Regular School Board Meeting - Aug 19, 2025

001second -- . welcome to today's regular school board meeting. We're thankful for you to have joined us and thankful for your dedication to our district. This meeting is now called to order. Our primary focus is to create a safe and productive environment for all participants. Please be reminded of the exit doors that are clearly marked of exiting. All attendees must occupy a seat with the exception of media. Once the board room has reached its seating capacity, attendee as will be directed to a designated overflow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm system, please exit the room in a orderly fashion and remain outside until the authority that has jurisdiction has deemed the building safe too return. Thank you for your cooperation. Next, please rise for the "pledge of allegiance" of the flag of the united

002states of america. MARCH. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. MARCH. thank you, you MAY be seated. MR. Cervera did you want to give a shout out to your school. thank you, MADAM Chair. I'm honored and please today introduce the principal of otc, the student, and otc is lead by senior army instructor retired major, sgt, williams king. The ca dats, ltc, sgt, turner. Stg maleah, thank you for representing district 6 proudly. thank you, the superintendent released a revised agenda with certain changes for this meeting and published it on the agenda on this website. Florida statute that good cause exist for such changes and accepts the revised agenda. MAY the chair have a motion

003and a second to close the agenda. so moved. moved and second bid DR. Zeman, all in favor of closing the agenda say aye. aye. those opposed say no. The agenda is now closed. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to approve the meeting for the following meeting, JULY 22, 2025, special expulsions. Regular school board meeting. JULY 22, 2025, special T.D. Fp, yeah, T.D. Efp. So I need a motion and a second. It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. 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 begin to begin our regularly school board meeting, we're reminded that our vision is 100 percent proficiency for all of our students, we will continue educating all

004students to reach their highest potential. Our theme this year is believe empower achieve one broward. The chief of staff and communications officers polled the board of any agenda items they would like to address ahead of the meeting. The following items have been identified for discussion. H1, h2, b1 with a time certain of 12 P.M. J1, j2, j3, j5j5, l1nd 02. At isisme MAY the chair have motion and a second to pass the discussion items that have not been pulled for discussion. It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi? Are there any items not pulled that are not in the items I just read. no ma'am. DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, I think I heard you pull single items, it's been a little difficult to sign up to speak this morning. And h1, and if you're

005going to add double letter items, I'm looking -- . double leter comes later. you're not pass any of them as consent. no, not right now. Speaker: okay. okay, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items that have not been pulled for discussion say aye. aye. those opposed say no. All those motions carry. Let's see, h1, so can I have a motion and a second on item h1? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there any public comment on each one? no registered, speakers, ma'am. okay, I have MS. Rupert. Oh. Hold on. hold on MS. Raoubeter, there is a public speaker on h1. Sorry. Speaker: good morning, DR. Nathalie lynch walsh plantation florida, sometimes you try to sign up online. So on h1, and it's ironic that you have a

006standard for ethical conduct coming later as a policy. Staff was given an out. You have mult I believe issues with one. Uz have systems analyst 3 position, where the job description and remember this is a technology and I believe safety related positions. Two things that change almost daily. The systems analyst 1, 2, and 3 positions have not been updating since 2006, 2007, the system analyst 4 position as I said the last time this came up, was just done in JUNE. I do not know why staff did not bring, well we have systems analyst 1 through 4, there are inconsistencies in the requirement for system analyst 1, 2, 3, and 4. The person being recommended for the system analyst's 3 position does not meet the requirement, could never move up unless they get higher than a

007high school diploma. They're not qualified for systems analyst 4, and it's debatable of a micro tech gives you six years of experience to be a systems 4 analyst. But the larger issue is you have somebody to the highest paying position in a job description that is outdated. I mentioned this last time, systems analyst, 1, 2 and 3 have not been updated on almost 20 years. And there is a loophole where you're only required for systems analyst 3 to have a high school diploma. 1 and 2 volve high school diploma or a bachelor's, they don't even get into associates. So you have a lot of messy discrepancies and what staff should have done if everything was in the up and up, is bring you back clean description that's all align now! You can't have one, two

008and three from 2006 and 2007 from this year, it makes no sense, unless somebody is up to something. And then the person is in a position where the second level was just done in 22. Why not recommend them for that? Unless we're trying to get them the highest amount of pay that they can get with their limited educational background and questionable job experience. So, this is the second time, that sthaf is bringing this without ever fixed it. And then when you look at the resumes of the other people, it's sort of like three things are similar and doesn't belong. And why these things are in issue when you take people that have questionable back brownsed. I give you maxmo. thank you very much, any other comment?Z, MS. Rupert. thank you, thank you so much. First

009I would like to congratulate richie for his much needed well-earned retirement. We will MISS You, you certainly have been a skalwarth safety person for us and I know you'll be doing wonderful things for us. I'm sad to see you go but happy for you for the next part of your life. I am going to be, not supporting this issue. And that's all I'm going to say. Thank you. thank you. I'd also like to congratulate the retiree, we had 7, 19 non instructional staff. Congratulations and we wish you the best of luck in your new adventures, any other members? All those in safer of h1 say aye. any opposed say no. no. MS. Batista. so according to the policy, the board member when they oppose the, they have to state. MS. Rupert, can you state why

010you are voting no. absolutely. The most qualified person is not being recognized for this. With the most experience and the minimum experience was very difficult to find and also, somebody's work evaluations weren't able to be all the ones that I requested which is the last four years. So, I will be sitting besides my objection, and I'm going to let the district and the broward investigator, whoever you are, let them run through it to make sure this is in the up and up. MS. Rupert, can you be more specific. Either the person or the job that you're mentioning. sure. MR. Torres, thank you. thank you so much. next item is item h2. Can I have a motion and a second on item h2? it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. Any public comment

011on h2. MADAM Chair, before we go to h2 -- . sorry, I skipped over that it. I'm sorry. Yes. so moved. okay. sorry. The chair would like to take a moment to recognize new staff appointments. We would like to recognize each of you with your career with broward schools. We value you and your families. If we can give the appointees a round of applause, please. [Applause] DR. Hepburn, can you please share a few remarks and introduce our new leaders. yes, congratulation to see our new appointees, I know some of you are getting some promotions, excited to have you on the B.C. Ps team. If you're new to the schools. At this time I have two directors, if they can come to the podium to greet the board. And that's MS. Andrea knolles for directive of

012ledge late I have affairs and DR. Cassandra free or new director for innovative programs. Speaker: thank you, I'm andrea knolles hill and I'm so excite beside this opportunity. You're looking at a proud product of broward schools, crystal lake middle and blake high, I'm excited to just start with broward county schools. This will be new for me and working with this system but not new to the work. I have 13 years plus legislative experience, back and forth to tallahassee and dc. And I'm just excited for this opportunity to get to know this board and. Thank you MADAM Chair and vice chair. Let's get to work, I'm excited and thank you again. [Applause] thank you, all good morning. I'm DR. Cassandra freeze. I'm so excited to be here this morning. For the last six years, I've had

013the privilege to lead the high school, an incredible community of teachers, staff and surrounding community of students that has always supported us, I leave that behind but I'm so excited to take my passion which was to create innovative programs to expand them for all students and to be able to bring that to the district. And I'm so thankful, I thank the board for your service, for your commitment. For this opportunity, special thank you to DR. Hepburn, DR. Fulton, MR. Strauss who has been support. Examine my new chief of strategy and innovation, DR. Valerie wanza, I'm so excite today join her team. And I would also like to acknowledge my family, my mother, my mother-in-law, my husband and friends who are here, and of course our six children, who are spread around the country, I know

014they're watching today. But so thrilled to support all students and communities across our a-rated district. Thank you so much! [Applause] thank you, so much and welcome. At this time, we will now recess this regular school board meeting for a board photo with the new staff appointees. thank you, and welcome back to the regular school board meeting. DR. Holness, you are recognized. thank you, MADAM Chair. MADAM Chair, I would like to reconsider h1, I would like to change my vote, please. okay, is there a second? second. okay. all those in favor says aye. aye. all those opposed say no. motion. roll call on the motion. roll call to reconsider. Roll call to reconsider h1. School board member al hoo definite. no. bulman. yes. cervera? That was yes? Hixon. no. holness. yes. leonardi. N.Yes. rupert yes. thompson.

015yes. zeman. Motion carries, 7-2. okay, so item h11 back. DR. Holness. MADAM Chair, I heard the concerns of board member rupert, I share similar concerns. And I concur with board member rupert for voting no and I would like to change my vote for no. MADAM Chair, as mentioned before, the standard for voting no, on a nomination by the superintendent, is the person has to be, the person cannot qualify for the job. So the just the word that the job is not qualify, won be sufficient to vote no on the item. If there are other issues that I'm unaware of, you know, MS. Rupert sort of alluded to, that there is an investigation, that I'm not aware of, that would go to more of character of the person, that's a different story. But the just the

016fact that the person MAY not have been the best qualified is not sufficient for the standard to vote no. okay, MADAM Chair, would I like to keep my vote as a no because I'm concerned to the person's qualification for the position. So I am going to continue to keep my vote as a no. point of order, chair. you have not voted again, so you're switching to a no. just a point of order, the, the, we have to be careful about what our general counsel just said. Otherwise, if in fact the legal standard somebody is under investigation, we would be opening up a can of opportunity undo a selection simile by identifying them and reporting them to an investigator, I don't think what the legal standard is. The legal standard is very clear, you have to

017point out they're not qualified or you have to claim that you have evidence of moral terpitude. MS. Batista, can you site to the statute or admin code that you're referencing to? so this is not in statutory precedent, it's in case law and the case law is the one that has stated for a vote of no to reject a nomination by the superintendent and just cause and that's defined by moral perpitude and minimum qualifications. and this is well established law. and this is from the 11th district? from the 4th dca. DR. Holness. MADAM Chair, legal counsel, as a board member, I am concerned about qualification and do I have the right to keep my vote as a no? MS. Batista? all I can chair is I can give you a basis to vote no and my

018opinion that my reasons that have been provided do not rise to the level of, the evidence that is necessary to vote no under these circumstances. But I cannot voers anybody to vote a particular way. That's up to you and your analysis of what I just stated. MS. Alhadeff. yes, did everybody in each one meet the qualifications? yes, that's correct, ms. alhadeff. thank you. What are the consequences of a board member voting no or going against state statute based on opinions sxn factual evidence? well certainly, when you are making such statements if they are not, if they don't have a basis, the employee could have an action against the board potentially. is that itit? MS. Leonanardi? tha you.. I guguess my concern is consistency from counsel. So we went through a vote a statement was made

019about a board member voting no. But it seems now that it's being flagged, now that the item has been called back. I don't have any thoughts or feelings about how anybody is going to vote on this. I just want to make sure that we're being consistent board member to board member. if I MAY. MS. Batista. as I said, I cannot force anyone to vote a particular way. I think everybody here knows what the law is. The precedent has not changed. Because the majority of the board voted to approve the item, you know, there is no impact to the employee in that sense, if one person votes or two people vote opposite to that. But still not consistent with legal precedent. MS. Alhadeff. I would request MS. Batista if you can resend that memo to the

020board so they can refresh what the memo is in regarding to voting this way. And as one board member which I do apologize to everybody on each one for this conversation, right now, because I think it's highly inappropriate. DR. Zeman. last point too, MS. Alhadeff. We have opportunities to ask questions about candidates. To do it in a public comment, to embarrass people, not just the people named but on h1 is not becoming of this school board. So I would ask colleagues if you have an issue to contact either your superintendent, or your chief of hr, and figure out whether or not your concern is legit or not. And if it is, bring it to the vote and vote no. I'll fully support it if you have evidence of moral porpitue but to embarrass here. It's

021not appropriate. MADAM Chair. We have a board member who objected and voted no, and I did not see concerns to the magnitude of the no until this board member says no. And I did not see the criticism. Did I not see the kind of comments. So I believe the same right as another board member to bring an item back and vote no without being accusing of embarrassing staff, I think that is what is on fear. And what that is what is unfortunate. One board member said something such as I said it, it was not problematic. When I said it it's problematic. That's where my concern is. And my no is a no. thank you, all those in favor of h1 say aye. aye. those opposed say no. no. did you? Okay. So the motion passes

0227-2. two descending votes, MS. Rupert and DR. Holness. thank you. The next is h2, can I have a motion and a second. It's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on h2. I don't have any renld speakers, MADAM Chair. okay. MR. Cer vera. in looking at the spreadsheet a certain individual caught my eye, thomas moses who si facilities is being recommended for a three-day suspension. The basis for the three-day suspension is a quote improper conversation with a student. I would like further details as to what that improper conversation was? and I have a motion on that, this particular person based on a similar concern. So do you want them to do that? I want the substance of the inappropriate conversation on the record and I would like to make a

023comment after that is read. okay. DR. Hepburn. DR. Lozano? MS. Azzarito. executive director, professional practices. The allegation was that he approached a student at a gas station and asked a student for her cell phone and gave her his cell phone number. Mom, reported by mom, mom called the school and went through the professional committee process. At the end of process, the committee determined it was just cause 5-0 and recommended a five-day suspension. We allowed the employee to do a stipulated agreement in return of not appealing the corrective action. so, as I understand t an employee of dillard school is try to pick up a student on weekend while not school and investigation by the committee is conducted and they find probably cause 7-nothing. And the best that is being sought out as far as punishment

024is a three-day suspension, that is agrecious, that is unfair. In my public if you have an employee of any of our schools that is engaging with this conduct with a student and you're trying to pick up a child at a gas station and flirting and asking for cell phone numbers, that individual should be fired. Now I know we go through this during board meetings and I understand there is a collective bargaining agreement with these it employees. A three-day suspension is laughable in my mind. Especially when I've seen some of the punishments that have been told out. I would ask this, chair. What is the ramifications from this board deviated from this suggestion and recommending that this particular individual be terminated? so I can turnover to MS. Batista, but as I mentioned, I have a motion

025exactly to that. love it. I would love you for to you make a motion and me second it. I move that thomas be separated so his discipline MAY be acted upon separately. Do I have hear a second. second. it's been moved and seconded to separate moses tomas from item h2 all those in favor say aye. any opposed say no. no. motion passes. Is there any, to separate them? Is there any? Did I do that wrong? Is there any audience input? Okay. Any board discussion? Okay. So my next motion is, oh well, do we vote on h2 first? Okay, any other issue, any other board discussion on item h2 minus? MR. Thomas? All those in favor of approving item h2 without moses thomas say aye. aye. any opposed say no. motion carries unanimously. The board will

026now take up the matter of moses thomas separately. Bring back to the board the next school board meeting a revised agenda item amending the discipline from suspension to termination. Do I hear a second. second. it's been moved and seconded for the superintendent to bring back at the next school board meeting, amend ing the discipline for moses thomas from suspension to termination. Is there any public comment? Any board discussion? DR. Zeman. thank you, so much chair. It MAY very well be that, punishment brought by the professional services counsel is not sufficient enough. I would ask our attorney though that given that this employee agreed to a stipulation agreement, what latitude does broward has to do something that we agreed to do and the employee do? MS. Batista. so because the employee is within the process of

027due process, in other words, whatever happens here today, he's able to appeal it to grief it and then to go to ultimate arbitration. We have the right to have the superintendent to bring it back, and that's only in an abundance of caution, because the employee was not notified, he thought he was going to be receiving a three-day suspension and now it's a different outcome so he has an opportunity if he wishes to come before the board and speak to that item. So that would be why you would, you know, the best course of action is what the chair has proposed which is to move forward and have the superintendent bring it back as a termination item. I just want to be clear, though, did our professional counsel voted for this, it's within the standards, they

028know all the details of the investigation and we don't. And this is the process that 30,000 people can be subject to for their behavior. And more importantly in some sense the employee and our staff reporting the superintendent has agreed to not have the five-day which would have been appropriate in some regards to be three because us, the broward county school board and our staff, and this employee agreed to three days and he waves his rights for any further appeal, right? And so what this motion will do, I think chair is bring this item back with more information not just with hey, I want to move the, the penalty from this to that but this board then in essence takes the board of psc and we should have the data and information so we can figure

029this out. What I'm worried about, is I don't know what the answer is, because I don't have enough information to make informed information. Because I have not read the case. And so, I just feel like that this, chair, if this motion passes, will be provided a full file on what happened and what we know including transcripts of any meet wgz this employee? DR. Hepburn. yes, we can provide all information so the board can make an informed decision. and it sounds to me, that we're taking the role of the psc who voted 7-nothing who after reading the file and about interviews, decided it was a five-day suspension and then we agreed with employee under stipulation to go to three. And now we want to play the role of the psc and make the decision of punishment,

030is that fair? so with other, employees in different collective bargaining agreement such as a teacher, when you have, when the superintendent brings to you, an administrative complaint, that's something that is more flushed out, because you have allegations stated on that complaint. The role of the board is to take those allegations, as true. So it's not to review evidence, and to figure out whether or not the alleged conduct was committed or not committed, that's when the, for teachers, they go to the division of administrative hearings before an alj for this particular gentleman, he belongs to maintenance, so he goes through the grievance and procedure. So the only role for the board would be to look at the alleged conduct which in this case, is inappropriate conversation with a minor, and understanding that, whether you feel that

031a three-day suspension is too low, and then you would ask the superintendent to change that. so when this item comes back, we're under the same restriction that's we will accept these things to be true, and then we can say yes, to the three day in which there is no review by alj or anyone else or give out a different punishment where the employment can grief. How long does that grieving process take? about six months, between the grievance and then they choose an arbitrary and then it goes to arbitration and they have to file the briefs and so on. thank you. MS. Leonardi. thank you. I think, I have multiple concerns here. I have long held concerns about how the professional standards committee dulls out discipline particularly when it comes to this kind of conduct. I

032am certainly not amenable to a three-day suspension and I made that clear to staff and the conversation I had with them before this meeting. I am a huge believer in due process and the rights of employees. And per this motion, this employee has that opportunity to engage in due process and appeal whatever decision we make. But first and for most, I think we have a moral obligation and often I said this in my conversation with staff, again on this matter, when somebody engages in this kind of conduct, it is not the first or the last time. And per my conversation with staff again, this employee made comments to the affect that he was aware what he was doing was wrong and still did it anyway. So I think we have to ask ourselves, if this

033was our child would we want our child around this individual, and my answer is no. I support this recommendation. MS. Thompson. I echo what MS. Leonardi said, this is a very big issue and I'm wondering, what satisfy the board has to make sure that inappropriate contact with our students is found to be more grave and not a three-day suspension. I need clarification on what that process is and what avenue we have so that this does not happen again and again and again. DR. Hepburn? MS. Batista. go ahead, MS. Batista? so, I think the, the avenue is exactly what you are doing right now, which is to make a policy statement to guide the superintendent and staff that there would be zero tolerance when it comes to this type of behavior. Additionally, if we were to

034keep the person employed, and there were a future instance where this would happen, the district would be seeing potential liability because they were placed on notice that this happened before. but just a follow-up, so not just this particular individual, in general, any employee that MAY be asking for our students numbers engaging in that activity. Is there a process? Is it just this meeting to the superintendent? Is there a formalize that more? as far as formalizing it more, certainly you can have a policy that you can adopt. But you know, your statement or the overall statement of the board, and prior statements that you've made to the same affect that you have zero tolerance for this type of behavior, would suffice to guide the superintendent and staff and psc when they're making their decisions that this

035is what the board is looking for. sorry, so it's not a part of the collective bargaining, disciplinary, I'm just trying to understand because in general, I, I feel strongly about staying out of this process but I do think in this circumstance. So we hear a lot about oh well, they get this amount of days punished whatever because of the algorithm -- progressive. or the chart whatever. Do we change that? so that, algorithm that you're referring to is in the transportation unit. They have a very specific, if they're absent certain amount of days, they get a reprimand et cetera, there is a very specific penalty for the offenses. In this case, you can add some language along this lines in policy 4.9 which is the standards of the district for discipline and conduct and that's your

036right to do that. As the employer. thank you. MADAM Chair. hold on. You're on the list but I'm going to jump over MR. Cervera, really quick. The reason I brought the motion forward is agree wholeheartedly and had the same reaction as MR. Cervera and MS. Leonardi. And we have said over and over again, we have zero tolerance for people that are hurting our students. And although this seems like a very minor conversation, it gives the impression that it was done before or if there is not a sequence, -- consequence it will be done again. Knew he was doing the wrong thing. If the student hadn't been strong enough to tell her mother what happened, there could have been a different outcome to what happened here. So I think we have to put our, we have

037to put into action what our words say and if we say zero tolerance, we mean zero tolerance, not just in these particular matters but these are the quiet ones that happen that kids don't normally tell somebody about because the whole power part of it. But I strongly believe that we should absolutely have zero tolerance when somebody hurts our student because our ultimate goal and job is to keep our students safe. So that's why I brought this motion forward. MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM Chair for those comment sxz for bringing the motion forward because I think it's an important one. I want to reiterate something quickly and make a comment. The professional standards committee voted 7-nothing to establish probable cause or just cause that this individual engaged in improper conversation with the student. That was the

038due process. Went before the committee, and made determination, 7-nothing that he violated and engaged in improper conversation. That is telling. I think this board has the responsibility to levee. It's not like we're plucking this guy out of work and you know, ba raiding him in a public square, he's had his process. And that committee voted unanimously that what he did was wrong. And I also want to echomsms. Tiststa's seimimts. Began if isis guy gets a three-day suspension and GOD forbid does something else skh that child victim brings a lawsuit and we'll have to stand before a jury and explain to them why we allowed this individual to come back to school on a three-day suspension when we know what his M.O. Was. I don't know want to be the lawinger arguing that for us. That

039is not going to end well for us. And my last question while we hope to direct the superintendent to bring this back to us, what can we make sure that this individual is removed from my contact with my children or any schools while this next stage of the process is being played out. I'll send it to the superintendent. But I believe he's been reassigned pending the investigation. that's correct, MADAM Chair and MR. Cervera. where is he reassigned to? he is reassigned where he has no contact with students. thank you, sir. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So DR. Hepburn, I remember in the past we had discussed a few months back, where there were concerns about consistency across the board in terms of actions and discipline. And I believe we had some sort of a

040direction for a discipline type of procedural or standard manual, can you speak to us about that? And how this particular incident would align with whatever, would be similar and whatever would align with the number of days of punishment or whatever the punishment should be. Is there any update on that? DR. Hepburn. go ahead DR. Lozano. good morning, chief hr, as per the board's at the beginning of the 24-25 school year to look at the corrective action policy, I'm going to have heather parente talk about the work she did with our collective bargaining representatives in regards to addressing policy 4.9. Speaker: so during the year last year, begin ining FEBRUARY, we start today meet with the union and update that policy. We got excellent feedback about updating the consequences as well as infractions, we had windows

041of minimum consequences and maximum consequences and just as we're ready back forward, the union stepped out of the process for us and asked for it to be brought back to the table to negotiate. thank you, and DR. Hepburn in addition to looking at the policy and I vaguely remember but there were conversation buzz some sort of a uniform standardized manual for similar offenses, that would come back to us? Are you able to speak to that? go ahead, MS. Parenta. Speaker: thank you, that is part of the 4.9 policy process. so are we able to get a, I know, there is a delay, some sort of timeline as to when that will be for the coming? I know, I know na has to do with our engagement with the unions so we work at the base

042of their ability to engage in this process. okay, thank you, appreciate it. MS. Bulman? thanks, chair. Thank you for bringing this motion. So I have my question is, in terms of, particularly with these facts of the, asking for the phone number and having that kind of contact with a student. Do we have a policy specifically that addressed that? There is going to be different times when teachers and coaches and leaders have to have contact with the student to be specific. But this is like a red flag when some guy is trying to get your number at the gas station. This is happening, this is always the telling first sign when some bad thing happens where the teacher or whatever gets the person's number and starts having inappropriate contact, it's just the leeway to it. do

043we have a guideline for employees that delineates unacceptable communication between an adult and student and then we can make a blanket statement that the rest tf is not acceptable? So that people know, you know, have a notice? MS. Batista can share light if we have policy that governs communication between staff and students. so we have the professional standards of conduct which is that's not a school board policy but it's a standard of conduct for teachers and other personnel at the school. And of course we have the policy that the board is approving today which relates specifically to inappropriate conduct either whether it be electric or verbal, you know, against a student. So the answer is yes. okay. so it should be pretty straightforward if we, I guess, in the collective bargaining or what have you,

044if we make a stricter, policy in terms of when you violate that, that's what needs to happen then. It seems like this shouldn't, I agree with my colleagues, there is just no reason why anybody is getting a three-day suspension when you're seeing the writing on the wall. We all know where this is going. And the liability to the district is, we don't need to have that it either. So it seems like we can put the kabash on this up front. Thank you. MS. Alhadeff. thank you, I agree with the motion. My question is regarding the process of the motion meaning that usually, we direct the superintendent to bring back a harsher penalty and we can give our feelings on that should be. But this motion specifically said to terminate. Are we allowed as a school

045board to give that specific direction to the superintendent? MS. Batista? yes. Yes, you are. You based on the facts, you can state if you have a recommendation for specific penalty, you can do that or just ask the superintendent to bring a harsher penalty either way. Give the superintendent leeway or if you firmly believe it has to be a particular penalty, you have to give that guidance to the superintendent. all right, and we're not in any violation of any rules or? no, the employee will have an tount have his due process after the board votes on the item at the next school board meeting. thank you. MS. Leonardi. okay. All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries. Okay. The next item is j1. Can I have a motion

046and a second on j1. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Thompson. is there any public comment on j1? no recommendeding speakers, MS. Chair. MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. This is my favorite topic, fa cilatron? I was just wondering if we have an update. yes, so we're work withing different constituents to understand their concern, and I cannot say I've used facilitateron about 15-20 years ago, so it's a great thing for a large school to understand our facility use, so we're work withing constituents to find out the use. When we bring back the policy 112 2, it will correct some of the issues that we're having. so, I think we've been getting that same answer for weeks or months at this point. My understanding is that there is going to be a

047fix until we brought the policy back and that was like an emergency. yes. level situation. we did that. We did a temporary fix where we send memo to principal. Sent memo to ptsa and once we sent it to the advisory, the regional advisories to send to PTOs, since we don't have a centralized emails, to let them know what the temporary fix so we can bring it back. So we can address the point of fa sil at -- facility use. can you share those? yes. So pretty much, pto; pts As, school like groups will not be charged for facility renters to use a space. the only time that they will be charged is if they do an event that occurs custodial. like after school program? yes, that will be included during and after school. so that

048would be free of charge. correct. So the only, let's say you're a school group but you're having a fundraiser dance, of course you MAY need security, you MAY need custodial services, those are the services that you'll be charged for. okay. And the original memo to the principal has been revoked? yes, we revoked. okay. Would you mind send thating to us. yes, we'll send to the board. MR. Holness. thank you, board member bulman for leading the process on that. I've had similar concerns being expressed with faciltron and I read that it's suppose to be user-friendly and all of these other things. And that's not what I'm hearing DR. Hepburn from those who are using it. So there are concerns with ease of use, with the costs and I'm happy to hear that, the pto, ptsa and

049certain groups will not have to pay. But I think that, it's especially for these small groups, that this is sort of a deterrent to community participation and I think that's where the concern is. So DR. Hepburn before we had facilatron what did we have in place before? DR. Hepburn. I don't think we had anything in place. But I want to be clear. If you noticed in this item, faciltron has been used since 2023. So the issue is not fasiltron, it's the rental agreement. Because we have not had any issues that has been report today myself or anybody else in the team since the implementation in 2023. okay so for the updated policy what do you think contributes to the emerging concerns. Is it now more groups that was not under faciltron before? yes, we're increasing

050facility. As a district, we were unaware of what our facility use is for many of the sag groups. So we're now requiring to put that information in regardless if you're free or not so you can understand when the use of the facility is going on as a district. Because we're too big not to understand what is going on. I understand that. But there is a fine balance because we MAY put systems in place that now deters. It MAY be efficient for us but it's not workable for them. So you know, we, we remedied the problem on our end. So I think that's concerning. We can't just, implement a policy that we're now relaxed because we can capture data but it makes it much more difficult for the community. But so there has to be some

051sensitivity on how we approach this. And one size does not fit all so maybe there is a different approach to the data you're trying to collect. Where there is a manual process or something else in place that is easier for them to use, or for small groups to have very incon quenstial meetings. How can we consider something different for the groups that MAY not have that significant impact? Because, I'm not comfortable with sitting back and we're getting these concerns. Because board memebers get them, board member bulman I'm sure many others, where we put a system in place, that was in place since 2023 working fine and then we start to make adjustments to the policy to put everybody under that umbrella, but finding out that this is significantly inconvenient for the community to the point

052that they MAY seek other alternatives, I don't think that what we want. , let me frame this this way for the smaller pto, pts a, principals right side dealing with that thing. For larger activities for a school, such as a dance, a large activity, those things need to be in fa sil tron, because for a principal, we're work withing key constituents. This is to capture data for the district but it's also for the schools to utilize that they're not double booking or triple booking a facility that has been booked out six months in the future and then somebody else comes along and says hey, I need to use this facilities but you MAY not know that it's already booked. Those are the things that we're work withing so we can understand what are the barriers.

053We're working towards trying to educate people. So we can do what we did with your registered, you're right, we have a little video to show parents how to register their ride on the website so you can also do that once we understand some of the gaps and filling out the information for larger events but for small he events on campus, the principal are dealing with those. That's a school base thing. okay, so for the sake of the public with these concerns. Because my thought or what I've been hearing is that everybody has to go through fa sil tron. So you're now saying to the public that certain groups that are using this classroom where there is no concern about double book the auditorium, that they don't have to go through facilatron. let me clarify if

054you're using for a dance yes. But if you're using for quick meeting or that, that goes through the principal. I'm glad we're clarifying, because when it came about in 2023, it was for biger basis. But it has evolved in including all of these micro groups that becomes really inconvenient. I'm glad you're saying that publicly. Not everybody has to go through the faciltron, they can go through a principal for a smaller thing. correct. MS. Thompson. thank you, chair. Is there a reason that this is coming to the board right now? Is there a time line? DR. Hepburn? let me get back to that item. We're renewing the services but I'll turnover to MS. Paul, also. good morning, board, board chair, MS. Hixon, superintendent, hepburn. This is a contract renewal for faciltron that's why it's coming back

055to the board. but is there a deadline? Let me explain why I'm asking. Consistently the last few meetings, we have brought up that there is issues with fasiltron, and we're being told that don't worry. And now we have it coming back, even though those of us on the board have been raising alarms of things happening and it feels, a little disrespectful to the process if we're raising concerns and then all of a sudden, this is getting put to us like you guys are not listening to these concerns. So that's why I'm asking, is there a reason it has to be done during this meeting? Is there a way that we can push it off, I'm voting no on this. yes, we try to bring items before agreements or contracts expire. I just want to clear

056with the board, we're bringing 8020, we sent out notification to impact the groups to update 8020. Faciltron has been used since 2023 without any issues in the past year. And I think we have new groups that have been fa sil tiesing. So we're work withing those specific constituent groups to identify so we can walk them through it whatever media we need to create to assist them with the process so they utilize how to use it better. But I would caution the board for a system as large as public schools to not have a system like fa sil tron to really understand and create a better system of our how our facilities are used across the district, be a spaces around a district that MAY not be school will be of detriment to the district. And

057creating larger liability. I appreciate your opinion on that. I also want to clarify your statement that PTAs don't have to go through facilitron. I read the memo, you still have to enter into the system. So this is, new information that I'm hearing is that now PTAs can just ask the principal, hey can I borrow room 202 for this meeting. So I want to be ababdantly clclr r on what theheacti stepeps arare r thesgroups cacause wewe're frustrating the PTAs which are parents that are engaged and many cases have many options to leave the schools. And I understand the benefits of facilitron but to say that it's enhancing our community engagement on the executive summary is just false. And I think I get that this is a very complex situation and for liability we want to know.

058For the big rooms we want to know. But when we're trying to win back community and we're trying to invite people into our schools, the barriers that they're coming across is unacceptable. DR. Hepburn. yes, thanks for the comment. So if it's not clear to both groups, we'll make that clearer. I know we sent out information last week, so that memo, I'm not sure if you're referring to the first memo. That memo has been revoked but if it's not clear, we will make it definitely clearer at the adjournment of this meeting, just to make sure that we're talking about large venue spaces, classroom for meeting classes, that's a school base thing. sorry, and then I have two more questions. So you said that if it's, PTAs, won't be charged unless there is custodial services, who is

059making that determination? also our security chimes in. If there is a certain amount of people, our security team is going to say, absolutely, you need security. It's a combination of groups. okay, I just wanted make sure that there is a possibility where the pta is hosting a 5th grade dance, all of our members will clean up afterwards, there is a potential that they will not be charged? correct. and then in the future, and I know, I brought this up at the end of last meeting. If the board could be looped in with some of the memos sent to every one, it would just be appreciated because now I feel like there is been a problem but you guys corrected it last week and, I got forwarded so that's great. But like, we need to be

060working as a team, and we're all striving to make the district better and I feel like sometimes the board is not looped in until, you know, once a week or once every other week when we're like what happened to that, if we can be looped in a little bit more, I would appreciate it. Thank you. thank you. And I first I want to say thank you for hearing us at the workshop and making the second memo and making sure that we, we do make things user-friendly but I was also read the background whether I had to giggle when I saw user-friendly and community engagement, because that's not what I'm hearing from the group. I think it would be great if you can make a little video because it MAY be that the program is great

061but it's not easy for new users to use. So I'm glad that we can hear that to make it user-friendly. So thank you for that. And we'll, MS. -- DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair. I'm maybe, spent too much as economist but this item is brought to us and says it has no financial impact but I think it collects 10 percent from everybody that uses it. Which sounds to me like a pretty expensive impact on parents and community groups and things like that. I hope that we can think differently on what financial impacts means. it could be state money and federal money it could be a loss of grant opportunity. But clearly in this case, my guess chair and I would like to get with the number gets, last year we had fees collected.

