School Board Workshop - Sep 09, 2025

001first ask the audit committee. I wanted to tell you we're looking forward to a great year. I don't have much to say beyond that, but I'll a oo -- we had an e-mail going back and forth so either by the end of the day or first thing tomorrow, we should have the contract executed by both parties and waiting for board approval so they can engage and begin. next is the broward county association of student councils and advisory to the board. good afternoon. Good to see everyone. Lots of exciting things to update everybody on. Owe want to start with an operational update on the topic of laptops. I know we've had this discussion but have not weed on it discussion from a student perspective and want to echo the calls for these devices to be distributed

002to students. We know and have heard through both our experience and hearing certainly from students across the district with deviceseseing beyond t tir usefuful life. Performamance concernsithhoho devices and I want to echo those calls calls that hopefully those devices with distributed to the students as soon as possible and I want to thank is it the staff for going this work and put a lot of time and effort to this. On a positive and so many positive things to update on when it comes to student engagement, I want to thank all of our student appointees school board attendees who have had great discussions. We've laird about those discussions and grateful for the students who are taking time out to go and attend those meetings. On superintendent student engagement initiative, we had a wonderful kickoff call on

003thursday with the principals with student engagement ambassadors. I want to thank members of cabinet and DR. Hep burch for -- hepburn for attending and being engaged. We had discussion on student input happening on campus and the utilization of thought exchange. We're thankful for the launch of that and to hear great insights from students across the district impacting tens of thousands of students. We've heard many times if board members about a desire to increase the levels of engagement with students at schools beyond engagement with the student advisers and students who come to the boardroom. We'll host a PRESIDENT's summit with you will the student government presidents to provide them with professional development and training on hosting round tables at schools. We'll soo a lot of discussion on expanding the reach 06 that feedback from beyond student

004government organizations to every day students who MAY not have previously been able to share their voice. That's in progress and I want to thank the board members who asked for that increased engagement. It's the time of the year to talk about speak up speak out sessions. I want to share that we're in the process of scheduling those sessions and identifying the schools where they will be completed. We'll follow a data-driven process this year in selecting the schools that will be having the discussions with students. Please look forward to those discussions coming soon and insights coming from those discussions. And finally, the quarterly board feedback session will take place at the SEPTEMBER 24th workshop. Thank you to everyone who submitted top oake requests. We look forward to a great discussion with the 16 students from across

005the district. And from any students or community members who have questions, I stand ready to answer those questions. You can visit our social media pages acht student immediate why you adviser. next is district advisory council. good afternoon. Sint gnaw bominiqi. I wanted to to give a shout out to all those who work at our schools. My 5-year-old loves going to school. It's I testament to everyone who is loving and caring for our children day-in and day-out. On our last meeting AUGUST 20ththth we had the opportunity for several departments to come to our meeting. I wanted to thank all those who came out. For giving us part of their evening. Policies 1980 and 1930 still remain with a lot of questions. I look forward to seeing what staff presents today and hopefully we get it right

006and doesn't have to come back again. We have follow-up on school nurses. Last we heard there were over 50 schools without school nurse. I know at the OCTOBER 12th workshop, the board had direct superintendent to provide funding to provide every school with a nurse. With that said, in the back to school form, there was an option for consent for hazel health which is a telehealth company to provide for our schools. They feel like it might be a replacement for school nurses and they want a person in that clinic to provide care for their children. I don't know if that's the plan of the district, but we would like some clarity on at that. We discussed title I, the schools that lost title I as well as school lunches lunches and really, our view on title

007I remains that we need to make what title I funding provides to schools tangible and every parent understands that it's the resources that have been provided to your school. And regarding the courtesy lunches, we within the it make sure there is a uniform plan in place so that lunches are not taken away from kids and thrown away. If we're throwing the food away, we might as well give it to them and preserve their dignity. We had a robust discussion on focus. There was a lot of feedback regarding ese compliance. A lot of parents are not able to access their 404 plans and staff shared with us there isn't a connection with exelify where the forms are housed. Apparently they're not able to access those plans and focus. Historical iep documents are not able to be

008sorted and sorted and apparently teachers are having the same issues. There were concerns from parents not being able to modify emergency contact data. The life skills and wellness survey requires parents to print out the survey and send in the opt-out form. Their children are automatically oopted into the surveys unless they opt out. In a day and age where everyone has being ses to internet or printer, it doesn't facilitate parents being abl to exercise their opportunity to opt-occupant. There was -- also, within focus, you're h you have to go to the district web page and send an, mail. It would be nice to have that functionality within foe discuss. We talked about the district website. We know that staff is working hard and we look forward to the finished product scld bure those advisory web pages

009that were promised to be rolled out, it was the friday of AUGUST 129 board workshop, were not complete. There was conflicting information and incorrect information on those pages. We dl share that with farra. We wanted to reduce thement of clicks for pairns to access what they need. Some follow-up, we discuss discussed the acenip funding. The district was taking 20% and we were looking for clarity on that. Our next meeting is tomorrow night at 6:15. We look forward to meet DR. Hepburn and his cabinet. It does conflict with the first redivining. I would hope those kind of con flects would not occur again. On SEPTEMBER 29th, we'll be hosting a district wide training for parents and staff chair to be able to learn about advisories because one of our goals this year is really boosting parent

010engagement and getting more people involved. Thank you. thank you. North area advisory. hello, good morning. Nicole morris north area advisory chair. To follow on what MISS Dominique was talking about can the ap and ace funding. My understanding is that in the past, this -- the state funded end end of school was directly funded. None was kept by ts district. Years ago districts kept 0 percent off the time and then it went to 20 force. There were questions last year on how the state would fund ace and ap. So maybe the district held on to the money and the schools didn't get it keep their rollover. We know this the state released the funds but the schools don't have the funds. They're still being held. You have some schools that maybe the students are asked to

011pay $70 for an ace textbook because the school can't afford to provide those. So I also understand that perhaps some of the schools that had rollover funds that they are giving that money to other schools that are just starting up their cambridge program. That seems unfair to the schools that have managed their money well. We've had these conversations since the end of last year. MISS Hixon mentioned that she had spoken to the cfo about that. We hoped to have follow-up on that. There will is concern that the district is holding money that has been generated from programs and courses completed such as cape funding by the schools and now they MAY not be ail to have access to the necessary tools to continue to have their success. There sac money is an issue. We need

012the sac money for sat brep and ela prep. Last year the board passed a motion to automatically send information to parents and children who scored a 5 on the pm-1 which is academically enhanced learning. Some parents were still una which are of the program and the deadline to apply is OCTOBER first. Itches reviewing the data from last year because I know there was a conversation on detectorses and where they were able to go. thereofer there were # 100 incidents of tobaccoo use. 600 were in the high school. 200 were in the middle school. I have questions about the additional ai component. DR. Hepburn mentioned to me that the vape detectors were more than vape detecters. There was ai technology that I don't know what it looks like. I understood maybe it will would pick up

013on key words if there was a fight or a weapon. Over the summer there was a letter sent out to schools and principles billion asbestos. Asbestos in schools. Some schools had asbestos. It's been remediated but I'm curious howl schools still have asbestos. We haven't had our first meeting of the year. These are just rollover topics from last year. First meeting will be next week, SEPTEMBER 18th. I think that is about -- barns. We had a great feeting with MR. Schism over the summer. We had about 70 parents that attended our meeting over the summer. They're very serious about our barns. Lot of the sac chair are pta members and this is how they raise money. A lot of barns have come down and we can't put them back up until the policy is passed. We

014doesn't know if there can be photos or bullet points listing the different services that the businesses businesses have. So I hope today we walk away with clarity on at least those would items because those are the concerns that I keep hearing from the pta PRESIDENT. Like can we have listed services and can we have photos? And we need to get that going quickly. Thank you for your tile. thank you so much. Next is esc advisory. good afternoon. Jackie luskin. For the first meeting of the year we had over 850 attendees and had quorum. Holl ngs worth of student services services and deen eagan was there and helpful. Our autism committee met the week after and focused on mental health. A down syndrome committee is hosting training in part with the esc department on SEPTEMBER 12th.

015This is important collaborationing that they do every year. Also, on the subject of laptops, I'm getting a lot of feedback community-wise about rising concern about the standoff over that. There is a sense if our children's learning experience was to face challenges because of political mischief making, parents want to see bcs to stand up to that. Class sizes. There seems to be concern about that. There is a process at the beginning of the year, that process is not explained preemptively to parents. You have a lot of on line chatter about about the unease of how the year is going to look like when people see their kids in classes up to 29. We need jut reach to explain what is going on about that. We passed a motion at our meeting and focused heavily on transportation

016issues. We had a perennial little nugget at the start of the year. We recommend that bcps have a review of bus transportation services to evaluate the district's present performance about the recommendations made by the of green report of 2014. There was an independent re view that made a number of recommendations recommendations and it's clear that we're back to scare one. One was developing straijs related to ieb transportation components. Two, example program placement determination in the light of impacted decisions on the length of esesc student bus rides and make sure procedures are followed and three, expand the ray of training to folks including paraprofessionals and create cognitive training for transportation. The job description says there is such training and there isn't. I'm happy to hear from MR. Lozano on then. The department of twrans pour taition

017has met in order to try to advance this. These are hiccups with transportation. Folks can't be hold waitd two or three weeks for the kids transportation to be put in place if it's in the ip. With redefining schools you'll know from the e-mails. I'm not here to lobby for oned idea or another, I'm here to ensure that in the redefining schools process, we can see a transparent process by which you engage potential partners. Whether you partner with those companies or organizations or entities is up toe folks, but it pains me to say parents lobbying for a particular idea and told that there is a methodical process for engaging potential partners and say there is not. I find that concerning. I think all ideas should be equally weighed and a courtesy of communication for potential partners

018reaching out to you. On focus, cynthia spoke to this. As I last mentioned focus, I thought my head was ripped off. But there is part of the hundreds of issues with focus. Folks can't see 504 in focus. That's not new. I find it's only now being looked into as a result of it coming up at dac which was a good dialogue. It's encouraging that is going on now. It's disappointing that it's taken long to get their. Thank you. thank you, next is facility staff force. good afternoon, everyone. I'm here representing kimberly. To say congratulations to her, her son is graduating from army boot camp in south carolina. She's twhr today. She's there today. We had a meeting on thursday and had elections with all positions filled. We had an update on maximum and did raise

019concerns about the integrity -- data integrity, obsolete inventory and accountability. we asked for an action for usage for mimo for this time. The motion reads that we recommend the superintendent puts in place needs that the custodians are directly and explicitly submitting work orders via max imo and making sure that there is staff in line to complete the process. We understand there are barriers and this is one of the recommendations. I didn't have the time to transcribe all of the minutes. We'll ask DR. Wansa to come to our next meeting. There are issues raised and we have an array of people going it various meetings. We did cover playgrounds coverings based on the school board discussions. And there were 13eu6bg items we need to address on those, there is mold and intercom systems missing. That's it

