose
017to invoke the use one of their mental health days, correct? DR. Hepburn? MR. Azzarito? good morning, david azzarito, chief people officer, that is correct. and my last question, is there a bank on these or they roll over is is it a use it or lose it situation? it's a lose it or use it situation. I yield my time, thank you. thank you, all those in favor of h5, say aye? aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is h7, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by MRS. Leonardi, second by MS. Rupert, any public comment? no registered speakers. MR. Cervera? I spoke to him and I withdraw my question. h7, say aye, any opposed, say no. motion carries unanimously. Next item is h8, can I have a motion
018and a second. It's been moved by MS. Rupert, second by DR. Zeman, any public comment on h8? no comments, ma'am. DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you so much, chair. I'm just xao I excited about some of the change ins this job description, not just additional degree required for applying but a preference even for a doctoral degree, the chief human capital officer job is probably amongst the cabinet people, certainly the greater amongst equals, we live and die with the people we recruit and retain and I'm excited to have even greater education required to apply and to move this forward under the new tielt of a chief title human officer. Thank you, chair. so, I would like to make a motion for this item, after talking with people in the community and some of the staff members, the name
019chief human capital officer doesn't sit well with them. I did a little research, that's true in the the federal government they use it but local and state continue to use chief human resource officer so I would like to make a motion to change the name to chief human resource officer. second. it's been moved and seconded to change the name to chief human resource officer. Any public comment on the motion? Board member discussion? DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you so much, chair. I don't prefer this new title and I'll explain why. Human resource is a term that implies things that I don't think are reflective of the amazing contributions that people make in this particular organization. Human capital is the inclusion of all people, all their experiences, all their education, all their capabilities, it's a different focus than
020hr which is largely about compliance and processes. In my view, because we live or die with the people we have amongst our 27 thousand or so employees, the title reflecting of their overall contributions in human capital is more important than one that really talks about compliance and processes, so, while the federal government moved this way in 2002, industry has moved with this as well, a famous chief human capital officer, google has written a a book about this, and what we expect from our chief human capital officer is far more than processes and compliance with existing rules. We expect them to lead the system, o measure the outcomes, to create strategies and that's why the title chief human capital officer is different than chief human resource officer and that's why I advocated for that in the
021past. Thanks, chair. thank you, MRS. Leonardi? thank you, I think for clarity purposes, this change makes sense. I think if we are concerned about the roles and responsibilities, we -- I don't think a title impacts that a lot, I think the job description impacts that a lot, so, again, for clarity purposes, I support this move. Thank you. thank you. Anybody else? Okay, all those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. no. Can we do roll call. roll call on the motion, school board member alhadeff? no. bulman? yes. cervera? no. hixon? yes. holness? Holness? I don't think he's on the line. leonardi? yes. rupert? yes. thompson? yes. zeman? no. motion carries 5-3. thank you so much. Now back to the item. So, all those in favor of h8 as amended,
022say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say no. no. motion carries 7-1. thank you. Okay, the next ie the tem is h9. It's been moved by MS. Thompson, sueded by MS. Rupert, any public comment? no, ma'am. board member discussion, MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair. just briefly, I wanted to ask a little clarification for this new -- these new positions. They will be supporting the counselors? DR. Hepburn? MS. Hollingsworth? maybe with the purpose of the new position, so the public knows. thank you, DR. Dana schapiro will answer those questions in regards to those concerns. danny schapiro, director of school counseling, there esa national shortage of school counselor and is these positions provide principals with additional options for these positions to fulfill the role of a a school counselor, the elementary and secondary support specialist require a masters
023or a lie censure and certification is a mental health field and they're able to be hired by the principal must look for a fully certified school counselor. If they're not able to find that person, this allows for a mental health profession -- professional the serve in the role, and the internship position gallowses for a student who needs to the take a couple more classes therk can be many the role while taking those classes or cleat their internship while working so that gives principals these other options to make sure these positions are filled so the students get services. thank you. thank you, MS. Thompson? just following with that train of thought. So, what is the plan then for these all to work together, and so this was really just a supplement not being able to get
024counselors? yes, because of the shortage, this givers principals an option to hire a mental health professional to fulfill the same role, once they've exhausted all attempts to get a certified counselor, so they'll be under the sup pofrt the counselors and fulfilling the same role. can you walk me through what that looks like, how do we know they've exhausted all options? there's a form, I can get back to you on the details of it, the principal needs to try to hire a counselor and this is a second option to make sure students have services if they're not able to find one. thank you, and then the internship position, so I read this differently and I don't know if my colleagues are or just me, I thought it was more of a school counselor that was focused
025on finding internships for the kids, so I think there needs to be some clarity around that. I don't know if we need to change that to school counseling intern so they know the person completing these duties is an intern themselves and then is this a paid position? yes. yes, I would tliek make a motion to change the position tielgt to school counseling intern. second. it's been moved and seconded. Is there public comment on the motion? No public comment. Board member discussion? DR. Zeman? I would like to know the superintendent's opinion about changing the title of this position, please. DR. Hepburn? I'm amenable to the changes since the word internship doesn't have different connotations than intern. okay, can you just remind -- say what the title change is going to be again. school counseling intern. instead
026of student services -- no, instead of school counseling internship, school counsel intern. all those in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. and then what is the pay structure for going back to the support person versus a school counselor? they're all instructional staff so they're paid according to their experience, it's the same pay scale as the school counselor. but someone who cal -- qualifies for being a school counseling would make more than being a support person? that role is fulfilling the school counseling role so they're paid the same, it's just a different title, rather than school counseling certification, they have mental health certification, social work, family therapy, school psychology, but they're fulfilling the same role. Similar to a teacher that's teaching out-of-field. okay. Thank you. okay, DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you so much, chair. I want
027my colleagues to understand the context of my comments on this whole issue which is we have a a mental health crisis in this district, not just in this country but in this strict -- district and we are not spending enough resources to equal what the challenge is. I appreciate the intent on this very much, but it's all predicated on not being able to hire somebody and there are other ways we can work on being able to hire somebody. For example, we might pay people what they need to be paid in a a market salary struck khu, we might do that through pay or supplements or other things that might allow us to recruit other people. If we continue to live in belief we are paying market salary for counselors who can flip over to a
028contractor or a vendor and make twice as much, much like slp's that came before us, I would be interested more in learning what the market wage is for certified counselors and I would like this board, I challenge anyone on this board to say no to paying that given the mental health cies -- crisis we're in. I am worried where we have the greatest mental health need is where these people are going to get hired, in our title 1 schools, I'm afraid we're going end up with a lot of interns where we have the greatest need, so let me ask a question that's pointed, mr. superintendent, are you willing to direct people to work in schools rather than -- that they work the schools they were hired in if in fact there is a mental health
029need and there is no nobody that can be hired in those schools? DR. Hepburn? thank you for the question, we are willing and will be able to make those type the of moves based on the specific needs, bargaining, negotiations or contract issues with unions, but other than that, we will do what we need to do to address the needs of our schools in specific schools. and chair, let's be mindful when that bargaining agreement come back to us, that we think a little bit about the ability to put talent where we need talent rather than to put talent just where they were hired, we do this institutionally in broward county and I foukt against it, we need to hire people for broward county and we need to ask them to go places where there's the great
030esneed, where there's mental health or security, we have entire occupation where is they're needed but I believe mental health professionals are willing to do that just because of the reason they joined the profession. Another pointed question, chair, are these representing new positions or are they just substitute ways to hire into existing positions? DR. Hepburn? I'm going to have DR. Schapiro expound on that, for the most part, we have vae kans sis we can't fill x this provides another option with different types of certification to provide those services and you can expound if I missed on anything. yes, these are new positions. terrific. MR. Superintendent, would you be willing to bring an item to the board that talks about the dins between our current pay and market pay for counselors that do mental health in broward?
031yes, we can provide a follow-up on the to the board via a memo. ipg it's frontier do it for the next meet, we have the opportunity to recruit people, we have to be serious what we're offering them though, these are incredibly different job and is the market salaries have gone up 10-20% in the last few years, if we have fallen behind just like in slp's, we have to give up on the mental health system or fund the mental health system that allows us to hire great people. There MAY just be a shortage of people and we have to figure out thousand get a good solid intern even though we'd like a certified counselor, I can appreciate that but I think we can look at the system given the number of skouns -- counselors and given
032the crisis we're in the middle of in mental health. Thank you for bringing these. MRS. Rupert? I think MRS. Bulman was first? she went once and you haven't. sorry, trying to be collegial, that's fine. I 100% agree that right now we're having a mental health crisis, we've been having it lifters years and ---- for years, what I wanted to touch on briefly through the superintendent is could he have staff briefly talk about the pareses and our district where the high historical high number of suicides or suicide attempts happen. That is a thing. I didn't know that when I was a first time board member, no one came to me, no staff came to me and said, you know what, there's a real high area in pompano beach and deerfield beach, this is what's happening, once
033I learned that, I do three or four town phalluses a year that way to get that information out there. Do I want to pay our counselors more, absolutely 100%, but I think part of the question is and we need to understand is that there are areas that really need extra tlc, so MR. Superintendent? I don't want to give anecdotal information that's not accurate. . Inger they know it though. MS. Hollingsworth, do you have that accurate information? I have some of it, to DR. He b urn's point, I don't want to gegetoo in the weeds withth that, defieleld beach was onone the areas where we have a a wellness center at the beach house. Throughout the last several years, we have suicide risk teams so that when working with the school and is with those liaisons
034but having a pointed group of individuals that work along with DR. Schapiro's mentioning our school counselors and school social workers so we're putting eyes on the areas that have those concerns, doing town halls with board members, going in and doing curriculum with those schools and individuals so having a concerted effort to make sure we're hitting hating in a holistic kind of large lens and then going through that and then obviously we monitor that data to see where do we also need to address different areas so I want to -- I don't want to call out just that area. our staff has kind of -- I don't want to say pivoted but included, not just isolating the one child who has suicide ideation but also their entire family. So, if if you have a high school
035student or a middle school or elementary, it only makes sense that you're bringing information and help to the entire family. That's a huge difference adopting three kids and our middle son from foster care, when we first started off with that, he had counseling and if you ever has v a ten year-old come through your house and you have a 5 year old, and family counseling would have been beneficial for us so I always use that example because we know best practices now, we know it affects the school, the entire school and its families soy appreciate the effort that staff has and I think we're moving in the right direction but I did want my colleagues to know there are areas that need a little more tlc and I would hope, I trust the superintendent that
036he would put the most qualified people in those particular areas because I know he's done that before so thank you. thank you, and I'll jump in before I go back to MS. Bulman, you mentioned the wellness sent and he iser we are starting to pull wellness centers up around the district so I do think we clearly understand there's a mental health issue and we're trying all different things to be able to address students, their families, the community and ways that work for them. MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair. I just wanted a little clarification because the school counselor, you know, helps the students with their class planning and planning for what's going to happen after high school's over and make sure they're graduating and everything like that, kind of what is the balance or the percentage
037that's for a counselor focusing on the academic path and guiding students through that versus addressing mental health? Is the school counselor doing that predominantly or is it other supportive mental health professionals that we have? DR. Hepburn? we'll have DR. Schapiro expound on that. thank you, our school counseling approach come from the american school counselor association model, the florida state standards and the job description which is based on those and school counselors take a whole ly I can approach so it's a whole child approach. When we work with the student, we're looking at their academics but we also know that's integrated and closely connected with their personal, social mental health and also their college career and life readiness, the path through a meaningful education and through to next steps in their life. The counselor works holistically
038with the student, depending on the situation, the consultation MAY be focused solely on mental health if the sunt is struggling or they MAY do a check-in with the student and focus on their academics but it's a three pronged approach of academic, personal, social and college and career. okay, thank you. All those in favor of item h9 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. H10, can I have a motion and a a second for h10? so moved. it's been moved by MRS. Rupert, seconded by MS. Thompson, any public comment on h10? no, ma'am. board member comment, DR. Zeman?Frjts I have a small amendment for this job description but it's very important for the community, on the second page, fourth bullet, it reads participate in training programs offered to enhance schools and proficiency relate
039today the job responsibilities which as part of the amendment I propose to leave the same, I would like to add to the end of that sentence, participate annually in crisis intervention team training. This change is important, it's already codified in law right now but if it ever isn't codified in law, I want it codified in broward county that we need to have crisis intervention training annually for all the of the sergeants that work for us, this is not just for mental health crises where they are the authority ton scene, to the extent they're good a z at crises sis intervention, they're going to respond better and it also is just to respond to a community need about de-escalating which is always our first choice in schools when it's appropriate, so I would like to move
040that we add on the end of the fourth bullet, page 2, participate annually in crisis intervention team training. second. is there any public comment on the motion? Board member discussion on the motion? All those if favor of the motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously. Did you have anything else? anything else for h10 o? no, I thought we were voting on the whole item. okay, h10, all those in favor of h10 as amended, say aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. Now we're going jump up to item h1 since we've passed all of the job descriptions. So, can can I have a motion and a second for item h1? so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Rupert, any public comment on h1? we have one speaker,
041DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. good morning, again, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. Back in AUGUST, if anyone was wondering what was going through the soon to be chief of staff's head when there was no chief of staff position because that was removed from the org chart last year and mysteriously reappeared this year, my guess he was thinking I will leave here chief of staff, I will leave here chief of staff, it doesn't matter what I have to do. okay, thank you. Any other public comment? Okay, MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair. I just -- I wanted to just in the interest of I think this will come off and obviously it's being mentioned, I would like the superintendent to speak because we received a memo. I know there's been -- there's some raises that are included in this
042item and there's also been a a lot of positions that have been eliminated and so there's a gap coverage that is intended with those raises, so if you could just speak to that, maybe explain it a little bit. yes, due to the recent org chart changes with the limiting positions, most of the essential work has to carry on and we have employees, especially directories and probably some other positions too that have to pick up that additional workload just o the make sure the services that we're providing tog our schools and to our departments don't decrease as a result of picking up those additional responsibilities and also supervising people, it was good for tows do a small percentage increase versus hiring another person to pay a significantly higher amount to. can you speak to what the
043raises will be versus the positions, those additional duties? right now an average of about a 5% for those specific positions that are requiring those extra positions and responsibilities which equates to 42 thousand dollars total approximately. The limiting and shifting duties on capital and also eliminating positions on general equated to approximately 7 million dollars. thank you. okay, MRS. Leonardi? thank you, and I want to preface this with I'm very happy with the performance of these employees and I'm very excited for the people having their promotions. I will say in my I think it's almost 12 years in public education, not a year has gone by where teachers are not asked o do more and take on more job responsibilities and then they are not appropriately compensated for that. We have teachers showing up to our schools
044before school starts, staying long after sponsoring clubs for free, in addition to doing more and more that this district asks of them and that the system asks of them. They are now asked to do security and do mental health and that is a societal expectation, not just in this district but nationwide. It is very frustrating every year to see that we are asking our teachers to do more and then not compensating them but some of the highest paid people in this district, when they take on extra prolepses and responsibilities, they are compensated. It is also very frustrating to see -- you know when we have these conversations about teacher raises and employee raises and everyone should get the same raise, it blew up in our faces last year yet again some of our highest paid
045people in this district are getting raises that are almost double what our teachers are getting this last year. So, it is very hard to stomach. You know, I hear the rationale for it but we keep saying the same thing, many of us on this board keep saying the same thing that we cannot keep asking more of our teachers and not compensating them appropriately and then when the highest paid people in district take on more, we compensate them appropriately. It feels like insanity that we continue to say the same thing and do the same thing and expect different results. So, again, this is not a critique of the people getting these raises, it is a critique of how we are allocating money as a district and what that says about our values and our morals and
046I do not agree with it. Thank you. thank you. We missed a public speaker so we're going to go back to public speaking and then go back to board discussion, so MS. Fusco. broward teaching union PRESIDENT. Sarah was reading my mind. We know that everybody has a lane at their end, everybody works extremely hard to make this district run for the good of our students and I have stood before you now for about a decade and I never wavered in making it clear that I never want to take away from anybody, I don't care what yo u position you're in, if they have a job and wringing year round and working extended days, and they're working a different position behind the scene and is they earn a salary for that position. When it comes to
047compensating them, I've never said don't do it, take it away, but I do always come back and say exactly what our teachers and a social worker and attorney that is are up sitting on the board and we have a couple of new ones so you haven't had a chance to be part of the group that has sat in meetings and so forth, that have moved forward and giving all of our educator that is are in the classrooms with our students that are doing support, whether it is our classroom assistants, our behavior techs, our guidance counselors, our social workers, al of the above with our teachers to compensate them for all the extra impact and demands that you give them. I tell them all the time, work to the rule. The we all stand together and
048don't give that extra, the needle is not going to move. Because they're such amazing people, they're good sh kind nurturing people, guess what, we still have to do it for the student. They never waiver from wanting to do it from the student, they need that they care about the student, not that I'm saying that you all don't, but I look back at our previous negotiations this weekend that I went back last school year where they came at the table, we want to get to you sooner, we want to be able to give a better increase to our teachers earlier and here we sit, summer school started today. I talked to some summer school admin, you have 27 third graders sit ining a summer school classroom and you expect to move that needle. Shame. That's the
049type of impact I say that harms our educators which in turn harms our students so not that I'm saying everybody that doesn't deserve their dollar amount for the job that they do but you still forget the very core that sits in our schools from the principal to the ap to the clerical to the bus driver to the cafeteria staff to the support staff, whether they're guidance or coaches, our special teachers, every teacher, every single person touches those students and that's the core group that gets left behind, so they get theirs, it's time to move on to the core group. thank you, MRS. Rupert? thank you so much. I could say ditto to what sarah said but I'm seeing it through another pair of eyes having been a teacher but now my auger's a teach and
050her she does not work to the rule, right. She just doesn't have it in her, should our teachers have a million thing tos do on top of what they're paying them and asking them to do, no. They should get paid for what they're worth and I don't think one group truly is worthy of a 5% average even if they're doing somebody else's job because I think if you delineate it, what exactly a teacher looks like in a day in elementary, middle, a high school teacher, our career teachers, they do so much more and I just have always voted for our employees and believe that if we're going to be giving average raises of 5%, I would think that needs to be at least where we start with negotiations for the rest of our workforce. Two
051other things. One is that I need to recuse myself from this so I want to separate my daughter out because she's in here for reassignment, so I will definitely recuse myself for that, but I want to know from the the superintendent -- well, and my heart needs to know this, how did we help our employees that either saw their box crossed out or left off and those who were below the line and either got let go that way or you're not being renewed. I do know that as conversations, we as a board were told that there's going to be career source and there was going to be all sorts of activities to be able to put our family numbers, and when I say family, I say bcps as a family. With one of us hurts,
052all of us hurts, so MR. Superintendent, could you expound on that just a little bit. DR. Hepburn? yes, thank you for the question, MS. Rupert, as you mentioned family, I consider all of our employees family. They come to work day-to-day, even.They don't directly touch students, they are indirectly impacting our kids, we're a student centered organizationfinger we're going to have to make tough decisions for the spring, one of my commitments to work with school source, ensuring they're going to assist our employee tos have a home to hand after this tough process for them. We understand our employees have families, some of them are main providers for their families so we wholeheartedly understand what we need to do to make sure they land in a good place. I know none of our employees we had to get
053l et go with positions and hearing that bad news at that moment in time are happy with the decisions we made but we're committed to making sure we follow through and working with them to make sure they land in a good spot. those looking at JULY 1 as a new year and won't be get ago paycheck, have they already been contacted? I believe we were going to be having some meetings, so the employees can go to a work fair or something like that. Can you please expound on that. yes, and I can follow up to see where all of our employees are in that process. Many of our employees, we have vacancies within the district too, they MAY not be needed in a certain department because we're scaling down but they MAY be needed in
054a different department across the district including working with career source to match up eir skills wititemplplers.S. soobably not -- ththey ll not be papart any work fair untiafter JULY 1? correct. So, we have job fairs throughout the summer, so various times of the year and we have one in JULY, I naoement sure about JUNE, I have to provide a follow-up from hr to see where we are with the work fair ins JUNE, they're part of that process too, yes. thank you for that. I would tliek make a motion that we separate the brenda rupert on this item, sore rising it's nothing personal. it's been mover and had seconded to remove brenna rupert to separate -- to separate brenna rupert from the item due to a conflict. yes. great. Before we get to voiding though, I
055have -- I also would like to make a motion, before I do that, I want to say that I echo what sarah -- what ms. leonardi and rupert has said, our teachers, our staff and school, bus drivers, food people, custodians, they do extra work and we don't always compensate them and I think one of the biggest things about teachers is they get less and less, do more and more and they do it because they love their job, so, this is not personal for anyone. I know everybody works for hard, everyone got a 3% raise this year, so we were happy to do that and hopefully moving forward next year, we will look at -- be able to do that again but -- so, my motion is I move the following jobs remain at the 24-25
056salary for the 25-26 school year and that's chief financial officer, chief of staff and communications, director of professional learning and development, director of talent acquisition and director professional practices. second. Er it's been moved and seconded. Any public comment? Sorry, so if you look at the board follow-up that was sent to me, there's a list of six people that are getting a raise just based on having extra work except for one person on the bottom, the the specialist hr information system is moving to a different contract and that is -- the increase is more because he has to fall in line with the contract. The other five, so chief financial officer, chief of staff and communications, director of professional learning and development, director of talent acquisition and director professional practices, they all received -- well, most
057of them an average of 5% because they were doing additional responsibilities, and again, it isn't personal at all, so I don't want to come across that way but I just want to be equitable. We are taking things out of schools because we are are in a dire crisis for budgeting and this doesn't reflect that, so, that's why I'm asking for that. chair, I'm not sure you voted on MRS. Rupert's separation motion yet. we did. no, I don't think you did. I'm sorry. I thought we did. no. okay, I'm sorry, because I didn't want to vote op the whole item yet before I made the motion. Well, what should we do? can we vote on nora's? all those in favor of separating brenna rupert for h1, say aye. aye. All those in favor of approving brenna's
058rupert's reappointment, say aye? aye. any opposed? Right, okay, unanimous with one abstention, sorry about that. Okay. Soy eel make the motion again, I move the following jobs remain at the 24-25 salary for the 25-26 school year, chief financial officer, chief of staff and communications, director professional learning and dwoment, director of talent acquisition, director professional practices -- before we vote on that, chair, if I MAY, so, one of those positions, if not all, but specifically one, I want to make sure that it does remain because these are positions that are highly sought after across the country where you don't these individuals falling out of trees anymore, just to make sure that we are retaining the best employees in the country. And that would be the chief financial officer to remain -- to keep that 2.38 percentage
059increase for that position. And it's recruitment and retention is important when it come tos sweet positions, especially for highly techniquely positions for this. and we want to retain the other people as well so I don't know how I particularly feel -- I agree, but these positions are very hard to come by and I spent a lot of time and energy to recruit the best to make sure that our district can function at a a high level at all times, and I don't want folks swooping in and recruiting. let me go to public comment before board discussion. Go ahead. DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida, I wholeheartedly support your motion, MRS. Hixon, and please stay firm in including all the positions, I don't know if chief people officer, human resource officer was in there for a raise,
060but absolutely chief financial officer should stay on your list, do not be swayed, you are correct in including them at the 24-25 level, and to avoid this discussion in the future, do a sal l ri comparison for your cabinet, compare it to other districts in terms of how many days. This whole idea that they have to work more doesn't hold water. They have a job, they agreed to do a job, the it is what it is, and the teachers are underpaid, we know that, the cabinet sometimes overpaid, stay firm, I agree with your motion. okay, sorry, go ahead. so, I heard the superintendent's comment that we want to recruit the best and retain the best, that goes for no matter what level you are, whether you are at the top or you're at the bottom
061of the food chain in our broward county public schools. Compensation is always a need and appreciated and a must because people work to get paid but I think one of the main reasons why broward county public schools struggles to retain great quality anybody, whatever position is because of how they're not treated as the professionals that they are, I've seen it at all levels, so I think that you need to start with and pay attention, board, especially when you have your groups that come to you and talk to you about how people are treated and it doesn't mean that you throw a lot of money out and they're just going to accept abuse, so compensation is very important and the treatment is what needs to be key. thank you, MS. Thompson? I just had a couple
062of comments but then a question because my understanding with h items is if we vote no, we have to give a reason because they're generally about direct appointments but this one has salary. So, can we just clarify. MS. Batista? certainly. So, the key is the appointments of the superintendent can only be rejected by the board for good cause and good cause is is the person minimally qualified for the job and/or do they have any moral perp tao ud, if the answer is no, then the recommendation tof superintendent must stand. As to salary, it is different, the board has the ability to make changes related to salary. Er so, that's what I was thinking, however the item is together, so if you don't agree with the salary change and you vote no, does it needs to
063be separate? Because the item is written with all the separations and all the rez iings in er -- resignations and all the salary adjustments, if if one were to vote no which is not what I'm saying, can we vote no since it has the direct appointments with the salary? so, I think the motion would allow for a change in that item as to the salary and not the appointment of the person. Does that answer your question? yes, I think. It's very hard because everything everyone is right in this situation, I do think we flexed to find way tos compensate teachers better. I think the history of asking people to do more and more and not paying hem is something that happens in every school district throughout the country. I would agree with the superintendent that
064if we are to keep the salaries at the same, I would like the khao ef financial officer to get that increase for the reason that I think our district is about to go -- or is working through an extremely difficult financial situation, not only because of state funding but also some situations many the past that have put us in not the best area and I believe we need to have someone of her skill set, of her experience getting districts through difficult situations. And it's not saying that I value -- I just would agree with the superintendent f we do follow through with MS. Hixon's motion that we keep the chief financial officer and I want to allow my colleagues to speak first but then I have an amended motion. MADAM Chair, on that point of
065MS. Thompson. go ahead. er MS. Thompson spoke on h1, the requested action says to approve the appointments, so MS. Batista, you are approving the appointments in h1, so to MS. Thompson's point, then you would have -- need to have just cause to say on the h1. so, the just cause is as per policy 1020 is only as to the recommendation for appointment of those individuals. Motion was not to reject the appointment, the motion was to change the parameters of the appointment as far as the salary was concerned. okay. DR. Zeman? thanks very much. I would ask my colleague, MS. Thompson, if you would like the make a a moex x great, if not, I'm going make the same one. I would like to make a motion to amend MS. Hixon's motion to exclude the chief
066financial officer. second. any public comment on the motion? anna fusco, broward union. We're cherry picking, while I see a lot of our employees that I've worked over a deck -- decade to build a relationship that are not educators that are in this building that somebody mentioned the org chart and their box was gone or their position was gone and so forth. The inconsistency is showing so early on and we haven't even gotten to JUNE 30th that you're setting a precedent of what it's going look like when we get into negotiations for the broward teachers union, for the bpa, for fope and our meet and confer groups that don't technically get negotiations but they're paying attention for their employees that as superintendent hepburn said, everybody significantly, whether they're hands-on in the schools that touch our students,
067so I want you to pay attention of what you're saying and doing here. thank you. Any other public comment? DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida, no, I do not support this motion. The audit committee had huge issues this year while this person was in place. We cannot seem to get the fund balance reported the way that the state requires it and I'm going to be checking the budget reports again. And again like anna said, cherry picking, it's all or none, all or none, you can't cherry pick, if someone doesn't want to work here, they can leave and see if they find somewhere else to go but absolutely against this motion, people are watching you, this is recorded, don't could something you're going to regret later and this would be one of them. any other public comment?
068Okay. Let's go to MR. Cervera, did you have -- yes, MADAM Chair, I just wanted a point of clarification, DR. Hepburn jumped in and I wasn't sure if you were finished speaking, but does your proposed motion include the information specialist? no, that change is being made because they're moving to a different contract and contractually they have to make at least that much. your proposal was just the first five on the h1 list? yes. thank you. any other comment on MS. Thompson's -- DR. Zeman? thank you so much. The reason I would have made this motion as well is that two-fold, one, yeah, this is cherry picking and the chief financial officer is going to be doing some things for this district that very few people will see, but MR. The end, everybody will appreciate. Her
069insights have helped us dramatically this year in ways that have never been done before in broward county. There are to many things the leader of that particular function has to do and again, never seen, never even presented to this board but managing million dollars that is both in depth and masterful, we stole a cfo from hillsborough, he can recruit some brilliant people and I appreciate that, and if in that recruiting progress kress he says I missed a little bit on the salary, then I'm willing to give 2.38% to make sure -- to make it clear, we are about to see a budget crisis we have not seen before, next year is going to be brutal, the legislature did not help nus -- us in the end game, we are going to have to do amazing
070things to make sure we can balance the book and I'm in favor of exempting this so we can recognize the superintendent's request to take one back because we do not want to lose this particular chief financial officer. Thanks, chair. MS. Alhadeff, did you have something? I just wanted to go back to the superintendent's memo and just get complete clarification in regards to the 39 thousand is what we're talking about right now, correct? DR. Hepburn? that that's correct, a small adjustment, 42 thousand is what we're talking about. okay, I see the memo says 39. yeah, we updated it with more accurate numbers. so, 42 thousand dollars, and then you found 7 million dollars in savings by eliminating positions and realigning funding sources. And where do you foresee that 7 million dollars going? back to the school
071district. and could it also go back to salaries? correct. As I have said publicly many times, our commitment, our priority is to make sure all of our employees are compensated fairly and well and all cost savings we're trying to identify go in a large bucket to support salaries. so, my recommendation would be that the board commits the 7 million dollars to salaries across the district and we keep with the recommendation to give the 39 thousand dollars to the positions that are before us. 42, sorry, 42. are you making -- well, there's already a motion on the floor. I'll let that go first and then make a a motion. okay, anybody else? Okay, all those in favor of the amended motion which was to also include the chief financial officer. chair, if I could, I think
072we want to vote on the amendment, the motion to amend which will take that first name off, I think that's what's on the table. yeah, that's what I said. okay. All those in favor of the amended motion, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. no. do we need a roll call? board members bulman? no. cervera? [Inaudible]. hixon? no. holness? I don't believe he's on the line. Leonardi? no. rupert? no. thompson? yes. zeman? yes. alhadeff? no. motion -- I'm sorry, motion fails 3-4, I'm sorry, 3-5. back to the original motion, all those in favor of the original motion to keep all -- chair, I think we have a proposed motion still to come up. don't we need to finish my motion? Yeah, you can't have too many motions on the floor. I just wondered if
073MRS. Leonardi wanted to make an amendment to your motion. her motion is to not pass mine and to make it something else. Mine needs to go and she can make a motion after mine. only if she wants to amend your moon. I was trtryi to geu u to vovo ton lasast onone. Can ke substitute motion w,w,soso I move to give the 7 million dollars in savings to all salaries across the district in negotiations and to approve the item as is with the adjustments in salaries in the positions. is there a second? Okay, we'll go back to the original motion. The original motion again is to move that those five positions remain at the 24-25 salary for 25-26. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. no. roll call. I'm
074sorry, can we get clarification on exactly what the motion we're voting on -- it's my understanding, MS. Alhadeff, she didn't have a second, so we're going back to the original -- can you clarify for the record. , so I move the following jobs remain at the 24-25 salary for the 25-26 school year, chief financial officer, chief of staff and communications, director of professional learning and development, director talent acquisition, director of professional practices. would you like a roll call , ma'am? yes, please. Er school board member cervera? no. hixon? yes. holness? Leonardi? yes. rupert? yes. thompson? no. zeman? yes. alhadeff? no. bulman? no. 4-4, fails. alright, thank you. chair, I would like to make a motion if I could. I would like to make a motion that we set aside the associated 7 million dollars that
075has been saved through the reorganization this year to be in a a categorical account to be used for adjustments to salaries during negotiations. second. DR. Hepburn, can you speak to whether that's -- yes, it's possible, yeah. great, it's been moved and seconded, any public comment on the motion? Okay. can you please repeat the motion. thank you, chair. The motion is to set aside the cost savings as a result of the org chart for -- in a categorical account for adjustment tos employee salaries during negotiations. 7 million. of 7 million dollars. so, basically the money that we saved by eliminating positions and changing the structure was 67 million dollars, the motion is saying we're going put that in a categorical and negotiate with our collective bargaining units but that's the first deposit in that account and
076will be held only for adjustments to salary. was there a second on that? yes. can we have public comment now? yes. go ahead. anna fusco, broward teachers union. What else would you do with it? I naoement sure why there's a sxhoetion second, I appreciate the sxhoetion the second, and we hope that when you eventually come to negotiations because I heard from last school year when we ratified and approved -- we're going to come right back to the table. Here we sit in JUNE and nothing's come forward, so we always hear the intent, we always hear the intent, what we're asking dwrou do is move forward with the money moved over and let's get into negotiations because school starts AUGUST 4 and everybody would like to see what their salaries will look like because the impact
077is going to be even larger this year because hundreds and hundreds of employees have been released the if you neater aware of that. -- you're not aware of that. DR. Hepburn, I have a a question, I remember when we were having the discussion, so the total savings of 7 million, is that actually a dollar amount because I remember in our discussion, 7 million wasn't necessarily what was saved because you're moving things around, so can we know and whether it has to be a follow-up or not, what is the exact money amount? it is approximately give or take 7 but approximately 7 million dollars in savings to the general account. okay, because I remember in our discussion there was something not quite right. Any board member discussion on the motion? MR. Cervera? point of clarification, is
078it a requirement that the 7 million dollars be used for salaries or can that be used for how the district pleases. initially how the district pleases, if the motion assess, create a categorical and put nit a bucket for salaries. so, that 7 million dollars can be disbursed however you see fit if the motion wasn't brought up? correct. Er the 7 million dollar number, very nice and round, are we going up to 7 million, do we want to expand it to what the actual savings costs realization is? Because 7 million is a ballpark random number it seems like. DR. Hepburn, DR. Zeman? I meant it as exactly 7 million dollars. The savings is plus or minus, you know, a percent or two from 7 million, remember our 1% raise for our people is 10 million dollars
079so, what we're say ising the money we save by reorganizing go u goes spo sbao the account that's to pay people tha,'s not all the money, that is say ifing we find efficiencies, we want to make sure it goes back to our people. We have talked about that and this is specifically putting that talk into action and staining where we save money, anywhere we save money, we ought to be putting that into that account so we can pay people better. It is 7 million, it is ain proximate amount, I would prefer to say we put 7 million in because that's pretty close, we're going to have to fill that bucket even more down the road but it's a deposit, a down payment, it gets us started down the path and reminds us if we can
080figure out how to do this in other places, whether we save paper, we ought to be putting that money aside so we can pay people. I would feel -- and I don't disagree with that, I just -- I don't want to cap us at something where we end up having less than -- I would like to see that this is contributing to a pot that is going to grow so, that the 7 million would be on top of whatever else we would have been come tog the table with so we have more to offer, not that that's detracting from what we would have been -- what we're going come to the table with. DR. Hepburn? yes, so right now as we speak, the budget office is working on this upcoming fiscal year's budget since tallahassee
081just finished their job last night, so they're literally upstairs working on the budget right now and we'll see what they come forward with as far as some opportunities to provide salary increases for all of our employees for the upcoming school year. So, as soon as they're done, we'll start negotiating, I hear MS. Fusco's frustration, that path couldn't be taken immediately, we had to wait for the legislators to finish their jobs. anybody else? All those in favor of the motion, say aye? aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. back to the original h1. All those in favor of h1 as amended. So, as amended is -- right, you can vote on this because we already separated -- the amendment was separated. And then the motion that DR. Zeman had. All those if favor of h1, say aye.