062Can somebody tell me what the number is and can they confirm that's the fee that goes to facilitron? DR. Hepburn. MR. Acabuso, I don't know if he has that specific data? If you have the total amount collected last year and total amount given to the facilitron company. good morning. Chris acabuso, director of real estate. On page 2, it talks about since we had facilitron 2023, the district has realized gross of over four million dollars. Which has been the revenue of facilitron. Facilitron, I don't really have the specific number but the percentage is between 8 percent -- 8 to 12 percent of every rental. So the rental pays based on the total of their rental, right. So it to 12 percent of the total cost. That's what the renter pays. Just for clarification, I totally appreciate

063and started really listening, we used to have this event system before facilitron. That was license base and the last time we paid license of 16,000 a year, that's what we paid for the license. Facilitron is free. I understand na it's a cost so the community pays the percentage, the school district doesn't pay. We are paying 10,000 per year for the license. This is a fee base system. thanks, chair. I just want my colleagues to hear what my staff just said. This is free. Because our parents paid for it. How can that be? It's not free. All we're doing is passing a tax to the people who want to come in and have a meeting at our schools. Many of whom, are parents and volunteers and other people trying to build better school system. So, I

064would like to hear discussion in this point. My view right now is we should table this and get competitive pricing from other software thing. It's a great trick. We can sell it to the district and we tell you it's free. It saint free man. $400,000 on parents and volunteers doesn't make me feel good. Okay. This is definitely not free. I would much rather pay 16,000 for our own money and reward the parents and volunteers and other groups, because we're trying to manage their payment to us. We have a responsibility for a system as well. I want our ceo to say whether they want a system like this. The whole graphical, I don't want to be publicly critical but I guess I have to now. It looks like the 1990s called and they want their software

065back. it does not impress me. It takes a bunch of spaces and it signs people and a fee. That's like a look-up table from a software engineer. It collects money. Point, point of system and software, that costs you four cents per transaction. So this system is not free. This is not good for our system and, I'm just going to make a motion, chair that we table this for next month and we ask for some feedback about alternative way to see do this. And we do not portray this system of being free simply because we pass a bill to our parents. is there a second. it's been moved and seconded. Any public discussion. MR. Acabuzo. just to say that the contract is going to expire in OCTOBER, I just want to put on record it's going

066to expire in OCTOBER, we MAY have to set up an alternative system, just in terms of having a alternative in place. do you want to postpone to the next meeting. There has to be a time. MR. Superintendent, would that be enough? yes, it will be enough to bring alternatives back but I think what MR. A acabuzo means a new contract with a new company. But a reminder for parents and other ally groups, it's free. We're not charging them for rental fees for use of facilities, the only cost is the if they have a large activity. Moving forward, that is the going to be updated in the policy coming back to the board is that it will be free. The only cost they will incur if they have a large event that would require security or

067custodial. I appreciate that. And yes so the next meeting, next meeting? SEPTEMBER 16th. and it MAY be that we have an extension and I would also point out as part of this motion, is that you know, whether we like it or not, facilitron has become a negative word to a lot of people. And, you know, there is all kinds of things that we need to do to make sure that we're thinking about them and this is a tax that we applied on people that do pay for our facilities and those are our residents of broward county as well. I would like to see some alternatives before we move forward to the system. okay, any other public comment? Board member discussion. I'm going to jump in real quick is say it's already in the policy. We

068already went through. It's already in the policy that the sag groups don't have to pay. I don't know how it got dis con bob lated but when you read, it's clear that the sag groups don't have to pay. But somehow, I know you're going to tweak the policy but I just want to be clear. We worked long and hard on this policy because we heard the concerns in the beginning. so it's frustrating as I mentioned last week to know that there is still concerns, because it is fairly clear in the policy that they are not suppose to be charged. just a big. I just want to make sure that you're correct chair. For meetings and things like that, it's the larger activities it's events that are not free. I went back after we talked, to

069look at it. I read it. that's causing a lot of angst for our organizations especially ptsa and pto, that have huge events. It's the meetings they don't have to pay for. the way I read it, it's as long as 100 percent fundraiser goes back to the school, they didn't have to pay. Any other comments on the motion? DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. My understanding is that in 2023, facilitron, seems to be working. Right? It seems to evolve other smaller groups and increasing costs for the smaller groups and groups that are fundraising. DR. Hepburn, can you tell us what facilitron looked like in 2023 and what it is now. I came on this board in 2022. I didn't have any parents calling me on facilitron, I didn't have it in 2024 but now I do.

070What has changed? And why can't we simply go back to what it was? I'm going to let MR. Acbuso, change. But it changes. if I MAY, that is issue. The policy triggers what happened in facilitron. And as we touch the policy, facilitron is automatically already programmed to represent the policy. So every time we touch the policy, it triggers a change in facilitron, so that's the disconnect. okay. So DR. Hepburn, because we have, we have a lot of small groups that are having concerns and I hear MS. Paul. We had policy change and policy change triggers different things. But why is there so many push back that we didn't have before? You know, be specific. yeah, so to be specific, if I am an organization of sag organization I can just go to the school and

071say hey, I need to use your gym for a huge fundraiser event and they didn't have to put that information into the system. okay, so they were doing that for many years before facilitron and there was no problem? no problems that we're aware of. But organization is no a problem, I can go directly to you, if you're the principal and say, can I use your gym for this huge fundraiser dance that we're having to support whatever initiative for the school. right. and I'll leave it at that. but wouldn't the principal know of what when the auditorium is being in used? you'll be surprised. We have conflicts issues all the time. We're dealing with a conflict issue right now. Which has turned into a huge investigation. Because of the sheer volume of schools we do have

072the issues where facilities are double booked and, I don't know if it's the school's fault or whoever, and you have two people showing up trying to use the facility at the same time. and double booked by ptsa? it could be ptsa or a organization. okay, can you tell the public what it is that you're bringing back as far as changes. we're bringing back our allied groups with use the facility free during the school day. And after the school day the oj cost they would incur if they use security and -- . and would you describe a dance? if you're utilizing a large venue, that's a large event. so here's what I would like to see, right. We need to have a better structure because there seems to be no real guidelines, because we cannot define

073large. We don't know which groups. We cannot define impact or anything. So it's all subjective. So, can we, and I don't know, and I know DR. Zeman has a motion on the table it appears. I don't know if a motion is needed but there needs to be structure as to who you use or not use facilitron. what is considered a significant group. can I, that all of that speaks to the policy and the policy is coming back to us. So I think that discussion will be had when the policy comes in a workshop. This is just about the facilitron software. understand. So DR. Hepburn when the policy comes back, we're all getting this push back for a long time for a few weeks now. So when the policy comes back, I would personally like to

074see that we have some structure guideline as far as what is considered large group, what is considered who uses and not use the facilitron. All of these things have to be included it cannot be vague. It has to be definitive and objective. So it's clearly stated so all of these groups can understand. Because a group can go, you have to go through facilitron and no you don't have to. Understand what we're discussing. But I'm just frustrated. I understand, but it's been. we're going to have the same conversation. but you know where I'm coming from. and it's in next week's workshop. MS. Bulman is it on the motion specifically? We're on the motion. yeah, I appreciate the motion. I understand where the district is coming from but I just hope because we have been talking about

075this on many occasion sxz bringing our concerns, I just hope that we're being heard. Because we're on the ground and getting calls. When we left that last week, I thought we were going to get solution because it was and we never got the memo so I'm still getting calls at the end of the week trying to deal with people's complaints. We need to have the communication so we can help each other and know what is going on and, you know, to DR. Holness's point we can talk about it next week but there is a lot more to this that is causing problems than what is being presented here. And I also think that there is an opportunity to look at different things if you're looking at high schools, it's different. we're going to have that

076discussion next week. when it gets brought back. but what is being brought back is just the facilitron. The policy, what we're talking about facilitron. Next week will be the policy discussion. triggers. and I'll just say, I personally don't think the problem is facilitron, I think it's the policy. agreed. I just wanted to say that. Yes. I just wanted to make a comment. I don't know if my colleagues, all page 15, exhibit a, company fees, ten percent of the total, transaction, well not to parents, we're not charging parents. right, the organization that rent the facilities. Like when you buy tickets. what is the average cost to rent the facility? that could vary. MR. Acabuzo, I know that vair he'ser, media consider, whatever the size of the facility. And what they need it for. Go ahead, MR.

077Acabuzo. so in the policy you have the fee schedule and the fee schedule goes from the different categories like you have the fee for nonprofit, tied to some kind of nominal fee. So you have the fee for auditorium, approximately the auditorium fee if you have an event for rehearsal, you have to pay $100 an hour for the rehearsal or set up. 700 performance for three-hour period and then $100 each additional hour and that's auditorium. You have a category for food and nutrition. It has a daily minimum of 350, and 50 additional hour including salary for employees. So there is a bunch of categories, so the structure is based on the space. When I want to say, when we brought the policy last year and then it went up, because the board voted. The policy, the

078costs was tagged against -- so our fees are comparable to the other school district miami-dade. So that's how the fees are done but it's based on category and it's in the popocy. okay, all ose ininfavor r of the e momoti to stpopone ititemj1 titie e nenext regular school board meeting which is SEPTEMBER 16th, say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. No. Motion carries. we only have one descending vote, the chair, MS. Hixon, is that correct? yes. MS. Rupert, did you vote. I'm a yes. alrighty. This is the time of the agenda. No, this motion replaces, right, yeah. Sometimes I get it right. This is the time of the agenda where we have split the general public comment speakers to incorporate the morning session. Each speaker is reminded to present their agenda comments. The first

079speaker is beverly joseph. Next speaker is DR. Nathalie lynch walsh. Speaker: good morning again, DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh plantation florida. I appreciate all of you guys spending as much time on facilitron, I hope you spend as much time on j3 when we get back to. The board has already approved an audit, it's in the audit plan in the intern controls over hr. Up until DECEMBER of 24, the board item making a recommendation on candidate used to say that this candidate has been found to be the most qualified, based on education, experience and interviews. However since that is often not true, now staff just says, that they meet now, the board item says that they meet minimum qualifications. So apparently, and I don't remember you voting on this, even though it should be the intent of the

080school board to hire the most qualified employees you can possibly hire, your staff changed it to say, minimum qualifications. So just so you know, that would seem to be at odds can conventional wisdom. And a candidate does not put themselves on the agenda by themselves. Every one was acting like this person put themselves on there, no, no, they needed a lot of help to get tl. Standards of ethical conduct is a policy you have coming up later. I wanted to direct you, to the following topics and one of them is information submitted on behalf of the school board. I don't know what that means. Does that mean when they bring you something it's okay, if they lie and if you told them to lie that that's when they should have integrity, not clear on that.

081It should be in all dealings not just a list. I know it says not limited to. But they get confused here. Oh look, due process, to support the due process to protect the civil and human rights of all students and individuals. Don't forget that, that's in this policy. I'm going to say it again, I would like to see the general counsel evaluation public. I sent you four emails. That will be in my rebuttal. I had the complaint about the 10, 10, 10 rules that seems to be taken. A messy or the chart related to that whole area and a apparently, they can use ten or more counts from freshman wault way through your senior year to torture students. So if you were absent because you were sick 11 times in your freshman year, just wrong

082and harmful to students. Thank you. thank you, johnny rojas. DR. Trudy jervanvich. See I have trouble saying it too. In AUGUST, I always check on my former high school. I graduated in 1964 celebrated its 100 year as the first free high school in indiana. With that as my background I'm proud of being a school advocate to my core. This year, several high schools in I understand I indianapolis. What can you do to stop this process? My high school was closed at one point but reopened as a middle school. This year was declared the best high school in the state because money was put in to modernize an old building. It's very successful. I will now switch to some words with marrian brady who highlighted another issue with makes people leave traditional public schools. What drives

083affective schooling? Isn't competition, but the need to understand to make sense of experience, to solve problems, to know how or something works to satisfy curiosity, to know oneself, to prepare the young for unknown future. Traditional schooling fails primarily because it's disconnected subjects are isolate fromed reality which is systematically related and integrated. Proper schooling helps children lift into consciousness, easily understood related process and put it to useful work putting what they can't do it all, create thinkers. The knowledge creating process requires them to hypothesize and infer, correlate extrapolate, imagine, general rise, synthesize and so on to use the thousands of processes, not taught because they're too complex to be evaluated by machine scored standardized test. As you plan for this year, let's not emphasize and over emphasize the testing, testing is not teaching. Make our schools

084like my high school, last for over 150 years. Thank you. thank you, and our last public speaker is MR. Delvin king. Okay. It doesn't look like he's here. Okay. Next we'll have the superintendent's report. good morning, board chair, board memebers and our B.C. Ps community. Thanks to the dedication of our outstanding B.C. Ps team, we had a very successful opening to the new school year. Like you, I was out visiting schools on the first day. And it was great to see the students back with excitement. Last year I joined secretary of education sandra Mcan and ana, at broward college foundly known as commissioner estasi where nearly 1,000 families came together to complete the new beta fafsa. This will streamline the process for our families making it more accessible and efficient. This means for of our

085students will be equipped to cease opportunity towards their educational roles. Now becon, roll the tape. yes, thank you again to the B.C. Ps team and our community and our board memebers for helping start our school year strong. That concludes my report. thank you. Next we'll have our updates from some of our organizations and first is bf, and although MR. Nap could not come today he wanted me to share a couple of things. First of all, they had backpack giveaways, it was a great success. I know that some of us participated in the backpacks and it was really nice to see the students, and it was given out during their meet and greet with the teacher. So great opportunity and the backpacks were actually filled with items. So really great to be part of that. This

086adopt a school program brought in 06,000 -- 60,000, that was given out to schools. And you have not heard, there is the national football showcase starting on thursday, going through saturday this weekend where different major football, high school football teams come to broward county to play our football teams in a national showcase. So those are the exciting things happening at bf. For pta, they sent us a nice letter, they just mentioned that, the pta started off by greeting teachers with welcome back breakfast. And also had a nationwide add voluntary ca tee for education dollars so they were instrumental in getting that money lose end, the for some of the title one grants that we were waiting for. They are very, appreciative of us looking back at policy 80-20. There is a clothing bank in apollo

087middle that are in support of students in uniforms and parents can make appointments with a reference to receive uniforms for their children. And there is an annual training SEPTEMBER 20th. They'll be offering class sxz workshops on various pta positions as well as advocacy and community out reach. And right on perfect time, next we have our employee employee group, so btu? well good morning, ana fuseco, I get five minutes not three. Please change the time. Thank you very much. So ana fussco, I'm stud -- student union. I'm going to start that the union is holding negotiations, we know that's not true. That would be you guys. Last year, we said after we ratified and you guys approved it, we're going to roll into the new school year. Half a percent to turnover to just over 13,000

088teachers. It's your job to make sure that the budget has money. You certainly cut a ton of positions including some of our EPs that make two nickels, 15 bucks an hour. You have principals that moved them from 7 and a half hours to 7 hours and you ignore me on that. That's one. Two, we know that there is over klaz size and some schools and we know that there are some schools under enrolled. We know we're going to do some transitioning. Our teachers have worked hard all summer to go out and buy tons of supplies for their students, supplies for their own classrooms to make sure that when the students walk in and go oh my gosh, this is an amazing classroom with an amazing teacher that made this district an a-district that sat with

089you at the press conference, oh my gosh. I come back two weeks and I've got my teachers telling me, we're going to treat our schools like f-schools. C-schools are going to be treated like f-schools. Did you direct that? I want to you undirect that, and if you didn't, I want you -- 1 million percent it's happening. I've got teachers being put on cycle plans. So I'm doing all of this extra work at no extra pay. So when I'm done, I'm going to hear all of extra pay, our students and our teachers make our schools. Now I tried to talk to you individually, nothing has changed in two weeks. So I'm going to speak publicly. Let's turn it over to school choice. How many parents have come out to me to help them get into their

090schools. You talk about being under enrolled go listen to the messaging when a parent calls to get in a school of their choice. And you'll see why it's so difficult. Change it up to where when it's easier for our students to stay in our schools or come back. Stop saying that everything is great. We have lots of greatness. We do. And I want to highlight all the greatness but we cannot ignore when we've got people that are suffering. We got students that want to get into our schools. You promote school choice, let's make it work. Then let's talk about people that we're hiring. You know how many schools have substitutes? Do you know how many intermittent teachers that are suppose to be working and help that are being deployed to go cover in classrooms. Because

091we're not getting the ones that we say, you have a job and you think, we're going to be ready to get hired and start the first day of school. The process is too long. We want to sit here that we're great and all dandy, and then you've got some admin that don't want to show that they're partners. They should come into a school and be that support system that they've been when I was a parent and when I was a teacher in the classroom part of the pta. Stop making like people that are not the partners but you stand up there and say, we got all of these partners but you don't treat them as partners. Stop saying it and the fake smiles and let's start showing it. Broward student union is a partner in

092the public schools. We're employees, we're visiting schools to help out. We've donated hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to the schools that you guys don't fund to make sure that the students have resources. When we go to school and we get turned away and not one of you did something about it, shame on you. Shame on you. You got a new device out there that I want to promote, I know nothing about. thank you. Do we have any other employee union groups? Okay. Thank you so much. We're going back to our consent items. Can I have a motion a second on j2. Moved by MR. Zeman seconded by MS. Thompson. Any public comment on j2? no ma'am. okay. DR. Zeman. chair, thanks so much. i'm going to be briefer than I normally am on

093this topic. And this is a complicated topic, this is not a topic of do we, benefit from gulfstream and other learning centers and other dedicated facilities but there are dedicated policies that we have to think about. Chair, how many, how much does it cost broward county schools with our staff and overhead assigned to them and the benefits bully burden rate for salaries. How much does it cost for to us operate early learning center at gulfstream? DR. Hepburn? I don't have these details with me, I don't know if anybody on the team. I know DR. Canning is on her way down, but I'm not sure we'll have that available but she is walking in. you MAY proceed. DR. Canning, did you hear the question. no, I did not hear the question, please repeat. how much does

094broward county school pay for staff in a fully burden grade and overhead to oversee for gulfstream early learning stream. Speaker: we're funded for assistant principal and manager and imt and facility service person and facility service pen and ese specialist. So we are funded for staff and I can get you that number, I do not have that number readily available but if you need the exact number, I can get you the number. I appreciate what you provided. That's five positions out of the general fund? DR. Hepburn? DR. Canon. Speaker: that's correct, yes. DR. Chair, who's mission to do associate services in our country? -- social services in our country. various organizations, including us. that's been my issue all along. Gulfstream does brilliant awesome community building work. And I have talked to multiple commissioners about whether or

095not they want to come into some kind of agreement to provide the services they provide in other parts of the county, like we do. Chaiai pay for trsportititition fostenen wiwiin twowo leleof the school DR. Hepburn? yes, that's correct. I'm asking the opposite, MR. Superintendent. Do we pay for transportation for kids that live within two miles of the school? 2 miles or less? so we do not get reimbursed. we don't get reimbursed and we don't get paid. Empty seats cost us no more. To getting things to school, contribute to public education? I venture to say yes. good. Do we pay, chair for after school or before school programs with our general fund dollars? DR. Hepburn. most is paid through grants. I think by statute prohibited for paying for students who can afford but both contribute to

096education as well. In many cases there is a consistent ca urriculum. But I keep pointing out, as money gets tight and it's always tight in public education, we need to spend on k-12 education. We've now got two early learning centers dedicated facilities to do that mission, which I believe is a responsibility to the county commission. So when we step out and fund things that are not in our per view, like a lot of things, we don't pay for mental health for kids that need help outside of school. All of those things contribute to education, but every time an agency steps over their line, they run the risk of rescissions by their budgetary authority and they confuse people like the county commission who don't know how much to pay. So, I just want to be on

097the record saying, I love early learning. I as a member of broward county representing my constituents think that we don't have enough money to do everything that we want to do. And we have to be very very clear about what we want to do versus what we have within our core mission. Thanks chair. thank you. All those in favor of item j2 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item up is item j3 can i have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Lee nard'. -- leonardi. Any public comment? yes, ma'am. DR. Nathalie lynch walsh. Speaker: good morning, DR. Nathalie lynch walsh, plantation, a group that has talked about tscc, one conversation that we had as a group, was using that to be

098the new kcw, that's not going to be the plan. So first question and I'm glad we're no longer trying to renovate these buildings, you might as well set money to the money. Where do the employees go that are in the tscc annex. Because the last batch of employees to be relocated, there was a sort of analysis that show you're paying half a million for rock island and that your new lease we presumably are in the facilities in the schools that we have children in. The lease for the rock island people before the before and aftercare is also lf a million. How much does it cost for people that are not going into this the handy building? That would be another question. There is a larger conversation to be had here about administrative school space instead

099of staff bringing you silos information. The last time we looked, the district was still about 200,000 square foot over, and that's something that the state looks at. I don't know if there are penalties, apparently not or we won stay this way. I don't know if you can reduce that through leasing. My first concern is where are you putting this people? You have empty schools, north fork comes to mind. Plantation, you have safety and security there. You could have put the rock island people into a school where you renovated it and you don't need the space. Think about how much schools that comment applies to. It's been renovated because of the smart program because of a lack of a long term plan. We were slapping new roofs on facilities, you don't need for students. The building

100at north forth needs to be demolished, that's why they have not touched it yet. So where are you putting, you have it, you have procurement, I don't know if it's benefits in the annex. You have a bunch of employees that you then have to put somewhere and if these buildings are suitable for students, I would suggest that some of these decrepit or renovated buildings in empty schools, but GOD forbid we do a boundary change, it requires a level of fortitude but that is going to take. Our bount rechanges this are in the best interest of students and not keep doing what is best interest for adults and putting them into new buildings. Thank you. thank you. Any other public comments? Okay. dr. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So DR. Hepburn, upon the sale of this

101property, where will the funds go? DR. Hepburn? capitol. and how will the funds be used? as the board seems fit. And so forth. so how does the board benefit? we're offloading the building that we don't need anymore. okay. What challenges, do you suppose the district face during this process of selling and staff moving and after this action take place? there is no challenge as the speaker just mentioned, we have plenty of space across our entire school district and it's roughly, correct me if I'm wrong, DR. Wanz a it's about 300 plus employees, we done analysis of how many employees are housing that buildings, and what we can do to house the employees per division and department. Most of that has already been in preliminarily strategized to and also the addition of journey of redefining space

102that could be housed in? okay, can you speak to, now that you mentioned that there have been plans as to where staff will relocate, can you speak to that as to where this staff will go? yes. Staff could possibly come into this building where we're relocating out to schools where there is a better fit versus the admin staff at those buildings can be staffed here and also utilizing, potentially utilizing wings of under enrolled schools also. so staff will be moving into existing buildings and not into new lease. correct. . of any sort. so it will cost us less to house those staff that are at that location on oakland park, correct. that's correct, because we'll be using existing space that we already have. are we intending of losing any staff as a result of this

103action? all things are possible. okay, is that part of a plan to shrink the staff of that location? it is plan to shrink the staff of the entire school district as we continue to redefine and revising our footprint and right sizing our employee base to match our current needs based on students. I understand. But in terms this action of selling the building, does that necessitate that building. downsizing staff is a different strategy. so that's sort of a district wide? correct. that you're speaking to. correct. so my questions are based on this action and impact of this action, right. So when we sell this building and it goes back, you said where is it going to go? capital funding. sxibl it's 12 million dollars? roughly, if you include the tscc annex and the main building, once

104they correct me if I'm wrong, MS. Paul, about 15 million dollars probably or 18. yes. But it's basically, you the appraisal and the highest bid. so that's appraisal value so it could be higher than that. okay, so I appreciate the item and DR. Hepburn, what I'll say and I understand what we're doing as a district in terms of looking at, properties that MAY not necessarily need, but I also would caution that whenever properties that we sell that we, utilize those funds in a very, efficient manner that would be long term positively impactful. Because we're giving up properties and one that goes very quickly. So I think over the long term, we have to consider the impact of what we do in terms of especially selling properties and where the funds go. Because when those funds

105are dried up quickly, the properties are gone and so are the funds. So I think, it's important that that is considered because what I heard you say, is that it's going to capital to be part of the general capital budget but we have no intended use, it's going to be part of capital and spend it the way we normally sbend it, the building will be gone as well. We no longer own it. I would cautious that in selling all of these properties that we look long term. Because we could eventually just like we lost students, we could gain students where we need more space. So, I just think, it should be done carefully. As we move forward, and not just have a short-term vision but a long term vision of what we're trying to do.

106Because I know we're trying to roll the student population in all the initiative that we're doing in he is esthetic appeal and while we're losing students today, I for one confidently believe that in the long term we will gain students. And as we do when we give up the properties, then what do we do then? We go back to renting expensive buildings in order to house staff and so forth and so on. So it's just a word of caution. DR. Zeman. thank you. I hope and agree that there is a potential for winning back some students in reality, the laws of economics are like the laws of economy. And we have priced so many that there are fewer students here than it was 20 years ago. And demographic seem to be amenable largely because the

107way we treat mothers. We're having 1.6 children per couple, jeff. These numbers are difficult to undo and they're not result of a public school systems but individual decision sxz policies that we have about moms. So there is a bunch of research about people wanting folks to have more children versus the reality of having more children. And I recommended it to the whole board. This item is part of an process of selling excess buildings. And my concern is isn't that we do this, because it is clearly a building we don't need. And for which there is a higher and best use, either a city MAY come buy it like up in parkland, we have a hospital on this land that we bought. But we didn't need it, and now we're about to get an expansion. So,

108there is some goodness that comes out of this. My concern is. The process and I've got a lot of calls about this which is strange. Because, people who have called and written have said do you have a school system to get a survey? And my answer is, I don't know all of those parts of this, I'm still learning a few things. But chair what are the big steps when we decide and let's just use tscc, and annex for example. We decided a year ago or so that we didn't need it and we start today do some planning, on where the staff was going to go and I appreciate the work that went into that. But we said roughly, a year that we didn't need the land. What are the steps? DR. Hepburn? MR. Acabuzo, if

109you can educate us and also the public on all the steps on the surplus. good morning again, board memebers. So the steps we have to follow some are state mandated. The school board has a policy and they also have to align with the state law. When we get a directive to sell property, the first step we do is pretty much to do this point survey which you have right here. Beyond some days. We do this survey. The reason is because we have a plan survey which has all school board facilities, all the buildings, both administrative and schools, right? So we have to change we have to change that use into another action to say this facility is no longer needed for educational purposes. So you must do the steps. This step has to be discussed

110in a board workshop. Once you bring the item, once awe proof this idea, we send to florida board of education who will review and determine this is no longer needed for educational purposes. After that is done, I bring a second item. If you look at the statute, it says that it's been recommended in a blind survey. So the recommendation is no longer needed because you can sublease. So once we bring the board item to sub laws, then I can put it up for sale. DR. Zeman, great question, we sometimes do stuff simultaneously, we have to, it's in school policy. So in the committee, took action and established a minimum asking price which like the superintendent said, it's a minimum price, you can get a higher price. so normally people bid. We've done a appraisal. So

111the next step is to advertise it for sale. chair in general, are we in favor of exchanging surplus property for cash? DR. Hepburn? yes, in general. yeah, I think probably in specific, right? We have land, we're the largest land owner in broward county. I hope DR. Holness, I hope people have more children. This year, we lost 8700 students. It's a huge different and just for the public that is equivalent to 14 elementary schools. That we fell in one year. And so we have a lot of land that we thought we were going to expand. We got a lot of land that we have no need for. It's about somebody building a hospital. Somebody building a new facility that we're about to take up. A way to use the land that is far greater than a

112piece of property that has, you know, if you want know anything about this property, call want paul. That does no social good and we can really use the money. If we want to win back students, we want to get the capital so more people take tours and therefore choose our schools. My concern is that this takes way too long. And I appreciate the policy and because our government agency, we cannot be a agile and quick. Other people would like to put that land we own it put it to a better use. And I'm worried that a year ago, we decided to sell this property and we voted on that and today we're doing a first step. Not even a formal survey but a spot survey, there is six trees and water runs through that way.

113And, I'm interested in whether my colleagues think this is a case or not. If it is, it would be nice to bring this policy back and to think a little bit about it or just ask the superintendent to think about the process we use, from the point that we decide that we don't need a piece of land to build housing, to use it as a wildlife center, can we figure out a way to do that entire process in something like a year instead of something like three or four years? That would be my goal. I wanted to see if other colleagues felt there were opportunities in taking two to three years selling property that we don't need. I think all of us, I think we would all like to see a speedier process because it

114releases us from the property and we get cash from that. So DR. Hepburn, is there a way to a path to this? we can review the process expedientcy is important to us. But I understand the process. I'll have MR. A kubuzo review it with us. And bring back the policy if that's part of the barrier. I appreciate that. And chair, can we put that any workshop in a couple of months. yes, we can add that to the redefinings we talk about process. great. I just want to do a survey and appraisal and listing and get it out. And let somebody else who wants to take ownership of this property work with the city potentially even work with us. One of the things I loved about the hospital is they came to us and said, look

115this is what we got. This is what we can do with this. It's more than a transaction, that we're going to sell the property for the value, that's great. But now we have this whole robust property. We have a mental health facility that is so important in that area. It was a beautiful thing to see that come together and broward county and hospital administration, were in it together to figure out with the city being compliant. I hope we get that in the future but I think we do it total time so everybody gets that benefit faster. Thanks chair. MS. Alhadeff. yes, I would like to make a comment that there needs to be robust communication with the city in regards to any land selling. thank you. All those in favor of item j3 say aye.

116Aye. Any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. We're going to move on to item jj3 because it has s a me ceceain n at 1 1:0o'clocock. Can I havea a tition d a a cocond. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there any public comment on jj3? yes, we have the mayor of southwest ranch and after him, DR. Trudy. good morning, chair, board, superintendent, I'm incredibly excited to be here this morning. We have been working on this project. I intently listening to the discussion that all just had and how that folds right into it. These, these hunts that we have to use these properties for greater food and provide funding for the school board for our students is exciting. We're thankful for this. We're incredibly grateful to chris and his staff

117and the support that we've received from the board the first time we were here. We're excited. It's going to help south ranches, because south florida is so in line with who we are, helps the school board both from facilities, personnel and programming and of course funding. And also helps obviously, south florida wildlife center as they do their mission protecting animals and restoring animals throughout the county and frankly it helps broward county as a whole with the stand point as a space. So we are so thankful to be here. we're excited to be here and looking forward to seeing this project take off. Thank you all so much. thank you. Next public speaker. Speaker: my name is DR. Trudy vermanvich. The south florida wildlife center has been located near me since I moved to florida in

1181977. My husband and I found a broken wing pelican. I picked it up and drove to the wildlife center and as you can imagine, we got lots of looks as a held the board in my car in the passenger side of the car. We were thankful that she was not compared and relief herself. They let me know when she was recovered and released back into the wild. I'm also aware of program. As I used it with my students and preservice teacher. I'm glad the school board has found a good home in the wildlife center as they no longer can stay in ft. Lauderdale. I love southwest ranch, by the way. I kept my arabian stallion when I first moved here. And to use the 7 acres on the property in exchange for the removal of

119d-restriction, that's what has to be say. But I really want to say, I think this will benefit to every one. I will continue to contribute to this organization. And I look forward to help raise funds for their new beautiful home as it's shown in the chart oh and they sell great t-shirts and hats, as you can see from my bird nerd shirt. Thank you. thank you so much. Is there any other public comment? Okay, we'll go to board comment? DR. Zeman. thank you, so much, chair. These things come together often times between south wildlife, it's hard for me, sorry, mayor 31 to keep track of. I think it would be, a disservice if we didn't recognize alessandro, she was there. Carolina is here, thank you for taking over. We know our steve, our mayor. But

120munoz, thank you for coming in. And our town attorney. This group has worked tirelessly which is really remarkable. They got displaced by my hometown who said you've got to get and didn't get really that much time to get out or allow toer them to pack up and move in a very sustainable way. But for a city to adopt this and to say it is consistent and to come to us and ask for this land, is a beautiful thing. And this is an amazing organization and like DR. Jermanvich said, there is 10,000 stories about people who dragged a broken wing or turtle even crazy stories about fish they caught and didn't know what to do with. Thank you for doing this. I cannot wait to check it out. I understand you're still trying to raise money.

