Special School Board Meeting - Nov 18, 2025

001special school board meeting? welcome to today' special school board meeting. We're thankful to have you with us and thankful for your time to school district. Our primary focus is to create a safe and productive environment for all participants. While on board room refrain from blocking the exit doors. Once the board room has reached capacity. Upon activation of the fire alarm system please exit from the room in an ordinarily fashion and continue to remain outside until ne have deemed the room safe to return. All please rise to the "pledge of allegiance" to the flag of the united states of america. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under GOD, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. as we prepare to begin

002our special school board meeting, we're reminded that our vision is 100 percent proficiency for all students. We will continue educating all students to reach their highest potential. Our theme this year, believe empower achieve one broward. Today's special school board meeting will in accordance to 1020. The chair finds pursuant to 12525 florida statute that good cause exist for such changes. MAY I have a motion and a second to close the agenda. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. all in favor let it be known by saying aye. Aye. The agenda is now closed, I would like to take some items a little bit out of order and then move to close door. MAY I have a motion and a second on item 2. so moved. second. moved by DR. Zeman, second by MS.

003Rupert. Is there any recommendation to approve wi-fi. Any board discussion? MR. Cervera. thank you, I want to thank a couple of people for make thising happen. Major demarco, I want to thank you. And special thank you to captain bianca. Keeping the student body should be the utmost importance to this board. I think this was a long time coming, well overdue to finally get this done. This was brought to mia tension a cup of months ago and I worked very diligently and hard with bso and I'm glad this is finally being brought to the table. Although, I think respectfully we're a week late. I'm very proud that this is going forward today. And I'm fully in support of this. Thank you. thank you, MS. Alhadeff? so, also, thank you for bringing this forward. My question is

004in regards to where we are, we're at with other law enforcement agencies with getting these agreements approved? DR. Hepburn? chief. good morning, chief gregor, we're aware that there are a number of agents that don't have the radios that can work with this wi-fi opportunity so we're work withing the broward county to work for their technology called erkhsd, available through the inter local agreement with with broward orcat group which will make it available to each municipalities as they procure their radios. If that initiative does not workout, we're prepared to go with individual contracts with each individual cities. If we can get it all done with the one, that's our desire but if not, we'll go with one by one with one contracts. so what is the timeline that we're looking at? With the first scenario? would

005I give it t I would give it 60 days, to see if we can get movement on that. okay. I just, I stressed to the superintendent that we need to be very aggressive about in and and, you know, not accept delays, and whatever the board can do, if we need to have letters. The 60 days, we got to be on it? it is definitely noted and we'll let you know if we need additional support and our previous chair hixon supported us with initiative with county commission that sped up things. Soy -- so I know, the current chair will be able to do the same thing to move with county. thank you. any other board discussion? MS. Rupert? Okay. All in favor of item 2 say aye. aye. any opposed say no. Motion 2 passes unanimously.

006MAY I have a motion and a second on item number 3, fpl easement? no ma'am. Do we have any registered speakers for item number 3? No? Board discussion. okay. Any board discussion on item number 3? All in favor of item number 3 say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes unanimously. I will now recess the meeting to go into a scheduled closed-door. [School board in closed-door session] ep sure that I put down exactly the position of the on the po and went to the itb and aligned it to a different job title with the same job requirements. okay, DR. Hepburn, is there a reason there aren't exact alignment in terms of the what the position states on the itb and what is being clarified here as matching that job description b.You the title is

007not the same. why isn't it consistent? That the job requirement are the same as the different title in the itb. I can om assume it was the wrong job tight it will. where? on the po. okay, so DR. Hepburn, that is concerning. I believe there are questionable positions like project manager level 1, 2, and 3 in reference, project manager security. And it appears that there is no security specific project manager role that exist on the itb. There is questions about the other positions as the speaker mentioned. So I'm just concerned that it does not align with what is referenced and I cannot see the reason that it's not. as far as position titles? as far as positions and what is being shown on the itb and why those titles did not match. Why did we

008have to change the title and then change the description on the itb? go ahead. there is a job description for project manager and that goes across, all the different. I think it's on page of the 15 of the itb, you will see that there is it security list. There are various different listed, that the job title would go along with those different divisions. okay, so the job title logitic, analyst, that's not one of the jobs approved. So can you explain that? yes, the job requirement that's are on the po, align with job titles that are on the itb. is there a place where these things should not align. repeat the question, DR. Holness. okay, she mentioned the job title in the po matches the description in the itb but the titles are different. So, whoever

009does this, they're not aware that there it should match? go ahead, doctor? the po comes from the vendor. So vendor MAY have put it down without matching it to the itb. okay, thank you MADAM Chair. DR. Zeman. thank you, so much chair. I'm curious about the process. We're in a budget crisis. We have a contract that would have total spending of 10 million dollars? DR. Hepburn? correct, overtime. well it does not have much time left, it's a four-year contract, doesn't it run out in 2026. that's correct. I think it's 2025 and we're being asked to approve another 4 and a half million dollars on a contract that burned for 3 years and now we're asked for another 4 and a half million can somebody tell me why? go ahead, DR. Diamond? if you can look

010at appendix b. There are upcoming projects that we need to be able to hire additional staff. We're a very lean organization and therefore we reach out to our vendor partners to align us with individuals who can help us with these projects. Some of these projects, for a couple of months, some are for a year let's say, but to hire staff to do that, would not be prudent either. We make decisions based on the project in front of us. How many individual we need to support and over what time. The amounts that are down there are in our budget, the 3 million dollars is in isd's budget. We're not asking for additional money we're just asking for additional spend authority. they are I have I can. This is where I lose my cool. What is the

011burn rate for the first three years? we have gone through 5.3 million over the four years. okay, the material started it ststard in 2022, is this s 2025. thatat would be 21-22. the item says 22, let's just say 1.3 per year. So the board is being asked to go from 1.3 burn to 4.5 with one year left on this contract, is that correct? we're asking for 4.5 for the upcoming, we've renewed the contract for new year but spent over multiple-years. terrific, I'm going to tell you how I feel. You offer an officinger that we're a lean. We have maintained a very expensive overhead structure. what she is referring is isd, not overall. including isd. These are contractors that help our corporate overhead staff. These are contractors that do not help our schools? yes, they do

012help our schools, as far as infrastructure. these contractors are not assigned to our schools. they're benefit ifing all schools. these are contracts that help support staff, is that correct? yes, that's correct. that's wonderful. I cannot do this. I'm not sure that anyone on the board wants to do this. This is a expend that is accelerating contractors. Who has the authority to ten gauge a contractor, to hire somebody to come in and support our staff? How many people in broward schools have that authorize? overall or this specific contract? let's say this contract? the isd team, DR. Diamond and the staff. This is team effort. I think that this, I don't, I noi that we need help and there is no doubt that we would love to come in. I'm on a war path which is we're

013going to tell people that we cannot give them pay raises. And I feel the authority is at a level that we never see. And you know as a board, what we don't see is we pass a budget that gives somebody else authority to bring in contractors to do work. When does the school board become aware of these contracts that are made with these specialists? go ahead, DR. Diamond? by approving this, by approving the itb itself, the school board allowed us to go ahead and get contractors. that's ter I rific. And in my patience without approval of the board is done. I don't think these are good business practices. I think you're asking for a lot of money. 1.3 year is not 4.5 million. So there is a dramatic increase in spend. And I don't like

014the approval authority being held at the cabinet level or below to bring in contractors to do work we need to do. I don't understand. I don't have enough information to say today that this is a good decision to make to extend this itb. This is my job, my job is the same to say too much is too much, and I think this is too much. We cannot say we're at a budget crisis and continue to bring contractors in, when we have not reduced overhead staff. We continue to carry an overhead that is very consistent to when we had 150 students, we had 180. So just in terms of fiscal responsibility, I cannot support this, thank you chair. MS. Rupert? thank you. When it comes to this item, there is first of all, I brought this