082any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The chair would like to take a moment to recognize -- as amended. we did that already. and now you have to approve MS. Rupert's daughter. wi -- we did that already. I stand corrected, you're correct. thank you. The chair would like the take a moment to recognize new staff appointments, we would like to congratulate each of you for your career advancement with broward county public schools. We value you and your families. If we could give the appointees a round of applause. [Applause]. DR. Hepburn, can you please share a few remark and is introduce the new leaders. thank you, MADAM Chair, today I'm proud to recognize the outstanding individual who is are stepping into new roles across our district through both appointments and world earned promotions, these educators and
083leaders reflect the talent, commitment and innovation that make broward county schools the best for their this is guided by one goal, ensuring our students are support by the best, whether at the classroom or at the school leadership, these people bring experience that our families deserve, to our new hire, welcome to the team, you chose the best, you probably already was with bcps, you continue to be with the best, to those being promoted, congratulations and thank you for your continued dedication, you have earned this moment and we're excited to see how your leadership will help shape the future for our schools. Thank you, and then MR. Sullivan, I think it's picture time. at this time, we will now recess for a board photo with new staff appointments. (Meeting in recess). if everyone can please have a
084seat, the board meeting has commenced. MADAM Chair, the board meeting's live, we're live. thank you. This is the time of the agenda where we have split the general public speakers to incorporate a morning session. Each registered speaker is reminded to present their agenda comments in accordance with policy 1020. First speaker we have for today is DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. I was not going to speak during this portion since I'm signed for bb2, bb3, dd3, you lose nothing by bringing h11 back and voting it down. You gain transparency. I looked at policy 2050 and if I thought it got the job done, I would have had nothing to say about h11. But it doesn't reference either of the state statutes related to law enforcement, ie, the bill of rights. There's no reference
085there. It mentions the creation of policies and procedures. I've never seen them. I'm going request you get me a copy of those. This policy was approved in APRIL and I promise you if shall be were arrested tomorrow, the same thing that happened to debbie espinosa can happen all over again, there is no guarantee the complaint would be handled under the state statute. There is nothing in writing and trust me, pba and other agreements because I reviewed them all does mention discipline. It is not even an article in this agreement and never has been. Why? It should be. You're giving people a gun, a badge and the ability to arrest people, the rules regarding that power have to be cryststalclclea t -- nnnnot be left to cherry picking when you're going offer the bill of right
086and is when you cannot. That cannot be unclear and it is very unclear because there is nothing in the agreement, so my recommendation would be to bring it back, vote it down and have hem look at how other places handle discipline in their agreements because there are other agreements even among the pba agreements that have an article on discipline. Why does this one not have one? And, no, 2050 does not get the job done. It does not mention the statutes, the word discipline isn't even in there. Please read it because ignorance will not be a defense and debbie, espinosa deserves better and so do the officers. It needs to be crystal clear what happens if they arrest someone if tlas question and you have two state statute that is are not referenced anywhere and were
087not followed and for all we know continue to not be followed. So, for your general counsel to say that 2050 covers it is reckless and irresponsible and I stand by my comments from earlier, please bring back h11, vote it down and compel these people to put transparency into that agreement, thank you. thank you, next is delvin king. Latrinsha greaves. I'm sorry, MADAM Chair. go ahead. okay. Good morning, MADAM Chair, vice chair, superintendent, attorney, school board members, latrinsha greaves, fort lauderhill. Update on broward estates, again, I want to prefaces by saying these are fatsoes, not myths, and comments are being said when you were asking the superintendent and the staff, are they aware of something, for them to say it happened before my time should not be acceptable. When you accept the position, you accept whatever
088happens before your time. There was a letter that was sent to DR. Hepburn and I'm providing you with a copy of, I'm not sure if you were aware of it, I'll go straight down to number two for the lack of time, it say it is city of lauderhill and this was sent by the city manager, the relevant school members attend a city mission workshop on a mutually agreed upon date about their desire and is concerns about bro urtd estates elementary, to facilitate scheduling, we would like to propose tuesday APRIL 22 at 1 P.M., wednesday APRIL 23 at 4:00 P.M. This accidenter did not happen. The only thing that did happen was on APRIL 14, there was a meeting at the city of lauderhill and DR. Holness as well as DR. Wanza did attend but there
089was no response to the commission when they had questions about what's going on so I want to bring that to your attention. A facilities assessment, I did watch the workshop virtually, to have the facility condition done by APRIL or MAY, when I watched the school board meeting, his leader who was on facilities who was a prior candidate to be a superintendent is now putting off saying this summer the board in JANUARY directed them to have that facilities condition assessment done by APRIL or MAY and now it's saying to the summer, you have to hold them accountable. Thank you very much. thank you. Next is trudy jermanovich. my name is DR. Traout -- trudy jermanovich, I was hope tog speak on other iss ewess but I must help to spread the following message, yesterday all broward
090teachers began receiving a ballot nr the mail which is incredibly important for them to respond with a yes. The state wants to do away with teachers unions. this vote by perc is another attempt to take away union rights and contract. It is critically important to make your voice heard. Your ballot must be returned to the state by JULY 10. If you will be aware, please contact perc at (850) 488-8641 to request your ballot be sent to wherever you are. The state purposefully held this vote when teachers were not being paid and were offered two months, mail your ballot as soon as possible after you receive it to ensure delivery by JULY 10, you must sign and print your name on return envelope and put a stamp on the envelope or your ballot won't be counted.
091Once your ballots are counted, a yes vote means you will continue to have a union. Your contract and your snorted rights. A no manses you will no longer have any of these rights. Ai, summarized how this happened in florida when it was implemented by the union busting governor and legislature. Last year at least 54 public sector unions in florida had been fully decertify and had shuttered due to not meeting the 60% membership requirement. The florida law enacted in 2023 mandates public sector unions maintain a membership of at least 60% except for police. Police and fire only have to have 50%. Wlrm report it is the law has led to the dissolution of over 100 bargaining units across the state and the loss of union rep presentation. Some unions like those represents police officers were exempt,
092however there were other unions such as adjunct faculty and teachers were severely impacted. The laws impact on teachers union has been particularly notable with some losing a significant portion of their members due to the ban on payroll deductions. Please encourage every teacher you know to vote yes and we wonder why teachers are fleeing broward and florida. Thank you. thank you, next is tatian francis. I guess they're not here. The wait list, kathy kersutter. Michelle bennett. good morning, school board members and chair, vice chair, DR. Hepburn, superintendent, my name is michelle bennett, I'm a teacher at [Inaudible] Middle school and I wanted to just speak on compensation for teachers. I have over 25 years of teaching experience and because of that, I have observed that cost of living has not kept up with our salaries and
093that's very concerning for me. yes, we've increased our salaries for new teachers, we have some compensation for our veteran teachers but again, neither is maintaining again cost of living for both groups. So, therefore quality of life is being impacted and I'm fortunate that over 25 years ago, I was able to buy a condo. Today I could not buy my same condo. To me, that's a problem. You have teachers that are living with their parents. You have teachers that are sharing -- they have to have roommates, renting out rooms in order to just live. We need to do better by our teachers I believe. We are boots to the ground, if not for teachers, what do we have? Every profession can can look back and say there was a teacher that impacted me, every profession, all
094of you as a matter of fact, so I think we really -- like I said, we flexed o do -- need to do better. Cost of living is going up exponentially and we are not there. 25 years ago, I didn't get into the profession thinking I was going to be wealthy, I knew that wasn't going to be the case but I could at least have a decent existence. Right now I look at these young people, I'm like you really might want to think your life choices because i don't know what you're -- how you're going to make it. I really feel sorry for them. Thank you. thank you. And our last public speaker, shevon taylor. Okay. So, next we'll mover on to the superintendent's report. thank you, MADAM Chair. First of all, I want to
095recognize the see taste apartment who does a paid summer internship for our students year after year and it's been going on for the past couple of years with great success. We have one of our student interns here under that see taste paid internship that's interning with the office of communications, that's sam sharia, wave your hand, sam so, the board can see you. [Applause]. He survived his internship on fridays, he attends pompano beach, he survived his internship with MR. Sullivan, so give him a round of applause for that also. What an exciting time as we close out the school year, watching thousands of students walk across the graduation stage has been the highlight of the year, it's a powerful reminder of why we do the work we do every year, our students have earned millions in
096scholarships, 230 million dollars, so maybe more to date and while we await confirmation from the state, our preliminary data is higher levels of achievement, this success is a reflection tof collective efforts of our entire bcps family, our incredible students, dedicated teachers, committed school leaders and school leaders including our critical support of our bus driversser custodians and every team member who plays a role in keeping our district learning, and not to be remiss if I didn't mention the young men and young lady who is are in our cubicles in this building and other administrative buildings within the district, we are also grateful with the strong partnerships with our community and the ongoing support and guidance from this board. I would like the tern it over the becon for highlighting the incredible work of this past year.
097Take it away, becon. (Showing video). [Applause]. thank you, chair, has -- that concludes my report. next we'll have updates from bpf. james >> hearing officer natoli:, the broward education foundation. That was a great video, excited to say we were a part of a few of those instance that is were up there and some of our partnership widths the orange bowl to put some of those together to put those thing ins our backpack, na money belongs with our teachers. We have a few things coming up and one of them is our back to school drive coming up and that's going to be JULY 14 through AUGUST 29 where that's -- please bring school supplies, as we're looking at teachers and pay ska lot of stuff they do do comes ou out of their pocket, broward education
098foundation is able to put back 2 million dollars a year of supplies back into the teachers' classrooms so they don't have to go into their pockets for those, and we can do that through drives like this. We have adopt our [Inaudible], broward health, so many different organizations we partner with to give back to our school district, adopt schools to be able to give backpack and is school supplies to those students and schools, we put full backpack and is full supply kits in those backpacks in specific areas so we're excited about that and you guys will all get that information after today's meeting. One last thing I wanted to mention was everybody has so many things going on. I want to continue to say that I'm extending our hand, my team is extending our hand to
099leverage us, lean on us and lean on us on whatever we're able to help and provide, our partnerships within the community websinger do this on a daily basis, hourly basis and&we're excited to o bring those partnerships back to the needs of this district and sit down and listening to what those needs are in not only these meetings but the other meetings you have in going to visit schools, what some of those needs might be as DR. Hepburn continue tos visit, please continue to ask, we do nt reach out to you, please know how and what else we can do in every way, shape and form so we're able to do so much through partnering with all of these mayor community members because that's not the only way but that is one of the main ways
100we're going to be able to meet na tha and bridge that gap, so thank you you guys so much. thank you. We had a pta report that was sent in so we'll include it with the minutes, so that it's in the public records. Next we have btu. anna fusco, broward teachers PRESIDENT. I appreciate one of the teachers that announced that our ep unit, our education professionals with the union right now and I want to thank DR. Hepburn and the supporting team he had, made sure the messaging got out there, you did your part, we know it's going to the homes, so we've got a little campaign going and we're sure we're going to be fine and our union will be fully in tact, we'll know by JULY 14 which wh they do the counts. I
101would like to tend and a a six, nora's in the bathroom, jeff can tafp it -- catch it on video tomorrow, you can listen how you speak amongst colleagues when we're stringing it -- sitting down here, the session ened last night, it was a tough situation what was going on with our dually elected group from broward and across the state to make sure they got the budget finally passed so we are asking you have a fruitful conversation with your superintendent and cf sxo, the powers that be to have a a plan, I hope they were working on a plan, maybe projecting what the budget might be to come in strong and to come in plentiful of giving adequate raises to all of our educators and our supporting staff all throughout broward schools. We know that
102you guys talk about it a lot, not quite sure what the conversations are, you guys are in favor of making sure it goes forward, what you said today when you were getting ready to talk about motions and so forth of really cabinet level and other levels of earning some extra dollars wauz of -- because of the work they're doing and the impact they have. Make it clear that all of our educators have a very strong impact, every single year things get piled on them from -- it was supposed to be better with the testing, there's more testing, there's supposed to be better but there's more date taxer there's more students in their classrooms, the grading is intense, the planning is intense, there's all types of thing that is are out there, 504's are up, iep's
103are up, all sorts of impacts are happening in their classroom and is in our schools and we know obviously the cost of living is really strong out there, we haven't seen a relief even though we have a new re-elected PRESIDENT That likes to talk out of I don't know what side of the mouth out of a bunch of bs so I'm asking you guy tos look at that budget strong. We know you guys did a lot of cuts, our schools, again, I told the board members, they're going to see it and I want you to know when I come to you next start of the school year, please listen to me when I say this is impacting each school. You guys represent your own district and we have two countywide debbie hixon and alan zeman,
104so there are two per district that represent all schools and when I'm having these conversations, things are brought to me from not just our educator ins the schools, our admin, our community, our students, every type of group of people brings me information with what's happening inside the school sos we're saying we're an a district, we want to keep it an a rated district, we can't be doing it by any means necessary. I want dwrou look strongly at schools, we have state statute that is are in place, the cherry picking. Physical education is a statute that must happen in our schools. I'm going to be bringing tog you the schools releads their pe teachers, physical education teachers, we talk about our arts program, we talk about music, you have schools that released art teachers and music
105teachers. We want a well rounded school. We don't want by any means necessary to pass that test but we got the a, look, we move to a b, I'm tired of hearing it, I want you guys to be tired of hearing it. I want you guy tos say we're an a district because we're so well round, our kids get to go to field trips and do projects, they get to have art and music and get to have physical education, when I hear a high school is going to a half time band, that's shameful, it's unacceptable. When I hear third grade classrooms are 25 plus, not acceptable, I'm asking dwrou guys to come with a a strong compensation package and take off the impact of our emg kate tors if you want a truly a rated
106district that's well rounded. thank you. I saw lisa maxwell but I don't see her now. So I guess she left. I don't see anybody else. Okay, I don't think anyone's hear from asman, fope, copa, pba, alright, well, that ends our reports then so we're going ga back to our agenda and the next item up is item b2. Can I have a motion and a second on item b2t? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, new public comment on b2? no speakers. board member discussion, MS. Alhadeff? thank you. I would like to stay on as the alternate. I know MS. Rupert is the lead on that. i'm assuming she would want to stay on as the lead, I can't speak for her, but maybe we can table this until she gets back. that's
107fine. I move to table this. second. all those in favor of tabling the item, say aye. aye. any opposed? We 'll come back to that when she gets back. The next item is b5. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, my f any public comment on b5? no registered speakers. b5, so, board member discussion, DR. Zeman? chair, thank you very much, did you prefer to go first? Okay, great. This is a good thing to talk about, it's funny in a a way that we need to get consensus about what consensus means, but I have through experience found incredible power in boards kind of agreeing on what this really means and what that often means when they agree to that is that even in non-voting meetings, there's a level of agreement where all members can
108can live with a decision, so this is a way to compromise and negotiate and have good quick k discussion, very similar to having your 7 kids there with you for father's day and you're like, I would like to go to din e where can we all goe where people might not get their first chase but their second or third choice and at the end of the day, you're trying to find a restaurant to dine in for a great event that works okay even though it's not ideal for everybody, so the idea of finding something where all members can live with means we have in the end no objection, if there's no objection to something that's being discussed, then that leads to more compromise, more negotiation until you can find something that everybody can live with
109a decision. One thing that's challenging, there's a critical role with the chair in this to move conversation along and say, okay, if that doesn't work, do you have something close to that and things like that and it also involves all of us to think about a little bit about what the set of options are that we can live with, not our first choice stha, our second or third choice given the conversation we hear from other people, is this something we can move forward with. I'm glad we're having this discussion today, I'm hoping we end with the robert's rules of orders, that everybody member can live with the choice even if it's not their ideal choice. MS. Leonardi? I appreciate MS. Full -- bulman for bringing this forward. It is something that I think is desperately
110needed. I think it is rare that we have all board members agreeing with something and living with something and some of us, you know, action is taken, some of us disagree with it, we have to live with it. That is the reality. So, it feels like in the last few months since this issue of consensus came up, we've been paralyzed by disagreement, workshops have been moving very slowly. In my opinion, we as a board are in workshops to take action, give direction, not take votes, but we're here to do the business of the school district, right. And we cannot do that if we are dependent on every single person agreeing with the items in front of us. I did call fsba yesterday, I had a very productive conversation about what other boards do to give
111guidance during workshops. It is not a 100% everyone can live with whatever direction that is given. One example is -- that was given or one tact that was discussed was a vista 5 which we can discuss at a later date but I do agree with the idea of taking out consensus. And the item says in the alternative to remove the word consensus and replace the same with simple majority throughout the policy. That's something that I agree with but I think that will get flushed out during the rule making of policy 1020, correct? MS. Batista? yes, that is correct. That was the recommendation that I had at the last workshop if you recall. thank you, so, the requested action is to initiate rule making for policy 1020. I think we can kind of discuss further the
112different nuances or the direction we want to take but I agree with the idea of doing a simple majority and we can talk about the methods in which that can be done, again, one recommendation that was given to me by fsba was vista 5. Thank you. thank you. So, I'll end us here. I appreciate MRS. Bulman for bringing this forward, MS. Batista, I have a question because we have discussed this a couple of times. Are you already planning on bringing policy 1020 back to us, if so, when? so, as soon as the -- as soon as it is advertised, we can bring it back to a workshop to added this language. okay, but I believe there were other things in 1020 that needed to be addressed, so is it slated already to come back to
113us? Would this speed that up? Because it says direct the superintendent to initiate rule making but I was pretty confident we were in that process. well, I think this will speed it up. okay, so DR. Hepburn, do you know when this policy can come back to us? MR. Sullivan, can you give a a timeline of when the policy? we could bring it if it's the will of the board and the general counsel agrees, JULY 29th. okay. workshop. thank you. I appreciate that because this is my 5th year on the board and every school board chair before me had consensus in terms of majority and somehow when I became chair, it became an issue which has been very frustrating because we all -- will haves it came up consensus was something else and now we cannot
114agree on it. I appreciate policy 1020 is coming to us, we can be very clear in what it is we can and cannot do, I think the way we're doing it now adds too many b item tos our school board meetings when we could just give that direction with the majority at workshops which is what we did five years prior to this year. So, I appreciate MRS. Bulman for bringing it forward trying to clear that up and making sure that we don't have to keep calling the chair out every time we're doing something wrong, soy appreciate that. Anybody else? All those in favor of b5, say aye. aye, any opposed, motion carries unanimously without DR. Rupert or DR. Holness here. I'm going skip b3 because MS. Rupert is no. Not here. Can I have a
115motion and second on g2? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi. Comments from MR. Cervera? looking at the agreement that's proposed, I had a slight issue with some of the language regarding the amount of legal time spent by this individual when the districts work as well as whether or not they were able to engage in any other legal work. So, I had some conversations and at this juncture, I'm fine with the agreement. I do want to make a motion in regards to -- and I want to make sure I get the provision right here. In regards to 3b, the no conflicting legal practices section, I think the way that it's currently phrased leaves it open for some wiggle room for this attorney to perhaps engage in other legal work outside of her
116employment with the district. I don't believe that's proper, I believe our attorneys should be devoted full time to the business of the district and their jobs here. I don't believe they should have the ability to moonlight or do any other legal work. That being said, I had proposed language that I guess -- let me confirm with MS. Batista if it would be appropriate for mre to make a motion, read the prospect I ever language into the record and see if it could be proposed into the agreement. yes, that would be appropriate. thank you, MS. Batista, I would make a motion to make the current language of subsection 3b in the no conflicting legal practices section to say the following torx remover that lang wanl and be replaced with the following, the assistant general counsel shall
117not engage in any other legal practice or accept any legal business outside of the scope of duties for the school board of broward county regardless of whether such practice creates a conflict of interest. The associated general counsel shall devote full all full and professional attention sxlaous exclusive tli to the legal business of the school board of broward county. second. MS. Batista? yes, thank you, MADAM Khai, so that will be the administrative counsel would be the appropriate language for item gg2, I'm sorry, gg1, but for this one, it would be administrative counsel instead of the assistant general counsel. my apologies, for clarification, this is g2. yes. not g1, so g2, yes, we can swap out that language, but I think substantively, this kind of closes up that loophole if you will and makes it very clear
118this individual is only to engage in legal work for the district and no outside sources as well. second. okay, any public comment on the motion? Board member comment on the motion? DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair, a couple of questions first for the general counsel, for our other members of your office, what is their restriction on outside work? thank you, so, the restriction is what is in the contract currently which is the administrative counsel will not accept legal business which will in any way conflict with the work of the school board and spend full time of the business of the school board. I have never had any issues with any of the attorneys doing any work outside of the work of the district, however, I do agree that the language does allow for potentially
119other work as long as it doesn't conflict with the work of the school board. and do you think that the restriction being considered as part of this motion would reduce our ability to recruit attorneys for the office of general counsel? MS. Batista? I don't believe so but that would be difficult to quantify at this point. terrific. Would the motion on the table again general counsel prevent people from doing pro bono legal work that did not conflict with broward county schools? MS. Batista? as a general rule, that this position is really prohibitive from doing pro bono legal work because of the potential conflicts. So, it would not have any effect one way or the other. and tell me about that prohibited general nature of positions in your office to doing pro bono work. It sounds to
120me as a non-lawyer that the contract says that you can't do any work that conflicts with the school board. It seems to me that pro bono work that doesn't conflict would be premed that's included in this job description. so, that's true, I mean, they do do some work sometimes that does not conflict for example, I know some attorneys have done work related to immigration issues and so on that does not conflict with this item. Under the rules of the florida bar, there is a section that talks about having a certain amount of pro bono hours, usually government positions are exempt from those hours and that's what I was talking about, that there is a particular amount of hours that would be required and we don't have to actual fulfill that requirement, that doesn't mean we
121cannot do any pro bono work at all. I guess I would d ask the last question to either th gegenel cocosel l or the susupentenendentif papass this motion and thers s a restriction on outside work across the board, what impact will that have on the office of general counsel to perform nair duties? would you repeat that again? if this motion assess and people who work for you are not allowed to do outside work, even if it doesn't conflict as their duties assigned as a full time lawyer on your team, how will this affect your staff? currently I do not believe that it would affect the staff at all. No one is performing outside work other than the district's work. and you don't have any evidence that this would limit your ability to recruit if this
122was put into this job description and others down the road? that's correct. okay, thanks. okay, anybody else? All those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. Er any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. So, back to the original item, all those in favor of item g2 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously. We're going to jump to gg1. Can I have a motion and a second on gg1? so moved. Er it's been moved by dr. zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment on gg1? no comments. board member cervera? I would repeat my concerns with the current form of the proposed employment agreement for MS. Lamae serving as the assistant general counsel and I would make a motion to include the following language into paragraph 3b of the prosed
123contract which is entitled no conflicting legal practices. My motion would be to remove the current text and inlewd it in the following, the assistant general counsel shall not engage in any other legal praktsz or accept any legal business outside of the scope of duties for the school board of broward county regardless of such practice create as conflict of interest. The assistant general counsel shall devote all of her full and professional attention exclusively to the legal business of the school board of broward county. second. any public comment on the motion? I would like to say thank you for adding it, I appreciate it. thank you for coming today. any board comment? All those in favor?Frjt just a point of order before you vote, this is item g1, correct? gg. I withdraw my comment, thank you. All
124those in favor of item gg1 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. We're going to go back to item b2 since MRS. Rupert is back. We'll bring it back to the floor. MRS. Alhadeff, did you still have comments? so, I was making the suggestion, MS. Rupert, if you wanted to stay on as the representative and I would be your second or your alternate. [Inaudible]. perfect. okay. I agree, thank you. okay. Was that it? Great. MRS. Bulman? I just pulled this because it seemed like we needed to vote on it and decide on who wants to do it. I support what has been proposed. okay, thank you. MS. Thompson? I was interested in serving on it, however, it seems to be decided. okay. DR. Zeman? well, I don't -- this is
125an open discussion, MS. Thompson, if you're okay with this, then that's great, if you preferred a different outcome, we should have that discussion I think. I want to respect my colleagues have been on this committee for a while. I do have an interest in advocacy, I think there needs to be a strong voice in fsba with larger districts and I would be interested in learning more about this process, however, it's also not the hill I'm going to die on, so if you guys want to continue, maybe next year, I would appreciate the consideration for another person to be on the board. sorry, just know that the term is JULY 1, 2025 to -- one year, yes. Okay. DR. Zeman, did you have anything else? no, thank you. so, the suggestion is MRS. Rupert to remain
126because we have to vote on this and send them who our representatives are, so MRS. Rupert would be the representative and MRS. Alhadeff would be the alternate. Anybody disagree with that or have a different suggestion? Okay. All those in favor of MRS. Rupert as help votive and MS. Alhadeff as alternate, say aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously, thank you. okay. So we're going to go to I1, can I have a motion and a second on I1? It's been moved by MRS. Rupert, seconded by DR. Zeman, any public comment on I1? no comment, ma'am. DR. Zeman? thank you, chair, we're good. I wanted to ask some questions about the relationship that we have with this, and again, for this general -- whether you want to call it a a mental health crisis or talk
127about islands of mental health severe crisis or even additional trauma being experienced and these things are getting young and her younger, MS. Rupert, these are not problem that is are going away in terms of suicidal ideation, having knowledge of how you might do that which is now 20% of the national teenage audience and that affects broward county as far as we know as well. In our measurable return on investment, we say 80% of students referred to the broward behavioral health coalition and will be linked to appropriate mental health services to meet their child's needs. I'm concerned about that being our kpi. We have a strategic goal at staff level at least that everybody that says they need help gets help. If 80% of these are gets help, are the 20% getting help through other groups,
128or how when we closing the apses in the ways we do mental h el or the resources we assign to mental health to achieve that strategy? I'm going to remind our colleagues, we had 16 student ins here just last month and talked about mental h et and they themselves wanted to get help and there were restrictions put on it. Oftentimes in a disappointed way, they said the person who was assigned to the school for health wasn't available and was off doing other things and is this is exactly counter to what this board set up, this board said if you work in mental health, you will be doing mental health every hour of the day you're getting paid by broward county. The stument we use today do that which was at the advice of the superintendent
129was to put that in job descriptions but nobody thought about supplements and volunteers or any other way they would be pushed off of doing mental health, it is inconceivable to me that someone works in broward county that said they couldn't get help, that weapon don't have a system in place for next year that ensures 100% they're available for the kids that desperately need help. So, when this says 80% are going to get help through this group, I'm curious about this strategy and where is the other 20% supposed to turn. saemone hollingsworth, I'll start, it was also a concern of ours, DR. Zeman, thinking about those 20% because 20% is too many, 1% is a concern, know witching this organization with the behavioral health coalition, that is the connection we're having families outsource, the reason why
130that number is different or is not 100% is because families have the option to not accept that service, so that's why that's in there, however, back to your strategy websinger are wringing on -- working on that. We have rolled out with our principals and administrator how to utilize our support staff, school counselors, school social workers and psychologists, we'll be actively engage witching those vining and making sure they're at the table, we're doing that in JULY for two day and is that's going to be at a regular cadence as we work with our regional officer sos all of those support individual ares working with our students and connecting so even if a family is not interested in that, we're doing things we can do that are within reason even with parental consent, we're making sure we're
131keeping an eye on our students. if I can say that back to you, another way to describe this outcome measure is 100% of the students who agree to be seen will be seen. correct, yes. thank you so much, I appreciate that. I love 100% in this scenario where that's particularly important. The second question is about capacity. Does broward behavioral health coalition have more capacity to help us if in fact we had more resources to give them? I'm going the let MS. Winter answer that, please. yes, the purpose of this amendment is to ensure they have the capacity to handle the caseload of student that is are referred. This service is primarily for high need student sos our goal is to have 100% of our students who are in need serviced by our staff of broward
132county public schools those needs who MAY need additional supports through community resources, that is what bbhc is facilitating. if we had more money, would f we want to buy more services from broward behavioral health coalition? so, they're doing care coordination, so they're ensuring our students are connected within that allotted timeframe to the community agency sos we're definitely open to exploring other funding opportunities with bbhc, but this particular amendment speak tos their ability to speak to the capacity and making sure our students are connected to the appropriate services. are these people who have been connecting our hinging -- high need students to services? All of them said they could not get connected to help or they knew people who could not get connected, have we done an assessment to know they're going o do something different
133or how do we square the circle here with students saying they cannot get help, our student advisor saying he hearings it every time he does a visit to schools, they don't know about the programs. If this group is a group that's supposed to connect our highest needs students to help, have they failed to perform and we should tear this up and start over or are they part of a solution because found a a better way to do it or they're not part of that problem at all? if I MAY, I'll start. I would say they're both, how do we continue to level up that work for our students to get connected but it goes back to making sure that those of us who are boots on the ground on at the school and support thing
134schools at the district and connect to those outside agencies for those staoubt students that MAY require more severe or intensive services, we're doing that in connection ask doing that three prongesed approach. Going in with the leadership teams and making sure we're leveling up and using our individuals, identifying a look for, when we're in schools, ak nonflying what that looks like and not about the student and the service but are we seeing these behaviors from our adult sos we're connecting with students in the right fashion. terrific, I know you've got some help coming in, their work at least the initial phase is due at the end of this month. I cannot wait to see what they're talking about, what they've been out to see, very limited six week period performance but they're going to see something
135and we're going learn about what they did. Last question is for the superintendent, MR. Superintendent, this board has voted that 100% of mental health professionals in broward county will be available 100.% of the time for mental h ement. Can you commit that starting on AUGUST of 2025, that will in fact be true? DR. Hepburn? yes. thank you. okay, MS. Alhadeff? thank you. So, to DR. Zeman's point, I hope our assessment comes back to show if there is any gaps and kind of that timeline of when a student reaches out and needs help for mental health services and that we could see the pathway forward but to this item specifically, what I would like to know when there is that mental health referral, if let's just say a student doesn't accept, is there any xlaoun kaition
136back to us to know if the student got the help or missed appointments or didn't go? DR. Hepburn? MS. Hollingsworth? thank you, I have MS. Winter to thanes.Er you. -- answer that for you. yes, we have a standing item with bbhc to ensure that connection occur sos we have our supervisors from family counseling and our supervisors from our social work team that meet with bphc so all of us can ensure that all of our students that are referred to students are connected to ss asks any students that are not, we connect with bhhc for efforts to reengage those student and is ensure they're regularly receiving those services. Er I would lieg to see that broken down finer. I think a month is too late to wait if somebody didn't go to their appointment and how
137are we communicating back in a more timely manner to the school district and just that we really break that down and then are we also communicating what the family in terms to their m missed appointments. MS. Winter, anything as far as communication to the families, this is the second part to MS. Alhadeff's question, yes on the commitment for higher frequency. Er I'm going to turn it to efr one of our social work officers, for the follow-ups and -- it's peer coordination which means that they're not the ones doing the therapy, or providing the direct service, they have to screen the student first and then get all the consents signed and pass it on to the direct service provider. So, that process, remember that we're working with parent who is have work schedules and the care
138has to be coordinated in a way that meets the parent's needs, so 15 to 30 days is what a typical -- that's a quick turn-over, a quick response to the need of the student. When they get to the actual care which is to provide the mental health therapy or the case management, that part is a lot quicker but the initial park takes some time because of the coordination of care. and I'm speak toing the documentation of missed appointments and how we are being communicated back as -- at the school level. after all this process is done, if the child missed the appointment or didn't receive the service more timely follow-up to let us know that didn't happen. right, and then what are the next steps, thank you. okay, MS. Thompson? I just kind of wanted
139to echo what -- staff was saying I think making the -- like, you don't have to say unless you want to, but I think that timeline's really important because it is a way of them reaching out to parents and then parents have to coordinate their schedule. I think knowing when they have missed appointments, at some point it's on the family's responsibilities to be taking their kids to the mental health professionals and there could be many reasons they're not accessing that. I think there's a difference between knowing if they meet with the care coordination because at least we tried to bridge that gap and a difference of are they going to all their appointments because that's not our role. I think the important thing about this contract is that when you do mental health in schools
140t majority of the mental health you're police reapportioning has to be around their iep or aornd a school related issue so you could be helping a child with anxiety but as a part of the treatment plan, you have to say when they're testing, they get anxious and you have to tie it to that. So, I think it's important when we are considering improving our mental health services, we have to recognize what we're able to do within our school environment which is we're trying to improve now and what I'm excited to hear back from the assessment and what our partners can do is more intensive therapies and more wrap around because there's only so much we can do during a school year because they need support over the summer, so I think the 30e -- 30
141days that staff does the report is enough. I think if we're having them do check-ins all the I'm, they won't baibl meeting witching the students which is another way we can measure having their school social worker or school counselor or school psychologist say, remember when I we met, I referred you to this, have your parents made any connections yet because I think there's also this gap of understanding with parents where the kid might want help but their parents are in the interested and no call from us or bbhc is not going the make them do that, I apapeciate the e need for owowdge, I wantnt usto say at wiwi the recognitn n of all that's kindnd of flging -- falling ining the background, that's all. all in favor of I1? Any opposed? Motion carryess you
142unanimously. Can I have a motion and a second on f3? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on n3? -- f3? no, ma'am. MRS. Rupert?Frjts any f my questions were answered. great. DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you very much, I didn't pull this item, I made a comment earlier about the budget resolution that happened in tallahassee for those that didn't read it, they made some improvement in what they originally proposed , the tsia for teacher supplementary team is anaoek I can -- ie -- anemic, we are 50th in 50 states in feuding, so these kind of imprao ufptses are fine, it's better than zero, until we're not 50th, we have to continue to remind people that great states are build through dpraet public education and we have to figure out how
143to allocate more funds so that things going on around the state of florida westbound funded in a way so we can do them with greater breadth and depth. So, there's always an opportunity to talk about budget items. We have the recent news about it, thens a fine thing they did, it's not enough money to have a world class education system in florida. Thank you. thank you. All those in favor of item f3, say aye. aye. any o poised, say no. Motion carries unanimously minus MS. Leonardi and DR. Holness. Next item is j2, can I have a motion and a second on swr, 2? so moved. Er second. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Alhadeff. any public comment on j2? yes, david vasquez. david vas ked -- vasquez with the cultural arts
144department, here to reiterate our support for the approval of the second amendment of the lease that involves the driftwood middle school and community center shared use area. thank you so much. Any other public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair. Thank you, MR. Vasquez, for coming today to support. I just wanted to thank the city of hollywood, mayor levie and the commissioners for this partnership. I think this is a win, win for everyone. They're going to be contributing a substantial amount of money to build pickleball on the west side of hollywood when wr this is sorely needed in a city that wants pickleball so we'll finally have it on the west side and I just want to reiterate, we've talked about many times here how important these partnerships are between the school district and
145our municipalities. we have to work together to get the best outcomes and I think this is a great example of that, so thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman? thank you so much. I want to just highlight even a little bit more, more of what hollywood has done for driftwood, they built a pool, an entire bathhouse, pavilion, employ ground and now six pickleball courts. They are fulfilling a strong partnership with them, while I haven't learned to appreciate pickleball, it seems to be what everyone else is playing and I will challenge hollywood what the city of fort lauderdale has done which they've put a monitor at pickleball court sos you can see online and see if there is a court available and you don't have to drive could -- to the court, fort lauderdale, it costs five
146cents a day, if you call park and is rec ins fort lauderdale, maybe you can pig -- piggy back. There's more and more capability to do these things well and everybody wins tat end of the day, so thank you. thank you, and I'll end with saying hollywood is a great place to live I might be biased, I've lived there my whole life and they do great partnerships with the districts so we are thankful for all that you do for our schools. Go ahead. good afternoon, board chair and board members, superintendent, there's a scrivener's error on the signature page, it should say second amendment, I believe it says first amendment on your copy. So, it just needs to be corrected to say second amendment on your signature page, the agreement. I move to change the scrivener's
147error to say second amendment on the signature page. so moved. Er any public comment on the motion? Any board member comment? All those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. Any opposed, say no. Great, motion carries. J2, all those in favor of j2, say aye. As amended. Aye, any opposed, say no. The motion carries you nan nosily. It is 2 -- 11:30, so we will move on to dd items. so, do we have public comment on the dd items? Does it make sense to take them all together or should I take them separately? share you, -- you're talking about bb? dd. can I have a motion and a second to bring items dd2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 to the floor. yes, so moved. er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS.