121You have about four million. sorry for breaking protocol. Speaker: I'm the director for wildlife center. And like DR. Zeman said, we have money to start this process, because our community loves us. We're looking at maybe 10 million at the end, we're halfway there, and I know we'll get there. I should have asked you ahead of time. For anyone that has six million dollars there is a great organization and you can call the mayor, the mayor will get you in touch with the right people. But I'm so tickled to have visited the wildlife center in for ft. Lauderdale. Thank you very much, mayor and city officials and you. MS. Thompson. I'm just here to echo the excitement in welcoming them in district 2. It's where it should have been all along honestly. However I just wanted

122to say, my kids are super excited about. I live probably about 8 to 10 minutes from south ranch ranches and I believe it's the community that will welcome the center. I also thank just the academic programs that we have going to benefit from this center, the west broward high school already has the capacity, they have fake course that has organs that you can take apart for the veterinarian program and transition to go a real life experience is so exciting. It's something that can't be done in other counties, it's something that is going to bring people back fauxes. And I want to thank every one's advocacy on this. I don't have six million dollars but if I meet someone, I'll pass them your way and I'm super excited. Thank you. thank you, MR. Cervera. thank you,

123MADAM Chair. I echo my colleagues comments, I'm also excited that this is come to our neighbors to the south in district 6. South florida wildlife center tremendous organization with all they do with the rescue and education for the kids, so I'm very much looking forward to see this get off the ground. And I want to thank everybody who made this possible. I know it's a long time coming but certainly excited to get this off the finish line. thank you, MS. Bulman. thanks chair, I echo my colleagues but, in terms of a deal putting a deal together where every one is a winner, this was an excellent so I admire that from a legal stand point. And even though you'll be further, when I'm there with my broken birds, I'll drive tl. Thank you for finding

124such a fantastic resolution to this issue. thank you. Exciting to have this come and stamp approval and be able to move forward. So all those in favor of jj3 say aye. aye. any opposed say? I said aye. motion carries unanimously. Great job. thank you so much. Okay, we're going back to consent items to finish up. The next item up is j5 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by DR. Zeman. Any public comment? yes, MR. Michael bell. Speaker: good morning. Good morning. good morning. Speaker: all right. I know it's been a while but look I'm michael bell I'm the PRESIDENT And ceo of base communication. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your partnership and leadership, MADAM Chair. And thank you superintendent for

125all that you have and continue to do to work with the community. You all contain to hold these position that's are so powerful and influential in so many ways. But it's how we expand those options. So we're looking to SEPTEMBER third being a great day for broward county schools. Most importantly, ourself on behalf of our board as well as some partners that is in the building, b come. And some of the other partners to better serve our community give better quality access that we're looking to be a great pillar at our community at both blanche ely high school. thank you. Any other public comment? no ma'am. No more registered speakers. Speaker: you'll hear from me. Of course, broward teacher's union has to make a comment in support with our one of our groups that we

126support tremendously. With michael bell. So what are you guys going to do? You're going to hear everything that he has proposed and offered and run with it? Can we make it faster than other things? Can it be more of a priority than selling our properties. Equal property of having our students in school. When something like this comes around with a great organization that has been a tremendous support to our schools in broward county schools. And you guys know what schools that they work with. And they're going to continue to work with them. So, broward teacher's union is here in support. With michael bell. thank you, any other public speakers? Okay. Thank you. So I pulled this because I wanted to say, thank you so much. We have already approved the item. This is an amendment

127and I just wanted to point out when barriers happen. Sometimes people just say, no we can't do it and in this instance there was some issues with getting the medical doctors and the nurses and so community base foundations found a way to go around that barrier and found a way to provide them in a different manager than we originally agreed on. And I appreciate and thank you for doing that. Because these wellness centers as you know, I've been pushing for them since I got here. So I'm looking to the ribbon cutting SEPTEMBER 3. I hope my colleagues will join in blanche ely in the morning and afternoon. But it's for both medical and mental health of our students and communities and place that's have demonstrated that they need the assistance. We look forward to great

128things. : MADAM Chair. Can you add MS. Rupert to the list for this item. yes, go ahead, MS. Rupert. thank you, MADAM Chair. Hey, michael, good to see you and of course we've been, you know, in partnership with you since 2020. So it's something that we've worked towards and I have to just give you all the credit for having that, kind of that passion to keep moving forward when doors were closed to you and look what you've done. Look what you're going to do. I'm incredibly proud of you. I guess and I think MS. Hixon would know this better than me, but we did have a clinic at blanche ely decades ago. So it's wonderful that now it's come full circle with also the mental health wrap arounds. So we've got something that is going

129to be a positive not only for district 7 but for this entire district, we can use it for a prototype of wrapping. Thank you so much, michael. i wish you every bit of luck and support. I cannot wait to come and see it. Thank you MADAM Chair. thank you. MS. Rupert, you were right, there was a partnership and all those clinics were community basis for all services. All those in favor of j5 say aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously, yay. Next up is j6 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved and seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment. we've got one registered speaker, DR. Nathalie lynch walsh. Speaker: still good morning, DR. Nathalie lynch walsh, plantation florida. This marrian patoon, it was a staff who alerted. And there was

130buildings to be reroofed but that are actually hopefully now demolished, we'll have to go double checked. This is one where it needs to be expedited. The admin staff were hit ining -- sitting in fire hazards. They had things strong every which way. I would hope and pray that they won be burned to death in the conditions they were subjected to for years. The abandon building, building 5 was not used for ten years. I think this school mighting in next week's workshop but understand this is has a performance art magnet and all the buildings that MAY attract parents were hiding behind these hideous buildings that nobody would leave their small kind that they carried around for nine months because they cannot get past the scary building. So this is one where we must measure twice to

131get this right. You need the master plan, so you can see where this building goes. The scope calls for a partial replacement of building three. Understand that building three is the old cafeteria, but also the fpl vault. And I just looked at the picture again on google earth. The vault will be this little thing left in the middle of nowhere if you demolish everything around it. That can't be what an architect would recommend for a master plan of the campus. This same campus this we repeatedly advocated, it's missing the 2-5 playgrounds. Other things, that kids have, play space. They have not had playgrounds since they took them to put the for thables that have not been there forever. And I hope the buildings are demolished. So please make sure that you see the master plan

132and that it addresses all of the deficiencies. They were also counting the buildings that haven't been demolished were being counted in the capacity so the school looked even more enrolled than it actually is. It's right next to the middle school that does not have a performing arts magnet. so again, redefining but thinking strategic and connecting the dots not just with blinders on is what is going to benefit the school and this school should not be left with no 2 to 5 playground. That would be a travesty. I'm not saying for jj10, that's a hard no. thank you so much. MS. Bulman. sorry. Thank you, chair. So, I, I echo, I know that the condition was very deplorable and I agree with the speaker, when you walk into the office that is currently there, it is

133not a shining beacon of entry into a school. I mean, when you walk into the rest of the school it looks great. I believe my predecessor MR. Foganholi was hopeful in getting some of the buildings demolished. My understanding is that the buildings have been demolished and all we have to do is build this admin building. I want to thank MS. Paul because I brought this to her and she has been very responsive and they have, you know, been working on this going forward so I really appreciate that. Nobody should be working in those conditions. This is a preexisting to anybody here right now situation. So, I am very grateful that the staff, the principals, the add hin will be working in a new building pretty soon, because they certainly do not need to be sitting

134in the current conditions and it's a great school. Thank you. thank you. DR. Zeman. thank you. I brought this up, because 8 months ago, we demolished the building in bathoon now we're here to move it forward at another step in time. And I'm curious, has five months gone by between the building that we are talking to bid on a construction project? DR. Hepburn? I'll have MS. Paul shed some light with that, I see the carpenter back there also. Good morning. good morning, again. The major issue was just acquiring funding to support the project, I believe there was design money in there. And of course as state briefly predated. But, ashley carpenter, who is with adkins, she can speak further to that. This is one of those projects that kind of stalled over the years. And

135so she has more of a historical perspective. thank you, ashley carpenter with adkins realis. This project is still under design, it's being permitted right now. The idea is to get this authorization to advertise, so as soon as it receives the letter recommendation, it can be put on the street to hire the contractor. I just want to set some expectations. I don't understand what a stall means. and I'm not done. My constituents don't understand what a stall means. We have 500 million dollars in our defp account. When we tell our communities we're going to build you a buildings and demolish five or four buildings and wait five montnt. Why can't we ne up is process s to acacalal gegeththings donene? I'm just saying that the expectations of the community is when you tell them you're going

136to build something, it gets done. It MAY take a couple of years. The superintendent is talking about this wonderful idea of identifying the school and schools around it and demolishing it in 12 months. When I talk to my constituents about that, one districts do that all over the united states, it's not an impossible thing to do. But when I talk to the broward county about that, I don't get very far in the conversation. So I'm, I'm just continuously frustrated that we have new leadership. We have great leadership here in broward county. Something is not working in the process to get things done. Install is not a word that people in broward county want to hear about. If there is an ability why we're demolish which is pretty standard, why don't we do it? Why is

137it that somebody is assigned to every construction making sure nothing falls between the crack. How does a building fall between a crack? Physically, a building cannot fall between a crack. A paper clip can, but a building can't. So I'm, I just can't explain it to people anymore that we can't figure out how to get things done. Because we have new leadership and things are not getting done. And so, hopefully, this will encourage people to align processes, to execute contracts to evaluate contracts to hire people, to get the permits approves approved and get the things done, because it's getting old to tell them we have new leadership and then we have this 8-month gap. We knew the buildings were going counsel. Down. So at that point, there were a lot of things that we could have

138done along the way. I don't know what it is. But it really, I want to think through our expectations about what it means when we tell the community we're going to bring you a new building and auditorium. When is that going to be done? Chair? When will the auditorium be finished? MS. Carpenter, do you have that date? I do not have that date. But that project is still under design. great. Under design is actually an action. When bathoon school have a new administration building? DR. Hepburn? MS. Carpenter. so upon approval of this item today, as soon as the project receives the letter of recommendation which should be, very shortly within one or two months, it will be advertised for construction. And we can get you the timeline for the construction period itself. I don't know

139have that in front of me. But that contractor will be hired and that contract will be brought to you so you'll know exactly when the contractor is being hired. okay. I'm at the end of my rope in my community is at the end of the rope. And I cannot talk to them intelligently about how we do this. Which gets people really excited until you tell them you're a school member. We have a long history. So so chair I'm going to share that later, I'll think about some items. That help staff figure how to do. The last part of your comments about new leadership. New leadership. Since we've gotten hire. Her leadership have identified these stall project and doing the active steps necessary to get them back up and implemented as soon as possible, so I

140just want to speak to her leadership and her team's leadership since I've been here. That's been stalled for many years and we're getting those projects and completing them as fast as possible. and that's my experience as well. But when I tell the residents of broward county, they have not seen that yet. It's just not getting out there though that when we go into a constituent and say we're going to about to pen brooke pines and build a brand new school, as part of that brand new thing. I cannot get people in deer field beach to say, go get that. So we're just at the point where we have not won them over and it's going to take time. I've seen this leadership rally around things to get things done. But still projects that, that the

141community sees like this one where there is a long gap between demolition and the next step. And that confuses them. I agree. that's part of a communication problem and part of is making sure that the community construction does not get done in weeks. I agree with the public's sentiment and lived experience, I would be frustrated too. thank you. MS. Leonardi. I don't believe I pulled this. oh I'm sorry, all those in favor of j5 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously without MS. Thompson on the dais. Next item is j -- sorry, l1. I think that was j6. If you want to correct the record. oh, yes. The next item up is l1. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Thompson. Any public comment on l1? no ma'am. okay, MS.

142Bulman. thanks, chair. I have just appreciate the partnership with south florida and appreciated your question. About whether we're limited to the pantry on this item. The question is are we work to go expand this program? Or do we have any opportunity to expand it? How the funding works for this? DR. Hepburn. go ahead, MS. Sylvan. -- MR. Sullivan. we're always looking for that possibility if they're willing to expand it, we're ready. thank you, MR. Sullivan, we were going to say the same exact thing and would you like to respond? hi, good morning, nadia clark assistant director of community engagement. We're definitely looking for opportunities to expand. Feeding south florida has been fundraising and continue to funding. As funds grow, our sites will grow as well. thank you. all those in favor of l11 say aye.

143aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next motion is -- . so moved. moved by DR. Zeman. DR. Holness. MADAM Chair, we're on o-2 correct? okay. So I have I have a few questions. How are, prime bidders eligible for a procurement credit? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul or MS. Andreu? There she is, go a. Speaker: good morning, jennifer andreu. how are prime bidders eligible for procurement credit? so affirmative procurement initiatives are decided by the goal-setting committee. And once that goal is set, prime bidders then are able to submit a proposal and they get points depending on the goal that was set. okay, so, MS. Andreu, how do you believe this process based on the goal setting committee, support the pure involvement of swb firms. again by assigning those goals. They are helping all of

144our certified firms do business with the school board. So the assignment of those goals ensures that they are going to get an opportunity to work with the school board of broward county. okay, so the goal setting committee has the latitude to change the goals if it's not meeting what would be considered the goal of fear involvement? Do they have the latitude to change the goal. the goal is set on a project by project basis. So it's not nothing across the board. So we look at a number of data points to set those goals on projects specific basis. and yes. yes, they have that latitude. and for my knowledge and the knowledge of the public, what are usually the factors that determine since it varies on project to project how these goals are set? And can

145you reiterate again the intent of setting these goals? so let me start with the latter. The intent is to eliminate disparities in our county. Some of the points, the data points that we look @ a team is the scope of service that's are needed for that specific project and then we look at the market. So how many vend iers are in the market that can do that scope of work. would you say in your own professional judgment that the goals that you've seen being set on a continual basis is affective in eliminating disparity? yes, I would. We're working towards that. It will obviously not happen overnight but we're absolutely making gains. have there been companies that have bid and chosen not to take advantage of the action for affirmative procurement credit. if there is a

146goal on a project and a vendor submits a proposal and receives points because of the commitment they made, they must honor that commitment or they would be in breech of that contract. I understand that. So I guess wile rephrase that question. So there are points being awarded to companies that would be select being eligible for initiative credit, correct? correct. and do companies have the option of saying, I'm not going to participate in that? are you referring to the sub contractors? no, I'm referring to the prime bidders? do they have the option of not participating in the points that they can receive in terms of credit. if a goal is mandatory, then they must meet the minimum mandatory requirement. If the goal is not mandatory and they're given incentives for using certified sub contractors, then they

147can or cannot use those it sub contractors and they would be evaluated based on their participation. okay, so has there been cases and in your best opinion, where the goals were not mandatory but companies won a bid, and not chose to exercise the objective of the goal-setting committee in eliminate disparity by not participating in whatever points are to be awarded based on initiative credit. so that has happened but it's rare. Again, we want to increase competition in our district and the way you do that is through the evaluation of the points and firms know that the district is making this priority and they want to obtain the most points that they can to be competitive. So what happens, but it is rare. and why do you suppose a company would choose not to participate in

148that? I would not have that answer. That would be a business decision on behalf of the owner of the company. how can we strengthen the process tone sure that the companies are incentivize to include swbn firms in this process? I think the current process and policy we have in place, is is working. do you think that it's beneficial to see if there is improvement so we can continue to eliminate disparity? we will continue to evaluate every single project on a project basis to eliminate that we're eliminating those disparities. thank you. thank you, all those in favor of o-2 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously without MS. Alhadeff on the dais. This would be the part of the meeting where we'll consider all the open agenda items. The following open items have

149been identified for discussion. Hh1, hh2, a a 2, a a 2 with a time certain of 3 P.M. F f1, jj1, jj5, jj9, jj11, ll1, double o-2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 22 and double p3, 7, 8, rr1, tt1, 2 and 4. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the items not pulled for discussion. Moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Are there any registered speakers on the items that have not been pulled for discussion. there is been only one but I believe she left, DR. Nathalie lynch walsh. okay, thank you. All those in favor to pass items not pulled for discussion say aye. aye. those opposed say no. Motion carries, those items are passed unanimously. At this time can the chair

150have a motion and a second on hh1. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, and seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there any public comment? yes, one by PRESIDENT Busco. Speaker: he's the boss of the person that I'm going to speak about that is on the broward teachier contract. Got to follow the contract. There is a pay grade in there. Not only does that person do the job title but she does multiple-jobs. You guys are very good at several district management when they get assigned multiple-jobs, you make sure that you compensate them. What we clearly are starting to see that is groups that have contracts we have two attorneys up there, maura and adam. It's important, right, follow the contract? So tell your people down here, follow the contract. it's not hard. I'm not sure buzzes in

151your ear all the time but we know that happens. Actual come back with fruitful sincere, respectful, in the right answer. Because I know you guys don't go fact-check and verify. You get handed stuff. But this one is easy, there is a pay grade that they need to be put on and paid. There is not a typo, I don't want to hear about this typo junk. And by the way, if there was a typo, you still have to follow through with it. So I'm asking you guys to pay this person, that is on tsp contract, what is that? You okay? Okay. Making sure. Rightfully, she should be paid. Or I'll promise you, we'll follow-up with public comment and this time, if I I'm saying it publicly, it's going to happen. just a reminder, if the audience

152can put their cell phones on silent, thank you. Any other public comments? not on this item, ma'am. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. So MADAM Chair, my question is, in relevance to the actual position and I have no idea who is the individual in this position per se. But I know the changes we're making is permanent as far as change in pay grade. So I just wanted ask a few questions. How long has the previous job description been in place? DR. Hepburn? good morning, henry director risk management. That position has been in place, I would say probably over 25 years. okay, so what -- . correction, correction, 2006 you said ernie? 2006. okay, so the new rule that the individual or anyone in this position is now taken on, how has that changeover time? there

153is been additional duties assigned to this position. Fit for duty has been added along with biomedical ways removal. Those are the two that have been added to these positions. and when were those two items added? the person doing the work, I would say probably the past six or seven years. okay, so when you say this item has been added. Can you differentiate, on what you said and when this person started to do the work. Was the job assignment added at the same time or the person started to do the work and we decided to add the new job assignment? the person had been doing the work for a while. I say probably the last five years. We did. so. hang on, we did a job study two o ars ago, d itit justst cocong forwawa

154now.. Wewe'vbebeen kikingfor a a number of years so revise the job description to compensate the person for the additional duties that they've been doing. okay, so we're compensating the position, because that person is now in the position. So the position based upon the job additional job duties, necessitate an increase, correct? correct, according to the compensation department, they did the study to determine whether or not the increase was warranted. okay, so when the position started being, involved in other duties, five or six years ago, you mentioned that you've been trying to get this job description, this is the first time that I've seen t has it appeared before us in the past? no, it has not. so when the person had these roles five or six years ago, why wasn't it brought forward then. I cannot

155answer that because I've spoken to management a number of times and it was never brought forward. Recently, I spoke to management and we were able to push it through in my conversation wz the new C.F.O. so there is no new individual being hired for this current role whoever in this role has been there for quite sometime? that's correct. and the intent to change this position is based on the scope of the job and not an individual. that's correct, it's based on additional job duties that has been assigned to this position. and the pay grade is moving from 21 to 23 which is two steps forward. that's correct. is there a reason that 21,000 increase and you mentioned two additional job duties, 21,000 seems significant. knoxer -- no, it's not 21,000. It's 7,000 and some change.

156It's definitely not 21,000. so going from 21 pay grade to 23? correct. I must have misunderstood. MR. Holness, there is a range. So at the top of the range, would be 21,000. so there is an increase of 7,000. Got it, thank you very much, I appreciate it. you're welcome. thank you all those in favor of hh1 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries. The next item is hh2, can I have a motion and a second. second. any public comment on hh2? no ma'am. DR. Zeman? chair, what is the legal wait for meet and confer group? DR. Hepburn. go ahead, MR. Lozano or MS. Batista, if you want to help out. MS. Batista. can you please repeat that question? he's asking what the legal weight of handbook for meet and confer groups? I can

157be for specific chair. Is this equivalent to a collective bargaining? no sir. so are we required to do the things that are listed here? MS. Batista. yes, it would be equivalent to a policy. and this is a policy that we've had in place since 2017 and over those eight years, a lot of things have happened and we're now updating this policy, by new count there is four kind of very small updates, is that correct? that's what it looks like, yes. DR. Hepburn? Can you confirm? DR. Lozano? davis azzarito. david azzarito. Can you repeat the question. there is a review handbook, three meet and confer groups, it would seem to me that with four changes coming back to us, there is really, and none of them sub substantive changes, that nobody got into this policy. well

158in addition to making name changes and department changes, there were a couple of changes working with the three meet and confer collaborative group. can you point to any substantive changes in this hand fwaok? -- handbook. Speaker: heather director of practices. Work with the book, there is a one when it spoke about probational period, that would be determined that assistant principal would be probational. There was information when we spoke about copa, when we spoke about copa employees. sorry we're going to the book, bear with us. You'll also see that the book took was done very differently to organize the better, because before you had defined sections but now it's divided by the units. Clarifications were clarified that were confuse anding overlapping in the past. There were items that were removed because they were outdated and no

159longer relevant. Again there was confusion for the parties dwaoen doing job studies when a job study is conducted as well as the difference between task assigned as well as acting. I appreciate that, thank you. Here's what the public saw. The public saw a document with lots of people with four changes in it. And the summary did not highlight the things that I just brought up, that are significant differences, right? And yet the material that came with t didn't really point out to the public what is changing with this large group. I've gone through it and I cannot, I didn't see anything that would be alarming or anything. It seems pretty straightforward good things to do. Chair, given that this is policy, does this have to go through rule making? DR. Hepburn? MS. Batista? I believe,

160this has been advertised as rule-making. I've got to verify. it was at the workshop JUNE 24th is when it went through the workshop. so so we had to wait 28 days to bring it for a vote. correct. so it did follow rule making. I believe so, yes. great. I just like the constituents that we represent to understand the substantive changes. They care how our meet and confer groups set policy together and things like that. Thank you, chair. thank you, all those in favor of hh it say aye. aye. any oweseded say no. Motion passes unanimously without MS. Bulman on the dais. The next item is a a 2. Can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by MR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there? no ma'am. okay, MR. Cervera. thank you,

161MADAM Chair. I'm a big fan of this and the mental health services that this will provide to our students but often the situation where we have these multi-year contracts, I woik lao ask a question why we're signing a two-year deal for an extended period of time with broward behavior health? Is there a benefit? Are we looking a better rate, why three years as oppose today one? DR. Hepburn. yes, all of you just mentioned, locking in rates just ensure that we can take advantage of the rates of today and locking in the level of service. As you know, many of our contracts moving forward especially when products are increasing in price, steadily year after year. thank you. And I'll just say that I'm very glad to see the item come forward. Anyway, I'll leave it at

162that. Nobody else have a comment on a a 2. All those in favor of item say aye. any o poeds say no. Item passes unanimously. We're going to go to a time certain item b1. I can have a motion and a second to bring b1. Motion by MR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. Is there any public comment on b1? yes, there is one registered speaker. there should be two. greg and also lisa maxwell. go ahead MR. Rox well. I was going to refer to the lady but at this time I appreciate being able to speak. My name s greg ossman I'm a private attorney here in town, born and raised, live in hollywood. I was going to start with the program andle vat ooh, but I want to start with a letter that I received

163early this morning. But at that toya w, sent me this letter, she a parent. I'm writing this letter as a parent of children in broward schools. I want to express my support and ask to remove officers. The presence of police officers provides an invaluable sense of safety and stability and trust for our children and staff and families. At a time having officers integrated into our school communities sense a protection. These are not just lawsuit figures, they become neighbors, mentors, role models to our students. I ask that you maintain the support of rock program. Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you will stand with parents, teachers and students in supporting this vital program. That one of many, letters that I've received and representing the 27 rocks officer that you have. It's typically a

164three-year contract. The contract was due to expire in FEBRUARY and I'm sheer because the officers all received notice from the school board that there was an intent not to have a new contract. Not to enter a new contract. I understand why the letter was sent because the timing, there should be a six-month notice. That way there is an option ton represent the contract. I can tell you, that representing the 27 rock officers, the police association believes it's a valuable program. The florida believes it's a valuable program. Members and they stand behind them as well. we received letters from school board, parents of the children that go to broward county public schools like Latoya's that I just read. I think it offers a value. I'm here because it's hard for 27 speakers to speak so they

165need a speaker. There is a value to the program because the feedback I got, I was told that that officers zero value to the school or school board to the board and families, and I don't think that's accurate. I want to make sure that there is a value letting you know that there is a value. And by value, it costs nothing. When this comes back around, you give that consideration and you give me consideration in the future when the decision is made. Thank you. thank you so much. Next is MS. Lisa maxwell. thank you. Speaker: I'm lisa maxwell and I'm here on baf of the principal's assistant principal association. Thank you for bringing this item. This is a 40-year-old program. And these officers are phenomenal. Every single principal support those, those that don't have them,

166typically want them. We would like to see the program expanded. But we understand that 27 families, 27 sworn police officers serve these schools in a way that nobody else can. And they have their families there. With them, and they provide the kind of safety and security that you just can't get any other way. We are very supportive of having them there. Many serve as mentors. They serve as extra eyes, ears and hands during hurricanes and other critical events on campus. And we cannot imagine the district not having the program. So we hope you vote in favor of extending the contract and continuing this program for however many more decades there are to have. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it. thank you so much. Any other public speakers? no ma'am. there is one

167coming to the. no more registered speakers. Speaker: well ana busco. Come on. Knowing the mayor and residents and friends and colleagues and they take care of our schools. Not an impact, this is a no brainer. Anything that helps preserve safety and security. Why do we need to keep coming and fighting for it? Six months is a joke of a time to give anybody notice especially when we know it's their families and so forth. We need to know better next time when a contract comes up. To give a lot. When you're having to leave your residents and however years they've been there. It's very uncomfortable and then knowing that the community you live in that can serve an impact all around, you make some unbelievable decisions. Really have to do better. i'm not sure it needed

168to come to the board to extend the board but if it is up to you, I'm not sure what other questions you have or who you're asking or what answers you've already gotten. I think that, it really is, something that should stay and and next time it comes up, it's done with more professionalism and more conversation and rationalization why we would want to discontinue a program that has been serving the community for decades and isn't broke. I'm at a loss right now, but then again I'm not. thank you, any other public comments? not registered. thank you. I just want to give a little context to why I brought the item forward and then we'll go with other board memebers that pulled the item. So we had the discussion about this particular item 2022, I guess

169that's when it was. And the board spent a lot of time having this discussion as to whether to continue with the rock officers, not continue and where we landed was, we would keep the rock officers that were there already which were the 27 of them and when until the contract ended which was 3 years which is where we are right now. And we're having this discussion because we as a board agreed that we would look at it again when that contract was over like we do every other contract that comes before us that can be renewed. So that's why I brought it forward. There is a few of us that were here at the time and I think it's valuable. It's important to me. I still remember and still talk to the rock officer that

170was at rock broward, that was dean. So I appreciate where they bring community into a school because I lived it, so I'm honored and happy to bring the item forward. MS. Alhadeff. thank you. So I'm a little perplexed on the timing in cadence, I appreciate you bringing it forward. But why the rock officers given their six-month notice? I feel that this conversation, this item should have come to us first before sending out something to the rocks officers. I think it's inappropriate. It caused frustration, it causes families to be upset and this board is making decision on whether to keep the rocks program or not and so, it's perplexing to me why that letter, that communication went out before we got to make that decision. DR. Hepburn? thanks for the question MS. Alhadeff. Just to simply

171answer the question, we were not aware that this came to the board as a discussion point. We had to do some research once we found out after the letter was sent, there was a discussion and the board decide today move forward for an additional three years. We were executing just like we do other agreements, if we're not going to utilize a service to send out the letters of due dill sense. Of course we have a heart, we understand this involves people, we're just not going to put people in the streets. We're going to work with families to make sure they transition. But just to be honest, we were not aware of that discussion in 2022 about when the board moved forward if they're going to decide to do additional three years. So we're here today.

172yeah, and I appreciate that. And you weren't here, but there was plenty of staff that new this historical cadence of this. So I'm disappointed. I apologize to the families of the rocks officers that were affected by this because I think it's causing anguish and stress ha is not needed. As bun board -- one board member, I value what you bring to our schools. Thank you. thank you. MS. Bulman. thanks chair, thank you for bringing this item. I know it has been causing distress in the community, I echo your sentiments. And I visit officers, I'm having people saying how much they appreciate rock officers. I'm not even asking but that's unsolicited. So I really appreciate the service that you're providing and you know, I think we need to look even if we have some legal right

173to do something that is before, I learned today that we were suppose to bring it back to the board. We really need to look at how we're interfacing with the people that protect our children. These longstanding program. These are people's homes. Just getting into the weeds of having a mobile home on a property, after a mobi hohome is ofcertain age, you're debriefg somebody of their property and their home. So we have to think about what the repercussions are to anybody but particularly to our first respondrs that are protecting our kids. So I'll be supporting extending this. You know, if we, if we wanted to eventually ease out of this program, I would suggest that the leases be assigned. If they agreed. But let people remain until their service is over. Thank you. thank you. Not

174to jump in front of me, that's what we believed we were doing initially saying until the lease run out. Not thinking that the leases run out in three years. Just thinking that they could stay until they didn't want to stay anymore. But thanz how the contract read and that's how we landed here. MR. Cervera? thank you MADAM Chair. I do want to recognize our lawsuit in the crowd. I want to thank each and every one of you, for all you that not only keeping our children safe but the community safe. i cannot speak how we got to this point. I've only been on the board for a handful of months but it sounds like we've gotten to a point where there is unnecessary confusion and perhaps, some concern. I can assure each and every one

175you have my full support on this. If it was up to me, I would let you stay as long as you're protecting our kids. To me this is a no-brainer. That being said I'm a full support of what is before this board today as far as these contracts extensions. MADAM Chair, if I can get a point of clarification. Are we voting to extend for three year extension or to direct the superintendent. the motion is to direct the superintendent, because they needed sometime to be able to get the contract in place. okay. And with that direction, what kind of time frame are we looking at to alleviate some of these concerns that our great law enforcement officials MAY have with this uncertainity, how fast can this be brought back? I cannot give you a time line,

176we'll bring it back as quick as possible because we have to work with general counsel. a stand order addendum, this can be done in a matter of months, I would assume. yeah, I know the board's understanding is that we're extend iting, so if it takes longer than that, we wouldn't be putting anybody out in the street. I just want to make sure that our law enforcement professionals have that under their cap so they know what is going on. You are appreciated, not sure exactly how we got to this point but you got my full support and I thank each and every one one of you. Thank you. MS. Thompson. thank you, chair. I'm also in support of this item but I want today clarify because there is comments that there is no cost to the

177district. But I assume if they're living on our property, there has to be some costs. so I cannot give specifics, we're working with MS. Hixon to understand what costs. We're still collecting information and we'll put it in the memo. I appreciate it. And I bring it up because I'm assuming that the staff made this decision because we asked them to make cuts and save. However, I think this is not the right way but I don't think it came from a place of malice. I just wanted put that out, that staff appreciates what you're doing, just like the board. There was a comment that there is a misunderstanding that the program was not worth while and I don't think that was communicated or meant to be communicated. That being said I'm in support in letting these

178officers stay there. Thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman. thanks, chair. Like MS. Alhadeff, I'm curious about the process here. And I guess what I need to understand is, why didn't the superintendent what does the superintendent think about the value of the rocks program? DR. Hepburn? I'm, to be honest I've been in school districts that have utilized rocks program and they're not in existence anymore. I value all our officers as well as my staff, right now they're based on our preliminary estimate, there are costs and we're going to provide that so you make the best decision. I know our principal value the officers and provide value to the campus as well. I just want to make sure that we provide the best information so you can make the best decision. I appreciate that. I was on

179the board with MS. Hixon when we talked about this and a previous leader of our school system brought this to us. And if I remember correctly, this is with a recommendation to let the three years ago and that would be the end, right? Is that correct? I believe that was how the contract was written. but I mean, the school board in 2022, I think the vote and I've got to go back and watch it now before this comes back. But I think the vote was recommendation by the superintendent to let this program expire and the vote was let's not do it now, given all the evidence that there is or there was a huge audit that talked about some of the challenges with the program. They seem to be relatively minor compared to overall value

180that tb added. -- could be added. But the decision was to terminate the program but not do it until three-year contract run, is that fair? yes. okay, so I know, this is going to come back. So we can take time to go back and look at that. Chair, are you aware of our new chief of police about the rocks program? I am not personally, I have not had a conversation with them. I wonder if we can ask the new chief of police. That was robert's rules of order, would you please ask the chief of police. here he is, come on down. DR. Hepburn. go ahead. Speaker: hi, kevin nozzle with chief police. This program started in the 80s, obviously when we didn't have any of the technology or safety and security things that are in

181place currently. Different fencing, alarm systems, upgraded systems. I looked at the last two years of stats prevention of burglaries and vandalism and for each year, minor maybe a handful of incidents. Obviously, the officers that provide us those stats say they're walking the campuses. I actually happen to know a few of these officers, I've known smft mira mar guys for over 20 years. They provide a service, I understand the teachers and principals feel comfortable and they are, you know, that representation of those municipalities and things like that. The overall benefits, I don't see them in the stats for the prevention end of it, does that make sense? and in the discussion of 2022, we had a robust discussion about the security, and all the other things that I don't want to go into details of, but

182we made a huge investment, appropriate investment on security. So there is a commencerateship. So I look forward to this coming back. But I want to go back to the 2022, presentation and this is different because this is not being brought to the superintendent with a school board with a recommendation to extend it. The superintendent allowed for the notice to go out. Although, you didn't let it go to the board. There is something to think about there as well. And I look forward to learning more before this comes back. Chair, when would this come back? With the recommended change and direction? DR. Hepburn? so the as the we were mentioning when MR. Cervera was asking the question. There is going to be collaboration between my staff and general counsel staff and the rock officer representation. would

183it be okay within a couple of months. I'm assuming a couple of months. wonderful. And to MR. Cervera, I could have said the same thing about law enforcement people. There is a deep deep connection between the community and what you provide to the community that is, wonderful relationship across the board and the appreciation from all of broward county to what you all do as a profession is a propound. That is separate from the program and the value that the that ads to the program. And we have to go there through that. And I need to do more research about what was in the audit, what was brought up in the last time. A superintendent brought this to us and said, we ought to think hard with the idea of not having this program anymore. I

184have to go back and do more research. Thank you, chair. thank you. MS. Rupert. thank you, MADAM Chair. First I would love to thank all of our rocks people in the audience. Every single one of you. It's your hard work and caring for our students first and for most to everything. And I just wanted to let you know about that. The miscommunication that caused so much strife and anxiety to our families, there was really no way to, you know, put it out. Obviously, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, everybody said their part about this. But I definitely support keeping our rocks program, extending it and I did hear chief say that there were a handful of incidents that you can actually tie to data points. Well for me, you know, like when maybe

185you're speeding down the road and you see a police car on the side of the road, you're going to slow down. I think it's the same mentality as when you have a rocks officer in their family on campus. I don't think it's a number of incidents that they make that makes a difference. It's a number that they're being on our campus, they don't have the incident. So I look at it a little bit more differently. And I think we really have trouble with communication. I'm just going to say this one thing, it's a off tangent here. Miscommunication and finding out from our constituents, people that work for us that something went us and didn't know about t.The reimagining of schools part 2, the list of schools that we're going to discuss next week came up

186and I was informed by looking at it. So I think sometimes in an error to get things done in a quick manner but we have to remember that the governor of the board is the board's responsibility. So once again, just to close up, 100 percent, I would rather it didn't take two months. i love if we can do it today but I understand. And thank you for being a part of our community. Our school family. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. Would I like to thank the rocks officers. I do appreciate your work. And my brother is a retired police officer retired a couple of years ago, so I understand what you're duties and service and challenges you encounter. So I'm going to support the item. I

187do have a couple of comments and some questions. Le if there is a minimal cost to doing this, because the officers live on school grounds, then why would we want to get rid of it? And even though we have improved technology and we have fencing and all of these other things, I don't think that we can sit back and be confident that we have done everything in terms of security. And if this is not, costly, to continue even beyond, I just don't understand why we would even entertain in the future to get rid of it. Every layer of security is beneficial. And we know this until one thing happens. If they help prevent one incident. That's enough. All of this impactful when it hits home. Because it happens to you, you appreciate you appreciate that,

188the benefit of having these officers. So I, I am in support but I do have some questions. Who decides which schools? I'm not fully knowledgeable of this. Who decides which schools and how and I know it's been there since 1980s and how is this done? DR. Hepburn? I'm not sure about the original process, but in 2022, when it was recommended by whoever the superintendent at the time, to dissolve the problem, the board made the decision to keep the program and not add anymore. So it's been the same schools since then. It was the decision to keep it for the next three years and not add anymore. thank you. I have a question on that, right. It appears that the cost is minimum to have the officers on the school grounds, is that a fair statement.

