001testing one two three. Chair welcome to today's regular school board meeting. We're happy to have you chain us and thankful to your time and dedication to our district. This regular meeting of broward county school board. Our focus to is create a safe environment for all. While in the board room refrain from obstructing the doors. All occupants must occupy a seat with exception of the media. Once filled, you'll be directed to overflow area. Upon activation of the fire alarm, continue to exit the building until they have deemed the building safe to return. Thank you for your cooperation. Board member leonardi will now introduce her school to lead us in the "pledge of allegiance" of the flag. MS. Leonardi. good morning, please welcome jotc in their colors and presentation to the flag. on guard, attention, forward, hut,
002left, left, left, right, right, right, left, left, right, guard, hold. Left turn, hut. I pledge allegiance toll flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, under GOD indivisible with liberty and justice for r l. hut, left, left, left, right, right, right, left, left, right, left, left, left, left, right, right, right, left. Chair: thank you so much, you can take a seat. Board member bulman has requested a moment of silence. thank you, chair. is would like to have a moment of silence for a student from south broward anabel souza. Anabel was a 9th grade he shall at south broward high school. She had a passion for music and art and spending time with her friends and family. She was also a de voted animal lover. Her absence will be
003deeply felt by every one in school and within the bulldog community. Chair: thank you. The superintendent released a revised agenda and published it on the school board website. Good cause exist for such changes and accepts the revised agenda. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to close the agenda. so moved. second. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson all in favor of the closing the agenda say aye. Aye. All opposeds say no. MAY the chair have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of JULY 25, 2025, JULY 29, 2025 first hearing budget. AUGUST 19, 2025, ex tullesings, AUGUST 25, 2025, regular school board meeting. so moved. second. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Is there any discussion? All in favor say aye. aye. those opposed say
004no. The minutes are approved. As we prepare to begin our regularly school board meeting, we are reminded that our vision is 100 proficiency for all our students. We will continue educating all stud toents reach their highest potential. Our theme this year is believe, empower achieve, one broward. The chief of staff and communications officer polled the board of any agenda items that they would like to address. The following consent items have been identified for discussion. H1, h2, h3, a-1, b1, b2 with a memo to vote down. C2, j5, o1, o-2, and o3. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the consent items that have not been pulled for discussion which include a-2, c1, c3, f1, j1, j2, j3, j4 and l.1. so moved. moved by MS. Leonardi, second bid
005MR. Zeman. Is there any discussion? yes, for c1, liset machata. What is that? C1? Chair: no one is coming up, so thank you. All in favor of approving the consent agenda that have not been pulled for discussion, say aye. those opposed say no. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second on h1. so moved. moved by MS. Leonardi. Second by DR. Zeman. Are there any speakers on h11. Is there any board discussion? There is. I have to find my paper. MS. Rupert? thank you, MADAM Chair. Yes, I just had a quick question. may we please have the separation of employment items reflect what particular reason like we used to do? Which was going going back to school, these are examples, moving, pay, it makes it easier to see patterns for us
006as board memebers. So I would request that we go back to that particular process that we would do and I wait to hear from my colleagues because I, I prefer to get them so we can see if we have to alter anything moving forward with our strategic plan. Chair: anybody have any? h1. Chair: I know but for which one. for why they're resigning, remember we used to get res I ignation and they would say -- sorry, yes. DR. Zeman. thank you so much, chair. I find that very useful, maybe even more useful though, would be to get simple charts about trends and those things. What were the same reasons for leaving last year, maybe two years back. I know that the folks running the people system have that data already so it's not a heavy
007lift to put it out there. But I think the community would like to know that, like is there a spike, are people choosing to leave after having children because we don't have good systems. I'm not asking for 20 years but a band of four or five of the big reasons and just seeing them go back a couple of years. That would really serve the community and make them aware of kind of some of the critical issues that our people face and they choose to leave. Chair: thank you. Any other board discussion? I agree. So superintendent? Are you good with that? sorry, DR. Lozano? we absolutely will look into that request and take care of that. When you're listing individual employees information, collective bargaining MAY talk to us but we see the value in your ask
008and we'll move forward with that request. thank you, it's not something that we have not done before. So there should not be a bargaining issue but I understand and thank you to the board to reinstate what we used to do. So thank you. Chair: thank you, and I would say, it's like a compromise, if we don't know for each individual. I don't think we need to know it for each individual person like DR. Zeman requested just a chart in general, I think that's what MS. Rupert is asking for, right? You don't need to, you don't need to know johnny left because his mom is ill, you just need to know someone left. yes, I agree but there are certain categories that people can do. So the categories, I mean I don't want to know their
009personal business but we like to know why they're resigning and it could be as simple as moving away, can't afford to live here in south florida. Chair: so a chart, we have a little chart that says how many people left per month or per year. So we have another chart that the reasons why people leave and how many are going. okay, so not what we use today have before, this will be different. yes, because we had next to the name and the concern, maybe there was why we don't have it anymore, is people were getting into privacy. I never heard. But thank you. Chair: MS. Alhadeff? yes, I would like to confirm the reason why we are not doing it anymore. Chair: DR. Hepburn. I'm not aware of when that practice ended, I know DR.
010Lozano if you're aware, that was before my time. we can do a follow-up, I'll look for MR. Azzarito. Chair: okay, all in favor of approving h1 say aye. all those opposed say no. the chair would like to take a moment to recognize new appointments. We like to congratulate, we value and your family. If we can please give the appointees a round of applause. [Applause] Okay, DR. Hepburn, can you please share a few remarks and introduce any new leaders. yes, thank you MADAM Chair, congratulations to those who just got promoted. And for those new to the B.C. Ps family, welcome we're definitely excited to have you on the team and our team will be out there supporting you to make sure you're successful because at the end of the day, it's all about our students. Thank
011you, MADAM Chair. Chair: thank you so much. At this time, we will now recess this regular school board meeting for a board photo with new staff appointments. Chair: thank you and welcome back to the regular school board meeting. Before I move on to discussion do any of my colleagues have remarks on items not pulled for discussion. I have one, would I like to take a point of privilege, we have a teacher that has been a teacher for a long time, that is retiring, lisa cook, and I just wanted congratulate her along with the other 32 instructional retiree. We have one admin retiree and one non instructional. So I just wanted congratulate all of them and wanted wish them luck in the future endeavor. chair, just a quick comment. We didn't pull a-1, but I would
012have pointed that the category does not include ai, and that is going to be an oversight. Ai is real. a-1 is pulled. I'll save my comments after my rupert. I'll add you to the list. thank you so much. MS. Rupert. thank you, l.1, I just wanted share brief comments about that. Consortium, I've had the privilege of being chair of that. Broward has had great leadership, it's great to be in a group of like-minded people where we're voting how well we help our students in the entire state. I appreciate that it went through and looking forward to work withing them some more and introducing you all to them as well. Thank you. Chair: thank you so much. Next can I have a motion and a second on h2. so moved. second. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded
013by MR. Rupert. Board discussion. MR. Cervera. thank you, chair and good morning. In regards to, the crept corrective action sheet that was put together specifically in page 204, there is a gentleman, michael thompson who worked for pioneer middle school who is a campus monitor. MR. Thompson has had three prior incidents, one a year for quote inappropriate behavior with a conduct with a student. One of which includes inappropriate contact towards a student. He's now facing a three-day suspension, the rational given is quote related to on going attendance and behavioral concerns. I would like to know what the behavioral concerns are that are warranting this three-day suspension at this point. DR. Hepburn. DR. Lozano. MR. Azzarito. good morning, david azzarito, executive director professional practices. So yes, with the attendance concerns, are you no-behavior, with behavior there was
014a tik tok with one of our wearing our district uniform shirt that he was dancing around on. He was also, back in JANUARY, grabbing the student's neck and this is how we play around and the behavior was normal interaction, it was a version of horse play. He was reprimanded before for that same action. So again he had a written reprimand so the next level up would be a three-day suspension. let me make sure I understand this correctly. This gentleman with three prizer all having to do with either inappropriate behavior towards a student or inappropriate contact with a student has now engaged as horseplay where he grabbed a student by the neck. So this would be what? The fourth time that there is inappropriate contact or touching with a student? Chair: DR. Hepburn? MR. Azzarito? so
015according to this, JANUARY 2024, that was the inappropriate contact. It does not talk about contact with the student. That could have been a conversation, that could have been non contact. And then in DECEMBER of 24, in subordination, so based on this, this should be the second time with contact with a student. okay so we have inappropriate behavior, inappropriate contact, in the past, correct? correct. then this new incident involves a tik tok video and him grabbing somebody by the neck earlier in the year. correct. and that warrants a three-day suspension? at this time, yes. MADAM Chair, I think this is entirely too lenient. I feel like we go through these forms at every meet anding there is always one individual who has done something that I find to be agrecious towards our students and the punishment
016that is recommended is way too lenient. MADAM Chair, remind me, do I have the ability, I know there is a cba that is involved in this, do I have the ability to make a motion to reject this motion and request for a longer suspension and/or longer termination? Chair: you do, but DR. Help hepburn, since there is a hoby, is there a matrix. no, that's for transportation. I'll differ to MR. Adams. thank you, I'm going to reach out to the attorney that actually handles this to be able to answer this question. I don't have an answer at this time, but I'm going to look that answer up and provide that to you. okay, well the question is, is he able to make a motion and I'm going to say if there is no matrix for it,
017yes, you can make a motion. okay, MADAM Chair, I would like to have a motion to have MR. Michael thompson suspended for ten days, based on this latest action of the tik tok and the grabbing of the student by the neck which would be the third time in my tally where he's engaged in inappropriate behavior and contact with our students. second. it's been moved and seconded any public comment on the motion? Board member discussion on the motion? I would agree with you, we say this over and over, we have zero tolerance for our students, we keep saying that but yet, we continue to see people pop up on this that have done something to our students and we have to send an appropriate, a consistent message, so I would agree with that change. DR. Zeman.
018thank you, so much. I'd like the superintendent and/or our executive director for human resources, our chief human resources officer to share some information n on two things, more background infoatioion out the ming d sesequence ofofvevents whicich would be useful. And second, how have we, how have we reprimanded or punished people with similar offenses in the past? Chair: DR. Hepburn? DR. Lozano? MR. Azzarito. we have a clarification, the grabbing of the neck was JANUARY 24, incident. The current three-day suspension is just for attendance, 60 days late and the tik tok is with a district shirt so. There was no contact for this incident, I apologize that was the previous JANUARY 23-24 incident. okay. Did you get DR. Zeman's question. no, I didn't, we were look at the. it's really a two-parter. I need more context more
019than five seconds about the tik tok and wearing of the broward county shirt. And for people who have been brought before the board who have a similar series of infractions, how have we disciplined them? so we need to bring that information back, we wouldn't -- or bring it back later in the meeting to do research, it's analysis that we'll have to complete to look through our records to find similar offenses and also find the documentation for the context around the tik tok video. to me these questions are important. It's critical that we send messages with what we do but it's also critical that we find as, you know, somewhat of a judicial body playing the role of a judge, you know. Are we sending the message by picking one of these out and treating them
020harsher than recommended or going back through our collective agreement and renegotiating for everybody what they get. It's nice for the school board which is no employee of school board should harm our children but that's a broad statement. You can harm students with a an insult and physically and a lot of other ways. Where it gets into being affective is when you break down the offenses and make all of the punishments appropriate to what broward county values are consistent with. For today, I would like to know more in the context of the video which is the offense they're up for now. correct. thank you, and second how have we treated these offensers. So in light of those two things, I make a motion to table after our lunch break or normal break in terms. we have
021closed-door client session. and when would that end? Roughly? good question. we're slated for about 30 seconds. at 1:30. so I move that we table this until we are done with that attorney-client to get the rest of the information. I'm very sympathetic, but I want to know more so we understand, you know, where we go from the recommendation possibly to something else. Chair: thank you, is there a second on tabling it? second. all those in favor of tabling the item say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no. you want to take roll call? roll call on the motion to table the item. School board member alhadeff. no. bulman. yes. cervera. no. hixon. yes. holness. yes. leonardi. yes. rupert. yes. thompson. yes. zeman. Passes -- I'm sorry, 7-2. Chair: thank you. Moving on to h3. Can I
022have a motion and a second. moved by DR. Zeman second bid MS. Rupert. Any public comment on h3? no registered speakers. board discussion, MR. Cervera? MADAM Chair, MAY I request that DR. Zeman go first so I can gather my notes. Chair: sure, DR. Zeman. I wanted to ask if MR. Cervera wanted to go first, but I'm ready. I have three questions. What is the cost of these supplements, maybe I'm the geek how a whole set of payment can be listed in a table that is 9,000 pages long and there is no total to the bottom of this. So I'll start out with a first question. 7.2 million dollars for these kinds of supplement, what is the total supplements for this year? great question, DR. Zeman, the total is 8.6 million for all the supplements added
023on the pages. thank you very much. Can you also talk about the financial impact? You know 8.6 million is not an insignificant amount of money I understand how these are rather sim -- symbolic. You get 1500 or 2500 at the high school level. It's not compensation per hour because if anyone calculated what they got paid it would be below minimum wage. So I understand there is symbolic but there is got to be a impact on spending 7.8 million dollars. Can I just get a couple of sentences about the financial impact of this 8.6 million dollars is. DR. Hepburn. let me see if I'm hearing the question correctly, to the general fund, and also just a reminder from last week's hearing, we are reviewing, we've already set up a work group to review all supplements and
024bring that back to the board, you know, in motions of doing it anyway so we can consolidate what we need to sunset, supplements that we don't need my more. Because I'm pretty sure we've been adding some things and not getting rid of what we don't use anymore. thank you, and the last question and third, is, these funds are not dis positive funds. In a sense that we don't turn to the principal, principal fulton, go find these people and give them these money. These are options for principal fulton to go and say, if your students and parents and faculty member that wants to sponsor a debate club, they get 3800. -- 5800. So while we think it's 8.6 million dollars it's really toup principal's discretion, principals being in our system, the real ceo, we call DR.
025Hepburn, but he's the ceo. Board. They make thousands of decisions, and they are, people who carry a profit and loss statement because they get grade on how they do. So they're really the CEOs in our system. What I'm curious about though, is if they don't use this money, MR. Superintendent, can they use it for other things in the school. no, that's incorrect, they cannot use it for other things. Most of these supplements are specific for the task that they correlate. terrific. Are there any districts in the united states, again if principal fulton has 40 options as a high school principal to spend it, are there any district in the united states that say you can either use these on these things or you can take that money and use it on the critical things that
026we need in the local school. not that I'm aware of, all the other districts that I've worked similar here, where the supplement is specific to the task and responsibility that you're providing the supplement for. terrific, so now we're all aware if there is a group that wants to start thinking about this, I love principal discussion. I love the fact that they're the ones, in the fence line, they're the ones dealing with the community and the parents and the teachers and the faculty and the problems, I like giving them more discretion instead of less. But we'll, we'll cross that bridge another kay day. Thank you MR. Superintendent. MR. Cervera. I'm satisfied. all right, all those in favor of h3 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries, unanimously. The next item is a-1, can I
027have a motion and a second on a-11. Moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Bulman. Any public comment on a-1. yes, kathleen morales. Chair: come on down. I don't see anyone. Okay, board member discussion, MS. Rupert? thank you. Referring to page I don't know whaot exact page is, but it's in the bottom right corner, 255, if you're looking it's really page 3. It's the executive summary and I have a question. And I'll be quoting approval of this item provides teachers with targeting warning that awards credit for recertification and furpz and also allows the district to plan, design, deliver and monitor in-house teacher development. Opportunities, and comply with guiding legislation. So my question is, regarding the item from the last meeting, about the professional development department, how will the passing of last week's development, reorganization affect
028this important item? DR. Cohen. DR. Cohen, chief academic officer. It should have minimum impact because several departments not just professional, provide pd. The majority of pd is provided by several departments that provide in service credits. Tht is the actual platform which all T.D. Teachers actually use to register for courses and receive in service points. yes, I knew that but I need today take a puddle jump to be able to hit back one more time. But I do also understand, I actually graduated the ace program and became a teacher after being a substitute teacher, had my degree to enter the school board as a teacher. And I know that this, the particular part of professional team that was their big valley wick. And it was, reaching out to all sorts of people across the aisle, business,
029journalism, science, thermo nuclear, everything and of course ai. So I just wanted to say once more, that this is a very important organization part of our whole team because they wholly support that ace program and our teachers. And I know how all of our, coaches and development spend an enormous amount of time helping each other as well as helping all our teachers. And, I'll still be speak abouting this moving forward. So thank you for today. you're welcome. Chair: thank you, DR. Zeman, did you want to make comment?Z I do briefly but it's kind of a interesting note that out of 467 pages in our professional catalogue, we have four mentions of ai and zero classes to leaninger how to do prompt engineering, taking advantage of the tools available. There is one tool available for free
030that was designed for students, teachers, teacher assistance and principal and directors to use, it has over 90 apps available to it. I don't want to get into the name of the product. We have 2000 of our 13,000 teachers are using this prolt and there is not one class dedicate today teach them to do it the right way. Ai is not a passing fad or joke. It's not going to revolutionize the world in ten days. I hope that we think about this when we go out to our critical assets, our educators out there and make sure that they're aware to use it. I'm surprised that there are aren't 13,000 teachers use thising free ai tool out there. It has just amaze ing, capabilities to get largely tedious and administrative things. And don't we want teachers to
031be free two to three hours a night of doing those tedious things so they can put more time into their lessons. I continue to hear from teachers and don't teach on the 90 minutes that they're allocated to teach. I'm embarrassed for b that. We only have kids for 190 days, I'm thinking they're exhaust asked ai will free up so much of their time if we can dive into it. I need to pound on this, that broward schools need to be powered by ai. if I can add to the conversation, just to make sure that the board understand on the journey we're on and the things we're planning on doing. This catalogue does have more than four courses addressing ai, if you go to page 27, you'll see the course numbers that correspond to that it.
032This is actually courses where teachers get in-service credits can and those are monitors by the state what we can and can't do. But besides that, we offer a lot of professional development and train to go our teachers as of last late last spring and throughout the sum mer to really prop up. We're a large organization, 15,000 plus teachers and a whole lot of other clerical administrative staff that are learning these tools, decollaboration and DR. Cohen's department has been key to training the trainer's model so we can spread that knowledge out as quick as possible. And I want to thank the broward education foundation, I would encourage him to talk about the expo that will be coming on early spring where we have some amazing projects that have been developed by teachers and i encourage the
033board to definitely check that out. Last year's topic and theme was ai and it is great to see the speck tem of tenure of teachers from novice teach inventories veteran teachers that they're embeding ai and they're able to share that knowledge. So we're doing a lot to make sure that we're powered by ai, it's a methodical. So I don't want the public to not think that we're not on that journey, we're part of ai, largest adopter of copilot in the world and many of our staff is already use iting sxm of our teachers are embracing it on their campus. Chair: MS. Alhadeff. thank you, and I just want to say that I support what DR. Zeman is saying with ai as I expressed at the last meeting. I do have a question, are these classes
034optional for the teachers or is oned of these mandatory. as DR. Hepburn. with the catalogue, I'll let MR. Cohen to talk about that. But if it's a ai champion for each school to spread the knowledge on the tam pus for our teachers. Go ahead, DR. Cohen. so there are course that's are optional and some. We want to make sure that every school had a liason, and their goal is to infuse and disseminate ai, and we have a list of teach thaerz want to go yard. And also DR. Zeman to your point, we wanted to create a foundation for this master plan. We're developing more ai content, this allows us to grow because as you know, ai is constantly developing. One course that was developed today MAY be ob absolute two weeks later. So our goal
035is to infuse and build on it. So we're excited about that about ai but to use the superintendent's term, we're looking to develop the 22 century classroom to start with. So we were excited to launch that as part of the board shop and we want to talk about what is new coming forward. that's wonderful, and I would just say, DR. Hepburn, possibly if since it is optional, maybe these classes can be highlighted so that it's pushed out there, this is a 467-page document. So I think that would help to spotlight these amazing courses for our teachers. Thank you. thank you. All those in favor of a-1 say aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next item -- . MADAM Chair, staff is ready to go back to h2 if the board desires at
036this time. well we said to tabling it to 1:30. if the board wants, or we can wait until 1:30. it's not possible. we tabled it. That was the motion. okay. We'll wait. thank you, though. next item is b1, can I have a motion and a second. so moved. second. moved by MS. Leonardi. Second bid MS. Rupert. Any public comment. nathalie lynch-walsh. Speaker: I waser, DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, plantedation florida. I sent you an email when I saw this item, and I counted, this is the fourth time in three month that a board member is misusing their ability to place an item on the agenda to attack your chief auditor. A certain person can roll their eyes but that's what it is. Within seconds I had a response from somebody you would not think I had a
037response from. So you, you already evaluated the chief auditor, this climate survey is a misuse of public funds to go after your chief auditor. Unless you're going to go after all three direct reports, then this should be a hard-no. Don't be fooled, this is an attack on your one direct report that has integrity, and there is ample evidence of the other two lacking it which I'll get into when I speak during public speaking and you're going off of a anonymous letter. An a anonyus letteter. Whwhat is t t movatition of this a nonymous letter. Are we fabricating things just because we have a chief auditor that does not audit. You failed on JUNE 10th with his evaluation and employment agreement added to the agenda but not his self-evaluation. Then within five days of removing me
038from advisories where I was the audit committee chair, DR. Zeman brings an item to try to terminate him. Then, we had to go through the action plan which the one person that did put an item on that was trying to do good, I believe was MS. Thompson, but that even that was thwarted because it was based on comments from one or two, not every one. If hr, hr can add for all three direct reports something of a climate survey. And if it's not there, you already evaluated, the person that brought this item said he was inaffective managing his employees. So I suggested something else because you're following up for a follow-up from counsel of great city schools. That would be an appropriate use of the counsel great city schools membership fees which are paid for
039by taxpayer dollars. This is not. This is a thinly veiled attempt to target your superintendent, not your superintendent, I wish, to target your chief auditor, under false pretenses for the fourth time in three months, vote no. Thank you. Chair: thank you, next public speaker? we have mary and nikiag. Chair: I don't see mary. Speaker: good morning, my name is nikia, I'm part period of time internal audit group. The internal audit sent a letter to the board and they asked me to read some excerpts. We want to clarify we were neither consulted nor asked to contribute to the auditor's letter and do not share the views. That essential for the board to know that not all shared the views. Even during this period of change, we remain commit today supporting the mission of auditing of auditing
040department and continue the work of reporting to the district. We have no objection to the climate survey however the concerns present inside item b1 at today's school board meeting are not representative of the entire staff and it was signed by about 20 members of the audit department a few of which are here today just to support this letter. Thank you. Chair: thank you. Any other public speakers? no registered speakers. Chair: oh, mary is here. sorry, I raced here. You're doing great, the parking lot is full. I'm a mary I'm a long time audit member and the current chair. I read this number and I'm wondering why this is here. A four-paragraph let thaer is anonymous, it could have been written by anybody. You're plan to go move ahead to do a study on this department.
041If you do that on all departments fine, but if you respond to every anonymous letter, you have no idea who wrote that letter. It could have been anybody that was disgruntle employee and the claim that MR. Rodes follows the rules? And I have, I think this is the third or fourth time in resent months that I have been here because of the same issue with the audit department. I would ask you, I would really respectfully request that you all move ahead, let the audit department move ahead and do what they do. I believe that their work is critically important to the success of this organization. Because they do point things out that could be done better and sometimes people don't like that. And I don't know who wrote this letter and I, I, you know,
042just, I just hope that you all will maybe, what you need to do is have a policy that if somebody wants to make a complaint, they put their name to it or they go to hr or do something else before you take an extraordinary step of taking an anonymous letter and raising it to this level. So, I don't know what else I can say. I ask you to not support this item. Thank you. Chair: board member discussion, MS. Bulman? It's DR. Holness's item, sorry you can go first. thank you, MADAM Chair. So I just want for the record and this was there were some questions presented to legal counsel to ensure that this item is an item that a board member could bring forward. And just ford record, a briefly summarize my questions to legal
043counsel. Are there any legal concerns with the b-1 item scheduled for SEPTEMBER 15. the question is answered in the negative, there are no legal concerns with b1 as it presently appears on the agenda for the SEPTEMBER 16, regular school board meeting. Second question, as a school board member do I have the right to bring forward concerns related to this. Legal counsel, department answer, this question is answered in the affirmative. But with some constraints under section 1001.49 florida statutes. Third question, does any part of any b item conflict with policy or state statute. Legal answer, this question is answered in the negative, there are no legal concerns with b1 as it presently appears on the agenda. With that in mind, this item is asking for an independent climate survey of the audit department and this is
044based on a concern which is an anonymous letter that we received, that expressed concerns about the current state of the audit department that also sided the regular I -- resignation of two members, gabriel and carva and assistant director arly. And also concerns about leadership appointments. And also expressed concerns about the chief auditor's decision-making process and overall stability of the department. Now I believe these concerns are serious enough that it warrants for further examination. The issues suggest potential challenges as it relates to leadership, staff morale and the department ability to fulfill its responsibilities effectively. Now I believe it would be irresponsible of this board if we don't respond to a concern that I consider substantiative in scope and yes, we do get a lot of concerns, a lot of anonymous emails and so forth. And we
045respond accordingly. In this case, if it's a significant scope which I believe it is from my own opinion, then I, I believe that we need to take action to determine if there is any legitimacy of the concerns. I've heard individuals mention that we can resolve this without having it publicly discussed. In my opinion, we couldn't, because I cannot call each board member to say what do you think because that's a sunshine violation. So this is not an attack on the chief auditor, it's not targeting the chief auditor. Everything that I've done on this board, I try to do with integrity and to provide full transparency to the public that elected me to serve them. So, regarding, there was a mention of the termination item for the chief auditor in the past. I was one of
046the board memebers who did not support that. I voted no. So this is not anything pertaining to the chief auditor, this is about our responsibility to ensure that, if there is a concern of substantiative scope, we should investigate or take action rather. so please note this is not about the chief auditor specifically. Any public inquiry that any of us consider substantive in scope, should be discussed by the board. In addition to that, each board member, I'm sorry, in addition to that, this MAY not be comfortable but the integrity of our system is important. Full transparency is important and acting responsible as a board is also essential. I don't want us to end up in a situation, we talk about and I've heard it over and over, grand jury, that we have, a concern of a
047significant scope and we did nothing. So, those who believe MR. Rodes or the chief auditor is being targeted, you're absolutely wrong. And I would have taken the same action if it was DR. Hepburn or MS. Batista. If I consider the concern to be significant in scope. So my role as a public servant and I'm elect today carry out the business of the school district as it relates to my scope of responsibility which includes evaluating the chief auditor, the superintendent and legal counsel in addition to approving the budget and set-in policies. I'm carrying out the role that I'm elected to serve by the public and it's responsive for the board to take some kind of action to this concern that we received. Now at the end of the day, I brought it to the board, if
048the board says no, then, then, you know, we collectively own that decision. If the board votes yes, then it simply implies that we do a survey, there could be no credibility to it, we don't know. But if we do it, we find the answer to it, possibility and that's what this is about. It's not about MR. Rode's. Chair: thank you. MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. So you know, I have concerns about relying on anonymous letter, I think that opens up the door for anybody to have a similar issue that is facing the audit department right now and I appreciate that the auditors wrote this letter in support, so we have some different perspective of what is is happening in the department. I would, one of the questions that I have is, what is the cost
049to do this climate study? DR. Fulton? my question would be to DR. Holness, what is the scope that you're looking at? well, it's a climate survey of the entire audit department in terms of the concerns that are addressed. And the concerns addressed here, has to do with the stability of the department, the morale of the staff and so on and so forth. So conducting a climate survey would involve the employees within the audit department. so I would, just to kind of understand it, you want to send a survey to the audit department and collect those results? okay, so, the intent is to determine if there is an any credibility to the concerns. How the survey is developed, I believe that would more be based on, the entities to which we enlist to conduct the survey.
050But the goal of the survey is to ascertain, if there is any credibility to the concerns that are expressed in here. As far as how the survey is designed and what is included in the survey, that would be on the entity that does the survey but the, the goal is that it addressed the concerns that were raised by this anonymous letter. And like I said before, we don't respond to any anonymous letter, I just believe that this one is of the significant scope that warrants some kind of sponsor action to determine if there is any credibility to it. And if isn't, great. And if there is, let's say that there is some issues with employee morale, this is not about saying that the chief auditor should stay or leave, this is about saying, chief auditor,
051there is concerns with morale, what can we do about that, so this is a system about doing things better, and that's what we should all do. MR. Rodes. I can wait until MS. Bulman has completed her comments because my response will be to something she said. I mean, I think that's a significant factor how we're deciding this. You know, I'm a little torn because I, I don't agree with relying on anonymous letters because anyone can write anything in that regard. I do think, and I talked to MR. Rodes about this, I talked to him after we received this letter and the item was posted, there seems to be very reasonable explanations of why some people left as they do, as the organization, people find other jobs or have other issues that have them leave an
052organization. Because of what has happened over the past few months where I feel that the auditor has been the target of some of these complaints, I almost, I would like to know what the cost is, but I don't necessarily disagree with potentially doing this just so we can put this issue to rest. I think it might be better for MR. Rodes if we do it and then the finding is positive and then he's done with it and we can stop talking about it. So that's my opinion. I would like to know what the cost would be though because I think that is a major factor. Chair: quick question on that, we've had a variety of discussions. So the counsel of greater city schools, I always say it wrong. I always mess it up, can they,
053what understand is that they could possibly do this survey at no cost is that correct? I have to reach out to them. so there is a possibility that it's @ no-cost but we have to agree whether we want to do it and as a board request it from them. MR. Rodes? yeah. I apologize if I misunderstood what MS. Bulman said, but i think what she had said was that she was glad that I brought forward the letter that was presented to you today. You want this board to know, that I didn't instruct, direct, influence, any of the activity that lead to this letter written and signed by the staff. That was done by staff alone. Today is the first time that I've seen this letter. In my opinion, the survey has been done. I didn't
054believe that this letter had value when I saw it the first time. I don't believe that it does today and I believe that my staff has spoken without any influence or instruction or direction by me. I just wanted to make sure that that was understood because this was an organic matter that happened in my office. And I have to say, I'm happy and proud of my staff for being courageous of doing this. And that's all I have to say about that. thank you very much. MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM Chair. I'm going to start off with a question. MR. Rodes, do you want this initial evaluation to be done? Or investigation? it's not that I don't want to be done, I think it's unnecessary and I don't believe in the value of an anonymous letter.
055I do believe that anonymous letters have revealed information that was important but from the perspective what I read from this letter and knowing and agreeing in my staff, that there is anywhere near consensus that the information contained in it is true. I serve at the pleasure of this board, so the if the board decides that they want to do this survey, I'm glad to participate. But to answer your question, no. thank you. MADAM Chair, I'm looking at this letter specifically the third paragraph beginning with staff, has observed and I'll read the quote. It says and I quote, staff have observed the chief auditor appears enable and unwilling to make operational decisions without differing to hr or referencing the yellow book. This has heightened concerns about the lack and leadership particularly in light of the assistant
056current departure. I have a couple of thoughts on that. First and for most, I don't see anything wrong with consulting with hr to make sure it's by the book, just like most of us sitting up here, on the dais will cult consult with legal counsel when we have concerns that we need to know ramifications. In addition, referencing the yellow book. The yellow book in my understanding is the accepted govern standards which provides standards for government auditing. Wouldn't we encourage our chief auditor to constantly reference the yellow book and make sure that he's complying with all the standard wiwiininhe yellow w book. listenen, I'm not t a diditingguy, I'i'm not a fincnce gie, I don't pretend to be, but if there is some type of governmental regulation standard booklet, okay, that the federal government puts out
057that is generally accepted, understood, principals I would want my finance and audit department to be referring and having compliance with the quote unquote yellow book. So I'm looking at sort of meat of this and I'm wondering what the specific issue is? Now, I know that there is this sort of blanket allegations that we question his leadership and we question his direction. How does the, the proposed investigation or the proposed review by this counsel that we're talking about, how is that rally going to be able to find based on these allegations, whether or not they agree with rode's leadership. I mean everybody has different leadership styles, everybody has different directional style. Some people are more laid back, some have more a leadership approach, some take a dictatorship role, that's not what I'm saying rodes has. But
058we're asking for somebody to come in and investigate his leadership and direction. When I first saw that, I was a little struck. I would feel a lot more comfortable making a recommendation like this if this anonymous complaint which I, I mirror MS. Bulman's views and stances on anonymous complaints. I think this opens the flood gates, if there is going ton an issue, put your namele on it. There are laws that will protect you. Buzz be that as it MAY, I don't know what we're expecting this third party company to do? Are they going to say that rodes stinks a leader, is that really what they're going to say. If I had line items say, he didn't do, a, b, c, d, correctly to make sure that we abc d and f, I would get it.