148Rupert. Any public comment? yes, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. okay. still good morning, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, dually elected chair of the district's audit committee. I thought about reserving these comments for the bb2 item but I'm afraid if I don't say them now, things will go off the rails, I'm speaking to dd3 which has the audit report that has the statement in it. It was transmitted with the impairment statement even we had staff staining is it the will of this committee to transmit inaccurate reports? I assure you if the audit committee thought if the report was inaccurate, there would be a motion made and you would be clear we had an issue with the audit. Only DR. Zeman's appointee questioned whether the interference raise was at the level of impairment, no one else commented on that. The standards
149generally accepted government auditing standards 3.34 indicate that the office of the chief auditor handled the impairment in an acceptable manner. And I appreciate MS. Thompson's bb3 item which allows you to move forward from the impairment statement. in case this comes up, internal funds requirements, I meant to put policy 3410 as of the APRIL 10th meeting, they were complete and as of MAY 8, they were 91.9% complete which is above the required 90%. So, I'm not sure where this idea -- someone needs to do their homework, but we discussed creating a chart to show year to year completion rates because they're improving their rate of completion on internal funds audits. Those of you who have been on the board MAY remember your prior chief auditors getting warnings about the internal funds audits not getting completed on
150a timely manner, I keep asking thel to go for 100% and I believe they'll probably get there. So, I just wanted to clarify that and if I need to reiterate, I will on bb2, thank you. thank you, any other public comment? no other speakers. so, MRS. Bulman, since you pulled all of them, I'm going to let you go first, I don't know if it's a similar thing on all of them or if it's different but -- are we taking them all together? Okay. I had my questions answered by staff as to the particular audit findings for the most part so I think it I'm okay for right now unless somebody brings something up. perfect, MS. Alhadeff? thank you. So, I am going to talk about dd5 and specifically findings 1 and 2. I'm not really
151quite sure why these were medium and not at the high level because based on the findings with the number of employees not completing the training and then -- so I'll just repeat it, MR. Rhodes, you just gat back, in regards to finding number 1 and 2, why did you see them as medium level threat and not a high level threat. Based on the findings with the number of employees not completing the the training and then the timeliness of the training and documentation occurring. MR. Rhodes? I brought all of my staff from these various report that is are coming today and I would like to turn that over to elena perticina. elena, management of the office of the chief auditor. We did use the this matrix to rate these risk and is we used the calculation
152of impact over likelihood of the error happening again and I can explain in more detail, so for the finding number 1, there were three different training levels considered in the findings, and because two of the training per risk matrix came up as the medium risk and one came up as the high without like the overall rating with the medium and for the second finding, we per the risk matrix when we calculated impact versus likelihood, we had the medium rating for both of them, so the overall rating was medium. And I cannot rate more on the calculation of the risk if you would like. so, MR. Rhodes, is this based on a feeling or the data in specific numbers that then went from a low to a medium to a high, if it was a certain
153amount of employees, would it then be high? I'll thanes and let e main -- elena something to that, this is standards promulgated from the state, we gather that information to put together a mitt rising that ideas what represents high, what represents medium and low, elena, would you like to add anything to that? based on the risk matrix that when we considered the likelihood and impact, the example for basic day one training, we considered tla the errors were at 3% overall error of no training and they were not widespread. Ifing the number of total employees, it was 4 of 1207 employees a that did not have the basic training. Even though that impacts the compliance, its absence of basic training, however there are unmitigated factors for those number of employees because the individual numbers do not
154make the basis of their own without the other team members and there are two levels of review by the principal and the district coordinator as well as for high levels, there are -- they are reviewed by the district team on top of -- as a final review. For the real specific training which is 1b in our matrix, we said it was a high likelihood because it was -- even though it was not widespread, it's 2% of employees reviewed 25 of 1207, however, errors indicated a gap in controls design which is significant for the vice chair. It was 23 the vice chairs of 25 that had errors. But because the impact was rated medium, because additional specific training is required, it impacts the compliance because additional specific training is required by the state. However, there are
155again mitigating factors. Vice chair MAY only substitute when the chair is unavailable and then all non-compliant employees who didn't have the role specific training had the day one training and there are two levels of review again on top of that -- the principal and the district cord mate -- coordinator do review the cases. We rated the professional training higher because the likelihood is very high because it was widespread. It was 10% employees reviewed, 117 of 1207, and we additionally the district did not have control over refresher training because it is add -- it was administered by the state, so -- and the impact was rated as a medium because refresher training, it implanting the compliance because refresher training isn't required, however there are mitigating factors again because the individual members do not make decisions without
156a full team. Non-compliant employees completed basic day one training in a basic year, so a refresher is going over the changes in the law. Then there are two -- thank you. So, it's very frustrating for me to see the la b lack of training that is done by staff and whether it's one person, 39 people, but we need to do better and so I know we're moving to a state platform and if DR. Hepburn and staff can speak to how the state platform, how we're going improve and have more of a 100% compliance in timeliness. DR. Lozano. the whole state is moving into the new florida platform for threat management to manage all threat assessments completes by all schools, to manage all btm monthly meetings so, we're going to be able to do real-time this
157year from day one, be able to monitor staff's completion of this year's refresher training which is solely going to train our staff on the new platform. That is the refresher training this year. We set a requirement in the district to have it done in days, so we have an additional 30 days to follow up to ensure by day 60, we're at 100% compliance with all staff this year taking this refresher training to ensure we're at 100% compliance this school year. thank you. thank you, and did you have something for dd6? no. MS. Leonardi? I'm good, thank you. go ahead. sorry, I just wanted to know what the actual unaccounted assets on page 2 are for the school specifically. MR. Rhodes? can you respond to that, please. good morning, my name is gabriel, the manager for
158property inventory, give me a second so I can open up. On page 2 of the report. yeah, in the chart. in summary I think. in the summary. It's for the six schools. The 88 thousand 370 dollars and 88 cents. so, specifically the assets, they are power up systems, air conditioners, guitars, switches, more switches and a din box kit and another switch and some think pads, laptops. okay, is there a reason why it wasn't written in the chart? in the chart, it's just showing exactly the quantities, the actual assets is within theer. okay, it would have been helpful to add it to the chart. yes, ma'am. Er thank you. thank you, I have one question on I guess it's dd4, west broward had an exception for using -- for golf cart repairs and they had a
159finding, they had gone over the spend authority and in the backup that showed the executive summary from the ard item which said funds cocomefrom schoolan depamement operating budget, so, this came out of internal funds. MR. Rhodes, can you explain why there would be an exception on the audit for using internal funds to cover a golf cart that looked like the reasoning was because it had gone over spend authority. Can you explain where internal funds fall in that spend authority piece? I'll give you a brief explanation and then I'll turn it over to MS. Gold burn. The golf carts are actual assets that get attached to the strict. The consumable items are the items that are generally purchased out of internal funds. The golf cart is not a non-consumable item. So, there's two different pieces that
160are involved with the explanation for this th and I'll turn it over to MS. Gold burn for a more detailed analysis. good morning, nakia gold burn, manager of the chief auditor, there tl 's twofold for the exception, one is chapter 8 states that repairs and maintenance of district held asset ares a restricted expense. Additionally what we note, it wasn't really a an exception, it was a note to district, all of the spending out of internal funds for golfer cart expenses, repair and is so forth are not being captured for your spend authority, because your spend authority for contracts are based on historical days data, none of that spend is being captured for you guys to rely on for the budget going forward, so one of our recommendations was that the board put together a policy
161regarding the parking fees that are collected and for all of those spends, to go through the po, so they can can still use internal funds, however, it should go through the po system through the district so those spends can be captured when you're calculating spend authority on that contract. okay, so -- because I think this is where some confusion came in. If it's internal funds, traditionally internal funds are from fundraising, do -- donations, so how is it we're tying that to a spend authority that's district bunted funds. what you're using is parking fees, when you do spend authority, there was some internal funds for golf cart repairs, so over three years tha,'s about 350 thousand dollars that the district is not capturing for their spend authority for golf cart for budgeting for it, so parking
162fees can be used if the district allows it, if the board votes on it, that parking fees can be used as a special revenue fund for governmental business and any items such as a repair and maintenance of golf carts but per chapter 8, internal funds should not be sueded for the repair and maintenance of items aof the responsibility of the district and it is a capital asset so tlas twofold for that, there's also an explanation as to what a special revenue is versus a fiduciary funds, internal funds is considered fiduciary custodian funds, they're supposed to have say over how that money is spent. If the district or if personnel of the district are the ones steading the use of those funds, then they're considered special revenue funds, that's why there's a recommendation for the district
163to put policy in place to determine the use of parking fees. okay. And I'm trying to process, that was a lot. So, we would need to make a new policy, you're saying, or is there a policy that you're suggesting we amend? there is a parking fees policy which is part of some of the write-ups, if you establish that a parking fee can be charged per chapter 8, you can charge a parking fee, you have an amount that you have as a limit to parking fees which is $60. You can update that -- this is a recommendation, I'm not telling you guys, I'm just making a recommendation that the board can institute a policy that shows what the parking fees can be used for and restrict that to use of repairs of golf carts, security and
164so forth. We estimated there's about to 350 thousand dollars a year that is collected that can offset those maintenance costs, that's the recommendation and that's the write-up as to why this affects spend authority because you're not capturing those and right now it's up to the principals, so that 50 thousand dollars if they decide nrot to use the parking fees, that would be the responsibility of the district and you're not really capturing that in what the total cost of the repairs and maintenance of golf carts are right now if they're paying for it directly out of internal funds. and DR. Hepburn, if the golf carts are property of the district, shouldn't it be on the district to repair those golf carts? S wouldn't it be a work order they put in? from the explanation I'm hearing,
165yes, if we're counting it as that, I think traditionally as a former high school principal, we always and I know MR. Strauss can probably expound of that, that we traditionally use internal fwunds to repair small engine things like a golf cart or even a a power washer, things like that that are under the purview of the campus, but for what I'm hearing, the suggestion is to create a policy so that there can be summon towering r -- monitoring of the costs and is how it impacts the district's spend authority is what I'm hearing. Okay. We can talk off-line on that one because I have all kinds of questions. Go ahead, MR. Strauss,.If you want to add something. Er I know in talking with ryan smith, there is a disagreement I guess in regards to the
166use of -- to your question, chair hixon, of the use of internal account funds and that being taken against the spend authority of a budgeted item that's not bunted towards the internal accounts but to be budgeted against the district's items so I know there's a difference of opinion on that, I can speak to that, but as DR. Hepburn said, yes, historically there has been a history where schools will utilize the parking funds because obviously the golf carts are used to monitor the parking lots and so therefore there's a relationship there between the golf cart usage and repair of it because it's needed to monitor and manage the parking lots. okay. Hold on, DR. Zeman. So, I would -- I think it's ambiguous and it would be upon the board to clarify for principals the business
167support center and auditing what we believe internal funds and the executive summary, it should be clear, is this school operating budget or is it school operating and internal funds when we do a spend authority, so I think based on the conversation, will you be bringing back the policy to us? yes, there's additional discussions that have to happen with our principals because as MR. Strauss mentioned, historically, we would use internal funds that you've collected for parking or any specific purpose. I think it goes beyond just paying for a golf cart repair, it will have to be a larger discussion with principals, with regional staff, with the chief auditor staff to make sure what we bring back is going to address any chang or problems moving forward so everybody's on the same page. yeah, because I think
168it seems like it's muddy. When yu look at it, you could read that exec tier summary and internal funds could fall under that, I also don't think if you're fundraising money, that that's what should be used for something that we should already be doing as a district like fixing golf carts or pressure cleaners, those fundraising money should be for additional things for the students and is the staff at the school, so I look forward to having that come back. DR. Zeman?Frjts on that particular point, chair, thank you, I want to be clear, I think we heard that a statement that internal account funds cannot be used for maintaining golf carts, is that what I heard today? the chapter 8 says that restricted expenses for repair and maintenance of items that are the responsibility of the
169district, that's what it says. I'm just dying to learn more about that and get tog a factual basis because schools have been using those kinds of funds to repair district property including golf cartels for a long, long time and so we need to get to ground truth on that and make sure we understand it as a board first and second, make sure the staff trains people on a crystal clear definition of what it is. There's way too many opinions about what you can spend money on and I think we have made it maybe to muddy ourselves, chair, and we ought to have a policy if money comes in this way, it can be spent on this and that, and make it absolutely clear consistent with chapter 8, we have to make sure our business practices
170make that crystal clear so the training we do and the standards we want people to have are black and white, there's no need to have debates about people's opinions, if we haven't made it crystal clear what you can spend certain appropriations or allocations on tha,'s on us. We need to write the rules so everybody working in a school knows exactly what those monies are for. There's crazy restrictions on pta spending, there's all kinds of restrictions on internal funds and the like but we owe our staff crystal clear definition and is then we can hold them accountable for that. Thanks. MADAM Chair? There are areas within the red book where they suggest and recommend that the board adopts certain policies that would clarify some of these items that would identify what thens the board want tos
171do, it would be codified and it would give greater guidance to the auditors as well as those folks managing the funds in the field. great, thank you so much. anybody else on the dd items? Okay. All those in favor of item dd2, dd3, dd4, dd5, dd6 and dd7, say aye. aye. Any opposed? Okay. Everybody voted except for DR. Holness unanimous, okay, thank you. The next item we're going to go to is item j5. Can I have a motion and a second on item j5. It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Alhadeff. Any public comment on j5? no comments. MS. Alhadeff? yes, thank you. So, for j5, I would like to make a motion, on page 5 of 22, I move to amend the recreation license agreement by keeping the first sentence, city is
172designated to utilize the license premises identified in red on exhibit c in accordance with this agreement and then crossing out everything else in a1, 2, 3, 1 and 3. second. Er any public comment on the motion? Board discussion on the motion? 11bv5:53 I would also like to thank the city of coral springs to help our schools, and by helping us to refurbish the tennis courts there at forest glen middle school. i would like to thank the city of coral spring and is the commission of coral springs. okay. Thank you. And so with -- MS. Batista, with the amendment that MS. Alhadeff has made, does that change the recommendation to vote this item down? yes, it changes that recommendation. So, the item would be as originally requested which would be to just approve it. Approve it
173as amended. okay. MRS. Bulman? DR. Zeman sm way like about this change, MS. Alhadeff, is that this kind of started a good conversation about how do we have to ask to use land that we own and the city recognized that. I think this was in there maybe as a left over of a previous agreement or something like that. I'm really glad the city of coral springs moved so quickly on this. These usually lie three or four month and is then we're back in school and can't do the change. I appreciate the city manager and the commission and the mayor of coral springs who were working on this and this is the language that caused us to look at it and say is this what we want and they immediately wanted to move it out so
174the credit's to them and I support this 100%. thank you, MRS. Bulman? I agree with the changes and also appreciate the partnership with the city of coral springers and I'm -- springs and I'm glad we were able to work it out. just for the record, this was our language from our legal department and not from the city of coral springs, so once again, I think it's really important, when DR. Hepburn and staff realized this, to have a conversation with the city manager of coral springs and we were able to work it out and amazingly the students at forest glen middle school will have beautiful tennis court tos play on next year. thank you, all those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes minus MR. Cervera and DR. Holness.
175Back to the original item, all those in favor of item j5 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed? Again, passes unanimously without MR. Cervera and DR. Holness. Next is o3, can I have a motion and a second on 03? it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. Any public comment? no public comment? MRS. Alhadeff? fi f my question, is the principal able to give a comp ticket to award a student for good behavior to go to one of the athletic games? DR. Hepburn? MR. Sullivan sm they would be able to to but they have o find a different funding source to it, the pta was able to raise money for those purposes, they would be able to. but the software allows them o do that? we would have the capability of doing that,
176it would be the principal would identify a different funding source. okay, thank you. thank you, anybody else? all those in favor of item 03, say aye. aye. Er any opposed, say no. Item passes unanimously and MR. Cervera is back. Can I have a motion for o4? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi. Any public comments? no public comments. DR. Holness had this. DR. Zeman? is DR. Holness here yet? I think he's not available until 12:30, can we check -- he is not on the line, I believe he cannot be on the line until 12:30.30 I make a motion to postpone this item until we can have MR. Holness here, postpone to late ner this meeting until whenever DR. Holness can show up. second. all those in favor of postponing the item until
177late ner the meeting, say aye. Motion carries, we'll come back to that. Item 05, can I have a motion and a second on 05? it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Rupert, any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Rupert ? I had the pleasure of sponging to MS. Wanda paul and she answered my questions, my question was the rejection going to impact the timeliness of finishing this project and she said no, so there when we go. Thank you. alright, perfect. All those in favor of item o5, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Item carries unanimously. Next item is o7, can can I have a motion and a second? so moved. Er it's been moved by MS. Rupert, second by MS. Thompson, any public comment? no public comments. MS. Bulman? thank you, chair. I
178just wanted to thank broward county for this partnership. I think this is justus such an awesome program we have, 16 years working on this, nothing makes me happier than to see the little nature scape sign on one of our schools and so see the butterflies floating around and the food for us and all of the work that our teachers and our students put into beautifying our schools and working towards resiliency and conservation, so, I just keep up the good work and thank you very much for that partnership. okay. DR. Zeman will be right back. I echo that, it's great to have the nature escapes there sh skaip there and to have the students the right way to plant plant and is make sure we're conserving water, so it ao assist great partnership. DR. Zeman? thank
179you so much, chair. I recognize that we have done this program for 16 year and -- yeyear and is I also recognize we should be consistent in what we do. What is the annual cost of running this program? DR. Hepburn? using my mental calculator here, roughly say about 400, 450. yeah, so this has been going on a long time, it's a wonderful program. I wonder, chair, how does this connect to our strategic goals in broward county? DR. Hepburn? I will say besides the stewardship of being concerned about our environment and providing an opportunity for students to really engage in activities to be out, support food for us, landscaping opportunities for natural flora also helps with their mental health. This is definitely an outlet or an additional strategy that students need now and through their k-12
180journey plus build hating resilience of an adult of having additional ability that supports mental health as. Er does this run with providing students with all those thing that is you m ef innocence -- you've mentioned including mental health. no, it's more about community and natural resilience and being concerned of our environment, this is one of the supplemental thing that is has come out of it and I would encourage any board member to go to wooden roj and he iser see how it impacts students and is build resilience and confidence and explain a what's going on and seeing things come to fruition from the engagement of activities. the item says we do this for science proficiency, equity and school sup porlt, that might be a a partial list, that it helps mental health, it helps teach
181things in a whole person context about how we're all part of a big biological entity and how they contribute and we contribute together. How many schools does this operate in? drment -- DR. Hepburn? I don't have that information. MS. Hollingsworth? susie canric, director of applied learning, we're looking to expand to that but the partnership with nature scape impacts all schools so our work with them supports our youth climate summit which we have annually every year and all students have the ability to participate in the youth climate summit but we also provide research and data from this partnership to our science classrooms and our students to look at resiliency in broward county, our work with reducing waste and energy and water, looking at sea level rise, so there's a wealth of data available that we share
182with students and then as was mentioned, the food for us, it's just all inclusive of our work in resiliency. I appreciate that, and how many daoubt students do you think we touch in those schools with this program ?Frjts it depends on the size of the school, the learner the school, the more students but they also have access to that garden and then in addition to the food forest and the students participating and working on the food forest hands-on, the one of the goals is to utilize those plants in the cafeteria. All students at the school sites have access to the food forest. the why I have this line of conversation, every dollar we spend has to align to our strategic goals, 450 thousand dollars is not a trivial amount of money. I would love for
183this program to expand, I would love for us to find somebody to fund this program for us because it's really great program. 23 schools means we're in roughly 10% of our schools which means 90% don't get it. So, I would just ask the superintendent to work with some of the people that would like to fund some of these ancillary programs which have really good benefits so that we can maybe do more than 23 schools and more than the thousand or two thousand student that is are being touched by this, not in terms of people eating the product of their work which I'm nervous about f you say it's legit and clean and good, I don't know what I'm going tell my kids about that but do you want to serve kids, that's great, if they
184say yeah. I think these kinds of things are natural for external fubds funding. We can probably fund 10%, but to the extent we want to get these things out in all the schools, it would be great to find somebody that want today put a few million dollars in this program and we can offer it district wide as a real differentiator, thank you very much. thank you, just to clarify, MS. Canric, the nature scape you said was available in all the schools. they have the ability to apply for a food forest, we were capped at how many we could fund. We do have a potential grant in the pipeline for additional funding and note that just if you hadn't looked at the agreement, a portion of this comes from applied learning and then title 4 pashes
185for a portion as well, so it is partially grant funded from a federal grant. I appreciate that, but that -- those title 4 funds are scarce too. The fact we're spending title 4 on this program, and again it's a small program, it's doing good things. It is not the things that are central to aur -- our strategy and that's okay too. I feel if we run into something that's in has field, like fau's college of botany or something like that, and they really want to make a difference in broward schools, this would be a great program for somebody to pick up and get everywhere. nature scape is more than just the food forest. it is, we work with nature scape to -- on water audits at the schools so we work with ppo to look
186at the bills and see spikes in water usage across the schools and then we do a water audit at that school so, we go out -- when I say we, the district, with broward county, they come on-site and they do an audit of the water usage looking at the outside watering and the internal plumbing as well to see where the leaks, we believe the leaks are combining ing -- coming from and then priding a solution to mitigate that overuse of water. thank you, I wanted to make the point it wasn't just about food forest, so thank you. All those in favor of item o7, say aye. Any opposed? It passes unanimously without MS. Thompson and DR. Holness. The next item is s1. Can I have a a motion and a second on s1? It's been
187moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Rupert, any public comment? no comments. DR. Zeman?Frjts I have one general question on this item sth, organization the opt mat organization to provide us an opportunity to provide adult technical college students in this model? DR. Hepburn? [Inaudible] my answer would be yes. I know we have a longstanding agreement with them, it allows our health care professionals to get the training they need to go ahead and pass the certifications they need, so I would say yes. I appreciate that. I'm always suspicious of long term agreements because we get so comfortable with them, they just become something we accept and I think every once in a while, we need to stop and look around and look at the broward health and look at memorial health and look at large hospital
188network and is see if other people -- does this provider give us all the internships we need or are there some kids that don't get the internship because tlao tl 's a capacity issue? I'm not aware of any capacity issues. I know we do have other helt care providers we do partner with as well. Obviously this is the one we do for this particular item but I haven't heard of any situations where students didn't get what they need or were turned away with capacity issues. Er we do have partnerships with other health care organizations such as broward health, memorial health. Er this is not the sum total of our interns that are put out in the health care field, I recognize that. no. just as a general management practice, it's always good to think about
189who we use, if there's someone better, are they able to to do all the fields of internships we want and put them together. Oftentimes when I haed these things after two and a half years, I'm looking at it and say what's missing in the item is we did a quick assessment and we found, yes, this meets 100% of our needs or we wish they could do more, maybe next year we can find another partner to do these kinds of things, we should do those things in term of management practices when it makes sense. dually noted. MR. Cervera. point of clarification, in regards to section 2.19 of the agreement, specifically subsections 3 and 4, there appears to be a requirement for a criminal background check and a drug screening to engage in the program. i wasn't
190sure if that was a requirement of faculty, of our students before they could engage? DR. Hepburn? DR. Toomer? my understanding would be that would be the students but I can get clarification. and if in fact it is the students, who's responsible for pay ifinger the criminal background check which can be expensive as well as the drug screenings? DR. Hepburn? DR. Toomer? that would be the students but we're talking about adult students here. understood, but that's still their burden to pay those expenses? yes. thank you. okay. Thank you. Anybody else? All those in favor of item s1, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. This will be the part of the meeting where we will consider all the open agenda items, the following open agenda items have not been pulled, so at this time,
191can I have a motion and a second to pass the open items that have not been pulled for discussion? so moved. er that includes ff2, 4, 5, 7, jj2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14, oo1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20. And pp1, 2, 4, 5, 7, r-r 1 and ss4. moved. Er second. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman -- excuse me, I'm sorry, I asked to pull ff4 to speak on. yeah, and we're going to -- yes, you can speak on it after we take the motion. oh, okay. I thought you did it before. After you pass it, I speak? I thought I spoke before. okay. Yes, she can't pull an item. She can speak on it but she can't
192pull an item. . Inger if she speaks now, a board member might pull it. we did this for the b item, why are we doing it different here? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, I'll give ewe second to talk -- it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi. All those if favor, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries, all of those pass. And here it says are there any registered speakers? yes. On ff4, I was real lly happy -- really happy to see this come before a board as a former founding member of the florida association of computer educator, I'm pleased to see this grant from the national group for elementary schools to use for technology with ese teachers and their students. I did find some problems with how this funding
193is being distributed. It I MAY be this is the only way to set up the grant but when I wrote grants, we never included stipends for district staff unless it was for a larger amount of time beyond their job hours. Also a tiefrn of $50 an hour for district employee iss way above the stipends provided for teachers, I believe it's $15 an hour when teachers take a class outside of general hours, as we discussed earlier whether the district provides larger amounts of money or as you discussed, when the districts provide a larger amount of money to district staff, I neats a good look for the teachers who are working directly with students. Please ask the grants department to consider the district employees should not be paid more than teachers. Also the district should be providing
194coding for all elementary schooless as it was in the past. MR. Rensay made sure every student was part of every one of these programs. Typing and word processing are skills and will want ri schools should be exposed to from at least grade 3 up, even though this is not in the grant, a basic typing program and word processing program wouldn't be very expensive for every student in the district to have. Thank you. thank you. MADAM Chair, for the record, a previous speaker spoke to ff4, our next speaker is will trin shall -- latrinsha greaves for ss4. go ahead. thank you, MADAM Chair. On ss4, I want to say thank youfinger MADAM Chair, for this name change for lauderdale early learning center and resource center and thank you for listening to the community at the last
195workshop. This location never housed any students since 2022, it's always been the central regional staff as well as staff members and just a concern that a new roof was approved by this board for this location last month using the smart bond monies as well as capital funds, so it was just a concern that the funds was used for this location when there is other schooling like broward estates and other schools that needed those funds that was from our smart bonds money, you know your favorite acronym, other people's money, opm, so thank you, so I just want to be transparent and clear so everyone understands that this renaming, I'm grateful that it's done so they know that this is never been an early learning center or a resource center since 2022, it's been district staff and
196central regional staff that's been here, but again it's just a can concern that it was approved by this board last month to put a new roof on a building that houses staff members when you have buildings that houses students to the superintendent's language, he said earlier, he said he's very -- he wants us to stay student centered focused and that building is not student centered focused, it's district staff focused ask we have buildings with o mold, that's a concern, but thank you, I'm glad for the renaming, I appreciate it. that concludes our public speakers. thank you so much. The next item is item bb1, can I have a a motion and a second? so moved. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, embedding ised by MS. Leonardi, any public comment on bb1? Public comment on
197bb1? no public comment for bb1. board discussion, DR. Zeman? thank you, we've been a member of the school board association for a long time, we've put people on numerous committees to advocate, to work with them on lobbying and the like. I have a a minor concern, you know, we have 630 counties in florida that are relatively small compared to the 7 large urban districts, I know there's lot of other knottiest that pay their dues but those 7 counties make up 50% of the population of florida sx, when I say agendas that come out and when I attend conferences, I'm overwhelmed [Inaudible] So my motion is to move forward with fsba, but when I go to their conferences, I would like to learn some things about the larger districts, so the to the extent we have
198the ability to nudge them in the right direction to take a great organization to make it greater, my recommendation would be for our representatives to try to expand their thinking to the larger districts, at least in a proportional term to the number of student and is rez densest we have and maybe even consider separate learning tracts at conferences, what tle ear concerned about with their three bus iss not the same we're concerned about with our 1200 buses so maybe there is a way to do that a littttle didierereny, lotstsof inin at sb dodoes ththat's amazin I t a great deal at 27 thousand dollars to have such a great impakts, but I would fsba to thip about urban districts with more emphasis going forward. MRS. Rue -- rupert? thank you for bringing that up, DR.