020for the facilities task force. next is human relations committee. good afternoononhair,chchoo boboard, superteteenen staff, I'm nancy frye on the human relations committee. Questioned our first meeting for the year on AUGUST 20th where we held our chair and vice chair elections and there is need for a chair again. Nathan sun for vice chair. We'll be happy to get the ball rolling on time. The school board that have appointed already to our committee, thank you for your appointments. We have fabulous team ready and looking forward to working together. for those that have not appointed yet, if you are unsheush sure of who to appoint or need some guidance or tips, I have some community members that would love to serve. Let me know and I'm happy to make those can scekses. Connections. We're mostly in a planning

021mode for the first meeting and second meeting we'll do goal setting. We looked at our facts and figures from last year. We're proud to say that we went from two years ago 17 total human relations councils in our schools up to 68 in a year's time. We want to keep that growth, so we're hoping to keep the momentum going. Moving forward this year and get more schools with HRCs and part of what we're looking at in our goal setting is to how to support opportunities in terms of accessing advisers for their clubs and in general how to help students become manufacturer more involved in their school communities and help the adults surrounding them to help them have more of an impact inside their school. As far as students go as well. Just because we have

022to do a little plug, anyone that has a student that you think has leadership potential or have a voice, our student incentives that we give it every student in their schools. These are not the students that join us on the committee level, these are within the schools. Middle school students and high school students get a letter of recommendation from the school board and it's something at that they can put on their resume either at looking at high schools and applying to ledges and our high school students get 20 service hours every year. Let the students in your life know this is is a great way to get involved and help to start them off on the right foot. We have a swat analysis that we'll go through as far as what we have to improve

023for next year scw and what successes we have to build upon. One of the metrics that we're going to look at for this year is how active student -- or connecting student data to the positive impacts of pro student relations and seeing what kind of impact this has on our students and the ability they have to suck soas. With that, I have one more note. I think I got through everything. If you have any questions on what we're doing or appointees, please reach out and look forward to my report next month. congratulations on the I be increase. Next is parent community involvement task force. well, erin, I'm so happy to say I'm mary mass mar marie pasture of community involvement. Erin is allowing me to talk about what we've accomplished. The lori was the past

024PRESIDENT Of the pta and we sat down talk about how important this is. We determined to create a geup of people from all different groups go pta and everywhere to review at what was happening and look at how we could energize and enhance parent involvement. That was going to be a short study. I didn't anticipate being there for more than a year so I said okay. Now it's been 14 years. We had a series of things that happened that seemed to keep this going, but it's been a wonderful journey. What I have learned over the years is how incredible the volunteers in our schools are. How incredible our non-profits, our cities and truly the people of broward county and supporting broward county public schools. As we look forward to the coming years, this is going

025to be more important than of. It has been a tremendous joy to work with erin this past year. We are I think a wonderful team and he we have a wonderful team on our parent community involvement task force which we thank all of you for. You have great appointees. They are energy sized, committed and all talk at our meetings. We have wonderful ideas. I said to erin last night, I think the future will be brighter than the past. I'm so happy that we have this wonderful -- we actually talk about how we take a team approach and have a student as a community represent on the committee. So many things that have happened. What we learned was our research through non-profit forums turned in to be so successful now they are held as annual or

026semi-annual incidents. erin, you have no idea how happy I am to see this move forward. I know the people that started with me would feel the same way. I want to call out lou and janet to keep this energized palace palace. it's hard to follow that. I need to start by recognizing the profound impact mary has had on this district and role. I know she promised me that her advocacy will continue. I need to share a deep gratitude and respect for the ground breaking work you and janet and low lou and so many othersing have done. Mary is an advocate for students and families. She empowers others to advocate for their needs. You operate with the commitment to leaving the district stronger for the generation of students and families to come. It's been a joy

027to work alongside you. I am humbled and honored to take on this role. I am grateful to jesse that will work with me as the vice chair. I'm going to try in a couple of seconds, last night we covered our goals for the year. In addition to the ones we've had in terms of listening to the community and building strong relationships and leveraging technology to connect families and students are resources. We added a specific focus to work with the district on a redefines process so we can ensure that the decisions that are made do align with the needs in our community. We had a non-profit forum in AUGUST. i'm grateful to staff who helped with that. Vice chair leonardi who welcomed our non-profits, it was incredible. We're going to share a report with you this

028week but we had such a broad diversity, we had groups that had not worked with the group before and got good recommendations for ways to improve those partnership processes and we're getting going on creating a database for non-profits to share with school leaders. We're excited for year ahead. We'll build on the incredible legacy with mary and our team. I want you to clap for her and thank you for all she has done. [Applause] I am gratefully accepting this on behalf of all the volunteers offal broward county public schools. There are countless numbers and they are truly amazing so thank you. thank you for all of your time and commitment and dedication to the district. We're a better district because of you. So thank you. Next is small business advisory committee. goode good afternoon, everyone. We

029had a meeting on AUGUST 28 lyft. We elected officials officials and we have a chair and I'm the vice chair. We're both committed to contributing to the economic growth of broward county and each committee member shares that comument. On our AUGUST meeting, we actually welcomed two new committee member. One was darrell harming and valley row sety by board member leonardi. Thank you for that and we have four vacancies. Takes important that if you guys could appoint someone to the small business committee because then they can ask questions and bring stuff back to you and ask why this is important and how can the community be involved. And then they can report back to you. Please report if you have vacancies. Thank you. We have goal-setting meetings. The goal-setting meeting is extremely important bus it's realtime

030of how our procurement process engages with the small business and make sure small businesses are being included. Wen courage you if you have time to please join our goal setting meeting and take a listen to see what the great job that procurement is doing and the great job your facilities and faculty is doing. Great news. We are focusing on veterans. We went from four veterans to 18 veterans and a recent -- we've been going after veterans. Four to 18 is a huge jump. We have 761 certified firms and trying to increase that by 25% this fiscal year. When it comes to b 2 chee now which is a big deal. 1 ft. $2,000,000,000.4356% went to small businesses so I plawd you for that. When the community comes, I can say we had $1.2 billion. See

031received 400 -- or are a hundred $9 million. That's a big deal. MR. Scott, the officer of the eboc. We have highlights that we'll give also. MR. Scott was informed that the last quarter, a compliance section helped small businesses with payment fulfillment to the tune of $1 million. This is huge. Because many times small contractors feel helpless and they run into problems and no one brings parties today to resolve payment issues. Edoc is effective in helping to secure small businesses business in supporting these issues. The department also continues to expand the reach to the community. We had 6 -- we have six events planned throughout SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER including two in-person certification days. Two brunch and lessons and a food truck-fest. Bring your ap teuts for the food truck-fest. We have a major matchmaking event

032where small business owners will be introduce to various ways to partner with bcps to impact student success. We understand superintendent hepburn and board members will be guest. We're also learn that planning is underway for the second annual business excellence program. Also known as bep. This series will run for several consecutive weeks and aim to elevate and empower and connect local businesses. Last year several members participated. Window look forward to continuing participation for this plam. On a related note, edboc is planning a student-focused. This seery also help bridge the gap between economic development and bcps students, the enprenners of the teuch. Lastly, at our SEPTEMBER 25th meeting we'll establish our 25/26 goals for compliance reinforcement, vendor utilization, incentive structure based on the 2023 disparity update. Thank you for your continued support and our work to advance

033opportunities for small businesses across broward county. Without small bipses, we do not have students. GOD bless you. thank you very much. Good job. Next is the technology committee. good afternoon. We had our first meeting yesterday. I quickly compiled my notes from that. One of the issues was a little bit of house keeping and the policy. Unthe scrns was the internet safety policy. When we found out last year that the policy was required to required to be implemented by SEPTEMBER first 2023, the tag team expedited it but we're two years behind schedule. We did have a motion -- a couple of moaks come forward. A couple of motions come forward. We recommend the too superintendent direct stasm tomorrow advise on how there is. ing of programs. No in order to purchase the programs. I'll send you

034the pros and cons but what we're finding out that some of the teachers in the career section in the high schools have inadequate equipment to do what they need to do according to today's standards. They are not asking for the most up-to-date, but asking for something to work with all the programs that they're using. That's been a problem for the past four years. We've always highlighted highlighted this yeur and every time we go out for something, those requirements don't seem to be added to the list. There is also a las l lab of end user involvement in the procurement process which needs to be addressed. Even though we submitted what should be submitted as far as specs go, they seem to be ignored. We had a discussion on the waiver process for electronic devices. It's

035slow, cumbersome, inadequate and we're looking forward into that whole issue further. Right. Looking further into the waiver process. We had a discussion on ai deployment strategy. A presentation was given and the issues -- concerns that came up was plagiarism, overreliance and psychological effects on using ai and how we use it. the need for student training and the responsible use for curriculum. We'll explore training modules along with the progress that is being made with using ai. Again to echo student council, we had a discussion on laptop refresh programs from. Some of the schools represented on tack have expressed frustration because of the equipment that is not working and the delay that has been caused. We had a motion to recommend the item be placed before the school board for formal vote at the SEPTEMBER 16th meeting.

036We had a discussion on focus and exeli fy and 504 plan and the frustration for parents having to get hard copies that wo could turn out to be 60 pages. Other issues I will directly address with emily copa for decision and we had one more motion and weep recommend that the item shall plaitions before the school board -- okay. Whereas an rp was awarded MARCH 2025 for a laptop refresh program and whereas the item was last pulled on MAY 1389 and 29th following concerns expressed at state level and whereas the review found no evidence much wrongdoing and bps advised the school board that advised that we would not encourage any entity to delay a business decision in hope that an investigation will result in-ful information. We recommend that the item be placed before the school

037board in accord ngs with the eig as advice to prioritize the best interest of students. That's if it for now. we'll turn is to board discussion. MISS Thompson. thank you, chair. Thanks. So first, I wanted to thank both our student adviser and MISS Ferrara for bringing up the laptops. This is increasingly concerning for me as I tuck to students and parents about the quality and condition of their current laptop. I know I sent in questions that have not been responded yet, but I'm hoping that we can get some clarity on them now. Mainly referring to the deferred replacement. DR. Hepburn what students are most at risk according to deferred replacement? I think all our streunts at risk. I know it has a multi-year plan for replacement with a bulk of them -- I want to

038say 8 81,000 that need to be replaced due to either out-dated warranty and also end of life for the actual dedevi. s s these a are studedents acrcross ththeisisicic a aososs the district. our students that are in ap courses or stem programs impacted by this? absolutely. as our existing laptops, which one of them are either out of outof warranty? right now 81,000 are either out of warranty or end of life. if they're out of warranty, are they going to be compatible with stated test requirements and on line learning. What harm is come to be the students and. for testing requirements, no issue there. MR. Davis, if you want to help out you can talk about it more than I can. For testing because we're in the midst of testing. I'm the chief information officer. DR.