015up at the last meeting and that's my colleagues and I brought it here to get more information. And the timing of getting the information, was not optimum to make a decision. However, I do have a different questions as well. When if comes to having the project lined up with the people. The project manager security supports staff for 84,000. There is no security specific project management that exist in the itb. The logitic analyst security support staff for 44,000 logitic analyst is not one of the 31 approved job categories. I.T. Security logitic analyst for 39.99 an hour or -- and a year and there is a nonexistent role for that. The itb authority, I cannot talk today, sorry. The itb, authorizes only 31 specific technical job categories. Any further order issued under the contract must fall within

016the 31-role descriptions, appendix b prepares that as per page of 21 of the itb, yet several entries fall under the authorized scope. Broward county issues hundreds of thousands of dollars under itbfy23-045/fy23-1 for technical staffing roles that and I'm going to say this slowly and hopefully with as much emphasis as I possibly can. They do not exist ought t the at all in the 31 job categories or explicitly tied to the system. Success factors focus sis or domains information security project management that are not con tem nraited in section 5. These purchases appear to violate the scope of the technical contract and consulting service contract and I, am getting reminisce ant in hearing carousel sounds of the circus, I'm not going to be supporting this nor should we be supporting this. We have people that are,

017not doing these jobs. And getting paid for it. And I believe an audit needs to be conducted like yesterday. Thank you. thank you, MS. Hixon? thank you. I have a couple of questions. As you go through appendix b, and I know they're separated out by year, but there is, the same person is listed more than one time. So, can you explain, I don't want to call one person out and it's more than one person, but in each year, there is somebody at least one person that is listed two times and sometimes, there are 130,000, another time it's 67 or 58, so can you explain why and it's same exact job description so can you explain why in the same year somebody would be being paid twice for same, I mean it is a different po

018number? But it does appear to be the same job. DR. Hepburn. go ahead DR. Diamond. And I think it's 5 minutes per board member. MS. Hixon, you're correct, different POs, POs are open for specific amount of time. Let's say three weeks, five weeks, three months, five months and once that time has transpired, a new po is going to be opened and that's why you're seeing the same names again on the same year. Their position was extended overtime. And each po was a different amount based upon that time. okay, it is hard to sum ize because we cannot see the POs. I tried very hard, last board meeting, it was asked that we say line item by line item what each po was going to be representing and that's how I presented it here. but reality

019is, that individuals that worked on that specific job, that job takes longer, POs are open for a perfect amount of time and when they're done, we have to open up another one. so my next question is if board does not support the item, how many jobs are already, started where if we don't support this, job would start in the middle? You MAY not have that answer but just trying to figure out where we're not going to do the four and a half million, are there jobs already in the middle where we would need to fulfill our contractual? yes, appendix e, which I do have bigger copies if anybody is interested in seeing them, and I apologize for the small print. But appendix e, talks about the jobs that are currently in process. so that's the

0207 2000. we do have some consultants working on them. It also listed on first page of the executive summary. Just for the record, I'll say that maximo, which is currently being used there, we have consultants there. And class wise, digital management system, that is the line wise cyber lock which is going to be our data lake and our enterprise bus, we're just rolling that off now, getting ready for the kickoff. Safety technology access control project that from ssep, district surveillance network, district intercom projects, again ssep and of course the enterprise resource planning, right now, what we have is rfp but we'll have the full implementation once we determine what vendor to use. So there are projects that are in place. so if we look at appendix e, that 7,000, that would incompass what you just

021said? correct, we have POs set out for that. That is part of the 5.3 million that has been account for here as well. okay, so I would like to make a motion. Possibly. I would like to move that we reduce the amount of money to 1 million dollars on this item and be explicit that we finish the projects that are in motion now but don't start any new ones. second. hold on, I just want to before we vote, go ahead, DR. Diamond? I just want to make sure that with the perp coming up, that we're not going to be short side. You're going to need consultant to help you implement that. so DR. Diamond before you vote, I was going to ask the questions to make sure the board understands what projects are in queue

022to be finished. How much money do you need to finish this fiscal year, because we can have procurement start a new itb process. I think one of the issues is this is from 21-22 and the titles MAY have been different then but the roles and the work associated is same. I want to be clear about how much money do you need to finish these essential projects that are in playwright now, especially for safety and security purposes too. I would have to lean over to my colleagues but I think one million will fall short. I think if we're looking to reduce it, I would say 2.5 million but I would need my colleagues at ssap to weigh in as well. We have located 3 million and 1.5 million for. for work for this xurnt year? starting

023this year but going into the future. okay, so I want, to be clear, what do we need for this year cause we can procurement start a new process for the following year? Chief gregory, if you can chime in too. For specifically for is dp . I would say 1.5 million. and chief I know you have some projects that segway in between both? mike growing rechief security officer. We do between access control which is on going, we have the intercom project on going and camera support which is on going. As we know, we have the, we had the presentation on these, on this school risk assessment and presented that to the board, that will roll into a grant request and we hope, the beginning of next year, we'll receive those dollars to implement in additional cameras

024and fencing. So those particular contract position approximates, support and they will wrap up what they have new year and start a new round. So borrowing, we need look at additional staff. and how much dollar amount for this year. Because the plan is to go back and work with procurement with new itb that we can bring to the board for the following year of work that needs to be done. this year? yes. we can cut ours in half probably as we rollout finish up this year and begin work next year, cutting it in half and start the new process. so I'm hearing about two million? we would say 1.5 for us and 750,000 for the chief. so 2.25? correct. public comment on the motion? DR. Nathalie lynch walsh. In thor' I support the motion but however,

025before you vote, appendix b and e are disconnected. So suck not tell in appendix e which vendors you're talking about. And I'm not sure why, the vendors are not on here because it should then tie back to the executive summary where we mentioned class wise, line wise, I didn't hear tech army, so my thought would be they're in here, but we don't know that, that is in two-point type. So this whole thing, I support, the idea but I don't know that you've drilled down far enough because you don't know which vendors the 700,000 is. And all of this could have been avoided by this level of detail being brought in the first place but I guess that's not how we operate. Thank you. board discussion on the motion? and I would be willing to amend

026it to 2 million instead of 1 million. is that what you would like to do? yes. so motion has been changed to 2 million seconded. I understand we're in a financial situation. The safety projects, the district bus that trey davis has been talking getting in our systems in line and be the whatever you call t the ai innovative school district or what are. -- whatever and they're not actually going to be successful because we're crippling our staff. Do we have this amount you're asking for in the budget? yes. thank you. Are there actually people listed there that are getting paid for jobs they're not doing? no. I would like to respect our staff in the time that they put into it and thank you for going back and putting these details in within six days

027more or less, I really appreciate your time and your guy's dedication to make sure you fulfill what the board asking you to do.. What whim ct ll haen if we dodo not t pass this emem? d h hepburn. you have essential projects that stop, things that we talked about, the board. and I want to compare it to similar to our facilities projects. There are have been logs of initiating and completing projects. And we've been tasked with closing the gap. And that's what we've done and we're doing the same here also, there is a huge gap in a thing that there is no conversation because we talked about it in closed door and many of this itb helps to address and accelerate the work because we don't have the capacity to do it, and hins the

028reason for the itb. And if, and we're gladly go to procurement and initiate a new one, but we need to get these projects moving forward also. But we can go to procurement since this one is old and which is why the titles don't match the role but the responsibilities are matching when it comes to the work. If we can move forward on this if this passes also. I would like to make a substitution motion to go to 2.5 which is what staff said would be what they need to accomplish. is there a second? second. MS. Alhadeff second. Public comment? Speaker: DR. Nathalie lynch-walsh. No I don't support this motion, you do not know what staff is bringing you. You are obligated to make sure that you're being fiscally responsible, I agree with DR. Zeman's comments