199Zeman. I don't usually toot our horn too much, I don't, but patty good and myself were both involved in presidents of the florida consortium of school boards which are basically the five or six size school districts, so we -- within that group alone, we have been able to sit down with at the time commissioner diaz, with nine of us sitting at a table and it was back and forth and that was -- I want to say it was the same time as broward die da I and is rally a tally because it was a crazy week. The con sore is -- consortium is where we get those conversation and is the incoming PRESIDENT Is a miami school board member, so you're talking that we have a lot in common and the one thing I like
200specifically is that when it comes to lobbying, we all have to agree to actually lobby if -- for the same things, otherwise if miami-dade or palm beach decides they don't mrao ef in that, it's pulled for everybody. We are getting that but I do hear you, I don't spend too much time flying out but I know I've been to a bunch of the -- at the time nsba meetings which were very beneficial and clearly your point is correct, but I didn't want the public to think we're not lobbying with the best of them and we're not convening our time and our staff to be able to actually push forward to I appreciate the time where I get to sit here and toot our horn for a second because those leadership groups and as well as
201I've been on the executive board of fsba for several years elected by all 67 districts so that's the different aspect, but you are representing small, medium and large at the same time and I agree, it's crazy that sometimes they'll have five or six schools and they'll have five school board members but wi have commonalities that we can join together, so thank you for that and it's been an honor to serve with them and I appreciate it, thanks. thank you. All those in favor of item bb1, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries unanimously without MRS. Alhadeff, MRS. Bulman and DR. Holness. Okay. The next item up is item ff1. Can I have a a motion and a second on ff1? It's been moved by MS. Thompson, seconded by DR. Zeman, any public comment? no public
202comment. okay, MS. Bhutan? she's not here. I want to thank our staff, so we had a lot of federal grants, and we also had some great partnership items that totaled just about 300 thousand dollars, lion's creek, seminel, coconut creek educational fount found dation, they put some money into our schools, thank you for the partners that support our schools for these grants and thank you to the staff for the hard work they did to fed the federal doe grants that are listed in here. She's coming. MS. Bulman also pulled this item, but I'm guessing -- while we're here, can we get an update on the superintendent of overall award grants for the year. MR. Sullivan? thank you for the question, I'm going see if our cfo johnson could answer that of how many grants we have
203gotten up to date. We might have to provide a board follow-up though. We'll do it through a board follow-up. I appreciate that very much. I saw numbers a couple ofp months ago, it's asing significant improvement fra fr last year which is not only to get other people's money but to get it from a number of funding sources. That's great. MRS. Bulman, ff1? yes, I would just like to recognize some grant recipients in district 1, mcnick kol middle is participate ining the leader in me program, I spoke with the principal, she's excited and jumped on that opportunity, I'm happy to see that implemented, hollywood hills high school received a youth climate action grant, I was able to be with them when they were planting dune plants down in dania beach and rachel silver and principal most
204led that, that's been fantastic as well, it's great to see the kids out there learning and participating in climate resiliency and giving back and then we also have a grant at the quest center for interactive and sensory books, so that will be a fantastic addition to that, thank you. excellent. Thank you so much. All nose favor of item ff1, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously with everyone here except DR. Holness. Next item is ff3, can can I have a a motion and a second? so moved. its's been moved by doctor DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Tofrn son, any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman? it's just a great day for district 1 today I guess. I keep pulling this stuff. This is a grant that's at south broward high school receiving
205for a credit, recovery and career training from the city of hollywood, I wanted to publicly recognize la and again thank the city of hollywood for their contribution for this effort, we in district 1 appreciate that. all those in favor of ff3, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Ff6, can I have a motion and a second? so moved. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by ms. thompson, any public comment? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman? thank you so much. You know, career source is a program that has some opportunity to do some wonderful things. What I'm concerned about, chair, is kind of our ability to get the word out about career source. Is there a program to communicate what this program does so that we can ensure that the right people are being engaged
206in this program? DR. Hepburn? yes, there's some very targeted communication to specific groups of students that participate in these programs. They work with our see taste department, also our partnership department to identify the specific students for these opportunities. thank you very much, chair. thank you. All those in favor of item ff6, say aye. any opposed? Motion passes ewe nan nosily. The next item is jj1, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on jj1? no comments. and I just want to say I'm pleased to announce that the consultant omissions is very minimal this month which very rarely happens, 35 -- a little over 35 thousand, only two schools fell into that category, so just keep up the good work. Any -- all
207those in favor of item jj1, say aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes ewe nan nosily. Next item is jj3. point of order, what time do you have? I have 12:30 websinger ear waiting for DR. Holness to get ton line because this is his item. Er I appreciate it, thank you, ma'am. jj3, can I have a motion and a second? so moved, sorry, second. Er it's been moved by MS. Leonardi, second by DR. Zeman, any public comment. yes, latrinsha greaves. on this item, I just wish would like to ask the board to -- perhaps the superintendent to ensure that the entire stakeholders and community is involved in this process. Looking at the empty spot of parkway middle school for some years now since it was torn down when DR. Ozlet was a school board member
208and having that empty sore, plus things that have been going has been bad looking in the community, so we have not been made aware of this. Stakeholders or the community in termser of this, so when I saw this item on the agenda, the it was another surprise, neither is it city officials aware of this as well, so they are aware because I did make sure they are aware, but I'm doing this voluntarily because I care about my broward county public schools and broward county. I'm not getting paid to do the communication to the city officials or parents or stakeholders, so that's just a charge, I'm going to ask you do better at, making sure that everyone is involved and engaged when you're doing changes to schools, parents, stakeholders, as well as community. Thank you very
209much. thank you, DR. Hepburn, did you want to address that? certainly. Yes, so from the beginning stages of this conversation, we've het with the mayors and city commissioners for the city. I know there's been some transition in their commission since the last time we met and I know DR. Holness readily meets with the city and city commission as we give him updates to provide updates to them so I know he's intimately involved in providing update tos the city officials also. thank you, all those in favor -- DR. Zeman, you pulled jj3. yup, a question on this, I apologize, I had a question and it got answered this morning, so I apologize, chair. all those in favor of jj3, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion passes minus MRS. Alhadeff and MR. Cervera and DR. Holness. thank
210you. Okay. We're going move to ss3, can I have a motion and a second on ss3. so moved. second. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, is there any public comment on ss3. there are three public comment, latrinsha greaves, alan brown, latrinsha greaves you, MAY proceed to the podium, followed by alan brown. MADAM Chair, MADAM Vice chair, superintendent, attorney, board members, good afternoon, once again, on this item, it's been an ongoing conversation, different processes and I just want to say as a taxpayer, as a community advocate, as a proud broward county public school graduate that this renaming is not something that my community wants. The specific name, we've had intense conversations about it and within our community, we ask for it to be named broward county -- sorry, broward estates elementary
211early learning. We do not receive the resource center, and our community resource center looks like we have a problem, we don't have a problem. It also will be a a reflection of what has happened with lauderdale manners elementary early learning resource and our resource center to where staff was put there, students moved out. We don't want it to be a repeat. The name just is not something that we want and we highly strongly reject this name in the community. In the backup you have that says on behalf of representative group of all stakeholders by DR. Hudge, our community is not awir of who she is, I know who she is, our community does not know who she is, I'm not sure what stakeholders she's representing. I have and have been part of that process for
212the renaming and there's been some concerns and is if I can -- MR. Cervera, I know he had questions with the mlk renaming and it's different because the parents here, they're dismantling the parents so they don't technically care. They want their school so the renaming the parents aren't going willfully want to be a part of the process when their kids are still to this day hurt because they want to come back to their school. So, we strongly reject this name and ask that this goes back through the process again respectfully, thank you very much. thank you. Next speaker. good afternoon, alan brown, lauderhill resident, I want to make it clear that the community strongly supports, strongly supports broward estate elementary and added an early learning center. We reject the repurposing name, the rebrand name, totally
213disappointed the school board is not listening, totally, but I'm not surprised because when I reflect and look back at the grand jury report of 2019, it reads as, and again this reflecting on the former, past officials, it states that the school board of broward county has through deceit, malfeasants, misfaoez sats, neglect of duty and incompetence and mismanaged smart program monies and again that was the past officials, but it appears to me, strongly appears in my opinion that this current board reflects that same behavior and culture of the last, of the former officials and it's a serious concern: when you have 7 million dollars out of that 800 million dollar bond of smart monies, never been used for broward estates. I think there is 6 million or 6.5 million left. Where is the accountability for the
214monies? And according again to this grand jury report, the final report of the 20th statewide grand jury, they gave a projection that we was going to reach the cost of 1.462 billion sur + pass -- surpassing the 8 million, and if you had 7 million dollars allocated for broward estates elementary, ukdsn't find 7 more million to go along with that for some of the reconstruction, the renovation to bring it up to the status? That's a shame. But you found 4 million dollars for parkland for air conditions. That's an outright insult and again I hope -- I hope the governor investigates this board and do the same as he did in 22, remove some f the board members because it's a shame when money is is out there and it's not being equally used and we're
215fall hinting the socio-equal community and is overlooking the lower ecocommunities sxit's a shame, and I have a a question, how are you recruiting business partners when you do not know the facility condition assessment, I want an answer. thank you, next public speaker. and our next speaker is felicity. MADAM Chair, superintendent, board members and attorneys, my name is felicity swanson, a resident and also the PRESIDENT Of broward estates st. George hoa, I sent out an e-mail to you all last week, we had an emergency meeting and the conclusion from that meeting was an e-mail that was ams sent out to you all, dear school board member and is superintendent, on wednesday JUNE 11, 2025 in emergency community meeting was held at st. George community center with the broward estates st. George home owners association. The meeting
216was conveyed following a discussion between felicity swanson and MS. Freeman, principal of broward estates school, MS. Wanda paul and bcps was also in attendance t the school board has already selected a new name and planned to vote on it in this upcoming meeting of JUNE 17 which is today. This decision was made without meaningful input from the community cited nr the grand jury report that led to removal of former board memberers. Addititially ththcity ofof laerhillll sent a lett to DR. Hepburn reestiting a meeting with the community which was denied. The lack of trance plainer ski f si and inclusion of community input continues to cause a lack of trust in the district's decision-making process. During the meeting, the community was updated on the status of the oig complaint and recent developments involving these, a vote
217was taken in the community reaffirmed its commitment to keeping broward estates elementary and aden en -- adding an early learning center. We respectfully with the following, the fool board reverts any decisions to rename or repurpose broward estates elementary school wouz genuine community involvement. Number 2, that the bonds previously allocated to these be restored and that bcps leadership engage ins a transparent and collaborative process with the community moving forward. We remain united in our support of broward estates elementary, we urge you to do what is sxriekt return the school to the community that it serves. I request that this letter be read at this meeting which I did do today. It's sad because from what I was told that the information was delivered to our community and it has not. I know the vice-PRESIDENT, MR. Sam
218wilkerson, who could not be here today, he told DR. Holness he wanted broward estate tos remain and there was no further communication. thank you so much for your time. Anymore public speakers? that klaounds the registered speakers. DR. Holness? We're trying to get him back on. He's the only one that pulled it. Was there anyone else who wanted to make comments? Okay. chair, can we take a two minute recess? sure, we'll have a two minute recess. okay, welcome back to the school board regular school board meeting, DR. Holness? DR. Holness, are you on the line? yes, I am here. yes, you MAY proceed with your comments. okay, great. Through the superintendent, I would like to -- if staff could discuss the process as far as policy that guide the renaming of broward estates. DR. Hepburn? go
219ahead, DR. Hudge, and specific to broward estates. thank you, veta hudge, assistant superintendent for school transformation. So, the forhall and specific process that guided us was policy 1401, the process initiated is driven by community feedback and discussion with which the principal establishes a committee. And then the public then votes and I'll have MS. Freeman come toup the mic. And she'll talk specifically about the voting process but she guided the process, so MS. Freeman, if you could come to the mic. At this time. and DR. Hudge, could you for the record state MS. Freeman's position currently ?Frjt she's the principal for broward estates as well as oversight for win ga it oaks going forward in the new year. good afternoon to the board, superintendent and district staff. My name is [Inaudible] Freeman, as DR. Hudge said,
220I'm the current principal at broward states and is will be seeing win ga it oats, I wanted to bring [Inaudible] To the process in which we formed that committee that talked about the recommended names going forward to the superintendent. After the JANUARY board meeting, I began to put the agenda item on my school advisory council meeting so that we can inform the community that a name change would be pending, following those school advisory council meetings, a committee was formed based on volunteers who wanted to to be a part of that process and then we had a meeting with the committee, following the outcome of that meeting, a survey link was pushed out based on what was discussed with the committee so that we can can have a larger input, a larger input from the community
221as well as parents and anyone who wasn't able to volunteer and be a part of that process. okay, and MS. Freeman, could you expound on the member of responses regarding the survey that was put out and who specifically were tattered? -- targeted? DR. Canning? good afternoon, everybody, laurie canning, exec tier director for family and community engagement. That survey link was sent to everyone who attended the community meetings that we had to prepare for the redefining process, you know we had several community meetings at broward estates elementary school. Everyone who attended those community meetings received the survey link and we also sent it out, MRS. Freeman sent that survey link out in her news let ore to her sac team and to parent link to her entire school. We had 130 responses to that survey link
222and of those 130 responses, 75% selected broward estates early learning and resource center. okay, and DR. Canning, for the record, can you let us know what the options were on that survey besides broward estates early learning and resource center? yes. From the renaming committee that was formed with MRS. Freeman, it was narrowed down to broward estates early learning and resource center and broward estates academy. Those were the two choices that were sent out in the survey link. okay, so those two choices were presented to the the respondents of the survey and majority came back at 75% choosing broward estates early learning and resource center, correct? correct. okay. Alright. Thank you very much, DR. Canning. And DR. Hudge, is there anything further you would like to mention regarding the process that the public should know? no,
223other tlan -- than the fact that I do know they did share with us that they had questions about or concerns about the name, the recommended name going forward, so we're open to whatever the board directs us to do in that case, so, nothing further from that. okay, so DR. Hudge, would it be fair to say the recommended name was community driven based on the survey results? that is correct. okay. Thank you very much, I have no further questions. thank you so much. Any other board -- MR. Server ya ra ? thank you, MADAM Chair, just point of clarification t the agenda item that's on to vote today is my understanding either a a yes or no on the name change. If in fact the board votes no and I'm not suggesting which wi I'm
224going to vote, if in fact the board votes no, would it then have to go back to this renaming committee as we just heard the principal elaborate on the process and this would be then I guess turned back over to the parents and the folks in the community who voted initially to make a suggestion on a new name if this name is voted down? DR. Hepburn? essentially the vote -- the process would start over again. the naming process? correct. so, we have no ability to do anything else in relation to the school other than to address the name? correct. thank you. anybody else? Okay, all those in favor? MADAM Chair? Gofrjts go ahead. Er I would also like to mention at a prior board meeting, we did agree as a board to ensure that broward
225estates, those two boards remain in any remaining and we've done that and I believe this rename progress kress was done with fidelity, taking into consideration community input so I'm comfortable supporting this. thank you. all those in favor of ss3, say aye. Er any opposed? no. okay. Should we do a roll call? roll call on ss3, school board members hixon? yes. holness? yes. leonardi? yes. Er hue pert? no. thompson? yes. Er zeman? [Inaudible]. Er alhadeff? no. bulman? yes. cervera? no. 5-3, it passes. did you get DR. Holness? I'm sorry, 6-3, thank you. thank you. Item passes 6-3. Thank you. Okay, next item up is item bb2. so moved. all those -- I need a motion and a second for item bb2. It's been moved by MRS. Rupert, second by MRS. Alhadeff, any public comment? you said
226bb2, correct? bb2. yes, you have two registered speakers, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh and mary ferdic. DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation florida and dually elected chair of the district's audit committee. That's a hard no on this item. I thought perhaps this item wouldn't come based on last week's discussion where it didn't seem like anyone other than the author was entertaining the notion of for cause. I sent you guys all an e-mail again outlining the timeline defining for cause, looking at the chief auditor's role and fact checking although there were too many things to fact check in this item. Anyone that votes or even entertains this is basically asking for a lawsuit or asking for an ethics complaint to be filed because there is no factual basis. The chief auditor's evaluation instrument matches the board's descriptors in the evaluation
227instrument. I don't know who's doing the think tank work here but you need a better think tank. Again, I mentioned earlier the internal audits, internal funds audits on time and ahead of schedule and furthermore, let's not forget that external audits, procurement held up for reasons we don't even want to get into for several months, the chief auditor's ability to have external auditors, it took months and months and he only started being able to put them under contract, so everything in this item is questionable, none of it -- it is misleadingng, inaccucute d herwise untrtrue and I trust that no one else will be entertaining this. I'll be back, thank you. okay, next public speaker. mayor ferdic is next and then we have bob mayerson. I have served on the audit committee for a long time
228and I just want to tell you it's a wonderful committee with a lot of very thoughtful people who read a lot of documents, you know this because you get an opportunity to read all those documents but for as long as I've been on that committee, audits come out, they have exceptions and findings and people get upset because people don't like to be cit seized, people don't find they want to point out something that they did wrong and sometimes they didn't, there's an avenue for addressing that. You can fill out a response and over the years, there have been some strong responses. So, just looking over this audit and I was here last time and I was listening to the conversation where they went through the entire chronology, audit transmitted MARCH 6, 2025, audit from the
229manager of internal funds, audit not responded to, so the audit -- another member of the audit staff wrote and said, hey, we're looking for an update that was MARCH 21, afp point MS. Andreu wrote back and said she had just seen it, that's weeks and she was requesting time to review it and you go on and on with a flurry of e-mails of APRIL 1 admitting there had been a a response written but they weren't going to submit it and then I just want to read two quotes from the the e-mail that went out APRIL 1, I spoke about the report, MR. Dixon and i spoke, this is for MR. Smith, a response was drafted prior to spring break, this was written then after spring break, the conflicting viewpoints of spend authority and internal affairs
230must be revolved in f the oca agree tosed adjust the report and remove the item, we can submit the response for the other items without a meeting. If they change their thing, then they don't have to respond to them but there's an avenue for that and you have a a policy and I heard MS. Hixon say last time we have policies we need to find them, this item is coming to you and I believe this board has made great strides in trying to deal with a lot of the problems that occurred in the past. But -- and I hope you will today because you don't like an audit or an audit finding, I think you still require people to follow the process and you have the ultimate ability because when someone responds to an audit,
231that response comes to you, you're able to consider it, you're able to make decisions, that's the way it should be. I was hopeful when you put the auditor under you that that would lead to a system where there was even more independence. That independence is vital. Please do not support this item. thank you. MR. Mayorson? good afternoon, MADAM Chair, superintendent, school board members, I'm bob, I'm currently the chair of the audit committee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak today. The current climate of the audit committee is in full support of MR. Rhodes as our chief auditor. MR. Rhodes has in my opinion the highest degree of ethics, integrity, he is somebody who cares about what he does, he's open, he's transparent and he has elevated the auditing process. No offense to any
232prior auditors we've had, I've been on the audit committee for 12 years. We've had great aunts to look at things, to save this district money, to investigate items that have come before us and again the audit committee has done a great job and I know that some of the members are here today. The idea of auditing is to improve internal controls. So, there are times as MS. Ferdic had alluded to that there might not be items that staff likes. It is not that we're out to point out something wrong, it's to improve the controlling, it's to save money. I look at things as -- and my audit committee members will also agree with me at times where our property and inventory control audits where we continually see the repetitive response from staff and I'll kind
233of in quotes kind of say, I'm sorry, it will never happen again and it continually does. We're trying to improve the training, we're trying to improve what works and what doesn't and I think again MR. Rhodes has elevated that to ensure the integrity remains and improves this district as obviously an a-rated school and an a audited school district. I think it would be a mistake to mover forward on this item. I know I have spoken with some of you, but again, I'm not here to debate what your evaluation is, I'm not here to argue about it, I just think from an audit committee perspective, we appreciate MR. Rhodes, we appreciate the work that he's done and we hope you will continue to allow him to serve in this district. Thank you. thank you. that concludes
234public comment, MADAM Chair. thank you. I did tell MR. Rhodes that his attorney could have fiver minutes to speak to some of the items as his public speaker so we're going to go to that before we go to board discussion. good afternoon, board members and superintendent hepburn, thank you for allowing mre to speak on behalf of MR. Rhodes. I represent MR. Rhodes. I'm here today to discuss why he should not be terminated for cause and provide some clarification as to the legal basis. Can you all hear me? Sorry, I just saw someone looking over, okay. And provide some information as to the legal basis of what cause means under the contract, what it means under statutes and what it means under regulations. So, pursuant to MR. Rhodes' contract, cause is limited to the grounds set
235forth in statute 1012.334c, I believe you've discussed this but I'm going to quickly go over it. Those grounds are immorality, misconduct in office, incompetency, gross ins u subordination, willful neglect of duty, drunkenness or being convicted or found guilty or entering a pleas of guilt to a,z those terms are defined by rules of the state board of education. Now, the the factual basis that was submitted in support of the motion to terminate mr. rhodes for cause was three grounds, incompetence, gross insubordination and misconduct. Now, the statute doesn't define exactly what these terms are, so we have to look at case law and regulations to make sense of what these terms mean and how they apply to MR. Rhodes. Now, as a threshold matter, since florida statute 1012.334c is penal in nature, it must be construed in
236favor of the punished employee and that comes from a court case ganey versus school board of liberty county tha, was in the florida first district court of appeals in 1980. So, the first ground that's listed is incompetence, then late nrer the agenda item, in parentheses, it says inefficiency as the basis of incompetence, so potentially the provisions of the regulations that define inefficiency that could possibly relate to DR. Rhodes are, a, failure to perform duties prescribed by law or, b, a failure to communicate appropriately with and relate to colleagues, m ins rate tersest, subordinates or parents. Mow, in a division of administrative hearing case, specifically pam stewart as commission of education versus donna berney, the administrative law order provided there was not clear and convincing evidence to support a violation based on inx en competency where
237just like here, no school board rules were placed into evidence and the criticisms of the principal were based upon personal preferences or best practices which are not in a statute or rule. Now the judge acknowledged the evidence pointed to areas where the teacher could improve but the evidence did not produce in the mind of the judge a firm belief or conviction without hesitation that the failures rose to the level of in.Competency. The next item was gross ins u subordination. Now in rosario versus burke, from 1992, the court looking at a previous case in regulatory definitions held that gross insubordination requires proof of a constant or continuing intentional refusal to obey a direct order reasonable in nature and given by and with proper authority. Nothing in the factual basis listed in the agenda item comes remotely
238close to a constant or continuing intentional refusal. Finally as it relates to misconduct t the items listed in the agenda item e similarly fail to meet the rebo us definition of misconduct, this provides three potentially applicable provisions to MR. Rhodes, those are a, a violation of the code of ethics of the education provision in florida as adopted in rule 6a10.080afc, professional conduct for the em kaition profession in florida as adopted by the same rule, 6a10.081 or a violation of the school board rules, the agenda item does not provide a rule or code that MR. Rhodes violated. Notwithstanding the conduct listed is not misconduct, the agenda items listed a way a self-evaluation was treated and a way a memo was transmitted. That doesn't rise to the level ofmying misconnect. I know I spoke pretty quickly, what
239I'm trying to get across today is that there's simply not a factual basis that would support termination for cause. I was listening in to the meeting before I came in, would I however is every dollar needs to be spent in alignment with the district goals and terminating MR. Rhodes for cause would simply create a massive liability for the school district. He has the right to appeal his termination for cause with a 120 administrative hearing, that opens the school board up to liable for not only their own legal fees but MR. Rhodes' legal fees as well as back pay, so I would encourage the board members to consider their goal in student aligned spending and vote no on this item. Thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman? thank you, chair. Members of the board and people assembled
240here, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on what I think is a crucial issue but let's clear up a few matters first. Chair, what is the sdrips of -- description of this item say, bb2? it says terminate the employment of the chief auditor? terrific, does it say to terminate the chief auditor with cause? not on that title. MADAM Chair, does the chief auditor contract require us to inform the incumbent of the intent to potentially terminate for cause and if so, how much notice is required? MS. Batista? the termination for cause provision in the contract states that there has to be at least three business days prior to any vote by the school board to terminate the the chief auditor for cause. Er MADAM Chair, have we met that standard of the three days? MS. Batista?