039Hepburn was correct on the student laptops. 18,000 reached their useful life phase, four years or greater out of warranty. We see performance disparities and you mentioned about testing compliance. The reality is that laptops are not going it perform the same if they're out of warranty or unable to be kept up-to-date. So you do have disparities in that performance. I think it's important to note that we have 5,000 devices in the same state for teachers as well. Necessary in addition to the 81,000 devices theres well. I would be re -- there as well. We're in a critical juncture in the district and need to make a decision to move forward. thanks for reading my mind. Is there a security risk or viruses or anything if our computers are not updated to the appropriate windows 11? the

040answer is definitely yes. The reality is as computers eaj or kngt be updated to the latest operating system, we're forced to support multiple operating system streams which is a lot of overhead. Performance disparities. You have not only the risk of performance in critical situations but the reality is when an operating system goes end of life, unless you subscribe to a short term, patches from the vendor, you start to be exposed to security vulnerabilities at that stage. Long answer is yes. thank you both for your information and also I submitted these questions on friday. Thank you to all the staff for being so quick because we just got them in our e-mail. Along with what staff just put in, I've been hearing hearing from parents and students across the district that their computers are not end

041of quality that they need to be in especially when we're promoting whatever the tagline is, ai, powered by ai. And while I understand the reason it was pulled off and I understand hesitations hesitations with oig, oig itself -- MISS Ferrara read it for me that if we needed to go ahead for business purposes we can go healed with that. You read is much nicer than I did. At this point it's a detriment to the students not to have this plan in place. So I would like to know from the superintendent what is our plan in place expa what you need from the board to bring this back. last piem t time we brought it back there were concerns from the board members letting the investigative project to follow through. That was prior to the letter

042we received so we're waiting on direction by the board on how to move forward. so we can right now give consent back to whether we want that item to come back SEPTEMBER 16th? It cock back SEPTEMBER 16th? yes, the item is ready. is there any board member that would disagree with putting -- thank you MADAM Chair. First and foremost, I want nothing more than for all of our students to have the best, most up-to-date shiny laptops and computers and tablets and everything else they need to succeed in the classroom and the home. I'm not antilaptop or antielectronics. My only concern with this is the pending and on going inspector general's investigation. So MADAM Chair, would I like to pose a question can. In if fact we bring this forward and is it comes back to

043this board at the next school board meeting which I believe is next tuesday, if I'm not mistaken. If this is brought before this board and voted to approve the current account and it turns out 38, 4, 6 weeks from now the inspector general's office comes back and makes a finding that something nefarious happened in the bidding process, and they make recommendations and they make findings and all the stuff that works back in a detailed and thorough report back if them. We are now stuck in a contract with the lead vendor at this point. Staring down the face of an inspector general report saying that something bad happened to get to that point. What are the legal ramifications from other vendors, from students, members of the committee from anybody, what are the tote the legal ramifications

044of that happening if we were to go ahead and move forward with in vote next week? the legal ramifications depending on what the outcome or what the review investigation states. Could be different things like having certain members of the staff, you know, if they were involved in some conduct that wasn't appropriate, obvious those members of the staff would have to be disciplined or if it amounts to something that is unlawful could potentially face criminal penalties and charges. As far as the contracts, there is -- we have sections, provisions in the contract that address termation for either -- either cause or for no cause. So, I mean the end of it would be if the contract is then terminated for let's say for cause or for convenience, then we'll be back in the same place we

045are now. Account kids would not be able to get the computers. if we prove the contract and start expwursing the laptops, we're not going to the -- I apologize, the vendor right now is hp? correct. so we soon a contract with hp, we start distributing to the kids. The inspector general's office has three months before a report. Let's say they make a finding that something nefarious happened. Something bad happened, illegal, or wharve the negative finding is, we can terminate the contract with hp. Are we expected to have all the kids turn in the laptops to us? no. we'd terminate a contract with h exprks I'm not sure of the point from doing that because the kids would already have is the laptops. What I would like to primarily focus on is the other bidders who

046have asserted or claims or what the allegations are this that they lost out. If that turns out to be an accurate allegation, what is you are legal liability for them to come back after the district, if in fact, the office of the inspector general finds that something nefarious happened? I'm not aware that other theaters have made any other allegations. I think the allegations -- as I understand is it from an anonymous source. you're correct. that's number one, number two, any bidders would have the opportunity to file within the process, 72 hours to file bid protest to challenge and they have 72 hours to challenge the items that are listed in rfp or whatever. So none of that happened. I neen there was a bid protest and one of the bidders did protest not to the

047actual rfp itself, but to the results claiming they needed to be part of that. That went through its course. Other than that, that would have been what their -- the one company that went through the process, the appeal process or the objection process, whatever the term is, that one company,ful it turns out something bad happened, they're in the bidding stage, can that one company come after the district for loss of revenue, bad faith or what have you. Is there any leem exposure to the district from this one vendor who went through the throws es. It sounds like if you didn't go through the appellate process, you are waived your rights so we're down to one vend that are did. That one vendor sue the district if it turns out the office of inspector general comes

048back and finds out that something bad happened? there would be no grounds for that bidder to do that because ultimately they were found to be responsive and there would be a contract with that bidder as well. so -- the only negative thing -- from what I'm hearing, taking the legal liability aspect out of this, I always have issues with potential lawsuits and liabilities and weighing risks. From what I'm hearing, it sounds like the only detriment to us going forward would be that if the og -- excuse me -- the inspector general's office comes back and found that something bad happened, it would be too late with hp because the laptops would come out so we'd take that report and make sure the proper discipline was made within the district, we would punish the people involved

049in the bad acts. there is no formal legal liability where they can say somebody else or another vendor can sue us for the $18 million that the contract went for. Is that contract? yes. thank you. MRS. Agree had her hand up. For moving forward, if you want to speak if you'll turn your thing so I'm consistent about what I'm doing. But based on hand raising, but moving forward, please turn your nametag up so I'm being consistent. MRS. Leonardi. what would be the timeline for the deployment of the laptops? To say it came to us as an item next week, what would be the timeline -- like are all of the laptops going out all at once? Or is it phased? it's a phased approach. I'll let MR. Davis give some details on their deployment. DR.

050Hepburn is correct, it's a phased deployment. This rfp is a 53-month timeline. It's not as if all the devices would be deployed at one time. There was 81,000 you heard about for students and 51 devices for teachers would be the initial focus to be deployed in the first two to three month period of time. Depending on availability by the vendor. okay. I have a similar line of questioning. My league and I guess -- maybe I'll try to put this in layman terms. If the board approved this item and the oig and subsequent law enforcement agencies finds that something criminal happened with that contract, what happens to the board? DR. Hepburn. to the board? To the district, hopefully the ig could nairio if it was a -- nair t narrow people or an institution. It's not

051my expectation or anybody as far as district staff, my expectations are how though should conduct business. Sphoors what would happen to the board, I'm no sure. woman MISS Letice be able to speak to that? as far as the board members, individually or as a board, you have right now there is no evidence that there was anything that happened through the throughout the process that was inappropriate. From what I understand, there is an inquiry that would look into the process and the student could not find anything that was done inprowptly. So all you have right now is an anonymous charge against something that MAY have not occurred. So that the board -- there would be no impact to the board other than the fact that there would be something, you know, a person went out of

052their way perhaps to, you know, do something that was outside the scope of tir employment and that would be on that employee, not the board. just to be clear, if we were to approve the contract in the midst of this investigation and then the investigation finds that something criminal happened, could this board be accused of being -- be found as being negligent by approving necessary in the midst of an investigation? MISS Batista. I don't know of a charge against the board that you could say that they're negligent. You know, you have -- like I said, you have for us today we have no evidence to show that there was anything inappropriate that happened during the process. So, if in fact just making an allegation of wrongdoing is sufficient to say that would make anybody negligent

053when you have done, you know, through superintendent due diligence necessary to make a decision, I would sa, no, there would be no opportunity for someone to say that you were negligent. okay. I want to go back to the timeline and the conversation about the contract. Because it is have a phased approach, if we approve the item, you know, laptops get into the hands of students, not all of them, it's over I think it's a 53-month period? And say oig comes back in 53 months and say something bad happened here. Could we cancel the contract for-cause on the findings? if it is shown that the company that ultimately received was found to be the responsive bidder had something to dod with the facts, absolutely. okay. Thank you. thank you DR. . DR. Zeman. I looked into

054the process by which we have awarded this contract to winning vendor. yes, that's correct. MR. Superintendent, did you find any negligent on our staff's part? Any fraudulent bee MAY havier in the pro drr behavior in the procurement of broward employees? not in any of the records. do you have any written allegations that you've received about this particular? yes. expp you found no evidence to support? correct. my view is with the students. Which is I think where we all should be. 40 days ago, the I.G. Wrote a letter saying it's okay to go forward. If there are former employees that have done anything wrong. Anybody in their right mind would recognize that students. Today cannot learn without a laptop. We promised them last year they would all get one laptop per person. I would venture into

055a personal story. I didn't buy my kids laptops because the school was going to get them for them. We made a commitment to our students, they're fundamental to learning. We have no evidence of any wrongdoing. I think that if we ever find evidence of wrongdoing, we have a superintendent and I expect a board that will fully enforce to the letter of law if somebody did something wrong in broward county or any find of poor behavior in the solicitation, i think this board has proven they would take action. The superintendent said he would not technology committee that have brought this up to the answer we grot trey davis 10 days ago to my laying out what happened during the three rounds of solicitation, there is plenty of documentation that protests were dealt with appropriately. Ray third

056round went through. Our students need these laptops to learn. We're 40 days since that letter came in. On AUGUST first, at the next school board meeting, I would have done everything I could to putthis tote h togetheher. 's a difficult iue t get urur arms around but now 40 days has gone past ask it's time to buy the laptops and get them out. We have children in schools that are sitting like MISS Leonardi and I are here staring at one lap tomorrow to see what we need to read. It's not a good standard for broward county schools. We promised one laptop for students. Student. Teachers don't have laptops that work. How can run a school system teachers don't have is a working laptop. Let's buy these computers. From a business perspective, we got a pretariff

057price on laptops. It's good for business because we had a solicitation go out before the scare for tariffs. For are 53 months, we'll be able to buy laptops for the teachers and stafl at a price that doesn't include the tariffs. Let's get these laptops bought and get them to the students as fast as we can. If I'm hearing the board correctly, this is a plan for how do we go from executing the contract to get them in the students' hands in the most speedy way and ensure the safety of the equipment. the plan for distributing laptops, we already have that. it's not a small deal. To parents and staff waiting for these things, it's weeks before we get them and distribute them. There are a couple of steps we have to do technologically to get

058them ready to go. Step one is to execute this. I think we're 40 days late. If someone finds something wrong in the solicitation process, we'll deal with that but we can't afford to go more than five weeks to execute this plan. How long would it take between SEPTEMBER 16th and proximate mat differ ri of laptops to the students? about two months. The only limitation would be the vendor and their availability for the inventory. terrific. I would suggest MR. Superintendent you put their phone number on the home page of broward county schools website and we can call our friends at hp and encourage them to get us up the priority ladder to get them to the kids as soon as possible. before we go to the next person, a reminder, the consensus was for whether we