189I cannot fully answer the question until we're done doing the research we'll provide all the information in a memo shortly. okay, so when that information comes back and if the cost is minimum al, I have an opposing view, is that we look to increase the number of rocks officers across the district and we, if evaluate additional schools that MAY benefit from this, depending on the data that we have for school incidents and after school incidents and so on. So for one, would like to see it increase if the cost is minimum as oppose today reducing it. Because like I said, ar it hits home, one incident is too much. I'm looking forward to the data, DR. Hepburn and if it's minimum cost I would actually like to see more schools have this especially schools that

190is driven by certain data as far as it being beneficial to those schools. Thank you. thank you, MS. Alhadeff. thank you, I'm going to make a motion in regards to increasing the 3-years to 5 years. Because I think, as we're doing these contracts, if the board would like to do that, at least we can establish that now and my motion is to keep the action and have the rocks lease agreement with a five-year term with an option to renew for five years. second. it's been moved and seconded by all those in favor, do I do have to do public comment? I have to do public comment. Any public comment on the motion? Speaker: greg ross, on behalf of the officers. Thank you for that motion. Some of have to try to purchase new mobile homes

191to be put on the campus. $400,000 $300,000, you're asking an officer some of them have sold their homes and bout a mobile home with the risk of having the rug pulled out in three years. That's what caused a lot of stress. So the five years is certainly a benefit to member holness's question, to try to expand it, it would have to be five years, it's difficult to ask officer would you like to go officer, spend $300,000 but realize in three years, you MAY be gone and you have to pate ex tense of moving na mobile home if it can be moved. One last thing my time is running out. To MS. Rupert's point, how do you proof a negative. The cars that moved on that drove on to go somewhere else with their family there,

192there is no stats for that. With all due sbekt for the chief. You cannot act for that. And I can tell you every one of these officers, were locked gates that have left locks. Talking about technology. They responded to a water breaks that the camera saw. Technology cannot lock a gate. It can't stop a leak, it can't stop the things that they do. The members would be in support. Last time, is I'm their counsel and I negotiated their contract. I'm in for all of that for now. So we can get that done as soon as the school board needs it done, we can turn it around in whatever time necessary. thank you so much. we only get one minute? We had sarah, jeff, no ra, zeman, six board members that were here back then that

193had these conversations and, I'm not quite, I think I proved my point that you get people up here, and buzz your hear and give you selective information, you still okay with that? Because, I mean ten years of my presidency and I'm still talking the same talk that you guys are the school board members. I'm not trying to comment at a rude point but I have to proof a point again! And nora hit the nail in the head, preventative is key. Pay attention do something sxwlaim. My name is DR. Trufpvich. thank you very much. Thank you schoololboard member alhadeffff definitetely suororexextendg ththe corara toivivyeyes.S. It gives the school, school administration some additional tenure to be able to think about and plan around. But I also want to encourage the board to consider expanding this to other

194campuses. We have a resent survey to parents and despite the bells and whistles that we continue to provide, safety and security remains a very serious concern. So I think having these officers present and the community knowing that for the next five years at least, they can count on seeing security, police presence on the campus is very very valuable in deed for the district. Thank you. thank you. Any other public comment? thank you, MS. Alhadeff for bringing this motion. I want to point out, because I have a copy of what I believe is a current lease, which is a current term, and then it has a three-year option but that's at the sole discretion of the school district. So my question, I guess to the board, is if we expand for five years, as MS. Alhadeff

195has suggested, do we want to, I don't know if we want to get in the weeds of it right now, but if we keep the option for five years? Do we want to keep it at the discretion? It says actually, yeah, I guess the school board of broward county. Do we have to bring it as a option or is it something that they can exercise as long as they're not in default instead of us having to replay this movie every? Five years? and I have a question about that, because there is the school board, which is. I don't know who that is. district that people call and school board members, and it seems to me the school board district staff made that decision. It didn't come to the school board to ask us. So whatever

196the wordings ends up being. It needs to be clear that it comes to the school board memebers and if we were to do it that way, it would be clear that it's in the district staff's decision, it's a school board member decision. Because maybe that's some of the disconnect of what happened in this particular case. MS. Batista? What do you think? so the leases for the 27 officers, have come to the board because they have to come to the board for approval. I think right now, it's every three years. if the board wishes to do it, you know, every five years, I would recommend that they just change the term and not necessarily the other provisions in the lease at this time. so the lease s that they have could come back exactly the same

197but with the change of five years instead of three? But my recommendation would be that it needs to be cleared school board memebers. Because there was a decision made that didn't come to us first, if I hadn't brought this item, we would not be talking about, they would be gone. right, but that has nothing to do with the leases. The leases have to come to the school board. The staff cannot a law them to lapse but they were voted upon bit board. but the contract says with three-year extension and they received a letter, that told me they had to leave by end, -- by FEBRUARY. It never came back to us to talk about the extension, that's what I'm saying. cause the way it's reading. so somebody is determined that school board. it's not school

198board. at the very least it should come back to us for the exercise of the second option. right. we'll make that change or make it clear in the lease when we receive it from the real estate department. All 27 of them. if we pass, MS. Alhadeff's amendment, I guess to my motion, then, really there is no, the time should be short because all we're really doing is changing what already exist from three years to five years. Is that accurate? right, so from my understanding is the leases do not expire until next year. The process would be as with any other contract is that the user department of the school board, would gather the documents, you know, get the contracts, and present or change whatever items they need to be changed within the body of the

199contract and those get, sent to the general counsel office for approval. So we have to receive the 27 leases from the real estate department in this case to be able to approve them and then they would be blaised in the agenda for approval by the board and that should not be take, you know a huge amount of time. does that answer your question, MS. Bulman. yeah, I think we might want to consider if we, if we make the option always contingent on our approval which is fine, I just want every one to know that, that comes back every five years. If there is the other way that we can do it is the option can be exercised as long as they're not in default then they're there for ten years and then we come back

200and in ten years, we come back and look at the lease again. So those are the two. okay. MR. Cervera. just quick piggy back on that. generally, that's how you will see it in a residential or real estate contract, if somebody is not in default. If the right to renew is exercise is just part of the contract. I guess my question, MADAM Chair, is, can we position and draft this addendum that includes the right to renew for the additional five-year term period should the officers decide to do that? And when we vote on the contract, vote on that approval. So essentially we're voting on a potential ten-year term or if necessary that if the right of right refusal, the automatic provision has to come back if we're starting a new term. MS. Batista? I would

201have to research that specifically whether, we can make it change the provision to read the way you have described or if there is a particular reason why you continue to have to read the way it does now. well I mean, we're amending the contract, so we can put whatever we want. My inquiry is more so, is there some sort of policy of the school board or something that perhaps I'm not thinking of as a real estate lawyer, right, that would prevent an automatic renewal period without going through without the board's approval? correct, and that's what I'm thinking about as well. That I'm not aware of anything as I sit here but I hate to say that we're able to do it without researching it. can we have that when we come back? absolutely. It will

202be part of the contract and if it's not, I will share the reason it's not there. okay, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. I do appreciate board member alhadeff's motion. I also wanted to get clarity, I did hear you mention that we had some agreement that we would not expand the amount of schools that could have the rocks program. Is that correct and where was that written? so we had a workshop in 2022, and that was the direction that the board gave the superintendent at the time was that we wouldn't, because the superintendent's recommendation was to get, to stop the rock's program altogether. So the compromise was to keep the ones that were there, not expand it and go into the three-year contract. okay, that was during a workshop, correct? so with regard's to board

203member alhadeff, if that's approve, how can we undo what was done at the workshop. I just want to know the process? and probably, you would have to bring back, it would make sense, principals, surveying principals right now, do they want rock officers do they not? They can maybe expand but I think it's two separate items, right? We're just talking about rock officers in general. I didn't give a specific number on here, I just said to bring the contract back. I understand but my comments prior to board member alhadeff's. I think it's a separate item. so I can. so anything that you MAY have decided, a decision that you would have given to the superintendent. First of all, my recollection of that day, are different. I believe there were four options that day. And officer discussion,

204the board, the board said that you were going to maintain the rocks program and that's item leases came back for a three-year renewal at the time. So there isn't anything that actually you said at any workshop as a board, about corporate to that is different from what is happening now. okay, so is there anything that was said in the workshop that would limit the number of rocks officers across the district? So they could, try to provide even service to other schools? There is nothing that was discussed that would prevent them from doing that? I believe one of the things that was discussed at the NOVEMBER 2022, workshop was also the expansion of the program to other sites. And I don't have a clear recollection, that was not the option that was selected. The option selected

205was to bring back the leases for another three years. okay, so continuing the program does not prevent say, an officer wants to in collaboration with the school district, be on a particular school campus that we don't already have one. There is no, nothing in place that would prevent that? there is nothing in place that would prevent that, obviously the district will have to agree with that. after this, I would like to provide a direction to the superintendent, if that's okay. okay. anybody else? all those in favor of amended motion? Say aye. aye. any opposed say no. aye. okay, back to the original item as amended, all those in favor of item b1 as amended say aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. MADAM Chair, I wanted to provide a direction to the

206superintendent. okay, go ahead. I would like to direct the superintendent to explore the expansion of the rocks program across the district based upon data as far as schools that could benefit from the program in collaboration with the police departments. second. so it's been moved and seconded to direct the superintendent to explore expanding the rocks officer program. Any public comment? Any board member comment? Okay, all those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you all so much for coming out today for and for all that you do for our district. Thank you. On to the next item. The next item is f f1. so moved. moved and seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there any public comment on f f1 1? no registered speakers. okay. So I pulled

207the item. As I like to do often. I just want to say thank you to our grants department. We had over 20 million dollars come into the district forehead start. 20,000 for broward estates. 7500 for ep challenge. 20 a little over 2500 for home depot and another 1500. So thank you to our grants department for all your hard work and all the partners that support the programs that we have. All those in favor of f f1 say aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. Jj1. Any public speakers? I have MR. Cervera. claire would it make sense to make a recess. yes, let's take a five-minute recess. yes, we'll take a five-minute recess. (Meeting in recess). Welcome back, we are going to table jj1 for a a later time in the meeting. chair, can I

208make a motion to postpone jj1 until we have the appropriate members here. I can just table it. MR. Cooney said I can just table it, so that's what I did. it certainly wouldn't hurt if you want to make a motion, duplicative. go ahead. I'll second the motion. great. all those in favor of tabling jj1 until late nrer the meeting, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no, great, next item is jj2. Can I have a motion and a second. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. Any public comment on jj2? no, ma'am. okay, MS. Leonardi? thank you. I pulled this item because I've been flagging the issues with fire protection and permitting for a while now and depending on when I ask, I get different responses. One is that there aren't

209any issues and the other is that we're working through those issues, so for instance, when I asked about this at the bond oversight committee workshop, I got a follow-up that said our office of the the chief official engages through fire official through the subcommittee and coordinates annual joint inspections while the processes handling all responsibilities internally. This approach ensures I efficiency, consistency and accountability of delays often seen when multiple jurisdictions are involve and had keeps our schools safe, compliant and ready to serve students and staff. I would argue the situation with our fire protection and permitting is not efficient and does not avoid delays and I think this this is an example of that. Another response I got when I inquired about this item, to ensure these issues do not happen again, early coordination with the

210shorts having jurisdiction, hj's throughout design and construction phases will be strengthened to ensure code requirements remain consistent. What are ahj authorities having jurisdiction? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? I'll call on MS. Coley to answer that question. good morning, sonia coley. Er that would be the fire department. what are we doing to coordinate those through the design and construction phases and how will that specifically be strengthened to ensure that code requirements remain consistent? . Er so, moving forward, we are meeting on a weekly basis and that will be done for new projects coming forward that we meet with the building o/o official, the fire official to review drawings, to ensure that they're collaborating and making sure there are no issues when they're doing the design review. okay. Thank you. thank you. And I pulled this item for

211a number of reasons. First of all, it was very disconcerting to read that first the fire marshal said no, they didn't need it, then someone else came back and then said, yes, they did need it, and then there was a delay so, I echo MRS. Leonardi's concerns and I understand that that fire marshal doesn't work here anymore, I guess glad for that because there seems to be a lot of disconnect, so I hope we are now in a kay keens -- cadence that won't allow this to happen again. I always like to tell you about consultant omission and errors and happy to announce, there are no consultant errors or emissions, so great job. There is a couple of change orders for unforeseen conditions and owner request but none for omission and errors so happy for

212that. Thank you so much. Yes, MRS. Alhadeff? so, I don't remember exactly when, but I asked for all of the previous determinations of whether or not a fire protection was needed and the sites that it said that was not required, so -- and I thought we got board member follow-up saying that those were all correct and now I see that this one is noted and should be required to be installed. DR. Hepburn? MS. Fall? -- paul? I would have to go back and look at that response. He was going back and looking at the previous determination so I would see if the school was included in that. okay. And I agree with doing that and going back and double checking that whether it's required or not required, so thank you. all those in favor of

213jj2, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. And we will come back to item jj1. Can I have a motion and a second to bring item jj1 back to the floor? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any public comment. I don't believe there was, MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. I wanted to confirm on this change order for tropical elementary that we're not seeking any additional monies for this project, that we're extending the substantial completion and/or completion deadlines by roughly I think it was 362 days if I'm not mistaken, was that the sole purpose? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? I'll have MR. Mcintyre answer that question. good afternoon, rick mcintyre, ee ko mfinger we are extending the substantial completion date for 362 days due to two issues, one asbestos

214response that delayed the contractor's availability to do the work, and second, they terminated their fire alarm company subcontractor for failure to perform. They have a new sub on board and the work is underway in buildings 4, 5 and 6, so the project is moving forward. has the asbestos been fully reimmediatemediated? yes. how long does that take? I don't have the duration for that but I can get that to the board. is there any exposure by any subcontractors to extending this deadline to day? S no, all that's doing is meet thing contract term to meet the actual duration that are taking place. thank you for the clarification. thank you, all those in favor of item jj1, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is jj5, can I have a sxhoetion

215a second? so moved. Er it's bb moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? there are no registered speakers. thank you, DR. Zeman? I want to join you, MS. Hixon in celebrating something, today there are 7 projects in which we're moving the final acceptance, often many of these things are often in use, there are facilities that are going on and this is the paperwork and close-out, but it is a close-out, that to me is exciting, this month we had 6, this month we have 7, if we have 8 next month, I will be the happiest school board member in nror ka. Thank you, chair. all those in favor of jj5, say aye. Any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is jj9, can I have a motion and a second.

216Er moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? no registered speakers. DR. Zeman? I'm going the keep asking this until I find an answer. Someone is slowing down our construction project because this board naods to see about a 16 thousand dollar change order. We have passed changes in policy, we have asked about it every month, my friends that are in the construction business laugh at me at poker night because I can't figure out how to get something done, alright. Why does this item come back to us when it's far less than the authority that we granted to superintendent for his staff to approve on their own? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? this is taking money from the capital reserves because we have exceeded our contingency amount, so this is going into another pot

217of money, the capital reserves and that's why we have to bring it to the board. chair, does our policy that sets limits, you know, 250 thousand, 500 thousand dollar limit, does it specify those funds can only be pulled by current defp budgets? DR. Hepburn? go ahead, MS. Carpenter. thank you, ashley carpenter request atkins raalis, it's requesting additional funding and the project is over the cumulative limit so, policy 8000, the most recent version, which has been changed several time las the qume lat I ever limit as 10% of the original construction contract value, this project is at over 18% because of a very large change order early on in the project. The policy 8000 does not state where the funding is coming from but our understanding from it was if the project requires additional funding, that

218would need to come to the board. and, chair, I understand that, I mean, that makes sense, this board's job is to allocate and appropriate funds so if there's a new appropriation, is that consistent with your understanding of the law, chair, that if there's a budget of 2 million dollars for a project that's been appropriated for it and there's a contingency of 10% or so set aside for unforeseen and other changes, for them to go into the contingency, do they need to bring an item back to us to spend more or is that something the superintendent can do if it's within the limits sp e specified in policy 8000? MR. Cooney. with respect to funding and so forth, typically the contingency amount built into the project itself, there's no required board approval to tap into if

219there's an unforeseen condition that arises. We've exhausted all funding within the project funding in this instance, and that's why they're coming back to the board to seek additional funding. and I think when we were reviewing policy 8000, we weren't clear enough about that. Maybe the board would like to give the superintendent the authorities has we have in 8000 including dipping into a defp account assuming it has a certain fund balance and things like that, so, I'll go back and do some research and come back next month and talk about policy 8000. Every time this happens to the board members that are here, this is a significant delay. I guess I should ask this question, chair, for any change order, what is the average delay in being able to do work when you have to bring

220a change order before this board? What's the actual delay at a work site. All of a sudden you need a change order with school board approval, what is the time it takes to prepare an item, get it on an agenda sdp get it approved and get back to work. I will say what I've noticed is the work is already done and the change orders come to us afterwards, but DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? I will say in general, we've gotten a lot better with processing the change orders but I'll have MR. Mcintyre speak to that and MS. Carpenter speak to that. MS. Carpenter's been here on the project a long time so she can give us historical perspective on it. mike mak tire, eecom, through the chair, plus or minus 45 days we would see from

221submission or change order ready to come o the board. To go through the process to get signed and then everything move forward, we've done it faster, but on arch, it's close to 45. that's fine, and I appreciate the input. I don't want to be responsible for slowing down construction and that's why we did policy 8000 revisions to give more authority to the superintendent to get more things done. I'm ecstatic when ra contractor on-site will work on risk, we agree we're going submit a a change order but they will do the work. Idn't be on a board that asks that routinely, I'll go back and do some research on 8000 and meet with the cfo and maybe figure out a way that we could give the superintendent the authority I thought we had given. all in

222favor of jj9, say aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. Next item is jj11, can I have a motion and a second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any.Public comment? there are no registered speakers. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. I just had a question, when I was going through this and I was looking at the adefp for meadow brook, there are multiple projects that have been done at this school since 2016. Everything from I guess providing additional computers and setting up wireless networks to fixing the hvac components and the roof and the windows. My question is -- and maybe I missed it many the executive summary or the executive agreement, this particular company that we're approving the 125 thousand for, is this the same company that has engaged in

223all of this other work at meadow brook over the years since 2016? Or is this just for some reason an overall summary of everything that has happened at this middle school? the answer o the first question is no, second question is overall summary of all the work. it's an overall summary, okay. So, this particular company that we are approving the 125k for, they were not responsible for any of the previous tasks that meadow brook elementary? that's correct. is there a a reason this was included in the package? Just as an fyi? MS. Carpenter? ashley carpenter with atkins realis, in a case when we have a carve out, so basically a part of the scope that could not be done with the primary project, with the primary contractor and is now being given to another contractor

224to complete the work, we do include the whole summary of the project only because the funding that makes up the project was partially what was already done and then partially what's moving forward with the new contract or. does that answer your question? it does, and I guess sort tof root of the question is this project that we're asking is for a switch gear replacement. Is that a wi-fi thing, what is a switch gear replacement? no, it's the electrical power, the guts, the electrical guts of the school. the electrical guts of the school, okay. And the previous companies who completed the electrical improvements back in 2018, we're not using those folks, we're bringing on this new contractor for it looks like half the price? what you're approving today is 125 thousand of additional funding, the contract

225is for about 395 thousand dollars, so no, it's not for half the price, it's.Er doctor well, okay, it is about half the price of what the formal contractor did the other work for, yeye so, ththiginal contractct who prprided all of ese e elelectrical imovemenents at th scschool for price of thousand if I'm not mistaken, that contractor has nothing do with this project? no. and this particular project, we're at 1.1 to date if we approve this 125? correct. thank you. All those in favor of item jj11, say aye. aye. and any opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously. Next item is ll1, can I have a motion and a second? so moved. er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? no registered speakers. DR. Holness? MADAM Chair, could you repeat the

226item? ll1, student meal debt. sorry about that. you can come to me after. MS. Tofrn son? thank you, chair. So, I just highlighted this, I know staff found out after it was approved by the board that it can't come out of the original funding and it has to come out of the general fund. My only comment is -- and I hope everyone approves it again, my only comment is that it was changed to write that either the district would pay 500 or the superintendent would find a donor for that specific amount. I would like staff to explain how that would work because I would like the idea when it was passed was that 30 days once the free lunches is done, that there would be this pocket of money that the principals could access, so

227how are we going to ensure that that happens if potentially a donor could come can, potentially a donor couldn't come, I would like to be walked through that process. DR. Hepburn? yes, so with the donor pot of money, we work with bef just to have a a good source to provide the funds and get it to the school just so we have a a centralized partner to help us out with that part as they do with a lot of other thing that is go through bef and then to the school. alright, so I understood that part. It's more that are these donors already -- I just want silver homes elementary school, 30 days after there's no free lunch, they know they have access to that $500. Er yes, they will have to the 500 dollars

228from our general fund. and then someone call yours and says I want to sponsor x elementary school. yes. okay, I wanted to make sure we weren't including a loop hole into the policy and that it was going to be enacted as -- correct. cool, thank you. thank you, DR. Holness, are you ready? yes, I would just like the mention that I am going to continue to support the item and I wish there was more we could do but I'm supportive of it, thank you. I pulled it because I asked this question and it didn't come until after we had the discussion, but based on before we had free lunch for everyone, what was the districtwide school debt for students who couldn't pay for the meals and so before in 2018-2019, the total meal debt for

229the district was $7,339 which was an average of $37 per school, so, of course we realized that things are a little different now, but I wanted to kind of put what that -- the issue is into context for all of us and also for the community so I don't think that it is as ram.Pid of a problem as we have perceived that the it is and I wanted to also ask the superintendent or the cfo, we approved it thinking it was not going to affect our general fund, the $500 and I naoement saying I don't support it still but now that it is going to affect our general fund, where will we find that since we know we don't have any additional money sitting in our general fund. yes, as MS. Johnson and I do

230weekly, we will review the general fund to see what we can identify cost savings to support this. okay, great. And the response that I got before said this low student meal debt amount resulted food and nutrition services soliciting debt relief from several sources which included shark radio which I remember going to becon and they had a big check they gave for the debt relief bef and individual and business resources, so to piggyback off of what DR. Hepburn said, broward education fund dashing has now added -- it's called son sore place, and every single school has -- you can go to sponsor place and every school is on there and you can say I want to donate $500 for school debt or I want to donate this, so there is a place now to be able

231to do what you're asking, so I wanted to make sure that we shared that out loud, so thank you. Yes, ma'am, MRS. Alhadeff? so, if possible, DR. Hepburn, if we could at the end of the school year get data as far as how many meals were charged, how much money was spent at each school and how many courtesy meals were given out so we can make a more educated decision for next year. Thank you. yes, thank you. MRS. Thompson? just to clarify, the point that it comes back in JANUARY is still in the item. yes. so we will be able to re-evaluate it even sooner than that. thank you, all those if favor of ll1, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is oo2. Can I have a motion

232ask a second. so moved. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MRS. Alhadeff, any public comment on oo2? no, ma'am. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. Again, one of my favorite thing tos see with these multiyear deals we keep signing, it looks like the original agreement that was in place for 36 months was at approximately 300 thousand dollars for the three year term. In my math, that's 100 thousand a year, the latest proposal that is being proposed to this board is for 200 thousand dollars for a one year term. I'm wondering why this price has doubled annually. DR. Hepburn? yes, the amount of students that we have partsicipating in cte course work that beginners industry certification has significantly increased so acceleration is part of one of our focuses and priorities. so, in light

233of that, is this one of these contracts where maybe it would benefit the district if question can lock in a specific rate over a 24 hour or 36 mother term as opposed to doing the one year thing in which we're now paying double than we were last year. this is one that probably could but the price doesn't significantly shift in the testing for industry certification, it's pretty stable. the per person. the per person shift is not significant at all. it's just happened to double this year. it's doubled -- it's a good thick, instead of testing 100 kids this year, we're testing 200 kids which is a great thing for the district. so, a one year term you believe is adequate and appropriate in this case, you believe? at this point in time, yes. The next

234go around, we could possibly do -- thank you. thank you, all those if favor of item oo2, say aye. Er aye. Er any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is oo4, can I have a motion and a second? It's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Thompson. Any public comment? no, ma'am. Er MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. for the record, I am a big proponent of soap, I tend to use it in all opportunities so I'm not anti-soap, at least once a week, right, yeah. Sometimes two if my wife lets me. Hating being said, I am in all seriousness confused on exactly what we're approving here. It looks like to me e that the second renewal for the 307 thousand was approved back on -- I'm sorry, for the 245

235was approved back on MAY 13 and now we're back here on the 19th of AUGUST approving 0 -- are we ratifying the optional second renewal? I was confused in reading the executive summary as to what exactly what we were doing, if the board approved this back in MAY for the 245 under the optional second renewal, what specifically are we being asked to consider here? that's correct, I have MS. Andreu or MS. Dorsett come up to answer, whoever has the detailed information. good afternoon, jennifer andreu, exec tier director of procurement and logistic operations. Yes, you are correct, board member cervera, you are approving the second amendment of this piggyback agreement that would become effective today. Er shocker we're approving the 245. sorry, SEPTEMBER 156789 we're approving the 245, 760? I'm just trying to quantify in my

236head, dollars to dollars, what exactly are we approving, I'm looking at this chart and it looks like the optional second renewal for 12 months according to the executive summary was I prover -- approved in MAY this year and then I have another line item which is called second renewal, so I aoep not sure what the difference between the optional second renewal and the second renewal is, but the second renewal that's before this board today for months has an allotment for $0, so are we approving the 245? you are not approving a dollar amount today, only the second amendment to the piggyback agreement. I would have to go back in the record to see what was approved MAY 13, but today's is the agreement to piggyback beginning SEPTEMBER 15. so we're not voting on expenditure of

237any mission punds today? that is correct. thank you for the clarification. thank you, all those in favor of oo4, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is oo5, 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. MRS. Leonardi? thank you. So, I requested follow-up on this and I appreciated the exploration of having more organizations come in and do swimming lessons, swim safety is obviously very important in our community, drowning is one of the leading causes of death among our youth and I think in broward, we all live within a two mule radius of a body of water so I definitely support that. But where I continue to hear from our community is that we have

238these beautiful pool and is we're spending all this money to maintain these pools and they're not really being used to their full capacity, so two questions, what can we do or what are we doing to expand swim teams at schools? DR. Hepburn? yes, great question. I think the challenge with swim teams at school is that from discussion with some of the schools is that the pools aren't regulation size, so it doesn't help them with the possibilities of building a swim team. Some of them just aren't the size to garner the level of practice to support the competition but we do have, I know blanche ely is one that created a team team for this current swim year, some of the feedback we received is that the pools they have are not regulation size. okay, I

239would be curious to know what the size of some of our pools -- like, it would be surprising to me that we built pools that were not 25 meters long, so I would love a follow-up on which of our pools are not regulation size and then my second question is how can we incorporate swimming into our pe classes? so, we are exploring that right now. I know we mad the discussion, so we found out from the team that a pe teacher does not need -- I'm at a loss for words, lifeguard certification, so we're exploring that right now to see how that would work. I know we're in an area where kids don't like to dress out for prk e, so we're figuring out thousand make that work and see how we can incorporate that.

240I know some elementary schools do incorporate it for the young ones, they're go walk if I's a school or a community pool so we're exploring that. Er when I was high school 20 years ago, we didn't like dressing out for pe either and it was good for all of us and we did it. that's how they avoid it, they take it online. any way we can do that, I support that, thank you. thank you, I'll just before I go to MR. Cervera say there are some -- like at south broward, we had a swimming class and the teacher would do lifeguard because then schools that have pools, they can hire the lifeguards in the summer for their swim programs so if that's something that -- but obvious the teacher has to be certified and able

241to teach swimming but maybe we can also look at those. MR. Cervera sm thank you, MADAM Chair. Have any additional swimming pools been built in any of our schools since SEPTEMBER 10, 2024? no. I'm curious, I guess when this original ask came before the board back in SEPTEMBER of last year which was almost a year ago for a 36 month term t allotment was 700 thousand dollars which on my math which is probably wrong is probably about 233 thousand a year. We're now being asked less than a year later for an additional 1.5 million dollars for these pool chemicals and for the ability to repair. my question is what has changed in the last 11 months that's now justifying the need for an additional 1. -- 1.5 million dollars when we initially thought 7 million

242was adequate and sufficient ?Frjts great question. First part of that question is that pool chemicals and services have significantly increased over the past couple of years. The second part of the answer to your question is that we've done a better job of evaluating situations at pools, we have pools with leaks, we have pools that are damaged and need to be repaired, that's why the cost is higher than in the past. what kind of evaluations were done in 2024 when this was put before the board in which somebody thought 700 thousand was adequate over three years? I mean, the perception on this I think is disconcerting because you're more than doubling this at this point, less than a year later. and I'll get MS. Paul or MR. Dorsett can assist with that answer, I do know

243probably the bulk of that cost is one of our high schools. good afternoon, mark dorsett, executive director. You are rightfinger the cost to -- we didn't look at in some cases the actual repair to a lot of these pools. the 750 thousand dollars address a lot of like the chemicals and the routine maintenance for the pools, it didn't really address some of the repairs, the patch work and that kind of thing that needs to happen. So, when we had some evaluation done, we noticed some significant repairs that's needed to some of the pools that's being used right now. sit fair to say the 1.5 million dollar ask is more towards making repairs and replacements and the like of the pools as opposed to just we underestimated the co-of pool chemicals. yes, it's the repair for

244the pools, not necessarily replacement but repair tos the pools, structural cracks and the like. Er are all these 16 pools operational?Frjts right now, I know that cooper city is not and mccarthur is not, so we have some pool that is are not operational right now. alright, thank you. thank you. All those in favor of item oo5, say aye. Er all aye. all those opposed, say no. no. one dissenting vote, MR. Cervera. Oo7, can I have a motioning and a second. Motion by MR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonard di. Any public comment on oo7? no, ma'am. MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair, and I apologize because this is that I should have done before, but I was just wondering how we decided which schools were on this list. The only reason I say that is because we

245were at south broward checking out the new turf field, when I looked at the bleachers, the concrete se roading and you can see the rebar but they're not on the list so I was wondering how to get them on the list. DR. Hepburn? MR. Dorsett? good afternoon again, thank you for the question, we're out there repairing the bleachers to south broward as we speak. We needed some evaluation done, we had a structural engineer go out there and take a look at it rkts he prescribed the a repair to make the bleachers usable, you're talking about the concrete bleachers to make these usable so we're out there repairing those right now. beautiful. Thank you so much. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. Just a question on the vendors would were chosen. I was looking at the

246financial analysis work sheet. Are any of these three vendors women, black, hispanic firms? no, they're not, DR. Holness. okay, thank you. thank you. Any other board members on oo7? All those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. I'm going jump here to ork o22, can I have a motion and a second on oo22? so moved. second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment. yes, [Inaudible]. good afternoon, laurie [Inaudible], ceo of junior achievement of south florida, I've waited patiently because I wanted to say to u -- thank you to all of you. I think you know we don't consider ourselves vendors, we consider ourselves partners, making sure kids are ready r life and w wk,k,I wantnto o say ththanyou r r ururininvestnt over the arars

247and continued investment. Hopefully when you vote on this, I think it shows our community, our parents, your understanding, your commitment to learning, we know our students want it, they want more of it, it's what engages them, so we're thrilled about it and it sends a strong message to the other partners that we work with which are about another 11 point something million dollars of investments, it shows them your commitment to this as well. So I wanted to say thank you to all of you and I also want to say that you have an open invitation to j world at any time the see our kids in action, thank you for that and the thank you for considering and it sounds that's something you're looking for, a multiyear contract, so that each year, we can just

248continue to do the great work we do together, so -- and I want to say a very special thank you to the entire district team for working to to get this to you today, so thank you so much. thank you. Any other public comment? MRS. Bulman? thanks, chair. Thank you for the partnership. I can't express enough how much I enjoy going to ja b iz town, the way it unites aspects of the community. Nr's always volunteers there that are just spending some time help thing the kids, they're not parents or grandparent, they're just there because they spourpt the program. It speaks volumes, the local businesses that invest in it and the curriculum and the engagement the kids have being exposed to, you know, real life day-to-day operations on how to kind of navigate the world,

249so this is a great partnership and I think it's amazing what you offer to the kids in such a short period of time and how much they learn, so thank you very much and continue to partner with us. thank you, and I'll echo what MRS. Bulman said. Every time I go, the student ares so engaged. I love the stock exchange activity, also just when there's different field trips there, so thank you very much for the partnership. All those in favor of item oo22, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. The next item is oo10, can I have a motion and a second. so moved. . Inger it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Leonardi. Any public comment on o ork -- oo10. there are no speakers.

250again, DR. Hepburn websinger have fiver companies here who are vendors, are any of these companies women owned, black opened or hispanic owned? MR. Hepburn? yes, they are. okay, which ones? MS. Andreu, if you can provide some detail, please. I don't want to mispronounce it, kuwanu builders corporation is a hispanic american company. so, on the financial analysis work sheet where we have awarded vendors, there are three of them that are considered awarded vendors. I don't see the mwbe status of these three vendors that were awarded. Are any of these three vendors women owned, black or hispanic owned? I'm sorry, DR. Holness, I'm -- that's two different things. Today the recommended action is to approve five vendors, so, one of the five, 20%, is a certified vendor. The financial analysis is just demonstrating to the board the

251three vendors in the past and what they have earned. okay, so those are the three past vendors, from the fiver, you said one of these are hispanic? correct. okay, thank you. DR. Zeman? thank you so much, chair. Chair, five companies to come in and do some roofing work, that's great give tennessee carve outs we're doing for roofing, they're going to be in great demand. Are any of these vendors, i took a chance to look up the hvac significant contractors in broward county, there's of them. Usually when we talk about local firms, it's the tricounty area, we appreciate miami-dade, they think of broward as local and those as well, so if I extrapolated broward to three counties, there's north of 750, 800 hvac significant consulting fillers. Are these five firms lowcated nr the tricounty area? DR.