241looking at this item, the item sta il states terminate the employment of the chief auditor in general, it does not specify termination for cause. You know, the item was published within the appropriate time period that would be at least three business days prior to today's vote but it does not state it's a termination for cause. Er just to clarify, the item says to terminate the chief auditor but the standard that would have been for terminating with cause was met with the three days notice? MS. Batista? that is correct. Er we've established -- one more question, chair, is it within the power of this board to terminate the chief auditor? MS. Ba the t is ta? yes, it is within the power of the board to terminate the chief auditor. thank you so much, we've established
242our authority and we've established we followed the contract requirement ifs this board chose to terminate with cause. I appreciate the attorney's view and other people's view about the definition of cause and the standard in all the case law and the like but we've at least met our contract requirements. But I want to talk about the issue in general. Our shared goal is to make broward county public schools the best it can be encouraging parents to choose our schools with confidence and it's to ensure that every dollar is spent wisely and with integrity and this is where the chief auditor plays a vital role. An effective chief auditor fosters public trust, fosters public trust. They ensure that all funds and property are meticulously accounted for providing the xlaount with confidence that their tax dollars are managed
243responsibly and why we know there will always be challenges, the chief auditor's office is designed to be a crucial safeguard demonstrating our commitment to accountability. This involves working collaboratively, ensuring the audit team is entrusted with their hard work and ensuring integrity. Over the past six weeing, I have spent significant time review thing chief auditor's performance and what began as a routine investigation has evolved to a serious discussion about his employment. The this is about maintaining public trust. When we make decisions, the community needs to know that they are reasonable and well founded. This belief is entrusting them to the families' care. It's clear to me that terminating the chief auditor's contract is necessary to restore and preserve that trust. I'll outline key concerns without get hinting the details. Failure to complete audit and is misrepresentation,
244the chief auditor's office failed to complete 43 planned audits this year, yet the self-appraisal stated that 27 of 42 audits were complete or in progress. I can't square those two statements. There's a lack of accountability, the chief auditor used performance standards not approved by this board and shifted blame for that to the hr staff rather than taking responsibility for this breach of trust. MR. Superintendent, wouldn't it be great if we could tell our schools they don't have to pay attention to standards, that they could write their own? I don't think so. Serious errors in our reports, signed audit reports were issued with significant factual ros including false accusations of theft on staff without being marked as drafts, this puts our dedicated employees at risk to dangling their reputation without due process. Withholding information, the auditor
245withheld a memo against senior leaders from the superintendent and from this board. That action prevented timely investigation and left our community with unfounded suspicions for weeks, undermining trust in our leadership and our processes. A pattern of inconsistency and blame, there's a clear pattern of the chief auditor making conflicting statements, this continuous lack of integrity from a direct report whose role demands absolute truthfulness is not acceptable. These are not minor issues that can be resolved with an action plan or additional training. These are fundamental breeches of trust, incompetence for a position that's critical to our district's oversight and public image. Asking the public to believe we can still make reasonable decisions with this pattern of behavior would be a disservice to our community. MADAM Chair, it is with profound sadness but a firm conviction on what
246is best for our community that I move the chief auditor be terminated without cause. any seconds? Okay, so that motion fails. MS. Thompson? sorry, we're doing the items together? I'm going to hold my % comments until the next item. MS. Rupert? it's pointless now but I was going to ask why we're sitting here doing this but when we just have an valuation, so that's my conversation and I still stand by the chief auditor. thank you. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, I have a few questioners for the chief auditor and I did have some questions for MS. Batista with the assumption that we were terminating with cause but I guess the motion is without cause, so I'm going to hold my questions to MS. Batista and I'm going to move on to the chief
247auditor. MR. Rhodes, if you're able to hear me clearly, ill like -- I would like you the answer yes or no to the following questions, DR. Zeman listed several items to terminate you without cause and he has listed them. Are all of these items true, yes or no? no. and MR. Rhodes, I llgo aheaeaanlist the itits ha seen n he. Onone, inabily to mpmplete audits on time. Two, inability to provide accurate signed audit reports, and DR. Zeman supported this with several examples. Three, inconsistencies in reporting among schools with same concerns or compliance issues. Four, that you used performance standards that were different than those approved by the school board and, 5, that the chief auditor did not send an important memo to the superintendent or the board that was submitted to the audit committee even
248though superintendent and the board were listed as recipients. So, with those listed concerns of DR. Zeman, providing his rationale to terminate, do you agree with all of these items as being true? the way the question was originally asked is -- are these items he presented here as supporting details, are these supporting details and the items I just reiterated, are they true, all of them? no, and I'll refer back to my responses on the 10th. are some of them true? no. are all of them false? one of them is partially true because there was a document that was used in the evaluation that was for the narrative that matched the board approved descriptors as well as the descriptors contained in my self appraisal. The document that came along with that did have some errors in it
249and that much I have already discussed, I have already detailed in our last meeting and I even went to the length to say that was not something that I blamed the director of evaluations on. In fact, I thanked her for her assistance with has and that was the -- that was an error and that was an error alone, there was nothing in there that was intentional. okay, and you're making reference to the performance standards? no, to the narrative that corresponds to the descriptors listed in the approved evaluation tool. okay, so DR. Zeman mentioned you used performance standards that were different than those approved by the school board. Is that true or not true? that is incorrect. The responses that I gave responding back directly to the questions in my descriptors contained in board approved item
250are the exact same ones that are in my self-appraisal document. The supporting mayer the tif is the -- narrative are where those descriptors were inadvertently used from a previous chief auditor's tool. so, MR. Rhodes, besides that particular listed rationale provided by DR. Zeman, I mentioned four others that he detailed in his I'm, are the other four supporting details DR. Zeman provided as a rationale, are they false? they are false, they are not true. okay. So, I would like to -- if you don't mind, MADAM Chair, because this is important, I would like to ask some more specific questions. Now, DR. Zeman mentioned inability to complete the audit ins a timely manner, he mentioned 43 audits have not been cleat and had he said many of the audits that have been planned for this year have
251not been cleared. Is that true or not true? it is not true websinger are constantly completing that list, of the 43 remaining projects which we consider to be one project because it is an internal funds audit of the district, there are 12 of those 43 completed, 31 are in progress and we are 95% complete this year for which our school board policy 3410 requires by JUNE 30th that we are 90% complete. We are ahead of what we should be by 2 percentage points. so, if you were to compare your completion record to past chief auditors, would you say that yours is comparable, above or below past standards of other chief auditors? I would say since our external audit services contract that was supposed to be available to us on JULY 1 was not made available
252to us until NOVEMBER 13 because of issues that were problematic within the procurement of those services, I'm saying that we are comparable and we would be better if we had had those resources available to us in a timely manner. okay. So, I'll mover quickly because I have quite a few more questions, and MADAM Chair, thank you for your patience but I need to get through this. DR. Zeman mentioned your inl ability to provide accurate signed audit reports. And he then went ahead and provided several examples and I'll go through a couple of the examples. For example, coral springs high school, you said the audit report contained a finding that the tax taxes were paid on [Inaudible] From jocelyn even though there was evidence to suggest the con train. Can you provide your input on that
253particular information that DR. Zeman provided to substantiate his statement that you were inable to provide inaccurate signed audit reports? thank you for that question, the answer to that is in the documentation that we gathered at coral springs high, there was an invoice for the yearbooks, the invoice did not meet the requirements of the contract, it did not contain all of the necessary items for us to be able to determine if it was an accurate document, therefore, we altered our find tog say audittee, go back and ensure that the children and that the school itself was not shorted of funds they were entitled to. okay, so MR. Rhodes, according to the documents submitted by DR. Zeman in quotation, it says here -- I'm assuming these are your audit report findings, taxes were paid on yearbook sales.
254Is that true, not true? that is true, there were two different places, one place it showed no taxes were paid and another location on that same invoice, it showed taxes were paid and they calculated it. DR. Holness, the time allotted for what we have in policy has gone. Are you -- if we give you two more minutes, can you wrap this up? are we doing round two, MADAM Chair? I guess if we need to. okay, so I'm going to take two minutes and I would like a short second minute round, please. okay. So, I'll mover -- move on. DR. Zeman indicated that there are insistence sis -- inconsistencies, why are there consistency and is differences in reporting for same concerns where one school is is documented as a finding and another school is documented as
255a discussion in a similar format. because in one school, the purchase was of a prohibited item per florida red book chapter 8, in the other, the purchase was a minor -- the minor exceeded the overall amount they should have been paying for tenses they purchased. Thus making it a discussion item allowing them to know if we come back next year and find the same thing, it would then become an exception. okay so, MR. Rhodes because my time is limited, I'm going the rush on this question. There is a concern with not sending a memo that reads, maintain the independence of the chief auditor was not sending a memo to the board and superintendent independence an error or did you direct your secretary not to send it. I never directed my secretary to send it, I
256will cite a part of the yellow book for you now, if auditors initially identify a threat to independence after the audit report is issued, auditors should evaluate the threats effect on the engagement and on gagus compliance, if the newly identified threats engage on the engagement would result on an audit report had been different than issued, they should communicate the same manner as used originally to distribute the report to those charged with governance, appropriate o fishes of the audited entity, the appropriate of the officials audit r k -- organization so they don't continue to rely -- I understand, so was this an error by your executive secretary by not send thing memo. I never instructed him not to send it, I asked him to send it. do you still stand by the accusations in the memo
257impairing the independence of the chief auditor, are they true. yes, I believe, I believe the 8 exhibits contained in that memo also explain that. okay. And MADAM Chair, I'll ask this final question and I'll wait for my second round, this is for DR. Hepburn, have you investigated the accusations in this memo provided by MR. Rhodes, if not, will you and when? yes, we looked into this and also the staff provided a follow-up to the the concerns listed in that memo that MR. Rhodes sent. okay, MADAM Chair, I'll wait for my second round and thank you so much. thank you, MS. Leonardi? thank you. I think we are here due to miscommunications and behavior that I would not expect of some of the highest paid employees of the sixth florida school district in the country, but
258here we are. Relatively small disagreements have now escalculated to extreme accusations that honestly feel like a waste of this district's time and I think multiple things can be true, the independence of the auditor's office is vital to the work of auditing and holding everyone in this district accountable. It is possible for the oca to maintain independence while treating individuals with respect and courtesy. It is responsible for someone to ask for an extension without trying to interfere -- DR. Holness? It is possible for someone to ask for an extension without trying to interfere with an audit or trying to coerce the chief auditor or any auditor. To that point, I sent MR. Rhodes an e-mail asking a pretty simple question on MAY 31 and on JUNE 9 and di not receive a response and it would
259be unfair of me to immediately jump to the conclusion tla the chief auditor was trying to impede my work as board mreb and accuse him of bias or impaired judgment. I spent a lot of time reviewing audit committee meetings, the evaluations of my colleagues and I have some seriousness questions and concerns. But before I get into the memos and the statements made at meetings, I have some fundamental questions of our chief auditor. Is it possible for there to be factual inaccuracies in one of your office's audits or any of them? when it is in draft form, it is possible. so, once it has been transmitted to us as a board item, it is impossible for there to be any factual inaccuracies on a dd item we vote on? . Inger I will not answer to
260impossible bu, I would say we take every step possible that completely clean and a correct audit before we release a final. Is it possible for a another board employee to disagree with the content in one of your audits without interfering with that audit? according to the standards, they can disagree but they can't take action to stop it just because they disagree with an audit finding -- that's not the question I asked, is it possible for an employee or a board member to disagree with the content of the audit without interfering with it, it's a very simple question, is it possible for them to disagree? it is possible. thank you. Er is it possible for the board to terminate your contract without being accused of ce cao et baiting undue influence, threatens? . Inger it depends
261on the rationale, if it was because of disagreement of a report, it would be a conflict with the standards, if it was for the orebacker other ie steps stated in my contract or in the statute, it would not be. I would like to weigh out a scenario because this is what is concerning to me. If it is possible that -- let's talk aba scenario in which there is a factual inaccuracy in one of the audit reports, an employee disagrees with it, a board member disagrees with it, a board member feels that an inaccurate report has been transmitted and there is evidence to support that and so they move to terminate the contract of the chief auditor. Is that creating an unen due influence threat in that scenario? I need you to repeat the first part,
262please. once again, if there is a factual inaccurate si in an audit report that has been transmitted to this board in a report item or in an inconsistency and a board member feels we have been transmitting an inaccurate report, is it possible for them to then terminate your contract based on that inaccuracy without creating undue influence, threats? I think this exact item was addressed when general counsel issued a memo when an audit report was tabled because there was that disagreement you just described and I think the response that general counsel gave back was that that is not your role and my role is to exercise professional judgment. okay, that was not the question I was asking, but thank you. I feel that it is important for me to bring some attention and highlight another side
263of the story because a lot of attention has been give to the accusations MR. Rhodes has made and I think the response to those accusations is telling and can help inform us in terming of how we move forward. So, we were sent two memos, one from the director of the business support center to the executive director of operations, the memo is dated may 7th, and it is titled response to the APRIL 29, statement of auditor independence impairment and on page 3 of that memo, the director of the business support center lays out some context in prior concerns with the audit process. Our experience with recent audits has revealed several structural challenge that is have further complicated our ability to provide timely and accurate responses. These concerns are provided as context, not justification for delays. Number
264one, lack of formal documented auditor training or standardized procedures, in a recent audit when clarification was questioned about the methodology rules, the internal audit tale has no formal training manual or standard operating procedures for new auditor, new auditors were being trained through shadowing and word of mouth, this can can result in inconsistent and inaccurate audit findings, complicating to respond competently and timely. Two, in the miramar audit report, an audit exception was accepted of using trust funds in excess of 15% in excess, however in a JANUARY 2024-25 e-mail t auditing [Inaudible] Stated the discussion items were issued to schools that had accrued balance that is exceeded 15% but had not expended any of the money. This explanation appears inconsistent with the audit treatment of eagle ridge elementary school which was issued a discussion item, not a
265discussion of expending 25% of its beginning balance, the inconsistency raises questions about the communication of audit criteria across schools. Allegations of report machine nip lacing, in audit three publicly stated before the audit director and senior staff their report had been materially altered without their knowledge and consent and they had no concerns with the school's operations, while the audit exceptions were later acknowledged to be inaccurate, they were only corrected after we submitted substantial evidence. The internal controls governing audit documentation. Next, lack of sufficient time to perform due diligence. Multiple requests have been made to allow a consistent 10 business day window for audit responses after the exit meeting. This change would better align with the real world demands and ensuring accuracy where errors or inconsistencies are first identified during or after the exit meeting. These have
266not been accommodated despite concerns over timing and accuracy. These examples reflect our ongoing effort tos collaborate with the oca for fairness. Why in some instances responses were delayed not to obstruct the audit process but to ensure the information we provided was complete, accurate and indefensible. So, these raised serious concerns and opportunities for improvement that I hope MR. Rhodes will act on and with all of that said, once again, I feel that a combination of misxlaoun kaition and is bad faith interactions have resulted in a lot of angst and time that could have been spent on other matters facingng is sdriri and goining g rough thprproces fifingng the ieief diditor anand hiringng a new e is t an effecveveususe of this district's time and money. Can I just make one last -- I believe this board
267has made clear that there are areas of improvement and I am ready to move forward in that direction of progress and trying to right some wrongs. Would the chief auditor agree that there are areas for improvement and is he willing and ready to move forward in that direction as well? MR. Rhodes? yes, and that goes for both sides. in that spirit, ill look forward to discussing the next item. can I call the question. all those in favor of calling the question, say aye. all those opposed, say no. no. Roll call? roll call on call thing question, holness? DR. Holness, are you on the line? You have to unmute. Own -- on calling the question. [Inaudible]. Er. Er no. thompson? no. zeman? no. alhadeff? yes. bulman? no. cervera? no. hixon? no. and holness? item fails 3-5.
268Mrfrjts cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. MR. Rhodes, I was provided a copy of an article from the sun sentinel dated JUNE 12 in which you had indicated that you MAY be willing to separate from the strict. Mri question to you, sir, and everything that has gone on in the last few weeks, do you still wish to work here? MR. Rhodes? the short answer is yes but there would be some changes that I think everyone at this dais and myself would expect to happen in order to make that functional. and in light of everything that's happened over the last couple of week, do you believe that you can properly and effectively comply with all of your professional obligations in your contract? if I can get the assistance in mitigating the independence threats that I face moving
269forward, yes, I do. I yield my time, thank you, MADAM Chair. thank you. MS. Bulman? thank you, chair. so, I've learned a lot over the last couple of weeks doing this. I wasn't particularly well versed in what the auditor does I'll admit that public but I spent quite a bit of time educating myself on this. Thank you to the speakers would came today. I think that that speaks volumes that they're willing to come out and say things in your favor. And the take away I have is the overarching sbekt of the audit process, it can't overstated enough that the process and knowing that our process does have integrity and is protected is the purpose of having an auditor and making sure each of the departments are doing what they're supposed to be doing but basically
270maintaining and protecting the independence of the auditor is also very important. Unlike a lot of other professions, I think -- and while you have arguments and people can come and negotiate different items, here it's become very clear that you -- the auditor is performing a function and there is a process if someone disagrees with it to put that writing and to contest, but the audit findings are the audit findings. So, with that process and with the need to have sbekt and to -- integrity and to face the public and say that we have an independent auditor who wi protect and who performs this function, I believe we should -- obviously there's always room for improvement, but I think that it is -- it just can't be understated how important that is, and I have reviewed
271the audits, I have reviewed the transcripts from the audit committee, you know, it's interesting to find there isn't a smoking gun of someone having done something wrong consistently. There's plenty of good audits that were done. there's obviously places where there were exceptions or discussion items that need improvement. I'm not sure exactly why the few things that are being mentioned today blew up in the manner that they did but overall it seems like the process is working. That being said, everything can be improver prover -- improver but I don't like the idea of having a process where you can come and complain not liking what the results are of a finding and then we get rid of the messenger. Er I think doing that sends a bad precedent and that's not the way the process is
272designed, so with that being said, I look forward to the other items and just feel very strongly about maintaining the independence and integrity of our audit process. Thank you. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? yes, I will be voting no on bb2 and I willed be giving my comments on bb3 and making two motions. Thank you. thank you. And I'll finish this up on bb2. MADAM Chair? DR. Holness? remember I needed do do a short second round and they couldn't hear me, I wanted to vote no on calling the question. Er thank you, I haven't gone yet, so we'll give you a minute after. got it. I just think that it is a bad idea to have someone who has received an overall effective to then turn around and bring up an item to fire them especially
273when it's the first year. There were things that we all agreed on that we would tliek see improvement on but that's as a teacher, I had this discussion with MR. Rhodes, we always want to leave room so we can show growth and improvement, so, we do have lots of people who are watching, we have two other direct reports. Would would -- who would want to work here if that's how we treat our employees. It's very frustrating to me, it's happened once before and it was frustrating thep and it's frustrating again, so I also look forward to bb3 and I 'm not sure how we got to this place but I'm sure moving forward we can keep the independence of the auditor but figure out how to work collaboratively and make sure we can resolve whatever
274this item that blew up to this extent, how do we resolve that without affecting the auditor's independence, so thank you very much. DR. Holness, you have one minute. thank you, MADAM Chair, I'm going to go -- try to go as fast as I can, I'm going to mention that I do appreciate board member leonardi's comments and everyone else, the auditor presented findings that were met with objections from staff, the auditor stands on those findings and the auditor expressed the need -- the chief auditor, the need to be independent to function effectively. The auditor at times seem tos rigidly follow the guidelines of the yellow book, red book and to ere on the side of caution but always defaulting on the yellow book or the red book and that's a good thing. I also would like
275to mention I am not convinced there MR. Rhodes intentionally targets schools or individuals to tartish anyone's reputation. I am not convinced also he is incompetent and I'm not convinced it's out of ill intentions, so maybe the chief auditor as board leonardi mentioned, could benefit to some port of a performance plan, I believe that's a motion coming from MRS. Alhadeff, but also our superintendent collaborating with our chief auditor to have a training program that focuses on the requirements outlined on chapter 8, so as a result, I do believe the chief auditor needs some sort of performance plan and I do believe staff would benefit from training. I believe terminate thing chief auditor will have consequences, not necessarily just lawsuits, but I think bring on a new chief auditor MAY be consequential and that person to be
276reluctant to be fully transparent to the board that will lead to declining compliance concerns and he venn corruption. I believe passing up an opportunity like this for meaningful collaboration between staff and the auditor would be a mistake and what we have a solution to a problem in this item could be also a problem tomorrow. So, my last comment will be how we solve a problem today will determine the scope and mag any nudes those we encounter tomorrow so I will not support this item but I will support that the chief auditor engage in a performance plan and that there is training for staff in collaboration with the superintendent to understand audit performance, that's where I stands. thank you, DR. Zeman? this item was brought because of the standards that I have for our direct reports
277and in my own view t performance fell so far behind my standards that I wanted to bring this. They're not met by anybody else that sits on the board and that's fine. I don't understand the frustration to be honest with you. I need to be able to express my view of what I have observed and I've done that. Having not gained any support from other members of this board, I'm looking forward to figuring out the path forward from here but every member of this board has the ability to bring an item and to express their view of things as I have done today. My prayer is that stha the path forward we're about to talk about is a fruitful one ask a productive one and I look forward to learning more about that. Thank you,
278chair. thank you, all those in favor of item bb2, say aye. aye: all those opposed, say no. do we need a roll call? it passes with the one dissent, DR. Zeman? I heard -- I'm sorry, it failed 8-1. Er when I go down in flames, at least give me credit, john. yes. Er thank you, next up is item bb3, can I have a motion and a seconds for item become bb3 it's been moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by MS. Alhadeff, any public comment for bb3? mary ferdic is the only public comment we have. thank you, thank you for your last action and recognizing the importance of independence and process. One thing I was trying to say, I want to say that it's -- over the years when I reflect on what this particular office has
279done, I think of how valuable they are to the school board because they identify things na can be done better. And I don't think -- and my attitude's always been, this is not a got you situation, this is a situation to identify how we can save money and make sure that money goes to serve the students and our classroom and do things better. So, routinely at the end of almost every year and we have four previous -- we have four people who have served as chair of the audit committee, we try to take this sentiment and bring toit the board, we used to give a report in AUGUST and summarized things and we would say we want you to know how much money you save with this department and whatever investment you put into it
280is worthwhile so I wanted to call out MS. Thompson for putting in here workshops to identify and talk about the audit department and I think that really is a a good direction to go in. However you resolve this, I think doing that is really the right move so that you all can collaboratively talk about how you can utilize this department to really make sure that what needs to be done is being done and being done correctly and being done on time and so forth. So, again, I thank you and I enjoy being MS. Rupert's appointment to the audit committee. I appreciate -- I know how much we read so I appreciate what you read and the work you do, thank you. thank you. Board member discussion? I'll start with MS. Thompson? thank you, chair can.
281So I wanted to first talk about the reason I -- the language that I used and why I called it an action lan and not a performance plan. I got a lot of feedback after the workshop because of my use of the term performance plan and I learned from our hr experts and thankfully david azzarito helped me as well to just understand that performance plan ares typically used when someone has scored needs improvement or lower and that just wasn't really the case. i also was very concerned about the precedent that we were setting across the board through the district is that if teachers score high performing or whatever's under high performing, that their principal could still put them on a performance plan even though according to their evaluation, they did well. So, I use the
282term action plan because regardless if he scored wl, there's some issues and some concerns the board has about what's been happening throughout the district and I also think there's room for board to grow on a better understanding of the audit process so when we hear from our principals and department heads about something that has been happening, we have a good understanding to process all that information and speaking for myself as a social worker, I don't do a lot of audits, but I do do a lot of treatment plans and I think the first thing we should do is try to improve and I acknowledged MR. Rhodes' comments at the workshop that he -- I'm going to paraphrase, he would be open if that's the way the discussion was going, he said he could find a
283way to communicate and make this district great. I think this past year and moving forward, we're going to have a lot of areas of growth and I mean prao u. Not only for our board but for all of our employees and this givers us the opportunity to do just that in a very smart goal way. That was my little joke, so I hope my colleagues will accept this. I look forward to working with MR. Rhodes on making our district better and also to make sure our staff is trained appropriately so that they don't have audit findings. Thank you. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? thank you. So, I support MS. Thompson's item, and at the end of my comments, I'm going to make two motions and recommendations to add on to it. So, my meeting with MR.
284Rhodes one on one was very positive. We discussed my comment and is my evaluation and he agreed that he could speak up more in board meetings as long as it doesn't conflict with his standards and MR. Rhodes even gave me two examples from past board meetings, one was when a board member made a recommendation that went against state statute and, two, when an item was a recommendation that went against the grand jury recommendation, so these are two examples that could have proactively helped this board with our decision making up on the dais. And if MR. Rhodes spoke up during that school board meeting, it really would have helped the board. The chief auditor can collaborate with hr, finance or staff to develop or advise on content, he can give corrective action and support on ethics
285education as long as it doesn't conflict with his standards. MR. Rhodes, can you give an example of that? yeah, first I would like the make a minor correction, a friendly correction, with regard to violation of a statute, I was only alerting the superintendent to a potential violation of a statute if the cost per student station rose above the level of what is statutorily allowed and that had to do with the overall increase many the amount of change orders he could approve without board approval but I have to report that to the bore. I want to make sure that's clear because there was no specific violation of statute there. The other item that you had mentioned was just a reporting structure item that had been mentioned and referred to in a prior grand jury report that
286had to do with the reporting of the same individual and facilities and construction management as building department. And there's just an appearance of conflict, there doesn't have to be a real conflict there, that's an optic we could probably live without. Where r u f are you asking for other examples where working with staff collaboratively on items? yes, computers. so, there was an item where we have a lot of old laptops and inventory from the covid era and pre-covid era that were remaining on inventories of locations, whether they be departments or schools, it was lead toing a lot of anxiety because e wewewere to find and report these thing ins auaudi rereporters, iwas s ilill l a rertabab findndinfofor us because when we would do a pull down of an inventory of a given location f
287we couldn't identify the location tha,'s a finding for inventory purposes, so I had a conversation with our cio and with the superintendent and I told them the way that we could manage to resolve this problem is that management would have to accept the risk of removing those items and either selling them, surplusing them or destroying them because some of them were beyond economic repair and that we would then from our audit standpoint eliminate the idea of using those items in future findings because the item MAY have been missing for fiver years and will never been found again. It doesn't make sense to us to make it a finding than for the management that would have been receiving that faoundbacker finding fm we talked it over and tame to a meeting tof minds, management accepted the
288risk, they noticed the noelt fi kaition to the district that they would remover those ie sepses from inventory and either sell them, destroy them, surplus them and that we came to what I thought was a very good conclusion that we worked collaboratively together in a way that didn't get in the way of me stepping over the line of my auditing standards, so I think that was a great example and I think it did the district a lot of good and it would have cost more money for us to continue to try to invenn tory all the stuff than to identify the items that were completely beyond economical repair and out of warranty and no longer of use and they did a great job of that and it doesn't compromise my standards a bit. thank you,
289MR. Rhodes, for that example. So, I would like to keep the requested action from MS. Thompson and my motions are to add on to it. So, I move to keep the requested action and add on to it to make an update to policy 1700 on the chief auditor's role and staff training to make it crystal clear on the auditor's independence versus management functions. And then secondly, in policy 1700, roman numeral 23, page 12 of 12, it states that the aca's work idea shall be subject to periodic quality assurance or peer review and the peer review in any recommend days and findings should be reported to the chief auditor, audit committee and the school board, so id like to implement that part of the policy in the next audit. That's my motion. can you repeat the
290first part of the motion again. sure, to make an update to policy 1700, so policy 1700 already exists, and on the chief auditor's role and straf training, to make it crystal clear on the auditor's independence versus the management's functions. okay, would that -- would we need rule making for that? yes, so she's asking for that to come. Er I didn't hear initiate rule making there, so that's why. well, we need to update the policy and initiate rule making. And then the second part is on policy 1700, roman numeral 23, page 12over 12, the quality review, it states that oca's work activity shall be subject to periodic quality assurance or a peer review. The peer review and any recommendations and findings shall be reports today the chief auditor, audit committee and the school board. okay. MADAM
291Chair? yes? I have a peer review that was done at the very tail end of MR. Jabouin's tenure here. I can make sure that the board and the audit committee all get a copy of that as soon as this meeting's over. okay, that would be great, but I'm saying moving forward. sure. just to be clear, MS. Alhadeff, when yo you like that peer review to happen in your snowing -- [Inaudible]. Er I'm sorry, peer reviews far government organization like ours happen every three years so we're at about a two year horizon before that would be due again. just a question. how does that happen, the peer review? That? Ing the superintendent is paying for and doing it? Is that -- can you tell me more about that? that answers the question, who audit it is
292the auditors, so the peer reviewers come in and they take a very large sample of the work that we've done and our work papers. They review them and they give us recommendations and I'll give you an example because this answers some questions people have about why has the process changed recently. They looked at a period from 2019 through 2023, all of that was before I got here, but again, as he was going out the doors, he was signing all of the documents because there were things I couldn't do. In regards to funds, we have to report them, we can't make everything a discussion item, that's an item we were trying to work on to make sure we're identifying what is legitimately a discussion item, doesn't rise to the level of material yament or there's no
293specific criteria what shall or or should be done websinger could issue it as a discussion item and say this is an internal control problem or this is not what is in alignment with what the read book says. We use it so we can mesh withdrew and test that we're doing it in accordance with their rules, so red book has nothing do with our ownership, we use it as a tool. Back to my original point is there are findings that come back to us to tell us these are the weaknesses we found in your work papers, things that you can do better, you left a signature off of this document that was supposed to have been approved. You have again findings that are being listed as discussion items that should be scrutinized and comply with audit
294standards, that's the kind of thing has happens in a peer review and that's what happened in early 24. So, just a follow up question. If we just had one and it's every three years, is there a process to request it sooner knowing that in two years, your contract's up and so you might not even be here, so it seems like a hard process to evaluate the work that -- not saying you won't be here, but like -- your point's well taken, but the thing is I would have to look into that to find out because, one, it costs money, and if we don't need to spend the money, we shouldn't, but if it's -- we would also have to determine whether or not the work that I've been over in the 8 month period that
295was just evaluated, if that would be enough of a sample far peer reviewer to come in and say we can give you a legitimate full report to give you good information to rely upon, I can ask around and find out what that means but I've never been put in that situation yet. and just a question, so since she wants to change my motion, do we all talk at it first or do I say that it'soning, what drk okay, what is the process. someone has to second it first. I can second it. and I think we do one motion at a time. Any public comment on the first motion? on MRS. Alhadeff's motion. Er we're taking it separate, just on the first one. which was about training. no, it was about bring thing policy back for
296rule making to adjust -- it wasn't about training? I thought the second one was about bringing it back to add in on page 12. the first one was about rule making, correct? to update the policy 1700 on the chief auditor's role and staff training to make it crystal clear on the auditor's independence versus the management functions. okay. Thank you. Alright. So, I support that motion. In what I sent you, I mapped her critique of MR. Rhodes and recommendations to the relevant threats and the one that popped up most frequently, management participation threat, self-review threat and familiarity threat. If the chief auditor cannot create the internal controls he's supposed to be assessing and that's where you would get into his independence versus management's responsibility, so I appreciate MRS. Hall deaf recognizing that and wanting to put
297that in because this is all in the general accepted government auditing standards. The self-review threat is a a threat that an auditor or an audit organization that has provided non-audit services will appropriate services provided as part of the non-audit services, so that will help in that threat. thank you. Any other public comments? Board member discussion on the first motion? MRS. Leonardi? . Inger I appreciate with the rule making policy, I don't know if it needs to be added to the motion but I would also like us to look at the response time, so one of the recommendations or not even a recommendation, one of the issues that has come up was around the response time available to staff, so staff has repeatedly asked for extensions or the 10 business day tos apply after the exit
298interview, so I don't know if I need to add that to the motion that we consider that or if that will come out, that will be flushed out during rule making so I'm looking for some guidance around that. I would think that it gets flushed out because that's very specific. She was just generally saying to look at the policy, but MS. Batista, can you answer? yes, I think it can be flushed out during the rule making to add anything to the rule that is necessary. thank you. can I just introduce a point of order, chair, the motion op the table is both to make it back for rule making and to make a separate policy? as it was presented to the board, it was both to do rule making and to make a change. So,
299I think that the proper motion is to bring it for rule making and then we bring it to a workshop, then we bring -- during the workshop, we can talk about all the ideas the board has of improving the policy, so I'm wondering if MRS. Alhadeff s the motion just to bring it for rule making and you want a specific thing you want to see when they bring it back?Frjts I think we're overcomplicating it, but to update policy 1700 and then I gave a specific what I would like to see updated. I know MS. Leonardi said she wanted something else to be updated, once the policy 1700 comes back, we can can update both those parts in the policy. so, would you mind based on what DR. Zeman is saying is just amending your motion
300to just say bring the policy back because there might be five or six things that need to be looked at that would come back as opposed to being specific because then everybody could add something. I think you really wanted it to come back so we could look at it and add things. that's fine, same thing. okay. Anybody else on the first motion, bringing the policy back, initiating rule making? Alright, all those in foyer, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries. DR. Holness, hang on. so, can you repeat the second motion then? so, in policy 1700 on page 3, it talks about the quality review, so my motion was to have a peer review for MR. Rhodes based on our ability to do that per the policy. I know he was speaking about number