059want to bring it to the next school board meeting or not and i want to focus on timing. Besides this item, there are a few others. Everybody has a chance to report. The question was: do we give consensus to bring it back to the school board meeting where if uch questions, you can either send them beforehand which is preferl or you can talk about it at the board meeting. Keep that in mind as you're asking questions. MRS. Bulman. I support bringing it back next week. Our questions will be answer -- have been answered. We have to do what is best for the students. There is no, ternl evidence that I've he heard here that indicates there is -- that we should be aware of anything that should happen. We're dealing in good faith and I

060think we need to get the ball rolling and get the computers in the kids' hands. MRS. Alhadeff. I support bringing it back to the school board. great. If did you have anything else? if we could expand on the ace funding 20% that was brought up. MR. Hepburn. DR. Hepburn: we're exercising the 20% hold back to support creating new programs especially middle school and some of our high schools that are reating programs in the last past year or two that are not self-sustaining yet from the outcomes of their testing. does that answer your question? okay. MRS. Leonardi. thank you. I appreciate the issue of our committee members brought up. It's something that I've been hearing from our teachers and parents as well. I was wondering what we're doing to alleviate the class size issue and what

061we're doing to communicate about las size to our parents. DR. Hepburn: we're balancing it out. As far as messaging to parents, I'll defer to DR. Fulting because it's a school by school balancing. thank you. There was an internet safety policy. Can anyone provide an update? MRS. Daifs, or his batista,? Trey davis, with the safety policy, the final draft was expleepted on our end and is headed to legal can cording to my team. okay. Dismawrchg I would be remiss if I didn't thank mary fertig for her service and congratulate erin on her chairship. I know you two are a dynamic force. And the parent/community task force will continue to be an amazing addition to the district. MISS Bulman, do you have other things? so at the beginning of the report, there was a quo about the

062nurse policy. Would you mind verifying it for us. I think it would be good if everybody heard it. DR. Hepburn: absolutely. MRS. Hollingsworth is back there. Can you clarify the current nursing policy or procedure strategy that we're implementing this year. absolutely. and maybe what happened in the past that is making this -- before the pandemic what it looked like then. certainly. Good afternoon, iem siemen hines. Prior to the pandemic, we had a multitude of health service providing options. We had het techs in our clinics. We had at times staff members at our school and as a former principal, I've had this experience and used different methods. We had nurses for different health care needs. During the pandemic, I was over exceptional student education at the time and we had a slight problem with the nurses

063because at that time if you remember, traveling nurses were making about $300,000 a year. Trying to acquire nurses was very prohibitive. We had to address it at that time some of the features of being more marketable in the game with paying individuals more competitive price. At that time there was covid dollars and dollars that came through that were the option to bring back school dwsh we had nurs in covid rooms with clinics in the schools where there was a covid nurse for anyone that needed to be removed. We had individual health care service needs for the students. we had about 20 students that did not have healthcare needs. Or have an I had nurse with the discrepancy of having the nurses. During that time, we had covid and brought back more nurses. Over the several

064years we were able to staff all schools with a clinic nurse so that person was in the clinic to provide care to students and then we had the present many consent. That has changed as well. Students that have the parental consent can have that. And on top of that, we had nurses with individual healthcare needs. At some schools you can have several nurses. I had six nurse at one point in time and also an individual health care -- a clinic nurse. As we've exhausted those dollars we're going back to pre-covid procedures where kef 57 clinics without a nurse. That is not fie niept. We look at it weekly to determine where the students' needs are because we're staffing for individual health care needs. This is a different practice in regards to going back from before

065covid about six to eight years where schools have to man the clinics. Ital is state statute toe give out medicines after they've been trained such as a pill or have to administer something that is an emergency-type medicine such as an EpiPen or inhaler. That's where we are right now. We're wchg those numbers weekly and I know we did provide a follow up in last week or the week before and the numbers at that point in time were about $3 million to fund schools that didn't have is a clinic nurse and we looked at I modal if we had a health tech to staff those clinics. Every 15 het checks have to be supervised by an rn. The difference is $200,000 less. We're still looking at a $3 million requirement to fund those schools. that's great.

066Thank you. We have nurses in our schools for students that qualify for them. Otherwise there is not going to be a nurse in the school. yes, ma'am. and the nurse could come to the school if they have a student that requires them. yes, ma'am. small business advisory, I'm getting my letter together. You did a great presentation, thank you. And mary and erin, the redheaded dream team, thank you for all you've done. It's been a pleasure working with you thus far. I look forward to working with you in the future. And thank you for helping with redifferenting that your particular skill set and perspective will be very useful. So thank you. DR. Holman. thank you MADAM Chair. There was I concern regarding health being a replacement for school nurses. DR. Hepburn. it's not a replacement but

067it is an additional service that we can provide our students with hazel health can parental concern. They have to consent to anything. thank you. My last response is, certainly it's not a replacement but an added opportunity for families. Our goal with any clinic regardless of whether there is a clinic health or hazel health they can access the service after hours and on the weekend. It's that return rate so we don't lose the instructional time for our students. The last report I got from hazel health was the first two weeks of school, we had 25 visits, a 93% return rate and 25 hours of instructional time saved. We're trying to beef that up. We're trying to offer opportunities for schools and families. okay. So I know currently it's not considered as a replacement for school nurses,

068but ir guess the public's concern is if this is a beginning phase over time this is a replacement for nurses, can you resure them that this is not the case? yes. We've been using this even when our schools were staffed -- all of our schools were staffed with nurses. It won't replace nurses. It's an additional layer of support if our families choose it. thank you. And thank you MISS Berdych for your years of service. I'm happy to see my appointee serving as vice chair. Grats congrats jesse. DR. Fulton drew back to speak on class sizes. We'd like to hear from that. The recommendation that we passed yesterday was just to ask you to put the laptop vote on the agenda, not to debate it here. We've lost time but I'm thrilled with the result. DR.

069Fulton -- we're in we're in the final phases of balancing classes. As we shift teachers from low-enrolled schools to schools that need them. Letters are going home to parents and provide a meet and greet opportunity so they can meet their child's new teacher. That teacher will start where that other teacher left off so there is no interruption to the students. MAY I make a point for folks. I think if folks knew at the beginning of the year that there is a process for balancing classes and the class your kid goes into and the teacher that your children grow with MAY not be the teach you are end up with. I think there will beer in upset now when parents get the letters saying they're moving classes. I think the point we hear from the community

070and the community you'll hear is the they're not upsetting things from the get-go, I think that would help. I cannot congratulate mary berdych for all the work she's done for the school district, much more than 15 years. Erin, I'm getting to know you and I'm excited and I look forward to working with you both. thank you and I'll finish this out. also came up about courtesy meals and someone -- MISS Dominique mentioned that there was a possibility that someone was taking trays out of students we hands and throwing it away. Could you speak to that? As a board, I believe we actually said this in our discussion that we actually do not want that to happen. that's not what I heard from the speaker. I'll let the speaker clarify it. Hop fully we're not taking

071trays and so if we can clarify that. the process in the past has been to take the tray from the child and because they've already touched it, they throw it away, they can't serve it to someone else. Typically they'll give them to a courtesy meal like a cheese sand wimp. It's demormallizing to children. A 5 yeerld, at the end of the day, kids should eat. You've spent the money on the meal already. that's what I heard. and that's my question -- is it clear? yes, we've been clear. the next question I have is about the district website as was mentioned, last time we talked about it, it was supposed to be up that day, but we're hearing that maybe that's not the case or they're not functional. Can you tell us for the district advisory

072-- what specifically? the website for each of the advisories on our school board website. they're up there. so -- you go to "community" and they're all listed there. so they were listed several weeks ago, bullet problem is they're not correct. There is no consistency in the formatting, they have the wrong liaisons. It's not where it needs to be. what's the process to correct that? we'll have MISS Wilson reach out because we're still in the process of updating 81,000 pages on the website dfd it's a work in process toe tangs the website. We'll have MISS Wilson reach out if there is content on the page that is incorrect, we'll work with you to get it correct. we're training liaisons to work on that. can you tell us what other districts do because I know traditionally we

073didn't take a lot of the school funding, now we are. And should there be any time when a student is being asked to pay for a textbook for a class they're taking in our public schools? the answer to to the first question, most school districts take 20%. It's definitely type of money to build and expand those programs for middle school up to high school. which I'll go over a brief slides. We cannot afford a roll over, we need to spend all the money that is allocated for the school. If you're rolling over money, that means that you're not spending it. so it's a different approach. Just to make sure that we're stable. I'm just going to help us in the future. thank you so much, and thank you for coming. We're going to take a

074brief recess before we start our next presentation which is on [School board on short break] chair with your permission, we have a couple of videos that highlight the attendance initiative that we're doing. So if we're not going to do the presentation, if they can be allotted to show the videos. thank you. I have with me marissa, our director of student services as well as erica who is our coordinator for attendance. Thank you, DR. Fulton, I want to show the videos culminating one, our champions through the eyes of our leaders and then we'll end with a school culture video it's about 7 and a half minutes and then we can go straight to your questions and feedback. So beacon, take it away please. before you do that, is there no time in our schedule to go

075through the presentation? we're already an hour behind. okay, I'm just going to say, would I like to hear from the experts that have spent hours putting the presentation together. so we can either watch the video or watch the presentation. there is a bunch of people on the board, I do not like staff spending time on this putting this together. they said to us, the thought is that we've read it as a board and if you have questions, we're going to do with it. I'm familiar with what it says on the slides, I have not missed any meetings in my life but there is so much more that comes out of people being able to do briefings and explain things that are on chart. So just in general, I don't want to skip briefings. okay, so

076we wouldn't watch the videos and you can give us a short presentation. okay, thank you. So we're going to start and we will do some abbreviated slides. And certainly, there are presentation today, every day counts, every student, every opportunity highlights our efforts to improve student attendance and we know that this cuts across every school and every level and the community and certainly knowing that we're putting strategies in place and our goal is to ensure that our students are present and edge gameding and on a clear path to success. Give me a second, sorry, it's not moving forward. There we go, sorry. There we go. attendance is not just about following the rules, it's about ensuring students feel connected to school, their teach sxerz one another. Every day is missed day for opportunity to support. Chronic

077absenteism remains a problem. We're dedicate today building a district-wide culture or attendance is responsibility. Movement by connecting policy, practice and people with passion, we aim to shift the narrative from simply counting absences. Creating a consistent message across schools, families and communities that every day counts. Tiered supports, providing layered interventions from students from universal strategies to individualized support and interventions. Incentives and recognition, encouraging and celebrating strong attendance at the student, classroom and school levels and partnerships. Enhancing collaboration with teams and partners to address barriers. Together these efforts ensure attendance is more than compliance. It becomes a shared value and a foundation for student success across broward. as you can see this chronic absenteism is a county and state issue. Le it's 10 percent and those are excused and/or unexcused. So that idea that absenteism is just

078those that don't come to school and aren't having a care, is really something that we need to address. We can see that nationally 12.6 absent students were absent. And again that chronic absenteism, and I see eyes, and the numbers, they're real and they're concerning. Certainly really looking at that excused and unexcused. These are our numbers precovid and moving up past covid from 21-22, 23-24 examine that 33 percent is definitely a very large number. We have not recovered from our chronic absenteism, in our schools. This is not where we want to be nationally and we'll go through other slides that we shared that truly are high opening data points and so certainly something that as we've continued to look at the data and also, discuss our strategies, knowing that when we've tried to tackle excused or