029wholeheartedly from earlier. You are not here to make your staff look good, cover for them, take grenades for them, they're here to do what they're suppose to do it. MS. Rupert, mentioned an audit, I hope that is a motion soon. That is how had the board got removed. Thank you. any other public comment? Board discussion on substitution motion? MS. Bulman? thank you, chair. You know, I appreciate DR. Zeman's initial comment. I think in the current budget situation and what is being brought to us at different periods of time, that it's our responsibility being very very strict on what we're approving right now. So I appreciate that we need to look at that across the board. I'm, I'm curious because, there is a distinction from some of the other things that have been brought up in

030the I.T. Department now, how many people work for the I.T. Department? I don't know. I don't have the specific number in front of me. But I know the I.T. Department is for no pun intended very technically and everybody has a specific skill set, broken into two divisions. You can talk about the two different divisions and their task if you have knowledge about that. And no, MR. Davis is not here right now, he's going through personal issues. the reason I'm asking is that this is being presented to slim operation so we're going to consultant to do these different jobs. So I have no problem with having consultant and saving us money. I would love to see this as an item to justify consultants, because if we have x person with a full-time employment, we should know

031that. And how we're saving money. I said this many times but I think at this point, because we're responsible for the budget situation, that we're in right now and getting ut out of it, that it would behoove every one to present the case to us, so we can make an informed decision. It's just to cult for us to make a decision to rely on it. I don't know if there is something, like there is insinuation, when believed to cut their budgets, wasn't the I.T. Department by far? yes, I.T. Department has cut their budget and saved us money through consolidation of software and other concepts. They're one of the divisions that have cut the most and saved the district the most amount of money in the last year and a half. and I don't know that

032we need to lump each division together. yes, they have the ability to save more money than some. yes, just in terms of forthcoming and presenting items for us. If there is something about this item item that we should know about, I would like it to be made public so we can make an agreement. I agree. MADAM Chair, if I MAY. We do listen to the board and that's why we have made updates. I know, we can't function as many boards as many boards across the board have in the past. We have been accelerating our change to make sure that our board has the right decision to make changes. We listen, and what I'm hearing today, is for contracts for contract services or augmenting, employee services, we want to know when employees are currently in the

033division or department and the skill set that they have in relation ship to the consultants we MAY be hiring to augment the work that they're doing or to staff for specific work that we're not capable of doing. yeah, either how we're saving money or how we would within be able to have this particular person. I agree. I just want to make sure that we're capturing it correctly. thank you. bl cervera? thank you, chair. Excuse me. So, here is my problem with this agenda item. And this seems to be recurring theme with this district. We're constantly asked to vote on multi million dollars contracts or projects without the necessary transparency that this board is demandsing and that the public entitled to. This is not small amount of money. The initial ask is 4.5, notice there is

034a motion to reduce that. We're asking asked without given direct break downs on how the money is going to be spent. When with the financial work sheet doesn't add up to the asks that is made within the agenda item. The board gets late submissions. We get wrong job titles placed within the materials. We have appendix which gives a break down of job descriptions without listing vendor names. There are positions that exist that don't appear, excuse me, on the itb. We have a transparency problem in this district. And I'm sure this is not breaking news to anyone who has ever listened to me speak on this, because I bring this quite a bit. If you want approval for this things, which a lot of things seem necessarily, I get it. I'm not suggesting 4 and a

035half million dollars worth of necessity. But you have to explain to the board and to the public where the money is going. And we constantly have problems doing that. This is why as staff, you get pushed back from us or at least some us. This is why you get push-back from speakers, because we're constantly being presented with items that we cannot connect the dots to where the money is going. If this was a contract for 50,000, we would not be having this conversation. This is a multi million dollars proposal. We need this information and the information that has to be given to tuesday, has to match up. This appendix, e that does not give me list of vendor names, I don't want to say it is usele but it's not as helpful that it should

036be. This is the problem that we currently incur. I will not, be supporting the current motion. I'm not going to be supporting many things that are similar to this, if this is the type of information that I'm given. We need more transparency and we need better transparency in the items that we're asked to vote on. We deserve it and the public deserves it. DR. Holness. thank you, for clarification, prior motion was 4.5 and current is 2.5? the original motion was 1 million and -- 2 million. I believe MS. Hixon had 2 million. we had the original motion 2 million and now 2.5. DR. Hepburn, this MAY be a small difference in terms of first motion, can your staff speak to the impact of approving 2 million versus 2.5 million dollars? How will that negatively impact

037what they need to be? I was just trying to be fair with my colleagues at ssep. They had put in for 1.7 million dollars spend authority so half of that would be 750,000 and I was asked, I said I would need 1.5 so I added the two together and got the 2.25. so DR. Hepburn, if 2 million dollars is approved, can they still accomplish what ne need to do? so we will accomplish as much as we can, if we need additional spending authority we can come back to the board prior to assigning those specific proj ex. And I do, if I MAY DR. Holness, the whole, this appendix e not having specific vendors, and correct me if I'm wrong, the itb has given us a list of vendors for specific projects. We have the body

038of work and many times, isd and other departments will have specific requirement and interview to select the invite vendor. This does not mean that we're going to create specs for each individual vendor. It is to have a pool of qualified vendors that have is capability to do work that we need and we identify the work, we have our choice based on the skill choice of the individual within the companies, is that correct? that's correct. And I appreciate you bringing up appendix e, because it's projected. There are some things that are going to be happening in the future that there are no consultants that have been hired yet. So that's why those names were left off of this appendix e. I think that it's important to note that at least for the work that I've done

039and the consultants that I've hired, we have asked the vendors to give us a list of names. We have interviewed, 6 to 8 people from each vendor and we select the best one. so in terms of appendix e, that's why you're not seeing any vendor names. it would be premature to do that, because we MAY be assigned a vendor that MAY not best for us. I understand. What I can say and it's apparent that this board has zero tolerance and I'm not making any acquisitions or saying anything is true or not true, but this board has your tolerance for any waste and efficiency. There is concern about job descriptions not aligning as far as the itb and utilization of staff whether or not they're being efficient, whether there is waste and monitoring and oversight more

040money to oversight need, you know, what I was say as a board member and I'm sure other board members MAY feel. Same, county holds unaccountable, we're in great financial concerns this year. So when things go wrong, board faces the back lober. As a board, we want pull france parent see and as board member cervera, mention approximated, when you're look at $400,000, we need as much information. That's where my concerns are, and I share a lot of the concerns that the rest of the board has. And as a result I would rather approve a reduced amount what is presented here. And then if there is any concerns in the future, it can be brought back to the board. Thank you. DR. Zeman. thank you, chair. did I hear that it part of requirement to pay for

041this school year. we have run out of spend authority? thank you, very much. Is there any back up information that justify the 1.5 million dollars that is required for isd for contracting? we tried to do that in exhibit in appendix e. can you point me to something that ads up to 2.5 million. this is to get us through until these, these proj ex have just been start. This is to get us through what we have already agreed to. BUTs going to complete the proming ekts. That's not going to complete the projects. terrific, so for the record, there is nothing in our material that ads to 1.5 million dollars. no. the public is watching you all, so I'm down for contractors getting critical work done. What I'm not down with, the nil' willie document. Are you

042going to approve it because a verbal estimate of what somebody MAY need? Does your neighbor support that thinking of a school board? Mine doesn't? This does not make sense. There is no justification for doing this. What is the economics of this? We have a staff of x people, that are suppose to do work beinger as MS. Thompson, we ask people to do a lot of work no doubt about it. But if.X people can't get it done, how many times do they come to us and this is a staff. That was a rhetorical question. Government organizations typically don't do that. So we have a real problem. So if you have an outlet where you just hire the contractor, this board is being asked to approve 2.2 million dollars. Your neighbor will not be kind to you