301of years. I would like to ask the question how much does it dos do -- cost to do one. the one we did one a year ago was 50 thousand dollars. I'm certain it's close to 50 thousand if not 50 thousand. is there a difference between something with quality assurance because it says quality assurance or a peer review. it's just the same way of saying the same thing. okay. Well, I'm bringing that recommendation forward to the board to consider. Er any public comment on the motion? thank you so much. you have to wait for public comment. I thought you said go. yeah, I support -- natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida, peer reviews are important. I think the one that was done as the prior auditor was going out was the only one we ever saw while
302he was here for six painful years, so however, you don't want them to look like you're after a particular person and it seemed like sometime in the future when mr. Rhodes has been over the function for a period of time would be more appropriate especially since you have another two years that you could go but at least perhaps another one because then you have a real body of work to choose from. Right now we're still breathing in fumes from the prior chief auditor in some of the work that got done this year. Thank you. thank you. Any other public comment? DR. Zeman? staff is going to have to say like very much like one of our public speakers said, it's appropriate to do peer review in a year and just to be clear on lang
303waningsinger, it is not a peer review of that person the chief auditor, it's of the audit it is the whole office that get it is review, it's an exhausting piece of work, I'm not surprised it's 50 thousand dollars, they come back in deep insights and go around and see lots of different office of chief auditors so they bring a lot of material in. Given the expense of this audit, this is 37 people roughly give or take, it's an important function but also an expensive function, so I support that if that's about the timeline you're thinking of. I would support doing it in a year from now, time goes by so fast and a year will be here before you know it. I think I would be more comfortable having it written in as part of
304your action plan, it seems there's some information we need to gather. That would be my thoughts. I have a quick question. MR. Rhodes, it's in policy already, so it says periodically and you're saying that traditionally every three years. Is that something that should automatically kick k in or is that something you bring to us as a board item in that time period. Since it's already in policy, it's there, so what is traditionally how that's executed? I don't know that there's a standard because it's generally something that's done for the chief auditor's information, in our poll osier it says audit committee, board, so I could send that back out. The other thing I was going to mention is that since this one ended in 2023, next year would be 2026, that would give us another three
305year snapshot, next year could be done and it could be done and it makes sense and incorporate a bunch of the work that's within done by the group that I've been managing as well as my own accountability to that, so I think that that makes sense to do that and I think that that's a good idea to make that right into the policy that gets updated and changed to show that it's not periodically, that it is every three years so long as we're utilizing gagas,, I believe groups that use institute of internal audits, I believe they have to do theirs every fiver years, gagas requires every three years. the policy is coming to us in that discussion, we could change it from saying periodically to saying every three years. indeed, and I'll go back to
306the other standards to see those and the revised policy would make sense, as we were discussing at the workshop, there are also some thing ins the job description that would need to be updated to reflect what's in the policy, that would also make the job description more compliant with yellow book standards. okay. I'm comfortable with that. Er okay so, we don't really need the second motion then, and I would like to make a motion to the superintendent to bring the job description back along with the policy because as we read the job description and read everyone's evaluations, there were things people were evaluating that weren't necessarily in the job description, so I would -- when we bring the policy back, if we could also bring the job description to make sure they align with each
307other, that would be great. second. thank you. Public comment on the motion? natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. I support the motion. I think that when the chief auditor went from reporting to the superintendent to the board, that the entire job description was not cleaned up and there were things in there that made sense prior but don't make any sense now. It's also important to take the job description, the contract and the standards and make sure -- and state statute and make sure everything is in alignment and also on a related note as far as the evaluations go, that should be combining from hr. All templates for nerve the district should be coming from hr. I'm just throwing that in there because I don't know where else that would fit. i support the motion to bring the
308job description back. thank you. Any board member discussion? All those in favor of bringing the job description back at the same time as the policy, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries. MS. Leonardi? thank you. Reecting ontoday the's -- questioning on the chief aud torx I don't know if there's a shared sense of responsibility on what's raised in the evaluation, so I don't agree with the idea of an action plan. When a teacher earns an effective evaluation and then concerns some concerning behavior, that doesn't rise to the discipline of due process, I think the recourse is a conversation with that individual, perhaps a letter of concern, something like that . I think we're all on different -- many of us are in different places with regards to the concerns, so I think I will --
309make a recommendation that the action changes to direct the former auditor to make a standard operating procedure for new auditors, that's my motion. second for discussion? public comment on the motion? are you adding to my -- . DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. I am a huge fan of policies, procedures and making sure everyone's clear and I don't think MR. Rhodes would object if there isn't any although the standards kind of speak to that but there are other places in the district, what goes for one goes for all. You need policies and procedure school police, policies and procedure ins the business support center. We're still waiting for the standard practice bulletins to be updated. Remember cherry beckert were approvedfinger if you are going to approve something for one department and I'm always in favor of procedures
310because that tells you about how you go about implementing policy, be equally enthusiastic about making sure everybody else has policies and procedures, otherwise it looks retaliatory in nature. Thank you. any other public comment? Board discussion? MS. Thompson? we'll I appreciate the motion, I think that goes against what I was trying too do. I think adding a training manual could be part of the action plan. I want to say MS. Perente went both our comments and sent everybody's a summary towards the board's thoughts on that, that could be a starting place for MR. Rhodes to develop the action plan, but I think it's important to have this -- to have it come back to a workshop to address the concerns we've shared and also I still believe there's a lot of growth the board needs do
311on just -- there's a lot of growth I would like to have in my knowledge of audits and I think it's important that comes to a workshop. So I will not be supporting this motion if it completely takes away everything else. I have a quick question for MRS. Leonardi. How is your motion different than the b item that we're going to do at 2:30 which is next. Because DR. Holness was directing the superintendent to do -- you're right. so, I believe that item is coming to us. thanks for pointing that out. I withdraw my motion but I don't -- the concerns -- concern that I have is I received and read the summary of the evaluations. I also did my own summary and evaluations -- of the evaluations and those concerns. i do not based
312on the comments from our chief auditor today, do not feel that he shares the those or believes that those are valid. So, I don't know how we're going to have him develop an action plan for himself based on comments from us that he does not appear to agree with or share. That is my concern. okay. Thank you. DR. Zeman stepped out but I'll just give my -- I don't mind doing an action plan but I just have concerns about what that looks like for all our other employees, so when someone gets an effective evaluation, does this open it up to that, and are we going to do that with the other two directive pointers we have, because if we're doing it with one, we should be consistent and doing it with everyone because we should
313-- if we're looking at evaluations and pulling out the things we want them -- that we have concerns about or want to look better, if we're doing it here, I think that we should be consistent across the board. So, I understand the intent, I appreciate it, I was going to make the same suggestion but I just do have some concerns, I did speak with MR. Rhodes and he is fine with this but I'm sure that we're not just going to hand him something and say do an action plan. The idea if I'm not mistaken is to bring it back to a workshop where we would all agree, these are the things we'd like to see in it. I don't know if action plan is the right title but it's not improvement because you're effective so
314we don't want to also say that. So, I like the idea of a memo maybe but just concerning to me that if we do it for one, we should do it for all and I'm concerned about how other employees will look at this if they're getting an effective evaluation, would we also be requiring them to do these things because we should be consistent and it doesn't feel that way right now. It doesn't mean I won't vote for it, I just have some concerns. DR. Zeman? thank you very much. I'm concerned about the author of this plan. I'm familiar with people getting feedback, hearing feedback and saying, okay, let me figure out what I can glean out of that, that fighting lead me to propose an action plan. I'm very skeptical that will happen in this
315case, I wish it would. So, I'm trying to think about a way in which a a plan -- the way you described, chair, about a plan being drafted and then brought to us and then we can kind of do it. I'm curious I guess, chair, is the action plan approved by the people who have the authority to hire and fire the chief auditor, is this a school board document of an action plan, just so you understand it? that ao tes way I understand it, the chief auditor based on what MS. Perente sent us would make an action plan, it would come to a workshop, we would discuss it and then it would have to come similar to what we had in another direct report when this happened. and I think that process can work. I
316think at the end of the day, we have to own it as the rating senior. There will be an opportunity for some of the thins -- things that have been observed to be included in that, I think there are some things observed in which there is no development and action and I trust that the wisdom of this board is greater tlan the wisdom of the individual and that we will see steady improvements and those things as well because there's clearly some things that have been discussed that are not trainable and they're just decisions somebody has to make about the way they're going to be a a leader in an organization. If there's no standards for example in the yellow book for collaborating. Like in yellow book, you get data, you do it, it's formulaic, it's
317a process and there but there are things that have been observed for like collaboration for which there might be some envisioned improvement but there's no training or guide book for that. If there's a memo written that says it's been sent to the school board but not transmitted for 30 days, there is no action plan for that and so there are some things that I hope that we hear back from the incumbent and then there are things that the school board might want to say here's some things for which there is either some mentorship or some self-reflection or some general working with the staff and our staff to find better ways to get things done. One of the thins I would like to see in the action plan and I would be curious what the author
318thinks of this, in your mind, MRS. Thompson, does an action plan include measures of effectiveness of things? yes, my idea and obviously the topics, my thinking was that it would be worked on during the workshop, he would come with things he thinks needs to improver, we can come with things we think he could improve on and it would be smart goals, something specific measurable -- actionable -- the r is relevant and timely. yes. not bad. But if that the's the interaction, if there's kind of a good dialogue, I'm very optimistic we can come up with a good plan, but we have to -- as MR. Rhodes said, this is a two way street and we have to figure out what would make sense that we would prefer and what he'd be willing to do, we
319would put that together with some measures, I'm struck by this idea about having the peer review port in a year though, I think if MR. Rhodes and us collectively agree on that, it also says try these things for a year, he got this one riengbacker right, that this a year, there's going to be a peer port come and look at the organization, again, the chief auditor does one of 37 people's stuff, there's 36 people behind him that need to be managed and trained, they are independent auditors, and how that group performs is really what the peer review looks like and that would be a fascinating metric to include in that plan, thank you, chair. thank you, MRS. Bulman? just addressing your concern about how an action plan would affect other employees, I think there's a
320way to distinguish that this is a direct report and a manager in a direct department versus an individual teacher. Surely we can put some language in here that would prevent that from happening, I don't think anybody want tos see that so I think this is very specific for management. I think that was the intention, MS. Thompson. And so I think that we can protect ourselves from that and so I like the idea because like I said before, I think there's always room for improvement when you're running an entire department and a always improving your processes and procedures. That just benefits the district so this exercise would not be punitive. I think it's just to better the district and how everything is running, so I think we can look at it as a positive and probably
321expand it to other departments, and then I know this is another -- we're going to be talking about this in another minute, but the training of the principals and making sure everybody is knowledgeable about what their responsibilities are is going to be also a very important component to making sure that we can improve as a district and just the audit process and the outcomes. Thank you. thank you, we'll finish up with MS. Leonardi. thank you. And thank you for accommodating my many rounds. So, upon reflection, this is a very long agenda, I thought more about DR. Holness's item we'll be discussing in a moment, that item is more focus on the superintendent and management. My motion was to direct the chief auditor to develop a formal training manual and standard operating procedures for new --
322unknown participant is now exiting. Er so, my motion was more focused on the chief auditor while DR. Holness' item appropriately focuses on the superintendent, so I would tliek bring my motion back to direct the chief auditor to develop a formal training manual and standard operating procedures for new auditors. second. and the reason that I am wanting to amend the recommended action is because once again and I think I have a a colleague who shares this concern, and I agree with chair hixon's concerns about the message that an action plan sends to our employees, but I don't think there is a shared understanding of the areas of concern. So, what I would like to do is bring things to the table that are actionable and have been identified as issues and offer concrete solutions initiating rule
323making for policy 1700 does that, this is another thing that does that. So, that's why I'm making the motion. sorry, your motion was to amend, not do an action plan, and ask for the procedure. yeah, so to amend the recommended, to direct the chief auditor to develop a formal training manual and standard operating procedures for new auditors. public comment on the motion? DR. Natalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. I know I haven't had lunch, but can we get clarity because MS. Thompson's motion is clearly to have an action plan and MADAM Chair, you keep saying that instead of the action plan, MS. Leonardi would reduce it to just developing internal procedures in the audit department. So, can we clarify she's not replacing -- no, she is. That's why I said it again. ms. Leonardi would like to
324replace an action plan with a procedural manual -- I thought amendment to add to it. no. to change the whole item. no, because MS. Thompson's item moves forward and as she said herself, coming up with internal procedures can be part of the action plan which I thought is what MRS. Leonardi was suggesting, that it would be part of the action plan, so if we could get clarity, because I can't imagine that -- that's the clarity, MS. Leonardi's motion is to change and not do an action plan. she's trying to do a substitute motion? correct. I don't think that's how that was identified. That's why you have a general counsel to sort it out. thank you, any other public speakers? I'm kind of confused. I probably shouldn't talk, but if you're doing this instead of having
325a workshop and discussing it comprehensively, I'm not even getting on action plan, I'm e aoem levering that to you all, but the workshop is a great idea to talk about all the things you could do and I think the idea of a training manual would fit well into that and is something that makes a lot of sense to do but if it's the only thing you're ging to do, I'm going sit down and sa f say this has been a great conversation, I hope you come back in a workshop and put a plan together and thank you. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? yes, I would just like to know MR. Rhodes' interpretation of what MS. Leonardi said to do and MS. Thompson. sure. It means something algt different than you guys have been envisioning because a
326part of what I have planned moving forward to implement are the objectives that I developed for my evaluation and that includes a comprehensive curriculum and training of all my auditors in ai for audits as well as a comprehensive program for action in audits which would be specifically aimed at improving and let's call it garbing xlaoun kaition between our office and the other aud -- audiotapes -- auditee we looked at. We're only looking at audit that is were coming from one specific auditee and that's business support center. There are a lot of other areas, both departmental as well as at the level of schools and principals that we have a lot of ground we have to cover and making them aware of what it is we do, what our standards are, how we can comply with
327those, how we're looking at meeting the needs they're looking for, how to avoid audit findings, the answer to that is going to be know your red book, know your standard practice bulletins, that's kind tof way it would go with anybody that we talk about. So, my uning is there is an overarching series of comments has were made in the document that was presented to me by evaluations that kind of summarized everything that came from all of the different comments that were made by the board members, so the yan yule that I would be addressing would be addressing those areas and always making sure that any of the items that I do are steeped in yellow book requirements as well as overall efficiency requirements for what this audit department does because we have to get out
328there and give the coverage, we have to complete the work we're doing. There has been from my standpoint, there's been near a standstill over the last two weeks because of the things that's been going on while I've been trying to keep all these other things going and addressing these other issue and is preprinting for these other issues, so the manual, the standard operating procedure, there's already a great starting point based on the object tiers I had and the comments made back from the board and I think I can feed those back properly. and do you see those falling under MS. Thompson's action plan or MS. Leonardi's action book? I think that would be under MS. Leonardi's handbook and operating procedures, so I need more clarification if that's not correct. I ohm -- I'm not in
329favor ofofthisismotion for sevel l asass, mymy motition encompsed d seseveral thin. One, address the issue that is we brought up which could include adding this training plan, two, the fact that it's not because I talk to teach and he iser the union lead and he iser hr, it's not a prerogative -- progress -- progress I ever plan, it's not an action plan, I'm find fine with expanding that to the general counsel, I'm dowsing we're going to find thing ins their evaluation we would wan to address and then third which again is important and it becomes a theme, there's some need for clarity on the board's side of audit standards and how we can make sure that the superintendent and the auditor are sharing information so that the superintendent can make sure our staff's trained, so
330I think reducing it to just a training manual is missing the point. Soya I will be voting no, thank you. All those in favor of MS. Leonardi's motion, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. no. let's do a roll call. on MS. Leonardi's motion, school board leonardi? yes. Er rupert? thompson? no. zeman? no. alhadeff? yes. bulman? no. cervera? no. hixon? no. holness? DR. Holness? Ao ips, what was -- I'm sorry, what was that? yes. fails 6-3. okay, so back to the original item as amended, so bb3 as amended, all those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed? no. Er passes 8-1. DR. Holness said yes, awesome. Alright, now we're going to go to b1. Can I have a motion and a second to bring b1 to the floor. so moved. Er it's been moved
331by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Rupert. Any public comment on b1. Inger we have one registered speaker, DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. no, I'm good, I was signed up to speak to bb3, but somehow the message got lost over there. And to that, I was just going to commend MRS. Thompson for bringing bb3 for all the reasons I've already expressed and I'm glad it passed because it needed to. Thank you. thank you. Okay. So, b1, any other public comment on b1? no further comments. DR. Holness, I'm going the let you start since it's your item. thank you, MADAM Chair. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to hear quite clearly but I don't have any further comment and I appreciate those who support this. I think it's important. okay, thank you. MRS. Bulman? we're on b 1? Thank
332you, chair. Thank you, DR. Holness, for bringing this. Er I think in this exercise and what we've all -- in our fact finding and learning experience in the last few weeks, I think this is a great item. I support it. I think the only issue we have here, we have to be careful with the management function versus the independence of the auditor so, we'd have to have some clarity on what, you know, what his role is in training. I think that kind of steps into the superintendent's role, so I don't know how we maintain that but overall the general concept, I fully support, so thank you. thank you. And so MR. Rhodes, you and I, we've discussed this a number of times, so can you tell us what you have already put in place to
333try to do what this item is speaking to? to what this item is doing is trying to establish a management training of the staff that report up to DR. Hepburn and so to that end, I have done nothing in the way of trying to establish policy or action steps for staff to take except to say here and we've done two action and audits so far, one was with the high school and standard principal and is the other one was ppo, we had a different set of criteria we lad to try to communicate with them in each of those two different areas, but one of the common threads we had in there is we were saying, so here is your policies, here is -- ppo, here are your policies, here are the various kind of contracts
334you guys administer on a daily basis and so these are the areas you want to focus what did you're doing and that your standard operating procedures tie back to them so you can avoid audit findings by complying with those. Tla's -- let me stop you for a second, this is specifically about red book training, when we spoke, you reached out to the florida auditor to see if they had training so that's what I was talking about. I apologize, you're absolutely right. There was no return to my two attempts to reach the folks at doe to get some kind of a training on red book. That's when I started reaching out during one on one's and found out I had a sponsor for that idea to see about getting management trained up on that so there's
335a consistency but in my action and audits with the level principals high school and centers, all we really talked about was know your red book guidance, know your standard practice bulletins because you know that that's what the test is going to be on and when we come into test what it is you're doing and your management operation, there's no surprises there and everyone knows we're going to be there at 226 schools per year and that is the extent of what it is we've taught so we've never crossed over the management line. so, my point is singing really wauz because this item says for you to collaborate with the superintendent to provide training on the red book, so -- and you have said to us a number of times that you're uncomfortable with you specifically of
336the audit doing those training because if something were to go wrong, they would say that this is what you told us. So, I'm just wondering if this item if the florida -- the people yu eve reached tout -- out to do the training don't reach out, you're the expert in the red book, the superintendent or the management here isn't, so is there another avenue o do that because I don't want the pass something that we don't have the capability of doing until the state answers us back which oftentimes is never. I don't have a lot of faith in the state answering us back. I think their lack of a response is indeed a response. I think that whether there is a consultant involved or there is somebody who is process oriented in the district who
337can read -- the red book is not a long read, it's -- and also one of the other ways I can help in a collaborative way is to provide trend information on where do we find most of the findings so there can be a prior ideation of areas initially in the first wave to go through this and to try to make sure staff is trained up and understands here are the areas of the most concern. That would be the collaborative way I could go about it but again stopping short of being the person who gives them their instruction or training because that would take away my independence. DR. Hepburn? yeah, so I was going to try and wrap this up or decrease the amount of discussion that's needed. The chief auditor and I will collaborate.
338We have robust staff in the bsc and in procurement and all those other place and is our regionals, we can can put together training and work with the klaoef auditor to make sure training is aligned to the red book or any other audit practices or strategies they're utilizing in their office and is train our staff accordingly and have mechanisms to make sure there's clear understanding throughout the school year and levels of accountability and support for staff also. okay. thank you. MRS. Rupert? on that point, I know we have school board association, we have the florida state attorney's school educators, help me here, marylin, association, is there one for auditors in florida? Like the florida auditor's association? there's several associations but whether or not they would pick up and do this type of a training, I
339would have to reach out to them and see. I was trying to deal with the folk who is were the authors of this because they would be the most well versed in how to train and teach the folks who are responsible for handling internal funds better than anybody else could have been, I can look into some of those organizations. the only reason I say that is because I know we have a great bunch of lunch and learns where people are eating and it givers itself to more communication, less of a strict vibe. It's more inclusive of -- this is some information or these are the situations I've run into in my district, you know, that's the best part of fsba for any board member to go. You learn more from your colleagues than you ever
340could just by looking at a book or going straight to the people that make the rules, etc., I'm trying to give you a little bit of nora, I want you to be comfortable and I know that when people go to any sort of training, it's a little anxious but you want to make it acceptable and inclusive in that. If there were such a group, if it were me, I would reach out that to that group because behave other school boards websinger ear invited to go give a talk to other board members and even our assistants are part of a state group now to talk to other assistants around the state, it just makes all of us better, just a thought, I'm just one board member but I'm trying to keep it touchy feely, friendly. it
341makes excellent sense except I would add one friendly amendment to that, is that rather than me searching them out, maybe it taoes superintendent that would search them out, that would make it a management niche yat I ever as opposed to an audit initiative. I'm just throwing it out there. I had this gnawing feeling about this item ever since I saw it a week ago. Every time we direct the superintendent to train people in a certain way, I wonder about our role interfering with operations. And here's the issue is collect I ever bargaining agreements, you git so many hours for different groups with training. .If we say to the superintendent you're directed to implement a training program on audit, we're really in my mind usurping his authority to obtain his audit goals. He can talk about
342the big issues coming up, got that, work with some people to say can you develop some great training to make sure 90% of the findings and exemptions are in these three areas, in his judgment, he can spend 10 minutes or three hour ons it and lead toit the right people who can influence the system to not get findings and exceptions, to really improve internal controls which is what inspires the trust in the system. I don't like this item because we're directing him to do something which means he will not be able to spend times on other things, so I can't support this not because I don't think the superintendent and the auditor can't figure this out on their own but because this is directly interfering witching the operations of the superintendent and I want to
343make sure he's spending time on science of reading, on legal issues, on transportation issues, on compliance issues, on the things in his mind will get tows where we want to go in term of our strategic goals, so that's why -- it's not that I don't think this is a great idea but if we're going direct the superintendent to do something, it better be within our purview to do tla and this crosses the line in terms of what e telling him on what to do with his time. Er MS. Alhadeff? yes, so to the superintendent, so I don't know if you've heard of the institute of internal auditors, there's chapters in florida, they do red book training and then also fau also does training. MADAM Chair? . Inger yes? can I just respond to that because
344DR. Zeman brought up a great point. What's in your purview. And I just want to read just the very first input of chapter 8 called sections principles and it's item 1. The district school board as the custodian shall be responsible for safeguarding, recordkeeping, and general insight of general funds held by the school sdrigt system and in connection shall adapt rules regarding receipt and disbursement of all internal funds and the accounting pursuant to florida statute and is provide for annual audit of internal funds and you're already providing for an internal audit of internal funds, what I want to attempt to course correct, even though this becomes an audited related function because there's been so much intermingling between what audits does, this is a statutory requirement or a florida administrative code requirement that comes directly to the
345school board with that responsibility and that's a management responsibility. Audit really just comes in to see if management is doing what the red book tells them to do. Back to DR. Zeman's point, if you have that purview to do this, this is telling you not only do you have the purview, it's telling you, you should be responsible for safeguarding all of these funds that are in these different accounts and so I think that helps to kind of redirect it back to being a management function that we would test as opposed to something that we own or we do. We don't own any of it. thank you. Okay. All those in favor of item b1, say aye. aye. any opposed? no. okay. The motion carries 7-1 with MRS. Leonardi not on the dais. thank you. Okay,
346so next we're going to take items b3 and b4. Can I have a motion and a second. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Bhutan. Do we have public comment on tenses b3 or b4? yes, MADAM Chair, we have DR. Trudy jermanovich. Followed by mary ferdic. my name is DR. Trudy jermanovich, I'll be discussing both b3 and b4 together, so I don't think I'll need it, could you give me six minutes, please. As a former science teach e I'm heartened the district MAY look at the state of our schools in the face of climate change, if I'm allowed the say those words in florida, as a resident of river oaks if fort lauderdale, I watched 100 year flood happen in areas which were not directly on any water, severe property damage
347occurred and we now look carefully at every weather report. This event highlights why all schools are in danger. This proposed review should have been done yesterday, as we saul know that nowhere in our state is immune. Regarding b3 and b4, I've been advocating for the public to take advantage of the written comments section that the board has provided and I'll be reading two comments from that section. I've been somewhat dismayed the form that shows written comments are not kept visible for the public to read during the meet, even though they will be include ined the minutes months later. In if future, I hope the board will keep the comments up so that everybody can read them during the duration tof meeting. I had to take screen shots since it disappeared from the meeting. On b3,
348develop sustainability and resilient building standards and design specifications. From stephanie pearson. How many of you read these in would you mind raising your land if you did? Okay, I just like to know because the public -- a lot of times they say to me, nobody ever reads this, so thank you. Many thank tos the green schools advisory council for bringing forth the b3 and b4 items on tuesday JUNE 17th board agenda, we're grateful to school board is taking up these proposals, we wholeheartedly agree that both directives will be extremely beneficial to the school district and to our community. it is so critical that we seriously address energy efficiency with an emphasis on clean energy as well as resilience to heat and flooding issues due to climate change. By adopting haoez measures t broward school board
349will set up an important example to the whole community of conserving our resources through energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy and will saver none the long run. Protecting our assets from flood and heat are critical and will provide cost savings. There will be a positive public health impact as well. A more comfortable and healthier environment for student and is staff will be created. These proposals align our school system with the county's resiliency efforts and goals. And then stephanie jaffy, I urge the board of education to support the proposal before to develop comprehensive flood and heat vulnerability risk assessment in collaboration with broward county, utilizing data and methodologies from the recently completed countywide risk assessment and resilience plan. This simply makes sense in termser of increasing safety for the students and their communities. it
350would also provide a learning opportunity for the students, some of whom MAY be interested in careers in sustainability and environmental science. Utilizing the data and planning already done by the county will obviously provide expertise and save the school district money. Given the increase in every sunny day floooong, colicating tranortatation, including g waininto and d from scho, the e daererofatat injury espealally to student athletes and the danger post posed by si veer storm and is severe hurricanes to both student and is infrastructure, it is incumbent upon the board to collaborate with the county to prioritize and plan the solutions to this growing problem. I thought those were excellent comments and obviously I agree with the women who wrote these comment and is I hope you will go forward with both b3 and b4, as far as
351costs go, this is a case of pay now or pay much more later. Thank you very much. thank you. Next public speak ir, I -- I think that was mary ferdic. Er yes, and then alex. we do have multiple speakers for both items, so would it be your mresh dwraour do the same thing for judy? so, mary, would you like six minutes now? I'll try not to take six minutes, john. When I sat there last week and listened to the conversation, I'm thinking how could they not do this. I'm so proud of sarah for getting it on the agenda so quickly and moving this forward and to just echo what trudy said, I don't know how you afford not to. Will there be a cost, that was a conversation starting last week? There's going to
352be a cost either way. In the world we live in where we're seeing things we ever never seen and I just won't go into the fact I've lived here for a while and what we've seen these last few years I think points tos the fact these are common sense things that need to be done and I hope you vote for both of them, so no, I don't need six minutes, I think I did it in 45 seconds and I hope you mover just as quickly. Thank you. thank you so much. Next public speaker, alex. thank you, chair hixon. Board members, my name's aleck, I have had the pleasure of serving as the chair of the green advisory committee for the past dwo -- two years. It has been an example of what an advisory committee
353should be for this board. We have had robust conversations about a lot of the issues that this district and community face and we have tried to bring you all solutions, dwo of which are before you today. Before I talk about those, I do want to take a moment to thank the incredible staff that have been with us along this two year journey of learning how things are working here or sometimes not. We have the applied learning department, DR. Melankovic and suzanne have been fantastic, they have been our guidance dlu this process, I also want to thank alison who has been there with us the whole time. We have probably five to six staff on top of our liaisons that are at every committee and I also want to point out that we've had 100% attendance
354at both of our previous meetings and both of these motions passed unanimously with 100% attendance at our committee meeting which just shows you the passion that the folks wlo you all have appointed to that committee have for this topic. So first I want to talk about the sustainability and resilience standards and why they're so important. We're looking at future conditions, not just now. So, the county has put in place tremendous guidance and frankly regulation under water management, around future building heights. But you all have also done things like made public statements in support of a net zero goal. Now this is the next natural step, how do we get to net zero, we focus on where to reduce our emissions, buildings, how do we build build rinsing the future that not only make them energy
355efficient which savers us money in the long run, this will save the district lots of money websinger eve seen this with the how low you can go challenge, one school saved the equivalent of 6 thousand dollars in one month, I think we annualized it to millions of dollars across the district just by making simple energy efficiency changes. Putting those into our design standards from the beginning or from renovations will save you all millions in operational costs and this is a matter of institutionalizing those things across different areas, right. We pass a building once it's built to a different group. We need to make sure the group building the building provides the folks who are going to use the build witching the tools for success. and so creating these design standards will basically allow us to
356look at the future, make sure we're doing what we can do no u and it will end up saving the district lots of money in the future. The second one is also an important planning tool. Arguably broward county is one of the most at risk places for flooding and sea level rise. When I was a student in this district, we had the water management district that would come in and teach us about an alligator and what that meant and how it related to all of the canals that trace across this county. Well, frankly I think we've forte kt -- forte about that and sea level rise is challenging that system, parents ares driving through flood watt tore pick up their students, by systematically looking at heat and flood vul nerment, we will make sure the
357life blood of this district which is our public schools will continue, so what we have to understand, it is not just about making sure that we're planning for the future but it's an economic imperative. When tlas hurricane, if we don't get our schools open, we don't have parents going back to work so we need to think about this not just as planning for the future but also that ultimately our e economy and how fast we recover depends on the decisions we make for the future. And as we think about what the future of broward county public schools look like, we have to consider sea level rise. We have to consider hotter days with children playing o ults -- outside and we have to be able to consider what a district 30 40, years from now
358will look like with the flood ris of the future. I we hope you will support these motions, I will refer to staff for more technical questions but I appreciate you all bringing this forward today and a special thankers to vice chair leonardi for pu putting this on the agenda. to close us out, we have linda thompson gonzalez and gi long. hi, my name's DR. JULY le -- julie long, I'm a retired pediatric surgeon, after working in broward county for almost 30 years, I saw the health consequences of children of our environmental degradation. I'm very concerned about this. I also -- I'm a recent member of the [Inaudible], I'm leer to speak in support of item b3 and b4, the board unanimously voted in sup pofrt the green school's resolution in DECEMBER. Commit toing reducing energy
359consumption. These current agenda items play a foundation for planning on how to achieve these goals. It does not commit to any upfront costs right now but it does require looking at these issues to plan for our future. This is a long term commitment. The item b3 request drafting standards and setting priorities to align with decreasing energy usage, item b4 recommends a flood and heat risk assessment. Flooding is becoming more common in broward county. The county has updated its flood maps and these need to be considering in looking at what school renovations needs to be done and also in terms of school safety. Broward county does not have a a heat advisor, but we have extremely hot day and is this affects our students, our teach and he iser personnel who have to work. These items
360need to be taken into can account and I really appreciate you putting this item on the agenda and hope you will vote in support of both of these measures. Thank you. MS. Thompson gonzalez? thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of these, as the last speaker, I want to underscore everything that all of the other speakers have mentioned and I thank the first speaker for reading the comments of our broward voters environmental committee members, I'm also a member of the broward sierra club and I know both organizations totally endorse and are supportive of these initiatives. Frankly we were at a point right now where it is difficult to imagine moving forward with any decisions on our resources or resource allocation without the benefit of the information that both of these studies will bring