252Hepburn? yes, that's correct, DR. Zeman? all five? yes. that's terrific. Thank you very much for trying to find folks that are close by that understand broward schools and are able to do great work because they happen to be right here. thank you. MR. Cervera? I'm satisfied. thank you. All those in favor of oo10, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is oo11, can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment. no registered speakers. MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair, I pulled this because I'm currently stringing on the solid waste authority as representing the school board and they're wringing to approve a solid waste math master plan as we speak and it's represented -- we have

253representatives from every municipality except for three I think in the county. So, we as a very large waste producer have a very important role to play and I'm happy with DR. Hepburn and how receptive he is to thinking outside the box and moving forward that way. So, when I was speaking to the executive director, he had suggested incorporating a recycling curriculum and I know he had stated there's a state approved recycling curriculum that we could be utilizing because -- educating the children is going to be what moves us forward so I was just wondering and I've been talking quite a bit with alison who's been fantastic, but just what kind of support we can do and how we could possibly start incorporating that curriculum and kind of upping our game with low hanging fruit with

254recycling in addition to the other things we're working on. DR. Hepburn? great question, great suggestion. We'll get alison and DR. Fulton to collaborate. I know starting with elementary schools, they definitely hold parents accountable to o do certain things when they learn in that school. I know we've all been there if we have elementary school gelded kids once upon a team and we'll work with landyn to address how we can do that with the secondary students especially when it goes to doing thing ins the cafeteria, we can start initiating that process on how we educate our young student and is work with landyn so we can work with our secondary students. landyn? thank you, through the chair, landyn, student advisor to the school board, I think everyone was reading my e-mails today because there's an ongoing

255remail change with the solid waste authority about their authority ambassadors program that we are in collaboration with them to spread to our high school students, so there's some good work already been done and wanted to highlight that. thank you, and I'll say DR. Hepburn's not going to be surprised websinger have to model what we want to see happen and we as a district are not very modeling recycling very well. We're getting better, but i have to say it's great to have a refillable water bottle but not to pour a bottle of water into the refillable water bottle which happens on the dais here sometimes, but beyond that and DR. Hepburn dade f did say we're doing b ep better, in this build, I have watched where they put recycling and garbage in the same big

256container. That's what -- what's the point of happening a recycling bin. I take it home, DR. Hepburn givers me all his papers, I take them home so I know they're all recycled. We have to do a better job. There are some partner that is do a good job, the lyon's club, they collect the plastic wrapping and make benches out of them, takes 200 pounds of the plastic wrap, but I think as a district, I'm appreciative that we're doing this but we need to do a a better job of holding people accountable and modeling what we want our students to do. They're better than we are at this. Most of thel have a refillable water bottle, it's just the generation that they live in. And I appreciate the erupts we've made since I've gotten there but

257we still have to do a better job of modeling. All those in favor of oo11, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. Oo12, can I have a motion and a second. Moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? no, ma'am. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. Initially when we had contracted for our spend authority for a 36 month term, for a three year term, we had agreed on an amount of 165 thousand which is roughly 55 thousand dollars a year. Why do we now need to pay 465 thousand for a period of 12 months? DR. Hepburn? go ahead. alison [Inaudible], director of environmental health and safety. So, included in the defp is an ask for new equipment as well as replacement equipment due to the warranty issues so that

258is the reason for the increase in the spend. that goes exactly into my next question, MADAM Chair, the legislator I believe passed house bill 1607 at the last session which I believe became effective on JULY 1 of this year which set a JULY 1, 2027 deadline for all schools to have at least one automated external defibrillator at every public school. Is part of the ask that this board is now being requested to consider for this 465, are those monies going to be used to help get the ball rolling to put our schools in compliance with house bill 1607? DR. Hepburn, are we already in compliance? yes, we are already in compliance. you already met the deadline, okay, fantastic. Thank you. thank you. And to that point, I went to joe dimaggio yesterday and they did

259indicate because one of my questions when we had the defp was could we look at our partners to help and they are all in for that. They also believe -- that's the contract, MS. Batista, there's a contract for them to come into the schools tla we're still working on to teach cpr, so in that instance which is also a state law for us to be able to do so, hopefully that contract moves through expeditiously. MRS. Alhadeff? yes, so that was kind of my question in regards to if these aed units also come with training and how to train our staff on how to use them because just having aed's in the school when nobody knows thousand use them is useless. DR. Hepburn? I know the purchase does not come with training. That's another supplemental thing

260we do. it's part of -- and we're in the process of getting the training with additional contract? go ahead, if you want to add more detail to that. alison, director of environmental health and safety, as a part of board policy, we have two individuals per location that are cpr certified. The new hb1607 requires the pole straining and that is what joe dimaggio is looking to help us do and it is not a certification but it is like an awareness level of how to use the aed and calling 911 and things like that. okay, so I would just say we need to expedite that as quickly as possible and if joe dimaggio is willing to come in and train our schools we also look to broward health and other hospitals to help us because we're a

261huge district and there's a lot of schools and people that need to be trained. that's noted, we'll work with the american heart association that's great partners of ours. the great contract is in legal so it's moving through there. All those in favor of oo12, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. Ork o14, can I have a motion and a second? it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by ms. leonardi, any public comment? no, ma'am. let see. MRS. Bulman? I pulled this because of the math but I think I've figured oit out, so thank you. thank you, MR. Ver ver ra. -- server are. ditto, I had to go back and do some calculations. I requested follow-up on this item and I didn't feel like the response really was satisfying, you know, a

262conversation about outsourcing the building department has been brought up for several years now and in my follow-up, I pointed out that I believe it was MRS. Alhadeff requested a follow-up on how that was, and it was about 6 million dollars, and I thauns we're going out for this, this item, and it would be a little over 2 million dollars per year in addition to what we're spending on our building department. I just have -- I struggle with the response we got a year ago which is that we don't need to outsource the services and that it would not be cost efficient but now we're labeling to spend 11 million dollars except in the follow-up, it said we wouldn't be spending the full 11 million dollars so I'm not sure why then we're asking for 11

263million dollars, so I'm wondering if someone can make the case for why we need to do this for this amount of money. DR. Hepburn? go ahead, MS. Paul. okay, the conversation I think we had a little bit over a year ago was about reference of whether the building department needed to exist, that's kind of how I came into the district and I was asked to evaluate and see if we still needed a building department. Most of the work that we do in the building department is outsourced and this is a reflection of what that cost laos like. We're challenged in many of the care ya -- areas to have people on staff to do the work, qualified people to recruit people to do this work, so the question is not -- it's been asked a

264couple of different ways but the reality is this contract represents outsourcing a lot of the work that we have in the building department. okay. So, I think that perhaps someone could understand how that does not reconcile with the responses we've been given about this question for the last year though, that we -- because when the board had inquired about this over the past year, we were told we can't outsource, we're not going to be a priority, it's going to be more expensive but now we are? I think in my recollection, the question was if we outsourced to the county -- not private people but to the county because I remember that discussion and kind of the discussion from us is if we outsource to the county, we wouldn't be a a priority for them. Go

265ahead, MS. Paul, if there's anything else. so, I think MS. Leonardi is correct in the sense that the question has come several different ways regarding the building department and during my tenure a little bit over a year, it's been should swre the building department, should we look at working with municipalities to see if they can help with some of the work. This is a reflection, what we're bringing before you is a reflection of the current way we do business with this company that supports and augments our building department. We have a very small building department, so this is a representation of the work being outsourced. The next question I think we recently had was can we look into working with the municipalities, counties, to see if they can help not only on the building code

266side but on the fire official side. So, the question has come regarding this particular department in different ways. So, it's a combination of all of those questions. This is how we do business right now. We outsource the majority of the work because it's very difficult to recruit in-house staff to do this work for what we pay. okay. I'll just read from the follow-up that we received on JULY 24, 2024. When the private provider comes on board, control of deadlines, time constraint and is accelerated skemg yules MAY be lost as well as quality control and institutional knowledge. So, help me reconcile that statement with when hen -- what we're now doing. to my knowledge, we've always had an outside entity like cad helping us with the building code services side of the house. We have tried

267and we'll continue to try to recruit in-house staff to do the work. So, does that b an your question? I mean, our goal is to have, you know, kind of a core staff inside with expertise and thep when we have periods, if we have increased work, we have the capability of exercising this contract with cap, right now we e ear stringing to close out the smart program and so with that, that's why we're bringing this to you so we have those additional resorts we don't have internally. I cannot support this item. We have not gotten consistent answers in my time on the board about these issues. I don't -- I guess my hypothetical question would be, do we feel like what we've been doing is workrking? I think my answers s no. I'll leave it

268at that. Thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman? thanks. I also did the math and I can't figure out whether or not what we agreed to do which was if I'm right, chair, did we agree to do a hybrid model.Er the building department, there would be some governmental employee and is some outsourced employees? to my recollection, yes, but DR. Hepburn stha, your -- I'll defer to MS. Paul, I know we've talked about this several times but I know we brought back information to convey that we are doing a hybrid model, that we have been doing a hybrid model websinger don't have enough staff in-house to do all the work. so, again, this is the process that has been followed prior to me coming on board. I don't know if I would call it a hybrid model

269but it niece different than us contracting on the maintenance side. One of the reasons that you see the close-out of projects is the building department has worked with this company to accelerate where we can, inspections and so forth, so that's a result of of this contract and our internal staff working together. I appreciate that, but I just public want to do the math out loud. Am I wrong to take the 11 million dollars that's witching being asked for in this item, spread it over three years and the item that we have and all the background says we're getting 10 full time people for that money, are those the three right numbers? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? . Er yes, so the 11 million again is spend authority, and the paom that we're getting -- we schedule

270them based on the work we have o do. So, this is basically what we think we will spend, spending authority, but if we don't spend it, it stays in our coffers. let me say it another way then, this 11 million is taking 10 people working full time for three years, their total cost to us through this contract would be 11 million, is that right? roughly speaking, yes. and I'm glad you said roughly speaking because that's what we pay the superintendent a year, so just let that sink in, we gave him a raise this year so, it's close to what we pay the superintendent, I apatrol jiez, DR. Hepburn, for bringing you into this, that's 366 thousand dollars a year, when we've been talking about hybrid models, it wasn't clear we were paying that much for

271contracted support. It's also true that municipalities in broward county that I'm familiar with in term of getting permits personally and getting inspections done and friends I know that have done it, the people they interact with are government employees so, the big myth municipalities of broward county have figured out how to hire the people and they're not paying them 366 thousand dollars a year, so it MAY be we need do this through a transition but I would be persuaded to say we can probably recruit people to work in the building sdpt for less than 366 thousand dollars a a year, so that's kind of where I see this. I would be curious if my colleagues would like to discuss bringing this back in another month with maybe a different option so that we can look at

272using contractors as required but also opening up positions as soon as possible. That idea would be we would move out and start to try and hire some people and I know it's hard but you know it's hard to hire 100 teachers and hard to hire nurse and is school psychologist and is hard to hire superintendents. All those things are hard but I personally just as -- in my responsibilities with the budget would rather try to do this with government people to the extent possible and almost like we did with slp's two years ago, remember we came in here and it was short and we said here's a contract, use this to hire slp's but try to keep get them in-house and we jacked up their pay considerably and I don't have the current numbers but

273at the end of the first year, we needed half as many contractors we thought we would, with the extra pay, we got people who wanted to come work with us, so.If I had a chance to work with MS. Paul and DR. Hepburn as a building department official, I would apply. Why would I work for oakland park or the city of miramar when I can come build schools and do cool work for this team. So, I'm just curious if my colleagues would be interested in discussing this for a few minutes, if so, chair, then I would like to make a motion. okay, anybody have specifically on DR. Zeman's suggestion, MRS. Alhadeff? yes, so if my memory serves me right, the last grand jury report spoke to getting rid of the building department and outsourcing all the

274work that the building department would do, so I'm wondering because I heard that we are mostly already outsourcing the work, has that just been going on since MS. Paul -- since you've gotten here or how many years has that been going on for? I would have to get the historical perspective on that, but I know since I've been here, one of the charges we got from the board through the superintendent is to accelerate the work. We've recruited vigorously for these positions but we don't pay enough and so we hired a person and then they left and went back to where they came from, from the other school district, so we've had that challenge. So, this is in the board follow-up, it's 10-12 employees is based on how we use them and how often we use

275them, but again the charges is to accelerate, close out this program and that's what we're stringing to do. and I think there's more to the conversation too besides the cost, there's also the person overseeing permits and the building department and making sure that they're not approving I guess like the same work and there's oversight and accountability, so there's more to this conversation than finding people that we hire to create a bcps building department. anybody else? I'm going the mover forward with the motion then. MS. Rupert, was it specifically to DR. Zeman's question? yes, ma'am. go ahead. thank you, DR. Zeman, for speaking up and also to thinking that we should talk about this more, and I want to put an idea out there for your consideration which would be we have another possibility of --

276it's going to be coming to us in SEPTEMBER and it would be about warehousing and that's going to be a big contract as well, so, I don't know if we wouldn't have this conversation for both things at once, it might be better to have them then or at least get some information for the board that knows what's going to be for our warehousing people. So, that was my only part for DR. Zeman, if he would consider that? okay, DR. Zeman? thank you, I would like to mover that we postpone this item and that we ask the superintendent to consider an idea akin to what we did with the slp's which is let's raise the salary for the people we need the recruit. Let's make sure we have professional recruiters trying to do it. I acknowledge

277-- okay, so my motion is to postpone this vote and ask the superintendent to come back and give us a graduated program where we try to hire government employee tos the building department and enhanced compensation package to reduce the need for contract support. is there a second? second. okay, it's been moved and seconded to postpone the item. Any public comment on the postponement? Board member comment? I have a question to the superintendent. If we postpone this, does it in any way slow down the work that's happening in construction? MS. Paul or MS. Andreu, when does the contract sunset? The current contract we're under. the contract before you is not going into effect until OCTOBER 12th. okay, so we have roughly about two months. I would say yes because hiring to fill positions takes time and

278I certainly don't want to slow down any work that we have in front of us right now in the next couple of months. So, I don't know, I'll defer to MS. Paul. I don't know if we can come to some type of agreement on how to move forward today, so to make sure we don't slow down work but also do wae with did with the slp's I think it was, about how we continue to recruit, hire, we would have to -- DR. Zeman, also raise the pay to be able to attract employees that would be willing to work with us and stay with us. and DR. Zeman, did you want to postpone it until the next regular school board meeting? I do, just to the next one, and again, I don't believe this could slow

279us down because the idea isn't to not execute this contract at the next meeting, it would be to say yes, we'll execute it but now that we've seen enhanced pay package, we could see that other instalments of broward governments of broward do this, if we knew their pay package, wouldn't they want to come work for us, and so yes, it would be to come back to the next school board meeting and make a decision, but again it's a graduated program, go ahead and do the a contract, I can't in good conscious pay 366 thousand dollars for a year of a building inspector for someone to review other people's plans, that's more than double, almost triple what the municipalities pay and I don't think any of us would like to stand before the voters and think

280that was a reasonable salary to pay somebody. so, when it comes back, would you like to have a lower spend authority? That sounds that ultimately what your motion is looking to do? yes. okay. MRS. Alhadeff? I think we approve this today and taking DR. Zeman's recommendation or his motion and maybe look into that for the possible future but what I'm concerned about is like how many people would we be hire k, how long does that take, like, because in my mind, this is all just delay, delay, delay, delay ultimately, and I am concerned about the accountability measures that are put in place. Now we have our own building department and who's in charge of who and who's making those decisions and the reference to the grand jury report, so i have all those concerns to

281prevent this from moving forward today. I also have some questions. So, are they considered a full time position and we pay them a salary, or are they working as needed on building permits? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul. they work as we need them. so we're not paining benefits or health insurance? no. so, is there a way to negotiate the amount that we pay for them? this is it. This is the contract. we negotiated before. I also think we should move forward, I don't think we should postpone it. You said you would be okay with it, but maybe look at reduce thing the spend authority so we can pass it today with a lower spend authority and then they can still come back with all of that stuff and if it works out we need to increase

282it later, but I also have a huge issue with locking money into a spend authority when we don't know that we need exactly that much money because then it doesn't allow us to have that money somewhere else. So, I would like to make a substitute motion to reduce the spend authority to let's say 8 million dollars. second. any public comment on the motion? Board member comments on -- discussion on the motion? MRS. Leonardi? yeah, I guess I'm just wondering the 8 million dollar number, like, where that's coming from, or if staff has any input on that? s I was doing not quite half was my thought process which would allow us to look at hiring more people and supplementing it as we went along in the year, because it's as needed, ice not necessarily --

283we know we need 100 permits and that's not how they came to this number, so I was looking at it a little more than half for me personally, but DR. Hepburn or staff? I think it was directed to the chair about her 8 million dollars but as far as -- okay. Go ahead, MS. Paul. we have a molested rate for each level of work that we need, so we have a rate for a civil engineer, we have a rate for electronic plan review coordinator, so we have various positions that we have a negotiated rate for. As we need them in a particular area, that's how we use thel. So, does a spend authority of 8 million dollars cause any -- I think we have to reduce the terms of the agreement too. So, this is

284for 36 months for 11 million dollars, if we're going to reduce the amount, you know, we MAY need to -- I suggest we reduce the term of months. but that's part of the contract, the spend authority isn't, is it?Frjts the spend authority is based on the 10-12 people that we MAY use or will use and their negotiated rate. be f but we use them as needed. yes, but again, you know, I don't suspect over the next two years that we would use them less than we're using them now as we close out projects and go into other capital projects. DR. Zeman? the substitute motion doesn't have the effect of what I proposed, what I proposed is exactly what we did with slp's, we gave them a fair market wage, we set up a contract where

285if that doesn't work, you still have the room to hire people, they're just tremendously expensive, an average of 366 thousand dollars, I'm challenging my school board colleagues here to stand before people and say you want to pay people that. That is a tremendous amount of money to do inspections and to review drawings. I know what the grand jury said waxer the grand jury said is our building department was failing and they thought of a solution which is outsource the whole thing and that's fine but I don't need a grand jury to tell me how to fix the problem, I need them to tell me what the problem was. Again, it's our job to find the solution, it's their -- their challenge at this time was to find problems and I accept our building department wasn't

286functional at that time, they found that and substantiated it but my motion is different than the 8 million, chair, I want to establish more government positions and try to hire them. If we can't, then we still have this outlet where we pay a lot of money for people and that can help us with surges, that can help us if it doesn't recruit but I believe there are people working for municipalities that would rather work for us particularly if we set our wages slightly higher than what they're making so I'm just pointing out changing the total amount of money available for the contract isn't going to get where I want to go which is I want more government people and I want us to go aggressively recruit them and I want to pay them well like

287we did with our speech language pathologists. and I have o do something because we have to vote on your motion because I sueded it egd -- seconded it before I can make a different motion. I wasn't trying to circumvent what you wanted to do, it isn't necessarily tie today the contract and I think we were looking at how we can get to where we would all agree on voting on it, postponing it, it won't change what the contract looks like coming back, they can still do what you asked for even if we pass this contract, I think that's maybe a motion correct directed to the superintendent to bring something back to us as opposed to postponing the contract. All those in favor of postponing the item, say aye. aye. all those opposed, say no. no.

288can you take a roll call. roll call on the motion to the table the item until SEPTEMBER 16 board meet, board members bullman? yes. cervera? Was that a yes? Hixon? no. holness? yes. leonardi? yes. rupert? yes. thompson? yes. zeman? yes. alhadeff? no, no, no. that's three no's, so count them. motion passes 7-2. okay. So, well, his motion passes, so, we're going o postpone the item until the the next school board meeting. I just wanted to make a comment. I hope that -- so the problem for me with this item was that we were being asked to approve 11 million dollars, we were not given enough information or we've been given inconsistent information about this so I hope that before this comes back to us next month, we are given very clear, accurate information about this

289item. Thank you. thank you. I agree because I 06sh8 wasn't here last year when the original things were being said, so we didn't have any context of what was being said last year, some of us. I appreciate the chair's motion as well. I think with need to maybe meet in the middle where we have an incentive to be hiring our own people and having a cushion so we can still outsource but not having so much money available that there's no reason to pursue hiring in-house so we can find a balance there, I think that would be a great solution. the next item is oo15. Can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? no, ma'am. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM

290Chair, so this item is in regards to inground lift machine and according to the item, there are currently two functional lifts that we have as far as bus repairs, so I do have a w w questions. DR. Hepburn, how many -- based upon need and it indicates here there are currently 312 buses functioning, is this -- this is for the north area, the central area? DR. Hepburn? I forget what area.Ir MS. Paul?Frjt I will bring DR. Cla ris up to speak to it. it's for the north area and I'm the exec tier director for trance portysing, it's for north area. thank you. So, I would presume then that the concern as far as inground lift machines, the concerns are only in the north area, is that the ofrnl place that there are lift machines? we

291have lift machines across the district and north area is currently the one with the deficiency. so, currently it indicates there are two inground lift machines that are functional. Does this mean there are lift machines na tha are there that are not functional? yes, sir. and how many are those ?Frjts there's one lift machine that's not functional and the other one is a request for an additional lift machine because of the 322 bus that is are serviced out of the north area facility. so, is there intent to repair the non-functional lift machine? that's -- request is for two, one to replace and one additional. the amount which is being requested which is 650 thousand, it's to repair the non-functional lift machine and to purchase another one? absolutely. okay, understood. Now, I know, DR. Hepburn, in the

292past, we talked about making bus routes more efficient because we have some buses with maybe a few students on them because of the kind of programers we're offering. Can you speak to how that is going and, secondly, when we -- what is the anticipated reduction in the number of buses when the initiative to improve efficiency for the use of the buses is great. there was initial planning over the summer, we can't implement that strategy in the middle of the school year, it would cause an undue burden for families so for the 26-27 school year, we will be implementing new transportation strategies to expand hub strategies and different modes of transportation and wringing with broward local government transit. so, when is that completed, you say there would be a reduction in the amount of buses that

293will be needed? yes, there will be a reduction but it wouldn't be severe not to warrant a lift. okay. And how long has the current lift been out of use, the one that needs repair? I don't know if you have that specific information? so originally we put the request in about three years ago so we've been using a portable lift since then. okay, so DR. Hepburn, has there been an increase in the number of buses that would warrant in addition to one that needs repairing, warrant an additional lift over a time period because it appears that there were three lift stations or lift machines that were being used all along but the request is to have another lift which would make it four in addition to the one that needs repair, so what necessitates the

294additional lift, has there been increase in the number of buses or what has changed? I know there hasn't been an increase in the number of buses but we still have to maintain them and change tires and change fluids repeatedly. If you have anything else to add? so, there are still three lifts there but we've always had the need for the additional lift. We put in a request about three years ago but it was placed on hold, so it has that 322 that exists, there's always been a need for the additional lift. okay, so and you said there was a request placed for an additional lift in the past, did I hear that? correct. and that was brought to the board and it was denied? MAY I bring up MR. [Inaudible] Real quick, he was here

295for historical perspective, is that okay with you, MS. Paul? Thank you. [Inaudible], manager of operations for transportation, there are still three lifts at the location, the one lift is inoperable and is being supplemented by the portable lift that was mentioned, that lift was approved in a prior defp plan as a con ingenerals si for that lift. The request today is to replace two of the existing lifts that are over 30 years old. okay, so there are three existing lifts, correct? correct. so the request is not to get an additional fourth lift machine, it's to replace two of the existing ones. correct. so, there will not be an additional fourth lift? correct. thank you. all those in favor of oo15, say aye. aye. any oppose, say no. no. motioning carries with one dissenting vote. Next item

296is oo18, can I have a motion and a second? so moved. Second. it's been moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by DR. Zeman, any public comment? no, ma'am. Er MRS. Bulman? thanks, chair, I pulled this item, I wanted to point out that we're using this program which focuses on saving energy which I think is a fantastic initiative we're doing, so I was wondering if the superintendent could explain briefly how this works and how it's helping us to reduce our energy decision and save money. alison [Inaudible], director of environmental health and safety. What you have before you is the project development agreement for the next five years, we had previously done it under one year at a time, this time it's in the defp, so we're bringing all five years to you at one time. This is

297the part where the vendor evaluates each school and identifies the changes that need to be made like the number of fixtures and we're doing compactors this time so it gets the pricing and then you'll have another ie tell that will come to you with the actual amount of money to make changes and identifies the loan term and ultimately the savings that is calculated at the end of each phase or at the end of each year actually, you know, it gets a cost avoidance but it pays for the modifications. thank you, I really appreciate that we're using this program. MR. Cervera? I'm satisfied, thank you. DR. Zeman? well, thank you to you and the team for putting this together. I don't want to wait five years to get the savings, so what I'm curious about and

298I know there's a spend authority and a plan being put together to come back to us to do the final approval but I would challenge the board, we get more back in annual savings, so why don't I start with that, chair. If we spend a million dollars on this project and I know it's two million right now is the spend authority, let's say we spend a million dollars, are we reducing our annual costs by over a million dollars through that expenditure? DR. Hepburn? laura? so, I would like to -- this is just the project development agreement, so this is the the amount that is being presented to you is what the effort that it would take for them to do the evaluation, the actual cost to do the modifications is much more, but roughly we're

299seeing about 50-60 thousand dollars a school in savings, so depending on how many schools we do in a year, we could roughly see 400 thousand or a million dollars in savings. I appreciate that. What I'm interested in though is the actual roi. So, I would love hiring a company that comes in and does the assessment work for us and then we go and replace the lights for example and any other recommendations that reduce our need for electricity and that generates a significant off -- offset. The truth of the matter is the assessment costs less than the annual savings stha, -- is that fair? potentially, yes. and there's still a price in the middle of replacing the devices which I appreciate. What I would be interested in seeing when had comes back is a real business

300roi, like all costs in and all annual savings out and then we can say, look, if if we can spend the money faster than five years because we want to for environmental reasons and for budget reasons, we would like the reduce our cossets per school by 50 or 60 thousand dollars per year, that would be great. If that in fact bears out, I hope the board with join me in doing it faster than four and a half years, if you can go out and do an assess t, spend the money to change the lights and we do 20 assessments roughly for the school district, if we could do 50 sdp get to that cost savings faster, that should be something we should think about as a board. I would be curious when this comes back,

301could we ask for that to have a business style roi again, this is not educating students, I'm alining about not paying electricity and having different lights that are lighter, you get more light out of the system for less money and I would like the get to that system, depending on what the roi says, but how can we ask this item o come back and have a calculated empirical roi? DR. Hepburn? laura? if I'm understanding you correctly, we could bring that back to you when we bring the item for the total cost for the replacement for the phase 5 which would be the coming year? I would appreciate that, and then the second request would be what would a two year plan look like instead of 5 and a half, if it does have a a

302substantial roi, if we can spend the money in two years instead of five and a half and get to that reduce cost, we're going to realize that reduced cost forever, we have new lights, with the led lights instead of the old incandescent lights, so this could be something for which the roi is so great, we decide to do it in would years instead of five. Could I also ask an option come back that has a two year plan instead of a a five year plan. DR. Hepburn? just to clarify, this item, wouldn't the phases -- the lighter phases would need to be moved up for analysis, correct? right. And we are willing to do whatever plan is directed by the board. I will say there is some amount of construction or ability for staff to

303produce the -- make sure the things are happen soing the work can be done in the time. So, we did 30 projects -- we're doing 30 projects in phase 4 right now sxit's roughly about a year and a half to get those accomplished. We did 20 projects I think in phase 3 and it was roughly a year, so it takes that amount of time to get the necessary permits and do the work. so, is that just bcps staff or any additional contracted staff? so, the contracted staff, jci, provides the documentation, the plans, but we do support that effort in getting the permit with the building department and moving the projects along. so, go ahead, MS. Paul? and I would also add to that, you know, scheduling around when the children are in the building. So,

304we don't -- other than summer and maybe the holidays, we don't really have full access to the building so we have to work with the principal at the school to accommodate the repairs, replacements, and so forth. so, DR. Zeman, when we bring this back, we can detail the potential barriers because I think there are some potential barriers in will and as we're finding out where those potential barriers are, we can figure out if we can work around them and bring something back that's substantive and meet the request. to MRS. Leonardi's earlier points about packages and things like that, I think this board has been clear we'd love to see options and the staff builds the options, the staff says nice ideas, amy, you want this done in 12 months, we can't do it, but if

305you bring us feasible options instead of one solution, it empowers us to do our job better. If it's not feasible to do it in a year twofer years or if the roi doesn't support that, we should go throw f slow and do that, but when it's using up empty seats in a school bus, like a student getting o on a school bus for which there's no other student registered to use that bus, that seems like an easy thing, but this is like a really great business model where when we spend money on this assessment and then the actual change out of the lights happens, the reduction in electrical footprint is huge, so that's great, we should celebrate we have this thing going, but if it's a huge roi when we look at the numbers and

306it's feasible to do it in less than five years, the board MAY klaoz to do that and I appreciate those options, so thank you, MR. Superintendent. to DR. See mra n's point, there is only one vendor on this, is there not other companies, like maybe one way to do that is to have more than one company partnering with us in this and not just the one, would that not increase the amount of work getting done. All those in favor of oo18, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item is oo20, can I have a motion and a second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Thompson, any public comment? no, ma'am. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. The last meeting we had, I think this board was asked

307to approve something along the lines of like 85 million dollars for buses if I'm not mistaken. I think the ie -- item was either taken off or there wasn't a a proposal to split it in half, I don't believe it passed. My question is in regards to oo20 for this vehicle maintenance. Does this proposal negate any of the need for the sdrigt to buy any new school buses and instead use this money to repair some of the current buses we have many our fleet? DR. Hepburn? this is for our existing fleet, this wouldn't address the contract, I think it was like 31 million dollars, for acquiring new buses and white fleet. what I'm trying to fwet to the bottom of is the proposal for the new buses, somebody correct me, I believe it was either

308taken off or it failed at the last item, at the last -- it was reduced. it was reduced by half. Does this passage of this allotment that's being asked, is any of this money going to be used to address some of those buses that we were going the replace all together and now we're going the fix these or are these two separate buckets of dollars that have ining to do with one another? two separate issues. This is to keep our current fleet on the road. okay. So, there is -- thank you, DR. Superintendent. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, for this item, there were I believe 16 vendors mentioned and I just wanted to find out from these 16 vendors again, how many of these are hispanic, black or women? DR. Hepburn? MS. Andreu

309sm thank you, DR. Hepburn. This is an itb from 2023, there are none. This is not a new solicitation, you're being asked to approve the additional spend authority, so, I'm not sure if there was an api as we discussed earlier on this particular solicitation, it was before my tenure. I understand. So, the point that I'm trying to make because we have in this item, we have 16 vendors and none of these vendors are women owned, hispanic owned or black owned and I brought up two other items, and from the 23 vendors and I could have brought up more, we have -- that I have brought up, 23 vendors, only one out of the 23 belonged to an mwbe firm which was hispanic, bro urtbacker broward county population is 32% quite whites, 31% hispanics and [Inaudible]

310Blacks. what is the percentage? DR. Fulton is pulling it up but it's very similar. They'll give you exact numbers. DR. Holness, can you repeat that question again. what is the demographics of broward county schools in terms of gender and race. so, gender, we can look that up right now. 3.9 asian and multiracial, 3.7. okay, and hispanics would be includes in what part of that? we have that broken up, hispanic, 39%. and when you break it down, we have 39% hispanics, can you give us the other numbers. so, I think what he's asking in the dem ragpickers, I know sometimes it's hispanic white and hispanic non-white because -- where they collect kate ta. I understand, so 39% came out of the 51%, is that correct? so, we have it here as hispanic, 39%, non-hispanic, 61, so

311it's -- that's how we collect it. I understand. So, the concern that I have is as a board and as a district, it's important and we talk about eliminating disparity before, I think it's important that we do everything we can can do ensure that we are attracting a wide variety of vendors that would -- at least to some degree mirror our broward county population as well as our student population, like I said, I have mentioned 23 vendors, from the 23, there were no women, absolutely no women owned in there. And we had one hispanic and no blacks, so I think, DR. Hepburn, we can do a better job so that the things we're doing is reflective of the population we're serving because the schools are funded locally by local residents and I think that would

312be important that we recognize the disparity in terms of women owned business, spanic owowd d and black owned doing g bubuness withth thedidirict. Ththk yoyou. T tnk you. Alall the iffavor ofitit oo20, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion passes unanimously. The next item is pp3, can I have a sxhoetion a second. It's been motioned by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on pp3? you do have one speaker, MRS. Lescum. thank you. good afternoon, everybody. You probably -- we have all got a one pager explaining for me about what I'm about to explain, so hopefully everybody's clear what the problem is here, but at some point between your JUNE 10 workshop and this redline being advertised and publicized and put on the agenda for today, some wording has been added that

313was not advised or discussed or directed by you folks at the board workshop and it does make a very significant change to -- if you passed it, would make a significant change of what jrotc's are, that word is many the first program aragraph, it's extra curricular, jrtc is not an extra curricular person, it is an elective defined by the defense, they can receive high school credit, it's built into the school day, it is required curriculum and instruction and optional, extra curricular activity. Removing that status pays an existential threat to your 31jrotc's district wide and more clearly erroneous, you have advertised a policy that was going to remove jrotc's current stat as a structured academic program. That would be a major unsustainable change but now removing the word extra curricular to correct that would therefore also

314be a major change or be the only and right thing o -- to do. Regardless of whether this was an error, it came about through staff unilaterally going into a draft and the consequences could have been serious. While one could say, well, schools know it's not extra curricular, no problem, this could and would potentially have resulted in something negative. It had potential to do so because of some of these reasons currently of -- if you lovely folks were listening, can we stop the clock. I'm sorry, but I think this is important and the superintendent and chair, I would love if I could have my time back. I know it's still running but the people I'm speaking to are engaged in another conversation. I have given up half a day's work to be here, you have

315to put up with me for three minutes, I would like my time back. Regardless of whether this was an error, it came about somebody going into a document they shouldn't have, mislabeling it as extra curricular would have stripped jrotc from its framework, jeopardized the student's ability to graduate, would have placed the district out of compliance, and so on. We need to have a process we can trust of rule making and recently there have been lapses and inconsistencies, we need to see a learning curve and have corrections so we can have confidence in process. This has not instilled that and the solution that will be sub stant I ever change if you remove this one word but it needs removing. Er any other public comment? new -- no, ma'am. MRS. Hall deaf? so, jrotc is an

316elective in school course with an academic curriculum n policy number 6230, I would like to remove the word extra so it would say the broward county school board supports the implementation of the junior reserve officers training corps jrotc at district high schools as a leadership development and character building curricular program. second. it's been moved and seconded to remove the word extra from extra curricular, any public comment on the motion? yes, and thank you, MRS. Alhadeff, it's not just curricular, it is curricular and extra curricular, it doesn't need either in there but the effect of changing it is arguably now substantive change. I would also like to point out there's another paragraph that was also added in subsequent to the workshop that wasn't directed or discussed this language that's been added in at point c-3, it's

317non-detrimental but I think there is a principle at stake here of how do you do rule making anymore. It is as I just stated a curricular program and it cannot exist without being curricular but it also has the optional extra curricular programs and activities added on too, thank you. thank you, any other public comment? Board member comment? MS. Batista, I have a question because the the spookier mentioned that changing this would make it a substantial change, so, can you speak to that and does that mean we would have to go through rule making again? okay. So, you won't have to go through the entire process of rule making again. You would have to advertise a notice of change for 21 days, then the policy would come back to the board for approval. And final adoption.

318o any other board comment, MRS. Bulman? is there a way to quickly pull up whatever we looked at that originally -- what's being alleged stla the redline that we have before us is not the same redline we had at the workshop. DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza? thank you, DR. Hepburn, valerie wanza, chief strategy innovation officer. It is true on JUNE 10 when we did rule make t preamble of the policy did not have the word extra curricular in it at all, it didn't, in fact, the board at that rule making, the board did not ask for any changes to the policy at all so, when it was received back in our office from legal, what I took was that the formatting was corrected to ensure that it complied with the current formatting processes and I proceeded

319to upload it and then the word extra curricular and she was the final legal reviewer of the policy before it was up -- uploaded for today's school board meeting. MS. Hof steadier. yes, I inserted the word extra curricular by accident. MS. Batista, obviously we need to remove the word extra from there. So, it said curricular to begin with? it said program. it just said program. it's not a substantial change. can we strike it out. it would be a change, this is what was advertised for this meeting today with that word in it and therefore if you remove it, it would constitute a substantive change that would need to be advertised for 21 days and then come back for final adoption to the board. It doesn't have to go through the whole workshop or any of

320that. I would like to make a substitute motion and just move to take out the entire word extra curricular and just leave it as programs. second. okay. It's been moved and seconded. Any public comment on the motion? To just leave it the way it was originally. right, but -- jackie lescum, I think what MS. Batista is rightly telling you, that makes substantive change. and it will have to come back for another vote. you didn't say that, so you're proposing shelving it to -- no, I'm asking them to make a change and it will have to come back in 21 days for us to vote on it. but not make a a change here now and putting it through. yes. and I do feel -- I'm sorry, but I do feel if the there's a process

321and it was flouted, some accountability over it would matter. The effect of this, I nearly brought cadets with me to protest and say please don't down grade it, but the word accident was put out there. A punctuation issue that I sent to all of you as well is officers, nrurl, just to get the name of the program and the policy correct, thank you. thank you, any other public comment on the substitute motion? Any board comment on the substitute motion? MS. Bulman? I support the motion and it does not appear there was noi nefarious intent here. I have many, many, many times typed something where my mind wandered or you used the wrong draft or whatever, so, I accept that this was a mistake and that we have to go through 21 days to fix it.