043if that's what we do. At a minimum this should be tabled and brought back to better justifications and very thoughtful about it. Did we ask the board to come back with schools. yes, and we've express what that plan is? are we allowed to knowledge. yes, we identified that we need to reduce by 1,000 people and we already discussed that. We said that we were going to focus on attrition and ask they support -- if we don't accomplish that through attrition? and I think there was a number that was beyond attrition, is that public knowledge? a number with attrition? yes, I've expressed that myself? did we give you a number? no, you didn't. Not that I can recall. I remember the number. 300? Maybe that was just a conversation. But let's say that we have a

044plan to reduce the number of people that work for broward county schools. One strategy is to redudu by attrititioand other isis to reduceststaf andnd say wecan take risks. We did it with SSOs this year. We looked at them and say, we think we can do our security and reduced the size of that staff. What I'm scared of is we're reducing the supporting staff and at the same time we're contractors to come in and do that work and at the same time we're going to gar bining and say there is no money in the kitty. We need to do whatever we can to -- is this general fund, superintendent? yes. Probably. I'm not sure, I can't answer that question. sorry, can we spend general money. So if we don't spend it here, we can put it

045in the pot to get people to continue to work here in an environment that is increasing bleed expensive to live here. yes. I don't see the justification for this. I don't see us doing the staff analysis, saying we cannot do something. If the chief comes and says, one reaction is, what staff are you missing? What do you need to hire? And that kind of analysis does not seem to come to tuesday, and that's our job. Our job is that we have right number in places where we need a temporary considerer. Don't we have funds of quad relawyers to handle the 3000 lawsuits? I don't know if it's hundreds. it is a lot. with all due respect, we do same thing. You're asking, and I'm going to ask for a board member, you want our analysis,

046as we work through workshop analyzing and assessing the value of employees and what they're doing, their bottom line and their responsibility for each one of the divisions and departments to ultimately impacts kids that we ultimately bring to you in the springtime for, so you want that during the entire year? I do not. that's what we do. We analyze every aspect of personnel before we bring items like this. And so, unfortunately, MR. Davis is is not here, but he would echo the same sentiment that they've gone through their whole entire division to see who has the skill to do necessary work. But in many situations, we just don't have the folks to do skill set or they need to augment so it gets done in a timely manner. I appreciate that and yes, this item does

047not have the justification to do this. Chair, if we table this, what impact would this have on us bringing it back at the next school board meeting? DR. Hepburn? DR. Diamond? we have run out of spend authority so the consultant that are working on the projects that are listed on appendix c will cease. I'm sorry, you know. we have -- . I'm not done. I'm out of patience, if this staff and this superintendent brings me one more contract that I either approve under duress, I think I'm going to blow my top. Why do we keep getting these contracts where you either approve or the school system shuts down. MADAM Chair, point of order, please direct your comments to the superintendent. my comments are to the public, it is beyond the pail to continue to get

048contracts that we either pass or awful things happen to our students. That is not how you conduct business in any successful organization and I'm past the point of being patience and rolling over and saying yes, all the time. I'm not going to support either one of these motions and I hope my colleagues think very hard. for clarification, DR. Zeman, we brought this earlier, this isn't, this is not last week before before that, we brought this before. Just for clarification, it's not a last-minute, this has been before the board before. MS. Alhadeff? thank you. So on appendix e, it gives a scope of the work, speaking specifically I'll just name a few of the projects. You have classroom management systems, you have cameras, intercom projects, and everything is scoped out, the costs, software services, so I

049feel there is a few things going on here. i understand that we don't want to give, I think it was the 4 million, we want to get through year and be more fiscal year responsible giving them less money to use but to get the projects done. We're constantly asking for things like safety and security, projects to be executed. So I don't see how we do not give them any money to move forward with these projects. The superintendent said that they would come back with, well I guess we have to make a motion but to come back to do this again, the itb and later on we can give the additional funding if need or warranted. But the projects are here, the scope of work is here, this is not appendix e does exist. So, I

050would recommend we move forward with this motion, and we get these projects completed. And then we can also make another motion to pri -- bring back, to do another itb. thank you, MS. Bulman? at this agree with that. I agree with MS. Alhadeff's motion. I understand DR. Zeman's frustration, with the public being unhappy with things that we passed that we were not given proper information about. And but I also want to caution every one that we're taking that out on potentially the wrong people here by not passing this. I think that we have to distinguish you know, big picture what we're experiencing and then the immediate needs of the district and the projects that are in place right now and things that we absolutely need to continue running the district. So, I think the messaging

051should be clear. We need better support because we are not in a position anymore to be passing things that we can't absolutely back up and explain to our constituents why we supported it. So but I I don't want to punish the I.T. Department because they're happening to bring their item at this moment. So I will support the motion as well and I appreciate you, your comments. thank you, I believe we have the student advisor that would like to speak. good morning, MADAM Chair, landyn, I'm not going to opine on the process part and what is brought to the board. But I want to bring the reality of these projects from a student per spective. This allows the teachers to monitor the web activities of our students and we have gone a long time with teachers

052not having access to this for critical testing and in a major concern of instructional staff and not being able to monitor what students are doing, to reduce cheating. When we look at the student surveillance, we're hearing a lot of feedback from students through school visits and through our surveys about gaps in being able to receive security messaging that chief gregory and emergency preparedness have been addressing but some of those, ability to address are limited by not having access to these resource. In large part because a lot of these systems are older or systems that are located in newer buildings older buildings that are in a separate system, we're hearing a lot of feedback from students that they're not able to know what is happening during an emergency situation because they're disconnected from. Rest of the

053campus. I just want to bring some, you know, reality perspective to this. Not trying to influence any vote but for you to know what these projects mean to the students that we're representing. Thank you very much. thank you. Any other board discussion? MS. Rupert? I have a question. Through the superintendent, could you ask staff how many people are working on intercoms? chief gregory, if you have a specific number? the intercom project we have is two people that are connected with that. Contractor and a supervision. can you explain? Contractor meaning? consultant? okay. agreement. which company? I would have to check. I think we use two to three different consultant for different projects. so there is two people that are currently work oning it right, and how many people, or number of people will be doing it

054so we can start intercoms? because currently right now, we're not doing intercoms, we're on a high ate us for that. Highatus. For that. we were having staff evaluating, DR. Strauss brought up problems over the air. We had staff working on intercom. how about approving? 30 projects have been assigned. And consultant and staff representatives manage the contract and all the permitting that are required. We have to do a follow-up exactly on which company does which work because I don't want to MISS Speak. But I know that we're doing intercoms and cameras and access control. got you. I am not going to be supporting any of the amendments. I'm not going to be supporting this item. However, I would hope that my colleague would ask for a full audit of the contracts that are involved with this.

055And also we are not able to hold individual people accountable because that's the superintendent's job. So we have to ask questions on this level when we really have information that is more let's just say at the level themselves. Security cameras can show you who shows up for work and who never goes into work. So we have the information to look at. So I'm not going to say anymore. I cannot and will not support this motion. any other questions? MS. Alhadeff. MS. Rupert, if you have information that you need to bring forward, but as a board, we don't have the same information. I brought it to the superintendent. DR. Holness? thank you, MADAM Chair. So MADAM Chair, if this item should fail it goes back to the original 2 million dollars item, correct? If this motion

056fails? if the substitute motion fails, to goes back to the 2 million? yes. MS. Bulman. this is chair, to DR. Hepburn, is the information provided to you that is being alluded to but not presented to us, have you, looked into this? yes. have you made. we reviewed it and we did not see any anomalies of concern and we created a monitor construction to make sure whatever allegations were don't happen in the future. But in our review of the situation that we received from several people, MR. Davis and MR. Gregory's team reviewed those concerns and didn't find anything alarming. And put in tighter controls of monitoring just to make sure that the allegations that we received don't come to reality in the future. and whatever the allegations are, would this affect every single contractor? no, it