059But just to say that somebody sucks as a leader, I don't know how any outside independent evaluation is going to come back and say, yes, we agree this guy is not a good leader. That being said, MADAM Chair, is there any other additional financial downside to doing this other than what we've already discussed? I don't believe so. I yield my remaining 32 seconds. Chair: thank you so much, DR. Zeman. thank you so much, for better for worse, I come out of a field that does climate audit a lot. To MR. Cervera point, the questions are well test asked designed to allow the climate surveys to take action when they're done. How satisfied are you with your current role and responsibility, how safe do you feel in your work environment? Are you proud of your organization?
060I can read you the list but you a simple google church -- search will show you list. These are not punitive. i would like to know if people who work at broward schools are proud of the work that they do. Are they proud of the work the board does and. I would use that information to potentially prepare better and bring fewer items and maybe have meetings that are less than 27 hours. These are all feedback we get but these instruments allow us to get it in an unbiased way. Two things that are not unbiased source of information. One is an anonymous letter. And by the way, there are no whistleblower protections that say that their boss is incompetent. It's not a good outcome, right? The second source of biased information is to ask people to
061sign the letter in front of other people. So I appreciate the staff letter, I want to take it at face value but nobody in the right mind would take that as you know biased information. Le here, MS. Leonardi will you sign this letter while I watch you letter. DR. Hepburn will you sign this letter while I watch you sign it. That's not how you have people feel about things. You can shake your head all you want ma'am, but that's a fact. When you do something publicly, you are preparing information that you know other people are going to see. And if you want to know how people feel about it, you give them privacy so they can report how they feel. That's how science work, that's how surveys work. so we're in a funny place, we
062have anonymous letter and a signed document, both biased as hell. I think it's a way to gain inside to find out whether it's a school board or senior staff, or you know, or a group of teach thaerz are doing something to find out what people think about what they're doing together and it asked penetrating questions which is designed to allow the team to take actions when they're done. I'm your rep to the council of city schools, I've watched them, they do t does follow best school district, they do it for free. And to me, I just think that's some of the critical information that we have is to think about as we're deciding whether we're going forward with this or not, thanks chair. Chair: I'm going to go next and men MS. Alhadeff for the
063order. I just want to give some context for this. I walked into the office one day and there was a letter on the floor when I walked in. It was the anonymous letter. It was not sent to all board memebers, it was just sitting on the floor, somebody slid it under the door. And being the chair, I asked mia my assistant, or my partner, to make it fair for every one to see it. And I reached out to MR. Rodes and asked him to explain some of the things in the letter. So I think it was important to read it and understand that there were concerns to somebody who didn't feel comfortable to leave their names and to let MR. Rode's. And if it sounded fishy there would be further conversations. But he was able
064to explain how some of these things worked and to be fair some people in the department are very nervous staying in the department because of the action of the board and the action that the board is doing, that they feel that their job is not safe, not so much of MR. Rodes but they feel he's the leader and they feel their department is being ambushed all the time and it's very hard to work in those conditions. So I appreciate the letter with every one supporting him with your name in it, because that's important as well. We do get a lot of anonymous letters. We get them often. And m somebody comes anonymous, I try to reach out to whoever the letter is about to say what is going on and what can we do? Is
065this true, how do you feel? I think communication is really important here. I don't know that that happened with every one when they read the letter and reached out to MR. Roads. So I wish that we had better communication for our direct reports because if somebody came along the lines from MS. Batista, we won think twice about reaching out and saying, hey what the heck what is going on with this department. So I appreciate the sentiment of the item but I also feel like, the second letter gaves the answer to what is happening in that department and I just just as board memebers, we can also reach out to some of the employees. I just don't want to the department to feel ambushed and for that reason, I will not support this item. MS. Alhadeff.
066thank you. So just because you can bring an item it does not mean you should bring an item. To me, I see this as a direct attack to MR. Rodes, our chief auditor. And we evaluate MR. Roads, if you had an issue or something, you put it in the evaluation. And as a board, we can talk about all of the evaluations. So it's upsetting to me that we're wasting our time on this. I believe that this item, with saying that there is no financial impact to the district, but the counsel of greater city schools could have done this survey, this is incomplete. And I apologize to MR. Rodes that this is even being brought up and discussed today, you don't deserve this. And the people in the department don't deserve this. How many people are
067in the audit department, MR. Rodes? approximately 31 all positions are filled. so 20 out of the 30 people in the department signed this letter that in response to the anonymous letter. We cannot keep focusing on one person that communicates a message of some sort. We have so many important issues to focus on and this is not one of them. And I'm sorry. Chair: thank you, MS. Rupert. thank you MS. Alhadeff for that. I think sometimes we get caught up in for getting that we're human and being humane to each other is really important. From somebody who has been in the receiving end of malicious or unkind things, while you're trying to do your job, let me tell you, it's not pretty. It's not something that you want to go through. And the people that did
068that to me, held a press conference right outside kcw when I was chair during 2018 year, during douglas when I had my job was to keep things steady and moving forward. But yet I had to go and crash true story, up on the podium outside which was our podium from this school board for people to say malicious things that were not true. Granted those people came in-person, so I knew exactly who it was and that's where right. That's why we live in america, not for the good or the bad it's for the freedom many being an american. Once we stop that, once we stop believing that people are innocent until proven guilty, we all lose. I will not be supporting this item. Because of the fact, we have a process in place and we've gone
069through the evaluations and I wholeheartedly, am sorry, MR. Rodes, you're a stand-up person, you're doing your job. And I also commend the people who signed their names and I don't believe you were standing over them to say sign this for me at all. And I just want to say, that's you know, it's hard to undo what was said or what was written and it makes its way out into that world. It's hard to fight back. So I wholeheartedly appreciate you and I hope that you're with us many many years to come. So, thank you. Chair: thank you, MS. Thompson. thank you, I'll make any comments quick, to my colleague, you have every right to bring up an item and I don't think you did it with nimalicious intent. With that being said, I don't think
070at this time it's needed. I talked to DR. MR. Rodes, after, the letter was going about and the item and background. I also commend the staff for coming and writing the letter and also coming before us, I know we can be an intimidating bunch at this time. I at this time I would like to call the question. Chair: all those in favor of calling the question, say aye. all those opposed say no. no. motion carries 7-2. All those in favor of the item say aye. All those opposed to the item say no. no. aye. do you want to do roll call. it's not needed. roll call. School board member, bulman. no. cervera. hixon. no. N.Holness. yes. leonardi. no. rupert. no. thompson. no. zeman. no. alhadeff. no. failed 1-8. Chair: next we're going to go to
071public speaking, but real quick because we called the item. DR. Lozano, can you tell us in the upcoming evaluation for MR. Rodes, in the conversation that we had in the workshop, wasn't there a survey for the next evaluation? let me follow-up with heather, and I'll get you that answer. Chair: MS. Parente is right there. Speaker: be right now, MR. Rodes is drafting his annual objectives for your review, for if that's something you want included, he'll take care of that, and a draft will be sent next week. Chair: thank you, I thought that was brought up in the workshop that we had. Thank you. Okay, so we will move on. This is the time of the agenda, where we have split the general public speakers to incorporate a morning session. Each speaker is reminded to present
072their agenda in accordance with policy 1020. Our first speaker is bernadette hughs. Speaker: good morning, can you hear me? Good morning, on behalf of the city of coconut creek, I would like to express our deep appreciation to the board for the partnership that made the lion's creek traffic flip a reality for the new school year traffic has been a concern for more than a decade, it has impacted not only the school but emergency access and staff and the daily lives of those in the neighborhood. In APRIL, this board took a bold step and approved a circulation plan a turning point over the solution. However over the summer, it became clear that the construction won be ready by the first day of the school. So the city proposed solution to superintendent hepburn and he and his
073staff were very amenable to it. I have to tell you, the work was completed in approximately 3 weeks, it was remark sxabl it included the city's demolition asphalt and sidewalk work and fencing modifications, the school's preparation and out reach to all the parents and teachers and the city's police traffic unit managing the area, together these efforts show what true partnership can achieve. There is still challenging ahead, we're working with the county to get a signal but overall the results were immediate clear and this will serve until permanent construction is completed next year. Now I would like to thank superintendent hepburn for his leadership and nora rupert who's advocacy were instrumental in moving this project forward. We're also grateful to many of these staff members who helped. I would like to run down a couple of
074names in no particular order, mark, allison, john sullivan, wanda paul, DR. Jermaine, principal ity, harvey jacque, richard knew he will, nathan, michael gregory and daniel batan, their dedication made it possible to deliver on a promise to our community and to our students to provide favor, more efficient circulation at lion's middle school. This is a monument achievement in ab incredibly short period of time and powerful example what we can achieve together. And real quick, on the first day of our school, one of the police officers who has been overseeing the traffic, send me this text message, you're not going to believe this, exclamation point, in my seven years as traffic supervisor, the first day always took until 10:15 every time, it's 9:10. Chair: thank you and thanks for sharing the great news. Next is sandy welch.
075Speaker: thank you very much, DR. Hepburn, chair and the board. I had prepared notes but who wants to follow bernadette hughs, she has attention to detail and style of get iting done. And through the partnership, I cannot stress that enough and that's why I want today come publicly and thank each and every one of you. If you were not involved, you were. You're a body; that promotes this kind of collaboration and assistance to make our city and the students and the staff and the principal, their job even better to do what they need to do for the safety for the children so they can get them in the schools and educate them. We just really really thank you. So it does work in partnership and we're here to be one of those partners as well.
076So thank you, again. Chair: thank you and thank you for coming out to say great things. Next is coleen laplant. Speaker: good morning, superintendent MADAM Chair and board memebers, thank you for having me. Again, bernadette pretty much covered everything. But ummmm a resident right there at the school and on behalf of my neighbors, and people I see at the gym and see walking, I wanted to say thank you for your compassion with the lion's creek switch. You mentioned in APRIL meeting that this can happen and it sure did. Because of your leadership, our amazing school board member, nora rupert, to complete this project has been nothing more than rewarding for our children, our families and the coconut creek police department included. Adtionally,, I would liliketo nonote that this prprocess whicich usually took an hour, isis
077now 30 minutes, I do go by every day on my bike. No problem riding my bike, even the people that I know drop off, they said it's a breeze. So on behalf of my neighbors and surrounding neighborhoods, we truly thank you very very much. Chair: thank you, and again, thank you for coming down again today, to say good things, we appreciate that. Belinda leon. you jinxed it. Speaker: good morning, MADAM Chair and board memebers and DR. Hepburn. I'm here today as executive director for women of tomorrow mentor and scholarship program. I also wanted to start the school year off by thanking every one of up there for your continued support of our program which helps young women at-risk to grad you'd high school and continue their education or figure out what career they want to
078follow. I also want to give a special thanks to MR. Tom albano, district coordinator for school culture and student support. He's always there to answer our questions about policy and procedure or lend a hand to help us out. He and his team joined us a few months ago, it was quite a treat to have him there. Women of tomorrow, has been providing mentorship and scholarships to students since 1997. And last year, we served about 2700 mentees but specifically for broward it was 795 mentee, 34 schools 65 mentors and we're working hard to increase those numbers for this year. For the young ladies who go through our program, we have been able to achieve a 99 percent high school graduation rate. I want to get it to 100. But 97 percent had firm plans to en
079roll in higher education. And in the last lunch on, broward alone, 11,700 scholarship went to broward students which beat miami-dade, in case you're wondering. Women of tomorrow, inspired and motivated and empowered them and 97% reported they were proud to be women of tomorrow. So this year, we're going to continue to recruit quality mentors, we have all types of activities planned, we're going to visit every college and university in south florida and we have different activities planned so they can explore in law enforcement, and stem and finance, there is a lot going on. I thank you all again and I truly hope that some of you can join us on our graduation lunch on where we'll continue to celebrate the great achievement, and I hope we all have a wonderful school year. Thank you. Chair: thank
080you and thank you for your partnership. MADAM Chair, would it be to recommend men towards this program. Can people say how can we help. Can we vector this program to? Chair: I'm not sure if there is a process they have to go through. yeah, we have to follow-up with you with that with the speaker program but we have several programs out there, so we can provide all of our mentor and how to acquire mentors or seek out mentors. I would love that list but those results amazing, those are kids that needed help and got into the program and huge scholarship and graduation rates. Chair: thank you, next is mayor tim from the city of oakland park. Le Speaker: good morning, board chair hixon, board memebers superintendent hepburn and team. My name is tim, serving as
081mayor for the -- . Thank you for what what you do for the kids every day. There are a lot of reasons we appreciate you, and your leadership and we know your job is not easy. I sent you all an email last night regarding the mitigation of the middle school agreement. As you know, oakland park, there are parts of oakland park that are subject to mitigation school agreement signed several decades ago. These fees often inhibit, if not obstruct development, the largest of these areas are also accuse et, a federally designated, federal designation for qualified census track where 15 percent of the households earn less than 60 percent of ami which is less than $60,000, these areas need support. There was also a support relate today fees affective OCTOBER first, that's 6.3, concurrency. There appears to
082be a disagreement twaoent cities regarding the applicability of the new statute to the mitigation graoementz, time will be need today determine whether a meeting of the minds can be reached. In the meantime, projects in oakland park are ready to move forward. One example is orange grove, one property who's owner has applied to you for relief to proceed with his project. This is one of several pending developments in oakland alone. Serves no one's interest, the school board, the cities, the property owners or the county it results at lost revenue and prevents the needed growth. Respectfully, I ask you to direct staff to suspend the application of the mitigation agreement divisions while the task force discussion continue or until the attorneys resolve the legal questions eliminating the school mitt xwaition will help move the agreement forward t
083increases financial, it will increase the add voerelum taxes which will help the school, and it will create housing which will help bring more students to the broward county schools. I appreciate everything you do. Chair: thank you. Next is DR. Nathalie lynch walsh. Speaker: good morning, again. DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, I'm a lefty, I really don't like being crowded on my left side, so I'll be over here. So last time, we were here, MS. Bulman asked why the volunteer protection act was relevant to the discussion and I'll get to that in a second. My first thing is, can btu please send DR. Zeman some flip-flops because we need them again. Granicus, there is a funny story why I'm not on your list. Briefly, you can sign toup speak electronically but staff has to manually make a list
084in a word document which is how I got left off the list. So not being able a normal person, I said how can that happen, I'm signing up electronically, don't we have everything we need from granicus and it looks like we're doing granicus on the cheap, just like we do maxmo on the cheap, what else is there? Focus, a rib a. You name it, we're doing it on the cheap, and thank you all for not going on b1 but I would still like to see council, great schools. The district had a three-year plan that we don't know the status of to have them review it again. But also, this meeting would be the first meeting where your superintendent would be responsible for that follow-up log. MADAM Chair, so I'll be doing a public records requests
085about 25 hours after this meet to go ensure that there is such a log. Using ai, because ai shouldn't just be for kids. So why is the volunteer protection act significant? Because basically, the district, because nobody has brought a b item, debbie he espinoza, did not do an anonymous letter, she did about hundred non a anonymous to the school board. What she got a memo that addressed one thing which is 180 days had passed. And because I was the person selected to speak on it, I got targeted. But the district allowed staff to target, yours truly, in a defamation claim. When the statements were not only done within the scope of responsibility but true. So the same district that would have to mount a defense on my behalf allowed staff to do something pro hiblitied
086by law. Sxl that and that is on your own general counsel letter head which makes her incompetent at best. thank you. Next we'll have the superintendent report. thank you MADAM Chair, it's been busy weeks as usual and I'm going to ask beacon to go straight to the video. [Music] thank you, MADAM Chair, that concludes the report. Chair: thank you, and if you can give us the follow-up about the attendance that we had at the workshop last week. yes, absolutely. DR. Fulton. thank you, we had a follow-up regarding where does broward rank in terms of the other 67 districts. We were able to full that information from the florida department of education, they do have a public facing website that gives information in two reporting categories. One of them was chronic absenteeism and if student is
087ab isn't ten or more days that is equal to 18 days that is includes excused and inexcused broward ranks 29 out of the 67 school districts. And also in average daily attendance, and that is the average number of students who are attending school each day. Broward ranks 45 out of the 67 school district with an average of 90.7 percent daily attendance rate. So while not good, we definitely have a lot of room for improvement. We received a lot of feedback from our workshop last week and we start today turn attention to ensure that our students are in school every day. Thank you. Chair: thank you. Next we'll have updates from broward education foundation. Jaou, good morning, just a few things to share. I can now publicly acknowledge our hard working effort that went in with
088B.C. Ps grant claim to secure the one million dollars to post secondary success with the heelio's foundation. That's a grant that the school district will be able to utilize over the months. That will be an amazing opportunity for to us continue that, that piece and process going forward. So also another thing that we're able to do an a laounment with the school district as recently we just received a little bit more than 8,000 to go towards stem education initiative for bcps working our grants team here at the school district. And I wanted to say thank you to everybody who came out and supported the classic that we had, to raise dollars to go back to supporting our students and letting everybody know, I know it's not as important but I know it's a very visible
089piece and it's extremely important to us because it allows us to honor some amazing individuals to come through, but our hall of fame event will be held DECEMBER 10th and would love to make sure that everybody knows that and we welcome many opportunity to have any partners who want to join in that effort to continue to give back to some of the amazing people who have done stuff here for broward county school. So I just want to say thank you, and we're work withing the beautification pieces and doing some great things to assist in the beaut if you canation efforts, so if there is any thought or plans or ideas that you might have or anybody else, please reach out we would love to partner up. Chair: wouldn't you like to give a plug for
090your run. Speaker: yes, I would but I haven't, let me find, do you know the exact date? Debbie? Chair: I think OCTOBER 24. Speaker: so we have our 5k, run that we are now doing annually that is an amazing event, it's right there on hollywood beach. If you have not never been to it, it's an amazing morning. You get to show up and you get to be around around 300 of your closest friends, I say run a 5k. Everybody who knows me, I'm not running it, I'm going to walk. I bought a car for a reason, so i don't have to run anywhere but it is a really really good time and it's an opportunity to spend some time outside of the office and with the community and a lot of our partners. But thank
091you. Thank you for that reminder. Chair: thank you. Thank you for the report. Speaker: thank you, everybody. Chair: next is the broward council ptas, pta, and they sent a report to us. I just wanted to know everybody there is annual training by PTAs which is scheduled for SEPTEMBER 20th at 9:00 am at seminal middle school and sthe invite everybody to meet the local PTAs. Next is the employee group, btu. Speaker: this is dan reynolds of the PRESIDENT Of the federation of employees. We represent all non instructional employees who keep the machine running on a daily basis. I just wanted to say, we entered negotiations this year early with the joint agreement that we would try to get a contract out in a timely fashion, unlike years in the past where we have unfortunately started negotiations
092for the year behind us. We were, way late by a wall of incompetence by a state legislature. That should have been done at the end of APRIL instead it did not get done at the beginning of JULY. And then, we got hit with a report from the federal department of education that they were going to, withdrawal 300 billion dollars in funding this was already approved in schools across the country. In bipartisan effort, congress was able to get the funds restored thank goodness because that would have been meant $300 million hit before we got to the bargaining table. So that has been restored, so now we're back on track, we're going back to the table on the 25th, to restart negotiations. And even though it's too late to get it by JULY 1 of this year,
093we do hope to come to an agreement in the face of some, really hard challenges with the declining enrollment, with insurance costs with the legislature, seemingly hostile towards public schools these days. I look forward to working with your, your team to come up with the a decent agreement for the year going forward. So thank you for that. And who is next? Chair: thank you, btu? Speaker: ana busco with team with teacher's union standing here to make a stance and position, and basically to let you know, disappointed. You passed the budget, two people stood strong to not have it done, you don't listen to your employees. You put nothing in there to give raises, you got all of this excessive work founding on our teachers and the support staff which is also pounding on the incipals
094and a Ps thth arare popoundingn n them. You u got e e group here, ththey can sit here but when you need them to take care of something like a student threatening to shoot up a school, and I get ignored. You don't like the way I massaged it. Because I didn't come in and say, oh my gosh, can you help, there is a kid threatening to shoot a school. You don't like that I come in strong because the school has been asking for help. And then you get your teacher telling you, they don't know. When kids got threat assessments upon them, there is been a resolving consistency of a severe behavior problem, do your upper management not know? I would like to know why they don't know. And why do you think it's okay and
095professional to hang up on people or ignore people or yell at people? I yell when you yell. That's the way it goes. There is people up there that have yelled at me. There is been up there that said choice words to me, I don't go boo hoo, I say let's get it done. You've got schools that are still not cleaned right, because you don't have people coming in that are pro-public schools. You want to outsource everything. Getting ready to outsource our warehouse stuff, you think that's the answer. What part of public education, do you not understand? You got a bunch of educators that made this school district an a and you treat them like they're garbage. You're like this, ha, at the bottom of my shoes. Beating them up. I keep telling you you're beating
096them up. Who says that's all about. But it's happening. And you worry about my messaging. Don't worry how I give you the message, listen to the message. Every single day, when I I've got something crying or hurt, or sick, or needs help and I cry with them. I never once say, figure out your messaging and get back to me. Hello! Read between the lines. I'm not yelling at you, I'm yelling about situations and I'm sitting here watching you want to take down everything in our school system nstead of rising it up we're an a-district and you forget how you got here. Let's not talk about the excessive testing. That's all they're doing is testing. That's educating? Alan zeman, you're worried about four early release days because they MAY take away from their testing. Why don't
097you stop worrying that we have the right objective on the board that our kids are reading it. Then you give me another excuse, the people have to know what they're teaching. You know how we're teaching, we just teach. And we don't need a five or six visits a week in our classroom. Talk about interrupting teaching time. care, care that people say that they're stressed or overworked and that they have to work a second job to support their families. To skill work to take care of their precious ones. People love this job but they don't want to get beat up. Go revisit the budget and find raises for everybody, stop ba'ath up on your principal sxz a Ps that have to support our staff because they're all walking on egg shells. This is a public school
098entity, not a dam prison! I'm bothered when I reach out to people and there is a fierce situation going on at schools. Do you know there is campus wz guns with guns at school. The world needs to care, I'm going to say it here. So you need to care. You have it, I'll just give public speakers. Chair: thank you, next bpaa. Okay. Thank you, next we'll go on to we have a time certain at 10:30, even though it's a little past that. Can I have a motion and a second on dd1. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Thompson. Any public comment. we have one registered speaker, PRESIDENT Fusco. Speaker: I'll piggy back what I was saying. We have a threat assessment situation. So the article says, I tell people don't always believe
099everything you read in the news. Don't believe everything you see in the news but believe what is going on with people actually working in the system. I'm not going to stand up here and act like I know every detail going on, but I do know that we have state mandates and I tried to explain it to the staff, the portal is difficult. And I don't know if anyone of you or anyone of you have gone into the portal to see what has to be put in there. And then you guys are so quick, if thes not done ccly because you get a little snap from the state, you want to automatically put a consequence on it instead of having conversations. I believe our admin, and our staff are doing the best as possible to make
100sure that threat assessments are getting done. Are they getting done correctly, I don't know. But you do have a team, I know that is suppose to be watching it. That's why I know when threat assessors know what is happening act. So when I'm talking to upper management, I believe the principal that told upper management that they did their jobl. Because when they ask broward to get involved and help. That should say something. We're not looking to be against each other. We're looking to band together for the good of our careers. People want to come and work in broward county schools. But they want to know that the nine elected have their backs. Passing a budget, with certain things not getting done, wrong, totally. I don't care what deadlines you have, there is always things that
101can be moved and taken care of in conversation. Let's get back to the threat assessments. When people are calling you and telling you that it's of urgency, stop fluffing it and saying, there is a process let it take its course. There is things that take a course and then there is urgency. Broward committee is committed. The process of locked doors and locked gates, don't prop doors, pay attention, how to use the new panic button, when to use the panic button. Don't be afraid to use the panic button, don't be afraid to speak out. See something, say something. But then you get a group of people that we don't want to look like we're a horrible district. We have 250,000 students, things are going to happen. And the process is going to happen. But you've got
102a group of people and stop pounding on the people in the schools, they're overworked. Chair: thank you. Thank you, board member discussion, MS. Alhadeff? thank you. So, MR. Rodes in regards to this behavioral threat assessment, audit, there was 11 high attributes that were ranked. And in some of them were based on not completing in take forms, not providing proper documentation, not communicating to parents the incompleteness of documentation , failed to fill out forms, parents not being notified, so can we speak to why this is happening and how we're going to rectify this moving forward? sure. I'm going to hand this over to the manager who provided the oversight monitoring of this work. Her name is helena, helena, please. Speaker: can I, hello. Can I please can you please repeat the question, as far as what?
103MS. Alhadeff, can you repeat? sure. So we know behavioral threat assessment are extremely important. And what is happening is there is incomplete documentation, parents are aren't being notified. What are we doing to rectify this moving forward that documentation is being done and parents are communicated to? Speaker: well, we did receive responses from the management regarding this issues and there are, a response from the behavioral management department raised a lot of concerns about, the implementation of focus. And, how the transition was going and a lot of issues were, based, were due to those transition issues to the new system. And, they're a functionality in focus that were available in that plan that were not available in focus. Another point, as we did, as far as the documentation of student imaginement plans, the findings are basically on
104how the schools keep the documentation. Because it's been a requirement for a while that they need to upload the documentation into the portal. And we were not able to find that, so the high level of findings for the students support action plan is that we were not able to allocate the boards. We don't know if the documentation is available or not. I can help out. We are the safest district and we will not stop until we're 100 percent of how metrics are measured. That's our commitment. I do want to talk about some of the past challenges and I also want to thank the board for this discussion. I thank dave rhodes and his team for completing the audit. As far as the auditor mentioned, some of the challenges are that the school staff over the
105past ten years, have had to use four different systems. We're finally, two different system two years. So over the past two years, we've had to use four different systems. So, that's like every 50 percent of the school year, we have to switch over to the new system. They are on the new state portal as of late this summer and early fall. That's the system that everybody in the state of florida will be using moving forward. More than anybody else in the state. And so, one of the issues that she mentioned is, the difficulty in using different systems for over the past two years. Many of the compliance documents are, hard copies and the staff do have them. The difficulties were uploading many of those documents. I do want to mention smft current solutions, to have
106better controls especially with this new system that is being implemented right now. And that's with of course the btm team, they do a compliance check, they're going to talk about that a little bit later with the required documentation. You heard also the shift in the safe and security emergency planning team, where we have ESMs that are focused on ASMs that are doing the functions that they were doing before. They're checking for certain documentation for BTAs and get a little bit more deeper with deliverable with people that are on the team and are they present? On campus so they can make sure that the teams are set up and they're present on campus. The another aspect of this, since we've been going through diva doration south side training, training, making sure that our school staff is
107comfortable with the system. I know chief gregory has talked to his btm team just to make sure training is top priority to help us transition better to get all the documentation in. I do expect, 'cause this is the first and second quarter of last year's audit, I do expect the third and fourth quarter of last year to be the same also with the same difficulties, because it's the last system versus what we're on right now. One of the things that is important for me and of course the chief auditor does not work for me and I'm not sure if he has this capability. We want to monitor as quick as we can. As soon as we assess a student, we want the data so we can close immediately. The data for me is too lagging.