079unexcused absences, that's a band-aid approach. We have to get our students in our schools so we can make the difference there. As you can see in the research that consistent attendance is the most predict or to student success. When they come to school regularly have the opportunity to master those skills, stay on track and graduate preparing for the next steps. And they feel connected and supported to their school environment wh. Schools provide that wellness resources, access to healthcare, mental health services, ment organize and safe welcoming spaces, students experience a greater sense of belongings and these support remove those barriers that otherwise MAY keep a child at home. Also that intervention piece, such as clear communication with families, timely check ins and out reach before patterns of absence gets hold. So really looking at these research

080strategies, and research driven practices to be supportive of the environment and timely interventions, show us that improving attendance is not just about the monitoring of numbers but about creating conditions where students feel present every day and empowered to succeed both in school and life. Policy drives culture, culture drives attendance. We certainly want to make sure that we know that setting those expectations and requirements is key. But culture is what sus stains them, strong policies provide the foundation for accountability, clear expectations align supports and consistent messaging but the policies alone don't exist in isolation. It's the culture and schools, shaped by principals, teachers, staff, family and peers that truly drives that behavior. When schools create environment where students feel safe, welcome and motivated attendance becomes a natural outcome. Ultimately our goal is student success, every practice

081we implement and every culture we foster, must point to our students to drive this. Means equiping them and belonging that they need to pursue and contribute meaningfully to their communities. As you can see, the student engage through, we have contributing factors that really support student success and being around attendance, student engagement, that key is really a key piece making sure that our students are engaged and connected to their learning really makes a difference. That collaboration ensures that programming, scheduling and opportunities are student-driven and responsive to their needs. And then, when students are engaged in that meaningful work, attendance improves. Targeted programming and high-quality instruction, again that cross developmental approach to deliver high-quality instruction, paired with targeted interventions. We need to make sure that we're providing advanced core work. We want them invested and on track

082so they want to continue to come to school. Extracurricular activities, the students, the athletics, the arts clubs that creates motivation beyond the classroom. The coordination between academics and activities and community partners provides access for our students and that reinforces that that matters for correction. Student wellness, that's definitely a shared responsibility something that we continue to talk about and make sure that that is at the table too, across the health, the counseling and academics we're hearing about nursing, knowing that that is part of this set, that we need to continue to monitor. Referrals connect students and families to the right supports at the same time and that trusted adults in our schools, really help us make sure that we're making those connections with our students, and that's every one, teachers, counselors, social workers, every one. That

083is shaped by our principal-staff-teacher working together. These incentive, prosocial cubs foster that sense of belonging and again that cross developmental linement and connection is really where we can move the needle. Consistent communication and out reach helping families understand that regular attendance is the key to success. Supporting schools by building trust, listening to families, and providing resources for that home school connection. And when families view attendance as a shared responsibility and prior, students are more likely to show up every day. Ultimately that wrap-around service model is something that the multi layer solution is what we have to do, looking at it through data analysis and students who need additional support and connect them with additional resources. And then services such as some of the wellness walks and talks that we've done in the past and bringing

084in with the new realignment with ese and making sure that we're meeting the needs of the students as well as the school to really bring in that full holtster-in approach. on friday, AUGUST 29th, we officially launched the attendance counts. This campaign will unify our schools under one message, provide resources for principals and teachers and engage families with a clear communication about importance of daily attendancece roughout septptemr r we're promomoting the national attendance month. This is about consistency and collective action, we're runinger attendance into a culture one that supports every student every day. We're taking attendance out of the back office and into schools and the community. Our road show and marketing efforts will make attendance personal and powerful. We're making sure that attendance stays front and center all year long. this slide highlights how we're

085moving from tracking MISS Daysed to actively managing the barriers that prevents students from showing up. Our approach is rooted in tiered interventions, meeting students and schools where they are before attendance becomes a chronic issue. This multi layer strategy ensures that attendance is not just monitored but actively supported with the goal of removing barriers and promoting student success. Tier one focuses on the universal strategies such as constrict ant messaging, recognition programs and proactive family communication. Tier 2 is for students begin to go show attendance concerns, school counselors and social workers step in provide support, why such as check-in or attendance improvement plans. Tiers 3 is reserved for students with significant attendance issues. Here administrators work together to provide intensive support and interventions. This often includes home visits, individualized interventions plans, wrap-around service sxz connection to see

086community agencies and district defendants. This layered approach allows us to individualize intervention at both the school and student level, making sure that no child is left unsupported. We need to ensure that we have a strong foundation, focused on a commitment to build a culture where students want to attend making every day count. We know that note mation matters. Schools that recognize students and staff are improving attendance results. Incentives don't have to be huge, they could be something as public recognition, school certificate to an event. We'll share examples of best practices across schools, highlight attendance champions and celebrate the progress already being made. Scaling these successes will help create positive momentum district wide. this is where we're going to show the video, it's a great video, we'll send it to you. It has six different principals

087in regards to their focus attendance. chair, I would like to see the video. we would love for to you see it, great, beacon, let's go! Thank you. we don't know what is being a non-traditional setting. What we decide today do is implement a daily check-in when it comes to attendance, once we look at the data, attendance rate and we communicate with our administrators and our teachers, we share this data and include our counselors in there, everybody is looking at the data to determine the best way to get the students to come to school. So for having good attendance, our students receive blue tooth devices such as headphones and chargers for their phones, so yeah, they have items that they can actually use. Make the phone call first. Find out why the student is not coming.

088They're going to show up, but you've got to start small. here at the shores, we pride ourselves on a positive up beat school climate and culture. In order to make sure that we can get as close as 100 percent daily attendance as possible, we have implemented in our classrooms, a monthly challenge where the classroom that has the most attendance will receive some sort of reward from the pto in addition to providing the teacher with some sort of incentive too. it really comes helping to school a lot with grades and everything, because you really get to know what is going on and you don't MISS Out on anything. And you don't MISS Out on like, extra fun stuff you do in class like projects and field trips. I've been here since kind garden and I've never

089missed a day in school and I get to know everybody, they're basically like my best friends. at the school level, we can provide whatever we sources we have for the parents to make sure they get what they need. So I would always find out why it's happening. And then you can always build a solid plan around the why. at oakland park elementary websinger do plethora of things for attendance to encourage students to be here. So if a student has no absences, no tardies, no early sign out, they receive a special certificate, a brag tag, eagle bucks, a lot of different things that we do to encourage attendance and being here. We're always looking at data, we look at attendance, chronic absences, is the student tier 1 or 2 and how does attendance play a role

090in that academic struggle and how we can connect with the students to show the data. So we bring the parents to show them, but it really starts at the relationship piece and once you make the positive relationships with the families, they will come to you if they need support with attendance or in different ways. here at manatee bay, we celebrate our students that have perfect attendance. We're debuting our brag tag card just this week, where students will be able to earn a brag tag for having a perfect attendance. There is a direct correlation between attendance and academic achievement. So when we naoet for cpst, addressing attendance is, we pull the data from focus and we're able to better support the teachers. here at sonrise, we've seen a increase in attendance, because of three things, having

091a school, where kids want to see the teacher and not stay home. Our second part our social worker who is amazing, MS. Honda, she works closely with our guidance counselor to identify students as soon as they begin missing their fourth day they work to ensure that the parents feel accountable, the students feel accountable and. And we've incentivized a perfect attendance, last year, we provided incentives for perfect attendance in the fourth quart and her this year, we're going to roll that out each quarter. at blanche ely school, every student receives a text message, this is to get them up ready for school, we try to insert ourselves into the school that our students live n which they're attached to their phone, although they can't have them at school. When I became a principal four years ago,

092one of the things that we noticed in the data was one of the most challenging days was when it relates to attendance was on friday. So I start today read the principal board which gives an opportunity to connect with students from all walks of life, to hear their perspective of what we can do to encourage students to want to come to school every day and give them something to look forward to. And that really has helped us in using that feedback and shift the culture. okay. last we created an attend work group, analysis and research and principals from various grade levels. The group laid the groundwork for this campaign and developed three main goals refine intervention strategies and increase data transparency. for school year 26, we'll be incorporating parent voices as an integral part of

093the work group. This work group will focus on reducing absenteism and improving average daily attendance across the district. In addition, to ensure data transparency, we're creating a forward facing data dashboard. This year in building the commitment that attendance counts every school day and promoting student engagement, we're kicking off this year with our first meeting on SEPTEMBER 25th. Next slide. we're excited to announce new initiative through council focused on reducing chronic absenteism. They will help us the campaign through regular attendance across broward county, currently the development of PSAs are in the works. Community engagement and activities and opportunities for podcast focused on attendance which will give youth a voice. This reflects a commitment to building a culture that leads to student success that helps every student connect, and thrive. beacon if you can show the next

094video, please. school culture is the heartbeat of the campus, it's the shared believes, values and behaviors that help students feel when they walk through the door. When they feel supported, and safe, they are not just more likely to attend but thrive. Students are more likely to show up when they feel connected to peers and adults, valued for who they are, motivated which a sense of purpose and belonging and engaged in their learning. It's the every day interactions and intentional choices that make a difference. Simple gestures like a warm welcome or recognizing effort, help foster trust and connection, inclusive environments, opportunities for every voice to be heard, and mutual respect set the tone for a campus where every one feels they matter. It means cultivating moments where every students feels recognized and celebrated and where every

095one has a place to connect and belong. Where students feel like they belong, school is a place where they learn. It becomes a place where they want to be. That is the culture that keeps them coming back. So let's ask ourselves, what are we doing today to make our school places students don't want to MISS? Consistent attendance is link today academic achievement, they show up and grow up and succeed in and out of the classroom. By nurturing a culture that students want to belong. When we build a strong school culture, we're not just improving attendance, we're changing lives. thank you, beacon. If you can go back to the deck, thank you. Before we go to questions and answers and I know it's in the appendix, I want to share and showcase the reality of where

096we are. You know, obviously looking at that district and school level data for average daily attendance, we were on a poor trend and certainly last year, we continue to be moving forward but really looking at that, because that average daily attendance tells one picture that students that are coming to school, which we want to definitely increase and overall our district went from 91 to 92 and seeing elementary has been stable and we had a jump with middle school and high school consistency. But when you compare the absenteism, we want to make sure that that absenteism is really making sure that we're encouraging and engaging and making students want to come to school so we don't want that to be the issue of them not coming to school and then getting their work online or making

097it up and having that ability is wonderful. But at the same time, times we've created another slight problem. And then just, we wanted pull out the schools that are exceeding the 94 percent goal. Which is great. The schools that we identified in the video are schools that took an effort and we wanted also highlight those individuals, those are schools that are on this page doing an amazing job and we are tapping into them for best practices but also want those schools that are, again, doing things differently and being attainable for other individuals, when you look if you at this, we do have some programs such as Mcfader, pompano beach, that have different programming models and also some demographic, you know, lens that we need to look at there. Then we go to our traditional schools