057was specific to one consultant. okay. And you have the choice to continue to use them. So to kill the entire item over one, that's what we would be doing if we're taking this? yes, for the most part, yes. MADAM Chair. I'm so sorry, DR. Hepburn, based on board member rupert's comment, can you tell this board, based on what you researched that every employee is working to the fullest efficiency with regards to these consultants? let me put this like this DR. Holness, for the 20,000 permanent employees, and additional 10 temporary, I'm pretty sure that a percentage of them are not doing what they're suppose to do every day. I cannot assure you. What I can assure you, is the concerns came to us and we didn't find any anomalies that rows to concern. We pulled this

058item first time it came and then we brought it back and board accessed to provide information. We're putting in better controls to ensure that the allegations that came to us are not realized in the future. But I cannot guarantee that for employees just across the board in this whole entire district. so the question was not for employees across the board, the question was for this item? I cannot guarantee you. We hired consultant to do something specific, and that they're actually completing. We went back to review the reviews, which is that they were not doing what they were asked to do. and our staff did the work and not them. And so we reviewed that. The review that we did, did not identify the concerns that we received. so your review, confirm that employees within or

059consultants here, that they were doing, exactly what they were tasked to do? correct. and how many consultants are within these well these particular consultantses, how many workers were within this? how many workers? how many consultants did we have total? we dot information about one company. I don't know how many consultants? so for that one company, based on your research, the consultants, you have confirmed that the concerns were not credible and those consultants were doing 100 percent or working to the greatest efficiency according to their role. the better term is unsubstantiated? okay. any further board discussion? I have a few quick comments. I think, I certainly feel a lot of sentiments that have been expresesd around us spending money on cocoracts, trtransparen p pcece, ani don't think that, we are being intentionally mislead or people are

060hiding information like, I don't believe that. But I think there is a communication disconnect that we have to address on a few different levels. i think like the information that we're putting in items needs to be cleaner. I think that with some of these higher ticket items, boards would walk around in trying to prevent a lot of angst that we see in the dais and help us walk through the different processes and what happens if this does not pass? What does this do? And have venue to talk about allegations that come to us and things like that. And also just like presenting, information and digestable way for the public. I also think we're operating in this environment where, you know, I think elephant in the room is the block scheduling and the changes happening in

061our schools or potentially happening in our schools. I know, and this the superintendent has committed to me and to us, that he is going to work to reduce the overhead in this building and the positions that are not in schools. And I believe that. But at the same time, like the things that are before us right now, are things that directly impact schools. So, if I'm a member of the public, it feels like to me, that the board, the district is constantly making these decisions to, you know, approve millions of dollars for contracts or approve raises or job description adjustments, and supplements and things like that for people who work here and not in our schools. And, I know those are things are complicated and nuances, and people deserve to be paid fairly and all

062that. But it just feels like, we have to do a better job of prioritizing when we're asking for money for certain things. And also, really communicating hard out to our communities and our schools what the intention is in terms of, you know, the hard decisions we're going to have to make and to how we don't want it to be on backs schools and teachers and students. And right now, like when we say that, people don't believe us. It it reminds me a little bit of the laptop that we're asking to make a decision that can harm students if we vote this down or harm public trust. And I will always choose the option that doesn't harm students and teachersment but it really puts us in a risky position. And I don't, want to continue to

063have those choices and I don't think it is fair to us and fair to this district. So I will support the motion. But I think our collective tolerance for these kinds of choices is really at its end. So I hope that, you know, we can take that to heart and work on the communication and transparency piece and people will trust us when we are doing not talking about you know, we're going to make cuts, we're going to make cuts but only making cuts at the schools. Any other board discussion or comment on this item? Or on it motion. And the motion is to reduce the amount to 2.25 all in favor of the substitution moteling say aye. all opposed a no. no. school bm bulman? yes. cervera. no. hixon? no. leonardi. yes. rupert. no. thompson.

064no. zeman. no. alhadeff. yes. fails 4-5. all right, so we're now on the original motion which is to reduce to 2 million. Any boyder discussion on original motion? All in favor of the motion say aye. eye. all oppose say no. no. roll call please. roll call on the motion to reduce to 2 million. cervera. no. hixon. yes. holness. yes. leonardi. yes. rupert. no. thompson. yes. zeman. no. zeman. no. alhadeff. yes. passes, 6-3. if we're going to spend this money two million dollars between now and the end of JUNE, my sense is that we would like more transparency. I would like the chair to see what kind of report would make sense to the public, so that they can see what contractors is being retained. It has the name of the contractor firm not the individual,

065the amount of money and the work that they're doing. DR. Hepburn? not too ownerous. But I would say give us an opportunity to come up with a opportunity that is holistic. We reflected after the meeting to what decision board needs to make informed decisions. Last year, or two years ago, this was not the case. I get it, we need to do things better and way more transparent for our public as everybody is in the realm of understanding how government should work or getting there. And we want to help them along the way. I don't think a directive is needed. We're going to go back to our team and see if we can create a board. About things like this. Not just for this item but for whatever large dollar amount contracted services as long as

066the data is available to us, we can create a system that is easily excessed. would you be willing to bring something back within 30 days on what that MAY look like. absolutely. 30 days is good. this was a challenging item. Second item on the same topic. It will be interesting to see what comes out this. So I look forward to thinking through that. There is been discussions about auditing this. I'm not sure it's an audit function as it is keeping track of it t.I look forward to that progress monitoring so we can come back in 20 days and make our public aware of kind of where we're spending money that our contractors to make sure that there is a healthy amount of tension between civil servants and maybe getting additional training so they MAY do

067the work as opposed to a quick cabinet budget where, that's the level of decisions that are being made on spending taxpayer money. Thank you. MR. Cervera? You're good. Okay any other board discussion on this item? All in favor say aye. aye. any opposed? no. hixon? yes. holness. yes. leonardi. yes. rupert. no. thompson. no. zeman. no. alhadeff. yes. bulman. yes. cervera. no. passes 6-3. all right. We will now recess the meeting with all necessary staff to go into scheduled closed door. Session] We're on the proposed description. MS. Bulman? Oh sorry, I thought you were raising your hand. No board comment? Okay. All in favor of item 6, say aye. aye. all opposed say no. no. Item passes with two descenting votes from MS. Hixon and MS. Leonardi. Can I get a motion on item 7. so

068moved. moved by and seconded. public comment? no ma'am. board member comment? All in favor say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item pass wz MS. Hixon, MS. Alhadeff and leonardi. I'm advised by counsel to do a roll call. On item 7. school board member holness? yes. leonardi. no. rupert. no. thompson. yes. zeman. yes. alhadeff. yes. bulman. yes. cervera. yes. hixon? no. passes 6-3. okay can I have a motion and a second on item 8. so moved. moved by DR. Zeman, seconded by MS. Rupert. Public comment? no ma'am. board member comment? MR. Cervera? thank you, chair. So I'm a little bit upset about this and I'm going to explain why. First and for most, I am a big fan of this program. I thought it did I lot of great and good for this district, for

069the county and for other school districts throughout the country that were participating in this. Unfortunately, a mistake was made by the corporate office of the latinos in action. They decided that they were going to implement or put some sort of racial quota on attendance for their classes, extracurricular classes. And we saw when this initially came to us, that this language required 80 percent of the class to be latino students and 20 percent after that, can be any other race. Unfortunately, that's a pretty clear violation of title 6. And this came to us because the district was up for some grant money that we were facing possibility of losing, if we did not terminate the relationship with latinos in action. When this initially came up, staff was kind enough to provide us with the contract that

070the district had signed as well as some additional paperwork, and I want to make it clear to the public out there, that 80-20 threshold did not exist in my contractual agreement that this district had with latinos in action. I can also tell you, I personally visited several schools within my district that were participating in this program, and there was no such quotas in any of the classrooms that I visited. I saw kids of asian dissent, white students, african-american students. There was no 80-20 quota in the classrooms that I visited. What is disturbing to me, is when we attempted to reach out to the corporate headquarters of latinos for action to see if they would fix this issue, we didn't get a chance. And apparently, it was not just broward county, it was various other counties