108It's too late. We're in the first quarter of a new school year but I'm looking at data from last year's school year first and second quarter. So I don't know if there is additional information through auditing in conjunction with our particular controls to do an audit at the end of each quarter or at the end of each semester. So the staff can have that information so we can react appropriately and compare the da that we have to get to 100 percent of perfection when it comes to security. thank you, MR. Hepburn. So MR. Rhodes, is there a way to expedite. as we work through the process, some of these processes are going to change again. One of the things and again, we're looking backwards of how the process looked for quarter one and two and
109upcoming is going to be quarter three and four. One of the best things that we can do moving forward is to ensure that all of these different documents whether they're electronic or they have to be uploaded are uploaded timely so there is continuous monitoring and any problem spots are identified quickly so we can take appropriate actions to step in and to try to avert anything that would be a bad situation. I think, in all, to be candid, I think staff is aware of their where shortcomings are, they're working hard to try to fix those situations. But what happens is, that again, going back to bha we even had to do from an audit perspective because of how quickly this has been changing. There was one state model, we put together a program to match that
110state model and then the state model changed, we had to develop a new audit program to match that. We found that to be painful and we know staff has to be experiencing the change. That however has to be met with the most critical level of priority so that we can make sure that nothing slips through the crack. We're going to continue to monitor that situation and report to the board and continue to provide and provide documentation that can give management an idea of where they can put for of their resources to correct? Some of the items of the highest risk. sxif a question regarding the new system, when they're filling out the form, if they don't have proper documentation in there, does it not allow them to go to the next step? helena? so the
111documentation for the student support management plans was to be uploaded into an emergency management suit which is was application used for monthly meetings of the school base teams. And the bta department required the school base teams to upload the documentation together with the monthly meetings. And this is there is no control whether you upload it or didn't upload, you just upload it. I think MS. Alhadeff was talking about the brand new system, I'll turn it over to chief gregory and his team about the new system we're implementing. I would ask MS. Bundy to speak to that. Speaker: good morning, the current portal dunce allow for completion of in-take form without documentation and dirt. So as we work through the portal, the required documentation outlined by state rule is in the portal currently as, it wasn't
112necessarily in foc pus. So yes, certain things are specifically addressed in the portal that were not available in focus such as documentation that the parent received a copy of the ss M.P., documenting the parent was notified, all of that was in the portal and we currently have 18,30 school base members working in the portal. and I just want to piggy back on what she said, when you look at documentation in the state portal, is state requirements. Right, broward sets a higher standard. We have a documentation daily. That documentation we expect the schools to maintain with fidelity and we monitor that with fidelity. So that's a document that you will not find in the state portal that we then, work do the work around for our system and work with our school leaders, work with our
113current technology to ensure we provide places for our school leaders to provide that documentation, through their bta monthly meetings, they monitor every student, every month and all processes, right it's one thing with system saturation as we move through these portal and this one thatat we're finally gettttg g toa place ofofstababily y inthe state of flflida and this I is gog to b b phenomenal tool across the state of florida, moving forward. But as we system system that sag tation sa two racing, we -- saturation. And I want to a these board through all of these changes and adorations, there never been a fidelity of implementation between our school leaders, our behavioral threat management department and senior leadership and ensuring we're keeping all our schools and students safe. thank you, DR. Lozano. So it seems at
114this point, moving forward, the state is providing us with a very strong behavioral threat assessment system where a lot of these forms that were not complete, we're not going to be able to get through the form without making sure that it's properly documented, moving forward. So thank you, thank you to staff, and thank you DR. Hepburn for continuing to have our staff trained on this. This is a extremely important that these BTAs are being done, being done with fidelity and the safety plan is also being completed to make sure that we have the safest schools possible. Thank you. Chair: thank you. MS. Bulman. my questions were answered. Thanks. Chair: thank you. So I have a couple of questions, comments hit a on a lot of them. A big concern is we're in SEPTEMBER and we're
115talking about an audit that happened for JULY through DECEMBER. So nine months later for us to give direction on things makes it difficult. I appreciate what you said to that, DR. Hepburn. But my question really is in our threat assessment team, is it possible for you to give a report or update the board more in a more timely manner on some of these things and kind this is a moot point to some extent as MS. Alhadeff pointed out, it's a whole different system now, so some of these concerns are going to resolve themselves. But moving forward, when there is an issue, that is alerted us how to high for just in general, and some of them I think are bigger issues than others, like action plans and notification of parents because those are state statutes,
116is there a way for you to give us maybe in a monthly or quarterly update, maybe not that it was audited but just from internally, the issues that you're seeing so we as a board are more aware of that and can maybe brainstorm on ways that we can resolve some of those issues? great questions. Let me do this, let's look at a quarter timeline but I do want to get with the chief auditor and general counsel to make sure shah the information that we provide does not violate student privacy or that we need to work in close door. Chair: we're talking about this to SEPTEMBER and this is information that happened in JULY through DECEMBER of last year. So it's kind of hard to have the discussion when you're saying, oh but we're not using
117that anymore. So I would rather have a more timely discussion. I have three other things. So, one of the things that I think is really important and I guess it will be resolved in the state's updated one but having somebody who knows that students personally, because as we know, there is a gamut of behaviors and that was put in there for a reason so. My question to that in the new state format or the state software that we have now. Are people, do they sign off electronically? In other words, there is a form. If you're just uploading a form, how does it know who signed it, if there is not like a way that they click it electronically. go ahead. so currently, the portal does not have a signature feature, what it does, it it
118time stamps the person's p number that is connected to them. So, timely notification, that documentation that is captured, the person that that speaks to personal knowledge of the students is basically the chair entering the information into the portal and it has a time stamp and that specific person p-number next to it. so it's the p-number of the person who knows the student? it's the p-number of the chair but there is a box where you have to identify the person that spoke to personal knowledge specifically. In focus, it was not readily available at the beginning and then once it was added, it was a drop down feature and it was a multi select. So if the chair that was creating the document didn't select personal knowledge next to the person's name, then they were not identified
119as that person. okay, so the new software resolves that. Perfect. Other thing that was really troublesome in this report was that 64 percent of the documentation was not maintained for actions, that were suppose to be happening. And this is a huge concern because what is the point of the threat management that's what we call it, you make an action plan and then we're providing services, as I tried to tell people all the time, threat assessments are not suppose to be punitive they are to get the students, the assistance that they need. So if 64 percent are not what they're suppose to be, then I have a huge problem with that, because why are we doing, why are we cog the threat assessments. so I'll start with this and MS. Punsi can follow-up so. It's not
120that those actions aren't taken. If you look at the documentation for those actions actually put in the space in the emergency management platform. In prior audits, as the form per director, I would sit with each school during the audit, we would look for the documentation, we would ask the school for the documentation. 'cause the important thing to what you're saying, chair, is that the actions were implemented with fidelity, right? The school has all the documentation at their school site and they implemented every action, that's more important while we want it in that space, because it makes it easier for the awed -- audit because the schools have it there. I want to reiterate that point, schools are implement ing audits. But as an auditor, if it was not in there, it was an exception. In
121this audit which was different from our prior audits where we met with each school to make sure that the documentation was there. thank you for that. And to that point, I guess that's where we're standing. We're ground zero, we're suppose to be the beacon what threat assessments look like. We're suppose to believe the most conscious graoufp people taking action for our students. And it's wonderful that you're sitting with the principals and that action is happening, but what the public sees is this audit and it looks like we're not doing with this fidelity that we don't care as a board and we all of these exceptions, right? And it's, it could be for 100 different reasons, the public doesn't care. At the end of the day, we are suppose to be doing this in a way
122that let's the public know that this is important to us and this audit does not reflect that. Soy appreciate that we now have a new portal that allows some of the things that are just documentation but just documentation isn't some instances how we got where we are today. So it is important for us to make sure that documentation is done with fidelity and we have audit coming up, because that's all the public can judge us on. He they don't know the conversations you're having, but if we have the update we as a board can have discussions to let the public know that we're doing it with fidelity because waiting nine months later, to have a discussion, well we changed it three times and those are great explanations but it still does not feel like a
123good excuse. And my left point or question to the superintendent is, you know, we have a mental health coordinator, it's state mandated and there is suppose to be following the actions in the action plans and making sure like it says in here, the idea that they're getting the the required logs and referrals that were loaded in the system. Where is the role in doing this and following up and maybe that's the person that helps us to understand that we are because you know, it got thrown out to us, that there was an emergency, there was a crisis and seems like, there was no immediate action and I believe that others what that mental health coordinator is suppose to be playing a part in when somebody is identified as being in crisis. Can you help me
124understand how that all worked together? yeah. MS. Ponsi if you have any information how the mental health connects with the bta team. Speaker: so on the district team we have two mental health social workers that sit on our team and they follow-up with the schools to ensure that the social worker referrals are getting entered to ensure the social workers are addressing the mental health component and to elaborate with them and collaborate with them to ensure that we're targeting on grief counseling or trauma focus counseling or if the student needs to be reevaluate because that you are a student with a disability and they MAY be showing additional needs. And then the district threat management team also speaks to schools and provides support when needed, DR. Winter does not sit in our team, jodie washington does,
125and we collaborate with joed pe and marissa kenny's team on next step. Chair: so I appreciate that, so I'm going to ask superintendent, I helped write the law that required the mental coordinator and it does not sound like we're doing it with the intent of what the law written. It's suppose to be one person who is overlooking when a student has being identified that they're tasked with following that student and making sure that they go to those appointment sxz do they need a different referral. That's not what I just heard. DR. Hepburn is our mental coordinator as required by statute. MS. Ponsi, correct me, jodie washington's team is who is facilitating that process. correct. And I'm not sure, sra, is under a different per view than btu, we're talking to suicide assessment. Or threat assessment.
126is theres a state law that requires one person to be identified as the mental health coordinator for the district not the ones that go into the school it is required by law that that person is in charge of when something is identified through behavioral threat assessment. and there is DR. Washington. Speaker: sorry, I heard smft conversation. But vernika is the district's health coordinator. as required by law? correct. okay, and we just heard that she doesn't coordinate with the threat assessment. There is a disconnect and I think we need to have a better conversation. Because the intent of the law is not clear but that person, is suppose to believe the one who is overseeing action plans for threat assessment that's are identified for students to identify through threat assessment, to be sure that they're receiving
127the services that the action plan has. And if they're not working, to look at different things. And very passionate about this, because it is why my husband is not here and why lori's is not here, because there was not a way to follow through. So we're not doing it the way it's sfos to be done and we need to fix that. Thank you. MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM Chair, and thank you for that. I have a couple of follow-up questions on this. In reviewing the executive summary, as well as the physical report itself all 86 pages if memory serves correctly. I understand in the executive summary, that there are some issues noted in the report, about implementing new processes and procedures and practices. And I'm looking at the report itself, and there is exactly one
128section entitled recommendations with two bullet points. I'm just wondering, for my edification and that of the public as well, what exactly is the plan? That we're dwg to be implementing or making changes to? Is it a doesing al training? -- additional training? The way I read this, the principal are going to review the and ensure compliance. Like I get that there is certain administering that's we need to comply with, but are we actually going to outline some of the things that will actually change to see the needed recommendation, being implemented. And exactly, I guess the chair is gone, so vice chair, what exactly is changing here? What is the plan to address and fix these deficiencies? DR. Hepburn. great question, I'll turn to mike gregory. mike gregory safety security. This weighs heavily on all of
129us. We know the importance of the issue and the work is being done. I know the threat management department where it's close to the schools are on the phone daily with answering questions. And addressing concerns. They fall into categories, system concerns as they change system and some have more functionality and capability, staff in action, somebody did not do a task that they should have done. And lack of sufficient documentation. Generally speaking, the high-level areas of concern fell into these three buckets. We'll continue our monthly chair meetings to make sure that the chair understand the roles and understand the documentation required of them and reviewing any specific incidents that aren't, how it's normally encountered, so they can help with the nuance problems or threats. We'll be doing hot labs on the threat management portal so that
130people on who have questions on the schools can ask questions of our teams and run scenarios and get extra information and questions answered about law and/or department of information rules. Our district threat management team will continue to do site visits and retraining on as-needed basis where we find teams that are struggling. We've developed a checklist of the high priority issues and concerns that come out of the audit and come out of our compliance checks so we can proactively give those to the school basemanagement teams to make sure that they're implementing this with infidelity, whether they be department of education certificate for rule base training or refresher trainings all the things that they need to have addressed. There are canvass courses that are put in place by our district management team as well. And we have
131created a centralized chair point to upload certificates too. If there is a challenge with identifying a certificate, we can go to the site and pull up the certificates that have been uploaded. In addition for this year, we're going to be looking for opportunities that further push this information district wide. So we already started with what we utilize internally in the district. It's called hot topic where we put commonly experience challenge and what the rules says should be done, we put those out in our hot topics. We'll be incorporating tabletop exercising with the chairs moving forward with this school year. We're going to develop frequently asked questions so that anytime whether it's day or night, a school base threat management team member has a question and challenge and they can look for the answer in the
132frequently asked questions that we're building for our share base site. We kurptly send non compliance letters. We're going to incorporate the letters to you're principals and their supervision moving forward that include more fidelity where there is a pat person of non compliance. And then currently scheduled multly principal academies by region. We're looking to get space on the academy agenda so the behavioral management teams can be able to receive questions from them directly. So we're creating more engagement and more development with the people in the schools to get questions answered and let them have guidances to how they should be documentation in a time frame which what really hurts us a lot of time of things being done within the right time. Within 24 hours of the chair. So if you missed the 24-hour timeline, you
133can never correct that deficiency, it states that you didn't make within the hours. There is a time line that the team has to mitt and if any is missed, they cannot be revevold because you cannot goback in timeme sothosare things that ll bebe mangng a coordinated effort through these multiple modes of modification in the school year. thank you, chief. I tried to take some notes while you were going through that and I appreciate you expanding upon the new engagement and policy procedures. And my last question. Are you confident that the implementation of these new engagement policy procedures, modes I think you described them, are going to be enough to address all of the deficiencies that are raised in this report? I'm confident that we've got a team in place that is submit today getting 100
134percent, get -- getting this 100 percent right. I'm very confident of that. thank you, chief. Chair: thank you, DR. Zeman. thanks, chair. come of questions and recommendation for us. I understand we're in the middle of SEPTEMBER of school year, 25-26 and these data, are from the first half of the school year 24-25. I saw these I think chair, when it got briefed out to the audit committee and that MAY have been a couple of months ago. When were these ca da data first published? DR. Hepburn. MR. Rhodes? helena. it was publicly published when it was presented to the audit committee. what is the date? on AUGUST 7th. so these results have been out for a while t.Explains a lot about why the community is, you know, spending a lot of time talking to us about
135it. When I got comments is number 32, the attribute that all of should be worried about the end result get done and documented? And it's just, I hate to say this, but it's below the community standards that 64 percent of the time it didn't get documented. And the documentation itself, you MAY think it's administrative, it's paperwork, it's entering something, but indicative about whether or not you're serious about following through. This is not up to standard with the standards of broward county, and to that end, number 32, I think we need to do two things, chair. One is I would love for the superintendent and staff to tell us what they're doing differently this year about this particular process. And I would love to see that when we get back together at first workshop we do
136in OCTOBER. DR. Hepburn? that's not an issue, we can bring that back to the workshop where we'll send a board a de tailed memo of the current steps that we're implementing. I know chief agreeing rejust detailed. and I'm comfortable but my request is what we're doing from what we did last year. What we did last year, did not work. And second thing, we should progress monitoring. Not just to audit report but we wanted monitor progress. And chair, I want to to know from you or general counsel, is there anything that violates burpa or rules about students? MS. Jacque adams? Speaker: I would have to carefully take a look at the report to see if there is any person identifiable information. let me give you a little cheat sheet, there is no names, you've taken 100
137or 200 samples and then reporting aggregate data, does that violate rules? no, it is considered education records but deidentified. and let me tell you why this is so important. If you read the details, you saw the point where they over sampled the biggest threats. And you would think that our performance would be the highest, where there is the greatest threat, right where we're paying attention to woo is going on. We're not just doing the right things, we're documenting all the right things and we didn't meet broward standards in terms of how we performed this year. So in terms of taking action now, I think we need to come up with a plan that is very specific and what I'm curious about, chair is what would, what would be an appropriate periodity to get information back
138this year. I don't want to hear about an audit coming back in SEPTEMBER, is it reasonable end of second quarter, end of fourth quarter, we would like to get data. I believe that's what we asked the superintendent. I want to be specific is it about 32 attributes or general one-page summary? as I mentioned before, we will collaborate with the general, with the general counsel chief auditor about all the information that we want to bring back on quarterly basis just to make sure we're not putting things out there that we're not suppose to. But our plan is partners monitoring. We need the data to react appropriately, we just need the data for us to be timely so we can react appropriately if there are some identified gaps. would you be committed to at least having the
139attributes that came up on this report. yes. that's a way to make sure these numbers are not things that we want to observe a year later again and we would like to at least this year and in the future just track this so we're knowledgeable about how well we're doing and often what gets measured gets done and maybe in this case, we have not done a good job setting measurements we could have learned about these in on going way. thank you, and we'll finish wup MS. Alhadeff. thank you, so one thing that we have not discussed yet today, is the coordination of interventions and the services for identified students. That is a huge aspect of what we need to do to help our students. So I would like to hear moving forward, how are we
140going to coordinate these interventions, and how we're going to make sure that the services and safety plans are followed with fidelity. that's noted, MS. Alhadeff, we'll provide that information either with either memo or workshop I'll explain in detail about the strategies and progress monitoring, the company's strategies. along with that, can you volve the mental coordinator. absolutely, I've already sent an email to make sure DR. Winter is actually on the district team. thank you very much. Okay, all those in favor of item dd1 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. Next we're going to -- we have, we're past our time certain for dd4 and dd6, I'm going to bring them together. Can I have a motion can a second to bring dd4 and dd6 to the floor. so moved. moved by DR.
141Zeman, second bid MS. Bulman. Is there any public comment? no registered speakers. Chair: anybody have anything on dd4, okay, I'll go to dd6 and MR. -- MR. Rhodes, I believe these are time certain because rsm is suppose to be online, right? if somebody can grab in rhodes please. I believe these are time certain because we have a vendor on online. yes, and another I got from the red room. Whatever order, do you have a certain order that you would like to take them? I'm not sure why my name is on dd4, I didn't pull it. Nobody had any questions so we're going to go to dd6 and MS. Bulman pulled that item. thank you, chair. I pulled in item because I had a couple of concerns about the, the systems and the you know, one
142of the findings where, the same employee is, doing multiple tasks and therefore that was opening us up for potential for fraud and other potential bad outcomes. But I did have an opportunity to speak with DR. Hepburn before this and I know that they fired a director, is that correct in this position which they believe that is going to help address some issues that were in this audit. So I really don't have any further questions, because I already had them answered. thank you. DR. Zeman. thanks so much, chair. This was fascinating to dive into and look at. I'm, I have a handful of questions. I think that this was presented at least according to my rep's notes in MAY. This was presented to, the audit committee as a high risk audit. Is it a high-risk in
143the sense we're assessing consequence and probability or high-risk that we're predicting that will be findings and exceptions. MR. Rhodes? I don't believe this was presented to the audit committee in MAY. I'm going to turn it over to our external auditor because they're the one that presented it. Speaker: I'm gene, I believe this audit was presented in JULY, actually. Actually, AUGUST, sorry. It was presented in AUGUST. okay, I'll go back and report back later on that. I didn't bring my notes to that meeting. But any notes said, that it was brought up. Again it high have been high-risk we look at everything over the district and say, is this topic very high consequence and probability, the definition of risk but I'll learn more about it and come back later. The second, if I'm correct, the brunson
144draft report came back and said that there are four high-risk and now we have three. Where did the process, again looking what I my files. There was four risk and then it became three and one meeting. that's correct, so he we evaluated what management already had in place so that's how we come back and lower the risk of security control. Eventually what we looked at was on that personnel's that we looked at, but the district itself, has some overall control for access to the computer, access to everything else. So essentially, we looked at all that and reduced the risk to that item. terrific, on the overall related to ach forms, these so these are vendors registering, they sent their banking information, most of us would think of banking router, there is a great finding that
145I have never seen before in an audit. Which is a segregation of duties for creating a vendor base. And in my experience, there is a lot of is he gra -- segregation, you don't want somebody to say, I approved payment, I got the invoice and the it's checked and approved for payment and put iting into a database. There should be something else to make sure that you got that split. I get segregation of duties. When you're building a database of vendors, can you help me why you would want a segregation of duties in that specific function? so the way we looked at it, there was one person within the entire process, whether it's entering the vendor information, as far as vendor name and other information as well as the vendor payments. So if later, the
146vendor want to change the vendor information or the way the district paid the vendor, that same person would be the one changing that. So what we hoping or what we are helping the district improve in that point, was we don't want to have the same person changing vendor information as far as the payment is concerned after the fact. So basically, we want somebody else to look at the process not just that one person. That's why we taught segregation of duty in that way would be helpful in improving the district control. I don't know if that answers your question but that's the way we're looking at it as auditor. maybe I'm just trying to put it in a category of importance, if somebody is approving and sending people money. That's understanding, but if a bank account
147got transposed that's a great thing and somebody in charge are going to -- they're just correct the database, not making appointment. I'll payment. How much did this audit cost the broward county schools? MR. Rhodes? let me look at it. I'm going to look into my system to look at the sow. I think it was 65,000. thank you very much, and last question on the ach form, sub process I'll call it. That came out of high-risk is that because one out of 40 entries was inaccurate? well, there was actually three different different hes out of the 40 that we tested, but that's not the reason why it's tested. So again, the idea behind the risk assessment, is whether there could be potential fraud happening. But we want to make sure that again, the, the ach and
148payment information, there is a potential to fraud there. So that's why first of all, it was high-risk. But the item that was MISS Ing ach, management could not provide the ach forms to us as far as test iting. The testing that we did. So we asked for the ach forms examine they were not provided essentially. and as you report states, that was true in one out of 40 cases? that was two out of 40 but one was replaced by something else. I'm happy, I'm just curious if making, not having a form in your files but the data is all correct is the reason why that sub process within your audit because deemed high-risk? no, the risk area essentially was determined beforetially we do the testing. Right? So whether something is high-risk depending on everything else
149around it, whether it's there is risk to fraud or any higher area where, potential major error can happen in the data. So those things, that's why we look when we look at why something is high-risk medium or low risk. did your audit find any instances of fraud in the management system. no sir. thank you very much. MADAM Chair. MR. Rhodes? I want today clarify that it was $60,000 and the other point I wanted to make in discussion with the brunson team, we identified that couple of example that's were risks that created this high-level risks. The individual who enters the data into the vendor data record, has the ability when requested to change from a, a printed check to direct deposit. They they have the anlt to update the information with checking account information that is
150then going to cause the direct deposits to happen where there is the ability for anybody to be there that a bad-acting can go in and put a shell's companies information, for example the check then gets cut and information gets changed back and by the time it gets to treasury, it would not look like anything unusual. And because of that, we were saying that best practices segregation of duty that somebody approves the information, was in line with what was sent in an email or provided directly to the department that updates the database that that would be adequate and correct and verified before that was turned on and that that other payment method was made. That's one of the other reasons that I want today point out to articulate and identify that cost. thank you. All those
151in favor of item dd4 and dd6 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously, minus MS. Thompson, MS. Bulman and MS. Alhadeff. Okay, we're going to go back to the consent agenda. I'm going to start with c-2 because MS. Alhadeff is not on the dais. Is there any public comment on c2. we have two registered speaker, liset and lasuka and MS. Busco. Speaker: good morning, I'm liset machuca and for more than 22 serves I served this district with dedication and integrity and professionalism. I consistently earn high lao affective ratings and have never faced prior discipline. I'm here todadabecause a suspsion is being g coiderer a a measure I feel isunjust anand rooted in retaliation. Let me be clear, I did not falsify personal record or falsify data, there is no wrong-doing on my
152part. The concerns centers of centers I no longer had access to after being reassigned from esol role. A month later, I was questioned about the booklets. Efferent rewas supported by corresponding test booklet at the time. Because I.T. Could not enter information, the school add me to enter it. I have always maintained accurate records and worked in collaboration with directors. The accusations rest see leon missing paipr work not wrong entries. Once if they were later misplaced that is a systemic issue against my control. When I raised systemic issues, I was ignored. When I took steps to protect my reputation identity was followed. The union proved that it was a false evaluation and the principal was made to change it and was very angry about it. Yet on the same day that evaluation was deleted on MAY
1538, 2024, I was served with this case letter. The time is not a coincidence. A suspension would not only harm my reputation but disrupt student learning as I'm currently teaching spanish full-time. I ask the board for fairness. Please do not allow missing paperwork, the retaliation of administration that is no longer at the school for similar actions, to destroy the career of somebody who has always acted in good faith. I urge you to reconsider the severity of this proposed sus tension. Thank you for your consideration. thank you, next speaker. PRESIDENT Fussco. Speaker: ana fussco, union, who take on these cases and as they come in, we take them. And I did not, represent on this one, data did, she is standing with me and it's, there is no, evidence again, I don't know who gets in
154your guy's ears on certain topics but when I need you when there is a severe situation on the campus of possibly, shooting on the campus, you want to ignore that but you want to go on ten-day suspension on educator, there was no need, no ties to her to falsify, no evidence that she falsified testing. He's no longer with us, powers of why, a scenario that happened that he was not paying attention to and he moved on. And this is monitoring and trying to get in there to take care of it before he left. Was very difficult. And situations happen. So I'm asking you not to approve this. There were hundreds of scores and supposedly books got missing. This is a big injustice, don't approve this suspension. any public comment? no further public comment. MR. Cervera.
155thank you, vice chair. This can't go forward today. This particular teacher, has hired counsel, a gentleman by the name of Mckey robert f Mckey out of tampa florida. She has exercised her right to petition the district and therefore, I'm going to ask MS. Batista to opine on it, but I'm opinion, if that happened, she is end with that process and that process should be planned out with counsel, and no termination of innocence or guilt should be made by this board at this juncture. We let the process play out and allowed her to play in who she needs to play in and then the appropriate decision can be made by the nine of us which is my understanding of how the process works. But for purposes of today, I do not think it's appropriate for this
156board to consider. I do want to my legal reasoning backed up by MS. Batista. I understand this request does not happen with a tremendous level of frequency. I want to make sure that legally we're on sound footing, but to try this issue twice essential when she has invoked the right of counsel. I don't think it's appropriate at this venture. MS. Batista. thank you, MS. Leonardi. So yes, the is a charge of administrative complaint and you have the list of items that the charges that the teacher is being charged with at this point, allegations. And the process, due process that this teacher has is to move forward which apparently, she is already retained counsel and requested a duel hearing, that would be the appropriate place, a doa in front of administrative law judge to present the
157evidence that would not be here before this board at this point. that was the term, I wanted do hearing, thank you for the clarification. great, MS. Bulman. thank you, I actually didn't have any comments MR. Cervera asked my question to MS. Batista. Thanks. MS. Rupert I conquer with my colleague to the left. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Vice chair, and chair serving. I have a couple of questions. I have the option to vote yes or no on this particular item. And I, I guess, if the board votes no, in majority, what happens next? Is it over? that would be correct, yes. MS. Batista. so MS. Batista, if the board feels that this item does not have concrete evidence to move forward, that matches the consequence, does this board have the right through majority to say
158no? so this would not be the place for the board to look whether there is substance tiative, we're not weighing the evidence at this point. You need to look what is before you, which is the administrative complaint and take those charges as if they were true, if you feel that based upon what is charged in the document, if you feel that is what is being charged in the document does not rise to the level of ten-day suspension, then you can vote against the penalty, right, vote against the complaint. I understand. so let me rephrase the question, is there any consequence to this board if we vote no on this item? MS. Batista? consequence, no. okay. DR., DR. Fulton, is if this was actually an offense that occured, is ten days consistent with this type of
159offenser? -- offense? DR. Lozano. yes, I'll get confirmation from my team. this question is also pertaining to the first question. I know we had directed the superintendent to have a manual that is consistent with different kind of offenses and so on. I believe you're speaking policy 4.9 so I'm going to deliver that heather parente who will be able to address your question. Speaker: director of general practices, this go before before the professional committee. And when you look at the lossing at 4.9 of falsifying, it allows you to go from a reprimand to dismissal and in this case the committee suggested a ten-day suspension. DR. Fulton, based on what is presented before us, is there anything that shows falsification of material as opposed to missing materials? MS. Parente? yes, so in the administrative complaint that you
160received, you see what was collected based on the interviews and investigation and statements. So it moved from the administrator minding, checking the files, the files had student names on them. So the administrator went to terms, these were esol tests to determine the report that they would be qualified for. When they went into the system, these names that were incomplete names had test scores incomplete. So when administrator approached the employee, the employee basically said I'm paraphrasing, basically said that materials could be completed to match what had been entered into terms. So the administrator said do you have any supporting documentation to show why we should be putting scores in student's booklet in order to match what you have in the system and the employee was not able to give proof. Speaker: that is not what what
161she said. okay, DR. Fulton, based on what was just said, were those comments from the principal directly? MS. Parente? let me go back to the report every one has a copy of the report, I'm reading from administrative complaint. I'm on page 4 of the administrative complaint. Once mchuca was informed of the discovered filed she suggested to rojo that it could be completed what matched into terms. Number 19 on page 4, the employee was directed to go back to the esol resource room and locate any document supporting the information. Number 20, the employ other was unable to prospried any documentation. So as I stated, you had incomplete booklets but students names on them. But according to the file and according to the investigation, their statements, I don't have the complete investigative file with me. But, in
162the case you had, you had 16 booklets out of approximately 100 students that were tested, hundreds approximately 100, I verified with the principal. when you look at the booklet that's had students name with them, they did not have a score. So the individual was asked about that, given the opportunity was there any supporting document to verify as why this score. It was incomplete booklet that should have not had a score but there was a score. That for us, fell, for the process fell under falsification and altering of records. Had you few cases before you, where the employees had falsified student records. And we've done, suspension. MADAM Chair, I have a few more questions, if you don't mind. This particular teacher has been a teacher for 22 years, has there been any other concerns or issues
163in the past with this teacher or is this the first? DR. Fulton? MS. Parente. Speaker: this is the first incident of misconduct issue. okay, was her request for to meet with the principal denied? according to the report of administrative complaint that I'm reading, the administration was talking to her through the process. I'm sorry, it was -- please. No, public outburst. thank you. I'm public on the btu. MADAM Chair, can I continue. continue please. it was mentioned that she requested to meet with the principal. i understand what you just said. That the principal went to speak to her. It was also said that she made a request to meet with the principal. This is a very direct question. Did she make a request and was she denied? sorry, DR. Holness, what I'm reading in the report
164is the information that was discussed was between the assistant principal and employee. okay, so there was no discussion between the principal and employee. I'm not seeing anything on page 3. I understand was there a request by this employee to meet with the principal and was it denied? Yes or no? I'm going to page 4 of the report, arojo who was principal informed machuca, if he followed, the school would be guilty of committing fraud. She was further directer to go esol room to collect documents. so there is no information that you have that could confirm that she made a request to meet with the principal and the principal denied it. not within page 4, but whenever the pc committee have in front of them, there are other document that's we could pulled. okay, is it typical.
165DR. Holness. MS. Batista wants to jump in. I just want to remind the board that at this point, you don't have all the evidence before you. That is going to happen at the next step in front of nlj and eventually we'll come back to the board for final answer. And those facts that you're requesting or asking about, those will be presented to the judge, and the judge take place the board. MS. Batista, I'm not trying to be the judge. There are information conveyed in this board by the public and by others who spoke, and I am trying to understand information just as the information we've received, I'm not trying to be a judge. I'm just trying to get clarification from what was presented to us. And I believe I have the right to do that,
166don't I? I mean, I'm sorry but every time I'm asking questions, you know, I'm just concerned, you know, that there is inhibition, consistency. I'm not trying to be a judge, I'm not trying to be a determination here. We have an option to say yes or no, that's the item. And I'm trying to simply make sure that I understand information, that's it. I'm not judging the case. so the yes or no, should be based on what is on the piece of paper in front of you and not on other items or comments that were made that are not before you, because by asking additional questions, as to whether did this happen did that happen, you are in fact taking the place of the judge. You're trying to ascertain more information and when that is not the
167role or the step at this juncture, that would be appropriate for the judge to ask, you know, did these things happen did they not happen. What items do you have, what evidence do you have? Once the judge puts together their findings, and then, they're presented to this board, then at that point, you you'll be able to say, yes this and that occured. None of people here, are under oath. I have a point of order, this is very important. If this board wanted to talk about the process that got us to this point, not this case but might use this case or other cases as a review of internal psc and personnel process that we have, could this be the time to ask this. When would it be appropriate for the board to talk about this
168process? Do we have to wait until this case is resolved or next if we wanted to? MS. Batista? so, you can speak about the process at any time during a workshop, if you would like the superintendent to come and review what the process is going through bs c et cetera and it would not have to be about any particular case just about the process. but during that process, we can bring up 20 case that would give us evidence about how the process is going today. correct, you cannot ing up the case b bause this case isis not dedededetoday. can bring up many cases. I st want to be clear about this. The counsel's advise is you must take the facts as given and decide whether the ten days matches the facts in the administrative complaint.