098that are below 90 percent and knowing, this is where we as a cross departmental group, really need to come in and look to make sure that we're addressing that and not just in the compliance of recording attendance, but really getting to the root of the cause and looking to see one, going back to that culture, making sure that we have a strong foundation for tier one and then continuing to address student need but really making sure that that campaign and that mon -- mantra that every day counts. We didn't want to leave our non traditional sites out, these are schools that are below the 90 percent, we've had heated and deep conversation about how we need to support those schools differently in regards differently in regards to their unique demographics. And that's why I mention

099the walks and talks, so that we're going in with our counterparts and ese to really look at that along with coordinated student health services counseling so we're looking at the totality of the school and of the students to make sure that we're addressing the needs. This is the chronic absenteism as we've shared from 18-19 up to 24-25 and as we shared on the first few slides that has not recovered from covid and the campaign has been about making excused versus unexcused but we need to stop the band-aid and address that school is where the money is and where we need to be getting our students in so they get the best quality, education and time and commitment and wrap around services. And then last, this is something we've had a decent amount of conversation, looking

100at the absenteism by subgroup data. And we see a larger discrepancy between performance so this is really eye-opening other than our asian subgroup, I'm not saying it's a problem but when you look at performance with whether it be academic, performance and other things, we see a larger variations. So this is really a concern regardless of the demographic. And then just one more time, coming soon we're going to have a dashboard, thank you for the tupt to present and shoet videos too. thank you so much, we have public comment. First we have DR. Natalie lynch-walsh. Speaker: good afternoon, DR. Nathalie lynch-wash plantation florida, since they ended with mentioning public facing attendance, I thought I'd start with public facing pacing guides. All of last year, district advisory council, of which I am the immediate past chair, talked

101about a student centered framework to address things that would, serve students which would increase attendance and we had the pacing guides, syllabus and plan, standardized online learning course sxz we talked about the grading system and amending policy, standards of service which is in the 2002 student progression plan. But anyway, I bring all of that up, because I got stuck on slide 7. And when I was just listening, I always think this is about getting at core issues, which is what, my concerns are about. And then I forget this is about fte, because it's 2025. If we're going to talk about using ai, then using con vas and online learning should be part of it. But that does not get them into the classroom and then now you have the fte, we have to argue the

102definition of attendance to include if you're engaged online. I have not taught since 2015 in a classroom but we had hybrid classes and I can assure you those discussion board, when designed can be even more engaging than what happens in the classroom. And perhaps more, because people tend to be more comfortable online than they would be in-person. But anyway, because it's a two-way street, so on slide 7, there is yes, I will agree that attendance correlates to more learning. However, if you have students being housed and masked in cafeteria, there is no instruction, they MAY not want to come to school. If you're outside and no ability to submit your assignments, that equals compounding the problem. Because now they don't want to com because they've flunked something and they're embarrassed and they don't want to

103come. And that's because they could not keep up let's say they're out one day. When teachers are forced to teach out of left field. Substitutes that cannot providing or incapable of providing another instruction. That's another problem, so these are all things that will also prevents students from coming to school. Kids are smart, they know who knows their stuff and they know who doesn't. They don't want to come there and not learn anything. So none of this, addressed any of that. [Buzzard] Thank you. thank you so much. The next speaker, cynthia dominique. I don't think she is here. Okay, we will go to board discussion and MS. Thompson. thank you, chair, thank you staff for this presentation. I really appreciate how it's been focused more on prevention and getting students back than punitive measures, however that's

104what I'm about to ask about. So, as a school social worker, I focused a lot on attendance and are we still using shins referrals? the fin referrals? uh-huh. that's an agreement na is still under review. However we're still making referrals to those providers, it's just a different process. That is our main secondary avenue to address truancy. Is making referrals to those providers that are under the sin fins umbrella. can you explain the different process? well it's not done through the sins fins referral form, but it's still pursuing referrals through those agencies with consent, trying to see if there is in home services that can be provided and address the issues that are, you know, leading to the uancy. so for r clarificicatio thth thatmeanyoyore jujust dodoing e e procesanand telling the parents that they need

105to reach out to them instead? no, we're referring them, the school researchers are. so then what's the difference? it's really just logitics? fancy, okay. And then, so the interagency agreement is that the contract, you're referring to? correct. is that on our end or their end? it's on our end. okay. And then are we still doing the tip referrals? Or what is that process looking like? yes, we're still doing b-tip for elementary and there is a slide in the appendix about b-tip that is still going to happen regularly. We had already done it last year, when the rollout start inside JANUARY and we'll continue to do that process, that is still in place and as well as our partnership with the state attorney's office. is it better in place than it was two years ago? Cause

106I remember, when I was a social worker doing the referrals, we were told yes, you need the referrals but that does not mean that anybody is going to follow-up because they were still recovering from covid and other reasons? So what is the b-tip looking like currently? so, things level changed, post could vid because two years ago, we were no longer having letters generated by the district office by it. So two years ago, we had to do a lot of things manually, but we still had b-tip meetings and we still had them last year. So yes, that's continuing. We're hoping that we've gotten ahead of it this year, the rollout started at the beginning of the school year, rather than last year when we were delayed with the rollout in focus. and I was not saying

107that I thought we were lacking, it was more the follow through the court system. How has that process changed? Or has it changed? no, there is been no change to that, that's continued and we had various meetings with the state attorney's office last year. They're very passionate about this. So that's something that they're monitoring and we have data that speaks to that in terms of the work that they're doing for their cases, for example what we filed every year. well I'm glad to hear that it's getting better, even though you say it was fine. I'm glad it's getting bert. And then as far as high school interventions, we can go after the parents and then after, high school there is really no tune tiff measure and I think a lot of teachers or social workers

108will reach out and say, well there is nothing that we can do to force them to go to school and I know you talked about belonging but specifically in high school, what are we doing once we notice the students not showing up? interventions at the secondary level are a challenge, that's without a doubt. But, you know, since those referrals to those providers are definitely key. But the key is all the intervention that's we're doing prior to that. And yes, come pulsery school age are maxed out, so that becomes a khal xeng. Ing the important thing that we want to emphasis is intervention and tackling thing at the beginning of the school year, is what is important. So that we can address whatever the barriers are. There is so many facets to secondary and why some

109students stop coming. Some are certain classes, that's a school to school base, you know, it's really depends on what is happening with the students and I'm not going to say that the challenges are not there besinger and we hear it from principals all the time. It is a struggle we just have to find ways to do everything that we just spoke about in our slides will creating that culture of being there is very important. And do our best to intervene early on. and what would you like to see the board do? How can we support your department in this effort? I think one, allowing us to present and the questions that you ask and you're right, the high school it's a challenge. As I like to say, the older we get, less free will. Consequences

110is work withing the state and dmv. I got turned off. We don't want to get to that. And our schools is really, us going in as a division to look at the totality of the students and of the situation and of the school so that we can be as hands-on as possible and be supportive to schools and their needs. thank you. thank you, MS. Alhadeff. thank you so much, I'm very excited that you brought this forward. I think there is a lot that can be discussed and improved. I appreciate the presentation and the video, but I think there is more that is absolutely needed. But my first page on page 28, you said that 92.18 percent, was the average daily attendance. So how many students were not in school? So this is bayeds on data

111from as of SEPTEMBER 25th, 2025. 15,000? no that was just the sample of forward facing dashboard, sorry. I apologize, we should have put sample, I apologize. that's not a real data. thanz a real data point, that was just coming soon. okay, so do we know how many students on average started that have been absent? we can, we can look that up on focus. Focus has the daily, we look at the daily attendance rate and monitor that. okay. My next is, is there any connection between being if you're say on the sports team, or in the band, or any other program in schools, is there any connection with having to be in school that day to be able to participate in your game or activity? I'm going to let DR. Washington come up to that. good

112afternoon. Le good afternoon, jodie washington director of school culture and student support. That is part of the student conduct and if you give me a minute, I'll look up exactly what it says. they have to be in school for half of the day, in order to participate on that event. this things are not being enforced. They MAY be in the student conduct but they are not. That's low hanging fruit, right. If you're not school, guess what, you don't get to play in your soccer game. Or you koent get to MARCH -- don't get to MARCH in the band. The big thing I have here is consequences, I know they rolled out the 10-10 rule in msd and west gleeds, I was really hoping to see some of that data in here. So you know, DR.

113Hepburn as we move forward, if you could [Laughter], fulton-hepburn. If we have things that are working and I understand the reward, might be different at different schools, but at the end of the day, you know, if you're telling a child like, if you are not in attendance for school or MISS X-amount of days, you're not going to be going to homecoming. It's difficult as a parent to get your child to go to school. But if there is that other piece happening, I think it's really important that we, that there is those consequences to not being in school. There is way that's we can go about this and I think we're really missing that, that low hanging fruit. You know, the another part is, and I've had it happen to me where my child even sent

114me pictures, there is nothing going on in the classroom, nothing is being taught. kids are sleeping, kids are on their phone, kids are not even there. So it's very difficult as a parent to incentivize your child when they go to school there is nothing happening. We need to do better. Especially on those half days, the days before a holiday, you know these can't be free open days. Education needs to be happening every single day. And you know, I get the incentives, make iting fun but I also think there needs to be consequences. And the other part is, when you go on to report an absence, so my question is, is the, excused absences compared to the unexcused, but are the excused ab sinces counted toward that chronic absentee? yes, both are. so I think there

115needs to be an education piece back to parents because I think there is a perception well if I go online, and fill out the form, that's excused. So it's not going to count towards my chronic absenteism, but you're saying it does count toward it? yeah, so it counts towards the absenteism, as a definition, but as a parent, it comes up as I'm excused so that's why I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, us promoting, is excused is great but we really want them in school, that's where we want them. So we can have their hands-on them and educating them and not losing instructional time so we can really make the difference for them. So that was some of our conversation as well as how do we change that, campaign and that communication internally, ex

116ternly as a whole so we push that lens. but we have to get that, even if it's excused, it still counts of that chronic absenteism of 18. correct. and then I also believe that when you report an absence, you should have to put in your parent password. My child can just fill out the form, nobody will know the difference. He's out of here now, so he's not doing that. he's definitely not going to class. he's going to class, number one rule. But when you go and pay for a t-shirt or whatever, have you to put in your password. There is should be that to report an absence. I think it's beautiful to have perfect attendance, I think that's beautiful. But we should have a lower threshold for regarding students, because if 18 is the number,

117I don't know maybe it's, less than 10. If it's less than 10, you're getting this award. because if a child is sick, we don't want them to come to school. We don't want them to be a pleasure. But we do have a students that make a concerted effort to say that I'm improving mia tend ans and when doing so, they have knowledge for that. and we have wonderful practices and based on the group that she discussed, we have amazing things that they're doing at the school level that we're able to scale and up have other schools adopt those things because it's working for them. So great idea. and then my next comment, are any of these strategies that we're speak of today, different from the last three years? Because the last three years, really nothing