322I don't think there's any terrible thing that is are going to happen on the next days on this. thank you, any other board comment. All those in favor of the substitute motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. So, the item passes as -- now we're voting on the -- yeah, so now we're voting on pp3 as amended, all those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries with the idea that we understand it will come back in 21 days for an actual vote. because this was not the final adoption. this is not the final adoption, it is -- we all recommended changing it, it will come back in 21 days for a final vote and the policy will then be in place. Everybody's good with that? Perfect. I'm goipg the take

323one more item. Pp7, can I have a motion and a second. Er so moved. Ifrnlt. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any public comment on pp7? no, ma'am. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, for the redline changes to policy 6400, in terms of reassignment priority, I just wanted to confirm for the sake of the public that this will be effective the year 26-27, is that correct? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza? so, as soon as the board approves the policy, it's effective right then, correct, MS. Batista, so going forward, any reassignments we would get for this year, it would be in effect the board approves it today, it becomes effective today. so, assignment priority areas, if you do have students who want to choose a particular school and they're within that priority

324assignment area, they can -- .If this is approved today, for example, c4? yes, but remember, I want to make it clear, reassignments are predicated on seats available at the schools. If there's seats available, yes. so, contingent on availability of seats, if seats are available, for example, c4 part of coral springs would have priority to dwo to coal lan douglas. if they put in a reassignment for marjory stoneman douglas is where they would fall wp the priority. so, they have a choice if they so choose if this item passes? it's not that they have a choice, their assigned right now is coral glades high school, if they put in for a reassignment and there was a space available and there was not a lottery, yes, they would be awarded a seat because there's space available ask

325they have priority before students who -- anyone else so, they have priority in the reassignment process, okay, thank you. you're welcome. MRS. Bulman? thank, chair, I have a little motion here just to streamline the language and I already talked to DR. Wanza about it, we worked on it together yesterday. Just to kind of -- because this starts on page 17 and I think it's section roman numeral 4, number 5, regarding reassignments, so if you look in the second paragraph of a, it says reassignment seats will be allocated to schools that have available seats, that's kind of like a blanket statement. When you go into letter c, there's a couple of the numbered areas where you can qualify for reassignment which says where seats have become available or on a space available basis, so my motion

326that was passed out just removes those -- that language, so that we just go back to the beginning of number 5 and it's a blanket where seats are available. So there's no confusion later. do you want to do all the motions at once or do you want to do one at a time can we do all of them? if they're going to be passed as one item, then you can do them all at once, if you think there's going to be some discussion and some items won't be supported, one at a time is safer. they're just word changes, yeah. so, I think all at once is fine. so, you have -- I would like to amend the proposed policy 6400 language as follows, to change roman numeral 4, number 5, letter c, number 1 to

327read children already attending a district school on a one year assignment. Change section roman numeral 4, number 5 c-3 to read a full time permanent sbbc employee assigned to a work location within an innovation zone who is the parent, legal guardian of a staoun, MAY apply for the student to be placed in a district school within the innovation zone. The employee must meet the application deadline, and change roman numeral 4, number 5c4 to read a part time, permanent sbbc employee who is the parent, legal guardian of a school assigned a part time work schedule at the requested school, the employee must meet the application deadline. okay. I second the motion. Any public comment on the motion? Okay, board member comment on the motion? just a point of order, excuse me, after you, sir. MR. Cervera?

328kudos for writing this out in a nice, orderly fashion, easy to read, thank you for doing that. DR. Zeman?Frjt my question just to the person, I imagine that was a motion, right? yes. to making the motion, these three things are whole section replacements, so 5 c-1 is within the quote you have for number one? yeah. and 5 c-3 is again the whole replacement there? yes. thank you, this is wonderful, I appreciate it. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? I appreciate it being written out, good job. I do have issue with number 1 because I think the way it's written currently now where it says children already attending a district school on a are one year reassignment where seats have become available because the whole where seats are available is left out in your motion, so I don't

329agree with that. okay. Any other board member comment? Okay, all those in favor of -- chair, I'm sorry, I wonder if we could ask the maker of the motion to the separate the motions that she's made. Iz just don't -- originally this looked like just improved language but if there's a substantive change that one member doesn't agree with, i would hate for the whole set of changes to be voted on. okay. so, I have a question, MS. Batista, is there a distinction with what MS. Alhadeff's bringing up in c-1 on page 18? the original language in the policy has an extra clause that says where seats have become available. that's what we're trying -- that's what I'm trying to remove from the 3 because it says it at the beginning of the reassignment section that

330reassignment seats will be allocated at seaters that have seats available. So, is there a distinguishable reason why that wouldn't be removed to accomplish that in number 1? I'm reading it as children already atoning a school in a one year reassignment so they would be eligible if if there are seats available based on what it says at the beginning of the -- it could be read the way you said it now, obviously it can also be done the way that it was done before. so, what's the scrivener's intent, who wrote it? DR. Wanza, do you have anything to add to this? thank you, MR. Sullivan. So, just for MR. Vignola worked on this policy, he said there he had no changes to add, however, this to everyone's question, so what happens is a student is reassigned

331for one year to finish the school year, something happened and now they're going to apply to remain at the school because they've been at the school, so this would give them a -- this would give them a priority because they are already there at the school. so, it would not be based on the seats that have become available, that student would be allowed to stay at school? provided there is room for the student to stay, right. So, if you look at the beginning of the policy, I'm sorry, this section of the policy, reassignments are first and foremost, are there seats available for students who reside outside of the attendance area to now make application to apply to the school -- to attend the school. so, my recommendation would be to keep that language there only

332for the fact that it MAY become confusing that, you know, that there is a privilege to stay at the school even if seats are not available. And I understand that it says it at the beginning of the section as well, but I don't think there is any harm in keeping it in the place where apparently it resides. I guess I would -- just looking at it, I think there's a better way to say it so that's clear. I n't know it's ere seats susuequently beco avlalabloror ---- it's hard to tell by the way it's written what it means. maybe just to jump in there, maybe you could say as long as seats are available. Or as long as seats remain available. is that a substitute motion? so, I'll make a substitute motion to number 1

333to read children already attending a district school on a one year assignment as long as seats remain available. isn't that what's in the current policy, chair, if you vote down the motion to make number 1, that's what's going to stay I think, right? yes. It's just worded differently because it says where seats have become available and I think MRS. Bulman's point is saying they're already there, they should be able to stay and the point is they could stay as long as a seat remains available for them, so the word ing is a little different. MS. Bulman just wanted to be more precise it sounded like. but if you go back to a, reassignment seats -- so, this is all under reassignment, so they're still looking for a reassignment even though they had a one year

334reassignment, so they're looking for a reassignment and it has to be at a a school that has available seats. MADAM Chair? yes. I recommend we table this item, go to time certain and me and DR. Wanza can work with MS. Bulman to refine her motion. second. okay, you're -- I would like to make a motion to postpone this until later in the nighing, chair. okay, all those in favor of postponing until late nrer the meeting, say aye. aye. any opposed, say mo. Motion carries wefp will go to bb3, time certain for 3:00, we're close, can I have a a motion and a second -- so moved. DR. Zeman, it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Leonardi, any public comment on the motion? on the item, we have about 20 registered speakers, MADAM Chair,

335I recommend reducing the time. Wefrjts eel make it two minutes per speaker. And we'll start with -- so, if you can go on -- so we make it move a little faster, if someone will go on each microphone and just be ready to go if you're sitting on the right hand side, go to that microphone f you're on the left, go to that. and we'll call you up. I'm going to try to call the students here who identify as students, the first three student who is want to come together, chelsea, lily and elsa, if you can make yourself to the mic.. good afternoon, my name is lily and I'm an 8th grader at sunrise, I'm here with.Two of my classmates, chelsea and alyssa to speak in support to match the funding provided from the city

336of fort lauderdale for our school and the enhancements of our sports facilities. This funding will help thousands student ins years to come and this is aban entire community, we neater just improving our sports facilities, we're sending a mez saj that schools matter and we deserve a safe, inspiring place to learn and fwroe and play. the current conditions in our athletic facilities are in a state of disrepair, broken and neglected. This is not even mentioning the students that get hurt on our outdated sports field, indoor and outdoor. Our school has plenty of land, but just no investment or maintenance of the athletic facilities. The lack of attention directed to extra curricular and student safety is preliminary implying those aren't priorities and that needs to change. in long term, this investment can boost enrollment by making our

337school more attractive to families looking for well rounded schools and it promotes quality by including people to ensure all people of background have safe, accessible places to participate. we know as 8th graders websinger won't be there to enjoy the facilityfinger we care because we've grown up there and practiced in those gyms and cheered on our school teams and we'd like our younger siblings to have safer places to play, we're asking you the make a a smart investment in the future of our schools. [Applause]. scarlet. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the bore, my name is scarlet and I'm a student at sunrise middle school, I would like you to upgrade our schools and facilities, it will benefit and support the wellbeing of the student and is faculty members at sunrise middle. To explain, exercise reduces

338stress and makes you fit. This means that upgrading the fields and facilities will make students want to exercise more. This gives the students minds and body healthy, awake and ready to learn, benefiting the bhoel school. I -- it benefits the faculty members and helps them teach. They are ready to learn and have a great team. Also when teaching sports, it's in a safe and organized environment, this up xwraed will help give the students a great experience. To the advantage of the students and staff at the school, I hope you will support this investment. As you can see, it's a win, win, thank you. [Applause]. hi, my name is jasofine, I'm a assist grade ner sunrise middle school, it is a great school with a good principal and great teachers. It has all the best programs

339and provides many opportunities for kids to grow and excel but there are some stuff that can improve, for example, when you drive down, you see the field. Let's be honest, the field is not the most beautiful thing you see, so that's why it needs a fixing. Yesterday, me and my sister tried out for the school soccer team. It was hard because the grass was uneven and it was easy to trip on. The locker room was a very uncomfortable experience and we need to make this better. Additional funding can make all these things better. This will not only help the kids in the school but also the community in broward county. More people will want to go to this school and see all the amazing programs it has to offer. Thank you. [Applause]. are there anymore

340student ins the audience that want to speak on this before I go the adults? Go to the mic. And say your name. sabrina. Hi, my name is sabrina and I'm a fourth grader at vsy and I'm -- I also live in victoria park. When I heard you're doing upgrades for the school facility, I was excited and then my mom told me that you, the school board v to vote on it. I'm here to say vote yes. Please match the city fun to make sunrise a school where me and my friends can transition to. I nominate my mom to run taz coach as the track and field club for rubbing for girls. [Applause]. up next, we're going to have aaron gold and james lebree. it's really hard to follow that. Good afternoon, my name is aaron

341gold and I'm the very proud ptsa PRESIDENT At sunrise middle and a longtime member of the fort lauderdale education advisory board. It feels really great to be standing here today speaking enthusiastically for something. What you're going the hear from me and from so many other and is you already have in this room is gratitude, hope and genuine excitement. Those are feelings that can sometimes feel in short supply, so they are worth celebrating. By approving these machining funds, you are modeling the very best of what partnerships in spourpt of public education can look like. School districts working hand in hand with cities, neighborhoods and families. This is a community absolutely invested in the success of this school and program and you can see we keep showing up, we are here. Doing this now means these additional

342projects can be done in a coordinated and efficient approach along the city's upgrades. It also advances keyboard priorities, boosting mental health, attracting and retaining families, creating a pipeline from our elementary schools to sunrise and showing how creative partnerships amplify success. The financial return on this investment will come through increased enrollment, I am certain, but the value is so much more than monetary. This is an extraordinary opportunity that can model the future of the district to make bcps the choice for students throughout broward. Thank you. [Applause]. superintendent, MADAM Chair and members of the broward county school board, my name is james lebree, a resident, homeowner, taxpayer and voter in broward county for nearly 23 year, live in fort hauler dale where bennett elementary and sunrise middle school are located. Er I currently serve as the vice-PRESIDENT

343[Inaudible]. I come to represent the association in support of the sports academy niche yat I ever that includes ben -- ben knit elementary, it helps not only to support physical health but to support mental and he motional health. We believe there is value in the sports academy initiative as it would attract and retain students and their families who MAY be considering a private school as an alternative to a public school. I cannot speak to the benefits of coupling academic achievement with athletic, I leave that decision to the people sitting at the dais, I can speak to the following from my own personal experience. When it's open to public swim, I'm a regular swimmer at the sunrise middle school that was built in the late 90's with generous donation from the residents at point seth heights

344working with the city of port lauderdale parks department and the broward county school system. I ask you to envision this valuable resource used to create the four scenario that is would support the sports academy initiative. First an accessible site for bennett elementary student tos learn basic swiming and water skills, it would encourage physical activity at a young age, it would help reduce one of the major causes of childhood can death in nror dao which is drowning. At sunrise middle school, the kids will develop stronger swimming schools, learn about competitive swimming and start to understand the concepts of individuals' role within the team structure, I'm almost done, third, continue tog the swimming pool at fort lauderdale high school, they would with refine their swimming schools even more, learn thing rewards of discipline and commitment as they

345successfully compete other high schools. thank you so much. next we have michael owen, heather -- I want you to know the hugh school supports the initiative. thank you. [Applause]. good afternoon, my name is mike owen, a sub rao iz middle alum and a sunrise parent, my daughter started sixth grade there this year. I know firsthand just how much this school means to its student and is families and I want to to share my approving the 1.7 million dollar machining funds as being a very important step. The city of fort lauderdale has made an incredible investments through its bond program by matching the funds to the school board. These upgrades are more than new fielders or gym, they give student ass place to train, compete, and to grow together. They improve health, boost engagement and build

346the foundation for the new sports academy that will connect bennett elementary, sunrise middle and fort lauderdale high. This isn't just about facilities, it's about invest ining our kids and our community. I respectfully urge you to vote yes. Thank you. [Applause]. good afternoon maybe, good afternoon, good afternoon. it should be working. good afternoon, is it working? yes. good afternoon, board members and superintendent hepburn, my name is heather and I'm here speak ining support of item bb2. This opportunity for the school board of broward county to make capital impraou. Tos the sports fields, pool and other benefit tos the school and neighboring committee is right decision. The synergy will be cost effective and make the greatest impact. This support it is future implementation of a sports academy at bennett elementary as well as academic and sports programs

347that extend through the fort lauderdale high school feeder pattern, there n will pay dividends and I encourage you to vote yes. Thank you. [Applause]. who are the next two speakers? the next two speakers are julia overturn and denise calder. good afternoon, everyone, I'm julia, I'm the proud vsy-pta PRESIDENT, we're back in our blue shirts again because we like to show up when cool things are happening happening at the board. We know the children will benefit from this, right, let's talk about how the school board, how the county benefit from this. Wez eve been alining about how to get kids back into public schools, nrot the lose them to the private system. A a program like this would take kids leaving like vsy instead of using vouchers to go private because they think they're getting something

348better. Let's vote y yes -- yes on this and not leave money to the table and let's provide a great school for kids to go into, thank you. [Applause]. good afternoon, I'm denise, the current magnet coordinator at sunrise middle school, I'm in my 18th year, it will be my first and last school, aoem the proud parent of four children, I'm here to respectfully urge the board the please match the city of fort lauderdale's 1.7 million dollar investment in our school's athletic facilities. The funding is about more than infrastructure, it's about building a brighter broward, sunrise middle was promised vital upgrades, this is essential to launching the feeder program that connects bennett, sunrise and fort lauderdale high school. Our mascot is a falcon, precision and fierce determination, these are the traits of our student athlete, despite

349our gym not being in the top condition, they led our boy's basketball team to an undefeated champion season last year. Our school community is moan for doing a lot with a little. Our parent and is teachers have volunteered other the years as staff sponsors to expand the athletic offerings, we started a baseball club years ago that is still ongoing. We'll be adding pickleball very soon, fort lauderdale high is the final destination in the feeder pattern, it stands as a lighthouse a becon that attracts high achieving athlete and is scholars, the flying l, a a logo of strength, pride and excellence, we know schools like american heritage have nationally recognized athletic programs, a lot of those athletes come from sunrise middle. The falcon has wings, the flying l has a wing but the board today, you're

350the wind beneath those wings, help us fly. [Applause]. thank you, the next two speakers. the next two speakers, walter and nicole. chair, superintendent, board members, as I came up, I heard better, brighter broward, so I'm here today to speak on behalf of all those students whose parents don't have the employment that gives them the accommodations to be able to show up in the middle of an afternoon on a weekday. this feeder school, the feeder schools include many historic neighborhood elementary schools in our poor neighborhoods and those students deserve to be part of those wings, part of the wind that you're going give them, part of the better x brighter broward. Don't leave this money on the table, the machining dollars, embrace the opportunity to embrace the students especially those students who do not have a

351voice today but absolutely deserve that voice because they will be the future voices but we need to embrace them and support them today. Please vote justice, please vote education, please vote our common, human values and accept this money, match the money, maybe even out do the match and let's go forward, thank you. [Applause]. I'm nicole, fort lauderdale business owner and resident. Iz -- I'm here many support of the full match for sunrise middle. I'm a vsy parent, our blue shirts are here, we wanl to kham our energy, just everything into sunrise as our kids get older and I can't see a better investment than our kids, so thank you. next two speakers and as a reminder, everybody has to be sitting down in a seat unless you're with media, thank you. next speaker is joe

352p and juliet. thank you for the discipline. MR. Superintendent, school board members, I have spoken in front of the broward county school board many, many, many times, dating back to the old florinata, I have served on many school board members including the oversight committee on the oversight bond. I'm a follower of the mary furdic school of accountability and my daughter was honored to serve op this school board until her husband's job moved him to california. All that being said, I read, I listen, I'm active in the community. I know what is going on and I don't like it. The have and the haveve not of the stst anand stst hahabeenen goinonon r r years that I'm aware of, 40 years. The west talks about school, courts, food courts, my GOD, every school has to have

353a food court, don't we? No. The east is suffering for basic essentials like exercise for our children, extra curricular activities. You are losing students, you are losing students to charter schools because of perceived inadequacies, and that is going to continue until you shift and get aggresses. What I want to say is this, my entire family votes, I vote, I had five grand churn attend vsy, I saunter have two in fort lauderdale and one in sunrise, I'm an emg kate voter and I will stay an educated voter. Please do what's right, allocate the necessary mup and consider it the billing of an asset to help the school board and the broward county schools. Thank you for your time. next public speaker. [Applause]. good afternoon, my name is julie anne, apparently I will be coaching run like

354the girl club, let's make that happen, injecting funds into sunrise middle school for severely needed upgrades makes sense. It should be a common sense solution, it should be a yes, it makes the school more competitive with those private and religious schools getting the tax breaks that have reduced enrollment in broward county. It give it is campus an upgrade and it would make more children come back in to the school system. When my kid started school, it was like, you can go to vsy, where are you going after that, which private charter school are you going to, you're not going the sunrise or the other ones, and that tide is turning and I think we have been turning the tide. So, let's turn it together and make this change for all of our students, for all

355of the kids that come from all of the schools. Thank you. [Applause]. thank you, the next two speakers. michelle h and john sto n ho bs. Er my name is michelle hern, a parent, a resident, tax pay and her a pta board member for sherman young. I want to thank you for your time and thank you for paying attention to all of us today. I can't echo how important this is for the future of our students, my kids are in kindergarten, first fwraed and preschool, they will not be in middle school for many years but I am thinking about what is that next step, I'm thinking private school to be honest with you, but when I see these type of investments, when I see the board truly taking into consideration what the community believes in,

356I want to stay here. so, I ask that you approve the funding and move forward with the decision. Thank you. next public speaker. good afternoon, [Inaudible] I'm the head baseball coach, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and double the time, last time we only had a minute. I would like to stress to you how important programs are as probably the only person in this crowd that works on one of these fields every single day, I need to tell you how important it is to have resources that you will be voting on. The extent of our resorts to improve our facilities over the past year at fort lauderdale high school has been the person you're look at right now, I'm out there every day whether it's in season or out of season,

357we have dumped my entire stipend into the field, it's the thought, the principle, we started a non-profit to help raise money to keep our field up so our kids can have a safe place to play. I can only speak for baseball, I don't maintain the soccer or baseball field, I have a couple of pounds of red clay from dragging the field every day. We have started in the past year the see an increase in numbers in young athletes that want to participate in our program. Tla's with the limited resource that is we've invested in it. Imagine exponentially what would happen if you were able to vote yes on this, match those funds and start improving the fields making them safer providing opportunities for kids to experience things like team work, leadership, discipline, accountability, all o

358those things we teach in our program, for the record, our jv went undefeated last year. [Applause]. So, we're looking forward to big things and it would make it easier and such a better experience not just for the kids but for the parents and for the coaches. I would like to take a day where I don't have the maintain a feel, so if you would please vote yes, I would appreciate it personally. [Applause]. thank you, the next two speakers? our last two speakers, alex and troy. good afternoon, esteemed members of the board, I am coming to you from would directions, I am alumni from sunrise middle school and fort lauderdale high school, I grew up in the neighborhoods and also the PRESIDENT Of the [Inaudible] Civic association, we have been working hand in hand with the

359city of fort lauderdale to get the original funding from the joint parks bond flt I don't think I could say anything more eloquently than most of the people who have already spoken so I'll tell you a small anecdote. I originally came from new york, moved down here and went to st. Anthony's, half way through sixth grade, I guess moved into somebody'll for financial reasons and it was one of the best things that happened to me, I had made lifelong friends and had been advocating for the public schools which I see are being overrun by charter schools and private schools. I'm hoping after getting the first amount of money through joint use program for school was pretty amazing, but for you guys to have the opportunity to double down on that would really be something special.

360So, I hope that you understand that how many other elementary schools besides bennett feed into sunrise middle and then into fort lauderdale high and hopefully like some of the other people have mentioned, they will have the facilities that we should come to expect from our public schools in broward county. Thank you. [Applause]. thank you. And we have one more speaker but we have -- and then someone after them, I guess they didn't get on the list. MR. Superintendent, members of the bore, my name is troy, the PRESIDENT Of the middle river terrace neighborhood association and we are the proud hosts of the fort lauderdale high school in our neighborhood. Principal aaron brown is a great partner with our neighborhood, our residents want to support the program. I personally am a volunteer in the legal magnet

361a a the it is assist great place and my home overlooks all the fields out there. I'm just here on behalf of the residents of our neighborhood in support of this program and we appreciate your support. Thank you. [Applause]. thank you. I believe we have one more speaker. hi, should I go ahead? I was speaking to DR. Jermanovich. thank you, good afternoon, my name is DR. Valerie roseti, I currently have two sixth grade students attending sunrise middle, one of my daughters spoke earlier. I am an active participant in the ptsa for sunrise and a public school advocate. I appreciate the school board listening to our comments today regarding the 1.7 million dollar match to sunrise middle, deciding where to send your child to school is a huge decision. Even in these early years, it feels

362just as competitive as college. We chose sunrise middle over private school options for many reasons. The strong academic montessori program, cambridge material, accelerated learning program such as gen math which both of my girls are currently enrolled. We want to continue having student ins the broward county school system. With that being said, all the magic that's being done inside sunrise middle becomes hidden by the exterior facilities. These can testify gently be attended to, to make the schools stand out, not an ie sore with undesirable amenity that is are not conducive to to productive learning. With enrollment decline in broward county schools, this is a perfect time to enhance the schools that are working with positive attention. This year, sunrise middle had an overwhelming number incoming sixth grade student that is had topper sen taj fasfa schools

363pull framing feeder elementary schools. Principal and administrators worked diligently to make sure classes were able to accommodate this incoming group of students adding accelerated math class and is elective options. Now it's time to make sure the building and amenity ofs the school reflect the good work of what's happening inside. The track and exterior amenities need attending to o, city of fort lauderdale has committed fund witching the park and city bond that was granted two years ago. What a wonderful opportunity for broward county school systems to match the punds. Thank you. thank you. [Applause]. and our last speaker. . Inger my name is DR. Trudy jermanovich, a former sunrise teacher, I envision having these have having a sports curricula and encompasses engineering, art, music, math, language, global s int ship. Activities which are carefully developed and

364related to sports can can increase students enthuse yeah yafm for school. Sunrise has a rare connection through former principal nick's daughter, linda. This week she's in seattle celebrating with others for the first annual queen's match recognizing the 198 U.S. Women's national soccer team and celebrating 40 years since they piser took the field. The squad featured a roster of 17 women who made history and chained women's soccer forever. She might be of help in creating a few activities for us. Even as a preschool level, there are programers that foster athletic development and prioritize in introducing fundamental movement skills, a successful preschool can help keep student ins the feeder program throughout their career. Wouldn't it be a perfect time the partner with broward county to help fund an early learning center as proposed earlier by DR. Zeman.

365Thank you. [Applause]. thank you. Any other public comments before we move to board discussion? okay, MRS. Leonardi? thank you. And I want to thanking the students, the parents, educators, community members who came out today, took time out of your day to speak in support of this and advocate for your community, so thank you. I've been reflecting on what we've been able to do as a board over the last few years and months and I think we're at a really pivotal moment in broward schools. we see a lot of headlines about enrollment declines and I think we have a real opportunity to do things differently and figure out better ways to support students and attract families back into our schools. The work we do is of then played out in slow, incremental change and that's just

366a fact of government work, right. The enrollment declines we are experiencing are the result of a series of incremental poor planning and poor decisions along with some factor that is are out of our control but I know that with this board, we've turned a corner and we have made a series of good decisions that will result in long term, positive change. I think about the 5.9 million dollars we allocated to broward estates early learning center, mlk elementary and plantation elementary, making good on promisee to a community that is so used to broken roses. I think about the 1.1 million dollar increase to athletic supplements, executing a vision this board has talked about for half a decade. I think about the 36 million dollars to the coral glades auditorium delivering life changing opportunities for students to

367engage with the arts. And I think about the 1.3 million dollars to dana elementary for investment to an old east side school that needs it. In a recent sun sentinel article, one of my colleagues said, we've got to get our act together and do a better job of fixing the things that are wrong and I wholeheartedly agree. These projects I out lao ind represent us fixing the thing that is are whereon with our schools and I'm proud of the advocacy and the priorities of my colleagues on these issues. We've repeatedly heard from parents and students we are doing facilities wrong and we are starting to right that wrong. Something else this district has done wrong for many year iss slapping a new program on a school and not providing the sufficient funding or support for

368that programming. During a recent workshop on redefining, we heard overwhelming public support for a community proposal for a sports academy magnet program at bennett, sunrise and fort lauderdale and here we have an opportunity to do right by that xlaount and the school and appropriately support that programming. In that sun sentinel article, with my colleague said we need to do a better job of what we're communicating right. Here's what's going right, the paper noted increased enrollment at northeast high school due to improving facilities and programming. What else is going right? Our partnership with the city of falter lauderdale who has invested over 12 million dollars in improving our school facilities. We should try to replicate that over and over again throughout the district. We have been asked to match those funds and make facilities imprao ufrments

369no coordination with the work they're doing which is why I brought this item with such immediacy. So I just want everyone to take a moment and imagine what this item could do with our shared vision of a sports academy. Students could be engage ining holistic curriculum that gets them off screens and into a shiny, updated gymnasium, a resurfaced track, playing on updated tennis and pickleball court, running on safe turf fields and swim ining a pristine pool. They get to do so while engage witching local sports xhafrp I don't knows, with hometown leaders. That is what this item has the potential of accomplishing and I hope my colleagues will join me in moving in a poz tier incremental choice forward school by school. I wanted to end because I received a video from some students and

370I respectfully requested staff play the video. I think it really brings the point home and the students can always say it a whole lot better than us. I wonder if we can play that video. (Playing video). we're representing what why our facilities needs our help. our sports facilities are inside and outside. People are getting hurt every day. this is just a portion of our field. this track has many uses such as in the gym elected, team sport and is many other reasons, this is why we need it well maintained. our gym lacks resource, it lacks [Inaudible]. Let's take a look. [Inaudible]. thank you for watching and we hope you double the funds for our school. (Video completed). [Applause]. so, thank you again to the community that showed up, especially to our students and I look

371forward to hearing from my colleagues, thank you. thank you, MS. Thompson? well, so I've reached out to several parent advocates for this item and as well as the city manager and still honestly conflicted on how to vote and I'm interested in the conversation we're about to have. The reason I'm conflicted is because we are about to go through our second addition of redefining and I very much believe that it needs to be a holistic approach, and to me, the first time I heard about sports academy was at our workshop where we were able to express our opinion for a minute. So, for me, this seems a little rushed. I reached out to the city manager on if there was a deadline or potential for loss of funds if this was not proposed the -- if

372this was not passed today, if it could wait until we finish having what I feel like is a very important conversation to take holistically in DECEMBER and is not a risk that they will not continue this project. It's just that our additional funding would have to wait. I think there is a lot of community support and I think that is important when we we're thinking about winning back students. I'm concerned about the precedent that this sends where there's one step in our redefining and then that gets rushed and then by the end of it, the schools that we are potentially closing, those communities feel like they were not given the same consideration or the same enthusiasm for change. And so I have a couple of questions. And because I don't think we can separate this

373matching funds from the redefining conversation, it's going to kind of be combined. In regards to sports academy feeder program, does fort lauderdale high school have the facilities to support that? Since they don't have a stadium? DR. Hepburn? yes, they have the ability to support that and as far as football stadiums, they've been using lockhart stadium. okay. And then if we were to approve the 1.7 million dollars, who is the -- who determines how that funding is spent? Because a lot of our speakers brought up locker rooms and some other things that aren't in fort lauderdale parks' scope, so is that something we could decide to add on, are we just deifying the city this money, what does that look like? that would be a collaboration between us and the city, so it wouldn't be a

374one sided decision about what specific needs for the school as far as making sure we have a really robust sports academy. okay. And then, superintendent, in your opinion, how does this fall in line with taking a holistic approach with what we're doing with our schools? so, as I said, probably in the spring or early summer about redefining, we're going bring certain item ins chunks, you already approved a chunk today which h was surplusisi ththe tsts anx anmaininbuild, th anotr chunk, the largest and most difficult chunk will be the last part where we bring recommendations for closures or consolidation of schools. As we go through this fall, there MAY be additional things we bring to the board because we don't want the bring it all at one time if we don't have to, if there's certain

375things that are supported by municipalities, community, and it sees fit the board can get behind that, we'll bring those items throughout the fall and the winter but the largest chunk we'll save for last because there's difficult decisions and difficult conversations along the way. so, I think my issue with that is that, then you definitely have communities who are goipg to feel, like you rushed with enthusiasm for all these things and then you get to us and you're just talking about which one you can salvage or which one we're going to close. i'm guessing -- I'm wondering if there's anything you can say to make me less concerned about that. I would say for areas with perennial underenrolled schools, that data has not changed for quite some time for years, so we're going back out to

376have those tough conversations with those communities and also having those tough conversations with the city or municipality officials and that takes time. The things that have momentum from support from municipalities or communities that doesn't involve closing a school or consolidating students, we can bring those things earlier and adjourning of redefining, we don't have to wait until winter like we were going to do with the consolidations and the closures because we have tonuses of things, p3's is one. I can't remember, there MAY be the next regular school board meet whoring we're talk about for the dave thomas community, we're bringing these things in chunks along the -- I think that's today. was that today? That's today, right? We have three chunks we're bringing you today, tssc annex which we just approved for the spot survey to

377start that process, the dave thomas for the p3 and this item today, there's a lot of things going on in redefining, not just about closing, consolidation, we can't bring it all at once, because of the time, some things need to start earlier just to make sure they come to fruition. so, I also just want to say thank you to the community for coming out. It is something that we were looking forward for community support and then I will -- I look forward to listening to my colleagues. thank you, DR. Zeman? thank you. like MS. Leonardi, they think about the big movements of things. Sometimes there's city managers, mayors, city commissioners, ptsa presidents and board members and the like that have an outside influence. The idea of a sports academy started with two people that are

378just luminary in the history of broward county schools, mary furdic and heather b rrk inkworth who sat and appreciated the long term and worked with the community because it really came from the community, really through vsy, remember we were going to close vsy and there were t-shirts in every one of our school board meetings and one of my colleagues is worried about the predent. We were going to close your school and you rose up as a community and now you're building a great school. I like that pres cedent -- precedent. I like the precedent of ole sa n middle school, also the list of schools that we were going to close, until the PRESIDENT Said I don't what about want to close, here's 6 million dollars for a park next door and by the way,

379we would want part of your school to be your emergency operation center to the tune of a million dollar lease per year, I like that precedent too. The precedent is where cities and communities work hard together to build great public education, broward county public school will be there with you. A few other people made a big difference, alex and james, thank you for coming, troy, thank you for taking time out, I know you got the hoa with the school in it, you have a beautiful house across the street. Mike, these are deep, thoughtful people who don't just come and support sports academy ideas because it was an okay idea, they're doing it because it makes their community bet and her it makes our schools better, if that's a precedent, I'm all in favor of perpetuating

380that. I want to thank the mayor of fort lauderdale, he sent us a letter and said, wow, things have gotten more expensive, we've operated slow and now things are more expensive but we'd really like to support the sports academy, it's exciting to have something akin to an img academy in a public school in fort lauderdale, a city that's absolutely nuts about its sports teams. So, I do think this is part of redefining, I think it's part of the whole system of redefining, we listen to the community, we listen to home owners association, we listen to people who have been caring about public education like proudly jermanovich for four decades. Those people influence how I think about these things but this is the best of all ideas, I love the fact that MS. Leonardi had these

381great things that have been going forward, she missed one, we put aside 60 million dollars for educators infuser the first time in the history ahead of the budget for the first time, we did it, you're right, but this is what we ask you to do, we ask the community, come give us ideas, what are you excited about. And 1.7 million dollars in an allocation where every year we get 500 million dollars of capital expenditures, I hope that's a precedent too because you asked for a small amount of money, you matched it so we're getting 3.4, to the city of fort lauderdale which I'm grateful for, 12 million dollars plus on our property they are taking their school money and building all over the schools in fort lauderdale, I'm overwhelmed with that, different mayors coming to

382us and saying what can we do to help make your schools better. Where that happens, yes, tla's where I would like the skaoep schools open, that's where I would like the piegt to get better programs. Because a community told us that is exactly what you want done, so I am obviously a big fan of this, I want to thank MS. Leonardi for bringing this item. Yes, it's in her district but I think if this has been in mars, MS. Leonardi would have brought this item because this is what public education does best, we listen to our community, we listen to the people that can build better programs because they're the people, whether it's vsy or harbordale or bayview or south side, north folk, any of the feeder schools that go into sunrise middle school, what

383is their thinking going on, if we vote one way, to invest a significant amount of money and invent this program, we decided to spend almost 5 million dollars last week to give vr glasses, it's starting to get exciting in fort lauderdale education tha,'s where they have great charter schools and great private schools where someone said I can afford private schools but I went to sunrise, when people stand up and say this is what we want rkts we want this to be different, I'm signing up all day long, so thank you for bringing this, thanks to the other people that I mentioned, this is exciting and this is xaktsly what we flexed to be doing for redefining, not just picking which schools we can't afford anymore, how do we build up the schools so enrollment comes