169Separate to that, we can bring this back during a workshop and ensure that as a board comfortable. Is that fair? MS. Batista. thank you, excuse me, DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair, I'm going to make one last question and inquiry and then I'm going to move on. It was mentioned that a false evaluation was conducted and corrected on this employee, is that true or not? MS. Batista? Or DR. Fulton, I guess. to staff. heather parente director of general practices which also supervised the evaluation team. So he valuations were completed in MAY of 2025 and no grievances filed. I heard the employee state that there was an evaluation score entered into the system and then it was changed. That happens several times throughout the year where administrator put something in the system and they MAY have
170a follow-up and we change data marks all the time throughout the year every year. This is the first time hearing of this being brought forward so I'm happy to look into it. okay, MADAM Chair, thank you so much for allowing me to comment and I MAY have a final comment later but I'll wait for the others. you're it. MR. Cervera. I would like to make a motion from the agenda and let the young lady go through the process that she hired a lawyer for. I'm still not convinced that we even have jurisdiction over this. So I would like to make a motion to have this removed. second. let this women go through the process and move on. to be able for the this teacher to be able to go through the process, this needs to
171be approved here today. Can naz what triggers the rest of the process. so we have to vote yes or no. correct. so the only way, so if it's a no, then the evident airy hearing will serve as an appeal to what this board determined? so this board is making, would be similar to lake a motion to dismiss at the stage that we're in right now. Where you look at the administrative complaint shall you look the allegations as true, if you feel that based on those allegations, the ten days suspension is appropriate, then would you move this forward to the next, the next step in the procedural process. The next step is that, this complaint that you're looking at today would be filed. We the superintendent, not the board but the superintendent, is the charging party,
172you know, the the plaintiff basically and the teach has asked to move forward from what understand and has hired and retained an attorney. So she would move through the process. let's wait a second, because you mentioned that we have to treat it just like a motion to dismiss. A motion to dismiss tests the sufficiency of the allegations in the complaint. I'm reading the executive summary and if I vote yes, I'm not indicate thating I'm going do that, this means that I'm adopting the recommendation to suspend her. correct. that's different from me saying that let's move on to the discovery, obviously there is no discovery. This is not a motion to dismiss. This is asking me to vote yes to suspend this women. And I don't feel comfortable doing that in light of the fact that
173an evidentary has been requested under a doa judge. This needs to be handled by the, the doa judge. Are you saying that the only way we get to that stage is a yes vote? that's correct. Because a no-vote means that she has nothing to appeal. She does not have anything to take to the do process. so despite the fact that she requested due process, this board still has to basically play the role, of judge and make a determination as to whether or not a violation has been committed? based on the administrative complaint, and the allegations there, so this is the only part that is similar to the motion to dismiss, you're just looking at the complaint the way to dismiss, not the entire process. So the way that it works, you look at this complaint,
174if you believe that the allegations as stated, rise to the level of penalty that the superintendent is seeking then you would approve and allow the process to move forward. If on the other hand, you look at the allegations and you believe the allegations do not rise to the level of ten-day sus pension, you can request less or nothing. If you allege that there was nothing to supports falsification of document. I'm having a severe amount of difficulty is executive summary. And maybe the wordings is word in the executive summary. This says if I vote yes, I'm adopting a recommendation that she is suspended. This is not, this is not a determination saying, the administrative complaint within the four corners of the document is sufficient to allege the allegations of fraud or whatever the specific allegations are,
175as you would have in a motion to dismiss. This is me asking to adopt a recommendation saying suspend this teacher for ten days. That's totally different than me looking at the complaint is saying this passes mustard, the proper allegations is there, let this go to the division of administrative judges or whenever this is going next. That's a lot different than me saying suspend this woman. I'm not comfortable doing this in light of the fact that she made this request for this administrative body. That administrative body should be the judge and the jury so to speak. If we vote yes, she is going to into that administrative body, essentially already found guilty of committing something and having a ten-day suspension over her head. right, so that is the process under thed statutory team, the board makes
176the decision and that gives the right to the employee to then file a doa proceeding. If you were to say there is no basis based on the allegation to have a penalty, then she would have nothing to appeal. On the other hand, if you approve it, right, she apparently, has already made a request for that hearing so that we know that would be the next step. It would be in front of the division of administrative hearing. that goes back to my initial proceedings, the doa is serving as an pel ant process. Or is it like a trial denovo? it's a trial de novo. is that per ursue per susavie? no, so you as a board have administrative law judge. The only thing that you would do at this point, is say move forward, adopt the
177recommendations, and then, the case will be tried to use your words, denovo, I'm trying to adopt different lingo from different proceedings that perhaps are not equating exactly to this process. But the judge there, would hear the evidence, that is presented by both sides, the superintendent's counsel and the counsel for the teacher. And then, they that alj, would base would make a recommendation to the board, to this board, it's called the recommended order, where he or she would find that there was a violation. Let's say that they find there was a violation. They can say that we feel based on the evidence that was adduced, ten days is too much, we recommend three days. Then that would come back to this board, and then there would be presentation of facts. Then you would have to take
178that report, that report carries great weight in front of the board, you cannot change the facts unless there is no substantiative evidence. Then would you have to accept the facts in the recommended order as true. You would then look at the recommended penalty and see, whether again, if there was basis for that. You can change that at that juncture when you have a full record before you with all the information, you get the entire record, all the you know, every single witness that came to the hearing, you get all of that at that point. If after you rule, let's say the teacher is still not satisfied, they can appeal to the fourth tca. So this is all the layers of due process that are left here before you, if you were to say no, then
179the case is over, she would have nothing to take to the administrative hearing. my biggest concern. And I'll end with this h my biggest concern, is when we have teachers, or plumbers or bakers, whenever they've taken the time to hire counsel to help them to make sure their due process rights are being preserved, I'd like to give them the opportunity to do that at all levels. And what I'm hearing is the only way that that gets invoked and if the only way that MR. Mckey gets to do that, is the board and then gets to go to the administrative judge to sit in some type of trial capacity in a trial de novo. If that's what the statute says, it is what it is I'm struggling with that. I thank you for detailed information. we
180have to do closed door in three minutes. I have MS. Rupert down, so MS. Rupert. thank you, MS. Batista. So if we vote no, and we don't really have an option to do that. But I'm saying, let's vote no. Listen to me. If we vote no and say, that the reason for that is that there was incredible information, and then that's it. We would not have to vote yes and go forward or we vote yes. Another option is we vote yes but with zero. MS. Batista. You have to stop yelling out please. zero discipline is what I I'm trying to say. What is the action to get it away. so the options before you today are to adopt the superintendent's recommendation to suspend a teacher and transmit the matter to the division of administrative hearing
181so they can have a proper hearing, that's number one. On the other hand, the only other thing that you can do at this point is to say, based on the allegations, as stated, we do not feel that the penalty is appropriate and you can change the penalty that is requested there in. okay, so both require to vote yes? Or the last part? so if you feel the penalty should be zero or nothing, then you're not moving this forward. So you're vote would be of no and then the teacher will have nothing to appeal. got it. okay, we're going to finish off with DR. Zeman. I want to stick to general counsel advise here. And I want to talk about kind of, what I read in this administrative complaint. Because, there is in my own reading
182of this, there is a positive possibility greater than zero of a lot of miscommunication here between a new teacher trying to do a process for the first time and chair, I think I heard a speaker say this, but I would love the superintendent to confirm it, did these test scores have any consequence to the teacher or student or system? DR. Fulton? MS. Parente? DR. Cohen, the esol is to determine the entry definitely for a student based on what they will qualify for to be supported in the language and learning the language. Perhaps DR. Cohen would know if that comes with funding with support of the student? DR. Cohen, chief academic, so it's listening and speak anding reading and writing and used for as a initial placement for students and also provides an extension of services
183once the eligibility of the results of the test come out. I wanted to get na out for the board's consumption. This is a new teacher who for the first time is filling out the information on terms. And there is not enough investigation in my mind to find out whether or not this person was work withing malicious. To me one conversation with a teach and her the teacher says maybe I can go get more information to help you, is not enough information for me as a board member to say, that I'm convinced that that there isn't something that just needed more meetings. And to my knowledge, general counsel, that's what you're asking us to do. If you accept the evidence, is equal to accept a sentence. And boy scout about testing. But people cheat on tests
184that are material. It might volve their evaluation and go forward a grade. This is a placement assessment to figure out whether these children need more help. For which there is no incentive for people to cheat. We would all like students to get to the right services that they need. So I'm not seeing that the process that went through in the school with these administrator was sufficient to suggest that something happened that was serious or not. I will not vote for this when it comes back. I don't want it to go doa, I don't see the ten-day suspension. Except this is fact. The complaint says one time. If you're going to take a teacher down for cheating, I'm not sure one meet width principal is sufficient. There is a lot of stuff to explore before you
185say, ahhh, this is this is it. If this is a MR. Cervera where you say there is 15 incidents, I'm in. But this is a case where somebody has worked here 22 years. You're the board member that brings cases up and says, I respect your thought that continuation of errors is dis positive and it should influence what the next one is. But in my case when the board memebers sit here and look at this administrative complaints, the principal having one meeting with the teacher is not sufficient for me to know that they did anything wrong. And the further evidence that we've gotten from staff today is not helping. You know, it's literally one meeting. Did the teacher ask to meet with the principal again? Which is in their right, we don't know. I don't see
186this. and I know we want to take a break. I find a lot of things insufficient in this principal's report about how they behaved and acted and kind of some presumptions of guilt over something that has no bearing on the teacher's financial regard no advantage of the teacher. This teacher because he's a certified teacher wants to do well by her students. Why would she allow on a test that would get services that that student needs. Does not make sense. We have other lawyers that know better, to me as a board member I have to be pretty dam convinced that this is a button-up case. And I'm not. General counseling what is the level of proof that we're suppose to use? you mean at this juncture? Like I said, it's just based on the allegations that
187are on the page. right. As a board member, I'm worried that only one meeting happened with this employee and there was no further investigation about what happened. Not anything that points out this is not a material test. This is not a pm2 or 3 or sat or act test, this is not something we want such incredible security because we're concerned. The incentives are set up to cheat. This test this is not incentive to cheating. So if I find that, would it be sufficient evidence for me to vote no on this item? MS. Batista. correct. If you feel that there is not enough allegations that would rise to the level of penalty, you would vote no. thank you, ma'am. Or you can propose something less. correct. chair I'm going to preserve my right. we're voting. So
188if you're going to make a motion, now is the time. Did adam make a motion? I asked. I do have a motion but I'm not sure that making motions and going through the debate would be in the best interest of this board comparing to going to the close door meeting. we're trying. We, they will have tosisi arou andndait.T. Are ththere anmembers that want to speak? MR. Cervera. well my -- I guess, the motion I was contemplated said by counsel that it can't be removed, unless I heard it remove. My request was to remove the item altogether and I was told no. So that, I never formally, I would like to call the question but I didn't make a formal motion. right, you tried and then MS. Rupert said second and then, MS. Batista. Yeah. yeah,
189okay. I think I still have floor. I do have to withdrawal that first? yes. can I modify the motion and ask to call the motion. that's two different things. that's why I'm asking counsel. so calling the question is a different motion altogether. If you feel like you need to make a different motion, you can do that. okay, can I motion to call the question. right now, DR. Zeman has the floor but, there is, there is it wasn't clear there was a motion but since you said something and MS. Rupert and MS. Leonardi asked about it, I feel we need to dispose of that motion. so in light of the advise of counsel, I will withdrawal to remove the item altogether because apparently we don't have the ability. without objection. Anybody object. DR. Zeman. I'm not
190going to make a motion at this time. all those in favor of c2 say aye. all those opposed a no? no. motion unanimously. At this time, we now move into a closed door close session that shall last for 30 minutes. All those not scheduled to attend the closed session, please leave the room at this time. thank you, MADAM Chair. [School board in closed-door s welcome back to the regular meeting and can I have a motion to bring h2 back to the for and seconded by DR. Leeman and I believe MR. Cervera will make a motion. I'd ask the superintendent to re-evaluate the proposed penalty and bring it back to the board with the greater penalty with the past bad acts, if you will, and take into consideration the most recent violations we heard about earlier
191this morning. any comment on the motion. Any public comment on the motion? board, thank you very much. I'll be brief. Thank you for giving me extra time to look at the case. DR. Hepburn I read out north and south and former district to get best practices on information for the board and consistently is having one-on-ONEs with board members before the meeting. I reached out a couple times and I'll ask again reach out to me and the team we can sit down and do a one-on-one. I'll have all the information at that point to better answer your questions before the board. With MR. Thompson there was the JANUARY 24 inappropriate contact towards a student. So, we pulled up that case and it was labelled at horse play and the information from the student said I was
192making fun of MR. Mike in a nice way and I hit him soft, we were playing around and he pushed my head down and he grabbed my arm in a soft way then I laughed and went to the A.P. And told him my arm was playing but I was playing and never hurt. It was labelled as inappropriate contract is why they g ge him a a veveal reprimama s so maybe it shouldld have been labeldd ststead of somethi e else so maybe instead of a 10-day or termination they went with that plan. The three-day suspension is based on tendance and behavior concerns. For attendance he's had a verbal reprimand for attendance and asked by staff do you want us to move you closer to your home and late 60 times after that after he denied
193it. The behavior, I misspoke earlier. There was no contact for this case. The behavior stems from him making tiktok videos and it's the third time he's done that. The previous times he's been told not to do it and on the second offense is when he received the 12-17-24 written demand for insubordination and made a tiktok and he was told you're in uniform and the optic are you're at work and have the campus monitor outfit and you're representing broward county public schools and so they came back from the three-day going progressive from the written to three-day and the tiktok videos nothing to do with the student at this time. thank you for that update. Anymore discussion on MR. Cervera's motion. can I ask it be read again? MR. Cervera. I would ask the superintendent to go
194back and re-evaluate the suggested penalty currently on the books and bring the item back with a greater penalty. DR. Hol holness. again, the question, DR. Hepburn is this particular employee was tardy I believe over 60 times. Is that what was said? yes, over 60 times is what I heard. so, a three-day suspension and I guess the recommended suspension here is based upon the attendance issue and not the prior concerns it appears, right. Again, is the three days consistent with what has been in motion the manual across different offenses? How did we arrive at the three days. DR. Hepburn. when we took in his prior with the verbal reprimand and based on what we've done consistently across the board with attendance concerns as well as not following directives this is consistent with what we've done in
195the past. so being tardy over 60 times seems quite excessive, right? Do employees get three days based on being tardy at all regardless of the number of times or does the number of absences play in. what should have happened is the employee should have been brought forward earlier when there wasn't as many as 60 and would have been in progress with a three or five. is there progressive discipline based upon milestones in terms of being tardy and if not, why? no, there is not. Like with transportation they have a rule on their own after a number of tardies they bring them forward for their rules and ten at but the rest of the district does not. DR. Hepburn do reiterate for the public because they MAY not have seen the previous part of our meeting
196earlier, can you provide an update again on the direction given for a uniform procedural discipline manual and in terms of excessive tardy or absences, is it possible there could be sort of a milestone of consequences depending on how much tardies you have over time? -- how many tardies you have over time as progressive discipline? yes we can. On the update on the manual we reached out with the unions and updating 4.9. We ran into road blocks there so each union wants us to go to them separately so that's stalled that motion so we're working on that and in terms of will setting milestones on tardies or attendance I think that's something we can add to the manual. very good. And the manual is expected to be completed when or estimated completion? we've gone back to
197the table and meet with the 25th. The language there is going over the monetary and insurance thing. We need to set a committee. By the end of DECEMBER. okay. So what I'd say regarding this particular case, we're in the process of completing a uniform procedural discipline manual that will be consistent across different offenses. That has not yet been completed. This particular punishment of three day suspension is consistent with we have been following and until there is a change to the discipline process in terms of having a procedural manual, I think it's important we stick to being consistent and don't have anything right now for tardies and just to be consistent with the process we have in place I'm going to support superintendent's recommendation of three days until we have more clear direction from a procedural
198manner to then we could have more uniformity and consistency and discipline and maybe discipline will be greater and I'm assuming it will now that we're suggesting have a milestone progressive discipline based on numbers of tardies so I'll support the three-day. thank you. DR. Zeman. thank you, chair. I'm wondering if the superintendent is being put in an attainable situation with the motion to offer suggestion that is different than what his staff is suggesting? DR. Hepburn. you can opine when we make deliberations on specific cases. It's my feedback on that. As mentioned before we're doing our best to get this out two weeks prior to allow the board to go over the information to get all the questions answered you MAY have about these before we get to the board meeting. absolutely. Nothing destroys a brand like
199diving into employees and asking 30,000 questions. All this information is available to school board members two weeks in advance and should a member have any deep interest in each one of these cases I think we have access to everything provided to the professional services division. and they're ready with that information. We sit down and go over most of this to anticipate some of more controversial issues based on conversations from the board on the past to be prepared to answer questions when we post. I appreciate that. To reflect on that we made a decision on an individual case. Had I been aware two weeks in advance we could have gone through this ahead of time I would have felt more confident in how I decided to go. It was 8-1 anyways. I don't think I was
200too influential in the over all vote but I'll take advantage of that going forward. I'd like to sit down with your people, MR. Superintendent and sometimes we read the administrative complaint and summary and it's pretty clear but sometimes I have these nagging question s s we could probably get all the contact handled outside of this meeting and bring whatever objections we have. Is that fair? yes. on this particular issue, I don't want to put the haven't in a position of coming back and being directed to bring a stronger punishment. I just koept think that's an appropriate use of the haven't's time and leadership. His job is to oversee the pse and MR. Cervera does the give you feedback? He gives me feedback MR. Lozano. In that light I don't like going back to the superintendent
201and come back and bring me something harder. You guys are a team and have to bring the information to us but I will take advantage to sit down and go through the cases where I see something that MAY not feel right until I understand enough about it and bring myself informed back here. Thank you, chair. I know H.R. Does reach out to our assistants and ask if we want to meet with them. I've taken advantage of that a couple times and when there's issue like this we can work it out and bring back something different opposed to doing it here because it doesn't look good for employees but I'll put a plug in you can send questions on any item before meetings. before meetings? yes, and it's encouraged actually. A lot of these items again
202you should ask questions before not on the dais as discussed in the training with sbca with carol will. A quick plug for that. All those in favor of MR. Cervera's motion say aye. Opposed say no. that motion fails. On the item h-2 as a whole. All in favor say aye. Any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. The next item is item b-2. Can have a notion and second. so moved. moved by MR. Zeman and seconded we MS. Thompson. we'll move to board discussion and then we can come back if the commenter comes back in the room. We'll start. so thank you. This originally came to the board months ago and got added to the agenda but a lot has changed since this was discussed. At this point in time I would recommend to
203vote this down. I believe we need to make sure our students all have computers before anybody else has computers. I'd be open to having the conversation in the future again but I'd like our computers to have computers before we role this out to anybody else. thank you and I believe there was a memo attached to to vote it down. MS. Bowman. my question was answered. thank you. DR. Holness. MADAME Chair [Indiscernible] DR. Zeman? Are you good? MS. Rupert. it's a quick question. Do we have any laptops that are lenovo's sitting around that aren't being used if not I don't see why we can't use them for the committee meme. DR. Hepburn. repeat the question. do we have any extra lenovo's sitting around our committee people would be able to have that information so they can
204do their job just like our students do when we get the new computers for them? I know what MR. Davis's answer is going to be. we don't have anything sitting around because we are using the capable devices. We have 81,000 we need to replace now that are end of warrant, end of life and breaking down and we find whatever we have around the district to replace that until we can get an order in and replace it. a question from MR. Davis? the question was do we have additional laptops laying around committee members could possibly use? the only laptops we have laying around would be. Wond repair. The answer is really no. The reality is it's possible as we divest ourselves of student devices we have some that barely have usable life left and the operating
205systems can't be upgraded would not warrant keeping those devices. The overhead to maintain that would be above and beyond what the device is worth. thank you so much. The memo is to vote it down. In favor of item b-2 say aye. Opposed say no. Motion fails seven without MR. Cervera. The next item is j5. Can I is a motion and second. Moved by DR. Zeman and seconded by DR. Leonardi. Any comment? no speakers. next is board members. MS. Bowman. -- MS. Bulman. just for the record if she could elaborate because there were competitive bids attached to this item with companies that perform similar s. i my question is how much in fees we historically paid to compare what the numbers are. DR. Hepburn? go ahead. thank you for the question. We looked at three other
206companies and one other thing that is relevant and they typically charge a prescription fee and what works to our advantage is size. It's a financial tool. It would link their fees are basically 10% off the top. It's a flat fee. So we don't get caught up paying different fees because of size of the district. Many have a subscription fee plus bill you on the size of your district. What we've collected is $1.943 million for fy25 and the majority goes directly to the school and money we ordinarily don't have and the other thing about facilitron it shows who is using our facility and gives us data to make data-driven decisions. just looking at the list so we're paying about $110,000 the other pricing is considerably higher for the item you conclude included. That's all. I wanted
207a clarification to make sure we're getting competitive pricing. DR. Zeman. are we raising these for [Indiscernible] DR. Hepburn. repeat the question. I want to make sure I understand. in general are we raising the fees we charge people for using facilities at our public schools? we adjusted the fees as a result of policy 8020 and prior to that our fees had not been adjusted for a long time. if we collected $1.49 million in past years what are we expecting to receive? the $1.9 million I mentioned are increased fees. we raised the fees for years '24-'25 or '25-'26. the number I quoted was for '24-'25. we hadn't increased for a while so I suspect our ref revenue next we're will go up so approximately $200,000 a year and that's where our size hurts us and we collected
208$50,000 a but we're a district at $2 million and this is a district that connects people online that say I want to use the gym saturdays. We have good information about things we have. This is not complicated. I think 15 years ago a flat fee to use software MAY have made sense but reverse the logic. Say you made the software and looking at broward county and look at others in broward you are make huge profit because you make it once and sell it 500 times. I don't like the fact we agreed to their fees. I don't like giving up $200,000 of revenue because it does go to our school and I don't think facilitron I is aood model. Isoftwtware doesnappenn ououtsideffocalal government. State and government and big businesses don't pay it. When I look at
209some alternatives here it looks like acurrent ems would charge $25,000. do we have an idea how much the whole annual fee would cost? It says depending on the number of users and enrollments do we know what would be an alternative to facilitron. and I implemented it in two districts and the size part hurts us. That's why large school districts moved away from facilitron and if you look at fm fmx they're cost is $325,000. Your example was perfect, if you're a smaller district, 10% maybe $5,000 of of $50,000 because because of our size we look at different costs. I want to clarify the confusion on DR. Zeman's face. The information is what we were able to gather at the time. We contacted the venders to get more specific information recently. Those are the numbers she's quoting
210right now. For the last one, fmx is $325,000 cost. The school dude is about $150,000 cost. With the annual prescription is $368,000 and for the second one what we moved from the cost is about 55,000 $. you are correct. The reason we moved away is because it didn't have the capabilities and features the district felt was needed or at the time. Facilitron is a turn key system and we need to be more aggressive to training people in how to use it. We'll beef up our training program. That will help people understand it better but it's a very simple program and have it on a workshop later on and we're bringing facilitron in to demonstrate the software so you can see the ease of use. This is in direct competition with old school dude and for
211large districts which I've been a number of, large districts it becomes cost prohibitive. This is a straight shot, they collect $250,000 and we pay 10% of $50,000 and don't have to include this in our budget. It's not where we have to put the subscription cost in our budget because if they don't collect fees, we don't pay. but we'll take 10% away from schools or take $55,000 to make it a budget item. The business question is the value of facilitron with its enhanced capabilities worth $100,000 more than ems. they wouldn't satisfy our needs and limited in the number collected and couldn't deal with the number of schools we had so we had to go away. It was not the right software for us. That the why we landed on facile tron. It connects with our hvac
212system and with maximo. We have the ability to maximize the sources of facilitron but for facilitron we would not have collect the $1.5 million because the previous system could not do that and why we moved away. if we vote yes today when is the next time we can compete this software? this fall. the current contract with facilitron expires on the 10th of OCTOBER and is a three-year contract. So three years from now is going to be a new contract. thanks, chair. MR. Cervera. thank you, chair. I apologize if I repeat the question. Since 2023 has facilitron made off the district with the fee-model of 10%. I'll repeat the numbers start starting last year school year 2022-2023 total revenue is $580,000. Facilitron fees roughly came up to $58,000. School year 23-24 total for renting facilities is
213$1.7. Million and facilitron was $176,000. And last year it was $1.9 million total revenue and facilitron fees were $194,000. so 58,000, $168,000 and $194,000 correct. over the last three years. ten percent. if my math is correct I'm at $428,000. for three years. and that is based off the premise of the current fee structure where they're collecting 10%? that's correct. MADAME Chair I'd like to make a motion. go ahead. I would make a motion to direct MS. Batista to go back to facilitron and make a counter offer to the current version of the contract and have the fee percentage reduced from 10% to 5%. MS. Batista. I believe normally the contracts are negotiated by staff with facilitron representatives but I'll be happy to assist if that's what the board wishes. that's correct. Thank you for adding
214that. Caution to the board it's set for next month. I don't know if negotiations like that would be complete by the time this contract sun sets. there's not a lot of room between 5% and 10%. To me worst-case scenario -- well, I don't want to give the thoughts on how negotiations go I'll keep my mouth shut but surely it's not overly complex to go back on. is there a second. second. public comment on the motion? Board discussion? MS. Thompson. thank you, chair. What happens if the contract sun sets? we won't have the capability anymore and it's very difficult to do that with an in-house system very archaic with a spread sheet type functionality. in charge motion if it goes beyond the spir expiration of the contract is there anything that exists that would allow us
215to do some sort of a short term extension of continued use until athree-year contract is negotiated? can you provide an answer? no to that question it's not in the contract [Indiscernible]. so an extension cannot be negotiated for a short term contract? I understand the contract is expiring but is there anything should we need the time a three-month temporary extension or additional contract can be done? I'm not sure if there's any type of emergency extension in the contract at all. Correct me if I'm wrong. you're correct. You're talking to an entity. I don't know if they'll be amenable to that. Beyond we have the termination clause which gives you 90 days. Beyond that there's no provision. MADAME Chair, so we have the option of not going with facilitron and a different company is that correct? that
216is correct but that would start a whole procurement process over and that takes time. To add context to the conversation the three years which is $400,000 or so, the three years with the last two options in the board response for fmx would be almost $1 million. For school dude it'd be $500,000 to $600,000. And the former software we transitioned from is not meeting our needs and probably can't handle the complexity and size of our district which makes our situation worse. okay. So the reason I'm asking the questions. If facilitron refused the 5% or we do not meet the time line, we don't have an option to proceed with a one year contractor something of that sort of company will [Indiscernible] the largest hurdle is time. The contract sun sets early next month. i think OCTOBER
21710. We're in SEPTEMBER 16 right now. I think our biggest barrier is time. But then again the last two options besides the company we moved away from, their fees are or structure of cost is higher than facilitron annually. We'd go to another company that's higher cost and also having to train employee s. Right now we're training a smaller group because people have been using it and last school year people have been it comfortably and change the policy including new users and now we'd have to train the whole entire system over again in the middle of the school year. There's more complications than going to another company. I understand. I'll ask a few more questions. In terms of facile -- facilitron could this be a one-year contract instead of three. we'd have to go back to
218the table. Do we lock in a cost or for the three year? It's all about if they're amenable to doing that at the last minute. That's another barrier. we have to go back to the vendor. It's a business decision to them and have to ask if they're amenable to that and we can't give a different answer. DR. Hepburn, from what I've seen there's a progressive increase in the fees they're collecting which means what they're take from the district and they're costs go up and I understand they take a percentage which is 10% but if we utilize our facilities at $4 million, that's a million they've mostly gone with. I think all of us have an issue. The fees seem exorbitant and we have running out of time. I think think it sits well as looking
219at facilitron as a monopoly to what we have to get done. It's unsettling in my opinion. We had time and go out and explore other options then we're tied to the company and we don't even have room to negotiate and can't say give us a one-year contract and we'll come back next year and see if we can get a better deal. At a minimum we should go back and tell them a one-year contract because we're going to be locked in three years and have progress increase in fees and money from the school district. It's very high. Thank you, MADAME Chair. we have to focus on the -- I understand. the motion. it's part of the motion. okay. Any other comment on the motion? DR. Zeman? I really like this motion. I feel like what DR.
220Holness is talking about is a real thing. The board brought up issues with going back to facilitron and what we got back was three other options one doesn't have functionality and two are more expensive but wasn't other thinking beyond that. This board is not a rubber stamp. We're not just going to roll over and say let's spend on $200,000 on something that looks like. We have a couple hundred things people cant rent and if you put them up -- can rent and put them up for sale on a transactions database and time stamp you can sell them and a point-of-sale vendor will charge you 1.5%, 2% and someone writes a software that looks like it can do the same thing in a public education landing page and everyone is willing to pay 10%. I'm objecting
221to the fees. They're just too much. I don't like not having real options or being put in a corner or ignored or my authority being taken away from me but I don't have staff to bring alternatives and we rely on staff to bring real alternatives. I think we should ask for a 5% deal. They'll still be making a lot and you built it once and 5% of $2 million is less than 10% of a smaller district and install and turn on and I think there's a feasible chance. We have a workshop OCTOBER 7. This contract goes to OCTOBER 10. So if we felt strongly about it we can make a small special school board meeting and dispose the items if they're alternatives. I just feel like this board was honest and said we don't like
222this and seems expensive and wish we had more alternatives than this is crappy and like why don't we do this for a year and go back and see if the vendor is willing to do it and say it seems like a lot. The board's choking on it. We didn't get those two options and now we're being told we can't exercise our authority as the budget makers for the district because there's no time. I like this motion. I appreciate MR. Cervera bringing it. by us using facile tron, how much annually are we going to see? by using facilitron it's been said the district quadrupled its issue for facility use and before the number was probably definitely under the half million dollar mark and as a result of facilitron utilizing the system it's been utilized by school
223staff and patrons who want to use our facilities the revenue was quadrupled in two or three years. what was the specific number? the first year was $580,000 and last school year was $1.9 million. that we saved? we brought in revenue. the 5 % is equal to what? 5% for the first year, 580,000 is roughly fees and with the $1.9 million they'd bring in roughly $100,000 in fees if it roughly 5% so exactly half of what they're collecting right now. if we stick to the fee it will be $200,000. based off last year's revenue. brut ut bringing in $1.9 million. last year. and if we stop this now it will create what issues? chaotic issue. There wonon't be a a functionality foreople t t reqeqst tse o ththeacacitit provide certicicate of insuncnce, provide all the information
224needed to rent the facility if they need security or cuss toadian toad ian -- custodian event planner. the one speaks to maintenance and management. Can you speak more to that? MS. Paul. the advantage is that it is compatible with maximum. So we're able to have a renter and you can turn off lights, all of that based on our hvac systems so it's integrated into maximum. It has the potential savings of utility and is the advantage. The other thing that is really important to understand is we wouldn't collect $1.49 million but for having this type of software. And the integration we have with our maximo system will enhance that. The majority of the revenue outside of the 10% goes back to the campuses. This is revenue generating for the campuses. If we didn't have this particular
225system, you would not have seen that growth from the 58, $58,000 to the $1.9 million. thank you. I appreciate that. yes, would it have been great to negotiate 5% early on? I think this is an important part of our schools, facilities, maintenance, management, financial reporting and DR. Hepburn feels this is important to support our superintendent and chief operation officer and continue and approve this moving forward. Thank you. thank you, MS. Thompson. I was going to ask if we go back and ask for 5%, is there a way we settle on 10% or does that just restart the whole negotiations. I understand 10% is industry standard as far as fees. We're going back to negotiate below industry standards for fees for the school district to utilize the software. I'm very concerned though I have concerns with
226facilitron, I've asked MR. Davis about the quality of the software and talked to MS. Paul, I think for what we're getting it's okay. I also don't think the disruption to the description after working through 8020 and all of that is worth the price. I'll be voting no. Thank you. thank you. MS. Leon. was the contract negotiated before it was brought to us? currently in the current contract facilitron has either 10% or take a specific number, right. So it depends. The current is 80% and don't allow you to negotiate anything outside of that. We wanted to standardize. because it's 8% to 12%. But in what case do we pay -- if I'm a renter it depends on my total. Technically the lower the total rental cost you're paying half a percentage. The lesser your total cost
227is higher percentage. We're trying to see if it can even out. we can choose a model which technically some people have large rentals paying which is 12%. They only give the two options currently. so it wasn't really negotiates. That's the options -- their model. This MAY have been asked already but if we went out of contract for this could it continue on a month to month basis? Are they going to shut it down? How's it work? in the contract we have the termination clause. So after the 90 days, they'll shut down. So in the contract right now it doesn't give that month to month. we said we're making money from facilitron is that because itself or implementing a system that's working? DR. Hepburn. it's both. You have a process based off policy and the program
228helps to facilitate that process to make sure the users or centers of our facilities understand what they need to do to provide all the documentation. So we're not liable for crazy stuff that can happen and hold schools accountable to make sure they're not double booking or recording in the large system because we have those issues we're dealing with internally. It's both. I have my problems on 80/20 we're working and I agree. We get into risky territory when we're getting into management and while I'd love to facilitate this I can't help this further. is 10% attainable and is the 5% before the OCTOBER deadline without disrupting service? I'm not confident we'll be able to do that by OCTOBER 10. How confident are you we can get this done before OCTOBER 15? I can't put confidence into
229something I don't have certainty on. Do we have time to not disrupt service if the motion should fail? I know we have a work flow for contracts. I'm assuming and I'm assuming the only thing that would change is the length of time and nothing else. yes, it sounds like that would be the other term affected. DR. Hepburn I don't know which way it should go and would like to make another motion and lastly, MR. Hepburn, since the contract in place doesn't include extension or month to month option, is that included in this contract and how difficult would it be to include that? Would it go through the negotiation process again? And would it then run into potential of disrupting service. MS. Batista. that would be the process. Anything you change would have to be negotiated
230with the vendor. how is that different from a change of one-year term versus three years? Is there a difference in what's being asked? no, again, just like DR. Hepburn I've never dealt with this vendor so I don't know what they would be amenable to agreeing to. One year or 5%. Any of those things would be up to the vendor. if we're asking for consideration of the terms to one year that would be doable within the time period of OCTOBER without disrupting service? I could not answer that question. okay. MADAME Chair I'll make a motion. okay. all in favor of -- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. through the chair, the current contract has two additional 12-month terms but will still be within the 8% to 12%. okay. Thank you. MR. Cervera, I'm sorry. thank
231you, MADAME Chair, real quick. I didn't want to say this in my prior comment but the cat's out the bag, I think. I have a real problem with this coming back to the board with a short time for renewal. What I'm effectively hearing now is we lost a lot of leverage. I guess this sun sets on the 10th of next month. We literally have less than a month and going to the negotiation table on the other side and know there's only three or four weeks before a contract ends on its own terms, that cuts our knees out dramatically. I would like to see going forward that we get these types of contract s s with a little bit more time to go back and negotiate. Sometimes we don't negotiate better rates in the contracts we're
232signing. DR. Hepburn do you want to comment? the contract came before the board a month ago and postponed for this meeting. it is what it is with this one. The date's the date. But I think at a minimum when we're dealing with contracts like this or honestly, the majority of the contracts we deal with, there should be enough time for the board to say, MS. Batista or whoever, go back and renegotiate x, y, z without them knowing this is running out two weeks and you don't have time to go elsewhere and have to come running back to us. That's a huge leverage loss for us and disappointing because the numbers we're talking about we have the opportunity to say save if we can get them to agree, $200,000 plus in fees. I appreciate it was
233on a prior agenda and pushed to today but we need to make sure the board is given enough time to give directives and not be faced with an impending deadline of two weeks. thank you, MR. Cervera I appreciate you trying to save the district money. I want to make sure my question is to MS. Batista. Is it in our purview to direct you to ree negotiate a contract? More timely cadence of the contracts would be very helpful. thank you. all in favor of MR. Cervera's motion say aye. All opposed say no. roll call on the motion. Cervera. Hixon. no. holness. no. leonardi. she's not here. rupert. thompson. no. zeman. yes. Bowman. no. it fails 2-5. can I introduce a point of order before -- he wanted to make a motion. this will help. Every contract
234has convenience of government clause that allows us to cancel it. If we direct to get more information other ways to do this we can direct him to exercise that clause and that would automatically trigger another competition. The idea of saying we only want a one-year contract is already built in and wanted to share that information. MS. Batista could you weigh in on that, please? that is correct. In this case the termination clause is upon 90 days written notice. You could approve the contract and terminate with the 90 day notice to the other side if you were to find another company or start a different process for a bid or whatever the process MAY be. so can you ex pound on the difference that would mean if the board should support a one-year contract with facilitron
235opposed to exercising the termination clause and then looking for another company. How is it different? the term is the 90-day termination. The board would not longer want to do business with this particular vendor you can direct staff to notify the vendor with a 90-day clause. I understand what you're saying but I think the board is looking for a better deal and more time to do so. So a shorter contract would give us time. I think what DR. Zeman was trying to say is maybe direct the superintendent to go in negotiations with facile tron because they can do that and if facilitron says no, we don't want to do it, we could bring it back and end the contract with a 90 day notice. We don't have to make it just a year. Your motion could
236direct the superintendent to re negotiate negotiate the contract and bring it back. so I'll make that motion to superintendent to renegotiate the contract and bring it whack to us at a later date. second. any public comment or discussion? DR. Zeman? I'm curious now that we're into this. Was this contract awarded as a result of a competitive solicitation or a directed award? I'm not sure of the specific procurement method. our contract [Indiscernible] The current contract was through the rfi and facilitron won. This contract is to renew. There's not the system build in to renew with facilitron but this contract while this is ending is [Indiscernible]. I want to continue on that. I talked a lot about this and having trouble getting traction. When you give somebody an award with no competition, which is what this is.