361forward and both of these motions are connected, causal and effect, if we don't do something about our heating of our climate and those effects, th ez then -- then we have the increased aspects we see in the flooding and other issues. So, a comprehensive resilient building plan and a flood heat vulnerability assessment are truly essential to fully leverage the resources, the data and the technologies that will benefit not only our children but really our entire community as we see moving forward our public schools may increasingly have to serve as our emergency public shelters as one of the largest school districts in the country and one of the largest land holders, this is an enormous resource for our school board to manage but as we know as the speakers have all said, mitoses an enormous opportunity
362to look forward to the future and see how to best manage and utilize these resources. The timing of this could not be more fitting, I was a volunteer going door to door in the edge wood neighborhood when we had that rain bomb and we saw how quickly in several days the 25 inches of rain came but as we read in our newspaper this weekend, our broward county are bless witched the triple whammy of sea level rise and also our ground water which creates a more complex situation than just the rain or just the climate or just our ground water swelling up under through the limestone beneath our feet. This is a much more complex situation that our engineers, our building engineers and everyone has to deal with, so we need the benefits of these studies
363in order to really move forward and manage our resources effectively and most efficiently. We know from the heat islands around that one of other speakers mentioned that this truly does affect not only our public safety but our public health and so as we look forward in our building design and repairs to our schools, we need to take full advantage of the technology, not just of solar panels and on our roofs to make them more energy efficient and to provide emergency electric availability in these emergency situations but also the thoughtful planting of trees and tree canopy. There are a number of solutions that we need to fully utilize. I greatly appreciate the efforts of each one of you to consider this and to support these important initiatives that really are essential for the safety, the security,
364the health and the wellbeing of our students currently and moving forward as we see the increased impacts of our nature on all of us. Thank you so much. thank you. Next we'll go to board discussion. So we'll start with MRS. Leonardi, we brought both items together. got it, thank you. First I want to thank the green advisory committee for doing this important and thoughtful work. It's wonderful to hear that you've been able to work collaboratively with staff and to bring us some pioneering solutions, so thank you for bringing this to us and making these motions to recommend these to the board. You know, it is undeniable that heat and flooding are serious and dangerous problems facing broward county and we are the largest property owner in broward county, the sixth largest school district in the
365country and we have an opportunity with these items to be proactive about resiliency and sustainability as well as protecting our financial interests by protecting our physical properties. There are several schools just in district 3, I know in other districts as well, that have repeatedly had to do major repairs to their buildings due to these thousand year floods that happen almost every year now. By passing these items, we are being proactive and protective of our future. I did want to respond to some of the concerns I heard from my colleagues last week about these proposals. I heard some concerns about how this MAY interfere with the facilities conditions assessment or take precedent over that. That is not my intention and that is not the language in the item. These two items are very different from the
366facilities conditions assessment. The fca is looking at the conditions of our facilities and the vulnerability of heat and flooding assessment is looking at flooding and heat vulnerability. The fca is being done by an outside consultant. This would be done internally and it would not take the place of the fca, it would be adding to it. I purposely didn't include a cadence, I did include a deadline but the intention is that this again would not take awe way from staff's time or take precedence over the fca and/or redefining. So, again, the intent of these items is to add to the conversations about redefining in our facilities conditions assessment and I'll end with the cost of not doing this is great and long lasting, I'm excited if these items pass that broward county could be a pioneer
367in this work and help contribute to the resiliency and the sustainability of this county. Thank you. MRS. Alhadeff. thank you. so, I like the item. However, I don't know the practicality of executing and implement thirsting with the ability for staff's time and the financial impact of this. it does say there's no financial impact to the district for the discussion but if we approve this, these items, then the superintendent will have to implement it and there will be a financial impact and I can't vote on something na I have no idea at all what the financial impact of it would be. It also speaks to in the recommended action to undertake the next steps, identify privateer green advisory's recommendation so, when you scroll down to all those recommendations, again, great ideas, really supe r important but
368what is the financial impact of that, what is the impact of staff's time to be able to execute redefining broward county public schools and all the other niche yat I fevers that we have for our district. So, it's difficult for me to vote yes on this when with I don't know the financial impact and I don't know the impact to staff's time to be able to execute these things with fidelity. So, like for example, provide shade and shelter for outdoor play. Awesome, what's the financial impact of that. Incorporate solar panels, lover that, I've been saying that for 7 years and we haven't implemented solar panels. Also is there a way to work with our fpl or our other organizations to be able to implement some of these amazing niche yat I reverses, and again, these
369are great ideas and maybe we could take a smaller bite at this, maybe there's something the superintendent would feel comfortable with executing and implementing but this is a lot, so I would recommend the green advisory committee come back with a smaller recommendation, something, you know, low hanging fruit possibly that we could actually execute and then the following year do the same thing so taking smaller bites of this instead of all of this at one time. Thank you very much. thank you. MADAM Chair? DR. Holness? thank you so much. So, -- no, I have a list of people, you didn't mark that you wanted to speak so I'll add you to the list. Er I'm sorry, thank you, MADAM Chair, I appreciate that. MRS. Bulman? thank you, MADAM Chair. Thank you to MS. Leonardi for bringing
370these so expeditiously and thank you to the green committee for all of your hard work and for devising such comp hence -- comprehensive recommendations, there's a great group of people I've had the privilege of working with over the past months so I'm glad everyone is on board with these particular items. I don't think we can overstate the importance of addressing these issues, there's always going to be a cost component here. It is with great dismay over the past 14 years that we've watched -- that I have personally watched the smart bond be executed without having these things be an integral part of the improvements that we've been doing to the district. I think that was a big MISS On our part that should have been happening for years because we have been on notice for
371r quite some timeme at we have to drdress thesissusu.. And to MS. Ferdic's point or maybe it was DR. Jermanovich's, pay now or pay more later and there's also my favorite which is being penny wise and pound foolish, you can save money now or pretend like it's going cost too much money and at the end of the day, we're going to be held standing here holding the bag of destruction and loss of assess and of potential health implications to our kids for not having proper sun protection because -- things of that nature. i personally fully support ut putting and investing in these two items. I also support other areas such as composting and -- there's a lot of things we need to be doing as leaders in this county and protecting our kids, protecting our
372employees and so I fully support this and thank you, MS. Leonardi. thank you, MS. Thompson? thank you, chair, I also want to thank MS. Leonardi for bringing this to the board. I will admit this is not my wheel house at all, but I do think it's important and correct me if I'm wrong because I remember from the workshop that broward county is already doing some of this assessment, so some of this would just be staff getting with the county. Yeah. So, I feel that's one burden. And alleviated a little built. Is this the idea that this would be a plan brought to and you say we would vote on if there's any financial -- a plan created by staff with research being brought by broward county. it says develop sustainability and resilient building standards and
373design specifications. And then the other one says develop comprehensive flood and heat vulnerability and risk assessment. so, with that in mind, i approve of vote, I'll be voting yes on both. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. I have a couple of questions on board member alhadeff's concern and thank you, board leonardi, for bring these two items, I think they're great. There are concerns regarding current and possibly emerging costs to doing this and I thank board member bulman for her comment as well, you'll pay later for trying to save now. I would like the superintendent to provide some context as far as cost, if there is, or what you can foresee as possible costs to doing these. I would like your input if you don't mind. DR. Hepburn? thanks for the question, DR. Holness, what I
374can gather is it's about developing a plan and bringing that plan back to the board far discussion with a due date of I think it was JUNE 2026, so roughly a little bit over a year to bring that information -- a plan back. I think the only cost if we want to associate a cost to this is just staff and their time. Of course we have certain priorities we're working on and we'll work on this with a specific cadence and collaborating with the county administrator and then I'm pretty sure with the county administrator, we can move in different directions based on whoever else they're working with but I agree that this is something that is right in front of our face and I was born and raised here in florida. The things I enjoyed as
375a youth in my time in florida, you can't enjoy them very much these days because of the heat and the flooding and it's specific to south florida on an annual basis, the only costs I see right now is time but I do want to caution the board this won't be an initiative we're going the dive in immediately during the summer because we have to focus on some things to get schools ready and open and plus some redefining but we'll have a plan in collaboration work witching the county administrator and their team to really understand how we can address some of these concerns and build an effective plan we can bring back to the board in a workshop and maybe I can get MR. [Inaudible] To do a joint workshop, but, yeah, so we can --
376this isn't a solution, it's just a broward county public school it is a broward county solution. Er thank you for that input, DR. Hepburn, so you don't see any significant cost associated with the ask of naoez two items at this point that you would be -- that we have to be concerned about? no, not at this time. I think just the cost is just time, nothing monetary as far as purchasing services. okay, great. MADAM Chair, so I will be supporting both and thank you board member leonardi, for bringing these forward. Thank you. thank you, MRS. Rupert? thank you, sarah. I appreciate it and I appreciate the green -- I'm going call you the green team and all the speakers here today and I want to thank DR. Hepburn for bringing a smile to my face
377when you talked about growing up in south florida. I didn't really grow up here but my parents bought a house in 1971, prior to that, we would all come down, all six kids, my mom and dad, drive in the big station wagon, go from new york to here and we stayed at the nautilus hotel, it was hollywood at the time. One of my fondest memories as a kid was walking on the beach at night time and there wasn't a turnover lights, so this is foreshadowing, you could see the sea turtles out with the the moonlight and how everybody got together to help turn them around because they were going towards a1a and tafs sweet memory that I have seen and I'm afraid if we don't do something, then our children will never have that or
378our grandchildren. It's extremely important that we take care of the beauty that is here in broward county, the state and our whole country, I will be supporting both of these and any way that we possibly can, you know, because this is extremely important, so thank you so much. thank you, DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair. I want to just ask a question to you, chair, about the building standards and design specs. You know, building those is one thing, but then building buildings with them is another thing. And we don't do a lot of brand new buildings but we do some and hopefully we'll have some in the plan going forward but my understanding of this is we're going to spend time designing -- building those design specs and then when it comes time to
379build thing ins the future websinger eel be building thing that is are far more resilient for what we know is to be a dramatically different environment for those building advising buildings we built 40, 50 years -- that are with us today. What we're building is a standard in specs which will then be applied over time as we build more buildings, is that correct? DR. Hepburn? I have rt fn't heard from -- I haven't heard from MS. Paul, I will give her the opportunity to dive into this situation. Er superintendent hepburn, thank you for the opportunity. Yes, and one of the things that has been used as a standard is lead to build buildings that are more energy efficient and resilient and so forth. So, we have incorporated some things in our design specs but this
380is a great opportunity to look at what we can do and it's also an opportune opportunity since we're looking at our fca, doing the fca now, so, I think that it's a great initiative. Of course the success will depend on the collaboration with the county and the cities and so forth in regards to flooding, but yes, I think that just to do the study and to look at it is an advantage going forward. thank you so much, chair. I also want to see about the DR. Horado joint meeting if that's something of great interest to us. I serve on the broward planning council and her insights into sustainability and green are absolutely shocking. what she know and is the data the county has collected, they've taken the lead in gathering mountains data but we're the
381largest landowner in broward, it would make sense to both have them give tus once over the moon related to sustainability and resilience because she knows some thing that is are just really insightful and then if the superintendent is willing, there's this natural need for the broward county commission and broward county school commission to have a joint meeting and hear what's going on in resilience so the steps we're taking in conjunction with them could be better aligned. Right now they're aligned bought I attend their meet advising try to mover it forward but it would be far more likely for these things to stay aligned if some day we had a joint meeting, so chair, how do we organize something like that to get it done? DR. Hepburn? great question, firsts is just it takes contact and
382collaboration with the county administrator and really diving into the discovery on our part with the resource and is the work they've already initiated and probably have done thus far and seeing how we can align ourselves with the same vision for the county and figure out a cadence to bring a workshop probably later on in the fall or probably sometime in the spring. So, just monica and I sitting down together and mapping that out. and I wonder if we can make a decision today about having DR. Horado dom one of our workshops this fall and maybe having a joint meeting on this specific issue, this is an issue that's worthy of an extra meeting, so that we can get the insight and follow in the footsteps of the commission that got out ahead of us. So,
383chair, how could we effect that so we could do the workshop that DR. Horado could come? we'll make the contacts and see what we can work out in the schedule. I don't want to say a specific time but we'll speak to her. they asked through me to make that happen, they are interested in the joint meeting as well, so just from that connection, that's great and I look forward to moving forward with the new standards, there's a lot of cool things going on in our capital business with the fca coming to the and with some money come back through the next year's allocation and moving forward if we have these standards in place, project by project we'll see what the additional cost is but I can't imagine building future buildings without doing this and to
384MS. Rupert, the chief facilities and I officer were touring, this was in MAY and it was almost impossible to be outside in the facilities they had with the white sand underneath, like really tawdry playground equipment in that place, going in and out of portables which is what their entire structure is right now, seeing the insufficient standards we have for their lunch line and their lunchroom, they're eating in six different sections of lunch for the 600 kids there, I cannot wait to get that done but that playground was another reminder that those kids can't really stay out there for more than ten minutes and that's just not kind of broward county's way of doing things, so I know markham is a big interest item of this board but it just reminded me of how mucher we
385have to plan for the environment to be different. It is different now than it was and it's going to be different in the future and we have to respond responsibly, thank you. can I have on that point just 30 seconds? sure. thank you, thank you, and I tell you this every time, thank you, and every one of you, go to my schools, for such a long time, it was just me raising up that banner and trying to say help me help our kids, I'm happy it is all of us together so,, thank you again and I really want to thank DR. Licata and DR. Hepburn for pushing a lot on robert markham, if not, they would still be going around not having cafeteria and trays for them to be able to push forward. Thank you,
386sir, and I thank DR. Licata as well. Er thanks, I'll go and MS. Alhadeff wants to close us out. So, I appreciate very much the items coming forward. I just am a bit frustrated because from the first time that I was here if I'm not mistaken, we have directed the superintendent to do better standards for buildings. We've had the discussion, we've directed him but I think this is probably the first time we've maybe actually done a vote. It wasn't necessarily you, it's been different superintendents waez eve gone along which was part of my discussion the workshop that we have directed the superintendent staff to build buildings we knew we couldn't afford lead per se but we could do some of the lead standards on our buildings and that -- and everyone nodded and said yes,
387absolutely, we agree with you, MRS. Alhadeff had talked about solar panels and we did vote on this as a board in our defp a number of times. So, I hope that if we vote for this, that it doesn't fall into the same cadence that we've had. Yes, it sounds great and then nothing is really happening, so I appreciate this, I know it's valid. We've known that for the last five years and we've asked for it, so I'm hoping that if this passes, it will be an action item, not something that just we said yes to the board to. So, thank you. And MRS. Alhadeff, you'll finish us out. again, I want to make myself clear, I think these recommendations are awesome, however, we do not know the financial impact of any of these recommendations. You
388are agreeing to do these things, you have no idea what it costs this district. I will say it again, you do not know the cost of these recommendations. That is a problem, you can't vote on something that you don't know the financial impact of it. So, you have things that say ensure consistency across new construction and renovations, embedding climate smart design principles into every phase of the development. What does that cost? Address site level flooding risk through better retention and green infrastructure, what does that cost? I know I have four huge trees in one of my schools that's causing flooding into the school. Well, guess what, it's not being finked because we don't have money to fix it but we're saying that we're going to implement this. I want it to be fixededelded but we
389don't know what the cost is but we're just going to approve this without knowing what the cost is. Support efficient and heat mitigation reducing operational costs, great, what is the cost to do that? We just put four million dollars at msd with four ac unit tos do this, so we're going do that now at every school, do we have money to did that, where it coming from, from the budget. Every playground should have a shade and shelter, I agree. Solar panels, absolutely, we haven't done that one, we've only talked about it for 7 years. Lighting, well tha, costs money, seating. I'm just staining and then there's all these next steps so, my recommendation in the requested action is that we change the word undertake to consider, so I mover to direct the superintendent to develop
390a plan for sustainability and resilient building standards and design specifications for bcps and consider the next steps identified by the green advisory committee recommendations. is there a second? second. okay. Any comment on the motion? Okay, board discussion, DR. Zeman? Go ahead. I'll never talk in front of mary ferdic. I'm speaking on this one, you've been considering a long time and what's happened in those years and how much has that cost us? Yes, I was there walking the edge with some of the neighborhoods in our district and we know it impacted our schools so I'm going to make it 45 seconds again, it shouldn't take this long consider the fact that this should have happened a long time ago and you need to mover ahead. Every school needs to have the mitigation they need for heat,
391every school needs to help us mover into the future, so please support doing this and thank you. thank you, next speaker. thank you for considering this. I just want to point out that we are making a plan, a staff cannot set policy. These design standards are not just going to go into place, they have to come back to the board, they're going to have to be considered and you're going to have to make a a decision as a board whether you want these thing ins the future. What we're asking is for staff to look at all of these things in the context of current operations and come back, hopefully less tlan a year, at least in a year o bring you all information to make informed decisions. With all due respect, we are deciding what
392schools to keep, potentially what schools to close and we're not looking at what schools might be under water physically. We had parents coming and asking, begging to fix things because they couldn't pick their kids up because roads were under water, we have the start considering these things as par of our planning process and this is just the first step. thank you. Next public speaker. hank you so ch.. Withthdue respecect to member al de -- alhadeff, she was the one pushing the solar panels on our schools so legislature was considering it, that is so important. The point is we're all saying is we are going to be with the next hurricane using our schools for public shelters and whether or not -- you know torx say it more simply, I don't know how we can mover
393forward making any decisions with respect to any of our facilities and using our resources without the information that these very important studies provide to each and every one of you. We are going to be facing hurricane storms, you know, the storm that we had a few years ago was not a one off or an every day occurrence, it is only going to get worse. We need the information these studies will provide to move forward. Thank you so much to all of you. thank you, board member discussion? DR. Zeman? I think these standards are kind of best put in the context of us buying a house. None of us would buy a house that didn't have some kind of survey, some kind of exploration of flood zones, exploration of things because the environment has changed and
394will change, that a house built in 1957 in a flood zone, you're going learn about it and figure out how much to pay for it, it will be less if it has no resilience, it's no doubt, there's no doubt we'll build smaller or fewer buildings if we adopt these standards, I think we flexed to do this study so see what the trade off is, we flexed to know the value of these things, not just the cost. My own view, we as individual would never buy a house that's on the same standards as one of our schools, we'd never make a decision at know the standards without knowing the resiliency of that building. If we're going to get the fca and make decisions about repurposing at some point, implicit in that has to be some kind
395of consideration and some appraisal of the resilience of the facility wes have and whether or not we want to pay the extra money to go green in leads or in any other way go with resiliency. I don't view this as tremendous staff effort but I do view it as a way sto allow us to see that value and then we'll compare that value to the cost and the costs are easy. We know if we had this design, it will cost more to build the library at the high school websinger have to figure out what that value is, if we're going to build a new value and it will last ten years because of flooding, tla's not a good deal. So, these are thing that is modern facility management requires and I think these are very
396responsible steps. We're not spending any money in this right now websinger ear establishing standards and try to learn about resiliency, probably a little bit behind schedule but we're on our way toward learning this here in the balance of the year. Thanks, chair. thank you. MRS. Bulman? I agree with DR. Zeman and I think looking at it, I don't know if we could put a different word in that because we are just developing a plan right now is my understanding, correct? That's the intention of both of these motions is to develop a plan, so, you know, we've got the facilities assessment coming back, we have to do this, assess the resiliency and sustainability and then both of those things are going to inform what we do with redefining, so I don't see how we could not
397be doing this right now to -- otherwise we're going to be throwing money away because we're going to have ten years later, if with we build a library that's going to fund, we lost a lot of money. I agree with you. MRS. Alhadeff? I would tliek get clarification on undertaking the next steps, does that guarantee us when we undertake the next steps that we are now required to do it thus having to pay for it? DR. Hepburn? from my understanding with this item, it's about bringing a plan. I will not be undertaking any additional steps, aisle bring that novembers -- information to the board and also that will be accompanied with our financials also so the board has a clear understanding of where we can go, it's more about bringing a plan to show the
398work of the discovery and working with the county administrator and their team. Er so I support what you're saying, DR. Hepburn, and words matter. The way I'm interpreting this, maybe the word needs to change, that's why I put consider other than undertake. I don't want us behoove to this plan to be able to implement this and we have no idea what it's going to cost. MS. Jacque adams. Er my question to staff is what is your intention -- the person who brought this item, what MRS. Leonardi, what is the intention of the definition of the word undertake? so, you want me to answer that or staff? so, my response would be to get an understanding of what that word actually means to you, do you mean for it to be an action word to not
399only plan but execute? I believe the plan would encompass what it would be to undertake those next steps. then perhaps a different word would be in order instead of the word undertake. Er appointive clarification, chair, if MS. Leonardi's item has has no financial impact, doesn't that imply that those steps are staff steps, they're coordination steps, let's build a big spreadsheet of things we could do some day for these different kind of buildings. Undertake usually means staff work for which we don't pay anything extra, we just have the staff to put together to do it. I don't see any financial impact identified in this, therefore I don't see anything going through the superintendent to the cfo to create a new contract or anything and if any of that happened, they would have to come back to
400us to talk about that because the item doesn't have a financial impact statement in it. Er that is true, it neats a double letter item that requires a financial impact, but words are important, so if there is a possibility that the word entails something more than what you originally intended, then perhaps like the word undertake, if it actually means something a little bit more than what was originally intended, then perhaps choose a different word that is less -- a different word that's that suggests less action. which is the motion on the floor. yes. MRS. Hall deaf?Frjts so, undertake needs to commit to doing something. That's why I put the word consider, when you scroll down to the financial impact, it say there is niece opinionsabler impact to district for the discussion, potential impacts will be
401based on the superintendent's implementation of the board's direction which our direction is for him to undertake the next steps identified in the green advisory committee. I think MRS. Leonardi's been clear though that the idea was they're making a plan, bringing it back to us and when we get the information, we would vote on what things we wanted the superintendent to implement, but MRS. Bulman? I think maybe we can clarify this. I know MS. Alhadeff has a motion pending and my procedure here is cloudy, but if we just change the language a little bit to direct the superintendent -- like the way that I would -- I'm just writing out some notes here, direct the superintendent to develop sustainability and resilient building standards and design specifications for broward county schools and a plan as to how
402best -- advising how best to undertake the next steps identified by the green advisory committee's recommendations, or something that clarifies that the superintendent's bringing us back a plan, not taking steps without our -- are you making a substitute motion? I guess I'm making a substitute motion. okay. then I had similar language for b4. Er second. Er okay. public comment on the motion? So, could you repeat what you said just, MRS. Bulman? I'll try to because my handwriting is terrible, direct the superintendent to develop sustainability and se sill yent building standards and design specifications for broward county schools and a plan advising how best to undertake the next steps identified by the green advisory committee's recommendations passed on MAY 8, 2025. perfect, it was seconded by MRS. Alhadeff. Okay. Any board discussion? I personally think it
403resolves the concern and speaks more directly to what MRS. Leonardi's idea was, but if she wants to address that? no, I'm good. all those in favor of the substitute motion, say aye. aye. any opposed? Great. So, we'll go back to -- you said you had something for b4 also? yeah, if I MAY. let's just vote on b3 and then -- all those in favor of b3 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed? Okay, great, so b4? MRS. Bulman? okay. So, my -- just the little change I would put in there to the same kind of situation, direct the superintendent to conduct a comprehensive flood and heat vulnerability and risk assessment and provide a plan for undertaking the next steps identified by the green committee's recommendations follow-up? second. Er any public comment on the motion? Board
404member discussion on the motion? All those in favor of motion, say aye. aye. fully opposed? so, back to b4, all those in favor of b4 as a amended, say aye. aye. any opposed, motion carries unanimously as amended. Thank you so much. Now we're going to go back to o4 since DR. Holness is on the line. Can I have a motion and a second for o4? so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Rupert, any public comment on o4? there's no registered speakers for o4. great, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, I just had a concern about this item, it indicates that [Inaudible] Money offers fielded rates, six payment employees brought into your loan and it also indicate that is the program allows school board employees who MAY have otherwise been able
405to choose high price al tern tier and is short term borrowing needs precluding them from [Inaudible] Responsibly and paying off their debts, so the concern is we are terminating this particular vendor and I don't see the rationale, is there a reason why we are voting to terminate without cause the [Inaudible] Money for providing services, one of the vendors as the pool of supplemental vendors? MR. Sullivan I'm going to turn it over to MS. Paul to see if she has anything to add to the question. I'm just kidding. general counsel? I just wanted to mention that this termination is without cause, so I wanted to be careful to not to start to create statements of cause because this is not a termination with cause, it's a termination with cause. okay, so MADAM Chair, through the superintendent,
406do we have any added identification besides the exec tier summary that was provided to us? MR. Sullivan?Frjs I think the collage with general counsel's advice, it's best for us to not to continue with the line of questioning. because pursuant to the contract, you have a choice to go ahead and terminate the agreement with cause or without cause, so you can choose to proceed to terminate without cause by just following the terms of the contract by giving notice as required by the contract. okay. Okay, thank you, MADAM Chair. DR. Zeman? thank you so much. I'm struck in reading through the 9667 pages of material that even though we can't talk about publicly why we are terminating without cause, there are 4215 employees at broward county schools that are either actively borrowing money from bmg or have
407recently and have an account open, I'm not exactly sure what the 4215, that's a lot of people, chair, for us to terminate a contract and to not -- I guess I would make sense, MS. Adams, for us to talk about the impact on those 4215, would that comply with our canceling this without cause? so, in speaking about the particular impact, is that going into your rationale or reason as to why you're going terminate? no, it has nothing do with terminate, that's a lot of people and like this board is compassionate and we would like to know what's going to happen to 4215 people who have borrowed money through this organization and maybe somebody has a plan that I would tliek talk about more. I apologize, so that would be a question that you have that
408you seek an answer to, correct? yes. DR. Hepburn? We're going to take a two minute recess. (Meet ing in recess). welcome back to the regular school board meeting. So, we left off with DR. Zeman asking if someone could explain what happens to the employees who were part of this contract now that it's being terminated. and chair f you don't mind so we can get one complete answer, what happen tos the 4215, I understand we've xhao u communicated with them, what happen tos the next 4215 people that have wanted to take advantage of these kinds of more reasonable loans than some of the payday loans, what is the broward county school board's plan for serving those people going forward? DR. Hepburn? DR. Oliver? it's an employment services, thank you, so for employees that MAY be interested
409in obtaining a loan after the contract, if the board votes to cancel the contract, then they have the ability to go directly to the vendor being g money for a loan, for those employees that currently have a loan, their deductions will continue to come out of their biweekly paychecks. then I would like to make a suggestion, chair, let me know if we can do this by asking the superintendent or by making a formal motion, there are other organizations that do this, some of them are non-profits, some of them are benefit corporations, some of them are specific to school districts and they will do things like interest-free loans for a certain amount of money, it's not for thousands of dollars but it's for hundreds dollars. Can we ask the superintendent without action to look into these
410alternate providers of these loans to see if we can offer something to the folksiest that might benefit from that? MS. Batista? it looks like this was an rfp. And I don't know if there is any type of an exemption to be able to just directly make dealings or do dealings with entities or vendors without going through that process again. just to be clear, chair, I'm fine with the process of going through it, it could be there's some expedited ways to make agreements with these things that aren't formal rfp's or itb's or piggybacks in other ways to get to them. What I'm concerned about is there are people, 4215 of them, who have taken advantage of this service. There's also a number of vendors that now do this particularly for school strict at no cost to
411the employees. So, if we're going to do this without cause, we're going to separate with this vendor, we've notify ted people that boar ried the money, if there are vendors that is do it at low cost, can we please accelerate a replacement for this, you know, within the next 60 days for example. DR. Hepburn? no further questions, back to MS. Ba bis -- batista, to make sure we're aligning ourselves, is there a current rfp process we're terminating without cause? I believe that DR. Zeman is only looking for exploration of other vendors. Er we can do that, yes. am I right there's a lot of people that work for you that have used this service, aren't you concerned we don't have it anymore? yes, but we can look into that. We'll start with our neighbor who
412has a bank right here. yes, sir, there are folks that go to our amazing conferences that try to talk to us about things ins the hallway, several of them have talked about this idea there have been some none profit and benefit corporations who have purported to do this out of the goodness of their heart for free for people who work for school districts, if that's born out by your research, that could be grade, but our staff often don't make living wages, our staff often face the exact same inflationary pressures on gas and property taxes and they have used this in big numbers, 4215, and I'm worried about the next 4215, thank you so much for communicating that all out, nice transition with bmg, I believe as a district with 27 thousand or so employees, we
413have buying power to go to an institution and say, hey we caner ear a pretty big institution with -- can you give us the same great deal you've given other district sos we can get that in place as soon as possible. Thank you for your service. my pleasure. all those in favor of item o4? MADAM Chair? Fshlgts DR. Holness? I have a couple of quick questions, this question is for MS. Be t is -- batista f a board member votes no on this item, there any consequence to the board member? MS. Batista? well, sort of like trying to read between the lines of what you're asking me, so the answer is no. Clearly the recommendation from staff is to approve the termination without cause and exercise the termination for convenience because bmg is no longer
414administering the contract in the same way that was consistent with the payroll schedules. I understand so, my last question, DR. Hepburn, this is your recommendation to terminate without cause, correct, sir? correct. okay. Thank you. thank you, all those in favor of item 04, say aye. aye. any opposed? motion carries minus MRS. Alhadeff. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay, now -- this is the time of the agenda when school board members will hear from our evening speakers. We do not have any evening speakers so we'll continue with our item, I just didn't want anyone to think we skipped that part. So, we will move on to item jj4. No one pulled jj4. We will mover on to jj5. Can I have a motion and a second on jj5? so moved. Er.Inger ice been moved by MS. Thompson,
415sebd by DR. Zeman, any public comment on jj5? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you so much, chair, two quick points, one, I know we're trying to get this fixed but it's maddening to see items clogging up our item for an thousand dollar change order. unknown participant is now exiting. Er I hope we can get that fixed today or sooner, and second, this is markham and of course if you do anything in mar come, will this have any impact the commitment we made to open this school on the first day of 2027. DR. Hepburn? that doesn't affect that commitment ensuring the school oes open for the up kolcoming school year. thank you, all those in favor of item jj5, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries without MRS. Alhadeff and MR. Cervera and DR. Wholeness. The
416next item is jj10, can I have a motion and a second. it's been moved by MS. Thompson, second by MRS. Rupert, any public comment? no, ma'am. she's not here. Careful, I didn't see that. just for the record keeping chair, I think DR. Holness voted yes, you said he didn't vote, I heard a yes in the background. he hung up before we took the vote. terrific. at some point, you have to trust me here, DR. Zeman. e we have only two years, ma'am. sorry. Okay. Can I have a motion to postpone jj10 until MRS. Hall -- alhadeff comes back? second. Er we're going come back to jj10. J11, can I have a motion ask a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson, any public comment? no, ma'am. okay, MRS. Bulman? I had
417the pleasure of speaking to MS. Paul who answered my questions. I wanted to point out the fact what she told me, everyone will be moving out of the current space and finding the new accommodations will be considerably cheaper and I asked her about comps because those are less rent than what we're going to be renting but she advised that we we'll be moving into a turn-key property so there won't be any of the costs associated with doing a build out or anything so that would take care of the difference between some of the comps that were provided, so I think it's great. thank you, MS. Thompson? thank you, that was one of my questions but also I feel like we might have building space -- office space either here or in some of our schools
418so I'm concerned that we're going out of our building capacity and paining for rental space, -- paying for rental space, I was wonder ifing we could get the answer for that. we have two additional admin buildings, we're moving our academic team tos make room for those two administrative site tos move into here, so most of our space that we have at the schools that can accommodate our academic teams, they'll be taken up, then the spaces that can accommodate those academic teams, we're looking forward to working with some partners to occupy that space, but the tssc main building and annex folks will be moving in here to free up space, so not a lot of admin space, that's why we are utilizing the space that [Inaudible] Has allowed us to lease from them to accommodate the
419staff that had to move out of the rock island facility. we've sold that property. they're waiting for us to get up out of it. Er thank you fm all those in favor o f jj11, say aye. Motion carries waout dr. zeman, MR. Cervera and DR. Holness. Can I have a motion and a second o bring jj10 back to the floor. it's been moved by MS. Thompson seconded by MRS. Rupert. MRS. Alhadeff? yes, on the jj10, I just wanted staff to clarify to the board in regards to portables because the board was given some information in the past board meeting in regards to portables that if we knocked down the portables, we were told that would help us with our ratio to be able to build a new school but I'm understanding now that is not
420actually true and there is different information regarding the portables. DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul, if you can expound on that one? so, based on our conversation we had yesterday, I just verified the information that you provided me. Portables are not permanent capacity, so that's not computed in terms of seat space. So, -- or unit stations, so that information was incorrect now and it was incorrect when with I was in palm beach and it's the same information. You don't use temporary buildings to compute student station. Now there is one caveat, at one time in my previous district, we had a concrete building, and that was used as permanent capacity. same here for -- yeah. Modular, and we singed to call them concrete ables, those count as permanent apses. well, thank you for clarifying that sx, I would
421just say in our redefining process, I think it's important for us to be understanding when we close a school, how much space that opens up for that ratio, that number for us to vefrmgly -- eventually be able to build a new school. Thank you. thank you, all nose if favor of item jj10, say aye. aye. any opposed? It passes unanimously minus DR. Holness? Okay, next item is oo8, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson, any public comment? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman? thanks. This is an item, chair, about bylining software for bus outlining. Is this software we have bought before?Frjts DR. Hepburn? yes, that's an affirmative. and do we have the data that we think we need to have in order to feed this model?