118that's changed, the absentee rate that's not gotten better. Are we redoing the same thing we've always done? so it's a combination of all of them, and hebs the reason for the group and now community partners to go and be on the bandwagon on that, it's really a village job, we need parents and community partners, we need help when it comes to recognizing our students. So the work group has a different sample of different people that come to the table with some amazing ideas that we're supporting the school with to increase daily average attendance. I wrote that community partners, I think that's amazing. Like I know when the stanley cup went to msd, obviously every one wanted to be in school that day, it was a big day. And maybe we can work with our community

119partners with giving out soccer tickets or baseball tickets, because these are great incentives. But again, I think we have to, we have to do something different but we also have to make sure that there is, there is consequences, right, we can't, we can't say that it's in the student code of conduct but not actually execute those consequences. So whatever, whatever that looks like, that actually needs to happen. Whether it's those phone calls home or missing the soccer game, because it's not happening. And so I think there is been a level of, let it go, you know, just kind of ignoring it. And it needs to stop and I think, I think that if we, have a stronger focus, give more of the incentives, I mean these seem like great strategies, I hope they improve and

120I think we need to also continue the conversation. Thank you. thank you. thank you, I'm going to, the student advisors both want to speak. So I'll let you guys go and come back. thank you MADAM Chair. Yes, it's ironic that we're missing school. [Laughter] chronic absentee. Right here. yes, I did venture into my focus and realize I'm chronickly absent. uh-oh. so I love this slide about school culture, and about student xaoeshs. Because that's what drives this data. This data is not about, well in some regards, some students that are habitually absent that are not attending school. But students that don't attend because they don't feel the connection with their school, I'm grateful that was included in the presentation and discussion. I love the idea of student driven scheduling and academic planning, that's something we've been

121talking a lot about. I'll be honest, at the box scheduling model at high school students, students will have one day when it's math, science and language arts and then the other day, it's their day with elective and horticulture and cull -- culinary. What day are they going to come to school? They're going to come on the day they feel involved. The feedback is students not wanting to come to school because they don't know their purpose beyond taking exams and learning the curriculum. But to the other point that MS. Holingsworth and her colleagues were discussing, we need to do a better job at sharing the students second level, when it comes to technical schools. Because you know, all the time that we hear about our speak out sessions, students say, I wish I could prepared for

122this and that. And I'm like no, you can't. You can go to Mcmadden, you can have a flex schedule or you can work, you can get your education. And they become far more engaged and have far better attendance. So I just wanted to recognize that our student groups, our student, advisors beyond just him and I would love to play a role in this work and sharing the feedback that we hear all the time. Because that culture and that experience is what drives that decision and just, a thank you to all the people in the board room but also in our schools, that do such an amazing job in creating those relationships for our students. We know that it is working because of the things that they have done and I would be remiss if I

123didn't recognize that. landyn is wanting me want to check my focus next. We can have a competition. I really want to point out, how students are now being able to be recognized for their attendance. But I don't believe a certificate and a bag of chips is going to do it. A lot of times that's what a school would do, a bag of chip and box of juice and conversation and go back to class. That's not going to work. You're going to big need a big solution to solve a big problem. I think we need to look at way to see hit it at different angles. And our office is here to support that to build a brain and have a mind set to see how we can implement it. And again, we're talking about teachers

124and having teachers bell to bell schedule but who is making she's curriculums? Who is making the slides? It comes a lot with runing the classroom, we want tlem to police cell phone, and then we want them to police IDs, and police, it's so much when it's teaching is actually being engaged a priority? I've spoken to many teachers, we're at a time when teaching is the last priority, we're talking about cell phones, and id, teachers are not saying, hey, I love you anymore. I think this is something that it's not just about attendance, it's about what we come to and what we go to every single day. Thank you. thank you so much for that perspective. DR. Zeman? thanks, chair. DR. Fulton, do you know where broward county ranks in 67 districts in florida in terms

125of attendance? I don't know today but I can give you a follow-up. no need, the florida school association put out the list and we're last. We're the worse attending school in florida. Not in the deck. Slide 6 is on the deck though, if we can show that beek on. If -- becon. Our customers are not showing up. Our teach residenter having too many hours, periods where they don't teach. Our students have a lot of options. But this is a tief-alarm fire and I don't see the reaction by this team. When you look at the active verb nz this deck, it's about marketing materials and bag of chips to clear, you chronic absenteer, you. We're not attacking this in the right way. There is no crisis action team. Anyone know who rolin fryer is? Anybody know

126who rolin fryer at hare voder? Harvard. Rolin has done four studies and what he found was for $500 a year, you can cut chronic attendance to virtually zero. Think get ten bucks s wewe.. But thererisis thingslikethat, thatwe have to look more here. We should be thinking about student engagement. We know what makes people engage when they go to school. Because the westbound looks at this data and looks at the reaction and goes wow, not a lot. It's three years in a year for this. It drives the number down, which drives our budget down, and it's not an acceptable number. I can't tell my neighbors that it's okay for one-third of our students to MISS At least 18 days. And that we're, just kind of going to go print some more materials about it. Put it

127on our website. We just need to get some changes if we want to get changes on the output. On slide 11. Out of every problem. But you can think about student engagement. You can think about why people are there and you can make sure that. Why on earth is there a period with no instruction going on? With all the technology we have in schools, you cannot find something to show your kids every period of every day? Isn't that why we're here? I've never been a teacher, but I would be satisfy that I only had 180 days to teach these kids and I wouldn't skip a day. Do we have a common metric for absenteeism in florida? staff? a common metric meaning how we define it? yes, is it define in every district the same? ye,

128the chronic absenteeism is the same throughout the state. soy heard last year, was well-known as a state that allowed every district to come up with their own rules on whether they're absent or not, some if you're five minutes late, you're absent. Does florida has the same definition of you're in school or not in school. yeah, those procedures can be different from county to county. so maybe we should let the state propose that. It would be great to have comparable data and I don't think we really have that. I just see this as a big issue. I was hoping today we would get a kind of big reaction with a bunch of action verbs it sounded like we were going to do something. But the deck MAY not be including all of that stuff going on.

129But I think that it principal that's talked on the video today, were compelling in the sense of things that they were doing. But it sounds like they're just doing that because they're good leaders and going into their tool deck. How is the district doing? How do we want to make sure that our students want to to go to school so they're not like our stinking student advisors that find every excuse to go to board meeting. How can we expect kids to go to geometry where there is a sub that does nothing or there is the geometry teacher and they're taking a day off. I don't know how we're going to sell broward public schools if we don't fill out 180 days from first bell to last bell with things that are engaging for our students.

130And if we do that, this problem goes away. I don't understand, I'm not an expert so I don't understand some of the things on your slides but students go to school unless they're sick. But when you see one-third of our students are chronickly absent, I would love to see what a fire and arm fire looks like if we pulled these assets together. State attorney assets. You know pick a handful of elementary schools and give them $500 a year of enrollment of allowance, you know and see if that puts a huge dents. It worked in the four large districts he did it. All right, thank you. thank you, MS. Rupert. There is a wonderful program that I would love, she is in the back doing stuff. Come to talk about it, but it's at,; they're at

131our school and they work with the community and they really have done a great service for reaching into each kid and finding what their why is, why should I show up. Why do I want to learn about. How is it going to help me? And am I going to learn about it today. And I think the today part is extremely important. They need to show up. And you actually need to excite them and connect that to job placement, connect that to showing them different careers, showing them, much more than what we've done now. And I cannot, remember the name of the gentleman who was a pastor and he worked with our kids from cypress run and the district has been amazing because there were a little bumps in the way to help those kids get

132some training at atc, they had different requirements so we had to be flexible and the teacher was able to zoom in and then the other days they worked it out, I would love to hear how that program is going, just so, as somebody who represents a lot of non traditional schools in district 7, and those kids. And we looked at the enrollment and it's down but we can grab each child and make sure that we you know, spark their imagination and spark the fact that I can be successful, this is what I kind of like. Can I make a career with that? You know, is there somebody to help me? Do we have it here in broward schools? Those were the process and thoughts that I looked at and wrote down. I think canada, so

133it was, it was nice to have that recognition from our student advisors. That besides getting the issues, you need to make that connection and you definitely need to excite them and it's all kids, it's kids at cypress run, bright horizons it's at our all non traditional schools. What each students, their life and their ambitions and their capabilities, we have to make sure that they and their parents and the community know that every journal, every journey is separate for each person, but success looks differently for every one and we have to really, when we say, we're talking about all children every day, we want them all to succeed, they all should be succeeding and I think that connection will help with our absenteeism as well. So thank you. thank you, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair.

134So, DR. Zeman, I do appreciate the information. Didn't know we were dead last, that's really disappointing to hear. Out of 67 states. But also equally when you look at the, slide on page 5, we're at about 33 percent. The state on a state average is about the same roughly 30 percent. And so, I guess the question, and a return to prepandemic levels as far as absentee. And some states that are doing very well that are returned closest to their prepandemic years. So based on that, have we looked at, the states that have rebounded and returned closely to their prepandemic levels as far as chronic absenteeism and research what they're doing differently that we can adopt here because we're not doing a good job rebounding. Prepandemic, it appears about 19 percent is roughly in that range.

135Between 15, 18, 19 percent and now we're 33 percent, we've tried several measures we have not rebounded. I think one of the things that we could do or we can try, DR. Fulton is to look at the states, because nationally, they're doing fairly well. The state of florida is not doing well. So I think it would be beneficial for us to look at several states, that have returned closest to their prepandemic years and do in, thorough research on what they've done what inter vent I have measures they've taken and we start to adopt those here. I think that would help to get us to where we want to be which would be the prepandemic years. DR. Fulton. so I agree, DR. Holness. And actually, we've been doing a lot of partnering with other districts and

136also outside of the state of florida which is some of the ideas that you see here, we've exchanged some ideas both ways where some of the practices that we're doing here, were practices that other districts and outside of florida were adopting and using and vice versa. And again, this is not a new age problem with attendance, and attendance is one of those things that we have yet to hook and get it right online but it's something that we cannot give up. And it's more than just getting them to school. It's what we're doing when they're at school, keeping them engaging and making them to come and we tell teachers all the time, we cannot teach an empty seat, we need kids in school and we need them to be engaged. When they're connected, they want

137to come because they have connections with teachers. We sometimes have to tell them, stay home. We MAY nikt problem this year and different groups next year, oh we have different societal issues, next year, so you're always have a hitting target because it's really saving about our kids and making sure that they're connected when it's in our system. but the fact remain before covid we were at about 19 percent. So there has to be, some correlation with covid that would result in the almost doubling. I'm wondering how much we're engaging the parents as well so. When you look at states like new jersey, idaho, alabama, they're in the 14-15 percent range, post pandemic but we're still at 33 percent. New jersey they have and so has alabama and they're within 15 percent but we're hovering way

138above that. So I do understand, that yes, we're doing some inter vent I have measures but the fact of the matter is, we didn't have this kind of problem before covid, we have it after covid. So since other states have rebounded after covid, a thorough look at what they're doing is important, so we can actually get back to where they were. So I'm just hoping that staff will at least, pay more attention to that, because I think that's probably where many of the answers lie as far as. correct and also one of the key things that MAY seem simple is being consistent to your policy, right. So we heard about, athletes, if they're not suppose to play, they MISS A day and we allow them to play if we're not consistent, it does not incur