237We gave it three years ago and had a bidding process and they won and their three years is up and now we'll just give it again to them because we're used to them. That eliminates the competition of any company that figured out a better way of doing this by competing and we're well over 80% of the contracts this board approves a legal wrinkle that eliminates competition. I love competition. That's how you find out if there's a better company than facilitron. I like this because if DR. Hepburn can negotiate a better one, great. If not we can say, great let's go out and tell them they have six months because it takes a while to do solicitation and they're welcome to compete but we go through a real competitive process. There's thousands of companies out there
238that would love to do business with broward county. We're a big district. I don't know why we're fascinated with doing the thing that is quick and easy rather than doing the things that are best for students allowing competitors to come in and do a process. . It takes more work but you get better, more efficient outcomes. I'd like DR. Clarification to what DR. Zeman said in regards to how much time facilitron been with us. since 2022. It's the third year of the contract which sun sets in OCTOBER. To clarify, there was an rfi done three years ago where facilitron won the rfi. so how much money have we received back in revenue for the last three years if we've been using it three years. for revenue? 3.6 $3.6 million to us. $3.8 million. I know
239we spoke to other companies before, if we go down this route do you feel we would be able to get a better dealer company? DR. Hepburn? from the looks of it, I'm not -- one, for sure they can address our current complexity in size. The other two I don't know if it's a better deal. I'm not surur it's a good compromise because we're going to pass facilitron and ask the superintendent to look into it and we have an option to go a different route without disruption of service. I appreciate the motion. All in favor? Repeat the motion. very quickly, so I don't have independent knowledge how this was procured but in the item, it seems to say this came about as a result of purchasing policy 3320, which would be due to the software extension
240which is that's the case you would not have to go out for a bid. You use that extension and do business with another company. It would be a shorter period to get a different vendor. thank you. DR. Holness repeat the notion. to district the -- the superintendent to renegotiate with facilitron and come back with something favorable. I think the idea is not separate of the item itself. You have an additional part. Does it make sense after we vote the item? can I make an amendment of what a thought you said before. The motion I thought you said is a condition on passing the contract is that DR. Hepburn will go out and negotiate to see if he gets better rates and if not he can report back to the board and we'll take action at
241that time? that is correct. If the condition is passed in the contract and that can go out to renegotiate for better rates. so the intent of the motion is the item would pass but superintendent would still go into negotiation or reach out to facilitron and negotiate a better percentage. We'll hopefully still pass the item and hopefully -- that is correct, MADAME Chair. I think because there's a 90-day termination clause if the superintendent is not successful the board can go with a different vendor? if that's what was brought back to us. to DR. Holness' motion are we limiting this to negotiation with facilitron -- that's what I wud going to ask too. if we can't negotiate a lower rate with facilitron are you directing the superintendent -- great question. To get legal counsel's advice, we can
242also add in the direction to seek should facilitron if we're not successful in negotiating for better rates the superintendent can seek other options for better rates? Is that -- DR. Hepburn do you understand? renegotiate the facilitron contract at a lower rate. Lower than the 8% threshold. If that's not possible, also simultaneously work with other companies to see if we can get better rates but similar or better capabilities. than facilitron, correct. MS. Batista, is that motion okay legally? all in favor of DR. Holness' motion say aye. Opposed say no. The motion carries 8-1. On the motion itself back to j-5. I have a question. Sorry, I'll ask quick. To the superintendent, we keep being told facilitron runs because of the policy right? The parameters would it need to be in the motion or policy or is
243there a point where the principle has the opportunity to approve or unapprove because I understand sometimes somebody outside the district is renting it but prevents students who were going to use the facility -- say the auditorium for play practice. And all of a sudden they are can't practice and there's no way to see to approve or disapprove. Is it a policy question? it's not a policy. It's a process. Right now the regional office for any facilitron interest that comes in the make up the phone and talk to school staff about availability from space. that's not what I'm hearing from principals. We don't want students to be out. they can reach out to the regional office. That's the current process right now. thank you. All in favor say aye. Opposed say no. as amended? yes. I'm
244sorry. no. thank you. All in favor of j5 say aye. Opposed say no. Motion passes. and chair, for the record on DR. Holness' motion MS. Leonardi was present. there's only seven votes. She came back after. for DR. Holness. that's the one I'm correcting. I was talking about MR. Cervera's motion. So motion passes 7-1 without MS. Thompson here. okay. The next item -- we have a 3:00 certain time but we have a group of people signature here for a long time. We told them we'd do oo12 so I'll do that first and come back to the owner time certain. Can I have a motion and second on oo12. Moved by MS. Rupert seconded by MR. Zeman. we have two speakers. good afternoon, MADAME Chair, vice chair and board members and haven't. I'm dan renolds the PRESIDENT
245Of the federation of public employees. We have before you a motion to approve a piggy back agreement. Given the discussion you just had I'll ask you reconsider this before moving forward. You have a situation where one company, which we do business with multiple companies currently doing the same stuff, and one company has been given a piggy back agreement. To do that they have to already be doing business here. The other two companies were not included in that process. It appears as though this was the priority agreement of the company was given in our opinion prejudicial access before this came before you just approved a $2.5 million additional expenditure with maximo. Part includes enhance ing ing efficiencies the warehouse and stock room I don't know why you'd bring in another company in the middle of a
246contract you just led to co this. You should be in possession of a letter I sent from the federation to each of you. It's not an honest letter. It's a compilation of ideas and facts from a number of employees and the federation is willing to take responsibility and stand by anything that's contained in that letter. The back up mentions other companies that use lee and orange. I might point out both lee and orange needed to use broward county employees to re-open after hurricanes that each of them had because they had out sourced their own employees and once you out source your employees you can't call them for duty after a disaster which you can with your own employees. There's no indication that this is going to result from a savings. In fact, the other two
247companies working here occasionally have lower prices than facinol and your own employees when confronted with prices they think can do better found items provided by the three companies at a lower price than that. thank you very much. I'm going to urge you to vote no on this and take into consideration the discussion you just had. This is a no-bid piggy back contract where at least two other companies were involved and could displace your own employees to the district. thank you. our final speaker is chris horns. I'm with facinol a broward county school graduate class of '89. Thank you for the time. we understand the concerns and want to address today facinol is within seven school districts in florida and consigning and providing staff. We work with tens of thousands of vendors including our public economic
248s economics and other businesses within the community to provide a service to the district. We did approach broward county schools, 2015. Today within the seven school districts that we've been working with on site including lee and orange and palm beach and kol colyer and we're providing the value. The piggy back is a contract provided to other school districts as well that do utilize the contract. This wouldn't be the first time it's being done within a k-12 market. What we have seen is through our total cost of ownership analysis, we're able to show about 8% 10% hard cost savings on the physical products going through the warehouse today. We expect in the first 90 days we'll consign about $250,000 worth of inventory and within the first year consign about a million worth of inventory. Today we
249consign overall for the state of florida with the large school districts we work with north of $500 million supporting 40% or more of the total student population in the state. So, I'm going to save everyone time. Give you 56 seconds back and thank you very much and look forward to growing the partnership. thank you. board member discussion. MS. Rupert. thank you. I have some questions. I want to talk about our employees. They're the heartbeat of this district just as well as our students and our teachers but we also cannot do the job of educating every child to their best ability if we don't have communication going to our employees and they get very nervous because they feel they'll be displaced and we owe our employees more than that. I know during bidding processes and checking
250out and vetting different organizations our staff with MS. Paul has tried to calm and reach out. My basic money questions are this. What was the previous contract fy21-146 percentage of POs by company? I don't feel I need to educate my colleagues. There's mansplaining and sister splaining. I'd like to postpone this to the next school board meeting to give our staff, superintendent and MS. Paul an opportunity to talk to the afl/cio. That hasn't happened. I'd like that and think would be, let's say, good will all around. And information can be given face to face and our employees can feel valued and our staff can feel valued as well it's worked hard on the contact and contract. I want to make that motion now. I'm asking it be postponed until the next meeting in OCTOBER. OCTOBER 14.
251second. moved and seconded. Any public comment on the motion? I support the motion. The impression this creates is that the warehouse is being out sourced without any input from afl/cio which is not how you should be doing business. If you want people to buy into something you have to get input before you do it, not after and the board should be able to see a cost analysis to see if this is a good decision they're trying to talk you into and none of that has been discussed at least publically. I support MS. Rupert's motion. thank you. Any other comment? Board member comment. I have a question. DR. Hepburn, is this something you'd be able to do? What is the process and would you do it in time to bring it back in OCTOBER? I think
252MS. Rupert is simply asking us to sit down with the union to understand why we're trying to go. I know MS. Paul has conversations with staff and things to put them at ease about their jobs and uncertainty is always a concern for employees but they won't be affected. They're employment won't be affected by this but we can certainly sit down and have conversations to provide additional clarity with the union leaders. I see the caveat to that. Can you give us a follow-up on how that discussion went? I'm supportive of the motion and interested to be able to vote on this when it comes back at the next meeting or whatever it is. I have a contract we're bringing out in the open so we're not dealing with it next time if that's appropriate. it has
253to be on her motion right now. it kind of is -- I guess that's a little bit of a stretch technically it's the entire contract. if the motion passes this is going to come back. When it comes back, I have an issue I'd like to address today. I MAY not be resolved today and my require further inquiry so when it comes back I don't have to raise it again and you need another two weeks to figure out about what was said. I'd like to bring my concern up. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a big thing. can I make an suggestion you extend it as a follow-up and they give us written follow-up and we can all see it and it could be rolled into the rest -- that's why you're the chair. Thank you. [Indiscernible].
254thank you. All in favor of postponing the item to OCTOBER 14, say aye? Opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. So this item will come back to us OCTOBER 14. We have a time certain item of jj-11. Can I have a motion and second on the item? Moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. Any public comment on the item? yes. You have seven registered speakers. We'll go to mary first and then kerry zucker. so if the first speaker will go to one microphone and the other speaker be ready on the second microphone so we can move this along a little quicker. Who was the second one? can you all hear me? yes. thank you. It was 1947 when Ft. Lauderdale envivionon the stadium a a I wasetetenen the high school and central catholic. Since lockheart
255stadium was the hole home field for the Ft. Lauderdale high school and they entered into an agreement. The high schools that historically played there lauderdale and strahan worked with the city for a provision to provide for a specific number of home games a year and comprehensive agreement. It came as a shock earlier this year when students began to raise questions where their home games were not being played at lockheart chase stadium. We reached out to school board members and found inner miami raised a cost. I know it's not a problem you created. It's an issue for us to pursue with city representatives. Our request is the school board continue to allow games at lockheart while we work on addressing these issues. There's many things with the current situation. For example, our games have a higher
256chance of being played on thursday than friday night because the field is being shared by three teams. Friday night is the traditional night across the country for varsity football. Thursday night games affect attendance over all. Ticket sales are down and ticket sales are money going directly to the school to support athletics over all. This situation raises a lot of questions about fairness and finances and so much more. Why pay for them to play at their traditional home field when they can play at another school's home field? Playing at a home game field creates memories that last a life time and foster school spirit, pride and unity among students and families. Without home games families, alumni and neighbors lose an important gathering place that builds community and strengthens connections. Seniors are losing their final opportunity to
257step on their home field for their last season. This is a milestone that cannot be replaced. What about the money? Are we unfairly paying more for these schools? I would ask you to consider the over all finances building a stadium including the scoreboard, sound system, maintenance -- it costs a lot of money and maintaining it year to year also costs money. The expenditure at lockheart is probably a drop in the bucket when you compare what the district has spent and continues to spend on stadium, lights, etcetera and maintaining them over the years. Please support us on this item for the remainder of the game of the season and look to the future while we address the issues. I'm kerry zucker. I'm here regarding the same topic. I'm speaking as a proud florida Ft. Lauderdale high
258alumni and have twin seniors there now. We enjoyed friday night lights at lockheart stadium all their years there and were saddened to learn we wouldn't be there supporting our school in the same stadium. The numbers have declined. The kids have less interest in going. My kids are on the baseball team. We try to get the school spirit up and the teams support each other and all that is declining and we're here asking you to consider our motion to be back at lockheart for our student senior year. Our next speaker followed by tj and sarah. I'm deidre. I wud raised in Ft. Lauderdale stadium and have been going since the yankees played there as a little girl. It will forever be lockheart stadium to me. I did not attend Ft. Lauderdale but attended gibbons and I
259went to many games at lockheart stadium and now have a senior and sophomore at Ft. Lauderdale high. Any son is part of the J.V. Football team and sad we don't have a home field. There's something to be said for having a home field and my son is on J.V. And will hope to varsity and want them to have a place to go to their home football games. good afternoon. I don't have a lot of to say. I won't take up a lot of time. I am a volunteer baseball coach at Ft. Lauderdale high and alumni from the class of 1988. My wife went there and parents went there. I can't remember a time we had to play at somebody else's field. I'm here to support coach done done -- coach dunbar and bring it back
260to lockheart field. I'm asking for your support. Thank you. thank you. Next public speaker. I'm sarah and I'm also a proud alumni graduated 1991. I have a son who is a third generation Ft. Lauderdale alum. My parents both went there in 1965 and fwraj graduated. All participated at lockheart and support this and let's try to do what we can for our students. The best memories of my schooling were athletics and hope it can for my son too. we have heather brinkworth and richard dunnbar iii. thank you. Good afternoon, superintendent and board members. So I think you know I graduated from stran han high school and my children graduated from Ft. Lauderdale. The only reason we're here is because students question why they're home field was no longer the place where generations have enjoyed friday night
261lights. during my time as a school board member we were in negotiations for residents and we realized for the opportunity to get more than $1 per year plus property taxes from the lease. We worked to get a community field built and designated for strannahan and Ft. Lauderdale. Was a small ask for big return. Home field advantage is talked about across boards and for the two high schools the home field has been and should tonight to be lockheart stadium. Ones we realized cost was the factor moving away from home field advantage we began asking questions. What's the cost of having games at other district schools and how does it compare to about what is being charged by inner miami. I realize you were told there's no cost to using another district school. That's not the case.
262Ask for security monitors, great workers and pd and other costs. How do they compare? How much revenue will the schools lose? How will athletic departments be impacted and how about the students' feelings of worth and can we talk to the city and revisit the talks with inner miami. Support them playing their home games on their fields. I encourage you to approve jj-11. thank you. hello. I'm coach dunbar. This is year 20 for me as a coach at Ft. Lauderdale so I'm speaking to you as a head football coach. we're simply not wanted. 16 years back and forth all the time we played over at billup has been nothing but confrontation and issues and problems. For me as a head coach to receive phone calls for my students or J.V. Players said we have this you're
263in the parking lot with parents to bring in halftime snakdz snacks and have to go off lot and have to send my kids unattended to carry our food and drinks back. That's a safety issue number one. Two weeks ago we were against anderson and as we had to leave the stadium we were walked by security not through the access gate next to the field, which has a direct path to the gym for cover, we had to walk across the parking lot out through the gate that leads down the side street to the elementary school. Then go into the gym. If we're exiting the field for lightning we need to do so in a rapid manner. So these are some of the issues we faced over time. I don't have a lot of time as to
264why we need to place elsewhere but something need to be done. Now, as an alumnus, class of 1997, been around Ft. Lauderdale high school football since 1984, I've seen a lot of football which is one of the reasons I went. My mom and dad, aunties and uncles it's a family school for us. For the school to be 126 years old and not to is our own is an issue for me. I'm asking you please address it. i know it can't be done right now but please, I'm asking as an alumnus and someone who sweats and tears is there a way to have our own? There's no sense of pride nor tradition when you're not playing at your home school. As a coach I have get 185 plus individuals prepared for away games. It's an issue.
265thank you. Board discussion, MS. Leonardi. I'd be happier for my colleagues to go ahead and pose my questions so I can help answer them afterwards. MS. Thompson. thank you, chair. So currently we have seven schools. Monarch, west broward, tell hollywood hills and we heard about the importance of home games, which I respect, however we have five other schools not allowed to do home games at their school. Their family and friends can't come. We have five other coach have to call around and ask to share fields and navigate this process which I'm told by staff is not incredibly difficult. I'm concerned about the message we're sending to dillard high school that their field, that their school, their community isn't good enough for the two schools to share. I would like to know how much we spent
266on renovate ing dillard high school field. we got the numbers. thank you, staff. so we have put an incredible investment into dillard high school. It is beautiful. I'm not really a football person but when I see the field it looks beautiful. To say to that community and to five other school communities that you don't need us to rent from you is wrong. Thank you. thank you. I played football at terra bella high school and graduated a long time ago. You want to know where my home games were? In coral springs high school and terra bella were very large rivals. And it having to go to your rival high school to play quote/unquote home games. I hear MS. Thompson and hear her concerns. I also understand the importance of if you have the ability to make
267change and take advantage of a good opportunity, you should consider it. High school football is very important in this county. High school football is very important in south calendar and our entire state if we're being honest. But the athletes that come out of this neck of the are incredible athletes. A lot of them play at the professional and collegiate level and having a sense of pride is important. I realize others don't have the opportunity but if the opportunity is given to Ft. Lauderdale, I think we should give it serious considering. This stadium is owned by inter-miami ftl stadium llc. I know we typically don't do this. You MAY have to help me. So the it's owned by the city with some type of joint agreement with the -- sorry, with inner miami for a certain
268amount of time. Let me explain what I mean. There was a time when the school district actually purchased the rights to use and I know lockheart stadium is lock heart. The school board has the rights for the use of the lockheart stadium our entire athletics department was housed. So we had and it was the home field historically. what I can say is we didn't go to the city because the current lease of the property is with inner miami, however once the city, became aware of our challenges, at least one or two of the commissioners did reach out to staff to see how they can assist us. I just want to publicly say that we certainty want to make sure that they didn't work in their best interest. I appreciate that, and I know the board,
269most of the board approved 1.7 million dollars match for the city of ft. Lauderdale and one of the middle schools there. So I'm just wondering if any conversations were had in allowing this particular high school to use this facility free of charge. Although in the grand scheme of what their providing in terms of the contract, the amount seems reasonable to me. I will close my comments with this, this contract will commence if approved on the 25th of SEPTEMBER, MADAM Chair, is that correct? Chair: DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza? I have to look at the contract but it's so that all remaining home football games will be played on axillary field, it's not the big soccer, it's the big axillary on the campus at the property. But let me pull up the item exactly and tell you
270when it commences. SEPTEMBER 25th. SEPTEMBER 25th, yes that's the first home game for ft. Lauderdale high school and then transtranhan, the actual game is listed in the agreement. So the first game is SEPTEMBER 25th. thank you, DR. Wanza. I am in favor of this and I will close my comments with this h coach donebar on the 25th of SEPTEMBER, you play the district 6, cooper city cowboys so no matter what stadium, you're going to run into a buzz, I just want to be aware of that. Thank you. Chair: has alhadeff. so I'm in support of this item but I feel this is a band-aid, six schools, seven that does not have stadium. So they're not able to play their football games or soccer games. And also the other issue we have is graduations. We're constantly
271paying other facilities to use their space for graduations. So I would like to ask the board and the superintendent that we have a bigger conversation about this, about building our own stadium and how we can go about doing that. Maybe that's part of our redefining, maybe that's in the space where we current already have a school. But I think we need to start making sure we take care of our us. Take care of bcps and keep the money within bcps. Thank you. Chair: and actually I'll jump in there, we started that conversation about a year ago, when we were having discussion s about repurposing, and agree, it would be grgrt t the process s of reredening ifif you brinback somemehohoughts r us.. that's a grt t comment. So, I've talked to certain partners, including bef,
272who has certain interested parties that want to support that. Because it could also be an additional revenue source for the district tao, especially for the parents that have little leaguers, kids who are in dance, and cheer competitions as mine is in and it costs a lot of money because of how many fees they're paying for the private locations. Versus municipal or government or school district locations that can accommodate. So yes, we can keep that conversation going seeing what we can find as far as space and possible solutions for the district. Chair: thank you, DR. Zeman. thanks chair. I get to tell you a little story about lockhart and I'm sure T.J. Have heard this story. But bft yankees could use the beautiful practice fields, the pitchers and catchers would come to town early and they
273were not allowed to use the stadium because you're not allowed to practice before a specific date in baseball. Where did they go to practice? They went to ft. Lauderdale high school, so I got to play with T.J., catcher and when you're a 13-14-year-old guilder and you're barely 5-feet tall and you get to play catch with a professional yankee, you remember for the rest of your life. But things like that happen when you invest in what you do well. And we keep thinking as of, a little bit of a business like how do we make sure that people care enough to come to our school? We have a lot of spaces, we got not a lot of space in ft. Lauderdale but we have space in broward county. And to MS. Thompson's point, her point is
274legit, let's fix this so that everybody has a place to call home. And sometimes it's a shared feel, it's okay as long as it's yours. If you have a place that has your logo, that's okay, it's your home field for the night that you get t.I like this idea, it's a low-cost way to double down on woo we do in broward schools. There is nobody that has better athlete -- athletics than broward schools. Let's make sure that we have people back. I don't think you're going to have trouble in SEPTEMBER 25th, I think you'll do fine. but not that I'm biased, but I'll see you on that game. This is a low-cost solution to a major issue with our community. You know, thousands of people are going to come watch football in broward county this
275year and we need to make sure that we're going to where the old puck is going. In broward county, the puck is going towards athletics. Investing in our fields has been a good investment and this board has lead in that effort. We need home football feels, we need better facilities, I'm dwg to stalk about that later today, to make sure that we're proud of what we deliver in athletes. It creates great young men and women and I appreciate everybody coming together. And I'm sorry, mary, had to talk about the early 80s to talk about monston. Herman munston, he threw a heck of a ball. But great things when you invest. When you get county wide sponsorship for athletics like miami-dade just got 13 million dollars from adidas. I hope we're next. We ought to be
276doubling down on that investment not run ago way from it. Council PRESIDENT: MS. Bulman. I'm originally from detroit so I don't know who that is. So, you know, just to echo my colleagues, I think that there is a bigger problem. The fact that we've got 7 schools that you can't play at, is not acceptable. but I don't think that we should pun you shall a couple of schools because we can't play at these schools. We have to invest in t we are producing amazing football players and amazing athletes, we need to be investing in our gyms and our tennis courts and everything else, because it's very important to our kids. It looks better, it's more attractive to our schools. I think the investment is going to payoff, so I know, that I talked also talked
277about the bif idea we should be exploring that. Soy appreciate that. So, just one question that hi for this particular renting of the facility for the ft. Lauderdale stranhan? DR. Hepburn? yes, so I'll let DR. Wanza get in detail. Burr for high schools the revenue for football is the support system for all athletics. So it's being recycled to support across if you have swimming, if you have -- those sports that don't get a lot of attendance. which is fine. But it's going into the pot that is paying out .? currently, we're paying for this because they have a lot of robust sports that don't garner the same audience as football. which I support as well. and that's one of the disadvantages of not having your own home field. The ones that have your own home
278field, it's recycling throughout the athletic sports so. right, so that's just another ding against anybody, or that is playing a 4:00 o'clock game, because nobody is going to that. I know hollywood hills, I'm going to a 4:00 o'clock game and it's not in the radar, and it's not the way you celebrate your high school years, it's friday at 7:00. and just to throw out a fun fact that I recently learned about, broward county has the largest number of nfl football players in the country. So we're. okay, so I think that we agree that we need to be investing in this and not going. Okay, thank you. and we'll finish up with MS. Leonardi. thank you and first I have to thank every one from the community for coming out and speaking today. And sending today
279and just sending the emails and being huge advocates for children, thank you for that. Aif few questions and then some comments. First, when was the decision made to switch the games from lockhart to dill adder? DR. Wanza? so when the three fields, the first three turf fields, dill ard, south broward and dear field beach so when the decision was made, part of the rational was so they can be the homesite for the another two high schools. So it was and DR. Hepburn was not in the dais, I'm going to go a year and a half, two years ago, before we even started to play ball this school year. Buzz to your point, MS. Leonardi, I think that staff could have done a better job communicating that decision so that we wouldn't be at the point
280where we're at right now. okay, so I want to be klae, I was never part of a conversation. not that I'm aware of. as oppose ed to playing at billiard versus lockhart. But I want to ask the question, again. Let me preface with this. I was notified not by staff or anyone but by members of the community that, maybe a little over a month ago, that ft. Lauderdale and strainhan were going to be playing at dill ard instead of lockhart, again when was that decision made? DR. Hepburn, is it okay? yes, go ahead. in APRIL of 2025. When the football schedules for this current school year started to be published so that was later in the spring of this year, is when the first notice started coming out. And again I'm going to go back
281to staff could have done a better job communicating. thank you for reiterating that. That was something I had a problem when I called the superintendent, it was like I was making him aware as well. So the communication was lacking. Did they reach out to miami-dade? so the reason I can tell you, the reason did not reach out to inner miami and I want to make sure that every one understands, we do an annual facility use agreement with inner miami for the use of the field for any football games that we're going to have there. So when the decision was made, no staff did not reach out to inner miami, to say that we will not be contacting you this year because there was the the understanding from staff that the reason, well included in the
282rational for dill ard being one of the first fields being done was to allow for all three schools to play at dillard so no, inner miami was not contacted in APRIL. okay, so I suppose I heard different narratives. So I was initially told that the reason that the district decided to move games to dillard was the cost. And I have encouraged staff now, multiple times over the last month and a half to reach out to the city and to inner-miami with assistance with negotiating the price. As we heard from our beautiful historians in the audience, there is huge historical and social significance of ft. Lauderdale and stranhan playing at lockhart. So moving forward, I greatly encourage the superintendent and staff to lean on the city of ft. Lauderdale and lean on inter miami with coming
283up with a better deal. But we're speak about this year, so I want today keep the focus on this year. And I want to correct the record on something that is out there. It is not true that there is no cost associated phober them to play their football games at dillard. Can you speak to that. yes, ma'am, and we'll correct the follow-up and it will say revised. There is a difference of about 1300 dollars if you will to host a game whether it's at inter miami or dillard. So there are certain costs for police, for ems and then obviously some custodial fees whether you're at a district site or at inter miami, it is more than it is in a district site. The other part, so we all know, whether they play at dillard or
284at inter miami, the school gets to keep the ticket sales that goes if it's stranhan's home game, stranhan gets the ticket sales. And they also add inner miami, they do a law -- allow for the schools to keep the collections for the parking lot, right. And that's also a revenue generating for schools as well. The school does not get the concession at inter miami to your point, if they host their own game and different clubs and activities get to run concessions and run money. There is a difference about 1300-ish dollars if it's in inter miami as oppose today a district facility. And we'll break that out so what we're going to post online, we'll breakout both so the community can see the difference in both. But it's about a $1300 difference. again, I have to
285reiterate the importance and what is frustrating for me, we know, some of us are aware of the history here, and the agreements that we came to with the city and inter miami and the history that exist there. So again, if we understood that, we should have reached out to the city of ft. Lauderdale and inter miami to negotiate this stuff. And I hope moving forward, we do. I have to really reiterate that. You know, it's understandable that some of us MAY be unaware of the history of this community and of this partnership, but if we were listening to the audience, we heard that history. 126 years, 1947, the partnership with inter miami and the agreement that's we came to. And I want to correct the record about something, no no one said, no one said
286that dillard is not good enough. I'm not sure where that came from and it's unhealthy for us as board memebers to put schools, communities, cities against each:00 it would be wrong for me, to say that MS. Bulman's school should not get something because my school does not get it. Each school has unique history that not all of us are aware of but eager to learn about. So I'm frustrated that it's taking this so long to get this done for this year. And I appreciate staff's recognition that the communication failed on multiple levels. But, I am glad that we're here to uproot this and I hope that moving forward, we do better. and I passionately ask for my colleague support for this. all those in favor of jj11 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no.