384up, particularly in places like fort lauderdale which has been a huge advocate of public schools when mary furdic which was in first grade, including me. Thanks particularly for the students, I know one of them pretty well, she blows me away, she is amazing, thank you, sweetheart, for coming, and I look forward to moving forward and creating something, creating a sports academy program for these schools which I hope, alex, we do expand to all the elementary schools that feed into this pater, what a stream dream that would be, we only have a few schools and they can all participate and I hope we make that a reality as well. Thank you. thank you, MRS. Alhadeff? [Applause]. thank you. So, I agree with the sports academy program, I think that's amazing. My first question is is flooder

385how many students are currently in sun rao ids middle school today? 1200. DR. Zeman says 1200 but wez ear going fact check you, DR. Zeman, DR. Wanza, she's going to check right now. and then my next question is do we have the result from the facilities impact study for sunrise middle school? no, not the complete -- everything is still considered drafter, we're bringing that to the board in OCTOBER. I don't know if MS. Paul can speak to if we have anything substantive before then? yes, I'll be happy to speak to that. We have still raw data, we are still communicating with bureau veritas which is the vendor doing that with us, we are verifying that and so forth. so, I do agree with MS. Thompson in the sense of us as a board to be

386able to make better decisions with that report but with 1.7 million dollars being given from the city of fort lauderdale, I don't see how you turn that away. That is a lot of money and -- but I do have a question in regards to where that money is coming from with us matching it in our capital funds. Is that money that is already allocated for certain projects for schools, or is it just in reserve? DR. Hepburn? it is not currently allocated, it will be an amendment to the defp. so it niece the reserves? okay. and then as far as if we decide to do this and match the 1.7 million, is it -- I don't know if it makes sense but can we do it over a three year period of time, does that help

387us in any way? can you repeat the question. so, the 1.7 million, instead of us giving that today to match it, can we do it over three years? so, our intentions was to try and get that work done this year but it wouldn't be just handing over 1.7 million dollars, it would be incrementally as certain portions of the prints are complete. and you foresee the project being done in one year? possibly, yes, yes. okay. One year. let's go. okay. So, I support this, I greatly appreciate the city of fort lauderdale. This is really incredible to come to broward county public schools and look to help our schools and to fund these programs and to make sunrise middle school stronger. Thank you. DR. Hepburn, do you have the answer? DR. Zeman's very close, as of today,

388it is 1104 students, during our first ten days, we have students continuing to enroll. thank you, MRS. Bulman? thank you, chair. Thank you for everyone who came out today. I've been in the chair before advocating for something so I know that it's exciting and also scary to come in and speak to the board, so I appreciate you guys coming out. I have a question, just a general overarching question, when I was reading this item, I was confused about what exactly we're voting on. The sports academy is kind of alluded to in here but it's not part of the recommended action, we're just asking for 1.7 million dollars to the match the funds by the city of fort lauderdale. DR. Hepburn. so, rewith doing both, -- are we doing both, is this a sdsh -- so,

389conceptually, the sports academy is a concept. That's something we can carry out as staff. Now, the board is approving 1.7 million so we can build the -- upgrade the fields and facilities to be able to implement that sports academy beyond being in concept. well, I would think if we were going to allocate the money for the sports academy, then we should do it together, so maybe we need to amend this. it's an operational thing is what he's ri tog say because I just asked that. Staff can decide it will be a sports academy. we don't have to vote on it? no. do we know for sure they're going o do that? yes, they have decided. well, I would like to see it in writing. can I just add something. yeah, I mean, it was my

390understanding based on the last workshop that there was consensus to move forward with that. So, I wanted to make sure that we were making the investments both for my community perspective, we heard from the audience and I hear this all the time in my community that the physical appearance of sunrise does not match the academic happenings in the school. So, I think e even just on its own if we weren't doing a sports academy, I think it would be important to do these upgrades as fort lauderdale has committed to doing those. I feel strongly in our decision to support a sports academy as we did in the last workshop, that we provide the appropriate infrastructure for that program as well because I think we've seen over and over again with some of our schools, we've

391said we're opening this new program, we haven't provided the appropriate infrastructure and support and then the program fails. no, I agree, I just -- I would like -- I mean, we'll put it on the record if that's what the will is that we're doipg the sports academy, that we're definitely doing it and this money is going to be used to do it. So, the next thing is when the 1.7 million, there's kind of a general little list of things we're doing. So, do we know exactly what the scope of this project is and how did we come to this number? so, that is the initial investment that the city of fort lauderdale is already implementing for current work they've already done. Remind me, DR. Zeman, MS. Leonardi, you guys know specifically the school, so we're

392matching the funds to complete or complement what they've already done at the feeder pattern school. can can I add something? yeah. so, they've allocated money to provide more fencing, synthetic turf field, sports lighting upgrades, a resurfaced running track, the gymnasium also is in desperate need of replacement, the floor of it. I think it's like -- I think we heard 30 years old. And it hasn't been replaced. So, again my vision with this item was that we would be supporting the investment that fort lauderdale is making and also provide for additional improvements that the city of fort lauderdale has not been able to make. okay. So, first of all, I really appreciate the city of fort lauderdale investing in our schools, I think it's an amazing partnership and something that hopefully will be replicated throughout the

393county because to have this opportunity where they've already invested so much money I think is fantastic. I just -- I have to say this based on being an east side myself and representing an east side district, I would say probably all of my schools almost look exactly the same way and there's a lot of issues with enrollment and closing schools and things of that nature, so I hope that we can bring the same enthusiasm when we're addressing other schools because all of our schools could use a facelift. I think it's an e absolutely going to do a great thing for sunrise middle and I know in all of our districts, we would benefit from this, so our generosity to sunrise middle, I hope that we'll be exercising the same kind of care and attitude when

394we ear looking at some of these other items that are going to come back because they're going to be very difficult and there's a lot of communities that don't have the ability to come out in droves like this and advocate and they still deserve to have good schools, so I hope that we will be keeping that in mind every second we're making decisions moving forward, thank you. thank you, MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair. I love parks. I loved them as a kid, as a child, as aen adult taking my children there. I learned how to tackle someone at the park at coral springs when I started tackle football, I learned how to hit a baseball when I played middle league, I'm a huge advocate for park and is I would love nothing more than

395our community at large to have access to top notch facilities and top notch parks. That being said, I do have some questions and some concerns about what's being asked of this board and what specifically has happened to date with this project. I did my homework on this and it's my understanding that in 2018, the residents of the city of fort lauderdale approved a a 200 million dollar bond for park improvements and what was pitched to them in that bond project was that 90 parks would be updated. I pulled the project specs for the sunrise middle school project that is being I guess in the development stages at this point. I looked at the specs and the total budget of the project that's being proposed currently by the city is 1.725 million dollars. The city is

396now asking the school district to essentially match that and pitch in another 1.7 million for a a total of 3.4 million dollars. madam chair, to date, I would like to know since 2018, what work has been done at sunrise middle school park to date other than some plans and some drawings? DR. Hepburn? I'm not equipped with that information. DR. Zeman might be able to assist with the answer. I just was there yesterday for my son's soccer triout, because I happened to be there and I was a resident of fort lauderdale and I was on their education advisory board when we did this lonelier work. In the last five years, they have got broken ground on anything related to that. There's been significant effort work witching two home owners association ins the area ask k incipal

397to make susu ey ope itit out t exactly ght so whilile eyeyha so ththings in theieir original plplan that we before the voters, there were changes and modifications have been done since then. There has been one playground built across the street at bennett elementary school out of that funds and there's been a handful of other small projects tla would augment the facilities but they -- I think by all judgment, they've been going slow at executing their park bond across the board, not just the 12 million for the schools but the 200 million itself has not generated very many shovels moving dirt around. and I think, DR. Zeman, the sun sentinel articles I have read mirror that esspshlly the most recent ones has were coming out towards the beginning of had year and into this year

398in which they've indicated that basically nothing's happened with a lot of these bonds and these promised monies. MADAM Chair, I would like some very, very direct and specific clarification as to what exactly this 3.4 million dollars is intended. Board member bulman I think was scratching the surface with this, I'm looking at the project specs and according to the city of fort lauderdale for project p12777 at sunrise middle school which was allotted 1.27 million dollars budget, the only thing within the passover these project is a security fence, a pool chiller, a synthetic tur much field, a resurfacing of the track, a pavilion that's going to be put up in an old racquetball court, some righting on the tennis, pickleball courts and the pool and a chilled water fountain, those are the specs according to the project

399director that is are listed specifically in the city of fort lauderdale's website. If this board is to approve this match of this 1.7, is this 3.4 million dollars that the city of fort lauderdale will ultimately have access to only going to be used for those 7 items that I just read into the record. I'm hearing a a lot of these fine folks and students coming up to the mic. And telling me they're looking forward to improver locker rooms and bas can ket ball courts and is gym imprao ufrments but I'm looking at the specs of the project and nop of that is in there, so what specifically is this 3.4 million dollars going to be used for? DR. Hepburn? great question, so we won't be handing over money to the city of fort lauderdale, we'll

400be working klab rat I beverly to ensure the money we're investing is focused on the right things so I know it will contribute to many of the things that they have in their scope to date which I'm sure for them the cost is like with our construction cost of significantly increased over time and also in addition to having discussion widths the city about whatever other aspects of supporting a sports academy or improving facilities or the grounds as we move forward. I'm just very concerned that these kids are thinking they're getting these great things with locker rooms and basketball courses and things of that nature and I'm look at specs and it's not in the project, are we going to have some oversight, how is that going to be regulated, what guarantees am I going to

401get from the city of fort lauderdale who sat on this since 2018 and has done apparently nothing according to the sun sentinel, I don't have the benefit of having a child going there like some of my colleagues. I wasn't there recently, but it doesn't appear that a a lot if anything has been done in what, 7 years since this bond has been passed. What guarantees are begoing to get from the city of fort lauderdale about how this money is going to be spent, the timeline, are we putting some time restriction, are we putting certain contingencies on this? I'm very -- I love the idea of collaborating with city, I think it's beneficial to residents and beneficial to the citizens and beneficial to students when done in the right way. I just have a lot of

402concerns when a city passes a bond for 200 million dollars and I think the school board knows something about bonds, but I'm very concerned bh you have a city that passes a a bond for hundreds of millions of dollars and promises its citizens that they are going to get 0 park upgrades, 12 million for this and how much for that and in 2018, and we're sitting here in the second half of 2025 and nothing has been done. And they want more money from us, there has to be guardrail and is protections in place. I don't know what are all the delays. Where were shovels? What's been going on, has it really been 6, 7 years of red tape for the city of lauderdale to help these kids at this school? I've got some concerns with

403how this has been operating since it passed and I need some assurances that if we get involved in this and we're going to commit this type of money, that we're going to have a lot of oversight, a lot of creative control over this , if they're going to sit on their hands for another 9 years and the kids are going to be college at this rate by the time this middle school gets my type of work done. xwen, we're not just handing over our wallet, we are going to be stewards of our own funds and we don't operate like that, we don't just hand over money. There will be oversight by us and our team in providing the funds necessary in an incremental basis so we're not wasting money. MR. Superintendent, how difpt would it

404be to get a line item list of exactly what is going to be done so everyone has a clear picture and a clear understanding of how exactly this 3.4 is going to be done. I hear we're stinging a foundation and opening doors for this and that, but all I see is 7 things on this project list which should not cost 3.4 million dollars for what's being projected. MS. Paul and her team can work with the city's team to create an itemized list. I think right now what's before the board is a commitment of funds to allocate for these improvements and it's not -- we just won't be releasing money after this vote to say here's your 1.7 million dollar check, we don't operate like that. what guardrails can be assure the public and this board

405as to what type of creative control we're going to have over this project with the city of fort lauderdale. our team has oversight over facility problems, they do a great job in ensuring that taxpayers money are spent wisely and informing the board on certain projects along the way. I would like to see that on paper and see what we're going to deliver to these kids. If we're going repair the gym, let's update these project spec, let's get some new sects on the books that outlines specifically what we're doing so everybody has the transparency, everybody has the know-how, everybody knows exactly what is goipg on because I'm a little taken aback of how long this has taken from the city of fort lauderdale when they pitched this to the voters in 2018. I don't think I

406had gray here in 2018, as I sit here now, I have a lot of gray hair and these kids don't have the parks that was promised to them and the parents who participate ined this bond when they saw this prospective bill of kids that if you pass this, your government is going to do all these great things for you, as we sit here in 2025, there's nothing to show for it. At least in regards to these kids and sunrise middle school. So, I would like to have some better clarity. make a motion. yes, it's coming, it's coming right now, right now, i'm kidding. we have until 5:00 and then we have to extend the meeting. so, I would make a motion to the superintendent to come back to us with specific project specs which include

407these items that apparently these kids want in the gym, locker rooms, things of that nature we heard from all of these kids, I would like some bullet points or an mou or something outlining the creative control we're going to have with the city of fort lauderdale to make sure this project doesn't take another years. second. Er any public comment on the motion? Come on up. I would just like to express that I understand your frustration with how long it took, but we have been dealing with issue and the city of fort lauderdale and the project manager, aecom, for quite some time. The reason it has taken so long is because initially when sunrise middle school was a warded the 1.75 million dollars, they wanted to spread the wealth around and they stripped a good portion,

408almost half of that portion away from sunrise middle school. The people, the students, the neighborhoods that were going to get affected by the joint use park all stood up and said that wasn't fair, we voted there this, this is what was promised to us but meanwhile there were other schools, broward county schools that were not getting funded and the city took a long time to do it, they managed to figure out how to include at least pao if more public schools to get funding for their parks. thank you. and we were able to continue to get 1.75. thank you. that 1.75 million for that park, that is happen, that is phase 1. Phase 2 is what you guys should be focusing on. next public speaker. yeah, I just want to clarify one thing, first of

409all, the vote for that 200 million dollar bond which the 12 million was for the school in 2019, and the money wasn't allocated until much later so nothing could be done until the money was allocated and it did take a long time to make decisions about how much money sunrise was going to get because the program went through some changes but the city of fort lauderdale agreed to go along with what was in the bond and that the full amount, 1.725 would go to sunrise middle. Also the thing that is are listed, the chiller, the lighting, etc., all that has been worked out. We've been working with aecom and the parks department has taken a long time to get to that point. People drag their heels, aecom is doing lockhart park and some of those

410other place ins the city so, there's not a lot of help, we're finely getting there. We expect to be breaking down at sunrise very soon. thank you, and I want today bring some clarity to some of the delays, it has been frustrating but we also heard from the city that things are about to begin imminently, so we want to make sure that the additional projects are able to be coordinated and that is where some of the timing comes in. I absolutely respect wantoning to know exactly how your money will be spent. My hope is we leave today with the commitment and the with the stipulation the board would then approve the specifics of that but I hope we can get this going. You have a a community here that is excited to partner with you,

411the city neighborhoods and I hope that's the decision we end on today. Thank you. [Applause]. thank you. Next public speaker. denise calder from sunrise middle. We can't live with half a heart, so essentially what we're asking for is that the city has already committed to the 1.7, the specs are there for what they are going the deliver with that project, we've been given a timeline of approximately a year to complete that phase of the project. As it has been reiterated, we're asking for a a commitment of the 1.7 million, if we get the commitment for the 1.7, we can deliver the specs for that phase 2 of the project, but if we're delaying and we're only going to do half a job when we have an opportunity to do it with integrity, then we won't

412have this kind of like guessing as to when something will be completed, and yes, I'm pinioning that my 7th grader, before he gets to fort lauderdale high school, that we will have a pipeline for the sports academy. We need the commitment of the 1.7 and post haste, we will deliver the specs for that phase. thank you, any other public comment? Board member discussion, DR. Zeman?Frjts thank you so much, chair. I love the idea of putting a a time limit on this to school board member cervera's point and I'll also point out that this is bro urt county school's [Inaudible]Finger they will improve the permits and inspect, so it's the city that's giving money that's coming to build it, all those plans have to be rerued and inspected by this, that will happen for the whole

413time should this item pass. I would take MS. Gola on her thoughts and say we're happy to contribute, assuming the board would like to do that. Up to the point of day one of next year's school year, so you have 12 months minus a week or so since we've been back to school to get this done, aecom is managing our bond program and theirs, what the aecom program managers have said in tandem, this should be a 6-7 month project, so if they think they can get it done in 6-7 and have a contract strategy where they're hiring a contractor per area of across the three fields which is their latest way to accelerate this, I would love to take them up on it as well and say, great, you have 12 months. It's important because

414of those people sitting out there, the kids deserve to have a sports academy, it needs ain vestment on us, not just investment from the city. The city's incentive is to build a park, our incentive is we want kids to be great at baseball and archery and yoga and anything they get excited about doing, so if we can't match these funds and the city just comes in and builds according to the hoa's t parks they're going to use after school, that's what the cities do all the time sxit's wonderful but I believe we can put one and one together and make 11, it would be helpful for athletes, we can round out that thing. The program managers did an initial list of things, the reason that wasn't published is it hasn't been blessed by bro urtbacker

415broward county schools, and the principals in particular, meet witching the ptsa's and meeting with the kids and figure out where that money is going to go for. Sunrise has beautiful tennis courts, they're not good enough to do private lessons though, if we're going to have chris evert come back, if we need the next chris to come, if we need the next maasai to come out of our schools, we have to have decent enough facility, they're just substandard for young kids to play on and will continue to lose, so I don't want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, there is a tremendous push by the community to do this. i love riding the community wave because that wave goes on forever, when the community says they want a sports academy and we have an

416opportunity to do a small investment like this with matching funds, I think it's a tremendous opportunity and the controls that you've asked for are there, MR. Ser -- cervera, we will be approving the permits include thing stuff they want the put in the park, we will be approving for the sports academy park, that's our jb as well, if the board joins me in a vote later after this fails or passes, there will be another vote in about 12 months, you have 12 months to get this done, I'm told by aecom they can do it in six, I'm doubling it, if they don't get it done by day one of next year under my motion, that money would be withdrawn and brought back. so, I will -- we're kind of on a time constraint, so I

417appreciate that you're very excited but we don't typically clap at board meeting, so, anyway, ifz a question or a thought, and remember, we're on the motion specifically, so again we have a a hafz -- half hour to finish the rest of the school board meeting. I think it's important for what MR. Cervera asked for, just in general, if staff has decided or the district together that there's going to be a sports academy at sunrise just like we changed coral cove to a k-8, there are pieces of that, that the district looks at to say what do we sdmaoed the district gave money to that, same therein with hollywood central, they got funds and fixed up their art room because they're going to focus on that. So, I think it's important that there's an up front

418and I think what we'll find is that 1.7 is not enough money to do that, and just to the point of turf, we put turf in and they were a million dollars a piece just for the turf for the school, so I think we MAY find that we've committed and we MAY need to put some more in, so I just kind of wanted to say I think it makes sense what you're asking for, we need a list, we need to know what the money goes for and I think at the end of the day, fort lauderdale would say what parts they're covering, the district would say what parts they're covering and I would be pret advertise sure we're going to have to put in more than 1.7. Anyone specific on the motion that was made?

419mrs. Rupert -- can you repeat the motion, MR. Cervera? you want me to repeat the motion? yes. to instruct the superintendent to provide a detailed list of project specs that the proposed 3.4 million dollars would cover, again, I'm hearing things from all of our students and our public speakers here, they're including items that were not on the original plans that the city had uploaded on their website, so I would like a detailed breakdown, if the 3. .4 is goipg to include new locker rooms or new basketball courts or gym imprao ufrments, I would like to see where that money is going to and I also respectfully would like some sort of breakdown as to what type of creative control we have over this. I love that we're approving plans but I would also like how

420else involve weed are going to be with this new apparently expensive project because I think it's going to go outside the four corners of what is on the current plan specs. So, detailed breakdown of what exactly is going to be done for these kids and what type of creative control the district is going to have with the implementation of this sports academy that we're inching closer to I guess. a point of order, I'm not sure that's a motion necessarily as it might be a a request to the superintendent. he's directing the superintendent, it's a motion to direct the superintendent because we have to vote on it as a board to ask for that to come back. MRS. Rupert? On the motion? yeah, you got me, I didn't get a chance to speak on the item

421itself, however, -- what? we'll come back to that. He made a motion. I will speak on motion, okay. yes, yes. okay, great. Having a punch list with deadlines delineated will help us push this item forward soy agree with that but I'm wholeheartedly want to support the item itself but on the actual motion, you just heard me, so thank you. thank you, MRS. Bulman, on the motion? I just -- I need clarity again because it's kind of going around. Ththststri,, the e staff f ve agagreed 're e havi e e sports academy. The city of fort lauderdale is putting in 1.7 million dollars to that end probably for the outside part that will be used for the sports academy. Wez ear supplementing 1.7 but we don't know exactly what that's going to look like yet because

422we haven't programmed our sports academy yet. So, while I originally thought it would be a good idea to have the list and everything so we're financially responsible able -- about it, we're going to go forward the programming, so I don't support bringing it back to get a punch list because I don't know that that's going to be feasible right now but I think we need to be given that at some point in the future. That's what I would say. just to clarify, I don't think MR. Cervera's motion is to hold up voting today though. I think he's direct thing superintendent in a follow-up to bring us the rest of that information. I don't think he's asking to postpone it, right? as far as the vote is concerned, yeah, I would like to see these items

423before I vote. I wasn't clear on that. my apologies. so, do you want to amend your motion? Because it wasn't to postpone anything? my motion is as follows, postpone the vote, direct the superintendent to get a specific line item breakdown of everything we are promising these kids within this park along with the projected timeline. I think we heard some talk about 12 months or whatever it MAY be, and I would also like a breakdown of what creative control the district is going to have over this project in light of the delays we've experienced with the city of fort lauderdale fa the time this bond was passed. since there wasn't a a postponement in the first motion, we need to have a second. anything spookily -- specifically to the motion? DR. Holness? thank you for acknowledging

424me. In any case, the current motion now that we know that it involves postponing which I didn't know until it was restated, the content of the motion, DR. Hepburn, outside of the postponement, how will the current motion, the content of it create challenges if any with working with the city of fort lauderdale, not the postponement but what he's asking for. DR. Hepburn? how would it cause challenges working with the city of fort lauderdale? e right, the city of fort lauderdale is putting in 1.7 million dollars contingent on us matching those funds. It appears the concern is to provide the z a thorough or detailed as to how funds will be spent and how we'll achieve the goal of the sports academy. So, how will board member cervera's motion create challenges in accomplishing what's being asked?

425and just to refer back to what you said, referring to absent of the postponement. correct. Er it wouldn't cause any challenge, we would collaborate with aecom and city manager to map out the scope and specs of what the total combined amount with the city and broward county public schools. so, do you have any concern with the motion itself as far as working collaboratively with the city of fort lauderdale in determining what goals to sunrise middle? no, we don't. thank you, and before I bo to DR. Zeman, I forgot to take public comment because the motion was adjusted. So, any public comment on the motion? I'll be fast but I'm going reiterate what I think the community asks is that there is a commitment today and that the vote come -- with the stipulation that the

426board come back to approve the specifics of it and just to be clear, the city is doing the 1.7 million for the most part of the projects there. This to our understanding would add these additional components that the school district would have entire control over, so that's all. thank you. Next public speaker. yes, I am also very concerned that we would just be kicking the can down the road and continuing on the problem. I agree with the concern can of getting the details and the timeline but what we're asking the community is asking of you guy iss to approve the funds and then to your point, add the additional components to it because we do deserve those details and that information as well. Thank you. thank you. I would like to just offer one quick

427suggestion for an amendment to the motion. This 1.75 million dollars is literally in motion as we speak. It's happening. I would like to possibly recommend that you could consider that, what is already happening and what you already have plans for, what's already been paid for and what's been approved for as phase one and you can continue with a motion far phase two project to enhance -- for all the things that got chopped off of the original chopping block and a lot of it was curb appeal, stuff that will bring family and is student tos a public school in central fort lauderdale. Thank you. next public speaker. trudy jermanovich. I've watched this board before fiddle around and lose things and I don't want you to lose this one. You really need to go ahead -- you

428already know what's going to generally be dope by the city of fort lauderdale even if it wasn't done during covid, but you now have the chance to expand this, to make it a really kind of a sports academy that can be shown to other schools around the county. If you get this one through, you will get a lot of other cities to also join you, so please don't pass up this opportunity. Don't postpone it. You're good at postponing but you're not good at carrying out, so carry it out, so thank you. thank you, next public speakers? hi, as students of sunrise middle, we really want this to start happening now and not postpone it. We won't even benefit from this but this is for my siblings and they -- we need to do this as

429fast as possible. We don't need the specifics right now, you guys can figure that out later, but you guys have the opportunity to make this really cool and, yeah, okay, that's it. Thank you. thank you. Next public speaker? thank you, I agree, you do have the opportunity to make this really cool now. I have reviewed those plans from the park and city bond several times. It is my understanding that is a city commitment to the park, what we're asking for is to have the amenities in the school ride that wave, like my children were saying, we need the money to figure out how we can allocate that, so I think it makes complete sense to go ahead and vote yes for the commitment of the funds and then have a timeline of where that money

430needs to be distributed. The kids do need to be able to have locker rooms that the doors lock, the toilets flush and that is a school board requirement, it's not a city of fort lauderdale, it's the school board that needs to pay up those funds, so thank you. thank you, next public speaker. my name is emily owen, I want to point out that right now, admission season is gearing up for private schools, so for these palmiest who -- family who is are looking between sunrise and a special privateer school, you MAY have lost a lot of those families already, make the decision today and let's attract those students. thank you, next public speaker, please, no clapping. my name is roni, I have two children that just finished sunrise and did not get any chance to

431use these funds. I have one in 8th grade and I have a fourth grader who will be coming into sunrise, so I have a bit of a history. I think the point is we want to know we can start planning for it. We don't want to plan for something we don't know thousand use it, but it needs to be done, I agree. My kids missed out on it, my 8th grader will be missing out on it. I'm hoping by the time my fourth grader finally arrives, they'll be able to use it, I live in the neighborhood and we love going there and it really is just an awful situation that's happening in that park and it could be great if we had the commitment so we could plan accordingly and try to stay within budget

432which is as you guys I'm sure know very difficult. thank you so much, next public speaker. hi, I really don't do a lot of public speaking but I figured I must come up here and speak for it, if it wasn't pick-up time, there would be another 50-100 people in this room. The community is really behind this. I have one at vsy, one at sunrise and please do not delay this, delay is danger, let's get this done, don't wait until later. I urge yu to make a vote and match the funds and fwet this started. Our kids deserve it and I hope you will vote accordingly, thank you. next public speaker. thank you, denise caldron from sunrise middle school, we have been waiting. Our children run from sunrise to fort lauderdale to run on that track,

433they run akaosz the train tracks for training, they go to carter park, we have been waiting, we've been waiting and there have been delays and we've been waiting for the school board to upgrade our facilities. Wez eve been waiting, the city has stepped up and read di to do their parts. When I saw the portables coming last week, I'm like here we go. I'm asking you to please press go on the commitment and we will deliver the list of items that we are requesting, the same way I write a grant rkt I ask for x amount of dollars to do x, we don't get the money until we've put that forth but you guys commit and say we're going to give you capital funds for magnet programs, whatever the case is, just push go, yes,

434yes, yes, and we'll give you the list. thank you so much, so we're on the motion still, DR. Zeman, you wanted to speak o the motion sm I do very much, yeah. I'm just kind of wondering what I'm missing. You know, at the last meeting when we talked about this, we had 37 people come, we haven't 37 people come from a community meeting in year, today we have a a room full of people, what are we missing, the aloe kaig of the funds triggers the scope definition, so the three principles, the athletic directors, the three ptsa's get together and make selections about having what do you need have a legitimate sports academy. The reason that's not done yet is there's no money to worry about. when you allocate the money, then people get their attention

435and get specific about it. I don't like a a delay tactic like this, this doesn't have anything to do with the scope of work. The scope of work that's been referenced is for the first 1.7. The reason there's no scope of work for the 1.7 is because there's no 1.7 yet, we have to allocate the funds. MR. Superintendent, how long would it take your staff sto put a list of ie ems that would be on a second list of phase 2 of 1.7 to establish a sports academy at these schools? I'm assuming no more than a few weeks. which is great because if we vote this motion down and we pass this as we should, we can start to xwet has scope done, we can set a 12 month deadline for this money and we

436can have a brand new sports academy by next year which is exactly what they've asked for, so what are we missing? Thank you, chair. thank you, MS. Leonardi? thank you. I did want to fact check my colleague about a few things. I wish she was here on the dais to hear it, but I do -- I think it's important that we recognize how much turf fields cost and as chair hixon mentioned, you know, they cost around a million dollars, sometimes more. Wez resurface tracks for around 300 thousand dollars a track, so all of these additional improvements easily make up 1.7 million dollars and I think we can sit here and chastise the city of fort lauderdale about moving slowly on their bond which to me feels a little bit like the pot calling the kettle

437plaque and it also seem like a great way to build community partnerships, and postponing this is us getting in our own way. Of course the superintendent will give us a detailed list, there's no shortage of red tape in detail bh it comes to executing construction projects here in broward county public schools and again I want everyone o -- to reflect on how often we get students, parents, community members here for something positive and this is what I was talking about before, we are at a cross roads, we can listen to our community, move forward and deliver good things for kids or put our community off, kick the can down the road and keep doing things the same way and I am ready to move forward. all those in favor of the motion, say aye. aye.

438all those opposed, say no. no. the motion failess. So, back to the lonelier item, DR. Holness? I will be as quick as I can, I know time is of the essence, board member leonardi, thank you for bringing this item and you did mention and I appreciate what you said because I was listening to you earlier whether you said school by school over time websinger can make this district a great scikt and we can win back students. Now.We plant the seeds of growth today, I believe we will see a beautiful forest tomorrow. This is one of the ways in which we can do that is supporting this item. So, I appreciate the item and I appreciate the city of fort lauderdale providing support to our schools in fort lauderdale and contingent on matching funds from the

439school district. I do hope other cities are listening and that they will step up and do the same because the students in broward county, it's great to see a concerted effort with our instalments mispament -- instalments mispament db municipalities and the school board and this will contribute over time the increase in enrollment and although we have the possibilities of lower birthrate, there are factors we can control and this is one of them where we better our schools to increase enrollment over time so I am supportive of the item. MRS. Rupert, on the item? thank you, I support it. thank you. I also want to thank the city of fort lauderdale and agree with DR. Holness and others that hopefully this is a model for other cities moving forward. It is a little different because it

440came to us as a matching piece for money that the city did and if I'm not mistaken, DR. Zeman had challenged us when we were talking about budgets to put aside a bucket of money to match not just municipalities but non-profits, and so again, this is stuff we do all time. I think the only difference of this is that it came to us as machining funds but bh the district decides on a new program, we have to fund it and at end of the day, we're going to have to fund this one way or the other and it's going to cost us more than 1.7 million dollars especially for sports so I'm also appreciative of the item the. All those in favor of item bb2, say aye? aye. fully opposed, say no. no. motion carries

441with one dissenting vote. okay, we're going to go back to item pp -- yes? I'm sorry, I want to thank you all for coming, we have some business to take care of, I don't know if you want to stay. there's a companion item for this that is not related to the item, the item allocated funds to -- I'm sorry, let's give them one minute, do you mind, I would rather wait for them to clear the room. if you guys don't mind exiting and having the hug session outside, thank you. there's a housekeeping matter really because the item that just passed was about the a allocation of funds, I did not make the motion about the 12 months, I will make that in a separate item. I want to take school member cervera up on the

442principle of having them get this done. We need this done dpr the kids, I'll bring that back next week. Right now I need to bring up an item about the recreational license agreement. There are piece ins the recreational license agreement that MS. Leonardi's item mentioned that needs to be cleaned up. For example, we are providing all the money, they're providing all the money, now we are too. there are things in here about who will do the permanent maintenance of it. I don't know, it's a staff issue. What I would like to do right now is just to make a motion that directs the superintendent -- I want to make a motion that we direct the general counsel to bring back an rla with the city of fort lauderdale that makes changes that allows for the

443management of the funds to be provided from two sources and I don't want to go into the details of that. That's sufficient direction to the general counsel. General counsel, is that enough or do you want more details? is that -- because I think it originates with the superintendent and they just check it for legal sufficiency, so I think it would still -- let's direct the superintendent, I'm more comfortable of directing the superintendent. I apologize for at least -- there's 100 of them were legit, I would like to make a motion to direct the superintendent to draft a new rla that will be drafted by the general counsel to allocate this to be managed within the revised re recreational license agreement, I would like it brought back to the next school board meeting. is there a

444second? second. any public comment on the motion? School board discussion, all those in favor, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries. thank you, and I'm sorry I was [Inaudible] In our wording. Er we have to take a vote to extend the meeting. before we do that, one final housekeeping thing on the item. You have to -- I have to finish the motion to extend. All hose if favor of extending the meeting no more than an lour to 6:00, no longer than 6:00, all those in favor, say aye. any opposed, say no. no. aye. misting motion carries with one dissenting vote. MR. Cervera? a housekeeping matter, can I get my list from the superintendent still. I think we're still going the get that list. with the breakdowns I asked for and the creative control

445that we were supposedly supposed to have over this project? yes. is it possible for me to make that motion now about the 12 month steeping of our funds? you can do that. is it within the rules of our body? yes. we talked about it and it's fresh in our minds. I love this idea because, one, the kids need it by the start of the next year. Two, aecom says it's six month project, if we give themem1212 it's sysy to hold them acuntable e to get t the whwhe ththing donein 12momonths t t mymy motion is to withdraw any fund balance that hasn't been executed by day one of 2026 school year. is there a second? second. okay, any public comment on the motion? Board member comment on the motion? All those in favor of the

446motion, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. No. Roll call? MADAM Chair, can you repeat the motion? DR. Zeman? the motion is to withdraw any fund balance that hasn't been executed, so whatever money is left over and hasn't been spent or obligated from our funds on the first day of the school year 2026. MR. Cervera? I guess this is incentive for them to do it quickly, I guess this doesn't address my concern if they spend it and the projects are not done which goes into my creative control contingency request from before, so I guess this is a good start, but if they blow through that dough and what has been described as phase 2, we heard from everybody, if that stuff is not done, I still think we need con stin generals -- contingencies on

447this project. we're not paying the city anything, we would work in conjunction with the city to come up with a list of projects. The city would agree to do this many projects and the district would do this many, so there's nothing that's going to happen that doesn't come before us. so, we're taking the 1.7 back from our people if the project's not done in 12 months? we're taking our own 1.7. Let's say, I'm sorry to jump in and explain, let's say they only got to the -- so far as to spending a million dollars by the first day of the school year, that's all they would get, they wouldn't get the.7. so we would yank their money and we would have a pool? that's the motion. All those in favor -- roll call, we were

448on roll call. school board member cervera? yes. hixon? no. holness? ye. leonardi? no. rupert? yes. thompson? yes. zeman? yes. hall deaf? no. bulman? yes. it passes 5-3. thank you. thank you, chair. alright. MRS. Rupert said yes. it was 5-3. I mean, I was, it was 6-3, not 5-3. yes. okay. Alright. Back to -- so we're going bring back pp7. So I have a a motion and a second. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MRS. Bulman. And we'll go back to the -- so, I think we have an updated motion paper from MRS. Bulman and we were in the process of voting. Does anybody have any comments? I guess any public comment on an updated motion which is just rewording of number 1? Okay. Board member discussion on the updated motion? Okay.