071within the state and other parts of the country. They could not get an answer or response from their corporate office. That to me is very disturbing, but it is what it is. However, I want to be crystal clear, chair, I'm voting in favor of this, and it's not because I was not a fan of the program or I thought that it was value in the program. I will not allow this district to partake in or engage in, any company that is breaking the law or not following federal code. and the evidence that was presented to us by the federal department of education indicated that at some point in time, the latinos in action organization made a decision that they were going to have this 80-20 threshold, that's against title 6. And I'm not going to

072risk a 6 million dollars grant from the feds that this district needs because these folks decided to do something that the law does not permit. So this whole entire situation saddens me that it has come to this. I'm voigting in favor because it is clear that what was done by this organization was not in compliance with title 6. And again, I want the public to be very aware our following. We have our own contractual agreement. Nowhere in that agreement does broward county mandate that an 80-20 threshold be implemented in any program that were house hading latinos in action. That's not how we do business here. We don't discriminate, we don't set racial quotas, we don't do that here. We follow the law and we're going to follow title 6. This is something that they did

073at the corporate national level and for any reap, didn't have any answers as to why that was done. It does sadden me, but I'm voting in support of this terminations. Thank you. thank you, y ototr r ard mbmb comment.. I'i'sorry,y, ththe student adadvisor s s in ququeue to speak, I'm so sorry. I would love to hear first. thank you. So I try to stay away from any topic that becomes political. But when politics impact children, we've gone too far. Latinos in action has been successful with many students impacted. Younger students have been impacted by this program and lia has sent a signal to tens of thousands to other students that all students, regardless of ethnicity, race or gender are welcomed and respected in our school communities. I'm confident, that this will not change. Even with

074the ending of this program. I want to say thank you to the laa sponsor and most importantly the laa students who have created thousands of member praoez and impactful programs over the yeasser of the program. On behalf of the students impacted by your work, we're grateful. At the end of the day, the students will be impacted the most and for that I'm disappointed. We're the ones who sit in the classroom who feel the impact when decisions are made and offices are removed from our lives. When politics reach into our schools and affect the program that shape who we are, we all lose. Latinos in action has been an extracurricular, it is been a life line for so many of our students and created communities where every student knows they belong. Students will continue to carry

075their lessons forward, because no decision can erase the impact of what we've learned. And we'll continue to demand that our schools remain spaced where every students except exception feels seen, supported and valued. Thank you. thank you. DR. Zeman and then our board counsel wants to make a statement as well. I MAY differ to her first, she MAY be answering my question. so is the action before you is to approve without cause between school board and latinos in action. I want to clarify that this is a termination without cause. chair, if I could, what will replace this program? DR. Hepburn? yeah, you've got many options. Right now the academic team is working with the schools to find comparable option. But there is critical thinking courses, other leadership courses that students have been embedded to, but they're

076looking at schools if they have not met an out reach. and if they have an assessment whether they're as good or better than the current. I cannot say if it's good or bad it's just a different curriculum or program, per se. Latinos in action does a good job in what they actually do, so it's definitely not that but something comparable to help students for leadership or other activities that they want to get engaged in? thank you, and chair, MR. Cervera gave a history of this. What is the risk of losing federal funding if we continue to offer this program? we lose about 30 million for our msa grant that supports many grants around the district. I just have to be consistent in doing what is best for students. There was no program in broward county

077that discriminated based on ethnicity, race or color or any other federal protected conditions. It was fortunate that there was a remnant on a website that suggested otherwise. This is not just fair or just to challenge the district with a 30 million dollars bill, it reminds me of the florida education threatening us with a lot of things if we didn't go with a lawsuit as a result of the referendum. I voted against that t.I voted against every contract that has to this board that would distribute these funds. At some point, we have to call these things for what they are. This is damaging for our students. This is something that this board MAY have to do. But, this is not, fair or just, it doesn't do better for the students. It does not correct any errors,

078it does not discriminate or violate title 6 or any other law. And for that purpose, I'm going to vote against this action. Thank you, chair. thank you, any other board discussion? MR. Cervera? MAY I, thank you. A couple of things, chair, if I MAY. First and for most, it wasn't just just quote unquote one website, it was the latinos website that that had language in there. Which to me it's disturbing, because it's clear that anybody who deals with discriminatory issues, you know you cannot put race quotas on something like that. So this was not like a blog or third party, this was the latinos in action.Org, that had this language that should have never been on there. And what was disturbing, when they were called on it, instead of saying, we messed up, we're going

079to issue a newman date, we're not going to discriminate, anybody is free to join, no matter what your race or ethnicity we're all welcoming. They could have done that, they have put that on the website and changed their mantra. They ignored us, and MR. Superintendent, let me ask you, I know when this initially wept down a couple of -- went down, couple of months ago. We were not getting a response. Have we received any response from latinos in action when we questioned them? MR. Sullivan? I'm going to look at general counsel, I just want to make sure that my responses are not going to jeopardize since it's termination for convenience? so the purpose of me reading the recommended action is to ensure that we are aware that this is a termination without cause, termination for

080convenience, so we're not giving reasons as to termination. The recommendation is without cause. so superintendent, based on that response, I don't believe staff should respond. noted. What was the question again, just to clarify. if they ever responded to our inquiry? general counsel? Yeah, yes or no question? For me personally, I have not gotten anything formal. I don't know if. okay, I will tell you, I haven't either. there has been some communication between us and the organization. let me ask general counsel because I certain want to go against your advise nor do I want to put the district in any position that would be harmful to us in the event that there is litigation which I'm hopeful there wouldn't be and I'm not anticipated based on what I heard and seeing. One of, the reasons that

081I believe, that we need to dis associate ourselves with these, with this organization, is because there was an allegation made that was brought to our attention by the feds that a race quota was placed on their direct website stating that 80 percent of the kids in the program had to be hispanic and latino or 20 percent can be other races. When we reached out for clarification, why they did that. If I am wrong on that, I would like to know. Part of the rarttial is they never addressed the issue, they never offered an explanation, they never say yay or nay, I have not seen anything from them. I have seen our letters to them. I have not seen anything in return. I want to know if they would like to justify or if that was

082a bold face lie that that never happened. I think we have a right to know this information and that could affect my decision or or my vote and my colleagues vote on the dais right now. I would like to know, respectfully, I would like to know that information, if we need to table this and somebody needs to send me an email, I would be fine with that. But it's not good to say we received something without telling me what it was. The last time I checked, we didn't get a response from them that addressed the issue and the accusations that the federal department of education was alleging against them. So let me put it this way, if a formal response was given and an explanation was given and we don't want to disclose it for

083litigation purposes, I would ask that we table this and that be disseminated to the board and let's go back to item 1, so we have an idea of what we said. is that a motion? second. that's a motion. seconded by MS. Rupert. Board discussion on motion. can I make one more comment. So, the recommendation before you today, is a termination without cause. If we get into a discussion about reasons and fact patterns what didn't happen, that goes against the recommendation before you today. So, my recommendation would be to treat it as a termination without cause, which you don't give reasons and rational and back up for, if that's what you intend to do with this recommendation. Or you would be looking at a different item if you were to get into that discussion. my question

084to that is have we already waded in those waters? I think we're getting close and we have close to not having a termination without cause. board discussion to table this item? -- I think it was moved by MR. Cervera and seconded by MS. Rupert. All in favor of the motion to table say aye. aye. all opposed say no. no. motion fails, do we need to do roll call? I believe the two dissents were MS. Rupert and MR. Cervera. you still have the floor MR. Cervera? yeah, from where we are now, I'm going to utilize the information that was given to me in the past, I see no indication that a formal response addressing our concerns was ever issued. So I have not been told otherwise. And I want to make clear for my vote, I'm