287motion passes with 7-1 with DR. Holness not on the dais. Thank you so much, so we're going to go back to some consent items so we can continue moving on. So the next item is 01, can I have a motion and a second. motion. it's been moved and second. Any public comment? no ma'am. MR. Cervera. thank you, chair. In reviewing this in the executive summary and superintendent's recommendation tracking report, I've got some questions. And perhaps the most importantly, what is exactly are we giving the authority for here? Is it to increase the spending limits on these prior contracts that are listed in the report? Because if so, I would like a little bit more detail as to how this is going to be used, expenditures, it seems to me and based how this is written,
288in the executive summary, we're recertifying firms and increasing prequalifications limits for specific firms and revoking those who didn't renew. Is this resulting in us allowing a bigger pot for the original contractors listed in the recommendation tracking report? DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul? okay, in this particular situation, the vendor did not fill out a renewal application. So that's why we're bringing this to you. So it could be a number of things that would cause us to bring a prequaul forward. But as I said before, we reached out and they have still not provided their renewal application for certification. so we're not agreeing to give anybody funding for their current projects? no, this deals with just specifically in this case, the fact that they did not renew their certification, did not provide the documentation to renew their certification.
289so all of this spending limits, all the stuff is going to remain the same in the tracking report? this does not address that. This only addressed the prequaul of vendor. I hope I'm answering the question. I'm just looking at this particular item. as am I, and we're in 01, prequalification certification, and on that is the tracking report. And there is project limits and aggregate limits of finances attached to those contractors. So nothing we're doing here today is changing those numbers? Okay, thank you. thank you, all those in favor of o1 say aye. aye. ?I opposed say no. Motion carries, 5-0 with DR. Zeman, MS. Thompson, DR. Holness and MS. Rupert not on the dais. next item is 02 can I have a motion and a second on 02. Moved by MS. Leonardi, seconded by MS.
290Alhadeff. Is there a public comment. just one speaker, DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh. Speaker: good afternoon, DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, on this yrkts specifically the follow pickup, I'm confused, because it seems like staff had provided the open work orders and also any projects information that would have provided you MADAM Chair with what you were looking for. And this circles back to maximo, because the last time I asked open work orders, that's when we discovered that they were not putting them in by type. Because I asked and then they were trying to manually trying to redact. So they should have been able to give you safety work orders, the ones that are open as a compromise. But that isn't what this response says and I hope that the board collectively does not think that this response is all that
291and a bag of chips, because it's a circular reference, it tells you nothing. Chair: thank you. And DR. Zeman, pulled this item but I'm going to make a comment, I agree. The response basically said, no we can't give you any information because it's just too many things and so, DR. Hepburn, I would ask that that really shouldn't be the answer that staff gives. I know there were a lot of safety inspections issues, but as a board member I want to know that they've been addressed and to get an answer that says, that's too much work basically was the answer. We cannot give the information, was really disappoint ing. So I hope in e fututu that therere isa morere comehensive answer.. DR. Zemaman. thanks, chair. A lot of what with you said is kind of what
292I was going to second and talk about as well. I view the interest in oversight and accountability to be paramount to system success. And the if we say we put this out and trust people to do it not verify, then we're just not doing it the right way. If we're going to delegate somebody to be responsible for safety, I hope there is some reporting back mechanism to comes back. As board memebers, I don't think we want to talk to our constituents about safety and say, that's a one-way street. We push out these reports, we pray that they do the right thing on safety issues, I think we need to know more that they follow through, maybe by mid-year and end of year reports, or of the like, chair. thank you, all those in favor of
293o-2 say aye. aye. any opposed say no, motion passes unanimously 6-0 with MS. Thompson, DR. Holness and MS. Rupert not on the dais. Next item is 03 can I have a motion. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by alhadeff. any public comment on 03. no, ma'am. I have MS. Rupert, she is not here. Okay. broward health item, MS. Rupert? yes, 03. sorry, 100 percent, behind it. And I've really been somebody that every kid has an iep for a reason. And more importantly, we need to make sure that our kids under the ese umbrella get an opportunity to excel in their life. So I absolutely, 100 percent love this. thank you. We would all agree. All those in favor of item o-3 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Item passes 7-0. point
294of order, chair, are you going to go back to c-1, we held it back, because we thought that was there was a speaker. c-1 passed on consent. It was not pulled. O-3 passes 7-0 without MS. Thompson and DR. Holness. We'll now go to public comment. At this -- that's not it. Sorry. This is the time of agenda when school board members will hear from our evening speakers. We have two evening speakers. First up is MR. Delvin king. I don't see him. Next is MS. Nicole MS. Nicole morris. MRS. Nicole morris. Speaker: microphone on? Okay, nicole morris, choral springs. I want today talk about confusion over the last couple of weeks regarding the boundary choice area that was proposed, passed on a 7-2 consensus reversed, put back on, reversed, there were comments at the last meeting,
295that the city of choral springs was not in support of this. Last night the city of choral springs, gave consensus at their workshop that they do support their resident's desire for a boundary choice area. The boundary choice area won create any additional meetings or processes, just like the closing of a school or the reconfiguration of the grade levels such an elementary to k-8 or mid-toll 6. These are boundary changes, the process is the same. They would all come together at once just like last year. There is already a community conversation happening in choral springs so no additional meetings or bandwith required. It went outside of the norm and was found by school board attorney marilyn batista and the acting superintendent to have violated policy and that's item superintendent recommended against the boundary change. It was
296mentioned that their could be boundary proposals from other cities, but not accurate. Community proposal was removed from the boundary process last year. And the only proposals that would move forward are the ones that the board would move forward. It only gives back their seats that are given away and does not change anyone else's boundary. The c4 area proposal was directed by the board to come back by the fall. We're asking for that direction to be honored and a allow it to go to the town meetings and the boundary committee with the rest of the proposals, consensus was reached for the proposal but never a consensus to undo that direction, not one that my city is clear on. We never heard those words. This is very confusing to the community. I would like to remind you
297all that last yae, there was a proposal that you didn't move forward, it was for k-8, they came back after the meetings, sent it to the community meetings and it went to the boundary committee and it passed. We're asking for the same. We have emails that went out to our city. We hope that we will stop going back and forth, make it clear, make it very clear. Also with the meet wgtz cities, we hope that these will be forward facing. There is a lot of rumours about back door deals with the city so please make she's conversations with our city managers forward facing. Thank you. thank you very much. Next we will go, this is the part of the meeting where we will consider all the open agenda items. The following open agenda items have
298been identified for discussion. a a 1, double e4 -- we did already. F f1, jj1, 7-10, we did 11 -- oo1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, which is a memo to vote down. 17, 18, 19, pp1, double r1, double r2. At this time MAY the chair have a motion and a second to pass the items that have not been pulled for discussion, which include dd2, 3, 57, double j, 2, 3, 4, 56, 8, 9, o o-2, 4, 6, 8, 13, pp2 and pp3. so moved. second. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Are there any registered voters, [Laughter] Registered speakers. Speaker: you ready? Hi. Good afternoon, supervisor and board memebers. I'm dawn moussele I'm the education program analyst for choral springs. I'm here to share the performance our 19 schools 166
299which have achieved a-rating. I hope you enjoy the celebration back to school video, that we sent you, we had a great time creating it. As part of our partnership with you, I'm going to leave you some copies of our fall city magazine, which showcases our public school achievements and on the cover it will also highlight exciting initiatives that we in place that we have developed in choral springs elementary which is the village program that we have with them. We are staying closely engaged with you guys, our next phase of redefining our schools, we look forward to discussing with the city leaders, school district partners, and community members as we work together to ensure the best outcome for our students. Thank you. thank you, next public speaker? Speaker: hi, norden wineberger and would I like to
300give my time to nicole. we don't no longer yield time, it's an updated policy, MADAM Chair. that's correct. Sorry, I forgot about that. Do you want to speak, we don't allow to yield time. Speaker: do you want to go after me. okay, nicole morris choral springs, recommendation start withing a five-year window for priority for school choice at the time that the reassignments are first open. This is for the reassignment priority, not from the day of the change because it MAY be a few years before reassignments are aloud. -- are allowed. The problem, this problem could occur for this particular community. Somebody applying for school choice MAY not be able to make that choice in good faith because they have a 5th grader that the priority will have expired. As for the priority, is it possible
301to have a hard ship clause for siblings? We made a motion in north area to a law rising freshman, because it was so late in the year that the students had missed the ability to pick schedules as well as give the families time to properly plan for after school activities transportation. We made this motion and we were told absolutely not that there would be no sibling reassignment. What is strain that is put on families from kids at both schools. I'm aware that there is already a priority for siblings but a reminder that even a priority go into a lottery so. If you have a student from westin that has a priority, a student from c4 or any recently rezoned area that has experienced this in the future, they both go into the lottery and depending
302on the number available, the student MAY get the seat from the rezoned a year before. This policy will give protections for families for years to come. I know that the city has been working with the district to ensure that the resent students that want reassigned could. Intentions do not dictate outcomes. Policy does. We have learned that the best of intentions does not trump policies so I hope we will secure these protections for our future students today. And outside of the policy on the school choice website when you go to apply, we have like five boundary choice areas in the district, so when you go to a apply for a school choice, if you go to plantation or cooper city, or the couple of boundary choice areas that are in parkland. It says in the first
303lab, parkland residents only, plantation, residents only, that's confusing for people that would like to apply for the school choice. So I would ask that those be in separate places. Some say I cannot apply because I don't live in the choice city. But that's just for the application. thank you, any other public speakers? Great. At this time, MAY the chair -- oh, all in favor of approving the open agenda items that have not been pulled for discussion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries. At this time, MAY the chair have a motion and a second on item a a 1? second. it's moved by DR. Zeman second bid MS. Thompson. Are there any public speakers on a a 1? no ma'am. DR. Zeman. thank you, chair. It's wonderful that we have partners like broward
304commission that want to support mental health. We had acute tragedy and that totally adjusted our view about how we need today fund security and things. We now have a tragedy in mental health. So when the county decides to give up money for to us do it, it's grai. The question I had MR. Superintendent, this is two million dollars from last fall to this fall, and another two million from this fall to next fall, have we included the four million dollars in mental health services yet? And when can you come back to the board and talk to us about what the county is helping us do in mental health? MS. Holingsworth. Speaker: good afternoon, I have MS. Winters here to speak to that as well in the back. Thank you. Speaker: good afternoon, this is a
305three-year possible agreement. So it's one-year with the option of one year extensions and this is what funds our family counseling program. So the one year that you're agreeing to, opens the door for us to have the possibility of one-year extensions for the next two years for a total of six million. terrific, I guess what I'm curious b we didn't know until today that we got even last year's money, or is this just a renewal for second and third year? that's of today for this past school year. so what we're voting on chair is approval of the funds that came from last year to this year? DR. Hepburn? from last year, from OCTOBER 2024 to SEPTEMBER of 2025. terrific and we're going to bring another item to bring approve next year's money. yes. I'm curious what
306the county's funds. It seems odd that we would have spent on something from last year, when we're only approving the receipt today. it's a good item to just report back on, if you can share it with the board. But what is the six million going in mental health, so when we say county commissioners, we can say thank you. It's not an item for now but if you can send it for the record. certainly. all those in favor say aye. aye. niz opposed say no. Motion carries, unanimously. The next item is item ff-1 can I have a motion a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no public comment. thank you, I pulled this item. We took in 129,327.42 but I wanted to highlight that the quest center got
307a large chunk of that money. It was right around 15 thousand dollars for both sports and literacy at the quest center. So thank you to those partners and thank you to all of our grant writers that get this money to the district. All those in favor of ff-1 say aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next is jj-1 can I have a motion a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, second bid MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no public comment. MR. Cervera. thank you MADAM Chair. In reviewing this, I noticed that there was an acute lack of specificity as to woo -- what was going on. Specifically no details was provided for this change order, was being sought. What exactly is being done? All it says, is that this is, complete the fire
308alarm inskaul, I would like to further explanation of what that is and why this is take iting over a year and why they're seek ago additional 215,000 on something that looks like it should have been done. DR. Hepburn? MS. Paul. ?Ment thank you for the opportunity to explain this. The project start inside notice to proceed in JULY 2022 in their original design and so forth, dedidn't include the design for the fire alarms go. So we discovered that we have to put this back in as a change from the original construction plan and so that change is required to close out the project. So this is for labor material and equipment for the additional work to install a fire alarm system and building. okay, is it for sirens, poll stations, cables? When we're spending hundreds of
309thousands of change orders, I just think the public has the right to know exactly what is going into this and all I'm seeing is finishing the fire alarm install. I can give you specifics every device that we're going to include in there, it would have to be a follow-up. would very much appreciate that, MS. Paul. happy to do it. thank you. thank you, I also pulled that item, always look at change orders. This jj-1 is the only one client omission, so I have similar concerns that my colleague brought up. But I would like to say that we are moving in the right direction in terms of the number of consultant omission or errors, but this is 214,000 dollars of a consultant omission, so just always like to point those out. All those in favor of
310jj-1 a aye. Any opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. The next is jj-7. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by DR. Holness, trying to spread the love. Any public comment on jj-7? no comment. DR. Zeman. I'm ready to have a party right now. There are 12 change orders that this board is not going to hear today, would you like to hear why? Because they're insignificant, hundreds of our dollars and policy is finally kicking in and our agendas are lightened. We don't have to go through the riz -- ridiculous process of approving things. This is not trivial and I have a question allocating neney, apovoving fundinwithout the specifics on the specifics and what happened? I'm just curious about that? DR. Fulton? MS. Paul? so this is for temporary roof. And basically, it was installed MARCH
31120, 2024 installed after previous project consultant went out of business. So this is eye ky, and as you recall, when I first got here, they closed shop on us and we had several of projects that we had to figure out which one to close out. I believe songs and associates picked up this project from us. And now the item that we know we have to do from the previous design is install chill water pipe and do the root work on it. So the reason we're coming back with you, or to you on this particular instance is because it was one of those projects that just got left, left slapping in the wind. it was installed? it was stopped. okay. Speaker: so it is one of the kay projects that we're moving forward. I appreciate that.
312How much is item number 11 -- number 1, change order? The piece on the roof, we've had specificity, can you tell us the roof. I'm not sure if ashley is here. If not I can provide a follow-up. she is always here. that is true. Speaker: ashley carpenter with adkins ellis. So this change order item, DR. Zeman you noted that it looks different than from of the other items that have change orders. These we're requesting additional funding that will cover a couple of change order items that are pending that do have entitlement and a purchase order for a vendor that, you know, we require work from. But those change order items and that purchase order for the vendor would not have to come to the board for board approval per change order policy 8,000. However we
313are lacking the required fund to go push those forward. So this is just a funding item. I don't know exactly, we can provide in a foum, how much that referencing order is. But all the pending change order and the purchase order within the vendor are within that 160,000. terrific, so chair, so we know, if it's a small change order, we don't see it, if it's close to that size but a little bit bigger, we get a description and almost not to exceed amount. And I appreciate that, that still gives us plenty of oversight but what it does, is not show us the details about very specific causes of why we need a change order and specific costs of that. If the board is comfortable with that change, I am. But I think eventually we need
314the close out cost is. This is the kind of thing that the board wants to advocate. Which is we want things finished. And if takes 60 days to get the decision to the board to bring tt board, that's not serving our constituents very well. So if this is part of the remedy, that's great, I just want to us acknowledge the new way to talk to the board. I'm personally in favor, if my colleagues decide, it does not work for them, they can come back on items in subsequent meetings. Thank you. thank you all those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed says no. Motion carries unanimously. Next is jj-10. Can I get a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by DR. Holness. MR. Cervera. satisfied. great. Can I have a
315motion a second on jj -- . Any public comment? no comment. Okay MS. Thompson. thank you, chair I just wanted I had a question and then I'm very excited that this is coming forward . Is know we've had some driver ed's teachers talking to me about the paws in funding and my question s is this money, do students have to apply for this? How is the money, it says it's funding a little over 3200 students. How is that being allocated? DR. Fulton. so we're excite today bring this item to you as well. I'm going to turnover to DR. Cohen to share how the student driver works. the contract you is the agreement between the district and the county and that is provide supplemental funds for the program, which means that generald funds are ufp loaded
316to support. This agreement provides additional support that could fund, no resources, teachers salaries, equipment, refurbishing of vehicles. very exciting. Thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman. thank you very much, chair. Which high schools do not have access to a driver education program? DR. Fulton. DR. Cohen. I'm going to differ that question to director of applied learning. Speaker: all students from all schools, public and private have access for drivers ed through the district. We do receive all of those funds from the county, those allow for every child in the district to apply to the program. And then we have a lottery-type system where the students is able to participate. So every child from high school. what percentage do we meet through this program? You said there is a lottery, is it ten percent? Is it 50 percent?
317What percentage get to use the broward county education program? 35 percent. terrific. Is there a approximate drivers ed, is this an expensive program or not expensive? so, I would have to come back to you about the cost per student. for a for a session, it is approximately 182,000 dollars. So 34 percent of the students need to be behind the wheels, we provide about 11 hours behind the wheel and 34 hours of classroom time which includes those 11 hours. I think we do a pretty good job of providing a number of students with a comprehensive program for a reasonable cost. We support the, the professional development from our department, as well as providing opportunities for our driver's license ed instructors to go to the conferences put together by doersis foundation. And we support the delap training
318that our instructors should have and so I think we're pretty cost affective in this initiative. I would like to see us at more high schools and that is something that we're looking forward towards doing as you see in the executive summary, we're at 11 schools, but we would like to expand so that we're able to offer the opportunity to more students. I appreciate that. I think being at 11 high schools, is what it is. Provieeding great service of the people that would like to use it. What I'm fruft aided by we get vehicles from the county and staffed that are trained and we stop at one-third for some reason. I don't want to discuss necessarily right now, how we would get to more or all students. But this is a huge social gain to the
319county if there is an institutional program to teach kids how to drive well. And I just feel like we need to think a little bit about expanding this to serve more of broward county, maybe go back to broward county and ask for more money, we put pickup the staff and they put up more vehicles. I've seen this program work at a number of our high schools, where we have students come and they do all of their driving. I think we MAY be missing an opportunity to serve more people. I'll ask for a foum what would it look like to do two-thirds and 100 percent so we can go to the county and say here's another thing that we can do for all of you, traditional public get to go through a world class drivers education
320program because we know it matters to the community. Thanks, thank you, and I'll finish on this item. Saying I'm also very excited to see this item come forward and I'll say thank you to general counsel and your staff for pushing this when it got stalled. And kick start iting and getting it moving. Thank you so much. All those in favor of oo11 say aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. Before we do next item, we have 15 items left. Those in favor of extending the meeting for an hour. Motion pass approximates 6-3. 6-3, so we will extend it for an hour. Next item up is oo3 can I have a motion and a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment. no comment. MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM
321Chair. We find ourselves once again with one of these software contracts that we're entereding into multiple-years, in this case, almost a million dollars. I'm going to ask the question why two years? DR. Fulton or MS. Batista. DR. Cohen. it's a cost and savings, MR. Cervera. what does that mean? mean whening we go into negotiations, we try to negotiate some savings, because we have found ourselfs closing our echo systems of supplemental software. This is the only supplemental math software. So in doing so, this one is having significant improvements, we went into negotiation to offer a two-year, plus additional pilot components that this initiative allows us to do. what if this becomes obsolete in nine months. And the next ixlll and ten times better or something with ai is better that runs the leaps and bounds and
322are we now stuck in a true-year contract with software that does not work so good anymore. no sir. we have the ability to terminate? yes, sir. DR. Zeman. DR. Cohen. I'm going to let expand. I was not asking for an he is a, I just need a yes or no. yes. thank you. Five points higher than people that didn't use high xl. that's correct. for ixl -- that's correct. who is not getting ixl in our school next year, who is not get iting and how much will that cost? well if the board approves this contract it's going to be for all of oufr secondary schools, for algebra and geometry. which is what ixl specialized in. yes, sir. this program is beautiful, it was implemented, the teachers were trained, the software was there and then at
323the end of the year, we said how much ixl and then the data come through. These scores are unbelievable, how can you have found a creation that moves students up, one and two or three quarter points on a five-point scale. I just want to compliment the staff, on a district that gets 5400 million dollars a year. That's what 5.4 million is. What I would be concerned is if you didn't come back and ask for this money. These scores are phenomenal and I cannot wait that at the end of this year. Did we give this initially during the pilot to any non representatives students or just giveaway to a random number of students. DR. Fulton. it was a random samples. so this was not the -- it was a mixture of both. at therer you ever
324I can, I look forward to seeing a repeat of this and learning more why ixl is moving kids so much faster. This is an absolutely remarkable intervention and it's great staff work to bring this back and allow us to continue to be the great academic school system that we are. MS. Leonardi. thank you, and I want today brief speak in favor. I'm typically spectacle of software as somebody who has been in the classroom. I appreciated the foum, the back up for the academic outcomes of students using this. And I do want to caution my colleagues. It creates chaos in the classroom for our teachers. And just because I was a little skeptical when I saw this, I did reach out to some math teachers and I want to flag some of them t wonderful number
325of questions, the questions gets harder the more questions they complete. They're able to do the work on the screen. It will give a smart score. With a few that will set it to 80 plus after a smart score of 70, there will be a challenge questions. I heard from multiple teachers that this is useful. so this is the exact kind of thing that we should be use anding approving. So thank you for that. thank you. and DR. Fulton, can I expand on that, I want ease MR. Cervera's concerns as well. Our superintendent has been after us. You'll see moving forward, we have a smaller footprint of supplemental materials but those that teachers are interested and two data is showing improvement in our student outcomes. So there will be voice and choice. But voice and choice
326in terms of impact student achievement across the board. This is one of thoses things that we looked at delta math compared to ixl and we found there was a coration with ixl over delta math. thank you for that feedback. And I'll agree, I wanted a lot of teachers that wanted to be able to use the software. Thank you so much. All those in favor of oo3 say aye. niz opposed say no. The next item is oo5 can I have a motion a second. Moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment. no public comment. MR. Cervera. satisfied. motion carries unanimously. Next item is oo7. so moved. motion is a second moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. any public comment, no public comment. MS. Bulman. thank you. Chair, I pulled this because
327there was a pretty significant cost, and I think we're going to do same that I think that we did in another. So my question is why we're choose to go renew the contract with the increases costs rather than put it back out? DR. Fulton? MS. Paul. So the terms overall for this contract was in 22 and that was for 36 months. So we did we're doing the first renewal of that with an additional cost of 580. And farther of 580,000 dollars. Part of what we do is pump out stuff, let's just call it stuff, at all of our campuses once a year, that's part of it. Then we have, repairs that we do, that is necessary for our septic tanks and lift stations. Then when we have large sewer main stopages, we have to provide
328that emergency support. And of course, grease traps as well as septic tanks to repair and repair and replace the drain pills and septic tanks. So this is a lot of, sewage that we're pumping out and collecting across the district. And also, this additional spend is for pricing increases of that we anticipate and so, I can provide a follow-up with kind of a, more detail we have 5 months remaining on, on this current term and that's at 103,085 dollars. We have a price adjustment that we expect of 41,334. Additional spending that we anticipate for this period as well as, you know, additional unexpectant events. So we're anticipating an additional 580 that we need to support the district and this is district wide at all our campus sxz I can provide that specific break down in a
329foum if you need it. maybe I'm read itin correcectly, I'i'm tryiying to fi it. Itit looked like we had increase, that the vendor had increased the pricing. that was part of it but it's a combination of things. But if we go to the back to the original, if I MAY the original contract was for 377, over 36 months. Then we asked for additional spending authority in JUNE, 2024 of 281. And then what we're asking for now, for an additional 12 months, is 580, 000 dollars that brings the total to 1.438 and that's what I'm asking for. I understand what you're asking for. But the question is we've got under the current tabulation, we're paying ten cents per gallon for sewer pumping and then the hourly rate per person is 195. They're willing to renew the
330contract but as an increase to 25 cents a gallon for sewer, 25 cents for grease and over increase of over 50 dollars an hour for man power, per person. I understand we need to pump out the grease traps and all of that, and get rid of the sewage, I have no conflict. But I'm just wondering how we came to the point where we're renewing a contract at a significant increase without having gone out to get other quotes. DR. Fulton. so, if I MAY, go ahead MS. Paul. so we have an existing contract now. I guess, what you're saying, is when we come up and don't let me put words in your mouth but when we come up with a renewal of a contract, is there an expectation that we go out and rebid the contract
331again? Because we built into the contract these renewal terms. And often times when we go back and negotiate a contract, it's at a higher rate. Understand there is been an increase but this contract started back in 2022. And so, if the intent of the board is for us to not enter it into a three-year with two one-year renewal, it gets more expensive when we rebid. A lot of times especially these type of contracts it's at a certain rate. So if we were to go year to year, and bid every year, there is not only the internal staff cost but also a price increase for companies to do this kind of work. I hope I'm answering your question if not I'll bring MS. Andrew in. no, if generally speaking if you're in a three-year contract and
332say this is going to increase by x-amount that's something that you agree it and understand that you're going to have an increase but this says on this letter and I don't know that we have any other information that shows that the prior, that we're going along, are we going through contractual terms that we negotiated? And these are the agreeing prices? This says, they're going to tin crease the price right side, it does not say, you know, to the pursuant to the contract and we understand that changing prices can be challenging and appreciate your prompt attention. so part of it is the price increase. But the other part is predict I have nature of the work. Predictive nature of the work. We act for that and we look at historical information to help us predict what
333is going to happen in the future. So we've had a number of back ups, just within the last couple of weeks. So these are the services that we use to auto repair. I understand what we're using it for, I got it. Got to have the sewage taking care of. It's just that you're going from 10 cents to 25, from 195 to $250 an hour, there is significant increases. However how many hours we're looking at. That's my question. Are we, did we negotiate as best as possible and is there should we be looking for other options since there is such a significant pricing increase from this particular vendor? MS. Andrew, can you shed some light on this please? Speaker: thank you, good afternoon, jennifer executive director procurement. Yes, to your point, board member bulman, we did
334do a market analysis and so, this is the average going rate. Although it is an increase unfortunately, with inflation that we're all feeling. This has been in line with what other districts are paying and with the market. so I guess going forward, if we could have that information included for the back up that's the case that they have actually gone up and shopped around so we know that we're pating right price. Because t bayeds on the information it looks like we're getting taken advantage of and they exponentially increased the prices. understood. understood, we'll provide that in the future. thank you. thank you, MR. Cervera. let he go back to the executive summary and make sure that my math and figures and understanding of this is correct. In SEPTEMBER of 2022 the original request of 36
335months was 377,000. That lasted for roughly two years and then in the summer of 2024, there was a second an additional authority expense for additional 281,000. So over the course of the original 36-month term, we spent 658,000 dollars on these services, correct? that's correct. and on my path has approximately 1 19,000 a year over the life of 36-month term? correct. so we go on average 2 19,000 a year to now this is 580,000 a year. Which is more than double. And I'm being told that this is, that this is, you know, quote unquote market rate or whatever, no matter how you slice this, this, like MS. Bulman said, this feels like getting hosed here, no pun intended. so I have a further break down. 20,117 times the month remaining is 103,085. That same figure 20,617
336times two with estimate of expenditure for the renewal is 41,234. but the is 658 that the board already committed, it's going to get us through when? Five months from now? so yes, that's the expectation that we still have a 10 3000 left on the 5 months. So that's part of the 658 that you're talking about. I'm just having a high level of difficulty, how many we're being asked to pay for a year of zebser. Almost 600,000, when we received three years of for 658,000. so the simple answer to that is that we're doing more work. We're doing more of the preventive work and lift stations our equipment is aging and so so forth. So we have increased the volume of work and this is the expectations we go into the next contract term. so we're
337pumping more septic tanks, we're emping more tanks. that's correct. well, I'll close with this, this is a perhaps more detailed break down is as to how we're spending these dollars. Perhaps chair in the future, would be appreciated because when we get things like this, you know, it's common nature to jump to the executive summary and renewal. Maybe we don't have the benefit of the physical break down of what is being provided. Although, it seems that, I don't know how much our needs could have increased between JUNE of last year and SEPTEMBER of this year to justify the additional amount. It's just, it, it seems a little too high to me. I'm going to make a motion I'm going to move to send this back out to rebid. is there a second. second. okay, any public
338comment on the motion? Board discussion on the motion? I have a question, it seems we've been down this path a number of times today and I hope this does not take the same of amount of time. DR. Cohen, can you tell us what happens to the services if we're putting this back out to bid? MS. Pault? MS. Andreu, when is the end of this contract if we were to end this contract? I have the term through DECEMBER 2025. I apologize I had heard five months before. so five months was the 103,000. So 2 ends DECEMBER, so we're in SEPTEMBER. but I what I have here is DECEMBER 2025, I would have to backtrack and see how long it took us to get here. chair MAY we inquire, I thought that we have five months left,
339and now I'm being told there is three. Is it own possible? thank you, through the chair. This current bid expires DECEMBER 31, 2025 and if it is, so this renewal would go JANUARY first, if it is the will of the board, we do have time to rebid this. I will tell you though, we do risk a larger increase. But we will follow whatever the will is of the board. to that point, when you're saying, we would risk, we're not saying no, necessarily to the contract, we have until DECEMBER to actually renew it, we're just come back and everything is higher, we would say we will keep this. So can you explain that? that is not how you currently put out a solicitation. So if you're going to put a solicitation for new bid, then you
340would want to award the vendors that apply for that new bid or you would have to reject that bid. But you would have the board would have to take action on that bid. It's not just an inquiry to get pricing so we would actually be putting out a solicitation and vendors would bid on that. thank you for explaining that. Thank you. Okay. DR. Zeman. I just have an alternate idea that I wonder if my colleague would consider. One thing we might do is award this and ask our staff to go do market research. There are 14,000 school districts in the united states and it MAY be that we if we did a little market research, say the top 80s, we might find that we're paying significantly signature more than others and oer less. Whenever there
341is a leap like this, it seems like we should be doing some explanation other than just saying, we're going to pay this tremendous increase in price. One way is to award this, just in case, it turns out ob a great deal. But under that process, they would come back and look at the top 80 schools. But the market research to me would be just sound business practice. If something goes up this much, go look around. I just feel there is another step in the process, instead of saying, it's much more expensive, I would like to try harder but for me asking for market research would be market than not awarding this. We MAY find out that for some reasons, we don't know. But I would like to be confident that we are. I have a
342question on that point, MS. Andrew, if we based on DR. Zeman's suggestion, if we approve this, could we still go out to bid as he suggested? I'm not asking to do bid. I'm saying do market research. but I believe, they did that. wasn't that that your answer to MS. Bulman that you did do research and found out this is a standard. yes, we did a benchmark against miami-dade which is larger than broward. But we could though, if you would like to us do a wider span of school districts, we can absolutely do that throughout the state and nation. here's my point chair. Every contract that is lead by the 14,000 school districts are public records they're literally on their websites, it's quick thing to go find more than one county. And I'm not persuaded that
343just because miami-dade pays more, we should pay more. I just feel like we have to do a little bit more work whenever the prices go back so we can be confident as a board. We can also not approve this and postpone until that research comes back, because we don't need this contract until JANUARY first. MR. Cervera. you can call me, DR. If you want. I like the idea however, I don't know that we should cast this wide of a net and here's why. The cost of pumping a septic tank in alabama MAY be a lot cheaper or more expensive than what it is in ft. Lauderdale. If we are going to do that we need to narrow the scope. Secondarily, chair, if possible to put an rfi to see if there is somebody that can
344maybe potentially be interested in offering the services at a much more competitive rate than 600,000 a year? MS. Andreu. through the chair we can put an rfi, any rfp, any solicitation that would get us to the point of having contractors that can do this work. But that would talk additional time. If it's possible and if somebody says you're crazy you can get a deal. Then we can resign this contract and we can talk about this a year from now. Stll a mechanism to get that information. so if I MAY, through the chair, we're not giving the contract for the spend amount. The amount is really, the per gallon per load amount that you're looking at those expenses. This is just to authorize and up to a ceiling for ppo to utilize. That doesn't mean that
345they will utilize the entire amount, and these are the prices. So to answer the question, we can the best mechanism would be an invitation to bid. We can put out a new invitation to bid but will we get prices lower than this? I think they'll come in pretty much the same but we are willing to do that. chair can I amend my motion. go head. I think our initial is to rfp, I would like to amend for an itb. I have a question on that, so in addition, so is that motion with the item that this item can pass? Are you, you want to do that in place of this item? correct, I don't know what would be the point of approving in and sending out an itb and finding outed we could have got
346a better deal. My request is to reject this and put out the itb and see if we can get a better deal. If not, is there a mechanism that this could be brought up in the DECEMBER school board meetings and we'll have the numbers there and if this is the best deal, we can approve this. MS. Batista and MS. Andru. my suggestion is instead of approve, is postpone so you can see what happens. and MS. Andru, you're making your head. Can you verbalize? it is not customer airy to have a pending renewal and put out another solicitation. And again, I don't want to take away from the ask, but I would ask you to really look at the current tabulation like the sewer pumping, and I'm not an expert in this area, but it's ten
347cents per gallon so when I said the market rate. So you're asking now, if we go back to market, can we get sewer pumping for less than ten cents per gallon. it went up, 20 cents. sorry, 25 cents a gallon. So again, if we go back out to ththmarket,, d d ththe lowewe bid thatat cocomes inin is 30 cents peper gallon, we could have to then take that to the board for approval. That's why I said we're taking a risk that the price can increase even more. okay, a couple of things. if the price increases from 20 cents to 30 cents in the itb that I'm proposing can we come back and approve what is before this board now, or do we forfeit the right to do this by bidding for this for itb. I