422DR. Hepburn? yes. and what outcome would we expect from buying this model? DR. Hepburn? thanks, MS. Hixon, building more e pisht and effective routes, the others are manual with paper and pen and bus drivers being in a rooming together. Systems like this help to make sure that process is way more efficient and effective when it come tos building routes for students. are there assumptions made of the number of streets and things like that ra tha are not decreed by law or statute tor that are decisions being made by our transportation team about things, again, not conflicting with law or statute, let's just say we follow all of that, are there other decisions being made by our transportation team that affect the routing of students? yes, that's when the boots op the ground and the expertise
423of our drivers and their teams, it could be specific ese route, it could be a specific route where it's a dead end street in a 72 passenger bus can't get down there and turn around, those type of aspects that need that human knowledge to be able to address those type of routes. terrific, it's fair to tell people we're singing this model to establish a baseline route but human beings, bus route and is transportation systems make adjustments required, if a student is blocked for construction, they're authorized to make the safest and best route possible ?Frjts correct. Er thank you. okay, all those in favor of item oo8, say aye. Er aye. o f any opposed? It assess unanimously. Next is oo12, can I have a motion ask a second. It's moved by MRS. Rupert. Seconded by
424MRS. Bulman. Any public discussion on oo12? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair. If I could just get to my questions. Thank you. This is the purchase of elevation, is that correct? DR. Hepburn? MRS. Paul? [Inaudible] no, I'm sorry, this is the one on csnp, the expansion. yes. this is terrific, how many of these contractors are new contractors? I can have MS. Andreu answer that question. thank you, if I could just do a second one while you're coming up to the podium, how many of them are minority owned veteran firms? good afternoon, jennifer andreu, exec tier director of operations. These are not new contractors, we are doing in a second amendment, so these contractors have been working with us, there are 13 of them. Of the 13, I'm stringing to count, I think
425six or 7 are -- it's listed on page 3 of the executive summary, are certified. just the last question, there's a lot of smmp project that is are eligible, is 46 million 500 sufficient for an authorized spend to do all the work we might do over the next three years? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? this is what we know right ngo now, if we need additional spend authority, we'll come back to the board. thank you. all those if favor of oo12, say aye. aye. any opposed? Item passes unanimously. Next item is oo14. Can I have a motion ask a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Rupert, any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman?Frjts thank you, chair. This is an item to purchase lunch trays, so I just wanted to bring this forward.
426I talked to MS. Paul. The trays are compostable and it's very important we're addressing our solid waste issues in addition to the other green niche yat i fevers we're talking about. This is a timely topic to bring up as well, so I'm happy that the trays are compostable but the next step would of course be to compost them instead of throwing them away so we're working on -- we'll be working on that too, right, DR. Hepburn? absolutely. and then looking forward in the same vain asthe other grn niniche yat I fevers, ever -- niche yat yat -- niche yat I yat initiatives, I think going away instead of throwing away, we can do lunch and things of that nature, if we're going spend 8 million dollars on trays, we could probably be looking a at
427our systems and putting that money into different areas or investing a little more money so we're not spending 8 million dollars a year on trays. Thank you. thank you. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. I had a question regarding the extensions, specifically according to the executive summary, looks like the additional spending authority lapse or lapses today on JUNE 17 and we've opted to not only invoke the firsts -- the optional first additional extension but the second optional second extension as well. I'm just wondering why we're doing both at the same time. Normally you invoke your first right to extend, then a time period will elapse and you do the second one, are we opting in to a better price, I'm wondering procedurally why we're invoking both exceptions at this time period? go ahead, MS. Andreu.
428Er good afternoon, we're not doing both extensions right now, we're only doing the one year. You will see though the request is being made for the spend authority that is at the request of the board in earlier conversations to be more efficient, so in the event that the owner department food and nutrition would like to use the -- utilize these service ins the future, we could do so via memorandum from the superintendent to the board notifying the board that we're going to in essence do another extension. what we're society -- voting on today would invoke the two extensions in the agreement with the understanding if the second extension were to be invo elg voeked, it would not have to come before this board for a vote, it could be done by the district? through policy,
429we had a revision to the purchasing policy, 3800, so again right now and MS. Batista can correct me, but I believe you are really approving the up to amount, the spend authority and one year extension. And then again it would come to you via memorandum from the superintendent because he has authority to -- if the user department and everybody agrees, that we are still getting the best prices, they have the authority to approve it and just transmit a memorandum notifying the board. MS. Batista, do you agree? MS. Batista? we're working on changes to policy 3800 as we speak. One of them is the request from staff to kind of do things in the way that andreu has explained so that the board doesn't see as many contracts as they are now. We'll still have a
430contract but it will be approved by legal and then signed off by the superintendent as opposed to having to come for approval to the board. understood, thank you. thank you. MS. Thompson? I was able to get my question answered by staff. great, MRS. Leonardi? to MS. Bulman's point about composting the trays, I know that -- it was I guess more than a couple of months ago back in SEPTEMBER, staff was working on applying for usda grant to work on composting in our schools and I'm wondering, I don't know if it's staff follow-up, I'm wondering if that ever came to fruition? we can provide a follow up, I have to follow up with the grantees team. Er thank you, all those in favor of oo14, say aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Next item is oo18,
431can I have a motion and a second? so moved. Er moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Rue per, any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair. This was -- sorry, let me just grab this really quick. So, I really like the idea of having the digital library in addition to the physical library. I mean, I think people are using that all the time in practice, library patrons. My question is there was something in here that indicated that it was cheaper to have digital books over physical books and so I was -- I would like to know what our kind of philosophy is on that, one, because I think if you're going away from physical books which I don't support in full, all the students would have to have some way to read
432the books and not on a computer because that's not a great way to read a book, and also like what -- are we still going to be stocking physical books, particularly for the little kids. There's just -- you can't recreate that experience when you're looking at a kindel. DR. Hepburn? yes, and the eye doctors, they're getting a lot of business because of that. DR. Wilson? yes, in relationship to the digital expansion for our libraries, we are looking o have a hybrid model because we do not want to get rid of all paper bound books especially the classics that can be held as ar kao ifred information for students as reference points. We are basically trying to make sure with the upcoming and rising costs of paper back books, hard copy books which could go to
433-- $20 or more when you do have access to digital, most of our students based on circulation are checking out more of our digital resources when they have the ability to, many of our students do, we would not be doing that at the expense or in lieu of having books for circulation for physical circulation. thank you. All those if favor of item oo18, say aye. aye. any opposed, motion passes unanimously. Nester item is 0021, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. DR. Zeman? I'm curious, chair, how does this fit in to the entire mosaic of our financial strategy?Frjts MS. Hollingsworth? good there noon, saemone hollingsworth, I know MS. Egen is here, it does fit in but this is specifically for our student widths disabilities
434for parentally placed. we have certain contracts who need a restrictive environment, it's envisioned by being presently placed, our real is their educational needs are met, so we provide a teacher or we facilitate making sure they get their services so it is part of our overall mental health plan for student that is transition back, we support the families getting back into the school system as well. and chair, is this amount the 1.048 million dollars starting today, is it sufficient to take care of all of the need in this population? DR. Hepburn? MS. Eagan. we increased the space authority because there's been an increase in fte's, it was originally written for the average, we found an inyaoes, we had to meet the needs of the students we're servicing there. Er thank you. item oo21, say aye. any
435opposed? Motion passes ewe man mousey. Okay. Next is item pp3, can I have a motion and a second. Er so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Rupert. Any public comment? no. MRS. Alhadeff? what proact tier measures are we taking to prevent dating violence and abuse? DR. Hepburn? MRS. Hollingsworth. I see DR. Washington walking up. good afternoon, everyone. Jodie washington, task assigned director, we have preventative curriculum that we implement in our schools that help prevent teen dating violence websinger have required training that all of our middle and high-schoolers do through the resiliency lessons and our teachers of our middle and high school students have to take annual training in recognizing the signs of teen dating violence and abuse and how to report it. and is the preventative curriculum in the sex education
436curriculum that's the last two weeks of school? there are portions of it within there, there is required instruction that is included within the resiliency let's son t the sex ed curriculum is not the only source where they get the prevention of teen violence. I would just recommend that we try to do more proactively and start the beginning of the school year to make sure we're creating proact tier measures. Thank you. thank you, MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. Looking at subsection 5, excuse me, section 5, subsection c, I believe this sentence or is purported to be a sentence needs work, it states the parents or guardian of youth involved in a a dating violence or abuse complaint except if such note -- notification is not the best interest or impair it is student involved, I
437think that's an incomplete sentence, number one. I number two, I'm not sure if the intent of this sentence was to create a car route for which a parent would not be notified if their children was involved in an alleged ins dents. If that was the case, certainly I would take a prem den nows amount of issue with leading a painter in the dark if their child was subject to one of the incidences which was outlined with this purported policy. To take that in order, I guess my first question is am I the obl one that's read hating as an incomplete sentence? Subsection -- I'm sorry, section 5, numeral v, subsection c as in charlie. My grammar teacher would be very happy that I caught that. yeah, it's missing a noun or something. I don't know
438if the procedure at this point then would be to strike that subsection or if perhaps a motion with new purported language would be appropriate. Certainly I don't think it should stand how it is. MS. Batista? so, either one, we can have a motion to strike that section or if DR. Washington can piece that back to whatever it was supposed to be, perhaps there could be some other language to amend that. through the superintendent. go ahead, DR. Washington. MR. Sullivan wanted to add something. that was me, sorry. could we just move to the next item and me and DR. Washington will get together to change the wording, I believe this has to be in the policy. okay, and MS. Leonardi had a question. motion to table the item. second. all those in favor of tabling the
439item, say aye. aye, any opposed? The item is tabled. Pp6, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MR. Leonardi, any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Alhadeff? yes, so I would like to focus on attendance. I believe it's page 8 and in regards to the plethora of absences at our high school level and what proactive measures that is we're taking, I think there's a real distekt in possibly what is supposed to happen and then the reality at the school level, what is actually happening. And we need to fix this, DR. Hepburn, because if our kids are not in school, they're not learning and their test scores will go down. One thing and I brought this up last year at marjory stoneman douglas high school, they have a
440101010 rule and I talked about it months ago and in regards to trying to implement this in other high schools, so if you exceed 10 absences or 10 sign-outs or tardies in a year, you will not be able to get any senior decal, you can see the test scores at msd drastically increased and the number of absences have drastically decreased. So, I think it is really something that we should look at to implement across the district but also there needs to be a change in what is actually happening at our schools compared to what this policy is saying. Thank you. DR. Hepburn? was -- is there a specific question or an request? I'm just making a a friend ly suggestion that we should look into this 10/10/10. I know that there was just recently an
441article for the sentinel with attendance and the percentages of absences at our high schools are extraordinarily high and what proact tier measures are we putting in place. I see in my strict at msd, they have this 10/10/10 rule, it was difficult to implement at first, they have seen significant increase in their test scores and a decrease in number of absences but I think there iss a disconnect in what is in our policy compared to the discipline and absences that are happening in our schools. I mean, yes, do we get the call, yes, we get the text, the phone call, we get everything, but what is the next level step, do we have personal conversations with families? through the superintendent, if it's helpful, I know DR. Fulton through your AUGUST workshop, one of the items is
442attendance, they'll be presenting along with her team some of the -- yes, I was going to mention that and there's been an attendance task force made up of principals of different levels that is have been working on stringing to find some good solutions to the attendance challenge. I know that MS. Kefert was able to share that strategy with her colleagues. I don't know how many have adopted it. I know it's based on different areas of the district, different cultures students and things like that, some thing ares effective in one places but not be effective in another and then I can have DR. Washington is trying to multitask, she probably can go over some of the specifics about what steps or action steps are taken when there is a serious attendance issue with a student that
443also includes toup the b tip process that involves the courts. I know and I guess what I'm trying to say and maybe you can do your own homework to figure it out, I don't think that process is happening. The kids are absent and they have many absences, but the process that you're speaking about, I don't think it's occurring. yes, so I want DR. Washington because she can talk about some of the barriers, there are barriers with this too as far as volume for the state attorney's office , it kind of moves this process along slowly. If you can elaborate. yes, two things, the first thing is I think that what you're subjecting is best addressed through the attendance policy. In the code of student student kuktd, it's taking wag is in attendance policy and embodying
444it within the code of conduct, so I think the suggestions you're making would be better addressed through another policy and then code of conduct would be updated accordingly. The second thing in terms of schools specifically implementing restrictions in terms of parking passes or things like that is currently right now a school by school decision based on the various characteristics of the schools, right. So, I don't know that riding -- writing something like that into a policy would be the best course of action because it MAY not be able to be implemented in certain areas. I don't know if that helps. yeah, for example, you're trying to dance arnds it, but for example, our schools are representative of the cultures within the neighborhood, you have some schools where a large amount of kids don't drive to
445school because for whatever reason, so that decal part of purchasing or not being able to purchase a decal MAY not work for that school, I know system of the high schools do find other privileges that's especially with student and is seniors receive and use that in lieu of what msd MAY be doing with the parking decal, it MAY be something else, they MAY be excited to go to the homecoming dance and they will not be able to go to the homecomingngance. Er I woululd bebe interested to see with thisis coittee e can come back with and what strategies can be put in place, what we're currently doing is not enough and we need to do better. and I totally agree, I will speak as my experience as a father, I could say I have a
446very bright young lady at home and she has some attendance issues sxit's not because she doesn't have the ability to get to school, it's what we are doing in school, right. The instructional strategies and practices, we're changing those by implementing more ai, more technology and more applicable learning or project based learning opportunities because our students are so well resource, they have super computers in their hands and they have super computers at home and they can teach th imses a lot instead of sit ining a classroom, for many of our classrooms, that seems to be sofm the unwillingness to go to school every day. I would also have to say that the kids are also saying that they're not learning anything, nothing's going on, nobody's here, so, those projects, you have to do do more to
447keep them there. we have to give them a reason why. my son was showing my videos of nobody in his classroom. Er exactly. on his phone? his computer, DR. Zeman. we came out of covid doing something traditional and our kids are asking for something different. Besides some of the kids who are genuinely missing because of the some tof reasons that DR. Washington and her team addresses, we have a turnover kids that are not coming because they can learn a will the of the things on their own instead of sitting ining a classroom, those are things we're improving our instructional practice but infusing more project based learning opportunities, by infusing more things that align to industry needs, to give more purpose to come to school instead of just sitting and getting, so absolutely, it's the conversion
448of a lot of different things. Sxfrngts life skills. absolutely. I have to make a motion to lay item pp6 on the table so we can vote on a motion to extend the meeting time because our time ends at 4:55. second. okay, second. All in favor of plaining item pp6 on the table, say aye. aye. any opposed? Great. I move that we extend the meeting time for an additional 30 minutes. second. okay. we only have five items left. and the panthers play. yeah, well, they were discussing -- all those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed? no. okay. Motion passes with one dissenting vote. Can I have a motion to bring pp6 back? so moved. Er second. it's been moved and seconded to bring pp6 back. All those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed? Thank
449you. MADAM Chair, the two student advisors would like to speak on this item. okay, I'll add them to the list. MR. Cervera? I sit as an alternate city advise so, I want to thank the chair as well as the superintendent. The biggest concerns with students, I understand attendance is one aof the issues but the main issue as you guys have discussed as a board is students don't want throb. If we give students a reason to be there, we might have a high outcome of students being present in the room and sitting during instructional time. We have student that is would go in the bathrooms, that would hang out, that would find any nook or corn tore hang out in, not because they don't want to be there, I would want to be anywhere where my
450friend is, it's because of what we're learning, what we're learning isn't meeting our creativity standards, what we're learning isn't what's going the intrigue us to continue to go on and that's one of the problems, mitoses what we're learning, it's all about what the brain is being fed and sometimes we're lacking what we're being fed. Thank you. landyn, did you want to add to that? MR. Cervera? well said, sir. MADAM Chair, thank you. In regards to pp6 on policy 5090, I had an issue within section 4 under the rights and responsibilities of students section, page 9 of 258. The last bullet point on this seems to indicate that internet privileges of the student can be revoked and there is language stating that the internet is a privilege, not a right. I've got a good amount of
451concern for that for several reasons. Number 1, the majority of the work our kids are doing within our district schools are in fact online and online based. That is only going to increase especially with the integration of all the ai work that the district can moving forward with, so I have a real concern with the ability to just yank a kid's internet access away for I guess if it's used in an unacceptable or illegal manner, while certainly we don't want to encourage thoiz types of activities, I think the student would be at a severe disadvantage if his internet access was revoked. DR. Hepburn? yes, so we have very, very few instances of this but we do encounter a kid that does something, I won't elaborate that much, that would warrant us to revoke or remove
452internet access temporarily, they are given an alternative means of acquiring the information they need but it is egregious enough, very concerning enough that involves bta's and all those other assessments to revoke internet access from a student, so it's a very rare instance but it does occur stile sometimes. I guess my question would be then, if in fact it is revoked and they have course work or school work or whatever it is they have been working on that requires online access, are they sent too the library to use the computer there, are they put in a corner with a different computer that has access to certain things. What is the procedure in place if the child's standard user laptop is deprao ifred from internet access. it MAY be printed out, it MAY be instead of an
453electronic textbook, give them the hard textbook. If they do need to be on a computer, it's monitored, so they are given every alternate means of acquiring the same knowledge in being able to do the same work that a student would do if they had internet access. But it's a very rare instance, it does happen and we'll accommodate the students to make sure they're not losing out on our instructional opportunities. Er I would hope they wouldn't be able to get past the fireballs we have. you would be sprouted. Er there are companies that advertise to our students on how to get around our fireballs. thank you, MADAM Chair. thank you, MS. Thompson? I talk today staff, my concerns are also about the attendance section of it, but I look forward to the workshop coming up and
454that is all. Er thank you, DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair, furthering the attendance issue, one of the things we have to start thinking abas a board is we ever made huge leap ins the percentage of kids that are in our school that is are at or above grade level. Many of the problems we used to have we promoted ourselves out of because we have figured some thing that is have gotten people engage t. I agree with our assistant student advisor but I would characterize it differently. And I'll give you guys a name to read, rebecca winthrop, I don't usually listen to rebecca eases, I said that so you'll remember rebecca winthrop, read her book, it focuses on what you said which is student engagement, wrap that circle one time. When we did the
455vr demo here in this well, when I talked to the kids, several of them said I didn't m s MISS A a day of school this year. I'm like, you get the glassless one day a week, yeah, but the glasses graver me what I needed to learn the next few days, they were fourth and fifth grade and they got engaged with that kind of learning that kept them on the edge of what they needed to learn next, the student engagement with ai built boo sh technology, a reasonable cost, leads us to better attendance. As we get better on academic performance, attendance by itself is going to grow because what we founds is a whol bunch of reasons to get people there. One other fascinating thing besides rebecca winthrop is roland fryer from harvard, he's done
456four large urban school straights and he fwa ifr them all an allowance at the schools that had the lowest attendance. The allowance was $12.50 a month, not a lot of money, but it improved attendance by half, so if they were missing 20 day as year, they missed 10, so just a little bit of money also helps a lot in aten ten dance. As a district, I think we've gone past the monetary model, we near the model of student engagement, how do we give them the right technology, keep them engaged learning new things, customizing, learning is going to be a new way forward. We're going to be the third lowest out of 67 counties, we have have the third highest rate of not being in school, part of it because kids don't want to be there,
457part of it is because some parents can't get their kids to some school boundaries areas or they are unreliable transportation, so there are a myriad of way tos get there, but we have a big problem in broward county with attendance. Fe with can figure out a way to engage students more, keep them excited about coming to school, that's a problem that pays off on academic performance but it also pays off on having them in school where they get all the things they're going to get as well. Rebecca winthrop, if you want to cheat, you can listen to her on as recline, she did a pod kasser its's about engaging student ins a way so they're dying to go to school every day, that's a regaling cool -- really cool place to land. we'll finish up
458with MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. I had a question going through this I noticed there were references removed to the 504 manifestation determinations plan, but in the proposed version of this poll osier I didn't see any reference tos that and I didn't want our iep students tos lose out on any opportunities or be subject to any discipline without get thing benefit of those rights. So, I guess maybe for the superintendent is the revised version of policy 5090, is there a provision in here that is including or making reference to the 504 manifestation recommendation. I saw that it was stricken out but I did not see it was reinstated into the proposal. DR. Washington? throughout this policy, there were multiple references to 504 meetings, manifestation determination meetings, iep's and provisions with students for disabilities and
459what was stricken out of the policy were the repetitive statements of the same thing. So, yes, it's there. I guess I'll follow up, I'm not going the put you on the spot, is it your representation to this board it is included there, the required language for the 504 manifestation determination plans if applicable, because the onuses I saw under my notes had it all stricken out, it's your representation it's included in the proposal that's before the board? yes. okay, thank you. thank you. And I guess we'll end with landyn? tu, aisle be super quick, this is my record that I'm starting to talk at this board meeting at 5:00, so good evening, landyn, student advisor to the school board, I wanted to touch on two things real quick and give much gratitude to the superintendent for
460supporting the superintendent's student engagement initiative, we have started making great strides towards making this information more accessible to students, as MS. Alhadeff and MR. Zeman referenced, students aren't aware of what the expectation is of them when it comes to attendance at time and is teaser part of the problem. I want to thank DR. Washington on creating this simplified code of conduct we'll be providing to student tos make sure they understand the entire 130 page document. That's all, thank you very much. all those in favor of pp6, say aye. any opposed? Item passes ewe nan lus I. Can I have a motion to bring pp3 back to the floor. It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. All those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed? MR. Sullivan and DR. Washington, have you come
461up with an alternative sentence? yes, and thank you for pointing out the incomplete sentence. If -- there is a model policy on the florida department of education for teen dating violence and abuse after which this is modeled, and it does have a statement that says the right to not have parents or guardians notified if such notification would endanger the students so that's where this statement comes from. My recommendation would be to update that item c to say the parent or guardian of youth involved in dating violence or abuse complaint shall be notified except if such notification would endanger the student. . Er you said that was a policy from something from the state. the florida department of education has a model policy for teen dating violence and abuse. stlfrjts a reference policy for what the
462doe puts out? it is they don't have a policy number on it. can you send me what you're looking at? yes. Er thank you. okay. Did you still want to make a motion then? We have to replace the sentence. I just wanted to take a look at what the doe said but I guess if the motion is to mirror exactly what the doe's policy is, I'm fine with that. okay. seconds. all those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Okay, all those then in favor of item pp3 as amended, say aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes ewe nan nan -- unanimously. Er just to make sure, is to mirror with the doe model policy has as to this item, to this provision c under 5, correct? yes. well, presumably
463it's going to be different on what the -- the numbers aren't going to match up with the doe but the text will be replaced with what we have, yes. Er yes, thank you. okay. Next item is pp8, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson, any public comment? no, ma'am. Er DR. Seezeman? sorry, can you go to the next speaker, I have my notes down here? DR. Zeman, you're the only one that pulled it. I apologize to my friends here. chair, what's the intent of this item? DR. Hepburn? to ensure that we have a higher threshold for bringing change orders. terrific. And the change order in particular, the change to the change order limit is going up to 10% of the total construction contract amount?
464correct. are there any other changes to this policy? DR. Hepburn? yes but the main change is the 10%, some language has been stricken out. Which is -- I'm looking at the redline version. Rule number 3, which increases the authority to 10% of the construction contract. yes, sir. and also -- the less than 25 thousand dollars, -- go by the corp.? yes. these changes are important. We're a very large building machine and to continue to clog up the system with these things just because they went up to 3% of the total never made sense, I was a propoen of that two years ago but I think I wrote it wrong, so thank you very much for moving it to 10%, that will significantly reduce the number of things we have to look at. The critical part
465though, if we yo u ear not waiting for our permission, people can keep working and that is something we always need to keep in mind. It's great to have this board involved where it takes sense and not involved where it doesn't make sense. Er all those in favor of pp8, say aye. aye. any opposed? Motion carries you unanimously without MRS. Alhadeff, MRS. Rupert and DR. Holness. Can I have a a motion and second on pp9? so moved. Er moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman?Frjts my questions having aned. Er DR. Zeman? and mine were as well. Er u all those in favor of pp9, say aye. aye. Er any opposed? Okay, motion carries unanimously, still missing MRS. Rupert and DR. Holness. Next item is r-r 2. Can
466I have a a motion and a second? so moved. motion by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no, ma'am. MS. Thompson? my questions were asked by staff earlier, thank you. DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you so much, I have talk today the play yor of san ss ran osose, he has great plans, the wildlife sanctuary continues on path and the associated piece of this, he asked to pass his particular compliments tos the staff for moving this through and getting it done and making sure as promised they got it done for today's meet, thank you to the staff for help getting this done. all in favor of r-r 2, say aye. any opposed. motion carries ewe nan morosely. Next item is ss1, can I have a motion and a second? it's been moved by MS.
467Thompson, seconded by MS. Leonardi, public comment? no, ma'am. MS. Bulman? it's another great event for district 1. I pulled this, I wanted to acknowledge the partnership with boys town south florida, they're providing supports person through the lift program that's going to be in sterling elementary daily, I talked to the principal when I was taig ago tour, she was looking forward to this so it's great to see it come to fruition and have all the support we can get in our schools so thank you. thank you. All those in favor of ss1, say aye. any opposed, say no. motion carries unanimously, the last item is ss2, can I have a sxhoetion a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Rupert, any public comment? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman? my question was answered by staff.
468all those if favor of ss2, say aye. aye. Er any opposed, say no. and we're not quite done yet. MR. Cervera would like to make a motion to reconsider items -- to reconsider items g2 and gg1. thank you, MADAM Chair. I mover to reconsider items g2 and gg1 to the amend the new conflicting legal practices provision. I spoke to MS. Batista, we need a small tweak to the language that was previously voted on to reflect the following, if I MAY. second. Er he's got to read it first. Er I appreciate the enthusiasm t assistant general counsel MAY engage in legal practice outside the scope of duties provided for hearing and outside of normal working hours only with the prior written consent of general counsel. okay. All those in -- any public comment on the motion?
469All those in -- board discussion on the motion? All those in favor? just very quickly, so it's administrative counsel for the item in g1, on g2, I'm sorry, and then it would be gg1 would be the assistant general counsel. So, just the title is changed but the language will be the same. okay. are you clarifying the motion, general counsel? yes. thank you. I will second that one as well. okay. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye. any opposed? okay, so don't we have to revote on g2 and g1 as amended. All those in favor of g2 and gg1 as amended, say aye. aye. any opposed? alhadeff, yes. motion passes ewe nan nosily. At this time, do any of my colleagues have any update or student successes to bring forth to the superintendent
470for consideration? DR. Zeman?Frjts thanks, chair, nothing on student successes that I want to report today but I do want to talk about school board meetings and the amount of materials that we have been getting. Every year around this time, there's a huge backlog of material, this time 126 items and 9967 pages. It is something that we keep seeing every year but I just want to ask the superintendent if we can get around that next year and try and get the staff to look at contracts earlier to, to fwet at items earlier and try to lever this meeting completely open because it's going the get filled with all the urgent items we have to add. i just don't like being thinly prepared for a meeting. I really like to read everything, it's exhausting to do it
471when it's almost 10 thousand pages. But if we can just commit to plan for this meeting next year not to have any planned items or to meet twice in JUNE to deal with this, it's better to do 5 thousand page and is 60 ie steps twice then that do ten thousand page and is to do by job well, I'm throwing that out there, it hurts my feelings to come to these meetings having read everything but not really having spent as much time to research them and have all my questions prepared. DR. Hepburn? yes, thanks for the comment, DR. Zeman, we're also concerned as staff and I know general counsel staff too, we're working collaboratively to make sure our process for procuring services and products are more efficient and working as a tag team to make
472sure we find the right solution for these ongoing challenges especially during this time of the year when we have so many items that buck toup the beginning of the school year to make sure we open correctly. I wonder, sir, and chair, i wouldn't know how to do this right now, if we wanted to think ahead to next JUNE, I think in NOVEMBER we'll have an administrative meeting and we'll bless the schedule for the whole year, is that right? yes. maybe at that time w e can think a bit about whether we want to double up school board meetings in JUNE, have one workshop x two school board meetings to level out the workload for the staff and for the people appointed or elected to this board. anybody else? I have two student successes. Okay. You
473want to go first? yes, MADAM Chair, very quick, district 6 is proud to congratulate our college sponsored national merit new scholarship win frers the college academy of broward college, lewis cortera attending the university of florida, brant malu, n,, universities florida and [Inaudible] Webster, from cooper city high school, chase blan shard attending the universities south familiar ta and yash patel from cypress day high school, ethan brett to n, university of florida, ham jeral, [Inaudible], feel limbing jamieson, sack ri lew, university of florida, [Inaudible], southern california, sant yainginging goe, university of central florida, [Inaudible], university of florida and daniel ya from university of nror ta and joshua bernstein, florida state university. Er thank you, I would like to congratulate james faban in the debate national championship that was held MAY 30 and JUNE 1, we had three
474other skaount uer staoubt, scott miller, msd, and jouster t in of coral glades high school who made it either to the preliminary or semi-final rounds and I quickly said this last meeting but we were hurrying so I didn't get all the details, congratulations to central park elementary, they were awarded the everglades school championship designation which is the gold level, the highest honor they have gotten, and I want to say congratulations and great job. The scheduled order of business for this regular school board meeting of the school board of broward county, florida, has been completed, seeing no obligation, I now adjourn the meeting with 5 minutes still left in our time.