139absenteeism. So we need to continue to work with principals and making sure that we're consistent across the board and consistent habits changes behaviors as well. thank you, did you have anything else. before that, if you already gone, if you're not asking to speak again, if you can put your sign down so I don't get confused. thanks, thank you, for the presentation. Thank you for the comments from my colleagues, I've I find this to be very enlightening, I think one take away is policy enforcement, in a lot of across the board, you know, we've been discussing various items and we have it in policy but if it's not being enforced, it does not mean anything so that goes to the culture part. Where if it's expected that we're going to enforce our policy, I think we're

140going to see a significant shift. I was personally very excited to read slide number 23, the schools that were exceeding the goal. One school stood out and that is Mcnickel middle which I had the privilege of visiting on friday. And I have to say, if anybody needs a model that the principals is working very hard to change the culture of that school and you can tell. We walked through the school, all the students were saying hello, making eye contact, they were very engaged, obviously very happy to be there and so, I just think that's a great model for you know, moving forward, the programs that she is putting into, she has a new program that she is using, the leader in me, and you can tell the entire school reflect the effort, soy appreciated. The

141other school I had the privilege that I visited on friday, where our own student advisor had put together a program to address gun violence. And so that was an amazing too, the students were engaged at lunch. You can tell that they were just enjoying being out there. They were all working together on various activities and so, doing things like that, changing the culture, making people want to be there, having friends and having things that you're looking forward to in the school day, I think is really going to make a huge impact. So I think, you know, I cannot say enough for the work that that landyn and jae' cer is doing. Engaging the students and engaging the community to figure out what it is that will make the students, the school culture better. It's just

142an valuable contribution and I commend you for your work, so keep it up, thank you. MS. Leonardi? she just stepped away, chair. okay, I'll go. Maybe she'll come. And then, we'll go back. I just want to, echo what the student advisor said. And what my colleague said about marketing materials and things like that. And as I was listening to the presentation, I thank you to the presentation and videos, they were very informative. I kept thinking back what we were hearing from the principals and the videos and my experience in the classroom and then what our student advisor said. If the child does not feel safe both physically and emotionally in a school. If they don't feel engaged by the curriculum, if they don't feel a sense of purpose like what our student advisors talked about

143and they don't feel a sense of community, they're not going to come to school and on the other hand, when I was in the classroom, I noticed that my students were in band, or my students who were in an athletic team or my students that were in performing arts, they were engaged by those classes and those extra curriculars and they were in school result of that. I so appreciate the efforts to create marketing materials but I really think, like the same issue with our student enrollment, I come back to, it's a person to person connection in a sense of community that students have to feel. And again, when I was in the classroom and a stud ept was absent, I made an effort that to call the parent and I said where was so and

144so and one they were surprised, and two they were in school the next day because somebody noticed that they were not in school. So in terms of incentives and I think it was principal garcia that oakland elementary, who said this in the video, it's about the relationships. So I would really like to think about creatively how we can create person to person connections for our students and families to ensure that they're in school. But also I think we need to think ho listically about our curriculum, and tested and testing and every day they're in school and you again, it comes back for me as well, the mental health crisis facing our youth, they have to feel safe and affirm to be safe in school. And a lot is the absence of community, both in our

145schools and in our larger society but I think if we can think creatively and try to find solutions around creating those activities, and purpose and meeting and different opportunities and access points for our students, that would be, I think a really wonderful place to start. So I don't know have any specific solutions for you, I'm sure they're out there. But I really hope that we can look atthis ina broader nse, thank you. tuz d d I have a couple of questions, I'll try to be quick. How is attendance taking in attendance? So it's obvious in elementary either you're there or not there. But when there is different classes, is it a certain period that you decide that a sud student is there? How does that happen to report attendance for our students? at the secondary

146level, if a student attends one class, they're marked present. okay. teach eacher still has to take attendance. so I know that second was still a home room, it was all the students that were in second period. Do we continue to do that now? How do we, present our attendance based on in secondary? Because there is eight classds or seven? correct. So we have to take that and you're right that's why when we see that daily average attendance, when you're present then you're there. And we were having that conversation, I know I've heard several of the board memebers mention that consistency and enforcement of policy. and board of conduct so where do we marry the two. Where the requirement of how we keep attendance but then how do we have the process and procedure so we're

147doing the same work in the same fashion because we donough we have to take it period by period but then that one period, the one period ads to the daily attendance, but when we have tardy and then the chronic absenteeism, we need to be aligned and something that we're going to be doing with the policy as it comes forward as well as code of conduct so we have that and then communicate and educate and put that in one package because there is been some disjointedness. and I do believe I had a colleague that asked the question about a couple of them, about what the state does. And I remember at fsba last year, this was a whole session. And it is going to be their state priority because the state should really dictate like if

148it's going fob advertised and given as a state data, it really needs to be collected in a consistent-kind of way. And also to that point, I would like to ask DR. Hepburn or fulton to follow-up with us on where we sit. If I remember from that workshop, there were other counties that had 50 percent, that had 40-something percent. I just like us to be able to see for sure based on the data from the department of education in florida where we do sit, although I agree, we're not at the top, I do not think that we sit at the bottom and I would like some clarification on that so if you'll get back to us on that. I also agree with my colleagues that, and the students and we've said this before, if you don't

149have a reason to come to school, then, you're coming to school. And we do a lot of testing in our district. And I just wonder if we look at seeing, if students are absent on testing days and those students that don't normally test well, because it might be easier to fail because you didn't show up than show up and fail. I don't know if we've taken into account, that because there is so much o test anding they get anxiety about it, if they're going to fail anyway, it's easier to say, well I didn't come so that's why, I didn't pass that fsa as oppose today showing up and not doing it. So I don't know if we looked at that as and if that's the case, how do we help those students to overcome that

150piece? Also, you know, I don't know how we have teachers, how do we tell teachers be more engaging. But also, calling them and quick story as sarah mentioned, I had a student that I noticed was a good student and all of a sudden, she stopped showing up. And I called home and it turned out, she got pregnant and didn't know what her options were and didn't want to go. And I mentioned to the grandmother that she was living with, I said she was able to go to a school that took pregnant mothers and needless to say, she graduated with honors. [Applause] Whether we have to do it by policy or procedure, the times that a student has been absent. And I know we put a lot on the teachers, I did it for 30 years.

151But teachers is the first line of defense, so either the teachers notifying somebody, my student has been absent for four days or whatever, is decided, then there is something that goes into place that says, either the teacher needs to make contact with the parent or somebody at the school level because I don't want to put more on the teacher's plate. But again if students aren't there, the teachers don't have an opportunity to teach them. We have to look outside of the box to see if we can get our students to understand, and their parents, at elementary school, it's not their fault. The parents bringing them to school or they're not. But when you get to the middle or high school, there is some autonomy, whether they're coming or not, because a parent drops them off,

152does not mean they're making their way to the fropt doors. But we have to look at things differently and be able to have things like the stanley cup or if there is a guest speaker that is coming on every friday or something in different places, on those days that we know students are choosing not to come, on early release days. What is the expectations? Because you'll see, we see it on facebook all the time, you don't have to go, nothing is happening. But things should be happening just in a shorter period of time. I always use them, I squeezed every minute, I was a science teacher. But anyway, I think, I have not said anything different than every one else. Thank you so much for what you, what you've presented to us but I hope

153that you'll come back now with some of this to tell us what are the things that we are going to actually be implementing as we move forward. So MS. Alhadeff. thank you, so I would like DR. Hepburn to provide to the board attendance by district, by elementary, by middle school, by high school for each school. So we can look at that. I see this as an operation al mat per. So we as a board, we just evaluated the superintendent, I would like to add this as a metric on the superintendent's evaluation. Because at the end of the day, that is what is going to hold him accountable and hold everybody else accountable to lower this. If this board does not take aggressive action to hold the superintendent accountable, these numbers are not going to change.

154And I know we're an a, and I want to keep being an a but at the end of the day, we need to educate our students but we need them in school. Thank you. thank you. I'm not sure who to ask but I don't think we can just make a change to his evaluation sitting here. So how would that, what MS. Alhadeff, how would we have go about having that discussion in a appropriate place? through the deputy. DR. Lozano can probably jump in on this, but I'm sure the superintendent will be amenable to this. We'll come up to see if there is an agreement on both ends. on that point, is the superintendent, I'm sorry DR. Zeman, you're next. Is the superintendent's evaluation going to come to us for discussion? It seems like that would

155be the right time to have that discussion? that the would be. it's not scheduled. that would be dependent on the school board per his contract, it's only brought to discussion if the board requests. that would be an b item? thank you. DR. Zeman. I appreciate MS. Alhadeff's point. I would like to discuss, and it is his responsibility, it's not a whole lot that we can do about it. I'm curious, DR. Fulton, what is our standard for attendance? every student at school every day. unless they're ill. Interestingly, enough, this month is attendance why we address the item you need to come to school. It does not end when SEPTEMBER ends. We need to continue at the school level. But the piece that we continue hearing, I was a teacher, if you don't have the personal connections,

156you're not going to get through to kids. A personal connection like I missed today, is everything okay. And sometimes it opens the window that had you not asked, you would have not known. And when I know that I can help you. So continuing to foster connection wz kids, I think that just is the most, it seems like it's simple, I don't want to, say to our teachers across the district say that it's simple, but it's important that we connect to the children. Because when we have a sense of connection, most of us are parents, I try to get my daughter to open up to me, sometimes I ask a question and I'm okay, but appear, and she'll be more honest. So having connections with our students is important. So to answer to your question, what

157is our standard? Our standard is, attendance counts all day, every day. and my sense and this is my 9th year in broward public school as a parent, that we MAY not be communicating that standard clearly. It MAY be in some schools, it's okay not to come to school sometimes. I don't know that, but I think it's worth while. I also think it's worth while to MS. Alhadeff's point, if it's inappropriate for teacher to teach a class, why do we do it? To not have anything to teach in class, why do we do it. It's going to be difficult to maintain the a-grade. You can you really have to perform better just to maintain the same grade. I think attendance is a big deal and I think, to MS. Alhadeff's point, there are some rational students

158that say, I would rather go to the beach and that's a rational decision, but I want to know why we're not teaching physics every day. There is not enough days to get in what we want to get in. And I understand how you can go a whole period without trying to do that the students are there for. Am I barking at the wrong tree, should they be doing that. bell to bell teaching. okay, and we'll finish up briefly with MS. Alhadeff. I'll bring a b item. if I could, we can do that at a workshop. It's not a formal item, if the board requests it, it comes. but since she wants to add something, we have to vote on that. okay. so it makes sense to bring it when we're going to vote on something.

159Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation and the rich discussion. We are going to recess this board workshop in order to go to the special school board meeting which I think will take a minute to flip over or? Are we ready to go? Okay. We'll take a short recess. We're taking a recess to go to the special school board