348would lean on MS. Batista, but I would say you are for fifth. I have never seen us postpone and put out a new solicitation. MS. Batista. from a business perspective, I don't know if it's from a legal perspective, it's not common. and I appreciate the fact that it's not common or customary. But sometimes when you're trying to find creative way to see save monies, you have to do things that maybe are not customer -- customary. So we often forget we're the sixth largest school board district in the entire country, there is a tremendous benefit to people wanting to do business with us, they get to put on they are website, our client is broward county school. And sometimes people MAY want to operate at a loss or give us a really really good deal just
349to say that they're doing business with broward county schools, the sixth largest school board. And sometimes we forget these when we negotiate the contracts. Weener the most aggressive. So I apologize if this is not customary. One of my jobs up here is to try to save this district money and if that means coming wup crazy idea as long as it's legal and as long as it has the blessing of our general counsel, obviously I want to play bit rules, I don't want to violate any statutes or laws. As long as it's legal and we have an opportunity to save money, I'm all for it. Especially when I'm staring at a face of an ask of almost $100,000 when that's almost the same amount we paid over three years. As long as this is legal and
350permissible, I don't care if it's customary or not. I want to do what is best. And if that can result until saving $200,000 here and there, I don't care if it's customary, that's what I want to do. I'm going to respond and then DR. Zeman can go. So just a quick thing to that, I, I appreciate what you're saying, I think we all want to save money but my preference here is to pass the item and then put out the itb, we could give 90 days and cancel it without having an issue of not having services and stuff. So DR. Zeman. so one of the reasons itself is out of the ordinary is that you will chill the market for doing business with broward county schools. We had a contract, we completed the contract, we
351did market research with one county, I wish we had had done more. But then as a result you decide to not complete, that's fine. But if you decide to make award and then immediately recompete it, why would anybody bid work. The chance of you winning and not getting an award has gone up. And I appreciate you being polite. This is not just bad customary this is just bad business. And when you contact yourself with bad business, you chill the number of people doing work with you. We saw this five years ago in the construction, we had to beg people to com and build buildings here. And now they're back, now we have the big five construction firms want to go do here. I don't want the sewage companies not wanting to work here next. This
352is not a good idea. If you want to cancel and not make the award and take the gamble that you can get somebody cheap. Great. If you want to post pone and get market research. But it's not a matter of customary or not, that's a polite word, but the truth is this will chill the market for people that want to do the work in broward county. And that's why nobody else says, nobody else says, we're going to have a competition but you cannot make an award. Which means I want to do business and then say I want to do business with other people. I think we got a lot of good options, we can postpone and do market research. We can just say no, because the price is too high, I don't know what we're
353going to do with our sewage, we have to do something that does not hurt us long term and we have a decision-point today. Either, postpone and do some market research so we feel better. Says no and go out and do another competition, pick your poison, but it's a competition. And you're telling something that you'll do work with them, they did all the work to propose and then you pull the rug from under them. I don't know if people would bid, why would you bid if getting an award, doesn't guarantee you work. I don't think this is going to be a good business option. And I hope we vote it down and get back to something that is within traditional business practices. thank you, all those in favor of MR. Cervera's motion say aye. aye. all
354those opposed say no. no. motion fails 6-2 with MS. Thompson not here and MS. Alhadeff on the phone. Back to the original item. DR. Zeman. would I like to make a motion to postpone to OCTOBER 14th, we still have two months back and get additional information from and I take your point from comparable districts. Let's just say, would you agree to florida urban districts or seven of them. So if we can get that back, that would make us feel better. Hey, if somebody has gone up to 25 cents a gallon, I think it's a pretty crappy way to price things. Come on guys, let's go. Lighten up man. But, that might be the situation that we find ourselves in. I would second. any public comment on the motion. Board member on the motion? All those
355in favor say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes 8-0 to postpone until OCTOBER 14th. The next item is oo7 any public comment? MR. Hill? Oo9, sorry, we were on 7. no comment. MR. Cervera. you want us to move the item chair. I'm sorry. so moved. thank you. It's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. There is no public comment, MR. Cervera. thank you, chair. My question on this is reviewing the executive summary for this particular h vac the allotment is the 4., well the original ask was 434 and now 4.1. On the 4.1 being asked I was looking at the financial sheet and those numbers don't reference or don't match up to the 4., I was hoping that somebody can explain the math to me. DR. Fulton. MS. Paul? what specifically
356does not align. so the sheet talks about a new bid award of 2.9 million, see that there? And it talks about the prior initial bid. How do we get from the 2.9 to the 4.1 on the executive summary? Am I missing a page, am I overlooking something? Usually our financial analysis have the break down which is similar to the numbers that we're being asked on the spend authority, right? so, what I see a new bid tote aol is 2.9, I think that's what you're referring to and then we had a previous award total of 434,000. This is an increase to the original bid, I believe. So MS. Andru, do you have anything to add to this? MR. Cervera, can you explain the 2.9, I didn't understand your question. so on the financial analysis work sheet,
357the bid is broken down to 2.9, new monies. I'm looking at the executive summary here, in which I believe if I'm reading this correctly, maybe I'm not. The initial ask on this is for 4.1. Right? So where is the difference between the 4.1 and spending authority ask. I believe that might be a typo on the f a w, maybe initially in AUGUST, if you look at the date, this MAY be an item that was going to come to the board and did not make it on on time and the financial analysis was from the previous month, so maybe the department asked to increase from 2.9 to 4.1 because of the amount of work we did go back and ask the department to add the particular schools, again because the questions that you board has been
358asking and I know you want more detail. so the ask was increased and we didn't amend. So my apologies. so the faw contains a typo but the executive break down with the ten schools is accurate? correct. in which, 19 chillers will be provided at a cost of 4.1. that's correct. okay. Thank you for the explanation. okay, all those in favor of item oo9 say aye. aye. any opposed say aye. Motion pass es 8-0, oh no, 7-0, minus MS. Thompson and MS. Leonardi. Next item is oo11, can I have a motion can a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Bulman. Any public comment. no comment. MR. Cervera. thank you, chair. Looking at the executive summary, these break downs to me seem generic in that, unless it's a fantastic coincidence that every school
359needs $200,000 worth of replacement stage lighting. I don't think that's accurate, I'm assuming that this was done in jenner fashion for some reason. I would prefer to know, before I vote on this, to know what the exact break down with more specificity, as to each school. I want our drama departments to have light anding stage declarations and all of that good stuff. The ask is being made for 2.6 million dollars and is it generically, do we know that for instance stranhan needs the same $200,000 for lighting. That coconut creek lighting system is in phenomenal condition. Or is it generic upgrade where everything is going to be changed. I want some further detail as to what is going on with this work. Rather than generalized we're going to give everybody $200,000. we're asking spending authority up
360to, the average cost but 2.6 but I will let wanda paul add anything additional. ?O. It's similar when we have a average cost or if we need playground equipment, we think 29s going to cost about this much and so forth. This is just an average, cost. Does not mean that we're going to spend $200,000 at every school but it gives us a budget to work here. And I suspect at some schools it's going to be more than $200,000 because of the age of the equipment. This is the average cost of work orders. So if you want detailed list of the schools listed here in terms of the work status, we can provide that. I can provide that. And it's not that every school is getting new $200,000 lighting system. right. It's just a way to
361portion the money if a school is 180,000 or even less based on the age of the school or equipment, then question would be able to allocate the money elsewhere. let me ask a question, would it make sense to survey the individual schools to find out what the exact need before coming to the board and asking for generic buckets of money. naz what they will do provide us this information. but after, not prior. yes, because we have needs now. This is our attempt, we get lot of work orders in light anding so forth, in the high schools especially. So this is our attempt to start the to address those items. is it not possible before making similar requests to go to the high school and take a survey, and say it is. it would be an
362actual inspection of the equipment, it would not be a survey. That's what the fcaa is doing, they're walking the schools and with that information, we'll be collecting. We'll have that information in great order but this is an attempt to getting the spend ing authority to get the work started. but what I'm saying for purposes of transparency, when we vote on these million dollars asks, is it possible to say okay, we want to put new, basket rims in ten gyms, okay. To go to those ten gyms and say, walk up, dillard needs like this rim immediately, maybe choral springs is in good condition and have a better understanding of where the dollars are going. I realize that we're going to go through walk through and survey after the fact but my question, is it not possible
363to do it before. So every member can see, they're asking and I can tell that you coconut creek in desperate need. But another is looking good and there is probably not money that is going to go there, as opposed to generic ask for each high school. DR. Fulton. yes. can we try to do that in the future. yes. thank you. all those in favor of oo11 say aye. aye. yes. all opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously with MS. Alhadeff the phone. next is oo14. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment. no public comment. MS. Leonardi? sorry, I was just pulling my note. So I, this is the item to vote down. So. not yet. This is medical benefit. oh, this is just a lot of money and I know
364that this is a big service that we offer if you want to call it that. And I was just curious, and I asked for a staff follow-up on this. And I got some answers, but I think it's important to note, so the first renewal was around a little over ten million dollars, now this renewal is what? Per, yeah. The projected cost for the administrative fees for this renewal is under ten million dollars it's a little over nine million dollars and I'm just wondering why staff can speak to why there was a decrease? DR. Fulton? MS. Johnson, DR. Augustbon is here too. good afternoon, I'll turn it over to DR. As born. Speaker: good afternoon, director of services. So this is a new contract we went out for an rfp for new services. So this contract
365will be an initial three-year contract. The reason that we're asking for a lower dollar amount different from the last three-year contract and the two subsequent one-year renewal is that by going out, we were able to negotiate a lower administrative fee currently, we're paying 39.90 per employee and the new rate is 30.98 per employee per month. okay. MR. Cervera. satisfied? excellent. All those in favor of oo14 say aye. niz opposed say no. alhadeff, yes. motion carries unanimously 8-0 with MS. Rupert not on the dais and MS. Alhadeff on the phone. Next is oo14. so moved. moved by MR. Zeman and seconded by MS. Leonardi. Public comment? no public comment. MR. Cervera. I took a look at the I took a look at the contracts and all the make reference to an exhibit a for the cost
366break down. D in t version n the agenen ththat I d dodownloaded with the agreenents, there was no exhibit a. I was wondering was that, intentional? Was that a mistake. But I would like to see the actual cost break down that each of one of these eight contracts calls on as their exhibit a. DR. Fulton? sorry, I'm checking as well. But MS. Andru if you can come up to the mic and share. I will have to go contract by contract because as you stated, there are 8, so this was a request for proposal, we wanted to have a pool of vendors that are willing and able to do this service prior. It really was one vendor, we were down to one vendor for the entire district. So their pricing was submitted to our office for
367all 8. If it was not, it should be in each agreement. If it is not, I have their original proposal from demand star in which their pricing is, listed there. And it will ver', you know, based on the work from various schools and district locations. : my problem with that respectfully, I'm being asked to vote on 11 million dollars contract and I read the contracts and I read the exhibits to the contract and if there is a exhibit that has the cost break down identifying how everybody is going to be paid, and the terms, I would like to see that before voting a multi million dollars contract. So I appreciate the fact that maybe it wasn't attached, I'm not accusing of this being intentional, I'm sure it was an oversight. But in fairness to myself
368and all of my colleagues we have the right to look at those, perhaps the most important part of the contract, the exhibit that was removed. MADAM Chair? MR. Cervera. I would like make a motion to postpone this item until the proper document and all the exhibits to the contract are provided to myself and my colleagues for review. it's been moved and seconded. Any comment on the motion? DR. Nathalie lynch walsh, I support the motion because just glancing at this. Green horizon, they got almost 8 million in work, so you MAY have 8 contracts but one vendor got all the work. And who's to say that they're offering the most cost affective plan. And absolutely the stuff should be attached but that's never been the norm around here. And by the way, grounds keeping was one
369of the items the council great city stools 2019 report found that we were over paying on. So wouldn't it be ironic that today you're still paying higher prices than you should. I'm not saying it is, and you will not know until somebody does an update to that 2019 report. So I totally support this motion so you can find out what it is approving and making sure that you're responsively spending our tax dollars. Thank you. thank you and I'm jump in and I'm going to say this with the utmost respect. But this could have been something that was maybe sent to staff in the questioning, so that it would have come back to us and we would have had that answer. So I want to remind my colleagues when you see things of this nature on
370the agenda, please ask staff for that information ahead of time, so that we can have it, here and we're not continuing to postpone, we're spending time on it now and we're going to spend time on it when it comes back. We're just trying to be efficient please have those questions asked ahead of time before we get to the meet ing. All those in favor. I'm sorry, I apologize. yes, MR. Cervera, do you want to add to a motion a specific date? when the next meeting. OCTOBER 14th. all those in favor of post poeng. Say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously without MS. Alhadeff because i didn't hear her on the phone. And we're at 5:30 and we have some people waiting in the audience, so I would like to respectfully ask
371my colleagues if we can extend the time for one more hour. All those in favor of extending the meeting for one more hour say aye. aye. those opposed say no. no. okay, it's 5-3, right? There were three months. who are the noes. raise your hand if you're a thompson. I'm on the phonesinger I'm -- phone. I'm an phone. is your vote yes or no for an hour extension. no. extension passes 5-4. point of order, MADAM Chair. yes. what would happen if the meeting was not extended and we would not bring and say one more time to my colleagues a lot more times could have westbound saved if a lot of these questions could be sent all day and there is people who have been waiting for us all day and to not have waiting. And
372I try to be not respectful. And I know people have time that they want to talk but we should be respectful of people that want to do that as well. Thank you for extend iting the time and moving on we will go to oo16 which is a memo to vote down. so moved. it's been moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Rupert. any public comment? no ma'am. any board member comment. MS. Leonardi. I can reserve for oo17 it's the same thing. perfect all those in favor of item motion to vote down, all those in favor of item oo16 say aye. all those opposed say no. alhadeff no. motion fails unanimously. And then the next item, and just to remind every one, we asked for staff to reduce the cost of this, so that's why it
373was a motion to vote down oo16 and new item oo17 is coming us with a new request for funding. So can I have a motion a second for oo17. Moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by nz leonardi. -- MS. Leonardi. Any public comment? no ma'am. MS. Leonardi. thank you, and I appreciate that the spending authority was reduced. My concern was around the shifting about rational about the need for this. So last year, we were told that using outside vend foeser -- vendor for the department, and then we were told that we needed 11 million dollars and then being told that we can reduce by five million dollars because the building department is going to hire more people. How many more positions are we going to advertise and what are the thoet al dollars. MR. Hepburn. MS.
374Paul. we're looking to hire more people to help us with the inspections and the dollar amount. I do not have that with me. okay. that's a follow-up . so this is staff position that the four positions can make up for the five million dollars that we would have spent otherwise? I think the original conversations we've had in the past was to hire more in-house people if we can get them. So this is in our attempt to do it. And I'm not sure if the five million dollars, or the 6 that we're asking for is sufficient. And so, you know, we're going to recruit in-house people and if we can do that, then I would see a reduction in terms of how much we would have to leverage our supplemental services our outside vendor for this.
375okay, I'll just, say that this is obviously and I know that the superintendent and staff feel this way, this is obviously something that is very, that we are in desperate need of. It's something that is priority of this board to move our projects quickly and efficiently and safely. And I'm just, a little bit concerned about the shifting on this and I know some of that is board driven. But I, I am concerned about being able to deliver these services, effectively. I'll leave it at that, thank you. thank you, DR. Zeman. thank you, chair. This is an important issue and it's one that we want to think about, we live in broward county, we're the largest land owner largest employer to our knowledge. But we coexist with 31 cities that do this function. And to my
376knowledge, those cities by in large, I know five or six cities, and they all have government employees doing this work. And so I'm curious, MR. Superintendent is your chief of hr, convinced that we cannot hire people for less than 256,000 that we'll pay contractors. DR. Hepburn. we'll find out for the position that's we're opening upright now. okay, but, we're being asked to approve an outsourcing and have we any evidence that we cannot recruit people but the city's of broward county can? so I know, we have evidence right now that we have not been recaougt, we've been outsourcing a lot of amount of the work so outside of the organizations. So with the board discussion and looking at a different strategy as well as other areas, our intent to recruit. If we're having difficulty recruiting that
377will assist us in what steps we need to do, if we need to bring increase salary back to the board. Also if the, the initial 60 million dollars, we already discussed this. The team and I this initial amount is not enough, we will definitely come back to the board for an extra asks of additional dollars if this is not enough while we're doing our recruitment efforts. And we will do that in enough time that we will not have to worry about the money running out. I'm trying to say this before my colleague cervera says it, 260,000 a person is a lot. Can we try to recruit more than four, if we pass this today. yes. we can recruit more if they're government employees and could we try to recruit more and therefore we don't have
378to pay this. ye, absolutely. Bh we put out the four potionz, multiple people apply. So if we're getting multiple people to apply, we can open up for mossings. -- positions. That's what we naturally do. I would like to make a motion that the preference to be to hire people and have them government employees and that this contract would be used as a relief valve if in fact, recaougt efforts are not successful. second. there are second, any public comment on the motion? MS. Batista, does that need to be a motion if the superintendent has indicated that that's the practice that they have? this is for? the building code supplemental services, DR. Zeman's motion is to make a caveat, I'm guessing to say that we, that the preference is to hire people not use supplemental services and
379the superintendent did indicate that's what they do now. uh-huh. so I'm just asking if there needs to be a motion for that? yes, because it's not part of the item. Even though that MAY be the practice, you MAY want to codify it that way. okay, thank you. All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. alhadeff, no. okay. So the motion passes 8-. Back to the item as amended. Says aye. aye. any opposed say no. alhadeff, no. the motion passes 8-1. Next motion oo18. so moved. motion by zeman, and seconded by leonardi. it looks like only three of them are there. But if the next public speaker can go to the next microphone so you can go next. Yes, ma'am. Speaker: DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, plantation, florida. It was over a
380year ago that oddly enough when there were three of us at plantization high school, when your executive director said that the bid would be put out as an rfp because there were too many line items this and that and that the other and that's when I knew we were going to have a problem, and that was last JULY. So from florida statute 285.07 I too like to color within the law. An invitation to bid. The invitation to bid shall be used when the agency is capable of defining the scope of work, or when the agency is capable of establishing precise specifications defining the graoufp commodities required. Number 4, the contract shall be awarded to the responsibility and responsive vendor who submits the lowest responsive bid. What is a responsive vendor? Somebody that has the capability
381to fully perform the contract requirements and the ability that will ensure the good faith performance. The first time that this was put out, they came to you and said reject all bids. That did not, they did not award it to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, first time ins I think that was 2023 when it was lenovo. The second time it was last summer and both included deployment services. And once again, you had the lowest responsible bidder, which is that time, figures communications. So then a bunch of months go by and then, they're bringing you, we finally get hp and we have broken it to into two RFPs and before you issue an rfp, they must specify -- bid is not practical and understand that it's not one of the reasons that you would go
382with an rfp which infuses a lot of subjectivity in the process. Remember these are for lap tops which you buy based on specifications, so you don't end up with LENONOs that can can't do anything. And my recommendation I don't know why they didn't do this, reject and rebid. They could have done it when they brought it to you last time. I don't know what kind of strategic thinking is going on, but that does not make sense to me. And I'll be back for the deployment solicitation. next public speak per. Speaker: kimberly, margate. I said good morning, but it's evening, MADAM Chair, DR. Hepburn and board memebers, today we're basing with an issue that impacts the future of our students in broward county. We are vote, you are set to vote on a contract of 150
383million of new laptops, this would provide every students with a laptop. However you would must approach the decision with caution that is under investigation, the investigation raises critical questions about procurement process that we cannot ignore. Transparency, accountable, especially when discussing such significant investment of public funds. My question to the board, is should you move forward doing an investigation while the intention behind the plan is commendable, replacing outdated devices, ensuring that our students have access to technology. Without fully understanding the circumstances of the contract. Many of our current laptops beyond their useful life which not only affects the learning, testing, restrictions but also limits the ability to engage with montheder person educational tools. As we move forward, we ensure that every decision we make in the best interest of our students is our interest to advocate
384our needs while holding your institution accountable. Quoting the words of board member holness, members need a lack of full transparency, integrity and accounting spom as elected official MAY end up, if you don't, another grand jury. Therefore I ask to reject the bids and start from scratch. Thank you. thank you, next public speaker? Speaker: vincente, I don't understand every time we turn around, we're trying to brand from broward county for other counties to look up. But we're in the newspaper constantly, all the time. We started off this year, being the a-school district was what we have been promoting. But, we have another process and a problem right now, that this laptop situation that has been in reports, previously dealing with other I.T. Directors and what their hands will involve in. What is so hard to say
385let's put out another bid. I don't understand it, what stops this board from saying, we want to make sure everything is on in the up and pickup. Up. Sxl why can't a third party come in and possibly do the bidding process? I cannot phantom why we're always in the newspaper on one item. This one item consistency. Now what if the report comes back, I believe the attorney made a statement when somebody asked, I don't know what board member asked, this was a while back, what if the inspect or report comes back not in our favor? Are the board memers cocovere or stataff cored? The esesonon is who gegets in trtrouble? I would ask myselfle that. Who is left carrying the football. So what are the problem with the superintendent and staff saying, you know, what
386there is no problem. What is the rush. You're already in a school year. So when I go down to the county commission chambers, lobbying for a purpose. Nobody is here besides the people that care about the best interest that is the best interest of our children y.When we're in the mid-approximately of school year, why can't we say let's do what is best for broward county. The motto needs to be broward county schools first, which means our children should come first. I recommend you should tell staff, it's under investigation, let's show some good faith and let's just go back out to bid. thank you, any other public comment. no other comments. thank you, school board discussion, MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM Chair, before this is opened up and pursuant to section 112.13 florida statutes, I need
387to make a disclosure for a possible conflict wlt vendor. I discovered this during the course of any normal processes and meeting preparation for purposes of today, cross-referencing my professional clients. Based on this conflict, I need to recuse myself from oo18 and oo 19. thank you, MS. Rupert. this is a 18? oo18. I think I've said all the other times I've been up here. But I will not be supporting this. thank you, DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair, so I have a few questions. DR. Hepburn, can you reiterate the current status of the investigation? Concerns with this item? DR. Hepburn? currently being investigated bit ig. can you and can you provide us with and I know you mentioned it before, with any follow-up or information the latest that came out of the ig's office to the
388board regarding this? DR. Hepburn. the latest that came out of ig was the letter about doing business while they're investigate. okay. If the board vote ye, what is the potential legal con squensz -- consequences to the board or individual board memebers? MS. Batista? again, because this is this is an investigation, there are no there is no evidence of wrongdoing that would not, that would not be an impact to the board memebers individually. okay, what is the impact to the board collectively? so depending on the results of the investigation from the office of inspector general, if it is found that there is a violation of some sort, and that the violation was a as a result of misconduct by an employee of the district, then that person would be then investigated I presume by the district
389and potentially if it's something criminal it would escalate to that level. okay, so the consequence be narrowed to that employee or employees if there are more than one? that's correct. okay, and besides the employees, is there any potential consequence to the district in general? I've heard, people talk about grand jury and so on and so forth. Is there anything that you can perceive beyond specific employees, misconduct that would extend beyond those employees to the district in general or to the board? because I don't know what the outcome of the investigation would be, I think that's a difficult question to respond to. You know, whether there MAY be as a result of that, an investigation, further investigation or inquiry by a grand jury, that is obviously possible but I would not have a way of knowing
390that. if in fact, it was shown to be some sort of misconduct, would there then be potential financial impact to the district? only to the extent that if the employee was acting within the scope of their employment, then there is any type of lawsuit or what, the district would represent from provide representation legal representation to that employee. okay. accord to go 101226 which is florida statute. okay, so reiterate MS. Batista so I make sure that I'm voting based on information, there is, there not likely be any potential legal consequence to individual board memebers and collectively as a board, could you reiterate that part as a board. so as a board, as I said, if you look at con sequences such as a grand jury investigation, I cannot answer that question at this time because I
391don't know what the results of the investigation will yield. so DR. Hepburn, if we delay the item to the end of the investigation, what is the impact on our students and our school district? DR. Hepburn. I'm going to have MR. Davis rehatch that again. I think -- rehash that again. I spoke before, we have over 5,000 device that's currently cannot be upgraded or barry useable condition. If we do not replace those and we by the time certain is unknown on that, the digital experience is in jeopardy. Not only from a vulnerability stand point but performance disparity as well. so, DR. Hepburn, what are the current challenges that our students are now facing as a result of lack of computers? DR. Hepburn? MR. Davis if you can elaborate. I'm sorry, can you repeat that sir? okay,
392so the prior question was about the overall impact on the students, if we don't get these computers. What is the current khal epg in the first quarter of our school district that our students and staff and teachers and so on are facing currently right now in this first quarter? so we have, we have a testing assessments, we have windows 11 upgrade that in less in a month we'll have end of life on product. We have many of those dwiesz, thousands of dwiesz cannot be upgraded to windows 11 which introduces incredible add measure of overhead in addition disparity with the applications that they use with those dwiesz. so the current impact appears quite significant to our students. And DR. Hepburn, is there any potential end insight as to when the ig's office will complete this investigation?
393you said when is the timeline? is there any potential end insight as to when they will complete, this could go on all year? yeah, right now, is indefinite, we don't have a time line. and MADAM Chair, I'm almost done. If we put this out to bid, is that possible and what is would be the timeline and the impact of doing so. yes, that's possible. This takes probably 90 to 120 days because we did have a bid protest or two that delayed it, it took a couple of months. It ads a lot of time, we MAY not be here again until next year, if we put it back out. so if there is no path to expedite anything at this point, and the best we're looking at if it goes out to bid is three months
394down the road which would put us in the second semester. correct , and I'm not the expert on tha. MS. Andru is the expert. If we put this item back out, or whatever most appropriate, procurement vehicle that provides us the shortest time frame. Just so the DR. Holness and the board can have a idea. thank you, shaoupt. So we could absolutely if the board choose to see reject this item, we can probably put something out next month. And then, I still recommend putting out a request for proposal. And once we do that, it would probably be maybe six months before we could come back to the board on average it's been taking six to nine months. So, understand, so between now and then, DR. Hepburn, students would have all the challenges that we're discussing until
395that is resolved. So I think, and I'll wrap up, I think the board is left with the responsibility ensuring that our students have the necessary resource that's they need. And at the same time we're struggling with the consequences as to what this investigation will reveal. You know, I for one, my focus is on our students and you know, it's hard to leave our students, without the resources they need to succeed. And so I have to make a call and I rather make a call that is aired on the side of our students and benefit to them, you know, it's a very difficult call. But it's too consequencetial to students and as a past educator, it would be irresponsible of me to leave our students hanging and not see a path forward because of these sort
396of issues. So, I am going to vote yes on this item. MS. Leonardi. thank you. Were any agencies investigating this item before we referred to the oig? no. what communications has the district received from state officials on it item? none that I'm aware of. what communications has the district received from lobbyist on this item? none that I'm aware of. and the reason I ask if any agencies were investigating this item before you referred it to the OIGs is because, it is my belief and understanding that the superintendent was acting with extreme cautious and with the intention to hold every one in this system accountable by referring it to the oig. But I just want to be clear, the issues that have been flagged to the extent that any have been, have not come from the
397state level, or from any other agencies that saw any issues with this item, is that correct? DR. Hepburn. correct. so, I'll try to be brief, people have been throwing around the term grand jury today and I'll be honest, I do have concerns that if we vote yes, in good faith and under the assurances from our counsel and staff, that nothing nefarious has happened here and then the oig and does find wrongdoing, the board would be held accountable due to the political atmosphere here. Even though we've done nothing wrong and we simply acted on the advise of staff examine counsel. So there is that scenario that I considered. On the other hand, I know that with 100 percent certainity, voting no on this and delaying this further or delaying this further, will have negative impacts on
398students and teachers and that's why we're all suppose to be here is to have positive impacts on students and teachers. And so, like my colleague, DR. Holness, I am willing to I'm willing to take the political risk to do what is right by students and teachers, so that's why I'll support this item today. And we have had assurances from counsel, and from our superintendent there is an off-ramp for this. In the instance that any wrongdoing has occured. thank you, MS. Batista? Did you want to? MS. Leonardi just made mention about legal council or could you just reiterate to us what your suggestion or what your thoughts are? so my thoughts and my suggestion right side two different things. [Laughter] your suggestion as our legal counsel. so I think it's important that I have answered all
399the questions that have been posed as it relates to you know, what we know today. And what we know today is very little, right. There is a letter, accusations, there is nothing concrete, there is no evidence. The, from what I understand, the superintendent and his staff have made inquiry to the process and that inquiry has yielded, answers that are appropriate that there was an appropriate process as far as you know, procurement process and all the other processes that were followed in this particular case. You know from a legal stand point, of course, you know, the safest route would be to reject all bids and to go out for to go again for another rfp or what not. and that's just from a legal conservative, you know, safety perspective. It's not based on, you know, political
400issues or or, you know, the evidence before you or anything a among those lines. It's just most conservative approach. thank you, MS. Alhadeff? thank you. I mean in regards to the 86,000 laptop, I just want to clarification, are they still work anding in use and is there a period of time that they would not be able to be used by, like is it a year from now? Can we get more on that. DR. Hepburn. I'm sorry I missed the first part of the question. the 86,000 laptops, are they currently being able to used and do they have a life expectancy say another six months, a year from now, or they can't be used at all? MR. Davis. good evening, trey davis, the to address the 81,000, including the teachr laptops, thousands of those devices are
401not useable, they're beyond economic repair. So our supply dwindle, so not all are capable of in use. And none of thome are in useful life, they're all four years or greater. okay, but I'm going to pickup a little bit more. When you say thousands, are you talking 5,000? 15,000? I'm trying to understand if we have anytime to still be able to use those laptop computer for us to have some flexibility in our decision? DR. Hepburn? MR. Davis? I don't have the exact number with me p I was looking at back at max. So max, out of the 81,000, plus 5,000 teacher laptops how many would you say are not in useable status? Speaker: so, through the cio and superintendent, max director of student technology support services. I would say on the teacher side, those devices
402are about 44,000 or so already beyond on the student side. When we take that number, we have approximately 30,000 or so computers that have reached that mark. question is -- what computer is not in service. Not that they reached the four-year, they're not useable, that's what her question is. so I'll have to come back with specific answer, because I have to see which ones have been completely decommissioned. that's a really really important because you might come back and say, 75,000 computers are still useable for the next year. Okay, so I'll move on. What is the other options the board has besides voting yes today and voting no today, going out for an ipv, doing our rfp? What is our options and is one, faster option than the other to get computers? Like let's say we
403reject as we voted down. What are our options as quickly as possible to go through the process? Is it rfp? DR. Hepburn? so I know, I'm going to, this probably a two-part question, or two part-answer from it and also procurement. What is the fastest vehicle for procurement that meets the specs that we need for our students and the current capabilities for our software and where we're trying to go in our district? Go ahead, MS. An drunk and trey if you want to help her out. I'm not the expert in procurement, I don't know if I.T. Limits or base odd available of the laptop bayeds on the specific needs. DR. Hepburn, you did answer the que. Yoyorereorrectct so b wobtbtasasst r rtete. Hohowever we recoendeded an rfp for the dollar amount, the 115 million dollars that
404we would be spending as a district, we recommended a request for proposal because although it's based on price, that's not the only factor, we wanted look at the vendors past history. Do they have experience in work withing other large districts. All the another component in rfp in instead of just going with itb and looking at price only. So the rfp does take longer. But we could absolutely do whatever the will is of the superintendent and the board. okay. Sol could we do an ipd for the 86,000 laptops period. And then, do an rfp for the rest of it? I mean, what is the amount of money equaled to the number of laptops that is on the agenda item today? DR. Hepburn? go ahead MR. Davis. trey davis. So on the 86,000, 26 million dollars and
405it's for just over 4 million on the teacher laptops, let me look back at max here. That's correct. so I mean, this could be a solution, we can reject this item, due the I2b for the 86 laptops that are going to you know, not be able to be used and then we go to the rfp for the rest of it. So this way we're getting the laptop as quickly as possible but then going through the rfp process. DR. Hepburn? I think she is making a suggestion. well to that question, how long will itb take? your estimates, MS. Andru, itb process? we can process an itb usually three to five months. as oppose today six months for rfp. the rfp would take six to eight months possibly nine depending on the agreements. so do you want
406to make a motion MS. Alhadeff? ye, I move to reject this bid, do an I2b for the 86,000 laptops. And then go out for rfp for the rest of the amount of money. second. it's been moved and seconded. Any public comment on the motion? ye, DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh, plantation florida. For the most part I support this, I'm going to read again on state law on a responsible vendor is, and I appreciate MS. Alhadeff, I think she was listening, means a vendor who has the capability in all respects to fully perform the contract requirements the the retirement that will assure good faith conference. -- performance. If you're staff does not have a way to measure whether a vendor is responsible and that's why he want to go out for an rfp, that's on them. But an
407I tv is what you can look for is absolutely the vehicle you would use. And then they have to explain why they would want to do an rfp at all. But if this gets us halfway to where we need to be, because at least now, they would need to do it as a itb, I'm in support of that. But I just want hammer this home again. thank you. Next public comment. Speaker: ye, I am in support of this. thank you, any other public comment? Speaker: vincente to the board, I just want to get clarity, it does not make any of us good to talk about the green report, that is not a proud moment for any of us. We just want to have the district do what is right. The attorney gave her opinion and
408she told you the truth, hey you should care about yourself sxn always worry about what is popular. You should listen to your attorney and she is right. and this is broward county, we appreciate what you do and it is about our kids first. And there is no selfish intent involved. Thank you. any other public comment? MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. I am incredibly disappointed by the correction this is going. Our students need this. Our teachers need these. Our staff, our superintendent has gone through the process to make sure that to his knowledge there was no wrongdoing done. There is potential leanne investigation, they said they don't want to interfere with the process. I want to reiterate the follow-up that I had said. Over 81, 830 of the laptops our students are older than four years.