085not against this organization, I'm very much in favor of this organization. I think it is an important one, I think it has done a lot of great things for our students. You heard from landyn. What I'm not in favor of is being in concert or being in agreement or having relationship with companies that have violating federal law and losing potential tens of millions of dollars because of those vie laborsings in federal law. So, I've said my peace, thank you. MS. Bulman? thank you. This is a termination without was? -- cause? that's correct. based on information we received from the federal department threatening to pull 30 million dollars. So whether we like the organization or not, this is a directive that attaching 30 million dollars to us. So I don't, I don't know that how we

086personally feel about how great the organization is, really has any bearing on it, it's just a matter do we want to jeopardize 30 million dollars or not? And also if we do, and wade into those waters, I'm not. I just feel that we need to make the decision. any further discussion? I have a question for DR. Hepburn. i'm aware that we responded with doe to send them a copy of our contract which was not in violation of any law. Did we receive a response from federal government? yes, I can detail the response, MR. Sullivan? yes, we provided my first response to my formal response was a copy of the contract that did not satisfy their concerns. so they did respond to that? yes. okay. Okay. I, I just want to amplify our student's advisors words,

087this has been a tremendous program for our students. This is, really disturbing that this is happening now. And it is harmful to students getting rid this program. And I hope that, DR. Hepburn, we can find a way to continue this work. Because, really has been so valuable. I see DR. Zeman's hand. thank you, chair. If we vote this item down, is there any risk of talking about conditions by which we turned it down? Aren't those, aren't the fears about, anything we say about termination of cause are only applicable if we terminate without cause. MS. Adams. Sorry, MS. Moore. bear in mind, this is recorded and latinos do have counsel so whatever you discuss, could be heard by anyone and used by anyone for any future. but I'm asking a specific question, if this gets voted

088down, and without cause, we can't be sued because we didn't cancel it. I'm just clarifying that? that's correct, you would still have a contract. thank you. Second question, is, if the federal government calls a county agency and says we're going to withhold 30 million dollars of funds because of x, and x is not true, can in fact, we challenge the withdrawal the 30 million dollars? you can challenge it by staff would have to evaluate that risk and make a business decision which what they provide to the board today. ter I have I object, thank you very much. is there any evidence that has been presented to this district that the statements made in the federal doe letter with the 80-20 ratio was in fact not true. these are all nuggets that I believe myself and

089everybody sitting on this dais should have, should be pref' privy to, but if legal counsel is saying, no, it is what it is. I'm going to, I'm going to vote based on information that was given to me and if nobody wants to correct the record or clarify the record, it is what it is. I was told that numerous corresponds were sent out and we did not get much of a response if any in regards to the allegations. So, from what I'm hearing, some my colleagues think that the federal government just made this up. It is what it is. i could assume that the feds are better things to do with their time than make up allegations affecting broward county, so it is what it is. I'm going to go with the information that was given

090to me because apparently I'm not permitted to see any ex culpatory evidence. Thank you. anyone else? All in favor of the item say aye. all opposed say no. no. passes 3 -- let's do a roll call. roll call on item number 8, school board memeerer leonardrdi? o. Rupepert. n no. thomomon.. y.. eman.. no. alhadeff. yes. bulman. yes. cervera? yes. hixon. yes. holness. yes. pass approximates, 6-3. -- passes 6-3. okay, can I have a motion and a second on item 1. so moved. moved and seconded. Public comment on item 1? MADAM Chair, we have one registered speaker, I do not see her in the audience. okay, board discussion on item number 1? are we suppose to share our thoughts on the finalist. yes, if you indulge the legal services committee meeting and what the proposals are.

091That we would go around and select three candidates. If we can do that or push it back additional week. We outlined what that process would look like. So I guess, yeah, I mean, I imagine my colleagues were able to review the applications that were sent. So, I don't know if staff wants to speak if they're ready to take the tally of, you know, of the three finalist for each board member. thank you. we're ready. DR. Zeman, if you're ready. yes, three candidates from the six that breakaway, not all 6 are not qualified and MAY do a world class job but tomas, catherine jacques adams and kevin all have the kind of experience that make sense to be finalist for the general counsel, they not only have distinguished back grounds but worked at law firms at

092significant sized school boards. I like the fact that we have internal candidates. So I'm just going to throw that out for beginning. Tomas, catherine, jacques adam if I can use my awful french, and kevin penly. okay, is anyone else prepared to give their names and discussion? MS. Hixon. yes, are we limited to three? Can we have four? so the, the item, the item did not say. The initial recommendation from the legal services committee was to choose 3 to move forward, it's up to my colleagues, if you want to move forward with 4. I have 4 because I do think we had an internal candidate and I believe they deserve an interview. So I would say MS. Jacque adams, kathy deprebruno and kevin penly and kimberly dutch. yes, so two at the bottom that are not

093qualified. I didn't see that when which first went through it so my bad. I guess I only have three, then. thank you. So MS. Hixon? MS. Hixon kathy bruno, catherine jacque adams and kevin penly. Go ahead, MS. Bulman. great minds think alike. MS. Hixon. so hz MS. Bulman, same. so MS. Rupert, same. so catherine jacque adams, and ken penly and kathy bruno. thank you. Any other colleague prepared? Go ahead holness. I have kathy bruno, kevin penly and catherine. you were not speaking into the mic so I'll repeat. Kathy, kevin and catherine. MS. Thompson that's the same, kathy dew point bruno, catherine jacque adams and kevin penly. Same. And I will have the same. So I think, sorry, MS. Alhadeff. I'm so sorry. kathy bruno, tomas falconbergh and kevin penly. okay. And then I had kathy,

094catherine jacque adams and kevin penly. So staff, I think we were marking down on our charts. Staff? we had 9 that selected kevinly penly. 8 that selected catherine jacques adam. 8 that selected kathy bruno and two that selected tomas. so are we ready to move forward with the three candidates? Okay. So the next, piece that I wanted us to discuss is the interview process and the timeline for that, so the original proposal was to do that the week of DECEMBER 8th, we voted today to have a work two workshops that week. So I, am curious to know with my colleagues if they have the capacity, we would do one day one on wunt and one day of public interviews with the board interviews the candidates publicly one by one. MS. Thompson? what would the time

095frame be? Because I have mpo and we talked about the wednesday there is a debate lunch on and hall of fame. Is this like a four or five-hour thing? If I'm available in the afternoon but not in the morning, is that flexible? I think if depends on staff. The one on one interviews are flexible, it will only be interviewing one person. I don't think they would last. When we did the superintendent interviews, they were not more than 30 minutes. so I think, the public interviews and the public deliberation on the separate day would take longer. So again, like I don't know, you know, I can make myself available the week of the 8th but I know that every one's schedule are difficult and we just added another workshop, so if we need to move it

096to DECEMBER 15th is we could. one of the advantages is we don't have a school board meeting, DECEMBER 15th? yes, the 16th we have our regular school board meeting scheduled. terrific, I apologize. I did not have it on my calendar yet. So if we did it, it would be wednesday through friday. we would have to pay for travel for the interviews. So we would want to do it back-to-back so the 17th and 18 like a wednesday or thursday, or thursday and friday, so, that's my understanding. would we like to invite the candidates to watch a school board or not have them. that would be an additional day of travel, hotel rooms that we would be paying for. So they can watch online. Okay. So MS. Thompson says, they can do the 10th or 11ing or

09711th and 12ing? -- 12ing. 12th. And that's about kids. are you available the 11th and 12th, and thursday and friday? yes, I would be available on 11th as long as it's after 12:30. does the 11th and 12th does not work for anyone here today and/or staff? MADAM Chair? DR. Holness? I have about 5 things scheduled on the 11th and I will have to see how I can move those around and I'm not sure yet. so DR. Holness has a scheduling issue. right, I MAY be able to move those around. I'll see how we can make it work. and the time commitment is hour and a half the first day and then a meeting on friday maybe for two hours. and to public interviews of the candidates and then to vote on selecting. maybe four hours

098on the second day. depends how long we talk? MS. Alhadeff and then MS. Thompson? yes, I would like make a motion to add tomas to the list of candidates. second. why? public comment on the motion? Board member discussion on the motion? he has worked for the united states board of education for over 11 years. any other board discussion? On the motion? All right, all in favor of the motion. wait. sure go ahead. I also think this is a big decision obviously, and I just think the more candidates that we have to choose from, cause, honestly what happens too is some people back out and I would rather have more to choose from than less. MR. Cervera and then MS. Hixon. can I inquire the last time the board went through this, the pool of applicant?