449all those in favor of MRS. Bulman's motion to amend policy 6400 language as followed on the paper there, say aye. aye. sorry. The only change is in number 1. thank you for making this change, that fixed the problem. so, it would now read children already attending the requested school on a one year assignment, that would be the number 1 priority on reassignment. Anybody have any comments? MADAM Chair sm DR. Holness? with the updated language, are we able to get MS. Batista's feedback if this is a substantive change? MS. Ba taste the? -- batista? yes, it would be considered a substantive change. so, the policy would come back to us. yes. MRS. Alhadeff? I just don't understand why this is necessary, the way it reads now is the same way it reads in the paragraph above,

450I don't know why we're trying to change something that is already perfect in my mind, at least on number 1. MS. Bulman? what's a substantive change sm the statute defines it as anything that is not just a mere change in tense or grammar or something along those lines. so, duplicative language is a substantive change? right, so if the change doesn't change the meaning at all, it would not be substantive, since you are trying to change -- I -- I'm not trying to change the meaning at all, I'm trying to remove duplicative language because when we come back and there's an issue by virtue of our experience here in the board, we're going to be caught in the weeds and redoing the policy in the future. it doesn't change the meaning I don't think. well, I

451would think it's a substantive change if it's clarifying the meaning. It's more than just, you know, a grammatical or technical change. so, on number 2 and 3, are those substantive changes as well? well, it doesn't matter whether it's one or all of them, it has to come back anyway. it MAY change the way people want to vote, or if we put them separately as opposed to all three of them together. if I MAY, chair, DR. Wanza's in impact if we bring this back to the next board meeting if there are substantive changes. so, there is no impact and there's no impact. okay. Do you still want the keep all three of them together? yes. okay. All those in favor of the motion to amend policy 6400, changes 1, 2 and 3, say aye. aye. any

452opposed, say no. no. motion carries with one dissenting vote. And it will come back to us at a future meeting for actual adoption. yes, at the next board meeting because I believe it's 21 days and we have 28 days. that would be policy pp3 today as well as policy pp7, both of them. great. Next item up is pp8. Can I have a motion and a second. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? no, ma'am. DR. Zeman? ten more seconds, chair, my apologies. I just have one question, chair. What's the difference between the standards, the ethical standards that we have for employees and the ethical standards we have for volunteers? MS. Batista? so, the volunteers would fall under chapter 112 because they're considered to be public officers as

453well and so that would be the main difference. but what's the literal difference? Here's a list of ethical standards we have for our employees including school board members as employees and here's our ethical volunteers, what's the difference between those two lists? because it's under chapter 112, and chapter 112 also applies to employees and to board members, it's the same list. so, the list of ethical standards for volunteers is the same as the list of ethical standards for employees? yes, if the volunteers are for committee members, that type of volunteer if it's somebody that is just reading something at a school or volunteering at a classroom or something, no, but yes, if it's a committee member, those volunteers are considered to be public officials as well. chair, how do we educate our vo em volunteers would

454are on advisory committees about the standards ne have for ethical behavior? MR. Sullivan? sure, so we send out the reminders they have to complete this training. because it's mandatory for them, so it's part of their reminders we send out to them. I just want o ask the acting superintendent if he could just in a follow-up maybe give us some enhancements to that program, so that our volunteers are not just pointed to a link to do ethics training every year but in fact what other things could we do to ensure that they understand the standards to which they'll be held, thank you. sure. okay, all those in favor of item pp8, say aye. aye. Any opposed, say no? Motion carries unanimously. The nester item is r-r 1, can I have a motion and a second? .

455Er [Inaudible] we passed that because we didn't need it anymore, it was paced ced -- passed in the consent. R-r 1. It's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on r-r 1? no, ma'am. MS. Thompson? thank you, chair, so my comment was -- so, I have to pull up the item, but it says that all the housing will be for broward county staff and I we watched -- reached meeting yesterday re-watched the meeting yesterday and I don't believe that was the conclusion we came to. I don't see MR. -- MR. Akagbuso, can you add to that? chris acobuso, director of facilities, planning and real estate. Can you repeat the question. so, it wasn't really a question, so in it, it says that we are going to adopt a resolution to

456send -- that stipulates the school board will support the development of residential workforce housing which 100% of the housing units available will be for qualified broward county public school employees. I re-watched the meeting, we had conversations about helping to subsidize and like 50% that way, but my understanding from our conversation is that it wouldn't -- would it only be for broward county staff because I feel like if I'm a city commissioner, I would want this housing to be accessible to all people that might qualify for workforce and I just don't remember -- and I didn't hear it last night that it would be 100, I heard like 50% or we would subsidize, so I'm just confused where this 100% came from? I can clarify. We presented two options, the firsts option was the employee assistance

457program which was because of the city's regulation, there's a radius where you can develop affordable housing so 50% market rate, 50% affordable, so the two options, that was the first option. The second option was if the school board wanted to use the ground lease amount to then subsidize the remainder market rate. The board during the workshop supported doing that to make -- the resolution said to make available 100% of the units so the board, the preference from the workshop was to -- the automatic 50%, then to use the ground lease to hopefully subsidize the additional, so that was the board directive. but my understanding is it wouldn't have been just for broward county staff. With housing law, how do you make it just for one subsection of group and two, if I was a city

458commissioner, I would be more agreeable to this proposal if, yes, most of it's for our staff, our 50% is for our staff torx say it's only for our staff as a commissioner, that's not as appetizing. So, where specifically did you say -- because I watched it last night and maybe I misunderstood. I don't believe I did, but that we were voting to subsidize for our employees but not necessarily has if -- that if you work as a police officer, you can't live in this housing. to clarify again, the workshop, the presentation specifically said qualified broward county school board employees, would it not have anything in the presentation saying it should be made available to outside, it was specifically qualified broward county public school employees. And then that's why the board was amenable on option 2

459to hopefully use the ground lease to subsidize the 50%, it was always 100% broward county public school employees, that's what was in the presentation. alright. So, what happens if the city doesn't want this? What's our next steps? Because we haven't talked to the city, we just decided we're going to fw if hem this piece of paper, so what are we doing? DR. Hepburn? MR. Akagbuso? so, this resolution, it's after the workshop, they were to appear before the city commission. There was an additional meeting, the direction was to do the resolution, the resolution would be present today the city and we have communicated with the city staff. The city hasn't indicated any -- the goal is to work with the city, you know, cooperatively hopefully to come up with an appropriate density. The city hasn't given

460us an indication they're interested and I'm not going to put any language out there regarding the employees because this is a school board site, it's next to city hall. It fits within the city's development of that area, so we haven't really had any discussion regarding cities, employees wanting to stay there. If that's the case, we're going to be cooperatively discussing with the city. Again, the presentation was specifically qualified by broward county school board employees. for clarification, who told you to make the resolution, the city staff? there was a meeting and -- at our meeting? What meeting took place, our workshop and that's -- I'm not trying to be snippy, our workshop where we discussed this or you had a separate meeting and city staff said, hey, it would be helpful if you did this resolution?

461there was a separate meeting where I attended a meeting with my boss and there wass discussions, there was a a meeting with city staff and from that meeting, there was a consensus we should do the resolution. So, it was aligning with appearing before the city commission, so I think MRS. Paul wants to help answer the question. yeah, the intent was to be able to bring something that our board agreed to and is in favor of to the city commission to have that collaboration and say, hey, this is what we're trying to do, we want to work collaboratively with you and get your input, so that's why this resolution was done. alright. it's a document we can take to the commission to say, hey, this is what we're doing, that's really cool, it's great for our

462employees, we need your collaboration to help us get this done and what are your thoughts and please provide your input to it, so that's the only point of having this resolution. I was trying to understand because it seemed in the backup that perhaps staff decided instead of meeting that you're going to do the resolution but it's helpful o know you met with city staff and that's who proposed this. So, my other question is to general counsel. Is there any like fair housing laws or anything that would prevent us from saying only certain groups are allowed to live on this property? that's a great question. and that can be a follow-up, but -- and again maybe I misunderstood this conversation but I don't feel like you can have housing that's only for one specific group of

463people. I know there's senior housing but I believe from my limited affordable housing policy knowledge that that's kind of segwayed in a different way so I think it's imperative we have like the legal support for doing something like this. so employment in the district is sort of a neutral category, it's not race or gender or anything that would normally be prohibited but I would be happy to do a follow-up specifically as to that question. thank you. MRS. Rupert? thank you, MADAM Chair, and I'm very happy to support this item today. Mitoses extra special for me because I was at the beginning of these conversations ask it's nice to see things brought to fruition, so, I'm very excited but also I did want to say we really have to make sure that our grammar and spelling

464is good on our websites and also our resolutions because education, the dave thomas east education center education was misspelled and I did send that in my questions for today's meeting. So, we can have that fixed. But I'm very happy to support this. Thanks. thank you. Next is MRS. Bulman. thank you, chair. I also support it. I do -- I'm looking back at the item of the presentation from JUNE 10 and it was confusing because we were presented two options, one doesn't mention anything about school board employees and then the second option says that market rate units would be set aside and rented to qualified bcps workforce. So there's two different classes of units, e e is ---- sasays5050ofitits cupipied ususololdess kiki 1 120% of the amami ask 50of the units being market rate, so when

465I'm reading this, the understanding would be that -- and this option 2, my understanding is that we won't be charging the developer the ground lease and instead the money that we'll be spending on the ground lease is going to be used to subsidize our employees occupying the units. So, based on how it was presented to us, it looks like we would have 50% of the units going to the employees. I'm not necessarily saying that's what we want but that's what it was -- that's what was presented to us. And I agree with MS. Thompson about the -- the question that I had before that wasn't really answered is when affordable housing is a term of art, there's different ways you have affordable housing, is it because we're making it affordable, are we using a tax

466credit with the developer, I think there's some details we need to understand and I guess that would come back when we get bids and have the developers make proposals, but it's not -- I agree with MS. Thompson that there is not -- it wasn't 100% as presented. thank you. DR. Zeman? thank you so much. My understanding from day one on this was this was 100% broward county schools so this went back several different times when this topic was brought up. I met with the mayor, the city manager and their head of development, I met with the city commissioner whose district this would be in and I learned a a lot about it. One of the thins I learned is the city of pompano thinks the -- the officers are first rate. They saw our concept

467drawing. Do you remember where we had 94 units and they had courtyards in front of buildings, they were overwhelmed that concept fit in with the concept that they haven't finished yet for redeveloping the city hall area across the street, so to MS. Thompson's point, I think you're right that we should always be working with mis unicipalities to get this right and in this case we have overworked with them websinger eve had elected leaders, we've had chief operating officers and heads of real estate meet ing with the development people in pompano, they're dying to get this resolution because they love what we're doing with our land. On the legal issue, I'm also rower rep, MS. Thompson, on the broward planning council, we're the group that's working on beating back the housing crisis, so there's been recent

468legislation that allowed more flexibility in terms of building on property and restricting who can live there. In this case, we already had the law, at least according to the county lawyer because we own the land and when you own the lan, you can do that. If what you're trying to do is doing some other kind of development where you don't own the lan, you have less capability to restrict it. according to florida law, according to our county housing attorney, we can do this and I'm not sure why I knew this was 100% broward county employees but I've been watching this being briefed for over a year and that was the going in position, isn't it great. We sit up here and we're scared to death people can't come to work here because they can't live

469here. We have 94 units right across the street from trirail station right across the street from a a redevelopment from city hall where 94 of our employees and their families can live and they'll be charged a significantly subsidized rate and what we're donating so you understand the business side of this accidenter we're selling that 2.8 acres, we could sell that or we could -- is this for 30 years or 50 years? DR. Hepburn? we have not worked those terms out, it depends on the partner we get to do the construction but the longer, the better is the way I feel. is it fair to say it's at least 30 years? minimum 30. thank you, so just think about -- MS. Leonardi brought this cool idea of what are we doing for the commune, she had

470ten -- community, she had ten things on her list, we're providing an affordable place for 94 employee and is their family and is we're doing this for 30 years plus, we're trying to make good decisions on how to put things together and I want to reiterate with the city of pompano, the city manager and head of development both said MR. Akagbuso and MS. Paul were the people to work with, so thank you for being so professional where they would repeatedly call you out for doing things quickly ask being clear with them. MRS. Alhadeff? thank you, I just need some clarification. Were the pompano beach commissioners briefed on this? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? my team has had unofficial conversations, the resolution is what we would bring to the commission to kind of formally have that conversation.

471Keep in mind this is the first time that we're doing this. It's exciting in a sense that it shows tla we're trying to progress and take care of our employees but the other side of it is we're going to make mistakes and it's not going to be perfect and what's in our head in terms of what we think about the project is maybe different to -- different in terms of how people understand it because this is not a typical thing that a school district does. The one example is in miami, they did it on a much smaller scale, so I definitely appreciate the board's input and feedback because if we're going to do more of this, we want to make sure that we don't have those or any misinterpretations or misunderstandings about it, the ideal

472situation is that we're able to do this for our employees and maybe expand it to others and maybe cities can do this for their employees, but with all of this, it's important to work in collaboration with the cities and the various commissions and stuff to get it right and that's really what the motivation isfinger it's just to get it right and have this as a valuable asset similar to the [Inaudible] Program to provide this for just our teachers and regular employees. thank you. And I agree, and I think communication is really important and the process and how we go about communicating. I'm going to go back to my question because this really is important how I vote on this resolution. Was the pompano beach commissioner specifically briefed on everything here? DR. Hepburn? go ahead, MR.

473Akagbuso? so, from the workshop, the directive was to appear before the city commission. can you talk louder. okay. So, from the workshop, the directive was to appear before the city commission. So, there was a subsequent meeting and then like MRS. Paul said, this document is to be presented as opposed -- it is going to be the chair of somebody I don't know to the city commission, that's going to be the formal engagement with the city commission but prior to this, we've met with the at the staff level, I met at the direction of the superintendent, MRS. Paul, I met with the city manager, assistant city manager, real estate manager, this was last year, so at our level, we met, so this document I think is officially to appear before the city commission and then start

474that conversation. okay, so that's what I have a problem with. I think we missed a step. I think it was -- yes, you had those conversations with the city manager and those other staff members but I still think there should have been maybe a presentation from our staff to the pompano beach commission before us doing this resolution. There hasn't been a conversation -- I mean, yes, there could have been side bar conversations, but openly and publicly with the community, there hasn't been a conversation, so I don't feel comfortable passing this resolution today without that conversation happening before because I don't know if every single one of those people met with our staff, met with DR. Hepburn. You know, I don't know if school board members met with different city commissioners and I don't want to

475offend anybody on the commission if they're now at one of their meetings, they're given this resolution and they're like, where did this come from, and so I think that is a really important step before we even pass this resolution today and then my other comment is as we do these types of resolutions and changes within the school district, it's going to be really important, like how we communicate as a board, meaning like is it going to be our chair representing us at these city meetings, is it our chair and our superintendent. Is it not in the purview of the school board to be having meetings with these cities, is it the superintendent? Because as we go along, we have to make sure we're dotting I's and crossing our t ice -- t's and we can't

476have one board member having silo conversations because it's going to be difficult in this process, so I would like to know the if it's the superintendent, if this is an operational matter, if he's the one going forward, he's going to be representing, or is it going to be the chair of the board? DR. Hepburn? I would like to speak with my staff and myself, we've been having conversations like for like position and is roles such as the team working with the city manager and all of that. As far as meeting with city commissioners, I guess it could be the chair and I if we flexed to get in front of city commissions to pre-empt the intentions of doing something in the future. and I appreciate that. I still think for me, I can't vote yes

477on this because I don't know every commissioner of pompano beach knows about this. I would like to see another conversation with the chair and the superintendent before we move forward with this. I don't want to rush this. so, I'll just jump in real quick and we're closing in on our time, so just keep in mind about that. But I just -- when resolutions come to us from the cities on different things, I think they meet as a commission, decide what they want to say as a collective group and it gets presented to them as a resolution so I don't think we're out of the cadence of what that looks like. I mean, I hear what you're saying and being able to do that but to be able to collectively speak as a board, that's the

478point of making a resolution, voting on it or amending it here and then bringing that forward to them as a board to have the continued discussion, the resolution is just basically saying here's what we want to do and then bringing it to them and letting them have a discussion. It's not like a we're doing this, it's just here's what the board is interested in doing. That's the way I view it. So, MS. Thompson? go ahead, MRS. Leonardi? just real quick, I want to reiterate, at the last workshop when we talked about this, I think many of us said we hope that we -- like, staff goes to the commission and discusses this with the commission and just historically it feels like sometimes we've gotten ourself into trouble with cities or not into trouble but there's

479been like communication issues with cities that could have been resolved if we had done -- sat down and had those conversations. I will be voting for this but i do think that we need to improve the communication loop with our commissioners moving forward. Thank you. MS. Thompson? I'll just echo what MS. Leonardi said. thank you. Okay, all those in favor of r-r 1, say aye. aye. any oppose, say no no. no, alhadeff. motion carries with one dissenting vote. The next item is tt1. Can I have a motion and a second. mitoses been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Thompson, any public comment? yes, jackie lescum. not here, oh, there she is. hello, good ao efz wantoning, when the school board took a replacement student information system and it awarded that bid to focus, it

480did so based on an rfp has made clear what the core functionalist needed to be, this was in 2021-22, it identified the customs applications, there were 31 of them, one choice was identified in the rfp as one of those 31 application and is one being the platform that handles school choice. Just three years later, we're being told here now that there is a pressing urgency to award half a million dollars to replace one choice and correct me if I'm wrong and I MAY be, but I don't see a contract for -- sorry, an rfp for taking bids as to who should provide that blat form, I see that it's going to focus. Wez ear told in the executive summary of this item, if you don't approve this and if that transition is delayed, it increases

481the rising system failures and it MAY affect data integrity and limited access for families. It says if you vote no, you'll be left relying on an aging platform and is increasingly difficult to maintain and doesn't have accessibility or integration. Some of those criticisms also apply to what you already have with focus. Meanwhile, this item describes this kind of cyber nirvana if you grant 500 thousand dollars to focus to build it out for you, you will have a a platform that has improved access, trance plainer say and deficiency. What's not clear is whether this went out to bid first, was there an rfp that folks pick the best submission, we're going to go through that list of 31 customer applications one by one, when they're out of date or it's felt they are, they're then going

482to be awarded to fe kus to build out for 500 thousand and -- sorry, 518 thousand dollars a a time without inviting other bids because focus already runs that core student information system. There's a question mark at the end of that. A good system can interface with other platforms and I feeler the board should ask, was this put out to bid, what process has this gone through of the decision of it going to focus, did it come to technology advisory, the answer is no, so that public transparency piece could have been delivered. We're in hard times, 500 thousand is a lot, we need to look also at where it is essential, do we have confidence in a system that has not been put out to bid and that we know we're getting the best value

483for it. I feel there's a lot to finish in finishing what we started with focus rather than allocating another half million to having it build out another platform when we have pressing needs in the ese areas for things we need now. Thank you. thank you, MR. Cervera? chair, would it be possible for DR. Zeman to go first? sure, DR. Zeman? I spent some time working on this. The particular question I have is whether or not this -- I guess I have a question and a follow-up question, chair. Does this system improve the efficiency of our school choice processes? DR. Hepburn? yes. and given that it improves the efficiency of those processes, have we reduced staffing of the people who were assigned to do that process or are we trying to improve the quality of that

484process? improve quality in time and reduce staffing. Er terrific, thank you very much, MR. Superintendent, for following those. is that it? Okay, back to you, MR. Cervera? I'm satisfied. okay, great, all those in favor of tt1, say aye. I'm sorry. MRS. Rupert? I'm sorry, thank you, sorry, MADAM Chair. I have just two questions, are we fully integrated with focus currently? DR. Hepburn? yes, for the modules we currently have sis and sss, I know for this upcoming -- also let me ask MR. Davis to give some detail because I know we're implementing the additional phase around our discipline if I'm correct, MR. Davis. good evening, trey di advice, chief information officer, if I could get the director of data intelligence up and while she's combining up, I would like to speak to the cost. You know,

485it's 518 thousand 887 dollars 50 cents over three year, includes installation configuration and professional services including training. If you work that out, it's thousand, licensing cost, 229 thousand annually, that's about 20 thousand dollars cheaper than the cost of unhinging our decades old legacy mid range system today called one choice. Thank you. Henry? -- emily? yes, so to answer that question, we did ultimately do our initial implementation in two phases, so for this school year websinger are launching our discipline, pulling in harassment as well as our school social work, we're go live inside of focus. MRS. Rupert, did you have a second question? I do but I want to go back to that where we're talking about is focus fulfilling all areas that it was contracted to do currently? yes, in the initial contract. So, the

486initial contract while one choice, the integration with one choice which was our legacy system was part of that contract utilizing the core sis system for school choice was not part of the contract because it has always been with focus a separate module that's a separate purchase. so, currently right now, if I had my three children who were already out of the house, however, if -- as a mom, one of my children needed to have access to their iep, as a parent, would I be able to have that immediately right there when I want to? yes. and you're staining that it currently happens right now? correct, when the iep's are finished and finalized inside ofz the system, they are accessible once they are finalized through the process, they are accessible to parents. okay. I know it's

487late and we're going to run out of time, I get that. I will not be supporting this item. There's been way too much difficulty with our ese families and our teachers, it's just been a nightmare from the conversation to actually get on board with them to now, so, I just won't be. Thank you. okay, thank u. L those ininfafavoof item tttt1, s e. aye. any oppose s saynono. nono. the motion carries dfrjt motion carries without -- 6-1. Er with MS. Bulman absent and MS. Thompson and MS. Rupert dissenting. yes, thank you. the nester item is tt2, can I have a motion and a second. so moved. Er it's been moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS. Leonardi, any public comment? yes, one registered speaker, DR. Trudy jermanovich. my name is DR. Trudy german vif, I

488often bring you comments from social media and here are some, district said that land school will no longer be used by the district, line wise will be brought up for purchase in the AUGUST meeting. They had all summer, they wait until school is starting to approve it. Sorry. Ai showed a comparison ofz land school versus line wise and it appeared line wise was great for administrators but not user friendly for teachers. Some other comments from social media, land school worked well for teachers when it was implement correctly by the district. It would be nice if they ask us what we wanted. How long will it take until it's up and running? Land wise seems worse from a classroom management perspective. Discussions from the past, last JANUARY, does anyone know who I would contact about land

489school not functioning, we get it, we're getting it running now, thank you very much. Back in MAY 16, love that 11 school days are left and finals still to give that the license for land school expired. Shouldn't be surprised at this point. My question is why wasn't a major survey of teachers before with a switch was made before land school. This district used to be a leader in technology. One of the ways we became leaders was because the board took the time to listen to end users. Since teachers were discussing the land school product as far back as JANUARY of this year, why did the district not take this through a process and ask the teachers to weigh in before bringing in a new and possibly inferior product for purchase. End users are the most

490important people to choose these products, thank you. thank you. Any other public comment? MRS. Bulman? okay, thank you. So, I was happy I guess someone things this is an inferior product. My question is with us going this product, first of all, I think it appears from the item that it does a lot of things to protect our students and our users. Are we replacing other products that we've been using in the past? DR. Hepburn? yes, that's correct. what were we previously using? land school was the previous product we were using. so, collectively these three products will replace land school? correct. one product, I can let MR. Davis provide some light on that. pardon me, so correct, that's one of the products, it was multiple vendors that were required to accomplish security filtering to be in

491simple compliance, children's internet protection act compliance as well as other features that we have relative to classroom management and parental controls that we get collectively in one sweep versus having to work through disparate partners, so that's the reason we chose that and the superior features as well. as a parent, and looking at what these products provide as guardrails, I think they look [Inaudible], so thank you. MR. Cervera? thank you, chair. If I read the financial analysis work sheet correctly, the prior rendering we had for this program from JULY of until I believe it was AUGUST 1 or AUGUST 31 of 2025 for a three year deal, we paid them 719 thousand. The request before the board now is for a reoption where the new vendor for the same three years, yet it's more than double.

492Why the additional expense? DR. Hepburn? MR. Davis? good evening, I appreciate the question. You know, collectively, there were multiple products involved that we're compare toing the line wize products as well as their parental [Inaudible] As well, the total was 1.946 million dollars, tla's if you factor 294 thousand dollars a year for secure filtering and the [Inaudible] For the land school which is the classroom management. The cost for year one of line wize for 481 thousand dollars keeping it neutral so there's 142 thousand $difference between the 1.638 million from wine Pwiz sxe, the 1.496 million with a collection of products securely and land school for example, yet the feature that we're getting relative to parental controls, the extended management and haltering that parents can handle through the custodial parent app as well as the secure filtering

493for cipa protection which we use server side and the classroom management is far superior above and beyond the number of features as well that you've got with the previous solution. MR. Davis, you think this is a good deal? I do. all those in favor of item tt2, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously without MS. Thompson on the dais. And our final item, tt4. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Bulman, MRS. Bulman, any public comment on tt4? no, ma'am. okay, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So, for neutral link technologies, DR. Hepburn, what is the usual time of adjustment to using this technology for student pick-up, one school gets used to this? I'll get some help with this one. the usual wait time for parents. Er without this product?

494once schools start to use it because I know some schools start using this, this school year, once they start to use this, how long is the normal wait time? The reason I'm asking, because I've had concerns expressed that it takes an adjustment period for schools and sometimes the wait time until they're adjusted is 30-40 minutes so once schools are adjusted, how long is the wait time and houpg is is the adjustment period? I'm going to have to phone a friend for that question, DR. Holness? on average. this is to -- we can't have parents waiting 45 minutes. exactly, so to shorten the pick-up time and to make sure it is well organized which inherently is going to shorten the pick-up time to make sure the right kids get in the right cars. so, the goal

495is o shorten pick-up times, so based on that because this is not the first year we're using it, we did it last year with some schools so, how has the pick-up time been shortened? What imprao ufrment have you seen? I don't have that particular data but I know -- go ahead, trey, I was about to talk about the additional prince prince -- principals that want the use it. I appreciate that, DR. Hepburn, I would like to turn it ever to DR. Die mand to discuss this. daryl diamond, director of pmo over at isd, I think that the school tlas are using it right now not, not only are they seeing decreased time for parents to pick up their students but the safety issue is another component that is making this product useful to the other

496elementary school, we started out with 25 schools in 2022, it went up to 35 schools later on in the next year, 57 schools the following year and right now we have schools that have asked for the product. We are having about 80 schools na are currently using it, we have six schools that are this the process of getting activated and the remaining schools I still have to reach out to make the connection so they can get theirs going, so 109 elementary schools indicated interest in using the product. okay so, DR. Hepburn, aisle be specific. There are concerns from some school, number one, that the adjustment period during the adjustment period, it takes about 30-40 minutes to pick up their children. Number two, there are concerns about kids and it has to do with the schools

497that are just stringing to use it, with kids basically waiting on the sidewalk without monitoring. Number 3, kids possibly not knowing which cars or going into the wrong cars tla that's in the adjustment period, what training do we provide -- yes, it's there to provide safety but it can also do the opposite if we don't have proper training on the onset to make sure we're implementing this and the adjustment period is being addressed by training or whatever we need do because those are the three concerns I have heard, the length of time kids waiting on the sidewalk and kids possibly going into the wrong car, how do we prevent that from happening bafr we get a situation that there is a safety concern as a result of using it. MS. Diamond. I'm working with our

498vendor partner and is making sure our end user schools have the necessary skill and is training they need to utilize the application the way it's designed to be sensed. If I can have the names of the schools I need to reach out, then the vendor can get those and expedite any train hating needs to be done. I appreciate there are skills I can provide later on, DR. Hepburn, I'm speaking in general for all the schools that will be using this as we continue to bring this on board that we have effective, you know, implementation training for the principals, the school, the staff in the beginning part ofz this so kids don't end up in the wrong car, kids don't end up on the sidewalk not being monitored so how do we address this overall, if

499we imlement it in any school, we eliminate these problems? if you can elaborate on the current training. I know that the vendor is delivering the training, there is manuals in which the schools are given but I will be more than happy to continue to work with all of the schools that are coming on board to ensure that the application is being used the appropriate way, so I can get with the vendor and we could develop whatever kind of training needs to be developed based on each individual schools' needs. and we can have DR. Fulton reach out to the elementary school principals to figure out what concerns they have while they're transitioning so we can work with the vendor to bolster up that training. and I'll speak with you more about it but I have concerns

500from parents and the police officers, tla needs to be remedied in the beginning phase of it. and I pull this just to say how excites I am bh I first started to go to schools, there was a lot of inequity, this is about safety, I'm not sure about students waiting on the sidewalk because usually the students wait in the classroom until they're notified that they can leave which then gives the school a list of who's left already and who's not which makes it much more safe but a lot of schools could not afford it so I appreciate the board when the item came up before passing it so that the equity of all schools in florinata was a leader in this, they made their own app to do it and we looked about trying to

501do that. I appreciate the opportunity for schools who wanted it, we didn't require everyone to have it, but I think it is definitely a good in addition additional layer for safety, so thank you for that. All nose favor of item tt4, say aye. aye. any opposed, say no. Motion carries unanimously. At this time, do any of my colleagues have any -- let me make sure we've exhausted all the items, right. Yes. Do any of my colleagues have updates or student success to bring forward to the superintendent for consideration. MR. Cervera? thank you, MADAM Chair, just received word that 15 broward county public high schools are among the top 27% of all reigned high schools in the nation korkt the 25-26 addition of U.S. News and real report on showcase thing best high school, top thing

502list are 6-12 college yat academy ranked number 4 in florida, number 56 of n the nation, pompano beach high school ranked number 21 in florida, and rounding out the top 5 ranked high schools, cadger technical high school, district 6, and cypress bay, and as well as atlantic technical high, so congratulations for being recognized by the U.S. News and world pretender. thank you. real quick, I asked a question through the superintendent to learn about laptops, it's huge issue for us, we committed, geb, getting back to MS. Leonardi's point about the great things we've been doing, one thing we promised is one laptop for every student that's been held up with contract issue and is reviews, if you look at the answer of that, you'll get ground troop of where we went as a district and hopefully

503that will help us get these laptops procured into our students as quickly as possible. I'm your rep, I enjie going to florida school board associations and san diego state has a great conference, I love all of them, the council of great city schools in philadelphia is the best opportunity to learn about what we do as a large urban district and if you have time and can submit an -- some time and go, I would love to see you come with the superintendent and I. MS. Thompson? thank you, chair, I just had a concern over something that happened in the meeting today because for the sports academy, we had a workshop and during that workshop, the board said they were interested in learning more and that was taken and run with it and excited about that,

504however, we also had a similar item to close north folk and give it to junior achievement so if the precedent we have set is now whatever happens in the workshop is now what's going to go, that's how I'm interpreting it, and so I just need some strong clarification from the superintendent that what we agree to explore in workshops aren't necessarily what's going to happen because if that's the precedent that was just set, that means we all agree to close north folk and I'm not sortable with that. DR. Hepburn? for situations around closures, we're going out to the community to have those conversations, that's part of that process, we won't just close a school without having robust k fgs about possibilities and garnering their feedback and input for that process. and it coming back to the

505board because I don't think seconds of us saying ikz this is fine because the meeting is ending should then equate all of this, so thank you. MRS. Alhadeff? so, I have a challenge to my colleagues, my challenge is to reduce our board meetings from 9 hours to six hours and reduce our number of pulled items today, we pulled 41 out of the 74 items, that is the challenge. you must have looking at my notes because we have -- give us a tip, what can we do. sure, send your questions to the staff before you come to the school board meeting. Er have conversations with staff to get your questions answered. I know sometimes you want to publicly say it but I think also you can have staff write it so it comes back in e-mails

506and supposed to be attach today the items so you are now publicly stating it, we can tighten this up a bit more. by policy, we agreed to 8 hours which is a goal of mine but it's number one on my thing to talk about. Questions for meetings, you know, we set a a policy, it's in our policy that we are supposed to do that, it's not really a a recommendation, it is by policy that we are to ask the questions beforehand, they go on the -- I think we extended it until monday instead of the friday before, so a lot of the questions that we're asking could really be answered by staff and remember, board meetings, workshops are for discussion and education and all that, board meetings are just to vote on the items, it

507isn't really to have the long discussions that we're having and they seem to be getting longer. If we could work on doing that, make sure ahead of time you're sending in your questions. if you still need to say I already got the answer but, staff, could you read the answer if you feel like it needs to be said out loud, but that's a big, big thing. The second thing is MR. Rhodes, can you give aus quick update on the agreement for the audit contract. Has that moved forward and how do we expedite that? yeah, today I was provided with a form with the various individual chief and is leaders that need to sign off on it. I had that sent back to all those folks with all the other contract related documents and we hopefully

508will have all those signatures back for tomorrow and then they'll be able to send that back off to them. and my last thing is I would tliek send sympathy to the cook family, len nao e cook was a coach at south bro urds, he took care of that baseball field, he put his love and effort into that even all these years, he was there when I was there and it was my 40th high school reunion recently, we would like to extend our sympathy to MR. Cook's family. He passed away yesterday. MRS. Leonardi? thank you. And -- first I want to thank my colleagues the for their up support of the bb item today, I'm grateful and as MS. Bulman said, I look forward to supporting many more projects to deliver results to our kids throughout

509the district, so thank you for that. To the discussion about the length of our board meetings, I do want to point out that sometimes questions arise like in the meet, so one of my colleagues is asking a question and it brings a question to my mind. I'm wondering, you know, if we need to look at our policy, if not, all of us are abiding to the policy by submitting questions beforehand, we really don't have any way to enforce it. So I'm wondering if we need to look at that. And I guess my concern about next week, I know our chair asked that the next time we're having a conversation about redefine, its's not on a packed agenda and it looked -- we have our master board training at the first part of the meeting, correct.

510And then we have the code of student conduct and 8022 policies that have elicited a lot of conversation in the past so I don't know if we feel like we have enough time again for redefining schools for next week. I know that our chair had asked that it not be on a packed agenda. sit possible to make redefining first on that agenda item so that -- that would be awesome. because it's always last and that's the problem. we can put it rst. Right t w w wehave slotted for r an hr and a haha,, 4:4:30 end ti for the day, we can do it two flours and make the end time 5:00. Er I would rather make it first and then if we have to bump those two the other thins just to remind the

511board, the other two ietems are board priorities. Er so is redefining. one is student code of conduct and the other is conduct and the other is 8020. Er I understand our meetings are long but we have priorities for next week and I don't want to rush those conversations either, so I appreciate the challenge and the goal of having shorter meetings but there are some times when we do have to have these longer conversations that are more thought out and I struggle with the idea of limiting those conversations. And I would like to point out, I only pulled four items today, so, you know, I just think when we need to have these longer conversations, we need to have the time and space to do that, so I appreciate the challenge and the goal but I

512think we have a right to have those longer conversations. Thank you. seeing no other agenda items or business, I adjourn the meeting, have a great week.