409Our system is not, is using windows 10. Most of the computers are not able to upgrade to windows 11, that is the security risk. That is a risk to our students taking test. I have and end to teachers. 5100 of our teacher laptop are already four years old and due for immediate replacement, not three to four months now immediate replacement. If which include devices in their last year of warranty this brings total, 86 percent of all teacher devices that are at or past the end of warranty. We need to do what is righted for our students, we need to do what is right for our teachers, we need to trust that our staff this w this process. I've had parents reach out to me, I've had teachers reach out to me, saying that they can't
410do what needs to be done. If we're so afraid of grand jury reports, why are we here? I'm here to do what is right for our students and what is right for our district and I'm begging my colleagues to vote yes, thank you. remember this was on the motion. This is just for the motion, I'm not trying to rush people and but I want you to be cognizant, we're losing people as we're speaking. DR. Holness. thank you very much. So on this motion, DR. Hepburn, regarding itb, I heard three to five months. Before, so I just want to confirm, if we go through this process, and we support this motion, what is the I don't want an exaggerated timeline, I need to know for the sake of students, what is the rightful estimate of what
411say right timeline is for students to have computers in their hands? DR. Hepburn? I'm going to ask MS. Andru can you give us the timeline again, because I'm going to differ to her as procurement. DR. Hepburn, if we do everything to ex pa site the process, what is the earliest we can have computers? MS. Andru. I can bring back an item hopefully DECEMBER, I will try my hardest to bring something back to a DECEMBER board, agenda item or JANUARY at the latest. And then whatever time per MR. Davis the company takes to deploy. okay, so DECEMBER will be the earliest and possibly would occur would have computers in JANUARY coming back from the break. that is not what I'm saying, I need MR. Davis to talk about the deployment. okay. so I think on the
412end of that, you would add another four to six weeks, I'll differ to max to that, but by the time you go through imaging process, it would not be less than that. If so if you were to say, four or five, it's still going to be five months or so. so we're going to be around in the middle of FEBRUARY, very earliest that students will have computers. ye, I think that's reality and that's based on my experience, a best case scenario. It's important to remember that we have not had a contract in place since DECEMBER 23. I understand, so the DECEMBER, students will have a computer if we approve this motion. So DR. Hepburn, if we were to approve your item, what is the best case scenario for when students will have computers. DR. Hepburn?
413MR. Davis. I have to give a lot of credit to our technology support services for the work that they've been doing, so I think the reality is if we get the speck stems that are part -- systems, we would have initial dwiesz four so six weeks with initial drops in the next two to four weeks. so by the end of OCTOBER, we would have computers at hand to students and whoever needs them? yes. Our most critical units, certainly not all of those, 87,000 but close. great. And my last que, MADAM Chair. DR. Hepburn, I know investigation is taking place from the oig process and pardon my lack of knowledge of these proses, is there any other available option out there that would expedite investigation through any other conversations or meetings that you can have? not
414that I'm aware of, that's why we submitted to the ig, they already investigated the outside party that we hired as a school district to do things like this for us to its totally separate it's not our folks doing the investigation. so there is no other option available to between any other entity. not that I'm aware of that has subpoena power. so MADAM Chair, I'm done with my question. DR. Zeman. this motion does not serve students. What we're missing, in the way that this was presented, is, you know, that our teachers and our students will not get things if we pass this motion. And I'll remind my colleagues that last week, we went through all of this and we unanimously directed the superintendent to bring this this item because the students don't have the laptop, teachers
415don't have the laptop and their lessons plans are written on laptops, we unanimously directed the superintendent to bring this motion. So when you hear, school board thompson, talk about passionately about this is out of the frustration, last week we were unanimously, bring this back. Let's get students out. And this is, this is not going in the same direction and it's not fair to the superintendent, staff or the public or the students or the teachers and staff that deserve laptops. We should be speaking assumesly in -- unanimously, I'm going to call the question. all those in favor of calling the question. Say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no. motion passes, 3 noes. who was the third no. MS. Alhadeff. so it passes. So you're calling the question to the motion. yes. all those in favor
416of the motion say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. no. item the motion fails 7-2 with -- 8-2 MS. Alhadeff on the phone and MR. Cervera recused. 6-2, it's late and I'm trying to keep track here. So back to the item. Next person to speak is DR. Zeman. thank you very much, I shared my comments. I just want to remind that the ig said to move forward. I don't the safest path forward is to go out and hold another procurement process. We had one procurement process, there were some xwlaints about it. We canceled that. We did another one, there were problems, we've done this three times. And on the third one, we're still way behind on getting laptops purchased. This is an emergency motion, this item is an emergency item to get tools in
417the hands of students and teachers and staff that need it. I look forward to getting the vote and going on to the next item. MS. Rupert. thank you, real quick. Last yae, how many students and teach hers computers? DR. Hepburn? MR. Davis? max, do you have an exact number? Speaker: yeah. So I want to make sure I was understanding that correctly, we worked to have a one to one, this is a covid he practice time frame. So definitely one to one per students. The numbers beyond access, have now dwindled due to auj but yes, we had in classroom, the ability to assign, depending on where you were a laptop per student. N.And those that had available computers to take home? DR. Hepburn. so last year, we're moving into now is to allow students to take
418home their dwiesz. I know, that's I didn't asked. yeah, previously years, we didn't allow them besides the covid era. During the shut down. right so the laptops that were used last yae, they would be one -- year-older than this, sitting until the rooms right now? go ahead, MR. Davis. sure if we were look ago a bar chart which we're not, but you would see the bars showing four plus years you could not even see the bars on the one or two units, because we don't have that much with that age. To make up for the deficiencies, so hopefully that answers the question. I'm a reading teacher so diagram, what can we get them to work and last and be safe. I'm not going to be labor this and thank you for your effort. alternate student
419to the school board. I appreciate how every one keeps saying student and student and student, and I'm right here. You can ask me. First of all, right now in high schools, there are students with 40 kids in each classroom and 36 laptops, in each, that's a problem. Teachers computers are mission key pads, MISS Ing the scrolling bars, some of them don't even turn on. And we're sitting here if neck knowledging is where we want to go. We want keep saying that we want to be the best district possible and that's technology. We have vr sets, but when it comes to simple technology, use, oh probably another time. I agree with DR. Zeman, and school board member thompson, yes, we've already been in the works, we've already had side conversation s about it and now it's
420here, the superintendent brought it, let's go ahead and vote on it. Why are we delaying that we as a student, need. I can do all of my school work, I I love having any laptop that came from my school, I can use for school work. And I feel like if we layout for students and give them the opportunity, it all starts with you guys. Please vote in favor of it. thank you. I think that's every one. Go ahead. As long as it's quick. Okay. this is going to be probably five and a half minutes. So first of all, I wanted to point something that we talked about last week and I hope that this is remains true. Are the current proposal that we have locked in pretariff prices, is that correct? DR. Hepburn? yes, that's
421correct. that's something that we have going for us right now. I share the frustration here because I, you know, we've gone through other items and picked them apart with facts na that MAY be good or bad but every time we've talked about this there is been no evidence that there is any wrongdoing in the procurement process. I have not heard one thing that says that there was something that was done incaekly. There is this paul of wrongdoing that somebody is created, but there has been absolutely no evidence presented. So we can keep kicking this can down the road, we can do another rfq and rf whatever, and the same thing can go happen. We can go into another investigation with a four-six week deployment, I think that sounds better than any other timeline. I want
422to commend MR. Davis, DR. Hepburn, we're asking for technology, to be a leader not only in the state and world MR. Davis is telling us about their his initials. We need to support them in this initiative and make sure that we're make ing the right decisions for our kids and teach ferz. I personally had to buy two computers this yae, I was relying on the fact that this was going to get passed and my kids didn't have lap tops. There is kids that don't have computers to bring home to do homework. Our platform that we provide education on, is on a computer. To continue provide our kids with work equipment right now, as soon as possible is irresponsible and we're not doing our duty to our kids in this county. And that's what we were
423elected to do. So I 100 percent this item and hope my colleagues will do. and I will end our discussion with MS. Alhadeff, shortly I hope. yes, thank you. I have concerns or I want to ask DR. Hepburn to the e fafa onon this itemthatat wre ing to be voti onon for these computers. Is the processing slower? Faster? Less productive? DR. Hepburn? are they four years old? Are they current enough? Or is it going to be slow? you're, speaking MR. Davis's language, go ahead MR. Davis. good evening, trey davis. I don't want to get into the technical specification, but I will tell you, exponentially different in the processing power, the memory, et cetera on board. So again this is a quick deep dive technically. I will tell that there is exponential gains within the device
424from the screen dot process or, the memory speed et cetera and it has a massive I mpact on we can function with windows 111 -- window 11. are these from four years ago or from now 2025? DR. Hepburn? MR. Davis. these would be current specs. This is the latest jen at the time that we did the specs with the providers. no that's not my question. Are we getting specs from 2025 or four years. what will be differed will be built on based on model numbers and whatever the current dwiesz are devices. sorry MS. Alhadeff, you have to take a vote to extend, it's 6:30, we have until 6:45. no it's 6:30. okay. We'll have to table the item. I have -- let me check with the 5:30. 5:30 extended for an hour. so when I
425had extended, we had until 5:45, I asked for another hour it goes to 6:45. So when this item was done I was going to ask to extend another half hour. can I continue? yes, please go ahead. okay, so my question is specifically, if we approve this, will the students be getting computers with from 2025, from updated now. Because technology gets old real fast or are we getting something from 2021, 2022? DR. Hepburn? go ahead max? through the superintendent, DR. Hepburn, all the devices will be built currently on this year's specs. They don't carry specs prior to this. The specs we'll be getting will be built to our specifications with all the current CPUs and all different components. okay, so you're saying that the specs will be updated from 2025, yes? yes. and they're not from
426four years ago. that's correct. thank you, alling those in favor of oo18 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no. motion wait a minute, okay. Motion passes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to 2 minus MS. Thompson and MR. Cervera recuses himself and MS. Alhadeff is on the phone. did I get this right. alhadeff, no. right, that's what I said. So the item passes. rebecca is here. But we already voted. So the next item is oo 19. Can I have, we still have four items there are people here in the public, who have been waiting for hours to speak on another item on here. And I have can we vote, I move that we extend the meeting by 15 minutes. yes. okay. I prefer to say half hour so we don't have to do it again,
427just in case, because there is some discussion on, I have three people wanting to speak on pp1 and there is a lot of people. And you give them five minutes each, we're going to be each. I'll give up my time to speak on pp1. we're still going to need ten minutes. I would like to do it for half an hour. if we don't use it all, we don't use it all. Okay. All those in favor let me ask has batista, is it the chair's, am I suppose to make the motion to extend or is it up to anybody? there is a motion to extend the time, yes. You normally make the motion but since somebody. I just want to check. all those in favor of extending the meet informing oar only 15,. there was no
428second. he did, all those in favor of extending for only 15 minutes say aye. all those opposed say no. no. can we have a roll call. it's like two to two. No for 15 minutes, I'm sorry, still trying to process, yeah. The answer was no. All those in favor of I would like to motion to extend the meeting for 30 minutes. second. all those in favor say aye. aye. any opposed say no. aye. motion carries. 8-1 with MS. Alhadeff on the phone. Back to oo 19 I have a motion and a second. so moved. it's been moved by DR. See man seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on oo 19. before we go to public comment, just to make sure, are we extend to go 7:05 or 7:15. westbound speakers we have four, DR.
429Nathalie lynch-walsh ana. And vincente Speaker: nathalie lynch-walsh this was an another one where itb was appropriate and you look at the response to rfb, it looks like at because it was specific line items, there is no reason for it fob anything than itb. So and and you are the vendor that this is the prime air other awardee as the vice chair of your small business advisory and sat with you discussing this item when you guys were talk withing all the advisories and did not disclose that. And apparently I caused a stir by asking how he got on the advisory committee, because was not a board appointee, nor is the chair. And there is a lot of odd stuff that went on between his proposal and another proposal, was a sub on. In any event, obviously
430if you want them to get in the hands of kids, have you to vote yes on this one. But, and you've passed up the idea of rejeblgt. A fr a leadership perspective, a good leader is proactive. You voted to reject the itb last JULY. When all of these laptops were aging out. And now, you're forced and backed into acorner which every one can appreciate how upset some of you are, but this was a foreseeable problem and still, you were in the same staff recommended that you rejected all bids last summer, when you had time to get things into the hands of students and nobody had to be on the dais crying about put ing laptops into student's lands. But that did not happen, you went along with reject all bids all summer and now backed
431into acorner which is one of the problems of the removed board. And the removed board was not removed from misconduct it was for incompetence and neglect of duty. So please don't think that somebody caught somebody stealing, you mostly were all here. It's decisions like here and I appreciate MR. Cervera, throwing stuff back, because that MAY train staff not to come back with half baked recommendations. Speaker: vincente, I'm thank you for service, I'm here to lecture, that's the democracy right? You win some you lose some, right? That helps me understand, which win some, we lose some. Our on the board of directors, we supported you, we said lead us, it's been a long day. Go home. MR. Cervera. thank you, MADAM Vice chair, because this is a brought as companion to oo 19, I'm going to
432remove my prior position pursuant to section 112.314b because I need to make a disclosure for a possible vendor conflict. I discovered through my normal procedures in preparing for this meeting. Based on this conflict I need to recuse myself from oo 19. thank you, MS. Rupert? no comment, I'm okay. thank you, anybody else? all those in favor of oo 19 say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. no. Alhadeff. motion carries, 7-1, with MS. Al hadeff on the known voting no and MR. Cervera recusing himself. Next item pp1. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman seconded by MS. Leonardi. Any public comment on pp11? no ma'am. board member comment? MS. Bulman? thanks, chair. I, I had a a little bit of a concern on one part and I believe I brought this up before, but I don't
433remember. I'm just going to bring it up and see what my colleagues think. We're delegating certain stott superintendent in things that we have interest in in making this easier. The one that sticks out for me, is h, and I think I brought it tup at the workshop but it's 1-h which is use of broward county for non purposes. So I guess the ask thed superintendent to clarify when you think. This says that when any delays take iting of timely action necessary to address the needs of citizens of broward county. DR. Hepburn. what we're thinking that might be. next, 17 in this poll sigh. Policy, thank you peter. Speaker: pete, director of proejt management. It's my understanding that there is alignment with this section and school board policy, 8020 form per policy 14311 which is specified
434here as well. But I want to other dress your point and this is really important because it applies to other actions as well. When any delays accompanying the normal process would preclude the taking of timely action necessary. Where in the board would be involved in approving these. so can you give me an example of emergency situation? What I would, like to avoid is entering into a long term lease or getting rid of property without board approval, something that would be normally what something that would have to come to the board. I'm having a hard time coming up with an example in my head where this would apply, because we have short-term rentals, release that's in j, we already covered that. So when would we have an emergency where we would have to have a long
435term lease that does not fall under jay? It says to approve lease. So presumably this would not be a lease. I do believe there were some contracts over the course of the last, many years, that fell under h but probably didn't fall under the definition of emergency. So this would be more of a contingency. I would deliver to my colleagues in the office of general counsel if they have seen any situations where there was concern around the timing in the execution of such contracts. cause, just to add to the point too in that, emergency would not be that we just didn't get the contract in a timely manner? We like to avoid that. I would delegate to MR. Vagnola, inl he is on the line. Speaker: I am deputy general counsel. What I would say,
436I'm not aware, I cannot recall an instance where we had a lease situation wherefore the use of our facility, by someone elts where we had a delay. my question on that would be perhaps, district staff can identify a few situations where they experienced a problem of this type. Perhaps MR. A cabuzo can describe a perfect situation, along the line. I don't recall one. so I guess, I would like to make a motion that we remove this. Letter h intentionally omit. it's been moved and seconded to remove h which is on four of seven. Any it's been moved and seconded. Is there any public comment? Board member discussion? DR. Zeman. I'm curious if we can get superintendent's strike on h. strike it out. It's okay, strike it out. all right, sir. Thank you. all those in
437favor of the motion say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion carries. Is that it? MS. Rupert. You're next on the list. You pulled the item. I'm fine. thank you. MS. Thompson. thank you, chair I'm just pointing out in error in d, the non del ability contractual provisions where it says, pursuant to this policy or school board policies, 3800 and 1218, it should be 2080. and actually I want today ask if the board would permit that all of these numbers be updated because since the policy was put together of their, there are several references that are no longer those numbers like 1341 is now 8020 those are technical changes. I make a motion to update all of our policy numbers. second. any public comment? Board member comment? All those in favor say aye. aye. I'm
438not the public but I do have a question for maz batista, would this be a constitute a substantiative dhai. Change. it's a technical change but because you have substantiative change the policy would have to come back. okay. Thank you. So we -- . all those in favor, of item pp say aye. aye. any opposed say no. no. and since it was with a substantiative change, it will come back. With hz alhadeff on the phone. And next is oo1, any public comment? yes, we do have three registered speakers. Michael morris, and kimly and norlien. Speaker: hi, the only thing real fast is that on this committee, I would like to see the district chairs added to the committee. And that would need to be stated in the resolution. For the district chairs to be part of
439the committee. Thank you. thank you. next public speaker? nicole morris, choral springs. I would just ask that you would add the facilities task force representative from the ftf and their area xhair. So I think it's important that the area chairs, they intimately know their schools and intricacy of those schools in a way that MAY be the ese, representatives or the esol MAY not. Like we don't, I am not familiar with ese and they're usually not familiar with our schools unless they're in one of those schools. We know our communities, we know our schools, we know our patterns, we know the capacity of the schools, we know them well, the communities and so it's, it's to be fair, if you don't have your areas like last year, they didn't have representatives from broward estate show up,
440so it was vital to the central area chair was there because she knew the community and the school. So not having the area chairs, I think is a disservice. I think at this time, and redefining process, we need as many engaged people as possible participatinin also ththk the ciciliti are play atatarole inin isis this, so the facility chair should be there. For the last three years we've been working and before I was the area chair I was advocating for the area chairs and the ese chair and district advisory chair to be on these committees. We spend a lot of time, we care we will be at the meet ing. So I would ask that you include the area chairs and the facilities task force chair on this committee so you don't have, so that every
441school is represented, you MAY not have representatives that show up on your schools. We attend every meeting. We're dedicated from the beginning to the end. Thank you. any other public comment. MS. Bulman. thank you, chair. I appreciate the recommendation with the area chairs, I also I believe, last yae, the it says, two members from the community of each district school and last year, we chose two people from each school, correct? DR. Hepburn. ye, that's correct. I wanted and to the point certain, sometimes people MAY be don't have the ability to show up or there is less of a pool for people to choose from at a particular school, I, I would like that to continue be, that we either add another community member or don't limit it to the school. There is a balance, you
442know, obviously people know what is going on in their school, so I think that's very important. But there is also a possibility that you have a different perspective from the immediate community. So I don't know how my colleagues feel about that. go ahead, DR. Wanza if you want to add something. good evening, valley wanza, strategy innovation officer. So two representatives are the people that represent the school community. They don't have to be school employees, it could be a business owner, somebody who works intricately with the school, as long as they're a stakeholder. Some instances we had a parent and a staff parent. We had a community member and a parent. So the numbers that we had last year, that's certainly, what is before you today, and we'll work with whatever the board decides. And then,
443obviously depending on the number of schools on OCTOBER 7th that our finally narrowed to be part of the official process, I would just say that let's say all 34 schools are in, 34 times two, plus, the various committee representatives that the final decision is that will be the composition of the committee. MS. Bulman? I'll wait to hear from my colleagues. I might want to increase the number by one percent. thank you, MS. Thompson? thank you, chair. I have a couple of moition sxz just a clarifier. So I would like to motion to add the area leader -- . thank you. second. it's been moved and seconded. Any public comment? Speaker: thank you for the motion, I think I probably killed everything I had to say because I'm running in from a phone call, but I
444hope you got my email. I think it's important even when it was wasn't, when I was not a chair, it was important. You know, right now, we have schools that the two parent or not the two parents, you'll have two parents from each school. We have schools right now that are campaigning to protect their schools and we don't care what is happening here. And that's not okay. We need to have holistic information brought to the table in a fair process and I didn't know what I'm saying this time of day. You get it, I hope you read my email. thank you, next speaker. Speaker: nordene I support the motion. thank you for the motion, I was going to make one myself just like that. So I support it. just to I guess to MS. Bulman's
445are we adding that in addition to the two? Or is that? no, it's in addition. yes. All those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. those opposed say no. Motion carries unanimously. yeah, I just had a, a clarifying question about how this process is going to work. So we've heard from the choral springs commissioners and community that they wanted a boundary change. My recollection that was we were going to do this in this redefining process. but now I'm hearing that this MAY not be true. So I would like. DR. Hepburn, can you? yeah, so, probably a workshop or two ago, we, I just that's when I told the board, being with the routine of our team, focus on that area when we redefine and the consensus was to move forward which is redefining under
446our old schools. can you expand how that would increase capacity because it seems like there are schools in the choral springs area that might possibly be identified. So if they are identified, then can we include them? I don't see how adding this would increase the workload but, you're the -- yeah, DR. Wanza's team is doing the bulk of the work. So I will let her talk about some of the process. But it is a lot of work that the public that don't see and you know, you see the portions for the meetings but there is a lot of stuff that goes behind closed scenes. thank you, DR. Hepburn and thank you MS. Thompson. At the AUGUST 26th school board workshop and I think it was slide, 8, one of those slides, it was the slide
447that specifically had the question around the silver palms secondary pattern moving them from the current planning and zone to the west broward zone. Then we had the board consensus which was on MARCH 11th around what was thent c4 area and the 2023, I think it was school boundary process. and then we had another, item around a request for a choice boundary area for pioneer middle school and when we got to the three items, the question was asked specifically, the superintendent gave his per speblgt I have -- perspective as it relates to the work that we do. I came back and asked the board specifically on each one of the three and sent silver palms would naturally come to play because of the work that is being done and the schools out there, the consensus that
448we received was yes, keep silver palms as a school to be addressed and then we gave the superintendent, gave his perspective, around the work, then the board came and the consensus was to not move forward with the with the margely stoneman douglas as well the one for pioneer middle school. But I can tell you is that so we started the process. And it's in policy 80-10, so we started the process, and we've identified the schools to be addressed. We have advised to the public the schools that will specifically be addressed at all the meeting. So we started them last week, as every one knows. So if we're going to have, or if it's the will of the board, however it comes out, that we're going to add, we would have to add another community meeting
449specifically for that. Because what we advertised to the public is for the middle schools that incompasses the ma'aming or the of middle schools in choral springs as well as one of the middle school in the city of margate. So we would have to do, we would have to add another community meeting. We don't have, I'm going to tell you right now, according to the timeline that the board came to consensus for us to follow, we would within be able to add that meeting before the time that we need come back to the board on OCTOBER 7th. can I ask -- thank you. So just to clarify. I understand the timeline, so at the OCTOBER 7th meeting, this idea comes back, because we still have to do regional meetings, could that be added at that point?
450we would have to still have a community meet ing, because the what the board approved, was for us to do these 8 community meetings based on what we get from the 8 community meet sxgz then come to the OCTOBER 7 workshop for the final list of schools to be addressed so we can do the three regional meetings based on the work that was done on the eight community meetings. thank you. thank you, cog nitive of time, we have 15 minutes. DR. Holness. okay. MADAM Chair, the two members from the community, you said they were a pointed, who appoints these two members? DR. Hepburn? DR. Wanza. thank you, DR. Hepburn. So the school principal identifies members from his or her community. And of course these individuals will have to be willing to make the commitment but
451it starts at the school district. We at the district do not pick the people. so DR. Hepburn, I know that as a, past member for I think three of the schools of the school advisory council to which I was chair for a couple of them. Because those individuals are knowledgeable of what is happening within the community and it includes business and teachers and representing and so on. Is there a specific group of people like the council and pt As that the principal tar ge. so we don't tell the principal specifically who ha has to be, but it does have to be people vested in the skaoshltion invest and different parent and community groups that are involved. so they're very diligent in making sure these individuals are knowledgeable and have great interest. this is our recommendation
452for the principle to select individuals coming from the exact back grounds that you're talking about DR. Holness. okay, DR. Hepburn, would it tb too much to ask some level of guidance is given to principals to determine which pool of our group or graoufp individuals that they MAY want to consider such as a school advisor counselor. DR. Hepburn? yes. MS. Rupert. thank you, and I missed part of the conversation, I wanted to see if the ftf chair was going to be added? nobody has made a motion to that. I move that the ftf chair be part of the committee second. any public comment on the motion? board member comment on the motion? All the those in favor of the motion say aye. aye. all those opposed say no. remember, you're not voting for a person. the
453motion fails 7-2. MADAM Chair, can you rpt motion sorry. the motion was to add the ftf chair to the boundary committee? with due dissenting. we're you'll trying to keep up. So the motion fails. With MS. Alhadeff ob the phone. Back to the item, rr1 as amended. Aye. motion passes unanimously -- motion passes 8-1. Final yrkts rr2 can I get a motion can a second. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, and seconded by MS. Leonardi. I just pulled it to remind child awareness cancer month, so represent that we're recognizing and honoring children affected by childhood cancer. All those in favor of the resolution say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. at this time, do any of any colleagues have update or student successes. DR. Zeman. "washington post" broke a story of department ofd
454is doing with its money. One of the most interesting is all title 2 is being repurposed for civics in the united states. MS. Thompson. ?O. As priced was announced that london mayor's association invited their students to perform in the london new year's day parade. congratulations. MR. Cervera. 44 students were named semifinalist college academy. Monarch cooper city high school, district 6, nova high school, district 6, cypress bay, district 6, west broward, hollywood Mchill and district 6 and stoleman douglas. congratulations. DR. Holness. thank you, MADAM Chair. Please join me in gaming melissa -- a strong commitment to supporting our and lupisting our most vulnerable students in the child abuse program in the local nonprofit. Melissa continues to make a meaningful and lasting impact in the lives of students and families across broward county. thank you, MS. Rupert.
455thank you, we kind of did a t a little bit, but I was given this. Hon soeder five executive assistance with support designation. Vital role of support staff, the honoree that dmes traited commitment are alan tulleson and I apologize if I say anybody's name wrong, ab andrea, januaryse, edward, danielle, thighs assisted select a state graoufp professionals dedicate today student success. We all work with great teams. Thank you. thank you, congratulations. To all of them. MS. Leonardi. I want today shout out the west broward marching band, incredible school leader and public servant so congratulations to them again. you took what I had to say. Thank you, I'm going to end on a note that I just want to remind my colleagues with the utmost respect, that the meetings go long because there are things that we
456could ask ahead of time. That staff can answer, I want you to know that the answers go on the agenda, the public can see it, so I know that smgz take, we had great conversation today but and that was important but some of the items could have been taken care of before we got here. I ask you to be cognizant and remember we're in the training and that's the conversation, the meetings are suppose to be efficient. And I feel like we could do a little better in respect. since there is six minutes left, technically. I wanted to see if the superintendent wased to reconsidering, oo15. oo15. tell us what it is. that is for the maintenance. Ground maintenance that needed appendix a. yes, if the superintendent to reconsider the item and we will follow-up. yes,
457I think we do have the item. So MS. Andru would send follow-up spreadsheet with the information that was lacking. absolutely not. okay. we have our answer. yes, so it will come back OCTOBER 14th. yes, ma'am. thank you all, have a great night. See you next tuesday. .