099S for general counsel? MS. Hixon? there was one lady and then she backed out, because we would not do a super majority to fire her in the contract. so we had one candidate. marilyn was the candidate. she was the interim, she was task assigned. so we technically tripled our pool. any other board discussion? Sorry MS. Hixon. so we went through an exercise, we there were only two people who picked that particular person, so I don't think it warrants the change, I would prefer, I'm going to vote to stay with the three. DR. Holness. I would like to get the input of the committee on since, you guided this process to this point is to what the committee believes if this adding this individual would increase the opportunity for the candidates we're looking for? so I

100can speak, you know, for myself and then my colleagues can speak up. I was impressed by MR. Falconbergh's resume. I plan to vote yes on the motion. I think, it ads an additional 30 minutes on the one on one and an additional public interview. so I don't mind having more people to talk to on this. I don't know if MS. Bulman or MR. Cervera wanted to speak to this. sure, as far as MR. Falconberger is concerned. An impressive resume p currently litigater with the U.S. Department of justice operating out of columbia south carolina, very impressive credentials, meets I believe the majority of the requirements, not all. My only issue with him, and I should not say issue, issue is a strong word. My only rational for not including him within my three individuals, was the

101lack of experience in education, law and education typesetings and school typesetings and things that you would expect your general counsel to do on the day-to-day. He seems very much to be a very capable experienced federal prosecutor, however, I'm not sure that the sore of his experiences and his history and everything that he has been doing with the government I think the last 20 years, if I'm not mistaken is really going to allow him to come in to this position as well as equipped as the other three individuals that I vote for. And this is not a knock on this gentleman, like I said, I was very impressed with him. And if I'm not mistaken, when we ranked initially before we had MS. Jacque adams, I think -- I fought for him. so yeah, he was

102there before MS. Jacque adams came into the mix. But I would give difference to her if we're only able to choose three. MS. Bulman. MR. Cervera said it well, I think that, I think that to MS. Alhadeff's point, I don't think it's going to hurt us to do more one interview. He is, highly qualified and it will be good to see another personality. I agree with MR. Cervera, the point of actual experience but he does have a lot of legal experience, he worked with the department of education, he might be a super star when we bring in, he MAY have amazing managerial skills. I don't think it's going to hurt us to also talk to him. okay, thank you. MS. Thompson were you on the list for this piece? no. all right, DR. Zeman. I,

103this candidate is different. He's not somebody currently working with the school district but looks like a brilliant lawyer, very experienced pen undergrad which is almost impossible to get into if anyone has tried, university florida of law school and after that another 32 years of experience, and what I like about his idea is he is different than the other three. So instead of having folks, you know, who have been involved in school districts in a counsel or senior role, it would be interesting to see just a brilliant lawyer. But not just a brilliant lawyer, he's been a prosecutor and it would be a nice to have a varsity lawyer come in and stand next to the next candidate and see where we would like to go. He's a different type of candidate. okay, anyone else? and

104for the record, I was giving my opinion based on the fact that we only vote for three. The original directive was 3. would he have been your fourth? yeah, he would have been my fourth. These were my three this will be my fourth. all right. Any additional discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion say aye. all opposed say no. roll call please. roll call on the motion, school board member rupert? no. thompson? yes. zeman. yes. alhadeff. yes. bulman. yes. cervera. yes. hixon. no? no. holness. yes. leonardi. yes. 7-2, passes it. okay, so just to confirm, we will be moving forward interviewing kathy dew point, catherine jacques adams and kevin penly and tomas. And back to the one on one ininrview, MS. Thompson. I wowod d ask if -- have a school visit,

105however if I'll alhadeff if you can be there, then I'll just be date. so we're looking at the 11th and 12th to schedule the one on one for the 11th and public interview on the 12th. DR. Holness? MADAM Chair, MS. Janice worked magic in rescheduling all of my five appointments, so I'm available on the 11th. what time. the 11th one on one interview, so you can work with staff for the interview. I heard a request from MS. Thompson for the to do the public interview and board vote in the afternoon. I don't object to that. I don't know if anyone else. what time? What time would be the earliest? Okay. so noon? I have tickets to something, I have to be done by 5:00. I'm worried about public participation. And you say you have a

106school visit. That conflict is, I suspect that MAY be reschedule but I'm worried about, is can we get people here to meet these people and participate? I suspect friday afternoon is harder to get people than starting at 10:00 or so in the morning, what's our sense of having an active public participation on the time of day? so I think unless you're doing it at 6:00 o'clock in the evening, you're going to swr hard time. Public participation is difficult no matter what. It's during the workday so there is the argument to be made there. So unless my colleague wants to have something at 6:00 or 7:00 o'clock in the evening, you know, I'm I'm trying to make sure that every one can be there. So, that's my priority. so start iting at noon MAY be the

107idea? MS. Hixon? just a quick question, what does public participation? When we looked at the superintendent, there was structure. So what are we expecting to happen? How are we going to let the public know what our expectations are? so I believe, DR. Zeman brought up the issue of public participation, I think what he was alluding to, was public comment. only. this is not the superintendent chair, where you the public is interaction is so critical, this is somebody who works for us. And I think if we run, a great interview process for those two days, we should be at a good point at friday. so looking at that at noon, so special school board meeting on that day, and it would be open to public comment and then just go to the board discussion. I just

108want to be really clear when we say say, what we're looking from the public so they don't come with a different expectation. and just because I want us to be clear as well. Would there be public comment during the interview piece, I don't think we've ever done that. No. So the public comment would be during the board vote piece, it's not the public interview piece. and are both of those, because we're voting, they're special school board meetings? I don't know if staff can speak to how we advertise the public interviews with the superintendent searches? If they were special school board meetings? Or -- I'm sorry, are we talking about the one on one. no when we did the superintendent interviews, was that a special school board meeting? we would call it a special school board

109meet ing, and yes, it would be publicly noticed. okay. just, I just want to make sure that we leave with the same expectation. thank you. MS. Rupert. yeah, I'm having major conflicts here. The 11th and the 12th are the ones that are workable. I have a doctor's appointment that is kind of a key appointment but that's not until 12 and then I say we have kcw treatsi guess to staff, do we need to make any amendments to specify that or are we okay to vote on the item as-is? no, you're fine to move forward with your candidate and determining your time frame. okay. Well I guess to counsel, do we need to make a motion? yeah. I think you just want to make a motion to solidify what you discussed. is would like to make

110a motion that we handle individual interviews on tuesday and public interviews on the 12th. public comment. second. board discussion. MR. Cervera? can we conduct our personal interviews over zoom. Or do we have to be present? I don't have issues to doing interviews on zoom? I don't know if anyone else objects. is that a yes? I don't object. I was wondering, are we allowed to bring a friend into an interview. I think that was outlined in the outline. We all, some sf us did that when we did the superintendent, so if you want to bring a stakeholder to the interview, that is certainly permitted. thank you. okay. All in favor of the motion say aye. all opposed say no. And then, do I need to make a motion naming the candidates. so I move that we

111interview, kathy bruin o tomas, cath lin jacque adams and kevin penly for the general counsel position. second. moved by MS. Leonardi. Seconded by DR. Zeman. Public comment? Board discussion on the motion. All in favor say aye. All opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. Any additional discussion on the item? All in favor say aye. aye. all opposed say no. Item passes unanimously. I believe, we have have exhausted all of the items on this agenda. and it's not even 5:00. scheduled order of business for this special school board meeting for the school board of broward florida, has been completed. Seeing no other obligation, i